1975-03-06

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Last Thursday, February 27, the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) may have- unintentionally, I am sure-left ambiguities on the record with respect to questions asked by me. I wish to bring these briefly to the attention of the House so that the Solicitor General, if he deems it necessary, will have the opportunity to correct Hansard in this respect.
As I see it, the discrepancy is as follows. When asked by me whether other federal agencies besides the RCMP were involved in the investigation into dredging operations, the Solicitor General replied, "there are other federal departments involved". I ask Your Honour to keep in mind that I asked about agencies, and not departments. Then later on, as reported at page 3624 of Hansard, the Solicitor General took the opportunity to answer more fully the question and said:
I was asked whether other agencies were involved in the investigation with respect to the dredging contract in the Quebec City area. I said other agencies were involved.
In point of fact, Mr. Speaker, he did not; he said other federal departments were involved. However, to continue his answer:
Then, the question was: Could you reveal the other agencies? I checked into that, and the answer is that it would interfere with the investigation if we made public the other agencies that we are investigating.
Did he mean that other federal departments are working with the RCMP on their investigation into dredging contracts, or did he mean that federal departments as well as agencies are being investigated by the RCMP in regard to dredging contracts; and is there a difference between "department" and "agency"? That, Mr. Speaker, is my point of order and I hope the Solicitor General can clear it up.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, unfortunately there was a mistake in Hansard on that day. I made every attempt to have it corrected. As a matter of fact, I corrected the blues and Hansard ignored my correction on the blues and put it the way it was originally. I corrected it again. I telephoned Hansard; I had people in my office write them, and so on.
May I clarify the situation. When I said there were other agencies working on this investigation as well, that of course entails other departments because the agencies come under other departments. I was not being explicit. There are agencies of the federal government that come under other federal departments working on this investigation as well. I cannot say any more at this time because it would be contrary to the interests of the investigation. But I stand by the other part of my answer. They are investigating; we are not investigating them. The mistake in Hansard was that it said "we", and it should not.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Mr. Speaker, I want to make it abundantly clear that what the Solicitor General is now stating is that the RCMP is investigating-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member raised a question and the Solicitor General has clarified the earlier answer he made. In fairness, I feel that if the hon. member wishes to pursue the matter further with the Solicitor General he should do so by way of fresh questioning.


COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
[Stage Direction]
Second report of Standing Committee on Public Accounts-Mr. Crouse.

[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections-Mr. Blaker.

[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, in both official languages-Mr. Boulanger.
[Editor's Note: For texts of above reports, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]

[DOT] (MIO)	.

Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2) I am tabling, in both official languages, copies of five

March 6, 1975
Parliament Buildings
reports by the Textile and Clothing Board, plus a communique on the government's response to those findings.


LABOUR RELATIONS
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to ask leave of the House, seconded by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta), to debate a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. The matter concerns the tie up of grain shipping on the west coast. While not denying the right to workers to strike, grain movements have been tied up as a result of stoppages for over one-third of a year, resulting in lost sales and costly demurrage charges. Grain producers have the right to a decent income also, and in the absence of government action to settle the strike the grain handlers' bargaining position would be greatly improved through public support if they went back to work.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The matter on which the hon. member has risen is one which would qualify under Standing Order 43, but I do not find in the contents of the hon. member's remarks a formal motion.


Stanley James Korchinski: Mr. Speaker, perhaps my remarks were not too clear. I asked the leave of the House to debate a particular matter of pressing necessity, and that is the motion, or that is the purpose of my motion.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. With due respect, the purpose of the hon. member's remarks is clear, but the fact of the matter is that there is no motion I can put to the House on which to seek its unanimous consent.


PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS
Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Given the thorough disregard for the historical significance, the structure and the contents of the East Block of the Parliament Buildings, as indicated by changes that have already been carried out and others that are proposed which would further emasculate this fine old building, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander):
That Room 201, the original office of Sir John A. Macdonald, be immediately reopened on a one-day a week basis for viewing by Canadians:
That it be restored to its original character as soon as possible; and

That the people of Canada be given assurance that every effort will be made to preserve the unique history of the East Block and the office of the first Prime Minister of this country.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion has been moved pursuant to Standing Order 43 and cannot be debated without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


WELFARE
Mr. Gerard Laprise (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to discuss a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Considering the importance and seriousness of the findings of the Canadian Council on Social Welfare as to the limited chances children of the poor have, compared with other children, of ever reaching adequate living standards, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier):
That the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs meet without delay to look into the findings of the Canadian Council on Social Welfare, in order to propose concrete measures to remedy the current situation and make sure all children have equal opportunities to develop and succeed within our society.


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.



TRANSPORT


Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, under the terms of Standing Order 43, I request unanimous consent of the House to discuss an urgent matter which calls for immediate attention and the implementation of efficient measures as soon as possible.
As rail transport is, for northwestern Quebec, the main means of obtaining supplies for business and industry, as there are excessive delays in the delivery of freight-it is not unusual for a parcel to take up to two weeks to cover

the 45 miles that separate Senneterre from Val-d'Or-I move, seconded by the hon. member for Richmond (Mr. Beaudoin):
That this House order the Minister of Transport to make an inquiry into the excessive delays in rail transport of freight in northwestern Quebec, and to report to the House on what steps he intends to take to remedy the situation and ensure the merchants, industries and people of northwestern Quebec the better rail service which the economy of the area requires.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The House has heard the motion of the hon. member. Under the terms of Standing Order 43, this motion requires unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: As there is not unanimous consent, the motion cannot be put.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Acting Prime Minister. I should like to ask the hon. gentleman whether, before the program announced by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce yesterday was approved, the government satisfied itself that the investigations underway in the dredging contracts on the St. Lawrence River had no implications for any companies receiving grants under the minister's program.


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I made it very clear that the shipbuilding assistance program was designed for shipbuilders all over Canada from the west coast to the east coast. It has a built-in incentive arrangement. It replaces those programs which previously existed that were domestic and for export. The imputation in the question of the Leader of the Opposition is that there is some relationship between that particular program and dredging contracts. I would say to him that they are quite separate and separable questions.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I am not making an imputation, Mr. Speaker. I am asking a question of the acting head of the government and would like to have an answer. The question is whether the government satisfied itself that the investigations underway in respect of the dredging contracts on the St. Lawrence River had no implications for any companies receiving grants under the minister's program. More specifically, I will ask the hon. gentleman whether the Government of Canada requested and
Oral Questions
obtained a report from the Solicitor General regarding the possible implications of dredging investigations before the program announced by the minister was adopted?


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, as the minister has said these matters were dealt with quite separately. The program of incentives was dealt with on its merits. The intention is to improve employment conditions in Canada. This is the basis on which it was developed. There was no connection between the two events.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I will give the Acting Prime Minister an opportunity to clarify anything he might wish to clarify. Am I correct in assuming that neither the minister nor the government as a whole has sought any information from the Solicitor General or made any inquiry to satisfy itself that there was nothing arising from the investigation of the dredging contracts that had any implications for any company receiving benefits under the minister's program.


Mitchell William Sharp: I must repeat, Mr. Speaker, that the program of incentives was approved on its merits. The question of whether some companies which might benefit from it might be found to have engaged in illegal activities, is a separate question.


SHIPBUILDING SUBSIDY PROGRAM-POSSIBILITY OF PAYMENTS TO MARINE INDUSTRIES LIMITED BEFORE COMPLETION OF INVESTIGATION OF DREDGING CONTRACTS
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: I should like to ask the Acting Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the company which is to be a recipient to a very large extent of the benefits of the program announced by the minister, Marine Industries Limited of Quebec, is also under investigation for allegedly defrauding the Canadian government, the Acting Prime Minister can tell us whether it is the intention of the government to authorize payments to the company before that investigation is completed?


Alastair William Gillespie: Is the hon. member referring to the Export Development Corporation contracts? Could he clarify that before I answer his question?


James Aloysius McGrath: I cannot make the question any clearer. I am asking the Acting Prime Minister whether it is the intention of the government to authorize any payments under the shipbuilding program announced by the minister yesterday before the investigation into the alleged conspiracy regarding the dredging contracts has been completed?


Alastair William Gillespie: There are two aspects of the program that I announced yesterday, and that was the reason I asked for a clarification; one was the Export Development Corporation, which involves loans and not grants, and the other was the shipbuilding assistance program. Clearly, the shipbuilding assistance program which applies to all
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shipbuilders is quite separate from the issue of dredging contracts and holdbacks.


James Aloysius McGrath: May I ask the Acting Prime Minister or the President of the Treasury Board how they can reconcile payments under this program to this company with the fact that the government has already taken the decision to withhold further payments on dredging contracts to Marine Industries Limited while the investigation by the RCMP is underway?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Come on, Mitch.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: I was
only hesitating because this is an argumentative question and it is not permitted under the rules.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mitchell William Sharp: These two programs are separate and distinct. If, however, a contingency were to arise of the kind that has been mentioned by the hon. member, then of course we would take legal advice.


James Aloysius McGrath: The programs may be separate but the company involved is one and the same.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: In view of the very serious implications of this whole affair reaching, as it does, into the government of Quebec and the Government of Canada, I ask the Acting Prime Minister whether he is not prepared, if the government has nothing to hide, to hold a public inquiry into this whole affair.


Mitchell William Sharp: The answer to that question is the same as previously, which is that the investigations are continuing and we see no reason to hold a public inquiry at present.
On the first question, let me say that I think that I was quite clear in my answer that if circumstances arose later in connection with payments under the program, we would take legal advice as to whether we should make payments at that time.


STUDY OF HEALTH OF MINERS AT CLINTON CREEK MINE-REQUEST FOR NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR AMOUNT OF ASBESTOS FIBRE IN AIR
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: My question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare and arises from answers he gave in the House yesterday to questions concerning the Clinton Creek mine in the Yukon. The minister indicated that the study of that mine showed that there were two to four fibres per millimetre of air and implied that that is a safe level. The report shows that out of 133 fibre counts, 19 were over five fibres per millimetre. Would the minister advise this House if

any studies have been done by his department into the health of the miners in that mine in view of the obvious hazard to those workers in that particular area which this report confirms?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the hon. member said, I did not infer any conclusion from the facts I mentioned in the House yesterday. I just gave him the facts that were available to me and based on the preliminary studies conducted by officials in my department and that of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I am told the studies will be completed in a fortnight or so and my department will then submit them to the Indian Affairs and Northern Development Department for consideration and action.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: I understand that that particular report to which the minister is referring has been in the hands either of his department or of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development since June of last year, and as far as I know there have not been objective studies done up to this point into the health of those miners. In view of the fact that there is nothing that I know of to prevent the minister from bringing in national enforceable standards in terms of asbestos risk, would the minister now advise whether he has any immediate plans to bring forward national enforceable standards, as Britain has had for so many years, for the protection of those persons working in and around asbestos from cancer?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, in the first place, if the hon. member has a study dating from June last, I would like very much to obtain a copy. The officials of my department and myself have never received a copy of that study. The only thing I know is that a study was begun in June 1974, but to my knowledge no study had then been completed by my department. The study undertaken June last, as I said, is being completed and will afterwards be submitted to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. As for the other question of the hon. member, I would remind him that if his party is willing to co-operate with the other parties to activate the consideration of bills in the House, we would very soon pass the bill introduced by my colleague the Minister of the Environment which deals with contaminants of the environment.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: The minister did not respond to one portion of my question, and that is whether he has the power at this point-and I understand that he has-to simply impose regulations under pollution control legislation in this country. In other words, this business of the House delaying the passage of the environment contaminants act is irrelevant. What I am asking the minister to do-and he may take this as a representation if he wishes-is to bring forward national enforceable asbestos standards now. There is no reason whatsoever why he should not do this.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking for a legal opinion and I do not think it is my role to give him one in this House.
 * *


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Real Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of National Revenue a question.
A story, published the day before yesterday in the paper Montreal-Matin, has stunned me. It said that the rich pay less income tax. As a matter of fact, according to the figures provided by Statistics Canada, people earning over $200,000 yearly pay only 10 per cent in income tax, while others earning $7,700, like the hon. member for Mercier, must pay 12.4 per cent. Doctors and lawyers earning between $20,000 and $30,000 yearly must pay up to 22.7 per cent in income tax. Does the Minister of National Revenue intend to set up a more equitable taxation scale than the one we now have?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the tax levels are set by the Income Tax Act, which is dealt with following each budget. I have not seen the article to which the hon. member refers, but I think it probably relates to some written answers given the other day which were making a distinction between taxable income and non-taxable income, and that is probably why the figures appear as they do.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Solicitor General a question following along the same lines as some of the other questions asked today. At page 3668 of Hansard, I asked the Solicitor General for information about certain documents that led to a warrant being issued. He answered that he would supply the information and I wonder if he has it now, two or three days after the request?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, in that question the hon. member for Calgary North said and I quote "a charge has to be laid and an affidavit or an information sworn." That is not correct. In law a charge does not have to be laid. In fact, an information under section 443(l)(b) of the Criminal Code was laid and a search warrant was issued for the purpose of obtaining certain documents from the Minister of Labour. There was an incorrect address on the search warrant, however, and the Minister of Labour made arrangements to deliver the documents to the RCMP despite this.
Oral Questions


Mr. Nowlan:: Was there an affidavit?


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to get into an argument on the question of law with my good friend but it can be done two ways. Under section 443 if by sworn information a search warrant was issued, then there is certain information in that document and of course that is in form one following from section 443. I am asking what information was on that document in question?


William Warren Allmand: The document is filed in the court record in Hamilton, I believe. It was obtained in criminal proceedings against Kenneth Elliott, Robert A. Henderson, Robert P. Henderson, Harry Atkins and Reginald Fisher.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I am glad we at least got that information because it should help a lot of people to get information. What was the complaint made against those gentlemen that led to such an unusual procedure in regard to a distinguished member of this House?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, the RCMP were investigating certain irregularities that took place in the Hamilton Harbour Commission and in pursuit of that investigation they had this search warrant issued.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Regina East.


Mr. Balfour:: Mr. Speaker, my question was for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who seems to have left the chamber.


INDUSTRY
Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to one or two that were asked earlier. I wonder if the Acting Prime Minister could indicate to the House in connection with the program announced yesterday by his colleagues for shipbuilding and subsidies on shipbuilding, whether the Minister of Transport in his capacity as leader of the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party was in any way involved in the negotiations that led to the arrangements for the loan because it is from the loan for the ships that the subsidies would flow. Could the minister indicate whether he was involved in the negotiations that preceeded this arrangement?


Hon. Jean Marchand (Minister of Transport):: You
mean the ship herself?


J. Michael Forrestall: No, no. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, I am not sure what the minister means with respect to the ship. I am talking about the export-I cannot think of the name- the Canadian Export Development loan from which would flow the subsidy. Without the loan the ships would not be built and the subsidy would not be available to the shipbuilder. I am asking whether the Minister of Transport or the President of the Treasury Board was involved in the negotiations leading up to the approval of the loan for those vessels from which would flow the subsidy?
28996-38'/2

March 6, 1975
Oral Questions


Jean Marchand: I can make a very general answer, Mr. Speaker. I was never involved in any kind of subsidy negotiated between the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and any company.



AIR CANADA


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport and I gave him notice of it two or three days ago. In view of the fact that Air Canada did not accept one of 264 applications from the three Atlantic provinces for air stewardess positions, has the minister investigated this evidence of discrimination and can he report his findings to the House?


Jean Marchand: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I did investigate. I have the figures here somewhere but I think it would be simpler to give them to the hon. member so that he can put questions on them tomorrow.


Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, I have the figures and the answer that I got to an order paper question indicated that more than these 264 applicants did not meet the minimum standards of Air Canada. I wonder if the minister could ask Air Canada to describe what is wrong with the people in eastern Canada. Are they not as efficient, not as capable, not as educated? Why are they being turned down?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I think that is a fair question.


An hon. Member:: What about a fair answer?


Jean Marchand: It will be a fair answer. I know you will be a little bit disappointed but I have to be honest. Before 1973 there were no statistics on file regarding applicants for jobs with Air Canada. It is only since 1973 that records have been kept but the system is not so refined that we can say exactly the place from which employees come. I think it is a bad way of doing things and the place from which they come should be indicated. Someone from St. John's, Newfoundland may come to Montreal and get a job with Air Canada, and so be attributed to Montreal rather than Newfoundland. It may happen that way. There is no distinction between applicants by region.



HUMAN RIGHTS


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. Could the minister let us know when the long heralded bill to set up a human rights commission will be introduced? May we

expect it before Easter so that we may have a chance to look at it?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether it should be just before or just after the Easter recess. We are taking advantage of the fact that the House is so occupied with other matters to look at some final details which we want to have in the best possible form.


Mr. Fairweather:: A supplementary question. Has the draft bill undergone at least a dozen revisions to meet objections from within the public service about its information aspect? In other words, is the objection that the Human Rights Commission will have access to a good deal more information than the government or its servants are now ready to disclose? Is that the holdup?


Otto Emil Lang: No, it is not, Mr. Speaker. There have been many drafts of this bill, of course, and further discussions within the government on many subjects but that has not been a particularly sore point.



INDUSTRY


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In light of the failure of Microsystems International which has been the recipient of some $30 million in government grants and some $7 million in government loans, I should like to ask the minister what assets the company has in connection with the money owing to the government and whether those are assets just of Microsystems International or of its parent company Northern Electric or Bell Canada Limited?
Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Industry, Trade
and Commerce): Mr. Speaker, there is some production equipment associated with the project which is presently being discussed and negotiated. This is the equipment which was provided as security for the government loan.


David Orlikow: A supplementary question. Were the advances given to Microsystems unconditional or was there some provision for repayment of part of these grants in light of the failure of the venture for which they were given? If so, what proportion of these grants does the government anticipate it can recoup?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, roughly speaking the conditional grants were just under $13 million and there were other grants of $16 million in round figures.
March 6, 1975



FAILURE OF MICROSYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL-POSSIBLE ASSUMPTION OF PORTION OF TAX LOSS BY NORTHERN ELECTRIC OR BELL CANADA

David Orlikow: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will tax losses accruing to Microsystems be applied specifically to Microsystems or will part of that tax loss be assumed by Northern Electric or Bell telephone, in order to reduce taxes.


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I do not have that information. I will try to get it for the hon. member. I think it is clear that research and development requires large sums of money and involves a great deal of risk.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Hon. Martin O'Connell (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment, and I did not have an opportunity to give her notice of it. Will the government of Canada enter into a shoreline protection agreement with the government of Ontario, dealing with property damage and erosion around the Great Lakes, with particular reference to the stabilizing of the Scarborough bluffs? I raise this question because within the space of a week a large section of these historic bluffs measuring 150 feet in height, 150 wide and 15 feet back from the edge, fell away from the cliff face and was washed away in Lake Ontario.


Hon. Jeanne Sauve (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, we do not intend for the moment to conclude an agreement with the government of Ontario on the specific matter referred to by the hon. member. I would like to remind him that, generally, we are dealing with flooding matters, and that we do not have any program dealing with erosion problems along the Canadian water streams.



HEALTH SERVICES


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. As it has been proved that ambulances equipped with cardiac monitoring units can monitor the heart rate and heart action of heart attack victims, and apply corrective procedures in cases involving fibrillation and give other necessary treatment until the patient arrives at the hospital, will the minister give active leadership and cooperation in encouraging this method of saving the lives of people stricken with heart attacks outside hospitals?
Oral Questions

Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and
Welfare): Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, this responsibility is indeed essentially provincial and different developments occurred on this subject in the last months in the provinces. However, I must inform the hon. member that under the direction of a federal-provincial working committee now in operation, some recommendations are being drafted to improve ambulance services in Canada. In particular, an in-depth study is being done on all emergency services.


Philip Bernard Rynard: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister consider giving the appropriate medical authorities a grant under the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act, which applies right across Canada.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, is it a question of whether we will give a grant for the medical services, or to the people doing the study?


Philip Bernard Rynard: Mr. Speaker, this comes under the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act, which has to do with active treatment.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I will look into the question further.



AIRPORTS


Mr. John Reynolds (Bumaby-Richmond-Delta):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. As the Ministry of Transport cancelled the contract of Best Cleaners & Contractors Ltd., a 100 per cent Canadian-owned firm at Vancouver International Airport, and awarded the contract to a 100 per cent American-owned firm, and as lots of Canadians in my riding are out of work because of this switch, can the minister say if the government has abandoned its policy of giving preference to Canadian-owned firms, as opposed to American-owned firms.


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, of course, I am inclined to share exactly the same opinion as expressed by my hon. friend on the other side of the House, but there is something else which must be considered, besides this kind of relationship between Canada and the United States. There is the fact that we are supposed to give the contract to the lowest bidder, and this is what we did.


John Douglas Reynolds: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not really answer my question. I asked, is it now government policy to award contracts to American firms whose bids are only 3 per cent lower than the bids of Canadian firms. I understand that it has been government policy to award contracts to Canadian firms if their bids are not more than 10

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per cent greater than the bids of foreign firms. Can the minister advise the House if that is not the policy of his department?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, I do not know of any general policy that will allow the government to give a contract to a Canadian firm if it means that we must pay between 25 per cent and 50 per cent more money for the same contract.



SUPPLY AND SERVICES


John Douglas Reynolds: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Supply and Services. Is it not a fact that the minister's department awards contracts to Canadian firms if their bids are within 10 per cent of foreign bids. The contract bid I talked about was only 3 per cent higher, not 25 per cent or 50 per cent. Is it not a fact that the minister's department awards contracts to Canadian firms even when their bids are a little higher than those of foreign firms.


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, under our policy we apply rules by which we can give preference to the lowest foreign content for a contract up to 10 per cent of the difference of the foreign content.



HOUSING


Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, my question, without supplementary, is for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs. Would the minister, and Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, reconsider the ceilings used in calculating the amount of grants, up to $500, for new housing in the metropolitan Halifax area, since the formula seems to be out of kilter with actual prices being paid. A sympathetic yes will suffice.


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, CMHC is indeed reviewing the lending limits on which the $500 is based. It applies in the Halifax area, as I am aware, and in other parts of the country. It is under continuing review.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to one asked yesterday by the hon.

member for Vancouver South of the Minister of Finance. As without grain exports Canada would be a net importer of food; as in the first half of the present crop year the port of Vancouver operated at 30 per cent or 35 per cent below average capacity, thereby creating an imbalance of payments; as pressure, questions and suggestions put to supposedly responsible ministers have been of no avail, would the minister as a last resort exercise the authority of his office and initiate negotiations for resolving the serious situation on the west coast before the economy of this country collapses completely.


Hon. John N. Turner (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I get the message.


Thomas Gordon Towers: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As nearly 40 ships are tied up on the west coast and as Canada is losing credibility as a supplier of grain, has the minister considered any alternative to allowing the present serious and deplorable situation to continue.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I do not underestimate the seriousness of the situation.



TRANSPORT


Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of Transport concerns dredging contract irregularities. Can the minister tell us if any officials or employees of his department have been suspended from their duties, pending the outcome of the police investigation into the contracts?


