1975-02-03

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 41(2) I should like to table the report of the constitutional review, 1968-71, which was prepared by the former secretary of the constitutional conference as an authoritative report of the processes and accomplishments of these important discussions.

It is well understood, Mr. Speaker, that this report binds in no way the federal and provincial governments, but it certainly seems to be of great interest to those who are concerned about Canadian constitutional affairs.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, a year ago last fall I informed the House of an arrangement for a comprehensive review of Canada's immigration policy, and the green paper I release today marks a very significant step, I think, in the process I outlined at that time.
I think the nature and purpose of this green paper are generally understood. It is not a document intended to contain recommendations or policy proposals by the government; rather, it is presented as a discussion paper. It aims to provide a useful basis for a constructive and informed debate about the role immigration policy should perform in helping to create the sort of society Canadians wish for themselves and for their children.
Canada, as it exists today, has been built largely by immigrants. The Canada of tomorrow will be shaped by the decisions Canadians make about the direction immigration policies should follow. As we address the broad question of Canada's population future and immigration's contribution to it, Canadians obviously need to possess a full account of how the immigration program currently functions and of those challenges, both domestic and international, which policy in this field must meet.
The green paper, therefore, explains in detail the way immigration to Canada is managed now, and analyses the policy assumptions on which the program rests. Against this background it explores problems and discusses choices. It is my hope and the hope of the government that Canadians will find it a fruitful source of ideas during the period of nationwide debate and consultation on which we are now embarked.
As I made plain when the policy review was launched, the green paper is intended to assist our present effort to forge an immigration policy for Canada that is related to the contemporary needs of this country, sensitive to international developments and designed to support the achievement of long-range goals. I trust parliament will find both the green paper and the discussion it generates of assistance when it considers the new immigration legislation which the government intends to submit at a later stage.
The green paper acknowledges what we all know, the difficulties in reaching consensus in this field. On the subject of immigration there exist many, and often conflicting views about the right line of policy to adopt. Nevertheless, there are several key elements in present Canadian policy which the green paper assumes Canada's future approach should safeguard. Canadians will want, I believe, an immigration policy that meets our social, economic and cultural needs, that respects the family, that is free from discrimination, and that keeps the door open to refugees. Our approach to the immigration policy review has been inspired by the conviction that the subject of immigration to Canada needs to be examined in an extremely wide framework.
Finally at issue is nothing less than the future of Canada's population, its size, its rate of growth, its distribution and composition, and the basic principles that should govern our decisions to augment the nation's human resources through the admission of migrants from abroad. It follows that immigration policy must be developed in the light of clear perceptions about national population goals. In short, immigration policy must be seen as an element in a broad demographic or population policy for Canada. The government has been examining demographic questions for quite some time. On the basis of this study, of which the immigration policy forms a part, we have concluded that steps should be taken now to develop a national consensus about longer term population goals for Canada, goals which future immigration policy can be fashioned to support.
28626-44%

February 3, 1975
Immigration
Our plan is that the consultations and discussions to be pursued now that the green paper has appeared will constitute the first step toward this consensus. With this end in view, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) launched an important initiative in the field of federal-provincial relations when he invited the provinces to engage with the federal government in the elaboration of a national demographic policy in the framework of which future public policies in many areas can be assessed and developed. We expect this initiative to entail a consultative exercise extending over approximately two years. But I should make clear that well before the end of this period it is our hope that parliament will be in a position to approve a new legislative structure for immigration policy itself.
To furnish the necessary mechanisms to carry forward the initiative to establish demographic guidelines, the government has decided to create a demographic policy steering group at the deputy minister level, chaired by the deputy minister of the Department of Manpower and Immigration and reporting to me as the co-ordinating minister. This group, supported by a secretariat established within my department, will co-ordinate federal government consultations with the provinces and the public and will strive to ensure that those federal-provincial mechanisms whose activities bear on population problems work together. With respect to the program during the coming period, it is the government's intention to refer the green paper to a committee of parliament within the very near future.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Knight Andras: Within the next few days I will want to consult through my colleague, the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Sharp), with House leaders of all parties in an effort to determine the best method of doing so. Moreover, I believe all individual members have a vital role to play in a constructive national debate on the question of immigration policy, an issue which touches profoundly the future development of the Canadian community. So I am looking forward to consulting closely with members of parliament from all parties during this period, because by the active part they take in the discussion of the green paper I am confident that members will help to animate a lively, informed and productive debate among their constituents across the country.
In the time available to me on motions I am unable to describe all aspects of the consultative process with the provinces and with the public at large which is planned for the months immediately ahead. The details of this program are set out in the explanatory statement which I would like also to table today. Therefore, with your leave, Mr. Speaker, and pursuant to Standing Order 41(2), I now wish to lay on the table of the House, in both official languages, the green paper on immigration policy, together with the text of the explanatory statement to which I have just referred.


Mr. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, the importance of the green paper on immigration policy, the long awaited paper that has given rise to questions not only in this House but in the media and among the public at large, has finally arrived. I would like to thank the minister for his co-operation in providing me with a copy not only of the green paper but of the statement he made on motions today. He gave us ample time and I should like to commend him for the exception to the rule that has been followed.
Mr. Speaker, this party recognizes the pressing necessity for the definition of flexible and comprehensive demographic guidelines for Canada and discussions which will maintain the principles of re-unification of separated families, the relocation of refugees and a policy of immigration which is non-discriminatory. We concur that the quality of life which accrues to all residents of Canada is dependent on the size, the rate of growth, the distribution and the composition of our country's human resources. Our natural and technical resources must be harnessed to our human resources in the most efficient and effective manner possible. In short, the planning process will be short-circuited if we refuse to propose and utilize realistic guidelines which must be the product of the joint effort of all members of this House.
A national discussion on immigration policy is being used by the government as, I imagine, the wedge to open the door to a national discussion on demographic policy. The minister assumes that concurrent debates on both these issues, that is, population and immigration, will produce a national consensus on Canada's future population. For a long time we have stressed that immigration cannot be looked upon in isolation but must be viewed as part and parcel of a population policy. Hopefully, the green paper will provide a focus for federal, provincial and public discussion, the culmination of which process will be the presentation of immigration legislation and regulations in early 1976 which will reaffirm the principle which Canada has had for a long period of time as to non-discriminatory immigration policy. But it is imperative that these discussions and resulting regulations reflect the future needs of Canada.
The government is not only capitalizing on the current lively interest which immigration presently holds in the Canadian public forum, especially since the October 22 statement of the minister in this House, but it is also providing information for the use of interested individuals and groups. We commend the minister for the initiative which he has taken, and we also want to stress that the initiative cannot stop here. We cannot simply throw this information out for public debate without receiving clear direction from the government of the day.
The government has, however, introduced an element of confusion onto the national stage. The minister states that the debate on immigration policy will "play a crucial role in achieving a broad consensus regarding national population policy." How can we decide on an optimum immigration policy without a national population policy? Yet new immigration legislation and regulations will be
February 3, 1975

presented a lull year before the government establishes demographic guidelines. What does the government intend to do if the demographic guidelines conflict with Canada's immigration policy as expressed in legislation in early 1976? Will the government merely follow the tarnished precedent of altering the regulations?
We question both the philosophy and the sequence of these initiatives. In addition, we question the efficacy of the consultative machinery outlined by the minister. The government has a responsibility to apply the organizational resources at its disposal to ensure that the green paper reaches the citizens of Canada and that the people of Canada can respond within a reasonable period of time so that they are part of this consultative process. So, Mr. Speaker, we want from the minister and this government a timetable for government action and an indication that the government will accept this responsibility to listen to those who want to come forward and speak in respect of the new immigration policy. I say to the minister that the initiative must continue. There must be true consultation, and I suggest that the use of intermediaries in the consultative process guarantees both delay and possible confusion.
If the goal of 1976 is to be achieved, the government must apply itself to the task in the most efficient manner available. If it is to succeed, Mr. Speaker, the government must be candid not only with members of parliament but with the citizens of Canada.
This party accepts its responsibility as both a leader and participant in the discussions which are to come. We realize the social, economic and cultural implications of the task that lies ahead. We propose strongly that parliament appoint a select committee for the purpose of studying the green paper on immigration policy and making recommendations of the nature the minister has outlined in his statement today. This process would serve to free consideration of immigration policy from the constraints of viewing it merely as an aspect of manpower policy-a state which to my way of thinking prevails in the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, departmental estimates are due to come before that standing committee on March 1, 1975, and are to be passed before the end of May this year, so it is conceivable that the time pressures caused by the need for passing the estimates could in some way abort or at least stall the discussion that the minister seeks. I would therefore emphasize that the possibility of a select committee be explored by the minister. In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, we recommend these suggestions to the minister as a first step in establishing a consultative process that is meaningful and productive and which has our co-operation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I am slightly puzzled in replying to this statement because the minister was good enough to send me two different stateimmigration
ments this morning on the same subject, and the statement he made this afternoon, while similar in substance, unfortunately differs a good deal from either of the previous statements.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: That is the yellow paper.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Whichever position one takes, Mr. Speaker, it is not easy to comment on either of the minister's statements within the rules of the House. They were, perhaps necessarily, rather vague in content. Nor is it easy to comment on the green paper itself, which contains 567 pages in four separate volumes and which we received only a few hours ago. The green paper is obviously of great importance to Canada and deserves careful study, constructive debate and vigorous follow-up.
Immigration has two main aspects, economic and human. Immigration policies affect and are affected by the state of the Canadian economy, and at the same time immigration policies and their administration affect the lives of individual human beings. One thing is absolutely clear, and that is that immigration policy depends upon whether we have economic policies that create full employment or whether we continue with steadily high rates of unemployment in this country. When we have high unemployment and a stagnant economy, it is absolutely inevitable that public pressure will dictate that our immigration policies will be restrictive. I think it would be unfortunate if this were so. No one has yet been able to decide what the optimum level of population for Canada should be. It is clear that with the levelling-off in our birth rate and the balance in this country's natural rate of growth, if we are to have a larger population immigration will be a main contributor.
The first choice we have to make is that of striving for an expanding economy and full employment. There are excellent reasons, both in our history and connected with an intelligent anticipation of our future, which indicate the desirability of an expanding economy and, hence, of having a selective but not restrictive immigration policy. I am glad to note that the minister once again emphasized that immigrants will not be chosen on the basis of discriminatory criteria but should be chosen without regard to their race, colour or creed. There can be little doubt that the policy of non-discrimination adopted after the last war has greatly enriched Canada.
I am glad to note that the importance of the family will be respected. Presumably this means that the sponsorship provisions of the act and regulations dealing with sponsorship by close relatives will be continued. This is as it should be, not only for family and humanitarian reasons but also because those with close relatives in Canada will obviously much better be able to adapt themselves to this country.
I note, further, the statement that Canada should be prepared to open its doors to some people, notably refugees, for compassionate reasons so as to fulfil international obligations. There can be little doubt that Canada's claim to be a nation guided by a comnassionate and

February 3, 1975
Immigration
humanitarian policy is weighed as much by people outside Canada on the basis of our immigration policy as on the basis of any other factor of our international dealings.
The minister's statement does not in itself introduce much that is new, but there is, I believe, a new emphasis: it is the emphasis of knowing where we are going, in population terms, in taking deliberate decisions to choose our population future. Population policy, we are told, must deal as much with the question of distribution as with the question of growth. The federal government has been studying aspects of the demographic question. It has been concluded that an agreed set of demographic or population guidelines should be elaborated and a study at provincial and federal levels undertaken. I am sure that much can be said for this emphasis. In itself, however, it does not absolve us from the responsibility of making decisions. Studies, after all, may be neutral. Much depends on the assumptions underlying the studies. One could base a narrowly restrictive immigration policy on demographic studies. After all, demographic studies are prepared by experts and I am sure we should not put our total faith in experts, even academic experts. We need common sense as well as expertise.


An hon. Member:: Right.


Francis Andrew Brewin: I find nothing in the minister's statement on the important subject of training, language education and assistance for immigrants who have come to this country. I presume that there is something about this in the green papers and I mention it, not to complain that the minister omitted it but to emphasize the great importance of this question.
Let me say a few words about the process connected with the green paper. We are to have, first of all, parliamentary scrutiny through a parliamentary committee. This, indeed, is as it should be. Although jurisdiction in respect of immigration is shared by the provinces, the primary responsibility rests on this parliament. In this House are quite a few members with practical experience in the field. There is to be consultation with the provinces and municipalities. This, again, is as it should be. Furthermore, interested organizations are to be consulted.
I note that the green paper is to be referred to the parliamentary committee and later the government is to introduce a new immigration bill. This, indeed, is long overdue. However, I presume the government will not introduce its draft legislation until it has had a chance to secure reactions to the green paper from parliament, the provinces, municipalities and other interested organizations.
So far I have only had a chance to glance at the four volumes of the green paper. As the minister said, it neither makes recommendations nor announces a course of action. Its purpose is to lay the background for informed and constructive debate. From the rapid glance I have been able to make, there is much in the green paper that will be helpful in this debate. Of course, the responsibility now shifts to the people of Canada. May I express the hope that the people of Canada, and parlia-
ment in particular, will not approach the task of reviewing and revising our immigration law in the spirit of fear and concern but rather with an attitude of hope. I am well aware of the seriousness of the economic problems facing this country at the present time, but we must not allow this situation to make our attitude toward immigration narrow, bitter or restrictive. We would not be helping the future of Canada if we did.


Mr. Charles-Eugene Dionne (Kamouraska):: Mr. Speaker, we have just heard the statement of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras), statement which constitutes a summary of good intentions. He told us that the green paper was being presented in the hope that it could help when the time comes to formulate a policy and study the bill that will follow. Even the colour of the paper seems to have been chosen to inspire a period of hope. We trust that this type of presentation will help create an atmosphere of active co-operation on the part of the interested parties, co-operation that will allow the adoption of a law meeting the approval of all Canadians, and enable us to avoid running into the intransigence we witnessed with regard to the Haitians.
We know that Canadian immigration is bound to several factors, geographical, political, economic, domestic and foreign. One needs but observe what happened in Canada at various times in history.
Obviously, two groups, the French and the English, gradually made up the main element of the new country. However, a relatively high percentage of immigrants, refugees or displaced persons after the Second World War, chose to make a new life for themselves in Canada.
We also note that several professors in our universities have immigrated to Canada, particularly since 1945. At certain times, one professor out of eight was an immigrant. The situation in that field should be closely controlled, because Canada is now in a position to supply enough professors for the needs of its population.
There are also inevitable disadvantages to accepting immigrants in our country without consideration. First of all, is there not a danger that spies could slip in among them? Those people who seem to us obviously harmless can sometimes cause irreparable damage.
We believe that one will never insist enough on the necessity of honestly informing immigration applicants about all the details of life in Canada, disadvantages as well as advantages. As for hiring possibilities, they must be realistic and meet objectives other than the illusory desire of some employers to hire cheaper labour they think is more qualified. Economic prospectives, progress in the industry and, above all, the entrance on the labour market of thousands of young Canadians with increasingly better training must be taken into account. What must be improved in the Canadian immigration policy are its objectives and general principles.
February 3, 1975

In a country as diversified and complex as ours, that necessity becomes obvious.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I regret that I did not have the opportunity to give the Chair the required notice pursuant to the rules. Since the incident arose only at or about one o'clock today, I was not given that opportunity. The circumstances surrounding the incident, which was of a personal nature, gives me a good deal of concern. I raise it here in order to bring it to the attention of all hon. members. Perhaps the Chair might take it under advisement for the future. It concerns the use of private members' telephones and the possible monitoring or taping of conversations over those telephones.
At or about one o'clock today, I was speaking to a constituent in Whitehorse and discussing the progress of Bill C-13, an act to amend the Northern Canada Power Commission Act through the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I was receiving responses from my constituent over the telephone. We then discussed the possibility of Bill C-3, which will provide for a senator for both the Yukon and Northwest Territories, coming before the House in the near future.
After that there was a disconnect on the conversation. To my surprise, I then heard a repeat of my words as well as those of my constituent with respect to both those items in the conversation which lasted from six to ten seconds. It was a speeded up repeat, like that when changing a record player from 33J to 45 revolutions per minute. That was not my imagination, Sir, nor was it an echo. It was something that I heard.
While incidents such as this have been ridiculed in the past, in the proceedings of the standing committee of the twenty-eighth parliament, it was admitted by the RCMP that they had in fact taped telephone conversations in several hundred instances. These disclosures in themselves lend credibility to the fact that it can happen here.
I draw the attention of the Chair and members to my questions on the order paper of the twenty-ninth parliament in which I inquired about the activities of the Defence Research Board in the possible monitoring, taping and recording of telephone conversations in the government system in Ottawa. The reply of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) at that time was that it was not in the national interest to disclose these details.
I have no substantive motion to make at this juncture, but I think that the circumstances I have raised are worthy of inquiry by the Chair. I regret I did not have the opportunity of bringing this to the attention of Your Honour privately and personally. In any event, I feel
Regional Economic Expansion it is a matter that should be raised here for the knowledge of all hon. members.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) has raised a very important subject. The Chair will certainly take notice of what the hon. member has said, examine it and perhaps report to the House or the hon. member later. I am sure all hon. members hope there is some sort of technological explanation for the phenomenon that occurred.
We will certainly want to take a very close look at this. I will do that and be in touch with the hon. member at a future date and perhaps make a report to the House.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. The conclusions drawn from the Hermann report on former European prisoners of war to identify the adverse effects that incarceration has had, and is continuing to have on these veterans dictate that the matter be treated on an urgent basis. Since the conclusions reached are indisputable and reaffirm the countless studies that have been carried out over the years on prisoners of war, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert):
That the matter be referred immediately to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs so that the committee can hear the government's position; that the committee deal with all matters pertaining to the expedition of final decisions, and that all interested veterans organizations be invited to appear as soon as possible.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The House has heard the terms of 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.


Mr. Speaker:: There not being unanimous consent, the motion cannot be presented at this time.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity pur-

February 3, 1975
Canadian National Railways
suant to Standing Order 43. In view of recent statements and answers given by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) and the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Jamieson) affirming that these departments must indeed work together to overcome common problems, such as sharply increasing costs which are so drastically affecting the "have not" regions of Canada and undermining the effectiveness of programs to overcome regional disparity, problems which have now reached an urgent stage and are an alarming threat to the DREE program, I move, seconded by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie):
That the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion report to the House what has been done pursuant to the recommendation presented to this House on May 31, 1973 by the Standing Committee on Regional Development, which reads as follows:-


Mr. Speaker:: With due respect to the hon. member he has put the question and given an explanation pursuant to Standing Order 43. The text of the report, I would feel, would not form a necessary part of the motion. The House has heard the terms of the hon. member's 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.


Mr. Speaker:: There not being unanimous consent, the motion cannot be presented at this time.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. John Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter that is urgent and pressing. In view of the decision of the CNR to relocate the jobs of four dispatchers from Capreol in northern Ontario, two to Montreal and two to Toronto, and in view of the fact that this decision is completely illogical and will result in the loss of four jobs in northern Ontario, which is completely contrary to the oft-repeated objectives of all levels of government, and particularly those of the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion and the Minister of Urban Affairs, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes):
That this House instruct the Minister of Transport to order that the CNR rescind the relocation order and in the future to avoid centralizing their job locations in southern Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The House has heard 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.
fMr. MacKay.]


Mr. Speaker:: There not being unanimous consent, the motion cannot be debated at this time.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to discuss a very urgent and pressing matter.
Following the Prime Minister's statement during a SlOO-a-plate banquet that 1975 will be a difficult year for Canadians, that there will be increased unemployment and inflation, and considering that the Prime Minister admitted that his government has no solution to these urgent problems, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Dionne):
That the House strongly urge the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) to examine the decisions put forward by the Social Credit Party of Canada to put an end to the ravages of inflation, and to protect the purchasing power of Canadian citizens.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Although the subject is important, I regret to say that in my opinion there is no urgency, as required by the provisions of Standing Order 43.


AIR CANADA
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to move on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. This matter concerns the budget deficit recently reported by Air Canada.
In view of the fact that Air Canada has reported a 1974 deficit of approximately $9 million, compared to a 1973 profit of $12 million, despite the fact that the airline carried more passengers and received substantial fare increases throughout the year, and because its counterpart, CP Air, as well as most United States airlines, have reported substantial profits to the extent that in the U.S. recently reports have indicated that this deficit situation has been caused by gross mismanagement, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay):
That this House do now authorize the Standing Committee on Transportation and Communications to inquire into the management of Air Canada with particular emphasis on the financial operations of the airline, with a view to ensuring that this Crown corporation operates in the public interest.
February 3, 1975


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The House has heard the motion. It being proposed pursuant to Standing Order 43 it cannot be debated without the unanimous consent ol the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There not being unanimous consent, the motion cannot be debated at this time.


WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
[Stage Direction]
On the order: Government Notices of Motions.
January 31, 1975-The Minister of Industry. Trade and Commerce :
That the	 House of Commons approve the Government's program of guideline dates for metric conversion;
And that a Message be sent to the Senate informing Their Honours that this House has adopted a resolution approving a program of guideline dates for metric conversion, and requesting Their Honours to unite with this House in the approval of the same by filling up the blanks in the resolution with the words "Senate and".
Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to section (2) of Standing Order 21, this motion is transferred to, and ordered for consideration under, government orders at the next sitting of the House.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Maurice Foster (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 3, 424, 670, 672, 776, 787, 802, 814, 862, 1,007, 1,012, 1,034, 1,038, 1,129, 1,139, 1,140, 1,147, 1,159, 1,161 and 1,172.
Mr. Speaker, if questions Nos. 108, 109, 243, 274, 366, 786, 872, 1,003, 1,024, 1,123 and 1,144 could be made orders for return, these returns would be tabled immediately.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Reynolds: What were the actual dollar amounts paid out in 1973 to each individual province and territory (a) by the Department of Regional Economic Expansion (b) under the PAIT program ?
Order Paper Questions


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (President of the Privy Council):: Province
Newfoundland
Prince Edward Island
Nova Scotia
New Brunswick
Quebec
Ontario
Manitoba
Saskatchewan
Alberta
British Columbia Not allocated
Total Expenditures Budgetary and Non-Budgetary ($000's)

37,569
19,556
52,117
44,544
115,262
19,158
24,399
13,818
17,058
4,653
16,730
Total
364,864
(b)	1973

Newfoundland	-
Nova Scotia	218,458
New Brunswick	8,264
Prince Edward Island	25,989
Quebec	6,154,463
Ontario	14,766,480
Manitoba	286,326
Saskatchewan	222,778
Alberta	640,482
British Columbia	2,574,240
24,897,480


Mr. Brisco: 1.	Does Kootenay West qualify for assistance under the DREE program?
2.	Has Canadian Pacific Railway filed notice of rail abandonment for a CPR link from Denver Canyon to Nakusp and, if so (a) will such abandonment unfavourably affect the economy of the area (b) will the Minister responsible intercede on behalf of the communities involved?
3.	Has CP Transport indicated that it intends to eliminate freight delivery offices in Nelson and service that community with two transport trucks from Trail and, if so (a) what will be the effect of the local economy of the community (b) will the Minister responsible intercede on behalf of the residents and business community to counteract CPR history of rapid erosion and withdrawal of rail, transport and telecommunications service in that area?


Mitchell William Sharp: am informed by the Departments of Regional Economic Expansion and Transport as follows: 1. The Kootenay West area of British Columbia is eligible for assistance under the Regional Development Incentives Act, until December 31, 1974. Under a General Development Agreement signed with British Columbia on March 28, 1974, programs and projects jointly agreed upon by both governments can be implemented through an appropriate subsidiary agreement. The Kootenay area is an area of concern in the strategy accompanying that General Development Agreement.

February 3, 1975
Order Paper Questions
2.	Canadian Pacific Limited applied to the Canadian Transport Commission on August 29, 1974, for authority to abandon the Kaslo Subdivision between Denver Canyon and Nakusp, a distance of 31.2 miles; (a) the effect on the economy of the area is one of several matters which the commission will be required to consider when processing the application; (b) through the present branch line abandonment process, the interests of the people and industries being served along the branch line are very well protected and there is no requirement for the Minister of Transport to intercede in this process on behalf of the communities involved.
3.	No.


Mr. Graffiey: 1.	What transport contracts have been awarded by the Department of Fisheries to Lapointe Transport Ltd., 106 Industriel Blvd., Longueuil, Quebec, since January 1, 1972?
2.	What was the amount of the contract in each case?
3.	Were public tenders called in each case and, if not, for what reason?


Mr. Len Marchand (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: As Fisheries responsibilities come under the Department of the Environment, the reply was provided under question No. 645.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	In the fiscal year ending March 31, 1974, how much federal money was committed in the Province of Quebec in each of the (a) Neighbourhood Improvement Program (b) Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (c) Land Assembly Assistance Program?
2.	How much has been committed this fiscal year in the Province of Quebec?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: I am advised by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation as follows: 1. (a) (b) (c) Agreements with the province of Quebec, covering The Land Assembly Program under Section 42 of the National Housing Act, and the Neighbourhood Improvement Program under Part III.l of the N.H.A. were signed on September 12, 1974. The Residential Rehabilitation Program is directly related, in large part, to the Neighbourhood Improvement Program. The fiscal year of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation is the calendar year, and commitments under these programs were not made prior to the signing of agreements.
2.	These agreements with the province of Quebec allocated, for 1974, a maximum of $9.4 million for loans

for land assembly purposes under section 42 of the N.H.A., and a maximum of $12.0 million for contributions and $3.0 million for loans for the Neighbourhood Improvement Program under Part III.l of the N.H.A. The province has selected 13 municipalities that may benefit under the provisions of Part III.l.


