1975-03-13

PRESENCE IN SPEAKER'S GALLERY OF SPEAKER OF QUEBEC NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, HON. JEAN-NOEIL LAVOIE

Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I know hon. members will want to join me in calling the attention of the House to the presence in our gallery this afternoon of a very distinguished visitor, l'honorable president de l'Assemblee nationale du Quebec, l'honorable Jean-Noel Lavoie.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
First report of Standing Committee on Regional Economic Expansion, in both official languages-Mr. Pelletier (Sherbrooke).

[Stage Direction]
Second report of Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration-Mr. Olivier.
[Editor's Note: For texts of above reports, see today's Votes
and Proceedings.]

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. For a number of years I have placed on the order paper a set of questions having to do with pensions in a number of fields. Because of the general interest in these questions I have designed them so that their answers would appear on the order paper. But every year or so some of these questions are made an order for return, even though the answer is from one department and is not very long. I protest the fact that this was done yesterday with respect to question 1,550 which was made an order for return as noted in Hansard at pages 4028
and 4029. I realize that the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Reid) is not able to be here today, but I hope a note of my objection will be made for his successor so that this will not happen again.


Mr. Baldwin:: He is going to be there forever.


PRACTICE OF CAHA IN RESPECT OF CHILDREN SIGNING AMATEUR HOCKEY CONTRACTS-REQUEST FOR UNANIMOUS CONSENT TO MOVE MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. John Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. This will probably be my last Standing Order 43 motion. As the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association is forcing children to sign forms which are, in effect, contracts which prevent them from playing amateur hockey with the team of their choice, as there is an increasing number of cases coming before the courts for settlement of similar disputes, and as this situation is not consistent with the philosophy either of amateur sports or with the right of young people to participate in games in this country, I move, seconded by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt):
That the Minister of National Health and Welfare be instructed by this House to intervene in the CAHA and ensure that the CAHA will discontinue immediately the practice of signing children to contracts in amateur hockey which in any way restrict the right of the players to choose the team they will play with.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This motion is presented pursuant to Standing Order 43 and cannot be debated without unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Arnold Malone (Battle River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege which relates to the fact that after the July 8 election in which the province of Alberta returned only Progressive Conservative members, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) took it upon himself to appoint a Senator from the other place to be a spokesman for the province of Alberta. I contend that the right to be represented in this House is one which flows directly from one's voting privileges. It is the people who have the right
4056

March 13, 1975
Bill of Rights
to say which elected members shall represent them and be their spokesmen.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arnold John Malone: I am concerned because in recent weeks the member of the other place has made statements which are diametrically opposed to my own. The situation is extremely serious as the member of the other place, who claims he is speaking on behalf of the people of Alberta, says that the province and its politicians are separatist in nature.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, the minds of the people of this country must not be marinated in the kind of poison which, under the guise of patriotism, pits region against region. Certainly, my effort, as a member of this House, is directed towards working for a cohesive and united Canada. I am not here as a Progressive Conservative member, but rather as a member of parliament and I have a duty to all people in my constituency.
I want to make it clear that I do not contend the Prime Minister should not gather information from anyone, but rather that he does not have the privilege of appointing someone as being official spokesman. It is the official nature of that position to which I obeyed, because certainly there are other Senators and other people. I think my privilege is being usurped by the fact he has appointed someone who is able to gain public attention to raise issues, but who does not have a mandate from the people of that province.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member gave the Chair notice of the question of privilege. Hon. members will note that the question of privilege does not seek action by the Chair. In all fairness, the alleged question of privilege suffers from other disabilities than that. However, no action is called for by the Chair and that would finalize the matter.


CANADIAN BILL OF RIGHTS
Mr. Bob Kaplan (York Centre) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-382, to amend the Canadian Bill of Rights.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, one needs a good reason to propose an amendment to a bill of such integrity as the Canadian Bill of Rights. However, that bill is directed only to acts of discrimination which have their origin within the Canadian community. Since it was enacted, serious threats to human rights and equality within Canada have come from direct meddling by the national policies of some foreign governments and their agents deliberately designed to encourage discrimination in

Canada. This amendment is designed to protect Canada from this disgraceful international development.


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


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Solicitor General. In putting this question, I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not implying any wrongdoing on the part of anyone. However, it is important that there be full disclosure of any political links, and the nature of those links, where waterfront activities have led to widespread charges being laid. Will the Solicitor General advise the House of the subject matter of the investigation being pursued by the RCMP when they visited the office of the Minister of Labour in May, 1974, went through his files and took away certain material from his office.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I answered this on a previous occasion in the House. I understand they took out that search warrant in the case concerning Mr. Elliot and four other individuals. I listed their names in the House at that time. I think the question had been asked by the hon. member for Calgary North. The search warrant was issued as a result of investigations into the affairs of private individuals who were charged in Hamilton in May, 1974.
[DOT] (M20)


NATURE AND USE OF DOCUMENTS REMOVED FROM HAMILTON OFFICE OF MINISTER OF LABOUR
Robert Lorne Stanfield: assume that, in view of the importance of the matter the Solicitor General, although he might not have examined the material himself, is familiar with the material taken from the office of the Minister of Labour. Can he tell the House whether this material is either relevant to continuing investigations or whether it is intended to be used in evidence in a case or cases where charges have already been laid?


William Warren Allmand: I cannot answer that question. As I have told the House before, it is not in order to discuss the details of an investigation which is under way, nor is it for me to discuss the evidence which will be put before the court in trials which are to take place. The prosecution in these cases is under the authority of the Attorney General of Ontario and the two prosecutors are under his authority.


POSSIBLE POLITICAL LINKS IN INVESTIGATION INTO DREDGING CONTRACTS-REQUEST FOR INDEPENDENT INQUIRY
Robert Lorne Stanfield: In view of the nature of the charges laid and the office which the hon. gentleman holds, would the Solicitor General not agree that his response is extremely unsatisfactory; it must lead to suspicions-suspicions which arise from the evidence and the fact that the Solicitor General has not regarded it as important enough to satisfy himself as to the nature of the material. I do not think this is fair to the Minister of Labour or to anybody else. I ask the Acting Prime Minister whether, in view of the unsatisfactory nature of the response of the Solicitor General and the suspicions which exist in the public mind, he is not prepared to commit the government to an independent judicial inquiry to examine possible political connections with waterfront activities which have led to these charges of wrongdoing?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Acting Prime Minister):: I can
only repeat what I said yesterday: the answer is in the negative. If the Leader of the Opposition has some evidence of this kind to lay before the House there might be some reason for action. I have listened to my colleague, the Solicitor General, who gave an answer which I am sure must have been agreeable to the Leader of the Opposition, that it would not be in the interests of justice to reveal, as he requested, information which might prejudice the trial of people whose innocence must be presumed until they are found guilty.


William Warren Allmand: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition has made certain disparaging remarks about me and my answers. The answers I have given to the House with respect to the investigation are answers of a kind which have consistently been given by law officers of the Crown, whether provincial or federal, throughout time. I have checked this out. It is contrary to sound practice for a law officer of the Crown to reveal details of an investigation while it is still under way.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Will either the Acting Prime Minister or the Solicitor General explain to me how it would prejudice anybody who is subject to any charge, or likely to be subject to any charge, for the Solicitor General to indicate to the House that the material taken from the office of the Minister of Labour is not being used in connection with any further investigation, or not being used in connection with any trial which is taking place-or, on the other hand, if it is? Would anybody explain to me how this information could possibly prejudice anybody's trial?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, there were no doubt several documents taken from the Minister of Labour's office. Some were used as leads in following up other evidence. This is an operational matter, not one that I, as Solicitor General, would check into. The police are free to pursue their own investigations. I am not involved with the prosecutions and I do not know what evidence will or will not be used.
Oral Questions


INVESTIGATION INTO DREDGING CONTRACTS-SUGGESTED REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Acting Prime Minister and government House leader. In view of the fact that the government refuses our request, which we initially made in the House two weeks ago, for a full scale public inquiry to put to rest some of the intriguing political ramifications of this whole affair, is the government House leader now prepared to bring in an appropriate reference of this matter either to a special committee or to a standing committee of the House which would enable members of the House to direct questions to ministers who held particular responsibility at the time of the commencement of the investigation and to whom, under the rules and practices of the House, we cannot now direct questions?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I have seen no reason to make such a reference. Nothing that has been said from the opposition side has convinced me that there would be anything to refer to a committee. There are now under way prosecutions of a number of businessmen who may have engaged in bid-rigging and in fraud. They are being prosecuted. I want that process to continue and I hope my hon. friend does, too. I have seen no evidence of there being any other activities which would justify a reference of this kind to committee.


James Aloysius McGrath: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the government House leader, then, prepared, as a means of making a reference, to refer, for example, the reports of the Auditor General for 1963, 1966, 1967, 1970 and 1973, wherein he singles out government dredging contracts, the suggestion being, of course, that there were no proper departmental audits? This would form an appropriate reference to the public accounts committee, where we would then be in a position to call witnesses.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I understand that they have already been referred.


INVESTIGATION INTO DREDGING CONTRACTS-GOVERNMENT VIEW OF NECESSITY FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Prime Minister. Both in the House yesterday and again today in reply to questions regarding the need for a public inquiry into a situation that is causing considerable concern throughout the country, the minister suggested that in terms of the criminal law correct procedures are already being taken. I and my party fully agree with what the Solicitor General has said in that regard. I want to put to the minister another question. The Inquiries Act deals, not with criminal proceedings, but has broader terms of reference. Since one of the purposes of the Inquiries Act is to enable an inquiry to be made, and I quote, "into anything connected with the good government of Canada", and since under the act the government has, if "it deems it expedient", authority to initiate such an inquiry, then considering this broader scope-


Some hon. Members:: Question.
28996-52/^

March 13, 1975
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I listened to the hon. member's preamble and then his first phrase in which he said he would like to ask the minister a question, but he then went on to another sentence and cited the act. Surely, it is time the hon. member put his question.


John Edward Broadbent: I appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. In view of the important charges that have been levelled against 14 senior businessmen who have important political connections with the government party, does the minister not deem it in the public interest to clear up the implied possibility of political wrongdoing, which is of concern of many people throughout the country, by holding such an inquiry, or does the minister deem it not necessary to have an inquiry within this kind of framework?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, when I was asked this question yesterday I said this, and I will read it as it appears at page 4030 of Hansard:
I believe that if justice is to be done it should be permitted to take its course, and I think the intervention of any other proceeding such as has been suggested would compromise the outcome.
I was referring to the suggestion yesterday by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby. I have reviewed that answer and I stand by it. I can see no way in which there would not be some presumption of guilt, or some other presumption that would compromise the course of justice. Therefore, I am very strongly against the suggestion made by the hon. member, and so is the government.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, in view of the minister's answer I would like to be clear on this. Is he telling the House that in so far as this public matter is concerned, what is now regarded as a public scandal, it has to be dealt with exclusively within the appropriately narrow confines of the criminal law of Canada? Is that the Minister's and the government's position?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, that is the government's position at this time.


An hon. Member:: Until the boss gets back.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


NATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Solicitor General.
As Interpol filed over 2000 pieces of information in 1973, and as the Soviet countries, which are members of Interpol, have access to that information, would the Solicitor General order an inquiry into the Canadian participation in Interpol, and another inquiry into the violation of article 3 of the Interpol Charter which forbids intervention of its organization in military, political, religious or racial situations, especially since under Heydrich, between

1939 and 1946, Interpol participated in planning the annihilation of six million Jews, and also since Paul Dick, president of Interpol until 1972, was a former SS lieutenant bearing No. 337259?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, as I am not aware of that story-


Mr.   La Salle@: He is not either!


William Warren Allmand: ... I shall have to check with the RCMP.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of National Defence whether he, his predecessor or any official of his department have ever had cause to communicate with the Department of Supply and Services in connection with the DDH280 contract with Marine Industries Limited of Quebec, providing that department with any information which would make it desirable or necessary to instigate further investigative action by the Department of Supply and Services in respect of contractual arrangements between that department and that company regarding over-runs?


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: No, Mr. Speaker.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the answer by the Acting Prime Minister to a question directed by my leader, to the effect that nothing he has seen or heard yet has convinced him of the need for any special reference, does he not think that the very fact that some of the documents from the office of the Minister of Labour are being used in proceedings, as well as the time gap between when this whole matter was brought to the attention of certain officials of the government, that is during the summer and in September of 1972, and when the Minister of Transport instructed the RCMP in February of 1973, would warrant a public inquiry in order that certain conditions might be clarified?


Mitchell William Sharp: No, Mr. Speaker. I think my colleague, the Solicitor General, has made very honest and direct statements in answer to the questions that have been asked here. It is my understanding that he is always prepared to answer more questions in the same spirit. I also understand that he and the commissioner of the RCMP are to appear tonight before a standing committee at which time there will be an opportunity to clarify the record.
March 13, 1975

Oral Questions LABOUR CONDITIONS


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to get into an argument about the totality of the answers of the Solicitor General. We look forward to his appearance tonight. However, I should like to ask a question of the Acting Prime Minister which I tried to bootleg in yesterday on a point of order.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I tried to refer to what to me is the fundamental issue involved in questions by members of the opposition, by bootlegging it in under a point of order. I now have the floor, so I will put the question directly to the Acting Prime Minister. Does he not think there is a distinction between the narrow element of criminality, which is obviously being considered in the law courts of the land, and other conduct, whether it is political misconduct, administrative incompetence or administrative indifference, and that the difference would warrant such a public inquiry?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. With all due respect, the hon. member has asked a question which is of a very general nature and which was asked about 15 minutes ago.
Mb. Marchand (Langelier): Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think this was just a mistake but I do not want it to appear in Hansard without correction. I never gave an order to the RCMP to make an inquiry.


TRANSPORT
Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board whether there is any deliberate attempt to provide substandard service on those rail lines that are due for review by January 1, 1976?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: Not to my
knowledge, Mr. Speaker. Of course, some of those lines are in need of significant upgrading, and for that reason we attach some urgency to the process of determining which of them will be transferred into the basic rail network in order that upgrading can take place. In the absence of that upgrading, certain limitations occur in service.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the same minister whether there might be an investigation into this since a number of these rail lines due for review by January 1, 1976, are providing almost no service, which gives the appearance to those communities of an attempt by government to withhold services in order to justify the removal of those rail lines?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, it has been our custom to investigate any specific item brought to our attention by hon. members. If the hon. member would bring the specific items to my attention we will look into them.


SUGGESTED NEED FOR FULL TIME MINISTER OF LABOUR IN VIEW OF STRIKE SITUATION
Mr. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, would the Acting Prime Minister advise the House when the government intends to rectify the present situation which is; in the face of strikes which are crippling this country there is in effect no Minister of Labour in charge of the department, and no one who is fulfilling on a full-time basis the heavy responsibilities of that office?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the acting minister, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, met with me this morning at which time we were talking about all these disputes throughout the country. He is very much on the job, and the fact that he is not here in the House now is evidence that he is on more important work.


John Allen Fraser: Without accepting for a moment the explanation of the Acting Prime Minister, would he advise how much longer the government believes it is proper to be without a Minister of Labour who can fulfil the responsibilities of that office? I am sorry the Minister of Labour is tired, but the Canadian people are sick and tired of this appalling abdication of responsibility on the part of the government.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister. Mr. Andre Raynauld, Chairman of the Economic Council of Canada, recently called for a public debate on the council's role, commenting that many of the council's reports do not get read. When Mr. Deutsch was chairman, way back in 1966 and 1967, the council addressed itself to the problem of inflation, and recommended that its studies and recommendations should be referred annually to a joint committee of the House and the Senate which would look at the council's recommendations and hold hearings on them. In light of the rising inflation we have in Canada at the present time, along with our rising unemployment problem and the need for establishing some outside organization to assist the government in establishing appropriate policy, I would like to ask this question.
My question to the Acting Prime Minister is will he give the recommendation of the Chairman of the Economic Council of Canada some consideration by setting up a joint subcommittee of the committee composed of the House and Senate which might be helpful to the government in solving some of its present economic problems.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I would not want to turn down a useful suggestion of this kind without consideration. However, I think

Oral Questions
it would be equally possible or appropriate in standing committees of the House for reference to be made to the Economic Council reports that provide a valuable comment upon a number of matters of proposed policy. I would think that would contribute usefully to the debate. I think it is more dubious whether we should establish sort of a congressional committee in which economic policies would be discussed having as a text the views of an outside body such as the Economic Council. I think it is more profitable in our system of government to deal with the proposals of the Minister of Finance.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Paul Dick (Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Transport. On March 4 the minister stated he would not table letters in respect of his order of inquiry into the Hamilton dredging irregularities, and subsequently in respect of the Quebec dredging, because it would be unjust to mention the people named in them. In view of the fact that serious charges have now been laid against 12 officials who have attempted to defraud two governments and the Hamilton Harbour Commission, would the minister today or tomorrow table his letters now that we have the names of those persons criminally involved?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Transport):: I think the hon. gentleman is right. I will have to check.


An hon. Member:: We are always right.


Jean Marchand: Yes, always! I will check with justice about the letters which have been sent.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Don't do that.


Jean Marchand: No? The Leader of the Opposition does not want me to do that.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.


Mr. Ouellet:: On a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
Just arriving in the House, I am told that opposition members are complaining about my absence. I want to remind them that if I was delayed it is precisely because I was discussing a matter dealing with the British Columbia ports. I am totally in disagreement with the innuendo that nobody is looking after labour relations.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Vancouver South on a point of order.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say on a point of order that the minister is misinformed. The complaint is not that he is out of the House. The complaint is that he is

trying to run two portfolios at a time when the other portfolio for which he is substituting for a minister needs a full-time minister.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, apropos to the comments of my genial friend, the Minister of Transport, it is not that I do not want him to table the letters; I do. The point is that I do not want him to consult the Minister of Justice who will probably tell him not to do it.


HAZARDOUS PRODUCTS
Hon. Martin O'Connell (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the fact that this week the province of Saskatchewan banned the use of blue fibre asbestos in places of employment, and in view of the fact that blue fibre asbestos on inhalation may cause an always fatal cancer known as mesothelioma even in those exposed for short periods of time and is a product used in the Johns-Manville plant in Scarborough, will the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs agree to use the Hazardous Products Act to ban the import of this product into Canada.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for dealing so quickly with such an important matter. My department officials are now discussing with the Department of Justice to find the best way to draft regulations which could efficiently and effectively cover this matter.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. With regard to the dredging contracts that were let in British Columbia to Marwell Dredging, Canadian Dredging and Sceptre Dredging, and in view of the fact that payments had been discontinued under a legal opinion to those in Quebec, Marine Industries Limited, would the minister advise the House if payments are now suspended to the British Columbia companies that have been charged under the Criminal Code?


Jean Marchand: I will have to inquire about this and I may give an answer
tomorrow.
March 13, 1975


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the Solicitor General. With regard to the matter of the continuing investigation that the minister referred to yesterday in the House, would the minister advise whether the connections of those who have been charged in terms of other directorships and those companies which may have contracts with the federal government are also being investigated as well as dredging contracts?


William Warren Allmand: I would have to check on that, Mr. Speaker.


AIRPORTS
Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, once this consultation between ministers is finished I have a question for the Minister of Transport.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Fairweather:: It is all right. The Minister of Justice is saying not to table a letter which will probably be leaked anyway. I gave the minister notice of this question in view of its serious nature. How long has the airport at Saint John, New Brunswick, been closed and have Department of Transport firefighters had their employment terminated as part of what one of the Minister's officials to me was a management game played in the strike situation.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, the Saint John airport has been opened and closed alternately until March 13. Now it has been decided to stop paying.

I think we ceased paying the firefighters yesterday or a couple of days ago. This comes under the Treasury Board and is a policy which is being applied everywhere in Canada.


SAINT JOHN-RESPONSIBILITY FOR PROTECTION OF PROPERTY-TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT OF FIREFIGHTERS
Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my supplementary to the President of the Treasury Board. Who is protecting the Department of Transport property and the Air Canada DC-9 which has been strike-bound on the runway for a week at Saint John? What is the distance of the alternate firefighting equipment from the airport and are there any other firefighters who have had their employment terminated as a part of the game that is being played.
Oral Questions


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I am not yet in a position to give a specific answer to the question of the hon. member. I shall give him an answer when I have the information.


POSSIBILITY OF LOST SALES AS RESULT OF STRIKE AT VANCOUVER
Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board. Is the minister aware that the Japanese have been forced to purchase emergency wheat supplies from the United States because of Canada's failure to meet its commitments out of the strikebound port of Vancouver as reported by Victor Mackie of the Ottawa Journal, and can he advise whether or not any contracts have been cancelled or sales lost to Japan or any other country as a result of the current strike.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, obviously the particular purchase of wheat by Japan cannot be directly and easily attributed to any specific situation, but I certainly would not deny the possibility of what the hon. member has said.


ESTIMATE OF LENGTH OF TIME TO CATCH UP ON DELIVERIES FOLLOWING SETTLEMENT OF STRIKE
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board whether any evaluation is being made presently concerning the time it would take now to catch up in respect of the contracts to which we are already committed in view of the fact that we were behind prior to the beginning of the strike.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board watches the situation on a day to day basis to determine how quickly they will be able to be in a catch-up position.


Stanley James Korchinski: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not respond to my question. I wonder if he could inform the country how far we are behind and whether we can expect the Wheat Board to take any contracts after the strike, or whether we should forget about seeding grain this year.


Otto Emil Lang: I object to the suggestion that I did not give an adequate reply. I indicated that the matter is being reviewed on a day to day basis, which is an obvious thing, and it should be obvious to the hon. member. The fact of the matter is that there can be no precise calculation as to how long it will take to catch up. All we can do is indicate that we will be doing everything humanly possible to catch up as quickly as possible, and we usually do that faster than anyone would predict.

Oral Questions


Stanley James Korchinski: Is there any use growing grain this year at all?


Otto Emil Lang: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Nystrom:: How much?


POSSIBILITY OF MAKING SHIPMENTS THROUGH UNITED STATES IN VIEW OF STRIKE AT VANCOUVER
Mr. Peter C. Bawden (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. In view of the severe hardship to western farmers in the agricultural community, I would like to ask him whether his department has investigated making these shipments by way of the United States until such time as the problems in Canada are settled, and if not, why not?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, we have frequently considered many contingency plans. It happens, however, that the ordinary system of shipping Canadian wheat out of the west coast is to move it in an uncleaned condition to the terminals and clean it there. The typical terminals which might be available in the United States do not have cleaning capacity, and therefore it is not a practical suggestion.