Jean Marchand: Mr. Speaker, not to my knowledge, but I will inquire.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Solicitor General concerning dredging contracts. In view of certain alleged circumstances which have come to light as a result of the RCMP investigation of the Hamilton harbour situation, have the FBI or other American law enforcement agencies been brought into the picture, in view of possible frauds perpetrated against the U.S. government?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard anything in that respect.
March 6, 1975



REQUEST FOR OUTLINE OF CONTINGENCY PLANS TO ENSURE


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to a question asked earlier today by the hon. member for Red Deer and is directed to the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board. As the Canadian Wheat Board is talking about ending producer deliveries to country elevators because of the seriousness of strikes and as the minister said, on February 26, I believe, in reply to the hon. member for Marquette, that the government has quotas worked out and was looking at plans, and since the Acting Prime Minister did not seem to know the other day what those plans are, can the minister responsible for the Wheat Board now tell the House what the government proposes to do about the strike?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I should say, first, that as long as there is as much space as there is in the country, it is difficult to relate the strike to any curtailment of deliveries. There is, in fact, more elevator space for the delivery of grain at the present time than there was at the same time a year ago. This should be taken into consideration with regard to the aspect the hon. member has raised. It does not, of course, detract from the seriousness of the situation. We are very conscious of its gravity.
In my answer to questions about what we might be examining in the course of the strike, or after it has been settled, I indicated that while the strike is on it would be better not to comment in detail on various strategies we might be prepared to follow, just as it is not useful to talk about the negotiations which are going on. As far as the situation following the strike is concerned, there have been discussions going on between the Department of Transport, the Wheat Board and the railways with a view to organizing programs designed to maximize the movement of grain the moment the strike is over. Our approach has always been to attempt to minimize any damage by recovering as quickly as possible from a setback such as we are suffering now.


Jack Burnett Murta: I wish to address a final supplementary question to the Acting Prime Minister. I am beginning to believe that the government does not understand how serious the situation is. If there has been no move toward settling the strike by Monday, would the government consider bringing in emergency legislation in the early part of the week to end the deplorable situation affecting grain movement?


Mitchell William Sharp: I do not
think I can give an undertaking of that kind. I should like to emphasize what my hon. friend the minister responsible for the Wheat Board has said-that the government is extremely concerned and is investigating every possible way by which the movement of grain can be resumed, particularly on the West coast where there have been so many interruptions in recent weeks.
Oral Questions



REQUEST FOR ACTION TO CONTROL HAZARDS FROM ASBESTOS FIBRES AT THETFORD MINES

Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Since the companies operating the asbestos mines in Thetford Mines have been doing so outside the law since 1947, with respect to silicosis and environment protection, could the minister tell the House whether he has taken effective measures to protect the workers of that industry, since they must work under six to ten times more dangerous conditions than those existing in the asbestos mines of the United States and Britain?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the question of security within factories is a matter of provincial jurisdiction. As far as the federal government has a responsibility in that field, it comes under my colleague, the Minister of Environment. Therefore, if the hon. member would put his question to her, she will be pleased to give him an answer.


Eudore Allard: Mr. Speaker, I want to put a supplementary
question.
As regards the protection of workers in the asbestos mines of the Thetford Mines region, it seems that the companies fail to respect the legislation on the protection of the environment and their workers to such an extent that their employees are exposed to dangers six to ten times greater than those existing in the mines of the United States and Britain.


Jeanne Sauvé: Mr. Speaker, industrial health standards are under the jurisdiction of provincial departments. However, the Department of Environment has the responsibility of establishing national standards concerning the particles of asbestos which come out from plant chimneys. With particular regard to asbestos, a group of officials in my department are currently gathering data on the quantity of particles escaping from industrial chimneys in Canada. Once these data are collected, we shall work out general standards for the whole country. As their jurisdiction requires, the provinces will be responsible for their implementation.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


Mr. C. Douglas (Bruce):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of National Defence. The Treasury Board and others involved have sent T-4 slips to members of the Canadian Armed Forces serving overseas in Cyprus and other areas. Their spouses are suggesting there may be a problem in getting these back in time to file their income tax returns. Will the minister consider having them picked up by service personnel, returned to Canada by service

Oral Questions
aircraft, then sent to regional headquarters and taken to the spouses by military personnel so that they can get the returns in without delay?


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: Air Transport Command provides an excellent service to our personnel in Cyprus and the Middle East, so I am certain they can be of assistance in connection with this problem.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In the light of information published by the Pentagon that in the last three years, war material was sold by Canada through a Crown corporation, Canadian Commercial Corporation, in the amount of $50 million, this material being earmarked for use in Southeast Asia, and in the light of frequent denials that Canada is involved in the war in Indo-China and having regard to the policy reaffirmed by the minister last week that it was not cabinet policy to send arms to areas involved in conflict, will the hon. gentleman assure the House that such shipments will be stopped forthwith?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: I am not sure I understood or grasped all the details of the hon. member's question, but Canada does not send arms to Indo-China. That has been a long term policy and it is still in effect.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Will the minister acquaint himself with the facts by getting in touch with the Pentagon which published in the Canadian press detailed figures showing an acceptance of $350 million in the last three years in Canadian war materials?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I shall be happy to seek information, although I am not sure I would rely on the Pentagon as my source, as the hon. member does.


Francis Andrew Brewin: If the minister does not want to rely on the Pentagon, will he approach the Canadian Press which published this information in considerable detail?



EFFECT OF STRIKES ON EXPORT MOVEMENT-INQUIRY AS TO POINT AT WHICH GOVERNMENT WILL INTERVENE

Stanley James Korchinski: I have a question for the Minister of Justice. Earlier, in reply to a question by the hon. member for Marquette, the minister suggested the government was considering a plan for immediate implementation. May I ask the minister whether there is a certain point at which the government would consider that the losses to the farmer were so great as to require the

strike to be resolved by a back-to-work order, as was done last year?


Otto Emil Lang: That is one of those hypothetical questions to which the answer is so obvious that none needs to be given.


Stanley James Korchinski: How much must the farmers lose before the government decides to intervene directly? Does the minister have a certain point in mind?



EFFECT OF STRIKES ON EXPORT MOVEMENT-CALL FOR BACK-TO-WORK ORDER BY CANADIAN FEDERATION OF AGRICULTURE-GOVERNMENT ACTION

Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: My question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. Has the Acting Prime Minister received a wire from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture calling for a back-to-work order to be imposed on the workers involved in the grain tie-up in order that grain exports can start moving again, and, if so, can the hon. gentleman tell us the nature of his reply to that wire?


Mitchell William Sharp: I have not personally seen this particular telegram but I have seen similar messages from other western interests. As I said in reply to an earlier question, we are examining all possible ways of dealing with this particular impasse, but I do not think it would be in the public interest to reveal our plans at the present time.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the government contemplating any specific action to end this impasse, and if not, why not?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, as the President of the Treasury Board has said, it is this government's policy-I do not know whether it is the policy of members on the other side-to support the principles of collective bargaining, and we would like to see them work. Of course, there are circumstances in which perhaps the public interest can be better served; but in the meantime I do not think it would help to settle this strike if we now threaten action by parliament.



FINANCE


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Does the recent budget of the province of British Columbia amounting to an increase of almost 50 per cent fall within the guidelines which the minister worked out or discussed with his provincial counterparts at various meetings, and has there been a consensus along these lines?


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, I would have to take that question as notice because I think it deserves reflection.



HOUSING


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs and is about housing. It concerns the purchase of the Casa Loma project in Burnaby, B.C. by the British Columbia provincial government with financing through CMHC. Is it now the public housing policy of the federal government to use CMHC funds to bail out bankrupt firms and provide a profit for the owners who only six weeks ago had paid off the subcontractors at the rate of 40 cents on the dollar?


Barnett Jerome Danson: Mr. Speaker, this is a situation that I am watching closely. This purchase was made by Dunhill Investments, I believe it is, the housing corporation of the British Columbia government, and it is up to them to determine whether or not it was a desirable purchase. From our viewpoint we examined it carefully, did an appraisal, and made certain it met Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation's standards. Our regional director in Vancouver is watching the situation very closely and reporting to me. So far indications are that no money has been given to the project at all. I believe a loan commitment was made in December, but we want to make sure that all standards of CMHC and the National Housing Act have been met.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister say whether he or any of his officials in the department were even aware that there were unpaid creditors and liens against the building at the time the loan was being negotiated?


Barnett Jerome Danson: As far as I am aware, Mr. Speaker, none of our officials was aware of any such dealings. This was a deal between the province of British Columbia, or their housing corporation, Dunhill Investments, and the owners. I think we must give a certain amount of credence to the integrity of provincial governments, but after that we watch them rather carefully to make sure that our money is secure and full value is received by the Canadian people. But I am awaiting further reports.
Oral Qtiestions HEALTH



ALLEGED UNACCEPTABILITY OF VACCINE PRODUCED BY CONNAUGHT LABORATORIES-REASON FOR BUILDING VACCINE PRODUCING FACILITIES IN BRAZIL

Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of his belief, expressed a few days ago in the House, that the vaccine produced by Connaught Laboratories is up to acceptable standards, would the minister explain why Britain has not been importing any of our vaccine for the past two years and why there has never been any export of it to the United States?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Surely the hon. member recognizes that this is a question concerning general policy.


Paul Yewchuk: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.


Mr.   Speedier@: I fail to see how there can be a supplementary question to a disallowed question. The hon. member for Athabasca.


Paul Yewchuk: Mr. Speaker, may I rephrase my question and direct it to the Minister of Finance who has responsibility for the Canada Development Corporation. In view of the fact that the low quality of Sabin vaccine produced by Connaught Laboratories has made it unacceptable for export to the two countries I have already mentioned, and in view of the fact that the purpose of the Canada Development Corporation is to allow Canadians to invest in Canadian enterprises, can the minister indicate why the Canada Development Corporation, instead of building a new human virus vaccine production facility in Canada, is doing so in Brazil?


Marc Lalonde: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the preliminary statement of the hon. member and the premise of his question are not correct.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. In view of the interesting, unfolding Keystone Cops saga of the RCMP and the ship called The Answer, which left a little to be desired in terms of the RCMP getting their man, I wonder whether the Solicitor General would check with his officials, especially with the commissioner of the RCMP, and find out when the investigation into the SIU matter will be completed, when the investigation into the Hamilton harbour matter will be completed, and whether he has yet received the transcript of the preliminary hearing in the Hamilton harbour matter. If he has not, why not; and could he report back tomorrow or at the first opportunity so that we will begin to find out in fairly definite terms how long we will have to wait, or are we going to wait

March 6, 1975
Oral Questions
until the Prime Minister comes back so the minister can consult him and determine what to do?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member asked me three questions.


John Napier Turner: Five.


William Warren Allmand: Perhaps five, but I noted three. I check with the commissioner of the RCMP each week in regard to the SIU investigation. At our last meeting he told me that the investigation is still underway. There are many documents and witnesses to be examined and he cannot give me a date when the investigation will be completed, but he feels that it will be in the near future.
With respect to the Hamilton Harbour Commission, as I pointed out recently in the House charges have already been laid against five persons. Three have been found guilty and two are going to trial in the near future. The investigation is still underway because during the preliminary inquiry into two of these cases further evidence came to light which led to further investigations. Consequently, those investigations must be pursued.
With respect to the transcript of the preliminary inquiry, a transcript has now been delivered to the RCMP in Toronto. They are examining the transcript but I should say it is a very lengthy one comprising six volumes of evidence. We have also ordered another copy of the transcript for my office in Ottawa; so far it has not been received. In the meanwhile, we are in communication with Toronto with regard to those parts of the transcript that relate to questions in this House.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the day.


Paul Yewchuk: Mr. Speaker, I should like to rise on a question of privilege concerning the right of members to ask for and obtain information in the House of Commons. I put a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde) and also one to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) today, both of which were unanswered. I attempted to obtain answers to these questions by direct contact with the office of the minister of health, with the Canada Development Corporation and Connaught Laboratories. On every occasion the information was refused. If a member does not have the right, or has the right taken away from him, to seek this information in the House, I should like to ask Your Honour where he can obtain it.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The reason the hon. member's question was circumscribed today is not related to his right to seek information but simply by the manner in which he is entitled to use the question period to seek information. There are many other methods for the seeking of information which I am sure are well known to the hon. member.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. MacLean:: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the government House leader what the program will be for today, tomorrow and next week.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, today we are going on with Bill C-50. When that is completed we will move on to Bill C-41 in respect of western grain stabilization. Tomorrow is an allotted day, when it will be for the opposition to say what the business will be; and I think the same is true of Monday.


John Angus MacLean: Mr. Speaker, is the minister in a position to say what business the government proposes to place before the House on Tuesday and Wednesday?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I should like to have an opportunity of speaking with other House leaders so we can arrange a mutually satisfactory program.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in respect of government measures being brought before the House, I should like to ask the government House leader when Bill C-25 will be brought before us again. On two days in a row the Minister of National Health and Welfare has referred to the fact that this bill has not been processed. I would point out that it has not even been called by the government since December 16. I recognize that the opposition is using the ways open to it of trying to get the legislation improved, but in view of the importance of the subject could this bill not be brought before us again at an early date?
While I am on my feet, I wonder if I might ask the minister about one other piece of legislation. In view of the fact that the government is known to favour legislation respecting Heritage Day, and in view of the difficulty this matter is having as a private member's bill, would the government consider bringing in legislation on this matter?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, with regard to Bill C-25, the reason it was taken off our current discussions was the number of occasions that I found it very difficult to arrange for a continuation of the debate. The Minister of the Environment has made a similar request a number of times, and I have been asked by the House leader of one party or another to postpone or delay its reintroduction. If I could have some undertaking from the other side that they would not delay passage of this measure, I would be very happy to bring it back. In saying that, I am not suggesting that the opposition should not have the opportunity to oppose the bill, but simply that hon. members opposite should be consistent as to whether or not they want this bill. I think the best way of deciding is by having the debate come to a conclusion and a vote taken if necessary.
In respect of the Heritage Day question, this has been under discussion by the government a number of times and I will see whether I can obtain a clearer answer in the near future.
March 6, 1975



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, March 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Whelan that Bill C-50, to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
Mr. G. H. Whittaker (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes I had before six o'clock last evening I was discussing the amendments proposed, and I ended by saying that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) should be ashamed to bring in an amendment to the old stabilization act, presenting it to the farmers as the stabilization plan he has been telling them he is going to bring forth to stabilize agriculture. These amendments are not very great at all, and you could do almost anything under the old act that you can with the amended act. One thing which the minister said in his speech-and I thought at the time I heard him correctly-I would like to read now:
There is also a provision in the bill which some of my colleagues in cabinet suggest gives the Minister of Agriculture a blank cheque to support the food producers of the nation.
That is all he said. He did not go On to say what the provision of this bill was; he left that to the imagination. If he is saying that the bill will now be so written that he can do more than it says, I would respectfully submit that he could have done the same thing under the old stabilization act and really did not need to bring in amendments to do exactly what he is trying to do with these amendments. The minister attended a meeting of the Horticultural Council on Monday morning and told them, among other things:
Nearly 40 per cent of the food we eat, by weight, is fruits and vegetables, or their products. I hope you realize how much impact on the food system your decisions can have.
He went on to explain that the percentage of fruits and vegetables eaten in Canada has gone down in comparison to the amount produced. In other words, the producers are not producing as much today in the way of fruits and vegetables as they used to. He also said that the percentage of fruit canned in Canada is less than it used to be. After giving them these figures, he said:
What do these figures mean? How much of this slide away from self-sufficiency is because Canadians now have more money and are buying a wider variety of tropical and offshore fruits and vegetables? How much of this stems from the fact that our best fruit lands and vegetable soils are being bulldozed for highways and built up into towns? How much of it is due to the limitations of our climate? Are our marketing systems or our production skills lagging behind other parts of the world? Think about this.
Over the years I have thought a lot about what the minister was asking there and I think it is very significant that he left out the question,-"How much of it is due to government policies or lack of government policies in agriculture in Canada, especially in the fruit and vegetable fields?" The next night the Minister of Agriculture went to one of the areas in southern Ontario and made a
Agricultural Stabilization Act
speech to another group, telling them that farmers do not have as much tariff protection as industry; they have only 8 per cent tariff protection while industry, on the average, has 16 per cent. Well do I know this, and we have been concerned in the farm community in Canada because this government over the last few years has been giving concessions in the tariff field for agriculture and we have been losing ground.
I think it is well known, and can be well documented, that this is what has happened. The one thing that comes to my mind is the agreement that was made during the Kennedy round on tariffs, in that over a five-year period the tariff would be taken off apples. Before one year was out, what did the minister of finance of the day do? Mr. Edgar Benson removed the Canadian tariff on apples. He then came to us and said the United States would do the same thing. The United States did nothing of the kind; they did not remove their tariff but, instead, said there was an agreement and they were going to abide by it. That is what they did. As a result of this agreement, we had duty-free apples coming into Canada but had to pay duty on apples going into the United States. This is the kind of thing the government has been doing. There has been a lack of any comprehensive agricultural policy, with no stability in agriculture.
The farmer's favourite expression over the last few years has been, "It will be better next year". As a result of these policies during this time, what did the federal government do? It created a vacuum where there was little or no stability in agriculture in Canada because it had no over-all, comprehensive agricultural policy.
What is happening now? The provinces are moving into this vacuum. Already we find that in British Columbia there is an income insurance scheme. The reason is that the vacuum was there and the province is moving in to do something to help the farmers in British Columbia. The Minister of Agriculture-I notice he is not here-when being interviewed on television a while ago in my province said that the province of British Columbia could not come up with a scheme without him and, that they needed him. He said they were just politicking. But the province has a scheme; it is there and it is working. It covers milk, fruit, hogs and field tomatoes. Negotiations are being carried on in respect of vegetables, table eggs, hatching eggs, sheep and blueberries.
The fact that the beef growers are looking very hard and very long at the British Columbia insurance scheme shows the state of affairs the beef industry is in in British Columbia. These ranchers, these beef producers, over the years have wanted very little government interference. What has happened to them in the past year has caused them to take a look at schemes such as this because they are in dire circumstances. They have borrowed from the banks to the allowable limit. Many of them are almost on the verge of bankruptcy.
What did this government do? It interfered with the beef industry in quite a few ways during the last year, none of which interference was of any use to the ranchers in British Columbia. The minister told me that only 50 per cent of the beef produced would come under his so-called

March 6, 1975
Agricultural Stabilization Act
stabilization scheme last year. I would submit that there was less than 50 per cent in British Columbia. This scheme did not do anything for the producer in British Columbia. Now I say to the Minister of Agriculture-and I see he has returned-that he should take a really good look at the British Columbia income insurance scheme.
Yesterday in his speech the minister said that the provinces were all coming to him, asking when he intended to bring in something in respect of stabilization. I wonder what they will think when they see what he has brought before this House. As I said before, the minister said on television in Kelowna that the British Columbia government could not do anything, so far as an income scheme was concerned, without him or the federal government. He said they were just politicking. That scheme is working.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture last week spent a long time discussing the income insurance scheme. We see now that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has made a representation to the provincial government in respect of an income scheme. The UPA in Quebec is pressing the Quebec government for an income scheme. The British Columbia insurance scheme is based on the cost of production. This is a real cost of production; it is not similar to the cost of production written into Bill C-41 in respect of stabilization, where the wage to producers is not taken into account, where the interest on investment is not taken into account, and where depreciation and other things are not taken into account. In the British Columbia provincial scheme everything is accounted for, even a living wage for the producer.
Certainly in respect of any scheme such as this, after having the farm credit bill and raising the rate of farm credit to $150,000, a large amount of interest will have to be paid on that $150,000. How can you have any type of scheme without having the interest on the investment included? In the British Columbia scheme the producers can opt in or opt out only once. The scheme continues for five years.
I say that the federal government must become involved in what the provinces are doing. The farmers will not be satisfied with anything less. They are not farming any longer as a way of life. When young people enter farming, they want what everyone else has. They want the type of life everyone else has. They want to be able to live like other working people in Canada. I do not believe they are willing to put in the long hours that were formerly put in by people who were dedicated to farming as a way of life. This bill does not come close to resembling the British Columbia scheme. It is just disaster insurance, especially if it is interpreted as it has been in the past.
It was not necessary to amend this act in order to accomplish a lot more than has been accomplished. Much more could have been accomplished, but it would have had to be done by the cabinet. One must go to the cabinet with hat in hand and obtain its approval. Also, there is a lot of lobbying and politicking. This went on in an effort to get an increase. There was no increase. I know this because I was involved in an effort to get the use of the legislation broadened in the way in which it had been said it could be broadened.
Now we find that even with the minister's blank cheque he still must go to the cabinet in order to have it broad-

ened. I do not think he has a blank cheque at all. He has to do exactly what has been done in respect of the old act. This will mean it will be a cabinet decision. Let us stop for a moment and think about the provinces in Canada having their own schemes. There is one in British Columbia, Ontario is looking very hard at one and Quebec is looking very hard at one. Will these be the same plans? What will the ramifications be when each province is in the income insurance plan field in a way which gives the farmers the stability they want without the federal government being involved?
If these three large producing provinces decide to have stabilization programs of their own, programs that they can afford, what about the provinces that cannot afford to have one? Once again I say that the federal government will have to take a harder look at what is going on in Canada. It will have to listen more closely to what the farmers are saying if it does not want chaos to ensue.
Bill C-50 leaves much to be desired. All other products but those that are designated in the bill are left to the whim of the cabinet. Whether or not they are brought under the act is left to the cabinet to decide. With regard to such products as fruit and vegetables, the minister told the Horticultural Council that they constitute nearly 40 per cent of the foodstuffs consumed by Canadians. Much time will be spent in negotiation and lobbying with regard to these products. Another reason the production of fruit and vegetables has decreased in Canada today is that there is lack of stability in the production and marketing of these products. By the time these products are brought under the protection of the act, a farmer may be out of business or so disillusioned with farming that he considers selling his farm and moving to an urban area.
If 90 per cent support is all a farmer can get or else he has to go hat in hand to the cabinet, then the situation is bad. With regard to regionalism, it is thought that special deals can be made with the provinces provided the provinces and the producers make up the extra amount of money. One wonders what the minister was thinking when he drafted the bill. Perhaps he thought that we should add a provision so that the provincial income insurance programs could be included. This whole issue will become very political. If there is to be any kind of federal plan and if there is to be a different plan in each province, then a formula must be devised so that quick action can be taken, and the long intervals during which a provincial plan is negotiated would thus be avoided.
This government should catch up with the times and implement a federal stabilization plan which will be of benefit to the farmers. It is certain that farmers are the greatest people in Canada. They produce more per person than any industry. However, they are concerned about the present situation because they have a hard time making a living. They do not want to be second-class citizens. They are knowledgeable and hard working people, with production know-how. They want to work the same hours as everyone else, and that means that more people will have to be employed in farming.
Farmers want some stability in the cost of their products, and they are certainly entitled to it. However, this
March 6, 1975

bill does not provide that stability unless a disaster occurs. As I said before, this bill does not even come close to providing the stability which the minister has been saying he will give to farmers. The result of this lack of stability in the price of agricultural products will be that more food shortages will take place in the future.
The other day the minister said in a speech in southern Ontario-the reason I know what he said is that he has been sending all his speeches to my office and I have been reading them just in case I pick up a gem and find he said something different-that we exported $4 billion worth of farm products. However, he neglected to say that the bulk of those exports was made up of prairie wheat, and that if it were not for the export of wheat we would be a net importer of all the other agricultural products, which we almost are at present.
The reason for these food shortages is lack of stability in farming in Canada. We know that there are food shortages in the world. The farmers know that, and they want to produce more food. But they do not want to overproduce and listen to the same lecture that the potato growers in New Brunswick are getting today. Farmers want stability in agriculture. If they do not get it, they will stop producing; they will become less dedicated and work shorter hours. They will produce only what they can use themselves. The other possibility is that in this situation large corporate farms will come into being. They will look after production according to their own production formulas and, as is happening in industry when companies get into trouble, cut down on production. This is exactly what will happen in farming.