Mr. Macquarrie: What loans or credits were extended by the Canadian Export Development Corporation to countries of the Middle East and, in each country, what was the purpose of such loans or credits?


Mr. Gaston Clermont (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Export Development Corporation states that: It has made loans to borrowers in Middle East countries, to finance sales by Canadian exporters to buyers of long-life capital goods and related service, as follows:
Country	Project	Amount $Iran	Telecommunications Equipment	1,861,000Telecommunications Equipment and Services	6,329,000Forestry Complex	82,900,000Total	90,690,000Israel	Telecommunications Equipment	2,205,110Steam Generators Equipment and Services	15,000,000Expansion of Lod International Airport and Railway Renewal Program	10,000,000Steam Generating Equipment	22,000,000Steam Generating Equipment	2,600,000Total	51,805,110United Arab Republic (Egypt) Telecommunications Equipment	3,834,000Total	3,834,000Grand total	146,329,110


Mr. Stevens: 1.	As of March 31, 1964, 1968, 1974 and September 30, 1974, what were the total liabilities of the government including (a) current and demand liabilities (b) deposit and trust accounts (c) annuity, insurance and pension accounts (d) unmatured debt due within two years and due two years or longer (e) miscellaneous liabilities?
2.	In each year, what were the totals for each?
February 3, 1975


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: 1.
Order Paper Questions
Balance it
March 31, 1964	March 31, 1968	March 31, 1974	September 30, 1974Total liabilities (in millions of dollars)	25,923.7	32,924.2	55,557.1	56,811.32. (a)	Current and demand liabilities	1,620.0	2,310.6	4,594.6	3,112.8(b)	Deposit and trust accounts	196.4	440.9	579.4	627.0(c)	Annuity, insurance and pension accounts	5,131.0	9,053.0	19,262.0	20,924.9(d)	Unmatured debt- Due within 2 years Due after 2 years	5,668.5 13,071.6	5,938.6 14,641.3	8,375.6 20,795.8	9,365.7 19,687.4(e)	Miscellaneous- Foreign exchange reserves Other	236.2	539.8	1,360.3 589.4	1.332.7 1.760.8


Mr. Stevens: 1.	As of March 31 In each year 1968, 1970, 1972 and 1974
(a)	how many were employed by the National Capital Commission (b) what would have been their aggregate salaries if all were employed for a full year (c) how many had salary levels of (i) $20,000 or more (li) $35,000 or more (ill) $50,000 or more?
2.	What was the salary or the salary range for each of the five highest paid employees of the Commission?
Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs: In so far as the National Capital Commission is concerned: 1. 1968: (a) 682; (b) $4,277,392; (c) (i) 7; (ii) 0; (iii) 0. 1970: (a) 636; (b) $4,551,160; (c) (i) 11; (ii) 0; (iii) 0. 1972: (a) 897; (b) $6,946,660; (c) (i) 22; (ii) 1; (iii) 0. 1974: (a) 820; (b) $7,734,877; (c) (i) 26; (ii) 2; (iii) 0.
2.	1968:	$26,500;	$22,680; $19,000-$24,500; $19,000-$24,000; $17,000-$22,500. 1970: $31,500; $21,000-$26,000; $19,000-$23,500;	$19,000-$23,500; $19,000-$23,500.	1972:
$34,000-$40,000; $25,000-$31,000; $22,000-$28,000; $22,000-$27,500; $22,000-$27,500. 1974: $38,000-$48,000; $33,000-$42,000; $25,500-$32,500; $25,500-$32,500; $25,500; $32,500.


Mr. Stevens: 1.	As of March 31 in each year 1968, 1970, 1972 and 1974 (a) how many were employed by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (b) what would have been their aggregate salaries if all were employed for a full year (c) how many had salary levels of (i) $20,000 or more (ii) $35,000 or more (iii) $50,000 or more?
2.	What was the salary or the salary range for each of the five highest paid employees of the Corporation?


Barnett Jerome Danson: February 3, 1975
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Herbert: 1.	Does the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs exclude from consideration for NHA loans, except on a very limited basis, house construction in towns that do not have sewage collector systems?
2.	Are NHA loans approved in large city areas, such as Montreal, even though the surrounding waters are heavily polluted and, if so, is this not a discouragement to clean living in a healthy environment?


Barnett Jerome Danson: I am advised by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation as follows: 1. CMHC does not approve the financing, under the National Housing Act, of housing built in urban areas which do not have sewage collector systems.
2. CMHC approves the financing, under the National Housing Act, of housing in urban areas such as Montreal, which do not have sewage treatment facilities, provided the municipality has a plan to eliminate pollution within a 5-year period.


Mr. Woolliams: 1.	Since 1968, how many inmates, while serving time in an institution, were charged with murder while on either parole or a day pass?
2.	(a) What are their names (b) how many have been convicted (c) how many cases are pending?


Hon. Warren AUmand (Solicitor General):: 1. Six, on parole, 1; on T.L.A.*, 1; unlawfully at large from a T.A.L.*, 4.
2. (a) On parole, Camp, Stephen Paul; on T.L.A.*, Head, Charles; unlawfully at large from a T.L.A.*, Rully, Roy Donald, Brossard, Conrad, Gagnier, Arthur, Chartrand, Real; (b) Four, (c) One. (One other-self-admitted murderer committed suicide upon arrest). *Temporary Leave of Absence.


Mr. Schellenberger: Is the Minister of Finance intending to reverse the government's policy of taxing the per diem allowances granted to provincial MLAs and MPPs?


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: The per
diem allowances granted to provincial MLA's and MPP's are treated, for tax purposes, in precisely the same way as other allowances paid to such members; i.e., they are tax free unless they exceed the tax-free limit which has been established by parliament. If MLA's and MPP's were paid the same amounts and in the same manner as MP's they would be taxed in precisely the same way.


Mr. Cossitt: With reference to the announcement by the President of the Treasury Board concerning publication of a booklet to be

distributed to all government employees and entitled Official Languages and You (a) how many copies have been printed
(b)	how many more copies will be printed (c) what is the cost to date and the estimated cost of any additional printings (d) what are the names and job designations of all persons having any part in writing or compiling this publication?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of Treasury Board):: (a) The number of copies of the booklet "Official Languages and You", which has been printed, is 500,000 copies, (b) There are no plans to print additional copies of this booklet, (c) The production costs were $73,851. (d) The following persons were responsible for the writing of this publication: David Morley, Deputy Secretary, Official Languages Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat; Jacques de Courville Nicol, Director, Training and Information Development Division, Official Languages Branch; Jean Garneau, Director, Communications Division, Treasury Board Secretariat. The Public Service Commission and the Commissioner of Official Languages were also consulted.


Mr. Marshall: 1.	How many meetings were held by the government task force to consider management measures for the lobster fishery in the Province of Newfoundland?
2.	At what locations were they held?
3.	What representative bodies of the fishermen were in attendance?


Len Marchand: 1. 4.
2.	Clarenville, Gander, Cornerbrook and St. John's.
3.	President-Newfoundland Fishermen's Union and Lobster fiishermen from the following communities: Harbour Mill, North Harbour, Clarenville, Arnold Cove, English Harbour, Summerford, Lumsden, Happy Adventure, Comfort Cove, Forresters Point, Woody Point, Highlands, Back Harbour, Port au Port, Port aux Basques.


Mr. Herbert: Is consideration being given to taxing the benefit received when a corporate executive obtains from his company an interest free or low interest loan?


John Napier Turner: This matter will be considered as part of the ongoing review of the income tax system. Any decision regarding it would, of course, be a budgetary matter.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West): 1.	In the event that convicted dope smuggler Lucien Rivard, presently serving sentence in the United States, is paroled in the near future and should come to Canada, are there any outstanding charges against him which would lead to his arrest and further trial in Canada and, if so, what are these charges?
2.	Are there any outstanding charges or unexpired sentences arising from Mr. Rivard's escape from Bordeaux Jail in 1964?
3.	In the event that Mr. Rivard should remain in the United States, would there be any attempt to extradite him to Canada to complete any sentences now outstanding or to face further charges?
February 3, 1975


Hon. Oito E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: 1. As far
as the Department of Justice is aware, no. However, any charges pending or likely to be laid under the Criminal Code of Canada would be the responsibility of the Attorney General of Quebec.
2.	See answer to Part 1 above.
3.	Any application by a competent authority to the Minister of Justice requesting extradition would be given the usual consideration.


Mr. Brisco: 1.	What is the estimated tonnage for the next five years of human waste that will be dumped from vessels plying the Great Lakes?
2.	What is the estimated average cost per commercial vessel for the installation of holding tanks for human waste?
3.	What improvements for the holding or disposal of human waste in Great Lakes ships are anticipated in five years time and at what cost?
4.	To what estimated percentage degree does the dumping of human waste from such vessels contribute to the pollution of the Great Lakes?


Len Marchand: 1. The estimated quantity of human sewage, including the usual 32 gallons flush water per person per day, is 7,000,000 tons for the next five years.
2.	The estimated average cost per commercial vessel for the installation of holding tanks for human waste ranges between $23,000 for new tugs to $74,000 for new lakers and between $28,000 for existing tugs to $81,500 for existing lakers.
3.	If the proposed federal Great Lakes Sewage Discharge Regulations are put into force under the Canada Shipping Act in 1975 the following is anticipated in five year's time: (a) Construction of approximately 12 shore based reception facilities, strategically located, and designed to receive commercial ships' sewage for subsequent discharge in a manner which ensures adequate treatment. The anticipated total cost of these facilities (excluding land costs) is $2,500,000 assuming that existing wharf space will be made available at no charge, (b) Installation of ship-board holding tanks or ship-board sewage secondary treatment plants depending on the option selected for individual ships. The unit cost for holding tanks are indicated in the response to (2). The unit costs for ship-board treatment plants are anticipated to be about $80,000.
4.	It is estimated that of the human wastes entering the Great Lakes, approximately 0.3 percent is attributable to ships' crews.


Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): As of March 31, 1974 (a) what was the total number of Canada Saving Bonds (b) how many are held by individuals and what dollar value do such bonds represent (c) how many are held by chartered banks (d) what rate of interest did such saving bonds carry (e) what was the amount of the other bonds issued by Canada (f) how many are held by Canadian banks (g) how many are held by foreign financial institutions?
Order Paper Questions


John Napier Turner: As of March 31, 1974 (a) Total par value of CSBs outstanding was $10,421,000,000. (b) Total par value of CSBs held by individuals was $10,311,000,000. (c) None are owned by the chartered banks, (d) Rates on savings bonds outstanding on March 31, 1974 ranged from 5| percent to 8i percent, (e) Canada had $14,340,000,000 of marketable bonds and $4,905,000,000 of Treasury bills, (f) Canadian banks owned $4,008,000,000 marketable bonds and $3,564,000,000 Treasury bills, (g) The amount held by foreign financial institutions is not known. As of December 31, 1973, the last date for which the statistics are available, $784,000,000 of bonds and debentures were owned by non-residents.


Mr. Schellenberger: Is the Minister of Finance considering removing incorporated family farms from the ordinary category of incorporated business for the purposes of income tax in view of the special circumstances these farms find themselves and, if so, could he give assurance that it will be soon?


John Napier Turner: The special provisions permitting an unincorporated farmer to transfer his farm property to his child without capital gains tax becoming exigible at the time of transfer are not being considered for incorporated farms. These provisions were not considered necessary for incorporated farms, since such corporations usually consist of medium to large holdings and in many cases the incorporation is part of an estate or tax plan. Proper planning can allow the shares to be passed during the lifetime of the parent to the children in an orderly manner, without disturbing the continuity of the farm as a family operation.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	Was the booklet entitled Food Safety-It's All in Your Hands advertised recently in the daily checklist of government publications sent out by Information Canada?
2.	Is this booklet out of stock?
3.	What was the size of the first printing?
4.	Is there to be another printing and, if so, on what date will it be available?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. The booklet "Food Safety It's All In Your Hands" did not appear recently in the daily checklist.
2.	The booklet is in stock.
3.	The first printing of 100,000 bilingual copies was distributed in April 1974.
4.	A second printing of 200,000 bilingual copies was received for distribution in December 1974. A further printing has not been planned.


Mr. Marshall: 1.	What were the names and addresses of barristers and solicitors in the Province of Newfoundland who were retained by the Industrial Development Bank to prepare legal documentation to secure loans advanced by IDB in the years 1972, 1973 and 1974?
2.	Are these lawyers selected by the IDB or by the borrower?
3.	Are the legal fees charged by these lawyers paid by IDB or by the borrower?

February 3, 1975
Order Paper Questions


John Napier Turner: 1. The
Industrial Development Bank engages the services of outside solicitors in connection with the taking of security for its loans. However, since by statute the internal administration of the IDB is in the hands of its board of directors, it has not been the practice to make public the names of those who do its legal work since this is a matter relating to internal administration.
2.	As a general rule, the solicitor is chosen by the IDB; however, for loans of smaller amounts, if the borrower asks that his solicitor be used, the IDB endeavours to comply with this request.
3.	In accordance with the standard practice of mortgage lending institutions, the legal fees and disbursements relating to the preparation of security documents are the responsibility of the borrower.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. Brewin: 1.	What aid by way of grant, loan, credit or otherwise, in money or in kind, has the government extended, directly or indirectly, through CIDA or any other agency of government or non-governmental agency or by means of Canada's participation in the World Bank or any of its associated agencies, the International Monetary Fund, the International Development Agency and the Inter-American Development Bank for aid of any sort to the Government of Chile or any agency of the Government to Chile during each year 1970 to 1974 to date?
2.	What are the amounts and dates of the actual payments made by Canada?
Return tabled.



GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE TO VIET-NAM

Mr. Brewin: 1.	What aid by way of grant, loan, credit or otherwise, in money or in kind, has the government extended, directly or indirectly, through CIDA or any other agency of government or non-governmental agency or by means of Canada's participation in the World Bank or any of its associated agencies, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the International Development Agency during the years 1973 and 1974 to date for aid of any sort to the Governments of the Republic of Viet-Nam (Saigon), of the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam (Hanoi) or the Provisional Revolutionary Government?
2.	What are the amounts of the actual payments and the dates of all such actual payments made by Canada?
Return tabled.



JOB DESCRIPTION OF MR. JACK AUSTIN

Mr. Clark (Rocky Mountain): 1.	What is (a) the salary (b) the precise job description of Mr. Jack Austin?
2.	On how many occasions in 1974 to date did Mr. Jack Austin travel on official business (a) within Canada (b) outside Canada and, in each case, to what point or points, for what purpose or purposes and at what costs?
3.	Do any officials, committees, agencies or other organizations within any or several departments or Crown agencies or corporations report regularly to Mr. Jack Austin, or involve him regularly in their deliberations and, if so, which officials, committees, agencies or other organizations and, in each case, with what purpose?

4.	What are the qualifications of Mr. Jack Austin for the responsibilities he now exercises?
5.	To what individual or office does Mr. Jack Austin report and what individuals or offices report to him?
6.	To what agency of Parliament does Mr. Jack Austin regularly report?
7.	On what date did Mr. Jack Austin commence his (a) association with the government (b) present responsibilities and. has he been authorized to appear in an official capacity before any Parliamentary committees and, if so, on what occasions and for what specific purposes?
Return tabled.



PUBLIC SERVANTS IN RECEIPT OF $20,000 OR MORE

Mr. Munro (Esquimau-Saanich): 1.	How many persons serving in the following departments receive salaries of $20,000 or more per year (a) Department of Agriculture (b) Department of the Solicitor General (c) Department of Manpower anl Immigration (d) Ministry of State for Urban Affairs (e) Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (f) Department of the Environment (g) the Treasury Board (h) Deparment of Public Works (i) Department of the Secretary of State (j) Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce (k) Department of Supply and Services, including the Receiver General of Canada (1) Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (m) Department of Regional Economic Expansion (n) Department of National Health and Welfare (o) Depatment of Justice (p) Department of Veterans Affairs (q) Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (r) Office of the President of the Privy Council (s) Department of Transport (t) Department of Labour (u) Post Office Department (v) Department of Communications (w) Department of National Defence (x) Ministry of State for Science and Technoloygy (y) Department of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (z) Department of National Revenue (aa) Department of Finance (bb) Office of the Prime Minister?
2.	How many were there in 1968?
Return tabled.



THERAPEUTIC ABORTION BOARDS

Mr. Leggatl: 1.	What is the total number of hospitals which (a) have therapeutic abortion boards (b) have no therapeutic abortion boards?
2.	What are the names of those hospitals (a) with therapeutic abortion boards (b) with not therapeutic abortion boards and, in each case, what are their locations?
3.	What are the reasons given, in, the case of each hospital which does not have a therapeutic abortion board for not having set up such a board?
4.	(a) How many charges have been laid under Section 251 of the Criminal Code since 1970 (b) if charges have been laid, against whom have they been laid and what was the decision of the Courts?
Return tabled.



GOVERNMENT INVESTMENT IN CROWN CORPORATION

Mr. Stevens: As of March 31, 1968, 1974 and September 30, 1974, how much had the government loaned to or invested in Crown corporations, including departmental corporations, agency corporations, proprietary corporations or any other type of public enterprise entity and, on each date what were the 10 largest corporations or entities in which or to which the government had invested or loaned money?
Return tabled.



DEPARTMENT OF MANPOWER AND IMMIGRATION-TRANSLATION DOCUMENTS

Mr. McKenzie: 1. What documents of any and all description (such as any type of form, records, stationery, employee directives, etc.) with-
February 3, 1975

in the entire Department of Manpower and Immigration have to be transferred into the French language?
2.	Retroactive to what date will all past records of the Department have to be translated?
3.	At what date must all of these translations be completed?
4.	What amount of money was spent in the years 1973 and 1974 for translating such documents?
5.	What will be the total cost of translating all existing documents, forms, stationery, records, etc. within the Department's entire operation?
6.	What is the total additional yearly cost of ordering all new forms, stationery, etc. in two languages compared to the cost in one language?
Return tabled.



DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE-TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENTS

Mr. McKenzie: 1.	What documents of any and all description (such as any type of form, records, stationery, employee directives, etc.) within the entire Department of Finance have to be translated into the French language?
2.	Retroactive to what date will all past records of the Department have to be translated?
3.	At what date must all of these translations be completed?
4.	What amount of money was spent in the years 1973 and 1974 for translating such documents?
5.	What will be the total cost of translating all existing documents, forms, stationery, records, etc. within the Department's entire operation?
6.	What is the total additional yearly cost of ordering all new forms, stationery, etc. in two languages compared to the cost in one language?
Return tabled.



COUNTERFEITING OF CANADIAN CURRENCY

Mr. Caouetie (Temiscamingue): Since 1960, were any investigations of counterfeiting of Canadian currency carried out and, if so (a) how many (b) on what dates (c) what was the amount in each case?
Return tabled.



DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE-EMPLOYMENT OF LAWYERS IN NOVA SCOTIA

Mr. MacKay: What lawyers in the Province of Nova Scotia were employed by the Department of Justice from January 1, 1973 to October 30, 1974 and how much money was paid to each?
Return tabled.



DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS-MONCTON REGIONAL OFFICES

Mr. Jones: 1.	How many employees are presently employed in the Moncton Regional Office of the Department of Communications?
2. What are their (a) names (b) positions (c) salaries (d) duties?
3.	How many are (a) in a supervisory position (b) bilingual
(c)	unilingual French (d) unilingual English?
4.	How many were taken on staff from January 1, 1970 to date and, of these, how many were unilingual English?
5.	How many of the positions are designated as bilingual?
6.	Is any discrimination practiced in hiring employees for this Office?
7.	How many persons are on the Atlantic Region Labour/ Management Relations Committee of the Department of Communications ?
8.	How many represent (a) management (b) labour and, of these, how any are (i) bilingual (ii) unilingual English (iii) unilingual French and, in each case, for what reason?
9.	Was any discrimination practiced in the choice of management's representation on the Committee?
Return tabled.
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would draw to the attention of the House that there has been an increasing habit of making questions orders for returns without even indicating to the House why. These returns are sent to the Journals Branch and that is the end of them. The questions are often put for the general education of the members of the House and the public but they never appear in Hansard.
I put it to you, sir, and to the House that this practice should be limited only to those questions where it is absolutely essential, either for reasons of brevity or for some other very compelling reason, that they should be made orders for returns. Any parliamentary secretary standing up and asking for this should explain why it is being done.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre on the same point of order.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker,
I would be happy to support this protest.


Mr. Cossitt:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding a number of unanswered questions that I have placed on the order paper, including some from the last parliament, namely questions 25, 32 and 69, on the subject of the extensive number of personal, holiday and political trips made by the Prime Minister at taxpayers' expense; questions 447 and 531 to 533 inclusive, pertaining to Messrs. Ivan Head and Michael Pitfield, who surely are not beyond accountability to this parliament by virtue of prime ministerial connections; and lastly question 1,145 in regard to lavish, luxurious and opulent living at 24 Sussex Drive, at taxpayers' expense. Surely, the Prime Minister is in a position to let the House know, and in turn to let the Canadian people know, the public expense that this country is being put to as a result of some of the activities of him and his friends.


Mr. Forreslall:: Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise on a point of order respecting questions that have been lying on the order paper for an undue length of time, some four or five in particular, three of which are starred questions. There is no proper reason for not supplying an answer. These questions date back to the last parliament and have to do with the Ministry of National Defence. It is my understanding that these questions have been responded to internally by departmental officials, but for political or other reasons that are not ascertainable by myself, there has been no reponse to them. These are starred questions 463, 465, 632 and question 464. I wonder if I could draw these to the attention of the parliamentary secretary and, in a very personal way, the Minister of National Defence to see whether we can get some response. This is straightforward, unclassified information we are seeking.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to look into that matter for the hon. member.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. On the point of order raised by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert),

February 3, 1975
Oral Questions
and spoken to by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), it is, of course, simply following the provisions and practices of the House to handle the deposit of returns and request that questions be transferred to and made orders for returns. If it were the intention of the House to support a change in that respect, perhaps that ought to come forward from the procedure committee rather than being imposed by the Chair. On the other hand, if there is a general spirit in the House that this ought to be handled differently, perhaps the House leaders might want to consider it and raise the point in the very near future.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a further point of order in respect of this matter. There was a time when this was a very infrequent practice, and, as I recall, it was only under the justification that the question was too long to be printed in Hansard, or there was some other very compelling reason. This is merely a matter of practice that has arisen, and I drew attention to what I considered to be an abuse of the practice. I would hope that the abuse is apparent and its correction would commend itself to the House.


Mr. Speaker:: Again I would suggest to the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) that perhaps there are a number of practices which from time to time fall into abuse. Be that as it may, it would certainly not appeal to me as the role of the Speaker to unilaterally change these practices, no matter how attractive those changes may be. I think the hon. member's comments are worthy of consideration and I would hope the House will take action if that is desirable.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration arising out of his statement that the immigration policy of the future will need to rest squarely on the foundation of a population policy for Canada, and his statement in short that immigration policy must be concerned with an element of broad demographic or population policy for Canada. How is it that the minister proposes shortly to introduce an immigration policy when he anticipates that the discussions of population policy will continue for a couple of years? How can he introduce an immigration policy that has to be based on population policy almost two years before that population policy is determined?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I would not want to pre-empt

the detailed decisions that will hopefully flow from the debate on the green paper, particularly with emphasis on immigration, but I can certainly visualize a set of circumstances under which immigration legislation could reflect the requirement to have flexibility within a statement of principles recognizing population policy as an inherent requirement. I can see the writing of such a law to be based on a consensus about such a requirement before that. In an ideal world, of course, it would be desirable to have these totally coincide, but I doubt very much if practical requirements will permit us to wait until the population policy is fully delineated before we make the necessary amendments to the immigration legislation.


PURPOSE OF COMMITTEE STUDY OF GREEN PAPER-POSSIBLE INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION FOLLOWING COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, it appears that the minister is abandoning one of his fundamental principles even before he starts. I would like to ask him what he intends the committee of parliament to do, to whom the green paper is to be referred? Is the committee to make recommendations to the House, and the House then to the government regarding immigration policy before the government introduces its bill in respect of immigration? Is this what the committee is to do, or is it simply to discuss the green paper and have it in mind when the immigration bill is ultimately referred to it?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my statement, I do want to discuss that very point; the best method of having a parliamentary committee fulfil its obligations constructively to parliament and the country in examining the green paper. I can tell the hon. member what my own thoughts are on it now, but with respect I would hope to have the opportunity to discuss this with the House leaders of all parties, and start off with a general agreement on the best method to proceed with that very point in mind.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Not wishing to be argumentative at all, but, as usual, simply seeking information, Mr. Speaker, can the minister not tell the House today whether the government intends to introduce a bill without the advice of a parliamentary committee, or whether it intends to seek the advice of that committee? Surely that is a perfectly simple question to which the minister must know the answer today.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. Leader of the Opposition that the government, and particularly myself, will be very keen and very much influenced by the findings and the attitudes of not only the parliamentary committee which examines this green paper but of hon. members during the course of the debate. So the answer is yes, we will want to know what is thought of the possible options or new options that can be suggested during the course of the debate as part of our preparation of the legislation before we introduce it.
February 3, 1975

Oral Questions ENERGY


POSSIBILITY OF CHANGES IN REGULATIONS ANNOUNCED ON OCTOBER 22, 1974, BEFORE LEGISLATION INTRODUCED
Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Manpower and Immigration whether the regulations he announced to the House on October 22 last, in response to what he then termed the large influx of immigrants coming into Canada, the flow of which had to be curtailed somewhat as the national debate took place, have to be changed? Does he foresee any change in the regulations being necessitated at this time while the debate goes on during 1975?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I cannot be precise about changes that might or might not be required. I would like to make the point, though, that I consider it the government's and my responsibility as the minister assigned this particular duty to manage immigration in the face of any immediate situation that might develop, crisis or otherwise, although I as well as the government will try to avoid pre-empting any profound change in policy that the green paper might develop. However, we will have to take our responsibility in the face of any immediate situation that occurs between now and the time the debate is concluded.