MANPOWER
Mr. J. Larry Condon (Middlesex-London-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Is the minister aware of the dilemma farmers are facing because of the government policy of hiring Canadian workers before offshore workers and Mexican help? If so, can he give hon. members of this House some direction in how manpower centres can make these offshore workers available to farmers since Canadians will not work in these areas?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, with respect, I think the premise is not totally correct. We are certainly directing our attention to the priority of searching for Canadians available for work in Canada before we enlist the services of people from other countries. This program should be very well known to farmers in southern Ontario because of the many releases which have been made and the many consultations we have had. We can assure them that there will be labour, but we are determined to search and find Canadians first as the first priority before we resort to bringing in offshore workers.


HOCKEY-SUGGESTION AMATEUR ASSOCIATIONS NOT SIGN CHILDREN TO CONTRACTS-GOVERNMENT ACTION
John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that the minister was approached last year with respect to the case of 16 year old Michael Laffrade of Toronto who was prevented from playing hockey because he had signed a contract with an amateur team, and in view of the fact that the minister had expressed outrage and incredulity at the effects of thav contract, and in view of the fact that the minister on the program "Ombudsman" had promised to speak to the CAHA about this situation, would he inform the House if he has contacted the CAHA and instructed it and its affiliated bodies to cease and desist from forcing children to sign contracts or forms which restrict their opportunities for playing hockey?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I let the program "Ombudsman" know that I should be pleased to give them all appropriate information on this subject. I already appeared on this program last year and I find rather astonishing the kind of remark that was made recently on it. I already got in touch with the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association but unfortunately, and contrarily to what the hon. member is suggesting in his question, I am not in a position to give orders to a private organization such as the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association.


John R. Rodriguez: In view of the fact that many more cases similar to that of Michael Laffrade have surfaced this winter, will the minister inform the House as to what steps he is prepared to take to ensure that children do not become embroiled in legal disputes in the pursuit of voluntarily playing amateur sports in this country?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, all I can recommend to the hon. member is that he read the British North America Act where he will find that the responsibilities of the provincial and federal governments in this area are clearly defined.


Mr. Speaker:: A final supplementary and then I will see the hon. member for Annapolis Valley on a question of privilege.



COMPETITION ACT


John R. Rodriguez: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final supplementary is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In view of the reluctance of the Minister of National Health and Welfare to deal with this situation in a satisfactory fashion, will
March 13, 1975

the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs tell the House if he is prepared to give an assurance that Bill C-2, amending the Competition Act, will make provision to ensure that children who wish to participate in amateur sports in this country are not restricted?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, for a rather long time now, I have been asking that this bill be concurred in. I am happy to see that the hon. member is willing to support me, so that this bill might be brought back to Parliament as soon as possible and adopted.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege arises from an earlier exchange between myself and the Minister of Transport on his question of privilege when he said that he did not give orders to the RCMP to do anything in the matter of the Hamilton harbour inquiry. On February 27, as recorded at page 3622 of Hansard, the minister stated:
Oh, yes, there are answers. First, I must inform the House in connection with this matter ...
Referring to the Hamilton matter.
... I probably should have done this before, but I did not have the complete file before me-that I am the one who, in January 1973, two years ago, ordered the RCMP to inquire into alleged Hamilton irregularities.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: On March 4, 1975, as recorded at page 3754 of Hansard, on the question of who did what to whom and when, the minister, when asked about the letters which he said he would gladly table, said:
The letter I have here is written to the Commissioner, RCMP, Ottawa, Ontario ...
And he gives the postal code.
There is real confusion as to what the dates of the letters were, and at one time the minister said that a publication of the letters would prejudice innocent people. I suggest that to clarify once and for all who did what to whom, the minister should table the letters, deleting the names of those who have not yet been charged. This would at least clarify this one fact in the murky picture.


An hon. Member:: Better stick to driving.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, during the debate on the letters and the intervention of the federal government and the Department of Transport, there was a misunderstanding which I clarified with the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham.


Mr. Lawrence:: You confused it; you didn't clarify it.


Jean Marchand: The hon. member may infer what he wishes, but the fact is that he wrote me a letter and wanted me to tell him exactly what letters I sent to whom. This has been done because he sent me a letter, and probably five minutes later he gave the letter to the newspapermen, and I did about the same. I took ten minutes, not five.
Oral Questions


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean Marchand: The simple confusion is that there was a letter in the file prepared in the department, but that was never sent, and I did not know at that time when I gave the date in the House. After that I wrote an answer because the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham wrote to me and asked what the letters were. I answered him publicly, and all this is in the public record. I said after that that if the whole answer is read it can be seen that I wrote to the Solicitor General of Canada, not to the RCMP, in order to ask for an inquiry.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: You don't know what you did when.



POST OFFICE


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. In view of the considerable experience of the Postmaster General in dealing with labour relations which, as he has stated, was the key consideration in his appointment as Postmaster General, and in view of the rapid deterioration of the Canadian postal service as it continues to be torn by illegal strikes and now a postal code boycott, will the minister advise the House and the people of Canada what action he is taking to settle the current disputes and how soon he expects that they will be settled? Can the minister say how he will attempt to guarantee that these disputes, so costly to the country, will be halted in future?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, there is one illegal strike at the moment and that is in Montreal. What little experience I have had in the field of labour has convinced me that the worst possible way of settling an illegal dispute is to be blackmailed and I do not intend to do that. The strike in Montreal is illegal and I have ordered the suspension of certain militants in the organization. I have appealed to the people of Montreal to bear with me and, if necessary, keep that Post Office closed for months in order, once and for all, to clean out of the Post Office those who prefer to draw money and not do an honest day's work.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



INDUSTRY


Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce with respect to the collapse of Microsystems International which will throw 500 families

March 13, 1975
Oral Questions
into some financial jeopardy and will mean the loss of some $37 million to Canadian taxpayers. Would the minister agree that a full and independent public inquiry should be held to investigate the reasons for this collapse particularly in view of the tremendous infusion of public funds? Could the minister also assure the House that Northern Electric will not be allowed to apply the losses incurred by Microsystems against their profits until the completion of such an independent inquiry and the presentation of its report to parliament? Finally, in view of the importance of this industry to Canada and our present necessity of relying completely on the United States for semi-conductors, would the minister inform the House whether there are any plans to initiate a new industry in this country and if so, what they are?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, there is more than one question there and I shall do my best to answer as quickly as I can. The department supported the Microsystems project because according to the best advice then available, the company seemed to have a technically advanced product in process. Considerable sums of money were advanced in support of this product over a period of years and there was every evidence that it was technically up to standard internationally. Unfortunately, during the last couple of years there has been a major shift in international markets for that product, the result of which the hon. member is now aware. I do not think an inquiry would serve any useful purpose. This is an example of market forces combining against this project.
As members will realize, when you get into advanced technology you are getting into a risk business, and there are going to be failures. We have had successes and very few failures to date. As to losses on that particular enterprise and whether those losses may be used to offset profits earned by the parent company, I think this question should be directed to the Minister of National Revenue.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Veterans Affairs. I received an answer on the order paper yesterday which indicated that, as a result of the extension of the Veterans Land Act, 7,648 applications were approved between January 1974 and January 1975. This is evidence which contradicts what the minister said last year, that the Veterans Land Act had outlived its usefulness. Apart from the new veterans housing legislation, and because the decision on the extension of the Veterans Land Act was justified, would the minister consider continuing it as it is so popular?


Hon. Daniel J. MacDonald (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of government policy and there is no indication of it at this time.


Jack Marshall: A supplementary question. Contrary to the statement made last year that operational expenditures would be increased by $50 million, the annual report indicates that the operating expenditure was reduced by $741,000 and that $53.6 million was collected on capital account besides $26.3 million in interest, so would the minister take these figures into consideration and have discussions with his colleagues before March 31, 1975 with a view to extending the Veterans Land Act?


Daniel Joseph MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am prepared
to look at the figures and give them some consideration.



PUBLIC SERVICE


Mr. Leonard C. Jones (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. Has he or any member of the cabinet met with, or would they consider meeting with, representatives of the Public Service Alliance to attempt to negotiate, strictly on a moral basis, at least some temporary arrangement so that food shipments destined to certain foreign countries in desperate need of food can proceed unimpeded?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the President of the Treasury Board is now engaged in negotiations and I think there are improved prospects for success. I understood the motivation of the hon. member's suggestion but I do not think it would be advisable to put it forward at the present time.



TRANSPORT


Mr. Charles Lapointe (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, I want to put a question to the Minister of Transport.
Could he tell the House whether officials of his department have had formal meetings recently with officials of the provincial transport department to discuss the whole question of the transfer of ferry wharfs to the province and, if so, has a schedule been established so that these wharfs may be repaired and transferred to the province as soon as possible?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I know there have been meetings and contacts. I shall be able to give details on the dates of the meetings and the results of the talks tomorrow morning.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) on a question of privilege.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, my question of privilege deals with the answer which the Minister of Consumer


and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) gave to my supplementary question this afternoon, which may have been misleading. I know it was not intentional, but I think we should not leave it on the record. The minister does indeed have a competition bill before a committee of this House, but he has also introduced an amendment to eliminate the amateur sports provision of that competition bill. I do not see why we should help put that bill through the committee when it discriminates against young children in this country.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. member that the parliamentary committee-


An hon. Member:: Here he comes-


André Ouellet: The hon. member for Rocky Mountain could calm down a little. I understand he is under severe stress; the run for the Progressive Conservative party leadership has not yet begun, as far as I know. The hon. member should be reminded that the suggestions made to the parliamentary committee have not yet been approved as amendments to the bill. When the bill is discussed clause by clause, it will be possible to reassess whether it is convenient to exclude amateur sports or not, and I am convinced that the hon. member will have ample chance to put forward his point of view.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the government House leader what the business is for the rest of this week and next week. While he is telling us, I should be glad if he would deal with the question which I have raised with other House leaders, namely, whether certain of the supply days set down as allotted days might be taken over to the next session, having in mind that the committee on procedure has made some changes with regard to supply procedure. That procedure will not come into effect until later and may not affect the supply days just mentioned. I ask the government House leader to deal with this matter quickly, as tomorrow is to be an opposition day and we must know by five o'clock what is to happen: by five o'clock we must set down tomorrow's motion.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, there are two bills being debated at second reading stage which we should like to see read the second time, hopefully without excessive debate. They are Bill C-50, the agricultural stabilization bill, which has been debated for three days at second reading stage-presumably the debate is more or less finished- and Bill C-8, in the name of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, which deals with the establishment of a national petroleum company. These bills are urgent. In addition, there is a list of bills which are in various stages, some at third reading stage and others at the report stage,
Business of the House
as listed last Monday. These, I hope can be disposed of at the same time.
I thank the House leader of the official opposition for his offer to make available to the government before the Easter break some of the debating time which is now set aside for allotted days. I gather that our colleague the NDP House leader is agreeable to some transfer forward. I must confess that if this time is simply to be used for an unnecessary extension of debate on measures which the opposition does not intend to dispose of within a reasonable period, I would be reluctant to accept the offer.


An hon. Member:: Since when has debate been unnecessary?


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I do not know that House leaders ever engage in debate inside or outside the House. Nevertheless, let me tell the hon. gentleman that the record shows that this House has expedited the passage of a great many pieces of legislation in a short period. Bill C-50, which the hon. gentleman mentioned, is considered to be a most important bill. I notice that even government supporters participated every day in the debate. I think we can dispose of it in one more day. I will simply leave it at this: we are looking across the aisle at a sorry aggregate, politically speaking, of course-


Mr. Turner (Ottawa-Carleton):: Just look at the empty
seats on your side.


Gerald William Baldwin: -of members masquerading as ministers of the cabinet and we see some inviting targets for an opposition day motion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, it is clear that no matter whether House leaders debate amongst themselves or just chat with one another, we shall have to do this bit of negotiating somewhere else and not here on the floor of the House.


An hon. Member:: Why not here?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Why not? Don't encourage me too much.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Please don't.


Stanley Howard Knowles: If agreement can be reached to put one or two allotted days off to the next semester, we will be prepared to go along with it. As for Bill C-50 and Bill C-8 which the minister mentioned, I believe I can say that we have only a few more speakers to put up on Bill C-50, and perhaps none at all. Bill C-8 has only been before the House for half a day's debate. We would be prepared to see it read the second time after no more than another half day's debate. Perhaps we can negotiate these matters between now and five o'clock.
While I am on my feet, may I express the hope that the government House leader is holding discussions with the Minister of Veterans Affairs and that we will soon see the motion to refer the Hermann report to the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs. I hope he will also discuss with the Minister of Veterans Affairs the possibility of making available time in which to make an announcement, to bring in legislation or do whatever he must do

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
before the end of this month with respect to replacing the Veterans Land Act.


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: The minister gave a solemn undertaking that he would do something.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I thank my associates for their hopeful comments. I am greatly encouraged by seeing so many empty seats opposite. I hope we will be able to make rapid progress. Perhaps I can say to the NDP House leader that I consulted the Minister of Veterans Affairs, who wrote that the reference-probably next week-would be suitable.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, if I may raise a supplementary point, has the minister had discussions with the Minister of Veterans Affairs about the other matter to which I referred? We had the solemn commitment that there would be an announcement before March 31. If we break for Easter, we shall adjourn three or four days before that date.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


John Edward Broadbent: That this House urges the government to introduce, within two weeks, a new budget, for the purpose of dealing with the increasingly dangerous state of the Canadian economy, and specifically to cope with mounting unemployment, the housing needs of our people, and the scourge of poverty.
He said: Mr. Speaker, before I deal with the reasons for my party's recommendation for a new budget within two weeks which is to deal with unemployment, poverty and difficulties in housing, let me say something about this country's potential for industrial and social development which could be realized given the right kind of political and economic leadership. We are one of the world's richest nations in terms of natural endowments. Given the size of our mineral deposits, our gas, oil and lumber resources, our agriculture, and our potential for developing our sea resources off the east and west coast we are, by any standard, one of the best endowed countries in the world.
In addition, our labour force is able and determined to work and-perhaps this is more important-it is highly educated. Clearly, our abundant natural endowments and our highly educated labour force make us unique. Unlike the countries of western Europe, Japan or the United States-unlike other industrialized nations-we do not depend on imported raw materials for our development. Unlike the labour forces of third world countries and underveloped nations, our labour force is highly educated. We are, then, unique in our, then, advantages.

Of course, I am speaking of our potential, which can only be mobilized with the right kind of political and economic leadership. But what about present economic reality? What is happening in March, 1975, shows that reality falls short of potential. Let me put on record four important items. First, we have high and increasing levels of inflation. According to the most recent figures, the cost of living in February, 1975, compared with that of February, 1974, increased by 11.8 per cent. There is every indication that that inflation rate, or one somewhere in that neighbourhood, will persist for the rest of the year. This is an extremely bad situation for millions of Canadians, particularly those on low incomes.
Secondly, we have high and increasing levels of unemployment. The most recent figures show that in the month of February, 1974, there were 635,000 unemployed in Canada. In February 1975, the total number of unemployed had increased to 839,000. In percentage terms, this is an increase from 6.8 per cent to 8.6 per cent of unemployed Canadians. There are 839,000 men, women and young adults out of work in Canada, the highest figure since the depression.
The third point I wish to make, in terms of adding to the general description of the current economic situation, pertains to our trade position. Measured in real dollars, Canadian exports have been at a virtual standstill since the last quarter of 1972. In fact, if the current trend for this year continues it is expected that by the end of 1975 the drop in our trade position will be the largest, in absolute terms, for any year since 1954: it will be the largest drop in 20 years. In contrast, Canadian imports have continued to rise. Indeed, the rate at which our imports are rising and our exports are declining has led experts to predict that we could be in for one of the worst years, in terms of trade, since the depression. These are not experts within the party structure of the House of Commons nor, indeed, within the government; they are people in the academic community and other sectors outside of government-the business community, for example.
The fourth point I wish to make is also in the context of our discussion on import and export trade. Ministers of the Crown, in particular, when talking about our problems of foreign trade should really refer to our imports and exports vis-a-vis the United States. We are not, in any meaningful sense of the term, a world trading nation: we are a trading nation with the United States of America. Sixty-seven per cent of our exports go to the United States. In dollar terms the vast majority of these exports are unprocessed, undeveloped raw materials. At the same time, 69 per cent of our imports are from the United States. Most of these, of course, are in the form of finished goods; They have built into them more jobs per dollar invested than occurs from investment in the raw materials sector of the economy.
These are four general economic points. We have high and increasing rates of inflation and high and increasing rates of unemployment. We have declining exports and increasing imports. The fourth point-our import and export trade-is, and has been for many years, almost exlusively a matter of trade with the United States and
March 13, 1975
COMMONS DEBATES______________________
Canadian Economy
not with other countries of the world. This government has been a complete failure in dealing with these issues. It has not done anything of consequence with regard to inflation. In spite of promises from 1972 on, no effective legislation has been brought before the House to deal with price gouging, profiteering, or whatever label you want to give it. On many occasions our party has called for the establishment of an effective prices review board, one with teeth to enforce some effective control and review the mechanism in respect of price gouging in the market. The government has not seen fit to bring forward anything of substance in this area.
The budget of last fall was an opportunity to deal with inflation in some way, at least in terms of its effects on average and low income people. However, it was one of the most regressive budgets in years. It was regressive even in terms of Liberal standards-which is pretty bad. At the top end of the income tax scale there were tax cuts of $700, going all the way down to a few dollars at the lower end of the scale which affects the poor people. Those not in a position to pay any income tax got nothing out of the budget.
A progressive budget, in terms of easing inflation, would have had something in it for both poor and average income people. Instead, it removed the subsidy that existed on an essential product, milk. It should have extended federal subsidies to essential products, particularly food, so that low income people could at least be assured of a nutritional diet in times of an inflating economy. Instead, the government moved in a clearly regressive way, removing the subsidy on milk which had been put on in a minority government situation.
The government did not do anything in its budget, nor has it done anything since, about revamping the pension structure in Canada either directly in terms of pensions under federal jurisdiction or indirectly by bringing forward legislation to provide any kind of incentive, financial or otherwise, to the private sector to revamp their pension plans so that people so badly hit by inflation, particularly those on fixed pensions, would be in a better position to eke out a reasonable existence.
Another area in which the government has not acted is with respect to its whole wage and salary policy vis-a-vis its own employees. In the view of our party, recent and current strikes in the public service are overwhelmingly the responsibility of the government. I say this because Treasury Board has not seen fit to make wage proposals to the blue collar workers in particular to enable them to make up for lost income as a result of increases in the cost of living. The government has failed to provide an adequate salary proposal to enable these workers to cope with increasing levels of inflation which are predicted for the years ahead. This is an area where the government could have acted directly in terms of its own employees. However, it has not done what it should in terms of easing the impact of inflation. It has not helped those whom it employs directly, nor has it indirectly set a moral precedent that might have had some kind or impact on the private sector.
We have continued, and in fact strengthened, our traditional role as an exporter of raw materials and an importer of finished goods. Current figures show there is a surplus in our trade of raw materials amounting to some $8 billion: this represents the value of the raw materials we are exporting in excess of those we import. As a result of this surplus we enjoy a slight over-all trade balance.
What does this mean? It means that aside from the impact on our trade and on the value of the Canadian dollar, we are, in effect, exporting countless jobs because, as I have explained, the jobs which arise in the resource sector do not compare, in terms of numbers, with the jobs that arise in the manufacturing and processing sectors per dollar of investment. Thus, the more we depend upon the export of our raw materials, the greater the loss of jobs we shall suffer in the years ahead. The situation is analogous to that of the farmer who decides to pay off his debts by selling a quarter section of his land each year. We all know it would not take long for the farmer to go out of business. If we continue, as a country, along the lines the Liberal Party has been following, we shall find ourselves in the position of that farmer before very long.
The most recent significant policy initiative announced by the government-I refer to the Syncrude project- reinforces this trend toward both the sale of our raw resources and the domination of foreign ownership. If I wanted to single out the most symptomatic project of this kind in the history of Canada, I would point to Syncrude as being the best, or perhaps the worst, example.
In short, in this aspect of the economy the Liberals remain what they have always been, particularly since C. D. Howe gained the great influence which he exerted over the party-a party ready and willing to sell out our resources to our neighbours to the south, instead of providing the economic leadership which would entail, as a minimum, a national plan designed to include an industrial strategy for developing our own resources instead of selling them off. Included in such a plan would be provision for federal government involvement in all major investment decisions affecting the economy. This is the kind of action which is required and it is the kind of action the government has failed to take.
I wish to refer, now, to two particularly odious consequences of the absence of a national economic policy. The first is poverty. What are the dimensions of this problem? Does it affect merely a handful of people, as some appear to think? Here are the facts. In 1973 there were almost six million Canadians-5,778,000, to be exact-living at or below the poverty line in our country, according to Statistics Canada. How, in particular, are the children affected? Surely, one of the most moving and disturbing reports which has ever come into our hands is, that which came out last week-all members of parliament received a COpy-prepared by the National Welfare Council and entitled, appropriately and sadly enough, "Poor Kids".
What did we learn from that report? We learned that one out of every four children in Canada lives in poverty. In gross terms, 1.7 million Canadian children live in pover-

Canadian Economy
ty. All these children grow up without as much food as other kids get to eat, without the same kind of clothing as other kids wear, without the same quality of shelter as other kids enjoy, without the toys that other kids play with: without, in short, the sources of joy in childhood which make adult life a desirable possibility. This is what poverty means. In addition, such children are much more likely to fall sick. They are more likely to incur permanent brain damage as a result of malnutrition. They are less likely to go on to institutions of higher learning. They are less likely, in short, to do all the things the more affluent three-quarters of our children take for granted. This, surely, is one of the most damning indictments of a government of any advanced country.
The tragedy is compounded by the fact that, unlike India, China or other countries in Southeast Asia and South America, Canada has no excuse. There is no justification for the situation described in "Poor Kids" because there is no justification for poverty in a society such as ours. The report itself says: "There is no need for poverty in Canada". The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) made the same point in a speech delivered last fall in Toronto when he used very similar statistics based upon the population as a whole. In a moving speech, he documented in unequivocal terms the maldistribution of income in Canada; the fact that after 25 years of so-called progressive government, government which has supposedly been concerned about tax policies leading to a redistribution of income, no such redistribution has taken place. He showed that the whole operation had been a sham. I say this as a man who at one time really believed that such policies were working and that they were significant instruments of social change. However, I repeat, no such redistribution has taken place. The top 20 per cent of our population enjoys 40 per cent of our income, and the bottom 20 per cent-the poor people of Canada-have something less than 10 per cent.
What needs to be done, Mr. Speaker? Other nations of the world, the developing nations, have to generate industry to bring their economies to capacity. This takes decades. What we need to fight poverty is simply a change in governmental attitude, policy and direction that will take the wealth we already have and more fairly distribute it in society. The minister who made that fine and moving speech in Toronto last fall, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, does not speak hypocritically, but the government as a whole is being hypocritical when it does not heed the minister's expressed concern and call for leadership in this regard.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), in the same month as the minister's speech, presented a budget that did nothing to rectify the evils that the Minister of National Health and Welfare so vividly described. It seems to me that you cannot express fundamental and moral concern for the people of Canada, either inside or outside the House, without taking the opportunity which presents
[Mr. Broadbent.l
itself in a budget to demonstrate in some way an intention to remedy the social evil you have described. That is exactly the situation with the present government. On the one hand, the government talks of society's problems, particularly poverty among adults and children; and on the other hand, when it gets a chance to act it completely fails to do so. The Minister of National Health and Welfare is not responsible for the budget, of course; that is the direct responsibility of the Minister of Finance. But the government as a whole cannot be excused for failing to act.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare over the past two years has been developing a guaranteed minimum income program. Two or three weeks ago ministers from the provinces met the minister in Ottawa to discuss what a lot of people thought was going to be the framework for a minimum income program to deal with the poverty that he himself had described in such moving terms last fall in Toronto. What has been the government's decision in regard to that program? Did the government say that it is time we in Canada eliminated a situation where one kid in four lives in poverty? In fact, about 20 per cent of our total population live in poverty. The government did not say, Mr. Speaker, that it was going to remove this evil. The Minister of National Health and Welfare, I understand under pressure from his cabinet colleagues, backed away from taking the kind of action that could have led-I say this with care and with seriousness-to the eradication of poverty within one year. As the report has documented, this could be done in this country within one year if income were redistributed.
This is not an utopian scheme for Canada in 1975, Mr. Speaker. If you had talked about it ten years ago, then you could not have said it could be done within one year. But if we want to eliminate poverty today, we can do it either by bringing in a negative income tax scheme, the details of which are well known to the cabinet, or by amending the Canada Assistance Plan Act. This was a step that a number of welfare ministers from the provinces wanted the government to take so as to make sure that all families in Canada living at or below the poverty line could overnight have their level of payments under the plan increased. Two or three weeks ago the Minister of National Health and Welfare scuttled any move in that direction, putting off once again to some future date the implementation of some kind of minimum income program in Canada. I say this is a national tragedy. It is something that could have been avoided and not put off to some distant date in the future.
The last area of specific concern, in terms of the national economy, about which I wish to say something is housing. Our party regards housing as a social right. It should not be considered a commodity that can be compared to a colour television set or an expensive car; it should be regarded by Canadians, in 1975, as medical services or elementary school education are regarded-as a basic right in an industrial country like ours. It is something we should take for granted if we are willing to work for it. Nobody gets anything for nothing, but if people are willing to work they should be able to get housing in 1975, just as they can get medicare or elementary school education. Housing should not be contingent upon having an exceptionally high income.

