1976-11-05

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I ask leave to move:
That this House record its condemnation of the contemptuous disregard shown by the government to this institution of parliament last evening by holding up a vote for an hour or so in order to meet its own needs.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Such a motion pursuant to Standing Order 43 requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


POST OFFICE
Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, under the terms of Standing Order 43 I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Because of the continuing malaise in labour-management relations inside ,the Post Office-a phrase often used by the former postmaster general-a malaise which has now degenerated into impasse according to the new Postmaster General in his speech to the Canadian Postal Users' Conference this week, management having broken the spirit of the December, 1975 collective agreement with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers by failing to inform the union executive about new equipment being installed in St. John's Newfoundland, and London, Ontario, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Smith):
That the Postmaster General take immediate steps to make management less autocratic, thereby lessening the need of the union to coerce, and as an essential step, to restoring with CUPW an atmosphere of mutual confidence and trust similar to that which has been established with the letter carriers union over recent months, thus assuring the people of Canada the quality of postal service they formerly enjoyed and have every right to expect.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Such a motion can only be presented with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


MANPOWER
Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to seek the unanimous consent of the House to deal with a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Given the fact that the Sydney Steel Plant is about to lay off an additional 170 employees shortly and given the fact that unemployment in the industrial area of Cape Breton has already reached almost 20 per cent, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt):
That this House instruct the Minister of Manpower and Immigration to consult with the Premier of Nova Scotia to formulate special measures to deal with this unemployment crisis and to work out plans to ensure a stable future for the Sydney Steel Plant.


Mr. Speaker:: This is a motion pursuant to Standing Order 43 and it can be put only with unanimous consent. Is-there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 43 to move a motion of urgent and pressing necessity in reference to the administration of justice. I refer to numerous advertisements put in daily newspapers concerning abortion: for example, "Confidential: legally performed in the state of New York by qualified gynecologists, directly from Ottawa, same day return".
I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta):	.
That the Minister of Justice, within his powers conferred upon him by the constitution and with consultation with the appropriate attorneys general of the

November 5, 1976
Finance
provinces, investigate this abortion racket being advertised in Canada and performed in the U.S.A., particularly when Morgentaler is being persecuted and prosecuted for illegal abortions in Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Such a motion pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43 can be presented to the House only with its unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. As the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Buchanan) presented a series of figures in a press conference yesterday purporting to show that the government lost only $6 million, not $50 million, in its lease-purchase agreement at Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere compared to expropriating and constructing similar facilities for itself, and since these figures actually constitute a shell game based on the most irresponsible financial premises-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: -and conceal a loss to the taxpayers of several tens of millions of dollars, and whereas the minister avowed he would meet any challenge to the validity of these figures and is prepared to back them up, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner):
That this House direct the minister to table his figures, which appear to be as irregular and extraordinary as the Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere project itself.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I will put the question to the House, but we have consistently held in the past that a notice of motion pursuant to Standing Order 43 ought to contain only sufficient information to display its urgency and not argument or debate. In any case, such a motion can be presented to the House only with its unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In light of the conclusion of the recent National Council of Welfare publication, "The Hidden Welfare System" that the system of income

tax subsidies in effect currently cost the treasury $6.4 billion a year, and in light of the fact that the benefits of this $6.4 billion subsidy benefit more the rich and wealthy in Canada, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That the House refer to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs the report of the National Council of Welfare, "The Hidden Welfare System", for study, and that it report back to the House prior to December, 1976.


Mr. Speaker:: Such a motion can be presented to the House only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE COMMONWEALTH
Mr. Speaker:: Before beginning the oral question period, I know hon. members would want me to call attention to the presence in our gallery of a very distinguished visitor in the person of the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, the Honourable Shridath Ramphal.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The minister has recently returned from France and I should like to ask him this question. In light of the important social and economic impact of the fisheries on the people of Atlantic Canada, may I ask the minister whether agreement has been reached between Canada and France over the conflict of interest between our two countries with regard to the extension of our fishing limit to 200 miles, bearing in mind that while he was attending to his duties in Paris his counterpart, the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment, made an announcement in this House and served statutory notice of his intention to declare a 200 mile limit effective January 1, 1977?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to give the hon. member and the House as much information as I can today. I undertake as well to have a statement prepared over the weekend
November 5, 1976

regarding the Canada-France negotiations; there simply has not been time for me to put it together. On the matter of the St. Pierre and Miquelon-Canada situation, we held discussions lately at the ministerial level in Paris which were a follow on of discussions which have been underway between officials for sometime. It is evident that it will not be possible, as it was not possible with the United States, to conclude and finalize all aspects of this question before January 1.
However, in a most amiable discussion and negotiation, France and Canada undertook to put in place an interim agreement or arrangement, which will be done before January 1; the mutual objective, as stated by each side during the talks in Paris, is to prevent any disruption or serious change in the situation as of January 1. In the meantime long-term discussions will continue and the interim arrangement will eventually be replaced with what 1 am satisfied will be a mutually agreeable solution.


DISCUSSIONS WITH FRANCE ON ALLOCATION OF FISHING QUOTAS
Lloyd Roseville Crouse: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I thank the minister for his reply and appreciate that he recently returned and has not had time to prepare a report. 1 hope that when it is ready the report will be presented to the House and not outside the House, so that we will have the opportunity to examine it. My supplementary question is as follows: Since there has obviously been a lack of agreement to date on this important matter, I should like to know if there was any discussion of quotas which would be allocated to France under the 1CNAF arrangement covering zones three and four; also, have any special arrangements been made between Canada and France in this particular area?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, first, I assure the hon. member that, on the matter of providing full information, I will be pleased to consult with him and other interested members on the best means for giving detailed information to the House; we could perhaps do that after the weekend. To answer the specific question, I think the hon. member is aware of two agreements in place between Canada and France which will, in our judgment and incidentally in the judgment of France, resolve the immediate problem. One is the ICNAF quota arrangements for 1977 which will form the basis for setting up quotas in the zones to which the hon. member referred. Of course, there is in addition a 1972 treaty between Canada and France which is not affected substantively by the announcement of the 200-mile zone extension made by my colleague on my behalf and his own two days ago.


STATUS OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH UNITED STATES CONCERNING GEORGES BANK
Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a final supplementary question. The perimeter of the 200-mile limit as listed by the minister responsible for fisheries and the environment shows that we have drawn a line equidis-
Orul Questions
tant from Canada and the United States which takes in the upper portion of Georges Bank, an area which alone provides about $30 million worth of scallops to Canada. I ask the minister if final agreement has been reached on the ownership of Georges Bank with the Americans? I ask this because of the economic value in fisheries resources alone of this bank to Canada, and because the minerals and oil and gas deposits which could be discovered in the area make it doubly important to the economy of this country. What is the status of the negotiations concerning this area between Canada and the United States, and have they been finalized?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, the many issues to which the hon. member referred have not been settled finally. 1 believe 1 indicated prior to the declaration made two days ago that action was being taken without prejudice and that negotiations with the United States would continue. Canada has drawn what is properly described by the hon. member as an equidistant line which goes through Georges Bank. The United States in response, and incidentally in consultation, for we were aware it was going to be done, has drawn a different line with which I am sure the hon. member is familiar. Each of these actions has been taken without prejudice. As the press releases of both sides indicated, it was merely, to use an informal expression, a staking out of positions so far as the United States is concerned, and the talks will continue in an amicable way.
In the meantime, as with the situation vis-a-vis St. Pierre-Miquelon we expect there will be an interim arrangement in place by January 1, the objective of which will be to ensure that there is no disruption in the historical and normal pattern of activity in the Georges Bank area.
Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wishes, and the House is agreeable, 1 could table both the press release of Canada and that of the United States which would give a fuller explanation.


EFFECT OF BILATERAL AGREEMENTS ON RIGHT OF CANADA TO MANAGE FISHERIES RESOURCES-POSSIBILITY OF JOINT VENTURES
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the minister on his successful first mission abroad. I hope he hill continue with that old fashioned saltwater diplomacy. Bearing in mind the fact that we have already bartered away 85 per cent of the foreign capability in bilateral agreements and that the Prime Minister when he was in Japan indicated there would be a licensing agreement with Japan which does not recognize our right to the 200-mile economic zone leading us to believe that the declaration may be a cosmetic exercise and not mean a great deal to Canada, can the minister assure the House that the bilateral agreements with these countries, including France and including the licensing arrangement with Japan, will not take away the right

November 5, 1976
Oral Questions
which is ours to manage the resource and to have first right to exploitation.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: I think I can give that assurance without any qualification, Mr. Speaker. I thank the hon. member for his kind words. He made reference to bartering away 85 per cent. In point of fact I think if he looks thoroughly at the bilateral agreement he would find that it is protecting the 85 per cent which was taken by countries with whom we now have a bilateral agreement. The essential element, to the extent that Mr. Speaker will permit, is really that in the 200-mile zone and with the problem areas I have mentioned having to be dealt with on an interim basis, Canada will take all it requires for its own purposes and only quotas that are in excess of Canada's needs will be allocated to any of the countries with whom we have bilateral agreements.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the minister if the government has taken any position on the possibility of Canada entering into joint ventures with the countries with whom we have bilateral agreements, bearing in mind the fact that it will be some considerable time before we have the capacity to utilize our rights within the 200-mile zone.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, the possibility of joint ventures with the various countries with whom we have bilateral agreements has of course been explored and to some degree has been as a result of initiatives undertaken by the Government of Newfoundland. There are, however, a great many implications which will need thorough study. I think all hon. members would wish that kind of joint venture to be undertaken. Specifically, in the first year after the declaration of the 200 miles it is highly unlikely there will be adequate stocks remaining to foreign countries to justify such joint ventures, but we are not ruling out the possibility. We would merely want to make sure that the Canadian fishermen and the Canadian fish plant operators are properly protected before anything additional is done.


MANPOWER
Andrew Hogan: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration and in his absence I will direct it to the acting Prime Minister. In view of the fact that another 170 employees will shortly be laid off at the Sydney steel plant, will the acting Prime Minister tell us if the government intends to come up with some emergency measures to meet the serious unemployment problem in the Cape Breton area.