Mr. Marcel Lessard (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, in taking part today in this debate on Bill C-50, to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act, first of all I would like to pay what I consider a well deserved tribute to the hon. Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), even though he is criticized from time to time by Opposition members-after all, that is what they are here for, we cannot blame them- ;since he was appointed, he has done a tremendous job in defending the cause of Canadian farmers in general. I would like to thank him on behalf of young farmers whom he tends to be more particularly willing to help. Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay him tribute because it had been several years since we have had a Minister of Agriculture so thoroughly dedicated to helping farmers. He has travelled throughout Canada from Halifax to Vancouver, accepted almost every invitation to meet farmers, to have talks with them, discuss their problems and above all devise with them solutions to the problems which agriculture is now faced with.
This bill, Mr. Speaker, fits into a global effort by the government, and the Minister of Agriculture especially, to implement a system of supply and reasonable prices for food products which Canadian people need. Since the beginning of the present session, 9 bills dealing with agriculture have been introduced in this House; 2 of them went through third reading and have become part of our Statutes, one is at the report stage one was referred to the Standing Committee of Agriculture. Five other bills,
Agricultural Stabilization Act
among which the one we are now dealing with, are still under study by the House.
Bill C-50 aims at providing producers with better protection. How is that to be achieved? Mr. Speaker, there are three main amendments in that bill which aim at improving the current situation. First of all, the minister wants to reduce from ten to five the number of years on which to establish the average yield of a given commodity.
Second, the minister wants to take 90 per cent of this average income instead of 80 per cent as it is done now. Third, and I think this is the most important proposal now before us, the minister wants to include a rather complex formula, a pegging formula which will take into account the increase in production costs during the last five years and adding this figure to 90 per cent of the average in the last five years.
Obviously, it is a step in the right direction, Mr. Speaker, and that is why I fully support this bill and I urge my colleagues to do the same even if they want to criticize it a little. As such, this bill tends to establish a floor price for farm products. It is not perfect.
Mr. Speaker, I do not like the word stabilization. In my opinion, the word stabilization is not very accurate. I would rather have the bill deal with a guaranteed minimum price and I think that the amendments to the legislation today are precisely meant to set a guaranteed minimum price for farm products, a price which will take in consideration the production costs, the minimum cost of production for a certain commodity evidently including a return on investments as well as a fair salary for the producer.
This bill, Mr. Speaker, is also innovating since the minister stated that from now on the support price will be set in advance, that is at the beginning of a year the producers will know for some commodities mentioned in the bill what will eventually be the support price. They will know at the beginning of a year in the case of pork, for example, based on the five previous years and the 90 per cent formula as well as cost index formula, what will be the nimimum price set throughout the year.
It is certainly a big improvement because right now only milk producers are almost assured to know at the beginning of any given year what their revenue will be. Of course, production costs are still unpredictable but among farmers, milk producers are the only ones who know in advance what they will receive for their production of the year. It is the same for virtually no other agricultural producers. The stabilization bill and the proposed amendment are aimed at establishing what I should call a guaranteed minimum price.
Mr. Speaker, that guaranteed minimum price could be obtained by establishing and recognizing a series of standard farms that could be selected throughout the country. We could have capable operators with fairly recent but not necessarily the most modern facilities. Lastly, we could establish our real costs on the basis of those of efficient operators. I do not think it is enough to have economists sitting somewhere in an ivory tower and, when I mention economists, I know that our minister is listening because he does not necessarily trust them all the time. It is not enough then to have economists sitting in ivory towers

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and studying statistics to establish what should be the minimum price of a product.
We absolutely must have units for a given product, in the field, in the provinces, as well in Halifax as in the province of Quebec, in the Prairies as in British Columbia, which units can serve as a reliable proof of the real production costs of certain farm products. From their data we could set support prices which are important since the bill is intended to apply them on a regional basis. Indeed, a minimum price, Mr. Speaker, adopted for a given product, in a given area, could be clearly advantageous for one area but disadvantageous for another.
Here is an example. If the minimum price for producing, let us say, a pig were based on the minimum production cost in a Saskatchewan unit, where farmers can find surplus grains to feed their pigs, and applied to Canada as a whole, it would probably be unfair to the producers of Newfoundland, New Brunswick and British Columbia. That would be unfair for those who have to pay much higher production costs being located farther from the supply sources, and because, owing to the economic context those production units are in, the production costs are much higher, due to the cost of land, services and other costs.
That is why it is necessary to have standard farms established in every province which could be used as sound standards for production costs on which our economists could then calculate the so-called indexation formula on a regional basis. That formula would really reflect the costs on regional basis, so that the producers will not be disadvantaged in some instances, or too advantaged in some others, since that could happen too. If that happened, production would inevitably shift, which might result in overproduction and a subsequent drop in prices.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with a specific area of the dairy industry, because even though the bill does not refer directly to that industry, it does indirectly because it does refer to industrial milk products.
The hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) made one of his typical attacks against the Minister and the Department yesterday. He described in particular the dairy industry's position, saying that our policy had been a disaster, that the Canadian Dairy Commission was in fact a disaster, if I refer to what he said.
Mr. Speaker, I totally object that attitude by the hon. member for Crowfoot, because his statement definitely does not reflect the situation, or at least his words went beyond his thoughts.
I can say that the dairy industry is doing well, although it is facing problems. I also recognize milk producers are facing difficulties. They had the recent hardship of a marked increase in input costs. Fortunately it seems that for a few weeks at least, input costs have been declining, which is very important as far as milk producers are concerned, since they have fixed revenues and they will not go down. Therefore, a decline in input costs will obviously mean better net income for milk producers. I very sincerely hope this will happen, because it will be needed if they are going to stay in production and bring about a recovery in that industry.

It has been said by our friend the hon. member for Crowfoot that the industry was going down the drain. Such is not the case. Some producers quit farming in 1974, which is normal. Some will always quit, but fortunately others will come in, and things look good enough. It could even be said the dairy herd has probably reached a bottom point. Statistics published at the Conference on farming outlooks show that even if there was a slight 3 percent decrease in the dairy herd, there is also a marked increase in the number of replacement heifers.
Since the figures are taken as of June 1 each year, it suggests that on June 1, 1975, we shall have practically the same dairy stock as the one we had in 1973 and I think that the total production figure of 16.8 billion pounds of milk for 1974 is probably a floor production and that in 1975 it will reach 17 billion pounds. There will be such an increase because the quality of the stock is improving. Not only the size of the stock will increase but, as the trend of the last years indicates, the production per cow will improve, resulting in a generally higher milk production for Canada as a whole.
Mr. Speaker, I shall now consider the price to the milk producer. In March 1974, that price was $7.17 a hundred weight pounds of industrial milk. In March 1975, one year later, it is $10.02, following three adjustments made in 1974 and the recent increase announced in February.
Thus, Mr. Speaker, the price of industrial milk increased by 40 per cent. I note, and I am sure that my colleagues will do the same, that such an increase is good, and that even if it did not solve all the problems of the dairy industry, I think we can be proud of the efforts made by this government, by the House of Commons and, of course, by the producers, so that the price of milk in Canada might be raised for the producer.
That of course was reflected by the level of consumption, but it cannot be otherwise. And when the federal government's contribution to this global price amounts to $2.56 of the $10 a hundredweight, I think that this contribution of 25 per cent of the milk price from the federal treasury is very generous, and we have every reason to be proud of it. The $200 million, and even more, that we have distributed directly to the producers from the federal treasury, represented a very fair share, a marked effort and a very positive indication that this government and, namely, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) want to support agriculture in Canada, particularly the dairy industry, because it is a basic product which we could not easily do without. And I think that, as Canadians, we must make all the required efforts to ensure that we shall have enough milk in Canada to meet the needs of all Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, this bill gives fairly wide authority to the minister. Of course, I would like to make some suggestions. The minister names some products in the bill, which means that we shall have the assurance that those products will be protected by law. The act gives the definition of the agricultural designated commodities. In subclause
(a)	, there is a list of the products, and subclause (b) reads:
(b)	any other natural or processed product of agriculture... (as defined in the Canadian Wheat Board Act and not marketed through the Canadian Wheat Board) designated by the Governor in Council as an agricultural commodity for the purposes of this Act, hereinafter called "designated commodity";"

Of course.it gives a guarantee for this class of products. But what about the other agricultural commodities? The producers who have those products will have to wait for the goodwill of the government and the minister, for the products to be protected. To receive the protection of the law, they will have no indication a year in advance that their products will be protected at a minimum price.
They will have to wait for the results of a disastrous end of year to make representations to their union or through provincial governments. They will have to have those pressures made on the government in order that their products be considered. And that will inevitably lead to some uncertainty. Mr. Speaker, I would have liked that a few commodities be mentioned in that bill, commodities such as potatoes and maple syrup, which are known and easily identified. Several other commodities could also have been mentioned, and the producers could have been given the guarantee that, should a setback in market prices occur, their revenues would be protected against an overly sharp drop.
That stabilization, Mr. Speaker, and this is not the most appropriate term, is designed to stabilize commodities, both up and down. In other words, it does not freeze a profit to the extend that the latter will not decline; it merely allows a less severe setback of the producer's revenue.
But this will not prevent a setback nor will it prevent or limit an increase. It will, of course, limit a setback but does not impose limits on an increase. That is why in trying to stabilize farm incomes we should ask ourselves if we are doing it at the right time when prices for many commodities are clearly below production costs.
In the last three years production costs for most commodities exceeded the income the producer received on the sale of his products. It is then clear that that five-year average will give a figure clearly below production costs, and I think it is the weakness of our legislation. Will the calculation, the determination of the indexation formula based on the increase in production costs for the five years on which the formula will be based fill that gap? Mr. Speaker, when the minister rises and closes this debate I would like him to explain a bit more clearly how that formula will work because, basically, it is in that formula that really lies the answer to the needs of farmers.
If that formula is not adequate, if it does not give precisely that fair margin of profit to producers as related to their production cost, if it does not properly reflect that increase in production costs in recent years, we are then going to stabilize the floor price for products clearly below the cost of production, and not necessarily have solved the problem. We might have prevented the problem from getting worse, of course, but we will not have necessarily solved the basic problem which is a return on work, investments and production costs, in fact a return on the market to cover costs. That is why I would like the minister to consider seriously adding certain commodities to his bill so they will be covered immediately, and second, I would like him to be more specific on the formula of indexation for those commodities. I spoke of standard farms, Mr. Speaker, and I have spoken of them more than
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once. Those standard farms which already exist to a certain extent in our country, although they have other objectives, could be extended, as far as their concept is concerned, to meet the objective I have mentioned.
Yet, will we succeed in keeping young farmers on the farms? Will we succeed in ensuring that our present farmers will be replaced and will we succeed in drawing other people to agriculture, to ensure Canadians with a sufficient production of food? It is also our duty to those who need it and for whom we are responsible.
We recently passed second reading amendments to the Farm Credit Act which will allow young farmers to get a start. This will help them get established in agriculture. I believe that we have not solved the whole problem, because if they are not given more credit, if fewer investments are required in the first place and if, which seems a good idea, they are allowed to earn some money outside of farming for five years to make their business a bit more profitable, and if we do not grant them a guaranteed income, I am not certain that we shall attract young people to farming, Mr. Speaker.
There is a lot of talk about a guaranteed income for society in general and I believe we should give a lot of thought to establishing a guaranteed income for farmers. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if we should not consider a guaranteed salary for farmers because even if the salary were only basic, even if it were only $50 or $75 a week, I believe that the farmers would at least be ensured of a weekly or monthly minimum income and would have the incentive to work more to improve their farm, their productivity and the general performance of their business. This will probably have to be done, Mr. Speaker. Some may say that this is going very far. We should not be afraid of going that far, Mr. Speaker, if we want to maintain farm production in our country. This may be the price we shall have to pay because I am convinced that, in view of the way things are going in farming, and if we go back to what has been happening during the last ten years, we can predict for the future a situation in which, if we do not guarantee an income for farmers, they will leave their business and we will have great difficulty in making them go back to farming.
Not only will it be difficult to bring people back to farming, but it will cost much more, Mr. Speaker, to reestablish someone who has left farming than it would cost us today to make the necessary efforts to keep him in farming.
We are dealing with a bill whose object is to prevent agriculture from regressing from one year to another. It is a step in the right direction and I thank the minister for it. I hope hon. members, while making constructive criticism, will accept to refer this bill to the committee for a more thorough examination, to enable us to get more information from the minister and his officials so that they may explain to us-I believe they will be able to do so-the mechanisms, the means through which they hope to establish a guaranteed minimum price for farm products, which will be the actual reflection of production costs, and which will thereby guarantee an income to producers and enable them to carry on with their business.
Mr. Speaker, with this I shall conclude and I hope that the other pieces of legislation presented to this House and

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related to agriculture will be quickly examined here. If I may do so, I humbly suggest that to hon. members who readily critize the government and the Minister of Agriculture, by saying they are not doing enough for agriculture. I am asking them not to accept without giving their opinion, but to examine the five bills before the House and to strive to have them expedited and passed in committee and brought back to this House for enactment so that we may appeal again to the minister and say that we want more.
Even if we asked the minister to introduce other pieces of legislation to improve agriculture, he will say: Well, pass the one I tabled first and then I will introduce more. I think we could challenge our two ministers who look after agriculture by passing the nine bills before us now. Let us dispose of those nine bills and then let us ask for more. And if they do not introduce any more to improve conditions and to cope with the situation, they will incur all the odium of the situation because they will have to introduce legislation in this House to improve agriculture.
I am not entirely satisfied with the legislation before us, but since it is an important step in the right direction, towards my aim, which I think everyone has, to provide guaranteed farm receipts I therefore recommend that we approve the bill, refer it to the committee and proceed to the consideration of another bill which, of course, seeks price support for western Canada products, grain particularly. It has no positive effect in eastern Canada, but since it is generally in the interest of the Canadian farm industry, I assure the House that we are going to criticize it. I now give notice to the responsible minister. We shall also criticize Bill C-41 a little. That is normal and I guarantee that we shall support the bill because it is for the good of Canadian agriculture.


John Angus MacLean: Mr. Speaker, someone once said that wisdom is nine parts silence and one part brevity. I will try to be brief in commenting on this bill. It is not a revolutionary or far reaching bill. It will amend the government's stabilization legislation in some ways which have become important. The main features of this bill are these: it changes the list of mandatory products, shortens the base period, increases the guaranteed support level, indexes the guaranteed support price to the level of production costs, and provides for regional support programs.
Shortening the base period from ten to five years is a step in the right direction. But costs have escalated so rapidly that it is possible that by using the average price received in the previous five years the support level will be far below the cost of production. The bill provides for a guarantee of 90 per cent, instead of 80 per cent, of the average price received during the base period. But often this will not be enough. This provision represents a retreat from the way in which base prices for agricultural products were calculated at one time. Because of present inflation rates, a guarantee representing 90 per cent of the average price received in the previous five years may be well below the cost of production. This means that the guarantee means nothing to the farmer except that the support price may be well below his cost of production.

Like the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Lessard), I have some serious reservations about the proposed indexing formula. The minister will need to explain this before the committee or the bill may have to be amended in order that the support which is to be provided when the indexing formula is used can be meaningful, and in order that the guarantee will at least meet the cost of production to the primary producer.
Another feature of the legislation is provision of a regional support program, a program which would have application to a number of provinces but not to the entire country. The minister has referred to this already in reference to a support price for potatoes, suggesting that Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario might be a regional support price area under the amended act. I am not, as yet, convinced that this would be desirable but I am glad to see that the bill will make this kind of set-up possible if it is deemed to be desirable.
For many years parliament has struggled with the question of securing adequate remuneration for farmers. From time to time governments have secured the passage of legislation with high hopes, only to find the results discouraging not only to themselves but to those the legislation was designed to help. Although I do not wish to be unduly pessimistic, I have some reservations about the extent to which this legislation will be effective. I hope the committee, when studying the bill, will look into every aspect closely and hear witnesses with a view to ascertaining the extent to which primary producers will, in fact, benefit from this measure.
The public is inclined to look upon farm legislation and price stabilization measures as having little or nothing to do with the consumer. The usual impression is that they concern only the primary producer. In fact, something like the reverse is actually the case. Bills having to do with the stabilization of farm income have a tremendous implication for consumers. If the market is allowed to operate as it seems to do naturally, failure to take remedial action will have dire consequences for the consumer, because if farmers continue to receive prices which are well below their cost of production it is only a matter of time before they are forced out of business; before they can no longer produce food even though they may desire to continue to do so. The result, in the long run, is a shortage of supply, a shortage which leads to unconscionably high prices necessary to pay for imported food or to lure would-be farmers back into production in the face of high costs involved in redeveloping land.
Part of the difficulty is that the agricultural industry is not very sensitive to the law of supply and demand, especially in this day and age when farmers tend to specialize. It often happens that a farmer cannot readily cut down his production if the price is not right. He does not withhold his product from the market when prices are falling, in line with the classic economic theory of what should happen. This is not what happens, particularly when the goods are perishable. As a matter of fact, the process seems to run in the opposite direction: as the farmer's margin of profit decreases, he is forced to produce more simply in order to live and pay his overhead charges. He struggles to produce more and more just in order to
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keep his head above water, until the point is reached at which there is no profit margin and the market is flooded, at which time a large number of farmers are forced out of business through bankruptcy. This is not a situation which affords any satisfaction to consumers.
The objective of a bill as the one before us should be to provide a fair return to a farmer for his labour and his investment, at least with respect to part of his production-he can perhaps gamble on the remainder. This involves the establishment of a base price at least for a quota of his production, a base price which is realistically tied to the cost of production. As I have already remarked, there is very little relationship between present-day costs of production and average prices for the last five or ten years. In these circumstances, it behooves the minister to explain how the formula proposed in the bill will bring about a sound relationship between the cost of production and the base price proposed. The cost of production should make provision for at least a living wage for primary producers; what would be looked upon as a minimum wage in other industries.
There is a wider benefit which a bill such as this should strive to attain. Not only should it seek to help primary producers as individuals but it should be aimed at helping to preserve a rural society in this country. It was recognized in pioneer days, and I hope it is recognized still, that rural Canada has made an extremely important contribution to this country in non-economic ways, that is to say, in social ways. It gives the country stability and provides an environment in which a fine type of life-I would say the finest type of life-can be lived. It helps maintain an environment which produces a quality of life not obtainable in the cities in this technological age, or if it is obtainable there it can be achieved only at an almost prohibitive cost.
Therefore, I think it is in the long-range interest of this country as a whole to look upon the primary producers not as mere automatons or units of statistics producing cheap food for the people who really count-presumably people in urban areas. We should take a much more enlightened overview of the situation and recognize that people in rural areas are in themselves important. They are a very necessary segment of society who live in an environment that has the potential for producing the best quality of life that can be achieved in this country.
This is especially so in modern times where technology has made it possible for someone living in the country to have, as it were, the best of both worlds. He can have the benefits of modern living, on the one hand-provided he has the minimum income required-and, on the other hand, he can enjoy the many benefits of country life, where he can experience the beneficial effects of being close to nature, the opportunity of solitude now and again, and obtain an in-focus view of the place of humanity in the whole nature of things. This helps one realize that human beings are part of a very much larger web of life, and if we forget this elementary fact it will not bode well for our future as a country.
Some years ago I remember as a child seeing old coins which were minted over 100 years ago with a slogan on
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them. They depicted a sheaf of wheat on the one side, a plow on the other, and the slogan was "Speed the plow". This use of the word "speed" in its archaic sense means "prosper the plow", such as you would speed a parting guest. In those days they recognized that the basic health of the nation depended to a great extent on the economic health of rural Canada.
I hold the view that this philosophy is still valid and that we cannot have a healthy country as a whole without making certain that we have a healthy rural segment in society. I might say, in connection with the motto "Speed the plow", that there is an old English song that expresses a point of view that has gone out of fashion, one that even country people are loth to express and which I am sure the average statistical planner hidden away in some bureaucracy thinks is old-fashioned and no longer valid. I should like to quote a line or two of it:
I have lawns, I have bowers,
I have fruit, I have flowers,
The lark is my morning alarmer.
So, jolly boys, now
Here's God speed the plough
Long life and success to the farmer.
I think the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) has a great responsibility-and not only the present minister but any minister of agriculture-to do his best, in co-operation with his counterparts in the provinces, to make sure everything reasonable is done to provide an adequate economic base for the primary producer so he can stay in production and benefit not only himself and the country as a whole but Canadian consumers of food over the long term, and this includes every member of society in Canada.
In closing, I want to bring to the minister's attention the alarming situation existing in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick at the present time in regard to potato production. These amendments to the act will not do anything in time to save the situation for the potato producers in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick who are subsidizing the consumers of their product to an alarming extent. I do not think the consumers of potatoes would begrudge the price they would have to pay so long as the primary producer received a fair price. But the irony is that everyone who handles potatoes from the time they are produced until they find their way to grocers' shelves is probably making just as much profit in a poor year as they would in a year when potatoes are reasonably well priced. The same amount of freight is paid on potatoes, there is the same mark-up in the stores, and the jobbers take the same percentage. Those who supply containers make the same profit as in any other year. But the primary producer has to suffer a loss when the consumer does not pay a reasonable price for his product.
I should like to see action taken to correct this situation in the long run. In the meanwhile, I implore the minister to implement as quickly as possible some emergency plan, if he has not already done so, to divert present production in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick to some other use or to export-subsidies would be required-so that this year the producers will not be pushed into bankruptcy and will be able to plant a crop this spring. This

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emergency action should be taken so they can continue to produce what is one of the best food values the Canadian consumer can have, even when the price is a profitable one for the primary producer.


Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Yet another part of the legislation which is very open to discussion and question is that part regarding the participation of producers and/or provinces to set a higher support price than that provided under the law. It seems to me that present legislation already provides for a base level but not an upper limit. One could facetiously argue that the minister put that clause in the bill with the intention of setting a support price somewhat lower than adequate and then saying to the producers and provinces, "Either put up or shut up".
I	said at the outset that I did not intend to take up too much time of the House on this topic, important though it is, so let me conclude by saying that I support the minister's idea of making Canada self-sufficient in terms of agriculture. Nevertheless, if we are to achieve this goal we must strive to help the farmer keep his self-respect in terms of the arduous task he is performing. As I said earlier, it is not enough to extol the virtues of the farming community; farmers are sick and tired of this. At a time when millions are going hungry around the world, we must cease treating farmers as third-class citizens. Farmers are becoming a rarity in communities right across the country. Let us provide them with the respect they rightly deserve. The means of achieving this is to provide them with reasonable stability as far as marketing procedures are concerned. If this government and the minister continue to pursue the type of ad hoc policies they have pursued in the past, we will only be pushing more individuals out of a field which is vital to both Canada and the world.
In a speech to a Lion's club on February 18, 1975, the minister stated:
-farmers despise subsidies; they would rather get a fair income out of the marketplace-
I agree to an extent, but let me read what the minister stated on another occasion:
When land is frozen into farming, farmers have no choice-at that point it is society's responsibility, his and mine, to provide the climate that will give an efficient farmer a reasonable return.
Let the minister act on his own words. If I understand the farming community accurately, what farmers want and desperately need is the assurance that when they raise a herd or plant a crop they will have a fairly good idea of what they will get in the way of prices when they market their products. To the best of my knowledge, 2,000 industrial milk producers in Ontario, and 2,600 in the province of Quebec, gave up and sold out in 1973 because they simply could not get a decent price. I see the minister shaking his head. This may have been in 1972, but it was certainly in the last two or three years. This tragedy must come to an end: I think the minister would agree with that. We just cannot continue to take farmers for granted in this callous fashion.
The welfare of this country still depends on the top six or eight inches of its arable land-land which is, incidentally, shrinking in acreage all the time because it is being sold for urban and industrial development. This is a problem with which the Minister of Agriculture or somebody in the federal government must come to grips. We should pass very strong federal laws to restrict the growth of cities and urban communities in those areas of Canada where there is valuable arable land. This is not being done. Local municipalities, township councils, and so on, are
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attempting to do it but they do not have the clout of the federal government: only the federal government can do this, and it should do it very quickly. Unless the minister moves more quickly, we will end up being a net importer.
As an indication of how fed-up the farmers are becoming, one need only read some of the current speeches made by the president of the Federation of Agriculture, which for years was simply an offshoot of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. The speeches Mr. Hill has been making recently remind me of the speeches representatives of the Farmers' Union were making ten years ago. That is how desperate many small and large "C" conservative farmers are today in Ontario, where he is calling for very stringent bargaining powers. His speeches almost read like trade unionist speeches. That is where they are going at the present time: I look forward to the time when the farmer recognizes he has a friend in the trade union movement and when the trade union movement recognizes it has a friend in the farmer. Both must bargain for wages and prices.
If the minister, his predecessor and the government were more responsible in respect of the farmer, they would have done something and this situation would not have come about. However, today the farmer is becoming angry: this is evident in my constituency when I am invited to the many rural dances, banquets, and so on. The warden's banquet is one of the biggest. While the farmers, when they attend, are not angry and do not intend to embarrass me, at these social functions I receive a very distinct impression that they are very unhappy and that something is wrong in the rural community today.
In closing, I suggest that while the Minister of Agriculture does much travelling and makes speeches to many farm groups and individual farmers, he should stop talking and start looking. In that way my waste-paper basket would not be so full, and he might learn something from the farmers.


Mr. William Andres (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity this afternoon to add any support to the bill before us. Because of involvement in agriculture and the diversified area I represent, I am sure this bill will add stabilization and confidence to the agricultural industry which is of the utmost importance not only to this country but indeed to the whole world.
I very much appreciate the fact that members on the opposite side of the House have made only token efforts to criticize the bill. I believe they recognize the value of stability and the insurance it gives the agricultural community. Agriculture is, always has been and always will be, the most important industry in this country and indeed in the world, especially today when we recognize the many developing countries and the food shortages which exist. Canada will increase, and has increased, its production of agricultural commodities. It has taken its place in the world and has supported those in need.
In the past we have had haphazard, "dog eat dog" marketing which has not worked out too well. This situation forced many young people to leave the farm and go to

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urban areas. The introduction of marketing boards in respect of various commodities has created some stability in the agricultural industry and has encouraged young farmers to remain on the farm. We now have many aggressive and forthright farmers who are eager and willing to put in a day's work to produce our products. Greater efficiency through mechanization of the industry has increased production and has assured a high level of return to the farmer.
I represent a very diversified riding. In fact, it is one of the most productive ridings in Canada. It is sometimes referred to as the Garden of Eden in the Niagara peninsula. We even produce some eggs. In the Niagara peninsula the growing of grapes is one of our major industries. We also produce peaches, pears, cherries, plums and apples. We grow every kind of fruit that it is possible to grow in Canada. We have large areas devoted to vegetable production and the operation of greenhouses. We also have some of the largest poultry operations to be found anywhere in Ontario. In addition, we have some of the largest hog operations to be found anywhere in Ontario, even with all the problems relating to hog operations.
We have many dairy and beef operations in the southern part of the riding. Grains are grown, on a smaller scale, in the southern part of my riding. There is a large horticultural station located in the heart of the riding. Any problems which may exist in respect of agriculture would immediately be found in this particular area. These problems have shown up in the past. Farmers, through their ingenuity and hard work, have overcome many of the problems. However, that is not sufficient; we need some consideration and protection by the higher levels of government.
Contrary to what some people believe, and contrary to what is often reported in the news media, the food industry in my particular area is far from dead or dying. The fruit industry is growing. It is an important industry in this country. In fact, the industry is just getting its second wind through the help of federal government programs. We have assistance at the present time in respect of cold storage facilities. There has been reconsideration of some of the tariff agreements in order to protect our industry and to provide some stability in our markets. The federal government has embarked upon a program which will ensure an adequate supply of labour: our industry sometimes has been hurt because of an inadequate supply.
Now the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) is presenting Bill C-50, which is flexible enough to ensure at least some degree of stability in the agricultural field. Certainly there are some weaknesses in the bill. These have been indicated by the opposition members. Nothing is perfect. There is still much to be done to put together a bill which the agricultural people deserve, and we have always taken up this challenge. I believe this is as it should be. This is what has brought about the fact that we have one of the best agricultural industries in the world- one of the most efficient and productive industries. I know, from speaking to many farmers in my area, how they feel about the fact that we have a Minister of Agriculture who knows the problems of our industry, who understands them and who takes action such as is proposed in Bill C-50.

I can go on and on giving examples of the actions of the minister and some of the comments and feedback from the agricultural people in my area. The minister has created, with his presence alone, an air of confidence and stability.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Howard Knowles: That sounds like something the minister wrote for the hon. member.


William Andres: The Minister of Agriculture has done more for the well-being and the welfare of the agricultural industry in this country and in the world than any man I know.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Peters:: Gene, how can you remain modest after that
comment?


An hon. Member:: He is a very humble man.


William Andres: That is the kind of confidence that the industry needs. It is not only hand-outs that the farmers want. The hon. member who spoke before me quoted from some of the speeches made by the minister. Farmers do not want hand-outs, but in some areas they need consideration and protection from time to time. This bill should receive relatively quick passage in the House and in committee, and it should be implemented as soon as possible so that the industry can benefit from it. Farmers are not looking to this bill for hand-outs; they are just looking for some assurance that they can improve and increase their production and be assured of a fair return.


An hon. Member:: Excise tax on grapes.


William Andres: The hon. member mentions excise tax on grapes. We have just gone through that. I have had many discussions with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) on this very subject and I have had many discussions with people in the agricultural industry. Certainly they are not too happy when something is taken away from them. But these people will buckle down and make things worth while. They are producing new types of grapes and a new type of wine that will be competitive not only in this country but anywhere in the world.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Andres: Farmers in my area, and indeed throughout the country, are a very proud and hard working lot. It is because the minister understands their problems and needs that they are prepared to move forward with their production, with the assurance of stability that Bill C-50 will bring to the agricultural industry. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take up any more time. I have indicated the feelings of the people in my area, and I am sure that I speak for many farmers in the country. Certainly, many people ask for more than they can get, but farmers are pleased to see that we have a minister who is interested in their problems and ready to take steps to correct them.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
March 6, 1975


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Is there not some way, under our rules, whereby after a speech like that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) could stand up and bow?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, one would think the minister would at least blush and show some appreciation for the bouquet which he has just received, because he might not get a comparable one in my remarks.


Mr. Baker (Grenville - Car leton):: Give him one from the potato growers.


Fred Alward McCain: I was rather impressed with one remark made by the minister yesterday when he said that Canada has the best agricultural program in the world. I happen to come from an area which finds itself in some difficulties, as was mentioned earlier this afternoon by the hon. member for Malpeque (Mr. MacLean). While we are staggering along in our own section of agriculture, the European Economic Community has found ways of picking up surpluses in potatoes and delivering them to various parts of the world at prices which do not even cover the cost of freight and packaging. We had nothing like that. The EEC dump their potatoes in markets to which we would have access in an ordinary competitive position. We understand that directly or indirectly products within the EEC are subsidized in such a fashion that the farmers are virtually guaranteed a profit. This is not the case with Canadian farmers: our situation is certainly not the best.
One example of the problems which the Canadian meat industry is facing today is illustrated by Japan, which stated that for economic reasons and for reasons of foreign exchange it could not import some of the items it was importing four or five years ago. However, they were pressured by their beef industry to take action to prevent the destruction of the market. The question which meat producers on the North American continent, in Australia and New Zealand must ask themselves is whether it is an economic problem in Japan or a domestic agricultural problem. Obviously, the press would say that it is a mixture of the two.
So our position is not the best. Not too long ago, meat producers on the North American continent found access to markets in Europe for very important shipments of poultry meat. That market has been denied the North American continent by positive action taken by agricultural ministers within the EEC. The market is now closed to them.
May I call it five o'clock, Mr. Speaker?
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PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock (Mr. Friesen)- Immigration-Alleged RCMP investigation into racial trouble in British Columbia-Possibility of intensified program of deporting illegal entrants; the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt)-Health-Inquiry as to standards for asbestos fibres in air-Conditions at Clinton Creek mine in Yukon; the hon. member for Palliser (Mr. Schumacher)-Post Office-Possible removal of picture of Queen from prestamped envelopes.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motions, private bills, public bills.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I think that motion No. 21 is in the possession of the House and could now be debated. But there have been some discussions, and we are prepared to let it stand as well as motion No. 17 on the assumption that they retain their position.


Walter David Baker: That is the understanding, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my hon. friend.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that motions Nos. 21 and 17 for the production of papers will be stood but will retain their position on the order paper?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: We will proceed with motion No. 22 appearing in the name of the hon. member for Dart-mouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall).


CANADIAN MERCHANT MARINE
J. Michael Forrestall: That an order of the House do issue for a copy of all studies, notes, position papers, memoranda, etc., relating to the requirements of Canadian shipping with respect to the proposed formula for import/ export conference rated seaborne trade, in terms of the number of ships required, the capacity of Canadian shipyards, the number of Canadian merchant seamen required, the level of ancillary shipyard related industries of design capability, etc., in the event Canada ratifies the proposed code of conduct for liner conferences.

March 6, 1975
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He said: Mr. Speaker, because I have only 20 minutes to speak, I ask the indulgence of the House to allow me to refer to notes so that I will not get sidetracked, because I feel that what we are dealing with is very important. On a very careful reading of Hansard of January 29 and February 12 I am, frankly, at a loss as to why the government wishes to have this motion withdrawn. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mclsaac) is recorded as having said on January 29, at page 2716 of Hansard:
-studies have not been prepared on the hypothetical ramifications of the proposed cargo sharing formula for Canadian ships, shipyards, shipyard related activities, or merchant seamen.
If such is the case, I would submit that it is further concrete evidence of the bumbling incompetence and missed opportunities which have for so long characterized so much of Canada's approach to maritime policy under this government. But to refuse to study the impact of a proposal which could provide Canadian shipyards with over $1 billion of orders, give over 180 new ships a Canadian flag, provide jobs for 7,200 mariners and support an annual payroll of over $150 million, not to mention reduce greatly the estimated $l'/2 billion Canada wastes each year in foreign shipping charges because this administration does not want a Canadian flag fleet for international trade-the reason for that refusal escapes me completely. I noted with confusion that, contrary to what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport said, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Guay) on February 24, at page 3528 of Hansard, said:
At the present time Canada is considering certain factors which will determine whether or not Canada accedes to the code.
In simple terms, I have asked for copies of these studies Canada is making. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport says that no such studies have taken place and asks that I stop requesting them. On the other hand, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion says that Canada is studying the matter. This is obviously a case where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. When it affects a multibillion dollar industry such as the shipping industry in Canada, it is nothing short of a national disgrace.
On February 24 I complained that a number of questions which had been standing on the order paper for some three months had not been answered. Miraculously, they were answered last Monday. Permit me to read into the record question No. 1131 as follows:
How many ships would be required to accommodate the movement (a) out of Canadian ports to foreign destinations (b) into Canadian ports from foreign destinations of 40 per cent of the present liner conference rated cargo?
I asked this question because the ratification by Canada and sufficient other shipping nations of the proposed code of conduct for liner conferences under discussion today would guarantee Canada an immediate ability to insist on having up to 40 per cent of the present conference rated cargo in and out of Canada. I asked it because at present we have a fraction of 1 per cent carried in Canadian bottoms. I asked it because I was concerned about the impact on Canada, in terms of positive value to the ship-

ping industry, which this code could bring about. What was the answer? It was as follows:
Under section 12 of the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act the Minister of Transport reports annually to parliament on liner conference operations. The latest report covered the calendar year 1973 and was tabled March 28, 1974. ... As indicated in that report statistics collected demonstrated the necessity for closer control at the reporting source and for a refinement of interpretation. Appropriate means of satisfying these requirements are being developed with the co-operation of Statistics Canada. In the meantime, satisfactory statistics are not available on the liner conference rated cargo carried in conference vessels.
In a nutshell, the government does not know what the impact of this proposed code of conduct would be, and that is why I raise the matter. Question No. 1,132, also, after sitting without an answer for three months, received a very hasty answer on Monday. The question was:
How many merchant seamen would be required to accommodate the staffing of the number of ships required to accommodate the movement (a) out of Canadian ports to foreign destinations (b) into Canadian ports from foreign destinations of 40 per cent of the present liner conference rated cargo?
What was the answer? It was:
Satisfactory statistics are not available on the liner conference rated cargo carried in conference vessels.
The government, with some $30 billion to allocate to the priorities of the nation, with hundreds of experts, consultants, advisers, research teams and committees, just plain does not know. I suggest that the government does not know because it does not care. I submit that the Canadian shipbuilding industry, the repair industry, the merchant seamen and all the other maritime related groups in Canada who have given their support so many times to this government have been duped into accepting promises heaped upon promises. There have been pledges heaped upon pledges, behind which there is neither conviction, leadership, dedication nor coherent, philosophical attachment.
It is instructive to ask why this lamentable situation exists. Howard Darling, in his scholarly report entitled "The elements of an international shipping policy for Canada" released by the government on January 30 this year, condemns the lack of any single, identifiable department responsible for Canadian maritime policy. He points out that the present statutory provisions relating to shipping in the National Transportation Act are hangovers from 1947 when we had a fleet. We do not have one now, yet the law remains unchanged since then. There is no cabinet or executive directive to fill this incredible legislative void. As of January 30, 1975, all we have is an interdepartmental committee, lacking cabinet direction and lacking a mandate from anyone but the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand).
More incredibly, prior to January 30, 1975, we did not have so much as an interdepartmental committee. Does this indicate high level concern? Who is responsible? Is it the Department of Transport, the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, or the Department of External Affairs? I was even more confused when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion took the ball for the government in the debate of February 24.
March 6, 1975

Let us travel a bit farther down the road. The Minister of Transport has been on record for over 30 years as being in favour of some form of merchant marine in Canada, first with the CNTU and most recently as Minister of Transport. On November 4, 1974, at page 1007 of Hansard, he is recorded as being in favour of this. In answer to a question I raised with him as to whether Canada would accede to the proposed code of conduct for liner conferences, he said:
I am inclined to support the idea which the hon. member expressed, that he is in favour of a merchant marine in Canada.
Naturally enough, the newspapers across Canada for the umpteenth time reported that the government was inclined to support or favour a merchant marine: something of a fraud, I suggest. The same minister today says to this House that he has not studied the matter and asks that members of parliament not ask questions or seek information, and he asks me to withdraw a motion calling upon the government to put up or shut up. I submit that the government indeed has some shadowy studies, but because of its all too characteristic tendency to sleepwalk and evade issues and answers it has not given any priority to the matter. The same government which spends thousands of dollars researching the origin of the term "fuddle-duddle", today says that it cannot find the money, the men or the will to study the impact on Canada of its dependence upon foreign flag fleets to carry Canada's export trade.
Mr. Speaker, I find that argument incredible, and indeed somewhat repugnant. It is arrogance untrammelled. It is carelessness reduced to its purest form. I reject it and feel confident that if government members opposite, particularly those from areas where shipbuilding is important, such as Saint John, New Brunswick, and the St. Lawrence River valley in Quebec, really took the time to do some work, to have a look, to do other than applaud the endless stream of meaningless and diversionary press releases and rhetoric emanating from every orifice of this administration, they would be shocked and would cry out for remedial action to end what is surely one of the nation's greatest embarrassments.
[DOT] <mo)
The government says it has not even the ability to find the basic figures, and after almost a year has elapsed since this agreement was signed at Geneva by an overwhelming majority of the nations represented at UNCTAD it says that it does not know and it does not want to know. Mr. Speaker, the government has derided the efforts of members on this side of the House in the past. It said that we were misguided and wrong when we called out unanimously for a "Canadian only" coasting trade. It said we were ill-advised, that we would offend our rich and powerful friends, that we did not have the yard capacity, that we did not have the men.
After three years of hounding, and after the foreign fleets swelled their numbers in our coasting trade, they finally acted. Slowly, painfully and with incredible reluctance, this government was forced, by arguments of sheer economics and pressing national interest, to move; and they moved to admit that they had been wrong and that they had sought poor counsel. Mr. Speaker, this raises a
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crucial point. The government, when faced with the recommendations of Howard Darling with respect to a Canadian coasting fleet, first sought advice from the industry. This was a natural step. But in doing so, the government failed to appreciate the fact that the shipping industry that serves Canada is essentially non-Canadian. It is predictable that the agents in Canada of the foreign shipping cartels would be opposed to any expansion of new Canadian vessels into their territory.
The government first listened to these people and said no. Later, on the advice of their own transportation specialists who were detached, responsible and concerned with serving Canadian interests rather than the interests of New York, Tokyo, Athens and London, the light became more clear and eventually I was pleased to see the government act in the genuine interests of Canada.
Today, Mr. Speaker, the government is here again to say to us that it has not studied the matter, that it has not sought the documented advice of its own professional civil servants; to say that it is prepared to accept without question the opinions of the Canadian chamber of shipping, the Canadian shipping federation and others who represent in Canada a by and large foreign interest. I am prepared to give odds to anyone of 100 to 1 that if these interests are relied upon, their reaction will be, "Where is the cancer?" or, "We serve Canada well. Why change a good thing?"
Mr. Speaker, doing nothing is always easy, but Canada surely ought not to be seeking simply the easy way. It ought to be seeking to identify the Canadian national interest and then seeking to identify the ways and means by which this interest can best be served. To rely exclusively upon historically unreliable advice, to deny our public servants a chance to look into the matter from the Canadian point of view, is not only dishonest but potentially catastrophic. The reasons for this are many. Canada, it is estimated, loses in excess of $114 billion every year in shipping charges paid to foreign shipping concerns to transport our goods to foreign markets and to bring into Canada those things we purchase abroad-$114 billion every year! Mr. Speaker, this is a staggering sum, a sum which is an enormous drain on our foreign exchange resources.
If hon. members opposite would take the time to do other than pat themselves on the back and applaud the endless drivel coming from the treasury benches, they would see that I have asked on the order paper for confirmation of this figure. I know that for years many others have sought from the government their estimate of this figure, without success. This is another example of the overriding fact that this government does not know and seems not to care. A figure that was churned out on Monday, after the government had grunted and groaned for three months, indicated that in 1972 the nationality of registry of the vessels serving Canada under liner conference arrangements referred to and overseen in a typically inadequate manner by the Canadian Transport Commission, pursuant to the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act-an act which, incidentally, gives these liner conference groupings the right to price-fix, rate-fix and act totally outside the scope of Canada's combines legislation-was as follows: Great Britain, 52; Norway, 48; Japan,

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31; United States, 29; Liberia, 19; Italy, 16; Sweden, 11; Greece, 9; France, 4; others, 233.
For the skeptical, the cynical and for the interest of those who in fact have some concern in this regard, this answer is found on page 3702 of Hansard. But here is the crunch: how many ships of this total involved in the liner conference trade to and from Canada were of Canadian registry? There was, Mr. Speaker, not a single, solitary one. Nil. Not one. Of the 452 ships that served Canada in these conferences, not one was registered in Canada. And the government comes to this chamber today to say that it does not feel that the proposed code of conduct for liner conferences drawn up by the overwhelming majority of the world's shipping countries ought to be studied.
The government says that the code is hypothetical, that it is not really of concern to us, that the Government of Canada is prepared to accept without so much as a second look the irresponsible opinions of the agents of the foreign shipping cartels, that members of parliament ought not even to ask the general question, that government has the whole situation under control. This is a disgrace, a disgrace born of neglect and fostered in an atmosphere of hypocrisy and near deceit. This government stands condemned if it persists in operating under the unseemly and all too cosy influence of the foreign shipping cartels. There is no doubt that its present attitude is identical to that of these offshore interests, and there is no evidence today that it is about to change its direction.
I can safely predict that there will follow in this chamber a great gush of words and sympathy. They will applaud their efforts, they will cheer their direction. But if that is the case, Mr. Speaker, the cheers will be hollow, having been spawned in deceit and nourished by years of neglect. Not a single Canadian ship is involved in the liner conference trade serving Canada. Surely no Canadian spokesman can cheer this disgraceful situation. That is all I am after today. I, alone, cannot change the course of events affecting Canada's so-called maritime policy. But I am convinced that this government can, and indeed that this government must.
Permit me to cite another factor. International inflation has resulted in a tremendous increase in the cost of building and operating large fleets of ships to serve the international seaborne trade so crucial to the development of the world community. This has resulted in a drastic reduction of the number of companies involved in the ownership and operation of ships. The mergers, conglomerations, takeovers and the like in the world shipowning community have been remarkable.
At the same time, in the last 20 years governments all over the world have begun to take a second look at their subsidization policies. Where they once simply shelled out the money, now they are saying, "Here is the money you need, but we want four seats on your board of directors; we want a percentage of your voting stock; we want to be involved with the direction in which you place your lines; we want to ensure that if public, national money is put into your operation, it operates in the interests of the home country, that it does what it is told and that it is an active arm of our foreign policy, a tool for our national purpose." That is what foreign countries are saying to their shipping companies today.