The government has failed to recognize that housing is a social right. It continues to try to rely upon financial incentives of one kind or another. It continues to give special tax concessions to investors. It continues to provide financial subsidies to the banks in order to get them to reduce mortgage rates, rather than deal with housing directly. I see, Mr. Speaker, you are about to indicate that my time has expired, but if I could have a few more minutes I will conclude my remarks.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Edward Broadbent: The minimum need for housing is somewhere between 800,000 and one million units. The Minister of State responsible for housing, last fall said that we needed 800,000; the Canadian Council on Social Development has said we need one million units. The government should have told the Minister of Finance to make provision for this in his budget. As I have said, we must create jobs, with so much unemployment in Canada, so let us create jobs in this area of need. But instead, the government, in terms of real dollars, chose to freeze the housing budget. The 1975 housing budget is no different from the 1974 budget in terms of real dollars.
The housing minister's own target is 210,000 housing units. According to figures released a month or two ago, he will be lucky to get 165,000 units. I say the minimum target of the government for this year should have been
400,000	units, for which they could and should have allocated funds. In view of our unemployment situation, for fiscal reasons this would have been the responsible thing to do because it would create jobs, although in terms of human need also we need additional economic impact. Instead of restricting the housing budget, the cabinet should have doubled it and therefore doubled the projected target of the minister.
In my judgment, the reason the Liberal Party has failed to come to grips with housing is that it has failed to assume the obligation to direct investment into certain sectors of our society at a certain time in order to meet human and social priorities. This would mean they would have to say to the banks insurance companies and other financial institutions in Canada that a certain percentage of their investments in 1975 and 1976 must be set aside to provide the housing which Canadians need. To do that, of course, the government would have to change the Bank Act and other financial legislation; and to do that it would have to take on the banks and financial institutions in a political battle. The Liberal government is unwilling to do that. Therefore, my party does not expect the Liberal government to win the battle in respect of housing as a social right, just as it did not win the battle in respect of medicare or any other major social innovation. This battle will have to be fought and won by somebody else, and when that is done and the situation is politically safe, the Liberal government will come along and take over again.
I want to conclude by saying that we need a new budget within a couple of weeks which will recognize that unemployment, rather than inflation, is the principal issue in 1975. Let me assure the Minister of Finance, in case he should think that somehow it is a bizarre proposal when I
Canadian Economy
say that we need a budget within two weeks, that I suggest this with a great sense of probity and responsibility. In view of the answers the minister has given the House since the beginning of this parliament last fall and since the last budget, to the effect that the government is monitoring the situation, it was not prepared to bring in a new budget but might do so in the future, I assume that his professional advice is fully abreast of the current situation. For that reason, and having regard to the request for a new budget within two weeks, I assume the government is capable of doing just that, particularly if it has been doing what the minister has said in his answers during the last few weeks.
We need a budget which recognizes that unemployment in 1975 is the crucial problem, a budget which recognizes that poverty does exist in Canada to an alarming degree and should be eradicated in 1975; and, finally, a budget which recognizes that housing needs in Canada are not being met but ought to be met and will make the kind of funds available so that instead of a mere 200,000 housing units in 1975 we can have at least double that number this year, and within a couple of years totally eradicate our housing problem.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I personally want to congratulate the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) for bringing this subject before the House. No matter how much we disagree as to the ways in which these problems ought to be resolved, this is an issue with which this House of Commons and the country ought to deal. This involves a matter of judgment. As I have said on other occasions in the House-and I will make it quite clear again-we are leaving our options open at this stage until we have completed a further analysis of the facts. As I have made quite clear, we disagree with some of the fundamental positions advocated by the New Democratic Party. I hope the leader of that party will not misunderstand me if in the course of my remarks today I put on the public record some of the inconsistencies which he and his colleagues have presented for the scrutiny of the Canadian people.
I also congratulate the hon. member on his style of debate in dealing with the issues. I enjoyed listening to him. Obviously, when you look around the chamber, in spite of the fact that this is the number one problem in the country it is not a big grabber at the moment as far as the House of Commons is concerned.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: There are four committees sitting.


John Napier Turner: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) points out that there are four committees sitting. This problem is not even a big grabber for our friends of the fourth estate, who seem to be more interested in the Hamilton harbour dredging scandal than in what I believe to be the crucial issue before the country.


Mr. Clark (Rocky Mountain):: It is not a grabber so it's a wonder you are here at all.


John Napier Turner: I would not mind at all if the hon. member for Rocky Mountain (Mr. Clark) would like to take a breather. I want to say at the outset that the nature of the rate of unemployment and inflation is not

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
satisfactory at all. These are both troublesome problems in this country and they are twin problems of great concern to the government. They have to be dealt with simultaneously. In spite of the human problem in terms of the concern of men and women out of work in this country, I would insist that we will not have the growth necessary to provide new jobs if we do not get the problem of inflation under control.
To this extent, I agree with the United States Secretary of the Treasury who said to the members of the press at the National Press Club yesterday afternoon that the recession was brought on in the United States because of the effects of inflation on the economy of that country. We have to deal with both these problems at the same time if we are to get the type of growth we need in order to provide jobs for the young men and women of our country who are joining the labour force at the highest absolute, relative, rate in the world.
The first point I want to make in answer to the terms of the hon. gentleman's motion calling for a budget within two weeks is that that there is already significant stimulus injected into the economy. Before the United States, Germany and other European countries moved we had already, on November 18, injected $3 billion, in terms of a combined budgetary and non-budgetary deficit, into the Canadian economy. To put that in terms of United States figures, which are roughly 12 to 1, it is equivalent to a deficit of about $35 billion or $40 billion on total account. Because of stabilization factors built into the economy, because of lower prospective corporate revenues and because of rising unemployment, these stabilization figures have probably moved the cash deficit closer to $4 billion than $3 billion. The tax cuts provided in the November 18 budget, expanding the May 6 budget, are now already in effect for the 1974 and 1975 years in terms of payroll deductions. Fortunately, our cash balances are good and even with that amount of deficit I will not have to go to the market for amounts that would adversely affect our interest rates.
I want to draw to the attention of the House the difference between the position we face and the position recognized publicly yesterday by the United States Secretary of the Treasury. He will have to finance about $80 billion to $90 billion to cover the deficit in the 1975 calendar year in the U.S. economy, and the effect that may have on interest rates in the New York market toward the end of the year is something I will have to take into account in terms of our own debt management and management of our economy. The second point I want to make is that our economy, in 1974, experienced real growth of 3.7 per cent, against negative growth in the United States of 2.2 per cent. In other words, when we look at the respective stimuli we have to compare the respective stages of these two North American economies.
As I said to the House in answer to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), or to the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens)-I cannot recall whom-one ought to take into account the fact that for 1974 our gross national product grew at a real rate, inflation discounted, of 6.8 per cent and the 3.7 per cent in terms of real total growth or gross national product represents a drag on or a leakage in our economy because of falling exports. This is 
what has happened to Canada's economy because of a flat, stagnant, recessionary economy in the United States which takes, as the hon. gentleman has said, 67 per cent of our trade. Our next biggest customer is Japan, which is also in a state of recession, as is the United Kingdom, our third largest customer. That is why I say that for 1975, although we can expect growth, and we are probably one of the few of the 24 industrialized nations who are members of OECD that will experience growth, in real terms, in 1975-


Robert Lorne Stanfield: How much are you expecting?


John Napier Turner: We have shaded off our growth figures from 4 per cent in the budget, and I will be coming up with some definitive figures when I have analysed the effect of our stimulus here and the effect of whatever package the United States puts together after the administration and the President are able to negotiate an economic package with the U.S. Congress.
It is because of the drag on our economy resulting from falling exports and the state of the economy of the United States and the economy of European countries, all of which is crucial to us, that this situation has developed. I want to analyse the first quarter figures in Canada to see how the stimulus is biting. I shall analyse the situation as it develops in the United States. Our economy has suffered, primarily, through 1974-75, not because of the falling off of our domestic economy but because of exports, now reinforced by lower housing and some diminishing in the consumer demand rate.
The third point I want to make to the hon. gentleman from Oshawa-Whitby who brought this motion to our attention is the fact that in any economy there are time lags between the presentation of a budget or the enactment of legislation and how it works its way through an economy. Traditionally, the economists underestimate the time lag, as do politicians and journalists. The budget presented on November 18 is already in effect for the 1975 and 1976 years. As I said on budget night, we hoped it might take by the third and fourth quarters of 1975 and particularly by 1976. I repeat again that $3 billion to $4 billion is already injected into the economy by way of a total deficit of budgetary and non-budgetary requirement.
The crucial question in trying to analyse how best to achieve growth without exacerbating inflation is, when is the economy going to turn up and, particularly, when will the United States economy turn up? The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States expects a substantial growth in the fourth quarter of this year. If that is so, and there should be a similar effect for the Canadian economy, that is just when the added stimulus recommended by the hon. gentleman would begin to bite and would compound whatever inflationary tendencies were still in the economy. Those are issues against which I must exercise judgment and reflection and I must have better correlation in respect of the facts than I now have.
The hon. gentleman said that unemployment is 6.8 per cent. He said this is the highest it has been since the depression. That does not happen to be true. In terms of absolute numbers, he recognizes that the labour force now

is larger than it was in the 1930s. He also recognizes that we had no figures: Statistics Canada, or its predecessor the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, did not start to publish unemployment statistics until 1953. We have no way of knowing what the percentage figures were during the depression. I can say to the hon. gentleman that in the early 1960s and 1970s-


John Edward Broadbent: I did not give the percentage. I gave the figure of some 800,000.


John Napier Turner: Yes, but in terms of percentage of the labour force we had higher unemployment in 1962, 1961, 1960, 1959 and in some of the early 1950s. I am saying to the hon. gentleman that this is not the worst unemployment we have had since the depression. We must compare the men and women out of work with the total labour force. I can recall to him-and I take limited satisfaction from it, in view of the current human conditions-that this government has been interested in new jobs. In the last three years we and the Canadian economy have found one million new jobs for Canadians.
The hon. gentleman mentioned housing. In the budget, I said that this remains a fundamental requirement of the government. It is one of the prime thrusts in the budget. We expect, and will continue to do so with the co-operation of my colleague the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson), to inject the necessary stimulus into the economy to attempt to reach the target of 210,000 new units and new starts.


John Edward Broadbent: You need more than 210,000.


John Napier Turner: We will argue that in a minute. I was impressed and, as a matter of fact, moved by the description the hon. gentleman gave on the state of poverty of this country. I share his concern. I say to him, again, that although we may disagree in respect of the approaches to a number of these issues, he has no monopoly on compassion. We are all trying to eradicate what is a blight on the Canadian scene.
I want to point out to him and to our colleagues in the House that we have done a great deal in an effort to protect those who are least able to defend themselves against economic cycles, against the erosion of inflation. We raised the old age pension and adjusted it against cost of living. We adjusted the guaranteed income supplement and increased it. We tripled family allowances and adjusted those against the rise in the cost of living to protect those families with small children, particularly those below the poverty line. We came up with the largest tax reduction in Canadian history, and 70 per cent of those reductions affect people with incomes of $10,000 or less. We eliminated what the hon. gentleman considered to be a regressive sales tax for all clothing, all food and all drink except alcohol. We do represent, after all, the party which brought in medicare and hospitalization programs and we are committed to a guaranteed annual income.


John Edward Broadbent: Tell us about the Liberal Party in Saskatchewan.


John Napier Turner: Now I want to recall to the House some of the policies of the NDP if, perchance,
Canadian Economy
by way of electoral accident, the hon. gentleman and his friends were ever to form a government in Canada. Hopefully, that is only remotely academic. In any event, I think the House deserves-


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the minister would permit a question.


John Napier Turner: Yes, sir.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: In respect of the American economy and the trend of that economy the minister referred to the view of the United States Secretary of the Treasury that there would be an upturn in the fourth quarter. When will the minister determine whether there will be an upturn in the fourth quarter? Will it be at the end of the fourth quarter?


John Napier Turner: I think the hon. gentleman knows me better than that, and also knows himself better than to take that question too seriously. I have given the best analysis I can at this stage of the situation. Since the hon. gentleman's party will in due course want to bring forward its own motion, for the moment I want to deal with the New Democratic Party.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker-


John Napier Turner: I just hope, Mr. Speaker, that the time allocation is being adjusted accordingly.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I feel the House will agree to extend the time of the minister in the way he so generously did for me. I just want to say to the minister that unfortunately I cannot remain for the completion of his remarks; I have to visit one of his government's ambassadors. I did not want him to think that I was leaving because he was now getting into the most interesting part of his speech.


John Napier Turner: I can forgive the hon. gentleman if he will give me the undertaking that he will read this speech in the morning. I recall that the House leader of the New Democratic Party spoke during second reading debate on the income tax bill on February 11, 1975, at which time he held up West Germany as a model for Canada to emulate. He said that if we had half the competence in managing our economy which West Germany has, we would be going somewhere. He stated that West Germany imports virtually all its petroleum, has the lowest rate of inflation in the world and has the fullest employment, but that this government, with all its resources, manages to maximize the worst of both evils. He said we have high inflation and virtually full unemployment.
That contention by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whit-by indicates that, if anything, he is even more badly informed about the West Germany economy than about the Canadian economy. Without reflecting in any way on the management of the West German economy, let me point out that whatever success the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby attributes to it has been achieved primarily by fiscal and monetary policies that are totally contrary to those advocated by the New Democratic Party.
Conversely, let me point out that the policies the NDP is advocating are almost guaranteed to ensure that the

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
performance of the Canadian economy would be very much worse than that of Germany or any other industrialized country. It is quite true that Germany has experienced significantly less inflation than most other industrialized nations. In large part this is the result of severe fiscal and monetary restraints which the government imposed on the economy early in 1973 and maintained until very recently. These restraints served to curtail sharply German economic growth.
German imports were also curtailed sharply, while its exports remained buoyant, which contributed to the substantial appreciation of the exchange value on the market which in turn helped to insulate Germany from inflation abroad. I might add that the moderate claims by German workers for increased wages and salaries have also contributed to achievement of Germany's moderate rate of inflation. Last October, the member for Oshawa-Whitby maintained the exercise of any restraint by Canadian trade unions was "totally insupportable". During 1974 the real gross national product in Germany rose only by 0.4 per cent, compared to the Canadian increase of 3.7 per cent. In 1973, Germany's real GNP rose by 5.3 per cent, compared to 6.8 per cent in Canada. Employment in Germany today is lower than it was in 1963. Unemployment has more than doubled in the past year, to 5.1 per cent, a figure that no doubt would be considerably higher if measured in the same way in Canada with our regional differentials. Germany has announced its intention of reducing its foreign migrant work force from 2.3 million to 1.5 million.
Does the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby really consider that we should have followed the German example in imposing tight fiscal and monetary restraints on the economy as much as two years ago? Would he consider that the consequent slow growth and sharply increased unemployment which would result in this country because of a very rapidly growing labour force would be a measure of the kind of competent economic management which he espouses? In his words, we would certainly be going somewhere, but hardly in the direction he advocates.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: What is the NDP position? I have some difficulty here, but I shall do my best to try to reconcile some of the economic pronouncements of the hon. gentleman and his colleagues. The fact is that the NDP has loudly and consistently clamoured for the adoption of policies which are the very antithesis of those followed by successive German governments, including the hon. member's fellow Democratic Socialists who make up the present German administration.
When did the NDP in this country ever advocate even the smallest measure of fiscal and monetary restraint? To the contrary, they have at all times advocated pulling out all the stops, dismantling the brakes and pushing the accelerator down to the floor. Their position at present is no exception to the rule. If anything, the policies they propose are more wildly expansionary and inflationary than any they have ever advocated before.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Hon. members will recall that during the course of the same speech on February 11 in which the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, House leader of the NDP, set up Germany as a model for us to follow, he also made a number of proposals which he claimed would deal simultaneously with the problems of unemployment and inflation. He proposed, first, a $400 tax credit for every Canadian family with two children regardless of whether they were liable for taxes. Second, he proposed payment by the federal government of 100 per cent of all labour costs for municipal public works programs.
Then, third, he proposed the abolition of the sales tax on automobiles after ordering the auto manufacturers to eliminate the price differential between Canadian and U.S. cars. Fourth, he proposed an unspecified increase in the basis OAS and the CPP to provide what he called adequate pensions. Fifth, he proposed an increase in federal civil service salaries equivalent as a minimum to the rise in the cost of living since the last contract was negotiated, plus the increase in economic growth, plus a cost of living adjustment for the future tied to the increase in the consumer price index.
The last two proposals constituted the program advocated by the NDP to disabuse anyone of the idea that it was suggesting for one minute that "nothing could be done about inflation." Of course, neither of these proposals would do anything about inflation. They might help some Canadians to live better with inflation, but they would do nothing to help bring it under control. On the contrary, these measures, together with the others proposed by the hon. member, would only serve to add fuel to the inflationary fire. What would be the cost to the federal treasury of the NDP proposals, in terms of increased expenditures and lost revenue? It seems they have no answer, but that is the least of their concern.
I remember very well that the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ritchie) asked the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, during that speech, how much his $400 tax credit proposal would cost. The NDP House leader replied: "We do not have any precise figure for that." He went on to say:
I can say with reasonably good authority, from a number of economists, that the total impact of this on the situation we are headed toward, would result in a very significant deficit in terms of the federal budget for the coming year. There is no doubt about that, but it is this kind of deficit in our current economic situation we think is not only justified but required.
Those were his words. Even from the NDP that adds up to an incredible piece of mumbo-jumbo. Here we have the principal spokesman in the House of Commons for the NDP telling us in one breath that he does not know how large a deficit would be created by the program his party advocates, and in the next breath telling us this deficit of large but undefined magnitude is exactly what our economy requires in the present situation. He does not know how big it will be, but boy, it is right for the country. Of course, I can understand the hon. member's difficulty in arriving at any estimate of the cost of the program his party advocates since many of the proposals are so vague as to be virtually meaningless. We have it on the authority of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt), and I am using his words, that the tax credit scheme alone-
March 13, 1975