Hon. Jack Cullen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, in the presence of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration I, of course, am concerned about the issue raised by the hon. member. As he knows we have

manpower consultative services which are always available to meet situations such as this, and those services most assuredly will be made available. My people will be looking into it, probably in concert with management and labour in that particular industry.


Andrew Hogan: Mr. Speaker, in view of this approaching lay-off will the Minister of Manpower and Immigration announce early next week the amounts of training and re-training funds his department will be making available. Would he also consider once again putting additional LIP funds into that area immediately, since the people in the area had this program slashed so badly this year, in order to prevent the area from suffering a further serious collapse?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, as in each LIP program some funds have been leftover-I believe "slippage" is the word used-where possible we try to put them into an area, such as the hon. member suggests, when something occurs between the time the level is set and the lay-off takes place.

[ Translation]


INDUSTRY
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce I should like to direct my question to his parliamentary secretary.
Because of the very difficult situation in which the textile industry finds itself, would the parliamentary secretary give the House some information about the real situation with regard to imports? In addition, has the commission responsible for supervising those imports recently made a report on the situation and, if so, could that report be tabled in the House?
If, however, it is impossible to give a reply to my question today, I would appreciate good note being taken of it and a reply being given to it next week.


Mr. Hugh Poulin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the total question. Rather than have the hon. member repeat it, I will take notice of it and bring it to the attention of the minister.


An hon. Member:: What will you take notice of if you did not hear it?
November 5, 1976


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
Mir. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe): Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to those asked by my colleagues of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Was the minister, in his talks with French officials, given the assurance, since they declared the 200 mile economic zone back in July, that they would not use St. Pierre and Miquelon to extend the 200 mile limit around these small islands which would interfere with any negotiations that would take place?
Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, first of all, France has not as yet declared a 200 mile economic zone. However, on Wednesday of this week a statement was released by the European Economic Community indicating that there had been agreement within the community to a total extension by all the countries involved. In so far as the two islands are concerned, there is no suggestion that the French government would seek to extend the 200 mile zone around the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the sense that the hon. member has mentioned. Apart from everything else, I would have to fight that vigorously because I would lose most of my good constituency in the process.


Mr. Marshall:: Even though the minister might lose his constituency-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: He will lose it anyway.


Jack Marshall: -St. Pierre and Miquelon are a French department and a member of the Common Market. They could extend their zone legally and the French could use it as a weapon in further negotiations. The minister did not answer my question. Was he given the assurance that they would not use that as a weapon to extend the 200 mile limit?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: No, 1 was not given that assurance because, quite honestly, the issue never arose. I think there was a general assumption on all sides that this would not be the case.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, come on.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Hon. members should let me answer the question. I was there, I know what happened, and 1 would be glad to tell the House, if hon. members do not mind listening.


Mr. Paproski:: Don't get testy, Don.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: What I said, in seeking to answer the hon. member as fully as I could, was that on neither side was there the slightest suggestion that St. Pierre and Miquelon would be regarded as being part of the position of the European Economic Community. In answer to those who ooh and aah about it, I made it perfectly clear to the French government that
Oral Questions
there was no willingness on Canada's part, and in fact there would be total resistance if there were any effort to seek to change a Canada-France bilateral arrangement into one which entitled the European Economic Community as a whole to some kind of privilege. That was made perfectly clear in the discussions.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The recent report by Professor Cyril Greenland, who was commissioned by the minister's department and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to study the problems faced by blind people in Canada, states that more than half the blind people of working age exist at substantially less than the officially accepted levels of poverty and also that the CN1B has lost much of its ability to meet the needs of the blind. When will the minister be making a statement as to what he and his department intend to do to correct this serious situation and to give blind people in Canada the same chance of a good life as other people have?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the report has been received by myself, as well as by the CN1B. I would point out that most of the recommendations in the report are addressed to the institute, and I am advised that it has taken steps to put into effect the recommendations involving the institute itself.
As far as the department is concerned, I am glad to hear the suggestion of the hon. member that we should do more for low income people, particularly blind and disabled people. 1 hope that his side of the House will support any proposals for a form of guaranteed income and expanded social services for people on low incomes in this country.


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Public Works 1 would like to put a question to the President of the Treasury Board. In view of the rather bizarre presentation of figures by the Minister of Public Works during a press conference yesterday in which he attempted to leave the impression that an admitted government commitment to pay $510 million to Campeau Corporation over the next 35 years would only cost the government $142,517,021, would the President of the Treasury Board indicate if he subscribes to this view, and would he indicate if

November 5, 1976
OraI Questions
the government has actually set up a $142,517,021 sinking fund with respect to the Campeau Hull project to which the Minister of Public Works referred and which is apparently a critical part of his thesis?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, before I go into that kind of detail, I would like to refresh my memory as to exactly what was said and as to all the facts.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: In view of the possible new breakthrough in handling government commitments discovered by the Department of Public Works as revealed yesterday, is the President of the Treasury Board aware that if the $142,517,021 referred to by the Minister of Public Works in his press conference were held at 10 per cent interest for 70 years, and not just the 35 years suggested by him, it would be sufficient to pay off the entire national debt, and if so, does the minister intend to liquidate the nation's debt in this way?


Robert Knight Andras: I must admit I had not thought of that fascinating possibility.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, if I may I would like to direct my final supplementary to the Acting Prime Minister. As the Minister of Public Works apparently has not impressed his colleague the President of the Treasury Board with his new mathematics, would the Acting Prime Minister indicate if in fact the theory advanced yesterday by the Minister of Public Works was advanced in the hope that he might be swept into the leadership of the Social Credit Party at its forthcoming convention?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


BASIS ON WHICH CANADIAN DECISION ON RED DYE IN FOODSTUFFS DIFFERENT FROM THAT OF UNITED STATES
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. We were informed some time ago that the food and drug agency in the United States of America banned certain red dyes for foodstuffs, et cetera. The minister has informed this House that Canadian officials and our food and drug agency do not agree with this decision and have not banned certain red dyes for foodstuffs in Canada. In the interests of the Canadian consumer, aside from verbally assuring the House that there has been a difference of opinion between our agency and the agency in the United States, will the minister make public in detail-and I emphasize in detail-the basis upon which our officials made their decision which was different from that made in the United States?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, within the hour the hon. member will receive extensive bibliography, text and literature on this
(Mr. Stevens.]
whole subject which I expect will keep him busy for the next two months. I certainly would have no objection to making it available to anyone else who is interested. The bibliography will be in his hands some time today, and I wish the hon. member good luck with it.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In his statement on October 21 about the policy of the government on the Arab and other international boycotts he said that the government would be denying its support and facilities to Canadian firms involved in boycott undertakings and that all Canadian firms would be required to report to the government any compliance by them with such boycott provisions. However, later he confirmed to me that these measures were not being put into effect that day, and he did not indicate a date for them to start, so I want to ask the minister whether these two measures are now in operation in all federal government departments, agencies and Crown corporations, and if so by what mechanism? If not, exactly when will they be put into full and meaningful operation?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, having just returned yesterday I am not sure whether all agencies, Crown corporations et cetera have been fully advised as to the mechanisms. I do know that immediately after making my announcement in the House I had discussions with legal people in the department, and I also understand that they had some with the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce to work out the mechanics of the implementation of the policy. If the hon. member will permit, I will check on it again today and find out if it is fully in place or how long it is likely to take to get the regulations published and the information disseminated.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD REASON INCOMES OF PROFESSIONALS ALLOWED TO EXCEED GUIDELINES-GOVERNMENT ACTION
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, last week I asked a question which was not answered due to the unfortunate absence of the Minister of Finance. I would like to direct a question to him now arising out of the first report of the Anti-Inflation Board, which shows that between the base period and the reporting period the average income of professional individuals increased by $4,900, which is more than double the $2,400 per year prescribed by the Anti-Inflation Board. It also shows that the three leading groups were engineers, who exceeded by $7,700, dentists by $6,700 and lawyers by $5,100. I want to ask the minister if
November 5, 1976

there is any explanation for this failure to enforce the $2,400 increase allowed to professionals and what action the A1B proposes to take to deal with this situation.


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is an explanation for it. The first reporting period was the year 1975, in respect of which only two and a half months were under the anti-inflation program. With a number of the professions cited by the hon. gentleman, such as dentists, the fee increase had come into effect earlier in the year 1975, before the anti-inflation program was in place so the figures indicated in that report covered a year of which more than three-quarters had elapsed before the program came into effect, thereby causing the difference in the increase over the program limits. I might comment that this indication of substantial increases in professional income is just further evidence of the extent to which additional income costs were being pushed through the economy to people who have to pay before the control period commenced.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. May I point out first of all that if the reporting period is not for all of 1975, surely the base year must have been 1974. 1 want to ask the minister why it was not possible to make the reporting period the last 2Vi months of 1975 which would have given an accurate picture, and why it is not possible to give an interim report for the first six months of 1976 as was done in the case of the reports on the interim excess revenue received by business companies who report to the Anti-Inflation Board?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I would have to confirm this with the board, but my expectation would be that individuals in this case-and we are talking about individual professionals as well as many firms-who would normally report on a full year basis do not have the same facilities as corporations to make quarterly reports as companies customarily do through stock exchanges to their shareholders. The first period of control is therefore just for 2'h months, and it was not possible, I take it, to segregate that 2Vi month period in 1975 from the whole year in which the income was reported.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that a number of professionals who work for municipalities and public institutions have been required to return money which they received in excess of the $2,400 allowable maximum; and in view of the fact there seems to be no mechanism clearly established for imposing this provision with respect to professional firms and individuals reporting, does it not become increasingly apparent that the Prime Minister was quite right in 1974 when he reiterated again and again that while it was possible to impose controls on wage and salary earners it was virtually impossible to impose controls on professional groups, profits and dividends? Is it not time the minister gave to the House a clearcut formula by which this requirement can be applied to profes-
Oral Questions
sionals or admit that this part of the program is simply a charade?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. gentleman is going too far with his final words. It certainly is more difficult to apply the controls on the many thousands of professionals and their incomes in comparison, for example, with the larger economic aggregates, such as the major corporations. Notwithstanding that, I think it is in the interests of the equity of the program to try to maintain the restraint as well on professional incomes. I think the hon. gentleman's comments highlight the importance of imposing restraints on the professional sector as well as on management and organized labour.


