1975-12-04

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington):
That the Solicitor General, for the benefit and information of members of parliament, table forthwith copies of all documents which are now public, including warrants obtained by the RCMP in regard to the current investigations in respect of Sky Shops, Mirabel, the Olympic Village and related matters.
Some of these documents have already been exhibited on CTV national news, and some of which are in my possession.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43 the motion cannot be put without unanimous consent.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD REQUEST FOR STATEMENT OUTLINING DETAILS OF ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity arising from information provided today that the Anti-Inflation Board plans to spend half a million dollars to launch the publication of regulations concerning the government's wage and price control program on or about December 15.
I therefore, move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House instructs the Minister of Finance to make a statement in the House at the earliest possible date explaining the details as to how this one-half million dollars is to be spent including how much will be allocated to both salaries and advertising, with particular reference to the amounts going to individual advertising agencies.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The motion cannot be presented without the unanimous consent of the House.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion concerning an urgent and important matter.
Since the report of the Legendre Commission, which reviewed the legal aspects of water administration in Quebec, has just sounded the alarm by demanding urgent action and by describing the pitiful management of this resource, over which pollution has taken control, since the provincial and federal legislation in this regard is confused and obsolete, since jurisdictions are not clearly defined and since the lack of sound management of clean waters could jeopardize whatever action could be taken to solve that problem, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Matte):
That the House immediately examine the problem of the quality and the use of water and go beyond simply remodelling water legislation, by setting up efficient protective measures, applicable regulations and a serious information campaign among the public and the industry.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion on an urgent and important matter.
Considering the financial difficulties the organizers of the 1976 Olympic Games have; in view of the fact that the initial estimates are largely below reality for all kinds of
29956-62)4

December 4, 1975
Anti-Inflation Board
reasons; that alone thousands of Quebecers will have to foot the bill; finally, that the honour of Canada is at stake and that it would be unfair to leave Quebec alone to hold the bag whereas from the beginning the federal government has been supporting and favouring these games in Montreal, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert):
That the federal government take steps to organize a meeting with Montreal and Quebec officials to find a fair solution to the problem of the financing under conditions the government will find appropriate.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent; therefore the motion cannot be put.
  
[DOT] (M10)


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to propose a motion of urgent and pressing necessity arising from the very serious accusations made recently against one of the world's finest democratic police forces by the Minister without Portfolio, and from the fact that the Prime Minister has not seen fit to dissociate himself from these statements about the RCMP which stand unproven, and therefore slanderous. I would move, seconded by the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Hurlburt):
That the Prime Minister advise the House forthwith whether the statements concerning the RCMP made by the Minister without Portfolio represent the attitude and policy of his government, or whether government policy is more accurately represented by the rebuking words spoken in this regard by the Solicitor General, and if the latter is the case, that the Prime Minister on behalf of the government forthwith apologize publicly to the RCMP and at the same time advise the House what date is already tentatively set for the appointment of the Minister without Portfolio to the Senate.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Yorkton-Melville.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD SUGGESTED REVIEW OF SALARY OF CHAIRMAN-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I have a non-controversial motion under Standing Order 43. In view of the government's concern about breaking inflationary psychology in Canada and Anti-Inflation Board Chairman Jean-Luc Pepin's statement yesterday that the "board has deliberately taken a tough initial stand on wage

demands" and that "everyone has a bit of suffering to do", I move, seconded by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes):
That this House instruct the Anti-Inflation Board to determine whether or not the $54,000 salary of Mr. Pepin is in line with his own statements about individual suffering and rough justice.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the passing of Bill C-73, the anti-inflation bill, by the House yesterday and the anticipated royal assent thereof in the very near future, and since this legislation vests unprecedented powers in the hands of the administrator and the AntiInflation Board affecting the rights of the ordinary citizen of our country, and having regard to the fact that prior to the introduction of Bill C-73, the size of the government bureaucracy had already attained such dimensions as to pose substantial problems of citizen's rights under government regulations and orders, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Fairweather):
That this House, in the interests of the civil rights of citizens of our country, direct this government to immediately introduce legislation creating the office of an ombudsman.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The motion cannot be put without unanimous consent.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance arising out of the report this morning that the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board said in Toronto that the board has deliberately taken a rough initial stand on wage matters and will later soften its approach. Will the minister explain what the chairman has in mind or is this just an indication, to borrow an eloquent phrase used by the chairman of the board, that it is simply an indication that the board is prematurely dying with its brains on.


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the government has appointed the membership of
December 4, 1975

the Anti-Inflation Board and the House has passed the legislation whereby the board will carry out its mandate. I think the board chairman and members will have to determine the role they are to carry out within the statutes and within the regulations that will be provided for them from time to time. As I said, in response to the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, it does not seem to me it would be useful for me to give interpretations from time to time of decisions or statements the board makes.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, might I ask the Minister of Finance whether he intends to abrogate his responsibility completely in terms of reporting to this House in respect of policies pursued by the board. My question relates not to a decision but to a question of policy. If the minister does not want to answer that question could he tell us whether the regulations to be initially issued under the bill that received third reading yesterday and now goes to the Senate are now ready. If so, why is the government not prepared to issue them in draft form, for example for the provinces to consider and for others to comment upon?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, on the question of reports, the bill provides specifically for reports to the House by the Anti-Inflation Board, and it seems to me that is a sensible course of action. The regulations are not yet complete in a number of respects and depend on the outcome of discussions occurring today with the provinces.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Speaker, I simply serve notice to the minister that I am sure members of all opposition parties will expect the government, and particularly the minister who reports to the House, to respond to questions in the House with regard to policy being implemented by the Anti-Inflation Board.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I want to ask the minister whether he is just going round and round in circles, whether the provinces will not agree to commit themselves until they see the regulations and the government will not issue the regulations until the provinces express their views about them.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: With respect to the turn of phrase about going round and round in circles, if the hon. gentleman is referring to himself and his party, I agree; yes, they are.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: I ask the Minister of Finance whether we will get straight answers on whether these regulations will be issued to the public or whether they will continue to be held up on some excuse such as that they must be first presented to the provinces. Is the minister prepared to deal openly with the House and with the country?


An hon. Member:: For a change.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I have dealt openly with the House and with the public on all aspects of the program and I will continue to do so. I would just
Oral Questions
remind the hon. gentleman, who is a lawyer, that after all we must have royal assent to the bill before the regulations can be promulgated.


Some hon. Members:: Nonsense.


INQUIRY WHETHER BOARD MONITORING PRICE CHANGES PRIOR TO OCTOBER 14-REQUEST FOR REPORT
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday or the day before the Bank of Montreal, in its monthly review of business, suggested that part of the increase in CPI for October was due to some increases or anticipatory increases by some major businesses prior to the announcement on October 14. Can he tell us whether the Anti-Inflation Board has been monitoring these changes and is it prepared to say at an early date whether that is so?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: With regard to changes that occurred before October 14, of course there was no indication of legal control until that time. However, I have had the attention of the board drawn to the suggestion in the bank reports that changes have occurred since October 14 which might require its action.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: If the minister would remember that the Food Prices Review Board was monitoring a good many prices of commodities, he would have that information. Will he insist to the Anti-Inflation Board that it should be their first priority to monitor these particular prices, and, if so, would he expect to report to the House as requested by the Leader of the Opposition?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I would remind the hon. gentleman, with regard to his reference to the Food Prices Review Board, that it imposed no legal sanction whatsoever with regard to any price increases that occurred before October 14. With regard to the priorities being exercised by the board, in response, for example, to requests from various provincial ministers, they have been directing themselves both to certain questions of compensation that are outstanding and to price problems.


INQUIRY WHETHER POLICY STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN IN LINE WITH GOVERNMENT POLICY
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance concerning government policy as it affects the Anti-Inflation Board. Since both the minister and the Prime Minister have made statements earlier concerning the early decision of the board with reference to their singling out of particular targets, is government policy in line with the statement attributed to Mr. Pepin "It's their bad luck that they were the first on the list" with reference to any early decision, for example, on the teachers settlement in Toronto? Is it the minister's view that this policy now administered by Mr. Pepin, which seems to contradict everything in the history of Canadian jurisprudence, is in fact the policy of the government?

December 4, 1975
Oral Questions


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, certain compensation discussions, for example, the Toronto teachers and the pulp workers, have been submitted to the Anti-Inflation Board at the request, in some cases, of one or both of the parties involved, and it is very appropriate that the cases submitted with a sense of urgency to the board should be decided upon by the board. In that sense, I think Mr. Pepin's comment was perfectly sound. These groups may feel that they are unfortunate in the sense that the decisions in their cases happened to come up first, but it is a fact that this has occurred, and that there has been some considerable pressure both from provincial governments and the general public that there should be an early clarification on this point.


VIEW OF MINISTER OF JUSTICE ON POLICY STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the Minister of Justice. Since Mr. Pepin's point was not that the board was simply reaching an early decision on a case which was presented to the board before other cases, but was reaching it in a tougher way than was going to be reached, presumably in subsequent decisions, I should like to ask the Minister of Justice if it is his view that such an approach is consistent with the application of Canadian law, which historically has meant that similar situations would be dealt with in a similar way?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, it is in accordance with the law passed by parliament yesterday, I believe.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: It is not.


Mr. Baldwin:: It has not been passed yet.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


SUGGESTION BY MR. BIDDEL THAT REGULATIONS MIGHT BE CHANGED-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: I should like to try again with the Minister of Finance on a final supplementary. Since Mr. Jack Biddel, a member of the AntiInflation Board, suggested at the same meeting in Toronto yesterday that, to use his phrase, there will be drastic changes in the regulations or the law we have just passed,-this was not clear-and since he is alleged to have said there might be a provision to permit small companies to take a tougher stand with the work force, I should like to ask the minister if Mr. Biddel was reflecting government policy, and if so, when we might expect the further changes he alluded to.
Hon Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance): The
bill is quite precise in that regard. Only under the specific circumstances referred to in the bill, namely, after reference first to the Anti-Inflation Board and then comment by the board in a report to the cabinet that there would be any additions to the list of categories of firms to which reference was made. In that sense, the suggestion that

companies could voluntarily opt into the program is not covered by the statute and therefore is not government policy.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Solicitor General.
As Mr. Justice Bronsard of the court of appeal decided to relieve Vic Cotroni of the obligation to appear as a witness before the CIOC, like all the other Mafiosi, thus threatening the seriousness of the work of the commission, could the minister make an in-depth inquiry into our judicial system to make sure that the Mafia has not extended its tentacles even into our courts?


Hon. Warren Allmand (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, there is no need to do that. The Royal Commission in Quebec is proceeding at the present time, and we are co-operating with that commission.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Real Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary to the Solicitor General.
With regard to inquiries, can the minister tell the House whether he has completed his inquiry into the RCMP, which was advised ahead of time to go to the office of the Minister of State, the hon. member for Langelier? Has the minister been advised of the results of that inquiry, and does he know whether there was really a leak, attributable to either the RCMP, the press or the CBC?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are still following leads with respect to that matter.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD INQUIRY AS TO GUIDELINES GIVEN TO BOARD BY GOVERNMENT
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I return to the question asked by the Leader of the Opposition and the uncertain reply of the Minister of Finance. May I ask the minister first whether any draft guidelines have been placed before Mr. Pepin and his board indicating what the government believes should in
December 4, 1975

fact be the guidelines? When I have an answer to that I will have a supplementary.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the guidelines are as set out in the white paper which was made public to parliament and to the country and which the chairman has been following in the course of carrying out his mandate. The question of regulations and their content has been discussed within the government of Canada, of course. There has been consultation with regard to some of the problems that can occur with various sectors of the community which would be affected by them and we have had consultation particularly with the board that would have the responsibility of carrying them out. They have not been finalized as yet.


REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF POLICY STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN
John George Diefenbaker: A supplementary question. Does the minister want the country to understand that the general regulations are so elastic that Hamletlike, Mr. Pepin, as reported in the press today, can say that the initial stand on wage demands will have "an element of rough justice" and that the board will later soften its approach? Is that the position the government takes? I ask the minister if it be such and if Mr. Pepin spoke for the government, then how does anyone know at any time what the regulations will be? To me, it is a most complex situation and either Mr. Pepin spoke from transcendental meditation or just plain nonsense. I ask the minister, therefore, is it not a fact that as a result of the uncertainties of this statement by Mr. Pepin there can only be confusion more confounded. Nobody will know when and if the law is in force or not. As a matter of fact, the teachers have no more idea today what the results will be. Surely, the minister can be clearer than he has been up to now, particularly in the answer given to the Leader of the Opposition which was totally unjust.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I suppose I really should not have to repeat to the right hon. member, who has been a long-standing and distinguished member of the bar, that this parliament has passed a bill which,' when it receives royal assent, will become the law of the country. That bill sets out the general framework of the policy of the government with regard to the anti-inflation program. Under that bill there will be authority to make regulations which, as the hon. gentleman knows, cannot be made definitive until the bill has received royal assent. When it is assented to, then there is legal authority to make regulations. It will be under those regulations that the Anti-Inflation Board will have the responsibility of carrying out its role. I suspect that before very long we will be having complaints from the right hon. gentleman that the regulations are too detailed rather than not detailed enough!
Oral Questions


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. Can the minister state definitely, despite any statements that have been made up to this point, whether the current investigations, not only the Sky Shops affair, but those linked as well to Mirabel, the Olympic village and others, through documents obtained in warrants of search and seizure taken from the various premises of Senator Louis Giguere, are all related?


William Warren Allmand: I cannot say that publicly, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Hees:: Out in the woodshed.


SKY SHOPS INVESTIGATION-POSSIBILITY OF CHARGES BEING LAID AND TABLING OF DOCUMENTS SEIZED
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. Without asking the Solicitor General to specify any individuals at this point, could he at least confirm to the House that several charges are imminent as a result of investigations in progress to this point, and if he decides not to table some of the documents I asked for, would he assist me in gaining unanimous consent of the House so I might table some of them?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the laying of charges, the hon. member should know that this is done by Crown prosecutors under the jurisdiction of the provincial governments and not by myself or by the Minister of Justice for Canada. With respect to his first question, he should also know that by asking questions about police investigations in the House of Commons he is not helping the police but those who are being investigated.


CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Prime Minister?


Mr. Trudeau:: I did not hear the first one.


Gerald William Baldwin: I hope he still has his sense of humour.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I don't know if you are as funny as your leader was.


Walter David Baker: At any rate, I see the Prime Minister smiling.

December 4, 1975
Oral Questions


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, ignoring for the moment the question of criminal investigation and charges on the issue of public morality and conflict of interest, as laid down in the guidelines brought down from on high by the President of the Privy Council two and a half years ago dealing with members of parliament, is it the Prime Minister's view, in the light of facts disclosed and in his possession, that the time has now come for the government to take action?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talks about facts in my possession. I assure him I have no more facts than are printed in the newspaper, and considerably less. As to action, I am not certain what the hon. member is implying, but I assure him that as far as I am concerned, and it is the position on this side but apparently not on the other side, in this country a man is innocent until he is proved guilty.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald William Baldwin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is this, then, the position of the Prime Minister and government on the question of conflict of interest and public morality: that not until criminal charges are laid and a conviction is obtained will this government intend to take any action?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member takes the trouble to look at the guidelines, he will see how they apply to himself.


Gerald William Baldwin: I have looked at them.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Read them. The hon. member will see the position of the government. It is not just a matter of relying on criminal charges. If he wants to make a specific allegation about any particular member of parliament, any member in this House or the other who broke the guidelines, I should like to hear him make the charge.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Gerald William Baldwin: Where is your sense of humour?


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Solicitor General which arises from the answer the minister gave on October 28, as reported on page 8609 of Hansard. On being asked by the hon. member for Joliette a question concerning an investigation into the alleged $60 million fraud at Mirabel, he answered to the effect that no investigation is going on at the present time. In the hope of clarifying the answer of October 28, I ask the Solicitor General to confirm that five days before the hon, member for Central Nova tabled his petition regarding this matter, no RCMP investigation was being conducted into the Sky Shops affair and related matters, and into the Mirabel matter as well.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, there were several incidents and they should not be confused. There was an investigation into the Sky Shops affair and there were also allegations with respect to the construction at Mirabel. But there was no question about Mirabel until that allegation had been made to the RCMP. They were evaluating the allegations, to see if an investigation should proceed. With respect to construction at Mirabel, I will have to check with the RCMP again, to see if that investigation is now under way.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Will the Solicitor General make clear if there is any relationship between the investigations concerning Sky Shops and the Mirabel projects, generally? Is the same investigation being undertaken with reference to the two projects, or interrelated projects?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, as I said in answer to an earlier question, we do not make public the details of police investigations in the House of Commons or elsewhere.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I am not asking for details. I merely seek clarification. The minister has already admitted that an investigation is going on. Does the investigation cover the Mirabel projects, as well as Sky Shops? Is this being done under the same investigation? I am not asking for details.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, on that point alone, I will have to check with the RCMP.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Don't give him the answer.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Covering up, eh?


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Arnold Malone (Battle River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State. Is any direct attempt being made by the federal government to destroy natural trading links between Alberta and the Northwest Territories, by forcing on the territories television from Vancouver? As well, will the people of the north be given the privilege of listening to the late night news on time, as now it is heard after midnight in the Northwest Territories.


Hon. James Hugh Faulkner (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, there is no conspiracy, but I will look at the question more carefully.


Arnold John Malone: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. How can the minister explain the rationale for duplicating in the Northwest Territories three hours of television? The three afternoon programs are shown again in the evening, much to the discontent of the people in the community.


James Hugh Faulkner: Mr. Speaker, that particular problem is now under investigation by the CBC.
December 4, 1975


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. As the Minister of Finance, the Anti-Inflation Board and officials of the Department of Finance have already said that marketing boards for hogs, potatoes, soy beans, corn, tobacco, fruit and vegetables for processing, industrial milk, fresh fruit, fresh meat, broilers, turkeys and eggs shall be subject to the guidelines, and that costs in each case will be controlled under the cost rules pertaining to prices; and as the Minister of Agriculture said in a speech last night to the County of Holsteins Club at Lindsay, Ontario, when referring to farmers, "That's one of the reasons why the government has not moved to control the prices farmers receive for their products," was he talking through his hat, or was the Minister of Finance wrong in what he was doing?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Because, Mr. Speaker, most products which are under marketing boards are well within the guidelines which are provided for labour and other forms of commercial life in this country. Our farmers are restricted who sell their produce through price fixing boards. Other boards are not touched because they do not have any price fixing powers vested in them, so essentially they can do nothing to them anyhow.


REQUEST MINISTER INFORM ALBERTA COW-CALF OPERATORS ON STABILIZATION PROGRAM
Leslie Gordon Benjamin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the Minister of Agriculture to review his speaking schedule, meet the National Farmers' Union in Edmonton next week and tell the Alberta cow-calf operators whether he will have a cow-calf stabilization program ready and in place in January, 1976, as he earlier intimated? What progress has he made with the provinces in this matter, and can he say if such a stabilization program will also be subject to the guidelines?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I have already told the NFU and the Unifarm people in Alberta that I will be unable to attend their convention because I have other commitments. I only received notice a couple of months ago and I make commitments nearly one year ahead of time.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order-


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD INQUIRY WHETHER POLICY STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN IN LINE WITH GOVERNMENT POLICY
Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Prime Minister relates to the
Oral Questions
questions three front bench members asked about the statement which Mr. Pepin, chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board, made yesterday. I shall make it simple. Can the Prime Minister tell the House this afternoon whether the policy enunciated by Mr. Pepin yesterday is or is not government policy?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I should like to know what Mr. Pepin said. I do not think anybody in this House knows, apart from what has been reported in the newspapers.


Walter David Baker: What did Mr. Pepin
say?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: You don't know.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. I gave the minister notice this morning. Will he assure members of this House interested in the welfare of New Brunswick that the joint federal-provincial industrial expediter, known as Multiplex and jointly funded by the two governments, will not be phased out for lack of federal government funding?


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, first I should like to thank the hon. member for having given me notice of his question. When that corporation was set up by the two governments it was created on an experimental and temporary basis. The support it enjoys proves its considerable success. The two governments are now negotiating the formula they could adopt to extend its activities. But the hon. member must recognize, as all of us must, that the corporation, as set up now, is only temporary and that it cannot pursue its activities much longer, as it does at the present time. However, I repeat that the two governments want the corporation to continue its work, probably on another basis; but no decision has yet been reached by the two parties.


Mr. Fairweather:: Will the other mechanism that the minister speaks about include federal government funding?


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, I cannot give a definite answer at this point because, as I just stated, we have not reached a final conclusion in our discussions on that matter.

December 4, 1975
Oral Questions EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


POSSIBLE APPOINTMENT OF SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AS AMBASSADOR TO SCOTLAND
Hon. J. A. MacLean (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could have the indulgence of the House for just a moment to point out that we have a very distinguished visitor in Your Honour's gallery in the person of Mrs. Ewing, a Scottish nationalist member of the United Kingdom parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Angus MacLean: Against that background, I would like to ask the Prime Minister a rather good-natured question. In light of the apparent imminent independence of Scotland, is it the intention of the Prime Minister to appoint the Secretary of State for External Affairs as Canada's first ambassador to Scotland?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I think there are many people on this side of the House who would be prepared to volunteer for such a job. We are not suggesting that is the direction events will take. If they do, we have contingency plans, including my wife who is a Scottish nationalist.


SALE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR TO SOUTH KOREA- GOVERNMENT POSITION ON COMPLETION OF SALE IN VIEW OF NEGOTIATIONS FOR REPROCESSING PLANT
Mr. Douglas Roche (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. In view of the strong protest made at Tuesday night's meeting of the External Affairs committee concerning the impending sale of a Canadian nuclear reactor to South Korea and precisely because South Korea has recently purchased a reprocessing plant from France which will give Korea the capacity to build a nuclear device, is the government determined to complete that sale without a further review of the wisdom of this policy, as advocated by many people in Canada, including the distinguished Canadian, General E. L. Burns?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I believe the Secretary of State for External Affairs answered questions along similar lines not more than two days ago.


Douglas Roche: Precisely because the issue was raised at the External Affairs committee meeting, I will again put the question to the Prime Minister. With respect to the trustworthiness of South Korea, with whom we will be signing an agreement, has the Prime Minister examined the reports by impartial international observers such as Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, the International League for the Rights of Man and the World Conference of Religion for Peace that are highly critical of the Park regime?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, these are the kinds of representations that could usefully be made when the minister is in attendance before the committee.
[Mr. Lessard-1


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the President of the Treasury Board. It follows on an answer given yesterday by the Minister of the Environment to the hon. member for Fraser Valley West. She stated that the Fraser River flood control program has been seriously eroded by inflation. I can understand that. She further stated there is a plan to come to Treasury Board for more funds for that program. Will the minister give this high priority in view of the fact that a dyke broke yesterday in the eastern part of Surrey and the South Westminster district is facing imminent flooding? I have a supplementary question to the Minister of the Environment. Will she give this high priority when she receives the funds?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, evidently when we are dealing with emergencies like that one, we take the necessary steps if we have to pay for our share of responsibilities. As far as the total budget of this department is concerned as well as those of other departments, I hope the hon. member will inform the leader of his party that he is pressing us to spend more money.