-will mean that something like $4 billion will be put back into the bottom level of the economy, on a one-shot basis, to get this thing back on the rails.
That quotation will be found at page 3134 of Hansard, Mr. Speaker. Pulling another figure out of the air, he blithely calculated that a tax reduction of $4 billion would, to use his words-
-regenerate about $1.5 billion in taxes-
Leaving a net cost to the treasury of a mere $2.5 billion! To indicate just how well thought-out the NDP proposal is, let me point out that while the hon. member for New Westminster was suggesting that what was required was a tax cut of $4 billion, the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) told the House on February 21, as reported at page 3450 of Hansard:
What is needed to stimulate the economy is another $1 billion or $2 billion in the hands of the people in the low income bracket.
Well, the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville says $1 billion and his colleague from New Westminster says $4 billion. To the NDP, what is $3 billion?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: Then we have the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge (Mr. Saltsman) who told the House on January 30, 1975, as reported at page 2752 of Hansard that he thinks, and I am using his words-
-The economy is essentially strong and healthy and not even the government can damage it very much.
He said that with his usual charming sense of humour. He went on to say that he had difficulty understanding how the Conservative proposal' for a $500 million tax reduction would at the same time stimulate the economy and reduce inflation, as claimed by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens). He indicated that what was required was not a tax reduction to stimulate the economy, but a change in the tax system to provide for a more even distribution of income. The hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge contended that the tax cuts proposed in the May and November budgets were "enormously regressive". We return to the view of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville who told the House on December 6, 1974, as reported at pages 2020 and 2021 of Hansard and I like these remarks because I was here to listen to them:
Our income tax system is now the most progressive in the world. It takes into account the needs of individuals. We should do the same sort of thing with other taxes.
The hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge says our taxes are regressive, but not the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville. To return to my main theme, let me point out that we have it on the authority of an unnamed aide to the NDP leader in the House, one of those researchers supported by Mr. Speaker's estimates, and we are all for that, though I do feel the NDP members ought to get together with the same researcher and make sure they are working on the same material-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Napier Turner: -we have it from an unnamed aide to the NDP leader in the House, as reported in the Toronto Star of February 12, 1975, that the tax credit scheme would cost more than $4 billion-he did not say
Canadian Economy
anything about regenerating taxes-and that a $5 billion estimate for the total NDP package probably was a little conservative. That is the NDP aide to the current House leader of the NDP. That may well prove to be the greatest understatement of the parliamentary year.
Let us accept, for the sake of argument, the NDP cost estimate for the tax credit of more than $4 billion. Let us abolish the sales tax on automobiles as proposed by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby. That is $400 million or so. That brings us close to about $4.5 billion right there. What about the cost of the increase in old age pensions? The hon. member was particularly vague about what he had in mind, but so far as the OAS alone is concerned, I suppose I am safe in assuming that he was not advocating anything less than that advocated by the leader of the NDP during the last election campaign, an increase in the OAS to $200 monthly and the reduction over a five year period of the eligible age from 65 to 60.
I am advised that just in the first year the cost of that proposal would be more than $2 billion, a cost that would escalate by two or three times that amount over the course of the five year period. What the NDP has in mind with regard to increasing the Canada Pension Plan, I hate to guess. Leaving that proposal aside, it is not difficult to bring the total cost of the tax credit, abolition of the auto sales tax and the increase in the OAS, to more than $6.5 billion.
I imagine that it is anybody's guess how much it would cost for the federal government to pick up the tab for all municipal public works labour costs as advocated by the leader of the NDP, but I might point out that the estimated municipal construction outlays this year, not including school construction costs, will total more than $1.6 billion. If our experience with the winter capital projects fund is any guide, then labour costs will amount to around 65 per cent of that total, which would involve a federal expenditure of about $1 billion. That would raise the grand total for the NDP program to $7.5 billion. That is over the $3 billion to $4 billion deficit already in force in the economy, so we are talking about a $10 billion package from the NDP.
I will not even try to estimate the cost of the federal public service wage package proposed by the member for Oshawa-Whitby. Nor will I try to guess what is involved in his proposal to double housing construction to some
400,000	units. The member for Oshawa-Whitby spoke of the government infusing "enough capital into the economy to allow for the building of 400,000 new housing units". I do not know whether he is proposing that the Bank of Canada simply turn the credit tap wide open so as to generate private mortgage funds to finance such construction, or whether he is proposing that the government do the whole job itself. Let me just point out, however, that Statistics Canada estimates that capital investment in housing will amount to $6.7 billion this year, and to double housing construction would require the investment of double that amount.
Some weeks ago it was reported that the leader of the NDP government in British Columbia had emphasized the need for "fiscal responsibility". It should be blatantly

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
obvious that what is proposed by the NDP in this House is the ultimate in fiscal responsibility. To inject the kind of stimulus into the economy proposed by the NDP leader in the House would be like giving a person a massive overdose of speed pills with the same ultimately disastrous consequences.
When you are number three, it is easy to be all things to all people; it is easy to promise the moon and the sun and the stars. When you are number three you do not have to count the costs because you know there is no day of reckoning close at hand. Therefore you can go on making wild proposals that only make sense to Alice in Wonderland. Unlike Alice, however, the vast majority of Canadians are too preoccupied with the problems of unemployment and inflation. They do not live in wonderland and, happily, are too sensible and realistic to be taken in by schemes that are out of this world.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I would have thought we would have had some indication from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) today of what he proposes to do to correct conditions which have 839,000 Canadians out of work at the present time. Rather than the minister making fun of the speeches made by other members of this House, I would have thought he would have attempted to explain the fiscal irresponsibility of his own tenure of office. Rhetoric is fine, but let us not forget the fact that for three years this minister has contributed to the 30 per cent inflation that has occurred in this country. In the previous three years, his predecessor, Mr. Benson, was able to keep the rate to 11.5 per cent.


An hon. Member:: Big Ben and Little John.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It is ludicrous for a Minister of Finance with this minister's record to talk about fiscal irresponsibility. He likes to ask everybody for ideas and presumably he is shopping the world for new ideas now. Certainly he seems to like our ideas, so we will offer a few today. I find it interesting that the minister is so at sea in March, 1975, that he cannot hazard a new guess as to what our real growth rate for the current year will be. Our financial institutions are willing to hazard a guess, various economic research institutions will hazard a guess, other countries are hazarding guesses-but this Minister of Finance is playing the political game; he will not stand up and say that he believes real growth will be "X" per cent.
When you look at the record, it is perhaps easy to understand why he is a little hesitant to do so, because whether it has been on his own advisers' advice or on the advice of the mysterious group of seven, his record has not been too good in estimating the future fortunes of the country. In May, in his budgetary speech, the minister stated that real growth in 1974 would be 5 per cent. In November he had scaled it down to 4 per cent to 414 per cent. We know now that the actual growth was 3.7 per cent in 1974. In the November budget the minister stated that he anticipated real growth would be 4 per cent in 1975, and he said this was partly due to the stimulus he was putting into the economy.
What are the facts, Mr. Speaker? The minister will not tell us, and I honestly believe that he does not know. He is

drifting as he has drifted for three years. The Conference Board of Canada believes that the real growth in this country for 1975 will only be 1 per cent. The Bank of Montreal believes it is going to be 1.3 per cent. Certainly it is going to be much less than the 4 per cent mentioned by the Minister of Finance in November. I mention this because I believe we have to accept the fact that economic conditions have changed since November of last year. The minister admits that his November 18 budget was based on forecasts that have not materialized. That is his gentle way of admitting he has made a mistake. In my opinion, it is a colossal mistake. In the meantime, we have bought ourselves a recession the like of which has not been seen since the 1930s.
We, of course, are pleased that the NDP caucus, in their motion today, have at least joined us in pressing the government to rectify the inadequacy of their present economic stance. Let me reiterate our position. We have been pressing this government constantly to take some action to relieve the unsatisfactory situation that exists in this country. At second reading and at committee stage of Bill C-49 we moved that the government cut personal income taxes by $500 million. Such a cut would result in a saving for most Canadian taxpayers of $60 to $150 in this year alone. Unfortunately, the government blocked both our moves to give that tax break to Canadians.
During earlier debate on budgetary enabling legislation we pressed the government to reduce the sales tax on building materials. This would have meant a cost saving of $380 million to the construction industry which at the present time is bearing a disproportionate share of the current slump. During the last election campaign we advocated that interest in excess of 8 per cent payable on mortgages on private homes should be deductible from income as an expense before the payment of income tax. We reiterate that position today and urge the government to accept our proposal or at least to accept the principle that some portion of mortgage interest should be a tax deductible item. We estimate that our suggestion would amount to a concession to overtaxed present and future home owners of approximately $250 million per year.
To accommodate these tax cuts or concessions of approximately $1.1 billion, the government can, should and must curtail its spending programs by a like amount. This government has demonstrated that it cannot discipline itself on spending matters. Parliament must therefore accept the responsibility of restraining the government. This, frankly, we cannot do without the support of the majority of the members of the House, including members of the Liberal caucus.
The irresponsible record of the Minister of Finance is clear. His imprudent handling of the economy, or at least the government's reckless programs involving spending, have contributed to our current unsatisfactory economic conditions. The Minister of Finance complains these days that he and the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Chretien) are out-voted in cabinet when they attempt to restrain government spending. Perhaps these two ministers need our sympathy as they attempt to function within a cabinet filled with starry-eyed dreamers who, for short-
March 13, 1975

sighted political advantage, jeopardize the very foundations of our way of life.
For the benefit of hon. members who did not attend last Tuesday's meeting of the miscellaneous estimates committee, I point out that at that meeting the minister was pressed to explain why he has been making certain statements to the private sector in this country. He was asked why he had said at outside meetings that he is being out-voted in cabinet when he tries to restrain spending. In answer he said:
You know, Mr. Chairman, one of the first men I talked to after having been sworn into this portfolio was Dr. John Deutsch, then the principal of Queen's University and the former chairman of the Economic Council of Canada, a good friend of mine. He indicated, and it was not the first time I heard the view, that in democracies today there are no such things as economic cycles. There are political cycles, depending on the pressures of public policy and the spending on the parliamentary or congressional process at the time. Certainly we were under political imperatives where the pressures are stronger in a minority rather than a majority parliament. Those happen to be facts of life.
I asked the minister:
You wanted to be re-elected.
The minister replied:
Those happen to be the facts of life.


John Napier Turner: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I do not think the hon. gentleman should quote selectively from the committee report. I ask him to read the entire report and he will get the sense of what I had in mind, because he is misinterpreting and deliberately putting another construction on what I said. I also ask him to indicate to the House where I have spoken publicly about alleged conflicts within the cabinet. The hon. member is playing a game, the game of selective citations and selective quotations.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. That is a point of debate.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Madam Speaker, I was quoting directly from remarks as recorded in the Minutes and Proceedings of Evidence of the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates. The minister went on to say, as recorded in the Minutes and Proceedings of Evidence:
The parliamentary structure at the time reflects it, the types of expenditures that were approved.
Putting it simply, the Minister of Finance says that political expediency takes precedence over economic responsibility.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


An hon. Member:: Nonsense.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Perhaps the minister will set the record straight and tell us why we are in our present economic plight. The fact is that the government, in its lust to retain power, jeopardized the very economic foundations of the nation. Surely the minister must ask himself why he has done so poorly, during his years in office, in coping with his colleagues compared with his predecessor in office, Mr. Benson. For example, the minister will, in the period 1972 to 1976 allow government spending to double from $17.7 billion to $34.9 billion. I say this on the basis of the
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minister's own budgetary statements. Government spending will be twice as great as that at the end the previous four years, four years in which the much criticized Mr. Benson at least held government spending increases to half their present rate in percentage terms. How can the minister live with his colleagues in cabinet?
The Minister of Finance indicated that government expenditures, on a national accounts basis, would rise from $23.7 billion in the fiscal year 1974 to $34.9 billion in 1976. That rise in spending represents an increase of $11.2 billion in two years, or 47 per cent. That $11.2 billion increase almost equals the total average budget brought down by Mr. Benson. Let us not stop there: let us compare the record of both ministers of finance. When Mr. Benson left office he had succeeded in reducing the rise in the cost of living in this country to 2.9 per cent per year. The average rate of increase for three years had been 3.6 per cent per year. The rate of increase under the present minister has never been below 4.8 per cent and the average for his three years in office is 7.8 per cent-nearly 8 per cent.
As well, the unemployment rate has been higher, on average, in the past three years than in the previous three years. Our current account trade balance has shifted from a three-year average surplus of $165 million under Mr. Benson to a three-year average deficit of over $1 billion under the present minister. At the same time, real economic growth in the country has not changed significantly. Think of the handicap we are working under. Real growth under the regimes of both ministers of finance has been relatively the same if taken on a per annum basis. But, today we face the impossible situation of high unemployment, high inflation rates and a deteriorating trade balance. I suggest that these conditions have been aggravated by a government which has lost control of its spending perspective, has artificially stimulated the money supply in this country by over 20 per cent per year, and has through indecisive leadership so confused the business community that they no longer have confidence to commit funds to long-term investment.
Having created this climate, having tolerated an inflation rate of 30 per cent in the past three years, compared with one of 11.5 per cent in the previous three years, the Minister of Finance should not now be turning to labour and criticizing the working-man, who naturally is trying to protect himself from the ravages caused in part by this government. I suggest that if the government restrained their own spending and their demands on the economy, the private sector would look after itself and the Minister of Finance would not have to create a bogeyman to divert attention from the real problems in this country. The problem is that this government has acted irresponsibly in monetary, fiscal and economic field. We all know of speeches which the Minister of Finance has delivered to labour union leaders, in which he has chastised them and said, "Hold your wage demands down." Surely it would have been much more fair for the Minister of Finance to have gone to those labour leaders, laid his cards on the table and said, "Sorry, fellows. In order to keep power and win re-election we tampered with the economy. We overinflated money. We spent too much. We caused inflation and we hope you will understand." That would be an honest presentation if the Minister of Finance would make it. Instead, the problem having been created, he goes to

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labour and says, "Hold the line, men." I suggest the government should show the first leadership in holding the line, and I do not think a 43 per cent increase in government spending in two years is holding the line.
Governments are elected to govern. Leaders should lead. It is time the Minister of Finance and the Bank of Canada gave clear direction to our economy so that our capital markets could get on with the job of righting the imbalance that has grown in corporate liquidity throughout the land. Included in that direction must be encouragement to allow interest rates in this country to fall. Our interest rate structure is not falling at the same rate as interest rate structures in other countries. This situation should not be allowed to continue. The Bank of Canada should show leadership by reducing the bank rate from its present level. While doing this, debt capital should be encouraged to enter the country, especially from nations which have been selling us their oil. I hope during the trip which the minister apparently intends to take to certain oil countries he will endeavour to negotiate some debt loans in order to improve our dollar position.
Present government policy of maintaining relatively high interest rates in Canada to support our dollar will lay this economy low if it continues. We are being faced with colossal deflationary pressures. The nation will better respond to these pressures if the economy is allowed to enjoy lower interest rates, especially on mortgages which people have to handle on their homes. The Minister of Finance is undoubtedly aware of the current liquidity crunch in business. He must be aware, for example, that the short-term loan to bond ratio has risen from .59 in 1962, which was looked on as a normal ratio, to .72 in 1970 and it is now at an alarming .90. Other corporate liquidity ratios are equally alarming.
As I said at the beginning, economic conditions have worsened dramatically since November 18. In his budget speech on that day, the Minister of Finance stated:
The situation may change. If so, I will not hesitate to recommend a change in course. But this is how I see the issues today-and these are the policies I believe to be suitable today.
The situation has changed. It is time for the minister to act.


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


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Is it agreed that the hon. member shall complete his remarks?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


An hon. Member:: Why don't you say something.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Perhaps the most important thing I could say is, why doesn't the government resign and let us get another government? It is time for the minister to act. We believe he should act by lowering the tax rate in Canada in three important areas, namely, a reduction in personal income tax, elimination of 
the sales tax on building materials, and the allowing of interest on mortgages over 8 per cent to be a deductible expense before paying income tax. The minister and the government should give leadership in restraint by insisting on less government spending. Apparently it is even more important that the minister's colleagues accept this restraint. As I have already mentioned, we have learned that this minister has little clout within cabinet.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I mentioned the unfortunate position that the minister and apparently the President of the Treasury Board are in, but we at least have the group of seven off the minister's back. Freed from the group of seven, I would think he could be a little more decisive. We believe interest rates should be encouraged to fall to lower levels, but above all we believe it is essential that this government start giving leadership in the economic field. It is time the charade of consensus chats ended. It is time that decisions were made. It is time that ad hockery ended.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, the Leader of the New Democratic Party in the House, the member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent), has introduced today a motion dealing with three specific points- increased unemployment, shortage of housing and poverty. The Leader of the New Democratic Party is merely asking the government to introduce within two weeks a new budget to cope with the situation. I wonder whether he is serious when making such a suggestion, because in my opinion to ask point-blank the government to introduce within two weeks a budget with provisions to control unemployment, shortage of housing and poverty is Canada is to expect a great deal from this Liberal government.
We are now experiencing in Canada a rate of unemployment which is far too high. For the past few months, there has been a shortage of consumer goods. There is no reason why the rate of unemployment should be so high and we know that its cost is inflation.
Whenever questioned in the House, the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) or the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) or any other minister invariably answer, as in every one of their public statements: We cannot help it, it is an international problem. The same thing goes on in the United States, in Europe and in Japan.
A few days ago, I was attending the question period in Canberra. The first question the right hon. Prime Minister of Australia was asked dealt with unemployment and inflation. The answer of Prime Minister Whitlam was exactly the same as the answer of the Prime Minister of Canada when he is asked similar questions; the same thing goes on in America, in Europe and in Japan. Now that proves that the government feels unable to complete its fight against inflation and its attempts to bring unemployment back to a more reasonable level.
Madam Speaker, since 1962 when I first came to this House, the government has initiated all kinds of fights:
March 13, 1975

fight against poverty, fight against unemployment, fight against inflation. But the more the government fights those problems, the greater they become.
Madam Speaker, I could almost ask the Minister of Finance to cease fighting, since the more he fights, the worse things turn out. Maybe the time has come when we should look for other solutions, and find out the causes of that excessive and overly rapid unemployment rise and all the resulting problems.
In 1966, I believe, the Economic Council of Canada declared that a yearly 2 per cent rate of inflation and price increases could be termed acceptable. Our annual rate of inflation now is about 12 per cent. This is unacceptable. It annihilates the results of every federal, provincial, municipal, corporate or individual undertaking.
Inflation is robbery, because it deprives the worker of purchasing power, and mainly because it destroys his savings. It is no longer possible to put money aside for bad years, because inflation destroys revenues that could be gained from savings. Inflation destroys not only revenues, but savings. Solutions have long been overdue in this area.
Housing is a real disaster. Housing starts declined to catastrophic levels, and in a few months rents will be on the upswing because housing will become increasingly scarce. The Minister of Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) travels across Canada, making speeches and statements before almost every builders' and financial clubs or associations. He keeps repeating that the government is trying to increase housing starts. Obviously this has no effect on builders or those in need of housing, for the simple reason that people cannot afford the ever higher cost of those houses. We have one more disaster there, and I find it hard to believe that government measures announced by the Minister of Finance and by the Minister of Urban Affairs will spur housing starts, or that some day every Canadian will own his own house.
This brings me to the main point of my remarks, prover-ty. It has been plaguing us for quite some time. I have here reports dating from 1963. This one by Maurice Huot appeared in Le Droit of Ottawa; it indicates official agencies have been set up to eliminate poverty or rather hide it.
As University of Alberta vice-president Malcolm Taylor said in 1963 at the 43rd Annual Convention of the Canadian Welfare Council: the poor are still with us in Canada. The Ontario Federation of Labour, at a convention in October of 1964, stated after an inquiry:
Almost 2,500,000 Canadians, in other words, over 13 per cent of the population, live ...
-or lived, at that time-
... in dire poverty, and 1,500,000 others barely survive.
The report added:
... 2,500,000 other Canadians lack comfort or some of the basic needs.
That was in 1964.
Now, in 1975, despite all the achievements of science, we face situations far worse that those. Indeed, while about 13 per cent of Canadians then lived in extreme poverty, their numbers reach roughly 20 per cent today. In a recent report published by the Canadian Welfare Council on poor
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children, we are told that 25 per cent of all children in Canada live in poverty. I shall come back to this later on.
Now, Madam Speaker, let us go back to 1963-64. I have here the statement of a journalist, since then become minister, made precisely before the Canadian Welfare Council. On May 30, 1963, one could read the following news in La Presse:
Taking offence at the sight of the poor who still dare exist, modern society covers its face not to see them.
The editor-in-chief of La Presse at that time, Mr. Gerard Pelletier, made that statement:
... to a specialized audience, the members of the Canadian Welfare Council, at the dinner which brought to a close the council's annual general assembly.
Mr. Pelletier reproached them their modesty and silence, claiming that they should cry out and shock the public with the scandal of poverty in Canada.
"Misery in Canada will not disappear before it becomes unbearable to most Canadians. For the time being, we can live very well with it, thank you."
"The fact that there is no research being carried out into the possible ways of destroying it is due proof that we accept it. Where are the social laboratories we need, where scientists well provided with tools and funds would try to identify its causes and propose remedies, just as physicians by the thousands are doing now with cancer and rheumatism?"
Would poverty be a sickness?
"Poverty disturbs us whenever we think about it, but this is something which happens to us less and less."
Later on, the La Presse editor added:
"... Let us admit it, we have removed poverty and those who are faced with it from society; we have surreptitiously established, through the indirect means of bank accounts and the idea of solvency, a system of segration as implacable as that instituted by racist southerners, although it may not seem quite so odious at first glance."
At the time, the newspaperman who made this statement was the editor of the Montreal newspaper La Presse. He is a minister now, but we no longer hear from him the type of statements he used to make as a newspaperman. Yet, he had been blaming the Canadian Welfare Council "for not crying out loud enough". Well, although the very same Canadian Welfare Council has cried out very loud and still does, the government remains unfeeling.
Another one, who made a splendid speech in 1964 as a member of parliament, is also a minister now.
The hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Basford) had said that-
... in many areas in Canada there are nuclei of poverty where people derive very few advantages from the present social security legislation. "Within this affluent society we live in, when we have never had it so good, there is a group of people who are in dire need of government aid," ...
He had made this statement before the Liberal National Council. He is a high official, Madam Speaker, who apparently would have a lot to say in the present Cabinet. What is poverty? Professor Gosselin answers:
Poverty is the situation people are in when, owing to lack of resources, they cannot reasonably satisfy needs that are considered essential according to standards and values determined by the environment they live in. According to those standards, the needs and services regarded as necessary for a minimum decent life are not within the reach of the poor, are beyond their material circumstances and cannot be satisfied by the resources available to them.

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
That is a definition.
For the National Welfare Council... A poor family or individual is one who must spend more than 62 per cent of its or his income to meet its or his vital needs: food, housing and clothing.
I believe that this is also a very good definition of poverty. It is reported that 20 per cent of Canadian families and individuals are in that situation, Madam Speaker. This is why I agree with the motion of the New Democratic Party to request urgently not parsimoniously given measures, but effective measures to solve once and for all the problem of poverty.
In the report submitted recently by the National Welfare Council on poor children in Canada, it is said that, according to Statistics Canada following the 1971 census:
One quarter of all Canadian children (24.5%) are now living in poverty.
This situation has an impact on the whole development of the child, on all his education, on all his training. As concerns health, for instance, and I quote:
The implementation in Canada of the Health Insurance Plan in the 1960's aimed at giving the whole population of Canada access to medical services. Obviously, this goal has not yet been attained. One study entitled "Economic Class and Access to Physician Services under Public Medical Care Insurance", which examined the use of medical services in Saskatchewan between 1963 and 1968, concluded that:
"After six years of experience with a medical insurance system, low
income classes still have less access to physician services."
Madam Speaker, we can see the same thing in the province of Quebec, without having to make an inquiry. You only have to visit any one of our hospitals to realize it. I quote:
Why? You cannot change old behaviour patterns overnight. If a mother must take her child to see the doctor and has to take a taxi to do so, the taxi will cost her something.
That is obvious. But if the mother is poor and has a low income, this becomes important.
She may also have to pay a babysitter.
And if the illness requires transport by ambulance, it is catastrophic because it is then very expensive and no public service, in the province of Quebec at least, pays for transport by ambulance. I quote further:
... If she sees the doctor, she will perhaps have drugs to pay for, because drugs are free for only a few people. Thus the so-called "free" access is not really free.
The sources of these health problems can be found even before birth: the child from a poor family has 50 per cent more chances to be born prematurely ...