PARKS CANADA
Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a question for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Is there any truth to the stories that the Parks Canada installation at Cornwall, Ontario is to be moved from that city in eastern Ontario to some other part of Ontario?


Hon. Warren Allmand (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, there was a plan to move the present regional office which was for Ontario and Quebec and was situated in Cornwall, to Guelph and Quebec City. What was one region serving Quebec and Ontario was to be split into two regions covering Quebec and Ontario with a regional office in Quebec City and one in Guelph. That was the plan set up some time ago and as far as I know that is the present plan.


Walter David Baker: A supplementary question. Can the minister tell the House whether there was consultation with the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas with respect to the move and if there was did he approve of that move which is part of the relocation program of the government? I particularly ask the question in view of the reports of the protest that was lodged with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce by his parliamentary secretary against the public service move and requesting that construction of additional office accommodation be stopped. Obviously, he was not consulted by his own minister, but was the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas consulted and did he approve?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if he was consulted because I was not minister at the time. I can tell the hon. member, however, that the hon. member for Stormont-Dundas has asked me to reconsider the move and try to keep the office in Cornwall.
798

November 5, 1976
Oral Questions


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I should now like to direct a question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and I hope he can answer it. Can the parliamentary secretary tell the House whether his minister has received his letter of protest with respect to the movement of public servants to Hull or elsewhere in Canada, a letter which also requests that construction of additional office accommodation be stopped until the requested information is received? Has the minister indicated to him that he is prepared to act upon his request?


Fabian Hugh Poulin: Mr. Speaker, I might say with respect to the general matter of decentralization of government services from Ottawa to other parts of the country that both in my election campaign in 1972 and also in 1974-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We have been getting closer and closer to some very dicey ground in the asking and answering of questions in the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce who has indicated that he retains responsibility for the decentralization program. The question is therefore properly put to him and I presume properly put to his parliamentary secretary. However, the answer would have to relate to the minister's responsibility for decentralization and not the parliamentary secretary's responsibility as the member for Ottawa Centre.


Fabian Hugh Poulin: Mr. Speaker, with respect, my riding is Ottawa Centre and not Ottawa West. I was answering the question and the preamble put to me by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton. I did have occasion and did support the policy at that time. The policy is one that would be for the benefit of Canada. If the hon. member will read my letter very closely, the direction of the complaint was more to the Minister of Public Works with respect to the vacancies which would occur in the community as a result of movement to Hull and elsewhere in Canada. As far as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned, I have consulted with him on this matter and he has said he will discuss it with me further upon his return to Ottawa next week. He has suggested that he and I meet with the mayor to discuss this very urgent problem at the earliest possible time.


BANK ACT
Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the Minister of Finance? Given that the Bank Act will expire next June 30, and given the concern of Canadians as evidenced by the many briefs submitted in
(Mr. Allmand.]
response to the white paper as well as the normal length of time needed for passage of new legislation, may I ask when the revisions to the Bank Act will be presented to the House so that the detailed process can be completed in time to avoid the many extensions of the Bank Act that were necessary between 1964 and 1967?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman may know, a deadline of October 15 was set for public reaction to the white paper on banking. The reactions we have received are now being taken into account in the drafting process and we would expect that by mid-December it would be possible to give the bill first reading. I was therefore pleased to learn that the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs has agreed upon a tentative timetable which will make it possible for all stages of the Bank Act to be dealt with by June 30, 1977.


POSSIBILITY OF STATEMENT ON EXPORT OF ELECTRICITY
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Does the minister intend to make a statement around 12.30 p.m. today about export hydro-electric power in Canada?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the National Energy Board will be making a release at about that time.


An hon. Member:: Why not here?


An hon. Member:: What is the matter with the House of Commons?


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. Can the minister advise whether the federal government or the Quebec government has taken up the account for the Ouellet contempt of court proceedings set in motion by Mr. Justice Mackay of the Superior Court of Quebec or, alternatively, is each side leaving it up to a judge to spend about half of his gross pay for a year, to protect the honour of the Canadian legal system?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Justice):: to payment. I can only speak for the federal government and the answer is no.


Robert Jardine McCleave: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker. 1 will, however, present a motion on Monday which may solve this miserable situation.


ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAM REQUEST THAT AGREEMENT WITH BRITISH COLUMBIA TEACHERS BE ALLOWED TO STAND
Mr. Hugh A. Anderson (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. In view of the retroactive nature of Bill C-16 passed by the government of British Columbia giving the Anti-Inflation Board jurisdiction over British Columbia teachers as of October 14, 1975, although the enabling legislation was not enacted until June 23, 1976, will the minister give special consideration to allowing the original binding arbitration agreement to stand, first in the interest of justice and, second, in order to forestall a complicated legal battle between the B.C. teachers federation and/or the government of British Columbia and/or the government of Canada?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I have to advise the hon. member that the Anti-Inflation Act as it stands on the books really gives no discretion either to the ministry or to the Anti-Inflation Board with regard to this particular settlement. As the hon. member has suggested, there is now litigation underway in the B.C. courts to determine the validity of the retroactive legislation passed by the British Columbia government. I think I am probably constrained by that litigation from making any further comment about that particular settlement.


INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY
Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. Is the RCMP investigating the apparent kidnapping of the new Minister of State for Urban Affairs, the hon. member for Papineau, who was named three days ago and has not been seen in this chamber since?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Membere:: Oh, oh!
Oral Questions EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


ALLEGATION CANADA SEEKING DESIGN FOR ICEBREAKER IN FRANCE
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Why did the minister feel it necessary to go to France to look for design plans for an icebreaker, as reported in the press, when we have in Canada an acknowledged competence in this particular area of ship design, as in others, a competence that has won us worldwide recognition?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the press report, but if it states anything of that nature, it is totally erroneous. The French government raised with me the possibility of providing a power plant for an icebreaker to be designed and built in Canada. The French government is interested in supplying the power plant for it, as are several governments. It was they who raised the issue and that was all there was to it.


FRESHWATER FISH MARKETING CORPORATION
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Fisheries. Is it the intention of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation to make a final payment to all fishermen and when will this payment be made? Is it the intention to exclude about 80 per cent of the Saskatchewan fishermen from such final payment?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of State (Fisheries) and the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I will have to check into that. However, that is a decision for the board on which fishermen and the provinces are represented. It is a decision they would make, not I.


Stanley James Korchinski: How is it that the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation can exclude certain fishermen even though they are a part of the total operation? As I understand it, they are being excluded in order to make the cooperatives function rather than have individual fishermen receive a greater return.
Mr. LeB^gpc (Westmorland-Kent): Mr. Speaker, I am not acquainted with the proposal or the fact. I have not checked into this. The groups could or could not be excluded. I repeat, the matter of final payment and redistribution of money of the corporation is a matter for the board to decide. The board has Fishermen representatives and provincial government representatives. I do not run the board from this office in Ottawa.
80001-511/,

November 5, 1976
Oral Questions EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY-POSSIBLE EXTENSION OF NORTH-SOUTH CONFERENCE
Mr. Douglas Roche (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. It follows the answer he gave yesterday to the Leader of the Opposition. As a result of discussions that have been going on between him and the Secretary of State for External Affairs concerning who will take parliamentary responsibility for CIDA, can the minister now confirm that he will take this responsibility in order to ensure consistency in government policy in harmonizing the work of CIDA with the North-South Conference and will the minister press for an extension of the North-South talks because of the change in the United States presidency?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Acting Prime Minister):: On the
first point, Mr. Speaker, the situation has not changed since my answer yesterday. With regard to the extension of the North-South dialogue in Paris, it is too early for me to draw conclusions as to whether it would be good to extend the conference into next year. Obviously, because it is a conference that operates on concensus, the group of 19 would have to be involved in any decision to extend. 1 expect to be seeing my fellow co-chairman a week from next Monday, and I will have discussions along those lines with him.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Bert Hargrave (Medicine Hat):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport or the acting Minister of Transport. It relates to an extreme railway stock car shortage in western Canada during the peak shipping season of calves to Ontario. In view of the results of a personal survey of this situation conducted yesterday, indicating severe shortages of stock cars sufficient to further depress the western calf market, and in view of serious delays in turn-around time for these cars which in turn is related to a cleaning bottleneck in Toronto, will the minister use his good office to inquire into this serious stock car shortage and take whatever steps are necessary to help prevent a further depression of our calf-market in western Canada?
[ Translation]


Mr. Marcel Roy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, we are now in the process of studying the situation and I trust that some time next week we will be able to follow the suggestion of the hon. member.


SHIPPING SERVICE TO NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA- NATURE OF RESERVATIONS OF RESIDENTS OF AREA ABOUT NEW SYSTEM
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Transport. In his absence, I will direct it to the acting minister, the Minister of Justice. It arises out of the minister's announcement of what he called "improved shipping service to northern B.C.", an improvement which will rely on barges and aluminium hulled boats. The minister in his statement said that the three coastal members of parliament from Coast Chilcotin, Comox-Alberni and Skeena assisted in developing the plan. He acknowledges that "some residents of the area have reservations about the new system''. I ask the minister what kind of reservations the residents of the area have about the new system and do the three Liberal members of parliament he mentioned give their full support to the new arrangements?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, I think it would be-


An hon. Member:: Read the Vancouver Sun and see what they have to say.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Benno Friesen: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. If, as the minister says, this arrangement will mean an improvement in services and that he has studied the problems thoroughly as he has suggested, why did Mr. Campbell of his department just two days before these very arrangements were announced see fit to call Northland Navigation and ask them whether they would continue service if the subsidy were reinstated?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, in line with the practice which has been explained many times, I was delighted to see the House leader of the official opposition confirm that practice of asking the parliamentary secretary questions this morning. Questions with regard to transport are being answered by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport. Speaking for the three members of parliament mentioned, they have been doing and will continue to do an immensely able job as representatives of their constituencies.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MEASURES TO INCREASE CONSERVATION-GOVERN MENT POSITION
Mr. Stan Darling (Parrry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In view of a report from the International Energy Agency that in terms of curbing rates of energy demand
November 5, 1976

growth Canada had results below average when compared with other IEA countries, will the hon. gentleman tell the House whether he plans to give home-owners further incentives to retrofit insulation beyond the minimal measures announced thus far?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the report of the International Energy Agency, as 1 know the hon. member was. I wonder whether he noted that the main criticism levelled at Canada was that our price was too low.


