1975-11-14

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Considering that the great many unemployed young people in the 18-25 age group are a problem which causes serious concern in this age group, because the country is thus deprived of their energy and talents, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard):
That the House urge the Minister of National Health and Welfare to introduce in the House as soon as possible a bill for lowering the old age security pension entitlement age to 60, for those people who are willing to retire to make room for our young people.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. One week ago today the Prime Minister said in the House that the government would not then introduce legislation to restore postal service to Canadians and it was a matter of judgment as to when the public disservice outweighed the freedom of the right to strike. I ask the Postmaster General, since the strike is now nearly four weeks old, the
longest in our history, how long, in his judgment, will the people be forced by government inaction to endure the hardships created by the postal disruption?
[DOT] (U10)


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister indicated, what is too much harm is a matter of judgment. Fortunately, the business community is adjusting nicely to alternate methods of communication. Postal workers themselves are helping by setting up their own private couriers, which relieves a lot of the pressure. If I were to judge by the mail, I have had 3,810 telegrams of which three have been adverse, I shall be able to stand by my prediction that, possibly, at any time between now and Easter, depending on when the government feels it is in the best interests of the country, the strike will be resolved. But let me say this; this question would be better directed to the leaders of the union who, if they were to give their workers the democratic right to vote by secret ballot, would probably find that the workers would be back to work the next day.


STRIKE OF INSIDE WORKERS-ACTION TO ENSURE VOTE ON GOVERNMENT OFFER
William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. On Wednesday the Prime Minister also said that our proposal for legislation under which a government-supervised vote by Post Office employees could be held was worth considering at a later date. I ask the Postmaster General to tell the House what plans the government now has to ensure such a vote, in the public interest and the interests of democracy, of which he spoke?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, because of our views on democracy, we hate interfering with recognized organizations. As the hon. member knows, I received a telegram from the Canadian Labour Congress, which was highly publicized. I sent the following answer which, as it is short, I shall read:
I suggest you-
Meaning the Canadian Labour Congress:
-use the influence and prestige of the Canadian Labour Congress to convince the Canadian Union of Postal Workers that it is in the best interest of their members in particular and of the labour movement in general to conduct a secret vote, permitting the members of CUPW to accept or reject the government's final offer. This would eliminate charges that the trade union movement is an undemocratic structure. It would be further useful if the Congress would supervise this secret vote in the interests of all concerned.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the House to judge that, in the opinion of the Postmaster General, the government should refuse to take any action whatever to bring this postal disruption to an end?

November 14, 1975
Oral Questions


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: No, Mr. Speaker. This is a matter of judgment. I could easily judge that the hon. member is trying to make political hay out of an embarrassing situation. People are bound to be hurt by strikes and this has never been denied. It depends on the value you place on democracy, and I place a greater value on it than the hon. member does.


STRIKE OF INSIDE WORKERS-PROPOSED DEBATE ON GOVERNMENT'S POSITION
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister? Notwithstanding what the Postmaster General just said, since neither the Postmaster General nor the postal union will protect the public interest, will the Acting Prime Minister bring the government's position before the House for debate as soon as possible, since parliament is the last refuge of the public interest?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the premise of the question posed by the hon. member. I believe the Postmaster General is acting in the public interest, and I think public support justifies my statement. There will be opposition days when the official opposition can put down a motion of this kind, if they wish.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I do not accept the Acting Prime Minister's answer. It appears that the Postmaster General is playing games at the expense of the public. The strike has continued for 25 days, millions of dollars have been lost and small businesses are affected adversely. Does the Acting Prime Minister not think that the public interest and the maintenance of essential services take precedence over the myth of collective bargaining as practised by the Post Office and the theatrics of the Postmaster General?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister said and the Postmaster General confirmed, this is a question of judgment. I think it is very much in the public interest for the union involved to make the offer made by the Postmaster General and the Treasury Board available to its members, for voting. I think that would be the more democratic way of dealing with this issue. Unfortunately, so far that has not been the view of the union leaders. I think they should be given time to reflect.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: At the expense of the public.


HOUSING
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs arises from the report on housing published yesterday in the city of Toronto. According to that report, not a single housing unit was built in Toronto under the AHOP program for the second year in a row. In addition, the limited dividend program has been largely ignored by private

developers. Considering that the minister's so-called new AHOP program amounts to simply tinkering with some of the details, how does he expect the housing needs of the people in that and other cities to be met in the coming months?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, figures in my files indicate that some 832 units were built in Toronto under AHOP between January and September of this year. I think that is pretty good. We want to see an even better record in the coming year with the new program. With regard to the limited dividend program, I am sorry that I do not have the figures with me. However, it has been a considerable success in Toronto. Indeed, a high percentage of the rental accommodation being built in the Toronto region is on the assisted rental program. We want to see an increase in that as well.


John Edward Broadbent: I suggest with respect that the minister has probably confused the figures of metro Toronto with the city of Toronto.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: That is not an insignificant distinction, and I think the minister would agree. I am basing my statements on the report of the city of Toronto. During the first nine months of this year, only 1,068 units were started in the city of Toronto as a result of the initiative provided by the private sector. In the province of Saskatchewan, in particular, where there has been the greatest success compared with other provinces in meeting housing needs, a shift has been made to the non-profit sector. The city of Toronto, for example, has been appealing for assistance in the non-profit sector. Why, then, does the government not do more for non-profit housing?


Barnett Jerome Danson: I can understand the leader of the NDP dreaming of Saskatchewan all the time, but the fact is we are working closely with the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario in trying to accelerate non-profit programs. There have been some delays, but some very active consultations have been going on. The fact remains that construction in the major cities for new residential accommodation has not reached the level we would like. Naturally, such construction has taken place where there has been more land available. We fully expect that our new program, with the incentives to higher density forms of housing and lower cost housing, will indeed encourage construction, if not right in the core, in the major cities. This will be medium density and in some cases high density housing. It will make the best use of the land and the city will receive a $1,000 grant per unit built under that program. I think it will assist the city of Toronto and, indeed, many other municipalities across this country.


EFFECT OF LAND SPECULATION ON HOUSING COSTS- GOVERNMENT ACTION
John Edward Broadbent: Has the
minister had a chance to look at the report prepared by Mr. Lorrimer on the effect of land speculation in the metro-Toronto region? He has estimated that some 24 per cent of the average price of a new housing unit in metro-Toronto during the past year is as a result of profits from land
November 14, 1975

speculation. If that is the case, what does the government intend to do to stop this speculation in land?


Barnett Jerome Danson: Mr. Speaker, it is my view that a lot of the heat, not all, has been taken out of the speculation sales. The biggest factor in land costs now is the delay in approvals of bringing in serviced land for housing production. I share the hon. member's concern. I am asking the housing ministers to meet in Ottawa on the twenty-fifth of this month. This is one of the subjects to which we want to address ourselves in a very substantial way. It has been a matter for discussion at all of our meetings so far. We all recognize that it is one of the major areas of concern, even with the additional incentives which we are providing of $1,000 per unit and the additional sewage treatment and water treatment programs we have proposed in our new set of housing policies. We want to do all in our power to work with the provinces to see that this land is brought on stream as soon as possible without undue bureaucratic delay and that the concerns of the municipalities are taken into consideration.


CENTRAL MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I also wish to put a question to the Minister of Urban Affairs.
On November 3 last, the minister announced a new Canadian housing policy. To date, the regional offices of the CMHC have had only the newspapers as a source of information on that policy. Can the minister tell us why he has neglected to inform those offices, and whether he intends to do so in the near future?


Barnett Jerome Danson: We have been advising regional offices as rapidly as we can. Indeed, on the day of the announcement the regional officers as well as the district officers were all advised by Telex where possible. Otherwise, local management was to come in for as thorough a briefing as could be arranged. The hon. member will understand that much of the detail cannot be given until the legislation passes through the House. However, the fullest possible information is being given to the regional officers; this was arranged as part of our initial planning, but if the hon. member knows of some offices which have not yet been informed I would be interested to have particulars; I would urge him to send me a note or drop over to see me because I shall be meeting later today with the President of CMHC.
Oral Questions


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance who told us a number of days ago he would have to read the Quebec legislation concerning controls within the area of jurisdiction being preserved by the government of Quebec before he could inform us whether guidelines would be uniform or would vary from province to province. Has the minister satisfied himself that Quebec is following the same guidelines as the federal guidelines?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. Bill No. 64, I think it is, is virtually identical to the federal bill.
While I am on my feet perhaps I could deal with another matter. Yesterday the hon. gentleman asked me about the budgetary deficit. I responded with regard to the figure concerning cash requirement and perhaps I could correct my answer. The figure of between five and six billion dollars represents the government's cash requirement and not the budgetary side alone.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Now, Mr. Speaker, in which direction do I go?


An hon. Member:: Hang in there, Bob!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I will deal with the deficit later in the question period. The minister has not answered my original question. I was not asking whether the terms of the legislation are the same. I was asking whether the guidelines with regard to salary increases, for example, are the same as the federal guidelines. I would like a specific answer to that question.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: At this point all we have before us is the Quebec bill, just as we have before us Bill C-73. Quebec has, of course, chosen to set up its own administration in this regard. I have no reason to believe that, having adopted almost a mirror image of the federal legislation, Quebec will not be making every effort in the application of that legislation to follow the same principles as we are following.


ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAM-REQUEST FOR STATEMENT OF POSITION OF EACH PROVINCE ON GUIDELINES
Robert Lorne Stanfield: final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I am not surprised that the minister tried to create a diversion, but I am surprised that he cannot tell this House even at this date, many weeks after the announcement of the government's program, about the position of the provinces.
I want to ask the Minister of Finance whether he will be able to assure the committee before the anti-inflation bill is reported out of committee what is the position of each of the ten provinces, or those that are coming into the program and allowing the federal government to administer it totally. In the case of a province such as Quebec, which is preserving its own jurisdiction, can the minister tell the committee precisely what guidelines the province of
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Quebec, or a province taking a similar position, will be following? It seems to me that both the committee and the House are entitled to have this information before the government proceeds.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. gentleman will not try to misrepresent the situation. We have put before the House a legislative proposal which enables the provinces to make a choice whether they come in or stay out. Some provinces have made that choice and made their announcements. It would not be our intention to make their announcements for them. Those provincial governments will have to indicate what their position will be, and presumably they will want to indicate it to their legislatures.
As to whether a province will come forward and announce this by the time-I hope a matter of a very few weeks-the bill receives royal assent, I cannot be sure. I cannot be sure if the remaining provinces will take a position and announce it. I think it would be desirable for themselves and for the program to do so but, after all, that is a matter of provincial decision making. We have gone back to them with this option. We have provided them with the full background. We hope they will soon make that decision.
As to the guidelines that a particular province will follow, we have had the assurance from Quebec that they will be closely paralleling the federal program. I invite the hon. gentleman to examine Bill 64 and to compare it with Bill C-73. Inevitably this will happen where a separate tribunal considers these matters, but the application will have to be decided by the tribunal to be created in Quebec in accordance with the judgment of those involved. I cannot give the hon. member the assurance that everything that the Quebec tribunal does will be exactly identical to what the federal tribunal will do. I think that surely speaks for itself.


POST OFFICE
Mr. A. D. Alkenbrack (Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. It has been brought to my attention that postal union members returning to work are being threatened with expulsion by their union. My question is: Is it compulsory to be a member of the union to work in the post office?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, this is not an isolated incident; it has been happening in Vancouver, Moncton, Hamilton and other places. It is not necessary to be a member of a union. If the union suspends a worker, then within the collective agreement there is what is known as the Rand formula, which permits a non-union worker to get all of the benefits of working in the post office, job security and all the rest of it, providing equipment and union dues are deducted and paid over to the union in accordance with the Rand formula.


Almonte Douglas Alkenbrack: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the Postmaster General see that the rights of casual non-union employees are maintained in this dispute?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, this is a little different question concerning casuals who are not members of the union. Casuals were always used to provide service when there was a high volume of mail. This right has not been eroded. Management has maintained that particular right, even though it has spelt out certain situations that limit the use of casuals.
While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, may I express satisfaction at the fact that the hon. member for Brandon-Souris, who underwent very serious surgery yesterday of a cardiac nature, has recovered, and I think I speak for both Houses when I wish him God speed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs I have a question for the government House leader. Will the government agree to an order of reference by this House to the Standing Committee on External Affairs, that the committee immediately begin hearings to review the future prospects of the United Nations and Canada's present and future participation in that organization, in light of the adoption in the United Nations of the despicable resolution which was unanimously condemned by this House in a motion it agreed to earlier this week?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Secretary of State for External Affairs I will give this suggestion consideration.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment, and it again concerns the Syncrude project. Yesterday in the House in answer to one of my questions the minister said that this problem in respect of emissions is mainly a problem for Alberta, and therefore we do not have national guidelines or standards relating to that specific type of industry. The minister then went on to say that any such activities should themselves fall well within the standards established by the Department of the Environment. I am wondering if the minister would like now to clear up that somewhat lethal fog she left over the House following those questions yesterday?
November 14, 1975


Hon. Jeanne Sauve (Minister of the Environment):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was speaking of two kinds of standards; the standards relating to emissions in the atmosphere from industrial stacks, and, in the second part of my answer, I was speaking about the standards or government policy, to the effect that any major development or project in which the federal government is involved would have to fall within that policy, which means it would have to be subject to environmental assessment.


VALUE OF TEN-YEAR STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS OF SYNCRUDE TO THOSE WORKING ON PROJECT IN 1979
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, in addition, when answering the same series of questions, the minister indicated there was a $40 million study into this problem which would take place over a ten-year period. In view of the fact that the Syncrude project will be on-stream in late 1978, and all the predictions are for late 1978, what assurance can the minister give to those who may be suffering health hazards in 1979 that the study which is going to take place over ten years will work ex post facto to help them in terms of the cancer and like problems which might develop?


Jeanne Sauvé: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows a great deal about the health problems which can flow from developments of this sort than I do. Our research and assessment does not allow us to say there is this kind of danger which would be identifiable at this time. We do have concern, though, because we know these developments will have some considerable impact on the environment. That is why, in preparation for that development over a period of several years, and the hon. member certainly knows this development is not going to occur overnight-we have embarked on this very important and comprehensive study of all the impacts on the environment. We are preparing ourselves, getting the data and information we need in order to be in a position to assess the situations as they present themselves.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Claude Wagner (Saint-Hyacinthe):: Mr. Speaker, I direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister. In view of the terrorist act which took place in Zion Square in Jerusalem yesterday, killing seven people and wounding 34, and considering the fact that the Palestine Liberation Organization through its news agency WAFA has officially claimed responsibility for that action in commemoration of the first anniversary of its leader, Yasser Arafat's visit to the United Nations, and his waving of the olive branch, will the minister advise the House what instructions if any were given or are to be given to our ambassador at the United Nations that Canada's abhorrence of terrorism by the PLO be clearly demonstrated, at a time when the PLO is about to be invited by the government of Canada to
Oral Questions
participate in the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver?


Mr. Hees:: That's a very good question.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, the attitude of the Canadian government toward terrorist activities is very well known. Like the hon. member, we deplore them and we have protested in most vigorous terms. We have stated Canada's position on many, many occasions, and as to whether it would be appropriate for us to make another protest on this particular occasion, I will take this suggestion under consideration. The Secretary of State for External Affairs has said, and his position has been confirmed by the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, that at the Habitat Conference representatives of observer bodies such as the PLO will be permitted providing they are not terrorists.


IMMIGRATION
Claude Wagner: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct this question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. In view of the fact that the Ottawa public affairs group of the Voice of Women has arranged for a public forum next Monday night at the Ottawa Public Library on the subject of how Zionism is a form of racism, to which meeting has been invited Mr. Shafik Al-Hout, director of the PLO delegation office in Beirut, Lebanon, and vice-chairman of the PLO delegation at the United Nations and a member of the PLO executive, will the minister indicate to the House what steps will be taken by the government to prevent the entry into Canada, for such purposes, of this leader of the terrorist organization, thereby acknowledging that this House's condemnation of the United Nations resolution is not just a matter of words, and thus preventing regrettable retaliation methods which, although not to be encouraged, can be expected?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, as indicated by the President of the Privy Council, the policy has been clearly stated and no terrorist will be allowed in.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Serge Joyal (Maisonneuve-Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, I want to put a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In his absence, I will put it to his parliamentary secretary.
First, can the minister tell the House why the details of the Helsinki agreement, which has been signed by Canada
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Oral Questions
last August, have not been made public yet, contrary to the provisions of the agreement? Second, when does the minister intend to make this agreement public? Third, what interpretation must be given to the clause recognizing the right of peoples to self-determination?


Miss Monique Begin (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I apologize, the Secretary of State for External Affairs intends to table the final document of the agreement of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. I understand that arrangements have been made with Information Canada to make this text also available to the Canadian public.
As for the other part of the question concerning selfdetermination of the peoples, the concept of equal rights of peoples and the right of peoples to self-determination appears in the final act of this conference, even if it was approved in an European context, and is the same concept which appears in the charter of the United Nations. Consequently, the states which took part in the conference must abide by that principle and always act in accordance with the objective and principle incorporated in the charter of the United Nations as well as by the standards of international law, including those concerning the territorial integrity of the states.


REQUEST FOR REPORT ON TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CARIBBEAN COUNTRIES
Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question was for the Secretary of State for External Affairs, but I gladly turn it over to the parliamentary secretary. It concerns the meetings this week of Canadian and Commonwealth Caribbean officials on important trade and aid matters.
In light of our long established special relationship with this area, can the parliamentary secretary advise as to the progress of negotiations and particularly as to the splendid suggestion from the Caribbean representatives that Canadian visitors to their area be allowed to bring back larger quantities of duty-free rum?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the hon. member for his question, and to express our pleasure that members of the delegation, all of whom have met with the Secretary of State for External Affairs, are with us this morning. I can assure my hon. colleague that the consultations with Canada are continuing in-


An hon. Member:: A spirited manner.


Monique Bégin: -the usual warm and forthright manner, which is characteristic of the relationship between our countries, and that progress is being made. We are to have a round of other economic consultations in the near future. As to the alleged possible international agreement on rum, I do not have any more details.
[Mr. Joyal.j


TRANSPORT
Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to pose a brief question to the Minister of Transport. What action is his department taking to improve and further rationalize the scheduling of the one operating ferry service between Prince Edward Island and the mainland during this period when the second service is suspended and when there is a heavy movement of trucks, chiefly due to the transportation of farm products?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I will look into that question and see whether I can provide an answer.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister in the absence of the Minister of Communications. What is the immediate reaction of the government to the ruling of the FCC that it is reasonable and feasible for border stations to stop sending television signals into the Canadian area.


Mr. Jim Fleming (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, the department has only just received the FCC statement and hopes it can have a few days to investigate and make a response which has been requested by the FCC. I would point out that at the moment the American stations in question are licensed according to their American audience and the revenue available from that audience. Also those stations could not act, for instance, with another United States community close by such as Buffalo or Rochester in the way in which Buffalo now deals with Canada. Over the past 15 or 20 years Canadian stations have lost almost a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue to United States stations. That is the reason the CRTC is as concerned as it is.


Mr. Speaker:: One further supplementary.


James McPhail Gillies: Mr. Speaker, is the government making representations to the FCC under conditions of international law about barring the transmission of programs from this particular source.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Mr. Speaker, it is true, as I said earlier, that the department will want to respond to the FCC. There is also the question, aside from the FCC, of international regulations concerning broadcasting and whether they will be contravened. As well as that the Canadian courts at two levels have upheld the powers of the CRTC to allow commercial deletions.
November 14, 1975


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. In this new-found spirit of competition in the air industry is the minister considering the removal or the expansion of the 25 per cent ruling which curtails development of CP Air traffic in Canada.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, there has been no consideration of any specific change of that nature.