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but the time allocated to him is over.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to advise the House of the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment: the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie)-National Defence; the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie)-Prime Minister's office.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Gerald William Baldwin: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order not related to the present debate. I saw the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Cullen) in deep consultation with the government House leader, who was going to come into the House at around five o'clock to make an announcement of interest. I wonder if he knows when the government House leader will be back, and can he give us any exciting forewarning of what he is going to say?


Mr. Cullen:: Madam Speaker, my information is that the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Sharp) has played his usual statesmanlike role and accepted the suggestion of the hon. member, and that tomorrow we will be dealing with Bill C-50.


Gerald William Baldwin: Further to the point of order, the only reason I rise again is to say that if more ministers were statesmanlike and accepted suggestions from this side of the House, this would be a better parliament. In addition, we might have to have an order of the House discharging the order for tomorrow and the days next week which are set down as allotted days. I assume the proposal would be that any consequential order of the House that is required to carry these proposals into effect would be made. As the matter now stands, there is set down on the order paper for Friday next, which is tomorrow, an allotted day, and also on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think part of the arrangement is that these days should not be allotted days, certainly not tomorrow. I think we would require an order to this effect before six o'clock. I may be wrong in that, but I assume it would be acceptable.
[DOT] (DIO)


John Napier Turner: Madam Speaker, I would think the hon. member's suggestion, in the present mood, would be acceptable. We would be willing to agree to an order of the House discharging the opposition day and deferring it to another day, provided we proceed with Bill C-50, the agricultural stabilization bill. If we finish that bill, we will be in a better position to advise the House on its business. In any event, we agree to that order of the House.

.4079



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Broadbent:
That this House urges the government to introduce, within two weeks, a new budget, for the purpose of dealing with the increasingly dangerous state of the Canadian economy, and specifically to cope with mounting unemployment, the housing needs of our people, and the scourge of poverty.
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: I recognize the hon. member for Mississauga (Mr. Abbott).


John Napier Turner: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not think our friend in the Creditiste party had finished what he wanted to say. Perhaps the House would give him a few minutes in order that he may complete his remarks.


Gérard Laprise: It seems to me I did not have much time available. I would have had many other things to say but I have been told that my time was over and I no longer have my notes.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: The minister says you may continue.


Gérard Laprise: I no longer have my notes, Madam Speaker. [English]


Mr. A. C. Abbott (Mississauga):: Madam Speaker, I think my notes have left too. However, I am pleased to be able to refer to notes of remarks made by my friend and colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), because I think they contain very largely they kind of answers we need to the problems this country faces, in spite of some comments to the contrary.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: What notes are those?


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Having regard to the motion proposed by the leader of the NDP, while I think the spirit in which he introduced it, with his manifest concern for the unfortunate in the country, was obviously sincere, I was disappointed that apart from venting his spleen he did not propose any formula that might be used to improve the financial conditions of the country.


An hon. Member:: That is normal and has been the case since 1968.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Right. He simply stood there and shouted in a loud voice that there were people suffering in poverty and the Minister of Finance had failed abjectly to meet the problems of this country. There was no suggestion whatever as to how he or his colleagues would deal with the situation. Their dwindling numbers in this House would give credence to the belief that the Canadian people got their message and found it wanting.
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As to the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens), he did make a few more substantive comments, but I would share the view of the Minister of Finance that by the cunning method of extracting quotations he attempted to persuade the House and the country that the cabinet is deeply divided and the Minister of Finance is engaged in a losing struggle with his colleagues.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: They were the minister's own words.


John Napier Turner: Show me those words.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: I suggest that is almost as much wishful thinking as was his final cry, that the only solution was for the government to resign.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: I assure the hon. member that his cry was heard throughout the country last year, and a suitable response was given us on July 8.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: I am only surprised that the hon. member for York-Simcoe got back.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: That was an unpleasant surprise, but you can't win them all. I made reference to the comments of the Minister of Finance today and I should like to refer briefly to some words he delivered in a speech in Toronto not very long ago. These are brought to mind by the evident attitude of hon. members opposite, particularly the hon. member for York-Simcoe, which would seem to suggest or imply that Canada is an impoverished island in a sea of prosperity, with the rest of the world suffering none of the problems this country has. In fact, the opposite is true. The hon. member indicated that the unemployment rate in this country is 6.8 per cent, but he did not tell the House that the United States rate of unemployment is 8.5 per cent; that the unemployment rate in the state of Michigan is over 20 per cent and in Detroit it is 45 per cent. He does not tell us about those rates. Perhaps he does not know about them, or if he knows about them he is not prepared to tell us.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: What about Germany? Give us a few of the European unemployment rates.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: The minister, in his speech in Toronto, said:
The fact is, however, that the world is confronted by a series of complex and difficult problems without precedent in our history. Governments of many countries have joined together in an intensive effort to devise ways and means of overcoming the difficulties confronting them. But there are no easy answers and no instant solutions. Cosmetic politics should not be confused with effective leadership, nor should action just for the sake of "doing something". We shouldn't forget that in the uncertain situation facing us there is always the danger of doing the wrong thing, making our problems just that much worse. There are, for example, those today who seems to feel that this is a time for sacrifice and for donning sackcloth and ashes in pursuit of that old-time religion, as it has been referred to south of the border. That was the approach adopted by many governments but not in this country.
I suggest the Minister of Finance has disclosed to the House the extraordinarily serious difficulties faced by this country, both in his budget of November 18 and subsequently today. He has never failed to disclose frankly the
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real problems that face Canada. The Minister of Finance has not tried to gloss over the problems we face and has not tried to suggest they are going to be cured by easy slogans or partisanship of the type demonstrated today by the hon. member for York-Simcoe.
I suggest that other voices have been heard, not his alone, such as the voice of the DECD which has forecast that the expansion in the Canadian economy this year will outstrip that of any other economy in the world. The fact is that reputable people in the business community such as Earle McLaughlin, president of the Royal Bank of Canada, have paid tribute to Canada's performance and its governmental policies. Let me refer to what Mr. McLaughlin has stated. He said that the success can be attributed to the avoidance of economically crippling price and wage controls, the adoption of a deliberate policy of encouraging increased supply to combat inflation, increased output of employment through tax cuts and other incentives aimed at encouraging expanded business capital investment, the maintenance of a reasonably accommodating monetary policy which forestalled the severe credit experienced south of the border, and the maintenance since 1970 of a floating exchange rate.
This is in very real contrast to the comments we heard today by the hon. member for York-Simcoe. In spite of the problems this country faces, more responsible observers have acknowledged the fact that there is no country in the world today whose finances are better managed. The question is not whether the economy is in the strongest possible shape. We are not suggesting today that expenditures have not risen at a very high rate both in government and elsewhere. We are not implying that there are not problems and we are not suggesting that everything that has been done by this government is perfect.
In the area of housing, I hope that in future budgets there will be steps taken that are urgently required to stimulate the housing market in this country. In fact, I hope measures are taken to stimulate the housing market prior to any future budget. The hon. member for York-Simcoe referred to a $500 million cut in taxes and suggested that that had been recommended by his party. Where were his recommendations during the last election? All we had during the last election were recommendations that the country be placed in a straitjacket, that tight monetary policies be enacted, that the budget be balanced and that there be consumer credit and wage and price controls. This was rejected. The circumstances have changed, and of course the wise and perceptive critics-they certainly are experienced critics-of the opposition have decided that new policies are in order and are attempting to suggest they have already recommended those policies even though the reverse is true.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Stick to the facts.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: I am not so sure my hon. friend would recognize facts. The fact is that in 1974, in the first three quarters of the year the disposable income of the average Canadian, income after the payment of direct taxes and after dealing with the impact of inflation, was 4.8 per cent over the level of the year before, in contrast to a decline in the United States. This is a fact.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: How about the last quarter?


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: How about the last quarter in the United States? The point is that relative to the whole industrial world, Canada has out-performed those countries and is being better managed by this government.


An hon. Member:: Balderdash.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Madam Speaker, I know there are other members of the opposition who are anxious to tell us what is wrong with the country. I do not wish to take up their time. All I shall say is that the country at large, the international community and almost every sound and sensible observer does not agree with the hon. member for York-Simcoe that our Minister of Finance lacks clout.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner). It seemed to me he said exactly three things. First, he said this country is doing all right. The last speaker said the same thing. Second, he said we are doing better than most other countries. Third, he stated that we will do even better late in 1975 when the United States recession bottoms out. He brought forward as authority for that opinion the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, William Simon, with whom he has been meeting during the last couple of days.
Let us consider the three arguments the minister has propounded. He said that, really, we are doing all right and that things are going relative well. When the minister says we are doing all right, what does he mean? The facts are that there are well over 600,000 unemployed this month and that the real rate of unemployment in this country is over 8 per cent. The seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment for February was 6.7 per cent, one of the highest unemployment rates we have had since the end of World War II.
When the minister introduced his budget last November he predicted that Canada would have a growth rate of from 4 per cent to 5 per cent in 1975. The fact, as we predicted at that time, is the recession which the United States was into last November has since turned into a real depression and has totally destroyed the unrealistic prediction the minister made as to our growth for 1975.
On March 5, 1975, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported that Canada's gross national product, discounting the effects of higher prices, grew only by 3.7 per cent in 1974 according to figures prepared by Statistics Canada. That might be compared with a real growth of 6.8 per cent in 1973, a 5.8 per cent increase in GNP in 1972, and a 5.6 per cent increase in 1971. In other words, in 1974 we had one of the lowest growth rates we have had for many years. What makes this even worse is that the GNP for the fourth quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, was up by only .7 per cent-less than 1 per cent. In terms of real growth, the quarter dropped by 1.3 per cent compared with the preceding quarter. This marked the sharpest quarterly decline since the recession of 1960 and 1961.
After a strong first quarter and no growth in the second and third, the economy was operating in the fourth quarter at about the same level as in the fourth quarter of 1973. Those are the facts. This country is in real difficulty. The
March 13, 1975

minister argued that we are doing better than most countries. The real question in fact is, are we really doing better than other countries and are we doing as well as we can in a country as wealthy as Canada? No other country in the western industrial world except the United States has as high a rate of unemployment as Canada. As I indicated last month, the seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment was 6.7 per cent, a real rate of 8 per cent. There is hardly a country in the western industrial world which has a rate of unemployment even half that of Canada except the United States.
The minister has opposed the idea of having a more expansionary budget by arguing that the proposals made by the NDP, by many economists in the business sector of this country and by academic and labour economists would supposedly further fuel inflation. One would think we were speaking of a country in which there is no real inflation. In fact, we have had the highest rate of unemployment in the last six months that this country has seen in many years, and we had an inflationary rate last year of almost 12 per cent. The minister rejected any proposal to expand the economy because he felt he must deal with inflation, but he has not done this.
The minister speaks of the programs the government has initiated to help the needy. The fact is that the 12 per cent inflation in the last year has been particularly difficult for people in the lower income brackets because the inflationary rate for them is substantially more than 12 per cent, since they spend the bulk of their income on the basic necessities of life such as food, the cost of which is up probably 18 per cent, and shelter and fuel which have gone up more than 12 per cent. Another point we must keep in mind is that all the programs of the Liberal government in respect of redistributing wealth in this country have had absolutely no effect.
According to figures released by Statistics Canada, in 1957 the lowest fifth of the income earners in this country received only 4.2 per cent of the gross national product. The highest fifth received 41.4 per cent of the total production. The last year for which I have figures shows that the lowest fifth of the people in 1971 received less than they received in 1957. They received only 3.6 per cent of the total production of this country, while the highest fifth received 43 per cent. In other words the poor became relatively poorer in the years from 1957 to 1971, while the upper fifth, the rich, became richer.
Senator Croll's poverty committee, certainly no flaming, wild eyed group of radicals-no socialists there-has estimated that in 1973 the poverty line for a family of four was $6,990. A very large percentage of the people in Canada, 25 per cent or more, earn less than that, and that is the situation we face.
My colleague, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent), referred to the study released a few days ago by the National Council on Welfare, a body established by this government, which has its offices in a government building. In a report which was issued last week entitled "Poor Kids" it estimates that out of 6,750,000 children under the age of 16, 1,650,000,or 24.5 per cent, are living in poverty. That is the situation which the Minister of
Canadian Economy
Finance and other Liberals tell us is satisfactory and adequate, and say that we have never had it so good.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Who said that?


David Orlikow: The minister told us that we were doing as
well as we could do.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: He didn't say that.


David Orlikow: That was the whole tenor of this argument.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: You weren't listening.


David Orlikow: Of course I was listening. If hon. members do not like the facts I extrapolate and the observations I make, I am sorry. The facts are there. I did not make the calculations. I did not appoint the National Council on Welfare. That council says 24.5 per cent of the children in this country are living in poverty. I say that that is a disgrace. I say that the government could have, and should have taken steps to change that situation.
The last argument the minister made was that we really did not need an expansionary budget, and we should not be so concerned because our economy is tied to the United States-that is true, unfortunately-and that the United States economy will begin to improve in the last quarter of 1975. That assumption has been challenged by almost every economist in the United States-not radical economists, not socialist economists, but economists such as John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Samuelson and Arthur Okun, economists who have worked for United States governments, who say that not only is the United States faced with a recession at the present time, but that in fact the United States is into a depression the like of which it has not seen since the 1930's.
Unemployment in the United States is higher than in Canada; 8.2 per cent of American workers are unemployed. That figure is higher than President Ford's economic adviser, Mr. Greenspan, estimated it would be two months ago. Very good and cautious economists in the United States are estimating that the unemployment rate will, in all likelihood, go over 9 per cent, and possibly approach 10 per cent. We have a situation in the United States where President Ford, an economic conservative for all his political life, which goes back more than a quarter of a century, faced by the extremely difficult situation in the United States, has proposed tax cuts which would mean a deficit of $20 billion. That proposal has been rejected, not just by the Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate, but it has also been rejected as being too little and too late by the economists whom I have already mentioned-by J. K. Galbraith, Paul Samuelson and Arthur Okun, who have argued that what the United States needs in order to get people back to work is a budget deficit of $50 billion in 1975.
That is the kind of proposal we have made and we are making again today. We have argued that this country does not need to have an unemployment rate of 6.7 per cent seasonally adjusted-8.2 per cent in real figures-that this country does not need to have nearly three quarters of a million people unemployed, and that this country has the resources to put people back to work. How can that be
28996-53Vi

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
done? It can be done by a tax cut-but not the kind of tax cut the minister implemented, which has meant for people in the middle and upper income brackets a cut of from $500 to $750 a year-those are not the people who need the tax cut. People earning $20,000 to $30,000 per year do not need a tax cut, because if those people are given a tax cut they are likely to save the money.
We need a tax cut for people in the lower income brackets who, when faced with the 12 per cent increase in the cost of living last year, and probably as much in 1975, have had to cut their standard of living, have had to cut back on the kind of food they buy, and on the purchase of homes and automobiles. We need a tax cut for the kind of people for whom the minister's tax cut has meant a tax benefit of $150 a year. We need a tax credit for people whose incomes are so low that they do not pay income tax.
Instead we have had tax cuts, not just of $750 in income tax for those in the middle and upper income brackets, but larger tax cuts through the kind of provision for not paying taxes on up to $1,000 in income earned from investments, stocks, savings bonds and so on, and we have had tax exemptions for people putting $1,000 a year into saving toward buying a house. Those are not the people who need the tax cuts. People at the bottom need tax cuts. They also need government programs of expansion.
The Minister of Finance and the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) have talked about a goal of building 210,000 housing units this year, when there are tens of thousands of people in the lower income brackets still living in housing which, in the year 1975, is a disgrace. We talk about 210,000 housing units when we have tens of thousands of people in the lumber industry in British Columbia, Ontario and the maritime provinces who are unemployed because we are not building enough houses.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Madam Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Will the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) allow a question?


David Orlikow: Yes, Madam Speaker.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Is the hon. member suggesting that the market in Canada could meet all the requirements about which he is talking? Would he not be prepared to concede that it is the American market that is in a slump, and that most of the jobs that have been created are due to that particular market?


David Orlikow: Of course I am not suggesting that the Canadian housing market, even at our suggested level of
400,000	units, could put all the people back to work. But a hell of a lot of them would be put back to work if we were building 400,000 units. What bothers me is not just that the minister's objective is too low but that we are not coming anywhere near it. The number of housing starts in February was down by 44 per cent from the same month in 1974. If the number for last February were projected over 1975 it would not produce 210,000 homes but 157,000.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: We can pass the bill that is in front of the House.


David Orlikow: The bill before the House will not build a home, and the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay) should know that. What will build homes is a reduction in interest rates on mortgages, with no further incentives to the mortgage companies and banks. What will provide housing units is a real federal program for building public housing.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Also provincial.


David Orlikow: We must build public housing for those people who need it. The money allocated for public housing by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of State for Urban Affairs for 1975 is down in every province, including Manitoba. I want to tell the hon. member for St. Boniface that the amount of money to be provided for public housing in Manitoba by the federal government in 1975 is down $1 million from the amount provided in 1974.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: I hope they use it all.


David Orlikow: They have always used it all. We need a program to provide houses for people who are really in need, not a program to encourage the few people on the fringe, which is what AHOP will do. We need a government program with government money put into building homes. Where will that money come from, Madam Speaker? The savings of the Canadian people have never been as high as in the last year. Banks, mortgage companies and trust companies all have more money than they ever had before, Madam Speaker.


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


David Orlikow: I wonder if I could have one more minute, Madam Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Is there agreement for the hon. member to finish his remarks?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


David Orlikow: Thank you, Madam Speaker. What we need is a government with the courage to say to the banks, insurance companies and trust companies that a substantial percentage of the money they have should be directed to building housing units-not housing for the wealthy as in the past, but housing for families whose income is anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000. These are the kind of people who need it. Every program developed by Liberal and Conservative governments in the last 25 years simply has not been able to provide rental accommodation or homes to meet their needs. This country can afford it, and this government should do it.


Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, it has been reiterated more than once in this debate that the Canadian economy is in an increasingly dangerous state. All the major social and economic indicators draw attention to this fact. We see unemployment and inflation escalate month by month, while the

gross national product declines and housing starts drop drastically.
The figures need no further repetition. Unfortunately they are only too well known. Housing is one of the most crucial problems in Canada today. In the past few years Canadians realized that there was a problem in housing, but today that problem has become an emergency. It is an emergency because the construction industry, one of the foundation blocks on which the economy of this country is based, is in serious trouble. The signs are evident, and one of the most evident is the fact that today there are well over 200,000 fewer people employed in the construction industry than there were a year ago. Last year the industry contributed $21 billion to the gross national product- 15 per cent of our gross national product. Now it is declining, and the multiplier effect of that decline on the ancillary industries related to construction, forestry, textile, furniture, plastics, while incalculable, is certain.
The perilous state of residential construction has serious economic consequences. It has, as well, serious social consequences. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians do not have adequate shelter today. And of those who do, millions are being faced with having to spend an inordinate portion of their income on shelter with incredible repercussions on their ability to meet other necessities of life- food, and clothing.
Housing is not a statistical or physical phenomenon. It is a human problem. Just as the construction industry permeates the whole of our economy, the housing crisis permeates the whole of our social fabric. Substandard, inadequate housing for many Canadians breeds social unrest, tensions, and social problems that cannot be calculated in dollar terms or numerical projections. Yet the government continues to treat housing as a fiscal tool to manipulate the economy without any regard to the social aspects.
We have heard a good deal, both in this House and outside, from the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) about government programs to deal with the problems of the economy, particularly of housing. The Minister of Finance has implemented measures which he claims will stimulate the economy through increased activity in the construction sector.
The Minister of State for Urban Affairs has placed great faith in the amendments to the National Housing Act, and thinks these will be instrumental in providing for many new housing starts this year. Let us look at his predictions and see how close they are to being on target. The Conference Board of Canada and the Economic Council of Canada have estimated that 250,000 housing starts are needed this year to meet present requirements. They are needed not to improve shelter for Canadians; they are needed to maintain their shelter at present standards. The minister has repeatedly stated that his target is not the
250,000	new units advocated by others, but only 210,000 housing starts. The minister said to his provincial counterparts, and I quote:
It is evident we will need at least 210,000 starts in 1975. If we can hit that mark we will head off any serious deterioration of housing
Royal Assent
conditions and, at the same time, give the general economy a good shot in the arm.


An hon. Member:: That is a minimum target.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: That is a minimum target. We should be happy if that figure represented the minimum in housing starts. But what do we find? We find, one month after the minister made that statement, that housing starts for February were down by 44 per cent, and that the projected or seasonally adjusted rate indicates housing starts for this year totalling 156,000, not 210,000.


An hon. Member:: But February is a bad month for construction.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: For the
benefit of the parliamentary secretary, let me point out that the projected figure shows that we shall see 54,000 fewer starts than the number the minister accepts as a minimum.


An hon. Member:: But February is a poor house building month.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: The
number of projected starts falls 100,000 short of the minimum target set by the Conference Board of Canada and the Economic Council of Canada. Think what that shortfall will mean in terms of fewer jobs, less consumer spending, and lack of buoyancy in the economy. Yet the minister talks about what the proposed amendments will mean for the economy. When asked in committee the other night their meaning in concrete terms, he said the government's housing program when fully in operation-he was speaking of AHOP and the limited dividend assistance program-would be instrumental in creating an additional
33.000	starts. Even if we accept that figure, and I question the minister's figures, and add the 33,000 starts to the
156.000	already projected, we shall still not build enough homes to meet the demand in 1975. May I call it six o'clock?



THE ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received from Government House which is as follows:
Ottawa, March 13, 1975 Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that the Honourable Wishart F. Spence, O.B.E., Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate Chamber today, the 13th March, at 5.45 p.m. for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain bills.