It is the increasing participation by foreign governments in the direction of the foreign fleets presently serving Canada that poses, according to Howard Darling, the greatest threat to Canada's national interests. As the response I have cited demonstrates, Canada has no capability to move her vital export trade nor her crucial import trade except in foreign bottoms. These foreign bottoms increasingly are committed to serve the expressed national and foreign policies of members of the world community other than Canada. This is an unhealthy dependence, a dependence that is fraught with real and possible difficulties for Canada, and a policy that ought not to be pursued by this government nor tolerated by this parliament.
The UNCTAD proposals would seek to ensure that Canada could insist that up to 40 per cent of our import and export trade carried by liner conferences be carried in Canadian bottoms, yet this government does not want so much as to study the proposal. It seeks today to have the House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada consent to a policy of "no Canadian involvement in the liner conferences" and to agree that what we are doing is all well and good. Members of this party will not accept that all is well. They will not accept that the sleepwalking and lack of direction so far demonstrated is good enough because, simply put, it is not. Forty per cent of the present trade, as opposed to nil per cent: if the figure given of 452 ships is accurate, 40 per cent would be 180 ships, as opposed to none at all.
Let us pursue the implications for Canada of ratification and implementation of the proposed cargo sharing formula enunciated in the UNCTAD agreement. If Canada insisted on a full 40 per cent of the bottoms, at about 40 men per ship the total jobs created would be approximately 7,200. That would be increased to almost 10,000, given the cycling of men on and off duty. At the present rates of pay for mariners, the payroll would be close to $150 million-a lot of money. If the average cost of an SD 14 dry cargo carrier, with a capacity for 14,000 tons of cargo is $8 million, an order for 180 ships would mean, for Canadian yards, more than $1.5 billion. This is the promise of the concept behind UNCTAD.
Add it up, Mr. Speaker. Annual losses of $1.5 billion in foreign exchange; orders for Canadian shipyards of more than $1.5 billion; an annual payroll for Canadian mariners of $150 million. And this government refuses to look at the matter, refuses to even study it. Canadian export and import of goods is under attack. UNCTAD serves as a warning. We would be fools to ignore it. I urge the Government of Canada to reverse its present attitude of "It's all right, Jack" and initiate action now and for the future.


Mr. Raynald Guay (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. member who has made such a clear exposition of the whole merchant marine, coastal shipping and shipbuilding issue in Canada.
If there is someone here who is really interested in this issue as the elected representative of a riding with a shipbuilding industry, it is the hon. member for Levis. And I did not wait until I was elected to the House of

Commons to talk about a merchant marine in Canada. I used to talk about it when I was chairman of the Lauzon Board of Trade. I am known in my riding as the merchant marine Member of Parliament, and I feel this is a much more worthy title to fame than ending up like the hon. member for Darmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) who has produced a mountain of papers to establish the necessity of a merchant marine. I shall try to do it in the few minutes at my disposal. This afternoon, the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East did not need in fact a mountain of reports, studies and principles to state his views not only on the code of ethic, but also on the creation of a merchant marine for Canada.
He criticized earlier a statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion who answered a question on behalf of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand). I must quote in full that answer, and I wonder if one should quote out of context a statement that lasted three minutes. He seemed to criticize this statement which I quote:
I believe the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) is on record as being inclined to support the idea of a Canadian merchant fleet. The circumstances which dictated Canada's abandoning its merchant marine fleet after the Second World War have changed greatly. The convention promotes national shipping lines, but the definition embraces even foreign ships under charter. Hence, accession to the convention would not in itself imply any commitment to develop a merchant marine.
But having personally followed the Minister of Transport in the Province of Quebec and everywhere across this country, I think that reference should not be made only to part of the answer. For my part, I did not wait to be here in this House of Commons to talk about a merchant fleet to prove my sincerity. When I participated in debates on a merchant fleet, it was not to go and get some votes but to think also about the statements by which the Minister of Transport has always stood.
When he was president of the CNTU-the central council-the minister demanded, and I congratulate him for doing so, in co-operation with several departments, that consideration be given to setting up a merchant fleet. Indeed he and his predecessors are the ones who took the decision. Mr. Speaker, if we want to talk about a merchant fleet I think we must do it by steps. What do we want in the end? How are we to proceed? The hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East said earlier that we have had enough studies, enough reports, that we need action.
But why in a notice of motion for production of papers does he ask that all those papers be tabled in the House? I have before me, Mr. Speaker, 8, 10 or 12 reports on coastal shipping, a merchant fleet, on the code of ethics, and I would like to sum up very quickly the two main reports.
I think that if we want precisely to build a merchant fleet we must do it by steps.
We saw that in 1971, the government, through the former Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, stated in this House that before thinking of building a Canadian merchant navy, subsidy and support programs are needed in order to help us modernize our shipyards and make them more efficient and more productive.
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It is the STAP program, as we like to call it and I even know that some hon. members this afternoon in this House seem to entertain doubts about the efficiency of this program. I have not heard, fortunately, the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) criticize the program. If we consider its efficiency, we saw that from 1971 until 1973, subsidies amounting to 14 and 17 percent of the cost of vessels were granted under the program in order to help shipyards become competitive on the world market.


J. Michael Forrestall: That's to look after our friends off-shore. But what about Canadians?


Raynald Joseph Albert Guay: Mr. Speaker, I shall come back to the comments of the hon. member who spoke before me.
I would like to tell him that I have listened with great attention to his comments and that what I have to say, when I have finished, will probably interest him. I hope he will give me his support in the fight that I have made until now, even if I am on the side of the government, so that Canada may have a merchant marine.
Indeed, motion No. 50 asks the government to consider reviving the Canadian merchant marine and applying the recommendations of the Darling report. I hope the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East will not only support me during the debate on this motion, but will also try to influence his party, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is doing, about the position to take concerning the motion I have made in this House.
I have been told that I was being somewhat revolutionary. I am not a revolutionary, Mr. Speaker, I am simply a member of Parliament who has the right to speak, even though I am on the side of the government. And I ask the hon. member, as well as those of the Social Credit and the New Democratic Party, to give priority to this motion, not only to know if we must produce reports, policy statements or other material, but to study this issue immediately. As I ask in this motion, I would like the immediate establishment of a merchant marine in Canada to be considered. On this point, I am in agreement with the Minister of Transport because it is better for us. If we follow the whole process up till now, we see very clearly that only one step remains, and this does not involve the production of a report or papers.
We must merely see to it that an agency or a department-as I myself asked the House in November when I took part in the debate on the budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner)-studies the possibility of creating a department or an agency entrusted with making all decisions and getting laws enacted.
I had the opportunity of rising in the House yesterday and stating that I was speaking on behalf of the shipyard workers; after all that is an industry, and the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East knows it as well as I do. That industry is truly essential in Canada, not only to provide jobs indirectly, but to provide them directly to some 18,500 workers as a means of livelihood.
We will also have an opportunity to find out, through an analysis of that program, whether-as was implied yester-
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March 6, 1975
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day-the program will help the industry to modernize in order to become more efficient and productive. Such is the aim of the subsidy. It is also implied the subsidy is going into the companies' pockets. It has even been alleged that it would go into the pockets of companies favouring the liberals. Well, Mr. Speaker, I emphasize this is not so, because there is a control over that subsidy. That appears in the statement made by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gillespie).
The statement indicates 14 per cent will be granted for an indefinite period. It used to be for a limited time. The program was renewed every two years. The minister now says it is for an indefinite period, which leaves some hope. The hon. member referred tonight to the 180 ships that should be built to establish a merchant fleet in Canada. But if we do not have the shipyards, nor the facilities, if those industries are not assisted, I do not care whether they favour Liberals or not. Mr. Speaker, the announcement also mentions a partial cut in the subsidy. I also was somewhat disappointed at first, because the industries had grown accustomed to getting 17 per cent. But a stop has been put to that, which is the very proof that control is to be exercized on the use of subsidies. It has been stated that if the company invests 3 per cent, the government also commits itself to investing 3 per cent, to better help the industry to modernize and become more productive and more efficient, in order that when the last step has been made in the establishment of a Canadian merchant marine, those ships will be built here. I think it would have been hardly advisable, ten or fifteen years ago, to say in this House: We are going to build a merchant marine. It was not easy, Mr. Speaker, because our shipyards could not do the job at that time. We had to do it progressively.
Mr. Speaker, the STAP program, and I shall conclude on this, was good. It was good to repeat the purpose of that program in this House. No direct criticism was made, only veiled charges. Not even an hour ago, Mr. Speaker, I was talking with shipbuilders. I am not saying they are fully satisfied, no, because there was a degradation in that program. I shall have the opportunity of discussing and criticizing that program if necessary later in this House, but we must nevertheless commend the government for that step forward. I am glad to see that some members of the opposition seem to support what I am saying this afternoon in the House.
Mr. Speaker, it is not a scheme to distribute gifts and in concluding I will say that STAP is not imbued with favouritism. The program was carried out from 1971 to 1974 in 14 Canadian shipyards and we know that there are some 40 or 50 shipyards of various sizes in the country.
It has been stated that this could help the companies where investigations are launched, but I do not want to discuss the matter, Mr. Speaker. However, when such things are insinuated, I say that one must be unbiased. When the question was asked this afternoon to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, he answered that the dredging operations were under investigation. Does the member for Darmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) specifically want to help us create a merchant marine? Without that program, Mr. Speaker, our shipyards would be entirely unable to undertake their own modernization.

Several reports have been mentioned. People apparently believe that we remain idle. The Darling report was published in October 1970, Mr. Speaker and I entirely agree with the previous speaker about it.
What were the main recommendations? I think it is worth looking at what happened after those reports were released, and I will do it very rapidly. Of the main recommendations, the first was:
1.	The Canadian coasting trade should be reserved to Canadian-flag
vessels.
2.	Exploitation of Arctic and continental shelf resources should be done according to standards governing the extent of use of Canadian shipping to be required.
And I think, Mr. Speaker, that is about what the hon. member who spoke before me said, asking how many vessels were involved. It is attested by his motion. And it is found in the first Darling report on coasting trade. The third recommendation is:
3.	The policy of issuing permits should be directed as much as possible and practicable toward replacing foreign vessels by Canadian vessels ... Permits should be issued to non-Canadian flag vessels only if Canadian vessels are either unavailable, insufficient or inadequate for the purpose.
4.	The provisions regarding the reservation of the coasting trade to Canadian-flag vessels should extend to the other marine activities of dredging, salvage, seismographic, supply and support vessels in offshore drilling.
5.	Government assistance to new marine industries should have attached conditions on the extend of use of Canadian shipping to be required.
And that is exactly what has been done, Mr. Speaker, I refer to the Minister of External Affairs and the Minister of Transport, who made a statement, on May 23, 1974. We have published it. I see that the hon. member for Dart-mouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) has the paper. For his benefit, I quote:
The Minister of Transport (Mr. Jean Marchand) and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Mitchell Sharp) have jointly announced today that Canada will not abide anymore by some provisions of the British Commonwealth Merchant Agreement of 1931, as it was announced last fall, and consequently will reserve coastal trade in Canada to Canadian-flag vessels. A one year's notice to that effect is then given to the other member countries.
Mr. Speaker, if we are told that nothing has been done right then, if we read the first sub-section-I see that my time flies away very fast, and I would not like to forget anything-we can see that it was a first step. There was the STAP Program; there is this very firm statement of the minister. In co-operation with the Minister for External Affairs, we have made another step forward. Do we need so many documents for the third step? I do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that so many documents are required to know that the country, the government of Canada has arrived at a no-return point.
In concluding my remarks, I will take the liberty to quote the Darling Report which has been released recently by Mr. Darling himself and which is meant to be a constructive approach. I will merely give a very short summary of the studies made by Mr. Darling on the matter of a merchant fleet in Canada and on how one is to be built.
I fully agree with him. In fact, I have had the opportunity to say so not only in the House, but outside, on TV, on

the air and through the other media. The first criticism that the Darling Report expresses is the following: We have no legislation whatsoever concerning the creation of a merchant fleet in Canada. We have no well defined policy. We have no administrative guidelines.
I had not read the criticism in the Darling report. I trust the opposition will not consider my criticism as negative, but on the contrary as positive. I had the opportunity to say in this House that it will be necessary to create either a department or a body within which we may more readily establish priorities for the immediate future and no longer on the long term basis, to create a Canadian merchant navy.
Mr. Speaker, as it is stated in the Darling Report, I believe we have no definite goal. Since the Darling report says so ... I come to conclusions. I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are getting impatient, you want me to conclude my remarks on this major and urgent problem for the benefit and the prestige of the Canadian nation. As I said before on many occasions, our country is the one that has the longest coast line. We have a large river, we have the Arctic but we have no merchant marine. This is really pitiful.
And now, Mr. Speaker, on to the Darling report recommendations. We shall need a more positive attitude toward problems inherent in the establishment of a merchant marine. Greater authority will also be needed to set these priorities within a sole department. In fact, decisions are now taken either by the Department of Transport, by the Department of Industry and Trade and Commerce or by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Mac-Eachen). Tasks are being shared and we work a little in a slapdash way. But should the government want-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I do want to try to be patient but since it seems to me that the hon. member's conclusions will exceed by a few minutes the time allotted to him, he should ask for the unanimous consent of the House should he wish to go on. Otherwise, I must recognize another hon. member.

Is it agreed that we allow the hon. member to complete his remarks?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Raynald Joseph Albert Guay: Mr. Speaker, I very sincerely thank hon. members of the opposition as well as my colleagues, and they are many in the House this afternoon, because this is a problem that really deserves the attention of all members. No need to have shipyards in our respective constituencies to say that we must tackle the problem and that it has become urgent.
Mr. Speaker, I must say that I had the opportunity to travel at my expenses or at the government is expenses and whenever we arrived in foreign countries, I was proud of being a Canadian. But whenever we went to small countries having their own merchant marine and shipyards in full development, I was not so proud. I must say that I would be much prouder should we have shortly our own merchant marine and the government is moving in that direction.
Shipping
The third recommendation in the Darling report states that if we do create either an agency or a department, we shall have to grant it real decision powers. It will have more than the limited powers provided for in the present legislation. What does the Canadian Merchant Marine Act provide for? It gives any minister the right to create boards of enquiry, to make studies. As for me, I am fed up with studies. The Darling Report on coastal shipping, on a merchand marine contains enough elements to achieve that. We will probably have to break new ground. It will be a first step. Then we shall be proud to see our own ships, built at home, representing this country and carrying our products.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. During the course of his remarks the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay) referred to his private member's motion No. 50 and expressed the hope that the opposition parties might agree to an early debate on it. I think that is our view on this side of the House and I wonder whether we could have unanimous consent to a House order which might read in these terms: That private member's notice of motion No. 50 in the name of the hon. member for Levis be considered first on the next day when the House deals with private members' notices of motions.
I present that, sincerely believing that it would be a good idea to have that debate, and 1 trust that we might have unanimous consent for such a House order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I would very much prefer that the hon. member make his proposal after the debate at six o'clock. We could then make a decision.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I should be
glad to do it at six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I enjoy taking part in a debate of this sort where we are in complete agreement on the basic substance of the issues before us, as we are this afternoon. There was a great deal of fiery eloquence that we heard across the House, enjoyable to listen to, and it was substantively and basically in accordance with the plea being made by my colleague, the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall).
This debate this afternoon has opened so many doors that it will be extremely difficult, I suggest, to stay strictly within the rules of relevancy if those rules confine me to the procedural matter of producing or not producing the reports which have been requested. The whole range has already been opened as to the need for a merchant marine, and other matters related to our maritime life. Although I knew about this debate rather late in the day, having listened to the arguments put forward, my feeling is that all that is being asked of the government is that it produce some reason for the present situation on the basis of all the reports that have been produced, most of which, as suggested by the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay), recommend the creation of a merchant marine. If that is so, what is it on the government side that has caused the present situation to develop?
28996-391/!

March 6, 1975
Shipping
Perhaps you will allow me to read into the record some statistics drawn from official government sources, namely, the former Canadian Maritime Commission, on the Canadian dry cargo merchant fleet. This gives the number of ships that there were in this fleet from 1948 to 1972. In 1948 Canada had 203 dry cargo merchant vessels of 10,000 tons. Ten years later, in 1958, Canada had three dry cargo merchant vessels of 10,000 tons, and two dry cargo merchant vessels of 3,000 tons, for a total of five. In 10 years our merchant marine had withered away from 203 to five.
In 1968, 10 years later, Canada had two dry cargo merchant vessels of 30,000 tons and one dry cargo merchant vessel of 10,000 tons. The two 30,000-tonners had been launched in 1964 and 1968 after a program of assistance to shipbuilding was introduced by the government of the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker). By 1972, and this remains true today, Canada had lost the entire fleet it had in 1968.
I am delighted that the hon. member for Levis is so enthusiastically in support of shipbuilding, and I know why. The reason is that this affects his riding. For the same reason I am enthusiastically in support of the shipbuilding industry. Through the hon. member for Levis I hope this message gets to the government, namely, that the activities of the government have caused this deplorable situation to develop.
Yesterday there was distributed to the press and to my office over in the Confederation Building, so I did not find it until I got there this morning, having been busy in committees the rest of the day, a press release on shipbuilding. I welcome it with certain reservations, because altogether too much of the subsidies is going to the riding of the hon. member for Levis and not nearly enough to my own riding. I hope you will permit that reservation, which I think is understandable.
As a result of the activities of the government the shipbuilding capacity in my riding has deteriorated to the point where it is practically non-existent. This is absolutely deplorable, and I would invite the hon. member to come out and see its sad state. It is his government that is responsible. Now we have this half measure involving a 17 per cent assistance program.
This need for a merchant marine, and for other types of ships built in Canada, is becoming more and more important, and we have witnessed this increasing importance in the last 10 years. We have just seen a saga develop in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Had it not such serious implications it would be comical. The police got on that ship and then got off again because they were not sure where the territorial waters ended and international waters began. We are talking about extending jurisdiction to 200 miles. From all the reports I have heard, this ship was. in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. If I am not mistaken, it was the previous minister of the environment, although I was not in the House at the time, who introduced the headland to headland principle of establishing baselines from which the territorial waters limits were to be set.
On the basis of that headland to headland principle the entire mouth of the St. Lawrence River would be covered. How anyone could have thought that ship, ploughing

through the ice and still within the mouth of the St. Lawrence River-not out beyond Newfoundland, but somewhere between Anticosti Island and Sept-Iles-could have been in international waters I cannot understand. Yet the government, which had Mounties on board to bring that ship back, removed those Mounties for 24 hours, and then put a larger contingency of Mounties back on board when it became sure of its position.
I would draw to the attention of that shipbuilder from Levis that this is illustrative of the lack of direction and understanding by the government of what maritime policy is all about. I am delighted there are members on that side of the House who are in support of this measure. They ought to be sitting on the front benches. How is that for an invitation? I would like to see that, because I think then we would be working in the right direction. Perhaps I may call it six o'clock, and I will be pleased to continue my remarks at the next opportunity.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Before calling it six o'clock I should point out to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) that I did not want to intervene in the middle of the debate to invite him to make his proposal at that stage. I think that would have been bad practice. At the same time, I think it gave hon. members an opportunity for consultation. I hope the hon. member will understand why I followed that course. I would invite him to make his proposal now if he still has one.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, you have been most fair. That was the reason I did this in this way, and in the meantime there have been consultations. I can say on behalf of the three opposition parties that there is an agreement, and I would hope that we might have unanimous consent to a House order in the following terms: That private member's notice of motion No. 50, in the name of the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay), be considered first the next day when the House deals with private members' notices of motions.


Mr. Mclsaac:: Mr. Speaker, that proposal is certainly agreeable to hon. members on this side.


Mr. Herbert:: Mr. Speaker, I do not give my agreement. I have nothing against the motion, but it is my understanding that private members' notices of motions are taken in the order in which they appear on the order paper. I have noticed in the past that it has been the practice, in the absence of members, to pass over many members' motions. I do not approve of this practice and I do not give my consent at this time.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) has a motion on the list, but when it was called he allowed it to stand. What is he complaining about?


Harold Thomas Herbert: Mr. Speaker, I object to this intercession. I was not present when this arrangement was made; I was not asked and I gave no consent.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The proposal put forward by the hon. member could only have been agreed
March 6, 1975

to by unanimous consent at this time. It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock tonight.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Whelan that Bill C-50, to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, at five o'clock we were discussing the comparable programs in respect of Canadian agriculture and agriculture as it might be abroad. We will continue along the same line and take a look at the Australian program. They found themselves not too long ago with a surplus of peaches. These peaches arrived, canned and processed, on the Canadian market. They appeared in stores in Ontario at a price estimated by our peach growers to be less than the cost of harvesting and processing their peaches if sold on the Canadian market.
In contrast to this, at considerable expense people from this continent developed a market for french-fried potatoes in Australia. We still have Australian peaches in Canada, but only in times of acute shortage will there ever be anything but Australian french-fried potatoes on the Australian market, because they made it impossible for our french-fried potatoes to be sold there. They made sure that Australian french-fries were french-fries which were made in Australia. Australia has always protected its farmers in such a way that our situation cannot be considered favourable at all.
One might go on and mention country after country, and product after product which appears on the Canadian market as a result of which the Canadian producer suffers from coast to coast and no deterrent action is taken by our government to relieve the situation. There are no artificial barriers set up to prevent the flooding of our market with foreign produce. We have muddled around a little in respect of the beef industry and the protein industry, as well as with several other industries on this continent, but basically when the whole picture cleared we found that the Canadian producer received the short-end of the horn, yet we were told by the minister that we are better off in Canada than they are in the United States.
If we were to ask if we are better off in Canada than they are in New Zealand or Australia, the answer is obvious. However, as a result of the temperate climatic
Agricultural Stabilization Act
conditions in the United States production costs there are less than they are in Canada. The industrial milk produced in the United States is not produced mainly in the northern areas of the United States but rather in the areas where the climate makes it possible to sustain a herd of milk cattle much more economically than it could be sustained in the northern area of this continent, Canada. It just happens that the U.S. dairy industry can buy hay from Quebec and Ontario at prices which would shock our farmers. They have been doing this for years and producing the milk to supply their market. They are not doing that for their health. Sure, people complain about milk prices from Maine to California, just as there are complaints about this from Prince Edward Island to Victoria.
This is not a country in which farmers have any great pride in respect of government policies so far as their income is concerned. For instance, when the government placed a ceiling on the price of fluid milk it did not distinguish, on a regional basis, what was the cost of milk. A great many milk producers for the home consumption market lost a great deal of money in the province of New Brunswick as a result of an unrealistic ceiling, or too small a ceiling, imposed upon them by pressure from the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) and not imposed upon them by any force within the province of New Brunswick.
So long as the Department of Agriculture caters to the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, both the producers and the consumers will continue to suffer as the result of the extremes of low and high cycles such as we have seen in the last two years.
It is time that the government of Canada became aware of some of the trading necessities and natural trade patterns which could exist in this world if we put agriculture at the top of our list instead of at the bottom. It seems rather significant that today we received a news release from the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce that we will spend tens of millions of dollars to subsidize the construction of boats to keep 15,000 people at work. I do not quarrel with the policy which will make it possible to build ships in Canada, but what I do quarrel with is the facade and the sham of an agricultural policy which, in the minister's own words, will reflect upon the income of one third of Canada's people, and the pittance which is being spent and the lip service which is being paid to the industry of that one third.
A serious effort must be made by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce to market our agricultural products. In the research branch of the Department of Agriculture we must have an interest in the expansion of our production and a broadening of our products with an eye toward foreign markets which are available.
Since potato producers have been before the minister this week already and representations have been made to him, it is easy to give this as an example. The research branch within the minister's department could introduce to Canada a variety of potatoes which is in very heavy demand in the South American market. This is something for which agriculture in Atlantic Canada has been asking for years, and there is not yet a single seedling of the yellow fleshed potato introduced in Canada which could