AIRPORTS
Mr. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that the Director of Airport and Field Operations has stated in writing that it has always been departmental policy to invite "general public tenders" on the granting and renewal of lease concessions at airports, can the minister explain how it was possible that Kebec Restaurants was able to have its lease at Dorval renegotiated and renewed on three separate occasions without any such tenders being called?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the statement is accurate as a general rule. Indeed, it was applied in those terms in this case. According to my information, the lease in question, hon. members will be happy to learn, was first granted in 1961. It was a lease for five year terms with subsequent options of two successive five year additional terms. That was the nature of the lease at that time.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to pose a question to the Solicitor General.
December 4, 1975

A member of the American Congress, Mr. Edward Beard, declared last week that he is preparing a bill aimed at restricting the power of Interpol, a private international police agency. This decision follows an eight-month study of a report on Interpol, which clearly demonstrates the Nazi history of that agency and points out at cases when it violated the rights of individuals and groups by broadcasting false information. Considering that the same report has been made available to the Solicitor General since March 1975, would he advise the House if he has completed the study of the report and, if so, when will he report to the House? If he has not, why has the study not been completed?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, this matter was raised in the Justice committee the other day on my supplementary estimates. We provided certain information to the committee. I might say that we have no information to the effect that Interpol is doing what was suggested by the hon. member. I am willing to investigate this further and report back to him.


NELSON AND CHURCHILL RIVER HYDRO-ELECTRIC PROJECTS-APPLICATION OF MANITOBA HYDRO FOR EXPORT PERMIT
Mr. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. It concerns the Manitoba Hydro project for exportation of hydro-electric power from the Nelson and Churchill River projects to the midwest United States. Construction of that 230,000 KV line from Ridgeway, Manitoba to Sprague, Manitoba, has begun by Manitoba Hydro. There are survey crews and expropriation and the construction of transmission towers has begun. Has Manitoba Hydro applied for an export permit? If so, has it been approved and if not, why not?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell the hon. member whether such an application has been made. I can tell him, however, that there will be meetings at the highest level next week to discuss this and related matters.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Justice. As construction has been halted on the transmission lines as it appears on the surface that Section 40 of the National Energy Board Act has been violated by Manitoba Hydro for beginning construction before the export permit was approved by the National Energy Board, has any legal action been taken against Manitoba Hydro?
Oral Questions


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, I would like to examine with my officials the legal implications of that question.



ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of the Environment. Can the minister report progress on her continuing struggle to protect the environment of the Okanagan Valley, at least to the extent of having signed the implementation agreement setting out the five year program arising out of the three year study of the Okanagan Regional Water Board? There is a growing fear that this modest, long-range, essential and eventually money saving program has been sacrificed because of restraint.


Hon. Jeanne Sauve (Minister of the Environment):: No,
Mr. Speaker. That agreement has not been sacrificed in the budgetary restrictions. I do have some matters to discuss with the minister in British Columbia and we are trying desperately to get hold of him, but he is out campaigning and does not seem to have any time to discuss the situation in the Okanagan at the present time.



AIR TRANSPORT


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Transport. Is the minister in a position to inform the House today whether cabinet has reached any decision on the appeal from the Canadian Transport Commission May 1975 air fare rate hearings presented by the Consumers Association of Canada, and if not, why not?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I cannot identify the specific appeal from that reference. I will check it later in Hansard and examine the question.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The appeal was with respect to the increased air fares granted by the CTC last May, which incidentally, for the information of the minister, are highly discriminatory so far as people outside of central Canada are concerned. Would the minister also take this fact into consideration?

December 4, 1975
Oral Questions INDIAN AFFAIRS



MERCURY POISONING OF NATIVES-PROPOSED FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL ACTION

Mr. Doug Neil (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. In light of the Ontario natural resources minister's statement that the federal and provincial governments will be working together, can the minister tell the House what new action his department is taking to co-ordinate attacks on the mercury problem in northwestern Ontario, and in the rest of the country for that matter?


Hon. Judd Buchanan (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I met with the two chiefs from the area and during the meeting they expressed concern that the two levels of government were attacking the problem each at its own level in an uncoordinated way. Two of my colleagues accompanied me at a federal-provincial meeting, and we have now set up a working body to try to deal jointly with the problem.



ANTI-INFLATION BOARD REACTION OF LABOUR GROUPS TO POLICY STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN-GOVERNMENT POSITION

John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a further question for the Minister of Finance arising out of earlier answers which he gave in the House today. Does the minister not realize that by refusing to repudiate the extraordinary decision by Mr. Pepin to make harsh decisions in terms of the anti-inflation law now, saying that he will be lenient later on, this will contribute to chaos in collective bargaining in Canada, so that all groups now know that they have a vested interest in not reaching an early settlement and therefore will push for negotiations to drag on for weeks or months down the road?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I do
not share the hon. gentleman's conclusion, Mr. Speaker.


John Edward Broadbent: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. That is extraordinarily unfortunate in the present circumstances. May I ask the minister a supplementary question. Does the government not realize that this will cause all negotiating groups, whether wage or salary earners, to push for one year contracts instead of two year contracts now?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Of course, Mr. Speaker, all parties are free to move for whatever contractual rights they prefer. I would remind the hon. gentleman that we have put in place a controls regime for a period of three years, and negotiation decisions will have to be guided by the law that has now been approved by this House.



FINANCE


Mr. Claude Wagner (Saint-Hyacinthe):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a question to the Minister of Finance.
In his fight against inflation, would the minister consider, now or in view of the next budget, the suggestion that the government's current social programs should be geared to the costs of such necessities as food, housing, public transportation, which are still increasing, rather than to the overall cost of living index which includes the fairly stable prices of commodities which are not at all necessary?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I am willing to consider this suggestion as well as others concerning the fight against inflation.



SUGGESTED CONTINUATION OF INDEXING OF INCOME TAX

Claude Wagner: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question. Since he is in a good mood, would the Minister of Finance be prepared to retain, in his next budget, the suggestion of a tax deduction for low income earners which would be equal to the monetary value of the annual increase in the cost of daily necessities?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, there now exists a form of indexation in the Income Tax Act. The next time I prepare a budget, I shall see whether the system established two years ago now must be changed.



AIR TRANSPORT


Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. As Saskatchewan has threatened to pull out of the Manitoba-Saskatchewan Skywest air service beacuse, as transport minister Gordon MacMurchy indicated, the minister did not provide any documents for the CTC hearing last week, what are these key documents that the minister has failed to provide so that the CTC hearing could have gone forward?


Otto Emil Lang: First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me say that Saskatchewan's reluctance in this program is not really new, so this may be more of an excuse than an explanation. The reference to the absence of any documents is a terrible distortion of what the ATB committee really said in explaining that Skywest had put forward totally inadequate documentation in its application. One of the items included was a reference to the federal contribution of the two aeroplanes. We have not been asked specifically to make clear that these aeroplanes will be available upon the granting of a licence, but of course we would be prepared to do so.
December 4, 1975



LABOUR CONDITIONS


Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. Time and time again members of the opposition parties have posed questions regarding Dr. Noel Hall's report on the inquiry into the retired CN pensioners, and time and time again the answer has been "soon". I could ask, how soon is soon, but I will ask this. Is it not possible to contact the Justice, either by telephone or telegram, and find out whether it will be three weeks, three months, six months, or 30 days?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Labour):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is possible to contact the Doctor, and the hon. member will be pleased to know that I am quite prepared to do that, but I must say that he has been contacted on several occasions. The matter is more complex than perhaps anyone had anticipated at first, and this has protracted the hearings. He does not feel that it will be worthy of his efforts or in the interests of the employees if he unduly rushes the matter, and that is the situation at the present time.



CONFLICT OF INTEREST


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice and arises out of the Prime Minister's answer to the question asked by the hon. member for Peace River. I wonder whether the Minister of Justice, in his capacity as chief law officer of the Crown, has advised the Prime Minister of the significance of the guidelines respecting the conduct of members of parliament, and particularly respecting guidelines No. 2 which provides:
Members of Parliament should make every reasonable effort to avoid even the appearance of those conflicts of interest that are not inherent in a representative democracy.
Has the Prime Minister sought the advice of the Attorney General of Canada, or has the Attorney General of Canada advised the Prime Minister, with respect to these very important guidelines that affect the dignity of parliament, so that indeed justice and right are seen to be done as well as in fact are done?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, the initiator of the guidelines and of the guidelines process was the Prime Minister himself. In the course of preparing the guidelines the government had the benefit of the advice of the Attorney General, who of course was a member of the government that produced the guidelines.


Walter David Baker: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the answer by the Attorney General, which indicates his obvious concern about the present situation relating to these guidelines which apply Senator Giguere, will the Attorney General, as chief law officer of the Crown, undertake to the House to refresh the
Oral Questions
memory of the Prime Minister with respect to the guidelines of which he claims to be the father?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. McGrath:: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is prompted by the importance of this part of our parliamentary day, namely, the question period, especially since the present rules were adopted in 1968 which did away with committee of supply, thus making the question period the only part of the parliamentary day when the government can be held accountable. My point of order is also prompted by my concern over the growing tendency of ministers to be evasive in their answers to questions.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: For example, the tendency is growing for ministers to take questions as notice and say, "I will look into the question and answer it later", and that is the last we ever hear of it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, our predicament is even more compounded by the fact that we are now operating under provisional rules which deny us the right to raise points of order or questions of privilege during the question period. Hence, there is no opportunity given to members on this side of the House-or on any side, for that matter-to hold minister accountable for undertakings they make during the course of the question period to supply answers at a later date.
Today, for example, I endeavoured to direct a question supplementary to one asked by the hon. member for Regi-na-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin) to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), asking him to fulfil an undertaking he had made to me in answer to a question I directed to him on November 25 regarding a very important matter, namely, a directive that has been sent to the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency by the Anti-Inflation Board regarding an increase in the price of eggs, which, in the opinion of the Anti-Inflation Board, could not be justified in the face of evidence which indicated that the price of feed grain had gone down.
The minister indicated, on November 25 when I directed the question to him, that he would be meeting with the Farm Products Marketing Council, thereby implying that he would undertake to obtain an answer to my question; that is, whether the Farm Products Marketing Council had endeavoured to determine whether the price increase by CEMA was in fact justified and such communication sent to the Anti-Inflation Board.
I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, with great deference and respect, that we are constrained and, indeed, impeded in carrying out our responsibilities of holding the government accountable in the face of the growing practice of ministers to be evasive by putting off replies to questions, giving the undertaking that they will look into the matter and reply at a later date, and knowing full well that members of the opposition have no way, under the present rules-especially under the provisional rules-to hold ministers accountable. I submit that the tendency toward this

December 4, 1975
Oral Questions
practice is growing, and the point of my raising the matter as a point of order is to bring it as forcibly as possible to Your Honour's direction and to the attention of the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization so that it can be considered.
May I say, with great respect to the members of that committee, that it is my view the present provisional rules which restrain us considerably during the question period should be terminated forthwith so we can get on with the question period by holding ministers accountable and by raising points of order and questions or privilege at the time they arise.


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could just say a few words with reference to the answer I gave the hon. member. The meeting I referred to is taking place and he will be informed when representations are made to me. I have no intention of withholding information from the hon. member or from anyone else.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) has had the floor for some time on a point of order which is, frankly, little more than a complaint about the quality of answers that have been given. If the hon. member has representations to make to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization, he may do so during the day. The minister has taken ten seconds to give a specific answer to the specific point raised by the hon. member for St. John's East. I think that, with other hon. members seeking the floor on points of order, it would be unfair to recognize again the hon. member for St. John's East. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) on a point of order.


James Aloysius McGrath: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Peace River on a point of order.


James Aloysius McGrath: I rise on a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: I recognize the hon. member for Peace River on a point of order.


James Aloysius McGrath: I am on a question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Peace River on a point of order.


James Aloysius McGrath: I rise on a question of privilege.


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for St. John's East will understand that the floor has been given to the hon. member for Peace River. If the hon. member still seeks the floor for the purpose of another intervention, he will have to wait until this point of order is concluded.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the government House leader about the business for this week and for next week. Also, I want to say publicly what I have already said to him and the other House leaders privately, namely, that we are prepared to defer our use of tomorrow as an allotted day until the next semester or period in order that the government may proceed with the more harmless items of its legislative program.


Mr. Sharp:: Mr. Speaker, I thank the House leader of the official opposition for the postponement in respect of the allotted day and putting it off until the next semester. I do not think he has given up that day: that kind of generosity would be beyond my comprehension. At any rate, we are happy about the postponement because there is a great deal of urgent business yet to be done.
When Bill C-77 has been read the second time, we shall move on to Bills C-74, C-27 and C-20. I am not sure of the business beyond that, Mr. Speaker, as there are a number of reports being made currently and we may wish to take up some of those which are made to the House.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in respect of the business of the House, may I ask a question which will come as no surprise to the government House leader. For six Thursdays in a row he has told us that the bill to implement the report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs with regard to Canadian veterans who were prisoners of war is still under consideration. Will the minister now tell us whether the government has decided to bring in that bill and, if so, will it be introduced before Christmas?


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I specifically raised the matter in cabinet today but I can only say that no decision was reached.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege and I say to you, with the greatest respect, that my understanding of the rules is that a question of privilege has to be heard and takes precedence over all points of order.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


James Aloysius McGrath: I rise on this question of privilege at the time because it had to do with a reply given to my earlier point of order by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) who is no longer in the House; as a result, my position is much more difficult. The minister misled me and the House in his reply.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: That is precisely my question of privilege. I do not intend to proceed with it until the minister is in the House, but I shall raise it at the first opportunity when he is here.

December 4, 1975


COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
[Stage Direction]
Eleventh report of Standing Committee on Agriculture- Mr. Daudlin.

[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration-Miss Nicholson.
[Editor's Note: For text of above reports, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]

Donald Stovel Macdonald: for leave to introduce Bill C-78, to repeal an act respecting the Halifax Relief Commission and to authorize the continuation of pensions, grants or allowances paid by the Halifax Relief Commission.


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

Mr. Paul E. McRae (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 26, I ask leave to move a motion for the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration. The specific and important matter is the nationwide strike in the pulp and paper industry, a strike involving some 25,000 members of the Canada Paperworkers Union, and lay-offs of the same order in the bush and allied operations.
Since this industry represents one of the largest single components of our export trade, a significant portion of the increasing unfavourable balance of trade can be attributed to this strike. The federal government's concern must also be with the relationship of this strike to the federal guidelines, since almost all the contracts in the industry are dated before January 1, 1974, and settlements are likely to include catch-up which will require appearances before the Anti-Inflation Board. If acceptable, Mr. Speaker, I would move, seconded by the hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bechard):
That this House do now adjourn.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. There have, of course, been a number of applications for an emergency debate, pursuant
Order Paper Questions
to Standing Order 26, relating to work stoppages in various industries. In some cases they have presented the Chair with a serious problem in view of the fact that the industry involved is either a federal undertaking or dealt in some direct way with a bargaining agent that was federally-constituted or otherwise related to the jurisdiction of the federal government.
Without going into the details of all the other considerations or similar considerations involved in this work stoppage which would in any case make the Chair reluctant to grant an emergency debate until it was seen that there was no action within the sphere of collective bargaining which might bring it to a resolution, there is the additional difficulty that, except by virtue of the reference to the anti-inflation measures which are, of course, matters of federal jurisdiction, the fact is that it appears to be a work stoppage in the private sector involving private companies and unions which are not in any way subject to federal jurisdiction. Accordingly, there is the additional difficulty the Chair has that this does not seem to be the jurisdiction to which this House should be addressing itself in the way suggested by the hon. member.
There is, of course, as in other work stoppages, nothing to prevent the hon. member making application at another time; but there is, in fact, a jurisdictional problem which I feel, with great respect, the hon. member would have to get around. In the circumstances, I feel we ought not to set aside special time for such a debate.




[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Coucil: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 3,144, 3,155, 3,253, 3,484, 3,507 and 3,515.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Whittaker: What is the average number of pension cheques issued for the various departments where the majority of payments remain static for annual twelve month periods such as superannuation, veterans pensions, Canada Pension Plan and others?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: The average number of pension cheques issued per month during 1974 (calendar or fiscal year 74/75 as noted) for the following programs was: Public Service Superannuation, 82,642 (1974/75); RCMP Superannuation, 3,475 (1974/ 75); Canadian Forces Superannuation, 48,758 (1974/75); Canada Pension Plan, 485,769 (1974); Old Age Security

December 4, 1975
Order Paper Questions
(Guaranteed Income Supplement), 1,807,065	(1974);
Canadian Pension Commission, 151,900 (1974). It should be noted that Old Age Security payments are escalated quarterly, in accordance with the Consumer Price Index.


Mr. Reynolds: 1.	Who were the persons representing Canada at the Canada-USA Salmon negotiations?
2.	What is the status of the negotiations at the present time?


Mr. George Baker (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Fisheries)):: 1. The Canadian delegation to the Canada-U.S. Salmon negotiation session, held in February, 1974 comprised: C. R. Levelton (Head of Delegation), Director General, Operations Directorate, Fisheries and Marine Service, Department of the Environment. M. P. Shepard, Director, International Fisheries Policy, International Fisheries and Marine Directorate, Fisheries and Marine Service, Department of the Environment. B. Applebaum, Legal Operation Division, Department of External Affairs. L. H. Legault, Director General, International Fisheries and Marine Directorate, Fisheries and Marine Service, Department of the Environment. W. R. Hourston, Regional Director, Pacific Region, Fisheries and Marine Directorate, Department of the Environment. In addition, advisers and experts from the Federal and Provincial Governments, (Province of B.C.) and the B.C. fishing industry attended the negotiations.
2.	No further negotiations have taken place since February 1974, although officials to the two governments have
been in contact from time to time to discuss elements of the problems. There have also been a number of meetings with the Canadian industry advisory group to discuss the Canadian position. It is expected that negotiations will resume early in 1976.


Mr. Friesen: 1.	By province and territory, how many complaints were received by the Department of Communications regarding radio frequency interference in (a) 1970 (b) 1971 (c) 1972 (d) 1973 (e) 1974 (f) 1975?
2.	How many complaints were registered by (a) licensed radio operators (b) other citizens?
3.	How many complaints by licensed operators reported some retaliatory measure taken by other citizens to (a) jam their operations (b) destroy equipment?
4.	In what percentage of the complaints was the (a) equipment of the amateur radio operator (b) manufacturer of the receiving equipment found to be at fault?
5.	How many persons are employed by the Department to handle such complaints?


Otto Emil Lang: In so far as the Department of Communications is concerned: 1. (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (f) See Statement "A".
2.	(a) and (b) See Statement "B".
3.	(a) and (b) See Statement "C".
4.	(a) and (b) See Statement "D".
5.	One hundred and twenty-five persons.
1. Total Complaints
Statement "A"
Quebec	Ontario	PacificAtlantic Region	Region	Region	Central Region	RegionYear	Nfld.	N.S.	P.E.I.	N.B.	Man.	Sask.	Alta. N.W.T.	B.C. Y.T.1970	66	789	_	429	2300	8693	695	45	1205	9	1405 601971	100	690	-	473	2305	11126	781	56	1462	9	1210 501972	161	757	-	481	3649	11791	876	60	1620	13	1443 451973	352	731	69	509	3093	17163	1005	65	1708	18	1749 421974	322	870	116	911	4304	14950	997	70	1950	22	1833 581975	564	1086	168	1448	4688	17000	1032	80	2000	30	1850 344Complaints registered by:	Statement "B"	2. (a)	Licensed Operators	Quebec	Ontario	PacificAtlantic Region	Region	Region	Central Region	RegionYear	Nfld.	N.S.	P.E.I.	N.B.	Man.	Sask.	Alta. N.W.T.	B.C. Y.T.1970	6	79	_	43	14	695	255	14	255	7	21 21971	10	69	_	47	12	890	273	15	264	8	37 51972	16	76	_	48	16	943	324	17	324	10	32 11973	35	73	7	51	22	1373	485	25	485	14	43 11974	32	87	12	91	25	1196	554	28	553	16	36 21975	56	118	16	144	64	1360	411	26	411	12	124 1

December 4, 1975

Order Paper Questions
Complaints registered by: 2. (b) Other Citizens
Year	Atlantic Region Nfld. N.S. P.E.I.	N.B.	Quebec Region1970	60	710	-	386	22861971	90	621	-	426	22931972	145	681	-	433	36331973	317	658	62	458	30711974	290	783	104	820	42791975	508	968	152	1304	46243. (a)	Retaliatory Action (jam operations)	Year 1970	Atlantic Region Nfld. N.S. P.E.I. N.B.	Quebec Region 21971	- - - -	-1972	- - - -	11973	- - - -	31974	- - _ -	-1975	- _ _ -	2Ontario	PacificRegion	Central Region	RegionMan.	Sask.	Alta.	N.W.T.	B.C.	Y.T.7998	440	31	950	2	1384	5810236	508	41	1198	1	1173	4510848	552	43	1296	3	1411	4415790	520	40	1223	4	1706	4113754	443	42	1397	6	1797	5615640	621	54	1589	18	1726	343
Statement "C"
Ontario Region	Central Region	Pacific RegionMan.	Sask. Alta. N.W.T.	B.C. Y.T.150	9	- 10 -	1 -162	17	- 16 -	1215	27	- 29 -	1 -221	39	- 37 -	1 -230	38	- 41 -	1 -223	70	- 67 -	1 -3. (b)	Retaliatory Action (destroy equipment)	Quebec	Ontario	PacificAtlantic Region	Region	Region	Central Region RegionYear	Nfld. N.S. P.E.I. N.B.	Man.	Sask. Alta. N.W.T. B.C. Y.T.1970	_ - - -	-	10	1	- 9 - -1971	_ - -	1	8	-	-10 - - -1972	- - -	-	19	1	-11 - - -1973	- - -	1	25	3	-15 - 1974	- - -	-	35	4	- 20 - - -1975	- - -	-	53	3	- 25 - 2Statement "D"	Percentage of:	4. (a) Amateur Radio Equipment at fault.	Quebec	Ontario	PacificAtlantic Region	Region	Region	Central Region	RegionNfld. N.S. P.E.I. N.B.	Man.	Sask.	Alta. N.W.T.	B.C. Y.T.5 5 5 5	20	53	63	40	57	63	24 -per per per per	per	per	per	per	per	per	percent cent cent cent	cent	cent	cent	cent	cent	cent	cent
December 4, 1975
Order Paper Questions Percentage of:
4. (b) Receiving equipment at fault.
Quebec Ontario	Pacific
Atlantic Region Region Region	Central Region	RegionNfld.	N.S.	P.E.I.	N.B.	35-45	35-45	35-45	35-45	80per	per	per	per	percent	cent	cent	cent	cent