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient servant Andre Garneau Brigadier General Administrative Secretary to the Governor General
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable the Deputy Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate chamber.
And being returned:
Mr. Speaker informed the House that the Deputy Governor General had been pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:
Bill C-49, An Act to amend the statute law relating to income tax.- Chapter No. 26.
Bill S-6, An Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act.-Chapter No. 27.
Bill C-51, An Act to increase the representation of the Northwest Territories in the House of Commons and to establish a commission to readjust the electoral boundaries of the Northwest Territories.-Chapter No. 28.
Bill C-228, An Act respecting the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.-Chapter No. 29.
Bill C-229, An Act respecting the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.-Chapter No. 30.
Bill C-365, An Act respecting the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act.-Chapter No. 31.


Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6:08 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. Broadbent:
That this House urges the government to introduce, within two weeks, a new budget, for the purpose of dealing with the increasingly dangerous state of the Canadian economy, and specifically to cope with mounting unemployment, the housing needs of our people, and the scourge of poverty.
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, before the House rose for dinner I was pointing out that whereas the Conference Board of Canada and the Economic Council had expressed the view that 250,000 housing starts would be needed this year if we were to meet the demand in 1975, and whereas the minister himself had set 210,000 housing starts as his minimum target, figures for the first two months of 1975, seasonally adjusted, indicate a rate of 156,000 housing starts this year. This is, 54,000 housing starts below the minister's minimum target rate, and almost 100,000 starts below the minimum target rate set by the Conference Board and by the Economic Council.
What does this mean in terms of fewer job opportunities, reduced consumer spending and lack of buoyancy in the economy? To take the minister's own figures, his programs of AHOP and LD assistance will create 33,000 starts. His own optimistic prediction was that overall
210,000	starts would be achieved. We have already been given one set of figures which seem to be widely off base, and I suggest we should approach even those figures with caution. Moreover, direct AHOP funding was already in operation during the last quarter of 1974 when housing starts began to drop drastically. Even allowing for the minister's statement that AHOP was so successful that the funds dried up in October of 1974 and that new moneys were not available until the 1975 calendar year, we are looking at a 49 per cent drop in housing starts by comparison with January, 1974, and a further 44 per cent drop in starts for February, 1975 over February, 1974.
I think it is time we were given some honest answers by the government, an honest assessment of the proportions of the housing crisis and the importance attached to it on the other side of the House. We, on this side, are tired of the juggling of figures, the attempts to cover up the facts, the reliance on rhetoric to confuse the public, and the reliance on prayers to produce solutions.
No better example could be given of the minister's attempts to confuse the issue than his reply to my inquiry as to whether or not the increase of 12'/2 per cent in the capital budget of the CMHC was an indication of the importance the government attaches to the housing crisis. I was referring to an increase of 12 Vi per cent in housing at a time when overall government expenditures had soared by an alarming 28 per cent. The minister answered that non-budgetary expenditures, by which I presume he meant non-capital expenditures, were up by 66 per cent, offering great assistance to Canadians in the lower earnings brackets. The minister knows very well that these budgetary items which have increased by 66 per cent, and I can list them-housing research, sewage treatment, operating costs of present programs and losses resulting from operating public housing-do nothing to stimulate construction. They do not build one single house, create one single job, or stimulate the economy in any way.
My hon. friend from York-Simcoe has drawn attention to the extent of the increase in the government's estimates for the coming fiscal year-an increase of 28 per cent. Compare this with the increase in the capital budget of the CMHC. The 12Vi increase in the CMHC budget is equal only to the present rate of inflation. The corporation's capital budget, the $1.4 billion which does stimulate
March 13, 1975

housing construction, which does generate housing starts, remains in real terms static.
Why cannot the government rearrange its expenditures so as to give housing at least the same priority as it accords to other sectors of the economy? The capital budget of CMHC does not represent money lost. It is not a grant. It constitutes loans, moneys which are recoverable for the most part, moneys which can create a capital flow throughout our floundering economy at little cost to the government.
We have been talking about fiscal restraint, and we shall continue to do so. Surely the Minister of Finance can reconcile fiscal restraint with a readjustment of the government's spending policy in order to ensure that housing needs are met. Housing, unfortunately, is somewhere near the bottom of the government's list of priorities. What is badly needed is a reorganization of those spending priorities. Housing is one of the most critical sectors of the economy, and as such deserves greater consideration. The issue is not one of increases in spending. The issue is one of priorities in spending. Obviously, the government does not see housing as a priority, and we on this side do.
I wish to make a few more comments about the capital budget of the CMHC. Over the past four years the policies and programs incorporated in its budget have encouraged provincial and municipal governments to gear up their housing component to take advantage of federal-provincial sharing programs for social housing. All across this country there are projects and programs that are ready to get under way, that have been carefully prepared over the past few years in response to initiatives on the part of the federal government. Provinces have set up mechanisms and have adjusted their own priorities to take advantage of federal government participation in this sphere, in expectation that the federal government would continue to honour the commitment it had initiated.
Suddenly these initiatives have been curtailed. On January 30, when the provincial housing ministers met in Ottawa with the minister for urban affairs, they indicated they had take-up capacity for $400 million in new residential housing. What was the federal government's response? It was to reduce the allocation to the provinces for social housing from 24 per cent to 22 per cent. These co-operative programs with the provinces and municipalities are being curtailed to make way for the unilateral housing programs of the federal government, programs such as AHOP. The centralizing tendencies of the government are becoming increasingly apparent in the field of housing.
In addition, the capital budget of CMHC is making possible another policy change. Aid to the lower income groups, once the main beneficiaries of social housing, is now being directed to moderate or middle income groups through such programs as AHOP. More than 50 per cent of the CMHC budget now goes for AHOP or limited dividend programs, program directly controlled by the federal government, and which benefit moderate income groups. This shift in emphasis is of real concern not only because people who are desperate for housing are not receiving the assistance they require, but because major shifts in policy can take place via the CMHC capital budget. It is this
Canadian Economy
capital budget that determines housing policy, yet it never comes before parliament for debate. It never comes before committee for study. It is presented to this House and to the country as a fait accompli.
We are talking about a sum of $1.4 billion. Surely parliament should have the opportunity to scrutinize this sum. Such scrutiny is the basic principle on which this House has been founded, even though members opposite have done virtually everything in their power to erode this right.
The CMHC budget itself has not increased in real growth terms, but the number of programs operating under its budget have increased. The pie is the same, but the slices are thinner. And the thinnest slices are being dished out to the social housing component, the real poor, the senior citizens and the handicapped. Are we to see a continuation of this policy in years to come? Are the provinces and municipalities to be ignored, and perhaps misled, because more and more of the capital budget and decision making will be directly under the control of the president of CMHC?
The Minister of State for Urban Affairs has placed great emphasis on the results the amendments to the National Housing Act will produce for housing. Yet what guarantee have we that these programs will work? I suggest none. What reliable figures can the minister give us indicating that his new programs will be any more successful than earlier programs? The minister confidently predicts that
12,000	new starts will be created by his indirect AHOP program, yet he can produce no certain figure or guarantee that the private lending sector is going to come forth with the $1 billion on which he is counting.


An hon. Member:: Billion?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: That is what I said, billion. There are several steps which the government could take immediately to stimulate the sagging construction industry and to provide badly needed housing. First and most important, it could reorganize its expenditure program so that housing is given much higher priority than now is accorded it. Secondly, it could remove the remaining 5 per cent sales tax on building materials. The government took a half measure at the time of the November budget. Surely now it could go all the way, ensuring savings of some $380 million, savings that given a proper monitoring mechanism, could be passed on to the home buyer. Thirdly, it could make a proportionate amount of municipal property tax and mortgage interest payments deductible from the federal taxable income of home owners. I suggest that these steps would be a beginning in tackling the problems of high interest rates, high land costs, and high house prices, problems that the government seems content to ignore.


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) and her overview of the housing situation as she sees it. I also wish that the proposed solutions were that easy.
I have said in the House before, and I repeat now, that Canadians are among the best housed people in the world,

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
and I do not think anyone has denied that. Our record over the past several years in providing housing of all kinds for Canadians at all income levels has never been surpassed, and we have no intention now of allowing unfavourable economic circumstances to do serious damage to our efforts to give all Canadians access to decent housing.
This government year after year has consistently put more and more money into housing. It has broken records each and every year up until last year, when economic circumstances in Canada, indeed around the world, caused much sharper drops. This gives us little consolation, but compared with our neighbour to the south our production is at least double on a per capita basis. This is little satisfaction to me as minister responsible, but at least it is some measure of the commitment that the government has consistently undertaken year after year to produce a record number of good houses for Canadians in all income groups.
Although it is true that housing starts last year dropped by 17 per cent from the previous year to 220,000 units, this was largely due to inflationary pressures that affected the economies of all countries. We should not lose sight of the fact that housing completions last year were the highest in Canada's history, totalling 255,000, and this number represents units that were ready for immediate occupancy.
The lag in starts in the second half of 1974 has continued into this year, and it is essential that quick starts be emphasized so that the critical rate of completions can be maintained into 1976. Measures which I will presently outline are designed specifically to achieve that objective. We have established a minimum floor-not a target but a minimum floor-of 210,000 starts for 1975, and that volume of new housing construction can be reached through the implementation of programs now in effect as well as those awaiting passage through the House.
It is true, as my hon. friend has said, that the rate of starts for February was at an annual rate of 156,000. That is a discouraging rate, but one which we are determined to overcome. If we are talking about the percentage drop from last year then it is dramatic, some 47 per cent. I think my hon. friend said 49 per cent, but we will not argue about those two percentage points although they are important to those who need housing. We are talking of a year ago when we had starts at an all time record level.
My hon. friend also indicated that AHOP and Limited Dividend would only provide for the construction of about
333,000	units, but this is not the only program. We also have non-profit housing, co-operative housing, public housing of various types and senior citizen housing. These units continue to be built, and are on top of those figures. It must be admitted that in this country, while CMHC represents a major and strategic factor in the housing market, the houses are to a large degree built by the private sector and private builders, and we supplement that by especially looking after those who have difficulty in finding housing in that market.
The government is not the only segment in the housing market by a long shot. The capital budget of CMHC has been increased to over $1.4 billion. This represents a 16 per cent increase over commitments made in 1974. It is 12.5 per

cent in budgetary terms, but actually it is a 16 per cent increase in expenditure. My hon. friend says that these are just loans so it does not cost anyone anything. First of all, I am sure she knows that much is subsidized and a lot is forgiven, and this still is money, even though it is in the form of loans, and it has to come out of the pockets of the taxpayers of Canada. That is why, in addition to the budget, these measures before the House are expected to attract at least the $1 billion, which my hon. friend spoke about, of new private capital into the housing market.
The hon. member asks for a guarantee, but there is no guarantee. There is an indication from lenders in the private sector, to whom I and my officials have spoken, that there is no doubt that more than that is available, but I think we could term that a conservative estimate. These measures are certainly being examined by the committee when the estimates are being dealt with, and at every stage when estimates are dealt with in the House.
In addition to the capital budget, CMHC expenditures in subsidies and other contributions are estimated at more than $276 million for this year, an increase of more than 92 per cent. There was some confusion, and I believe my hon. friend referred to 66 per cent. The figure is 92 per cent over the amount that was spent last year for these expenditures. That figure alone provides an accurate picture of the priority this government is giving to housing this year.
I would like to summarize the measures taken since last fall to stimulate the production of housing while assisting Canadians in obtaining the shelter they require. I feel there is every reason for confidence that the housing industry will be rejuvenated this year. The decline in interest rates is an important factor, but there are three other principle reasons for optimism.
These reasons are the measures contained in the budget brought down last fall by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) to assist the housing industry, the highly encouraging response to programs introduced last year through CMHC, and amendments to the National Housing Act now before the House and the standing committee.
In the budget the Minister of Finance eliminated the sales tax on construction equipment and on materials used in municipal water distribution systems. The sales tax on building materials was reduced from 11 per cent to 5 per cent which, I am sure, decreases the government revenue to the extent of some $460 million. The budget restored capital cost allowances for a year on new multiple-unit residential buildings for rental accommodation, and introduced the registered home ownership program to help people put together more quickly the money needed for a down payment on a home.
Bill C-46, which is before the committee now, contains a proposal to extend the assisted home ownership program to provide up to $600 yearly in interest reducing grants to buyers of new homes who meet all the qualifications of AHOP assistance and who obtain a loan from an approved lender.
The purpose of these grants is to bring the monthly payments of home buyers within a reasonable proportion of their income. I do not think hon. members fully realize the tremendous success of AHOP last year. It provided $450 million in loans to 20,000 families of low income for
March 13, 1975

the purchase of homes, and this success has produced a demand for more funds than the government can be expected to provide. This is why we are seeking private capital to enlarge the program.
We are making interest-reducing grants available to owners or builders of rental accommodation who arrange an NHA insured loan with an approved lender, with the stipulation that the entrepreneurs enter an agreement with CMHC to maintain rents at an approved level for at least five and up to 15 years.
We are providing further assistance to non-profit and co-operative housing projects by allowing CMHC to buy the land on which they will be built, and then lease it back to them at a low rate. At the present time there is a 10 per cent forgiveness provision on the total loan to provide for the purchase of land. In some cases of high land costs that is simply not sufficient, so non-profit and co-operative groups are given the option of having CMHC purchase the land for them and leasing it back at a rate which will allow them to provide economic rents.
We are also extending the life of the federal sewerage assistance program. My hon. friend suggests that this does not help to build homes, but I do not know how we can build homes without this. I realize that sewers are not glamorous, but they are terribly important if you want to build homes, and especially if you want homes with toilets. We must keep up with this program.
Bill C-46 also proposes extra help to municipalities where per capita costs for sewage works is very high because of the size of the community or difficult or rocky terrain making construction costs unusually high. There are many other measures. CMHC has just offered loans amounting to $200 million at 8 per cent interest to builders in critical market areas who are prepared to act immediately in creating good family rental housing for people of modest incomes, at rents to be agreed upon with CMHC. I have no doubt that this program will prove as instantly popular as a similar program last year budgeted at only $58 million, but which could have used substantially more funds to meet the demand. We have tried this program and we have seen that it works well, so we are building upon success in each case.
There is also a $500 grant available to first time purchasers of moderately priced new homes. By the end of February CMHC had already sent out $3 million in cheques to some 6,000 new home buyers, and many more are being processed each day at CMHC offices across the country.
The cabinet recently extended Section 44 of the National Housing Act to give rent subsidies to as much as 25 per cent of the units in non-profit and co-operative housing. This is really getting to the people in the lower income groups, and also reinforces our determination not to repeat the mistakes of the past, which were made with good intentions to provide the lowest possible cost housing for the very low income people. This is to prevent the ghetto-ization of these projects and the institutionalization of poverty. It is to make certain that wherever government assistance is given there will be a proper socio-economic mix. We are getting to the low income people, but not by putting signs on them telling the world they are low income people. If the opposition would have the kinds of programs which label the people "poor" then they can
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have them, but we will maintain the dignity of those people who benefit from our assistance.
When I met with the provincial ministers at the end of January of this year I listened to their stories. I have had additional discussions with them, and I am certainly prepared to show some flexibility in trying to achieve those goals we all consider important in helping to provide housing for low income Canadians. It is not our intention to be immodest, but government programs are going well and we are getting quicker starts for family and low income accommodation. I understand their concern as they understand mine. So long as we can see our priorities together and perhaps make a readjustment, much will be done. These are the measures that have been taken or are proposed to stimulate the housing industry and to give many thousands more Canadians access to the accommodation they require.
I might mention that we are not only interested in the production of houses but in their quality as well. I have announced a warranty system regarding the quality of a house and its continued performance over a reasonable period of time to protect home buyers. A meeting will be held early in April with representatives of provincial governments, builders, consumers, lenders, and other interested parties to consider the proposal, which is already agreed upon in principle. edl845;-l
In addition, I know that there are many innovative ideas and approaches that could provide a better quality of life within Canadian communities but that have not been tried on a large scale basis because of the cost. This is very important, because in setting up new financial measures I think my hon. friends will agree that it is important to improve the quality, to devise new and better building systems, and to devise better types of communities for Canadians to live in. It is simply not enough to put up the accommodation. It must be attractive accommodation. It must be on a human scale. It must relate to human needs.
In order to test new and different ideas in community building, CMHC is committed to a series of demonstration projects across the country. These will not be scale models, they will not be toys, but will be living communities of balanced socio-economic dimensions in which people will live and work. They should be instrumental in producing a blueprint for the future, but it will be far more than a blueprint. It will add to the housing starts in attractive ways with technology, planning, and a social approach which can be duplicated elsewhere. I am sure there will be mistakes but we will learn from those mistakes. I hope that in any program with which I am associated we will be prepared to take those chances, and be prepared to make mistakes in seeking better methods and better housing for Canadians.
The measures and proposals that I have outlined tonight have an enormous potential for housing in Canada. It is vital to their success that they be made effective efficiently and with dispatch. Recognizing this, CMHC has moved toward operational decentralization so that effective action can be taken at the local level, where the need exists. This is not an easy and simple process but is taking
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place deliberately with planning and with experimentation, so that the highly qualified regional managers have a greater degree of autonomy and are tuned in better to the local situation and the local government because we are regionalized on a provincial basis now. They will be especially sensitive to the needs of the locality while bearing in mind the national objectives at all times.
I think hon. members will agree that we are meeting the housing challenge in Canada with realistic and progressive action. We cannot overlook the problems presented by world wide economic conditions, but we are determined that Canada's housing production keeps pace with our needs. We are concentrating on those programs which produce the quick starts. We have asked our provincial partners to take up these programs, and the funding that is available to them, and to accelerate this so that we get these starts and provide not only employment but the homes that are needed this year.
We know the problem is not an easy one to resolve under present economic circumstances but I assure you, Madam Speaker, we are facing up to the times and will not be found wanting.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Madam Speaker, I wish to participate in this debate as briefly as I can because I know there is limited time and quite a number of members of the House wish to participate. I shall say very little about housing not because it is unimportant but because, quite frankly, since I have watched the way successive ministers of finance have opposed any reduction in the building tax year after year and have seen their sudden reversal when they find it politically expedient to do so, I find it difficult to take this government at all seriously in the area of housing.
May I say that it is reassuring these days to feel that the members who sit to my left who have sponsored today's motion are once again in the ranks of the opposition. I do not wish to prolong this beyond saying that I look forward to an allotted non-confidence motion by the NDP representatives in the House some day. In my time here I have seen the NDP use non-confidence motions when the government was in a majority, ostensibly to make parliament work. I have also seen them not use them during a period when they had the balance of power. In that demimonde of minority they said they did not use them on those occasions allotted to them in order to make parliament work. Without being argumentative or controversial I can only gather than the NDP logic is as much a matter of convenience as NDP principle.
This evening we are not asked to vote on the proposition put before us, so we are not obliged to take a hard and fast position on the specific request for the introduction of a new budget by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) within two weeks. I am not prepared to say that anything quite so simple as a new budget, with new spending programs, is the key to improvement of our economy, particularly an improvement which can be substained. At the same time I certainly sense the frustrations spreading around the country concerning the government's inaction. For example, I listened to the Minister of Finance this afternoon. He said they are waiting to see what will happen in respect of the United States economy. He heard a prediction from the United States Secretary of the Trea-

sury that things might turn upward in the United States in the fourth quarter.
It is impossible to find out how long the Minister of Finance will wait before he can really see the future with enough confidence to act. I doubt very much whether the Canadian people are very happy to float along in the meantime.
We have the statement that during 1974 the Canadian economy grew at a rate of 3.7 per cent. I refer to the GNP. As a matter of fact the GNP was little if any higher at the end of 1974 than at the commencement of 1974. It is merely the way in which the government brings forward statistics that suggests there was any real growth during 1974. The real growth took place in 1973, and it is the average over the year which represents a 3.7 per cent increase in 1974 over 1973. So in fact we have had virtually no growth in our economy for approximately a year.
I am sorry the Minister of Finance is not here, but he can read what I have to say in Hansard tomorrow. He spoke of how good the cash balances of the government are. Why would they not be good? Who could not sell savings bonds at a rate of 93A per cent and have the government of Canada reduce the short-term interest rate right away?
I should like the minister to admit just how much this manoeuvre will cost the Canadian taxpayers during the life of these Canada savings bonds. It will run into many billions of dollars. I think we have had enough of this kind of sleight of hand with figures, and this kind of manoeuvring which is costly to the Canadian people, while the minister boasts about having the government of Canada in a very good cash position.
The need for some action by the government surely is not a new discovery. Going back a couple of years, we had the government talking about a contingency plan to deal with an emergency situation in the economy. That contingency plan was, of course, price and income controls, as was admitted by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). Nobody knows whether that particular contingency plan still exists.
Back in 1973 and early 1974 the government stalled things along by laying every increase in the cost of living at the door of shortages. For months the Minister of Finance indulged in one of the most gross over simplifications ever perpetrated in this House. For many months, with the help of my hon. friends in the NDP, he was able to get away with doing virtually nothing about high prices except to blame the weather. We are now well into 1975, and we see that the so-called consensus-and it is mainly this which I want to discuss tonight-as pursued by the government has become like the weather in at least one respect. Everyone in the government is talking about it, but no one in the government is doing anything about it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I suggest that it is a very dangerous thing to hold out hope of consensus and then to let matters drag on indefinitely while hope is left unfulfilled. I suggest that the government has created a strong impression around
March 13, 1975

the country that all its talk about pursuing a consensus has been just that, all talk, and part of a strategy of stalling. I say that this impression holds danger, not just for the interests of the government party, but dangers for the interests of order and confidence throughout our society.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Let us go back to the throne speech at the opening of this thirtieth parliament on September 30, 1974. This was the language used by the government in the Speech from the Throne, and I quote:
There must be a greater awareness of the need for restraint by everyone in what each seeks to secure in incomes, profits, prices or taxes if inflation is to be mitigated. Demands to secure more than the economy can provide, or indeed for those who already have a respectable return to seek to benefit relatively from inflation, must be resisted, and the government believes it has a clear responsibility in this area. Just as no one group in society should benefit at the expense of others from inflation, so should no one group shoulder an unfair burden.
The government has therefore initiated a series of consultations with the principal groups in our society-business, professions, farmers, labour and provincial governments.
Then a bit further on it was stated:
The federal government believes that it has the responsibility of playing the leading role in bringing Canadians together to discuss their common problems and challenges and to develop proposals for their solution.
That was the government's position going into this session almost six months ago. Note that the government said it had already initiated some discussions. No results have been reported.
Then came the budget on November 18, and here is some of the inspiring rhetoric of the Minister of Finance on that occasion, and I quote him:
We have to find a better way of reconciling the competing interests of the various groups which make up our society. No group need lose in this search. Indeed, if we succeed, all can gain because the over-all performance of the economy will be enhanced by controlling inflation.
This is why we need a national consensus about what the various groups can safely take from the economy over the next few years. Co-operation must be the watchword. We will give leadership, but we will not try to impose solutions.
Again, as in the Speech from the Throne, the promise of leadership was made.
I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Cullen) is here tonight.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Thank you.