Stan Darling: Would the minister kindly answer my question, and also the supplementary: in the light of the fact that other countries, such as Japan, have been almost twice as successful as ourselves in curbing their rates of energy demand growth, will the hon. gentleman heed the agency's stricture that our transportation and industrial conservation programs need a good deal of strengthening?


Alastair William Gillespie: We have taken a lot of measures with respect to conservation. We have removed the sales tax from insulation materials. We have taken steps to devise mandatory standards which will lead to a reduction of the amount of gasoline used by automobiles in Canada; we have embarked upon a whole series of measures which I would be happy to describe to the House again on another occasion. With regard to the whole question of standards, and particularly with regard to the question concerning incentives to retrofit, I can tell the hon. member that the National Research Council is presently carrying out a massive study in this field. We shall shortly be publishing new standards and I very much hope the provinces will adopt those standards, because responsibility with respect to insulation standards clearly rests with the provinces.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Following his return from France I am sure the House is interested to know whether he is continuing the position of his predecessor in espousing the case of David McTaggart in his long struggle for compensation from the French government in respect to the illegal boarding of the Greenpeace during atomic testing in the Pacific. Could the minister advise the House whether he made any representation with regard to McTaggart's case and, if he did, would he tell us what response he received from the French government? Is there any hope that compensation will be paid?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: 1 did raise the issue with the foreign secretary of France. He and 1 agree, as 1 believe, incidentally, does the gentleman in question, Mr. McTaggart, that an out-of-court
Oral Questions
settlement of some kind would be the most appropriate and least time-consuming. I again reaffirmed our desire that a settlement should be made. The foreign secretary indicated to me that he would be in touch with me again in the next little while-he did not give me a time span but 1 would expect within two or three weeks-outlining the French reaction to my latest submission.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Was there, during this discussion, an indication from the French government that they intended to intervene by granting compensation rather than allowing the matter to continue to drag through the courts?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: I think that was precisely the point 1 wished to make with the foreign minister and believe I succeeded in the sense that he did indicate that dragging on this matter in the courts was not the most suitable way of dealing with it. This conclusion having been, more or less, reached, he then said they would make some offer or some response to us. I must qualify that. He did not say "an offer", a response to us within a short time.


James McPhail Gillies: I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker. My question of privilege arises from the answer given me by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and has to do with the right of members of parliament to be informed about major activities of the government of Canada. The minister is, as everyone knows, responsible to parliament for the National Energy Board. It seems to me that when decisions of the National Energy Board are of great importance to all Canadians, it is the responsibility of the minister to get reports from the National Energy Board and bring them to parliament-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James McPhail Gillies: -so that issues of this significance can be debated. The report talked about today is one of great significance. That sort of information, that sort of report, should come to parliament first so that members of parliament may be able to respond to any statements of such importance.
The question I raise and would ask you to rule on, Mr. Speaker, is whether or not members of parliament have a right to be informed of important activities that are administered through an agency of the government in cases where a minister sitting in the House has the responsibility for reporting to parliament on those issues.


Alastair William Gillespie: I would ask the hon. member for Don Valley to go back and read the "blues" and take a look at the question he put to me. If he were to do that, he would find he has no question of privilege. He asked me a question and I gave him a straight answer. I think he couched his question in a very poor way. If he had asked me whether I would be prepared to table a report, my answer would have been yes. 1 am prepared to table that report at any time. The question concerned the announcement of a decision by the National Energy Board. I gave him a straight answer to that question. 1 shall be pleased to table the report, and I shall do so at the first opportunity.

November 5, 1976
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: A question of privilege has been raised by the hon. member for Don Valley. As is often the case, it involves a very important grievance which I am sure many of us regret cannot find correct expression under the somewhat strict procedures governing privilege. Many of us would look for an opportunity for legitimate grievances of this sort to be raised without having to be couched in the guise of a question of privilege. On the other hand, 1 think everyone recognizes that this important grievance does not, strictly, fall under the definition of a question of privilege and, indeed, no motion is attached which would demand action by the Chair.
[ Translation]


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) promised me that today he would answer the question I put to him about the tanker which recently roamed about in the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I would like to know whether the minister is now willing to do so.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. For the second day in a row I gave the floor to the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich during the oral question period this morning. Unfortunately, the question period is now over.


Mr. Lawrence:: Mr. Speaker, 1 would seek the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion allowing the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to table the report of the National Energy Board which I understand is to be released at 12.30 in any event.


Mr. Speaker:: One of the forthcoming items under routine proceedings will permit that to be done, if it is the minister s intention.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, yesterday's Hansard, at pages 760 and 761, records a question asked by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in which he was seeking the names of acting ministers and second acting ministers in each department of the government. The parliamentary secretary then proceeded to give the House a list of acting ministers.
The question I raised today was intended for the Minister of Transport. In his absence, I directed it to the acting minister. I thought it very fortuitous that in this case the acting minister was affected by the very question I raised, since the matter of shipping is also of interest to him: his riding is Vancouver Centre. However, before he could answer-and 1 give him credit for rising to answer my question-the parliamentary secretary cut him off at the pass and gave us a departmental answer. I would be very interested to know what the Minister of Justice would have said today in response to my question. Since the question was directed to the acting minister, 1 do not see why the parliamentary secretary should have the right to cut him off.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. With respect to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock, the

acting minister did in fact get the floor and indicated in response that he had arranged that the minister's parliamentary secretary would answer the question. He then attempted to add a further remark, which was not accepted as being procedurally correct by the Chair at the time. However, the minister did make a response and indicated that from an informational point of view the answer would be given by the minister's parliamentary secretary. From a procedural point of view, I cannot find a valid point of order against that practice.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, as I undertook to do during the question period, I should like to table copies of the Canadian and United States press releases relating to the announcement on the extension to 200 miles of the fisheries zone.


Mr. Speaker:: Tabling of documents.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Come on, Gillespie, table the document or make a statement.


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, with the agreement of the House I will be pleased to table it when I have the document in front of me. I do not have it right now, but if there is agreement and an order can be made, I will table it later this day.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that the minister will table the report of the National Energy Board later this day?


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, instead of tabling the document, would the minister be good enough to make a ministerial statement on the matter?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Is it agreed that the minister shall have leave to table the report later this day?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: It is agreed, and so ordered.


INCOME TAX ACT
Donald Stovel Macdonald: for leave to introduce Bill C-22, to amend the statute law relating to income tax.
November 5, 1976


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


Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the table the third report of the Clerk of Petitions, stating that he has examined the petition presented by the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) and finds that it meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER

Mr. Ralph E. Goodale (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Mr. Beatty:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether I can bring to the attention of the parliamentary secretary the fact that a number of us had questions on the order paper in the last session which died when the session ended. Those questions were sitting for several months on the order paper for last session, not counting the summer recess, and have been refiled. Would the parliamentary secretary undertake to get a speedy answer to those questions which were refiled in the same form in which they were on the order paper in the previous session?


Ralph Goodale: On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the hon. gentleman has raised this matter in the House. A number of questions were, indeed, left outstanding on the order paper as the previous session of parliament concluded. As the House will recall, in the final hour of that session the government had a considerable stack of questions answered which could have been dealt with in the normal way in the House of Commons, or tabled. However, the hon. member for Leeds refused the necessary unanimous consent to answer those questions in the House of Commons. The hon. gentleman and many of his colleagues across the way could well have had answers to those questions weeks ago had the hon. member for Leeds not refused the necessary unanimous consent to answer the questions in the fashion we proposed.
The net result is that these questions, some in the same form, others in different form, have been asked again and placed on the order paper. We are proceeding to acquire answers to these questions in updated form so that the information is as current as possible. If hon. members are prepared to accept outdated answers to their questions, we could give them old answers, but Obviously they want current, relevant and up-to-date information. We want to give hon. members
Restraint of Government Expenditures the best information possible and we are trying to do so as quickly as we can. I would also point out that because of the action of the hon. member for Leeds, the taxpayers of Canada will be put to additional expense.


Steve Eugene Paproski: You are just stalling.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that all questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Robert Knight Andras: moved that Bill C-19, to amend or repeal certain statutes to enable restraint of government expenditures, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
He said: Mr. Speaker, in opening the debate on second reading of the bill, which is not a lengthy bill but a very significant one, I want to take the opportunity of paying tribute to my predecessor, who has now taken over the responsibilities of trade and commerce, for his performance and effectiveness during his regime in this portfolio, particularly in the area of expenditure restraint. This bill is important to that effort, of course.
As I move into a greater awareness of my responsibilities as President of the Treasury Board, I am beginning to realize fully the extraordinary competence with which my predecessor addressed the problems that he faced and which I now inherit. I shall continue to try to perform in the manner he did. I know that the shoes are big to fill, and 1 realize, based upon my experience as a "line-operating departmental minister", the difficulties of having to deal with one's colleagues and all sorts of meritorious suggestions for the improvement of government programs, policy and services, all of which, of course, also carry with them a dollar figure. The success of my predecessor has, I think, already been apparent and will be more apparent when the full fiscal framework story of 1976-77 is written. Indeed, I can confirm now that he will have been able during his period of the fiscal year to meet his commitments on the kind of restraint figures that he announced in this House.
One of the government measures required to complete that story is passage of Bill C-19. Last December 18, as one of the many steps the government was taking to bring inflation under control, certain reductions in planned government expenditures for the fiscal year 1976-77 were announced. These reductions were categorized as deferrals of planned expenditures, elimina-