March 6, 1975
Agricultural Stabilization Act
be marketed in vast quantities by a properly developed industry. This is but one example. There are markets for our potatoes which could be exploited on a worldwide basis because the purity of our soil, the climatic conditions under which the seed is grown, and its freedom from disease make our potatoes unique. We have a variety of potatoes which few if any producers can match anywhere in the world. I submit that the quality of our potato industry is tops and the promotion of our industry by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is secondary at best. This is typical of many other things which have happened under this administration.
Canada is being balkanized, in an agricultural sense, as the government tries to pass the ball to the provinces. In your approach to agriculture, an irresponsible approach I might say, why don't you get a pack of cards, boys, and you can enjoy yourselves. This is directed especially to the minister. The balkanization of the agricultural industry is now just beginning, and if it is not arrested by positive government action, the effects on a great many Canadian communities can be serious.
If, for instance, the province of Alberta were to say to every producer in Alberta, "We are going to guarantee you a profit as did British Columbia," and if the province of Ontario were to say-and there was an editorial comment on this, as I am sure the minister will remember-"We are going to guarantee to every farmer every product in our province," what will happen to a great many products grown in a great many other provinces which are not economically capable of competition in that kind of structure?
There was this threat not too many months ago when the Department of Agriculture called on the government of Ontario to show its industrial might, to distribute money in the field of agriculture and to show the rest of Canada that it could play that game too. While that game is being played in British Columbia, there are at least two provinces which have unofficially told their potato growers, "Sell your crop for whatever you can get out of it. We will see that you come out all right". That makes three provinces that are now openly engaged in the promotion of agriculture within their own boundaries, to the detriment of agriculture in the rest of Canada. This is balkanization; it is setting up competition in which communities will disappear. It is encouraging the production of crops which are not natural to some areas, and it will defeat the production of some crops which are natural to other areas and leave them stripped of their economic base.
The threat of the minister of agriculture in the province of Quebec to make Quebec totally self-sufficient in eggs, in potatoes, in corn, in grain and in beef has come directly as a result of the abstinence of the government of Canada from a program of stabilization which was traditional in this country in the first 100 years of its confederation. It has been total neglect, not a sense of responsibility, which has brought this situation about.
Here we have in this bill again, and in the minister's speech the statement that if provinces do not like our payments, the provinces may top load our structure to the advantage of their own farmers. This is inviting disaster. It is inviting another chicken and egg war which was

brought on by the stupidity of the policies of the government on your right, Mr. Speaker. This is inviting another financial debacle in the meat industry, as has happened as the result of encouragement to feed grains to animals for which there was no market. These policies in the past have been directly responsible for the virtual bankruptcy of thousands upon thousands of farmers, and yet we will allow the provinces to top load, if they wish. This does not make much sense with regard to Canadian agriculture.
Now let us consider the bill itself. There are perhaps two or three differences in phraseology, but in effect this bill is the biggest piece of camouflage that has been used by any government in the history of Canada. It even surpasses the camouflage that was exercised by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) when he said his policies would cure inflation, because a significant part of this bill is the discretionary clause 7(1). Let me read both clause 7(1) in the bill and the section in the old act.
Section 7(1) in the act reads:
The Board shall from time to time in accordance with this Act take such action as is necessary to stabilize the prices of agricultural commodities at their respective prescribed prices, and shall take such action and make such recommendations as are necessary to ensure that the prescribed prices for an agricultural commodity in effect from time to time shall bear a fair relationship to the cost of production of such commodity.
Bear in mind the formula "shall bear a fair relationship to the cost of production".
Now let us read the bill. Clause 7(1) reads in part:
(b) make such recommendations, including recommendations respecting the index calculated as described in paragraph 8.2(l)(a), as are necessary to ensure that the prescribed prices for agricultural commodities in a year bear a fair relationship to the production costs of such commodities in the year.
Here we have the key phrase of the agricultural policy of price stabilization, and it remains now as it was before at the discretion of the Price Stabilization Board and of the minister in charge because the act requires them to disregard the index structure, if necessary, to obtain a fair price in relation to the cost of production in the year under consideration for any given product. This is not just my opinion. I checked this with lawyers who have better understanding of the law than I do, and each one has said that there is virtually no change in this bill, that it is just a disguise of something old to make it look like something new.
There is one change, as outlined in the minister's speech, and this is one which I resent very much. I think the minister should have consideration for his industry because it has been said that there will be an interdepartmental committee which will help the Department of Agriculture arrive at a fair price which a stabilization program should set.
There is no way that any other department in the government has the capability of arriving at a fair stabilization price to the same degree that the Minister of Agriculture and his staff have. I agree that there is a time and a place for a multi-departmental consideration in respect of policies in agriculture, but I submit that there is no time and no place for a multi-party committee to sit down and decide on a level of stabilization for agricultural products.

The Department of Agriculture presumably knows the cost of production and, according to its records and bulletins, it presumably knows the price farmers are receiving. The Department of Agriculture therefore is qualified as is no one else.
It reflects the fact that the government has not had a Department of Agriculture in a policymaking position since the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) took office. This multi-departmental committee would be required to be sure the urban input goes in, not that the rural and agricultural input is the deciding factor, but that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) and perhaps the Minister of the Environment (Mrs. Sauve), and heaven only knows who else, will tell the Department of Agriculture how much support it should give to a particular product. The minister has shown little cognizance of what is required. Perhaps on that basis he may need help.
It is my understanding that the potato producers of the Atlantic area have already been before the minister and presented their case. It is my understanding that he has said to them that they must prepare themselves with an organization on a regional basis. The implication is that they must have a regulated production and marketing structure. I hope that to substantiate this program the minister will produce evidence to show that Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec will be able to grow exactly the same number of hundredweights of potatoes every year for the next decade so that he can measure anticipated or projected production, and be accurate. Anyone who has ever grown a fruit or vegetable crop knows that this is utterly and totally unpredictable. Fruits, vegetables, and agricultural products in general do not lend themselves to man's management for an exact amount of production. I wonder, when he knows this, why the minister would make a suggestion of this nature to the industry.
I will read a little memo from the Prince Albert Herald, which has just been received:
A member of the executive of the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency (CEMA) said Friday the agency is having serious internal problems and will either succeed or fail during the next month.
As has been mentioned in this House, CEMA is not out of trouble just because a committee met, was cut short, was not allowed to deliberate and could not make an in-depth study. While the egg industry may be controllable, the potato industry would be very difficult to control, particularly in view of the jealousy of individual farmers across Canada as to their own accomplishments and their own productions.
It is none of the government's business whether farmers who are in trouble are organized into the tightest organization in the world or whether they are operating individually. They are still losing money, and they still need help. If they do not plant another crop, the consumer will pay more as a consumer than he ever would have paid as a taxpayer to relieve the economic problems connected with the product in question. The magnitude of the loss to the potato industry is beyond the conception of most hon. members in this House.
Does anyone in this House realize that if the potato farmers of the Atlantic area had never dug a single potato
Agricultural Stabilization Act
in 1971 they would have lost less money than they will lose by digging and marketing this crop in a great many instances? The cost of production has virtually tripled in a period of less than three years. That is the magnitude of the loss those producers will experience, and it is none of the minister's business whether they come one at a time or as a group, because he has said that the government of New Brunswick and the government of Ontario will have to administer matters anyway regardless of how it is done. Let the governments of the provinces deal with each problem as it arises and give the producer a fair shake. Do not tell the farmer what to do. He has enough intelligence to know what he wants to do.
For the first 100 years of confederation we did not have ministers, bureaucrats or anyone else telling the farmer what to do. We did have a Department of Agriculture and a department of statistics which put some information before the farmer which was a help and a guide, but we did not issue orders to him, and we did not tell him he had to have a CEMA or we would not help. That is ridiculous. There are opportunities in this world where surpluses, virtually every food Canada produces, can be put away.
It should be the responsibility of the government of Canada to consider its foreign aid program and to insert our food surpluses into that food program so that Canadian agriculture could prosper and those who are starving could be fed. Instead of that we have an agricultural program which tells producers to cut back, control and manage their markets. What we do not need is a set of rates applied by the government under the Trudeau administration. What we need is a little incentive, a little encouragement, a little help.
Let us consider the potato market in particular. It is in this regard that I have the most serious complaint to lodge against the government and the Department of Agriculture. If one looks at the statistics on production of potatoes in Canada and in the United States, one recognizes the real fact of this situation. There is only one potato market, one beef market, one pork market; there is virtually only one market for every commodity produced in Canada, and that is the North American market.
When one considers the estimates published in the fall of 1974 which show a 14 per cent increase in potato production on this continent in that crop year, the handwriting was on the wall from the day those figures were published. The minister at that time should have known, before the public knew, that the potato industry was in deep, dark trouble, and not just in the Atlantic area. It was in trouble in Quebec, Ontario, and all across the eastern half of Canada. At that time there was a market which, with a little government help, could have relieved Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island farmers of the pressures resulting from loss in the marketing of this crop. But the pressure is being exerted by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It is not coming from the Minister of Agriculture.
In 1971 when P.E.I. and New Brunswick were negotiating for a little assistance for potatoes, we were told we could not take any early action because the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs was afraid we might create a shortage and cause a series of high prices again. The same pressures are on us today. Mrs. Plumptre and

Agricultural Stabilization Act
the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs are not running consumer affairs-they are running agriculture to the detriment of Canada. Let me say again that this bill is the biggest piece of camouflage since the Viet Nam war.


An hon. Member:: Were you for it or against it?


Fred Alward McCain: Only a socialist would ask an idiotic question like that. I regret very much that we have this bill before us in its present form. Certainly I stand for price stabilization. Certainly I stood for the old act. Certainly I stand for the use of the authority under this bill or the other act, and there is no difference.
The only specific difference that I can see is that the word "wheat" has been left out of the named products as though it might relate to wheat grown outside the authority of the Canadian Wheat Board. I should like to know the significance of that. It is not very likely it would come under a stabilization requirement in eastern Canada. Since barley and oats have been specifically named in the bill I wonder why feed wheat in particular, such as is produced in eastern Canada, was not included. I would ask the minister to look into this. Presumably it could be designated, and I think the reference to the authority of the Wheat Board shows that there is an element of doubt.
The agricultural industry has seen prosperity come and go. It has made a lot of money as a result of world weather conditions and not as a result of policies inaugurated under this minister or any of his predecessors in the last ten years. This minister had no control over the appetite of the Japanese while they were enjoying prosperity, nor over the crop failures in Russia which resulted in prosperity for Canadian farmers.
I would agree with the minister that some farmers were never better off than they are today, but there never was a greater policy vacuum in Canada than that which is being created under present leadership. Unless farmers marketed their beef as the minister directed they did not receive the subsidy. Many farmers in New Brunswick with small beef herds never received a nickel of subsidy. When they asked for a subsidy on hogs at a time when they were losing $15 or $20 a hog, they were told that the question would be looked at in April, 1974, which at that time was 14 months away. Mr. Speaker, that is what one would call a vacuum in policy. If it had not been for the provincial governments picking up the tab there would scarcely be a hog farmer left in Canada today.
There is a lack of policy in the agricultural industry, Mr. Speaker; there is confusion and an expansion of the balkanization of Canada. Agriculture should be a federal responsibility, and so should its stabilization. International trade should be designed to protect Canadian agriculture and give it the opportunity to expand. We should not be confused any longer by the platitudes, the jokes and happy smile of the minister while beef producers still lose $70 per animal and the potato market goes down the drain. Mrs. Plumptre complained when a few dozen eggs spoiled-what will she say if millions of hundredweights of potatoes are dumped in this country? That is what will happen as a result of the inactivity of the Trudeau government and its total neglect of agriculture.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-50. I listened with interest to the hon. member who just sat down who talked about potatoes. I am going to change the subject to some extent.


Fred Alward McCain: I mentioned a lot of other things as well.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: Yes, Mr. Speaker, he did-the Viet Nam war and a few other things.


Mr. Whelan:: Never offered a solution to any of them
either.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: In a general way the present legislation to provide support programs for farm products is inadequate.


Fred Alward McCain: Negligible.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: The situation that agricultural producers face in Canada today, is not one of their own making. Farmers in this country have been faced with rising costs before. They have been fighting the battle of increasing costs of everything they buy for many, many years. The cost price squeeze on Canadian farmers has been a part of their life for 20 or 30 years and, I am sure, has been the subject of debates in this House. I know it has in many provincial legislatures and elswhere. In the last couple of years farmers have been faced with dramatic cost increases for everything they buy. I need not document them here. Farmers themselves are well aware because they know the increase in price of binder twine, fertilizer, machinery and machinery parts.
Perhaps we as the members of parliament should take more time to document the increase in costs faced by farmers rather than talking to one another in this chamber. I am satisfied that the great majority of Canadians are unaware of the kind of cost increases faced by farmers. The fact that about nine out of ten Canadians, or perhaps more, never get near a farm is one of the reasons for this. If they do have occasion to visit the farm of a relative or a friend they tend to think of farming as it was 10 or 20 years ago. But it has changed, Mr. Speaker.
The industry today is vastly different from the kind of family farm that many of us grew up on; in years gone by farmers could get by with lower returns. If they were producing potatoes in New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island, they could get by if for no other reason than that families and neighbours got together to bring in the harvest. But that day has gone. The mechanical harvester, which costs thousands of dollars and must be paid for over a long period, is the method in general use today.
Bill C-50 contains three improvements over previous legislation. First is the shorter base period, second, the provision to allow co-operation with the provinces, and third, the use of the 90 per cent figure. I have one quarrel with the legislation in a general way though, and that is that it is not specific enough. The bill is primarily enabling legislation and I hope when it gets into committee that the minister will provide greater detail on how the various stabilization plans will function.
I should like to turn now for a few minutes to discuss how this bill will affect the beef cattle industry. I recognize the difficulties faced by the minister and his officials

in implementing an improved stabilization plan for the beef industry because it is more difficult to deal with than the production of potatoes or tomatoes.


Mr. Benjamin:: Why is it any tougher?


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin) indicates his lack of understanding of the problems of marketing beef as opposed to other farm products with a silly statement like that.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: When did you last market tomatoes?


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: Many years ago. I want to congratulate the minister for the job he has done to provide stability in the beef industry. I am the first to admit that the plan is not perfect.
We have heard a great deal of debate, both inside this House and outside in recent months, over the possible loss of revenue and income to oil producers and others associated with the petroleum industry in Canada. To me, the irony of this debate lies in the fact that producers in the oil industry have not lost money. They have yet to lose money. They are worried, because in future they may not earn the high income they want. I do not intend to compare the oil industry in Canada with the beef industry and ask which is more important, because the health of both industries is crucial to the Canadian economy. I merely point out that although we have discussed the oil industry for weeks, that industry has yet to lose money.
The beef industry of Canada, unlike the oil industry, has lost many millions of dollars. Never in the history of Canadian agriculture has there been such a fanatic turn around in prices as has occurred in the last 18 months in the Canadian beef industry. Rather than go into the history of the various developments of the last couple of years, I want to look at the stabilization policy provided for under this bill, and at the $45.42 price level provided for this year.
In normal times, a one-year period from August 12, 1974, to August 12, 1975, might be a reasonable period on which to base a support policy. But I suggest that these are not normal times in the beef industry. They are chaotic times for the producer. They are particularly chaotic for the young farmer or the new farmer in that industry. I suggest that the proposed method of calculating support payments on a 12-month basis will completely fail the beef producer. I therefore urge the minister, as I did the other day in committee and privately, to consider dividing the calendar year, into four months' or three months' periods, or other short periods, in order to bring about equity in possible pay-outs under this plan.
At the end of September the market price for Grade A-l and A-2 beef was around 48 or 49 cents in western Canada. A week or two ago that price had dropped to 35 and 36 cents. Prices, therefore, had dropped by up to 14 cents in six months. If you average prices for the last six months I am sure they would come to about the $45.42 pay-out.
An examination of prices paid at both ends of the six-month period just alluded to will show, I submit, that the man who bought cattle in the fall and marketed them in
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the last six weeks would not receive fair treatment under this policy. These are unusual times and we may have to consider unusual solutions. The grain grower and potato grower can put his products in the bin and store them. The beef producer is not that fortunate.
I will be the first to agree that farmers in western Canada, particularly, have leaned too heavily in the past on finishing cattle with a heavy grain ration. At the same time it simply is not possible for the industry to adjust in a year or two to different approaches to finishing cattle. The sharp increase in barley prices about a year and a half ago took place in the matter of a month. The beef people found it very hard to adjust to such a rapid change.
Let me make one thing clear: I have no quarrel with the increased price received by the grain producer. I do not expect the grain producer to help bear the increased costs of finishing cattle. But grain increased in price so rapidly that the beef producer was put in an awkward position, especially as the price of cattle was declining at home and on export markets and there was a beef surplus all across the world. Incidentally, the beef producer was not the beneficiary a couple of years ago of cheaper grain prices. It was the Canadian consumer who gained most.
I am only repeating what was said to me by beef producers in my constituency as recently as a week ago. We know that feeding and distribution costs have risen dramatically. Increased electricity costs at the plant and larger wage costs at the supermarket have been added on to beef costs. The consumer has paid a larger price. Nevertheless the consumer price has not risen as much as beef costs have risen, and the producer, as a result has been caught in the squeeze. All the people in the beef handling trade have added their costs. This bill is designed to help the producer, but it will not help him unless the minister and his officials are prepared to adjust the time frame within which support programs are to be established. I think we all want to see the producer treated more fairly.
I am well aware of the representations made to the minister by cattlemen's groups and other so-called official organizations representing the cow-calf producer. I point out that over three quarters of the producers in my constituency belong to no official organization. Also, they are not always happy with the representations which have been made to the government about adopting a hands off policy with regard to the beef industry and support programs. They are anxious to see the government introduce programs which will not disrupt the market process. I think we can devise and develop such programs.
It goes without saying that this legislation can be valuable not only for beef producers but for all Canadians. I am happy to support the bill in principle. I hope that policies which emanate from this enabling legislation will help the producer.
There is another criticism I wish to direct at the minister, and it is that these policies must be enacted more rapidly than has been the case in the past. The government must respond more quickly to producers' difficulties, especially as costs are rising very quickly. The minister is determined to help producers. He has said this on platforms in all parts of Canada. I think, therefore, that members of parliament would be performing a greater service if they spoke to groups in Saskatoon, Hamilton,
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Montreal and elsewhere, instead of talking to one another here about the problems of the fruit producer.
I hope this plan will succeed. I will do my best to ensure that it does. It must be responsive and react quickly to the downturns in the market which can break a producer in a few months. As I said previously, downturns in price can have a devastating effect on the bank accounts of producers, and these effects are now far more serious than they were even a few years ago. We can discuss this measure in greater detail in committee when we examine the programs provided for in Bill C-50.


Mr. J. R. Holmes (Lambton-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak on Bill C-50, which is to amend the Agricultural Stabilization Act. I listened with great interest to the comments made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Mclsaac). At the beginning I thought he would develop his argument about farm input costs. I think many Canadians misunderstand this aspect of farming. The minister referred to input costs yesterday, and I hoped he would develop that theme. I think the minister understands just how important input costs are.
If inflation were not rampant, I do not think this bill would have been introduced. I should also like to point out that it is inflation which makes legislation of this kind necessary-that but for inflation it would almost certainly not have been introduced.
The principal features of the bill are embodied in two main clauses, those dealing with the base period and the prescribed rates. In the final analysis one must refer specifically to those clauses. I believe it would be useful at this point to review them and try to understand their intent. If we consider the base period, and proposed new section 8 covers this carefully, we find an amendment stating that the base price of an agricultural commodity in any year shall be the average price at representative markets for the five years immediately preceding. I am sure all members recognize that the existing legislation makes provision for a 10-year period as the basis of calculating the average. I believe it is obvious to all of us that in today's economy, with inflation as we have seen it, a five-year period is not realistic. I cannot understand why the minister did not use four years, three years or some other formula.
Dealing with the question of prescribed prices, the bill states that for "named commodities" the amount of a prescribed price will be determined by-
... adjusting ninety per cent... of the base price thereof for the year by an index... to reflect the estimated production costs of the commodity in the year as compared with the average of production costs for the five years immediately preceding the year ...
I wish to develop this reference to production costs a little later. This is to be compared with the average of production costs for the five years immediately preceding the year. In addition, the index which is to reflect production costs is determined by the cabinet, presumably upon a recommendation of the stabilization board. For "named commodities" the percentage of the base price may be higher than the guaranteed 90 per cent-but, again, only with cabinet approval.