FORM OF DEBATE ON GREEN PAPER-DEADLINE FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF POLICY
Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, will the minister indicate whether the government at this time has established tentative deadlines whereby the different phases of the national policy the minister promised sometime ago have to be established, and what form this national debate will take? Will it be on a regional basis in different parts of Canada, or in a central location?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, in the explanatory, expanded statement which the hon. member for Greenwood suggested was a variable statement-it was simply longer as I did not think I should take the time of the House to go into as much detail-I did indicate that there would be a referral to a parliamentary committee, and to the Leader of the Opposition I indicated that I hoped it would be accepted that this could be discussed between the parties even before the reference motion is placed before the House, which will be in a few days, I hope.
As far as the national debate is concerned, it will hinge very much on the format the parliamentary committee wishes to take. I would think the committee would want to travel. Also, there will be provision, when we get requests from the many organizations which have already participated in the preparation of the green paper, for a return engagement, as it were, to discuss the green paper. My department will be assisting in the preparation and conduct of those meetings on a regional basis right across Canada, I would hope.


URANIUM-SAFEGUARDS IMPOSED IN CONNECTION WITH SALE OF CANDU REACTORS
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce having to do with a statement by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to the House on December 20 in which he said that Canadian exporters of uranium supplies and technology must ascertain from the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the Atomic Energy Control Board clearance in respect of impediments to safeguards. I should like to ask what advice the minister has given such applicants in respect of safeguards, and, in particular, I would like to ask him about two of the proposed sales of CANDU reactors which are now being negotiated.
Has the government received any signed assurance from the governments of Argentina and South Korea to the effect that they are prepared to sign and ratify the non-proliferation treaty, or at least are willing to submit to periodic inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency? Have such conditions been imposed and what replies have been received by the government?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I regret that I cannot give the hon. member a detailed and comprehensive statement with respect to these two points. I can say that they are under discussion at present. I will consult with my colleagues on this matter to see if we can find another opportunity to provide a fuller and more comprehensive statement.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I understand that negotiations with reference to the export of both uranium materials and CANDU reactors are being carried on by the government. Surety, tne government knows by now what safeguards it is imposing end, whether or not there is to be any inspection of these CANDU reactors, what disposition is being made of the plutonium from which, as the minister knows, atomic bombs can be manufactured. Surely the government must have some clear cut ideas as to what conditions it is imposing. All 1 am asking the minister is what these conditions are and whether or not these conditions are being imposed, or have we become so enamoured of selling CANDU reactors that we do not give a damn about the future safety of mankind?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alastair William Gillespie: I think that on a number of occasions recently the government made it very clear that it is interested in selling CANDU reactors and uranium. It has also made it very clear that those sales will only be made on condition that full and adequate safeguards can be negotiated.


Some hon. Members:: What are they?

February 3, 1975
Oral Questions


URANIUM-AGREEMENT OF INDIA TO PERIODIC INSPECTION OF CANDU REACTOR
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Am I to take it from the minister's statement that the government proposes to allow the export of CANDU reactors and nuclear material merely on the statement of the government concerned that the reactors and, even more important, the plutonium as a byproduct of the reactors, will be used for peaceful purposes? Has the minister any safeguard that will ensure that these commitments will be carried out to a much more effective degree than was the case with respect to India? I ask him, with respect to India, whether or not India has agreed to periodic inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency or any other agency which the Canadian government considers competent to carry on such periodic inspections?


Alastair William Gillespie: The hon. member has alluded to both the International Atomic Energy Agency and to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Both of these undertakings are important to Canada. It is precisely with respect to how the IAEA and NPT obligations are being kept by the countries to which we will sell nuclear equipment that we are presently having discussions with those countries.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Eudore Allard: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Since this year is International Women's Year, would the Minister be in a position to say to this House whether he has taken or is about to take the necessary steps to upbring the pensions for widows of CNR retired employees?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the issue of pensions for former CNR employees does not come under my jurisdiction.


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS   REQUEST FOR STATEMENT ON CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN PRIME MINISTER AND MR. BOURASSA
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister a question.
Following his discussions during last weekend with the premier of the province of Quebec, does he have final information to provide to the House of Commons about those talks?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker. Those talks have taken place in the same manner as the talks I have from time to time with the provincial premiers. I would be prepared to answer specific questions

asked by the hon. member, but no press release has been issued following those discussions.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburlon):: My question is for the Secretary of State and it is with reference to the CBC program "Performance" shown last night from 9 to 10 p.m. named "The Ten Lost Years". In view of the language used on this program I am sure the minister will already have received many objections, not only to last night's show but to previous programs of this CBC production. Will he look into the matter and have future programs cancelled if they can be of no higher quality and no less insulting than the past shows?


Hon. James Hugh Faulkner (Secretary of Stale):: Mr. Speaker, what I will do is to make the hon. member's representation known to the corporation.


OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr. Otto Jelinek (High Park-Humber Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister and it is related to a previous question. Following this weekend's informal talk with Premier Bourassa with regard specifically to the Olympic Games, would the Prime Minister be in a position to inform the House what special means were proposed to enhance profits from the lottery, stamps, coins or other programs, and could the Prime Minister advise the House whether or not there was any discussion relating to Mayor Drapeau's "miracle plan" which has been reported to be the permanent installation of a gambling casino in the stadium?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am not
sure if the question was asked Seriously. Concerning the first part of it, the answer is no. No special suggestion was made by Premier Bourassa. It was an exchange of principles where it was clearly stated by me that the federal government would stick to its position of not picking up any deficit, a position which, I must say, is recognized and admitted by Premier Bourassa.
The question then was raised concerning self-financing schemes of the type that parliament has already approved, and my answer was that of course we would examine sympathetically any scheme which came within the purview of the law once it was submitted to us. There has been nothing more precise than that.


EXTENT OF INVOLVEMENT OF CENTRAL MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION IN CONTRACT AGREEMENTS TO BUILD OLYMPIC VILLAGE
Otto John Jelinek: My supplementary question is directed to the Parliamentary
February 3, 1975

Secretary to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs. Because of the fact that the mortgage on Olympic construction has recently been increased considerably, could the parliamentary secretary inform the House to what extent CMHC was involved in contract agreements between COJO and Terasse Zorolega to build the Olympic Village, and what the outcome of these meetings was so far as the federal government's involvement is concerned?


Mr. Pierre De Bane (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation has absolutely nothing to do with the contract entered into between COJO and this construction company. The CMHC's only commitment is as follows: should the Bank Canadian National be willing to make a loan and inasmuch as all the CMHC's rules would be complied with, we could endorse, guarantee a loan representing one third of the total cost of construction.

DATE OF COMPLETION OF FAdLITIES FOR SAILING EVENTS AT KINGSTON


Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: My
supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. Given that preparations for the Olympic sailing events in Kingston are proceeding within the budget and that the onshore and harbour facilities will be ready a full year in advance of time-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: -I wonder if the Prime Minister will consider appointing a committee to review how this has been accomplished so that other communities can benefit from Kingston's example?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not think that we need a committee for that. The hon. member should know that the municipal authorities at Kingston behaved very responsibly in this matter.


FISHERIES
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to address my question to the Minister of State for Fisheries. In view of the fact that Canada's east coast fishing industry is in very serious trouble, is the federal government negotiating a fisheries agreement with the provincial government of Nova Scotia covering new programs in resource utilization, product development and marketing, aquaculture and fishermen's training programs and, if so, when will the details of this program be made available to members of parliament, and will the program provide any assistance to our economically troubled inshore fishing industry?
Oral Questions


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of State (Fisheries)):: Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member is referring to the statement by the minister of fisheries for Nova Scotia in which he did indicate that there were some exchanges between the federal and provincial authorities on this matter, mainly in the context of the general agreement between DREE and the province. I have met with my colleagues from the four Atlantic provinces, and we have discussed the need to co-ordinate all fisheries programs in order to avoid conflicting situations between federal and provincial efforts. I may say that the task of looking into the situation in the Atlantic fishery is ongoing. I had a meeting again last Friday with the group working on this problem. When there are substantive announcements to be made, they will be made in due course.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In view of the seriousness of this situation which affects all the provinces in Atlantic Canada, is the Secretary of State for External Affairs in agreement with statements attributed to the provincial fisheries ministers that similar action be taken to that voted by the U.S. senate to extend its control to 200 miles from the present 12 miles if agreement to this proposal is not reached at the next Law of the Sea conference in Geneva.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I think it has been made clear that unilateral action is one of the policy options open to the Canadian government, but we have also made it clear that we want the next session of the Law of the Sea conference to succeed and to reach the stage where treaty provisions will be written, so we are working in that direction. In the event that the conference failed and no prospect of early progress were in sight, then the Canadian government would have to assess the situation at that time. The hon. member referred to the action taken in the United States. I understand that that legislative action has lapsed. It would have to be resumed in a new congress.


FISHERIES
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary for the Minister of State (Fisheries). Has the minister offered to intervene, or has he been invited to intervene in the dispute between the trawlermen and the fish plant operators in the province

February 3, 1975
Oral Questions
of Newfoundland, whose strike is having such a disastrous consequence on the industry? If not, will the minister exercise the constitutional jurisdiction which he has and intervene, with a view to expediting a settlement to this costly dispute?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, the answer to both initial questions is no. As to the suggestion contained in the latter part of the hon. member's question, I think it is one upon which I would want to reflect very carefully.


THE ROYAL CANADIAN MINT
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour, and I must preface my question by pointing out that I asked a question on the 29th in connection with the strike at the Mint. I pointed out the serious situation and the shortage of coins as a result of that strike. The Minister of Supply and Services said: "I think it is only in the hon. member's imagination." I have here a series of clippings from newspapers from Vancouver to Ottawa setting out in detail that everywhere the situation is serious and that Ottawa stores are finding: "They don't have a dime"; "No spare change"; "Ottawa stores feeling effects of coin scarcity," and so on across the country. In Vancouver, and in my own constituency of Prince Albert, the clippings report a lack of coins. But the minister, who concealed his ignorance in a cavalier manner of answering, indicated that he was totally unaware of what was going on, and I now ask the Minister of Labour what is being done regarding this serious situation. After all, this strike has been on for several weeks now, and the press indicates that there are difficulties across this country never before equalled in shortage of coinage, unknown to the minister who should know.


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I would indicate to the right hon. gentleman that we have endeavoured through our mediation service and our mediator to bring the parties together to resolve this dispute on several occasions. The last time meetings broke off without any resolution, as the right hon. gentleman may know. We have indicated to the parties that our mediator is again ready to meet with them after they have had an opportunity of reassessing their positions. We can only hope that the matter will resolve itself.


John George Diefenbaker: You can be sure that the minister knows that the workers say that it is the government that is responsible and has adopted a questionable and unjustifiable attitude towards their reasonable claims. I ask the minister if he will personally now intercede. At the same time if he would let the Minister of Supply and Services know what is happening in his own department, it would be very helpful.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


John George Diefenbaker: The minister was going to answer, Mr. Speaker.


John Carr Munro: Mr. Speaker, I would indicate to the right hon. gentleman that if it seems that intervention at the ministerial level would help resolve this dispute, of course I would have to consider it, but any assessment that I have had to date indicates quite the contrary. I think the parties should have an opportunity to reassess their positions. We have excellent mediation services, as the right hon. gentleman may know.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the increasing difficulties being faced by elderly people as they try to cope with today's cost of living, will the minister consider recasting the proposed legislation regarding pensions at 60 so that those pensions will be made available not only to spouses but to all persons over 60 who are out of the labour market? Will the government also consider providing in 1975 a substantial increase in the basic amount of old age security?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the government has already expressed its plans in this connection in the Speech from the Throne and I hope it will be possible for us to bring the appropriate measures before the House soon as possible.


IMMIGRATION
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: My question, Mr. Speaker, is to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In view of the green paper which was tabled this afternoon by the minister and the indicated thrust of the immigration policy, would the minister advise whether it is to continue to be based upon the labour requirements of the country, and in particular, those areas where there is a great shortage of labour? Does he propose to continue to act upon the inadequate information supplied to him by manpower in regard to many occupations and to those areas where we cannot obtain people at all for love nor money?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the reference to inadequacy of the information to which the hon. gentleman alludes is a comment which fails to recognize the improvement
February 3, 1975

in the measures we'are taking to provide that information, including much more and better co-operation between the provincial and the federal government, and particularly the province of Alberta from where he comes, through federal-provincial manpower needs, committees and the provision of occupational forecasting, along which line there has been a tremendous amount of work done in the last several months.
Notwithstanding that I admit that we are always striving to provide better information, but the general thrust I think in immigration policy must include reference to the ability to obtain jobs and to fill jobs.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Claude Wagner (Saini-Hyacinlhe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
Following the visit in Ottawa, on Friday, January 24, of the Minister for the Plan of Tunisia, who is also President of the Arab Bank for the development of Africa, is the minister in a position to inform the House what progress has been made regarding the project of mixed co-operation of the Arab world and Canada in Africa, and in particular, in the case in point, what would be Canada's contribution to this program?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the possibility of Canada engaging with Arab countries in general ventures for economic development in third world countries has been and is being explored. It has not been considered at the ministerial level and no final decisions have been made on this form of international development. I indicated Canada's interest in my discussions with the minister from Tunisia, but made it clear that the matter was in the realm of exploration but did hold some promise that might lead to development in the future.


Claude Wagner: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister tell the House if the final decision on this matter of joint co-operation with the Arab world would be made by CIDA and its president or by the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the cabinet as a whole?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the final decision in this matter will be made by the cabinet if the Secretary of State for External Affairs decides to make a recommendation.
Oral Questions COPYRIGHT ACT


SUGGESTED AMENDMENT TO PROTECT CANADIAN AUTHORS AGAINST IMPORTED EDITIONS OF THEIR BOOKS
Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question was for either the Secretary of State or the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, but in their absence perhaps either parliamentary secretary could answer. Have the strong representations of Jack McClelland, one of the nation's leading publishers, been received requesting an immediate amendment to the Copyright Act to ameliorate what McClelland calls "the single most important problem facing the Canadian publishing industry", namely, the flooding of the Canadian market with cheap foreign editions of Canadian authors with the resultant very serious financial loss to these authors and their Canadian publishers? Will urgent and serious consideration be given to bringing in an amendment of section 28 of the act so that this threat to Canadian literary creativity may be removed, rather than awaiting a full scale study and amendment of the whole Copyright Act?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I shall be happy to draw the minister's attention to the hon. member's question, as soon as he returns.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion who I know is greatly concerned about sharply increased transportation costs. Since railway and truck rates have consistently been more competitive and reasonable when ocean transport was a practical option, is the minister now prepared, as a supplementary DREE program, to expand and improve the facilities and capabilities of ports like Pictou in the Atlantic region which are very near heavy industry and which will help the region's exporters and importers by providing increased access to ocean shipping with consequent lower costs if the necessary upgrading and improvement could be done? Could I suggest to the minister that this would also facilitate the main trend of the Darling report by utilizing ports which are not now utilized?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I recognize the hon. member's interest in the port of Pictou, which is one we have been looking at in general terms. In trying to answer his question, we made an offer some time ago to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for the

February 3, 1975
Oral Questions
development in each province of one deep water port in conjunction with the Department of Transport and we have been studying the possibility of upgrading certain other ports. The difficulty is competition, that is, the maximum number of port developments that would be to the best advantage of the regions, rather than having a proliferation which might have the opposite effect. I can assure the hon. member that progress is being made. I discussed the question of a deep-water port in Nova Scotia with Premier Regan on Friday.


FINANCE
Mr. R. E. McKinley (Huron-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister of Finance. It has become increasingly evident that veterans and pensioners are having difficulty cashing their pension cheques at banks and financial institutions in the country unless they have an account at a particular bank. Could the minister make representations to those financial institutions to the effect that the government cheques are good and upon proper identification should be cashed without any problem to those people who sometimes are a little backward and hesitant about asserting themselves?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I was talking about that very problem with my colleague the Minister of Veterans Affairs earlier today. The problem is not one of solvency of the cheque but of identification. There may be something we can do to facilitate this.


WHEAT-POSSIBILITY OF DOWNWARD ADJUSTMENT IN PRODUCTION-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Justice in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. Has the minister considered recommending to Canadian producers a downward adjustment in the projected wheat acreage for Canadian wheat requirements this year? I ask this in light of the apparent turn around in world conditions and the fact that the U.S.S.R. and China have cancelled orders with the United States and Australia, the fact that other eastern European countries may follow suit and the fact warnings sounded by Commissioner Kristjanson that world wheat prices will probably decline because of world market conditions?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, we have said throughout the grain situation in the world is a volatile one. Notwithstanding the evidence of the existence of supplies which may be adequate to meet current needs, over-all food reserves in the world are fairly narrow and it is therefore quite likely we will 
continue to recommend that a significant volume of production be sown this year. Crop conditions in various countries could change the position in the short run, but the long-run interests at the moment are in favour of building up our reserves.


WHEAT-POSSIBILITY OF REDUCTION IN PRICE
Donald Frank Mazankowski: A supplementary question. Can the minister assure the producers of this country and this parliament that the situation is being closely monitored, and can he advise if these trends are having any effect on the pricing and marketing situation with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board? Can the minister also advise whether we can expect a decline or adjustment downward in wheat prices further to that adjustment made early in January?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I think it would be an error to attempt to predict the immediate direction of prices. The Canadian Wheat Board has not been trying to sell a great quantity of wheat at this time, having previously sold a great amount at very good prices. Price movements have been downward and these are subject to many factors including short-run rumours and speculations. I do not particularly want to participate in that. I think there is every likelihood of a good return for grain for some little time and I think in any short period of time prices may go down and go back up again.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: A final supplementary and I appreciate your tolerance, Mr. Speaker. Can I take it from what the Minister of Justice has said that he is still optimistic about future demands for Canadian wheat and optimistic about the price level as well?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I went into this question at some length before the committee. I was emphatic that I would not change my over-all view of the grain and price situation based on one report of one particular incident or one report of one particular view of crop conditions. A contrary report could immediately change the view, and I do not think we should be thrown from one position to another by one or other of those reports. The basic position is, world supplies are not large at this time and therefore a good production is desired. The price situation is basically sound, but fluctuations up and down of $1, $2 or $3 can certainly happen.


URANIUM-SAFEGUARDS IN CONNECTION WITH SALE OF CANDU REACTOR TO SOUTH KOREA
Mr. Edward Broadbenl (Oshawa-Whilby):: Mr. Speaker, a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce arising out of his answers to earlier questions from the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands. Can the minister inform the House whether a set of safeguard procedures have been agreed upon with the government of South Korea in view of the fact that they have concluded, as I understand it,
February 3, 1975

an agreement with Canada to purchase a CANDU reactor? Can the minister advise if safeguard procedures have been agreed upon with that government and if so, what they are?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, the answer is not yet.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


POST OFFICE
Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Postmaster General which arises from the extreme sensitivity of the contract negotiations now under way with postal employees and the possible importance of technological change in these negotiations? Can the Postmaster General give assurance that automation will be included in the negotiations?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, my personal philosophy is that the effects of automation should be a subject for negotiation with employees. We are now in the middle of collective bargaining and it is during a period of negotiations that anything is possible. But it takes two to tango and the union in question has to show a propensity for bargaining in good faith.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As the hon. gentleman included automation in his amendments to the Labour Code when he was minister responsible for that department, would be now use his influence to ensure that this important principle is included in the current negotiations with the post office workers, particularly as it has been publicly said by the employees that this inclusion is essential to any settlement.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, the particular set of rules under which the Post Office negotiates are now before a special joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons. This matter is topical and changes no doubt will be brought forward in the area soon. I, personally, hope that this progressive type of legislation introduced in the Labour Code will be extended to public servants.


MANPOWER
Mr. G. H. Whittaker (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Has the Pacific region of the Department of Manpower and Immigration adopted the cluster management system for Canada manpower
Oral Questions
centres within the region. If not, is it intended that the Pacific region of the Department of Manpower and Immigration will implement the cluster system?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I will have to take notice of that very interesting question.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Veterans Affairs. In view of the reply given by the minister to my question of January 29, would the minister state unequivocably what is the government's position on the Hermann report and if there are any recommendations in that report which are not acceptable to the government.


Mr. MacDonald (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The guidelines which have been well respected for some time and which relate to the question period call for questions to be brief and for answers to be reasonably brief. The hon. member has put forward a question which would require a very extensive answer on the part of the minister. The hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Frank Hamilton (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. Is serious consideration being given by officials in his department to the use of DREE funds to upgrade and promote communications, particularly television, in some of the more sparsely settled areas of our country.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, the only direct request or representation I have had so far on this matter, other than individual requests like those of the hon. member, have been within the province of Ontario where, as he may know, reference was made prior to Christmas to intentions by the government of Ontario with regard to expanding a communication network into some of the more remote regions of the province, and the possibility of DREE involvement in that kind of project is being considered. I assume that could be begun as a kind of pilot project. In principle, I see no reason why agreements with the provinces should not be entended to cover some forms of communication under the heading of infrastructure.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilion West):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of Manpower and

February 3, 1975
Income Tax Act
Immigration relates to his new attitude to retraining coupled with unemployment insurance. How much progress has the minister made in obtaining cabinet approval for a program under which Canadians who qualify for unemployment insurance will be eligible for trade courses, or has this scheme been rejected by the cabinet or abandoned by the minister.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, a pilot project is operating in Newfoundland, with enthusiastic cabinet support and authorization, linking the unemployment insurance recipient with his ability to continue getting benefits while he is on a designated trade training course. That is the thrust of my own views and I am encouraged by the fact that the pilot project has been endorsed and approved by the cabinet as a possible direction for future activity. But, it is a pilot project.