November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures
tion of planned expenditures and elimination of activities. I should like to give some examples of reductions in expenditures. As the House knows, we moved to freeze the salaries of the members of this House, members of the other House, of all judges of the Supreme Court, judges in the Federal Court and provincial superior courts, as well as public servants in the higher-salaried categories. We shall also terminate the program known as Opportunities for Youth and the agencies known as Information Canada and the Company of Young Canadians. This bill contains authority to eliminate in the year 1976 the indexation of family allowances, and also to defer or reduce loans to Crown corporations or require them to obtain their funds from the commercial sector.
The total reduction in planned expenditures for these and many other items was about $1.5 billion, of which slightly more than half is reductions in budgetary expenditures, the remainder being reductions in non-budgetary expenditures. Had these reductions not been imposed, the main estimates which were tabled in the House on February 18, 1976, would have been about $1 billion higher than they were and the capital budgets of Crown corporations, which are approved by orders in council and also tabled in this House, would have been about $500 million higher. The levels of expenditure for some of the items involved in these reductions are regulated by specific provisions in certain acts of parliament. Of course, to effect the reductions it is necessary to amend those provisions.
Hon. members will recall that this bill was first introduced-that is, given first reading-last March, but was not proceeded with prior to the summer recess, or the end of the previous session. Consequently, the bill, with minor revisions, was given first reading again a few days ago, on November 1. The revisions relate to the effective dates for certain amendments. The purpose of the omnibus legislation now before hon. members is to provide the authority necessary for enabling certain planned expenditure reductions to be made. I will try to itemize the intent and major provisions of the bill, although I think most of them are familiar to hon. members.
The bill would amend the Adult Occupational Training Act. Sections 7 and 8 of the act are being repealed and new sections substituted. This change is necessary to eliminate the present statutory requirement for an automatic annual escalation of trainee allowances which have been based, and are still based, on increases in the manufacturing wage index, and to substitute a provision which would permit the setting of these allowances by regulation, without reference to an indexing provision, subsequent to an annual review by the minister. This would come after reference of the matter to cabinet. Under the present act, training allowances are increased annually on July 1 in accordance with the increase in the manufacturing wage index for the previous calendar year.
Another clause of the act deals with the Company of Young Canadians. The Company of Young Canadians Act is to be repealed, and the provisions of the bill provide for the transfer of the Company's assets and liabilities to Her Majesty and for

the Secretary of State to administer the closing out of the Company.
The Family Allowances Act, 1973, is to be amended. New subsections are being added to that act so that for 1976 the rates at which the allowance will be paid will be frozen at the 1975 level. It will be made clear that provincial rates for family allowances may be specified by provincial regulations. Other amendments are consequential to those measures, of course. Indeed, as some hon. members noted in the throne speech debate, the indexation of family allowances is planned to begin again on January 1,1977.
The bill will repeal the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Act. However, before that can be accomplished the act must be amended in order to end the period during which assistance is available for the support of the costs of conducting research and development and to provide that all applications for grants will be cut off as of December 31, 1976. The amendments provide that once the provisions of the act are fulfilled, it may be repealed by proclamation of the governor in council.
The bill also deals with Appropriation Act No. 3, 1970, vote 25 of Supply and Services. This vote was the legislation which set up Information Canada and the vote must be repealed so that Information Canada may be formally abolished. The bill also amends the Western Grain Stabilization Act. Section 41 of the act is being amended so as to authorize my colleague, the Minister of Finance, to postpone crediting amounts in the consolidated revenue fund to the stabilization account until a later date, at which time interest would also be credited.


Mr. Horner:: I suppose farmers can postpone their payments, too.


Robert Knight Andras: Section 272 of the Railway Act is being repealed so as to remove the 1960 ceiling on rates for moving grain and the 1966 ceiling on rates for moving flour for export to an eastern port, and also to remove the subsidy paid to railway companies that allows them to move grain or flour at these rates. My colleague or his representative, the Minister of Transport or his representative, will be elaborating on some of the subsequent arrangements which have been discussed and negotiated for phasing out that program. I will not go into detail at this stage. I might say that several of my colleagues or their representatives will participate in the debate on this omnibus bill. Certain measures will be explained more satisfactorily by representatives of the particular ministry which has direct responsibility for the specific part being considered by the House.
The other elements of the expenditure reduction program announced on December 18 do not require legislation since they were authorized and fall within the scope of executive action. The bill before the House covers matters which require legislative amendment and has been brought forward for debate on second reading.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, this bill as revised by the government has finally been presented to
November 5, 1976

the House. It was announced earlier last year. Since then there has been a change of minister and we now have a new President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras). The previous bill was a famous non-starter, although it was on the government's list of priorities for action prior to the summer recess. The previous bill was Bill C-87 which, if one ignores some differences in the last clause as to applicability, is essentially the same as the bill now before the House.
As the President of the Treasury Board mentioned, many aspects of a special nature will be dealt with by other ministers. Similarly, many of my colleagues have a special interest in particular clauses. Clause 14 has to do with grain stabilization; other parts of the bill deal with adult training, family allowances, etc. 1 am primarily concerned with the over-view of government spending and want to put in proper perspective this so-called restraint. Is this restraint? Is it cutting back? Is this cosmetic, or is it merely transferring expenditures from one account to another?
1 am thinking of the cutting down of the adult training program. The result will be a greater drop-out rate among student trainees who will then have to go on unemployment insurance or social assistance. From the standpoint of the Canadian public, this is just a reshuffling of cards. There is no reduction in public spending resulting from restraint. We are told there is going to be a reduction of $20 million or so in the capital budget brought about by the elimination of cost of living escalations which are tied in with certain wage rate increases. The net result is that trainees who are at the real subsistence level will find, because of the change in the legislation, that they cannot make it, and will drop out. Then where do they go?
The program was designed to take them off the unemployment rolls. Instead, we will be paying them unemployment insurance, if they qualify, and if they do not qualify they will, unfortunately, have to resort to some sort of social assistance. Now there are more who will drop out and will resort to those two avenues of assistance, their only sources, in order to keep body and soul together. What is not realized, and what should be explained by the government, is that there is this coldly calculated treatment in dealing with people who are in trouble and are merely being shifted through another door. This is not dealing with the problem. It is not a restraint program in any way. It is merely a matter of shunting something to somewhere else where it can be lost. Nothing is being said about reducing payments to the Unemployment Insurance Commission in so far as the federal deficit is concerned.
When we look at the billions of dollars of federal government subsidies to the Unemployment Insurance Commission, one could say there is almost another $20 million which can be lost in those billions. That is precisely what is happening. What 1 would really like the minister to propose in this particular sector is improvement in long-term planning. The average vacancy rate, representing an actual loss to the manpower retraining scheme, has been in the nature of 17 per cent.
Restraint of Government Expenditures In other words, the government of Canada, through its Manpower division, contracts for so much training time either with provincial institutions or others: there is a commitment which has to be met.
On the basis of 1973-74, the vacancy rate for the annual occupational training program was 17.1 per cent. The vacancy rate has not been reduced in the past few years. A vacancy rate of approximately 17 per cent indicates that the government is wasting in the order of $63 million in training time, as well as a comparable amount in training allowances. By an increase in the rates payable to adults receiving training allowances, the total cost of the program could increase but the net loss may decrease due to more individuals remaining for the duration of the program.
The government will not reduce the Canada Manpower budget unless it dramatically decreases its services to the general public and decreases the number of people receiving Canada Manpower training. The individuals now receiving Canada Manpower training require the upgrading allowed under this program, and any reduction in this portion of the Canada Manpower budget will lead to too many unnecessary hardships to individuals who can least afford it. As I pointed out, their only alternative will be to resort to unemployment insurance if they are qualified, and if not qualified, to fall back on social assistance.
The provinces are paying half the social assistance and the government of Canada is paying the other half. It is the little man, the Canadian taxpayer, who wants to see restraint or reduction in government spending programs, because he is the man standing there now with his pockets wide open and empty. Why? I should like to quote from a very authoritative publication, one to which I have resorted on many occasions, National Finances, which is compiled annually by the Canadian Tax Foundation. I will point out the change that has occurred in the past decade, taking into account inflation, the increase in population and the increase in economic activity. Table 2-8, which appears at page 15 of the 1975-76 issue of National Finances, indicates that in the decade 1965 to 1974, inclusive, the share of total government revenue, expressed in percentage of gross national product, went from 30.3 per cent to 40.4 per cent.
We do not yet have the figures for 1975, but the public sector-that is, the productive sector of the country-says that the share of the gross national product which has gone to governments, municipal, provincial and federal, in either direct or indirect taxes has increased by one-third in a decade. We started out with 30.3 per cent, and finished with 40.4 per cent, an increase of 10 percentage points in GNP. Over a decade, that means an increase of one-third. That is part of the problem in Canada. That is part of the problem of inflation contributed to by the federal government of Canada. Many factors lead to inflation, but government unrestrained spending is one of the most serious ones.
806

November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures
In the past decade we saw the pile of resources produced by Canadians, goods and services which have become available to the public sector to spend, go up by one-third. Now we have to sit back and examine the totality of these programs. It is something that we can expect to see in the next ten years. If that rate of expansion of public expenditure continues, we will remember the rate of increase of public expenditure, of GNP, will have been 33 per cent, or one-third, in the past decade. Let us assume that that rate of increase in expenditures continues over the next decade-and there is nothing to suggest that it will go down-then I suggest the word "restraint" may not be applicable. If we go a further third in government spending, we will see that by 1984, eight years from now, almost 54 per cent of the Canadian GNP will fall into the realm of public expenditure.
I am dealing with the rate of increase. If it goes over from one decade to the next without a reduction-in other words, if no restraint is applied-then I suggest that is a possible perimeter of the level of the GNP which the government will take. I strongly assert, and I think the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) would agree with me, that that would create problems in this country, particularly on the question of investment of capital in productive resources and the rate of return on invested capital which is the greatest stimulant to further investment. For either the renewal of productive resources or the development of further productive resources this would create problems.
Let us consider how the government of Canada will spend its money in 1976 and how its expenditures are projected for 1977, because we now have the estimates before us. I will ask leave, when I complete my remarks, for this table which is compiled from the estimates and the supplementary estimates to form part of the record of today's proceedings. The table was compiled by the Canadian Tax Foundation and I accept responsibility for it. I can table it or read it in its entirety. I ask leave to table it as an appendix to today's Hansard, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The document, not being an official document, cannot be tabled, but it can be attached as an appendix to Hansard. Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: For table referred to above, see Appendix.]