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


Mr. McKenzie:: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence, but since he has left his seat perhaps I might ask it later.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Otto Jelinek (High Park-Humber Valley):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs I should like to put my question to the Acting Prime Minister. In view of the fact that yesterday Jean-Pierre Bourdouxhe, the secretary of the New Democratic Party of Quebec, confirmed that his party is, in his words, raising funds for the Chilean socialists in exile for the purpose of overthrowing the present Chilean government-and I see that the federal NDP approves this as well-could the Acting Prime Minister advise this House whether it is government policy to condone any political group in Canada working for the purpose of bringing down some foreign government and if not what steps is the government taking to bring this irresponsible precedent to an end?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, ordinarily it would not be government policy to interfere in any way with groups which hold political views. I understand there are some on the other side who are working to bring down this government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: Our main concern in this regard is to discourage violence and terrorist activities of any kind.


IMMIGRATION
Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the
Oral Questions
Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Following on my questions of two days ago regarding the misuse of the special ministerial permits issued to and signed by 55 Chilean immigrants admitted to Canada, some of whom are now taking part in international subversive political activities in this country, I should like to ask the minister first, why there were only 55 immigrants compelled to sign these permits when over 3,000 Chileans were admitted to Canada at that time? At the same time could the minister advise this House what steps he is prepared to take to overcome the illegalities as they relate to his department?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the only persons asked to sign those statements were the 55 signees who took refuge in the embassy at Santiago at the time of the coup and were let into Canada on minister's permits. If there is a contravention of the permits in that particular case we would want to look into that but I am not satisfied yet that this has occurred.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the very strong statement issued yesterday by the National Council on Welfare expressing concern for the plight of the poor in Canada in light of the present anti-inflationary program and urging that income and support implementation programs are even more essential given the economic policy the government has announced, can the minister say whether steps are being taken to speed up the introduction of the guaranteed annual income or other programs of income supplementation?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I should like to advise the hon. member that one of the fundamental objectives of the government anti-inflation program at the present time is precisely to assure the underprivileged in our society that their incomes will not be eroded by inflation. One of the real objectives of this program is to assist the underprivileged.
The success of this anti-inflation campaign will certainly have a great impact on the standard of living of the underprivileged. Concerning the program of income support and income supplementation which has been under consideration with the provinces for a few months now, I have just come back from a tour of the provinces in which I met all the ministers responsible for welfare at the provincial level. We are considering a meeting in early 1976 to discuss once again this matter.
I proposed a meeting for the beginning of December but the British Columbia government asked that it be held later.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the National Council on Welfare does

November 14,.1975
Oral Questions
not agree that the program is protecting the position of the poor and underprivileged, and in view of the fact that the government has found it possible without consulting the provinces to impose limits on wage increases, can it not also on a national basis raise the levels of incomes of those at the bottom?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, since the hon. member is wrong on the two premises, I cannot answer the last part of his question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Have you read the statement?


POSSIBILITY OF REDUCING ELIGIBILITY AGE FOR OLD AGE PENSION TO 60-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
As a large number of young people are unemployed, which situation may be detrimental to their planning for the future, can the minister tell the House whether he might consider, as a factor towards solving that serious problem, the possibility of reducing to 60 the age of eligibility for the old age security pension for such persons as might wish to retire then?


Marc Lalonde: The studies made of that subject, Mr. Speaker, seem to indicate that such a step would have little impact on the level of unemployment in Canada.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question.
Can the minister inform the House if anyone prepared a survey of the number of persons in the 60-to-65 age bracket and an estimate of what it would cost to pay pensions to these persons, assuming such action were taken?


Marc Lalonde: The hon. member's question is not very clear. If he wants to know whether we made a study on the cost of pensions paid to all persons aged 60 to 65 years, indeed we did and the figures are available. I already submitted them to the House several times.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. As Joseph Luns, secretary general to NATO forces, has added to the growing concern about our commitment to NATO by stating that Canadian equipment is

inadequate, can the minister explain how the government intends to strengthen Canada's position in Europe without improving the quality of Canadian equipment? Further, will the minister elaborate on the position he intends to take at the NATO summit meeting in Brussels next month?


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that Secretary General Luns has completely underestimated the Canadian contribution to NATO. He is also very well aware that a major policy review is under way, and that many of the questions to which he addressed himself are being answered currently. I will be in Brussels in December presenting the results of this review, and those results will answer all of the points which he has raised, at what I would say is a very inappropriate time.


POSSIBLE REPLACEMENT OF VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT-DATE OF DECISION
A. Daniel McKenzie: Has the
defence review concerned with replacing vehicles and equipment been placed before cabinet, or has the minister been informed by cabinet that no further funds are available to bring Canada's armed forces up to standard? To what extent is the government going to allow our forces to deteriorate before action is taken?


James Armstrong Richardson: Those questions are before cabinet. There are major proposals for re-equipping the land force, purchasing long-range patrol aircraft and other equipment, and these decisions will be announced in the very near future.


CUSTOMS
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of National Revenue, and I hope the Minister of State (Fisheries) is also listening because it concerns him as well.
In view of the fact that Riverport, Nova Scotia has been without the services of a resident customs officer since April of this year when the resident officer passed away, and since a fleet of over 20 deepsea fishing boats operate from this port, which require the clearing of bonded lube oil and other bonded stores, will the minister examine this problem and give consideration immediately to appointing a customs officer in this port in order adequately to service the deepsea fishing industry operating in this area?


Hon. Jack Cullen (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly look into this matter. I thank the hon. member for bringing it to my attention, and I will discuss it with my officials as early as this afternoon.
November 14, 1975


SAINT JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK-REQUEST FOR FEDERAL AID FOR VICTIMS
Mr. Mike Landers (Saint John-Lancaster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of the Environment, and if I am allowed, I have a supplementary for the Minister of National Defence. In view of the flood situation in the Glen Falls area of Saint John, New Brunswick, what can the minister tell me about available aid for the flood victims?


Jeanne Sauvé: Mr. Speaker, if there is an emergency in that area, the province of New Brunswick may take the initiative to ask for help from the Department of National Defence, but it is up to that province to take such an initiative.
As to possible compensation for property damages, of course there is a program financed by the Department of the Environment ranging from 50 to 75 per cent of the costs, but there again the province must apply.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mike Landers: My supplementary question is to the Minister of National Defence. Has the province of New Brunswick requested assistance from the Department of National Defence to combat the flood conditions in Saint John, New Brunswick?


James Armstrong Richardson: No, Mr. Speaker, I have not received any request for assistance from the government of New Brunswick, but the armed forces will be ready to assist if they are required.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FINANCE
Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, could the Minister of Finance now answer the question I asked him a couple of days ago with regard to whether he would tell us the estimated size of the budgetary deficit for the current year? I am sure the minister has this information. I have enough respect for him to believe he has this information, and I hope that I will have further respect when he gives it.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the current estimates are that the budgetary deficit for the fiscal year will be as set out by my predecessor at the time of the June budget. As an addendum to my
Oral Questions
response to an earlier question on another subject, the response yesterday of $5 billion to $6 billion was related to the cash requirements of the government, that is, both budgetary and non-budgetary.


BROADCASTING
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications. I should like to commend him on the manner in which he has been handling questions in the House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: I hope he will soon be the minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: In view of the statement made by the Solicitor General in a speech in Ottawa on Wednesday that his department had concluded a two year study and found a relationship between crimes of violence and violence on television, what response can we expect from the CRTC? Has there been consultation between the Solicitor General's Department, the CRTC and the Department of Communications on this very important and disturbing subject?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that I do not have full knowledge or an answer available for the hon. member at the moment, but I will obtain it. The hon. member certainly knows that I share with him a very real concern about this problem, as do hon. members on both sides of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



URBAN AFFAIRS


Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs, whom none of us would wish to see become an urban vandal. Would he advise Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation that it should not try to solve its need for land by attempting to buy such green land in Halifax as the Ashburn Golf Course, one of the aspects which makes my city one of the best in Canada in which to live?


Barnett Jerome Danson: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member that his city is one of the best in which to live. I do not know what the handicap is on the golf course-

November 14, 1975
Oral Questions


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Barnett Jerome Danson: -but I shall look into it.



ALLEGED HARMFUL EFFECT OF ARTIFICIAL COLOURING AND FLAVOURING-GOVERNMENT ACTION

Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that information has been brought to his attention about a possible problem with artificial colouring and flavouring of food, I wonder whether he could inform the House what action he has taken in the past few weeks to initiate purely Canadian research into this subject within our own country.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I wrote to the hon. member a few months ago about this matter. My department is studying all the literature on the subject, and particularly this problem, which is very complex and technically difficult. We are in regular contact with other countries, particularly the United States, where studies are in progress on the subject.
I must report to the hon. member that up to this stage there appears to be no scientific evidence on which we could act in support of the thesis he has been promoting.



FINANCE


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. In view of the intention of the government of Saskatchewan to nationalize the potash industry, and in view of the fact that this will cost anywhere from $1 billion to $3 billion, much of which must be raised outside Canada, has the minister made any assessment of what this will do to the borrowing position of Canada? Further, will a provincial Crown corporation exploiting potash not be required to pay federal corporate tax?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I think it is clear that any substantial additional financing for any purpose in Canada, not generally contemplated at the beginning of the fiscal year, is going to have some impact on the ability of other Canadian governments and institutions to borrow abroad. I cannot advise the hon. member of the exact impact at this moment. He raises a very good point on the question of taxation of Crown corporations and that will have to be examined very closely in the context of the proposal.



WINTER CAPITAL PROJECTS-POSSIBILITY OF NEW PROGRAM

Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Is the minister planning to introduce a scheme similar to the winter capital projects fund which ended in June of this year and which provided for a loan with a forgiveness feature?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Not
at this moment, Mr. Speaker.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, there has been some discussion amongst House leaders in relation to a bill which appears on the notice paper in the name of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras), entitled "An act to increase the rate of return on government annuity contracts to increase their flexibility and discontinue future sales thereof". I believe there is a willingness on the part of House leaders and, I hope, of the House that the ordinary notice could be shortened in this particular respect so that the bill could be read for the first time today. I would ask whether that suggestion might be acceptable.


Mr. Baldwin:: Mr. Speaker, when approached in the right spirit, we can be very co-operative.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That goes for all of us.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Robert Knight Andras: for leave to introduce Bill C-75, to increase the rate of return on government annuity contracts to increase their flexibility and discontinue future sales thereof.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 3,101, 3,134, 3,137, 3,147, 3,170, 3,204, 3,205, 3,207, 3,211, 3,243, 3,247 and 3,279.
November 14, 1975


Mr. Fleming: 1.	Have any government contracts been awarded by the Department of Supply and Services for laboratory furniture and equipment since the beginning of 1972 and, if so, how many?
2.	How many called for the installation of equipment and furniture?
3.	What were the names of the successful companies?
4.	How many contracts was each successful in winning?
5.	What was the total amount of money paid to each?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: 1. Yes, 207.
2.	Twenty-four.
3,	4 and 5:
	No. of	Estimated
	Contracts	Costs of
Company	Awarded	ContractsArt Laboratory Furniture	16	$ 66,014.85Bausch & Lomb (Canada)	1	5,215.00B & F Enterprises Inc.	1	2,822.40Caltec Scientific Ltd.	1	935.00Canadian Cabinets Co. Ltd.	1	8,737.12Canadian Laboratory Supplies Ltd.	88	762,145.90Central Scientific Co. of Canada Ltd.	10	12,885.77Colonial Agencies	2	2,865.16Display Fixtures Co.	1	428.47Felix Woodworking Co.	2	1,920.00Fisher Scientific Co. Ltd.	51	79,446.97H. H. Hawkins Co.	1	4,209.00Hoch Supplies Inc.	1	449.30Hoplab Inc.	1	9,725.00Horwood Lumber Co. Ltd.	1	$39,061.39Ingram & Bell Ltd.	2	6,669.50O. H. Johns Scientific	1	4,366.50Johns Colonial Scientific Ltd.	1	6,386.19Leematt Traders	2	14,480.00J. E. McCutcheon Ltd.	1	3,089.80Nuway Kitchen Fixtures	1	20,000.00Sargent-Welch Scientific of Canada Ltd.	6	3,919.90Sisco Scientific Ltd.	12	24,739.68Technicon International of Canada	2	906.70Van Waters & Rogers	1	132.50
The above listed contracts cover the supply and/or construction of laboratory furniture, and/or equipment installed thereon. Instruments and miscellaneous laboratory supplies such as glassware, are not included.


Mr. Clark (Rocky Mountain): How many administrative trainees were hired (a) in total (b) by university, by the Public Service Commission in each year 1970 to 1974 and how many of each were designated bilingual at the time of hiring?
Order Paper Questions


Miss Coline Campbell (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State):: I am informed by the Public Service Commission as follows: The attached table No. 1 lists the number of administrative trainees recruited directly from universities by year by university. Table No. 2 lists the number of administrative trainees by year according to first language of choice as indicated by the candidate. The bilingual capability of candidates at time of appointment is not known.
Table 1
Number of ATs recruited from 1970-74 by University
University	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974
Newfoundland					
Memorial University of					
Newfoundland		1		1	1
Nova Scotia					
Acadia University	1	4	2Dalhousie University	2	1	3	5	7St. Francis Xavier University	2	3St. Mary's University	1New Brunswick	Mount Allison University	2	1	3	2	1University of Moncton	1	1	6University of New Brunswick	3	4	1	2	2Quebec	Bishop's University	1	1	1	H.E.C.	3	9	11	2Laval University	23	27	17	18	16Loyola (Concordia University)	1	1	1McGill University	1	3	1	15	10Sir George Williams (Concordia	University)	4	3	2University of Montreal	8	24	7	18	10University of Quebec	10	10	18	15University of Sherbrooke	2	4	3	7	10Ontario	Brook University	2	2	2Carleton University	15	17	15	21	17Hopkins	1	Lakehead University	1	1	3	Laurentian University	1	1McMaster University	2	4	7	6	7Queen's University	1	5	3	10	8R.M.C.	1	1Trent University	1	2	3University of Guelph	1	2	1	2University of Ottawa	9	10	5	12University of Toronto	8	12	10	18	15University of Waterloo	4	4	6	3	4University of Western	Ontario	2	6	8	8	8University of Windsor	2	2	2	1	2Waterloo Lutheran (Wilfrid	Laurier University)	2	York University	2	12	3	8	5
November 14, 1975
Order Paper Questions
Manitoba
Brandon University	2	1	2	1University of Manitoba	8	7	11	7	12University of Winnipeg	4	1	5	1Saskatchewan	University of Regina	2University of Saskatchewan	3	3	6	3	5Alberta	University of Alberta	2	3	4	3	7University of Calgary	1	3	2	6	4University of Lethbridge	1	1British Columbia	Simon Fraser University	1	3	3	2	1University of British	Columbia	5	5	7	14	6University of Victoria	1	8	2	5	3Others (Canadian Students)	Auckland	1Chicago	1King's College	1	London, England	1	Oregon	1	Oxford	1Poland	1St. Thomas	1	Utah	1	West Indies, Jamaica	1	TOTAL	113	200	152	248	223'
*The number of AT's for 1974 is shown as 223. The Annual Report for 1974 shows 291 AT's, which includes 68 AT's hired internally.
Table 2
Number of AT's by Year by Language
French	linglish	Total1970	37	76	1131971	80	120	2001972	48	104	1521973	81	167	2481974	81	142	223


Mr. Brisco: 1.	Did the Industrial Development Bank provide a loan for the Mount Beecher Ski Society on Vancouver Island and, if so, under what terms?
2.	Was this loan made to a limited company fronting for or representing the Mount Beecher Ski Society?


Mr. Marcel Roy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: It is the policy of the Federal Business Development Bank as it was the policy of

its predecessor, the Industrial Development Bank, to not make public the identity of individual customers and applicants.


Mr. Hnatyshyn: 1.	With regard to the tree nursery at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, did the government make a contribution to this operation and, if so, in what amount for (a) 1972 (b) 1973 (c) 1974 (d) first 6 months of 1975?
2.	What was the income from this operation for the same years and what was the source?


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: The answer for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is as follows: 1. Contributions of the federal government toward operational costs (Operations and Maintenance plus Capital) of the Indian Head Tree Nursery are as follows:
Fiscal Year	Cost
1971-72	$802,100
1972-7 3	685,100
1973-74	750,600
1974-75	837,000
1975-76 (6 months)	484,300
2. There is no income from this operation. The federal government funds the total operation of the Indian Head Tree Nursery. Recipients of the trees pay only the shipping costs for distribution. This operation is the responsibility of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion.


Mr. Reynolds: 1.	With reference to the President of the Treasury Board's speech in the House on July 2, 1975, what are the details of the budgetary reduction of (a) $13 million for the Department of the Environment (b) $5 million for the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs (c) $18 million for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (d) $4 million for the Department of the Solicitor General (e) $4 million for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (f) $6 million for the National Harbours Board?
2.	Will the Minister advise what are the miscellaneous items totalling $41 million as stated in his speech of July 2, 1975?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of the Treasury Board):: Ministers were given discretion to choose alternatives as long as they maintained the same total. The items are now expected to be as follows: 1 (a) $13 million for the Department of Environment: Salmon enhancement program, $4.0 million; Additional resources for fleet operations, $3.4 million; Ocean policy implementation, $2.0 million; Public service staffing delegation, $1.1 million; Flood mapping, $1.0 million; Development of pollution abatement technology, 1.0 million; Acquaculture-fish farming, .5 million, (b) $5 million for the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs: Urban demonstration projects, $4.0 million; Reduction in operating expenditures, $1.0 million, (c) $18 million for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation: Neighbourhood improvement and residential rehabilitation program,
November 14, 1975

$6 million; Housing research and community planning, $2 million; Granville Island, $2 million; Corporation Capital projects, $8 million, (d) $4 million for the Department of the Solicitor General: Staffing for two medium security institutions, $4 million, (e) $4 million for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: VIP protections, $4 million, (f) $6 million for the National Harbours Board: General reduction in cash requirements, $6 million.
2. $41 million of miscellaneous items: Multipurpose exhibition facilities, $2 million; Canadian Dairy Commission, increase in skim milk powder levy, $14 million; Fishing vessel subsidies, $1 million; Increased investment in Panarctic, $12 million; Tourism advertising, $1 million; Grants and contributions, Justice, $1 million; Community Employment Strategy, $3 million; Institute for research in public policy, $1 million; Accommodation lease costs, $3 million; Film productions, $1 million; Interior design and furniture, Supply and Services, $2 million.


Mr. Howie: How many firms in Prince Edward Island had loans guaranteed by DREE from April 1, 1973 to September 30, 1975 (a) what was the total amount of the guarantees (b) how many of the firms are not currently operating (c) what was the total amount of guarantees to the firms not currently operating?


Marcel Lessard: The answer for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is as follows: None, (a) Not applicable. (b) Not applicable, (c) Not applicable.


Mr. Howie: How many firms in New Brunswick had loans guaranteed by DREE from April 1, 1973 to September 30, 1975 (a) what was the total amount of the guarantees (b) how many of the firms are not currently operating (c) what was the total amount of guarantees to the firms not currently operating?


Marcel Lessard: The answer for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is as follows: Two. (a) $2,961,000. (b) One. (c) $2,700,000.


Mr. Howie: How many firms in Nova Scotia had loans guaranteed by DREE from April 1, 1973 to September 30, 1975 (a) what was the total amount of the guarantees (b) how many of the firms are not currently operating (c) what was the total amount of guarantees to the firms not currently operating?