DATE OF INTRODUCTION OF AMENDMENTS TO ACT
Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As the minister knows, the Speeches from the Throne following the 1972 and 1974 general elections mentioned amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Keeping in mind that we spent some $6 billion on unemployment insurance between 1940 and 1970, and another $6 billion in three years, in the period 1971-1973, can the minister advise if the legislation is actually drafted and ready to be presented to the House, or are we still walking around in the dark, not knowing where this program is going. Has the legislation been drafted?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the subject matter of the hon. member's earlier request should indicate that I see the possibility and the opportunity to improve recommendations as to what the bill should contain. I think the hon. member will not be disappointed in seeing the bill introduced in this House during the present parliament, but I cannot be precise as to the exact date.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Friday, January 31, consideration of the motion of Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton) that Bill C-49, to amend the statute law relating to income tax, be read the second time and referred to committee of the whole.
Mr. J. R. Ellis (Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday afternoon when I began my speech I said that I and some of my colleagues were not favourably disposed to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner). Since I last spoke 
we have had a glorious Canadian weekend with bright sunshine, excellent weather and good skiing. Yet frankly my thoughts have not improved and I am still as critical of the minister as I was when I last spoke.
In the period encompassing the spring budget of 1974, the November 18 budget and the introduction of Bill C-49, the Canadian economy has witnessed drastic changes. Interest rates have pierced traditional barriers. Price changes as reported by Statistics Canada and shown by the consumer price index have spiralled upward, especially for food, clothing and shelter. Unemployment has increased and many other factors have come into play. Yet the provisions of the present bill differ little from the provisions of the bill introduced almost one year ago.
While there are many areas of this budget bill which can stand close scrutiny, I want to take a few moments to discuss primarily the areas affecting shelter. For example, consider the reduction of sales tax on building materials. This to me is another band-aid approach. After capitulating to so many Progressive Conservative proposals, the government seems afraid to go along with us on our proposal regarding the building materials tax, despite the general outcry from the public and the obvious need to remove this tax. The tax should have been removed completely. The cost of collecting it will remain the same, but fewer dollars will be collected. In percentage terms, it will cost more than twice as much to collect the reduced tax. How can the government justify this extra expense at a time when there should obviously be savings in any government department, if possible? I appreciate that it may be difficult to calculate the cost exactly, but I contend that the cost of collecting the tax at the lower figure will almost equal the revenue derived.
The figures quoted by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech with regard to savings by prospective home owners are absolute nonsense. They prove beyond doubt that he has no more knowledge of the housing construction industry than his colleague the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson)-and from our debates last week that appears to be in an appalling state of intelligence. Many home components are, of course, already exempt from this tax. Others, because of a convoluted formula, have small portions of tax included in their selling price. Finally, the acceleration of costs will more than eat up the small savings. It would appear that neither the government nor the home owner is going to benefit very greatly by this measure.
In the area of capital cost allowance claims on rental units, this is another of the frantic steps to push up the number of housing starts in the current year to something near an acceptable minimum. I personally predict that this figure will not reach 200,000 despite all the promises of the urban affairs minister and the parliamentary secretary. For once I find myself in complete agreement with my colleague to the left, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Hogan)

who is absent
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this afternoon-when he says that the tax shelter for proposed apartment construction will do little good for the majority of Canadians. In the light of the kind words said about our leader by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert) last week, I may even go so far as to say that there is certainly some justification in that party's request for further attention to public housing. If this provision is to be at all meaningful, if it is to help in any way with housing starts ever, even if not this year, it must be extended. After all, the Minister of State for Urban Affairs needs all the help he can get. While he may not make his quota this year, another year might be better.
The proposed capitalization of property tax interest expenses will increase housing costs to the home purchaser in the long run. This resolution was probably intended to discourage the land speculator. Unfortunately, it would appear that the builder will be penalized as an innocent party and the consumer will pay for this. There seems to be a constant trend to equate a legitimate land developer with some kind of pirate. In fact, the very word "developer" has fallen into disrepute; this is also unfortunate.
In the void left because of this government's inability or unwillingness to provide adequate land banks, the legitimate developer who invests a tremendous amount of capital to put on the market large tracts of land for housing is the only reason there is housing of any sort now available. Certainly developers are making a profit out of their work, but invariably the trends are cyclical. Given the keen edge of competition, costs are usually kept in line. It has been the usual state of affairs for this government and others to tax hell out of the developers but not even to give a moment's sympathy for some of their losses. Manufacturing and processing profits are specifically exempt from the corporate surtax in this legislation. Why then are not profits earned in construction? With all the government's restrictions being placed on the construction industry, entrepreneurs could use some incentive to compensate for the high risks involved.
Perhaps an 8 per cent mortgage on a home has become a thing of the past. Perhaps a new resolution should be incorporated in the budget which would permit home owners to deduct mortgage interest in excess of, say 8 per cent per annum from their taxable income. This would reduce the effective cost of mortgages and would make a mortgage with an interest rate of, say 11 to 12 per cent- the current market rate-more palatable for the home owner.
Like many other programs in the legislation, the registered home ownership plan is sadly lacking. For example, you cannot contribute to the program in the year in which you buy, which means that a prospective home owner meeting his target has to wait at least an extra year. A couple with a home already in one name can take full advantage of the plan for a number of years and own another home, having had all of the savings plus the sale of the first home. In other words, if you do not really need help, this government stands ready to give it to you. How the government can expect
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low income earners to pay rent, raise a family and live- in this time of high inflation-and still save $1,000 a year for this or any other program, I fail to see. In addition, rising cost of two-digit inflation proportions will mean that the funds on deposit will hardly keep up. These savings will be wiped out, as are many others.
There are so many holes in this piece of legislation with regard to housing that I suggest we might better give the builders a better deal, bring in some of the Arab money that the Minister of State for Urban Affairs is talking about and let them go to it. I am sure that in the long run they will do a better job. After all-once again- the Minister of State for Urban Affairs needs all the help he can get.
Among some of the provisions of the legislation which leaves one in wonderment is the $1,000 interest exemption provision. For example, farmers who borrow and pay interest have to deduct this interest from any interest income from the various sources allowed them. This could wipe out completely any benefits of the provision. Although the reasons are obvious, I do not know why interest from loans to family or partners is exempted. With all the other holes in the legislation, it would seem to me that to plug this one little loophole would be unnecessary. Many loans between relatives and business partners are tougher by far than some less than arm's length business transactions.
Much has been said about permitting the deduction of royalties on natural resources. My colleague, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton), spoke most eloquently on this subject last week and gave the minister not only a thoroughly well thought-out lecture on what could be done, but in a very magnanimous way left the field open for the minister to take full credit for much-needed changes. What the government is proposing is an unfair intrusion into provincial rights and is thoroughly unacceptable.
After the budget was introduced on November 18 there were many, many days when the government could have introduced Bill C-49. To have left it until the last few days, and to announce 24 hours later that no one would be able to get their income tax refund until the bill passed, is a form of blackmail that is also not acceptable Even the income tax forms had been printed long ago, and they could not have been printed if the provisions of this bill had not been known. The income tax forms have been mailed to all Canadians, with the warning through the press that the provisions contained in them cannot be accepted until after this legislation passes. Now, of course, the government is even more embarrassed by having our party repeatedly ask for a further reduction in the income tax provisions.
Revenue from personal income tax in 1975-76 will increase by an estimated 13 per cent-and it need well be. On October 25, in the debate on supply, I spoke at length on the extra costs that were being faced by the Department of Public Works and the fact that contracts were coming in over budget by an average of 20 per cent. This was on top of a 38 per cent increase in the budget over previous years. Surely common sense would dic-
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tate that some of these very fancy projects should be reduced and a cut in personal income taxes allowed the many Canadians who are finding it difficult to make ends meet.
Many of my colleagues have spoken at length and are far more qualified in many areas of this particular piece of legislation. I want to make these last few points, however. The bill is so thick, so voluminous that it reinforces what many of us have thought for some time, namely, that tax reform is nothing but a farce. The government is continuing in its ad hockery, band-aid approach. I call on them to drop their blackmail tactics and to introduce a meaningful decrease in personal income tax which will both benefit all wage earners and force down government spending.
I may not be an economist, but any "huckleberry" from Hastings county can tell you that these measures will at least work. They will not require a whole new tax department, and they will be readily understood by all Canadian taxpayers. They have no loopholes in them for expert tax-dodgers, and they would not take 100,000 pounds of paper to work out.


Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Koolenay):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few comments on a couple of aspects of the measures arising out of the budget having to do with the various income tax proposals. We in the province of British Columbia must be concerned about the question of double taxation and the decision of the federal government to disallow provincial royalties on resource income to corporations. The term "royalty" is interesting, but unfortunately the federal government seems inclined to use it interchangeably with "taxation." Nevertheless, it has an ancient and proper meaning and suggests the payment of money to owners. For example, authors receive royalties, song writers receive royalties and provinces occasionally collect royalties because they own the natural resources within their boundaries.
I have often felt that the federal government and its ministers of finance were emboldened by the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court in the late 1960s declaring any Pacific offshore mineral resources the property of the federal government, not the property of the provincial government. At that time, the wiser commentators, while accepting the ruling, pointed out that what should then follow is a working out of a political settlement between the federal government and the provincial government concerned. Yet it seems that on question of natural resources where there is no question whatever as to ownership, the federal Minister of Finance is not prepared to consider a political settlement but, rather, moves to assert the federal position. He has, as one writer in the latest edition of Maclean's magazine suggested, reduced the provinces to the level of municipalities. Anyone who is concerned about municipal financing these days knows the unfortunate position that municipalities and cities across this land find themselves in, since their tax resources are so 
extremely limited while the demands made upon them by the senior governments are so great.
During this controversy which we have witnessed over the last few months, I have often felt it was a good thing that we in British Columbia had our gold rush before we joined confederation. One can envisage the picture of the early prospectors working for a few months, only to realize that they were going to receive very, very little for their efforts because the federal government was going to get it all. There would then have been a stream of people heading back south carrying their prospector's pans and sluices with them as they moved out of the country that they had so recently entered. Much the same sort of thing has happened in the case of the oil exploration industry in the neighbouring province to mine, a development to which I think the federal government should pay very close attention.
Very recently, the president of Rio Algoma Mines Ltd. and Lornex Mining Corporation of British Columbia spoke to the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines and had some things to say about double taxation and the application of royalties to resource taxation. He said that one alternative to this situation at the present time is full government ownership of the Canadian mining industry, and suspects that this may well be the real objective of various Canadian governmental authorities. That is an alternative that we in this party would reject out of hand. Direct government involvement in industry is such that it does not give us a great deal of encouragement.
On the previous day of this debate the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Hogan) suggested that the Atlantic provinces might have to wait until they had an NDP government before they got some action to deal with their problems. I would suggest to him that if the provinces in that part of the country examined the situation in British Columbia closely, they would wait a very long time before electing an NDP government in their provinces. Our government in Victoria may not have taken the vow of poverty, but I suspect that they have taken the vow of impoverishment. Certainly they have embarked upon policies designed to fracture industry that has been established for years in the province of British Columbia. According to a recent press report, the Premier of B.C. was recently in the neighbouring province of Alberta giving a good deal of advice to that province and the federal government about the Syncrude consortium of companies that is hoping to develop the Athabasca tar sands. I suggest that the reason he was in our neighbouring province giving that advice was simply to distract attention in British Columbia away from some of the very pressing problems facing the premier there, with regard to which he could well take a good look at the results of some of the policies his own government has implemented.
So far as the timber industry is concerned, the government of British. Columbia has treated it as if it were some sort of miraculous pitcher into which it
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could dip deeper and deeper for taxation and royalties, with disastrous results for that industry. Throughout the entire province we have seen lay-offs, closures and unemployment brought about by the high taxation policies of the government and its failure to foresee the collapse of the lumber market.
One cannot regard a resource industry as something that will go on forever, as something that can absorb any amount of provincial and federal taxation. And when provincial and federal taxation is combined, then the limit is reached much more rapidly than a lot of people would like to think.
Mr. Armstrong, the president of Rio Algom Mines, speaking about royalties and taxation of the mining industry, had this to say. According to him, these imposts should have two main characteristics as follows:
They must be based on net earnings, not on gross revenue. Otherwise they simply do not recognize changes in operating costs, ore grades or in the debt position of mines. Taxes imposed through the device of royalties are also defective in that they accord no recognition to fundamental differences in the operating characteristics of different mines.
I suggest that some of the voting patterns in the last election and the changes that developed in the province of British Columbia came about because this was understood all through the mining industry, not just at the top but right down through the union leaders and workers. They realized that they had a stake in the mining industry and that the kind of taxation policies embarked upon by the provincial and federal governments would shorten the life of many mines that have been in operation for some time. This is not a problem that concerns only the province of Alberta. Members from every province in the country should be very concerned about the principle that is being asserted here by the federal government, which overrides the constitution and fails to recognize provincial ownership of resources within the boundaries of the provinces.
I would like to speak for a few minutes about old age pensioners and taxation. In this regard I am indebted to the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) for his remarks the other day. Let me echo some of the things he said. I, too, received a letter from one of my constituents who has written with considerable thought and feeling. He recommended that the government eliminate income tax for senior citizens on income under $25,000 per year. The hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich went one step better, suggesting that this tax be removed altogether. I do not think that would be a bad idea.
I know some old-timers in my constituency who have been surprised in respect of New Horizons' grants, in that the federal government would actually be prepared to hand out considerable sums of money to senior citizens' organizations. I think the main reason they were surprised is that the situation is usually the other way around. They find that every time they get a little in addition to their income, it is taken back as income tax
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or as a reduction in some other pension or source of income which they felt had been pretty well guaranteed.
Lurking in the background for every old age pensioner is the prospect of overpayment and the problems he will face if he is charged with an overpayment and will have to return the money, out of limited resources, to the federal revenue people. I do not know what it would cost the federal government to eliminate taxes in respect of senior citizens, but I feel it would be a forward step if the government got off the backs of our senior citizens and old age pensioners. The government might then find it unnecessary to spend quite so much money on other programs, as I suspect that these senior citizens would welcome the opportunity to play around with this money. I suggest they would do this in two ways: they would use it for recreational purposes and also, I suspect, they would enjoy the prospect of investing this money themselves.
This move to allow $1,000 tax free of investment revenue is good as far as it goes. At least we will not have to gather up those little receipts for $5 and $10 and attach them to the income tax form, as we have had to do for so many years. But whether this $1,000 will be of much encouragement, I do not know. It is a start, but I would suggest that for senior citizens far greater latitude should be allowed to assist them to hold on to their incomes. As the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich pointed out the other day, we cannot see any other way of providing an incentive to save in this society of ours.


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, in presenting his budget and the 286-page bill which is before us, the minister said it was the government's program to equitably distribute the nation's wealth. That reminds me of what Sir Winston Churchill once said:
The inherent vice of capitalism and free enterprise is the uneven distribution of blessings and the inherent virtues of socialism is the even distribution of misery.
I suppose that Canadians should be used to the type of presentation which this bill represents because, after all, they have in recent times been exposed to many similar documents, like the Carter report, the Benson papers and, now, the proposed Turner changes. The volume of this paper is not only exceeded by the amount of money it cost to print it and the dollar amounts which are printed on it, but also by the number of people who carried out the task. It took an additional 1,270 people last year to produce this impressive literary accomplishment. This increase in staff brings the total complement of the finance department's paper-pushers to 20,488. That is more than one-quarter of our military defence capacity and does not even include the Prime Minister's own finance department which he is about to create.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) tells us that his taxation strategy is designed to solve the problems of worldwide inflation and at the same time respond to the recessionary trends that have been threatening our economy in recent times. There is, of course, no doubt- particularly in the minds of people on this side of the House-that the minister's budget and tax proposals are
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also designed to deliberately perpetuate inflation. There can be no other interpretation put on a program the government intends to defend which will see an increase in government spending of 95 per cent over an eight-year period, that is, from 1968 to 1976, with reference to Mr. Turner's forecast.
The $19.4 billion needed to carry out the 1973-74 program will rise to $27.8 billion in the 1975-76 fiscal period. Of that, $8 billion came from individual taxpayers in 1973-74, and in 1975-76 individuals will have to make up 41 per cent of the total program, amounting to $11.4 billion, and that is after the minister's 3 per cent personal tax cut and after the removal from the personal tax rolls of another 500,000 Canadians.
What is this so-called worldwide inflation, and how did it come about in the first place? My practical mind tells me that whole nations are not different than the people within them. Human nature has this built-in drive to stay ahead of the next guy and this drive for a better dead. When the United States needed additional money to support the war in Viet Nam, which was not too popular with the man on the street in the first place, it was decided to print additional money instead of going to the taxpayer. When some of the Latin-American countries became possessed with the skyscraper fever, they printed additional money and passed the cost on to their trading partners. In Canada it is the welfare state which can no longer be sustained by reasonable fiscal policies, and the printing presses are in high gear. Other nations had to protect themselves from this flood of worthless money by watering down their own currencies.
Then there are the Arabs who discovered, over a period of time, that it required the proceeds of 80,000 barrels of crude oil to purchase a D8 Cat from the United States, instead of 20,000 barrels, the cost of ten years ago, and they had no real choice but to change their price tag. There is, however, one basic difference between the Arabs and the rest of the rip-off artists, in that the free world still likes to pretend its monetary systems are based on a gold standard, whereas the Middle East financiers have adopted a new scheme which is called "commodity monetization". I should like to come back to that a little later and examine it in more detail.
First, however, I should like to look at the basic principle and philosophy behind any system of taxation, particularly that in respect of the recent approach Canada has taken in this field. As early as 1899, W. E. H. Lecky said:
Highly graduated taxation realizes most completely the supreme danger to democracy, creating a state of things in which one class imposes on another burdens which it is not asked to share, and impels the state into vast schemes of extravagance under the belief the whole cost will be thrown upon others.
Mr. Speaker, it used to be called instant Utopia, was renamed "the just society" in 1968, but would now be better named "the unjust society." In Canada, the 1968 contract to social security has brought an ominous increase in social insecurity. In a 1935 message to Congress

in the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared:
The federal government must and shall quit this business of relief-continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration, fundamentally destructive to the nations fibre.
The principal motivation for changes to any tax structure seems to be the desire by our ivory-tower experts to devise a system that is equitable. A leading Canadian economist says that equity, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder. For the Minister of Finance and his chief advisers, and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the advisers he has chosen, to design a tax system that is equitable is like designing the equitable laws they have designed on abortion: none of them have ever been, nor will they ever be, pregnant. A tax system should not be used for seeking equity but should be used to help the helpless and to promote the growth of the economy.
In contrast to that, Mr. Speaker, those who are really helpless in our country seldom find access to our social services, and the economy cannot grow because of the many disincentives and penalties built into our system against those who would normally use their ingenuity and initiative to make work for others and on those who should normally be expected to help themselves.
One of the great economic miracles of recent time has been the revival of Germany, a country divided by artificial borders and almost totally destroyed by World War II. Ludwig Erhard, one of its economic minister's, said: "This measure of the undisputed success of the policies demonstrates how much more sensible it is to concentrate all available energy on increasing the nation's wealth, rather than to squabble over the distribution of this wealth and thus be sidetracked from the fruitful path of increasing the nation's income." Even though it may appear to some of us that Germany is a highly socialized country, Ludwig Erhard also said that the new wealth produced must remain substantially in the hands of the producer.
Is it not obvious, Mr. Speaker, that a Canadian tax system should be designed to take into account human psychology and that the object should be to motivate Canadians toward greater productivity? I do not read anywhere in this proposed bill that the government intends to reward productivity and allow Canadians to enjoy the fruits of their labour to a greater degree. On the contrary, the increased portion of the total budget which the government intends to collect from individual taxpayers will make savings impossible for most people. Even the few who manage to put aside a small portion of their income will see their efforts eroded by two-digit inflation, a situation to which this government seems to have resigned itself.
It must be quite clear that this bill is another mile on a road that will lead to total dependency on the state, to centralization of power away from municipal, regional and provincial authorities-a road that will lead to socialism and worse. It was Alexander Hamilton who once said, "power over man's subsistence is power over his
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will". This government certainly intends to control the subsistence of an ever increasing number of people.
Power so assumed is applied in an ever increasing way against both private business and industry. We pretend to hold out incentives to industry to increase their productive capacity and to create jobs by enticing them to undertake marginal schemes. Often companies invest their time and capital and risk the sound base of their existing operations only to have the rules of the ball-game changed as soon as the enterprise shows any sign of success.
In the case of the oil industry, it appears to be the strategy of the government to create a climate which will eliminate any margin of profit and then to accuse the company of not being prepared to risk any capital in the pursuit of new resource exploration. This, the government hopes, will give it the excuse it needs to take over the industry and to produce the resources at cost. However, unfortunately for Canadians, Mr. Speaker, the cost of any government-produced service is usually double that of a private enterprise service.
This bill, as it relates to resource taxation, leaves no doubt in my mind as to who the rip-off artists are. The federal government has now found a way to tax corporations on income they have not even earned. After the imposition of royalties, which in some cases makes it difficult to market the product outside our country, the government also participates in the profit sharing on a fifty-fifty basis. It has also become necessary for provincial governments to protect themselves against the central power structure. In some provinces in western Canada we have governments which hope to protect themselves from federal taxation by nationalizing certain industries themselves. Crown corporations are, of course, not subject to federal taxation, but I conclude from reading between the lines that this will change in short order.
Premier Barrett of British Columbia, who has established a Crown company through which all natural gas must be marketed, finds that the imposition of a federal tax will not be based on what he steals the gas from the company for, but on what the federal government considers a fair market value. A Canadian author, in a recent publication, worked out a solution of joint ownership of mines between the federal government and provincial governments. He had in mind, also, the danger of foreign ownership in Canada. He said that the solution is for Ottawa to get the ore and the provinces to get the shaft. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, the costs of the various battles in the war of resource taxation in which both senior governments engage are meanwhile, of course, passed on to the Canadian consumer.
What is most disheartening about the approach applied by successive Liberal governments is the lack of understanding of the very special problems facing Canadians, which are vastly different from those faced by countries whose taxation systems we have followed. The cultural, emotional and psychological make-up of our people plays as large a role as the geographic and climatic conditions of our vast land. In a developing country like ours it is essential to realize that real income is not paper money
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that can be printed at will, but goods and services, and that somebody must produce these goods and services by dint of hard work. Individual Canadians do not fare well against the government in keeping ahead of inflation. The "borrow today and pay later" attitude works only for those who crank the handle of the printing press and those who do not need to borrow at all. However, a very significant number of our people have no choice but to borrow at interest rates of 16 per cent and 24 per cent to afford even some of the most essential amenities of modern living.
One would expect the tax system to be designated to encourage people to invest their money in more durable goods such as a family home instead of a new car every year. But anyone who expected the tax measures of Bill C-49 to bring some solution to the Canadian housing crisis was, of course, very disappointed. Had the minister been serious about attracting private capital to the housing market, I am sure he would have known what to do. The allowance for deductions for tax purposes of interest earned on capital invested would have been a solution and would have brought interest rates on housing down to a manageable level.
Mr. Speaker, what the minister's budget and his tax measures demonstrate to me most of all is that the present system of monetary and fiscal management is tired and old. It is so particularly since world trade is no longer carried on in a nice, cosy atmosphere and by rational, responsible world bankers. The third world and the communist countries have learned to use the tools of our own trade and are beating us with our own weapons. It is time we forged new tools and a bold, new system was worked out.
That, Mr. Speaker, brings me back to what I referred to earlier in my speech, namely, a system to which many modern economists have become attracted, known as "commodity monetization". In a narrow sense, we already practice the system with wheat from the prairies. I think the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) has also tried it with eggs, but he did not realize, of course, that only durable goods can be incorporated in such a scheme. The underlying principle would be to base the supply of money on the inventory of our resources in a finished or semi-finished state. A board could be set up to manage commodities such as oil, lumber, copper, nickel, aluminum and others. Only under depressed market conditions would the board become active, by buying up the troubled commodity at a price above but close to the cost of production. This would, of course, regulate the domestic price of such a commodity and, as is done with wheat, the government might decide to further subsidize the price for trade within our own country. My speech is so good that the Minister of Finance is coming to join us. I welcome the minister: he is obviously entranced with my speech.
After the recovery of the world price to the point where it would be more lucrative for companies to sell abroad, the commodity board could, of course, continue

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to supply the domestic market only at a price which would reflect a provision for interest and handling of the commodity. This would achieve domestic price control without interference by government in regulating incomes and wages.
Mr. Speaker, if one had applied this kind of system to the presently seriously troubled lumber industry, it would have prevented the lay-off of about 15,000 workers in British Columbia alone. Many plants throughout Canada will never go back to production. Incidentally, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie) seems to be talking only to the large corporations in that sector of the economy. It would have prevented serious hardships suffered by the service and supply industries connected to that sector of our economy. I have chosen the lumber industry because it is one which enjoys high labour intensity. Also, the investment by government would be very minimal after one deducts the high cost of keeping idle hands.
The scheme would require an investment of $4,000 per man per month, secured by marketable inventories at cost of production to the industry. However, were we to deduct the direct costs to government such as unemployment insurance, the loss of individual contributions to the tax rolls and, of course, welfare, the cost of one man-month of production in the lumber industry would be reduced to $2,800. It could easily be demonstrated how such a system would bring a government closer to a social contract with its citizens, which would contain as a fundamental ingredient a guarantee of work for all who are able to work. Not many countries in the world are, of course, in such an enviable position, blessed by nature and the abundance of resources-so any such economic system would be truly Canadian. Instead, however, of expecting any kind of departure from the course toward economic disaster which the government has charted for us, Canadians will be presented with an even more complicated tax form to complete after the measures contained in Bill C-49 are incorporated in the Income Tax Act, if they can be.
Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that the function of liberalism in the past was that of putting a limit on the power of kings. It must be the function of this parliament to put limits on the irresponsible acts of the Liberal government sitting to your right.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) is in a rush to push this legislation through, he would be well advised to refer to the section of our rules which has always prohibited the reading of speeches. In my opinion, this would shorten the debate and it would probably make it more representative of the areas which are being referred to than reading written speeches. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you could give some consideration to having such speeches tabled, if that rule were changed. In the meantime, I would suggest that the Minister of Finance interest himself in the subject. I would like to discuss two subjects. I do not intend to be very lengthy on either one.
[Mr. Oberle.l


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Arnold Peters: Mr. Speaker, you will note that there are comments, from hon. members who read their speeches, which are favourable to my shortening my speech. Whether I have notes or not really does not make much difference. One of the problems in this budget is that we are really not doing anything for the individual taxpayer in this country; particularly as hon. members have pointed out, in connection with housing. It would seem to me, and I am sure to many taxpayers, that if there were a reduction in taxes for low income groups, people would be able to purchase some of the goods which are produced in this country in addition to some of the other expenditures they have to make. Of course, one of these is housing. Many times it has been pointed out to the minister that $500 is not very much in relation to a $40,000 home. Does the minister know very many working people in this country who have been able to save $1,000 per year? If he does, I do not think he is dealing with people in his riding: maybe he is dealing with people in a riding which he formerly held, where I understand people are very wealthy.
Perhaps the minister has not considered some of the people in his own riding. Ottawa is not a cheap city in respect of housing: it is a city where housing is as expensive as almost any other city. I think if the minister looked at his own constituency, he would find that most of the people there are not putting $1,000 into the bank when they are paying the amount of rent they have to pay for an apartment, and other costs. I think it is safe to say that in his riding very few people are not paying at least 25 per cent of their income, or more, for rent-let alone saving $1,000. They will not be able to take advantage of this concession in the budget.
In my opinion, the minister can do something for the economy. I am perhaps not as much concerned with the inflationary side of it as I am with the ability of people to work in this country. Unemployment in my area is sufficiently alarming that I think a concession should be made to the average wage earner. I am speaking of those in an income category of less than $10,000 who should be given some advantage. If this principle were applied to the concession made on the building tax, instead of reducing the tax on building materials from 11 per cent to 5 per cent, if the minister had been willing to make a rebate to all those buying a house in proportion to the reduction in tax then I think the rebate would have gone to the purchaser of the home and not to the contractor or the entrepreneur in the building business.
I think, for this reason, that the minister should do something for the building trade, which is very heavily involved in the labour field, and the forest products industry, about which many members are concerned, particularly when the price of lumber has dropped as drastically as it has in eastern and western Canada. A very large percentage of the outlying areas depend on lumber as a basic resource industry, and this industry has been hurt very badly. This is a field where con-
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cessions should be made directly to the people who are going to buy the houses. Ii enough rebates, such as that of the building tax, were made to the individual buying a house, there would be no point in having a down payment on a house.
It is all very well for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) to talk about row housing, condominiums and apartments-but that kind of housing is not acceptable to 90 per cent of the country. It is acceptable to 80 per cent of the population living in the major cities, but not to the rest of the country. Most people want single family dwellings and are willing to accept shortcuts in the type of accommodation they can afford. For them to achieve this, the minister will have to provide better incentives than those outlined in the tax legislation.
There is another point which is very important to all Canadians. In the last few days I have been shocked to hear the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) talk about the concessions they are willing to make to the oil consortium which was formed to develop the tar sands. Mr. Speaker, I say, let them go broke: make every effort to see that they go broke so that the tar sands will fall back to the people of Canada to develop. The other day the minister said they were not able to raise half a billion dollars; but somebody in this country is raising $375,000 for an Olympic stadium.