Mr. Hnatyshyn: What was Canada's contribution to food aid for third world and developing countries for the year 1974 and the first six months of 1975 (a) to which countries were contributions made (b) in each case (i) what food products were contributed (ii) at what dollar value (c) what was the (i) administrative cost (ii) cost of distribution (iii) value of the food product?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Replies to parts (a) and (b)(i) and (ii) will be found in the following statement. (c)(i) Estimated cost of administration for this program is $135,000. (ii) Not known, (iii) $193,569,650.73.
Canadian Food Aid Contribution January 1974 to June 1975 Inclusive
Tonnage
Country	Foodstuff	(MTN)	Value ($)Afghanistan	Egg Powder	10.2	43,875.00Milk powder	150.	165,325.00Algeria	Flour	300.	69,576.00Barley	18,224.	3,000,000.00Angola	Beans	107.	30,782.30Arab Republic	Milk powder	1,148.	1,596,184.00of Egypt	Flour	270.	62,443.80Bangladesh	Wheat	391,844.	69,974,564.20Rapeseed	8,432.9	4,418,087.94Barbados	Beans	15.	4,312.95Milk powder	35.5	39,125.00Botswana	Egg powder	4.	16,978.50Milk powder	30.	33,050.00Brazil	Egg powder	30.	121,687.00Burma	Wheat	5,340.	936,216.26Burundi	Milk powder	50.	55,125.00Egg powder	12.	51,597.00Flour	85.	21,271.00Centra! African Republic	Egg powder	6.	25,275.75Cape Verde Is.	Beans	270.	73,631.20Colombia	Fish	350.	286,978.20Beans	305.	143,950.00Man. 47 37 per per cent cent	Sask. Alta. N.W.T. 60 43 37 per per per cent cent cent	B.C. Y.T. 76 - per cent	Tonnage	Country	Foodstuff	(MTN)	Value ($)Congo	Egg powder	21.	89,743.00Costa Rica	Beans	5.	2,513.50Milk powder	5.	5,500.00Cyprus	Egg powder	19.5	81,681.00Flour	600.	144,696.00Beans	46.	12,270.00Dahomey	Fish	32.	24,227.20Dominica	Fish	1.	757.10Ecuador	Beans	15.	3,703.80El Salvador	Beans	60.	20,754.00Ethiopia	Wheat	20,873.7	4,046,415.07Gabon	Egg powder	2.	8,322.00Beans	36.	14,421.80Gambia	Beans	7.	3,206.56Egg powder	29.	115,533.64Ghana	Wheat	22,549.8	3,999,999.92Guinea	Egg powder	5.	19,293.75Beans	50.	11,023.00Guinea-Bissau Beans	500.	132,346.50Milk powder	160.	170,950.00Haiti	Flour	200.	45,880.00Fish	14.	12,181.40Beans	25.	7,038.75Honduras	Milk powder	783.	928,422.00India	Milk powder	2,150.	2,369,962.50Rapeseed	13,937.7	4,945,557.62Rapeseed oil	14,793.6	14,901,711.86Wheat	138,274.7	25,152,477.84Iran	Milk powder	350.	385,850.00Iraq	Beans	33.	17,305.00Wheat	625.	136,843.75Ivory Coast	Egg powder	35.	146,600.00Beans	35.	9,597.00Jamaica	Milk powder	600.	715,311.00Jordan	Beans	70.	18,532.50Korea	Flour	15,000.	3,583,700.00Lebanon	Milk powder	40.	44,075.00
December 4, 1975

Country	Foodstuff	Tonnage (MTN)	Value ($)Lesotho	Flour	160.	41,187.20Beans	300.	127,176.40Milk powder	200.	220,450.00Egg powder	100.	407,898.75Liberia	Egg powder	4.	33,516.00Madagascar	Flour	320.	76,480.00Mali	Sorghum	4,675.	575,500.50Semolina	4,535.	1,868,962.50Flour	10,970.	2,840,903.34Mauritania	Egg powder	3.8	15,408.00Milk powder	500.	595,215.00Wheat	6,100.	1,229,686.17Mauritius	Milk powder	247.5	272,800.00Mexico	Egg powder	10.	42,997.50Morocco	Wheat	8,600.	1,516,370.57Mozambique	Beans	1,135.	313,497.63Niger	Fish	170.	128,707.00Egg powder	3.	12,568.00Milk powder	458.	513,075.00Sorghum	2,930.	360,705.40Semolina	3,555.	1,476,204.54Flour	7,535.	1,989,730.10Pakistan	Corn	600.	103,550.00Milk powder	296.	326,300.00Wheat	34,763.	7,292,820.45Paraguay	Egg powder	15.	57,881.25Peru	Egg powder	8.5	35,706.75Beans	64.	18,519.72Philippines	Flour	293.	31,969.96Beans	6.	2,788.92Senegal	Beans	14.	6,493.34Egg powder	14.	59,845.75Semolina	2,775.	1,161,609.00Flour	1,490.	373,958.35Milk powder	1,500.	1,785,213.00Somalia	Flour	1,737.4	439,498.26Sri Lanka	Corn	400.	69,080.00Flour	6,000.	1,539,320.00Sudan	Wheat	3,261.	571,391.63Flour	180.	46,215.00Milk powder	224.	247,150.00Beans	580.	208,129.53Swaziland	Beans	25.	7,744.75Tanzania	Wheat	41,869.	7,084,989.32Tchad	Semolina	4,800.	2,036,998.60Tunisia	Wheat	11,033.	1,999,999.77Beans	349.	161,869.69Upper Volta	Semolina	1,400.	584,350.00Sorghum	2,580.	317,604.40Milk powder	340.	374,775.00Wheat	1,925.	332,829.27Egg powder	5.	21,498.75Unrwa	Flour	2,526.	639,788.48
Order Paper Questions
Country	Foodstuff	Tonnage (Mtn)	Value ($)Vietnam	Flour	10,000.	2,366,495.00Fish	1,870.	1,123,198.82Milk powder	1,734.	2,412,688.54Yemen	Beans	543.3	159,153.51Flour	2,499.	653,796.75Wheat	4,320.	756,949.41Total	$193,569,650.73


Mr. Forrestall: 1.	What was the amount of payments made to truckers under the Atlantic Region Freight Assistance Act for the fiscal year 1974-75 on traffic moving (a) within the region (b) westbound out of the region (c) under the Selective Assistance Plan?
2.	What companies are the fifteen principal recipients of the reimbursements for freight carried within the Atlantic Region on freight originating and destined within the area and of these how many are in the category of common carriers?
3.	What companies are in the first fifteen on traffic carried westbound?
4.	How many carrying freight westbound would be in the category of common carriers, such as, carriers offering to transport the goods of all shippers for compensation as distinct from truckers carrying the goods of a particular industry or industries under contract?


Otto Emil Lang: The
Canadian Transport Commission advises as follows: 1. (a) $16,241,566. (b) $3,857,413. (b) $666,113.
2.	Eastern Transport Limited, Moffat Brothers Moving and Storage Limited, Day and Ross Ltd., Road and Sea Transport Ltd., Thompson Transfer Co. Ltd., M and D Transfer Ltd., Brunswick Petroleum Transport Ltd., Eas-son's Limited, Roch Roy Transport Ltee, Cement Cartage Co. Ltd., Midland Transport Limited, G. M. Armour and Son Ltd., Roy's Midway Transfer, Bowness Transport Ltd., Heffler Trucking Ltd. All above truckers hold provincial licences authorizing operation as common carriers.
3.	Day and Ross Ltd., Rimouski Transport Limitee, Smith Transport, Maritime Ontario Freight Lines Ltd., Speedway Express Limited, Hebb's Transport Limited, Transbois Inc., St. Lambert Transport, Junbo Motor Express Ltd., O. Belanger Transport Inc., Transport D'Anjou, Moffat Brothers, Transport Theberge Ltee, Household Movers and Shippers Ltd., Maritime Warehousing and Transfer Co. Ltd.
4.	Six hundred and forty-three.


FURNITURE FOR SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS OFFICE
Mr. Cossitt: What was the cost of the original furniture and equipment of any kind used to furnish the office of the Secretary of State for External Affairs at the time the Lester B. Pearson Building was constructed and made ready for opening prior to occupancy by the Honourable Mitchell Sharp (a) were any changes made after occupancy by the Honourable Mitchell Sharp and, if so, what are the details of (i) items changed (ii) items added (iii) the cost involved (b) were any further changes made by the present Secretary of State for External Affairs and, if so, what is
(i)	a list of the items changed (ii) a list of items added (iii) the cost to the taxpayer?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: $18,200.94. (a) Yes; (i) nil; (ii) T.V. monitor; (iii) $360. (b) Yes. (i) nil; (ii) Westclox wall clock; (iii) $23.30.

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, December 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Sharp (for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs) that Bill C-77 to amend the National Housing Act and the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, last evening at six o'clock I was discussing housing and subsidized housing available in rural Canada, specifically in the province of Ontario where I have had some experience as former reeve of a small municipality. I was commending the Ontario government on the money available and the various projects it had completed. I know a great many projects are under construction at the present time.
I checked with the Minister of Housing for Ontario to get his comments on this federal bill. He informed me he did not have too much knowledge of it. He said he met with the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) in Ottawa some weeks ago and had received the statement of the minister, but he had some concern that they did not have the exact details. I had hoped to get more information from him this morning, but I understand he has been tied up. I am speaking of Mr. John Rhodes, Minister of Housing for Ontario. He did tell me, however, that the federal program as outlined leaves the Ontario government in a quandary concerning how well its action program will be accepted. He admitted that the federal interest rate for those qualified for the subsidy is lower, at 8 per cent, than the rate in Ontario, which I believe is 10 !4 per cent.
A few days ago, when members of the committee were discussing the estimates of the minister, I had the opportunity to question the minister and also the president of CMHC. At that time I was dealing with one program in particular, the limited dividend program in respect of housing and apartments. I commented that this certainly was a good idea. I brought to the attention of the president of CMHC and the minister that a great many experienced builders who ordinarily would have taken advantage of a program such as this were not jumping into it 100 per cent; in other words, it did not sound too good.
I mentioned that several smaller builders thought it was a good idea and that it would be an opportunity for them to diversify. For this reason they had contacted the authorities. Back in May of this year the branch manager of CMHC in the city of North Bay was contacted in this regard. They had been negotiating back and forth in an effort to get a project off the ground. Prior to the opening of this House, I believe in the first or second week of October, I checked into this matter and was informed everything was in order. However, again there were delays

for almost another month before the project finally received approval. Now the owner and the builder are faced with winter weather, which in northern Ontario will mean a great deal of additional cost.
I asked Mr. Teron whether he did not feel the department has a responsibility to make this information more available to prospective clients, and whether it would not be a good idea, in the interests of good public relations, to advise them of all the pitfalls and steps which must be taken. In this particular case the owner did not know it was necessary to have a soil test. From May until November 1 nothing was done about it, and then CMHC said a soil test was necessary. A soil test was taken and it was found there was a considerable amount of rock. I understand that blasting is still being carried on.
It seems to me that CMHC should instruct its officials to advise these people that they will have to conduct soil tests on whatever is required. I do not believe this would involve a great deal of expense. I hope CMHC will see that their branch offices are instructed to do this. I checked with one branch office and was told it is not their function to do this; their only function is to check, and if the project does not come up to the requirement, those concerned will be told what they have to do. I do not think that is a very good position for a government agency to take.
There is another matter I should like to raise, for which CMHC should be commended. Persons who qualify for grants for housing have available to them plans that are approved by CMHC. Therefore, they are not faced with the additional expense of hiring an architect. I wonder, in respect of some of the smaller apartment projects, whether CMHC could also make plans available for the types of apartment buildings which meet their specifications. Perhaps they could be used for a building which could be constructed economically? In this way, the proposed owner or entrepreneur would not be put to the additional expense and trouble of hiring an architect, who in many cases does not look too seriously into things and sometimes substantial changes have to be made in the plans, causing additional expense. This matter was brought very forcibly to my attention because of the case to which I referred.
There is another great cost of which I have spoken before, and I suppose I will continue to speak on it, with regard to housing. As hon. members know, we in this party strongly recommended the removal of the sales tax on building materials from 1972 onward when a great many of us entered the House.
In checking on this matter, I find that Walter Gordon was the minister of finance who imposed the 11 per cent federal sales tax on building materials back in 1963, I believe. Its effect was to increase immediately the cost of houses by up to 17 per cent. It also had the effect of slowing down building starts, leading to the present housing shortage. The failure of the government to put a ceiling on interest rates also added greatly to the cost of houses both old and new. The present government created the housing shortage and now they try to solve the problem with a patchwork quilt of half measures, hoping perhaps that the problem will go away of its own accord.
December 4, 1975

Removing part of the federal sales tax on building materials was too little, too late. As we all know, it was reduced by 5 per cent in the Turner budget of 1974. As I mentioned earlier, all hon. members know that our party advocated the removal of the sales tax on building materials. We were told by the then minister of finance, when it was raised in the House, that this was unthinkable. Then he reversed himself and reduced the tax by 5 per cent. The seriousness of the present situation makes me wonder if the government will now take the final step and remove the tax entirely. This would assist in further reducing building costs.
There is another item which I have endeavoured to put forward time and time again. I would ask the Minister of State for Urban Affairs to consider and to bring to the attention of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) the problem of double-taxation. I mentioned this question earlier in committee when we were considering the estimates of the department on November 27. For a number of years I served as a vice-president of the Ontario Mayors and Reeves Association. Time and again resolutions were presented requesting that municipal taxes on residences be made tax deductible expenses when filing income tax.
It hardly seems fair and reasonable for a person to have to pay a tax on a tax, which is the case at present. I know there should be a limit in this respect, and in no way would I agree that Canadians living in palatial residences and paying municipal taxes amounting to thousands of dollars-$3,000, $4,000 and even $10,000-should be entitled to deduct all their municipal taxes. However, I believe that a ceiling of $500 would be fair and would help a great many people in the lower income bracket. The minister answered my question by saying that the revenue lost would be between $600 million and $1 billion. This is all very well, but to my mind it would be an excellent and equitable way in which to assist existing home owners and it would also make it more attractive for people who are desirous of purchasing a house at the present time.
The argument was also raised that this would be unfair to many tenants across the country. If my proposal were accepted, tenants would have an additional incentive to buy a house of their own. A home owner has many additional responsibilities, such as the outlay for maintenance and for caring for a house, which a tenant does not.
The parliamentary secretary to the minister, whom I do not see here now, made a very profound statement when he admitted that this bill does not offer a magic solution. Certainly, that was an understatement. In his remarks yesterday, the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie) commented on the 1969 Hellyer task force on housing. This was the most comprehensive housing study ever made. If the government had implemented those recommendations, or even some of them, we would not have this housing crisis today.
I want to touch briefly on the existing legislation and commend the government for its Neighbourhood Imporve-ment Program, and for one which is even more important to a riding such as mine, that is, the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program which provides financial assistance in the form of a grant of $2,500 plus a loan of $2,500, to people who qualify, to improve their residences. This is a special boon to senior citizens, a great many of whom live
National Housing Act
in houses that have not been kept up to the standard which one would normally expect. I feel that this is a very worthwhile program. I checked into it further and was informed-possibly so have other hon. members-that in order to qualify for this grant a municipality had to take certain steps and also contribute, not money but the services of a clerk or other official to enter into an agreement for the collection of the mortgage.
I checked with the municipalities on this matter and, to put it mildly, they were not too enthusiastic. I have now been informed by the president of CMHC that this is not necessary. I wish to bring this point to the attention of hon. members, especially those representing areas with small towns, because you cannot designate a whole area in a small town as a slum area because many towns are not built that way; there is the odd house that is in poor condition, and three or four blocks away there is another such house. The president of CMHC gave the undertaking that the corporation would consider this question and that if two or three isolated houses in a village or town were specified, they would qualify. I feel that this is an excellent project which should be brought to the attention of hon. members, and I commend the minister for it.
In introducing this discussion it was stated that the basic thrust of the housing policy was relatively sound and that it was an attempt to stimulate supply. The encouragement of additional mortgage funding, while basically without clout, is nonetheless a very worthy pursuit. The Federal Mortgage Exchange Corporation is a much needed organization that is long overdue. At the same time, it is imperative that more serviced land be made available in order that over-all construction costs can be kept down. The problem is that in this package the government has also inflated demand relative to supply.
In summary, many of the points in the program are counterproductive and cancel each other out. Similarly, other programs are simply more of the same. The government has assumed it can solve the housing problem through quantitative means, that is, by merely extending or broadening existing programs, rather than looking for qualitative changes which can be exclusively aimed at real problems, with long-term goals in mind.


Mr. Ross Milne (Peel-Duf£erin-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, I take the opportunity to enter this debate very briefly this afternoon because in representing the riding of Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe I think I represent one of the fastest growing areas in Canada. It is an area in which housing is extremely important. In the city of Brampton alone there will be 15,000 new homes built over the next three years, which essentially will double the population of the city within that period. I want to enter the debate, also, to congratulate the minister and the government on the new housing action program: I think it is one of the most significant new housing programs ever undertaken by any government anywhere.
It has been said many times that traditionally we have associated government housing programs with very low income people, native people and senior citizens, but I think this is one of the first times we have recognized that a greatly increasing number of people need assistance in

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
respect of housing, particularly to buy housing. Many people who want to buy a house have a cash flow problem. I think these programs go a long way to assist them in that regard.
I think it is important that the focus of this program is on lower and medium-income housing. Many speakers have said this. I am concerned about the things that are happening in some areas which are similar to the one I represent. They are, perhaps, very different things from those which may be happening in some smaller towns such as represented by the previous speaker, or in the heart of the city such as represented by the critic for the New Democratic Party. However, living in a community such as Brampton-Bramalea, I find there is a very dynamic increase in housing, largely to support the city of Toronto. There is the same situation around any large municipality and I think we are fast getting to the point where it is almost impossible for these municipalities to stand on their own from a municipal tax base.
What is happening is that higher income people from the cities are moving out to places like Brampton-Bramalea. Perhaps they are able to afford higher-cost housing than many people. The community then becomes truly a bedroom community for a larger city. The objective, that there should be a good balance between residential and industrial assessment to keep municipal taxes under some kind of control, is very difficult to maintain; the cost of housing becomes so high that industry is not interested in locating in such areas because the workers they wish to attract cannot afford to live in these communities. We find that around most of the larger cities there is quite a belt which is made up of municialities where people who work in the cities live. This housing action program as set out by the government will deal with that problem by forcing or motivating the construction of a great many houses for the lower and medium-income sectors which people can afford.
Another thing which is of very great concern is the tremendous resistance both by municipalities and groups within municipalities to the construction of this type of housing. Municipalities object to it because for most of them it is just a money-losing proposition to build this many new houses. That is why I am glad the housing action program allows the government to pay the municipality on a per unit basis, making it possible for the municipality to break even in this regard. Not given that break, the municipalities would either face a serious tax problem in the years ahead or, more seriously, they might refuse to build this type of house and the needs of many people would not be met.
In my area I am most concerned about the very tight rental situation. We have a housing industry, but many people are forced to rent. Figures for the city of Toronto show that very close to half the people living there are in rental accommodation as opposed to owning their own accommodation. There are real problems in the rental housing industry. In many areas with which I am familiar there is virtually no construction of rental housing accommodation; the economics of it are not very good. Also, there is tremendous resistance from people who own singlefamily homes to having multiple dwellings built anywhere within the area where they might be affected.

Another matter which is of real concern at the present time-and I think this program will help alleviate it to a degree-is the tremendous rent increases which many people are facing. These rent increases are very hard to absorb and for many people they are very hard to understand, but predominantly they are caused because much of the rental accommodation in Ontario was built five years ago, or a little more, on very short term money, five-year mortgages and ten-year mortgages. I suspect this is true across Canada. At that time interest on mortgages was 6 per cent, 7 per cent and 8 per cent. These buildings have to be refinanced, perhaps at the present time, with money which is much more costly. So in order for owners to survive the refinancing of their buildings, they are forced to pass on very substantial rent increases to their tenants. The response to this has been rent controls, and this works against more building activity. I am sure the rental situation in most municipalities is very critical.
During this debate I think everyone on this side of the House who participates will say that they enthusiastically applaud the assisted rental program, and hon. members opposite will say that it does not go far enough. I think both viewpoints are correct. It is a good program, but I am concerned that there is not enough money anywhere to put into this program so that we can adequately cover it. I do not know how much money should be applied to this program, because the need is very great. One of the significant changes in the program is the loan approach, or the roll-over provision, whereby the money that is lent will be repayable and reusable by other people when the term of the mortgage is up, if the building is sold or if the building should be refinanced in any way.
The Assisted Home Ownership Program has probably been one of the most successful housing programs ever, mainly because it gets people into houses. I said previously I was concerned that in a country like Canada, with so much land and so much potential for housing, a high percentage of Canadians live in rental accommodation. This percentage is increasing all the time, mainly because people cannot accumulate enough money to raise the down payment on a home or cannot early in their marriage afford a home. Of all the benefits the Assisted Home Ownership Program may bring, that would be the greatest. Last year AHOP helped over 16,000 people to get into houses.
I say to the minister and to the government that an assessment of the limits on house prices under the Assisted Home Ownership Program should be very carefully considered. At the present time, the limits are set on a fairly wide basis. They may be based upon a city and that city's area may take in quite a large surrounding area. I urge the government and the minister seriously to consider setting the upper limit of this program on almost a community by community basis. There may be a community within 30 miles or so of a large city. The forces playing on the market in that community are really caused by the dynamics of the housing industry within the city. There may be another community 50 or 60 miles from the same city, which operates independently. The dynamics of the housing market then are very different. So I think that under the present laws, the limits that apply to large areas may be acceptable in one community and in another community
December 4, 1975

close by they may be out of line. There should be a careful analysis of the extent of these limits.
I want to return to the relationship with the municipalities. I wish this housing bill and the program which we are debating had been annouced 15 or 20 years ago. In a country that has so much space, I cannot understand why we have such high-priced land and such a scarcity of it for housing. Provincial governments are now starting to recognize the problem; they will have the benefit of this program and perhaps will start their own, as Ontario has. They will be able to say to the municipalities that debts with respect to housing should be shared by all the people and not just those in the municipality concerned. Without that type of approach and philosophy to this problem we will not get the necessary housing and we will damage the tax base in our larger cities.
I am sure all members of the House share the view that the housing situation in Canada is serious enough that there should be a different relationship between the federal government, the provincial governments, municipalities, developers and builders. Until now there has been an adversary type of relationship, and I think it is time for close and serious co-operation. I am most concerned about the position of the builder. The majority of the builders I have known are no longer in business simply because they cannot buy serviced land oh which to build houses. Serviced land is so costly and scarce that the small builder cannot compete in the market, so the whole business is left to a few large, powerful developers and again there is an adversary position within the municipality and very few houses are built. Some large developers have very serious concerns about the problem.
I think that with a united relationship and attitude among all levels of governments, builders and developers, a much better job could be done with respect to providing housing in Canada. This is a very important program for the part of the country that I represent and it is one of the fastest growing areas in Canada. There are probably as many new homes built there as in any municipality in the country. I wish to commend the government for taking this action, Madam Speaker.


Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-77, in which we read the following explanatory notes, and I quote:
The purposes of the amendments to the National Housing Act may be summarized as follows:
(1)	to authorize the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation to make interest reduction grants to cooperative housing bodies and nonprofit housing groups and to individuals who borrow for house renovation;
(2)	to establish a program of cash grants to municipalities per unit of new medium-density family housing units constructed in the municipality and approved for construction before December 31, 1978;
(3)	to authorize the Corporation to make loans and forgive indebtedness to municipalities in respect of municipal water supply projects;
(4)	to modify the Assisted Home Ownership Program to authorize loans for the acquisition as well as the construction of homes and to clarify the regulatory powers applying thereto; and
(5)	to modify the Assisted Rental Programs to give increased benefits to encourage construction.
National Housing Act
Madam Speaker, I believe this bill which deals with almost all areas of housing was eagerly awaited and a quick look at it reveals that it is not exactly what had been expected. Once more the Canadian people are bluffed as only the present government knows how to. There is no doubt that the housing problem is very critical today. That is why the government, very opportunist as always, introduces its famous housing action program.
The legislation will affect municipalities, owners of existing houses, future owners, tenants and even-I was going to say, and mostly-the big builders and lenders, because as the honourable member who preceeded me indicated, we fear that it will still be the big businesses and not only small building businesses which are now in trouble, having difficulties, but the feeling is that the millionaire contractors will be the ones to collect the benefits of the bill.
Under Bill C-77, the government wants to guarantee the construction of at least one million units between 1976 and 1979, but at what cost, Madam Speaker? What will be the long term cost for the one who really needs housing? Is it a new gimmick of the government to encourage the Canadian people to sink deeper into debt and thus give to capitalists an opportunity to double and even triple their income at the expense of needy families? Is it a social legislation first and then a financial one or is it the other way around?
Those are the questions which we are entitled to ask before the bill is deferred to a standing committee of the House, more especially since the government always resorts to subterfuges to have its monstrosities approved. This is why we are driven crazy with phrases such as low cost housing and low cost renting; we hear discussions on them all the time over the radio, and we read about them all the time in the newspapers.
Madam Speaker, they need plenty of cheek to talk about low cost when a couple with one child cannot find a lodging for less than $150 or $200 a month. And they dare talk about low cost housing in the case of a house which will require between $42,000 and $52,000 in investments over a 30 or 40 year period. Have they ever considered that the purchaser of such a house will have to pay over $100,000 to become its owner, if he cannot reimburse his indebtedness and if he does not leave 50 per cent of it to his estate?
The minister talked about assistance to municipalities. Everybody knows that all this assistance, all these grants are in fact a warranty for the interests taxpayers will have to pay to financial institutions. When we consider these grants today, as well as whatever assistance is offered to municipalities, we realize, Madam Speaker, that their purpose is always to serve as warranty for the interests municipalities will have to pay. It is therefore another way of protecting big finance and lending institutions. They must not lose one cent. Recently, to help a city, they lent $30,000 repayable over ten years. That makes $10,000 a year. However, the city will pay $5,200 a year in interest alone, and they say they want to help the city. They just put it into a mess it will not be able to get out of.
Madam Speaker, I say that this assistance, today, is designed only to protect capital, banks, insurance compa-

National Housing Act
nies, lending pension plans and other private plans. Since I began to sit in this House I observed that all the government is concerned about is for lending companies not to lose one cent in interest. Now is the time to say, and the big financial supporters of the government never forget this principle and they know what I mean: charity begins at home. And the people, they do not matter.
First, if the government were serious, it would allow grants to the municipalities, not to protect the interests the financial institutions will get, but to give grants of 40 or 50 per cent of the required capital. For the balance, it would ensure that the municipalities get an interest-free loan, at the administration rates. So, the municipality which builds sidewalks and sewer systems would not pay for them three, four or five times over 75 years. That is what is wrong about the legislation. It is quite strange that all hon. members know that and do nothing. We will not get out of it, Madam Speaker. We will not get out of it if we keep on acting that way.
For example, Madam Speaker, in this municipality which needs a water system or a sewer project, payments are made on a 30-year period but after 30 years, the capital is still outstanding. I have been mayor of a town and each time we replace, we still have to tax for the old debt. We will never see the end of it unless, once again, we think in terms of the ratepayer.
What is very expensive nowadays is not to provide the services for a municipality but to finance the projects. This is what costs a lot. The ratepayer grows ever more aware that he lives only for banks and other financial authorities that have the right to use the credits of the whole nation to submit the citizens to an endless indebtedness. We see examples of what I have just said every day; just read the bill and you will see what the government proposes to do to promote home ownership.
Having realized that no one dares build a home when interest rates are 13, 14 and even 15 per cent, the government discovered another trick to "take in" the future homeownwer. In fact, we read here that a family man can get assistance in the form of an interest-free loan for the first five years to reduce his interest rate to 8 per cent. In other words, if a finance company lends him money at 13 per cent, the government agrees not to give the individual a grant, but to lend the 5 per cent interest he will have to pay. In this regard, to get information on the mode of payment, I put a question to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) who simply told me that the loan would be payable over a five-year period at the then current rate of interest.
So, he will have to pay the finance company and borrow from it again. If the interest, at the end of five years, amounts to $3,000 or $4,000, he will have to change his mortgage contract or sign a new one, that is, get a second mortgage. Imagine what a second mortgage will cost when everyone knows that it always costs more. The rates of interest are always higher on second mortgages. After five years, a second mortgage will have to be taken to pay for the favour granted today.
Can anyone believe, Madam Speaker, that the new owner who is unable to pay more than 8 per cent today will be in a better position to pay 14, 15 even 16 per cent in five years? The government will surely catch a few more in

that trap in the next few months, but I would hate to see those who will have to reimburse the $3,000 or $4,000 that will, of neccessity, be added to their mortgages. If the government sincerely wants to help and encourage home ownership among those who earn 14,000 or less a year, there is only one logical course to take, and that is to reduce the interest rates for the whole duration of the contract. We are being choked by astronomical interest rates today, and that in every sector whether it be public or private. Let us cease making ourselves the buffoons of financiers and let the government bring forth an act which will bring back to their senses those who are trying to take advantage of the people.
Madam Speaker, we found beautiful treasures in this bill. Here is one: amendment to the program of subsidies to builders to help tenants. Listen to this. With a view to encouraging the construction of rental units, the government proposes to increase to $1,200 the maximum yearly subsidies per housing unit per builder, in order to reduce the interest which the builder has to pay. They even go further: they will extend by two years the tax deduction allowance for rental unit depreciation.
Now, Madam Speaker, let us see what this means. A rental housing builder is allowed to deduct from his taxes the interest on the money he has borrowed. He is not paying out, he is borrowing. Yet he is entitled to deduct all the interest on the loan, municipal taxes, school taxes, maintenance, 10 per cent depreciation and will, in addition, receive $1,200 per housing unit, and further he will be entitled to a new tax deduction for amortization while a couple anxious to become owners do not have the right to deduct from their income tax those very interests on the money they need to buy their house, nor can they deduct school and municipal taxes. They do not have the right either to deduct a depreciation of 10 per cent and, even less, maintenance costs.
The social and financial injustice is most flagrant. Only the government does not want to see, only the Cabinet of ministers does not want to see the result of the "just society" that was promised to us a few years ago already.


Mr. Bechard:: Christ promised it.


Mr. Gauthier (Roberval):: The ordinary worker earning $6,000 to $10,000 a year cannot be eligible for a mortgage loan because you simply do not measure up these days unless you earn at least $14,000 a year. So the $750 grant for people with one child or more so their monthly payments will stay under 25 per cent of the income of the head of the family is just a drop in the bucket because 90 per cent of that category of people do not have the salaries they need to even consider applying for a mortgage loan.
To the minister, this has to be the most important bill from a financial point of view, especially for financiers. But for the person who wants to become the owner of a single family house I say it is entirely inadequate.
However, I hope the members of the committee will take good note of all the remarks I made in favour of the single family dwelling and will introduce the amendments required to make this bill more social. We also wish the
December 4, 1975

committee would seriously consider reduced interest rates for young households eager to own a house of their own.
These are the reasons for which we accept that this bill be passed on second reading and be referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs. We ask the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which is a public corporation, to set an example for banks and all other private lenders by establishing a minimum interest rate for mortgage loans for all those with an annual income of less than $15,000. Finally, we would like all new owners of single family dwellings to be allowed to deduct from their income tax their interests, their municipal and school taxes, a devaluation of at least 10 per cent and maintenance costs. We are only asking for the same favours that the government has always granted to large builders of apartment buildings.
Also, we would like the assistance granted to municipalities to be a direct grant on the capital invested and we would like the municipalities to be able some day to borrow money from the central bank at administrative rates instead of always doing business with commercial banks which, in reality, are the banks of the private sector. This way the assistance provided to municipalities by the government would not be another way for municipalities to get deeper in debt.
Madam Speaker, it is not sufficient to add a few millions for housing. It is not sufficient to say: Well, we shall vote $100, $200 or $300 million for housing. What is important is to know who will benefit from these millions. This is what we shall probably find out during the third reading debate, once the bill has been studied by the Committee and once the amendments which will make it more acceptable for the population in general and those who truly need a home at the present time have been included.
We are now saying: We will encourage large builders, or even multinational corporations to build rental housing. What people want is not to be tenants, but homeowners. That is the aspiration of a family. It is not with this bill that we shall meet this greatest of all aspirations. This is why I wish the bill will be amended. For the time being, we shall simply allow the bill to be passed on second reading.


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time this year that we have had occasion to speak on the important subject of housing. I continue to be amazed by the fact that it is possible to deal with this important issue so many times and yet accomplish so little. If one looks around the chamber this afternoon, one may be able to get an answer to that question. The Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) is not able to be here. I do not know where he is. I understand that the president of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation-


Mr. Blais:: The minister is in Vancouver.


Frank Oberle: Oh, he is campaigning in Vancouver. That is a very good pursuit.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) is in
National Housing Act
Vancouver dealing with the matter of Habitat which is one of his ministerial responsibilities.


Frank Oberle: If anything needs to be dealt with, it is certainly Habitat. I wish the minister a lot of good luck and good fortune in his dealings with the mayor and officials of Vancouver. Perhaps he will inform them of the government's intentions with regard to Habitat, because there exists in Vancouver and in many other areas of western Canada a great deal of confusion about the minister's intentions.
Perhaps it is not fair to refer to the minister's absence this afternoon. However, not only is the minister absent but so are the president of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the deputy minister of the Department of Urban Affairs. I understand he is in the United States at a place called Key Biscayne checking out the existence and functioning of condominiums. I am sure that will help the housing situation here. Another reason for the housing problem in Canada is that the minister and the deputy minister do not frequently communicate with each other. Even if a message were reported by the minister or his parliamentary secretary, I very much doubt whether it would make it all the way to the powerful office of the president of the corporation.
There was a debate on this matter last February, during which quite a number of interesting and most constructive proposals were put forward which could have been included in the bill now before the House. The only positive thing I have heard said in this debate was by the Liberal backbencher who spoke a short while ago. As I do on every occasion, he identified the real villians in the housing field in Canada, namely, the financial institutions and the large urban developers who get the biggest share of the pie and direct this country's housing programs.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Friends of the Tory party.


Frank Oberle: Those kind of people are more readily identified with the New Democratic Party. It is not very long ago that the NDP supported the government in this House. One would have expected the minister and his officials sooner or later to recognize some of these proposals and implement them.
Rather than rehash the proposals made during the last housing debate, I should like to say something about why the housing minister and his department are not geared to finding more positive solutions. I am not saying there are no positive aspects at all to this bill; I want that to be quite clear. There are some good proposals in Bill C-77. Clauses 6 to 11, for example, provide for federal assistance to provinces and municipalities for the installation of sewage and water services. Assistance is provided now, and this is a further extension. This was called for by members of the opposition for years. It will permit municipalities to become eligible for Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation loans for the installation of trunk sewers and other facilities which smaller places in rural areas in mid and northern Canada to not have the resources to construct.
Clause 12 provides for the making of loans to provinces or municipalities for up to 50 per cent of the cost of
9726

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
installing sewage and water systems. Clause 14 removes income and family-size stipulations regarding AHOP loans. If I may speak for some parts of the area that I represent, may I say that AHOP loans are not much of an innovation in the housing field because a lot of the considerations which in fact are a hindrance in my area are not addressed by this bill. I refer, of course, to the cost of maintaining and heating a house and the provision of water, sewers and other utilities.
The clause providing for $1,000 grants to municipalities respecting the servicing of land is a very important and most significant innovation and will help smaller communities defray some of the cost of servicing land, particularly in areas of northern Canada where it is very expensive to instal services. Even though this provision is subject to the approval of some provinces, I do not expect it will be difficult for the minister to achieve their co-operation.
Clauses 15 to 19 make no mention of the Governor General's recommendation. They provide for the smooth merger of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Department of Urban Affairs. I do not recall the House discussing this subject before. This merger between CMHC and urban affairs is a recent proposal; as I have said, I do not think that the president of CMHC and the acting deputy minister of urban affairs have let anyone in on the secret yet. It will be interesting to see what happens. The actual merger, presumably, will be carried out by order in council.
Clause 15 establishes the position of chairman of the board of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. This position must be filled from within the public service, and undoubtedly the deputy minister of urban affairs or the acting deputy minister, our friend Mr. Teron, will assume the title. The title of president will be retained, but the new chairman will take over his voting role on the board of directors. This interests me particularly in light of some of the things that have been said about this particular person, who will now assume this all-powerful position.
The provision in the bill regarding lending institutions directing another $750 million into the financing of new low and moderately-priced houses is, of course, a farce. The barons of the housing industry, and more importantly the barons of the financial institutions who are the approved lenders to Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, on whom the government depends for its national housing program, will see to it that the flow of private institutional capital will always be at a time and at a volume that is in the best interests of these institutions, and that interest rates will remain excessively high so that private capital is not attracted to this housing market.
As the minister himself, as well as opposition critics, have pointed out, this requirement is not accompanied by legislative sanction; it is simply a suggestion. A committee will be established to monitor the performance of private lending institutions and the minister has told the House that he is all-confident that this will indeed take place. I say to you, Madam Speaker, and to my colleagues that this is, of course, just a dream of the minister which will not be fulfilled.
The government's centralized power structure is, and will remain, painfully apparent in the field of housing as

long as people like the present president of CMHC and the deputy minister of urban affairs are at the controls. The provision of housing in a country like ours is more than just an essential component of an accepted lifestyle; it is an effective tool to stimulate or to retard the economy. It can be a tool to direct the socioeconomic development of the various regions of our country.
On looking at this bill and at legislation that we have discussed previously, it almost seems as if the government is still set on moving 95 per cent of our population into the larger urban centres. In none of these measures is there any sign that the government is going to follow the desire of Canadians and decentralize large centres, populating the rural areas of our land.
We on this side of the House have repeatedly made proposals that would have the effect of attracting small private investors to the housing market. Having lowered down payments and made it possible for Canadians to purchase homes, we must protect young families against the impact of high mortgage rates. This can be done in many different ways and has been effectively applied in many countries. My colleagues and I have spoken about this before and it is something that has been traditionally tried and accomplished in the United States. First, we could allow excessive interest rates to be deducted for the purposes of taxation. This should not upset the lending institution too much since they would continue to enjoy their high levels of interest rates because the subsidy would come from the public purse.
A better solution, however, would be to allow small investors to place money in the domestic housing market and deduct their interest earnings for the purposes of taxation. This would have the effect of giving us 7 per cent or 8 per cent interest rates in the domestic housing market. What difference would it make to small, private investors, who would still be getting 12 per cent on their money invested in stocks and bonds, as between paying interest on that 12 per cent or lending the money for the domestic housing market at an 8 per cent interest rate on which they would pay no income tax? The result would be the same, but the difference would be, of course, that we would have interest rates that would stimulate housing investment in this country. Other countries are offering savings plans to investors who are preparing young families to move into new houses some time in the future. Often, parents in those countries help their young people prepare for this event.
The bill makes reference to the Federal Mortgage Exchange Corporation and I should like to say a few words about that. The establishing legislation for this corporation has been in existence for over three years. The Progressive Conservative party has pressed for this organization to be made operational for almost that long. The purpose of the corporation will be to buy and sell mortgages, thereby enabling smaller investors to enter the mortgage market. This operation could do much to increase the liquidity of second mortgages as an investment vehicle, but their credibility at this point is somewhat lacking.
The corporation's operations has been promised for three years. What, if anything, is there to indicate that this is not
December 4, 1975

just another promise at this time? The minister responsible has stated that this organization will have an operational budget of $75 million. This is both ironic and a pity when one considers its budget was cut when it was not even operative. Its budget was cut, of course, in the June 23 budget.
I would be neglecting my duty if in the last few minutes allotted to me I did not make reference to the native and rural housing program. The House will recall that the last two times I spoke on this subject-in February and last year in the fall-I questioned the minister as to the progress of the program which, in his words, was to acquire or build 50,000 housing units for native people or people living in rural areas over a period of five years, and the same number of housing units were to be rehabilitated. In other words, there was to be an increase in housing inventory in rural areas available to the native citizens amounting to 100,000 homes.
This program was announced some time early in 1974. I asked the minister in November how it was going, and he admitted that 24 of the 50,000 homes had been started. I suppose one has to start somewhere. But in February, when I spoke on this subject, I made inquiries of the information service of CMHC and was told by one of the officials there that such a policy called the native and rural housing policy did not exist. That prompted me to make reference to it in the House of Commons. I have a letter here which the previous minister wrote me on the subject. One paragraph reads as follows:
We have just given a grant of $219,000 to the BCANSI-
That is the British Columbia Association of Non-Status Indians. The letter continues:
to assist them in developing a housing delivery system. Their proposal includes the construction of 3,500 new houses, the upgrading of 1,750 existing houses and the purchase of 1,750 houses for resale or rental to native people over a period of seven years.
This letter is dated April 30, 1974. The paragraph continues:
For the current year they have set as a goal the construction of 200 new units and the acquisition of another 200 existing units. They also hope to undertake an extensive rehabilitation and renovation program.
There was to be a sum of $219,000, mentioned by the minister, to set up a delivery system for that program in the province of British Columbia. I followed its progress a little bit and it appeared to me it was not just $219,000 that has been spent to set up this delivery system, but in addition there were grants from the Secretary of State to this most illustrious group to do all kinds of other things as well, all of which resulted in the fact that there was not a single house built in the province of British Columbia for that group.
I should be fair and say that 24 units, which the minister made reference to in November of this year, were actually built in British Columbia, and I suppose one might assume that the BCANSI group should take credit for that breakthrough. I discussed the matter with the minister and expressed his concern about this obvious waste of money. I was not too concerned that not very many houses had been built during the first year, but nowhere in the province did it appear to me that there was any aggressive attempt to get the program moving.
National Housing Act
As a result of my intervention, this function was eventually taken away from that group and in British Columbia at this time we at least have something that is functional. Under the program there has been set up a delivery system which this year delivered or started close to 400 new homes. I must give credit where credit is due. The province has become involved. Native people are not sitting on the present board, but we have two or three very aggressive people on this new housing board and, in addition, we have regional managers of CMHC who have recognized the need, are supporting this group and are actually out selling the program.
Incidentally, this program is not very popular in Ottawa as yet. At a meeting last night of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, I asked the minister and his deputy how the program was working in conjunction with their activities. They were not entirely sure of the program and they did not realize it could be implemented on reservations. In any event, we got that matter straightened out and maybe some of my colleagues and people in the field will eventually look at it a little closer, recognizing the potential of the program if implemented on a broader scale throughout the country.
It frightens me when I look throughout this country and recognize that only in British Columbia is this program working at this time. I cannot, of course, criticize the minister or the government for not bringing in this kind of legislation. I do criticize them-I cannot put it in any other terms-for what appears to be deliberately keeping information from people who could be affected by this program, because the program is important.
While I have handed out some bouquets to some of the people who make the decisions in British Columbia, I should like for a moment to mention a little experiment I carried out in my constituency. I was asked by a person in a rural area adjacent to mine to give him a hand with the construction of his house. Since it is on the road I frequently travel, I decided to make the situation an experiment.
I spent some time with his family. There are ten children. It is a family of status Indians living off the reserve on a piece of land leased from the province. They have no budgeting problems. This is a very respectable family in the area. It occurred to me that this might be an interesting exercise. I told my constituent, of course, that I have 140,000 people in the constituency and that he would have to play along with me in carrying out this exercise. I took the time to visit various offices with him, particularly the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation office in Prince George. I told the officer there, with whom I have a very good relationship, that I intended to test the system with this friend of mine who lives in the Hart highway area of British Columbia.
I told the official I intended to see that this family got a house. Of course, I was offered all possible assistance from this office of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. As soon as I returned to Ottawa I received a telephone call from my friend. I had told him that every time something went wrong or the monkey started throwing coconuts, I wanted to know about it. He told me that an official of
29956-63%

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
CMHC had come out to examine the situation, that he had looked at it and had stated that my friend was not eligible because he was a status Indian.
I called the official in Prince George and told him that status Indians may apply under section 40 of the National Housing Act. I told him that this is frowned upon by the Indian Brotherhood, but that so far as the government, CMHC and I are concerned, status Indians are eligible under the program. Of course, this was found out to be the case. Another official went up the highway to see my friend and told him that he and his family had too large an income to qualify for a loan either under the AHOP program or under section 40. He said they did not qualify because they had earned $24,000 in the previous year. It was demonstrated that this particular family did have that much money going through their hands. However, the man to whom I refer carries on a small business in the traditional Indian style of trapping, hunting, fishing and tourism.
Of course, he has some expenses. While all the money going into the bank amounted to $24,000 that year, it was easy to demonstrate that his disposable income was only $6,000. Since this man has a family of ten children, it is not difficult to understand why he would have a desire to build a house. This was sorted out. A third visit was made to my friend. I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House on this long story.


An hon. Member:: Go ahead.


Frank Oberle: All right. I accept the encouragement. On the next visit it was discovered that the land on which the house was to be built was under a lease that would expire in seven years. The minimum term for a lease under the program is 15 years. This officer, instead of simply taking up the telephone and asking the provincial government to extend the lease, told my friend that he could not build the house because the lease was not long enough. A normal person at this point would have thrown up his hands, but Harry, living up to the commitment he had made with me, called his member of parliament again and said that another coconut had been thrown at him to the effect that the lease was not of long enough duration.
This has been going on now for a year and a half. At one point I phoned the assistant manager of the CMHC office in Prince George and asked him what he was going to do. I reminded him that when I and my friend has visited him, I had told him that my friend was going to have a house. I asked him what he was going to do so that my friend could get a house. He is a sincere person; he is one of the more diligent servants of that corporation. As a matter of fact, he phoned the bank and asked if this man could be given a loan so that he could get started on building his house. Then the idea came up that he should go through the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and take advantage of the program that department has, namely, the $10,000 down payment.
So a phone call was made to Indian Affairs and we were advised they would investigate it. That took some time. With the difficulties we have been having, particularly in British Columbia in having Indian Affairs policy made known to the people, it is not surprising that quite a bit of time expired. I did not argue too much because this $10,000

loan would have helped my friend. Finally, Indian Affairs decided that it would be extremely difficult to arrange this because my friend Harry did not live on the reserve. So the story goes on and on.
At this time, Harry and his family of ten children are not in a house. There is now a foot and a half of snow in the area where he lives. The family lives in a shack in which the inside walls are covered with those nice sparkling pieces of frost. In the morning when they get up, the pail of water that they have taken from a hole in the lake is frozen. They light a fire and thaw it out. So on and on it goes. This is just one of many such stories in this country. If this is possible in British Columbia, I shudder to think what would be possible in other parts of the country, particularly the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory where the provincial governments are not involved in providing some of the most essential facilities for our people.
I am attempting to demonstrate that it is not good enough for the government merely to understand the problems involved in providing housing for people who need it most. After some of the regulations and provisions are in place to solve the problem, we must be able to deliver housing to those who need it. This is not happening at the present time. I do not know what the solution is, but unless we address ourselves to this most serious problem we will have a situation in which another generation of Canadians living in rural surroundings in mid-Canada and northern Canada will be deprived of the most essential ingredient in the quality of life that most Canadians consider to be a right in this country.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, the very fact that we are debating housing for the third or fourth time this year is proof that the policies announced by the minister in December, 1974, first debated in parliament in January, 1975, have been a failure in that the number of housing starts which the minister set as his objective last January when he first introduced amendments to the National Housing Act has not been obtained. Our party argued then that the minister was proposing to spend the money to meet the needs of the wrong groups of people, namely, people in the upper-income bracket rather than people in the low-income bracket who, regardless of how many subsidies or grants they may receive or how much relief from taxation they may have, simply cannot and never will be able to afford to buy a house of their own. We argued that what was needed was a major program of building rental housing for people in the low and middle-income brackets.
We are debating this proposal in December of 1975 because the minister and the government have failed so miserably to meet the objective which the minister set forth in January of this year. I could put on the record the appeals of the minister to private lending agencies that they be good citizens and put more money into housing voluntarily, which they did not do, and the later threats of the minister that if they did not do it voluntarily, he would introduce legislation which would force them to put money into housing-legislation which he has not brought forward.
December 4, 1975

So we are dealing again, in December, 1975, with a subject which will not go away. The record is clear, that we will not achieve the objective which the minister set forth at the end of 1974 of building 210,000 units.


Mr. Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Sure.


David Orlikow: There would have to be a fantastic spurt in order to accomplish that.


Mr. Cyr:: It is a fantastic government.


David Orlikow: Yes, fantastic in the number of mistakes it can make. It is interesting that there are interjections from two government members from the province of Quebec.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Although I am very pleased to be a Francophone, I was born and raised in Ontario and I am still living in Ontario.