Marcel Lessard: The answer for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is as follows: None, (a) Not applicable. (b) Not applicable, (c) Not applicable.
Order Paper Questions INCOME TAX RETURNS


Mr. Howie: 1.	How many persons filed income tax returns for each taxation year (a) 1968 (b) 1970 (c) 1972 (d) 1974 in (i) New Brunswick (ii) Nova Scotia (iii) Prince Edward Island (iv) Newfoundland (v) Quebec?
2.	What was the average per capita taxable income in (a) New Brunswick (b) Nova Scotia (c) Prince Edward Island (d) Newfoundland (e) Quebec, each year (i) 1968 (ii) 1970 (iii) 1972 (iv) 1974?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: The
answer to both parts of this question may be found in the annual publication "Taxation Statistics". The total number of returns filed for the five requested provinces for 1968, 1970 and 1972 is contained in table 5 of each of the editions 1970, 1972 and 1974 respectively of this publication. The average per capita taxable income of these provinces for the required years may also be determined from table 5 of those three editions. The statistics may be calculated by dividing the total taxable income reported on all returns by the total number of all returns. Since 1974 data is not tabulated until all returns are filed, the information requested pertaining to 1974 is not available at the present time.


Mr. Reynolds: 1.	What are the peculiar characteristics of the liquid concentrate fire extinguishing foam that is purchased from Laurentian Concentrates Limited, Ottawa, Ontario, that make its costs justified?
2.	Are there facsimilies available?
3.	Has there been any effort to interest other companies to tender on this "qualified product" and, if not, for what reason?


Jean-Pierre Goyer: 1. The liquid concentrate fire extinguishing foam purchased from Laurentian Concentrates is a concentrated homogeneous colloidal suspension of hydralyzed protein foam stabilizers and metallic salts with sufficient preservations to prevent decomposition of the foam while in storage. The liquid produces a heavy blanket of foam which lasts for several minutes (over 15) to permit safe rescue operations. The item has been classed as a "strategic" product and is manufactured in accordance with Specification CGSB28-GP-28.
2.	Facsimilies are not available from any other Canadian manufacturer and in view of the "strategic" classification assigned, "off shore" supply is not considered.
3.	The committee responsible for the preparation of the governing Specification CGSB28-GP-28 involved participants from the associated industry including, in addition to Laurentian Concentrates, representatives from Penwalt Chemicals of Canada, Ansul International of Canada, Fyr-Fyter Company of Canada, Levitt-Safety Limited, Pyrene Manufacturing Company and 3M Company. These firms have always had an awareness of the continuing requirement for the foam in question and of our objective to have additional manufacturing resources established in Canada. However, we have yet to have any firm submit samples for "qualification testing" or to explore the feasibility of setting up an operation for the production of this type of fire extinguishant.

November 14, 1975
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Reynolds: 1.	Do the Department of Supply and Services Regional Supply Centres stock and distribute brief cases and portfolios that in turn are supplied to departments?
2.	Are the brief cases supplied free of charge to employees and, if so, what is the annual cost to the government?


Jean-Pierre Goyer: 1. Yes.
2. Distribution is made against customer department's requisition and at an established price per unit. It is the general practice for departments in turn to make these brief cases and portfolios available to their employees requiring them on an accountable loan basis, or for use as and when required by the nature of their duties. The annual cost of reprovisioning brief cases and portfolios is approximately $150,000.


Mr. Coates: Has the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce recently selected a person whose main responsibility will be the renovation and refurbishing of offices within the Department and, if so, what is the (a) name (b) classification (c) annual salary of the person?


Marcel-Claude Roy: In so far as Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned: 1. Yes, main responsibilities are: (i) To advise on the planning and layout of offices and work areas in various branches of the department commensurate with maximum operating efficiency, (ii) To sketch, prepare plans and present colour schematics. (iii) To research and select furniture and furnishings available and prepare cost summaries for office accommodation. (a) Miss Louise McLaren, (b) Equivalent to GT 2. (c) Six month contract at the rate of $1,000 per month.


Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council: I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Do the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Again I must bring to the attention of the House the fact that on June 20 I placed question No. 2,833 on the order paper, asking what consultants had been hired in the fisheries and marine service of the Department of the Environment in the last two years, their names, salaries, duties, length of employment, and whether public tenders were called before they were hired. It does not seem an impossible question to answer, and I wonder why the government has taken this long to secure an answer.


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Speaker, I can indicate to the hon. member that his question is being revised and the answer will be forthcoming in a short time.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
On the order: Business of Supply-First votable motion for the supply period ending December 10, 1975.
November 13, 1975-That this House rejects the government's antiinflationary program because it is totally unworkable in terms of controlling prices, because it provides no effective control over profits or professional incomes, and because it is completely unfair to wage and salary earners in Canada-Mr. Broadbent.
Mr. Speaker:: Before putting the motion, I note that at least to this point no point of order has been raised about it. The use of the allotted day, as we know it now, is of quite recent duration. To my knowledge, it is not, therefore, the subject of any precedents concerning the motion put forward on an allotted day in so far as it may conflict with the usual business of the House or relate to it. There are precedents, of course, that no motion ought to be put before the House which anticipates other business before the House; as well, that the House ought not to pronounce itself on any question upon which it has already pronounced itself.
There was obvious reference to this program in Bill C-73 which has just received second reading and is before the standing committee. That would raise some question, I am sure, as to whether or not, in voting on second reading of that bill, the House has already pronounced itself on the question. There is, of course, the counter-argument that this motion is of broader scope than that particular bill. That may be so. In addition, there is the reverse of that proposition, that when the House pronounces itself on this motion at the end of today, or at 9.45 p.m. Monday evening when the vote takes place, the question may then come up as to whether or not the House, having pronounced itself in that fashion, is precluded from taking any other kind of vote in respect of Bill C-73. That becomes an even more interesting question if one reflects that this motion is broader in scope than the bill.
The fact is that the opposition prerogative, as I think all hon. members would agree, is very broad in the use of the allotted day and ought not to be interfered with. It certainly is not the disposition of the Chair to interfere with it except on the clearest and most certain procedural grounds. I feel it only fair to indicate that the closeness and similarity of the subject matter of this motion and the bill require a caveat from the Chair that under no circumstances could the consideration of this motion or the vote upon this motion at 9.45 p.m. Monday evening be taken in any way to prejudice the progress of Bill C-73.
November 14, 1975


John Edward Broadbent: That this House rejects the government's anti-inflationary program because it is totally unworkable in terms of controlling prices, because it provides no effective control over profits or professional incomes, and because it is completely unfair to wage and salary earners in Canada.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for your highly impartial and, if I do not sound presumptuous, reasonable ruling on the legitimacy of the motion. At the outset I want to say, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, that the problem of inflation is unquestionably the major concern of the vast majority of Canadians at this time. It is the scourge of virtually every Canadian family. The majority of wage and salary earners who are not in the trade union movement are negatively affected by it. Those men, women and young people who are in the trade union movement are affected by it. Pensioners and all those who are dependent on savings are affected by the current, unacceptable high level of inflation.
Above all, the 20 per cent of our population who find themselves among the poor, whether they are trade unionists or not, pensioners or not, are seriously affected by inflation. It is, I repeat, a scourge affecting our whole population. This causes people to move from adequate, but not luxurious, accommodation into poor and substandard accommodation. It causes those who are already living on poor diets to switch to diets that are, quite literally, dangerous to their health. It causes families to give up plans for the most modest of vacations. It will cause, in the coming winter months, countless ordinary working families to abandon any hope of equipping their youngsters to play on minor hockey teams. It hits as directly and as movingly as that. It is something for which the present government is responsible at least in the sense of not taking steps in recent months to reduce it substantially if not eliminate it entirely.
The effects of inflation are not vague; they are specific. They affect countries differently. In 1975 the rate of inflation is different in different countries. Some industrial countries, which I will not take time to list, have coped with inflation much better than this country has under this government. In our view, it is crucial to understand where inflation is affecting us, as the wrong diagnosis of our problems may result in the wrong prescription being administered for their cure. We must consider the over-all effects of inflation. Understanding the typical family's spending pattern is also crucial, because it does not matter one whit if Cadillacs, for example, cost 300 per cent, 400 per cent or 500 per cent more if the average family is not in the market for a Cadillac.
If we consider where price increases are taking place and look carefully at the typical family's spending pattern, we must conclude, as the NDP has, that the principal areas of concern of Canadians are food, shelter and energy costs which account for about 65 per cent of the typical family's spending. The evidence shows that prices in recent years have risen disproportionately for food, shelter and energy. If we are to cure inflation as it affects Canadians we must concentrate on bringing prices down in these specific areas. That, precisely, is what the government failed to do before Thanksgiving, and it is precisely what its program announced that day will fail to provide for Canadians in
Anti-Inflation Program
the future. Nothing in the government's anti-inflation program, nothing in the most recent budget and budget bills will ease the burden or bring down one whit the cost of living in the areas I have mentioned. On the contrary, the increased excise tax on oil has meant a higher price for oil, whether in the form of gasoline for our cars, energy for heating our homes, or oil for our factories.
The failure to control interest rates and increase the supply of housing has led to increased rents and higher priced housing for Canadians. The failure to give the Food Prices Review Board authority to order the rollback of unjustified price increases has contributed to the increase in food prices. The failure to give the Anti-Inflation Board proper authority to order rollbacks on the spot of unjustified price increases will contribute to increased food prices in future. Surely these are the crucial questions, the decisive questions. The government knows where inflation has occurred and where it ought to act, but it has failed totally to take appropriate action for dealing with inflation.
I suggest the government has failed because decisive action in the areas I have mentioned would bring it into direct confrontation with three sectors of our economy dominated by a handful of corporate giants. In order to deal with energy prices, the Liberal government would have had to confront the multinational oil companies. In order to allocate investment to housing and bring down mortgage rates, the Liberals would have needed to confront the banks and trust companies. In order to regulate food prices in Canada, the Liberals would have been forced to confront the few food chains which control the grocery business in 75 per cent of the markets in Canada.
Of course, the Liberals do not confront corporations. On the contrary, they set up royal commissions whose purpose is to give corporations a thorough application of whitewash. The most recent royal commission appointed by the Liberal government, after concern expressed by this party last spring, is a prime example. That royal commission will not look into one substantial question or problem arising from corporate power or the concentration of such power in Canada. The answers given to the submission our party presented at the recent hearing in Ottawa made that abundantly clear. The government has not acted decisively in specific areas where inflation is of concern to Canadians because decisive action would have required it to confront key corporations in key sectors, and the Liberal party never does that.
What is our approach to this question? I notice the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) listening to what I am saying. I hope I can influence him to support our motion. I was interested to hear him speak on the government's anti-inflation bill. His party supported the bill. Yet after hearing Conservative spokesmen address the nation on the television program "The Nation's Business", I am under the impression they are preparing the ground for opposition to the government's anti-inflation program at third reading. Some parties have tried to face both ways in the past. I hope this will not be the case with the Conservative party. I have the highest respect for its leader and hope that in today's debate his party will make known its solid opposition to the sham program the government has put forward.

November 14, 1975
Anti-Inflation Program
What, specifically, does the NDP recommend in the three areas mentioned? First, let us consider housing. We said as far back as the 1968 election campaign that a housing crisis was upon us in Canada and would continue. We said that the post-war baby boom is now exerting pressure on the housing market, and the increasing organization of Canada is creating more demand for houses. The government has known this for years. It knew there would be increased pressure on housing but failed to take corrective action even in 1968. It failed again last week when the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) announced his program which will do little more than tinker with existing legislation.
The government ought to introduce a comprehensive program which would include among its provisions rent controls. We need rent controls because the government in the past has failed to increase the supply of housing. That is the first step. Fortunately, rent controls are to be embodied in the legislation the government recently brought forward. We hope the provinces will follow the lead of British Columbia and establish good rent control legislation across Canada.
We concede that rent controls are a short-term solution, because unless housing supplies are significantly increased during the next few months the lifting of rent controls will result in a great mushrooming upward of rents. We say that it is absolutely essential to increase the supply of housing and we need many more than the paltry 20,000 units for which the government provided in last week's announcement. In our view, such a program can only be carried out if the Bank Act is changed to make it mandatory for banks to invest a certain percentage of their annual investment in low-cost housing. That must be done because the banks will not do it voluntarily.
Second, we must bring down interest rates. Mortgage interest rates must be separated from other interest rates. Again, the only way that can be done is for the government, through the Bank Act, to make changes, making it mandatory that banks and other financial institutions bring down mortgage rates to a substantially lower level. To rely on both of these points, either in terms of investment in housing or dealing with interest rates by voluntary co-operation of the banks, as the minister responsible for housing is doing, is to delude himself and the public. That has to stop. We need decisive action.
Third, we need action to deal with land speculation. Today, in the question period, I brought to the attention of the House a report done by Mr. Lorrimer of the city of Toronto which indicated that upward of 24 per cent of the price of a housing unit in the city of Toronto is due to profits in land speculation. Decisive action by the national government to deal with the question of land speculation is long overdue.
There are some basic steps that should be taken to bring down the cost of living, whether it is in the purchase of a condominium, co-operative housing, single family unit, town house or rental. If we do not take these steps, the rent control aspect, which is the only thing of short-run significance that the government has announced, will have no

effect in the long run. The housing crisis which began at least as far back as 1968 will be with us until 1988.
On the question of energy, hon. members will recall that during the minority government, the NDP opposed the idea that we should move toward world prices for oil in this country. We opposed that idea then, and we oppose it now. The Liberal government was in favour of it then. We held them back somewhat in the days of the minority government. They now have a majority. They now have a public commitment to move toward world oil prices. We think it is both absurd and unfair to charge Canadians world prices for our own natural resources.
In terms of that resource sector, we believe it should be taken out of private control, private ownership, foreign control and foreign ownership and made a public enterprise. It is time to move in a decisive way in the resource sector with public capital so that we can make sure these resources are used for the benefit of the people of Canada, not to maximize the profits of multinational oil corporations.
This is not simply an ideological or philosophical commitment, although that is there as well. We say that the result of this would be concrete and immediate price benefits for Canadians. We could control the prices. We could hold the price of oil down for the average Canadian to drive his or her automobile. We could hold it down for the average family which has to pay energy costs for heating the home. We could hold it down for Canadian industry. This would put industry, and not only in central Canada, on a more competitive basis with industry elsewhere in the world. There is no reason why we should not be using our natural resources to put Canadian industry on a much more competitive basis. It is our view that the only way we can integrate all these social objectives, and particularly in this context the objective of reducing the cost to consumers, is to get effective public control of this sector of our economy.
The third basic concern of Canadian families is the matter of food. What do we recommend there? We say that the price gouging which exists in the food industry has got to be stopped. The hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) gave some examples recently of what seems on the surface to be blatant price gouging or unjustified price increases in the Nickel Belt area. I am sure that similar patterns of price behaviour could have been picked up in every community from St. John's in the east to Vancouver in the west.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: No, not in Vancouver.


John Edward Broadbent: The hon. member correctly implies that because of the price freeze in Vancouver, that would not occur. We will exempt that part of the country. I will refer to some of the items and ask hon. members to think of their significance. Over a six-day period from October 27 to November 3 the price of a ten-ounce jar of Nescafe increased from $2.53 to $2.89, a 15 per cent increase. A tin of Habitant pea soup increased from 71 cents to 91 cents, a 30 per cent increase in less than a week. A box of baby Pablum increased from 56 cents to 63 cents, a 12 per cent increase. A tin of sockeye salmon increased from 33 cents to 37 cents, an increase of 12 per cent in less than a week. I
November 14, 1975

could list another 12 to 15 items but I shall not take the time of the House to do that.


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: I know that Liberals do not like facts. Nothing disturbs a Liberal more than a fact. I do not want to upset that Liberal in the back row, so I will not give any more facts. The point is that the five items I have just listed were selected from a list that is much longer, all of which had price increases in the same percentage range, anywhere from 10 per cent to 30 per cent over the period of one week. What I and my party say is that we need a Prices Review Board with authority to investigate price increases of this kind and to order immediate rollbacks. Certainly, for the items I have listed there can be no justification for that kind of price increase.
Second, in the area of food the NDP had a central message in the recent Ontario election campaign as well as in Premier Barrett's campaign in British Columbia. It is that we stop prime agricultural land in Canada from going out of agricultural production and being used for other purposes. If you take prime agricultural land out of production, the inevitable consequence will be increased food costs. Third, we advocate an extension of the marketing board principle to other aspects of agricultural production than those currently covered. There have been some short-run problems with marketing boards; no one will deny that. However, in the long run orderly marketing is the best principle for farmers; it guarantees them reasonable prices over a period of time. This benefits the consumer in urban Canada as well. Those are specific suggestions with regard to food costs, none of which in detail or in principle has been implemented by this government. It could have been done in the past. It should be done now.
Quite apart from these specific proposals regarding food, housing and energy which we believe would be effective, if implemented now, in bringing down the cost of living very significantly in the months ahead, the government should recognize that in a good part of the Canadian economy there is no competition. Not only in the Canadian economy but in the American economy and that of western Europe it has been recognized for some time that the history of capitalist economic development has led to many sectors of each nation's economy being dominated by a handful of firms which do not compete. No serious economist would question that judgment today. What has the government done? In typical Liberal fashion, it has taken what I think is a good NDP idea, one which has been advocated for years-which is that in key sectors of the economy where there is no competition, there should be a price freeze and that any subsequent price increase would have to be justified by the corporations concerned-and turned it on its head.
The proposal which this party put forward would recognize economic reality. But that kind of thing is precisely what the Liberals have failed to do. They have taken what is basically a good idea, if I may say so without immodesty, and turned it upside down. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) has selected the 1,500 corporations, but instead of requiring them to justify future price increases he has
Anti-Inflation Program
said to them; "You can continue to increase your prices and we shall place the onus of responsibility for investigating those increases on the public." In other words, the government proposes to set up elaborate and detailed, costly machinery for investigating price increases after those increases have taken place.
If the government had come forward with a selective freeze in non-competitive areas and required the corporations to justify any increases, it would have been a lot more simple and a lot more effective in dealing with inflation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: As a final item in our approach to inflation, we would have been much more ruthless in that we would have acted with much more toughness in reviewing the work of government departments and cutting out specific programs. When the white paper was brought down there was an indication that the government was expecting all departments to cut back. We reject such an approach. As a party, we say there are some programs which should not be cut. On the other hand, there are some programs which are no good and should be totally eliminated. I shall not repeat the speech I made in the House just over a week ago in which I outlined, on behalf of this party, specific programs which we felt should be cut out entirely. It is time the government took a determined approach to some of its programs and cut out those which ought to be dispensed with. On the other hand, the nature of a number of programs is such that spending on them should be increased rather than decreased.
So much for our program. Very briefly, we reject the government's proposals, first because they do not deal directly and positively with reducing the cost of living in the areas of energy, housing and food, second because of the over-all approach to inflation is unfair and unworkable. The wage and salary control mechanism advocated by the government will no doubt be effecti ve in holding down wage and salary increases to the guidelines levels. It will not be effective, and the government knows it, in ensuring that the 65 per cent of Canadians who are not in the trade union movement will get even the raises to which they are entitled in the government's view. The poor worker, the non-unionized worker has absolutely no hope of getting even the minimum the government says he is entitled to.
Then, again, in terms of professional incomes the government's proposal is a hoax. If the minister wants to control professional incomes, the only way to do it is to apply a 100 per cent surtax, as he must know from experience. That is the only way in which he could build equity into the system, yet it is precisely this step the government has refused to take. On the prices side, I will simply repeat the point which I and members of my party have made in the past. The indirect method of control advocated by the government will not work; it is too complex, and chartered accountants acquired by the corporations can do a lot of shifty work even in a legal context to make it difficult to isolate profits. As if this did not provide a sufficiently large avenue of escape for corporations, the government took pains to list in the white paper a number of loopholes the use of which would exempt corporations from the guidelines entirely. For example, any corporation which

November 14, 1975
Anti-Inflation Program
shows unusual productivity gains is exempt; any corporation which enjoys what it considers to be a favourable cost development, one which it did not anticipate, is exempt from the guidelines; any corporation which reinvests its profits in capital expansion is exempt.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: That is not the case.


John Edward Broadbent: I should have said "for export purposes"-any corporation which devotes profits from capital investment for export purposes.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: No, sir.


John Edward Broadbent: Well, the hon. gentleman may take up that point when he speaks. That is what another minister said.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order. The hon. member's time has expired.