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I thank hon. members for their consideration; it will make examination of the program that much simpler. The 1976 estimates provided that interest on the public debt be $3,930 million, or 11.3 per cent of federal expenditures. However, in 1977 interest on the public debt will have gone up by $720 million to a total of $4,650 million, or 12.1 per cent of total government expenditures. Under the heading of National Health and Welfare there is to be-this includes old age security, GIS, spouse's allowance, the Canada Assistance Plan, hospital insurance, medicare, family allowances, the health resources fund, and miscellane-

ous-an expenditure of $9,886.7 million, or 28.5 per cent of the federal expenditures. In 1977 that total will have gone up to $10,881 million, or 28.3 per cent. However, the government of Canada's contribution to the unemployment insurance fund in 1976 is estimated to be $890 million, or 2.6 per cent, but- and this may startle hon. members-the government examines all its factors and says that for 1977 it expects that contribution to be $1,700 million, almost double what it was in 1976, for 4.4 per cent of total government expenditures to meet the deficit in unemployment insurance.
I do not have to go through all the other figures, such as figures for national defence, which are more or less static, unconditional transfers to provinces, which are more or less static; oil compensation payments, with a gentle lowering; manpower training and service allowances, which are static; payments for post-secondary education, which are being frozen and are therefore static; and the bilingualism program, which is also relatively static. The Figures for transport are static, including air, water, railways and roads, and others; public works and programs, which is a very small item; and the Post Office, which is going from $896.5 million, or 2.6 per cent, to $1,122 million or 2.9 per cent; Indian Affairs and Northern Development-this is a strange priority-remains static; and agriculture and grains go down.


Mr. Towers:: Naturally.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: They go down from $957 million to $862 million. Under miscellaneous there is an increase of $600 million, but the percentage is about the same. The total budgetary expenditure at the federal level for 1976 will be just $34,691 billion. In 1977 it is estimated to be $38,417 billion. We here cannot answer for, control or influence the level of provincial expenditures, but if we are talking about restraint in spending programs and the philosophy of government spending programs over-all, I want to reassert what 1 said earlier about the percentage of gross national product which goes into the public sector: it is a frightening picture. It could be that some of our colleagues in the New Democratic Party will say that it is a glorious picture for them, but the public sector is not producing that GNP.
I want to discuss an area in which we have to re-examine levels of expenditure. The provinces have a clear ride in this area and there is no accountability to the money market. They have accountability to their legislatures for their spending programs, but the money market is something which says where you can get your money. The provinces have the ability to go to the Canada Pension fund and to borrow right up to their level of contributions less a proportion for administrative expenses, but then we see that they are not paying interest. They are supposed to be paying some interest in cash to the Canada Pension fund, but they are not. There is no transfer back from the provinces, though they would have to do so if they were floating bonds on the market among their citizens.
November 5, 1976

Restraint of Government Expenditures



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
They have been permitted to capitalize their interest payments to the Canada Pension fund; in other words, issue more provincial bonds. That will be all right until 1982, when the cash contributions from the John and Jane Citizens of this country will not cover the payout and there will have to be some realization of assets of the fund in order to cover the payout. There is a day of reckoning, but 1 suggest that no provincial administration, under this system, feels any restraint because it knows that its citizens are taxed in an indirect way under the guise of the Canada Pension Plan and governments make no contribution to the fund other than as employers.
This money, then, is taken out of the hands of the citizens of a province and sequestered into a fund which is immediately turned over to the province, and that is a source of income. I suggest that instead of starting from square one in finance, the responsibilities of the provinces start from square ten because there is no accountability to anyone with regard to that money, particularly not the money market. If a province had to justify expenditures against its revenue capabilities, the money market would soon tell the provincial treasurers and cabinets where they were overspending. This is very serious and we will have to deal with it. Is the government of Canada and the governments of the provinces serious about their restraint programs, or are they merely shuffling cards?
My colleagues will examine this program, as laid out in Bill C-19, in great detail. I suggest that there is not very much in the bill as far as restraint is concerned. As I said, a good deal of what is contained in the bill is a matter of shuffling cards from one program into another program which is not very readily identifiable. We will examine this bill in detail. I think there will be a long debate on this bill. It merits close attention, although individually the items themselves have not very much import, with the possible exception of clauses 14 and 15. After all, stabilization is merely a postponement of payments; the payments will still have to be made. This bill requires very careful attention. We should be able to analyse the real intent of the government with regard to its restraint on the rim of public expenditure, and 1 suggest that we must come to grips with the rate of increase of public expenditure.
May 1 call it one o'clock?
['Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie), 1 have the honour to table the report of the National Energy Board concerning demand, in accordance with the National Energy Board Act of the Quebec Hydro Commission.']
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock, 1 do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At one o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. members know that an order of the House has already been made to allow the Minister for Energy, Mines and Resources to lay on the table a report of the National Energy Board. The parliamentary secretary to the minister is ready to do so at this time. 1 recognize the parliamentary secretary.


Mr. Maurice Dupras (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie), 1 have the honour to table the report of the National Energy Board concerning demand, in accordance with the National Energy Board Act of the Quebec Hydro Commission.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Andras that Bill C-19, to amend or repeal certain statutes to enable restraint of government expenditures, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, 1 shall not detain the House much longer, having made most of my remarks. I wish to draw the attention of hon. members and the public at large, however, to one of the areas in which 1 feel the government has been extraordinarily shortsighted with regard to the application of this so-called restraint program.
Prior to one o'clock 1 spent a good deal of my time indicating just how large a chunk of the gross national product the government of Canada was taking. We have seen reports almost ad nauseam in number and in content about the difficulties Canadian industry, Canadian trade and, in fact, the whole Canadian economy is facing at the present time with regard to reduced productivity, our difficulties in selling abroad, our fantastically high wage rates compared to our competitors, and our extraordinarily high unit costs.
When you come down to it-and I do not care whether it is a raw product, a basic resource material, semi-processed, or the most sophisticated piece of machinery equipment or consumer goods-if the price that has to be paid for the continuing production of the commodity is too high for the market.
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November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures then that is the end of the road. In so many commodities today we have reached the end of the road unless we mend our ways. What are the areas in which Canadian industry, Canadian labour and Canadian government can participate jointly, freely and with enlightened self-interest in each sector? Is it the encouragement and the development of Canadian industrial research? We cannot stand still, Mr. Speaker. What do we see in this bill, however? What is the area in which restraint should be applied? Is it a total wind-down of government assistance in this particular form to industrial development and research?
I suppose that from the bureaucratic point of view there is something to commend this type of close-down. We know all too well that in the insular shell of government administration there is one principle that applies with agonizing repetitiveness. That is, "Not invented here". In other words, we did not think about it, we did not work on it, we did not develop it, and therefore it is no good and should not be allowed. It is a human trait, I suppose, but "Not invented here" or "NIH" has a terrible influence within government administrative circles. The burden is on the minister to indicate that the cost benefit usefulness of this program is wound down; that it is completely taken out of circulation as of December 31 this year. To that extent I put the minister to the proof and I suggest it will likely be the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) who has responsibility for this program.
I do not think the government has made its case with regard to imposing restraint, certainly not restraint in the way I spelled it out. There has been imposed on the government, by its self-discipline, the principle that the rate of increase in the gross national product that is being taken by the government shall be reduced. 1 have said, and I am sure my colleagues will point it out even more clearly, that this program is just a shuffling of cards. Certain programs that may have a certain identity are cut out and then shuffled to unemployment insurance or here or there. To that extent, the burden of proof is on the President of the Treasury Board and his colleagues. The ministers will defend the particular points put forward in this bill. It is certainly not incumbent upon the opposition to prove that the government is wrong in putting forward the bill in this particular form.
I invite my colleagues and other members of the House to participate in this debate because it goes to the fundamental basis of what this country is going to do in the next ten years.


Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo-Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, in many ways Bill C-19, restraint of government expenditures, should be subtitled "a Tory conversion bill". It contains a whole package of measures for which the Progressive Conservative party has been asking a long time. It shows the kind of trouble that Liberal governments get themselves into when they do not have the NDP around to kick them in the shins once in a while. As long as we were around and they were in a minority position, we could kick them in a progressive direction. However, the terrible misfortune of a majority govern-
[Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West).)
ment befell them in the last election. Therefore, they do not have anyone to straighten them out from time to time and they tend to respond to the blandishments of the Progressive Conservative party in their posture of restraint. It would not be so bad if my friends to the right were grateful, but they are not. They are not showering the government with any laurels for this bill. I think of one item in particular.
During the last campaign, the Conservative platform was strongly loaded in the direction of cutting back government expenditures. We asked the Conservative candidates what kind of government expenditures they would cut out. We asked whether they would cut out family allowances or old age pensions. To their credit, they were in favour of family allowances and old age pensions. As it turned out, the only thing they would only cut out was Information Canada. Information Canada was the great villain of the last election campaign. The government has cut out Information Canada in this bill. As I say, I see no gratitude on the part of my friends on the right. As a matter of fact, when the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) spoke, he did not even have the courtesy of mentioning that Information Canada was one of the items being cut out.
Hon. friends to my right are all for getting rid of government programs. They say they want to get rid of useless government programs, not the good ones. However, it is always difficult to determine what they consider useful and what they consider useless. Let me give one example that was framed by the hon. member for Edmonton West in his address to this House. He seems to regret that the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Act is being cut out, despite the fact it is not being cut out because the government is trying to save money. My understanding is that they have not been able to give away any money under that act, so they might as well get rid of it. Our position would be that if you cannot encourage industrial development or industrial research with those kinds of provisions, you encourage it under some other provision. We are not going to fight in favour of keeping an item for which there is obviously no earthly use.
I listened very carefully, in the hope that I would get some advance support on a very important item that is being cut out. Of all things the government chooses to cut out in a year when people in Canada are experiencing great difficulty, they pick on family allowances. This is the great beast to which the government is going to apply the axe. I had hoped that some word in defence of the indexing of family allowances would have come from my friends to the right. After all, they were in favour of indexing. They wanted to index the Income Tax Act. Not only did they want to, but they were so successful that they persuaded the government to act in a Tory way and index the Income Tax Act, in spite of the knowledge that indexing income tax is of infinitely greater benefit to those who have a lot of money than to those who have not. They are in favour of indexing the Income Tax Act, removing hundreds of millions of dollars from the government. The way in which that loss of revenue will be made up is by depriving people who receive family allowances of the benefits of indexing.
November 5, 1976