David Orlikow: It is an indication of how seldom the hon. member speaks that I confused him as being a member from Quebec. The point I want to make is still valid, that we have a government which has co-operated with the provincial government of Quebec and the city of Montreal in the expenditure of what will likely be more than $1 billion for a two week extravaganza called the Olympics in a city of 2.5 million people which is still dumping its raw sewage into the St. Lawrence river, a city which, I was told by a member of the city council in Montreal less than a week ago, will have to defer the construction of a sewage disposal system for four to eight years because they have borrowed so much money for the Olympics that they cannot borrow the money required to build a sewage disposal system,
Montreal is a city which every year builds fancy office buildings which are occupied by business tenants who write off 50 per cent of the rental costs as a business expense in the form of tax deductions, a city which each year has demolished several thousand moderately-priced housing units and replaced them with nothing, so that the obtaining of housing at a reasonable rent becomes ever more difficult. This is the kind of government which hon. members on the other side interject to defend. I am glad to see them do it because I think the record speaks for itself, particularly in that province.
It is not surprising that housing starts are not what they should be, because the government has refused to address itself directly to those elements which affect housing prices. Also, under the present anti-inflation program we can be certain that interest rates, which are the largest expense of the house buyer and are not controlled, will continue to stay high, and that land costs, which are the second largest part of the cost of a house, will not be reduced as a result of this bill or anything else that the government is proposing. There is no provision for land assembly. Speculative gains on land sales are not controlled under the anti-inflation program. Therefore, what we are faced with is a constantly increasing cost of housing.
Let us deal with the question of interest rates. My colleague, the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert), speaking in this debate yesterday illustrated the situation
National Housing Act
in the city of Toronto. You could make the same calculations for my city of Winnipeg or for Montreal or Vancouver. For a house in Toronto, the average cost of which is $57,500-let us suppose that a person can find $17,500 for a down payment-a person would have to carry a $40,000 mortgage. At present, the interest rate is 12 per cent, so he would be paying $413 a month principal and interest for 25 years, making a total for that $57,500 house of $141,150, $83,650 of which would be for interest charges.
There are many people who bought houses five years ago when the interest rate was 9 per cent. They can only get a mortgage at that rate for five years, at the end of which time they, like everybody else, have to renegotiate the mortgage. The present rate is around 12.5 per cent, and on a $40,000 mortgage, amortized over 25 years, people who bought a house five years ago at 9 per cent interest will find that their monthly mortgage payments have been raised by $96, that is, $1,152 a year of what was discretionary income on their part which must be diverted into mortgage payments, not to mention rising property taxes, fire insurance rates, etc.
It is no wonder that people in other businesses, such as food, entertainment, appliances, etc., are wondering where they will be able to get their customers. The housing crisis is just as bad, if not worse, now than it was a year ago when the minister announced his program. In my own city of Winnipeg, which is far from being at the top of the list in terms of rate of growth and therefore a long way away from having houses at prices which are obtainable in cities such as Vancouver, Toronto or Ottawa, there is a tremendous shortage of housing. Last August, the Winnipeg Tribune carried an article headlined "City housing crisis forecast." Let me put on the record a few paragraphs from that article, written by Nick Hunter, a Tribune staff writer. He wrote the following:
Winnipeg will stumble into a major housing crisis next month when apartment vacancies slide to near zero, private developers and government spokesmen say.
Winnipeg's apartment vacancy rate was 1.5 per cent during the last CMHC survey in April, a stunning drop from the 2.6 per cent rate of mid-1974 and a high 5.5 per cent in January, 1972.
In another article he wrote:
Houses in Winnipeg are selling at a record pace despite soaring prices and high mortgage interest rates.
The average price of a home on the Winnipeg real estate board's multiple listing service was $32,297 at the end of July, compared with $26,054 at the same time last year.
In other words, that is an increase of $6,000 in one year. Later in the same article he says:
To the end of July this year, construction starts in Winnipeg were made on 1,415 single-family and semi-detached homes, a 30 per cent drop from the same period in 1974. There were 1,242 houses completed, a 26 per cent decline from the first seven months of last year.
As hon. members opposite have said, there has been some improvement, but certainly the number of homes built in Winnipeg will not increase this year and will come nowhere near meeting the needs of the people. I have already indicated that the largest factor in the high price of houses is the cost of mortgages. One would think that this was necessary, when in fact the mortgage rate has been determined by the continued intention of the govern-

December 4, 1975
9730_____________________________________
National Housing Act ment, working witb the Bank of Canada, to keep interest rates in Canada higher than they are in the United States. One would think that the banks and other lending institutions simply could not afford to lend money for mortgages at a lower rate than the rates which I have already indicated they are charging. One would think that the banks are in bad financial straits. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just last week most of the banks issued their annual financial reports. A few days ago I put on the record the profit margins announced by the banks. They are tremendously high. I will not place them on the record today, because I seem to have misplaced them.
However, the major banks, including the Royal Bank, the Bank of Montreal, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the Mercantile Bank, each showed profit increases over 1974 in the range of from 40 per cent to 125 per cent. It is not as if 1974 was a bad year, because in 1974 all the banks showed profit increases of something in the neighbourhood of 30 per cent. So we can see that the people of Canada are paying interest rates far higher than they ought to be paying.
The second reason for the high price of housing is the tremendous profit which is being made and which has been made by the large land development companies of Canada. Studies have been made in most major cities of Canada which indicate clearly that what we have is not a monopoly but a dozen or less companies who between them have purchased most of the land which will be needed in the next ten years. They purchase the land at relatively low cost, hold it until there is a demand, and then make exorbitant profits. Frank Clayton, a Toronto economist, made a study of the way the land development industry operates in Toronto. That study was reported in the Globe and Mail on September 26, 1975. He suggested the following:
-Toronto land developers made "very large" gains during the period from 1961 to 1975 because of rising house prices.
Dr. Clayton's study found that the average increase in the land component in the price of a house was $17,000 between 1971 and 1975. "It is unlikely that development costs including cost of servicing increased by more than $5,000 over this period."
That difference represents a clear and unconscionable rip-off of the Canadian house purchaser by the development companies. Later in the same article, Dr. Clayton is reported as follows:
He estimates that house purchasers in metro Toronto paid an additional $630 million during the last three years because of the lack of sewage treatment facilities.
Dr. Clayton also pointed out that while family incomes jumped sharply in the period between 1961 and 1975, the percentage of the family income which went into home ownership increased by far more than the increase in family income.
In 1961, 28 per cent of a family's income went to home ownership, but by 1975 this figure had risen to 42 per cent.
It has been assumed that people should not be paying more than 30 per cent of their total income for housing. When people are paying 40 per cent to 50 per cent of their total income for housing, they are sacrificing other essentials simply because they have been forced to buy a house,

and to pay more than they can afford, because there is no housing available in the rental market.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it five o'clock?



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 Parkdale (Mr. Haidasz) External Affairs-Helsinki agreement-Method of determining extent to which commitments fulfilled; the hon. member for Frontenac-Lennox and Addington (Mr. Alkenbrack) Post Office-Maintenance of right of casual employees not to join union.

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, public bills, private bills, notices of motions.


PRIVATE BILLS
Mr. Joseph-Philippe Guay (St. Boniface) moved: that Bill C-1002, to incorporate Northland Bank, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Joseph-Phillippe Guay: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, nearly six months ago I spoke in a similar debate on another bank. At that time I was moved to comment on a bill which has not yet passed first reading stage in this House. I think it is lamentable that we are still at this stage 14 months after Bill C-7 was introduced by the former minister of finance. The bill has not been proceeded with. It had the dual purpose of enabling banks to be incorporated by the ordinary letters patent method, rather than by an act of parliament, and enabling the provincial government to own 10 per cent of the stock in a bank. Without in any way indicating that we on this side support Bill C-7, I would agree that its purposes are commendable. We are reserving our decision until the government
December 4, 1975

decides to bring the bill in. But surely time would be saved if there were not 14-month delays.
Evidence adduced in committee disclosed that ten prairie-based co-operatives will combine their efforts to support the Northland Bank. It is no surprise to me, as a member from British Columbia, that those in what they call the west-although, of course, we do not really consider the prairies as part of the west-would consider that they need a bank to serve their area of commerce. In the west we have often had the feeling that the eastern bankers are not sufficiently concerned with the problems of western businessmen and favourable decisions are hard to come by. I think the eastern banks would do well to reassess their opinions. This is the second time in a few months that a proposal for a western-based bank has come before parliament. A bank in British Columbia was incorporated not too many years ago.
I would recommend that the Northland Bank group be sent on their way with best wishes. The committee study showed that it was a well prepared group and had thoroughly investigated the task ahead. Their head office will be in Winnipeg and they have stated their intention of establishing offices in Calgary, Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg, so the business interests of the prairies will certainly be represented. It is their stated intention to serve business in the prairies with operating capital and term loans as necessary. These have been hard to come by in the prairies. I do not intend to repeat the list of their purposes here, but I think they are commendable and will provide a viable commercial and banking activity for businesses on the prairies.
If I had any concern about this bank it would be that the capital appears to be extremely low. Initially, the capital will be $10 million, half of it being subscribed by the sponsors. I compared that with recent incorporations and found that the Canadian Commercial and Industrial Bank, for instance, had capital of some $22 million although only half of it was called initially, as is usually the case. The Bank of British Columbia has done nicely with a branch bank operation with $12.5 million capital. The figures compare with those of the six major banks which have equities of at least $100 million; the Toronto Dominion Bank has equity of $334 million. Of course, the larger banks carry a very great branch structure which is costly, as is the servicing of individual deposits.
It was not too difficult to be convinced that this group with the Northland Bank could service their intended type of operation with the capital they have produced. I am sure the skill and expertise of the officers and chief executives of this bank will serve it well. Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in giving the approval of this side of the House to Bill C-1002.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to second this motion. I visualize the Northland Bank, in essence, as the first publicly-owned bank in this country. It will be in competition with the chartered banks. As we all know, a number of co-operatives will own about 50 per cent of the shares in the Northland Bank. The bill before parliament would also allow an amendment to the Bank Act which would enable provincial governments to purchase up to 10 per cent of the outstanding shares of one of the existing banks. There is a possibility that
Northland Bank
Manitoba and Saskatchewan might be interested in going into partnership with the co-operatives and credit unions with a view to owning and controlling the first bank to be publicly directed by the people of this country. For that reason, I second the motion before the House.
The idea originated about four years ago when a number of people discussed the possibility of having the headquarters of a bank in the prairie provinces. As everybody in this House knows, the prairie economy has been growing very rapidly in the last few years through the development of oil in Alberta and the potash industry in Saskatchewan. The latter will be booming in terms of investment and revenue as world demand for fertilizer increases. As a result, I believe there is a place in the prairies for a Canadian bank.
The principal owners of the bank will be the credit unions and the co-operatives. The co-operatives are an indigenous part of the history of the prairie provinces. As well as the credit unions and retail co-operatives, we have the Farmers Union which markets over 70 per cent of the grain. The co-operatives have an impact on the lives of the people of the prairie provinces, particularly Saskatchewan, based on a philosophy of people working together rather than the old philosophy of private enterprise and the profit motive.
The group supporting this bank is made up primarily of different co-operative associations of the prairies. They are as follows: Federated Co-operatives Ltd., Co-operative Fire and Casualty Insurance Company, Co-operative Life Insurance Company, Co-operative Credit Society of Manitoba, Canadian Co-operative Implements Limited, Saskatchewan Co-operative Credit Society, Co-operative Trust Company of Canada, Co-operative Superannuation Society, and the Calgary Co-op Ltd. These groups committed themselves to put up approximately 50 per cent of the planned capital of $10 million with which the bank will begin.
Shortly after the October election which brought in a minority government, the western economic opportunities conference was held in western Canada. People attending the conference said that we need a western bank to be based in the prairies. Some governments actually talked of owning such a bank, or investing in chartered banks, as it was felt this would give them greater control of the banks. This, in turn, would be of benefit to the public and enable governments to invest in social programs which we felt were more important than mere money-making schemes. I understand that a bill is to be brought forward in this House which will permit provincial governments to invest in chartered banks. This will be a step in the right direction.
Let me voice a concern. I believe the private, chartered banks of this country are becoming too powerful. Their immense power and wealth enables them to make decisions which can run counter to decisions which parliamentarians, as representatives of the people, make or should make. The time has come for this country to consider the possibility of putting the entire banking and financial system of this country under public ownership. I exclude co-ops and credit unions which are already owned by the

December 4, 1975
Northland Bank
people and controlled on the basis of one vote per shareholder, no matter how many shares any shareholder may own. The time has come for the public, collectively, to own our financial institutions so that we can make decisions according to social need, rather than according to the needs of multinational corporations operating here or overseas which are interested in profits. We want to consider this as we approach the decennial review of the Bank Act in 1977.
I saw in the newspaper the other day that the profits of our chartered banks have risen immensely over last year's profits. Their earnings were greater than those of the resource or manufacturing sectors. If I recall correctly, they earned some 41 per cent more last year than in the year before, and 81 per cent more in the third quarter of this year than in the third quarter of last. These are immense profits and we would do well to consider putting such a business enterprise under public ownership.
The establishment of the bank being considered is a step in the right direction as it will mean that a new bank will be based on the prairies. Co-ops, credit unions and, hopefully, western governments will invest in the bank. For these reasons I support its establishment. This is a good move for the people of the prairies and will provide help to ordinary people and small businessmen which is not available today. Our credit unions and co-ops have a good record for helping ordinary people of the kind our chartered banks will not touch. Such ordinary people hold out little prospect of profit. Perhaps this bank will operate differently, be closer to the community and provide many of the social and economic services which the small people, the farmers and others of rural communities on the prairies need.
For these reasons I support the establishment of the bank. I shall watch it closely in years to come, to see if it lives up to expectations as a bank with a difference, with a social conscience, as a bank which will try to work for the benefit of the community instead of working hand in hand with multinational corporations for profits.


Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, we are dealing tonight with private bills and more specifically with Bill C-1002, entitled "An Act to incorporate the Northland Bank".
Mr. Speaker, I should like to point out in connection with parliamentary procedures that, whenever a private bill is called at 5 o'clock in the House, it seems extremely difficult to have it adopted, while on the contrary, whenever a bill to incorporate a new bank is called, it seems that nobody can object, that everybody must keep quiet, in order to let some hon. members set up a corporation and open a new bank in Canada. Well, Mr. Speaker, as you know, we have always been in favour of a monetary reform, and when we realize that some individuals want to set up a new bank in Canada, we have a unique opportunity to tell the House what we think not of banks as such, as private institutions, but of the Canadian monetary system and what ought to be changed.
I have been struck, Mr. Speaker, by the exchange between the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) and the bank's president, Mr. Wilson. As reported on page 74:28 in Issue No. 74 of the Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence
of the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) asked Mr. Wilson this question about the bank to be incorporated:
Will this new bank that you hope to set up have the privilege of multiplying its deposits by X per cent,...
To which Mr. Wilson gave this answer a bit later:
Northland Bank is not creating money.
A bit later, as reported on page 74:38 of the same issue, Mr. Wilson had this to say:
What you have described is, of course, the path of money as it flows through the economy. In a sense what you say is correct; money is created.
Mr. Speaker, for years we have said that banks are making money from nothing.
We were laughed at. We were not believed. But tonight, for the benefit of my colleagues, I shall quote many bank managers, presidents of the United States or other countries and important men who admitted years ago what Social Crediters have always advocated. I shall therefore tonight make a short history of the international monetary system, or rather of the creation of banks in the world.
In 1694, when King William III found himself in financial difficulties, he called upon a group of London merchants who lent him the sum of 1,200,000 sterling pounds at 8 per cent interest, in addition to a sum of 4,000 pounds for the administration of the loan. In return for that loan, the king gave the merchants the privilege of establishing the Bank of England, along with the right to issue credits or loans for amounts above their liquid assets or reserves.
In 1935, the former Prime Minister of Canada, the right hon. William Lyon Mackenzie King, said:

-the government's most conspicuous and sacred responsibility- [Translation]
-was given, in 1694, by the King of England, to a group of London merchants who later on founded the Bank of England. Seventy years later, England having given over control of its money and credit to the London Merchants Association, by then become the England Bankers Association, which founded the Bank of England, Mr. Benjamin Franklin, then ambassador of the English colonies at London, on being asked why the colonies were so prosperous, answered:

-because we issue our own money. In 1764, England prohibited this practice.

Because England, at the time, issued its own money without going through the intermediary of the banks, it prevented the colonies from issuing their own money and credit.

In 1811 Congress voted down the renewal of the charter of the First Bank of the United States, which precipitated the war of 1811.

December 4, 1975

In 1861 the international bankers well knew that "debt free" money, or "honest money" would cause unlimited prosperity, which they could not control-

And, in 1862,-

In 1862 Lincoln issued $450 million United States notes, backed by the integrity of the nation and spent into circulation in accordance with this constitutional clause. On May 31, 1878, the amount of these "Lincoln Greenbacks" in circulation totalled $346,691,016. On that date a statute was enacted prohibiting the withdrawal of "Lincoln Greenbacks" from circulation. On March 19, 1963, the Treasury Department advised that this issue is carried in their statement as "Debt Bearing No Interest." If these notes had borne interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum, compounded semi-annually, the total interest cost through December 31,1963 would have amounted to approximately $100 billion.

Mr. Speaker, on December 23, 1913, two days before Christmas, Senator Nelson Aldrich of New York, dean of the Rockefeller clan, taking advantage of the absence of the Congress over the Christmas holiday, amended Section 1, Sub-section 8, para. 5 of the American Constitution, which read as follows:

"Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures."
The next clause in this same Section 8 of the Constitution says that the Congress has the power to "punish counterfeiters."

On December 23, 1913, the American congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, at the instigation of Mr. Aldrich, Senator for New York, led by the European Rothschilds-

This Federal Reserve Act gave the power to coin the money to the Federal Reserve Banks, a system owned and operated not by the United States Government, as many have been led to believe, but by a group of private Rothschild and affiliated bankers sent here from Europe, sent here for the express purpose of gaining control of this nation's money system.

This is why Minnesota Congressman Lindberg said after the change in the U.S. constitution, and I quote:

"This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs the Bill, the invisible Government by the Monetary Power will be legalized .. .

And, Mr. Speaker, Mr. MacFadden, former Pennsylvania Bank Association chairman, said to the Congress on June 10, 1930, and I quote:

"Mr. Chairman we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people."

And in the debates of September 21, 1964 of the U.S. Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce, we can read
Northland Bank
the following: As former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln said:

The power to create money is an inherent power of government. As President Lincoln said-
The privilege of creating money and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of the government, it is the government's greatest opportunity.
During the past several centuries, various governments in the Western World have, at various times, delegated the money-creating power to private groups or had this power taken from them by default. In these situations, control of the nation's affairs has been not so much in the hands of the official head of state, but in the hands of the private groups controlling the money system. A famous British banker once summed up the matter this way:
They who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of governments, and hold in their hands the destiny of the people. (Reginald McKenna, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain during the World War I period).

And Mr. Henry Ford Sr. had said:

If the people understood the banking system there would be a revolution before morning.

Mr. Speaker, the control over the monetary policy of a country by banks is exercised through the sale of government bonds to private banking firms, namely the banks, and this is clearly expressed in the following:

The answer to above question was given by London bankers in their "Hanzard Circular", 1863 to their colleagues in the U.S.A., when the National Bank Act was being drafted. The existence of the banking system depended on the issue of governement bonds which must be used as a banking basis; for whereas they could not control the issue of government money, "we can control the bonds and through them the banking issues."

Mr. Thomas Edison said this about government bonds which are sold to private firms, namely banks, and I quote:

"If our government can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the broker collect twice the amount... the currency pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful ways."

-contrary to what Mr. Wilson said at the beginning of his remarks before the committee, Mr. McKenna, Midland Bank of England chairman said, quote:

The bank can create money out of "nothing" and destroy it just as well, but the debts remain years, centuries, even if the money has disappeared.
Governor Eccles, president of the Reserve Bank of United States:
The banks create and destroy the money.
Graham Tower, governor of the Bank of Canada:
It is very evident that the banks create money out of "nothing".
When a bank lends, it creates money out of "nothing",
9734
December 4, 1975

Northland Bank
"Further, I agree that banks create money and that trade depression arises from faults in the banking system in the discharge of that vital function."
-R. G. Hawtrey: Assistant Secretary to H. M. Treasury, B.B.C. Broadcast, March 22, 1933.
Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws ..."
-Mayer Anselm Rothchild.
Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic credit, we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible; but there it is. The banking problem is the most important problem intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it is widely understood and the defects remedied very soon.
-Robert Hemphili, U.S. banker.
Mr. Speaker, I could go on with those quotations for ever. American President Woodrow Wilson used to say, and I quote:

President Woodrow Wilson had this to say:
"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world-no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
"The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly big credits."

What I find most amazing about all that, Mr. Speaker, is to see the NDP which is on record in the House as an opponent of monopolies, support credit monopoly which is, however, the height of monopoly. I was amazed today to see an NDP member supporting a bill which aims at enlarging credit monopoly. Since we all know that credit monopoly automatically leads to production monopoly, the Neo-democrats think they can control the latter through state socialism in government, without interfering with credit monopoly which always stands above government.

Senator Louis McFadden had this to say:
The Federal Reserve (privately owned banks) are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen.
Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, has said:
While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression, which though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.
President Andrew Jackson:
If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to be used by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or to corporations.

At the Canadian Banking Committee meeting, as may be seen on page 394 of the minutes, Mr. Grant Howard said in answer to a question, I quote:

Will you tell me why a government with power to create money should give that power away to a private monopoly, and then borrow that which parliament can create itself, back at interest, to the point of national bankruptcy?


Mr. Graham Towers:: Now, if parliament wants to change the form of operating the banking system, then certainly that is within the power of parliament.

Mr. Speaker, it was before the banking committee as well that Mr. John Adams, President of the United States in 1787-

All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation-not from want of honour or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
Mr. Philip Benson, president of the American Bankers Association:
There is no more direct way to capture control of a nation than through its credit system.
Mr. Mackenzie King, as reported in Hansard for June 27, 1934, said:
As I said the other evening, once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.

Mr. Speaker, those were the words of the right hon. Prime Minister, in 1934, when the Alberta Social Crediters were about to take power. In the speech he made in Saskatoon, he repeated the same historical phrase, and in the House, on June 27, he repeated it again to gain the votes of the Social Crediters. At this time, the Social Crediters from the west believed in the Prime Minister's good sentiments but, once in office, in the House, the Bank of Canada was established and became a shadow bank, which does not play its part.
It is used as a mere "blanket" by chartered banks since the Bank of Canada does not have any control over Canada's monetary system. This is why the Social Crediters are not against the establishment of a new bank. The purpose of banks is to achieve profits, not to create money in the form of credit. We have nothing against banks earning profits but we do not want them to coin money in the form of credit in bank accounts.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. member, but the time allotted to him is over.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: 
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. If the hon. member wishes to pursue his remarks, he will have to ask for the unanimous consent of the House.

Is there unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to complete his speech?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There is not unanimous consent.