John Edward Broadbent: I wonder if I might have permission to continue for a few more minutes.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: That can only be done by unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Edward Broadbent: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I shall try not to abuse the courtesy of my colleagues. In short, we believe the price control mechanism selected by the government will not be effective in any way in terms of holding down prices. Thus, what we have in the government's package is a program which will be effective in holding down increases received by average wage earners. It will not be effective in controlling professional incomes, and it does nothing at all in terms of controlling price increases. In short, it is an unfair and unworkable program and it is one which completely ignores the positive approach to reducing the cost of housing, the cost of food and the cost of energy. We think the analysis is wrong and that the detail is wrong. It will not deal with inflation, and it is a program which the New Democratic Party cannot support in any circumstances.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Madam Speaker, I have only 20 minutes allotted to me under the rules so I shall have to speak even faster than usual.


An hon. Member:: At least you have a sense of humour.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: There are clearly many difficulties attached to the government's so-called anti-inflation program as presented so far to the House and to the country. It is undoubtedly weak on the side of the control of prices. The program as announced thus far has clearly carried very little conviction among the general public, and there is little confidence among the public so far that prices will be effectively controlled. There is also enormous confusion about many aspects of the program. That is not surprising, I suppose, because the government stumbled into the program a week or so after the head of the government declared that he would not touch anything like this with a ten-foot pole.

I want to be fair to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) and recognize that in terms of the confusion which exists, he has had very little time in office as the responsible minister to engage in the kind of consultations with provincial governments and representatives of the various sectors of the economy that I am sure he would have liked had he had time before the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) announced that the program was in effect. I want to recognize his new, statesmanlike attitude and take a very statesmanlike attitude toward him this morning.
Obviously, the government was ill-prepared. As I say, there was no effective consultation with representatives of industry or labour about the program. We see the confusion regarding the provincial picture. Even now, several weeks after the program was announced, the minister does not know, for example, whether the province of Quebec will be following, within its own public sector where it has retained jurisdiction, the same guidelines as the federal government. It does not take very much imagination to recognize that if, for example, school teachers and public officials in Quebec proceed on different guidelines from those in place for the rest of the country, this will not exactly create contentment across our nation. Obviously, this is a matter that should be cleared up before the House is asked to take further decisions regarding the program.
The triumvirate that is supposed to administer the AntiInflation Board comprises Mr. Pepin, Mrs. Plumptre, and the other choice has not yet been made. I understand from what I hear, even with the mail shutdown, that it is virtually impossible for people seeking answers to questions to get those answers because of the confusion that has been created. On examining the complex apparatus that has been erected, this board and its administrators, I can only conclude that even Rube Goldberg at his best could not have designed a structure or a system as complicated and unwieldy as this. I am under the impression that the government is something like a thief who steals a box containing all the parts of a very complicated piece of machinery but is unable to put the pieces together to make the machine work.
With regard to control of professional incomes, I say to the minister-he must recognize this for himself-that the control mechanism he has announced to date is not convincing to the general public. As to salaried personnel, workers organized and unorganized, the disparities and inequities clearly are enormous. In any program of controls on income there are bound to be some inequities, but these inequities will be enormous in view of the rate of inflation, the different situations in which various groups in the country find themselves as a result of the rapid rate of inflation that we have had in the past year and a half.
Any program controlling incomes or inflation will of necessity involve very rough justice. The justice is bound to be very rough in a situation where the government has allowed everything to run wild for a long time and then attempts to introduce some order. I understand in my home city of Halifax last night the Prime Minister said people recognized that the economy was out of control. The Prime Minister seemed to say this with approval. However, we must ensure that justice is as even-handed as we can possibly make it. In saying that, we have to recognize that
November 14, 1975

justice without controls has been very, very rough for a great many people in this period of rapid inflation that has been continuing.
Secondly, we have to recognize that a program of controls to bring some order to the present situation and to reduce the inequities that exist today will involve some injustice which will have to be accepted if the rate of inflation is to be brought under control. The fact that there is inevitably a good deal of rough justice involved for the Canadian people, particularly for the working people of this country-especially in a period of rapid inflation such as we have had-is one very important reason why the period of controls should not be too long. It is one thing to ask Canadians to accept controls for a year and a half; it is a very different thing to ask Canadians to accept a program of controls designed to last for 314 years, or perhaps a good deal longer since they can be extended on the basis of a three-day debate in this House, which of course amounts to nothing in the way of safeguards with a majority government.
Further, it is one thing to use controls on prices and incomes for, say, a period of a year and a half to try to restore order in the economy, to break the inflationary psychology, and to give time to put in place other more flexible tools to fight inflation on a longer term. But it is a very different thing to resort to controls on prices and incomes for virtually an open-ended period of time with a view to gradually bringing down the rate of inflation.
I say to you, Madam Speaker, very solemnly that there is no reason to believe that the concept of relatively longterm controls will work. There is every reason to believe, based on experience in our own country and elsewhere, that they will not work, that after a year and a half or so the controls will become more and more artificial and more and more out of touch with the underlying economic reality in the country. In addition, there is every reason to believe that controls in place for years-which is what the government is proposing-will result in more and more centralization of economic power here in Ottawa. I wonder why some of my friends in the New Democratic Party are not tempted to support the program, because what is likely to happen is that the program will result in a highly centralized economy with the main economic decisions being made by a few officials and a few ministers here in Ottawa. If such a program is in place for three to four years or longer, the trend toward centralization might well become irreversible. I am utterly opposed to controls for the period envisaged thus far by the government, and I hope it can be persuaded to adopt a more sensible period.
As I say, this longer term concept will not work. I am not prepared to delegate all that power to any government for an undetermined period of time; and this really is an undetermined period of time because the period can be extended beyond the 314 years very easily by the government. Furthermore, I say that this government, with its record, is not entitled to trust or to any benefit of the doubt in respect of its purpose.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Anti-Inflation Program


Robert Lorne Stanfield: There are many faults in the program as introduced. Let us consider the freezing of dividends. Why is there a freeze of dividends? That is obviously unfair to a good many people.


An hon. Member:: What about the corporate citizen?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: My friend asks about the corporate citizen. This is not going to worry the corporate citizen much because he does not depend on dividends. It is obviously very unfair to many retired people who need the income from the few shares they own.


An hon. Member:: One-quarter of 1 per cent?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Apparently, it does not matter that this hurts only a few people or a small proportion. Apparently, we should kick them around as much as we like. I am not attacking my hon. friend; I am asking the minister what is the sense of doing this. Why not provide some guidelines in respect of dividends that are relatively fair and compatible with the rest of the program? Why should we have a freeze on dividends? Is this sort of gimmick an attempt to persuade the workingman that the government is trying to kick other people around? I think the actual freezing of dividends, as opposed to the establishment of sensible guidelines in relation to dividends, is stupid for umpteen reasons.
I do not want to carry on for too long, and I cannot; but I must say that I am by no means ready to continue to support the government's anti-inflation program. I do not demand perfection, as I have indicated, least of all from this government. I recognize, also, the urgency for definitive action being taken to curb the rampant inflation existing in this country today which is doing so much injustice to so many people. But I will not support the bringing into operation of a bad program. By a "bad program" in these circumstances, I mean one which is not only imperfect-and I expect any program to be somewhat imperfect-but one which probably would not work and would create new dangers and new problems. Due to its length, particularly, and other aspects that have been mentioned, this program probably will not work and probably will create new dangers.
I say this parliament ought not to be asked to grant to the government the extraordinary powers it is seeking for virtually an undefined or very ill-defined period of time, subject only to a relatively ineffectual period of review involving a debate in the House for three days. Such a review and debate would be virtually meaningless when the government has a clear majority in parliament.
In my view, the bill should be amended so it will terminate in 18 months. Just before the expiry of the 18 months, if the government felt it could make a case for the extension of the program, it could bring in a bill for that purpose. I want to say frankly to my friends in the NDP that I cannot support their motion. Without taking too much time, let me say that I find the NDP position on controls and in the fight against inflation rather confusing, puzzling and contradictory, depending on which part of the country you happen to be in at the time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

November 14, 1975
Anti-Inflation Program


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I really find it a little difficult to take my hon. friends seriously on this subject. I cannot really believe, much as I respect him, that the leader of the NDP believes the program he outlined here this morning would bring under control the inflation that exists in this country today.


John Edward Broadbent: Why not?


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I have to say, furthermore, that the motion is clearly premature. The bill is still before the committee. Our approach in this party is to be constructive, and the purpose of the motion, it seems to me, is to be destructive.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: It's a lot of baloney.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Somebody says this is a lot of baloney. I would not characterize the motion as a lot of baloney.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: You called it destructive.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I am sorry, Madam Speaker, I did not want to excite the members of the NDP too much just before lunch. I do not want to create any indigestion.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: You are speaking to the Chair.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I am speaking to the Chair. I have kept a proper distance from hon. members in the NDP this morning. We will try, in our party, to persuade the government to modify this program so that it holds promise of moderating inflations, so that it appears to be based on reality, recognizing the limited utility of controls on prices and incomes, so that the program does not involve giving the government the power to impose controls for years and years, bringing about a change in the fundamental nature of our economy, making collective bargaining virtually meaningless because of the length of the period of controls, and arrogating to itself the important economic decisions in this country over that period of time, destroying not only the power of decision of co-operatives and corporations but possibly also emasculating the powers of our provinces over the same period of time. How could we willingly grant such powers for so long to any government, let alone a government which has such a record for opportunism as this one?
I oppose this motion because it is premature and, being premature, is purely destructive in purpose.


An hon. Member:: No rationale at all.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: If my friends will look after themselves, I will look after myself. I am sorry, Madam Speaker, I really did not mean to excite those hon. members. I say to the minister that we will continue to try to improve the bill in order to produce a workable program that does not involve a blank cheque of the sort the government is now seeking. I will vote against the motion.


Mr. Abbott:: Madam Speaker, perhaps I might call it one o'clock.
At one o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I bring to the attention of the House the fact that at one o'clock when the House rose for lunch, the Chair recognized the hon. member for Mississauga (Mr. Abbott) because no member of the Social Credit Party rose. The minister, who was expecting a member of the Social Credit Party to seek the floor, did not rise although he intended to speak after a representative from each of the three opposition parties had spoken. I am sure the House would agree to listen to the intervention of the minister at this time, without affecting the right of the hon. member for Mississauga to speak in due course. Is this agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, may I express my thanks to you and to all hon. members for giving me the opportunity to speak at this time. I wish to respond briefly to a number of points made by the leader of the New Democratic Party.


An hon. Member:: In his absence.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: May I say he had the courtesy to speak to me just before the House rose, indicating that he had a conflicting engagement which would make it difficult for him to be here right at two o'clock, but that he would be in the House shortly thereafter, so perhaps he will have an opportunity to hear at first-hand a part at least of what I have to say about his speech.
I think one of the most significant phrases of his speech was the important recognition-and this is a direct quotation-that inflation is the scourge affecting our whole population. Indeed, in all the arguments we have heard from the hon. gentleman and his colleagues inside and outside the House for the past four weeks, they have indicated what they were not prepared to do, what they were not prepared to support and what they were not prepared to give in relation to this program against inflation.
I think it would have been justifiable for one to have arrived at the conclusion that they were not concerned about inflation at all, and indeed that their principal motive was to oppose the present program. Therefore, I welcome that clarification on his part and the fact that he and his colleagues are concerned. I recognize that he has given himself and his party a rather difficult brief to carry in this particular regard, because he has had to start off on the assumption, not justified by any economic fact, that increased labour costs can in no way affect the cost of goods and services which people buy in the community. He has taken the position, of course, that wherever wage or salary increases might take place in respect of individual firms or the community as a whole, they will not in fact
November 14, 1975

affect prices. He has had to look for villains or evils in other sectors of the economy to overcome the fact that, above all, labour costs, as is the case with many other costs, are important from the standpoint of inflation.
He has been unable to refute the argument which has been advanced by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and other speakers on this side of the House, that unless there are some restricted restraints with regard to the compensation side of our economy, not only will the inflation get worse, or not better in this country, but that indeed over a period of time our competitive position, and therefore the jobs of Canadians, will suffer as well. The leader of the New Democratic Party cited the three areas of food, shelter and energy costs as his party's explanation of why we have inflation, and he insisted that, in effect, nothing had been done to protect Canadians in these particular areas.
I think it is fair to say-the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) has already referred to this-that there were a substantial number of contradictions in what the hon. gentleman had to say. At one point late in his remarks he was saying the government was spending too much and that certain programs had to be cut down. At another point he was saying that, of course, the government had done absolutely nothing in the form of its budgetary expenditures to deal with the problems of inflation affecting Canadians. I shall not again go into the various increases that this government has been responsible for in respect of old age security, the guaranteed income supplement, veterans' benefits and other payments for the purpose of enabling those particular groups of Canadians for whom we have a special responsibility to keep up with rising costs. However, I believe it is fair to point out to the two members of the New Democratic Party who are present at this time that this government, in its budgetary provisions, has made provision not just for hundreds of millions of dollars but for billions of dollars specifically for the purpose of keeping down the cost of food, shelter and energy for Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Because we have had a recent debate on the question of housing in Canada I will not refer in detail to the various substantial programs-I think I would be correct in saying in the aggregate of over $1 billion a year-under the jurisdiction of my colleague, the Secretary of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson), specifically for the purpose of providing additional housing for Canadians of low income. I refer to the most recent program announced both for the extension of AHOP and subsidized rental housing to provide Canadians, particularly those at the lower end of the income scale, with better and more housing at a price they can afford.
So I think it is a little disingenuous for the leader of the New Democratic Party to say that the government has made no budgetary provision, for example, to provide low-cost housing for Canadians when in fact even a quick examination of the Blue Book would indicate that over $1 billion has been appropriated for this purpose.
With respect to energy, the leader of the NDP took the position, again, that this government has done nothing by
Anti-Inflation Program
way of budgetary provision to provide for the higher costs of energy with which not only Canadians but all world consumers of energy have been faced in recent years due to the action of the OPEC countries in quadrupling the price of oil. Here, again, I suggest that the allegation that nothing has been done is unfair. I point out to the leader of the NDP that in budgetary terms and in terms of the current fiscal year 1975-76, this parliament in the aggregate will appropriate $1.5 billion for the oil subsidy payment, for example, to keep down the cost of fuel oil in the constituency of the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Hogan) and in other constituencies east of the well known Ottawa Valley line.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Whether we are talking about Canada or any other countries in the world, there is a basic fact to be recognized: higher energy costs for the world in general are here to stay; these prices have to be paid, and no element of rhetoric and none of the old arguments about attacking multinational corporations or accusing the federal government, in its dealings with provincial governments, of causing the problem can get away from that fact which we should all recognize and take into account. That is, that we will have to pay higher costs for energy. This is inevitable for each of us when we go to purchase gasoline, fuel oil, to pay our hydro bill or whatever it may be. Therefore, it seems to me rather contradictory and inconsistent for the hon. gentleman to say to the House that the government has done nothing to restrain energy costs, when in the first place this government has been responsible for keeping down the price of oil for all Canadians at a price level $4 under the world price.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Especially when the NDP provincial governments of Saskatchewan and British Columbia, as much as the governments of any other energy-producing provinces, have sought higher prices for their own energy commodities.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I do not disagree with the Premier of Saskatchewan when he goes to federal-provincial meetings and tells us not to expect Saskatchewan to take anything less for its energy commodities than any other province, particularly Alberta. I do not disagree with Premier Blakeney when he says that, and I do not disagree with the government of British Columbia when it says that natural gas is a scarce resource which can be replaced only by expending more money to find additional natural gas and it will need a bigger cash flow back to the industry for the purpose of finding these resources. I agree with the governments of British Columbia and Saskatchewan that for reasons of revenue to the province and for developing additional resources we are going to have higher prices for energy in this country.
However, it seems strange to me that in the face of the fact that we have these circumstances at the present time and that we have to find energy, the national leader of the NDP contradicts what the two provincial premiers say.

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That leaves us wondering about the adequacy of the solutions he puts forward with regard to energy pricing.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: The third matter mentioned by the leader of the NDP was the vexed question of food costs. I have said before, and say again, that probably no transaction made by every Canadian family in the week is more a matter of concern for them than the amount spent at the corner store and the supermarket for the purpose of keeping them in food. I must say, as well, that we acknowledge at once the increase in food prices in Canada has been an important factor in increasing the general price level in this country. What interested me in the speech of the leader of the NDP is that at one point he spoke with accents of admiration about the work of the Food Prices Review Board, and the only criticism he had was that this government had not given to the Food Prices Review Board the power to roll back prices.
Then he went back to the old argument that the reason food prices had gone up in Canada was a higher profit margin being taken by the vendors or the processors of particular foods. I think it is fair to remind him of the speeches he and other members of his group made in one of the two previous debates we have had in the last four weeks on this subject. They said that the Food Prices Review Board had failed in its duty, having examined the facts and found that increases in food prices had not been due to higher profit margins, and they are now saying that the board did a good job and we should be taking action, just as the board recommended, for the purpose of rolling back prices. The leader of the NDP asks why there is not some provision in this particular bill for the kind of scrutiny of food prices as existed with the Food Prices Review Board and, what is more, he said it should have the power to roll back prices. I think it is fair to call the attention of the hon. gentleman to the fact that those powers are in Bill C-73.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: That is why I must agree with the Leader of the Opposition when he referred to this as being a particularly arid exercise-those are not his words, but mine-to be having a debate on an opposition day on this question when the very powers the hon. gentleman says we should have are in fact in a government bill which is before a parliamentary committee at this time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: This is a measure which the hon. gentleman and his colleagues opposed at second reading. He now asks for the powers we have put into this bill for the Anti-Inflation Board, which are those he opposed in his vote at second reading.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: 
Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I acknowledge the validity of the point made by the leader of the NDP with regard to the fact that the question of professional incomes is a vexed one for our community, and that while in terms of gross national product the amounts which may be involved are not significant from the standpoint of the test of fairness and equity, it is important that not only should the wage-earning man see that he is being dealt with fairly with regard to his own income, but he should also have the assurance at the same time that the self-employed professional will be controlled.
Indeed, all the ten provincial governments agreed with us in this regard. They also agreed that the best means of doing so-given the fact that those professions are self-governed within each province-was a three-way arrangement with respect to controlling professional incomes. It should be the responsibility of the province, with the professional associations there, to work out an effective limitation on billing practices with the understanding that the federal level would impose a requirement on them to file a statement of professional income and monitor such statements to determine if the income exceeded the guidelines.
As I put the matter to the leader of the New Democratic Party yesterday, this bill provides that while a professional will be entitled to go up to the maximum of $2,400 on professional services over his present income, he will be subject to the scrutiny of the Anti-Inflation Board, as will everybody else. In the event of an excess, the administrator will be able to take back from him anything over the permitted amount. There can be question of approach and timing such as was raised by the Leader of the Opposition. We may disagree with them, but I think we should be
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exempt from this kind of argument where we are told something is not in the bill when it is, as is indicated by the proceedings before the standing committee.
At the end of his remarks, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby took exception to the fact that if firms or individuals are successful in improving their productivity, these flexible guidelines make it possible for them to enjoy the benefits. From the standpoint of the Canadian economy as a whole, I cannot imagine any advantage in a system which fails to reward productivity. The improved productivity of individuals or groups of workers or firms which therefore improve the resource base for us all, is obviously in our interest. Amongst other things, it enables us better to look after those at the lower end of the income scale who are not in a position to improve their productivity.
The leader of the New Democratic Party also referred to the exemption for reinvestment as an exemption that would enable firms to go ahead and increase their prices. I think I persuaded him in private, and I hope I can persuade him in public, that the exemption he is referring to is with respect to the possibility of reinvesting those funds arising from export profits which have been taken from exporting firms by way of specific levy and held in public account, and will be repayable to the firms upon their establishing to our satisfaction that the funds are to be reinvested in productive enterprises in Canada. It is not true that a firm will be entitled to put up prices to domestic and foreign customers because it seeks to invest in export industries.
I should like to go back to some of the basic principles which I had occasion to set out in earlier debates on this question. We know that the administration of this kind of program, indeed of any kind of control program, on an economy and a system of society as complex as ours is not going to be easy. We would acknowledge, and I have been happy to quote the term used by the leader of the opposition, that inevitably a system of this kind which strives to set fixed standards on various groups of people is going to account for some rough injustice, if you like, or at least will achieve only rough justice between various groups.
We believe that a large number of Canadian people think it is important at this time that we all restrain the demands on our available resources; that Canadians generally accept the fact that the rate of inflation we have known resulting from real costs coming into Canada, and also the self-generated ones, are costs that we cannot continue to impose upon ourselves. We have to take action to restrain the rate of inflation at this time, and I believe, and I think my colleagues have found, that there is a broad measure of support for this particular program in the country.
There is no doubt about the fact that one of the difficult areas is pricing. It is perfectly true that, while the wage settlements coming forward, which in our country on an annual basis are numbered in the hundreds or thousands, may effectively be scrutinized and controlled in advance, the many retail transactions occurring in Canada, numbering in the hundreds of millions, cannot effectively be scrutinized. We acknowledge that. In many cases, at the retail level it will be difficult to put advance controls on pricing, but we insist that we can exercise effective control over certain commodities and require advance notice of price increases. Over the retail sector as a whole, we can
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put on effective controls with regard to the mark-up across a whole range of commodities that turn up in the food basket.
In talking about the control of corporate profits-and that in itself is an effective control on the price of things that some groups of Canadians have to buy-I can refer to the decision of the Canadian Transport Commission on Monday, November 3, 1975, with respect to the British Columbia Telephone Company. This is evidence of the fact that the cost of services to Canadians can be effectively controlled. The decision of the CTC, specifically founded upon the government's guidelines, reduced by 28 per cent the amount which, but for the guidelines, the CTC would have given that company on its rate application and, going into the executive suite, it reduced by $1.5 million the amount of compensation the senior officials and managers of that company could have expected. We think that what happened with the British Columbia Telephone Company will happen again and again in the months to come. We acknowledge that there will be difficulties with individual prices in the supermarket but we think the program can be effective in reducing prices in Canada, and over time will be seen to be effective in doing so.
My colleagues will be participating in this debate, Mr. Speaker. In the course of the next three weeks the committee discussion of Bill C-73 will be completed and it will be back in the House. There have been proposals in this debate and in committee for amendments. Indeed, we have put some amendments before the committee and I shall be looking for those and some points that members have made, and will be prepared to consider them.
I would stress, again, the importance of taking action now to restrain the rate of inflation in Canada, taking action through the measures we have put forward to assure those Canadians who want to co-operate with the program that with their support and with the sanctions put forward in the bill, they will be rewarded by a lower rate of inflation and individual groups will not be able to take advantage of the situation. In the weeks to come, we hope to find that kind of support so that the program can be put into operation and all can enjoy the benefits of the kind of restraint that we believe is in the national interest.