An hon. Member:: It's nice to see someone interested in finance over there.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: It is about six months since the Speech from the Throne, almost four months since the budget, and no results have been reported in this consensus effort at all. There was a promise of some report of progress before Christmas. This was extended to the end of February, and it still floats in limbo, and the promise of leadership is exposed as nothing more than a gimmick in a game of stalling.


An hon. Member:: All they can do is ski.
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Robert Lorne Stanfield: I have told the Minister of Finance at various stages of development since the House opened that I did not think a voluntary scheme of restraints would meet the need, but that I and my colleagues would support him in the effort to achieve one if only we could get some clarification as to what he had in mind and what he wanted. The minister has thanked me from time to time for my patience, and other sterling qualities.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: As time wore on my patience has worn out, and I have been compelled to ask the minister just how long he intends to lend his good name to a con job- because what else could this be? I still wonder why this minister is involved in it. When the minister expresses his concern, as he did again yesterday, about strikes and disruptions and the level of settlements, I have every reason to believe that he is sincere in expressing that concern. When he tells me that he would be on a better footing to proceed with initiatives to expand the economy if he had a restraint program in place, I take that as a sensible response to a question that I put to him.
Why then, why oh why, is this minister, who expresses these concerns, and supports that premise, simply going along with the gag of this stupid game of stall? The minister may say it is not a game. He may claim that the pursuit of consensus in the way it has been undertaken is on the up and up, and that it is simply taking a little longer than he thought it would. I would be prepared to take even this explanation, or an explanation like that seriously, if the minister would tell me on what ground he is pursuing this consensus. What is the nature of this consensus? Where is this leadership, in practical terms, with some proposal?
A couple of days ago the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Sharp) told me that the government had been given some assurances of co-operation, but no one in the government has any answer when asked, co-operation on what? One begins to wonder if we would be in exactly the same position as we are if the Prime Minister were overseas seeking a consensus and the Minister of Finance stayed back home pursuing a contractual link with the principal groups in our society.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: The way this government plays with words, it may have become mixed up as to who was supposed to be seeking what when the marching orders were translated into the government's third official language, to which it is now resorting. The Minister of Finance himself treated us to a textbook example in the course of his town hall meeting the other night. I presume he was reported correctly as saying, and I quote one of the more profound remarks of the twentieth century "Strikes provoke more unemployment." This is what the minister said. It bothers me that the minister may now have succumbed completely to this kind of lingo. He may have lost those of us who cannot write immortal prose. He may have lost us forever. I do not know. Next he may come along telling us that he is wrestling things to the ground after other things have begun to bite. This is like standing on
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the bridge of the Titanic and saying, "Ice provokes more problems".


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: "Strikes create more unemployment"! What a great comment was that from the Minister of Finance. I wish the minister could find it in his residue of decency-and I think there is a substantial residue of decency there-to disassociate himself from the sham aspects of the government's alleged pursuit of consensus. I say quite frankly that I do not think we can afford the luxury of this kind of game. Tempers are flaring, and it is not only my patience that has worn out. It is time that the government came clean with the Canadian people.
The minister always gets upset whenever there is any suggestion that he is not fully and frankly taking the House and the country into his confidence. He may try to make a show of righteous indignation in this situation, but he must recognize that in this case the emperor has no clothes.
The minister will not undertake to give us a report prior to an Easter break. He refuses to give us any such assurance, and after that he will be going abroad in April. After a couple of postponements he will only say now that we can expect some report on this consensus program at an appropriate time. I do not need to remind him of Lord Keynes' remark that, "In the long run we will all be dead".
I am sorry, I cannot hear my hon. friend-


Mr. Railton:: -help to get that bill through.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Madam Speaker, I do not know what bill my hon. friend is referring to-I do not know of any bill before the House that is going to make very much difference in saving the economy.
My hon. friend probably knows the name at least of the eminent psychiatrist and author, Dr. Eric Berne, who wrote about people waiting for death or Santa Claus. If the Minister of Finance thinks we can afford to wait for some Santa Claus recovery, particularly the recovery of the United States, he should tell us that and cut out the dishonesty of stalling and telling stories. If the minister really has something to offer as a proposal on which he is seeking a consensus from the principal elements in our economy he should say what it is, and get on with it.


Samuel Victor Railton: He has told you. Just wait for about three months and you will see the effects.


Mr. Epp:: We will all be broke.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Great stuff.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: From when do you start counting, Vic?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Madam Speaker, I think I have now had confirmation from the hon. member for Welland (Mr. Railton) of what I have said-that the Minister of Finance and the whole bunch over there are engaged in a con game. All the talk about consensus is only a stalling device. They say if we will just wait three or four months everything will work out well because things are going to recover in

the United States. I could not have had more confirmation of what I have been saying.


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


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: No, Madam Speaker, I do not want extra time. The hon. member for Welland (Mr. Railton) made my point for me.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, there have been discussions and I believe it is agreed that a House order could be made that the addresses between now and ten o'clock be limited to ten minutes.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. It is agreed that the addresses from now on be limited to ten minutes?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Alan Gray Martin: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this debate on the motion sponsored by the house leader of the New Democratic Party, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent). He and his party are proposing, as I understand it, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), having brought two budgets before this House in a period of six months, should now bring a third.


Mr. Howie:: A real one.


Alan Gray Martin: The budget of last spring was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Canadian electorate who, thanks to the party now led in this House by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, were given the opportunity to express their viewpoint in the most basic and direct method known within our democratic system.
If my recollection is correct, Madam Speaker, that particular budget and the ensuing activity resulted in the party of the hon. member losing 50 per cent of its representation in this House. The second budget has not produced the same kind of redistribution of the membership of this House only because I submit the opposition of the New Democratic Party to the November 18 budgetary measures could not at this time bring the country and the government to a standstill. Had its opposition to Bill C-49 been adequate to defeat once again the duly elected government of this country I suggest that once again the electorate would have overwhelmingly supported the government, and those responsible for voting against the budgetary measures would have suffered a second calamity at the polls. Who knows how many representatives of that same party would now be with us?
Bearing these factors in mind, Madam Speaker, can they be serious in wanting a third budget at this time, which obviously they would be duty bound to vote against? I can hardly believe that. Therefore I must conclude that there is a degree of hollowness in this motion before us. I believe it is largely a ploy on the part of the NDP to take more of the time of this House to continue debate on the budgetary measures included in Bill C-49, and this after days and
March 13, 1975

days that the opposition parties spent impeding passage of the clauses in this important bill that meant so much to the taxpayers of this country.
There is a plea before us today, Madam Speaker, for the government to introduce "within two weeks" a new budget. This proposal is coming foward at a time when the last budget has just been made law within the last two hours-when the significant measures contained in this red booklet I am holding, the budget summary, are just coming into effect. Yet it is suggested that we should immediately move to another one-that we should implement at this time a new shift in the economic policy of the country. We have hardly had an opportunity to test the effect of the most recent budget let alone had time to permit the measures to be assessed in their over-all impact on the economy in any meaningful way.
A budget is a serious document. It aims to assist in shaping economic policy over the several months to come. While economists are not in agreement on what economic ground rules should be in vogue at any one time, I believe there is general agreement that one thing that has not helped the recent economic climate within the borders of our neighbour to the south has been, on the one hand, a move to tighten significantly the economic hatches, followed shortly thereafter by a major move in the opposite direction to loosen substantially the purse strings to such an extent that Mr. Simon is quoted today as saying in Ottawa that his own country was "playing with fire".
Stability is a most important factor when the economic climate is so fragile and unpredictable. The November 18 budget provided stability with leadership, as expressed in the courses of action to be followed by this Liberal government. Surely it is hardly responsible to suggest the reopening of the whole, massive budgetary process within four months of the introduction of the last budget, and within hours of the passage of measures introduced pursuant to that budget and, yes, before, the passage of reasonable time which will permit a fair and meaningful assessment of those budgetary measures.
The shifts in government leadership and economic policy must be accorded their proper significance. Such shifts are not to be taken lightly, and we would be taking them lightly if we were to give the motion before the House serious consideration.
I wish to probe somewhat deeper the proposal of the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby-assuming for the moment that he is serious in proposing that another budget should be placed before parliament and, the Canadian people soon, and I must so assume, or what we are witnessing today is an exercise in futility. He makes this proposal on the same day as royal assent is given to measures contained in the November 18 budget. On this day the New Democratic Party, for whom the hon. member speaks, requests the government to introduce another budget. The question then is, what does the hon. member and the NDP want in this new budget? What would they propose? This is a vital question since, if the new budget were introduced and did not contain measures to assuage the "dollar deficit appetite" of the New Democratic Party, that party could start the process again on the next opposi-
Canadian Economy
tion day. One can visualize this chamber being turned into a veritable budget office in which a new budget is constantly being requested just when the previously introduced budget is being considered.
It will be interesting to see how the official opposition votes on this motion.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: There is no vote on it.


Alan Gray Martin: Are they, too, anxious to turn this chamber into a forum in which little legislation can be debated, in which little is discussed except budgetary policy? I hardly think they will go along with that. Yet, Mr. Speaker, this will be their stance if their "dollar deficit appetite" induces them to support the motion moved by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby.
Is the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby really serious in wanting the Canadian national debt to be substantially augmented? Does he want the debt that we and future generations must bear to be even larger? Does the NDP not appreciate the danger of artificially over-heating the economy when inflation in the western world is at such high levels? Surely they understand that government stimulants to the economy at any time, particularly at times like the present, must be provided with a steady, firm, yet gentle hand, so that the medicine is not worse than the disease it was intended to cure. Yet that is exactly what their proposal would involve.
Not content to let current budgetary measures work their way through the economy, the NDP seeks to fuel the fires of inflation by creating artificial wealth. The government which follows such advice might purchase political popularity, but in all likelihood the serious repercussions which would follow could undermine the economic life of the country to such a degree that a normal economic stance would be difficult to achieve. At the same time it would do little or nothing to increase the production of goods when international markets are weak. And they are weak, even though Canadians would prefer them to be strong.
We are living with an international problem. Yes, there are things we can do at home, and we are doing them. However, undermining national and international confidence in our country's economy, which is surely what would happen if we were to support the proposal before us, a proposal which asks the government to change the direction of economic policy just when we have placed the stamp of approval on a major thrust which is aimed in a particular and specific direction, will not help any of us. Of course the government which I support will not conduct itself in such manner. I only hope the members of the official opposition have the good sense to follow our lead and dissociate themselves from the unreasonable and irresponsible proposal placed before the House today by the New Democratic Party.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, we are not asking the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) to make the usual kind of budget statement. We want the government to bring in a budget which will do three specific things, and in my opinion we should bring this proposal forward on every opposition day, until the government listens.

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Canadian Economy
If the government were to use for housing the $4 million which certain wrongdoers obtained through graft, the minister responsible for housing could reduce interest payments for substantial numbers of families who have bought NHA homes. Or, we could build 1,000 homes costing $40,000.
As everyone knows, the budget will bring few changes in this country, particularly to poor people. According to a recent Senate report, a great many Canadians live on or below the povery line, the poverty line for a single person in Canada now being $3,100. Old age pensioners in this country get a pension of $2,450, which is considerably below the poverty line. Statistics Canada says a family is living on or below the poverty line when it must spend 70 per cent or more of its income on basic necessities like food, shelter and clothing. In 1974, according to Statistics Canada, the poverty line for a single person was at $2,518, which is about $100 more than we paid old age pensioners.
The publication entitled "Poor Kids", which is a report by the National Council of Welfare on children in poverty in Canada, says on page 36:
There can be no hiding behind myths that we can't afford to ensure income adequacy to all Canadians. The recent federal budget proved that. The Minister of Finance redistributed $1.75 billion for the 1975-76 fiscal year through reductions in the personal income tax alone. He redistributed another $885 million of the 1975-76 national income by changes in sales tax and tariff provisions, more than half of this-$450 million-through reduction of the sales tax on building materials.
All of this $2.6 billion that the government has chosen not to collect represents a redistribution in the national income. But in what direction? The personal income tax cuts range from $200 for those in the lowest tax bracket to $750 for those in the highest. In other words, if you were too poor to pay taxes you got nothing; if you were a low-income taxpayer you got $200; but if you were already rich enough to be in the top tax bracket you got $750. The rich got most, presumably because they needed it least. Are these our values?
The deduction of $1,000 of interest and dividend income will, of course, be welcomed by all those with significant income from bank deposits and stock holdings. Self-evidently, these are not the poor.
The Registered Home Ownership Savings Plan and cut in the sales tax for building materials are designed to benefit those in the home-bying market. Again, not the poor. Even the deduction of $1,000 of pension income will benefit only the best-off of senior citizens.
Yet no one suggested we couldn't afford these tax cuts. Economists argued whether they were too much or too little economic medicine for a situation in which everything but the inflation rate was slowing down, but no one suggested we couldn't afford it.
A guaranteed adequate income that eliminates poverty in Canada will cost roughly the amount of these tax cuts-about two-and-a-half or three billion dollars. We can afford it exactly as easily as we afforded the tax cuts. The question is whether we choose to.
If a new budget were presented within two weeks it would face the problem of whether we wish to redistribute income in such a way that the poor or the rich would receive the benefit of it. Obviously the Simards, the McNamara's and others like them have done well by governments, and are doing well today. Whether or not we throw away $4 million, we can have a scandal of that magnitude, and that is probably only the tip of the iceberg.
It is my guess that when the smoke clears we will find that not only in that field but in dozens of others where the government uses the tender system, we will have squandered millions and millions of dollars. There would have been enough money for the Minister of State for

Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) to lower the interest rate,, which is the only way of enabling the average Canadian to buy a home.
Most people are not in the category where they can afford to buy food and the other necessities of life and still make payments of $300 and $400 a month to buy a house in one of our major cities. What does the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) do when he is not in the House supporting the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner)? He is making statements such as the following one:
-the question will not be whether politicians ought to believe in a more or less egalitarian society, but rather whether they are able to "read" the community's values correctly, and express them correctly in terms of basic income levels, and in terms of income distribution generally.
I again quote from the document:
What are Canadian community values? How much do we care whether for 14-year-old boy "it will always be this way"? Does it matter to us if poor kids are hungry or sick, if they are shamed out of schools and into dead-end jobs from which they are the first laid off when the economy slows down? Do the aged and disabled matter to us? Do we care as much about them as about the millionaire industrialist who benefited most from this year's income redistribution? ...
The probabilities and likelihoods which we have described in this report will remain unchanged or be transformed to an extent that will be determined by our value choice. That choice, which we the Canadian community will make, will tell us a great deal about ourselves.
We will have to make that decision. It is fine for members of this House, who make a fairly good salary, to be given tax concessions with regard to dividends and interest rates. If we have never owned a house, it is fine for us to save $1,000 a year for ten years tax free to be able to buy a very expensive house. However, would our values not be better if we put that money toward taking over one of the banking or financial institutions of this country and, instead of paying 6 Yi per cent on deposits, make that money available at 614 per cent for the social good of this nation?
Are we always going to be satisfied with living off the misery of the poor of this nation? This affects all senior citizens in this country, as well as most of our low income people. It is true that in some families two or three people are physically able to work. In that event I am sure they will be able to come up to the standard. Those three people only have to earn $6,145 to be at the poverty level. Is that our goal?
As long as there are poor in this country, if any member of parliament will say that we should not call for a new budget to end all poverty, as well as the sickness and disasters that go with being poor, he should re-examine his sense of values. Canada can only be rich when there are no poor or disadvantaged people.
I see no reason why we cannot have a budget to change our tax structure in such a way that the rich will begin to pay their share. There are four people in Canada earning $200,000 who pay no income tax at all. There are few poor people who do not pay income tax. If we settle for anything less we will not be doing the best we can for the Canadian people and the future of this nation.


Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a few comments on the NDP motion for a new budget, as well as on the mounting unemployment

and housing problem. I am well aware that money does not grow on trees. I believe the budget for this year with the supplementary estimates will be in the neighbourhood of $26.53 billion. That is an awful lot of money Canadians will have to raise for various government projects. I am also aware that we have a high rate of unemployment, 6.8 per cent.


An hon. Member:: Very high.


Stan Darling: It is very high. I am sure members on all sides of the House want to do everything possible to reduce it. There are government work programs and we all hope they will work. This brings to mind the Capital winter works program of a couple of years ago. I believe it involved a total of $150 million which money was distributed among municipalities across Canada. It resulted in the building of many worthwhile projects. Municipalities were loaned money at good rates, between 7 and 8 per cent. They received a forgiveness of 100 per cent of the labour costs if the work was done in the winter period, and 50 per cent during periods when there was not high unemployment. I hope the minister and the government will consider reintroducing that program.
If the money is not available, maybe it could be taken from some other place. I wonder about some government departments where the priority is not so high. I have the greatest sympathy for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson). His target is $1.4 billion. I think he should have considerably more than that. Some government projects could very well be pared without causing any great crisis. I think of the CBC, which some people call the "crazy broadcasting corporation", which has a budget of $225 million. Certain programs aired by that august body would have been better left in the can. By that I mean the can for the film.
I am also told that the CBC news offices in Toronto or whatever you call them, have a tremendous number of staff there just to get together and administer the 11 o'clock news program. I believe it is one of the largest newsrooms on the whole of the North American Continent, and that certainly covers plenty of territory. Money could surely be saved on this operation. I am sure there are a great many expenditures which could be classed as frills. The Secretary of State (Mr. Faulkner) certainly has within his jurisdiction a number of high-sounding wonderful programs, but I do not think they can be regarded as bread and butter issues.
There is another direction in which money could be saved. I have in mind these palaces, these huge civil service castles in which the mandarins live. I think that as long as the poor civil servants are kept dry in reasonably good offices, no great harm is being done. Members of parliament manage to get along in offices which are many years old, but it seems that the delicate civil servants need air conditioning, palatial offices and so on. I believe money could be saved here.
I understand the federal budget includes provision for consulting fees totalling $900 million. That is a hell of a lot of consulting fees. The Company of Young Canadians has a budget of $4.9 million. Well, there may be some good
Canadian Economy
projects under way here, but again this is not a top priority. Then there is a firm about which we have heard a lot recently, Marine Industries Limited. I believe that $250 million has been allocated to this company through the Export Development Corporation by way of a loan at very favourable interest rates between 7 and 8 per cent. Then again, we have also lent Iran, not a poverty-stricken nation, $1.5 million at an interest rate of 7 per cent.
I appreciate what the minister is doing though, naturally, he will be able to do more; we hope he can find more money to get housing production on the rails and build more units as soon as possible. The minister maintains that a sizeable amount of private money is likely to be poured into housing. I am aware-it was mentioned earlier by the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters)-that the present budget allows for $1,000 to be tax free, provided it is earned by way of bank interest or bond interest. I believe that in 1975 the concession will include dividends. I certainly feel that rather than see this money staying in the banks, the Minister of Urban Affairs should be able to encourage the use of these funds as private mortgage money.
If a private individual wishes to put out his money by way of a mortgage, why should he not be given the same concession? It might surprise the minister how much money would flow into mortgages if this were allowed, and how much additional housing could be provided. I do not think this is a crazy idea. I think it has merit, and perhaps the Minister of Urban Affairs could suggest it to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner).
I am well aware there are certain types of housing which the federal government is sponsoring 100 per cent. These concern federally oriented programs, AHOP and the rest. I hope the government will reconsider its attitude and change AHOP-that it will return to the situation which existed before July and allow the scheme to apply to existing homes in rural areas. Maybe I am slightly biased, but there are a great many people who cannot afford to buy or build a new home. If they were able to buy an existing older home, qualify under AHOP and fix it up later, the former owner might well move into a new home, and housing would be generated in the long run.
Again, I hope the government will see fit to divert more money into low rental housing for senior citizens rather than extend the federally oriented programs to which I have referred. The provinces and the municipalities have a very good idea of the type of housing which is needed and where it should be built. They are already contributing to the cost of construction on this basis, though not to the same extent, proportionately, as the federal government. Consideration should be given, in my view, to providing a cheaper type of housing than that which is currently available.
Another aspect with which I should like to deal relates to rural and native housing-I mentioned this in the housing committee. Naturally, those of us who live in the rural areas when we look at the concrete jungles of Montreal, Vancouver, and, yes, even of Ottawa, and see new buildings going up all the time, wonder why some of that money cannot go into the smaller towns and villages. I am hoping something can be done to this end.

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
Again, on the subject of native and rural housing, I draw attention to the fact that the cost of land in rural areas is much lower than it is in the cities, and that consequently dollars spent on housing will go a lot further, bearing in mind that it costs a minimum of $20,000 for a lot in Toronto, Vancouver, or possibly in Ottawa at the present time.
Another thing the provinces have requested in the housing field: is that they be given prior notice of the housing projects the minister is dreaming up, instead of having to read about them in that Liberal clarion paper, the Globe and Mail. The provinces would like to know about these things in advance. There is something else the provincial governments want. They would like commitments from the federal government over, say, three years in advance so that they could plan ahead with assurance, and not be obliged to go cap in hand to Ottawa. I trust the minister will do what he said he would do in committee and give the provinces a three-year forecast.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Penner):: Order. In accordance with the order agreed to earlier, the hon. member's time has expired.


Miss Coline Campbell (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I too am pleased to speak on this opposition day. In particular I should like to direct my words to the motion of the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) on how the government is coping, and I quote from the words of the hon. member, with "the scourge of poverty". My own experience has dealt with one federal policy which is put forward for people with lower incomes, and that comes from legal aid experience. Tonight I should like to direct my words in my capacity as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
I should like to take all the members here tonight back to April, 1973, when the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) tabled the working paper on social security in Canada. Our government has always maintained that the best security for the individual is a good job. There is no need to go into this at this time, but the many programs developed by the Department of Manpower and Immigration such as LIP, LEAP, OFY, as well as other working programs under DREE, all show the concern of the government for keeping the individual in the work force.
In the working paper there were five principal strategies. These were an employment strategy, a social insurance strategy, an incomes supplementation strategy, a social services strategy and a federal-provincial strategy. Substantial progress has been made since April, 1973, toward the realization of these strategies.
On the first strategy federal-provincial ministers have agreed that a community employment strategy is needed. To this end 20 developmental projects have been launched across Canada by the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) and provincial ministers. This developmental work can only increase the experience of the government in finding and developing employment for people.