René Matte: Mr. Speaker, in connection with the comments which have just been made by my colleague from Shefford (Mr. Rondeau), I would like to point out that when such a bill is introduced, there is a chance that an agreement will be reached to let it pass.
It must be realized that it is precisely a field where we are ridiculed each time we mention among others the possibility of making the services of the Bank of Canada available to all Canadians. We are almost laughed at, we are accused of ever advocating a fad and some go as far as referring to our money printing-press.
Mr. Speaker, for many years, we have been ridiculed because we have been urging the government to let the Canadian people enjoy the advantages so easily grated to chartered banks, as they want us to do this evening by remaining silent and allowing another bank to create credit.
We are obviously not against the principle of creating credit, but we would like so much that the principle be established to foster the development, the progress of the country and since the serious consideration of the proposals that are made is systematically denied, that strikes us as rather strange at a time when we are examining the possibility of giving another corporation the opportunity of doing exactly what we ask be done by the Bank of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, nothing could be more normal than our seizing this opportunity during private members' hour to point out to each member of the House that there should be more logical and serious reactions to our proposals to make credit social for the benefit of Canada as a whole. Mr. Speaker, it is rather odd and strange that that principle be accepted on one condition: that others could benefit from it. People agree with the suggestion to create money, to create credit, on condition that it may serve to enrich some high financiers and increase their assets and capital. Under this condition, it is good.
But when we urge that power be given to issue the credit needed to develop as a nation, apparently it is no good any more. It is fair provided it is given to others so they will grow rich. But if we refer to the same principle and if we are willing to increase the benefits of chartered banks, we should like Parliament to understand that we want to apply it only for the public financing that we need and to use it as a means to fight inflation.
Northland Bank
The House has been dealing for the past few days with an example which I should like to submit to hon. members. Canada is faced with a financing problem which I feel is becoming something of a catastrophe: the Olympic Games in Montreal. Although we are only a few months away from the opening of these games, we know already that there will be a $600 million deficit and that, to date, the federal government is leaving the whole responsibility for this deficit in the hands of the Quebec government. Mr. Speaker, let us consider what is taking place and what will take place tomorrow.
As to the $600 million needed to be able to wipe out the eventual deficit of those games they can be obtained through any chartered bank in Canada and perhaps through this new bank. According to the Prime Minister- that is his answer to date-the City of Montreal and the province of Quebec said they would manage to fill the deficit themselves. So they will resort to loans and they will have to borrow $600 million and repay it at a rate of 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13 per cent which means that generations and generations will have to pay for that gigantic debt.
Mr. Speaker, why authorize high financiers through chartered banks to finance that project to the detriment of the whole population which will have to pay a lot for the profits of the bank owners? Actually, we could loan ourselves the credit required without interest since it must be readily admitted that if we loan ourselves the credit that is needed, we do not have to pay ourselves the interest, because there would be absolutely no point in it. Why? We would certainly like to have an answer to that. Why systematically go into debt by giving high finance permission to lend us to better take away from us a good part of our incomes through interests? And why admit the principle that the Royal Bank, the Bank Canadian National, the Montreal Bank, the Northland Bank should have the permission to issue the credits required, well paid of course, through interest? They are given that permission and we would be too stupid, too innocent, to give it to ourselves. That is where the problem lies. And we are taking this opportunity precisely to point it out.
And if this Parliament can give an authorisation to individuals to create credit-I did say create-and make enormous profits with the permission that is being given to them, how is it that it is very funny when we advocate the election of the Social Credit Party of Canada? How is it that that becomes funny then? Why does our party become a money printing press and why tonight do we have to deal with the incorporation of the Northland Bank? What difference is there? Yet, when we ask that Parliament authorize the Bank of Canada to issue the credits needed for public financing, for the progress of the whole country, how is that we are told: Well, you are going to get your money press going to be able to finance. Your solutions are easy. you are going to print money. And we are ridiculed when we ask that, when we suggest it. But we should not laugh when we are being asked to grant that permission to Messrs. Ronald Thomas Curtis, Henry George Decuypere, Richard Earl Foster, Donald Victor Larson, Philip Duncan Sampson.
Mr. Speaker, let us face things in a logical and realistic way once and for all. Why are our proposals turned down?
2 9 9 5 6 - 6454

December 4, 1975
Northland Bank
When we get a truly logical explanation of that unfair policy, maybe we will be in a position to give the hon. member for Saint-Boniface (Mr. Guay) more satisfaction. However, Mr. Speaker, we cannot miss this opportunity of stressing the lack of logic of a government which is going to accuse us of being one-track minded when we suggest that we should be given the permission to grant ourselves credit. After deriding us for advocating that measure, they come and ask us: Gentlemen, allow this bill to pass, since what you are requesting will be granted to some people.
Mr. Speaker, they just seem to be thinking of us as a bunch of insignificant dummies. Even if only to remind all hon. members that we are not such dummies as that, I will have been quite glad to take part in this debate and insist that we do not object in principle to people setting up bank to try and help people borrow funds. We would just like to stress that if that principle is a good one, it always is. It should be applied especially where it is most needed, that is in financing state ventures. It should be applied anywhere there is a possibility of achieving financially all the physical potentialities we may have, Mr. Speaker, especially in an inflationary situation such as the present one, at a time when we are trying by all means to curb inflation, when no one thinks of attacking the roots of the problem, but when they just try to deal with a dramatic situation through price freezes and wage controls.
Mr. Speaker, we should now more than ever set up banks and provide credit. We agree with that, as stated in the provisions we have to study, Mr. Speaker, we would just have the very same principle implemented in the management of our nation. And since it is an authority which we would confer on ourselves on behalf of the Canadian people, that is why we always say that there should be no interest. Mr. Speaker, if that principle were understood, I am sure we could very easily welcome requests such as the one that is made to us.
I would like to conclude by saying this: through this proposal, the government wants us to admit that credits and money can be issued, provided some people make profits out of them. Well, I deny this. It is not necessary to have people making profits to create credits. That is why I ask that we be consistent and accept the same principle every time public administration is invovlved and that we give the Bank of Canada the same power we give chartered banks as regards public administration and achievements.


Mr.   C.-A. Gauthier@Roberval: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words about this private bill. As usual, this private bill is introduced in extraordinary circumstances. I note that the government members are very surprised to see that we, of the Social Credit party, oppose these bills. In my opinion, my two colleagues have just opened the eyes of several members who are put to sleep and wrapped up in cotton-wool by the terrible finance and trusts that we have today.
Today, Mr. Speaker, we would like to create credits for the Canadians, for the municipalities as well as for Canadian organizations. For this reason, we are called stupid. Today, we want Canadian credit to be created, because it is the credit of Canada. We have asked questions to certain people. They invest $20 million. For what? To produce $200 million. At 12 per cent, they get $24 million in interest a year. This is a nice investment, Mr. Speaker.

Twenty million which will produce $24 million of interest a year! This is what will be allowed. This is what chartered banks are now allowed to make. If there is a bill that I want to defend tonight, it is this one, because it concerns only credit unions.
I remember that in Quebec, we fought to have a bank charter for our credit unions. The banks refused; it is not the government but the banks which control the government. They rejected us because we needed a bank to function. The west will finally have all its chartered banks and a charter for the operation of its credit unions. I believe the hon. member to be sincere and I do not want to kill this bill. I want the House to have the opportunity to vote on this. But we are accepting this bill only because it concerns credit unions.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
Joseph-Phillippe Guay: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if we could have unanimous consent of the House to send the other bill to the committee so that there will be an opportunity to discuss it very fully. I thought I would ask that in view of the fact that the time is up.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the hon. member rising on a point of order?


Mr. Herb Breau (Gloucester):: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I discussed the matter with hon. members on all sides of the House and they agreed that though it is six o'clock, Bill S-29 could simply be referred to the committee. It was agreed that if any hon. member wishes to put questions in committee or elsewhere, the officials of the companies concerned would be willing to meet him and answer his questions. I just wish to point out that this bill merely provides for the amalgamation of two companies from the Atlantic provinces into a larger company which could then become more important nationally.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent on the suggestion of the hon. member?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Consent is not unanimous. The time appointed for the consideration of private members' hour having expired, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock tonight.
At 6.30 p.m. the House took recess.
December 4, 1975



COMMONS DEBATES AFTER RECESS

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Sharp (for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs) that Bill C-77, to amend the National Housing Act and the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
David Orlikow: Madam Speaker, when I was speaking this afternoon I was discussing the tremendous power which land developers have been able to accumulate by their purchase of land at very favourable terms to them, land which they keep until there is a demand and which they then sell at a substantial profit to themselves. I am not critical of land developers-they are part of our free enterprise system and they do what they are permitted. I spoke about the situation in Toronto, and now I want to put on the record the situation in my own city in Winnipeg.
According to a study done in Winnipeg, Winnipeg's four major private developers share a land bank among them of 10,000 acres worth about $35 million. BACM Industries Limited emerges as the giant among the four private developers. This company, which is involved in all facets of the house building industry, has assembled a total of $4,000 acres. Ladco Company Limited holds 2,400 acres. Qualico Developments Ltd, has almost 2,200 acres.
Until recently, says the study done by an officer of the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation, these developers had virtual control of the residential land market and had only to contend with each other in buying land. However, competition among these companies was minimal as each would respect the other's right to assemble properties in certain areas of the city. These holdings put the developers in a very favourable position of being able to supply large quantities of land required for future residential development in Winnipeg.
The study goes on to point out that in one case one company was able to assemble a large parcel of land at about $400 an acre. When one realizes that land is now selling for houses in the neighbourhood of $10,000 to $20,000 per lot, even calculating the cost of putting in the services one can see that land developers have done extremely well and, as I indicated earlier, they have been the big winners in the game of getting as much out of the public as possible.
National Housing Act
What has been the response of the present minister and former ministers in Liberal governments to the needs of the people? Instead of reducing housing costs to a level which could be afforded by Canadian families, the government is attempting, in the minister's own words, to help them with their cash flow position-in other words give them a monthly subsidy, and perhaps they will be able to afford the exorbitant charges.
There is no doubt that the Assisted Home Ownership Program is popular among moderate income families living outside metropolitan areas where they can find homes within the price limits the government has set in order to qualify for assistance. However, my colleague, the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Gilbert), said yesderday that the upper limits the government has set are far below the price for which one can buy a home in metropolitan areas of Toronto, Vancouver, or most of the other cities in Canada. Yet what has the government done in pushing its Assisted Home Ownership Program? It has cut back very drastically on the kind of housing which is the most needed in this country, namely, public housing programs.
A former minister of housing in the province of Ontario pointed out that lack of low cost housing is one of Canada's major problems. The minister has said he recognizes this, yet Ottawa this year proposes to spend only 12.5 per cent more on housing than it spent in the last fiscal year. That hardly takes care of inflation, let alone the need. The province and metro Toronto planned to build 8,000 senior citizen units and 2,000 family units in 1975-76, but Ottawa decided that the middle income groups needed the help more, so now Toronto will be lucky if it gets about 2,000 senior citizen units and 500 family units. It is not because the people who can afford to get into AHOP need housing more than the people who should have been accommodated in public housing or in senior citizen housing; it is because they have more political clout, and it is to them the government responds.
Instead of going ahead with more public housing the minister has decided to push the limited dividend housing program and the Assisted Home Ownership Program. This did not meet with the support of Ontario or many of the other provinces because it removed the emphasis from the low income group where the greatest need still exists. AHOP duplicates a program, Home Ownership Made Easy, which Ontario launched long before Ottawa had ever conceived the kind of program we have in AHOP.
What the Ontario government wanted last spring was for the federal government to commit itself to three fundamental principles. The Ontario government wanted the federal government to consult the provinces before setting its housing priorities. I am sure there is not an hon. member of this House who would not agree-particularly if he does not think of how his party, and especially the government party, wants to do things-that the province and the local municipalities know better the needs of their residents than does the bureaucracy in Ottawa, than does that great head of CMHC who made a fortune in building houses, the kind of houses on which he could make a profit, not the kind of houses people really needed.
Surely we should be consulting provincial governments and municipalities more than we have been. The Ontario

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
government wanted the federal government to give a three year forward commitment on funds, in other words, not to have the kind of roller coaster we have now, where for months on end the provinces wait, do nothing, make no plans, buy no land, do not put in sewer or water connections, and do not put in power lines because they do not know how much they will receive from Ottawa. Then suddenly, particularly near the end of the year, Ottawa realizes it has not spent all the money allocated, and the provinces are flooded with money they cannot use. I will come to that in a moment in respect of my own province of Manitoba.
Finally, the provincial government of Ontario wanted the federal government to give the provinces block funding, with the provinces and the local governments using the funds where they saw the need. Surely that makes a great deal more sense than the unilateral, inconsistent decisions made by the present minister, which seem to have two objectives in mind: first, not what are the needs of the people, but what will get us the votes; second, what the builders and developers want, not what the people who need houses want.
Let me discuss for just a couple of minutes the situation in Manitoba. I wish to do that because, as I have already said, the minister's program is conceived and executed with virtually no consultation with the provinces. The province of Manitoba had been willing and had gone into very extensive public housing and elderly persons' housing programs from 1972 to 1973. In the last couple of years it has done a great deal less, to a large extent because it has had so little co-operation from the federal government.
Early in 1975 the federal government cut back the funds allocated to the province of Manitoba for public housing to around $15 million. The province was willing to use at least $25 million more-and it still is-but it did not hear about it for almost the whole of 1975, and only recently has there been any indication from the federal government that there would be money available. Then, of course, if the money is not used before the fiscal year is over, the province will be blamed for inefficiency and for not being ready to use all the money which is available.
The province should have known early in 1975 how much money Ottawa was prepared to give to it for housing projects in Manitoba. The province is ready to go forward with a number of limited dividend housing projects. These are projects funded under a special CMHC program involving fixed limits on rent charges. At least that is what we have always thought. The federal government is supposedly particularly interested in the limited dividend program, and the province of Manitoba is willing to cooperate, although it has some concern about certain aspects of the program, including the possibility that the rental charges for some units may be too high.
The government said, before the most recent announcement in the last few days, that indeed the rental charges in some limited dividend housing projects are to be increased by as much as 30 per cent, and I hope to have a few minutes to talk about that. The province of Manitoba wanted to secure an agreement with Ottawa that if limited dividend housing were constructed by the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation, federal rent regulations would be flexible enough to ensure that those who really
need accommodation would not be excluded because they could not afford to pay the prescribed standard rent.
Some Manitoba senior citizens houses were erected by non profit organizations such as the Legion, Kiwanis, and many other organizations which deserve a great deal of credit for the efforts they made. They are now finding it difficult to keep their tenants because there is no program for subsidizing rents for people who are, in the main, old age pensioners and those who are living on very limited incomes. The province of Manitoba has indicated to the tenants and to the federal government that it is prepared jointly to subsidize the rents of those who cannot afford the full rent. As far as I know, until recently the federal government refused to co-operate in that kind of subsidization.
The province of Manitoba is arguing very strongly tor the development of a medium term federal housing investment plan designed to ensure, as the province of Ontario was arguing, that adequate funds would be committed to housing for at least the next five years. The province argued that the demand for housing across Canada would remain unfilled even if there were 250,000 starts each year until 1980. They realized that a rational plan was needed to meet this demand, a plan which would recognize that adequate housing is a necessity of life and a legitimate right of every Canadian. Housing investment should be planned in that light and not manipulated as a tool of fiscal policy where the tap gets turned off or turned on, depending on national economic conditions.
When I was speaking earlier I was chastized by members on the other side because I suggested the minister's goal of over 200,000 housing starts would not be met this year. I suppose the interjections were based on the fact that in the last couple of months there has been a sharp increase in the number of starts each month. The figures were published today for the first eleven months of 1975 and, according to CMHC, there were 162,500 housing starts. Madam Speaker, there is no way that we are going to get another 37,500 units started in December, so in fact we are not going to get the 200,000 units the minister promised, let alone the 250,000 that the province of Manitoba has suggested we need.
I know that the minister and members opposite will say that in arguing that we ought to be pressing ahead with public housing, instead of the kind of Mickey Mouse programs of assisted ownership the minister has been pushing, we are being partisan, and so on. In this respect I should like to quote from a statement made by the Canadian Council on Social Development as reported in the Globe and Mail of November 13, 1975, as follows:
Low income people have been getting a declining portion of federal housing aid in recent years, says Jeffrey Patterson, housing program director for the Canadian Council on Social Development.
Later the article reads:
CMHC figures show that the share of the corporation's capital budget going to public housing rose to 37.4 per cent in 1972 from 24.3 per cent in 1970.
The minister who was in charge of housing in 1972 deserves commendation, particularly when we find that in 1974 the proportion is not the 24.3 per cent it was in 1970,
|Mr. Orlikow.j
December 4, 1975

and is not the 37.4 per cent it was in 1972, but has dropped dramatically to 19.2 per cent. The article continues:
This program, which provides interest-reducing payments to builders of low-cost and moderate-cost housing, mainly helps moderate income earners, Mr. Patterson said. "To some extent AHOP does benefit low income people. But where it does so, it is primarily because of additional provincial assistance."
In Saskatchewan, for example, 61.3 per cent of those benefitting from AHOP assistance in 1974 had annual incomes of up to $7,999. That province adds money to aid supplied by the federal government.
But in Ontario and British Columbia, where there is no additional provincial money for AHOP home buyers, only 8 per cent were in this income bracket.
Nationally, 19.1 per cent were in this income range in 1974.
I think that demonstrates clearly that the federal government and the minister have opted out of helping those people who need help most.
Let me take a couple of minutes to deal with a question which has arisen in the last couple of days, and that is the substantial increases in rent that seem to be in sight for those people who supposedly have been the concern of the present and former Liberal governments, and for whom limited dividend housing programs were designed. Some tenants faced with very sharp increases in rent met the minister last Saturday and presented their case. They had been told they were going to have increases of between 20 per cent and 30 per cent in rent. They insisted that the developers who own the property and built it under very favourable lending rates of interest from the federal government and Central Mortgage and Housing, now claim that their costs have increased so sharply that they need to increase rents 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
The tenants are saying they have no confidence in the landlords and they have no confidence in Central Mortgage and Housing. They told the minister that they want the right to inspect the books of Central Mortgage and Housing so that they can be sure costs have gone up. I can understand their feelings because Central Mortgage and Housing has never given anybody but the builders that they represent any information, not the ordinary people who are in difficutly-


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


Mr. Frank Maine (Wellington):: Madam Speaker, one of the major results of the period of inflation we have experienced in the past few years has been skyrocketing prices for housing, whether owned or rented, and an acute shortage, in many areas, of suitable accommodation. The bill we are presently debating aims at alleviating both these problems. It also will have some other very beneficial side effects.
Until now those people who already owned their own homes were in a position immensely more favourable than that of, for instance, young couples attempting to save to buy a house while being faced with rapidly escalating rental payments. This new program will help to reduce the artificially inflationary effect which results from home owners trading up to more expensive homes while already in possession of considerable equity in their present dwellings.
National Housing Act
It is widely accepted that a family should spend no more than 25 per cent of its income on housing, but a very significant proportion of Canadians find it impossible to remain within that guideline while still providing their families with decent homes. In order to keep their payments under that 25 per cent level, families with children and in need of assistance will be eligible for annual grants of up to $750. In other cases, interest-free loans will be available for at least five years in order to close the gap between present mortgage interest rates and an 8 per cent mortgage. In other words, all Canadians who wish to purchase moderately priced housing will be assured that their monthly payments will be equal to those on an 8 per cent mortgage.
One of the more significant measures in the bill which will have a beneficial effect in my riding and, specifically in the city of Guelph, is the $1,000 per unit grants to be made available to municipalities approving the construction of medium density homes falling within regional AHOP and assisted rental price limits, and the provision of further assistance for sewer and water treatment facilities.
The city of Guelph presently has a lot levy of up to $1,500 per lot unit, a levy significantly higher than those in other cities in the area. For that reason there has been a serious shortage of housing available in Guelph which falls under the limit for assistance from the Assisted Home Ownership Program. With that $1,000 grant and, hopefully, a higher qualifying price for units purchased in Guelph, which is presently being reviewed, I am hopeful and reassured that the housing situation in my constituency will soon improve markedly. I am also confident that the increase in loans to builders providing rental accommodation at rents controlled by CMHC will bring about significant improvements.
I was happy to learn today that approval was given for the construction of 101 apartment units in Guelph under this program. It is a virtual certainty that had the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) not taken the steps to make improvements in this area which he did, those apartment units would not have been started.
Wellington riding has benefited recently from a $1,112,027 loan and a grant of $676,523 from CMHC to provide for the construction of sanitary sewers, a pumping station, and a sewage treatment plant in the village of Rockwood. This type of action is illustrative of the progressive policies enacted by the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs.
It is well known that a healthy construction industry contributes greatly to the over-all strength of our economy. This new housing action program will inject an additional three quarters of a billion dollars into housing in Canada in 1976. Our economy has been waiting for several years for this type of monetary infusion. Of immediate impact will be the creation of an estimated 32,000 jobs next year in the construction industry alone. However, of potentially greater benefit to the economy will be the stimulus to our manufacturing industries as production of construction and home furnishing materials increases. Present indications are that our national economic picture is brightening as the world situation also improves. This new and increased activity in the construction and manufacturing

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
industries will help to restore confidence in the economy and make certain that productivity in the country generally improves as we pull out of the present situation.
The new housing program forms an important part of the government's attack on inflation. Canadians will have more housing available of good quality, at a price they can afford. This action will do much to answer critics' statements that the wage and price controls will bring about a decrease in economic growth. On the contrary, we can expect to see inflation brought under control and, at the same time, productivity stimulated by a healthy housing market and construction activity.
By this program the federal government is committed to encouraging the production of one million new housing units during the next four years. Certainly this figure will be and has been attacked by skeptics as an impossible goal but, as the parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier)) pointed out yesterday in the House, we are already assured of achieving our target of 210,000 housing starts in 1975. This program is what the Canadian people need and what they have been asking for. Housing has been mentioned as a problem in every election held recently, both federal and provincial. The minister is to be praised for providing this program to Canadians and deserves the full support of this House in seeing it becomes implemented immediately.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Madam Speaker, three years ago I was elected to this chamber, and the passage of each year has been marked by the various housing programs the government has brought forward. It seems that every year a new housing program is brought forward, which will do great things.


David Orlikow: It is done several times a year.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: It's done several times a year, as my hon. friend to my left says.
This evening I want to refer to some remarks the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) made one month ago, when replying to the statement of the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson). She expressed the views of this party when she said that we welcome any government initiative to stimulate the residential construction industry, particularly in view of the fact that moves taken by the government in the past 18 months have largely been responsible for the depression experienced by this very important sector of the economy.
She then went on to say that she found several basic shortcomings in the minister's program. She said that, first, the measures will not stimulate the provision of the amount of mortgage funding required even to supply the new housing mentioned by the minister. Second, there was nothing in the statement to deal with the major problem presented by high interest rates. I will deal with this later. Finally, she said the program failed to deal with the necessity for continuity in housing policy. She suggested that there is scarcely any reference made to co-operation with the provinces, and she ended saying there was nothing original about the proposed measures. I agree with my colleague from Kingston and the Islands.
The housing shortage largely is a matter of geography. I tell the House that in many places in Canada there is no
| Mr. Maine. |
shortage of housing. The opposite is true. For example, in Squamish, British Columbia, not far from Vancouver, there is a surfeit of housing, all kinds of housing, single family, rental housing-you name it. The reason is that tenants are mobile and can move. If a tenant's job ends, he can simply move. But you cannot pick up housing and move it. Housing is put in place for a long time and serves over the long haul. It stays where it is built-unless you happen to meet a house on a trailer coming down the highway the other way.
There is surplus housing in places other than Squamish. Recently, in the Public Accounts Committee, in these very parliament buildings, we examined the question of housing in Gimli, Manitoba. There is a surplus of housing in the town, and the Department of National Defence was paying for this surplus housing. The people in Gimli, Manitoba, who faced a housing shortage on the private market, tried to talk the government into sharing the expense for housing. The housing was being wasted, and the government was paying for empty housing. But would the government say, yes, we will let the people of Gimli, Manitoba, share the cost, rent this housing and thereby ease the burden on the taxpayers of Canada?


An hon. Member:: No way!


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: No way, Madam Speaker. Those housing units stayed empty for I do not know how many years, to the cost of the taxpayers of this country.
We often hear talk of the housing shortage, and of the government's countless plans to combat it. Anyone who considers the housing situation must realize that there is no housing shortage; there is a money shortage. That is what is wrong. If you have money, you can find housing- you can buy or rent any sort of house pretty nearly anywhere you want. If you have no money, or not enough, then you are out in the cold. I will be showing as these remarks drag on-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Drag on?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: My friends concede that my remarks will not drag. I hope to be able to demonstrate that the government has been the cause of the shortage of money and the high cost of housing in this country. I have to go back. It is nearly three years ago that I first spoke of housing in this House.