Mr. Charles-Eugene Dionne (Kamouraska):: Mr. Speaker, much ink has been spilt and much has been said about the inflation issue. We note that the problem is far from being solved. The motion under discussion todays shows that some people realize that the distribution is far from fair for professionals and wage-earners in Canada.
I will take this opportunity to point out that in my opinion, there are three economic causes behind inflation: First, taxes, second, inadequate wages for the level of prices and, third, deficient total purchasing power in the country. Inflation is an economic phenomenon. Therefore it has economic causes. However, inflation appears in one sphere of human activities. We. also find a psychological cause which we feel is specifically due to the economic conditions in our present economic system. On one hand, wage earners as a group ask for salary increases either to make both ends meet or to provide for amenities. On the

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other, industrialists, manufacturers or merchants, still as a group, are seeking to increase their prices, either to balance their budget or boost their profits: in either case, we see a race for money which is growing harder and relentless. This race is a normal manifestation of human selfishness relating to any rare and necessary time.
Let us look at some concrete examples: the air we breathe is what is most important for man. Without this air, man cannot live for more than a few minutes. It is a matter of life and death of a primary and immediate importance. Yet, men do not struggle between themselves to stock this air we breathe. Providence has given us plenty of it. There is no shortage of this commodity, therefore no selfishness. Here is another example: at the outset of the war, the federal government called for restrictions and rationing.
We immediately witnessed struggles and selfishness not so much about money which was then relatively abundant, but mostly about ration coupons and rationed goods. It was a normal reaction of human nature in front of a product both rare and necessary.
Therefore, when we see on the one hand salary increases and on the other price increases, we are witnessing a human reaction in front of a rare and necessary thing. In a situation of this kind, we believe that far from stirring inflation a stronger purchasing power can only temper it and even cancel it, providing this added power will be achieved within scientific standards.
In a free society, any attack on currency is serious because it affects the measure of values in exchanges between human beings, which is the very basis of economic life. The people most responsible for currency devaluation which affects our daily life are those who govern us. The leaders of big labour unions who each year reactivate the mechanism of pressures aimed at improving their members' wages contribute in speeding the inflation spiral, but most efficient of all in bringing about the constant devaluation of money are the men who make decisions about taxes and taxation rates of all kinds, occasional interest rate increases, taxes to which we are subjected and which create the public activities to be financed with those same taxes. Any tax is inflationary. It is quite important to stop and think about taxes and taxation. Any tax is inflationary. That is a common truth that should be reiterated untiringly. The pressures causing the ever escalating wages must be removed but the government need not legislate in that regard if on the other hand it does not stop expanding its tax demands that bear upon wage earners, producers and retailers.
For instance here is our Liberal administration which, taking its courage in both hands and rejecting the laisser-faire principles proclaimed in the past, declares a temporary freeze on wages and prices while at the same time leaving the tax system intact, a sure way to trigger new price and wage increases. We realize that with such cost of living increases, money becomes worthless, but people keep on buying and their problems multiply. They are buying on credit, using their Chargex credit cards or some other cards, and making more debts.
I should like to quote from an article published in the Friday, December 13, 1974 edition of Le Devoir by Mr. Velk, an economist who is a member of the McGill University
|Mr. Dionne (Kamouraska).]
faculty and a former adviser to the Federal Reserve System. He is serving now as an economic adviser to the U.S. Congress Joint Commission on Economic Affairs. I feel it is particularly appropriate at this time to quote this article entitled: "Bankers' extraordinary powers during the inflation crisis".
Hon. members have a tendency to criticize and mock Social Crediters for their statements on banking power. Although Mr. Velk who is unknown to me is certainly not a Crediter, I should like to quote from his article. Anybody can check this. Quote:
Our present economic difficulties arise from two main factors, which are the rediscovery by international bankers of the secret of producing money, and the colossal increase, at the international level, in the number of payments made through banks-an increase that is partly due to higher prices induced by the state cartels of raw material producing nations.
Obviously it is difficult to make a just distribution of riches in a society controlled by finance. We live now in a world where scandals of all kinds are brought to light; we see exaggerated expenses. In such a social climate, priorities are sometimes disturbed.
Governments, ministers, members of the House, union leaders, organized crime, everybody is into it. But in the meantime, the real problems of the control of a few people over the cost of living and the monetary and financial power remain unclarified and continue to thwart people. The real scandal lies there: in the discretionary powers of the chartered banks, in their alliances with governments, in their control over food, in their financing of production and consumption.
We live in a society of imbalance and suspicion. Our social tendency is individualistic: every man for himself. Many people in the low-income bracket are not unionized. Many union members contribute nothing to their unions. May I be allowed to remind you, without meaning any harm, that the great experts of other colours would have us believe that the Social Credit Party is dangerous, that it would create inflation, that our money would be devalued. That is precisely what we are experiencing now; yet, the Social Crediters are not running the country.
If we are to get the upper hand on the situation, straighten it out, make it more humane, more respectful of man's work, we will have to join forces, regroup ourselves in the monetary field as well as in the working world, or that of food production: and for that, through the government, control the issue of money and credit.
When goods are lacking, production is blamed. When there is no work, we blame it on the workers. But there is no lack of production or work in our society. Production has its problems, indeed. But there is really no problem, what with the subsidies of all kinds granted to companies to open a new plant or expand existing facilities. The problem is to sell their production. The workers want to work.
A very low percentage of workers seem to hesitate. You have only to listen to people to realize this. The problem is that they cannot buy the produce of their work with their earnings. Then, where is the problem? Among workers? No. Is it their production capacity with automation which
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is in our society to last. No, the problem is not here either. Where is it? In the means of exchange of products? In money? We should subdue finance and let people be free. Why are there slowdowns, rotating strikes, legal or illegal? Because of a lack of purchasing power in general, sometimes to get better working conditions but in particular it is to improve the purchasing power.
With inflation protected by governments, because it is sometimes paying, the worker, despite better wages obtained after long struggles, buys less than five years ago with more money. If we go without butter, it is not because farmers do not produce enough. On the contrary, they complain because they get stuck with surpluses. They have to waste and destroy it. Most ridiculous, we import huge quantities from other countries. If we go without eggs, it is not because hens stopped laying nor because the producer does not work enough. On the contrary, eggs are destroyed. If we do not have enough meat, it is surely not because there is not enough beef in the country.
We witnessed last fall-and it nearly happened again this year-the killing of slaughter cattle that producers could not sell on the market at decent prices. The producer is loosing money with his production, and consumers are short of money to buy that same production. If men, women and children only have rags on their backs it is not because sheeps do not give wool or because cotton plantations do not produce anymore. In addition to natural cotton and wool clothing, the human mind even managed to produce clothing made of nylon, rayon and other synthetic fabrics.
If families live in cramped quarters in slums it is not because there is no more wood, no more stone, no more cement or no more steel to build new houses-we have the building materials-it is not because we lack manpower- we have too much of it, we controlled it with working permits to protect the jobs of those who were already employed.
There is no lack of production; on the contrary, there are unemployed who want to work, at least the very great majority of them. In our system the unemployed are excess help; we do not know what to do with them. We retrain them; we overhaul the retraining system. We tell them to take courses, we pay them to do that and during that time they are not included in the unemployment statistics. We do not know what to do with the unemployed or unemployment. People are being given nearly as much to stand idle as to work, and that sometimes discourages the worker. Want of cash, of money, when we could produce but not buy. Want of cash, of money, during the war when money was ordering the destruction opposing peace. Want of cash, of money, after the war when prices were running, going up, before our incomes, our wallets. Want of cash, of money, today when plants send their workers back home because of unfilled orders in spite of a multitude of unmet consumers' needs and in part because of uncontrolled imports conditioning our industries.
Everyone is blamed except the financial interests, which control both governments and people. Tenants do not have enough money to pay their rent. Owners are penalized by a property control, the new lease system. We prevent them from using their property instead of making the financial
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interests serve the tenants. We prefer to take away the freedom of everyone.
Are building materials too expensive? The state takes control over materials instead of controlling the financial interests which are causing the price increases. Are labour families lacking the essentials in spite of full stores? The Minister of Finance reprimands them by saying: You are not working enough, you should work four hours more every week, and tighten your belt.
We control the victims of finance instead of finance itself and we are seeing the results. The state restrains freedom, initiative, private enterprise, private property and says that its intervention is required because the situation is abnormal, but it is very careful not to interfere with financial tyranny which is creating abnormal conditions on purpose to lead to the subjection of individuals by the state.
The victims themselves hope that such will not be the case. Everyone tries to pass the penalty or the control over to others. Workers demand price controls, but not wage controls. Producers ask minimum prices for their products in the form of subsidies, like those provided in Bill C-50 on agricultural stabilization, but are against minimum wages for their employees. Tenants want owners to be controlled, but not themselves. The owners want to control their right to higher rents, but not a control of housing conditions. Owners protect against land tax increases, but demand stiffer business taxes.
The poor, the taxpayers want big corporations to pay more taxes, but the latter cry for subsidies for research, for marketing, or simply to maintain their prices at current levels. Oil is a case in point. So, everybody is caught in the financial trap, and we are fighting each other instead of breaking the trap open. There will never be any political control over the country if the economy goes uncontrolled. It has to be controlled, that is the only way. In other words, the economy must be led to its goal. How shall we go about leading the economy? By telling it what to do. Consumers should say what to do, and producers how to do it. The government's role is to remove obstacles, to look after the free flow of economic blood, that is money, buying power. In other words, the distribution of wealth.
Recently, the National Welfare Council issued a press release at the end of which the Minister of National Health and Welfare was reminded of certain commitments made on various occasions, and I quote:
Speaking to provincial ministers, the Minister of National Health and Welfare announced in February last the Canadian government's proposals concerning support and supplement, and he promised that:
"(. ..) I can certainly state that as long as it will be in the Canadian government's power to decide, the poor and have-nots will not bear the heaviest share of economic difficulties the western world might face-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has now expired.


William Gordon Ritchie: Mr. Speaker, this debate on the NDP motion seems very close to the one on the guidelines bill that we were discussing. However, the total program of the government perhaps leaves much to be desired. With regard to professional incomes, I wish to make some comment on this because in committee certain

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things have not been stressed. Professional incomes, while maybe not completely controlled, are highly controlled in any case. While they vary from, say, real estate people to lawyers to doctors, dentists, and so on, I might say as far as physicians are concerned, one of the larger groups involved, that their fees are for all practical purposes already highly controlled because the provincial governments are the paying agencies. While the increases to physicians vary from province to province, in most provinces they have been much below the average since the early 1960s. In Manitoba there has been approximately a 10 per cent increase since 1969. In fact, the guidelines will probably increase the fees in Manitoba because there will be a tendency to charge whatever the guidelines allow. As the provincial government is the paying agency, the guidelines will be adhered to. It may well happen that the guidelines will diminish productivity because physicians are like everybody else, they don't like to work except between nine and five, and only then on occasions-and if they find that rewards for service given in the middle of the night are completely taxed away, as has been suggested, I think the population will suffer.
I would question the point of wage and price guidelines at this time. It seems to me that the time for such a program has gone by and that it would have been of considerably more value earlier on. In fact, there is considerable evidence to indicate that the Canadian economy is doing better than the government says. Thus, I question the wisdom of total wage and price controls which are only partial and which can be construed as favouring one group as opposed to another.
We have been treated to speeches by the government, by union officials and by business containing such heavy phrases as "the plight of the Canadian economy", "there is runaway inflation" or, "we'll go down the drain". We, as Canadians, may not have been noted for having a very successful situation, but there is considerable evidence that the grim cloud that settled over the nation may not be quite as bad as it first seemed, and that in any case severe wage and price controls will not prevent severe things "happening to our economy if long range policies are not put in place.
What about inflation? The latest consumer index showing just over 10 per cent does not come into the category of good tidings of great joy, but it is better than what it was last year. The declining effect of inflation on wholesale and commodity prices can be expected to work its way down to the grocery stores. For instance, the wholesale price index for September was 6.1 per cent up over a year earlier, and the price of raw and partially finished goods had risen only 2 per cent in a year. Bumper crops of grain in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Canada, have pushed down the basic price of corn, wheat and oil seed so that at the present time farmers are receiving a level of return comparable to that of 1972 before the devaluation of the American dollar and the crop failures around the world.
On the Chicago grain exchange, which is the bellwether of grain prices in the western world, wheat futures for December were $3.70, versus something like $6 a year or two ago; corn was $2.73 a bushel, versus $4 or $5; soybeans,

at less than $5, were substantially less than the $7 to $9 of a year or two ago. As a matter of fact, were it not for the crop failure in Russia, wheat would be not selling for nearly as much as it is. The Canadian farmer might well have found himself unable to sell his grain were it not for this basic failure.
What about these grain prices? I suggest that they are the point at which prices start for the consumer. If there are high grain prices, there must be high meat prices, and while we in Canada do not produce all we consume-there are many commodities like citrus fruits, tea and coffee, for which we are dependent on foreign supplies-still our position is not so bad. The record grain crops in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Canada, will push down the price for livestock and poultry feed to produce an easing of the pressure at the grocery level.
What does this mean? Well, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) said during the election that prices in the grocery store would drive the farm price right through the gate, through the house and out to the manure pile. To some extent he is quite right. A very serious situation could develop as far as beef is concerned. We are at the top of a beef cycle; we are liquidating our beef herds and they are selling below cost as far as the producer is concerned. If the guideline prices are applied at the grocery level-and certainly they must be if they are to be effective-it means that the price of beef to the consumer will be below the cost of production at the present time. This will lead to an abnormal liquidation of our cattle so that in the future, not very far away, when we need the excess production it will not be available.
What about strikes? It is true it has been said that whenever you read the newspaper, somebody is on strike, and we may be fond of quoting that Canada was second only to Italy last year in the extent of strikes. But they have been down by 38 per cent in the first seven months of this year. Perhaps the postal strike will change this percentage-and its continuation can be ascribed to the mismanagement of the government in handling it-but it will be a better year than most. Certainly, strikes are an increasing problem in our economy but they are no worse than they were last year. Last year was when action should have been taken to curtail strikes. Have Canadian wage settlements been outrageous? It is my interpretation that much of the demand for wage settlements has arisen from the devaluation of the American, and subsequently the Canadian dollar, by 40 per cent two or three years ago. We were so tied to the U.S. dollar that inevitably we had to devalue our currency by 40 per cent or more. Much of the increase in wages can be attributed to the readjustment that had to be made.
In the third quarter of this year before the government decided on wage and price controls, wage settlements in the commercial industries averaged only 13 per cent over the life of the contracts. How much further behind is this compared with the 12 per cent allowed under the guidelines for workers who have fallen behind as a result of inflation?
As for unemployment, on a seasonally adjusted basis unemployment in many industries is high, though it has
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reached a plateau over the last 18 months. Labour in the 25 to 55 year old age group in western Canada is very hard to come by for many industries. For instance, western agricultural industries which provide large amounts of foreign exchange for our country without the contractual link of the European Common Market, which seems only to want to buy an excessive amount of raw materials from us, not the finished products as the government had hoped, are severely hampered because no agricultural workers are available. There are rows and rows of want ads in western farm papers advertising for workers at good wages.
Our trading position is not all that favourable, but has not been quite as bad as it seemed it might be at the beginning of the year. As far as the dollar is concerned, things would be better if the Canadian dollar were slightly lower than the U.S. dollar; at the present time it is only 2 per cent lower. The foreign dollar deficit has been covered by an enormous inflow of capital funds. True, most of this represents sales of securities by provinces and will have to be paid for eventually. It is a little like the family who have a lot of money in the bank but who have to mortgage the house to get it there.
I cannot see why the government chose at this time to introduce these general guidelines, that are as full of holes as Swiss cheese, since the rapid increase in inflation is subsiding. Is the government using them as an excuse to fasten on to the economy a bureaucratic apparatus which will continue, longer than the three years, to stifle and hobble private enterprise? In this regard I agree wholeheartedly with the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Stanfield), who has stated emphatically his demand that the guidelines be re-assessed at the end of 18 months, that they be voted on by this parliament, and that a new bill be introduced if they are to be continued. Only in this way will we be prevented from hobbling private industry in the years ahead.
The failure of the government to bring forward an energy policy that makes sense is creating shortages for the future. We are being amply warned on all sides that the federal-provincial fight has severely reduced exploration and development. Holding energy prices at below world prices is always dangerous in the long run.
This fall the energy committee travelled to the Athabasca tar sands, among other places. There is no doubt that the Athabasca tar sands are probably Canada's greatest reserve, but their development, however, will be very expensive. With private industry being allowed $1.57 or $1.60 on a barrel of oil costing $8, there is no way the tar sands can be developed at anything like this price. Certainly at Great Canadian Oil Sands, for example, 1,600 men are required to produce 50,000 barrels of oil a day. It is simple arithmetic to prove that with workers being paid between $10 and $12 an hour the labour cost alone of a barrel of oil is around $3.
This morning's Globe and Mail carried an article pointing out that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), splashing around in his $200,000 swimming pool, does not contribute to any energy savings.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Shame.