The object of the social insurance strategy was to enable all Canadians to make provision for their retirement through social insurance plans and to insure themselves against temporary losses of income due to sickness, accident, unemployment or maternity. The Canada and Quebec pension plans have been amended so as to increase maximum monthly retirement pensions, from $90 in December, 1973, to something like $250 in January, 1980. These changes were made in the context of the increase in old age security pensions in 1972 from $80 to $100, and the full indexation of both pensions as announced in 1973. Taken together these measures mean that total maximum old age pensions in 1975 amount to about $241 a month for a single person and $361 for a couple both over 65 in receipt of one Canada pension.
The object of the income supplementation strategy was to ensure adequate incomes for people who are working but whose incomes are not sufficient to meet family needs, and equally for people who are retired or unable to work or find employment. This objective is being accomplished for people 65 years of age and over by the increases in OAS as well as in the Canada pension plan and Quebec pension plan pensions, as I have already mentioned. Since October, 1973, the old age security pension for a single person has been increased from $100 to approximately $123.42 this April. This is probably one of the largest increases ever made over such a short period of time.
Another part of the government's income supplementation strategy is the guaranteed annual income supplement. With the cost of living indexation, as of April 1, 1975, a single person could receive a maximum old age security pension and guaranteed income supplement of $209.99 a month and a couple would receive $400.60.
As for the social services strategy, this was designed to ensure that over a period of time social services would be available to enable people to achieve their full potential. Services such as rehabilitation, vocational training, day care and home maker assistance are often required to enable people to enter or to retain useful employment, or sometimes simply to assist them to realize fuller potential as citizens.
One major national measure that was of help to a lot of working adults with families was the introduction of day care centres in 1974. The spouses of these families were able to use day care centres on the basis of need.
The fifth strategy, the federal-provincial strategy, was designed to ensure the harmonization of federal and provincial social security systems, while providing to the provinces the flexibility they required in order to adapt such systems to the needs of their citizens. For example, under the new Family Allowances Act provinces can vary the federal family allowance payment according to age or the number of children in the family. These variations were subject to a national minimum and a national average per child paid in each province.
The social policy review has progressed to the stage where it was agreed at the February, 1975, meeting of federal and provincial ministers of welfare that a policy framework for the next stages in the reform of Canada's social security system be set up. This framework would
March 13, 1975

work toward the provision of an income support program for individuals not able to enter the labour force because they were handicapped, or because there was no job available in the area, or because a single parent had family responsibilities. In addition there should be supplementation of earnings, with the creation of a work incentive measure to ensure that every Canadian would be better off at work than receiving income support.
Before concluding this review of the progress made by the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the government over the last two years at federal-provincial meetings, one must remember the economic climate in which this progress is being made. Our economy has been growing at a rapid rate over the last four or five years and the government has been allocating a large part of that growth toward alleviating the burdens and sometimes the distress of the lower income members of the Canadian community.
The federal government will continue to be concerned for the well being of the community as a whole. I should like to quote a statement made by the Minister of National Health and Welfare at the February provincial health ministers meeting. At page 14 of his speech he said:
So long as it lies within the power of the government of Canada, it will not be the poor and the economically weak who will be asked to bear the brunt of economic difficulties confronted by the western world.
May I sum up by saying that as a result of these meetings and the framework that now lies between the federal and provincial ministers of welfare, the Minister of National Health and Welfare views this framework from two perspectives. It will be designed to provide an income to those who have been unable to find jobs and to reinforce the work incentives for all who are working but at low wages. This can only help the economy over a long period and will also provide some kind of assurance that the legitimate needs of all Canadians in need of assistance will be met.
This illustrates that the government is aware of the needs of all individuals in Canada. It has shown its concern by providing innovative and new programs of the kind I have already referred to in my speech tonight. These programs have already been referred to by other speakers on behalf of the government, such as the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) who discussed the housing needs of all Canadians. As I have said, this illustrates the government is concerned about the economy of this country. I see my time has expired, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Water-loo):: Mr. Speaker, as a member of the official opposition representing an area of Canada that has shared the problems caused for all Canadians by the government's mishandling of the economy, I am pleased to take part in this debate tonight. To restore the health of our economy will take more than a new budget. I fear it will take new leadership in Canada.
Since coming to Ottawa I have become aware that, for the members of this administration, power is not a means to an end, a tool for doing away with the injustices in our society and for alleviating the problems of many Canadians. Instead, the holding of power has become an end in
Canadian Economy
itself. Canadians have become cynical about those of us in politics, and they have every reason to be cynical. They question whether the government has any goals for our society, any blueprint for the future, and they fear that it prefers the trappings of office to the potential that possession of public office holds for making this a freer and more humane society.
Even the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his supporters must feel a twinge of embarrassment to recall the promises made in the summer of 1968 that a new administration under this Prime Minister would provide Canadians with a just society, because during his six and a half years as Prime Minister the inequities among our citizens have increased instead of declined, the freedom of individual Canadians to live their lives in peace has been further restricted by ever-increasing taxes and miles of new government red tape, and our economy has been laid waste by a government without the will or the imagination to bring in strong measures to put our economic affairs in order.
In my own constituency, which is located in the heart of our most prosperous province, the effects of the government's failure to provide leadership have been deeply felt. Our people are among the most industrious and most fiercely independent anywhere in this country, but our small businessmen are smothered by bureaucratic restrictions and taxed almost to the point where they would be better to close their doors.
Our farmers, many of whom have been on the same land for several generations, are leaving their farms in record numbers. Our working men are being laid off as the effects of the current recession deepen. Our senior citizens have found their life savings stolen by the tax of inflation, and many of them do not even know where they will find the money for next month's rent. Our young people are beginning to realize that their hopes of some day owning a home of their own have vanished. The memory of last summer's election campaign when they were told by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) that "leadership is the issue" is a bitter memory in the winter of 1975.
If our farmers are to stay on the land they need more than hollow promises from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), because promises will not cover their production costs. If small business men are to continue in business they need more than smug assurances that the problems are worse in France, or Germany, or the Soviet Union. If the working people are to save for their retirement they need to know that their savings will not be taxed away either directly to finance governmental empire building or indirectly through the menace of inflation.
I am appalled that it is necessary to remind the Minister of Finance that there is more to being a minister of the Crown than driving around in a chauffeured limousine, or attending important meetings in other countries, or having battalions of assistants to make work for each other. He has a responsibility second only to that of the Prime Minister to provide leadership in solving this country's problems.

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
A couple of years ago the Prime Minister said that any government which could not come to grips with self-inflicted inflation deserved to be thrown from office. The Prime Minister needs to be reminded of that statement because, as long as it is in office only this government can introduce new policies that will resolve our economic problems. If it continues to refuse to act it should be removed from office.
The Minister of Finance has been decisive in rejecting the proposals we have made for our economy. He has rejected our proposals for a price and income policy, and he has had the government members stand up twice to defeat our proposal to return some $500 million to the taxpayers. Surely his responsibility goes beyond rejecting other peoples proposals. Surely he has a responsibility to come back to the people of Canada with some proposals of his own.
What is the economic policy of the government? For one thing, it has decided to bring in a record budget with an increase in terms of main estimates of 28.2 per cent. This big spending Minister of Finance has made his predecessor look penurious by comparison.
Look at what has happened to federal expenditures under this government. In 1968 when the Prime Minister took office every man, woman and child in Canada paid an average tax of about $550. Today the figure is about $1,325. In 1968 the federal budget was $12 billion. It had taken this country over 100 years to reach that figure, but today, six years later, the budget is about two and a half times that size, and the total proportion of our gross national product now controlled by government at one level or another is about 40 per cent.
The Minister of Finance is travelling around the country discussing the need for restraint in business and labour. The details of the proposal he is making are secret. While the details are being kept secret from the Canadian public it is clear that he is asking them to exercise some restraint for the common good.
If we cannot give the Minister of Finance any credit for demonstrating courage in dealing with the economy, we can at least acknowledge that he has demonstrated he has a lot of nerve when it comes to asking private businesses and individual men and women to show self-restraint for the public good at the very same time he and his colleagues wallow in the excesses of waste and extravagance being paid for by the taxpayers' earnings.
What I would like to do today is provide the House with a few examples of the exploding amount of waste financed by money coerced by this government from the taxpayers. One of the areas in which this waste is most apparent is in the federal government's information bureaucracy. An excellent series of articles was prepared recently by the Canadian Press, and they give some interesting facts about the waste in this section of government.
In the past five years the information bureaucracy has doubled in size, and now includes 863 people at a cost of $200 million a year. There are also some 403 vacancies. Of course most of the propaganda work is contracted out, generally to Liberal advertising agencies that dream up campaigns to try to convince you that the post office feels "Your Mail is Vital", or that the problems of women in

Canada can be solved by wearing a "Why Not" button, or that filling out your tax form this year is really easier than you think.
Perhaps it is because the government has become so conscious of its image that it refused to release a 1973 survey which deals with this matter. Many members of this House will recall the reports recently about the minister of health's speech to this chamber in which he defended his decision to deny Canadians the right to watch WFL games. Those remarks, which none of us had realized were worth much at all at the time, cost the taxpayers a total of $1,950, about 36 cents a word.
Many of us do not realize that the minister has also done well in the government's television sweepstakes, creating within his department a television studio that, according to one information officer, anybody would be proud to own. His officials showed their resourcefulness in 1972 when they dispatched a film crew to the 1972 Munich Olympics. When they were denied permission to film the games because they had not bothered to get proper credentials, they took pictures of the stadium which became part of a 25 minute children's film entitled "It's not the winning". Apparently it was not.
According to Canadian Press, the minister's department developed an $80,000 television studio in Tunney's Pasture where it had ambitious plans to produce television shows. Since then the plans have fallen through and the equipment is now used for such purposes as filming autopsies on farm animals.
Last fall one of my constituents wrote asking me to look into the research and development contracts being handed out by the Department of Supply and Services. We have spent a considerable amount of time reviewing the activities of that branch of the government over the past couple of years. As members will know, in August of 1972 the government announced a new policy designed to encourage research and development to be done for the government by the private sector. The government was concerned about the scientific bureaucracy within government, and it decided it should try to spread the wealth, sharing it with the private sector.
A new bulletin will be released soon by Supply and Services, but their last one which includes the contracts awarded up until January 31 shows that some $26,960,986 had been given out between last April 1 and the end of this January. That figure represents a considerable increase over the same period last year.
None of us on this side of the House would dispute the value of the government showing leadership in the field of research and development. Nor would we quarrel with the policy of having much more of this work done by the private sector. We do most certainly look with skepticism at a number of the projects and the way they have been handled. Some seem to be extremely wasteful, but may indeed be justifiable. If they are, I would welcome the government's explanation. I would also welcome explanations in respect of projects which cannot easily be justified.
Let us take a look at some of these contracts. In October of 1974 the government reported a contract of $3,000 for "preparation of six newspaper articles describing the work

of the environmental protection service". The payment of $500 an article would be enough to make any reporter in the press gallery begin to salivate. What is also interesting about this contract is that it went to a chap in Victoria who, up until last summer, was employed as an information officer with the public information branch of the environmental protection service. It is too bad that they could not have got him to do the work while he was on salary.
Also in the October bulletin was the report of a contract for $40,500 to "Canadian Facts" of Toronto for "a survey of Canadian public awareness of scientific developments and achievements as obtained through the news media". No doubt that is a worthy project if you have $40,000 sitting around.
In the same bulletin it was reported that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce had a contract for "a study, through selected methods of human reactions to the introduction of the metric system in Quebec". This little gem will cost a mere $65,000.
In the same issue it is reported that a decision was made that a fellow from Bergen, Norway, should also get a piece of the action. He will be receiving $1,250 for the "preparation of a lecture on Norwegian developments in ultra-sonic methods of current measurements".
In July of 1974 a contract for $9,560 went for an "analytical study of methods to popularise science and technology". That sounds like a great way to spend an extra $9,560.
I see that I am quickly approaching the end of my time. There are many other examples I could give of extravagant waste within the government. For example, a sizable grant was given in respect of the "interpretation of data available on the site-change responses of native trees in the national capital region."
I would invite hon. members of this House to avail themselves of these editions of the Department of Supply and Service bulletins, in order to see the sort of grants being given out by that department. A new bulletin will become available in the next couple of days. It disturbs me that at the same time the Minister of Finance is asking Canadians to show restraint he continues to indulge in this type of waste and extravagance. As I said at the beginning, perhaps it will take a new budget to put our economic house in order. But even more than that, the fact is that we need new leadership in Canada.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin by thanking the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) who agreed I might have five minutes of his short time to put forward a few remarks.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I would be grateful if my colleagues would applaud the hon. member rather than me.
In a very summary way I might observe that no one in this debate on this side of the House has by any means indicated we are proud of the unemployment rate in this country, the rate of inflation or the rate of growth. I do not say that. But by international standards of performance
Canadian Economy
we are doing better than the major powers around the world, some of which are going bankrupt.


An hon. Member:: Name one.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Italy, to name one. I think it is a tribute to the minister that he has been listened to specifically for leadership by the most powerful nations in order to try to find solutions to these international problems. I noted in the remarks of the minister that he did not foreclose the possibility of a new budget being introduced some time soon. I am sure he would introduce one if it were considered to be helpful. In this spirit I should like to make some suggestions in respect of areas where activities might take place, if international activity evaporates, and where internal activity might be generated to provide real growth and real jobs. First, we in Canada have something few other countries have; we have our frontier. When our foreign markets decline we can turn to this frontier and direct our energies and full productive capacities to developing it.
There must be ten projects on the shelf which are of tremendous magnitude, any one of which would be a great stimulus to the economy. One has been committed. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Macdonald) should be congratulated for Syncrude. The very decision to proceed with Syncrude has tremendous impact on our economy, not only in the west where the centre of gravity will be but in all parts of the country. And there are other projects on the shelf, such as pipelines for oil and gas, electrical plants in Fundy and James Bay, and offshore development and exploration projects. I think it may be time for the government to look on the shelf and indicate that some of these projects should be proceeded with, giving heed to the ecology and to human-considerations. The green light should be turned on. However, the frontier is only one place to go.
There is another industry whose entire production is domestically consumed and for which world markets are not needed. That is the housing industry. It is the classic generator of economic action including production of roads, schools, parks, furniture, carpets, appliances, and 100 other things which go when housing goes. It is the best generator of jobs at all levels of skills. It is a decentralized industry which can provide action in every community in Canada.
Apart from all the economic considerations, housing is badly needed. In my own riding rents may go up 25 per cent in the next year. In this spirit I would urge the government to take action. The federal government can give housing a big push. It has done so in the past. Last year of over $1,200,000,000 offered to this country in housing, less than $1 billion, only about $900 million, was taken up. The government can give such encouragement and should continue to do so.
Government stimulated production has always followed tax reductions. I wish to make the suggestion that the next budget, instead of stimulating by tax reductions, should stimulate by special new housing programs. CMHC has the ideas. The minister knows what he wants to do. What is needed are more funds for land acquisition, for servicing, for sewers, for roads, for mortgages and for subsidiz-

March 13, 1975
Canadian Economy
ing interest rates and rents for public housing. Let us call the next budget a housing budget.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, the key words in the motion we have been debating today are the last four words, "the scourge of poverty". Some hon. members across the way do not like those words appearing in this sedate House of Commons, but I suggest it is one of the facts of life in Canada today to which we really must address ourselves with all the seriousness at our command.
Members who know anything of the conditions in the outports of Newfoundland, in the core areas of our cities or among the native peoples, and those who are aware of the fact that about a million of our senior citizens receive the guaranteed income supplement because they have nothing else, will have to agree that there is in this affluent land of ours a scourge of poverty that could be very serious for us in the years that lie ahead.
I congratulate the National Council of Welfare on the several reports it has produced in recent years, particularly its report entitled "Prices and the Poor," which appeared in April, 1974, and also its report entitled "Poor Kids" which was published in March 1975, just a week or two ago. This latter report has been referred to frequently today and is one which I believe every member of this House should read.
The fact is that although we may be afraid of what will happen to us in Canada or in the world because of pollution, the lack of energy, nuclear war or what have you, I submit that when in Canada there are over 1,600,000 children living in poverty, our future is not very bright.
Among the various documents which have come to our attention in recent months which underline the scourge of poverty is a copy of a speech made in Toronto on October 31, 1974, by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) entitled "Income Distribution: A question of community ethics". It was a tremendous speech in which, although he referred to the gains we have made in social welfare, the minister pointed out that despite all those gains the distribution of wealth in this country is still terribly unequal, with a very large number of Canadian individuals and families living below the poverty line. This is a challenge this country must meet, and I trust members on all sides will pay no attention to those who say that our asking for a new budget is just a ploy, but will listen to the sort of things that were said earlier by my colleague the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters), and will realize that the future of this country really depends on our solving this problem, getting rid of poverty and inequality and making sure that the wealth we produce is distributed as equally as possible among all our people. This has to be our goal.


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


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Stanley Howard Knowles: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I believe that although the intention was clear there was some uncertainty this afternoon when there were discussions about tomorrow's order of business. It might be useful to have a House order rather than just the words of the Minister of Finance. I am told by the Table that the words of the minister were not exactly a House order. I suggest it be made clear that the House has agreed that tomorrow is to be a day for government business.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I find it very difficult at this time to make this clear if it is not already clear in the mind of the hon. member or other hon. members. Perhaps the minister has something to add.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I will not
argue with the Table, because I never win those battles in any event. I felt, when we put the question to the House earlier, that there was a general grunt of agreement that the opposition day be a future day and that we hold tomorrow open for government business. When the question was asked concerning what the government business would be, the answer was that it would be Bill C-50, the agricultural stabilization bill and, if that were disposed of, the bill relating to metric conversion.


Mr. MacLean:: Mr. Speaker, I think there is unanimous consent to that effect, and that we can assume that a House order has been made.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I am quite satisfied, but Hansard does not record a grunt. I just wanted to be sure that the House is officially doing what it intended to do.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in the recently tabled main estimates Blue Book there are many shocking and amazing figures, but none more shocking or amazing than the 29 per cent jump in the budget for the Prime Minister's office, with corresponding increase for the Privy Council office and cabinet secretariat.
In the 1974-75 fiscal year the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) somehow got by with a staff of only 95 and a mere $1,643,000 budget. But for 1975-76 he has apparently decided that he cannot operate on that meagre stipend, so the
March 13, 1975

budget is for $2,124,000 and a staff of 101-over $2 million to operate the Prime Minister's office and residence.
In 1962-63 the total budget for the Prime Minister's residence was $23,930. This was broken down under six headings. The Prime Minister's office was funded by the Privy Council office which had a total administration budget of $563,600. This year the Privy Council has an operational budget of over $14.5 million, without counting capital expenditure or grants. This is a direct increase of $3,241,000 over last year, or a 28.7 per cent jump for the second year in a row.
Few of these figures are broken down substantially. They are left in blocks of $2 million, $3 million or even $6 million under nebulous titles and descriptions. In the estimates in the early 1960's expenditures were explicitly described down to amounts in the hundreds of dollars, so that we knew how the Prime Minister was spending taxpayers' money.
Now the estimates allot $2.1 million under the heading of the office of the Prime Minister, with no further explanation than the operation of the office of the Prime Minister, maintenance of his residence and allowances to former prime ministers, the latter of which is only $5,556. These figures raise some very serious doubts. Where is all this money going, what is it used for, and why is it necessary? If the Prime Minister feels he can justify these expenditures, he should voluntarily table a full breakdown. If he does not think he can justify them, it is imperative that the House insist on receiving this explanation so that the Canadian people can see how their money is being squandered.
It is becoming tragically apparent that this incredible amount of money is being used by the Prime Minister to surround himself with an army of politically appointed personal advisers who are facilitating the concentration of power in the Prime Minister, usurping the role of parliament, and duplicating the work of the senior public service and even the cabinet.
The Prime Minister is apparently conducting an experiment in running the country from his office, and as a result we are heading toward the U.S. presidential system of government in this country. Parliament has been emasculated, and the morale of the senior levels of the civil service has never been lower. This experiment of giving presidential power to the Prime Minister has obviously been a dismal failure. The evidence is all around us. Hon. members simply have to pick up a newspaper, or glance through their daily mail when it is delivered, to see proof that civil unrest and public dissatisfaction are at an all time high.
In 1974 our country lost 9.5 million working days because of strikes-67 per cent more than in 1973, and more than any other industrialized nation except one. We all know what is happening now in 1975.
And, of course, the main reason for the unprecedented magnitude of strikes is the unpredecented magnitude of inflation that has been cultivated by the government. Apparently the group of seven did not have any more
Adjournment Debate
effective solutions than the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), nor does either have any ideas to ease our unemployment rate, which is at 6.8 per cent and rising.
It is abundantly clear that the result of the Prime Minister's experiment are not positive. In fact the experiment is very damaging to the country as a whole during the present trying economic period, and will be permanently damaging to the institution of parliament, the make-up of the civil service and the very system of government in our country.
The Prime Minister must take immediate steps to return the power of governing to parliament before that power is irreparably eroded. He must cease surrounding himself with a huge staff of personal appointees who are loyal only to him and not to the government as a whole, as is the permanent civil service with which his advisers are in competition. He must begin to show some example of frugality and restraint to a country that is desperately in need of some form of leadership from the government in the fight against inflation.


Mr. Leonard Hopkins (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I must say that the remarks of the hon. gentleman have been addressed to the House as a member of the opposition and that in many ways they can be refuted because he has quoted figures that go back to the early 1960's. But today we are living in 1975 and I am sure the Canadian people will realize that not only have costs risen since the early 1960's but also that the Canadian people have written to their members of parliament, and certainly to members of cabinet, and to the Prime Minister's office, in far greater extent in this modern age than they did in the early 1960's. I think it is only fair to say they expect answers to those requests.
Mr. Speaker, it should be pointed out that the operation of the Prime Minister's office is included within the estimates of the Privy Council office. As far as the estimates for the Prime Minister's Office are concerned, the cost of its operation has been carefully scrutinized by the Privy Council and the Treasury Board and it is entirely within the practices and procedures of the government. The increased estimates do reflect the side effects of inflation which is the case with all levels of government and within the private sector.
In the case of the over-all estimates for the Privy Council office it should be remembered that additional funds are required to support an expanded responsibility in the field of federal-provincial relations which are necessary in a federal society, and which was recognized in a bill passed by this House last December.
In conclusion, I can only say that I think it is more important than ever before today that Canadians have a personal liaison with members of cabinet, with members of parliament, and with the Prime Minister's office in particular than they have ever had. That process is going on, and I think this is a very valid argument in this particular case.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.12 p.m.

Friday, March 14, 1975