Mr. Poulin:: Private enterprise.


William Arnold Peters: It is not private enterprise. We allow the Mint to provide coins at cost, and the profit from their sale goes to the Olympics. The surtax on postage stamps also goes to the Olympics. Free enterprise be damned! There is no free enterprise. Free enterprise originally stood for competitive enterprise. Who is competing? The oil companies got together to get as much as they could out of the government. Corporate enterprise in this country is the most highly subsidized sector of the economy: everybody who has studied it knows that. The Minister of Finance should be looking at whether we want to provide a huge rip-off for the oil companies, or oil for Canada at reasonable cost.
If the oil companies do not go ahead with the project-and I sincerely hope they do not-I am sure it will be easy for the federal government, in co-operation with Alberta and Ontario and probably with British Columbia and several other provinces, to find the money to establish a government agency to develop the oil sands and sell the production to the oil companies. It is interesting to consider one oil company in the tar sands operation now, Great Plains which is owned by Sun Oil of the United States. They are producing about 80,000 barrels per day.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: It is not Great Plains; it is Canadian Oil Sands.
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William Arnold Peters: I stand corrected. We will refer to it as the company that is operating. It is owned by Sun Oil, and that sufficiently identifies it. It is producing oil and selling it to its own company at whatever price it wants. It is easy to sell at less than cost and then charge this government for the loss.


John Napier Turner: You know me better than that.


William Arnold Peters: I thought I did. The concessions that have been made recently indicate that the oil companies will benefit, rather than the Canadian people. Now is the time for the Canadian people to take over this resource. Ontario is aware that they will either have to deal with the Arabs or join in a consortium of governments. They are not afraid of public enterprise; they probably have more enterprise under their Conservative government than all the public ownership in Canada, including airlines and railways.


An hon. Member:: You should be looking at the Ontario Northland Railway.


William Arnold Peters: They own their own railroad and their own airline. If they need something, and the only way to get it is to finance it themselves, that is what they will do. Ontario has plenty of money to invest in oil. If the minister's tax concessions go through, that oil will be sold at the international price, and from then on it will be difficult to run an economic operation. I am sure the minister has given consideration to those who hold the patents, the leases and all the other considerations. We have had employment problems for a long time now, with unemployment at over 5 per cent and in many parts of the country over 10 per cent. It is time the minister looked at some proposition which would provide employment for years ahead. I suggest oil is one area-and it should be run by public enterprise, not limited to the federal or a provincial government but to a consortium of governments. In this way, oil would be provided to the consumers of Canada at reasonable cost.
I say "Let them go bankrupt" when I refer to the tar sands consortium because of our experience with the railroads. The people to my right will say Canadian National Railways is nationalized-but if that is so, why have we never paid for it? There is as much money owing on that railway today as there was when we bought it. All we have paid is the interest on the money that the Canadian people paid for the Grand Trunk Railway. We have not had enough sense to transfer that into the general debt and handle Canadian National Railways as a Crown corporation. As long as we keep bailing it out, it is not a Crown corporation but an extension of government. Every time it shows a loss, the Canadian Pacific Railway is able to put its tax structure on the same basis. The Canadian people bailed out the Grand Trunk Railway and all the other railways that went bankrupt at that time.

February 3, 1975
Income Tax
Instead of bailing out the oil companies, why can we not develop our own resources ourselves? The minister can raise the money for the development of the tar sands and oil shale. This development will bring great future benefits to the Canadian people. The oil companies operating in this country have not done badly in the last 20 years and are leaving, not because of this country's tax structure but because they know there is not much new oil to be developed in this country from conventional sources. They know that our potential for oil, including offshore oil, is small. I predict that there will not be large oil finds in the Arctic watershed, and if you exclude offshore oil, not much conventional oil will be found in the rest of this country. Let us not kid ourselves about why the oil companies are removing their rigs.
If we do not want to depend on the Arabs, we should look to our government to develop our oil. In the long run, the government will regain its costs of developing the tar sands. Present expenditures for oil sands development are only the beginning. This is a long-term proposition and many plants must be built if we are to satisfy our needs. But, Mr. Speaker, the money which will be made from the oil will help the future development of this country, if the government does the developing. It does not matter if the money comes from the treasury or from borrowings; the return to the Canadian people will be oil at reasonable prices.
As surely as I stand here, if the minister, together with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, gives concessions to the oil consortium and allows it to charge as much as we pay for offshore oil, days of reasonably priced oil, even in western Canada, will be gone forever. Consider, also, what large-scale oil sands development will mean for employment in Canada. In the depression the Tennessee Valley authority program, begun under President Roosevelt as part of the new deal, revitalized the economy of the United States. Under that program useful work was done for reasonable pay. We should undertake that sort of development. If you subsidize the Seven Sisters and allow them to make as much in the next three or four years as they have made in the last three or four years, the Canadian people will suffer fantastic losses and the minister will long be remembered for subsidizing corporations instead of the people of this country.
The oil sands should be developed only by public enterprise. Some suggest that the government would not know how to go about developing the oil sands. Well, consider what the Conservative government of Ontario has done in developing atomic energy and hydro power. They can now produce three or four CANDU units a year which use some of the most sophisticated technology you can find anywhere; and this is done competitively. Development work done by Ontario Hydro is no less complicated, and perhaps even more complicated, than any work which may be necessary to develop the tar sands. Ontario Hydro has developed nuclear power stations at Pickering and the Bruce peninsula as part of a

public utility. They did not play around, as did the government of Nova Scotia which tried to produce heavy water but did not. I am not sure yet if Nova Scotia will produce it. Ontario Hydro, operated under public ownership, is producing heavy water at the Bruce peninsula. The reactor is working at 90 per cent capacity. The Hydro people are considering tripling their potential for heavy water production and increasing by six times their nuclear potential in the Bruce peninsula.
If we can develop nuclear generators under public ownership, we should be able to develop the oil sands under public ownership. So the Minister of Finance should meet with other finance ministers and say, "We will not give any concessions to the consortium developing Syncrude". If that means the consortium goes bankrupt-good. More than likely, they will pull out. The federal government and the governments of Alberta and Ontario have the know-how to develop the tar sands. They should use it. The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources has done much of the work which oil companies would use for the development of the tar sands-so why should the government not use such knowledge?
I hope the minister will give consideration to developing the tar sands under public ownership and involve other provincial governments in the development. Each province has an immense interest in oil and the price of oil for the next 20 years. Provincial governments will be willing to contribute to the development of the tar sands. In any event, if the government allows the consortium to develop tar sands it, the government, will provide most of the money-but we shall not see any of the benefits. We shall pay offshore prices for a product we shall have financed ourselves. Those members who believe in subsidized corporate development should examine this matter carefully.
Do not forget, farmers of western Canada use more oil than is used by any other segment of our population. Therefore, the people of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are just as interested in this question as their provincial governments are. It is quite possible to develop our oil sands as a public utility.
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I strongly urge the minister to make every effort to ensure that the Canadian people participate, through their governments, in the development of this project which will have long-term effects on the employment and ability of Canadians to compete with other countries at an advantage because of the natural resources which God has given us.


Mr. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-49. It is a pleasure to follow the distinguished speakers we have heard this afternoon. This bill has been brought forward by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner). I would be remiss if I did not state that I hope this is not the last financial bill brought in by this minister. I have read in the press that he faces a difficult decision as to his role in government. I sympathize
February 3, 1975

with him and hope he will decide to stay on as the best of a bad lot, rather than pack it up.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Bruce McKinnon: The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has been taking the load of economic responsibility unto himself. I do not think the Minister of Finance can be replaced by a financial faculty club, and I hope he decides to stay with us. I have read previous bills and budget speeches by this minister with a great deal of interest. One small facet that always interests me is the removal of names from the tax rolls. I suppose that is because some day I hope that I, too, will be removed from them. In one of his earlier speeches the minister stated that Mr. Benson had removed a million names from the tax rolls. He then proceeded to claim that he was removing another 700,000. This goes on year after year: hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are removed from the tax rolls. However, it is difficult to find anyone who has actually been removed.
When you check with the income tax department or Statistics Canada, you find that the number of people paying income tax seems to steadily increase, as does the amount of tax revenue acquired by this government from income tax. The minister's tax cuts always seems to increase tax revenues. This is just one of the anomalies of the type of fiscal magic that is produced by what is known as Benson tax reform. I will have more to say about this matter when we are discussing the financial plight of the accommodation industry in Canada.
This government likes to take credit for creating jobs through its budgeting. I say here and now that I do not believe governments create jobs. A wise government may create a situation, where industry can create jobs. Some governments, the present one not excepted, creates situations where it is extremely difficult for industry to create jobs. In this regard I quote as follows from an article by Richard J. Needham which appeared in the Globe and Mail.
Just as we've built up a climate of opinion in which politicians and bureaucrats are expected to provide employment for everybody, we've also built up a climate of opinion against the investor, the developer, the manufacturer-the very people who do make jobs, and would make many more jobs if they weren't so excessively taxed and hassled by governments.
It was so-called government tax reform which removed the incentive from people in the accommodation industry, taking away their entitlement to offset their income against a capital cost allowance on accommodation. It is interesting to look at the nomenclature which accompanies these changes in viewpoint. When we needed apartment buildings to house people, the government brought in incentives to builders and owners to build and own apartment buildings. Apartment buildings were built and people were able to find accommodation at reasonable rents. The government then turned around and started calling what had been an incentive a rip-off, a tax dodge or a tax loophole. They plugged this loophole about three years ago. The result was what everyone except the government expected a drastic shortage in accommodation, particularly for low-income people.
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The Minister of Finance has now brought out a new tax shelter with regard to apartment construction. However, it is for far too short a period. It is impossible for anyone to gather the money required to build an apartment, find a site, get it rezoned, hire an architect, have his plans drawn up and approved by zoning authorities at the municipal level and everything else in the short period of 13 months which is the period allowed in the act. In order to be meaningful, this provision must be for a much longer term.
The government, for a limited period of time, went back to the incentive in respect of apartment buildings. They would have been much wiser to admit they made a terrible mistake three years ago when they cut out the incentive. They should have admitted they made a mistake and gone back to the system whereby a professional person, or any other person with a high income, would feel inclined to invest their money in housing as one method of building up a family estate, as well as doing a service to the community by providing this accommodation.
May I call it five o'clock, Mr. Speaker?



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 Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie)-Copyright Act-Suggested amendment to protect authors against imported editions of their books; the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez)-Energy -Request for cancellation of sale of CANDU reactor to Argentine. Suggestion no further sales be made in view of lack of safeguards; the hon. member for Bumaby-Richmond-Delta (Mr. Reynolds)-Penitentiaries-British Columbia-Escape of two inmates-Suggested manning of towers 24 hours a day.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motions.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS


Erik Nielsen: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should immediately introduce legislation to implement the resolutions
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February 3, 1975
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of the Yukon Territorial Council and the Northwest Territorial Council requesting that the government apply those principles of constitutional and democratic development that will establish a fully representative and responsible system of government to the Yukon territory and the Northwest territories respectively.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that this resolution should be debated at this time, following on the heels of several days of meetings of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development considering the provisions of Bill C-13 to amend the Northern Canada Power Commission Act. I do not intend to refer to the evidence heard during the meetings of that committee and thus offend the rules. Things were said by representatives who travelled from both the Yukon and the Northwest territories which had a direct bearing on the resolution now before the House. It is not my intention to speak at length, in order that the resolution might come to a vote before the hour is out, though I think that is wishful thinking.
Never in my years here have I seen so many representatives travel from the north, from both territories, to appear before a standing committee of this House to make their views known. For some time the standing committee has been endeavouring to obtain authority to travel to the north in order to hear from the people. We are getting rather fed up, Mr. Speaker-I am sure members have discerned this impatience among northerners- at having constantly to traipse 4,000 miles here and then back, cap in hand, asking for audience with the "Great White Father".
Similarly, we are fed up with the constant decisions being made here in Ottawa and applied in the territories and in the north by what we sometimes affectionately refer to as the "instant experts on the north", those who travel from officialdom here, from their ivory towers, to the Yukon and the Northwest territories and return convinced they are fully aware of all the problems that beset those who live in the north. The Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development was extremely fortunate in being authorized by the House to travel to the Yukon in 1973. In December of that year, under the chairmanship of my hon. friend and colleague, by the constitution-the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Buchanan)-the committee did visit the Yukon and hold meetings at some length. At that time the subject matter of this resolution arose.
The members of the committee who attended the meeting in Whitehorse at that time were the following: the hon. member for Portage (Mr. Masniuk); the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Fortin); the hon. member for Sainte-Marie (Mr. Dupont); the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Pelletier)-to whom I will be referring in a moment since he seemed to express the view of those who attended on his side-the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling); the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil); the hon. member for York West (Mr. Fleming); the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald); the present minister, the hon. member for London (Mr. Buchanan); myself; the hon.

member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle); the hon. member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Dinsdale); the hon. member for Richelieu (Mr. Cote); the hon. member for Gaspe (Mr. Cyr), the present chairman of the committee; the hon. member for Rocky Mountain (Mr. Clark); the then hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Barnett), who is not with us in this parliament; and last but not least, the estimable member for Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Mar-chand), one-time parliamentary secretary to the minister of the day. We now have a new parliamentary secretary to the minister, the lovely lady from Skeena (Mrs. Campagnolo), who has impressed me in committee not only with her logic but with her charm as well. I hope that when these proceedings are exposed to her she and those of her party on that committee will support what I have to say.
The resolution simply calls, as we have been calling for years, for the Government of Canada to introduce legislation in the House which would implement the resolutions which have been passed by the councils of the Yukon territory and the Northwest Territories; but I will leave this to my hon. friend who will be speaking on behalf of the New Democratic Party.
At the outset, may I say I regret very much that the hon. member for Northwest Territories (Mr. Firth) cannot be with us today. Had he been here, I am sure he would have seconded this motion, as he did in committee when the motion was debated in Whitehorse. However, I am sure he will be well represented by the spokesman of his party. The most interesting part of the proceedings that took place in Whitehorse on that occasion, December 12, 1973, centred around the remarks made by the hon. member for Sherbrooke. If I might refer to part of what he said, as reported at page 140 of the committee proceedings for that date he said:
Since we arrived here we have seen all kinds of statistics concerning the park-
He is speaking of the national park.
-the wildlife and whatnot. Could you tell me approximately how many Yukoners would subscribe to the idea of becoming the eleventh province of Canada?
Mr. McKinnon, who was still a member of the Yukon legislative council, replied, "almost 95 per cent". He then came back again with a further question, which was more a statement than a question. The hon. member for Sherbrooke said:
What surprises me is that the latest addition to Canada was in 1949, and they wanted to become a part of Canada and they fought the elections and referendums on that. You are a part of Canada and yet from what I can see you are not full-fledged Canadians.
That, of course, is our chief complaint: we are secondary citizens of this country. Although required to impose taxes upon ourselves at the behest of the minister, the governor in council and the government of the day, we are not given even the power of a municipal government in regard to expenditure of these moneys. At least in the case of a municipal government, the mayor and aldermen not only have the right to impose taxes, but when revenues are raised by these imposts they have the right to
February 3, 1975

select how the money is to be spent. They can decide to spend so many dollars on paving, so many dollars on civic improvements, and so on. But even this power is denied the so-called elected representatives of the people of the Yukon.
Some advances have been made with respect to the achievement of responsible government in the Yukon. These started in 1958. When the Yukon Act was amended in that year we achieved some input through the creation of the advisory committee on finance. We achieved an enlarged council, from five to seven members. We achieved certain reforms with respect to the administration of justice and the setting up of our court structures in the Yukon. With a hiatus in between, these reforms have been continued, notably under the ministership of the predecessor in office of the hon. member for London. The council has been increased from seven to 12 members and an executive committee has been created on which now sit three members of the elected council and two civil servants. I was glad to see that change come about, because when it was first created the bureaucracy was sitting in a majority in terms of three to two.
I still maintain that that creation of the government is unconstitutional, because by virtue of the provisions of the Yukon Act the authority of the administration of the government of the Yukon lies squarely within the hands of the governor in council-in other words, the minister- who instructs his appointed civil servant, the commissioner, from time to time as the need arises. There is no constitutional authority which will permit him to transfer the parliamentary authority to another subcommittee or other body, whether it be the executive council or the executive committee. What should be done, as I said at the time and say again, is that these changes should be embodied in an amendment to the Yukon Act. We would then be sure that the composition of this policy could not be changed at the whim of a minister, which in fact is what has happened.
On the occasion of the meeting in Whitehorse, the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Pelletier) went on to say these words, and this was an expression of view that certainly was shared by all Liberals and other members of the committee, as displayed by the vote:
You can be sure that you have at least one person in Quebec who would subscribe to your idea.
That was in response to Mr. McKinnon's suggestion that we wanted responsible government and wanted the committee to endorse this resolution. I am sorry the hon. member for Sherbrooke is not in the House, as I am sure he would re-endorse the words he uttered then. The motion I put to the committee on that occasion was seconded by the hon. member for Northwest Territories (Mr. Firth). Incidentally, I put it there in French, but I would not dare to do so here. They understand little about French pronunciation in the Yukon, and for the sake of my French-Canadian colleagues on the committee I made that effort there. I moved,
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seconded by the hon. member for the Northwest Territories:
That your committee recommends that the repeated requests of the Yukon Territorial Council for government reform at the territorial level be granted and that Motion No. 1 of the council, dated January 23, 1968, submitted to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, be accepted by the government and that the government consider the advisability of introducing appropriate amendments to the Yukon Act.
I went on to state:
A copy of motion No. 1 is appended and each member of the committee has been given a copy of motion No. 1 dated January 23, 1968.
The chairman thanked me for that motion. The chairman, now the minister, also had some very interesting remarks to make in respect of that motion. They can be found at pages 145 of those proceedings. The chairman said:
Is there any other discussion on the motion? Motion agreed to.
Our present minister, who was then chairman, went on to say:
How do you like that? Now that we have passed the motion I do not know whether we are going to-
I interjected and said:
I think, Mr, Chairman, the record should say that it was passed unanimously.
Our present minister then said:
Right, it was a unanimous vote.
The present minister was not only expressing the sentiments expressed in the motion, but emphatically bringing it to our attention that the motion was passed unanimously. I do not think any member, including the member for Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Marchand)-who I see is in the House-who was present at the meeting on that date can gainsay the unanimity which existed on that occasion. How, then, could anyone suggest any different? I see the hon. member for Kamloops-Cariboo attempting to rise. I think I know what he wants to say. Before the motion was put to the committee I think he had an urgent commitment to meet elsewhere, and left before the vote was taken. Because of the rule which prevents me from commenting on the vote of any individual member of the House, I was not going to say anything-but I did anticipate the privilege which the hon. member probably wanted to draw to the attention of the House.
In any event, that is the way the motion went, and I am sure that had the hon. member for Kamloops-Cariboo been present, he would have joined in the unanimity expressed by the members of the committee, including the chairman who is now the minister, in respect of that motion. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, in the name of all that is reasonable, how any member opposite can now rise and take a view different to that expressed by the minister on December 12, 1973, in committee? How can they do that?


Mr. Watson:: Wait and see.


Erik Nielsen: The hon. member for Laprairie (Mr. Watson) says, "Wait and see". I have sat here in the
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February 3, 1975
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House and in committee, and on many occasions have heard him take one position in committee and another position in the House. I have seen him do that so many times it is not going to surprise me one iota to see him flip-flop the same way on this occasion.


Ian Watson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I have taken a consistent position on this subject in the Yukon and in this House over approximately seven or eight years. I will allow the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) to continue and make my position very clear a little later on this afternoon.


Erik Nielsen: I am not going to say anything about the arguments that have gone before. I could say, for example, that the minister who preceded the present minister had always put a price tag in respect of the Yukon people having democratic institutions. He always said that when we could pay our way, we would have responsible government. Another argument he used, to which I could refer but will not, is that we have not enough people and until we do we cannot have responsible government.
I have always drawn attention to the fact that in 1869-70, when Manitoba was carved out of the then District of Assiniboia of the Northwest Territories to become a province, it had only 1,051 eligible voters. Our last list was considerably larger than that. As far as the money argument is concerned, we all heard the parliamentary secretary to the minister and Councillor McKinnon say in the committee that even if they agreed with the argument, which they did not, the resource base in the Yukon now provides sufficient revenues to enable them to pay their own way. So if that argument was valid, it is completely destroyed by the economic conditions which exist today.
I do not want this resolution talked out, so I am going to suggest, with a maximum effort, to be reasonable and conciliatory that what we should do now is withdraw the resolution. I do not stop there. I do not think we should withdraw it, with that being the end of it, but for the purpose of what I am about to suggest it must be withdrawn. I suggest that the motion be withdrawn and that the subject matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and that the House give that committee the authorization to adjourn from place to place in Canada and that the necessary supporting staff accompany the committee.
I suggest that because from time to time there has been some doubt expressed by members opposite, I really know what I am talking about when I speak on matters concerning Yukoners and those in the Northwest Territories. There is some skepticism about whether I really tell it as it is when stating the views of Yukoners. The only way we are going to find out what those views are is by having the members of the committee go to the Yukon and to the Northwest Territories to hear the views of the people on the spot. I am sure they will leave committee members in no doubt whatsoever, and there is no doubt in my mind that the committee would report in the same manner it did in its eighth report to 
the House in 1973 in respect of the motion then passed unanimously in the Yukon. The rules do not permit me, as the mover of the resolution, to make that kind of motion. I would hope that my friend and colleague under the constitution, from the NDP, the hon. member for the Northwest Territories (Mr. Firth), will move the motion for me and that it will be seconded, because my motion in Whitehorse was substantially the same terms, by his colleague.
Having said that, I should like to conclude my remarks by expressing the hope that the House will accept the proposition and that we withdraw the motion and refer it to the standing committee, with authority to travel within Canada, to the north, to hear the views of the people.


Mr. Cyril Symes (Saul! Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to make a few remarks on notice of motion No. 13 that the resolutions of the Yukon territorial council and the Northwest territorial council for full and responsible government be implemented. I hope that the Liberal members opposite will not try to defer this motion by talking it out when we have reached the time of adjournment.
I am speaking on behalf of my colleague, the hon. member for the Northwest Territories (Mr. Firth) who cannot be here today because he is at an important intergovernmental conference in Edmonton on justice and the native people. I would like to take the opportunity to mention very briefly how very grateful we in the House are for the tireless efforts of the hon. member for the Northwest Territories on behalf of people living north of the sixtieth parallel. I think all hon. members will concede that it was due to his strenuous efforts that we now have convinced the government to introduce a bill very shortly that will provide for two members of parliament for the Northwest Territories. Certainly that is legislation that is long overdue.
Also, the hon. member for the Northwest Territories has been very active in the past week fighting against an excise tax of 10 per cent that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) was ready to impose on people travelling by boats with motors of over 20 horsepower. The hon. member gave a very good speech outlining how this would discriminate against trappers, hunters and native people in the far north who depend on boats as their primary means of transportation. We were very happy to see, as the result of his efforts, the Minister of Finance make an amendment to the Income Tax Act that will exempt travellers, hunters and those using boats as their primary means of transport from the 10 per cent excise tax.
I have had the distinct pleasure of travelling to the Yukon and meeting the people there and travelling about the territory. I was there for the founding convention of the NDP in 1973 and I was very much impressed, not only by the country up there but primarily by the people in the Yukon, their dedication and loyalty to the territory and their ability and articulation on the whole issue of
February 3, 1975

self-governmefit and democratic rights for the territory. I was amazed to hear first hand of the kinds of conditions endured by people in the two territories under our present constitution. It really boils down to being a colonial administration. The head of the government in both the Yukon and the Northwest Territories is a commissioner who is appointed by and solely responsible to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The elected representatives of the people sit in the Territorial council but lack authority and responsibility to govern their respective territories. They are summoned only at the commissioner's pleasure, and any proposals by the elected representatives of the people can be vetoed by the commissioner or the minister. The people of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories are quite conscious of this discrimination and are arguing vigorously for responsible government, the responsible government that we established once and for all in this country, I thought, back in 1838 with Lord Durham's report.
Why are people in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories second class citizens on matters that affect their daily lives? The arguments Ottawa uses today are the same that the British Colonial office and the Family Compact in Upper Canada used in the 1830s. Just as they were irrelevant then, they are irrelevant now.
I would like to quote very briefly from a speech made by the leader of the NDP in the Yukon, Mr. Tony Penikett, at the founding convention in 1973. I could not express it more eloquently and I believe that here we hear the voice of the Yukon. It reads:
We are 20,000 people in an area of 275,000 square miles. Many of us were born here. Many more came here seeking a new and better way of life. We all live here because we choose to. We all hope to make a better life for ourselves and our families here in the Yukon. In this hope we experience a great deal of frustration and anger in finding how little control we have over our own destinies. We live under what seems to be suffocating bureaucratic control of every aspect of the community. In so many ways it is clear to us that something is wrong. The government is out of sight and out of touch. In trying to find a pattern to government policy we can only conclude that the policies are directed towards making the north just like everywhere else, and if there is one thing on which we Yukoners are united in opposition to the government-it is that. We do not want the north to be just like everywhere else.


Erik Nielsen: May I inject a comment and say to the hon. member that the Liberal Association in the Yukon is also in favour of this resolution.