With respect to "designated commodities" new section (8) says the amount of a prescribed price would be determined by cabinet-it is the cabinet which will decide what will be the percentage of the base price. As I understand the legislation this price could be higher than the 90 per cent, but it could also be lower. I think this point should be stressed. Once again the index used with respect to "named commodities" will be the same as that used to determine the cost of production.
In my view the amendments do not provide the protection for the farmer that the minister has implied throughout his speech and, indeed, in speeches made before the bill was introduced. Earlier this week I met with members of the horticultural council and they confirmed my impression that the legislation before us would do nothing more than provide some small measure of help in times of disaster. It would certainly not go any distance toward stabilizing farm income.
I wish at this point to make a few observations with respect to inflation, and in particular with regard to its impact on the farming community. I want to compare the impact of inflation upon our farmers with its impact upon consumers generally. All members will recognize, I am sure, that there has been a great deal of information concerning the effects of inflation on small business, on office employees, on consumers in general. Considerably less attention has been given to the impact of inflation upon the farm community. Yet how could one fail to note the effect of rising costs of fertilizer and farm machinery, to say nothing of the rapidly rising cost of operating such machinery? One of the tragedies of the egg marketing report which was before hon. member recently was that the minister did not see fit to enlarge the committee's terms of reference.
As has been mentioned by other speakers, there has been a lack of communication between the farm community and the metropolitan areas, a failure to draw attention to the magnitude of the increase in farm costs as compared to the increase in the cost of living suffered by consumers in general. In fact if one analyses the inflationary practices at work it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the clauses in the bill to which I have referred, namely, those dealing with the base period and the price formula, do not reflect today's economic conditions. Let me repeat that in my view the present debate would be redundant and I do not believe the bill would be presented to the House if the government had found satisfactory ways of dealing with inflation.
I wish to refer to farm input price indexes. Farm input price indexes are published quarterly and annually by Statistics Canada on a 1961 time base-the 1961 index equals 100. The aggregate price index is divided into major group indexes, for example, land and farm buildings, farm machinery and motor vehicles, hired farm labour and other farm materials and services. Each of the major group indexes contains more specific component indexes.
The farm input price indexes are designed to measure the movements of prices paid by farmers for inputs into farm production. The indexes are price indexes which reflect only the direct impact of price changes on the cost of purchasing a specified basket of farm operation inputs. It should be emphasized that the indexes are not cost of

production indexes. The latter include not only price changes but also changes in quantities and qualities of input items, and changes in productivity resulting from better management, improved technology, weather conditions and biological forces.
I believe we need clarification from the minister in this area because I find it inconsistent that when dealing with such matters as old age security benefits, the Canada Pension Plan, and contractual agreements between labourers and employers we deal with price indexes, yet in this instance we deal specifically with production indexes which, I suggest, can be substantially lower than the price indexes. I am not confident that this formula truly reflects farm input costs. At some point, either during this debate or in the committee, the minister ought to explain in some detail what appears to be a paradoxical situation, a situation in which the farmer is not recognizing his true input costs.
I realize that statistics often act as a sedative, but I think I should risk quoting certain figures in this instance.
I would refer to the Canadian Statistical Review published by Statistics Canada, for January, 1975. With respect to the base year, the aggregate index-total farm inputs-shows that prices of farm inputs have increased by more than 95 per cent since 1961. Between August, 1973, and August, 1974, the index for total farm inputs increased from 173.3 to 195.2, representing a rise of 12.6 per cent. Over the same period the cost of hired farm labour increased by almost 17 per cent, building replacement costs by 11.4 per cent, and fertilizer by 48.3 per cent. Let us look more closely at the fertilizer situation.
The price index for fertilizer averaged 103.0 in 1972, only 3 per cent higher than in 1961. In 1973, it averaged 115.5, only 15.5 per cent higher than in the base year. The rapid price increase in fertilizer began in late 1973 and by August, 1974, the index was 65.4 per cent higher than its 1972 level.
The price of feed has also increased dramatically above the level of 110 in 1972 to 211 in the third quarter of 1974, an increase in that short period of time of 91 per cent.
I believe this is of some value if we assess the percentage increase in the farm input price index over the period August, 1973, to August, 1974. This is the most recent 12-month period that I could find. The tables show, for example, that the 12.6 per cent increase in total farm inputs was distributed unevenly across Canada-10.9 per cent for eastern Canada and 14.7 per cent for western Canada. Over this 12-month period the majority of large increases in prices occurred in the category of "other materials and services", with the exception of a 38.7 per cent increase in the index for fencing construction and repairs. Rather interestingly-and this supports the argument of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport-the only area in which there was a definite decrease was in the index for feeder cattle, which showed a decline of 27.5 per cent. All other materials and services indices increased significantly.
What are some of these major increases during this 12-month period? Seed was up 81.8 per cent during the 12-month period; small tools and supplies increased 59.3
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per cent; mixed fertilizer, 50.1 per cent; grain seed, 39.2 per cent. Let me give the House an indication of the recent price acceleration. If we take the three month period between the second and third quarters of 1974, in that short space of time the index for petroleum input products increased by 11 per cent, fertilizer by 14.6 per cent, and small tools and supplies for the farming community by 11.6 per cent.
I now want to turn to another avenue to compare costs of farming, and I refer to farm operating expenses and depreciation. When Statistics Canada people make these estimates, they include farm business costs incurred by farmers irrespective of whether they are paid for in cash or are accumulated in new debt. As far as possible these estimates will exclude outlays for goods and services obtained directly from other farmers. Also in the calculations, subsidy payments are taken into account in order that these estimates represent only net amounts paid by farmers.
I should like to review some of the statistics obtained from the "Quarterly Bulletin of Agricultural Statistics", published in December of 1974. If we assess these figures carefully we find that the total operating expenses and depreciation charges of Canadian farmers were estimated at about $4.8 billion in 1973, an increase of 23 per cent above the 1972 value of $3.9 billion. Farmers' outlays for production inputs have been higher in all provinces as a result of cost increases for most expense items. I think it is of interest to note that there is one expense item which was actually down, and this was property taxes. I know that will interest the minister. In 1973 there was a decline in that particular segment which was related to the implementation of the Ontario farm tax reduction program. The only area in which there was an actual drop was in property taxes.


Mr. McKinley:: Thanks to the Ontario government.


John Robert Holmes: The Ontario government was responsible; there is no question about that.


Eugene Whelan: They are the highest in North America, even with the tax reduction.


John Robert Holmes: At the same time, Madam Speaker, higher grain prices contributed to the 55.2 per cent increase in expenditure on feed. In addition, a careful look at the figures will reveal an increase in fertilizer costs, to which I referred earlier. There has been some expansion in farm credit, but I suggest to the minister that a great part of that is due to the increase in interest rates that we have experienced, higher wages, etc.
I should like to take a moment to make a comparison between the farm input price index and the consumer price index, which I think should be very revealing to the minister, and certainly to the Canadian public. In terms of absolute value the farm input price index is consistently higher than the consumer price index. For example, in 1972 the average value of the consumer price index was 39.8 per cent higher than in 1961 while the corresponding farm input price index figure was 43.3 per cent higher. What is of real significance is that the gap between the two indices widened very substantially, and in August, 1974, prices were 95.2 per cent higher for farm input costs
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compared with only 69.6 per cent for consumer goods and services.
In terms of percentage increases, between August, 1973, and August, 1974, the consumer price index increased by 10.8 per cent. The farm input price index, however, increased by 12.6 per cent. Also during the same period there was an increase in fencing construction costs and repairs of 38.7 per cent, grain seed increased by 39.2 per cent, mixed fertilizer by 50.1 per cent, small tools and supplies by 59.3 per cent, and the price of seed by 81.8 per cent. Between 1972 and 1973 total farm operating expenses and depreciation charges increased by 23 per cent, from $3.8 billion to $4.7 billion, while the consumer price index increased by 7.6 per cent. Between 1972 and 1973 the farm input price index increased by 16.3 per cent.
I know that these statistics may have had a somewhat sedative effect, but I think they are important in indicating the severity of inflation for the farming community. They are extremely important to the consuming public because they give them some of the idea of the impact of inflationary costs on the farming community. It is also important to note in reviewing these figures that farm input costs have been substantially higher than the price increases experienced by the average Canadian consumer as reflected in the consumer price index.
As I indicated at the outset, this present legislation has been introduced simply because of the effects of inflation. As I have indicated, this bill is of no value in view of the inflationary conditions we have today; and in my view this piece of legislation will offer no support, in terms of stabilization, for the Canadian farmer.


Mr. Eymard Corbin (Madawaska-Victoria):: Madam Speaker, as this is the first opportunity I have had of making a speech in this Parliament, I should like, first of all, to congratulate you on the charm with which you perform your duties in this House.

This evening we heard a very depressing speech from the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) which was gloom and doom, hindsight knowledge and very partisan. That is the only comment I will make about it.
If ever there was a group of farm producers who can produce more and, from time to time, whose besetting sin is excess-you are probably aware of it as much as I am, Madam Speaker-it is the producers of potatoes in eastern Canada. In the past, they have benefited from the advantages of the Agricultural Stabilization Act which help all of them have appreciated. The minister is now introducing a bill to improve that act considerably. As the hon. member opposite said, there is an urgent need for it, and I agree wholeheartedly with him.
Hon. members are also aware, Madam Speaker, that eastern Canada potato producers are unfortunately going through a year of abundance, when prices are deflated. The resulting situation, which still persists, brought to the office of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), two

provincial delegations, from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, in the hope of negotiating a solution and perhaps obtaining financial assistance for the producers, at least this year.
I am prepared to give full support to the bill introduced by the Minister of Agriculture. I do not intend to speak at length, but I hope to have soon the opportunity to study thoroughly the bill with my colleague in the Standing Committee on Agriculture. However, if I rise this evening, Madam Speaker, it is because yesterday the minister invited to do so, in answer to a question which I directed to him concerning the discussions which he held with the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island ministers of agriculture.
I am not a farmer nor a farming expert. I have never been either a co-ordinator of the potato industry, as the member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) who was fuming while making his speech this evening. However, I regularly meet in my constituency a great many farmers and others who used to farm but who no longer do so, as a result of the family farm being bankrupted due in many cases to poor production. Those personal contacts have allowed me to realize the extent of the concern for the future of the family farm and potato growing.
I am happy to support the bill on agricultural stabilization which aims at amending the definition of farm commodities and the calculation of basic prices. I believe this could improve agricultural production and constitutes an excellent formula for price support. As the minister said in his speech, this is basically a matter of guarantee, and this is what the producer wants today. In the final analysis, it is a matter of small prices and orderly marketing.
Madam Speaker, the history of the dark years of potato growing in New Brunswick is a real tragedy. I do not believe I am exaggerating in saying this. But it should also be said that there were good years and even some very good ones. I shall not bore hon. members with statistics, even though I have drawers full of them. However, something must be done now, and the Minister of Agriculture is aware of it. After listening to several members who sit with him on this side of the House, the Minister of Agriculture has understood the urgency of the situation and did not hesitate one moment to introduce this excellent bill in the House.
However, does the burden of putting some order in the farming industry of Canada rest only, as the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) has said, on the shoulders of the federal Minister of Agriculture? I do not think so. There may have been and there probably were some mistakes. The federal government may have made some blunders at certain times, but some provincial governments have made mistakes and blunders at least as serious.
The political history of New Brunswick in agriculture is also a near tradegy and I am not exaggerating in deploring the lack of continuity in the agricultural policy of my own province of New Brunswick. Madam Speaker, I only have to say that in five years, New Brunswick has had five ministers of agriculture. Is this the way to plan in the field of agriculture? And the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte, who criticized the federal government so bitterly tonight, was himself co-ordinator in the field of potatoes
March 6, 1975

in New Brunswick for a few months, between occupying a seat in the legislative assembly or in the House, and yet he did not bring any solution tonight. When potatoes are selling as they were last year at $16 a barrel or per 165 pounds at the farm, the provincial government eagerly takes credit for it. But when they sell at the deflated and ridiculous price of $2 a barrel, as they do now, which means at least $2.50 under production costs for most farmers, what do those people do? They come to Ottawa. They beg and cry for help. That is simply not the way to live! As the Minister of Agriculture said in his speech yesterday, it is catastrophic.
The impact of such a tragedy reaches beyond revenue loss, the disintegration of the family farm. A whole way of life is getting lost. New values and probably questionable ones in my opinion, or new socio-economic factors appear and are also very disquieting, certainly so in the eyes of many New Brunswick farmers. Enter the ogre, now called the multinational, which grabs everything on its way, including the family farm. I was told all those things. I also worry about them.
Madam Speaker, my purpose tonight was not to paint a gloomy picture and yet, unfortunately, such are the present conditions of the potato growing industry in New Brunswick. That production always went through ups and downs. People generally go bankrupt and lose everything during "down" periods. If indeed there is a serious problem, we should wonder first and foremost what farmers themselves intend to do. They do talk a lot these days. They frequently meet and have very serious discussions, Madam Speaker. There are rumours of organization. The minister himself talked of organization and marketing boards on several occasions in this House during this Parliament. He did not rule out that the provinces of Ontario and Quebec might have to organize themselves too. With regard to potatoes, all the provinces of eastern Canada should cooperate and work hand in hand. I do agree entirely.


An hon. Member:: Quotas.


Eymard G. Corbin: Quotas, I am not that sure. What I suggested last year, Madam Speaker, at a time when a barrel of potatoes sold for $16, was that farmers should take advantage of such slack time to study their problem. They did not. This year when everything goes wrong, they meet and talk about it. I suggested not to wait for a bad year, but to do so when everything was fine. I also said that in this House six years ago, and nobody apparently heard me. But I shall repeat it tonight.
I do not think governments should or want to get the farmers organized. I do not think farmers want that either. But if producers really are determined to settle down, governments will have no alternative but encourage that initiative and materially back it by passing legislation and regulations. New Brunswick potato producers now face a huge challenge, and I am convinced they will be equal to the task, but to do so they will have to cooperate more closely, together first, then with the neighbouring provinces. I am saying that most earnestly, Madam Speaker. I shall probably be criticized back home, but I don't care. I always said what I meant, and once again I persist in saying that the greatest obstacle to bringing order into the
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potato industry lies with independent stands, the misleading feeling of self-confidence among producers themselves, especially during years of plenty. Only when that problem is recognized will things start to improve.
I am glad to see that an increasing number of farmers are now prepared to set their differences aside-it is very encouraging. The bill introduced by the Minister of Agriculture proposes to gear support levels to production costs. I think that is good planning. And why not? Would someone tell me. It is very good assurance.
I appreciate very much that the Department of Agriculture had potato producers in mind when it drafted this bill, specially with respect to regionalization or zoning.
Madam Speaker, there are consumers in this country, even in my area, who do not like the Minister of Agriculture not because he is not a handsome man, but the criticism that is made most often I think is about the determination with which he stands for the farming community, the small producer and the family farm. But we all know also his understanding of consumer problems, and the very high level of co-operation that exists between the federal Minister of Agriculture and the minister responsible for consumer affairs, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet).
In concluding his speech yesterday, the minister said:
It is a far reaching bill. It is not a lengthy bill, but it is one of the most advanced that any country in the world is providing for its agricultural producers at this time.
I am pleased with that, Madam Speaker. I fully agree with the minister, he has my full support.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, I shall be brief, which I am sure will be a surprise to and will please my hon. friends on all sides. I wish to make a few remarks about the legislation. First, I wish to comment about some of the things the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley (Mr. Mclsaac) had to say. Before I do so, however, may I say a word about the issue of governmental intervention in the marketing of agricultural products.
It is historic and also current that some agriculturalists, some of whom are beef producers, are the most vociferous in their opposition to government intervention. They say: leave the market to its own free play; leave us alone because we do not want subsidies and support prices, and the government should stay out of the business. Those are the usual 19th century dinosaur type of remarks. Then when things get bad they are the first people to come down here crying and asking the politicians to intervene. I recall about a year ago that some of the same cowboys from my riding, who were most vociferous against marketing boards and government intervention particularly regarding support prices or subsidies for beef, were the first people who were down here lining up and crying.
All I can say to that kind of agricultural producer, particularly the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley, is that if he is so smart and if the free enterprise open market system is so good, why is it that the free enterprise parties bring in agricultural stabilization legislation? I

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find that very interesting, because they cannot have it both ways.
The hon. member also spoke about the beef marketing system being different and more difficult than the marketing of potatoes, tomatoes or other products. Of course it is different, but I want to suggest to the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley, who I am sorry to see has left the chamber, that it is just as difficult to market tomatoes, and I suspect at some times of the year is more difficult than to market beef. It is a much more perishable product. There are a number of other agricultural products which are just as difficult to market as beef. If the hon. member wants to hold out beef as something different and more difficult to market than any other agricultural product, I submit this argument does not hold water.
When the beef price drops from 45 cents to 35 cents the hon. member wants the stabilization legislation to provide that the pay-out is broken down every three or four months each year, and he pleads with the minister who sits in front of him to do that. I find it interesting to have a parliamentary secretary pleading with a minister to do these things. Again I want to say to the hon. gentleman, and to other hon. members who like to plead the virtues of the open and free market system, a system which is great for the packing plants and the railways but not for the farmers and the consumers, that if their free open market unfettered free enterprise system is so great why do they cry when the market drops from 45 cents to 35 cents? That is how they wanted it; they wanted it free and open. That is free enterprise.
I do not hear them complaining on behalf of the consumers when the market goes up from 35 cents to 45 cents. When it goes down then it is different. Then without saying it, they admit that their free enterprise unfettered system does not work. Under the so-called free market system the beef producers often have no choice but to sell at prices below the cost of producing, raising and fattening those cattle.
The other thing I should like to say to the cowboy part of the beef industry-by the way unless my information is badly incorrect small farmers raise more cattle than the "cattlemen"-is that I did not hear the same free enterprise, open market, every many for himself people crying on behalf of the grain producer. I did not hear them complain a bit when you could get barley for, say, a Safeway's special of three bushels for a dollar. I did not hear a single cowboy beef producer saying that those grain producers were not getting a fair shake.
But now that the barley producer, for the first time ever, is getting a price for his barley that is in excess of his cost of production, the cowboy producers, the ones who believe in and promote the free, unfettered, open system for marketing beef, are saying, if you will pardon the expression, that now it is their ox that is being gored. The shoe is on the other foot. But where were they for 18 out of 25 years after the second world war when the grain producers consistently received less than they were entitled to for their product? I did not hear a single cowboy, raising cattle on the foothills of Alberta or the Cyprus Hills of Saskatchewan, saying anything about fair prices for

barley producers. So I do not want to hear a word from the hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley about the high price of feed grains. In fact if he wants to talk that way, I hope he goes back to his own riding and talks to the wheat, barley and oat producers, and he will see how fast it takes them to run him out of town.
The hon. member for Battleford-Kindersley also wants the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) to react quicker to the downturns of the agricultural market, in particular, the beef market. How about that? Again, if the open, free market system is so good for marketing beef, what is he complaining about? It is amusing that the free enterprisers in the beef industry are always happy when the market is on the upturn, but when the market is on the downturn they do not support the very system under which they want to operate. Then they cry for help to the government. When it is on the upturn they tell the government to stay out, to leave them alone, not to interfere. They cannot have it both ways. If the Minister of Agriculture is a free enterpriser-


Mr. Corriveau:: He is.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: -he should not be meddling with this great, open, free market system.


Léopold Corriveau: Who says he is?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: If the agricultural stabilization program is not interferring with the market, I do not know what is. If I am touching a tender spot on the loudmouth over there, I am sorry.


Léopold Corriveau: I am not standing up, you are.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You can get up later, cool your brains off and take part in this debate.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The hon. member is not in his own seat.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: He is on his own seat but not in it. That is what you call a confused Liberal.
There is another little point I would like to make to the Minister of Agriculture who says he is a friend of the farmer. As my colleague, the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn) said this afternoon, if we could have at least one speech a week from the minister which is as good as the ones he delivers to the rose growers of Grasshopper Flat, or some other such group, that would be fine because he speaks very well, he sounds great. He speaks about his support of orderly marketing, and I believe him. If anything, I think this Minister of Agriculture is sincere and genuine about orderly marketing, which makes him something of a misfit in a free enterprise party, be it Liberal or Tory. In any event, he is stuck with that; that is his problem.
In his unquestioning support for the Canadian Wheat Board he has included an item in this legislation, if you would care to note, whereby oats and barley produced in the designated area under the Canadian Wheat Board but not marketed through the Wheat Board are expressly mentioned in the legislation as eligible for designation as a product under this legislation.
March 6, 1975

Let me say, just in case the Minister of Agriculture has not thought of this, that this is nothing more than reinforcing the removal of feed oats and barley from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board and placing them on the open market, because when the open market fails on feed grains, the cowboys will still be able to get cheap barley, and then the Minister of Agriculture will include oats and barley not sold through the Canadian Wheat Board under the stabilization legislation. What he will be doing in effect is to reinforce an outmoded, discredited, disgraced open market system of marketing grains in order to save the reputation, whatever it amounts to, of the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board.
If the Minister of Agriculture wants to prove how sincere and strong he is in support of orderly marketing and of the Canadian Wheat Board, let him amend his own legislation to take out the provision that will include oats and barley sold on the open market and raised in the Canadian Wheat Board area because that amounts to nothing more than an additional reduction in the strength, power and jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. It also weakens the whole principle of orderly marketing. I hope the minister will think about that, if he has not done so already.
I submit that this bill is inadequate. It does not go far enough so far as we in the NDP are concerned, and so far as at least two farm organizations are concerned. There is no guarantee that the proposed amendments to the legislation-and that is all this bill is-will bring much if any improvement to what is already in the act. Of course, the minister added some new products, such as beef, and I am glad to see that. That ought to create a stir in the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, if nothing else. But I have to see it to believe that it will bring much if any improvement, because the minister already has the authority of the legislation now but has chosen not to use it. It is just a way of prolonging the agony and giving lip service to both orderly marketing and orderly stabilized income and at the same time trying to maintain what is supposed to be a free and open system for marketing agricultural products.
I am sorry to say that the minister is trying to follow the example of so many of his colleagues, trying to be half pregnant. There is no such thing.
With regard to the mandatory support level of 90 per cent in a five year average price, the first thing I would like to suggest to the minister is that if the 90 per cent proposed in this legislation is good for the farmers, would he tell the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Chretien), the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner), the Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro), and any other of his colleagues in the cabinet, that all the workers in the public service want is 90 per cent of what is being paid to private enterprise? I think it would be very pertinent, since if, it is appropriate in this legislation to tell the President of the Treasury Board, and those other idiots on the Treasury Board who do not know how to bargain collectively, that if 90 per cent is appropriate in the agricultural stabilization legislation and the grain stabilization legislation, it should be good also for the runway cleaners and other lowest paid members of the public service.
Agricultural Stabilization Act
I hope the Minister of Agriculture, who has this principle enshrined in this legislation, will now persuade his cabinet colleagues to agree to granting 90 per cent of what is paid to private enterprise to the lowest paid sections of the public service, and then we will have our airports and grain terminals operating within 24 hours.
That is all it would take. By the way, while the government is worried about the 90 per cent of the five year average for agricultural prices-


Eugene Whelan: you wouldn't accept the pay raises for members.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I will accept whatever this parliament votes I should receive, and I expect that the minister will do the same. Neither he nor I will decide whether we are worth it. Other people will decide that.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Agreed?


Eugene Whelan: I agree with that.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: You'd do better sitting down,
Les.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Anything the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Guay) takes, I am going to take, because I am convinced, in my usual shy manner, that I am as good as or a better member of parliament than he will ever be.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


M. Benjamin:: Madam Speaker, I am sorry that I am out of order on the topic, but Your Honour will appreciate that my hon. friends opposite lead me astray. I want to apologize. I have an ailment called preacher's throat. It happens to preachers and politicians. My doctor says that the only sure cure for this is to keep my big mouth shut for three weeks.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: A politician losing his voice is like a pianist losing his fingers. I am sorry that I am subjecting my hon. friends to this speech, which is not nearly voluminous enough. By that I mean in decibels, not length.
If I may return to the matter of the 90 per cent, I would ask the minister and his cabinet colleagues to consider that the lowest paid public servants are asking for 90 per cent of what other people get, which is good enough, apparently, for farmers. I do not know why 100 per cent should not be good enough for farmers. However, that is the minister's legislation. If he can apply that to farmers, he can apply it to the lowest paid sector of the public service.
Would the minister at the same time ask his Cabinet colleagues to agree that this matter of restraint, which the Minister of Finance wants, and the matter of controls which the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Stanfield) wants, should first be applied to deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers, those who received $8,000 and $10,000 per year increases, which is more than the runway sweepers receive and which is more than many farmers receive

March 6, 1975
Agricultural Stabilization Act
for a whole year? If this restraint were applied first at the top the minister would be surprised how willingly lower paid people would co-operate, including farmers. But does the minister want them to be willing to agree that 90 per cent of the five year average is good enough? If the minister will apply that principle to the deputy ministers and the assistant deputy ministers, and even to members of parliament, he would be surprised at the amount of co-operation he would get from farmers and runway cleaners.
I have used up my time, Madam Speaker, and the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Hargrave) has some remarks to make about cowboys in response to mine, I hope. He is a gentleman whom, amongst all the cowboys I know, I like best of all. There is nothing personal in my remark about cowboys.
I want to say, as my hon. colleagues have said, that the legislation is inadequate. We will have more to say on it on other days.