That is a very nice trade-off, obviously one which we in this party cannot possibly agree with. However, in the criticism of this bill by my friends to the right, there was not a single word about what the government is doing with family allowances. That is particularly criminal with a measure of this kind, considering an ad that appeared in a morning newspaper placed by the Citizens' Coalition. It is a horrible ad and 1 do not agree with the conclusions, but there is an element of truth in it. The ad set out to attack the indexing of public service pensions. That was the whole purpose of the advertisement-to attack the idea of indexing civil servants' pensions, despite the fact that the indexing provision is part of the total passage on the basis of which salaries are negotiated.
What will make it difficult for this government or any other government to justify the indexing of civil servants' pensions is the fact that a decision has been taken to remove the indexing provision as it applies to family allowances. Before this decision was made we pointed out, when this question of the indexing of civil servants' pensions was raised, that old age pensions were indexed, that parliamentary allowances were indexed and that income tax allowances were indexed. We were able to point out that a broad range of people benefited from indexing, not just civil servants.
But what has happened now? The government has an instinct for self-destruction which is almost impossible to credit. It is in serious trouble now, yet it goes to great pains to make matters even worse. At a time when members of parliament are under attack for the indexing of their pensions, the government does away with the indexing of family allowances. Who benefits, in the main, from family allowances? It is true that some of them go to well-off people, but it is the poor, with large families, who benefit most substantially. We retain the principle of escalation as it applies to members of parliament and public servants, but we remove it in the case of people in receipt of family allowances. Aside from the unconscionable nature of an act of this kind, its stupidity cannot be overlooked. Yet not one word has been said by hon. members to my right condemning this effrontery toward recipients of family allowances, or criticizing the government because these people have been singled out to bear the brunt of the cuts the government believes to be necessary during a period of restraint.
I listened to what was said by the hon. member for Edmonton West about the way in which government expenditures are increasing. In fairness to him, the federal government, whose share of the gross national product has increased, if I remember the figures he used correctly, from 30.3 per cent ten years ago to 40.4 per cent today, was not his only target. He deplored that increase. I wonder what the comparable figures for the hon. member's native province of Alberta would be, because in that province the increase in government revenues has been phenomenal. Who is paying this lax which accrues to the coffers of Alberta? Other Canadians. 1 am not implying that Alberta is being unfair; the province is not charging the world price. We have been able to persuade Alberta, by one
Restraint of Government Expenditures means or another, to keep its price below the world price. But be realistic. What we are seeing here is a transfer of income from one group of Canadians to another.
Would the hon. member propose that this accidental increase in the price of oil, this increase which has nothing to do with the skill or intelligence of the oil companies, should all go to the credit of those companies? His figures would then look somewhat better, and instead of saying that over the last ten years the federal share of the GNP had increased from 30 per cent to rather more than 40 per cent, he would be quoting a final figure of, say, 38 per cent because the other 2 per cent had gone into the pockets of the oil companies. I make these comments to illustrate how ridiculous it is to use figures of this kind when comparing the proportion of the gross national product taken by the public sector as against the private sector, without directing attention to the use being made of these moneys.
If, for example, the share taken by the private sector was unusually large and it was being used for frivolous purposes, would that have been satisfactory? If the share taken by the public sector was used, as it is used, in supplying hospitals, education, medical services, and so on, is that bad; or if it is used to make oil compensation payments for the benefit of people who live in one part of Canada as opposed to another. I am sure the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Stanfield)-who I see in his place-is concerned about the difficulty in which oil consumers in his province now find themselves and what would be likely to happen if those compensation payments were reduced or removed as the government is threatening.
Is the expenditure we are talking about so terrible, or is it merely a reflection of the fact that we are living in a society which has become somewhat more sensitive to the needs of particular groups of Canadians, to the need for sharing? As the percentage of government expenditure increases by comparison with private expenditures, what really happens is this: a redistribution of income is taking place in a manner different from the way in which redistribution is brought about in the marketplace. Most people, I believe, would agree that the redistribution which takes place through the government sector is considerably fairer and, very often, more useful and more humane than the other approach.
There is a perverse logic to Bill C-19. It is difficult for me to look at the title without feeling anger. The title is "Restraint of government expenditures". The reverse logic is that there are a number of government programs involving both expenditure and taxation which have proven to be both costly and ineffective. Yet there is not a word in the bill about the cancellation of those programs.
Let me refer to the accelerated depreciation allowances which are now part of the Income Tax Act, or to the provisions for the reduction of corporation taxes which are now part of that act. When these measures were introduced, we were told they would increase employment opportunities. That was the argument advanced in justification of those measures. While this meant that personal income tax payers would have to assume a heavier share of the burden of being citizens of

November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures Canada, that was the reason given. What are the facts? What does the record show? Almost from the day these measures were brought in, unemployment in Canada has been increasing, until today the unemployment figure has reached almost 700,000, the highest since the great depression. Where are all these give-away programs, these billions of dollars in forgone revenue designed by the government to create employment? Despite these programs, investment is at a new low. The companies who received these benefits were asked to comment and state the extent to which they had been able to increase employment as a result. The answer was that it was negligible: employment was not increasing as a result of these benefits.
If you want to exercise restraint, Mr. Speaker, you should look at programs that have proven to be ineffective, and cut them. But no, the government uses a different logic. If you dispensed with indexation of family allowances, this would save the government $230 million a year. Those who have examined the economy of this country have pointed out that one reason Canada has had a less severe recession than the United States is that consumer purchasing power has been maintained. Family allowances and indexed family allowances are part of that purchasing power and have contributed toward saving us from an even worse recession than the one we are now experiencing. This is not true of the example I gave of the corporate tax benefits, yet this is the program that is being cut.
Take another case of perversity. I can understand the government's cutting out Information Canada; it had to make a response. This was the great bete noire of the Progressive Conservative party, and since it is now government policy to try to outdo the Tories and be more Tory than the Tories, it had to get rid of Information Canada. It is not that anyone really believes that this will do much good, or that this is a real cut, or that the expenditures made on Information Canada will not be made in some other department or area, or that some other functions that were performed by Information Canada will not be performed in some other area.
Let me go to one other item, the Company of Young Canadians. This is being cut. I know it has been a very controversial body, but it was designed to be controversial. When the CYC was set up, it was designed to be a troublemaking organization; it was designed to be anti-establishment; it was designed to stimulate activity. You cannot do this without making some mistakes.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: It was designed to afflict the comfortable.


Max Saltsman: It was designed to afflict the comfortable. My hon. friend still retains some of that fine biblical language that did him credit in his earlier years. To afflict the comfortable is a good thing to do, and the Company of Young Canadians did it. We are going on a great, big budget-cutting kick. We are going to save money out of some $35 billion. What is going to be cut out?


Mr. Brewin:: They are not going to cut out the Orion.


Max Saltsman: That is right, they are not going to cut out the Orion. They are going to take $3.7 million from the Company of Young Canadians. I do not want to get into the bad habit of some former Liberal cabinet ministers and ask, "What's a million?" or "What's $3 million?"


Stanley Howard Knowles: And they cannot say it's peanuts any more.


Max Saltsman: They cannot say it's peanuts any more, either, because that would be a sort of international insult. It is getting tougher and tougher, Mr. Speaker, to make a speech with all these limitations being placed on a person. The Company of Young Canadians did, I think, a remarkable job with that kind of budget. Their budget was pared from the previous year's budget of $5.9 million in 1975-76, which was a little more than the budget of 1974 and 1973. They employed persons of an age and category who represented the most difficult challenge to employment. Among the young people of Canada the rate of unemployment is at least twice as high as that of other groups.
To what extent, Mr. Speaker, is this going to be a real saving? We are cutting out $3.7 million, or $5.9 million, depending on which year's budget you are looking at. But how much will be a real saving? These kids were operating at barely above minimum wage, and considering some of the hours they were putting in, they did not even get minimum wage. It is not as if there is alternate employment for them. If we had an economy that was fully employed, or if we had a tremendous labour shortage, we could well say that this was a direct saving because these people could work somewhere else and thus save the federal budget money. But this is not going to happen, Mr. Speaker. There are far less than 100,000 jobs available for the 700,000 people who are unemployed, so at the very best, using outside figures, the prospects of a young man of this sort finding employment are 1 in 14. Even though 1 in 14 may find employment, the others will have to be sustained, probably by unemployment insurance or some other kind of support program. So what is saved by this kind of magnificent gesture? However, what is lost, Mr. Speaker, is significant. What is lost is a group of young idealists who did an effective job. It was not a job with which 1 always agreed. As a matter of fact, on many occasions I was critical of some of the work they did. Nevertheless it was one of the most idealistic and activist groups that we had in this country. We could not stand it; we had to kill it off in the name of budgetary restraint-1 suggest a false name indeed.
Although some of the cuts in the bill had to be made because the funds were not being used effectively, the CYC was effective. It was not costing us a great deal of money. Nevertheless, the government had to put a package together; it had to show it could out-Tory the Tories on this, and this is the result.
To look upon a bill like this as some kind of solution, or even a part solution-I know the government is not claiming that it is the only solution-to the problems afflicting our society is a disgrace. Although these cuts are being made, the Minister of
November 5, 1976

Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) is going to bring in the son of EIP, or the son of OFY, or perhaps even the son of CYC. The government are going to bring in another range of programs that perhaps will work under a different minister.
The Minister of Manpower and Immigration speaks of enlarging the job opportunities program. How many jobs are going to be created? Not very many. I am not going to knock the program because it does not create that many jobs. If it creates any jobs at all, it is worth while, especially with as many unemployed as we have in Canada. But what we on this side of the House fail to see is any real effort on the part of the government to tackle an unemployment level in this country that is disgraceful.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) spoke in Montreal, I think the day before yesterday, and a report appeared in yesterday's Toronto Star headlined "People are not satisfied- and they're right: PM". The report goes on:
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau last night pleaded with Canadians to learn once again to trust government-despite its bungling.
Trudeau told more than 1.300 businessmen at the annual convention in Montreal of the Federation of Automobile Dealer Associations that "before we can even begin to solve the problem of your business and our laws, we have to solve a much more basic problem-the understanding between government and the people.
"People are not satisfied, and God knows they have cause not to be satisfied in our country-the way we've bungled things.
1 do not condemn such public soul-searching, but there is reason for the present lack of confidence. The Prime Minister's admitting that the government has bumbled is no disgrace. From time to time all governments bumble. But not meaning what he says, that is the disgrace. If the Prime Minister means what he says, if he has really concluded that the government is not performing as it should, we should see evidence of his concern. But there is no such indication. We only see a tendency on the part of the government to run scared to death of polls which show the Progressive Conservative party rising in the public esteem. When this happens, the Liberals traditionally say, "Let's look for someone else's clothes on the clothes' line. We don't like the NDP clothes; let's try on the Tory pants." Unfortunately, such clothes, such ideas, do not fit the Liberals very well; they do not fit the Tories well, either. That is the bumbling Liberal way for solving these dilemmas and, not surprisingly, the situation remains a shambles. The government still does not know how to curtail unemployment.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Tory pants could turn out to be bloomers.