Mrs. Holt:: Grow up.
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William Gordon Ritchie: This pool is heated. I don't mind his splashing around in a swimming pool, but it is heated.


Simma Holt: He does not splash, he is a good swimmer.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: How do you know?


William Gordon Ritchie: While Canadians blithely use up the immediate pools of oil and gas at low domestic cost, governments on the other hand are choking off investment in the industry. Even the premier of Saskatchewan in his latest budget promised to do something to make the oil and gas industry more attractive to private enterprise.
I do not think that governments alone can handle these problems without the help of private industry, at least not without instituting a rigid state something along communist lines. The present oil and gas policy encourages excessive use of all these premium fuels, and there is no incentive to find new sources.
Another problem has arisen in Saskatchewan where the premier of the province has resorted to expropriation in order to take over the potash industry. Perhaps he is bluffing a little, as has been suggested, and he may have had personal reasons for taking this action, but after two decades in which private industry has been exploring and developing the huge potash deposits in Saskatchewan, the provincial government now wants to nationalize the mines. This could not have come at a worse time.
Why the government could not have obtained for the people of Saskatchewan all that was required through the tax system does not seem to be very obvious. Although prices of potash have risen from $20 to $75 a ton the industry has been prevented from reaping large profits by the federal and provincial governments taking most of the gain through taxation. What the province essentially seems to want is to end the federal government's tax share of potash profits, and if the industry is nationalized and a Crown corporation set up, corporate tax will not be levied. This again underlies the jeopardy in which the government will place itself if it argues with the provinces, particularly over the mineral and resource industries. This question should have been settled long before this.
How will the potash mines fare under the Saskatchewan government's management? This no doubt depends a great deal on world markets and continuing prosperity. Already this year excess fertilizer stocks are being reported. Eventually, it seems, supply and demand will come more into balance and the profit on potash will become less lucrative. Saskatchewan may gain the industry's profits but will lose the technical resources and marketing connections. It seems likely that, if the Saskatchewan government nationalizes the potash industry, few companies will be prepared to risk their time, their effort, and their money in developing the province's metals.
Furthermore, this would pose considerable problems for Canada's financial position. The Saskatchewan government has to raise from $1 billion to $3 billion to buy out the companies, and much of this will have to be raised in foreign markets, a formidable undertaking. It is fashionable to say that it is all right to owe debts but not to owe equity. In the long run there is little, if any, difference because the return to the borrower who lends money, either directly or in equity, must work out at the expected
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rate of interest. Prospective lenders in a debt situation will want, indeed will need as much money as if they had an interest in equity. I think this is a situation that we have forgotten in assessing what is best, whether to have equity or to have debt.
I believe that one of the long range factors in our economy is a failure to appreciate the value of savings. Personal savings are so important. We are exhorted to invest in Canada savings bonds and in private pensions, but are they of much practical value? One has to question them because savings of this sort have become not so popular. Indeed, in inflationary times it is often much better to spend your money than save it. For instance, a person aged 65 is better off having a new car, a new house, new clothes and a new hi-fi, for instance, than money in the bank. We have forgotten that the incentive to save in our society has been much reduced.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject today. I listened with great interest to the contributions of those who preceded me. I am somewhat disappointed that the leader of the NDP (Mr. Broadbent) is not here, nor that party's financial expert who sits as a member of the Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, nor the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) who provided the evidence for the grocery survey referred to by the leader of the NDP. I understand the leader of that party spoke to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) about having some previous engagement.
It is somewhat disappointing that this debate, which was launched by the NDP, despite the fact that we are in the midst of our consideration of Bill C-73 in committee, and notwithstanding the fact that after considerable examination at that stage the bill will be returned to the House where members will have an opportunity to discuss it further, is taking place in the absence of those experts of that party who did not see fit to spend the afternoon with us. While it is interesting to have an opposition day on this subject-


Stanley Howard Knowles: We want to hear your speech.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: This is your day to be here.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: I know this barracking is an attempt to cover up the fact that the leader of the NDP is sure to be here when he has a speech to make, but is gracing this place by his absence now that other speeches are being made in response.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Howard Knowles: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might ask the hon. member if he would permit a question. If he was told by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) that word had been given to him, does he not know that the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) is out at the CBC recording a broadcast for Sunday?


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Where is the rest of his gang?


An hon. Member:: Now, now, Joe.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps I might interrupt that disturbance at the other end by asking the hon. member to speak to the Chair. The hon. member did not even allow the Chair to give him the floor in order to ask his question.


An hon. Member:: Shame!


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the Leader of the NDP spoke to the Minister of Finance, and I recognize also that his engagement with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would certainly seem more important to him than being in the House of Commons. Nonetheless, I am simply expressing my disappointment that the few modest comments I intend to make will not fall upon the ears of those who have provoked them. I do not know whether the hon. member for Nickel Belt will also be on the CBC on Sunday, but I know that is one day I shall be doing something else.


An hon. Member:: Try listening to the radio.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: The Leader of the NDP once again brought out some of those points he has let us hear before, and stated that his principal objection to the government's program lies in the fact that it does not deal with major inflationary problems such as high-cost energy, housing, and food. He then went on, as the Minister of Finance pointed out, to let us in on some supposed economic truths in accordance with his own opinions, completely ignoring the realities of what the government has done in these areas.
Particularly interesting was his reference to the oil price problem. The fact is that our consumption of energy in this country has gone up by 5 per cent.


An hon. Member:: Seven per cent.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Yes, 7 per cent, excuse me.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: That is nothing to be proud of.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: In Europe and in the United States it has declined. The fact is that one of the reasons why Canadians have been able to continue, perhaps mistakenly, to consume energy at this very high level is that oil in Canada is still selling below the world price.


An hon. Member:: What are you advocating?


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: What am I advocating? I am suggesting that Canadians are now realizing that oil prices are rising internationally at a higher rate than in Canada, and unless additional funds are provided to the oil industry this country will very shortly be totally dependent on those outside sources for oil. When the Government of Canada is already subsidizing Canadian oil consumption to the extent of $1 billion, maintaining the price level, I find it somewhat incongruous that this should be one of the three principal branches of the argument advanced by the leader of the NDP.
November 14, 1975

That hon. member then went on to discuss the question of the price gouging in the food industry, which he alleges is taking place. He attempted to substantiate his argument by referring to a shopping list obtained from the hon. member for Nickel Belt, a subject matter in respect of which we have heard comments before. He read into the record certain price increases and then purported to use these as the foundation stone for his argument that severe price gouging is taking place.
The leader of the NDP castigated the government on the fact that the Food Prices Review Board did not have the power to roll back prices, but conveniently ignored the fact that the Food Prices Review Board has on frequent occasions stated that despite the most exhaustive investigations it has found that such gouging or profiteering at the distribution level is not taking place.
The other point the hon. member made reference to was related to agricultural land. He pointed out that this had been an effective argument used by his colleagues during the Ontario election, but he did not point out that one of the reasons why agricultural land is being abandoned by farmers is that they are having a difficult time getting a fair price for their produce and, like a lot of people in this House and elsewhere, they are not prepared to work for a meagre income and are insisting on getting an adequate return for their efforts or they will not stay on the farms. I think in his advocacy along this line he failed to come to grips with the real problems and ignored the realities of the situation. However, the Minister of Finance pointed out the weaknesses in his position.
In refreshing contrast, the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) when speaking in the debate said he recognized there were gaps and defects in the program. I believe it was he who coined the phrase "rough justice". He did recognize the difficulties in implementing the program. He said he would like to see the time of the program shortened. In other words, he made some constructive critical observations which I think the Minister of Finance and those of us on this side of the House listened to with considerable appreciation. I think it is very true to say that there was a very real contrast between the behaviour of the Leader of the Official Opposition in this serious hour of the country's history, and that of the leader of the NDP.
The Leader of the Opposition recognized that we are in the midst of a crisis and that this country runs the risk of economic ruin. He recognized that, on the best of authority, inflation has reached the point where it must be stopped, and notwithstanding his very real objections to the program he is ready to get behind it, support it in principle, and contribute effective and critical observations.
In contrast to that we have members of the NDP unready at any point to say the program has merit. They say it lacks merit in any area but are unwilling to say that if they had to bring forward a program they would do it this way or do it that way. Instead, they trot out their time worn cliches about monster corporations, and all their phrases about no competition in the market place. Then finally, of course, they pay their traditional dues to the one sector of the community they live off, namely, the powerful labour unions, and point out that they are the ones who are going to suffer.
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There is one thing we on this side of the House can say; we are not anti-labour. And we are not saying we are anti-management. We are trying to preserve the economic fabric of this country.
The Minister of Finance in introducing this program recognized that it has defects but he is prepared, and has already done so by amendment at the committee stage, to remedy some of these defects. He has listened to members opposite at the committee stage, as he has today. I feel certain that the overwhelming majority of Canadians are ready to take this program, defects and all, and try to make it work.
I think it is a singular disservice to Canada and to parliament that members of the New Democratic Party have chosen to join with the Canadian Labour Congress in respect of the $500,000 that has been allocated to the cause of trying to destroy this program and bring it to the ground in any way possible. The difficulties Canadians face are certainly unquestioned.
There is the further question which is very much on the minds of many of us concerning whether the government has faced up to its own responsibility in cutting its own costs in dealing with the situation. Many of us have been heartened by the declared intention of the government to reduce its own costs significantly this year. I welcome that decision, as I know do many members throughout the House. The problem of course is that when these intentions are reduced to practical measures there will be many painful realizations that programs cherished by members on both sides of the House may be concluded. There presumably will be many people losing their positions in government, people who believed they were performing very valuable functions. In other words, we will soon hear, when these cuts are inaugurated, cries of outrage from certain people who this morning have urged that cuts take place.
So, what we on this side of the House believe is that unless government plays its part at all levels and cuts its costs, unless the Bank of Canada plays its part in managing the money supply, and unless the community at large realizes for the short term at least that none of us will be winners if the economy is destroyed and we become uncompetitive in the world then the whole system will collapse. If there is that realization then the program will succeed.
I hope that in the committee, and when the bill returns to the House, members of the New Democratic Party will recognize their responsibility and realize what this country expects from them, a party which has contributed much in the past to the concepts that are now part of our social fabric. I hope that they will get behind this program and stop simply offering shallow criticisms, and mouthing the negative response of their labour friends, and get behind this program and make it work so that we will have a better society.


Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the need for this legislation. It is evident that rather than being a well thought out contingency plan, that has been held in mothballs since 1971, it is
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in fact obviously a "rush rush" job done in the list of the resignation of the former minister of finance and the then upcoming conference of the Liberal faithful, which just concluded last weekend. Given the circumstances, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) talked the cabinet into accepting this type of confusing plan. The Prime Minister is obviously a reluctant convert to such a program, and the new Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) has said he finds it all rather frightening.
Little wonder there is so much concern, not only among senior officials in government but also among the people of Canada generally about the Prime Minister's commitment to this legislation. He keeps saying to the Canadian people, "You asked for leadership and now I'm giving it to you." The evident conclusion, of course, is that he admits he was not giving leadership in the management of inflation, or of the economy in general, up until this legislation.
Geoffrey Stevens in his column in the Globe and Mail on Friday, October 17, quotes the Premier of Nova Scotia as saying at the meeting of the premiers with the Prime Minister on Thanksgiving Day, after listening to the Prime Minister outline his program, "This raises 50,000 questions". The Prime Minister is quoted as replying, "That's right, that's why we are against wage and price control".
It is obvious since this legislation was introduced that Confusion Square has moved from below Parliament Hill to the halls of government itself, to the Department of Finance and to the officials of the anti-inflation board who have been hired so far. The way so many officials from a variety of departments are being seconded to do this job, one wonders if many of them were not underemployed in their own departments. It is too bad the government does not show a similar concern for the unemployed and the underemployed spread across the various provinces of Canada.
The confusion that exists, and the uncertainties about the guidelines and the regulations, could easily have been allayed if the government, once it decided to go this route, had for at least a period of 30 and possibly 60 days frozen both wages and prices. This would have clearly shown the government's commitment to the program and allowed the anti-inflation board to do a relatively orderly job, first of all of hiring personnel, collecting the multitude of statistics that will be needed, and setting up administrative procedures, including how to deal with the many exceptions that are bound to arise in deciding whether wage changes, price increases, profit margins, and so on are in order. It is true that from a political point of view this would have looked to the Liberals too much like part of the Tories' proposal in the last election. But it seems to me that in proceeding the way it has the government has stacked the deck against itself by creating all the confusion referred to above, and by desperately complicating the anti-inflation board's problems in getting data and so on to deal with the many complexities involved in an on-going dynamic mixed economy such as ours.
I repeat, that once the government decided to go this route there should have been a more orderly adjustment, and time provided for a proper educational program to be put across, rather than the frantic propagandists shibboleths pronounced by various members of the cabinet rushing back and forth across Canada trying to explain a

program to the people that they do not understand themselves.
The Prime Minister reminds one of a confused, scrambling quarterback who has suddenly changed signals in a hurry at the line with many members of his team not being at all clear what is involved in the carrying out of the new game plan.
There are many people who criticize the Canadian Labour Congress for setting up a fund which, among other things, will test the constitutional efficacy of this antiinflation legislation. I think that rather than criticizing them we should be complimenting them.
It is not necessary to be a lawyer to understand that the anti-inflation legislation has been introduced by the federal government under its general constitutional power to enact laws for the peace, order, and good government of Canada. Even if the resulting guidelines interfere with the operation of provincial collective bargaining laws, the federal government claims the right to intervene. It has, however, refrained from applying the guidelines to provincial and municipal civil servants and employees of all provincial public bodies such as hydro commissions, school boards, and provincial Crown corporations, unless the appropriate province agrees that the guidelines will apply to them. Some question of the constitutional validity of this delegation of authority exists. The right of a province to give away its jurisdiction, as Ontario seems to have done with its agreement with the federal government, without passing enabling legislation is very much in doubt.
Let us turn to the economic reasons given for this program. One of the major economic pillars underlying the controls is the belief expressed in the budget speech of the former minister of finance on June 23, 1975. The former minister of finance said that inflation threatens to price our goods out of the world market. For weeks on end we heard the then minister of industry, trade and commerce continually using this argument in this House and outside. Since then there have been a number of cabinet ministers who have picked up this refrain. So embedded is this notion that the new deputy chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board, Mrs. Plumptre, at a recent meeting in Vancouver on October 30, 1975, insisted that this was a major reason for setting up the anti-inflation legislation, and I quote her:
Canada's international competitive position and ability to pay its own way in the world is being set back. We are pricing ourselves out of the market.
I underline the word "are". But the figures released by Statistics Canada at about the time Mrs. Plumptre was perpetrating a continuance of this mythology showed that import prices, which are not covered by the government's anti-inflation program, were rising twice as fast as Canadian export prices.
On a year to year basis the rate of increase was 14.5 per cent for import prices but only 7.5 per cent for exported goods. Of course these statistics were pretty damaging evidence against the mythology, for they tended to disprove the government's claim that high wage settlements were making Canada uncompetitive, and as Peter Cook of the Financial Times noted, this has been one of the main arguments for selling controls to the labour movement.
November 14, 1975

Moreover, it was just not a question of raw materials and resource products involved in the statistical revelations; the price of manufactured exports in the second quarter of this year, and these are the latest statistics we all have, were up 11.7 per cent from the same period last year, while imported prices on finished goods had increased by 20 per cent. So it cannot be argued that slower growth in export prices, as against our import prices, was just a matter of weak foreign markets for raw materials and resource products.
It is evident that on the basis of Statistics Canada price indices the terms of trade still favour Canada. I brought this matter up in a Finance Committee meeting with the Minister of Finance on November 3, and he stickhandled around the obvious evidence of the falsity of the claim of cabinet ministers and Mrs. Plumptre that we are pricing ourselves out of the world markets by saying, and I quote: "I think I would put it more on the basis of anticipation than actual fact." This might be acceptable legalese, but it is not good economics.
The truth of the matter is that there is no evidence for the conclusion that we are pricing ourselves out of international markets. I defy any hon. member opposite to give statistics from Statistics Canada which would reveal this. This evidence has to show up in the trade indices to which I have already referred.
What the Minister of Finance seems to be saying is that we are scared of this matter for the future, but if he is extrapolating from the present statistical evidence, he has no solid basis for his claim. It is more of an intuitive or alarmist type of attitude than one based upon solid, statistical or other economic evidence.
Another piece of shaky evidence which has been used in trying to defend the necessity of such controls is that wage settlements in Canada are well above those in the United States. However, as the Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro) noted in his recent speech in Newfoundland, some of the statistics used to paint labour as the villain in the inflationary process are dubious, and indeed, spurious. This comparison between Canada and the United States wage data is a prime example. The data I have seen shows that all wage settlements negotiated in the first three months of 1975 provided for future increases averaging 7 per cent in the United States and 16 per cent in Canada. What this data does not show is the possible future effect of cost of living allowance clauses.
In the first quarter 62 per cent of American workers with new settlements were covered by COLA clauses, while only 3 per cent of organized Canadians have such provision. Also, the data used for Canada, that is, the 16 per cent increase to which I referred, is calculated on the base or lowest rate of pay, while in the United States the statistics are based on average straight time hourly earnings of all workers.
A recent study by the Bureau of Labour Statistics in the United States, a summary of which was published in the Monthly Labour Review of the American department of labour, pointed out that if you take total compensation- not just for production workers, but for all employees-the difference in average compensation between the United States and Canada is even greater than the difference in compensation for production workers between the two
Anti-Inflation Program
countries. The compensation per production worker between the United States and Canada has, of course, narrowed over the last 10 years.
In this connection it should also be pointed out that collective bargaining settlements in the third quarter of 1975, before the anti-inflation legislation was introduced, show that the average annual increase in base rates in Canada had gone down 18.5 per cent in the second quarter to 16.8 per cent in the third quarter. These figures are based on an analysis of collective agreements covering 500 or more workers in industries.
On the question of industrial strife, as measured by strikes and the number of man-days lost, we have Statistics Canada figures which show that there were 5.2 million man-days lost in the first half of 1974, while for the same period in 1975, without any controls at all, this was reduced to 3.4 million, a 38 per cent decline in seven months, as the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ritchie) noted when he was on his feet.
It is very difficult to get excited about the economic effects of this program as opposed to its political expediency. It is true that we hear people say that it seems something had to be done, but surely before we prescribe such serious medicine for a sick economy we must be fairly sure that we have a proper diagnosis.
The fact is, as our leader noted in his address today, that the prices of food, oil, gas, and mortgage rates for housing constitute some 60 per cent to 65 per cent of the ordinary cost of living of the average Canadian. The legislation we are asked to approve does not cover mortgage and other interest rates, which can be thought of as a price, that is, a price for money. Food, both the prices Canadian farmers may charge for their produce and the price of imported food, is not covered under this legislation.
As we know, within the past six weeks we have received the report of the Food Prices Review Board and Mrs. Plumptre on the profits of 78 food companies. The conclusion was that profits were far from excessive and hardly a factor in rising food prices. What, then, is causing high food prices?
Wholesalers and retailers will tell the Anti-Inflation Board what they told the Food Prices Review Board, that there are no excessive profits, and the consumers, who will still have to pay high prices for food, will be faced with a sort of "the devil made me do it" argument as an explanation for the continuing high food prices they will face. Again, oil and gas are not covered under the anti-inflation legislation. In short, the government is asking the wage earner to accept pretty full controls on his wage income, while being able to offer possible restraints, and I underline "possible", on only about 40 per cent or 35 per cent of his living costs.
Little wonder wage and salary people in the trade unions are less than happy with such an arrangement. They know of the enormous difficulty in controlling prices by means of controlling profit margins and the relative ease, on the other hand, to monitor and police the wage side. What about the poor and the working poor, who had the minimum in the wage guidelines waived after pressure from us and others, but who have no guarantee that they will ever reach the allowable level, since they have no formal bar-
.COMMONS DEBATES
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gaining power, and in most cases have even less market power than in the past because of very high unemployment created by the policies of the Liberal government? In fact we have on an average, the highest unemployment which has existed since about the time of the last war.
I should like to say more on the serious matter of the level and composition of the unemployed as to region, marital status, sex, and age, but time does not permit. However, too many commentators are too ready to dismiss the seriousness of this problem for the individuals concerned and for the national economy.
Likewise I should have liked to take some time to discuss the failure of the government to place a surtax on the income of professionals, because that is symbolic of why we consider this program inequitable and unworkable.
The whole restraint program on control of pricing by means of control of profits has, as the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas) said on another occasion, more holes than Swiss cheese.
The Prime Minister has said that the New Democratic Party has long advocated selective price controls and now rejects them. That is not true. We would willingly support price controls which would control the price of key commodities in the consumer retail field, and intermediate goods, if the corporate sector of the economy could justify the price increases. Our method would be to have them justify the price increases before allowing them to proceed. This would be more equitable for everybody. Under those considerations we would not hesitate to demand the same justification for selective wage increases in these sectors if they were obviously against the public interest-just as Premier Barrett did in British Columbia. But in no case would we ask the wage and salary sector, and the ordinary working people, to make sacrifices that others could easily avoid, as is obvious in this present program.
The government insists on calling this not only an antiinflation program but an incomes policy. But, Madam Speaker, the objective of an incomes policy is not just the control of inflation but increased productivity, less industrial strife, and a fairer distribution of incomes in the economy. The danger in this program is that while the government gives the appearance of having a decisive anti-inflation program, it may not only fail to halt inflation but may at the same time produce more unemployment and under employment. What we need is government action to create jobs, especially in the high unemployment areas of Quebec and the Atlantic region, and sections of it like hard pressed Cape Breton-not destroy them; action to build houses-not raise interest rates; action to improve the lot of those on low and fixed incomes-not penalize them, and action to help lower prices and not play a losing game with profit margins.
What the government needs to do is to begin to study in earnest the policies of certain western European countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, West Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland which have managed to keep inflation at manageable levels, unemployment at low levels compared to North America, the rate of productivity growth reasonably high in spite of the international crises, and a minimum of industrial strife.