John Edward Broadbent: And nothing has changed.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: That is right. At that time I made a statement which caused a lot of mirth on the government side. I advocated that if the government got out of the housing business, the housing industry would provide the housing required by Canadians. They laughed. It is now three years later. How many plans have they put forward? As my friends to my left say, nothing has changed.
I wish to read a sentence or two from what I said on March 22, 1973, in this very chamber. I quote:
I am going to argue that federal housing policies, current or proposed, do more harm than good, and that the best thing the federal govern-
December 4, 1975

ment could do to help us Canadians with our housing problems would be to leave us alone.
Perhaps I should have suggested they resign.
Disband the bureaucracies, cut taxes, and let us solve our own problems, with the interference of our local or provincial governments it we choose, but without federal interference, without federal bureaucrats taking our money from us in taxes and spending it as they want it spent rather than as we want it spent.
Later in the speech I said this, and I think it still applies:
If it is really our desire to raise the material standard of living of poor people, rather than push them around and run their lives, then we should abandon the government policies that impoverish them. In place of the present mess of welfare schemes and housing schemes, we should give the poor people the cash presently spent on these things and let the poor people spend the cash in the ways that give them the greatest satisfaction. To build our preferred type of housing for the poor people and to hire thousands of bureaucrats to oversee them in these ghettos is wasteful.
That last word describes practically all of the housing proposals of the government. The government continually seems to forget another quote from my speech.
-the state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else;-
I do not know where it thinks it gets the money to buy houses for people it thinks should have the kind of housing it wants to give them.
-government.. . can destroy but not create, can build nothing of itself but can seize only what others have created;
The only resources at the disposal of the government are our resources. That is a lesson that the government seems to have missed all the way along the line.
Earlier this year there was another attempt by the government to solve the housing problems as it saw them. I do not like to quote myself, but I cannot think of anyone else who says it as well. In the debate on Bill C-46 I said this:
Bill C-46 is another example of the band-aid legislation which has become this government's standard attempt to solve serious national problems.
I have been finding some support for some of these ideas I have been giving to the government because it needs them. In that same speech in January of this year I quoted from an editorial in the Vancouver Province. It read:
-our housing difficulties, particularly in the rental field, compose a classic case of problem creation by government.
It continued:
We did not begin to experience real rental shortages in this country until the federal government removed the tax incentives that channelled a lot of private money into rental accommodation.
There are a few rental dwelling units available in this country, but one might be moved to ask why there are so few. The hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) this week asked a question of the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson). He invited him to go to Edmonton to explain to the people there why apartments are not being built. He also asked him to visit other centres to give the same explanation. I was astounded at the minister's answer. I of course knew the answer, but I did not think he did. Once he had given the answer, I could not understand how he could carry on with the policies he is proposing. This is what the minister said on Monday of this week, December 1, as recorded at page 9577 of Hansard. I quote:
National Housing Act
The reason that apartments are not being built, or starts are down so substantially, is that they cannot be built at today's costs and rent levels without showing a significant loss.
That is what the minister said. He went on to explain how they are planning to overcome the shortage by lending taxpayers' money to other taxpayers so that they will be able to pay less so that somebody will be able to build an apartment at less than market cost and rent it at less than market rent. Any logic that can be had out of that completely escapes me.
My friends to the left think that landlords should be benevolent characters who invest their money in losing propositions. I do not believe that even this government thinks that should be the case. When the minister admits to this House and the country that rental units cannot be built today on a viable economic basis, I say it is time to reassess the basic problems. There is no point putting up these various programs every few months to try to make some band-aid solution work.
When I am asked why there is a shortage of housing in Canada today, I say it is the government's fault. It is not only this government, but it helps. Governments at all levels have to take their responsibility.
I have said this before, but I think it bears repeating. Twenty years ago a builder or homeowner in this country could build a detached house on a single lot with a septic tank, no sewer, on a dirt road with storm ditches. There would be no street lights. Electricity and water, of course, were necessary. As the years went by, the homeowners who were able to get in at a relatively low price were able to put these improvements in their neighbourhoods at a relatively low cost. Because municipal financing was being used, the costs were lower. They were spread over 20 years, or whatever, in the form of local improvement taxes.
The municipal governments then decided they did not want to take all the flak for having high taxes and putting all these services in afterwards, so they found they could convince the developers that all of these wonderful improvements like paved roads, curbs, street lighting, underground wiring, storm and sanitary sewers should be put in by the developers. This solved the problem of the municipal governments whose tax burden was relieved, and before a developer could get approval for a subdivision he had to undertake to put in these services. But who ended up paying for them, Madam Speaker? It was, of course, the purchaser. The developer did not have sufficient credit rating or ability to spread the payments over 20 years, as the municipalities did, so right away the purchaser had to pay, on top of all the other purchase costs, the cost of services.
I should like to say something about rent control, which of course is a provincial matter. I have some information here to which I should like to refer. It is from an article in the Globe and Mail last August, before the federal government freeze was brought in, urging that rent control be instituted by the provincial governments. One observation with which I wholly agree is this:
Rents, like other prices, go up because costs go up. There is no magic umbrella to shelter property owners from inflation. If mill rates rise, if fuel prices rise, if the costs of materials, appliances, mortgages, hydro, water and wages all rise as well, how can the rent that is made up of those things stay the same?

National Housing Act
Then the writer asks:
How long would the activists, or indeed the tenants themselves, sit still for controls on their own wages and salaries?
He must have known about the policies of this party in 1974, because he then writes:
They gave the answer to that in the 1974 federal election.
It seems there have been a few changes in ideas. In British Columbia we have rent control. Last year the ceiling was realistically set, I suppose, at 10.6 per cent. At least, all the evidence given to the B.C. government indicated that it was not realistic for rents to rise above 10.6 per cent. In British Columbia, until next week in any event, they have a people's government.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: And after next week.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: My hon. friend to the left thinks that there will not be change of government in B.C. One member on the benches across distinctly said today that the next premier would be a fellow named Gibson, but I suppose we will have to wait and see. Naturally there are more tenants than landlords in this country, and tenants are voters, and it is by this that some politicians measure their success. Fortunately, in this party we do not have that problem; we measure our success in principles.
The government of British Columbia has now decided that 10.6 per cent is not a realistic level of rent control and that the new rate for 1976 will be 8 per cent. So there is a change in the rules for 1976. The provincial landlord and tenant act in that province applied only to residential buildings renting at $500 a month or less. It did not take the government of British Columbia more than two years to figure out that if rents of residential buildings were controlled, then capital investors would not, seek to build housing but would seek to invest in commercial real estate. Therefore this month the government of British Columbia decided that rent control would also apply to business premises, which will at least mean that businessmen will have as hard a time finding a place to rent as the home tenant.
I think we could find a few faults at the federal government level too, Madam Speaker. Federal action has discouraged, if not prevented, the provision of housing by the private sector. I mentioned earlier removal of the tax incentives for rental housing. There was a time in this country when certain people were encouraged for certain reasons to invest in rental housing, and they did a pretty good job of it. Now the federal government has decided that they were given an unfair advantage, as it saw it, and it has now removed it. As usual, it did not follow through on the result of its action and did not realize it would cut down on the investment in, and creation of, rental units for Canadians.
I lay the blame for general inflation in this country directly on the present government. I think to some degree the government accepts that blame, as evidenced by the introduction this fall of Bill C-73, recently passed by this House.
Much has been said about interest rates. Several hon. members have spoken about the high interest rates that Canadians are forced to pay. I simply ask, what has the

government done except to force anyone with money to invest to seek a high interest rate? Statistics Canada tells us that the rate of inflation is ten point something. Or maybe it is 11 or 12; I sometimes lose track of exactly what it is, but in any event it is substantially in excess of 10 per cent. It should be obvious that with the incidence of income tax and the need to keep ahead of the rate of inflation, interest rates cannot possibly be below 12, 13, or 14 per cent.
There were times in this country when there was what some people would call a realistic interest rate, and this was when there was virtually no inflation. I have reminded the House of this before but I think it is worth repeating. In 1936 the Government of Canada issued perpetual bonds bearing a coupon rate of 3 per cent. It was able to sell an adequate supply of these bonds. In those days inflation was zero, and 3 per cent was what a government bond was thought to be worth in the minds of investors. Nowadays, in order to keep ahead of inflation and to pay all the taxes, investors must demand what seems a huge rate of interest.
Another recent move on the part of the government which everyone voted for and thought was a good deal was the Registered Home Ownership Savings Plan, announced in the last budget. This plan is supposed to encourage Canadians to save up to buy a house. I am sure it will, but it will not do anything for the housing market. Although the idea is to encourage people to buy houses, people are given an incentive not to buy a house because they can save money tax free for ten years. You then withdraw the money and buy the house. Once more displaying insufficient foresight, the government has seemed to overlook the fact that you did not need to use the money for buying a house. The only requirement to qualify for this gift of income tax exemption up to $1,000 a year is that you do not own a house.
If you happened to have a house in the family in the name of one partner or the other, then the spouse was perfectly entitled under this law to save the money under the Registered Home Ownership Savings Plan for ten years, tax free, and then go out and buy $10,000 worth of furniture, if that was the inclination of the couple, and put that furniture in the house of the spouse. This is hardly any way to create any kind of incentive for house purchasing, but I am sure the furniture industry thought the government was being very kind.
Of course, if they did not like the thought of having to pay tax in the normal way after the ten years were up they could transfer the house back into the other spouse's name and go through the exercise all over again.
In this capital region there is an area that I saw when I first came here of vacant land, close to the Hill. It is still vacant land. I believe it is called LeBreton Flats. I understand that in the good old days, not so very long ago, LeBreton Flats contained a lot of what I think is called filtered down housing. There is a better expression but I have just forgotten it for the moment. This was older housing suitable for lower income people. The government decided this was not suitable housing in its view for the people who wanted to live there-and we must keep in mind that the people were living there by their own choice. The government tore them all down thinking that would
December 4, 1975

make everybody happy. Then, of course, it could spend more of the taxpayers' dollars building it all up again.
There are other examples of government interference in other countries, and I should like to give one or two of them. I think it is worthwhile looking abroad sometimes, because we tend to think these problems are only Canadian and locked into Canada.
A letter was sent by some Torontonians now living in London, England. These were not just ordinary people. One was working in a housing agency in London, and another was a graduate student in planning cities from the London School of Economics. They were not the average type of person. Their observations on the housing situation in London are interesting. They report that owner-occupancy and council rental housing have increased substantially, not only in absolute figures but in ratio to the housing stock. They go on to explain that this was not the result of market forces alone, but occurred by government design. Obviously, certain types of housing can be increased by government design. This does not mean this is the type of housing wanted or needed by the people who will be living in the houses. This letter goes on to explain about the enormous number of vacancies there are in London today.
Another debate which took place earlier this year in this House, in May, gave us another predictable series of responses. One of the hon. members in the party to my left felt the government should enter the construction business because owning a house is not a privilege but a social right. That was the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes). He was not supported by one of the government members who said it would be a dream to believe that all Canadians could own houses. I think predictably my colleagues during that debate remarked about the patch the government was putting on a sinking ship. Of course my colleague, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, indicated that the same minister was not really saying the truth when he suggested we were going to have 210,000 housing units in 1975, and that in reality it would be considerably less than that.
If I can go back to the control aspect of housing, I am reminded in Vancouver that recently a real estate firm that had for many years provided housing units for the people in Vancouver announced it was going out of the rental housing market because renting no longer makes a satisfactory profit. Of course my friends to the left think that all these real estate people are making fortunes. The fact that this company is taking this step should not come as any surprise to anyone in this House if he was listening to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs on Monday when he stated this was the reason for the lack of building in this country today.
Having regard to who owns housing in this country, let me say that the Rental Housing Council of British Columbia observed recently that less than 20 per cent of all rental suites have what they call big owners. The vast majority of people in this housing are small investors who are investing their retirement funds. Even if the biggest companies owned a lot of the rental real estate units, these companies consist mainly of the very working people my friends to the left seem to support.
National Housing Act
Other statistics show that in 1969, 1970, and 1971, before the federal tax changes, applications for multiple housing in greater Vancouver averaged 8,400 per year. New rentals outnumbered new condominiums seven to one. By 1972 and 1973, after the federal government had removed the tax shelter incentive for certain investors, the applications were down to 7,000 per year, with rental units only outnumbering condominiums by three to two.
Then we got into rent controls in British Columbia, and the annual rate of multiple applications is still healthy, being 6,200, but new condominiums outnumber rental units by six to one. That is, there is one rental unit for every six condominium units now. The only rental units now being built are subsidized public housing and some private luxury units. Private rental units are no longer being built and no longer being planned, and rent controls are the prime reason.
You may say I am dwelling unnecessarily on rental housing, but I would ask you to examine the effects of a shortage of rental housing. If someone cannot rent an appartment he thinks would be suitable for him to live in he has to go and buy a house. He may buy a condominium or a detached house. There is tremendous pressure being placed upon the housing market in every area as a result.
In Vancouver the city council was finally moved to take action to prevent the conversion of rental housing units to condominiums. Many landlords found they were being hopelessly squeezed by costs and rental control, and the only way out for them was to convert these buildings from rental units to condominium units, sell them, get their money out and go on to something else. If that had been allowed to continue the pressure on rental housing would have been even greater. I do not admire the intrusion by the city council into the housing market.
All levels of government are guilty of allowing an antiquated building code to add substantially to the cost of housing. There is no excuse for any kind of code today that requires the same kind of building in Vancouver as, let us say, in the glorious climate of Ottawa. That is the way it is at the moment. This can do nothing but add to the costs the people must bear. I have one or two other references.
Just six weeks ago the housing industry at a meeting in Toronto anticipated that inflation in construction costs is the primary reason for the jump in housing costs, and said that runaway labour costs continue to be the main culprit. They apparently did not see much help from the government's Bill C-73 which already had been announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) at that time. The industry did not foresee any significant increase in new construction to ease the critical shortage of accommodation in many urban centres. They submit that the threat of rental controls in one form or another is a contributing factor to a lack of construction activity. I think it is obvious that Bill C-73 has been used by the federal government to encourage provincial governments to become involved in rent controls.
There is a newly formed outfit in Vancouver called the Fraser Institute. It is a new Canadian research institute meant to give competition to government sponsored research. It was created to re-direct attention to competi-

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
tive markets as the mechanism for providing for the well being of Canadians. That institute has as one of its first projects a study of rent controls. Their observation is that in the first year of rent controls in British Columbia in 1974 rents in Vancouver inflated at a rate of 75 per cent faster than rents in Toronto. They go on to say that statistics for the previous ten years indicated that until that time the two cities had experienced similar rates of rent inflation.
On the basis of statistics for the first five months of 1975 rents in Vancouver were 11 per cent above the 1974 level, but in Toronto where there are no controls they were only 7 per cent above the 1974 level. It is interesting to observe that in British Columbia the 10.6 per cent or 8 per cent control maximum is now considered to be the main reason why a landlord cannot adjust these rents according to the market. His costs increase because of the controls so he is virtually forced to increase his rents to the limit every time he is allowed to do so, which is once a year. The Fraser Institute observed that rent controls act as a disincentive in respect of the availability of housing units, and that only new construction and redistribution of existing housing could solve the shortage.
I think I am running short of time, Mr. Speaker. I hope that by my remarks I have illustrated some of the basic problems the government faces in trying to overcome the problems, and that the ideas that are being put forth are nothing more than stop-gap measures. We on this side of the House will support this bill because we believe the poor homeowners need every break which we think they might get. We think the government should give the power to the local levels of government so that they could free the people of Canada from the structures of the federal government's interference in the housing market. We have heard the statement that the state should keep out of the bedrooms of the nation. I should like to extend that by saying that the state should keep out of the living rooms of the nation.


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke) for his contribution. I find myself in a dilemma. I do not feel I can criticize the bill very much because it indeed is an attempt to stimulate housing starts in Canada. Another dilemma I find myself in is that the Minister of State for Urban Affairs (Mr. Danson) is to visit my district on Monday next and I hope he will be making some profound announcements about an increase in the amount of funds allocated to the province of Newfoundland, because indeed the housing crisis there is probably as bad or worse than it is in any other section of Canada.
I must say the government has indicated in respect of Bill C-73 that some new efforts are being made to stimulate housing stocks in Canada. While we all agree that in most cases the bill is directed toward this end, there are still some major shortcomings which affect a great majority of our population. The people I am talking about are the many millions of our citizens who are on low and fixed incomes.
In addition to attempting to provide themselves with decent accommodation they are experiencing difficulty even in keeping themselves fed. True, it is obvious that

some effort is being directed toward relieving the public housing stocks, but I do not think there is enough awareness of the emergency that exists in respect of providing shelter and accommodation to the poor and needy.
The latest poverty line figures I have been able to find show that a single Canadian must have $210 per month in order to exist. In this regard I point out two examples to show the discrepancy which exists when we expect all Canadians to be able to provide themselves with shelter or accommodation. For example, the War Veterans Allowance recipient at the single basic rate receives only $207.12 per month. On a means test basis he can have that amount supplemented to bring it to $247.12 which is only $30 above the poverty line figure. I should like to ask the minister or the parliamentary secretary how this citizen after he pays his utility costs, when the price of electricity and heating fuel is increasing beyond control, can afford even to think about accommodation or how much interest he has to pay when he cannot even look after his basic needs.
What about the senior citizen living alone who must exist on the princely sum of $219.96 per month, which is just $10 above the poverty line figure? I mention these cases because I am bitterly disappointed there is no mention of the expansion of what I feel is a most important program. I know the people from CMHC in the gallery and others on the other side will know what I am talking about.
I am talking about the residential rehabilitation program. I have said dozens of times, and repeat in this House that this is a program which could relieve the pressures on our housing needs and at the same time allow these citizens to maintain their present homes, which many thousands own, but which they cannot maintain because they cannot afford to do so. This rehabilitation program, as everyone is aware, is designed to help individuals earning between $6,000 and $11,000 to repair housing structures and upgrade plumbing, electrical and heating systems, if such repairs can ensure a further useful life of the property for another 15 years.
I can only repeat that this is a most worthwhile program that can help hundreds of thousands of Canadians bring their homes up to a reasonable standard of appearance. More important, by the installation of proper heating and electrical systems to ensure safety there would be a reduction in the unfortunate loss of lives and property through faulty construction or faulty wiring, and so on.
The figures are there to prove the need for such a program because Statistics Canada shows that there are over one million homes heated by a stove or a space heater, homes which do not have proper heating systems. At the same time-I was not able to get the figures in this case-it is reasonable to conclude that a like number of homes are without proper wiring, electricity or insulation. Many of these homes are in the rural parts of Canada, many are old and deteriorating because a good proportion of the needy citizens live in their own homes, or homes that have been passed on to them.
I thought that in view of the many times that I have spoken on the subject I had convinced the minister that a concerted thrust should be made on a priority basis to
December 4, 1975

expand those funds to allow for a massive insulation program under residential rehabilitation for people on low incomes, not only to help them conserve home heating fuels but to allow the government to cut down their own use in accordance with their program of conservation of energy. I must repeat that many citizens who are in this predicament who own their own homes are on welfare, and as a result provinces must increase the amount paid to recipients for heating fuel in the winter months for 50 per cent of which the federal government must pay. So it is obvious that the saving for both the government and the public would make this program worth while.
The minister himself when he spoke in June of 1975 to the Canadian Federation of Mayors and Municipalities, stated the following:
Fortunately, I believe it is now well understood that NIP is meant to assist in the development and implementation of a comprehensive plan which will fulfill a wide range of physical, social and recreational needs within the neighbourhood. It is not a hit-and-run, paint-and-patch proposition. CMHC now insists that the NIP investment in a neighbourhood should not be less than $100 per capita ... Closely associated with NIP is the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program. Its purpose is to help restore run-down houses to acceptable standards of health and safety and to extend their useful life by another 15 years or so. The federal government will lend up to $5,000 for this purpose, at favourable rates, and the first $2,500 of the loan is forgiveable, depending on income. RRAP is available in NIP areas, for non-profit housing projects, wherever they may be, and in areas specially designed by federal-provincial agreement.
The minister indicated this himself in June, and the program has been in existence for almost two and half or three years. I wonder why the people in CMHC do not realize that more houses could be made available by bringing these homes up to a decent standard which would relieve the pressure on those people who can afford to buy a house.
In another study the following was stated:
Rehabilitating older housing is another area that has not been pursued to any great degree. Since a major part of our housing problem is one of cost, rehabilitating older housing would be cheaper than tearing them down and building again. This was recommended in the Dennis and Fish study on low income housing in Canada.
"Even in areas of high growth, the expense of tearing down existing units and rebuilding is out of all proportion to the cost of rehabilitation.
We therefore recommend a large scale rehabilitation program, to bring as much existing housing as possible to a state where the structural and building systems perform adequately."
There are provisions under the National Housing Act for federal financing (loans and grants) of rehabilitation projects. To date, however, little widespread use has been made of the program. This is due to a slowness in communication between Ottawa, the provinces and the cities in defining program needs. If more use could be made of a rehabilitation program and older, rehabilitated homes kept in the housing stock, it could help to depress spiralling house prices.
Everything points to the advantages of such a program and I am sure, from experience in my own province of Newfoundland, that this is a reflection of conditions in many parts of Canada. I can only hope that the minister will take a harder look at this program and will allocate funding to correct this obvious inequity in our housing programs. I hope that when he concludes this debate he will be able to advise me on the stage of negotiations with the province of Newfoundland on RRAP which they presented to the minister some time ago.
I spoke about the Dennis and Fish report on low income housing. It is also obvious that the Council of Rural De-
National Housing Act
velopment has made some strong recommendation to the minister on the need to bring existing homes up to a more acceptable level. I realize that the provinces have their problems in designating areas that would qualify under the program, and that municipalities also have their problems when they have to set down occupancy standards, but I wonder why, in our effort to get rid of red tape, we do not take advantage of another program in existence called the Home Improvement Loans Program to expand and introduce forgiveness factors into home improvement loans and to allow any Canadian, regardless of where he lives in Canada, to apply directly to CMHC and to take advantage of this excellent program which, as I indicated many times, can relieve the need for low cost housing in Canada.
There are certain aspects of the program contained in the bill which I feel would be beneficial, and one of the most important ones is the provision of loans for water and sewerage projects. I feel this is long overdue and I compliment the minister and his staff for introducing such a program. It should be obvious that the most important public service required in many thousands of communities across Canada, and particularly in smaller rural areas, is the provision of water and sewerage systems, not only for the comfort it provides but from the point of view of sanitation and health reasons for our citizens and their children.
I am pleased to note that under the Assisted home ownership provision the restriction against one or more children is removed. This, I feel, will benefit many young couples who feel they want to have a house before raising a family. I am sure that no one can quarrel with that right for these young Canadians. However, I am disappointed that the minister has not seen fit to allow benefits under AHOP for the purchase of existing homes, particularly because many older homes could be rehabilitated, thus relieving the pressures on increasing housing starts.
It is obvious that many older citizens whose families have moved away would like to sell their homes and move to an apartment or find a mobile home or smaller house. I hope that the minister will consider this fact before the bill goes to committee, and will introduce appropriate amendments at that stage.
Since AHOP is now related to the special housing assistance for veterans, I feel I am justified in mentioning some points in this program which replace the Veterans Land Act. I was most distressed to learn that as a result of questions I placed on the order paper only two applications were received under the provision for non-profit rental to provide rental housing not exclusively for veterans but for veterans and for senior citizens. But it is more distressing to note, in the answers I received, that the sum of only $50,000 has been allotted to the entire special housing assistance program for veterans. To my mind that is downright ridiculous.
The other answer, indicating that only 50 applications have been received under AHOP, confirms to me that there is a lack of communication between the Department of Veterans Affairs, Urban Affairs, and the veterans who can qualify. While no doubt the Minister of Veterans Affairs

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
(Mr. MacDonald), if he was here, would quarrel with my assumption, in the several contacts I have had with veterans' organizations over the past months since the program was announced, it was amazing to me what little knowledge there was of the special housing assistance for veterans, which the minister and the government expounded with all the fanfares they thought were required.
An example of the weakness in the special housing assistance program for veterans was brought to my attention today. I received a call from a veteran who wanted to purchase an existing home which is available under the program. One of the answers he received from the people I suggested he call was that he was too old. This gentlemen is a second world war veteran of 60 years of age. That is hard for me to believe, and I dare not mention some of the other answers which were given to him. It seems glaringly obvious that there is not too much sincerity in the government's application of this program in the provision of only $50,000, and when a veteran aged 60 is told that he is too old to qualify. The minister, a veteran himself, should investigate the lack of progress under this special housing assistance program to determine and to improve any weaknesses which evidently exist.
Returning for a moment to the residential rehabilitation program, I feel that I should bring to the attention of the minister a survey of the conditions of veterans' homes, which was carried out by the Newfoundland command of the Royal Canadian Legion, a survey which could set an exemple to relate the need for a more comprehensive effort on the part of the government to expand this program. The minister has this study before him, as does the Minister of Veterans Affairs, and I recommend that the experts in both departments use the report as an example of the need for the rehabilitation of homes, not only for veterans, but for all Canadian citizens who are needy.
I am sure many of my colleagues have dealt with the other clauses of the bill and have pointed out the difficulties which are evident and of which note should be taken. I know it is easy to criticize any government program, and it is not my intention to criticize for the sake of criticism, but only to point out in a constructive way how the bill might be improved.
In this regard I hope I can rely on the latest newsletter of the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada, which is known as the watchdog of the housing situation. I sincerely hope that their comment that "although inflation continues to be Canada's greatest concern, housing in 1976 appears headed for a better year" proves true. I am also heartened by their comment on housing in the Atlantic region. They indicate that in the province of Newfoundland housing starts are now up 6.5 per cent after being down by 5 per cent in previous years. They also indicate that in other provinces in the Atlantic region housing starts are up. However, even with this increase, I have to say that there is a lot of catching up to do in my province, and I hope the minister will realize the many needs of my province in regard to housing.
As I indicated, many of my colleagues have brought to the attention of the minister and his staff the many shortcomings in the bill. I wanted to deal with the two important points which I feel affect needy and low income earners in Canada. I hope the minister will take cogni-

zance of the comments I have made, and hopefully before the bill receives third reading we will overcome some of the serious inequities and solve the housing crisis in our nation.