Reginald Cyril Symes: The problem is that the Liberal Association does not walk in the corridors of power here in Ottawa. Let me continue reading Mr. Penikett's speech as follows: In the past federal governments, have suggested certain criteria must be met before we can be allowed a responsible Yukon government. The most common criteria mentioned are sufficient population, sufficient money, and the legislative competence of the Yukon Territorial Council. But what have members to do with the principle of self government? What is the price tag on autonomy? How is an impotent territorial council to get a stab at balancing the Yukon's books, when they have no power to introduce money bills? It is an absurb and circular argument to say our territorial council is irresponsible because it is not responsible. Of course, it might be responsible, but not without responsibilities.
The Territories
In reference to the people of the Yukon, at the national convention of the NDP in 1973 a resolution was passed, that is now party policy, that the Yukon be given full provincial status. Of course, that means responsible government. Here we have in the Yukon people who have experience in governing without the power. We have people who have experience living in the north, knowing the conditions of the north, but their pleas fall on deaf ears when they come to the bureaucrats in Ottawa and, indeed, on many occasions the minister himself.
The situation in the Northwest Territories is quite similar. There are 38,000 residents there who, unfortunately, have to face the highest cost of living in this country, the lowest per capita income, the greatest transportation costs, the lowest health and nutritional standards, and the highest rate of infant mortality. This is a sad situation, despite the millions of dollars spent by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the many years of Ottawa conceived and directed policies which, of course, have not solved the problems of the Northwest Territories.
People in the Northwest Territories desire to change this paternalism, but they are frustrated, as Yukoners are, by the lack of self government, self government which all other Canadians enjoy. They have no real and effective voice in the decision making process. Time and time again they hear the phrase, "Ottawa knows best". How can anyone argue that Ottawa knows best when we look at the conditions surrounding the daily lives of people of the Northwest Territories? Even the recommendations of the government's own committees and other advisory bodies fall on deaf ears.
I would like to quote very briefly from a government appointed advisory committee on the development of government in the Northwest Territories which sat under the chairmanship of A. W. R. Carrothers. In its 1966 report it set forth as its first postulate:
Every citizen has a claim to participate in the institutions of of responsible government under the Canadian constitution.
It added this further postulate:
Every resident of the Northwest Territories for whom freedom of movement within and without the Territories is not a realistic fact has a claim to economic opportunity that will provide a standard of living that does not deviate substantially from the Canadian norm
We have had commissions and we have advisory groups. Again the government does not listen to them, just as it does not listen to the people living in the north. There are many key questions facing northerners upon which northerners have a right to express their views, questions which will affect their daily lives, such as the resource development of the north; the whole issue of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline and the economic and environmental implications of such a pipeline; the question of oil and gas royalties for people living in the north. We do not have time, but I could go into the absolutely ridiculous low rates of royalties which the federal government charges oil companies and mining companies in the Yukon and in the Northwest Territories.

February 3, 1975
The Territories
There is the question of land claims which must be faced. There is the whole question of the way of life of people living in the north. These are the people who are affected by decisions made here in Ottawa. These are the people who have a right, if we call this a democratic country, to have an effective voice in the government which determines how their daily lives will be spent.
Until there is responsible government in the two territories, crucial decisions affecting the daily lives of people living in the north will not be made by northerners. The time is long overdue for people in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories to have the same rights and responsible government which all other Canadians enjoy.
Because this is such an important matter and one about which we can procrastinate no longer, I would move, seconded-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: Order, please. I regret interrupting the hon. member, but I anticipate that he is about to make a motion, and the hon. member knows that there is now a motion before the House. There can be only one motion before the House at any given time. The hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) did indicate in his speech that he would ask leave of the House to withdraw his motion, and he must have unanimous consent to do so according to Standing Order 50.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, anticipating the motion that is to be made by my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes), I seek unanimous consent to withdraw my motion in order that he may make his.


@Acting Speaker: (Mr. Penner): The House has heard the request of the hon. member for Yukon. Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: There is not unanimous consent; therefore the Chair cannot permit the motion to be withdrawn.


Erik Nielsen: Is the hon. member for Laprairie (Mr. Watson) saying no and refusing his consent to the House?


Ian Watson: Yes, I am refusing consent.


Erik Nielsen: Shame.


Reginald Cyril Symes: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I was about to move an amendment which would recommend that the motion be withdrawn and that the standing committee be empowered to examine the subject matter of motion No. 13, and to travel to the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. I think this is a perfectly reasonable request. The hon. member for Yukon has agreed to withdraw his motion, and I cannot see why members on the Liberal benches oppose this important necessity to get a resolution of the problems in the Yukon.


Ian Watson: We happen to be here to protect the interests of Canada, and we want to have something to say on the original motion this afternoon.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, there is nothing to prevent the hon. member for Laprairie from speaking on the motion which is about to be made. He just does not want it to go to committee, and he does not want to hear the views of northerners.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.


Mrs. Campagnolo:: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


William Arnold Peters: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: The hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters) on a point of order.


William Arnold Peters: My point of order, Mr. Speaker, follows the point of order which was first raised. I see no reason why my colleague cannot move an amendment to the motion, which he was prepared to do. I see no reason why Your Honour should not give consideration to his moving that amendment. It does not need to involve the hon. member for Yukon at all. I suggest that my colleague can move an amendment asking that the subject matter of the motion before us be referred to a committee. I suggest that that is a perfectly legitimate amendment to the motion before us.


Erik Nielsen: Further on the point of order, Mr. Speaker, there have been many instances in the House where motions have been amended in the same way that the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie is seeking to amend this motion. One instance occurred last Friday where there was no vote taken; nonetheless, a motion for production of papers was amended. There have been instances in the past where motions, having been put, have been amended, and that is all that is sought here. Surely a member should not be precluded from doing so, particularly when the mover of the motion is fully in accord with the amendment, as I am and as I have stated, indeed to the extent of withdrawing it and having it replaced, in order that the voice of northerners might be heard on this matter. This is very crucial to them, and surely it behooves any member of this House not to stand in the way of the voice of northerners being heard.


Reginald Cyril Symes: Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to move the amendment, and I believe that is in order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: Yes. The Chair was concerned that a second motion was being put to the House, and I wished to keep each of these in order. I understood from the hon. member for Yukon that he was going to seek consent of the House to withdraw his motion, and we were simply following that procedure. I now understand that it is the wish of the hon. member to propose an amendment, and of course that is perfectly in order. Such an amendment may, at this time, be presented to the House, and it should be also presented to
February 3, 1975

the Chair so that a determination may be made that the proposed amendment of the hon. member is in order.


Reginald Cyril Symes: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters):
That the subject matter of motion No. 13 be referred to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development for further study and that the committee be authorized to travel to the Yukon and Northwest Territories to hear witnesses.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: The Chair has received the amendment. There is some question as to whether this is in fact a substantive motion and whether it can be put to the House. I would suggest that the House permit the Chair to reserve judgment and that we proceed with the debate. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mrs. Campagnolo).


Iona Campagnolo: Mr. Speaker, in speaking to the motion of the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) I must first of all thank him for his very kind personal remarks. I look forward to visiting in the very near future the territory which he so eloquently represents.
I find myself in great sympathy with the hon. member's point of view. Indeed, I even believe it is safe to say that the great majority of Canadian people would like to look with favour on the main thrust of the motion, that is, that the government establish a fully representative and responsible system of government in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
It is a matter of record that the two territories are at different stages of development. In fact a newspaper report of a recent committee hearing stated that a councillor of the Yukon said that they resent being lumped with the Northwest Territories, and that they resent being mentioned in the same breath as the Northwest Territories. So I believe it is safe to say that the motion as introduced may have some shortcomings in combining Canada's two northern territories, even if the desire is to create two separate political entities. It will be necessary during my remarks to differentiate at times between the two very different northern territories.
The second premise of the motion is that implementation be immediate. It is here that I come to the issue which must be dealt with, Mr. Speaker. The government's policy in this matter has been deary stated and effectively carried out. A national objective for northern development, announced in 1972, is to further the evolution of government in the northern territories. It is true that the concepts of representative and responsible government should be implemented on a gradual basis and at a pace suitable to the wishes and desires of northern residents, thus taking into account the ever increasing interest, participation and involvement of native northerners in government at all recognized levels.
The Territories
It has been stated by the former minister, who is now the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Chretien), that he did not see the designation of the two great northern territories to provincial status in the "near future". The government recognizes, however, the ever-quickening pulse of activities in the north and it could well be that acceleration of the long term view, at least in relation to the Yukon, could result from new development in that territory.
There is no doubt in my mind that there are some questionable benefits of provincehood, and I should like to bring these to the attention of the House. As my constituency shares a boundary with that of my good friend, the hon. member for the Yukon, I recently attended a meeting of the Yukon and British Columbia Chamber of Mines. In the course of this a grateful Yukon miner proposed a toast to the continued good health of our British Columbia Premier, Mr. Barrett, who was responsible for an upsurge in the Yukon economy by increasing resource royalties to the point where mining companies are moving out of my area into the more hospitable surroundings of the territory to the north. These closures have wreaked hardship on the people of my area, as miners and their families face the very personal disruption of unemployment and an uncertain future. In some cases the Yukon has been the unintended beneficiary of the vagaries of provincial politics in their southern neighbouring province.
In the territories we have a huge sprawling world that in many ways is significantly different from the narrow southern band of major population centres in Canada. A giant mountain range provides a natural barrier between the two territories. Geography is a major problem as well, in terms of distance. There are also varying degrees of administrative experience, of population, of tax bases and of economics.


Erik Nielsen: They drink more, too.


Iona Campagnolo: I guess they do. When you stop to consider that the population of the Yukon is approximately 20,000 people, the size of a ordinary town in the lower part of Canada, and that of its giant neighbour, the Northwest Territories, is 36,000 people, you get some idea of the difficulties in considering full constitutional status for the lands in question. I submit that the government of Canada is responsible to the nation as a whole as well as to the territories and I further submit, Mr. Speaker, that the nation as a whole cannot cede control of 40 per cent of the entire resource inventory of Canada to one-quarter of 1 per cent of the population of the country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Reginald Cyril Symes: What about Alberta?


Iona Campagnolo: The motion was prepared for the twenty-ninth parliament, I understand, and does not take into consideration recent amendments to the Yukon and Northwest Territories Acts as enacted by parliament in April, 1974, which, inter alia, provide for a fully

February 3, 1975
The Territories
elected Northwest Territories council presided over by a speaker rather than by the commissioner. In addition, this motion does not recognize the announcement in March of last year by the then Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development on increasing the number of councillors on the Yukon executive committee by one, and placing two extra councillors on the Northwest Territories executive committee.
The motion of the hon. member for Yukon is effective, however, in that it deals with the current evolution of territorial constitutional development, for that is the responsible course of action upon which we are presently embarked. Progress has been very definite as a result of the Carrothers commission inquiry of 1965 and the resulting report of 1966. One of the most significant recommendations was that territorial administration be moved from Ottawa to Yellowknife, and that was done within one year. Yellowknife became the new territorial capital-which I was privileged to visit not very long ago, at 46 degrees below zero! These two goals were implemented in 1967.
By 1970, the balance of the report was implemented almost in its entirety with a number of amendments to both the Yukon and the Northwest Territories Acts. Of course the Yukon had attained a fully elected council in 1908. The Northwest Territories council was increased to ten elected members and four appointed councillors-the good grey people to whom my friend across the way referred. The life of both councils was extended from a three to a four year term. Coinciding with that extension, the period during which the Governor in Council may disallow territorial legislation was reduced from two years to one. The Commissioners in Council in both territories were given additional powers in relation to sessional indemnities, expenses and territorial elections.


Erik Nielsen: But the minister can veto.


Iona Campagnolo: I would read to the learned member across the way a comment written here-''Parliamentary Secretaries beware!"


An hon. Member:: Of what?


Iona Campagnolo: Elected representatives are in the majority in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. The administration of Justice was transferred from Ottawa, with the exception of appointments to the high court which, of course, are a federal matter under the British North America Act, and the institution of criminal proceedings under the Criminal Code. There is progress in the evolution of the northern territories' representative and responsive system of government.
Not touched upon in the motion of the hon. member, but of great consequence, is the current negotiation of Indian land claims in the north. I submit that land claims become more difficult to deal with when a third level of government is involved. I can speak forcefully on this, having for some time wanted to find British Colum-

bia at the bargaining table when land claims in my province were being discussed.


Erik Nielsen: Quebec seems to have managed.


Iona Campagnolo: Perhaps that province had greater incentives. I submit that a third level of government introduced immediately, as the hon. member for Yukon suggests, would result in the same sorts of frustration and impasse as are being encountered at this time in British Columbia. I point out that these negotiations are extremely sensitive, and that progress is easier when the number of jurisdictions involved is lessened.
Recently the minister indicated that oil and gas royalty policies for the north are being formulated. We are near the time when government oil and gas royalty and taxation policies will be debated in this House. The north will be separated from other frontier areas, such as the east coast, for the purpose of petroleum taxation policies. The benefits of the resources will be directly shared with the people from whose land they are drawn. It will be a matter of sharing the cash which is made available from these resources.
At present the Northwest Territories annual budget is about $150 million, of which $100 million in round figures is a deficit grant. For the Yukon, the budget is approximately $58 million, of which about $19 million is a deficit grant.


Erik Nielsen: That is rubbish.


An hon. Member:: No, it is the deficit.


Erik Nielsen: It is absolute rubbish. I don't know where those figures originated.


Iona Campagnolo: I do not want the level of this debate to degenerate, Mr. Speaker. I have the figures.


Erik Nielsen: They are departmental figures.


Iona Campagnolo: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wishes to have a couple of minutes for rebuttal, I will be pleased to cede him my time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: Order, please. Although the parliamentary secretary may wish to give the hon. member for Yukon time for rebuttal, as the hon. member has already spoken, the Chair would not allow it.


Erik Nielsen: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would love a couple of minutes of the hon. lady's time, any time.


Iona Campagnolo: Mr. Speaker, in the words of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde), why not?
A councillor from the Yukon said in Ottawa last week that if democracy has to be paid for, the council is ready to pay for it. I believe that the hour is near when the Yukon should move to a more senior status; unfortunately, I do not agree that the moment is right now.
February 3, 1975

We have discovered that there are many ways in which this government is able and willing to bring about a gradual change in the evolution of self-government for the north. Since 1974 we have moved much more quickly in this direction than we did in the past. We have further amended the Yukon Act and the Northwest Territories Act to give substance to the government's objective of furthering this process, and this has been agreed to by the territorial governments. In the Yukon, the territorial council, as I said, has been increased. We recently met those people here, in Ottawa. I hope it will not be long before we can meet them in the Yukon.
The councils of both territories were consulted before these major changes were introduced. Representatives appeared before the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, to present their views. During the debate, in March, 1974, on second reading of the bill to amend the acts I have mentioned the then minister, now President of the Treasury Board, announced proposals to add a third councillor to the executive committee of the Yukon and to place elected councillors on the Northwest Territories executive committee. It is the intention of the present Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Buchanan) to ensure that these proposals are implemented, following council elections in each territory.
These programs are being carried out with the concurrence of the territorial councillors. The progress in constitutional development as outlined is ample evidence of the readiness of this government to honour the commitments set out in "Northern Evolution" which works toward full representation and responsible government for the Yukon and, ultimately, for the Northwest Territories.
The government believes that it is desirable to permit this development to evolve at a pace in keeping with resource development and the ability of the people of the areas to undertake responsibility. There is interest in seeing self-government by governments in the north as never before, but we must be careful that we do not move prematurely. We must be careful not to cut the people of the north off from the Voluntary process in which they are participating so fully at present. They must be given time to reflect on significant developments as they are implemented, and they must become aware of all the implications involved. This cannot be done properly if the change is too rapid.
It has sometimes been said that the federal government should transfer to the territorial governments its present jurisdiction over natural resources with respect to all lands outside municipalities. Those resources are spread across 40 per cent of Canada's land area and harbor, as I said, 40 per cent of the resource bank of this country. I do not think we are prepared to yield at this time authority over 40 per cent of our resources and 40 per cent of our land to one-quarter of 1 per cent of our people.
Only the federal government can give the financial assistance needed for the development of these resources; only that government can help the people who live in
Income Tax
the north. To impose upon those people the burden of provincehood at a time when they are small in number would be unfair and, I think, unjust. People must be prepared to accept the responsibilities of provincial government. I submit that as the Yukon has been separately administered since 1908, it is closer to the time of provincial status than the Northwest Territories. Therefore a motion linking them together does not deal with the subject this House ought to consider soon.
One must consider the immense financial burden of opening up the huge reservoir of the north. When we look at the expanse of the Northwest Territories, we are moved to this conclusion-


An hon. Member:: Six o'clock.


Iona Campagnolo: I will wait for Mr. Speaker.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Question.


Iona Campagnolo: If the territories were provinces, certain additional revenues would be available to them-


An hon. Member:: Question.


Iona Campagnolo: -from the resource field, but there would also be additional obligations.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the parliamentary secretary. The hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business having expired and it being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton) that Bill C-49, to amend the statute law relating to income tax, be read the second time and referred to committee of the whole.
Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, when I called it five o'clock, I was dealing with the difficulties that our tax regulations have caused to the accommodation industry in Canada, with a consequent disadvantage to those people looking for homes or rental accommodation, particularly those in the disadvantaged group with low incomes.
A few years ago people were able to set off some of their income against capital cost allowances on apartment buildings. This government, in one of its typical strokes of non-genius, decided to close that loophole. At the same time it removed the incentive for private funds of individuals to move into accommodation for their fellow citizens.

February 3, 1975
Income Tax
A change has been announced which will be effective for one year or 13 months. There will again be this opportunity for citizens who have money to invest. However, it is not receiving a warm reception, for several reasons. First, 13 months is insufficient time to bring plans for an apartment building, from the original idea to eventual construction start, to fruition. Second is the reputation that the government has established with this group of investors.
When the previous regime, that is up until 1971, took away this incentive retroactively, it did it in such a fashion that many investors had their plans for their family estate taken away from them overnight. These investors do not mind being stung once in a while, but they hate to be stung twice by the same organization. That is what the minister is trying to do at this time. The investor may well say, "It is very well for you to give me this incentive this year, but you may take it away next year, the year after or, as you did last year, up to five years in the future." No wonder investors have not rushed forward to put their money into accommodation. The government must have investment in rental accommodation. As I recommended before the dinner hour, it should admit it made a mistake and reinstitute the capital cost allowance and transfer taxation of personal income against depreciation.
I now wish to deal with what this tax bill is doing for our pensioners. On Friday last the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) suggested that all old age pensioners should have their income, as well as their pension, tax free. I discussed this with my colleague, the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich, over the week-end when we were visiting our constituencies. He pointed out he had neglected to mention that an upper limit should be put on this tax free income in order that there would not be a rush back to the native soil of some of our wealthier citizens from the Bahamas or Barbados to find a new tax haven in Canada.
What we are trying to do is suggest protection for those people who have followed the fashions of the times. When many of our older citizens were young, they worked hard and saved for their old age. Many of these people who now hold annuities and other small bits of income are being cruelly taxed. In addition, they are being denied the guaranteed income supplement to their old age pension.
Any person drawing the old age pension, who has saved his money and invested it in order to have a separate income of up to $150 a month might as well never have saved or invested a penny of it. He might better have spent the money on beer. Such people would now be drawing an equivalent income as they would qualify for the guaranteed income supplement which carries with it a considerable number of small benefits. It is this group who have been particularly badly treated by the present government.
Over the past four and a half years the basic old age pension has increased by just over 50 per cent. The guaranteed income supplement has increased over 200 per cent. Therefore, the condition is worsening. Those who were thrifty, frugal and saved for their old age are

being disadvantaged every day by this government which continues to bring in legislation that does not favour frugality.
The $1,000 exemption for pension income will, fortunately, be beneficial to quite a few people. However, it will not be beneficial to those who need it most, namely, those subsisting solely on their pension. They will not go into the bracket where they would get a great deal of benefit. As a matter of fact, some will get no benefit at all from the $1,000 exemption. This does not read too well when we consider that in his budget speech the minister said he would bring "significant relief to older people," that is, provided they are not the ones who most need significant relief.
My own attitude, and this is not party policy that I am espousing, is that pension cheques for the elderly should be tax free. I would like to see the basic old age pension increased as quickly as possible to the stage where it catches up to the basic pension plus guaranteed income supplement. I believe in this field I am called a universalist. I believe that each and every senior citizen in Canada should be given sufficient income for a reasonable means of livelihood in their old age.
Those who were thrifty and frugal and invested in the government should be allowed to reap some of the benefits of the trust, misplaced though it may have been, which they placed in their government by buying such things as government annuities.
In order to help our pensioners at the present time old age pension cheques should be tax free. There are several precedents for that, one of which is well known. I refer to the war veterans disability pensions for disabilities caused as a result of war service. They are tax free. I do not feel there would be any insurmountable problems for old age pension cheques also to be tax free. It would be much more simple than the regulations we have at the present time whereby an old age pensioner needs a tax consultant to tell him whether he has too much money. The old age pensioner has already formed his own opinion in this regard.
Laudable though it may be to index an old age pensioner's cheque against the cost of living, it is not laudable to pick the standard consumer price index as the guide for that indexing. Most old age pensioners do not spend their money on consumer price index items. They spend it on food and accommodation. Incidentally, these are two of the highest components of the consumer price index, food in particular. All too frequently an old age pensioner finds he must put items back on the supermarket shelf because he cannot afford them.
The cost of food has gone up 17.1 per cent in the last 12 months, yet the basic old age pension has gone up only 10.1 per cent. Surely that is an injustice that is obvious to the minister and to all hon. members in the House. Old age pensions should be indexed against food and shelter, not against the consumer price index.
February 3, 1975

I should like to suggest another thing the minister might consider including in his taxation bill. The minister has had great success with Canada savings bonds, I think mainly for two reasons. The first is that there has been a good rate of interest; the second is the provision that the first $1,000 of income derived from Canada savings bonds is tax exempt.
I should like to suggest to the minister that he consider having the coupons payable every six months instead of once a year. This is done with other government bonds; they are payable twice a year. Short-term paper can be made payable at almost any interval the investor wants. The old age pensioners would find it much more convenient not to have to wait until November of each year to clip their coupons and then ration them out over a 12-month period. Perhaps the minister would be kind enough to consider that suggestion.
I should like to speak for a moment or two about annuities, particularly government annuities. I have been receiving a steady stream of letters from my constituents, some of whom placed their faith in the Canadian government when it asked them to lend money to it in return for an annuity when they retired. I have already spoken of the disadvantages of an annuity which have been brought about through the fact that the guaranteed income supplement is not payable to most annuitants. If the annuity is the same amount as the guaranteed income supplement, then, of course, that benefit disappears.
However, I had not thought that even a government as callous as this one would see fit to deny annuitants the $1,000 exemption given a person who invests in government bonds. I realize that this money was paid over or lent to the government and was tax free, or could be deducted from taxable income at the time the investment was made. However, this money was lent at 4 per cent. Some say the percentage is even lower than 4 per cent, but I think 4 per cent is close to the mark. In some cases the government has had this money for 30 years, and for the last several years has been able to re-invest it at rates of 10, 11 or 12 per cent. Although it got it from these people at 4 per cent, the government does not see fit to make any return to them other than to pay the 4 per cent.
This Scrooge attitude the government has taken to people who have invested in the government is callousness that I do not even like to think about, especially when many of the annuitants are elderly citizens who found this money very hard to come by at the time the government asked them to invest in its good faith in order to give themselves a more prosperous old age. The advertisements put out by the government make very bad reading now when they declare, as they did in those days, that "the best investment you can make is in your government".
Another class of annuitants are those holding the 3 per cent perpetual bonds. When the minister of Finance in the Liberal government of 1937 or 1938 asked the people of Canada to help it renegotiate a lot of
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the outstanding debts of the government by buying perpetual bonds, these bonds were supposed to bear the same rate of interest for 30 years, if my memory serves me correctly. Then in the late 1960's they were to be subject to redemption, or whatever the government decided to do with them.
As it turned out, Mr. Speaker, the government decided to do nothing with them. The government has had 3 per cent money and it intends to keep it that way. A lot of people in Canada are stuck with these bonds. Their value is down in the $40 range for each $100 paid in, and the government has set no date when these bonds that cost $100 each will be worth $100.
I most strongly suggest to the minister that he consider this way out of getting rid of this annoying lack of faith, or lack of goodwill, that the government has shown over the years. I understand there are not very many of the original investors left, but there are several million dollars worth of these 3 per cent perpetual bonds being held. I therefore strongly recommend to the minister that he set a date for the redemption of these bonds, say 10 or 20 years ahead. These bonds would then increase in value, at least giving the holders the knowledge that there will come a day when once again their bonds will be worth what they paid for them back in the 1930's, and they can escape the trap that they are in at the present time.
I should like to mention another inequity displayed by the government's attitude toward pensioners. I refer to the pensions of servicemen. With great fanfare the government introduced, some time ago, indexing of servicemen's pensions and has been quick to proclaim ever since that servicemen's pensions today are indexed. They are, Mr. Speaker, provided a serviceman can meet the specifications of the iniquitous 85 rule, the rule that says you must have enough service which, when added to your age, equals 85.
For several years these pensions have become payable at age 60. Add 25 to 60 and you have 85. Through the magnificent generosity of this government the 85 rule now requires, first of all, that a serviceman must be at least 55 years of age, which means he must have 30 years' service to bring him within the 85 rule, to bring him within the magic circle. Some servicemen do have 30 years' service. But the saddest part of all is that it is usually the senior officers who have 30 years' service, not the private soldier or rating.
In fact for many years the Royal Canadian Navy forbade petty officers serving more than 25 years. Therefore, if a rating in the navy served 25 years, he must wait until he is 60 years of age before his pension becomes indexed, which gives him absolutely zero benefit from the indexing that the government proclaimed in its great act of generosity. As a member on this side of the House suggested a few weeks ago, the government should see whether it could not decide to introduce a 75 rule instead of an 85 rule, thus giving a little benefit to the ranks instead of to senior officers who are allowed to serve for 30 or 35 years and thus have their pension indexed immediately upon leaving the services.