Mr. Paul E. McRae (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of difficulty understanding the complete opposition of the New Democratic Party to the anti-inflation program. It seems to me there are many things in the guidelines and in the anti-inflation program that that party should find easy to support, and I should like to look at some of them.
I think we should look back at a statement which was made many times, that we are accepting the policy introduced by the Conservative party and that it should have been introduced at least a year ago when they felt they could become the government. I think there are reasons why it was not introduced then, and good reason why it should have been introduced at this time.
The nature of inflation in the first half of 1974 could be termed demand inflation with rising prices being caused by shortage of goods. The shift to a cost plus inflation occurred subsequently, and is much more prone to limitation by controls.
At the time of the election in July, 1974, labour was definitely behind. Inflation had caused steep price increases, while wages had not risen comparably. Labour has had a successful year, but I argued early last summer that labour's gains were only catch-up gains and labour should not be blamed for inflation. Because a large part of the labour movement has been able to catch up, however, I think there is justification at this point for going into some kind of wage controls. I want to qualify this by saying there is also a great deal of inequity because significant segments of the trade union movements, of the working people of Canada, have not as yet caught up.
If the wage side of the controls is going to be successful, it will occur when there is equity. We cannot say to the person who got his settlement on October 15 that he cannot have as much as the person who got his on October 13. There has to be equity. The New Democratic Party would be better arguing for equity than for condemnation of controls.
I think we should look at the manner in which controls were brought about. I have heard the members of the NDP talk about those segments of our economy which basically create inflation, citing the Galbraithian theory, which I think is accepted by many other groups, that inflation is basically caused by that segment of the economy which can administer its own prices, while in the market segment there is a fair amount of competition and prices therefore tend to be regulated by the market itself. There is a fair segment of the economy which is self controlled, what Galbraith calls the planning sector. It was this planning sector which the guidelines were formed to control, those 500 large firms, many of which are able to accept increases in costs and pass them on as increased prices.
The government has been selective in saying that we will deal with these 500 companies in the so-called planning sector of the economy, those that can control their own costs and their own prices.
This, with respect, is precisely what the New Democratic Party has talked about ever since I came to this House- multinational corporations, etc. Here is a serious attempt to control that part of our economy which has not been

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controlled in the past. I think, rather than fighting us on this, they should support us.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Paul Edmund McRae: I indicated that I believe this price and incomes control policy will work only if there is equity. Many people have said we must be strong on the price side and I agree with them, but there also has to be equity on the wage side. I think the guidelines are set up to achieve this. If the New Democratic Party were really concerned about the situation, that is what they would be working on rather than opposing us.
There has been a catch-up of 16 to 18 per cent in this last year. It does not apply to all segments of the working population, however. There are some like the pulp and paper industry whose contracts go back to April, 1973, and who have not caught up. I think the guidelines are very explicit about cases such as this. They say that if a contract took effect before January 1, 1974, some catch-up or equity is in order. We cannot expect one worker to work for $1.70 an hour less than another person because the first in the woods division signed a contract in October 1974, and the other in the mill signed in November, 1975. The historical relationship is definitely in the guidelines. The program must be equitable. Only if the Anti-Inflation Board treats settlements equitably will the program work.
One thing disturbs me. Some companies in the pulp and paper industry are hiding behind the guidelines. They say to their workers, "We cannot give you a decent settlement because the guidelines will not permit it." That is not correct. I say that they should offer a decent settlement and present it to the Anti-Inflation Board, and if it is within the guidelines, including the historical clause, the board will allow it.


An hon. Member:: If it is not greater than 10 per cent more.


Paul Edmund McRae: More than 10% if warranted. It is wrong for these companies to use the government as a skirt behind which to hide.
Let us also see how the guidelines affect post office settlements. There are two major unions working in the Post Office. The Letter Carriers Union was offered and accepted a fine settlement. The minister worked hard on it, for he wanted to improve relations in the Post Office. As everyone knows, in parts of our Post Office there has been an atmosphere of fear and war between employer and employees. The Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey) wanted to correct this and offered the letter carriers a fair settlement. They signed, effective January 1 past. The inside postal employees kept on negotiating. The Postmaster General offered them what he had offered the letter carriers. I suggest it will be a good and fair settlement, and meets all the tests of equity; and I am talking of equity for labour for the working man. I think that when the inside workers of the Post Office learn the full details of the settlement and vote on it, the strike will end.
I use the Post Office as an example, because the guidelines allow an equitable settlement. We shall bring about
Anti-Inflation Program
decent labour relations only if our workers are treated equitably. Certainly there must be provision for catch-up, as the government acknowledges. The government acknowledges that some portions of the trade union movement have fallen behind and have not received their catchup pay. The government has not created a loophole. It wants to be fair, to be just.
Last summer I spoke strongly in this House about the need for wages to catch up. I say, however, that we shall be in serious trouble if, on top of a 15 per cent or 30 per cent increase this year, another 25 per cent or 30 per cent increase is granted next year. The increase is compounded. That is why I say that the controls should come into play now. An increase of 8 per cent is to be allowed, plus an addition to allow for any increased cost of living. For example, if the cost of living rises 9 per cent, the guidelines allow wages to go up an extra percentage point beyond 8 per cent. Thus the guidelines are designed to bring about long-term equity.
I am concerned about the pulp and paper industry. Four mills in my community are on strike, and I hope that a settlement occurs soon. I am particularly concerned, because a new Canadian union is involved, known as the Canadian Paper Workers' Union. In one of the very best moves in our society, the Canadian members of two international unions amalgamated their membership to form this large trade union, which is entirely Canadian. I wish the new union success as I think it is moving in the right direction. I ask the industry not to attempt to weaken this new movement.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Paul Edmund McRae: Many members of the House, including members of my caucus, have expressed concern about how fair the controls are to the small man, the guy earning $4,000, $5,000 or $6,000 a year, and it has been suggested that the $600 ceilings should be raised. That is a good suggestion. My caucus also suggested that those earning less than $7,400-$3.50 per hour-should be totally excluded from the operation of the guidelines so that, for instance, people earning $4,000 could have their salaries increased to $6,000.


John Edward Broadbent: How are they to get the increase?


Paul Edmund McRae: That will need to be worked out under other programs. We said that this suggestion should be incorporated in the guidelines to meet the criticism that the guidelines do not allow for substantial increases for people at the lower end of the income scale. It is now in the guidelines.
I suggest that the guidelines will be equitable. I do not think this program can be made to work if we treat the wage earner unfairly. That is why equity is so essential. The program must be fair, and it is. I support the guidelines 100 per cent, and I think the Anti-Inflation Board will make equitable decisions. Some hon. members should be more concerned about matters of equity than with trying to defeat the government's anti-inflation legislation.
Before my time runs out let me say some words about prices. It will be difficult to monitor all prices. I suppose a very massive bureaucracy could monitor the hundreds of

November 14, 1975
Anti-Inflation Program
thousands of different price tags in the stores across the country; personally I think that is the wrong route to follow. I therefore hope that many of my colleagues, on both sides, will do as I plan to do. Let us, from our offices, monitor prices. Consumers, housewives, and others who buy commodities every day and price them every day can report to us. I plan to work with people who are concerned about prices, who shop in the major stores of the community, Loblaws, Dominion, Safeway, A and P, and others covered by the guidelines. I want consumers to report price increases to my office. I want my office to be the place where we can collect that information and, where necessary, bring this information to the board's attention. That way countless thousands of Canadians will be vigilant in monitoring prices, in watching for unjustified price increases, and in causing investigations to follow.
Some price increases concern me a great deal. For instance I am particularly disturbed at the prospect of the 41 per cent increase next week in freight rates. The CTC is supposed to be the body regulating freight rates but does not discharge its function in this respect. The railways merely file the new rates with the CTC, and that is the end of it. I think the government should be more vigilant; I think the freight rate increase ought to be referred to the anti-inflation board for full investigation and disclosure, because the railways of this country have never made full disclosure, and such disclosure is essential. I submit that the Anti-Inflation Board can affect freight rate increases and ought to consider the question as soon as possible as a matter of vital concern.
In summary I submit that the guidelines are intended to be fair, and the anti-inflation program worth while and well timed, considering that a significant proportion of this country's working people have in the recent past received significant wage increases.
The anti-inflation program can be equitable. I hope it will be. It will work equitably if those who had the catchup get it. That is included in the guidelines. In the future I think we can have a much more stable and equitable economy.
I am concerned about the price side. If we mobilize the consumers of this country, individually and in groups, to support our program to prevent price increases, I think we can be effective. The anti-inflation program is a sensible effort to bring about some stability in this country, and as such should lie supported by all segments of the Canadian economy.


Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Madam Speaker, I rise with some sorrow to take part in this sad debate on this wintry afternoon. One always hates to see and listen to the sparrings of the recently divorced. We have heard it in what has gone on much of this afternoon, particularly the dispute with regard to the paternity of the individuals that have been spawned in terms of controls of varying kinds.
It is also sad to realize to what an extent the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has lost his position within the New Democratic Party. One knows that from his knowledge of the rules of this House

he knows the workings of the democratic process. It passes the imagination that the NDP should bring in a motion that strains the rules to the point where the Speaker of this House was almost constrained to make a ruling, but chose simply to comment on the matter. One would wonder why because I am sure in the discussion in that caucus they had the advice of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. They knew they were skating very close to the rules as we know them and have known them recently. Why then bring up this subject as the debate for their day in the House? The reason is transparently obvious. An election is on in the province of British Columbia.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Howard Earl Johnston: It is a winter election. I did not think I would live to see the day when a modern government in that province would call an election in December, January, February, or even March, yet one has been called for December 11. As I said, the reason is transparent. It is as transparent as the ice that will cover the highways as the voters struggle to the polls to cast their votes on that day.
One finds it surprising indeed that the government there, of the same party and the same name as the people who presented this motion in the House today, should have broken so many promises made to the people of British Columbia about the election itself. The campaign starts out littered with those broken promises. They were so important to the premier of the province that, on the very night he made his victory speech, he said two things would happen before there would be another election in British Columbia. One was redistribution and one was the re-writing of the election act.
The map of redistribution is ready. It has been prepared, drawn up, and was to be published on October 31. They said it was not publicized because of the technology. We now know what the technology was and we have an election being fought on an electoral map that is out of date. This was the government that promised to change the system and change the ways of elections in British Columbia. It did not make a further promise, but there was an assumption that there would be at least a four-year term because no party in British Columbia-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. I have been listening very attentively to the hon. member. He is straying a bit from the subject. Perhaps he could limit himself to the motion.


Howard Earl Johnston: Thank you. Madam Speaker. I am discussing the motion. It is important that this House know the reasons behind the presentation of this motion today. We know that in recent months in British Columbia there has been a desperate search for an issue on which to go to the people. This is very germane to what we are talking about this afternoon. It is vital to the democratic process of this country that the public know what we are talking about this afternoon.
Same hon. Members: Hear, hear!


Howard Earl Johnston: There is a lot. more here than meets the eye. We know that last fall there was an attempt to use the Columbia River treaty as the basis for an election in
November 14, 1975

British Columbia. With some help from the CBC in showing a film called "The Reckoning" twice within six weeks, this was to be a plank in the NDP platform. Thanks to some very fast work by the former chairman of BC Hydro, who set the record straight-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. I must again interrupt the hon. member. Allow me to read the motion. Mr. Broadbent, seconded by Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre), moved:
That this House rejects the government's anti-inflationary program-
I ask the hon. member to limit his remarks to the motion.


Howard Earl Johnston: Thank you, Madam Speaker. With all due respect, I will continue because one of the issues that was to be an election issue in British Columbia was the failure of the federal government to act on inflation. Surely that is germane to the fact that we now have this motion in the House.
The reason for having this motion escaped the Speaker. He found it necessary to comment on it. With all due respect, Madam Speaker, I cannot see why, when the Speaker of this House earlier today was constrained to talk about the reason for this motion being on the order paper, I cannot talk about the reason for it being before us.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Twice in this speech the hon. member has reflected on the Chair. The Chair asked questions about this motion, but ruled that it was in order. I submit for this hon. member to question that decision is a reflection on the Chair that he is not entitled to make.


Howard Earl Johnston: On the same point of order, Madam Speaker, not for a moment have I questioned the ruling of the Chair. Not for a moment have I questioned the propriety of the ruling. Obviously we are in a debate on this motion. I am talking about no other matter but this motion that the NDP felt constrained to present to the House today.
For a while it looked as though the back-to-work issue in British Columbia could be an election issue there, but the government moved and the unions did not provide the issue. We have heard a fair amount about strikes in this debate today.
When this very control program was initiated by those opposite, it met with a scornful reaction from the premier of the province of British Columbia. For a while it looked as though the very control program that we are debating this afternoon would be the issue for the election there. However, on casting around it was discovered that there was a fair body of support for it in the public opinion not only in the province of British Columbia but across the entire country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Howard Earl Johnston: If there was any support for that program it was due entirely to the campaign run by the Progressive Conservative party and the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) a year ago. It was a residue of that campaign which was unsuccessful then.
Anti-Inflation Program
So we have this motion today. It speaks of controlling prices and effective control over incomes. And we note that in the Province of British Columbia in the last three years and several months the people have learned a great deal about government controls when initiated by that party, one which has beggared the forest industry, the great industry which British Columbia possesses; for the first time the industry is going to declare a loss position at the end of the year. What else? The Barrett government has stalled the mining industry in that province. Exploration crews have departed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Order!


Howard Earl Johnston: It has frightened the agricultural industry through its attempts to back off the agriculture support program which was set up. This, surely, has something to do with price controls since it affects products which are very important to this land.
It has alienated the teachers, of all people, those to whom the success of the campaign in 1972 was owed more than to any other group. And it has frightened the ecologists. The premier of that province would dearly love to close down some mining activities but he doesn't dare because of the effect on provincial revenues. It has alienated the native people, lost the one native MLA who sat in the legislature for so long. It has lost $100 million in welfare over-runs which have never been explained. It has destroyed the automobile insurance industry and honoured the wrecking crew by appointing him its Agent-General in London. Thus we have a dismal history of controls in that province-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Order!


Howard Earl Johnston: -and a rather strange motion before us today whose timing must be questioned both by members of this House and by everyone who takes seriously the entire issue of controls which have been imposed by that government while federal controls are being challenged by that party, and while another set of controls have been imposed by a provincial government in this country of the same type. I cannot for the life of me see how I could possibly be out of order if I talk about controls as they are being applied in British Columbia.


Almonte Douglas Alkenbrack: Right on!


Howard Earl Johnston: We have a price freeze there, and an election called in the middle of it. I do not think there has ever been in the history of this nation a more deliberate attempt to blackmail the public than this calling of a winter election in the middle of a 68-day price freeze.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Order!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Again I must remind the hon. member that he is straying from the subject of the motion.


Howard Earl Johnston: Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is not for me in my wisdom, or lack of it, to predict the result of the forthcoming election, although I see some attempts being made from that corner to second guess me. I shall not
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Anti-Inflation Program
comment further on that aspect at the present time. However, I will say it is transparently obvious that the S.O.S. has gone out from the Province of British Columbia. The situation of the government there is desperate. They have said to their colleagues here, "Help us out; we have only got until the 11th and we've got to do something." And so we have a motion before us today.
I felt other speakers would have raised some of the points I have made this afternoon but I realize that British Columbia is a long, long way from this chamber, and unfortunately many of my colleagues from that province are not present this afternoon. In these circumstances I felt somewhat constrained to provide some background because we shall be voting on this motion later. The leader of our party has already indicated that he is not prepared to support the motion, and I feel that if I have done anything in the brief minutes at my disposal I have said some of the things that needed to be said. Although I realize I could go on a little longer, I yield the floor now with the record a little straighter as to why this unusual motion should have been presented at this time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Herb Breau (Gloucester):: Reading this motion, Madam Speaker, one might ask whether the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent) in whose name it stands has read the white paper issued by the government on October 14. He told us the government's anti-inflation program was totally unworkable in terms of controlling prices. That remains to be seen. He said it provides no effective control over profits or professional incomes. I should like the leader of the NDP to read pages 16, 17, 18 and part of 19, and then tell me why he believes there is no effective control over prices or professional incomes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Because he has read those pages, that is why.


Herb Breau: I did not hear anything in his speech today to convince me that this kind of system cannot work. I shall have something to say a little later about controlling prices. He maintained that the program was unfair to wage and salary earners in Canada. That is one aspect I wish to deal with this afternoon because when people talk about wage and salary earners they normally think about unions, the labour movement, and workers generally.
It has always amazed me that the NDP, a party which until the last election had never succeeded in electing a single member east of the Ottawa Valley-they have got one now and, knowing his background, I hope he will be able to bring the party to reality and show them that when they talk about people, and when they talk about workers, they should not talk only about labour unions and giving the people who rule them more power in the economy-


An hon. Member:: Right out of the ocean.


Herb Breau: Because of my background, and because of what has interested me in politics, I am concerned with people, particularly with those who are the weakest, those with low incomes, and I must say that, apart from rhetoric, since I entered this House in 1968, and apart from supporting some social programs which do help the little people in

society, on the question of wages or salaries the NDP is not the only party, not necessarily the sole bright light in fighting for those who are weak.
I understand that when one comes from a certain constituency one tends to speak in terms of the interests of those constituents. I remember the crusade the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) carried on in 1970, 1971, and 1972 against the Department of Regional Economic Expansion when that department was just starting out; he would look for cases involving incentives in the Atlantic provinces and elsewhere and try to dramatize them and exaggerate them without giving the program any kind of a chance. Because it was popular with the UAW and popular with workers in Toronto and some other areas close to his constituency, he carried on his crusade against that program.


John Edward Broadbent: I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order. Is the hon. member rising to ask a question or to raise a point of order?


John Edward Broadbent: I hope that the hon. member will correct the impression that he has just left.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. That is clearly a point for debate, not a point of order.