Mr. Bert Hargrave (Medicine Hat):: Madam Speaker, I want to say to the hon. member from Saskatchewan that he took me back a few years to when we both did a little cowboying at Walsh. I thank him for reminding me of it.
In my contribution to this very important debate which will determine just what amendments are to be made to the Agricultural Stabilization Act of 1957 and 1958, I want to make a few general comments on the new bill and then follow with some very specific comments on how this act and the proposed amendments apply to the total Canadian cattle industry.
At first glance this bill seems fairly straighforward and might be construed to be merely an updating of the 17 year old act to make allowances for inflation and rapidly rising costs of production in the total agricultural sector in Canada.
I have no great quarrel with the proposals to change the averaging period from 10 to five years, and the increase to 90 per cent from 80 per cent in determining the base price over this averaging period. But because of some very erratic farm prices throughout all of 1973 and the first quarter of 1974, I suggest that there may have to be some shortening of this five year period. In the five year period 1970 through 1974 inclusive there have been about three and a half years of market prices which could be described as moderately increasing farm product prices. This was followed by a year to a year and a half of very sharply increased farm prices in most commodities, including cattle. I suggest that during the same five year period agricultural production costs increased at a much faster rate than did our market prices at the farm gate.
Under clause 3 of the bill, referring to section 8.2(1) of the act, some provision for this serious concern is indeed provided, but it is not clearly spelled out. The bill reads in part, and I quote:
... the Governor in Council may prescribe, of the base price thereof for the year by an index calculated in such a manner as may be prescribed by the Governor in Council to reflect the estimated production costs of the commodity in the year as compared with the average of production costs for the five years immediately preceding the year ...
I ask the question, does an "index of production costs" refer specifically to the CDA's official farm input price

index? If it does then the cattle industry would be short changed because its farm costs, notably feed grains and feed supplements, have risen faster than most other farm costs during this 1970-74 period. What does the term "may reflect" really mean as used in this proposed section from which I quoted? Does it mean may reflect 25 per cent, 50 per cent, or 100 per cent? And does this reference really pinpoint the fact that index of production costs should refer specifically to the commodity in question by name, no matter whether the commodity in question is a named commodity or a designated commodity?
These items must be clearly spelled out. It seems obvious to me that Bill C-50 leaves far too many details and specifics to be determined by regulation. Another example, under the part dealing with other powers, states:
For the purpose of stabilizing the price of an agricultural commodity, the Board may exercise such other powers as are prescribed by the Governor in Council for that purpose.
Does the phrase "such other powers", for example, mean the supply management route for the cattle industry? If this could be inferred, I wish to state most emphatically that a marketing board for the Canadian cattle industry with supply management powers is not the answer to our cattle industry's very serious difficulties, and in fact crisis, today.
Now I wish to relate my comments perhaps more specifically to the cattle industry. We already have two support price policies recently announced by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) which relate only to our Canadian cattle industry. Last August 11 the fed cattle- that is, fat steers and heifers-support price of $45.42 was instituted, and if deficiency payments are made when the year is up next August, I presume they will be paid under the provisions of the original act. It is important to understand that this price of $45.42 for grades A, B and C was determined by taking 90 per cent of the average weighted price for these three fat cattle grades at the three principal markets in Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto, and adding to it a cost of production index figure as determined by the Farm Input Price Index. I have been informed that this cost index item amounted to some 154 per cent of the five year average market price for fed cattle.
The beef cow subsidy or support policy of $23.21 effective last November 16 is 100 per cent of the weighted average price of the Dl, D2, D3, and D4 cows over the last five years at the same three principal cattle markets, but without an indexing figure. Possibly there was no indexing figure because this cow support policy will only last until April 30. In both of those government support price policies the critical circumstances of both cow-calf and the feed lot side of the industry were not recognized. This was primarily because the five year period was too long to account properly for the erratic market swings and the escalating farm production costs.
In today's price and cost terms, what I am saying is that a $45.42 per cwt. floor price is small comfort to a feeder whose costs of grain are still 55 cents to 60 cents per pound. On March 1 the estimated actual weighted average fed cattle price, according to my information, was about $46. This means, of course, that unless the fed cattle

market slumps another $2 or $3 over the next five months, no deficiency payment may be made. In my opinion the Canadian fed cattle market has now bottomed out, and in fact has shown some recovery of a dollar or two in the west and perhaps not as much in Ontario, but it does appear that better markets are ahead of us for fat cattle at least. This will further lessen the probability of deficiency payments being made.
With respect to the cow support policy, it seems highly probable that there will indeed be payments made for those eligible. I most certainly agree with the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner) who suggested that the fed cattle support policy should be on a quarterly or half yearly basis. I must say I prefer the quarterly basis.
Surely, Madam Speaker, the time has come for governments and cattle producers to face up to, and recognize the real problems in Canada's beef cattle industry and, for that matter, in the American cattle industry as well. In my estimation we simply have too many cows and, as a result, too many feeder cattle. That means, of course, too many calves about to be born this spring. Since 1969 beef cow numbers have increased some 43 per cent, and are still increasing. The new calf crop could be up another 2 per cent over last spring. For the same period the United States has seen its cow numbers increase by 22 per cent.
The reasons for this surplus cow situation are now reasonably well understood. They are not peculiar to Canada or North America, but are global and relate to unusual weather patterns and a switch from the cheap food era to the present era of rapidly increasing food costs. This global switch started about seven years ago and during this seven year interval we made some wrong assumptions. By we I mean farmers, cattlemen, consumers, and most of all, governments. We thought that, because live cattle prices and retail beef prices were rising rapidly over most of the world, there must be a shortage of cattle, especially on this continent.
We completely ignored or forgot to make allowances for three significant factors. First was worldwide inflation; second, devaluation and realignment of some of the major world currencies, and third, the fantastic impact on a global basis of the energy crisis and the resulting balance of payments problems. We really were not short of cattle supplies but we thought we were, and governments must accept a great deal of blame for this error in judgment.
In simple terms we have about a quarter million surplus cows in Canada at present. We need to market about 900,000 cows this year if we are to stop the growth of the national cow herd. Last year we only marketed slightly over 600,000, and that was less than in 1973. In sharp contrast, however, the United States has turned the corner in its cow cycle. Its cow marketing for 1974 was up by some 20 per cent over 1973. That is the reverse of our situation. For that reason the United States will resolve its cow numbers problem quicker than we in Canada.
I want to make a quick comment on the minister's $10 million canned cow beef for foreign aid program which was announced last December 13. I suggest it was a good policy, unique in many respects-perhaps it was even a first-because it proposed to provide a national incentive to reduce our cow numbers and at the same time help the third world needy countries. It was a most welcome
Agricultural Stabilization Act
suggestion but it was much too late-four months too late. It should have been under way last September and have operated all fall at the period of our lowest cow prices throughout the year. It has not helped our cow market at all. This is evident since the deputy minister testified a week ago in the standing committee that to date only sample lots have been canned, and no commercial canning has started although all tenders have been accepted. Perhaps the minister might give serious consideration to a continuation of this policy that would start next September 1.
Earlier, Madam Speaker, I made a comment about supply management and our cattle industry. The alternative to a supply management route for beef cattle must surely be to make our North American market system work as we all know it can work. This means that our border problems involving unequal quotas must be resolved, and soon. At this moment there are over 30,000 more feeder cattle in western Canada than there were last year. We have a total of some 300,000, and that is a record for feeder cattle at this time of the year. Due to extreme soil moisture deficiencies all across the southern prairies the prospects for grass are very poor. In most cases grass reserves, what are left after our mild and open winter, and what new grass we get, will be needed for our cow herds.
Our cattle industry should understand fully the consequences of keeping all these feeder cattle in Canada in the face of empty feed lots-that are not going to be filled for obvious economic reasons-and the lack of summer grazing. Are we going to export feeder cattle or are we going to eat the fat cattle here, later on? If the decision is to eat the fat cattle here, then we had better be prepared to accept prices considerably below the United States level for the next two to three years. The only country in the world that can afford to buy our cattle at North American market levels is the United States.
I say again, Madam Speaker, it is time we resolved our quota problems at the border. Only last week the press reported that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce proposed a meeting with United States trade officials. One of Mr. Butz's assistant secretaries has indicated that they would be pleased to see the quotas ended even if the situation may soon reverse, with Canada's producers anxious to sell their cattle in a higher priced American market.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):: Order, please.


An hon. Member:: Let him finish.


Some hon. Members:: Continue.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Herbert Thomas (Bert) Hargrave: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In conclusion, I say very seriously that I have considerable feeling for the position the government finds itself in with respect to our cattle industry. If the government uses the provisions of this act to support cattle prices at too high a level, it will only prolong the period of downward adjustment

March 6, 1975
Adjournment Debate
for our cattle numbers. It will merely push the numbers problem ahead of us.
Our total cattle industry cannot be fragmented by a variety of provincial cattle policies and still operate under a North American market concept. We have been in severe trouble because of U.S.A. policies and actions, but in the final analysis we cannot operate without them.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Ten o'clock.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Madam Speaker, yesterday I pointed out to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Andras) that Australia, because of its 6 per cent unemployment, has intensified its program to deport aliens who are in that country illegally. It seems to me that that government is acting on a simple principle-When you have a law, it must be enforced. To do anything else makes a mockery of our entire legal system. Laws of this kind are made to control those who have least respect for the rights of others. Inherent in that fact lies the probability that the people who make those laws necessary are the very people who are most likely to violate them.
I also recognize that our democratic way of life depends on a large reservoir of trust, that most people are in fact law-abiding citizens; but it is the law-abiding people who suffer most at the hands of those individuals who have lost all conscience regarding responsibilities.
Whenever we have laws that lose their meaning because of ineffectual and half-hearted enforcement, we erode the standards by which our citizens guide their conduct. All of us need reference points for our lives. There are times when we face decisions for which we may or may not have a ready answer, regardless of how intent we are on doing right. The law becomes the reference point for our behaviour and gives us the opportunity for moral and psychological rest and equilibrium, as opposed to tension and distress. In short, the law helps us to decide. That is true only if the law is dependable, clear and enforced. But when the government declares a law, then backs off, does not enforce it, does not take it seriously, it places citizens in an impossible situation, a situation of indecision and tension.
If the government declares a law but does not provide for meaningful enforcement or penalties, it declares loudly

that it does not take its own laws seriously. And this is where we find ourselves today.
The amnesty program the government conducted 18 months ago was a clear admission that the government had allowed aliens to flout our laws. The fact that there are still thousands of aliens in our country illegally shows that the government still has not moved in with the muscle that is needed. The immigration officers on duty at our borders are doing yeoman's service, but they are not getting the kind of support they deserve.
The point is that aliens here illegally either take jobs away from the legitimate working force or else are a drain on the social services of our country. Because they are here illegally it is impossible to determine exactly how many of them there are in this country. This fact underscores the need for the government to design more effective machinery for tracing aliens in Canada.
Let me illustrate how they drain the tax dollars allocated to social services. The Toronto Star of February 6, 1975, carries a story about a Guyanese immigrant awaiting deportation, by the name of Chunilall Misir. According to the Toronto Star, the Immigration Department reckons the total cost of keeping Misir here, without medical bills, is around $11,000. In addition he was hospitalized because he had tried to escape custody; he broke his hip and his heel and there are large hospital bills beside the $11,000 bill already incurred.
Then there are those parasites who find ways to get welfare benefits, UIC payments and government grants. Once an individual decides to remain in a country illegally he decides, in effect, to become a law breaker. From that point it becomes increasingly easy for him to violate other legal and ethical boundaries.
This brings me to my third and final point, which is that illegal aliens more easily become a destructive element in our society. As I have pointed out, they already see themselves as violators of the law. This in itself restricts the number of legal avenues open to them. It therefore becomes all too easy for them to drift into a life of furtive relationships and questionable living patterns. I am by no means suggesting that all those who find themselves in this predicament are living in constant violation of other laws, but I am saying that their situation leads all too easily to this kind of lifestyle.
For these three main reasons I should like to cajole the minister until he is ready to beef up the border patrol, speed up the process of hearings and, in short, deal emphatically with this issue so that people may once again believe that Canadian laws mean what they say. I welcome the green paper and the opportunity it provides the Canadian people to contribute to the legislative process, but in the final analysis it matters not how good a policy emerges from these discussions or how good the laws may be if the government lacks the resolve to enforce its legislation.


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


Mr. William Rompkey (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker,

when the minister replied to the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock (Mr. Friesen) on this matter on March 5 in the House he said he was unaware of any RCMP investigation into racial trouble in lower mainland British Columbia, and also that the Department of Manpower and Immigration takes the necessary enforcement action when persons illegally in Canada come to its attention. There is very little to be added from the point of view of our immigration law enforcement.
As has been said many times, the department does not conduct witch hunts or similar exercises-a tactic which would be repugnant to the Canadian way of life. When persons enter Canada illegally or when, having entered legally, they remain beyond their allotted time, either through our own enforcement capability or because of our very close liaison with law enforcement agencies at all levels, adequate means exist within immigration legislation to deal quickly and effectively with the situation.


HEALTH-INQUIRY AS TO STANDARDS FOR ASBESTOS FIBRES IN AIR-CONDITIONS AT CLINTON CREEK MINE IN YUKON
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Madam Speaker, I rise pursuant to a question I asked in the House the other day concerning the dangers posed by asbestos, particularly in a Canadian mine over which the Canadian government has sole jurisdiction, namely, the Clinton Creek mine in the Yukon Territory.
To understand this situation one has to look at what is happening at the Thetford Mine in Quebec where it has been found that 61 per cent of 1,200 miners are suffering from lung abnormalities, including two types of cancer and a condition called asbestosis, which ultimately leads to death.
It is interesting to note that in this case the waste asbestos products have been blowing in the air and across the border. The environmental protection agency of the United States found it to be too much for them in Maine, yet the government of Quebec seemed to be quite happy to allow this condition to continue. I recognize that provincial jurisdiction is involved here and I am not charging the federal government with any particular neglect in this area; but I think we now have to concentrate upon those matters that are within federal jurisdiction, since more and more evidence has come to light about the connection between lung cancer, chest cancer, cancer of the larynx and asbestosis.
My information is that in June, 1974, asbestos counts were taken at the Clinton Creek mine in the Yukon. Out of 133 counts, 19 proved to be significantly above the level of five fibres per cubic centimetre. To appreciate the significance of that, Britain's standard is two fibres per cubic centimetre. In the United States it is five fibres per cubic centimetre. Both England and the United States are about to reduce their standards.
Dr. Carneau, one of the acknowledged experts in this whole question of carcinogens, in respect to asbestos has found that .001 is the only safe level. He is from the University of Illinois, and he was recently funded with a $3.5 million grant. No place in this country now has a level
Adjournment Debate
that satisfies Dr. Carneau, yet we have increasing evidence that cancers are developing.
The difficulty is that these cancers do not develop for many years. We have some cases of people being exposed to asbestos for as short a period as four months and developing lung cancer 35 years later. In the Clinton Creek mine, studies since June of 1974 have been in the hands of the minister's department, and what I want to find out is whether he has made any studies of the miners concerned. Have we checked into the number of compensation claims that have been made as a result of this situation and which are under our sole jurisdiction?
The minister's answer, which I submit is a complete red herring, was: "Well, all we have to do is pass the environmental protection act in this House and we can go right ahead and fix it up." He had better look at the environmental protection act, which does contain certain provisions; but we have already passed a law in this parliament which is known as the Clear Air Act, which I recall my friends in the Liberal party were quite successful in promoting in my riding as a very progressive approach to environmental hazards.
I should now like to quote from "Environment and the Law", a publication of Environment Canada:
The Clear Air Act gives the federal government authority to set national air quality objectives and national emission standards where there is a significant danger to health-
In other words, the jurisdiction and authority to act are clearly within that law now. What I am asking the minister and his charming parliamentary secretary to do is to pass immediately regulations under the Clear Air Act setting minimum enforceable asbestos standards right across the country so that we can start protecting thousands and thousands of miners who work under increasingly hazardous conditions. Why I say the hazards are increasing is that the longer we wait, the worse the problem becomes. The more scientific data we accumulate, the more hazards apparently we are exposing our miners to, Madam Speaker.
On the question of jurisdiction, it is clear that we have sole jurisdiction both in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon through the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. We have the clear right to pass regulations now; we do not have to wait for the House to pass the environmental protection act at all. It is not good enough for the minister to come to this House and to say: "Well, you fellows in the opposition are again blocking progress; we can protect these miners if we pass the bill". I say that is a complete cop-out, and I really did expect something better from a minister who has a very good reputation in this House, one 1 respect a great deal as a result of some of the legislation he has promoted.
What I am asking is for some leadership at the federal level. Admittedly there are problems in Quebec and Ontario in terms of enforcement and getting decent standards. But if we provide leadership at the federal level and put forward enforceable asbestos fibre standards right across the country, then we are going to save some lives. This is a pretty important matter. We may save a few lives of people who have been exposed and who will continue to be exposed to this terrible hazard.

March 6, 1975
Adjournment Debate


Miss Coline Campbell (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, a group from the Bureau of Health Hazards and an environmental engineer from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development undertook a survey at Clinton Creek in June, 1974.
The purpose of this survey was to determine the concentration of asbestos fibres in the air at the mine, mill and townsite. Following the on-site survey, several months have been necessary to check on instrument calibrations and to calculate the results. A detailed report is expected to be sent to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development within the next 10 days.
As a result of recent health findings among asbestos workers the department will recommend that workers should not be exposed to average concentrations of asbestos in the air in excess of two fibres per millimetre. This level is identical to that adopted for occupational situations in the United Kingdom and Sweden recently, and is the same as that presently proposed in the United States. This recommendation is in accord with interim target concentration for the prevention of risk to the health of asbestos workers recommended by the International Labour Organization.
Although many of the levels found in the survey at Clinton Creek exceeded this recommended level, modifications in housekeeping and operational methods as well as improvement in the application of local exhaust ventilation systems are expected to reduce the airborne concentrations of asbestos to the desired level.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Read faster.


Coline M. Campbell: It should be borne in mind that the levels we have found in the survey are not grossly in excess of the very stringent standard the department is now recommending, and that the average levels we have found in the air at the mines at Clinton Creek are generally below those that we would have considered acceptable even a few months ago.
There are presently no enforceable federal standards with regard to the presence of asbestos fibres in the air of mines and factories. The recommendations from the department to reduce the airborne concentration of asbestos at Clinton Creek can be the basis for further action by the territorial government.
We do not anticipate any problems from airborne asbestos at the townsite at Clinton Creek where the values found in the survey were between zero and 0.04 fibres per millimetre. The Clean Air Act provides a mechanism whereby pollution of the air at the townsite could be controlled if this were necessary. The environmental contaminants bill presently before the House would provide the authority to enable any necessary measures to be taken to protect the health of the public from the release of substances such as asbestos that contaminate the environment.
In reply to the question of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt), the figures quoted in the question would seem to refer to the raw data from which time-weighted averages were calculated. The recommend-

ed level which I referred to earlier is a time-weighted average based on eight hours' exposure.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Faster.


Coline M. Campbell: During the working day it is normal for point samples to vary considerably above and below the time-weighted average value. As soon as the survey is completed the department will initiate any further studies on the health status of the miners that are required.


POST OFFICE-POSSIBLE REMOVAL OF PICTURE OF QUEEN FROM PRESTAMPED ENVELOPES
Mr. Stan Schumacher (Palliser):: Madam Speaker, I am rising tonight with a double feeling of regret-regret at the action of the government, and regret at the less than complete answer afforded me in the House by the Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey) a couple of weeks ago when I raised this matter.
The monarchy stands at the cornerstone of our life as a dominion and as a free people. Like millions of Canadians I believe that the symbols of the Crown must be kept permanently before our people, both to remind us of our heritage and to warn us against the loss of that liberty and dignity with which the monarchy provides us.
Accordingly I am at a loss to know why the post office has decided that its eight-cent pre stamped envelopes will no longer bear the portrait of Her Majesty, but instead some modern design. The feeble excuse given is that the new design is philatelically superior and much harder to counterfeit. I ask, who in the world would want to counterfeit it?
Bluntly, this is but the latest in a long line of petty insults to the Crown, over which Canadians seemingly have no control, for which the government has no mandate and by which, I believe, the pointy-headed bureaucrats in the public service are steadily eroding the monarchy position in this country. I have no objection at all if the post office wishes to introduce several varieties of stamped envelopes, and for all I care one might even bear the portrait of the Postmaster General.
The point is, however, that the standard definitive of our Gracious Queen should always be available on stamped envelopes for those Canadians who wish to purchase them, for those Canadians who are proud, and indeed who request specifically such envelopes and stamps as their recognition of the Queen as the emblem of our citizenship and the torch of our freedom.
The Postmaster General answered my question in the House on February 19 in a flippant way. He did not seem to want to admit the change was in the works. This is characteristic of the less than straightforward attitude of the government. Since then my friends in the Monarchist League of Canada tell me they have been inundated with inquiries as to why-Why this action-Why this change carried forward by a government which professes devotion to the Crown on one hand and does its best to remove the Crown from public conscience on the other? What does
March 6, 1975

this step accomplish? Why can Canadians no longer buy prestamped envelopes bearing the image of our Queen?
I challenge the minister to back up the government's words with actions. It is not enough to say the stamped envelopes bearing Her Majesty's protrait were available and may just be available again. I beg with him tonight to please millions of Canadians, and to affirm the government's loyalty to our Sovereign, by announcing that the prestamped envelopes bearing the portrait of Her Majesty will continue to be available, along with any other varieties as the department may see fit to print.
If such action is not taken, Mr. Speaker, loyal monarchists across the country will be excused if they feel that the government has betrayed them, and wonder once again about the forces of republicanism in the public service, forces which represent no one except themselves, no policy except destruction of cherished symbols, and no thought except for so-called progress toward anarchy.


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker,-


An hon. Member:: Madam Speaker.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: I apologize, Madam Speaker. I am rarely on my feet in the House. I listened to the remarks of the hon. member with a great deal of attention. The new prestamped envelope, as he knows, is to be reproduced by lithography in two colours in order to prevent counterfeiting. So far we have been unable by this particular method to come up with a decent reproduction of the Queen of
Adjournment Debate
which we could be proud. We have been experimenting with it, and it is conceivable that once we have perfected it to the degree that it satisfies the quality we think should exemplify the Queen's picture then we would make sure that these are available.
What I object to is that the hon. gentleman seems to feel that loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen is synonomous with the amount of pictures made available across Canada to the satisfaction of the Monarchist League. I have no apology to make to the hon. gentleman pertaining to the great lady whom I have met on several occasions.
I do not think one can measure a person's allegiance to the Queen, or to symbols, or to the House of Commons, or to other traditions which keep this country together simply by preprinted envelopes. I think the moment of truth comes by other means. The fact of the matter is that if I or the government could be accused of playing politics by removing the Queen's picture from the envelope, then the charge would be equally valid against the hon. gentleman who conceivably could be not necessarily expressing his loyalty to the Queen but catering to the members of the monarchist group for political reasons. I think he will have to have enough confidence in the government and the people who are members of the government, including the Postmaster General, and appreciate that we have as much respect and admiration for and loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen of Canada as he has.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.26 p.m.

Friday, March 7, 1975