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Let us think about the junior ranks with no opportunity to build up this kind of service by serving until they are 55. Personally, I do not see why the government should expect certain of its employees to suffer a gradual cut in pension year by year as inflation goes up. Their pensions are reduced, not in dollar amount but in purchasing power, in direct proportion to the amount inflation increases.
In closing, I commend the minister for his attempts to bring about some improvements in the situation faced by pensioners, though we will have to study this bill carefully as it goes through the House. The $1,000 deduction has merit. I should like to see some similar benefit given to those people who do not have high incomes but are just getting by on their pensions.
Finally, I should like the minister to consider seriously what I said at the start of my speech before dinner. I hope he will not be discouraged by the outrages that fortune is handing him these days, depriving him of the opportunity to give economic counselling to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), who apparently prefers a group of academics.
As I look at the benches on the government side I ask myself who would replace the minister if he left, and I find it very worrisome that the person who can sit and look over his left shoulder is the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Goyer). I hope his position in the House is not indicative that he has been placed there to learn the minister's job.


Mr. Yves Demers (Duvernay):: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on a subject as important as Bill C-49. I would like to take this occasion to congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) not only for his presentation of his last budget but also his previous ones that certainly contributed a lot to making Canada the best off country in the world today from an economic standpoint. I also think a very good budget was introduced this year since, for example, it will promote housing construction. In fact, first time homebuilders will get $500. They can have a pension fund up to a maximum of $10,000, provided that pension fund is used as down payment on a house. The tax on building materials was also considerably reduced.
There is also an item 1 like very much in that budget, the one that allows all Canadians to reduce their interest income by up to $1,000.
The purpose of that $1,000 reduction, as we know, was to cut down inflation by cutting down demand. There is no doubt that all Canadians are interested in investing money to benefit from that $1,000 exemption, and if they put aside $10, $20 or $50 a week that is that much less money going on the market, thus reducing demand.
But one thing worries me a lot, Mr. Speaker, about that $1,000. Government officials put in so many limitations

that that $1,000 exemption nearly does not apply anymore; at least it will not apply in most cases to income housing owners, businessmen, farmers, fishermen, and professionals. Here is why. In the guide to 1974 income tax returns, at paragraph 35, one reads the following. The first part tells us that Canadians will be able to deduct from their interest income up to $1,000 but the second part sets out conditions, and here are those conditions. The text reads as follows;-Further, deductible interest income must be reduced by the total amount of all interest deductions claimed in the computation of revenues from all sources appearing in the income tax return. These amounts include, among others, interest on loans or mortgages deducted as expenses from rental income, or when computing the net income of a personal business of a professional or a farm operation.
Therefore, as I just indicated, all rental housing owners, businessmen, farmers, fishermen and professionals who had to borrow money from a bank, or a mortgage lender, or from the Farm Credit Corporation, or through buying machinery under lien, must deduct all such interests from their interest income, before claiming the $1,000 deduction This also has the effect of eliminating 80 per cent of all those people.
Here is an example: let us take two individuals, a salaried person and, say, a farmer I might have chosen a businessman, a tobacco store owner, a shoe manufacturer or the owner of a rental housing project. Let us compare these two persons, each with a $30,000 capital for instance. If one of them has his money fully invested in Canada Savings Bonds, and earning say 10 per cent interest, he will have a $3,000 income.
On this income he is afforded a $1,000 exemption, so $2,000 only are taxable. On the other hand, take the farmer with the same $30,000 capital, assuming his net income is also $3,000. He has, $20,000 invested in his farm and $10,000 in Canada Savings Bonds. From farming revenues, he has to pay the bank interest on loans. If his farming revenues average 10 per cent of his $20,000 investment, he will have a $2,000 farm income, and a $1,000 Canada Savings Bonds income, making a total revenue of $3,000, just as his neighbour. But since he must subtract from his deductible interest income all interests paid on bank loans, before he is entitled to tax credit, he would therefore be taxable on the full $3,000 amount. He does not therefore get the $1,000 exemption.
The officials that proposed all those criteria undoubtedly had an objective in mind. They clearly did not propose that without a purpose. They wanted to remove what is called a loophole in accounting. This loophole would have been as follows: A farmer who owned his farm completely, did not owe any money to the Farm Credit Corporation, on his machines or to the bank and had no money invested in Canada Savings Bonds could do this: He could borrow $10,000 on his farm, deduct from his farm revenue the $1,000 paid in interests, and with this $10,000 buy Canada Savings Bonds for an equivalent amount, which would give him an interest income of $1,000 tax free.
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To plug this loophole, the bill has been written so that in practice no owner of rental houses, no businessmen, no farmers, no fishermen and no professionals will be able to profit from this $1,000. But all the loopholes have not been avoided since the largest businessmen will still benefit as most of them form companies which can deduct their interests on loans for income tax purposes. They, on the other hand, often declare only two income sources on their personal income tax returns: first, a salary from their company, second, an investment in Canada Savings Bonds, which entitles them to $1,000 tax free interest.
Therefore, those who will suffer from this are the smallest businessmen: the farmers, the operators of small restaurants or small tobacco shops. For them it is not profitable to form a company.
I strongly recommend to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) and to all members that the part which says that all expense interests must be deducted from income interests be completely removed from clause 70 of Bill C-49.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) last week, in which he continued his performance of last November when he seemed to assume that this country could ignore the world situation, the very rapid increase in unemployment in almost every industrialized country, and inflation in Canada increasing at the same rate as in most other countries in the western world.
When the minister introduced his budget last November, he predicted-I am speaking from memory but I know that I am not far wrong-growth in the neighbourhood of 4 per cent to 5 per cent in real terms. If there is one thing which has become obvious it is that there is no way in which we will have that kind of growth rate in Canada. We are being adversely affected, as is every other country in the western world, not only by the very sharp increase which has occurred in the world price of oil, but by the real recession which is facing the United States at present.
Unemployment in the United States is now in the neighbourhood of over 7 per cent. Mr. Greenspan, President Ford's major economic adviser, has predicted that unemployment in the United States will rise to 8 per cent. Since government economic advisers in the United States have been as apt to underestimate the rate of unemployment as similar advisers have been in Canada, it is likely that unemployment in the United States will reach not the 8 per cent which Mr. Greenspan predicted but in fact in the neighbourhood of 9 per cent or more.
In Canada we are facing the same kind of problem, although a little less obviously. Unemployment in December, according to figures released by Statistics Canada reported on January 15, jumped to 6.1 per cent on a seasonally adjusted rate. That was the highest rate in almost two years. The unemployment situation, while
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spread out across the country, was the most serious in those parts of Canada which are traditionally plagued by unemployment and which can least afford it, namely, Quebec and the Maritime provinces. In Newfoundland, the rate went up to 16.4 per cent; in Quebec it was 8.1 per cent; and in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick it was also very high.
We have been reading a great deal about the serious situation in Europe, but none of the countries of western Europe have the kind of unemployment rate which Canada has. We read almost daily that in Great Britain everything will come to a halt, and yet the unemployment rate there is less than half the rate which exists in Canada. Nevertheless, the minister now proposes income tax measures which will not deal with the situation at all.
We are facing a rate of inflation in the neighbourhood of 12 per cent a year. That is a very serious matter for every Canadian citizen, but it is particularly serious for people in the lower income brackets because for them it is not only a serious matter or an inconvenience, it is an absolute disaster. When we talk about an increase in the cost of living of 12 per cent, we are talking about an increase in food costs of about 16 per cent, and an increase in the cost of housing of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent.
It is the people in the lower income brackets who spend a very large percentage of their total income-a much larger percentage of their total income than people in the middle and upper income brackets-on the basic necessities, on the essentials of food and shelter. So for them the increase is not just 12 per cent but is probably in the neighbourhood of 18 per cent to 20 per cent.
What is the minister proposing for those people? Virtually nothing. What has the minister proposed to do about unemployment? Almost nothing. The minister is counting, as Liberal governments have traditionally counted, on the private sector to pick up the slack. It is the private sector of our economy which has failed to pick up the slack and which has not provided the jobs. The resource industries have continuously ripped off the public by charging too high prices, and by making scandalous escalating profits, about which the minister has done nothing.
In fact what the minister proposes to do is to permit the resource corporations to make larger profits by reducing the taxes on the resource industry and by trying to force the provinces, which have moved into the field of taxing resource industries, to back away by threatening to tax resource corporations, something which no federal government has done effectively until the last year or so.
Although I could not agree with it, I could understand more concessions being given to the resource industries if they were doing poorly and if they were not making legitimate profits. But that is not the case. I have on my desk the Financial Times for January 27, 1975, which contains a profile showing the profits for the last five years, from 1968 to 1973, of 100 of the largest companies

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in Canada. They do not have the 1974 figures, but we know that all the reports which came out in the year 1974 showed sharp increases over 1973.
Let me put a few examples on the record as reported in the Financial Times to show what I mean when I say that the minister does not have to do for the resource industries what he proposes to do. Here we have some of the "small corporations" about which the minister seems to be so concerned, and which he feels he must defend against the rapacity of the provincial NDP governments of Manitoba and British Columbia and that great radical government, the Conservative government of Alberta, the government of Peter the Red, as one of my colleagues says.
Here we have International Nickel. In 1971, it had a net profit, after all taxes and expenses, of $94 million. In 1972 its profit went up to $109 million; in 1973 to $226 million. Imperial Oil in 1971 had a profit of $141 million; in 1972 of $157 million; in 1973, $228 million. MacMillan Blcedel from the province of British Columbia, in 1971 had net profits of $22 million; in 1972, $37 million; in 1973, $81 million


Mr. Nyslrom:: That was a bad year.


David Orlikow: Chrysler Corporation, which until this year was raising its prices each year, in 1971 made a profit of $84 million; in 1972 a profit of $22 million; in 1973 a profit of $255 million.
That is the kind of profit the large corporations in this country were making, and in 1974 even larger profits were made. What does the minister suggest in his tax proposals? He proposes to make it easier for them. But he is not satisfied this year just to help the really large corporations. This year he proposes to help not the people at the bottom of the income scale in this country, the people who are being hurt by increased costs, those who are really feeling the pinch of inflation, but those in the middle income brackets. Those are the oeople who can afford to save. What does he propose? He says, for example, that anyone who earns money from investments, in interest or dividends or private pension incomes, will not be taxed on the first $1,000 of such income. The minister says to a person who can afford to save $1,000 toward a house that, if he puts it into a registered home ownership savings plan, he will not have to pay any income tax on that $1,000.
I would not mind those proposals if the minister were doing something for people at the bottom of the income scale, people who just get by, people who spend all the money they earn from their jobs or every penny they get through a pension, private or public. He could do that by instituting a system of tax credits so that, for example, a tax credit of $200 per year would go to every adult in Canada whether he is an income earner or not. This would help people who are on pensions or welfare, and who do not pay income tax. It would also help people at the bottom of the income tax scale. But what does the minister do? He proposes percentage tax cuts, 5

per cent for 1974 with a floor of $150 per year. This means a tax cut for most workers who are married and have two children of about $3 per week. But that 5 per cent can mean a reduction of $500 reduction for people in the upper income bracket.
I have not computed my income tax yet, but for 1974 it probably means close to a $500 reduction for members of parliament. This is not the time to discuss the indemnity for members of parliament, but I think that we can afford to forgo that $500 much more than the man earning $6,000 per year with two children who will be getting only $150 tax reduction.
For the year 1975 the minister proposes a tax cut of 8 per cent. That will mean a minimum tax cut of $200 per year, or about $4 per week for people at the bottom of the income tax level and a maximum tax cut of $750, or a cut of about $60 a month, for people in the upper income brackets.
If you look at the unemployment rate, which is at a two year high and which is going to increase very substantially, and if you look at the effect of inflation, you will realize that we need an expansionary budget.
We do not need a program of tax gimmicks, the kind the minister has proposed, or of small benefits to people in the middle income bracket, and large benefits to corporations at the top. What we need are tax cuts for people at the bottom of the income scale. These are the people who, if they were given tax cuts, would spend every dollar and put people back to work. What we need are tax cut in the form of tax credits for people at the bottom, people at the lower income levels, including the hundreds of thousands who do not earn or have enough income to pay taxes, so that they can benefit from the wealth of this country. Instead what we get are the kind of gimmicks which I have talked about.
One which I did not talk about, but which I wish to discuss now, is the proposal which the minister made to induce private investors, the doctor, the architect, the small businessman, to put their money into the building of housing units and into the building of apartments. I tried to trace down the origin of that type of proposal, and to the best of my knowledge that kind of proposal first came to light in the United States. It was proposed by President Nixon in one of his last budget proposals. If there is one source which the Minister of Finance should not look to for advice on the budget, or anything else, it is from the former president.
What should we be doing in this budget? What the government should be doing is working with the provinces and with the municipal governments to develop programs which will put people back to work. There are 20,000 or more lumber and forest workers unemployed in British Columbia. There are lumber workers and forestry workers in the Maritime provinces who are unemployed. Why are they unemployed? To a large extent they are unemployed because the recession in other countries, particularly in the United States and in Japan, has sharply curtailed the building of houses. Our exports of lumber to those two countries has plummeted
February 3, 1975

very markedly. At the same time the number of housing starts in Canada have been reduced at an alarming rate.
I am speaking from memory, but it seems to me that last year we built over 250,000 homes, and this year the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) has said that the objective of the government is to build 210,000. Why are we building fewer homes? Why has the minister set a goal of 40,000 homes less than last year? Is it because we do not need the houses? Of course that is not true. Hundreds of thousands of families in Canada need housing or are living in inadequate housing.
In my own city of Winnipeg there has been a substantial increase in the number of units built for public housing in the half dozen years, but there are still 1,500 families who have indicated to the housing authority that they need accommodation. Yet the federal government is cutting back on the money it makes available to the provinces.
How many of those 20,000 unemployed workers in British Columbia could go back to work if, instead of the 210,000 units which the minister proposes to build, we were to build the 300,000 that are required? We have the resources, Mr. Speaker-the lumber, the copper. Workers who produce refrigerators, electric stoves and gas stoves needed for new houses have been laid off in large numbers because of the drop in housing starts in Canada. Why did the Minister of Finance not get together with the Minister of State for Urban Affairs and set a goal which was realistic, and which would put people back to work?
In the province of Manitoba we had a program which put several thousand people to work these last few winters when unemployment was high. The provincial government developed a program under which any old age pensioner who owned a home which needed repair could get up to $1,000 for improvements. That is a socialist government, but why does the Minister of Finance not consider such a program nationwide, financed by the federal government? I can assure him that most old age pensioners living in their own homes cannot afford to make the necessary improvements to the heating system, the plumbing system or the insulation. Why does the minister not consider that type of program instead of the tax concessions he has given to those who can do without them?
But what did the minister do? Speaking to the Toronto branch of the Canadian Club he said that we are going to need a system of voluntary restraints, that everbody will have to tighten their belts. Let me quote two paragraphs from his speech. He said:
Now the major driving force is coming from the rapid escalation of wage and salary costs as those who work in every country press for increased incomes to at least keep pace with the rising cost of living. . .
If we can succeed in reaching some national understanding on goals for moderating the rise of costs and prices, we may hope not only to bring inflation under control, but also to reduce the industrial strife which impedes our economic expansion.
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Where was the minister in 1972, Mr. Speaker? Where was he in 1973-where was he in 1974 when profits were going up by 15 per cent to as much as 100 per cent, in some cases, for the large corporations? Was he preaching restraint then? Was he calling for the corporations to moderate their profits and to cut prices? He was conspicuous by his silence, Mr. Speaker. In those years wages were not rising enough to meet the increasing cost of living, but the minister was silent about profits.
Now when wage contracts, which in many cases were signed before this very sharp increase in company profits, are coming up for negotiation, workers are going to the bargaining table wanting to make up what they lost. They want also to be sure that wage and salary increases will protect them against the 12 per cent inflation forecast for 1975. And, suddenly, the minister gets religion. He calls on the workers to show restraint.
I do not know how the minister can have the gall, the brass, having been converted at such a late date, to ask one of the sectors of the economy which has suffered most from inflation and exorbitant profits, to be sensible, to be moderate in its demands. If the minister really believed in restraint, he should have talked about it last year, and the two or three years before. It is far too late now.
The real problem facing this country is unemployment. There are now more than 40,000 auto workers unemployed in the province of Ontario. If we keep in mind that one job in seven in that province originates in and around the automobile industry we can see the severity of the problem. Ontario is the largest and wealthiest province and it sets trends, good and bad. It is not just the 40,000 automobile workers who are affected but those who produce the steel, the copper, the zinc and the nickel which go into automobiles. It is the people who produce glass, rubber and everything else which goes into an automobile who are adversely affected by the slowdown in the automobile industry.
Can we do something to help? The automobile companies, which in the last 25 years have made increasingly large profits, and charged more and more every year for their automobiles, when suddenly faced with a tremendous backlog of unsold cars in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in Canada, have suddenly offered rebates to purchasers of their cars. The rebates range from $200 to $500 per car. I said earlier that the profits of Chrysler Canada have increased tremendously in recent years, and Chrysler is not the most profitable of the big three auto makers. The automobile companies could well afford to offer rebates; their profits were so large that they could have cut their prices at any time.
When the Canada-U.S. auto pact was first brought before parliament for approval a number of years ago, we were told that the price differential between a car sold in Canada and a car sold in the United States would be reduced, and indeed eliminated. Under the pact, automobile production has been rationalized, so that in Canada we now produce a smaller number of car models.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Sick.


David Orlikow: The hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) says "sick". He was also on the trip. This is not the time or the place to go into detail, but they have the ambition to put such programs into effect. If someone is not working they immediately try to find him a job or upgrade his skill. We do not have such an ambition in Canada.
We should be discussing ways to deal with the more than 20 per cent of our people who live in poverty. How can we do that? We can do that by increasing the amounts paid to those living on pensions, welfare, or who are sick and cannot work. We can do that by cutting taxes for people in the lower and middle income brackets. Last but not least, we can do that by ending the welfare program for the corporate sector of the economy, something which has been carried on for too many years. We must plug the tax loopholes for the corporations and large businesses in this country.
We should adopt the basic recommendation made by the Carter commission, which was appointed by a Conservative government to look into the tax structure in Canada. That commission recommended that we plug the tax loopholes. It stated tax should be paid based on the ability to pay, that a dollar of income is a dollar of income, whether earned by a man digging ditches or by somebody clipping coupons as a result of investment in
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one of the large corporations. If we did that, we could meet the needs of the Canadian people, for better nutrition, health, housing-


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


David Orlikow: I wonder if I could just complete my sentence, Madam Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Is there agreement that the hon. member shall continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


David Orlikow: If the minister would adopt some of the suggestions which I have made tonight, we in this party could vote for his income tax proposals. However, I am certain the minister will not do that. He will not listen any more tonight than he has in the past. That being the case, it is likely that we may vote against this bill.


Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskaloon-Biggar):: Madam
Speaker, I will take notice of the brevity of the previous speech and try to confine my remarks to a few comments which I hope will be taken as constructive suggestions to the minister and the government.
I want, as many of my colleagues have done, to make reference to the fact that the minister has been working hard with regard to the matter of determining guidelines for our country with respect to the whole question of inflation. I sincerely commend the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) for the various moves he has taken in this regard. I can see it is a difficult job.
In my short stay here I have come to realize that the minister has very serious problems. Not the least of those problems is the question of trying to give leadership within cabinet with regard to restraining expenditures on the part of government, keeping government spending down to a reasonable limit so that the inflationary trend now being experienced in this country will in fact be modified.
I find a situation developing which is difficult to understand. While the minister is attempting to give some leadership and guidance to his colleagues, his position is being undercut because of the appointment by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) of his own elite group of advisers. That is unfortunate. The Minister of Finance deserves better treatment from the Prime Minister when engaged in an attempt to deal with the great problems which face this country today.
The government is not dealing with the Minister of Finance on a proper basis. With this group of advisers, the government is trying to go in all directions with regard to economic planning. As far as this country is concerned, this is a reprehensible turn of events. I look forward to the Minister of Finance being involved in the future planning of our economy as opposed to a select group in the office of the Prime Minister.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
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Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I appreciate that I have support on the other side of the House when I make these constructive suggestions.
As far as the minister is concerned he is surrounded by very competent officials. He has an outstanding parliamentary secretary who is in the House taking notes on everything that is said on this side, ready to adopt our suggestions, no doubt, to be used in future government proposals.
I do not believe that the suggested reductions in personal taxation will be sufficient to restrain the demands of wage-earners for increased cost of living allowances in 1975. If restraints are not achieved, 1975 will be a year of above normal work stoppages with the resulting loss of productivity, thereby defeating one of the objectives of the budget for improved productivity. Indeed, if the cost-push effects of our present inflationary economy are to be neutralized, and they must, then there must be sufficient incentive provided to accomplish an immediate cooling-off period for wage demands. I believe that a 10 per cent tax reduction in personal taxation would provide this incentive. A 10 per cent rate of reduction would be more in line with the current rate of thrust of our inflation. With this equalization of trends downwards, personal tax reduction-and upwards, inflation-it would provide a more acceptable basis for some agreement relative to restraints in wage demands for 1975. The growth of government over the years has been great. The fact of the matter is that there has been such an increase in the growth of the public service and of government itself, that some economists are prophesying that within 15 to 20 years roughly 85 per cent of all expenditures in this country will be attributable to government. Competition between government and the private sector for capital, materials and manpower is keen and is a contributor to inflation. At the present time the government is winning the fight to gain a larger share of each of these resources. As a result the private sector continues to experience difficulty in meeting demands on its facilities and resources for the production of materials to meet the requirements of domestic and export markets, and as a consequence there is a continuation of the upsurge in inflation.
If the private sector is to regain the competitive position that it held prior to the era of rampant government expenditure, some very bold and substantial restraints on government spending are required. I implore the government to take steps to come to grips with this question of government spending. I realize that this whole question is a complex and difficult one; to use a term current nowadays, increasing government spending has become almost irreversible.
I suggest that the cabinet should find some system of priority in regard to government expenditure, and that leadership be shown by the government in its own dealings. I implore the government to give serious thought to strengthening the hands of the Minister of Finance