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I had not yet come to my point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Is the hon. member rising again on a second point of order?


John Edward Broadbent: I should like to express the first point of order. My point is that motives ought not be attributed to members of the House on either side. The hon. member was attributing motives to things I have said in the past, which I submit is out of order. Secondly, if he checks the record of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion he will discover that his own minister acknowledged the errors in the program to which I drew attention. The point he made about the motives behind the objection is of the kind that I would not have expected of a man with his experience in the House.


Herb Breau: Madam Speaker, first of all I totally and categorically reject the suggestion that I attributed motives. I was reflecting on the reason why the hon. member would normally take a certain stand on a particular program of the government. I agree that in some cases the Department of Regional Economic Expansion has not been a total success.


John Edward Broadbent: In every case I cited they have not.


Herb Breau: The irony of the situation is that the particular case that the hon. member dramatized and exaggerated, the Michelin case, has been the most successful part of DREE. The hon. member is a national party leader so I will give him a chance since he is just starting out. If he were up to date he would know exactly what the problems of
November 14, 1975

DREE have been. But from the speeches he has made in this House and elsewhere I have concluded he is not even close to understanding the real problem of regional development, though I hope he will learn.
He tells the House that he would have a national development program. I will wait and see what answers he will have regarding regional development. The point I want to make is that this anti-inflation program hits the powerful in society. That is obvious. Anyone who reads the white paper would realize what this attack on inflation does. The motion says that it is completely unfair to wage and salary earners. Yes, it will be unfair to some wage and salary earners. It will be unfair to wage and salary earners who are members of a big union, and whose big union has been wielding economic power in the last few years.
I do not bitch about that, Madam Speaker. There is nothing wrong in a free society with people trying to obtain economic power. When the leader of the NDP talks about the program being unfair to wage and salary earners in Canada, he is right. It is unfair to those who are represented by economic power groups that are bargaining in society for a bigger share of the national income.
As for the wage and salary earners who are unorganized, who are not members of a big powerful union-and there are less of those in the constituency of Oshawa-Whitby than in the maritimes, for example-if the situation had been left as it was without controls there is no way the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, or any other member, could convince me that these wage and salary earners would have caught up. The leader of the NDP knows that. The UAW and other big unions would have got better settlements from their employers. So would CUPW and CUPE.


John Edward Broadbent: The unorganized will get nothing from this program.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Remember this is your opposition day.


Herb Breau: The leader of the NDP should really not get so upset, because on some matters I do not disagree so strongly with the NDP. I do not disagree with them when they talk about redistributing income. But when that party tries to exploit the situation by saying that because the program deals with the economically powerful in society, the powerful unions, it will hurt all wage and salary earners, this is just not true.
What I should like the leader of the NDP to tell me, in the context of this program or any program that attacks inflation, is how he will-


John Edward Broadbent: I would tax the corporations, that is how.


Herb Breau: The hon. member should know that I am further from the corporations than he is. In New Brunswick, when one buys a car it does not matter who exploits the buyer on the price of the car; whether GM or the UAW, it is still exploitation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Anti-Inflation Program


Herb Breau: When the members of the NDP, with whom I sometimes agree, start talking about how this program will hurt the low income wage and salary earners-when in fact it will hurt the powerful unions in society-I just do not follow the argument. What I should like the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby to tell me is how he would devise a program of controls in the context of the kind of program we have today. He is an economist and he knows the problem. How would he give more to the low income wage earner?


John Edward Broadbent: Ask Lalonde what he was trying to get through to the cabinet.


Herb Breau: I would expect the leader of the NDP to tell me what he would do. Perhaps he will learn to be a true leader and not heckle a poor backbencher like me. I should like to try to find a way to help people on low income in times of inflation, and that is the reason I am in politics. I should like to have a better distribution of wealth in society, in my particular region, all over the country, and even all over the world.
While I have nothing against the fact that in a free society one should be able to bargain to get more, and while you have checks and balances in bargaining, threatening, saying you will go on strike and so on, there are a lot of people in this country who cannot do this. The leader of the NDP says that if we let the labour movement get what it wants this will somehow benefit the low income wage earner. He is an economist and is experienced in politics, but this argument does not make sense to me at all. It is all very fine to let certain groups attain power; but if they use it in a way that raises the price of products so that people in some sectors of the country cannot afford to buy them, it is not helping these people at all.
Therefore I agree that the anti-inflation program will possibly hurt people of low income; but without the program of controls those people would have stayed where they were. The big settlements would have gone to the big unions, and the hon. member knows that. The fish cutting workers in my constituency, the lumbermen in the sawmills-


John Edward Broadbent: You are sounding more like Mackasey every day.


Herb Breau: I am glad the hon. member admits I am making sense. The Leader of the NDP says I sound like the Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey), who I think will go down in history as a great Canadian.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herb Breau: I was saying that the lumbermen, the pulp-wood cutters, and fish cutters in my constituency would not have obtained a bigger settlement if this program had not been in existence. Those workers would have received the same settlement they are now allowed. If a situation should develop in which that is not the case I will be the first one to agree with the leader of the NDP that the program is unworkable. However, just because it hits the UAW, CUPW, and other big unions in Canada I am not
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November 14, 1975
Anti-Inflation Program
going to go on a rampage and say I disagree with the program.
Let me now refer to this question of effective control over professional incomes by the provinces. If an honest and reasonable person reads pages 16, 17, 18 and 19, and understands something about the business world and the economic system in this country, he will have to admit that this program will work if given a chance. If it should not work we will then try something else. Short of a utopia, or a society in which everything is right from the start, I do not see how anyone could devise a program that would be more equitable and with more safeguards against abuse than this program.
I said earlier I would come back to this question of controlling prices. Like others I would like to hit on an idea or devise a system in which we could control prices completely in Canadian society. I would very much like to see that. The fact is that if we want to maintain the system now in existence, if we do not want an overly centralized system or an overly bureaucratic system, we will have to maintain some degree of economic freedom. I do not see how we could devise a program under which we would be able to control prices and increases 100 per cent. We have to depend on economic agencies in our society. We have to depend on labour unions, and I am sure they will be reasonable. We must depend on all these people to help make this program work.
To say that in Bill C-73 there are no powers to investigate dramatic price increases is just not to know the facts. The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby suggested that Liberals do not like to be confronted with the facts. Let me suggest that he again read Bill C-73 and the white paper. In those documents he will find set forth the powers of the anti-inflation board.


John Edward Broadbent: You should read what I said.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: He doesn't want to understand it.


Herb Breau: I listened to every word said by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, just as I always listen to what he says. I do not always agree with him but I always listen to what he has to say.
Surely there are sufficient powers in this bill that when there is an excessive price increase in some sector of our economy we can investigate and order a rollback of prices. To suggest that this program will not work is really to try to sell that kind of dogma and doctrine that only the NDP is able to sell in some parts of the country. This program is worth giving a chance. We have had experience in this country in respect of price increase investigations, and we have seen the experience of other countries where investigations of some sectors of society have been carried out in order to control wages.
I admit that it is more difficult to control prices. It is easier to check payrolls than it is to check prices of goods on the shelf. I regret that, and would like to be able to devise a system which would allow us in this economy-I see that my time has expired.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. The hon. member's time has now expired.


Simma Holt: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the fall of 1974 the members of the NDP disappeared from the House, leaving one person behind to call the Speaker's attention to the lack of a quorum. Some 42 of us were attending committee meetings, but not one NDP member was in attendance. Today is an NDP opposition day, and look at them. They number four, with one standing behind the curtains drinking coffee.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please. That is not a point of order.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, in July, 1974, the people of Canada had an opportunity to vote in a general election. The main issue which developed during the campaign, an issue on which the people really decided how to vote, was really the suggestion by the Convervative party that inflation in Canada was so serious that what was required to stop the inflationary spiral, so adversely affecting all Canadians, was a 90-day wage and price freeze, following which a Conservative government would work out an incomes policy.
At the time the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) opposed a wage and price freeze, saying it would not work. He said inflation was an international occurrence that could not be stopped or controlled by any one country. The people in Canada by the thousands deserted the Conservative party, and to some extent the NDP, and elected, particularly in Ontario, Liberal member after Liberal member. They voted this way on the basis of the Prime Minister's promise to oppose wage and price controls.
Some 15 months later the Prime Minister, elected on his promise not to impose wage and price controls, comes to the Canadian people and says we must have those controls. He may be right. The situation may have changed, but neither he nor his ministers have yet explained to the satisfaction of the Canadian people what that change has been. Those trained seals who sit behind the Prime Minister, many of whom were elected on the basis of his promise to oppose wage and price controls, expect us to keep quiet and fall in line as they have done. We were not elected as Liberals and we are not obligated to the Prime Minister. We intend to keep asking the same kind of questions we were asking last year.
We have attempted, here in the House and in committee, to find out from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) what the inflationary problem is. We know that in the last year the cost of living has risen by 10.5 per cent. We have asked the Minister of Finance what his experts have told him they expect inflation to be in the next year. We have asked why the government thinks the situation is so serious it has to bring in legislation the like of which we have never seen in Canada in over 100 years, except during wartime. We have asked the Minister of Finance what he expects the anti-inflation program will do, and what the rate of inflation will be after the implementation of this program.
The Minister of Finance has completely rejected all invitations to inform the people about the estimates his experts have made. I think he owes it to the people of Canada to tell them what the situation is. After all, he is
November 14, 1975

proposing controls on all Canadians the like of which we have never seen except during wartime, yet he is refusing to tell us what the situation is, or is expected to be.
Some of us with some contacts have made some inquiries. I have before me the estimates made by a very respected non-partisan and non-political institute, namely, the Institute of Quantitative Analysis of the University of Toronto. Let me place on the record the kind of estimate they made with the help of their computer. Their computer is similar to that used by the Department of Finance.
They estimate that the cost of living for the next year, without the anti-inflation program and the controls the government proposes, would have risen from the IOV2 per cent increase we had in the last year to 11.3 per cent in the coming year. I do not think that is the kind of increase which would necessitate the almost war action the government is proposing.
Let us look at what they tell us the increase in the cost of living will be in the next year with the control program. As a result of this tremendous interference in the lives of the ordinary citizens of Canada, what will the increase in the cost of living be in the next year according to the University of Toronto Institute of Quantitative Analysis? Will it be, instead of IOV2 per cent, 5 per cent, 7 per cent or 8 per cent? In other words, will there be a substantial reduction in the cost of living? According to the Institute of Quantitative Analysis the increase in the coming year will be 9.6 per cent.
After all the mountain of effort we will have a mouselike decrease in the cost of living of less than 1 per cent. But the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau), the Prime Minister, and the Minister of Finance say that the people they want to protect, the people who need the assistance, are not the businessmen, the professional people or the organized workers because they can look after themselves. That is what the hon. member for Gloucester said, and he is right. The organized worker will get the 10 per cent which the government says is the maximum he can get. Of course he will get it because he has the economic power. But what about the poor and the unorganized workers whom the hon. member for Gloucester said will be helped by this program?


Herb Breau: I did not say that.


David Orlikow: I have in front of me a table prepared by Statistics Canada which shows the percentage of the gross national product each fifth of the population has received for the last 25 years. These figures are very interesting because they answer, I think very well, the simple question asked by the hon. member for Gloucester-what happens to the poor people?
Let us go back 25 years. In 1951 the bottom one-fifth of the people in Canada, the lowest 20 per cent of the workers, received 4.4 per cent of the gross national product.


An hon. Member:: Quite a few of them were in New Brunswick.


David Orlikow: Yes, and also in Newfoundland. What did the top 20 per cent receive? They received 42.8 per cent. In
Anti-Inflation Program
1974, 25 years later, again under a Liberal government, the bottom 20 per cent, after all the so-called programs to help the poor people, received .4 per cent less than they received in 1951. What did the top 20 per cent get? They received 42.4 per cent.
I want to place on the record two other very interesting figures. I refer to the figures for 1971 and 1972. That was the last time the Liberal government tried, it said, to do something about inflation and to help the poor people. That is the time John Young and his incomes board were working. What did they accomplish? Here is the record. In 1971 under a Liberal government, with the same Prime Minister, what did the bottom 20 per cent receive in respect of the gross national product? Instead of the 4.4 per cent they received in 1951, they received 3.6 per cent in 1971. What did the top 20 per cent receive 20 years later in 1971? They received 43.3 per cent of the gross national product.
In 1972, while John Young was still charging on his white charger, the bottom 20 per cent received 3.8 per cent of the gross national product while the top 20 per cent received 42.9 per cent of the gross national product. That is an indication of how much the Liberal government and the Liberal Party care about the poor people. Liberal members and the Minister of Finance say-although they originally said that the people at the bottom could get $600 and the people at the top $2,400-in terms of an increase they have looked at it again, have found they made a mistake, and are now giving the people at the bottom $750. How can the people at the bottom get a cent? They are unorganized. How does a woman working as a waitress on Sparks Street get that $750?


An hon. Member:: What would she get without the controls?


David Orlikow: I was coming to that. She would get precisely the same wage she is getting now. What we propose, what we proposed the same night the Prime Minister outlined his anti-inflation proposal, and what we have proposed every day since then, and what we are saying to the provincial governments is let the provincial and federal governments get together and bring in legislation to increase the minimum wage. If we are concerned about the people at the bottom that is the way to bring up their income.
I do not say that the minimum wage should be the $4 that I believe has been proposed by the Canadian Labour Congress, but how about a straight 50 cents an hour increase in all jurisdictions, federal and provincial? This is what we should have if we are worried about the poor people. This is a concrete proposal. I will wait for the hon. member for Gloucester to propose that to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro). I will make this proposal to the government of Manitoba.
The people at the lowest end of the income scale are not organized. They have no economic power and are at the mercy of their employers. I do not intend to be critical of their employers as individuals because they are engaged in a cut-throat business where, if they increase their wage rate, they are in difficulty unless their competitors do the same. However, an increase in the minimum wage rate would mean that every person at the bottom, including

November 14, 1975
Anti-Inflation Program
every employer, would be treated in the same way. It would not hurt anyone very much. This is what the hon. member for Gloucester was talking about quite eloquently. I hope he meant it seriously. I suggest that this is a quick way to help the people at the bottom.
We are told we are in a crisis situation and must have restraint. We are told that people should not receive an increase of more than 10 per cent, and that if we do this everyone will be treated fairly. I have in front of me a news story which appeared in the Montreal Gazette of October 23, 1975. I wish to read, for the benefit of the hon. member for Gloucester and others, a few sentences from this. It is datelined Ottawa. It reads:
Salary scales of about 1,150 senior public servants were raised between $2,000 and $6,000 a year on Sept. 4 retroactive to last April 1,...
Then further on:
Also affected were about 350 in level 2, the next highest group, 140 in level 3 and about 10 executives in level 4 at the top of the pay scale.
Salaries for senior executives range between a minimum of $27,500 in level 1 and a maximum of $54,000 in level 4.
I think there is something immoral about senior public servants drawing in the neighbourhood of $50,000 per year, sitting down with policy advisers to the Prime Minister and saying that they are in a real serious situation, suggesting limiting the amount anyone's income can be increased in the next year to $2,400, and ignoring the fact that they just received their increase. If the government was serious it should have set an example. If those at the top of the civil service can receive an increase of $5,000 or $6,000 per year, how can we ask others to limit themselves to $2,400?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Orlikow: It is not my responsibility to fight the battles of any particular group. I am not going to discuss now whether the postal workers are asking for too much or just enough, but I will ask a very simple question: how can we say to the postal worker that he is asking for too much when we have permitted people at the top to receive increases of $5,000 and $6,000 per year?
Let us consider the whole question of restraint. We have said that it is easy to control wages and salaries, and the hon. member for Gloucester is correct when he says that the organized worker will look after himself. If the limit is 10 per cent, the organized worker who receives $10,000 will receive his $1,000. The organized teacher will receive his $2,000, $1,500, or whatever it is. The nurse will receive a large increase.
There is nothing in the white paper, nothing in the speeches made by the minister, and nothing in the discussions held in the finance committee which would give the slightest indication that the government has really worked out a program which will control the incomes of professional people. In answer to questions today the minister said that he is working with the provinces and that he expects they will come to an agreement. We know for a fact that more than one province has said to the minister that this program will not work unless the federal government is prepared to put a 100 per cent surtax on net increases over $2,400 per year.

Of course the provinces will sit down with doctors and work out fee schedules, and of course the provinces can say that they will not increase the rates of fees which are paid, but there is nothing to prevent doctors from seeing more people and doing more work, in which case their income would go up.
If a province were to try to implement a surtax there would be nothing to prevent a doctor from moving from one province which imposed a surtax to another province which did not impose a surtax. That is why some of the provinces have asked the Minister of Finance and his officials to agree to a surtax. I know for a fact that up until now the minister and his officials have simply and completely rejected the idea. That being the case, the claim that the government is being equitable is false. It has no intention of controlling the income of the doctor, the lawyer, the architect, the engineer, and on down the list.
I do not believe this program can work at all. It is the wrong kind of program at the wrong time. Surely one does not have to be overly bright to realize that this program does not have a hope in hell of working if ordinary people do not believe that it is being operated equitably. I say to hon. members opposite that if the ordinary citizen in this country thinks wage and salary controls are for him but not for people in the upper brackets, he simply will not accept them. We will have more strikes than ever before because ordinary people do not believe this is equitable.
It is interesting to note who is doing the striking so far. It is not the long organized blue collar workers. They have not been on strike. Possibly a few of them have been on strike since this program was inaugurated, but who is on strike? Teachers, nurses, and the kind of people who, until a few years ago, would have recoiled in horror if anyone had suggested for a moment that they were part of the labour movement or the working class, are those who are now on strike.
I do not have much time left, but I wish to say that what I have said about professional people is just as true for corporations. A senior official in Revenue Canada at a meeting a week or so ago spelled out in detail how corporations, and particularly multi-national corporations, can juggle the books, how they can allocate supposed costs to different aspects of business, how they can move hundreds of millions of dollars and how they have the staff to do it, and Revenue Canada does not have the staff to control it. These companies will increase their income and their profits. The ordinary person will be restricted, and those at the bottom will do even worse in the next year than they have done in the last year. For all those reasons it is our intention to oppose this legislation and to support this motion.


Herb Breau: 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: Go ahead.


Herb Breau: Given the fact that many of the products which people at low income levels-low wage earners
November 14, 1975

which the hon. member mentioned, such as waitresses in restaurants-must purchase are manufactured by the manufacturing industry in Canada today, 80 per cent of which is centred in two or three large areas, and these two or three large centres, fortunately for Canada, have powerful unions and those workers can look after themselves, and if these groups are controlled and inflationary pressures are lessened, does he not agree that when they buy products low income earners elsewhere will benefit from this program?


David Orlikow: I would give a good deal more thought to the question of the hon. member if he had expressed the same concern in the years 1972 to 1974 when corporation profits doubled, and when he and his government sat and said that that was a good thing. They should not now be saying that wages should be controlled.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: It being five o'clock, it is my duty, pursuant to the order made on Thursday, November 13, 1975, to interrupt these proceedings and forthwith put every question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: All those in favour of the said motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: All those opposed will please say nay.
Business of the House


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Pursuant to special order of this House made yesterday, a recorded division on the proposed motion now before the House stands deferred until 9.45 p.m. on Monday, November 17, 1975.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Gerald William Baldwin: I should like to ask someone on the government side about the business for Monday. I understand we will be completing Bill C-58 under the order for closure which was made, but will we be then proceeding with the government annuities bill first, or with Bill C-20? Does anybody know?


Mr. Drury:: Madam Speaker, we will be proceeding on Monday and hopefully conclude proceedings under Bill C-58. I am not sure whether it will be the government annuities bill that comes first or the unemployment insurance bill.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Obviously it will not be unemployment insurance; that is in committee. The information given to me was that it would be the annuities bill, Bill C-75.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: As it is now five o'clock this House stands adjourned until Monday at two o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 5.02 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Monday, November 17, 1975