Gilbert F. Rondeau: Mr. Speaker, in the few moments at my disposal I am very pleased to make some remarks concerning a bill which might not meet all our needs but which represents an attempt to answer a very serious problem in Canada, the problem of housing.
In April 1968, the federal government also promised that a bill to faciliate the ownership of low priced housing would be presented during the forthcoming session. Since April 1968, that same government created an inquiry commission on housing headed, as everybody knows, by the Hon. Paul Hellyer. The commission sat almost everywhere in Canada and presented a report. This report had smashing results as almost immediately following its release, the chairman, Hon. Paul Hellyer resigned from his position. Since then, many recommendations have been made to the government by several private organizations concerning the many housing problems not only in the province of Quebec but everywhere else in Canada. And we realized since then that housing costs have increased tremendously and particularly the cost of mortgage financing in Canada. I have very interesting data on that subject. Before referring to them I should like to quote from an article published in the Toronto Telegram, on October 17, 1970 and that commented on a part of the Hellyer report as follows:
The housing situation in Canada is bad and is getting worse at least for many Canadians who are looking for housing, young couples, tenants and particularly low income people. Who is responsible for this mess? Charity and common sense require that we recognize the difficulty to face urban problems. We also have to realize that our institutions do not serve us well. This government is certainly to blame because Ottawa is responsible for our banking system and our fiscal and monetary policy. Those two areas deeply affect the housing policy at every level. Unfortunately, there is in the housing field many examples of government action that have failed.
To name but one, the Hon. Paul Hellyer said the federal government missed an excellent opportunity to make a positive and significant contribution to reducing the cost of housing when they did not accept his recommendation to supply the funds needed to reserve the land for certain municipal projects.
There was no financial nor constitutional barrier. This could have been a great help to the municipalities concerned, and the people. The housing crisis was therefore mainly due to bureaucratic mismanagement...
Nothing has changed! What was true in 1970 is still true today. Another main obstacle was money, or rather the lack of it, and therefore excessive interest rates. What was true in 1970 is truer still in 1975. The unwanted orphan was fathered by the federal government. Ottawa controls the money supply and has the last word about the economic environment across the country. Our monetary mandarins knowingly and deliberatley restricted the money supply to the extent that interest rates are far above the possibilities of most potential owners and many developers. This results in fewer housing starts and brings little hope to the potential buyer.
A larger stock of money and houses would spur competition, and most significantly lower prices and rentals.
December 4, 1975

Regrettably, we will not even reach the minimum number of housing starts advocated by the Economic Council of Canada and the housing and urban development group. The housing problem is not only quantitative but also qualitative. The fiscal impact greatly favours larger projects.
Those large developments do not fill family needs. They are adequate and may be desirable for adults but children need and deserve better.
A recent study made in Yugoslavia indicates that there is more poor health among children who live on the top floor of high rise apartment buildings. These children lack exercise because their mother does not like to let them play outside.
Another study shows that mothers who live in high rises have a higher suicide rate. In certain cities, it would be impossible to build low rent apartment buildings even if loans could be obtained at reasonable rates. The legislation promotes this. In a free country, people are not free to build a little house in a city like Toronto. Urbanists, officials and politicians do not allow it. Of course, their plans allow the small wage earners and their families to live crowded in an apartment which would be just big enough for a childless couple. Of course, we all know the universal law of the bureaucracy. Civil servants multiply arithmetically while the rules multiply geometrically, but the results do not multiply and are late in coming.
Mr. Speaker, what the former chairman of the inquiry commission on housing wrote in 1970 is even truer in 1975 because the cost of housing and the cost of financing are now also astronomic, to such a point that the majority of Canadians have today lost any hope of being able to own in the near future a property that will be free of debt.
In Bill C-77, the federal government wants to direct a sum of $750 million towards various housing projects in future years, which means that with $750 million, as others have said before me, we could reach a minimum target of
20,000	dwellings, which is clearly insufficient in view of Canadian needs. At the same time, since many Canadians have lost confidence in the value of the dollar, we have exported $25 billion in Canadian money to the United States. Canadians have invested $25 billion in the United States and if these same Canadians who still live in Canada had confidence in their economy and the value of the Canadian dollar, they would be sure of the purchasing power that the Canadian economy can give them sooner or later. These $25 billion could easily be invested in housing as first mortgages, with guarantees by the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
But those Canadians have lost faith in the financial yield of the Canadian dollar, and that is why $25 billion of our money were invested in the U.S. economy in the last five or ten years, which means that with those $25 billion invested in the United States we could certainly come through with at least 500,000 housing units in Canada. And, Mr. Speaker, I would like to indulge in a retrospective of the housing cost and make projections based on the figures for 1975. I will begin first by a retrospective of the housing cost in 1938. A modest home in 1938 cost $3,500, and you needed $400 cash to acquire that home. The interest rate in 1938 was 4 per cent and the rental cost to pay a $3,500 home at the rate of 4 per cent was $25 a month. In
National Housing Act
1945, that same property cost $6,000; the cash needed to acquire that same property had remained the same-$400- the interest rate had gone up by 0.5 per cent-so 4 Vi per cent-and the monthly payment for that $6,000 property was $60 a month. No one will dispute that the average cost of houses has risen from $3,500 in 1938 to $33,000 in 1975; the minimum down payment to buy a house is $3,000; interest rates have risen from 4 per cent in 1938 to 11 Vi per cent in 1975, which means that with mortgage payments of $300 a month required for 35 years to buy a $33,000 home, the individual who makes his final payment after 35 years will have paid a total amount of $126,000 in principal and interest. This individual will therefore have paid $93,000 just for interest, and $33,000 for his actual property. So who takes advantage of the property cost increase system when it means that while house prices may increase by $5,000 or $10,000 within ten years, interest rates have gone up in 25 years by over $85,000? In 1961 also, 28 per cent of all revenues of Canadians were necessary to pay for property expenses, such as principal, interest and municipal taxes. In 1975, the same costs amount to 42 per cent of all revenues of Canadians, which means a 14 per cent increase in the percentage of all revenues since 1961, or in other words that in the past 14 years, 14 per cent of all revenues were used only to make up for the increase in housing costs, and that housing costs have gone up every year by 1 per cent of the gross national income; and that is just accounting for the increase. But if, on top of the cost of properties as I just mentioned, you apply an inflation factor of 10 per cent per year, as suggested by the new Anti-Inflation Board, if you consider the cost of living, the progressive rising of inflation, and if the new Anti-Inflation Board sticks to its 10 per cent rate, a property which in 1975 sells for $34,500, with a yearly 10 per cent increase factor, would cost, in the year 2000, in principal alone, the small amount-those figures seem ridiculous this evening-of $411,177.10. Supposing that the interest rate always remains the same, about 12 per cent, which means that there would be no inflation or increase in interest rates, a $34,500 property in 1975 would cost $411,177 in principal in the year 2000 and $16,851,000 in interest after 35 years, the total cost amounting to $17,262,000, principal and interest included. This means that a monthly rent of $41,000 would have to be paid during 35 years finally to enable the owner to discharge entirely his debt. Those figures, I agree, are sheer madness. However, they are a reflection of our mad system which has unfortunately led us too quickly to the present mad economic conditions.
Mr. Speaker, it is not with bills of $750 million to build
20,000	units in Canada and by avoiding any control over soaring interest rates that we will get low cost housing. It is absolutely fanciful and ridiculous to believe that such a legislation could solve all housing problems in Canada. That is pure fantasy and that is why very soon the government will have to take the bull by the horns, otherwise we can say farewell to home ownership in Canada. We are losing our time thinking that the owner of a small house will hold on to his property because it will be impossible for a low income earner to acquire housing on his own. In other words, Mr. Speaker, it is not through such hardly efficient and progressive legislation that we will get to solve the very delicate and serious housing problem in

December 4, 1975
National Housing Act
Canada. Yet, home ownership is a social reality. All individuals must have access to home ownership.
Still, Canada has the necessary economic potential to allow each Canadian to purchase a house. We have everything that is needed in Canada, modern technology, advanced building methods, able builders, manpower with proven competence, the necessary primary products and resources, wood and materials, to give all Canadian families the possibility of owning a modest home. The only lack or want is that of a financial system equal to the physical possibilities, and that is why Social Crediters are asking for a review of our monetary system so that every Canadian family may have access to private property.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot oppose this bill because it represents an effort in the right direction. But I am sure this bill will not bring about any viable solution to a long term problem, and that it will fail to solve once and for all the housing crisis in Canada, in spite of the board of inquiry which has been set up, in spite of the many recommendations, in spite of studies of all sorts, in spite of the committee's recommendations, and in spite of all the speeches in the House; the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation seems to be made up of technocrats who, for the past few years, have lived very far remote from the people and the housing problem. All the regulations originating from the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation which the House has adopted have made it possible for contractors to become richer, but also for fewer Canadians to become homeowners.
Today, Mr. Speaker, the owner of a small house must pay an average of $100,000 in interest, if the rates remain constant. This is both ridiculous and stupid. They will not have me believe that with such a legislation and such interest rates, they will be able to help the individual, the small investor, and the small wage-earner.


Mr. Arnold Peters (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, we are debating either the third or the fourth bill, introduced by the Liberal party in the present session, which will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem it is designed to solve. My party has said it will vote against the bill. I want to put on record our reasons for opposing the government's housing program and this amending bill.
Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation was first established to give emergency help to prospective home owners in Canada. Originally the program was designed to stimulate, in a small way, home building. Now, 20 years after its inception, it is the mainstay of house building in Canada. If, in the first place, we had provided for a revolving fund, moneys paid back to CMHC could be lent again. Meanwhile the amount available for lending would have increased considerably. But we did not do that. Instead, the government, through Central Mortgage and Housing, said it would guarantee housing loans. People went to banks and financial institutions, and borrowed money for their mortgages.
So far the people of this country have not decided that the best housing is apartment housing in a high rise apartment. Perhaps that decision is coming. At present most Canadians want to live in a home they own. But this program will not help. The money the government will lend will go on forcing up the price of housing, and not encourage the supply of new homes. Houses will be more heavily subsidized, but the subsidies will be paid, indirectly, to financial institutions.
I listened to the hon. member who preceded me say that our trouble is not that we lack lumber or know-how for building housing; simply, we lack the will to devote part of our gross national product to housing-housing which should be provided through a government agency at a relatively modest interest rate.
This legislation will merely provide more subsidies for home builders. Until recently the government gave a grant of $500 to first-time home buyers, and the province of Ontario provided an additional $1,500 to buyers in the province. Home buyers used the money for their down payment, but they saved little in the long run as they were forced to deal with real estate agents who knew the workings of the real estate industry, how to obtain mortgages and any other assistance that might be forthcoming.
As I say, the grant money did not reduce the cost of the house to the purchaser; it merely provided the down payment on the home. The net result was that the $2,000 subsidy forced up the value of the home.


An hon. Member:: Ten o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being ten o'clock, I regret to interrupt the hon. member.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As suggested earlier this day by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), may I seek the agreement of the House for the following order: that tomorrow not be an allotted day pursuant to Standing Order 58, and that one allotted day be added to the next supply period.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Hon. members have heard the suggestion of the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Sharp). Is there unanimous agreement?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: And is it agreed that it be so ordered?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

December 4, 1975



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Hon. Stanley Haidasz (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, on November 19, 1975, I directed a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) asking whether his department or any other arm of the federal government has established any plan to follow closely the Final Act of the Conference on European Security and Co-operation signed in Helsinki on August 1, 1975, in order to find out to what extent the commitments of the 35 signatory countries are being fulfilled or violated.
I rise tonight at this late hour to give the minister or his spokesman a greater opportunity to reply fully to my question in wbich many Canadians are most interested, and a question left substantially unanswered two weeks ago.
If this conference is to be a success, the signatories of the Final Act must live up to their declarations and commitments. To accomplish this, a method of monitoring the fulfillments and violations must be established and carried out carefully on a systematic and regular basis. Otherwise there is the possibility that representatives of ministers of foreign affairs assembling in Belgrade on June 15, 1977, may show up unprepared or negatively disposed, which would be most unfortunate and deplorable.
Interested and concerned citizens of today as well as future generations will judge our governments and our leaders not by words or promises, but by actions performed and by promises kept. Judgment of the value of the lengthy CSCE will depend on the extent to which the responsible government authorities will seriously identify instances of genuine and substantial implementation of the provisions of the Final Act by its signatories, notably the major powers of Europe.
I would like to propose that the federal government demonstrate its serious intentions and genuine concern by establishing without delay methods of monitoring compliance with the CSCE Final Act provisions by instructing our ambassadors in Europe to redouble representations to their host governments concerning implementation activities, for example in the humanitarian matter of unification of families and by instructing our embassies in Europe to report in a systematic and comprehensive fashion on the degree to which provisions of the Final Act have been implemented or violated.
Similar instructions may be given to the appropriate federal ministries and Canadian representatives on international agencies such as the United Nations, UNESCO, NATO and others. Furthermore, special interdepartmental committees, federal and provincial human rights commissions, ombudsmen, a special branch of the federal-provincial secretariat and interested non-governmental organiza-
Adjournment Debate
tions should be established, if non-existent, and should be fully informed about the details of the Final Act and asked to forward to the Secretary of State for External Affairs their views and assessment with regard to the implementation or violation of the Final Act provisions. Canada should also consider proposing some amendments to the Final Act such as non-interference of mail and freedom of travel in a country by tourists as well as citizens.
I hope that the Secretary of State for External Affairs during the forthcoming NATO ministerial meeting will discuss with all members of the alliance the need for consultation and co-operation in following developments in this field. In particular, Canada should take proper initiatives to re-assemble the Geneva Conference on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions in Eastern and Central Europe. As Canada has already unilaterally halved its NATO forces and delayed a modernization of its equipment, it should press the opposing side to demonstrate their commitment to disengagement or else detente becomes just a one-way street or an empty word.
Canada has invested a great deal in the CSCE. Though separated from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean, Canadians are deeply conscious that the fortunes of this continent have moulded our fate through history. Many events in Europe influence Canada and its people who seek peace and justice for all nations. For these reasons, Canadians want the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe to be a success.
Given the quantity of information already available and that could be properly compiled by the methods I have mentioned, there is every hope and reason to believe that we and other countries of good will should be in an excellent position to arrive at a well-informed assessment of the implementation of the Final Act provisions by the time of the review meeting scheduled for June, 1977, in Belgrade.


Paul Edmund McRae: Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf Of the minister, who is absent, and the parliamentary secretary, who is out of the country, to compliment the hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Haidasz) for once again indicating the importance of the Helsinki conference and for his suggestions about follow up and about where the conference should eventually lead.
Canada considers that effective follow-up to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe will be important and will ultimately be the measure of its success or failure. We are concerned that all parts of the Final Act should be implemented, but are particularly concerned about those which deal with the freer movement of people and ideas and with confidence building measures, such as advance notification of military manoeuvres. Canada is monitoring the implementation of these provisions closely. Positive developments in the area of freer movement of people and ideas will provide us with an indication whether detente is being given a human dimension, and a positive response to the commitments on confidence building measures will provide us with a signal that the spirit of Helsinki also extends to the military sphere.
Parts of the text have already begun to be implemented. The NATO countries have notified the other participating states in accordance with the commitments on confidence

December 4, 1975
Adjournment Debate
building measures. The texts concerning economic, scientific, technological and environmental co-operation have begun to be discussed at meetings this autumn of the Economic Commission for Europe. These texts, as well as those concerning co-operation in humanitarian and other fields, are also being reviewed at UNESCO headquarters in Paris with a view to accelerating implementation. In a slightly different application of the text, the formulation on family reunification allowed agreement to be reached between Canada and the German Democratic Republic on the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Officials in the Department of External Affairs and those from other departments are reviewing the implications for Canadian policy and practice of the terms of the Final Act in the various fields that it covers.
As to follow-up, Canada and its allies are considering methods for monitoring CSCE implementation with the objective of assuring participating states' maximum compliance with the provisions of the Final Act. We recognize, however, that in some areas a period of preparation and analysis is required before implementation can begin and participating states, including Canada, will require several additional months of study before priorities can be established and follow-up measures developed.
Monitoring the implementation of CSCE commitments will assist us in our preparation for the Belgrade review conference in 1977.Consequently, at Belgrade we should be able to evaluate with confidence the degree of adherence to the agreed provisions of the Final Act by the participating states and we will then be in a position to draw the appropriate conclusions, whatever they may be, regarding the success of the CSCE.


POST OFFICE-MAINTENANCE OF RIGHT OF CASUAL EMPLOYEES NOT TO JOIN UNION
Mr. A. D. Alkenbrack (Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Mr. Speaker, my question tonight pertains to the Post Office. I am pleased to see that the reply to my question will be given by my colleague the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. McRae), the Parliamentary Secretary to the Postmaster General. The reason I say this is that my late grandfather, J.W. Alkenbrack, who many years ago was postmaster at Flinton, Ontario, later moved to Fort William, and some members of our family still live there on Francis Street, in what is now the new united city of Thunder Bay.
In the midst of the mail strike, which I hope has just permanently terminated, I rose in the House, on Tuesday, November 4, and on Friday, November 14, and asked the following questions, recorded in Hansard at page 8834 and 9062 respectively. My November 4 question was:
My supplementary is to the Postmaster General. Did the minister, in his deliberations with the union, maintain the freedom of Canadian citizens to accept casual employment without joining a union?
The Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey) replied:
I should like to be very frank with the hon. member on this issue but I think I shall have to ask him to show some patience because, traditionally, terms or conditions affecting a collective agreement arrived at through negotiation are the prerogative of the union to announce to its
membership at the time of ratification and I would not wish in any way unintentionally to jeopardize or prejudice this undoubted right of unions.
Again I asked on December 4 a supplementary question as follows:
Would the Postmaster General see that the rights of casual non-union employees are maintained in this dispute?
The minister replied:
Mr. Speaker, this is a little different question concerning casuals who are not members of the union. Casuals were always used to provide service when there was a high volume of mail. This right has not been eroded. Management has maintained that particular right, even though it has spelled out certain situations that limit the use of casuals.
The minister then went on to answer another question. I hope we can be assured that the right of these casuals to work under the prerogative of the postmaster in each post office has been maintained.
I did not wish to jeopardize or prejudice the outcome of the negotiations. My concern in this whole matter is that the right of casual employees be maintained in order that they can work in any post office that needs casual help, without having to join a union. That has been the historic right of citizens in all parts of Canada, and in busy periods, especially at Christmas time, casuals are brought in and hired. The prerogative in this regard rests with management and with every postmaster in Canada. His is the decision, and his alone, as to how many casuals he needs and which ones he will hire. That is why this evening, now that the strike is over, I should like the Canadian people to be assured that the Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey) in his deliberations with these unions has maintained that right. This is what prompted me to ask the questions on the two previous dates I mentioned.
I asked these questions because of the personal rights of the people involved. I have been quite concerned about this because one of the leaders of the union has treated the Canadian public very shabbily and in a very cavalier manner when he said in the heat of attempted negotiations, "To hell with the public." I caution parliament and the Canadian people here tonight not to forget this remark.


Mr. Prud'homme:: We won't.


Almonte Douglas Alkenbrack: I ask that because the actions and manner of certain union leaders are detrimental to the maintenance of the fabric of our system, and even to our very society itself. No Canadian, no matter what section of our society he moves in, can make such a statement and be judged unaccountable, and get away with complete impunity.


George Albert Proud: Right on.


Almonte Douglas Alkenbrack: I congratulate the Postmaster General, who is not here this evening but is unavoidably absent, on his good work throughout the difficult times of this strike. I know that he, in his deliberations with the union leaders, had to withhold certain particulars of settlement from the public, but now that the strike is over this would be a good time to report those particulars to the House. He can do so now without jeopardy to any of the parties involved. In

December 4, 1975

particular I want to be sure that the rights of casual employees in the postal system have come through this strike unimpaired and inviolate, and that the authority and the prerogatives of postmasters and their management remain supreme in each post office, which is their place of duty and rightful jurisdiction.


Paul Edmund McRae: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank my friend, the hon. member for Frontenac-Lennox and Addington (Mr. Alkenbrack). I appreciate his questions and his support for the Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey) during very difficult times. I know of his uncle and am sure he was a good postmaster. We have many employees in the Post Office today of the same calibre, many of whom are very concerned about the problems they have had, for which they feel some responsibility, as well as being concerned about the things that are happening in the Post Office and to the country.
There are some parts of the hon. member's question which I am not prepared to answer as they go beyond what
Adjournment Debate
I have prepared, and to some extent beyond the questions asked in the House earlier. I regret that I cannot give the hon. member those answers off the top of my head at this time.
I should like to answer the one question asked by the hon. member concerning the maintenance of the right of casual employees not to join a union, and the right of the Post Office to bring in casuals whenever necessary. In actual fact the freedom of Canadians not to join a union remains a provision of the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that we have no agreement whatsoever, nor is there any attempt to restrict the freedom of Canadian citizens to accept casual employment without being forced to join the union. You may rest assured, Mr. Speaker, that as law-abiding citizens we do not intend to contravene the Public Service Staff Relations Act. We will abide by it so long as it remains in play.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.17 p.m.

Friday, December 5, 1975