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when he comes to his colleagues and asks them to exercise restraint in this difficult time.
I hope the minister will be successful in his attempts in cabinet to have his colleagues exercise restraint, which in turn will be supported by all members of the government party. This leadership by the government will set an example, I suggest, to other levels of government, and would have a worth-while effect upon our economy. It would moderate inflationary tendencies, with the secondary result of having a major influence on moderating government expenditures that are prone to inflationary tendencies.
Another aspect of the budget which has caused great concern in my part of the country is the unfortunate atmosphere of confrontation that has arisen in regard to the resource industry. I find that more and more people in western Canada are concerned over the developments that have taken place in this area. There has been a very long debate on this important issue. I certainly want to lend my voice in support of what I think is the majority point of view, and to ask the government to exercise some moderation in its approach to the issue, with a view to allowing further discussion and compromise to enter the picture, instead of taking a hard line toward resources within the boundaries of the respective provinces.
I think there is room here for discussion and compromise. It would be a very unfortunate result if hard lines were drawn on each side, both by the federal government and by the provinces. The people of western Canada to whom I have spoken about this issue are anxious that some compromise be made. I lay the blame at this point in time not upon the federal government exclusively or upon the provincial government. But there is room for compromise in the positions now being taken by the parties. That is why I hope there will be meaningful discussion and negotiation on the subject of taxation of resource industries.
I speak as a member representing a constituency in which are located some very important mining concerns.
I think Saskatoon can proudly be called the potash capital of Canada, if not of the world. The people of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and the west are concerned that the policies of the federal government relating to the taxation of resources and royalties, so far as their being allowable expenses for taxation purposes, be not viewed uncompromisingly.
I should also like to make some suggestions regarding certain other aspects of the Income Tax Act. I should like to bring to the attention of the minister the fact that certain areas of the act require serious consideration, with a view to change. There are disadvantaged people in society who need special consideration. I specifically refer to those members of our population who are deaf.
People in this unfortunate position are not given any personal exemption, as are those who are blind, or necessarily confined to bed or wheelchair throughout the entire year. It seems to me that this segment of our population requires the same consideration as those to whom I have just referred, and it is to be hoped the government will see fit in due course to place deaf people in the same cate-
gory. I hope this plea will not fall, if I may be pardoned for saying so, on deaf ears as far as the Minister of Finance is concerned.
I also note some anomalies regarding that classification of persons who are say, paraplegics or who suffer serious physical disability and who, because they are not necessarily confined to bed or a wheelchair for the whole of the year, do not fall within the category of exemptions referred to in the act. Again I suggest some special consideration be given by the minister to extending this category to include people who are demonstrably in this condition and who can provide medical proof.
I now want to turn to another aspect of taxation and tax exemption, registered retirement savings plans. Registered retirement savings plans, in my estimation, have been a worth-while endeavour. They have provided a very sound method for people who are either employed by companies or self-employed to build up a retirement fund and defer taxation on moneys over a period of time until they attain, at the latest, the age of 71, when they receive benefits in the form of a pension investment return from the amount of money accumulated over the years.
I think all members of the House are interested in trying to improve legislation if we can, and in bringing forward suggestions that improve the operation of such plans. Therefore, I would again put forward a suggestion in the hope that the minister will give it his favourable consideration. I refer to the present situation in respect of registered retirement savings plans where the option for re-investment in the time allotted under the present act and regulations restricts one to investments by way of annuity. Certainly an annuity, as has been pointed out, has a social virtue, I suppose, in providing income on retirement that is regular and secure, and an annuity can be bought on what might be called easy terms, with tax deferred money.
On the other hand, there is what I think an iniquitous feature in the annuity concept, in that an individual must use his total accumulation of cash on a one-shot purchase regardless of the condition of the market at the time of purchase.
For example, if an annuity were purchased at a time when market conditions were not favourable, the participant who invested in this manner would find himself in a rather unfortunate position as compared to the person who purchased under better market conditions.
Therefore, with the idea of trying to improve the operation of these provisions of the act in respect of registered retirement savings plans, I would suggest that consideration be given to introducing appropriate legislation, or amendments, allowing a retired individual under a registered retirement savings plan to take his lump sum and invest the same under the auspices of a bank, a trust company or, if he deems appropriate, an insurance company, with the idea of arranging his own personal system of withdrawal. The financial institutions to which I refer
February 3, 1975

are reputable and responsible institutions that can assure the investor that these are safe investments.
These financial institutions would be allowed to offer this particular form of investment on the basis of some reasonable fee commensurate with the work involved. I suggest they would have no right to the residue capital remaining at death, but that this would revert to the individual's estate. Presumably the surviving spouse could carry on with such a plan.
I suggest this particular proposal has some important social features. First, the retired individual would have more spending power and more ability to make an optimum return on investment. As a result such a person would less likely become a burden on our welfare and social services. In addition, the remaining capital residue under such a plan would stay within this country. It also seems to me that such a proposal or plan would maximize the return a retired individual might get on his investment.
It has been substantiated actuarially that a person may in fact increase his return through such methods of investment as opposed to being rather restricted as at the present time to the annuity situation, which is not an alternative but the only course open to people under the registered retirement savings plans they have now.
I submit this proposal to the Minister of Finance in the hope that, in considering possible amendments to the act or regulations in respect of registered retirement savings plans, he will pursue this suggestion and allow these people this option in respect of investments open to participants in registered retirement savings plans.
Let me conclude by simply making reference to a matter I raised in the House regarding Canada Savings Bonds, and the possibility that certain issues are not eligible investments for inclusion under registered retirement savings plans. I would ask the minister if he will, in fact, investigate the situation in respect of all issues of Canada Savings Bonds to make sure that some issues are not in fact ineligible investments, or to make sure that all issues qualify in respect of registered retirement savings plan investments.
I have been in correspondence with the minister in respect of this matter. My concern is that, of all things we have to invest in under our registered retirement savings plans, Canada Savings Bonds should be high on the priority for eligibility under this scheme. I have provided the minister with some information that has come into my hands that this may not be the case. I would simply ask that he pay some attention to this particular matter, and bring forward whatever amendments the regulations require to ensure that Canada Savings Bonds issues all fall within the eligible investment category.
To leave things on a positive note let me mention that in carrying out the duties of collecting taxes, either personal or otherwise, the minister and his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Basford), have large and efficient staffs involved in this process. As members of parliament we receive letters from time to
Income Tax
time complaining about treatment afforded individual taxpayers by people involved in collecting taxes. I would simply draw the minister's attention to the importance of treating these people who are involved with these departments with courtesy and attention.
It is hoped that from time to time the appropriate ministers will, by way of directive, remind public servants that they are in fact exactly that, public servants, and should exercise to the best of their ability courtesy when dealing with people who approach them. They should understand that very often people are not familiar with the complexities of taxation. They should keep in mind that the number of changes has been incredible. The size of this bill alone would testify to the fact that the changes to the Income Tax Act are many.
Let me suggest to the minister that he should from time to time in his wisdom remind public servants that the average citizen is anxious to do the right thing in respect of his tax return, and is very often anxious to obtain information. A courteous reception would be very much appreciated. I know that 99.9 per cent of tax employees are kind and efficient, but I think it bears repeating, because we get these complaints from time to time, that this point should be brought to the attention of departmental officials.


Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Madam Speaker, for the government, Bill C-49 is one of the most important of all the bills introduced in the current session, because its purpose is to bring revenue to the treasury. That is the concern of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner). His main function is to bring in the income the government requires to enable the ministers of the cabinet and the departments to function and manage the affairs of the country. That is his main responsibility.
I congratulate him for championing Bill C-49 with such vigour.
He is certainly sincere and convinced of the need for his bill, but I doubt very much that he is convinced that all Canadian taxpayers will be pleased with it, especially in the present context in which we live, where every taxpayer is extremely concerned about the income he wants and needs, depending on the size of his family, to meet his obligations.
Now, his bill is quite voluminous, Madam Speaker. That aspect has always struck me in this House. When we set about getting money out of the pockets of the taxpayers, we always get bills that are heavy, that can be measured, not in centimeters or millimeters, but in inches, our current unit measure. Remember the bill of 1971, the so-called tax reform bill: that was a three-inch brick. At that time, we had advised the Canadian taxpayers of the results of that bill on their income, of the taxes they would have to pay, as we had also warned the small businesses about the taxes they would have to pay as a result of that bill.
I remember how, at that time, we had managed to arouse the attention of a certain segment of the population, though not enough to prevent the then Minister of

February 3, 1975
Income Tax
Finance from having the bill passed, that is the tax reform.
Yet, Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance

an intelligent man, I admit-predicts that 1975 will be an extremely difficult year for Canada. I do not know if this is due to the fact that our southern neighbours foresee great difficulties in their own country. And I refer to the news of yesterday and the day before on Canadian television to the effect that the President of the United States foresees a deficit of $52 billion, not million, but $52 billion. Now that is a deficit!
Since we are live side by side, it is obvious that if our neighbour has the flu or a virus, there is much danger, since we are so close, that we shall catch the same virus, and I believe that we have caught it. We are also affected by this economic fever virus. According to previsions, 1975 will be an extremely difficult year. But why should this year be more difficult than 1974? This is what we should ask ourselves as parliamentarians, as people responsible for giving to the country and administration of which the taxpayers will be satisfied and which would allow development and progress in our country and which would give workers the possibility of living better, of being in a better financial situation than at the end of 1975.
What do we have to fear, Madam Speaker? We are not God. We cannot guess whether there will be a ca-tastrophy. We cannot guess whether there will be a drought or a flood. We have to leave this to the Divine Providence. If this were up to men, I believe that the situation would be worse than it has been up till now.
What do we have to fear? Will there be a shortage of workers to build housing for Canadians? Will there be a shortage of raw materials for producing what Canadians need to fill their daily needs, such as housing, food, medical and hospital services, and road services to go from place to place? But then, what have we to fear if all the Cabinet ministers do their duties, if the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) plays his role, which is to introduce social legislation ensuring all Canadians a guaranteed minimum income, medical care and housing?
He is responsible for the well-being of Canadians. Another minister, who is responsible for housing, who must ensure that Canadians have a decent house, announced last week the introduction of a piece of legislation inviting all Canadians, through provincial and municipal governments, to use every possible means to ensure decent housing for each Canadian, each family.
So another minister who is determined to do his duty.
I also heard in this House the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) say in a most eloquent way to the people of this country that in the area of transportation his department will be efficient, that they will do everything possible to ensure that all areas-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: I commend you for applauding him.
[Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse) J


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but I have been listening to him for a few minutes, and I wonder indeed if he is speaking on Bill C-49, to amend the statute law relating to income tax in Canada. So, if the hon. member wants to address himself to that subject, we will listen to him.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, with all the wisdom I know you have, I commend you for that remark, but I challenge any member in this House and any minister to rise in this House and talk about something else than taxation at any time because everybody scurries around trying to earn a living, Madam Speaker, we all need money.
Ask the labour unions why they have strikes? It is to get more money for their membership, and especially for labour leaders. We have seen that. Ask those who own a business why they need money. It is to have a higher income. Bill C-49 says: an Act to amend the statute law relating to income tax. So the Minister of Finance-and through no fault of his-is instructed under our constitution to dip into the incomes of people. I am considering, Madam Speaker, whether the people are really being treated fairly, if this bill really gives them adequate exemptions, or whether, on the other hand, they are being taxed too heavily compared to the income they can make in 1975. Indeed, Madam Speaker, I think that it is perfectly in order for me to reason thus because if one must restrict oneself to dollars and cents, one can read from page to page. But I am afraid we shall not succeed in suggesting to the minister intelligent amendments which would be likely to help him apply the tax legislation in a universally just and fair way.
It is with this in mind that I intend to consider Bill C-49. If I am not mistaken, the bill has now reached second reading. It is therefore the gist of the bill we must be concerned about. I am considering the principles of this bill and trying, with all the open-mindedness which can be expected from an hon. member, to deal exclusively with the very principle on which this bill is based. Then, I am trying all sorts of explanations in support of my views, in order to convey them to my hon. colleagues in the House and especially the Minister of Finance. In other words, if we must adopt this bill without having the opportunity to deal with it honestly and intelligently, I wonder why we are here. We should merely let the minister introduce his bill to the cabinet and the matter would be settled. Well, Madam Speaker, I feel it is our duty to vindicate the fundamental rights of individuals, the fundamental rights and responsibilities of Canadian taxpayers, for I have never been able to understand how, in a well organized society, individuals could have only responsibilities.
I never wanted to accept that. I understand we all have rights, but we also have commitments. I wish those commitments, which every Canadian shares in, would match their capacities in contributing, for the common welfare, to the payment of those expenditures which the govern-
February 3, 1975

ment has to incur to enforce some act or other, to secure every Canadian's well-being.
Madam Speaker, if you allow me to proceed with my statement, I would like to demonstrate that we, in Canada, really face an extremely serious situation. I receive daily from my constituents numerous requests for information respecting Canada's housing legislation. In other words, there are people in our country who live in unsatisfactory conditions and would like to take advantage of the legislation. They come and tell me: I heard on the radio that a bill was introduced, and another one passed. But people know nothing of their content. So they ask me for information, just as they ask the hon. member for Riviere-du-Loup-Temiscouata (Mr. Gendron) here in front of me, and every member of this House in order to be able to take advantage of those acts.
I also receive numerous requests daily from people who want to work. They do not want to be unemployed, they want to earn a living, they want to work on construction projects, either in the building of houses or in the development of resources, in the James Bay area for instance. Madam Speaker, I have seen with my own eyes lines of workers queueing up in front of employment offices, wanting jobs in the James Bay area, to develop our natural resources, develop the energy we need in Canada. All those people apply at their Manpower Centers. They also call on their members of Parliament, anxious to take advantage of a certain influence which will enable them to sell their work to develop resources in Canada and take part, through their work and their efforts, in the development and gross national production of Canada.
Madam Speaker, I personally heard the minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), on a news report, say "that he fears Canada's gross national out-put will slow down in 1975". Why would there be a slow-down? Why would that be when Canadians are ready to do more. Why are our standard of living and our social security acts linked to the Gross National Product?
Madam Speaker, if our GNP is lower in 1975 than in 1974, there is a reason for it, there may even be a number of reasons. This, in my view, explains the dangerous path our country is following. We are going down the drain. Unemployment brings inflation. Inflation breeds unemployment. And unemployment and inflation breed scarce money.
The artificial scarcity of money we are now facing causes interest rate hikes. And when interest rates go up, there is no incentive to go ahead, to create a new industry, to provide jobs, to produce more, to raise the GNP. The capable people, companies or individuals, are stopped in their tracks because interest rates are too high. They don't understand and get discouraged.
Madam Speaker, I believe we are now debating the most important bill in this session, because the success or failure of our whole Canadian economy depends on it.
I would like my remarks to be as clear as possible. I would like to show once and for all that policies used until now are not adequate, not in keeping with our objecive. Madam Speaker, may I call it ten o'clock.
Adjournment Debate



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Heath Nelson Macquarrie: Madam
Speaker, I recognize the solemnity of the occasion, it being one week after Robbie Burns day.
I had hoped the Secretary of State (Mr. Faulkner) would have been in the House when I raised my question this afternoon but I note he was called out, presumably on urgent public business.
While responsibility for the Copyright Act is the jurisdiction of his colleague, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet), I believe the subject matter of my inquiry is of the greatest possible concern to the Secretary of State.
An interest in preserving our cultural and literary heritage must be one of the chief priorities of his portfolio. I will believe he is taking these responsibilities seriously-until his extended tenure in office proves me wrong. I hope, therefore, that he will be seized of the importance of the matter which I have raised and which was raised initially and most perceptively by Mr. McClelland and two Canadian authors, Farley Mowat and Pierre Berton, about ten days ago.
McClelland and Stewart have been in the very forefront of those who took the risk-and not so long ago it was a risk-of publishing Canadian authors on Canadian topics. The views of Mr. McClelland deserve respect and consideration from anyone interested in the future of Canadian authors and publishers.
The press release of January 22, which I commend to the minister and all members, sets out the case with real cogency. By importing overstocks, remainders and regular foreign editions of works by Canadian authors some concerns have deprived these authors of rightful income, and of course have injured the Canadian publishers who in the first instance brought these works forward to the Canadian reading public.
It little profits that we make a mighty roar of trumpets over what is to be done to Time and Reader's Digest if, at the same time, we allow a provision in another Canadian statute to injure creative Canadian writers.
Putting it in simplistic terms, we have a situation whereunder American publishers of the works of Canadian authors are dumping lower priced editions on the Canadian market. This is not being done by the American publishers directly but by jobbers, wholesalers and remainder houses.
The matter is not just a case of loss of revenue by people like Pierre Berton and Farley Mowat, although that is regrettable enough-whether we like their view of the north and the CTR is a matter of indifference.
February 3, 1975

Adjournment Debate
Rather it is a problem of diminishing or curtailing the production of Canadian publishing houses. For instance, McClelland and Stewart have been forced to abandon publication of their planned paperback editions of Mowat works. It is not hard to realize the injurious effect of this sort of shrinkage as the competition from cheaper American editions of Canadian works becomes more and more pervasive.
The press statement of January 22 points to section 28 of the Copyright Act as the problem area. The Copyright Act is a complex statute doubtless in need of careful study, reappraisal, and possibly substantial amendment. Such a process on a statute of this kind with international complications may take as long as two years. But the Canadian publishing industry cannot wait that long. Too many Canadian authors-both the great and the lowly-will suffer.
It is therefore of the essence that an early move to amend section 28 be initiated. I would commend to the minister a course of those usual consultations among party representatives so that quick passage may be achieved, and quick remedial action on this grave problem undertaken.
We cannot always parade our intellectual nationalism in great battalions. Often we preserve our cultural identity by important but mundane moves to check recognized chinks in our nationalist defences. The Copyright Act may not seem a glamorous badge of Canadianism, but the removal of the iniquity in section 28 could be many times more efficacious than a hundred after dinner speeches or the flutterings of a thousand Maple Leaf flags. I urge the minister to prompt action, and pledge him and his colleagues in the government my full support.


Mr. Jack Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to follow the magniloquent hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie). The question he raised this evening and earlier this afternoon, was raised last week by the hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Fairweather). As the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) then answered, he is well aware of that matter and is discussing different avenues open to the government with his colleague, the Secretary of State (Mr. Faulkner).
As the House knows, the government recently embarked on a vigorous policy to assist the Canadian publishing industry by various means. With regard to the suggested amendment to the Copyright Act, it should be pointed out that the alleged threat to the Canadian publishing industry stems from the dismissal of three preliminary motions presented by a publisher who, as we now understand, has not seen fit to go to trial on the main issue. We therefore believe, Madam Speaker, that the alleged inadequacies of the Copyright Act are yet unproven. As a matter of fact, a spokesman for the Canadian Copyright Institute has publicly stated that there are strong grounds for believing that the Copyright Act does give the protection that is being disputed.
(Mr. Macquarrie.)


ENERGY-REQUEST FOR CANCELLATION OF SALE OF CANDU REACTOR TO ARGENTINA-SUGGESTION NO FURTHER SALES BE MADE IN VIEW OF LACK OF SAFEGUARDS
John R. Rodriguez: Madam Speaker, on November 28 last I asked the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to consider cancelling the sale of a CANDU reactor to Argentina on the grounds that we were seeking safeguards from a country which is dominated by a highly volatile political situation. At that time I also tried to point out to the Prime Minister that there are no safeguards; that, as a matter of fact, the only real safeguard is, "no sale".
Let me quote from Thomas Perry's "Nuclear Energy in Canada-Potential and Problems", as printed in "Nature Canada." He wrote:
Opponents of fission energy point out a number of differences between the real world and the 'technological paradise'. Fission energy is safe only if a number of critical devices work as they should-if a number of people in key positions follow all their instructions, if there is no sabotage, no hijacking of the transports, if no reactor fuel processing plant or repository anywhere in the world is situated in a region of riots or guerrilla activity, and no revolution or war-even a 'conventional' one-takes place in these regions.
The enormous quantities of extremely dangerous material must not get into the hands of ignorant people or desperados. No acts of God can be permitted.
Even if there were such things as safeguards, Canada seems to seek customers in areas that fly in the face of the most optimistic proponents of CANDU sales. Our most recent customers are Argentina, a country marked by political turmoil since World War II and becoming increasingly more volatile, and South Korea, a region wracked by internal civil war, oppression and political assassination. It is not as though we did not have the experience of India. It is not as though we have not witnessed the fallibility of the wisdom of our leaders.
We can try to cover up what happened in India, but the fact of the matter is that we sold India a CANDU reactor; we sought safeguards; they gave us safeguards; the Canadian government then said that the safeguards were adequate; yet India used our technology and produced a nuclear explosion. We can look at India and say we had inadequate safeguards; but on December 20, 1974, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) stood up in the House and said as recorded at page 2429 of Hansard:
I would like now to outline the provisions that will be required in every safeguards arrangement. The provisions, to be administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or through appropriate alternative procedures meeting the requirements of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of nuclear Weapons, will cover all nuclear facilities and equipment supplied by Canada for the life of those facilities and equipment.
Specifically, these safeguards sound impressive. However, it is spine chilling to note that these also have inherent weaknesses. It should be pointed out that the International Atomic Energy Agency differentiates between military and peaceful nuclear devices, while Canada does not. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty received much fanfare when it was signed, but several important countries refused to sign. Among them are
February 3, 1975

India, Argentina and South Korea. Furthermore, India and Argentina have already signed a nuclear technology exchange agreement. Argentina can easily learn all it may want to know about nuclear weaponry from India, regardless of the faith Canada has in its mythical safeguards.
Who is our next customer? My information tells me that our busy little CANDU salesmen have packed then-bags full of nuclear goodies and are marching to Pretoria-yes, Madam Speaker-South Africa!
In my two years as a member of this House I have accused the government of incompetence, as in the transportation mess. I have accused it of regional insensitivity. I have accused it of a lack of social concern in the matters of unemployment and old age pensions. However, in this instance of fooling around with nuclear capability, I am beginning to suspect that this cabinet is as looney as a bunch of bedbugs.
On November 28 last the Prime Minister went on to tell me that to take my attitude of wanting to ban CANDU sales would mean that Canada would sit on this very advanced technology and not be willing to share even its benefits with some countries of the world that do not have our advantages;-I would add, Madam Speaker, also-our disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is the management of radio-active wastes. Today's nuclear reactors are producing over 13,000 pounds of plutonium per year, and the rate of production will continue to rise. By 1977 it will be 40,000 pounds annually, and by 1982 over 220,000 pounds annually.
Plutonium is regarded by scientists as the most dangerous substance known to man. It is extremely toxic and radio-active-one thousandth of one gram of plutonium is all that is necessary to snuff out one life. Twenty-two pounds will build an atomic bomb. If these facts are not frightening enough, let me point out that scientists warn that radio isotope plutonium 239, significantly found in the waste of conventional fission reactors, must be isolated from man's environment for 488,000 years.
Scientists tell us further that Canadian waste management measures have only been temporary to date and no large-scale reprocessing has taken place. A fine legacy for our children! Therefore, what technology would we be withholding? We sell them hope for today, with no assurance that there will be a tomorrow.
The truth is that we are out to sell the CANDU reactor to whichever countries have the cash and want to buy. We even have on the spot financing through the Export Development Corporation for those countries which do not have $600 million ready cash. I can repeat what Walter Stewart has warned, when we are off selling the CANDU willy-nilly for the bucks, we should remember that all sales could be final.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be able to respond to the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) on
Adjournment Debate
this question concerning safeguards on the sale of a CANDU reactor to Argentina.
Argentina concluded a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This agreement meets in full the requirements of the IAEA. Furthermore, Argentina has given formal assurances to Canada that the exports contemplated under the sale of designated Canadian equipment, material and technology would be used only for peaceful purposes and would not be used for the development of any nuclear explosive device. In addition, negotiations are nearing completion on a bilateral agreement between Canada and Argentina meeting the specific safeguards requirements outlined by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) on December 20, 1974.
Canada considers that it has a responsibility to participate in efforts to solve the world's energy problems and wishes to use its nuclear technology to help in gaining this objective. It will do so, however, only on the basis of the most stringent safeguards to ensure that Canada's nuclear exports are devoted solely to peaceful nonexplosive purposes.


PENITENTIARIES-BRITISH COLUMBIA-ESCAPE OF TWO INMATES-SUGGESTED MANNING OF TOWERS TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
Mr. John Reynolds (Burnaby-Richmond-Della):: Madam Speaker, on October 9, 1974, I asked the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) when he was going to man the towers of the British Columbia penitentiary again, because they had discontinued manning the towers some time previously. The Solicitor General replied that they had manned the towers when they had had difficulties with security, but now they did not feel the need was there any longer.
On December 10, two months later, I once more had to ask the Solicitor General the same question, because in the meantime, in the first week of December, two very dangerous criminals had escaped from the British Columbia penitentiary and caused great concern to the people on the lower mainland of British Columbia. I am sad to say that the towers are still not manned in the British Columbia penitentiary, and that the need is still there.
The Solicitor General in his last answer talked of the cost of manning the towers and the fact that the escape rate had dropped by 50 per cent over the previous year. But two escapes have brought that percentage up to the rate in the previous year.
I ask, at what time would inmates escape from a penitentiary? During the daytime the complement of security guards inside the penitentiary is four times what it is at night. There are no guards in the towers at night, which makes it easier for people who go outside the penitentiary before lock-up to stay outside.
The Solicitor General talked about the cost of manning the towers. I am wondering what the cost of recapturing the criminals who escaped was. It would be very hard to get an exact figure from anybody of what it cost to bring back these two dangerous criminals, but there was a police alert, and the police worked overtime. So far as

February 3, 1975
Adjournment Debate
costs are concerned, we are talking only of four men on the night shift, and minimum salaries in the penitentiary are around $7,500 a year. In other words, we are looking at a cost of about $30,000 a year to man four towers, which would give us much more security in the area and would possibly stop these dangerous escapes.
I am sorry to see that neither the Solicitor General nor the parliamentary secretary is here tonight to tell the people who live in this area that these two towers are going to be manned. These people are quite concerned about the situation. I was in the area the other night and I could see the lights on outside, but the towers were still empty. This is a maximum security penitentiary, and the towers should be manned. I do not think the Solicitor General can use the excuse of cost, because the cost is minimal compared to the cost of recapturing escaped criminals. I hope that very shortly the Solicitor General will be able to tell the House that the towers will be manned once again.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam
Speaker, I should like to give the hon. member for Burnaby-Richmond-Delta (Mr. Reynolds) some information supplied to me by the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand), who is unable to be here this evening, concerning his question about the manning of the towers at the B.C. penitentiary.
First of all, I should like to refer to the escape mentioned by the hon. member in his question in the House in December. During the evening of the escape incident there were two musical performances scheduled to be given by an outside group at the penitentiary as a pre-Christmas recreational activity. Since the gymnasium cannot accommodate the total inmate population at one time, the group had to perform twice during the evening, with half the inmate population attending each performance.
On completion of the performance, the half of the population then in attendance returned to their respective cells while the second half of the population was admitted to the gymnasium. In a routine manner, the first group of inmates returned to their cells, and their beds.
The correctional officers, on completion of the evening recreational period and the return of the inmates to their cells at 11 p.m., took the regular inmate count. Seeing that some inmates were apparently asleep in their beds,
they did not disturb these inmates during the counting procedures and counted those bodies which they believed they saw.
One of the inmates involved in the escape was a member of the gymnasium maintenance crew, a position which permitted him access to the recreational facility on a daily basis under the supervision of a recreational officer. It appears that, over a period of time, he prepared the escape route under the gymnasium stage, where he managed to stash the contraband articles required for the escape.
Before attending the Christmas concert the two inmates placed well-disguised, body-like paraphernalia in their beds. These disguises were complete with shoes, and earphones covering face masks, covered by a blanket on the beds. After leaving their respective cells for the gymnasium, they crawled unobserved under the stage and made good their escape from the gymnasium at around midnight. They had hoped the officers taking the routine inmate count would take the disguises left in the beds for sleeping inmates, and not disturb inmates who had already gone to sleep.
Once the count had been made and everyone apparently accounted for, the officers manning the towers were taken off their posts. The institution at this point continued to be subject to security coverage by a one-man inside yard patrol, a one-man mobilized perimeter wall control, and the regular night shift security staff.
With regard to the question of manning the towers, I would like to inform the hon. member that the patrol in the interior yard was increased during those hours when the towers were no longer being manned. It is not considered necessary to have the towers manned during the hours after midnight when the inmates are locked in their cells, in view of these extra precautions. The practice of manning the towers was put into effect for a trial period last year. However, it was deemed unnecessary and too expensive.
I trust that the forgoing information will be of assistance to the hon. member.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.24 p.m.

Tuesday, February 4, 1975