Max Saltsman: If the Prime Minister is sincere in what he says about this government's bungling and wants to change things, he must act positively. Incidentally, 1 should like to address my remarks particularly to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration who is present in the chamber and has said some of the things I am about to say. If we are worried about our future, we must be concerned about the present. We know that in the long run unemployment will go away, but I do not like to join John Keynes in what he says about the long run.
Restraint of Government Expenditures
We need to solve this country's unemployment difficulties soon. At present there is unemployment, and some time in the future we shall face a labour shortage. Surely the government will not wait to act until that future shortage develops. If it waits, it will encounter problems as severe as those it faces today. It seems to me, since fewer young people will be available in the society of the future to do our work, they will need to be exceedingly productive if they are to provide for themselves and those who are retired and are no longer in the work force a decent standard of living.
What am I saying, Mr. Speaker? We must do our best to curtail present unemployment. Many things in this country need to be done, and if we want to ensure a satisfactory future for our society they should be done. For example, factories need to be improved, railways need to be built, we need more storage facilities for grain in order to avoid present boom and bust cycles. We must create the infrastructure which will be needed in the future, and by so doing allow those who want to work the opportunity of working.
I say all this because the costs of unemployment are horrendous, in human as well as economic terms. Last year by reason of unemployment we lost more than $6 billion worth of goods and services. Tax revenues have been curtailed. In addition to individual contributions to the unemployment insurance fund of about $2 billion, the government itself had to spend $1.7 billion on the program. As well, the government paid about $2.3 billion for family support and welfare programs. This being so, I cannot understand why the government thinks it is cheaper not to be involved in public projects. Why is it on this kick of cutting government expenses? The inevitable result will be horrible losses in the gross national product or, putting it another way, a decline in the output of goods and services.
Apparently the government is cutting expenses for the cosmetic effect. The government is bowing to Conservative pressure. That will be the perceived reason for its action. Certainly, it cannot be defended in logic. The government will be seen as waffling back and forth. People will say that it is not sticking to traditional Liberal party programs; it is trying to be a shadow Conservative party. Therefore people will say, "If the Liberals want to be shadow Tories, we might as well move to the genuine article and vote Tory. We might as well have the real thing."


Stanley Howard Knowles: The Liberals do not have very far to go.


Max Saltsman: No, the party does not have very far to go. They have gone in that direction. The government must realize that if the society of the future is to be productive, we cannot afford to waste present-day resources. We cannot tolerate high levels of unemployment, and the government's failure to prepare for the future is, in my view, truly disgraceful. In conclusion, I fail to see the logic behind this bill. Since the government had the chance to evaluate the economy this past summer, it must have seen that conditions are becoming worse in fields of employment. Therefore, to maintain purchasing power it could have changed its mind on eliminating the

November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures indexation of family allowances. As it is, members of parliament whose pensions will be indexed will find it difficult, if not impossible, to justify the government's decision not to index family allowances.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, although the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) said earlier that the government would cut expenditures by $1 billion in one area and by about $500,000 in another, it is difficult to believe, if one reads this bill, that the reduction in federal expenditures will actually be so great. The government is merely postponing expenditures. There is the suggestion that the 4 per cent federal share of the stabilization fund will not be paid in until it is needed. That makes a mockery of the federal government's previous assurance to farmers that the money would be there. Few farmers will have much confidence in this government.
As mentioned by the previous speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has urged the people of Canada once more to place their faith and trust in the federal government. How can you do that? In one session of parliament the government said that it would invest an amount equal to 4 per cent of gross sales in the stabilization fund and asked farmers to invest 2 per cent: it said, "We will double the amount you invest." Then in the very next session the government brought in a piece of legislation which stated that it would not put that 4 per cent into the stabilization fund. But we are to rest assured that it will be a bookkeeping entry and that the interest rate will be figured out on the books, and that if it is necessary to draw on that fund, the government of Canada will find the money somewhere.
Let us assume there is a huge reduction in the sale of grain, or that the price comes down substantially and the fund has to be drawn upon the extent of $1 million or $1.5 million. The government then would be tempted to do some accounting so that it would not have to come up with the money, particularly if it were after an election. If it were just before an election, the government would come up with the money somehow or other. This is the reason for the feeling of uneasiness and distrust which people have. It is to be merely a bookkeeping entry and there will not be any saving of money. It is merely a postponement. But through postponement the trust that the Canadian farmers are being asked to place in the government will be destroyed. The Canadian farmer is reluctant to join the stabilization plan because of the distrust of the federal government which they have had for years. There is ample reason for that distrust.
The bill goes on to deal with the Company of Young Canadians, family allowances and a number of other items. I should like to deal more particularly with the "at and east" rates which are being done away with in this bill, where it is merely stated that section 272 of the Railway Act will be deleted. This was a guarantee to the maritime ports, particularly the flour milling trade, that flour mills would receive a subsidy for export. Bill C-19 repeals section 272 of the Rail-

way Act which provides a subsidy in respect of the export of grain and flour by Atlantic and east coast ports.
The shippers of the grain and flour had the right approach at the time these rates were made statutory. The Canadian Transport Commission ascertains the compensatory rate, and the government pays the difference to the railways. This is, therefore, an indirect subsidy to the shippers of the grain and the millers. Is it necessary? What is happening to Canada's trade in flour? It is all very well for the former speaker to talk about jobs and employment. If we mill the wheat into flour, this creates jobs in this country and I think it is important that we should do this.
The U.S.S.R. has told the Canadian government that we can very well lose the Cuban flour market if we raise the price of flour or change the flour subsidy. What does the Cuban flour market mean to the Canadian milling industry? It takes about 80 per cent of the flour we mill. This is very well known to the government. One wonders why the government would attempt to change it and save money in this regard, when this fact is well known. I suppose some speaker will tell us that the milling trade will be subsidized in some other way.
In the Railway Act the "at and east" rates are a statutory provision given in essence to the maritime and eastern ports. They are there. They are an assurance, a guarantee and a trust. One cannot build up the trust which the Prime Minister was speaking about, when we have a policy whereby a subsidy can be given to the millers in one year and taken away in the next. Here, again, I point out that the trust is being eroded in respect of the prairie farmers who have a grain stabilization fund. The trust is being eroded in respect of not only the eastern ports. One could continue to set out the whole matter. In the current calendar year, Canadian exports of flour to Cuba will probably represent something in the order of 375,000 metric tons. This will go to Cuba under an agreement made in 1963. The Cubans receive the flour and Russia pays for it. The transaction was made in 1963 and has been quite successful for Canada since that time.
Canadian flour, however, is in competition with Common Market flour and United States flour. The European Common Market heavily subsidizes the export of flour to many of the underdeveloped countries. The United States does not subsidize the export of its flour, but it exports a great deal of flour in the form of aid programs such as public law 480. The removal of the "at and east" rates will increase the cost of Canadian flour by $15 to $20 a ton. This will place us in a very disadvantageous position with regard to maintaining the Cuban market.
Russia has told the Canadian government, through the Canadian Wheat Board, that if the price of our flour goes up too high, they will build flour mills in Cuba, buy our wheat and mill the flour themselves. What effect will that have on the situation in this country? It will not help the situation at all. What has happened in recent years in respect of the whole flour industry? The total world trade in flour has remained relatively constant over the past ten years, at something like five billion metric tons.
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The Canadian share of the world flour market has drastically decreased. Ten years ago Canadian millers received something like 18 per cent of the world flour trade. Today that figure is down to 10 per cent even with the advantage of selling flour to Cuba. One must, of course, look at the whole flour industry to see what has happened. Back in 1956, for example, there were 78 flour mills in Canada, and today there are 39. That give one an idea what really is taking place in the milling industry. We are slowly shrinking in our ability to compete throughout the world because of the subsidies of the European Common Market in respect of the flour milling industry and because of U.S. shipments of flour in the form of aid to underdeveloped countries. Canada is not in a very good competitive position.
We should really reconsider Clause 15 of this bill and perhaps even delete it because it is of no advantage to the country as a whole. It does not save us any money, and the government is destroying a little more of the trust which the people have placed in government in recent years. We must try to build up that trust; we must try to build up markets and create jobs in this country.
As I stated, the volume of trade that is available to Canada as a result of the export of flour paid for by the Russians, shipped to Cuba and then distributed by Cuba as assistance to some of the African countries, has been beneficial to the Canadian grain industry, the Canadian milling industry, and to the Canadian ports. The Canadian Wheat Board has been told by the U.S.S.R. grain buying agency that if flour goes up in price, they will stop buying it from us. The agreement stands only as long as the at and east rates are left alone. 1 know that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) or the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) can rise in the House and assure us and the milling industry, with whom they have had many meetings, that they will be compensated in another way, but in my view this assurance will not be sufficient to ensure the continuity of the milling industry. You cannot modernize plants and improve their milling capacity on the sole guarantee of a year to year subsidy to a particular plant or port. Also, such a subsidy will establish a precedent. People will be asking themselves which ports will receive such a subsidy-will it be available only to the milling industry in Halifax or to the milling industry all across Canada? The government will have to wrestle with this problem once it grants such a subsidy.
There is also the big danger that if we subsidize the milling industry directly in, say, the Atlantic ports, then the United States, which can and have proven very effectively that they can compete with us-and they are not subsidizing their milling industry directly, although they are assisting it-may well retaliate and start subsidizing their milling industry, thus making if far more difficult for the Canadian milling industry to compete with them.
As we know, 80 per cent of our flour exports go to Cuba. If this bill passes we will be jeopardizing this substantial sale. Maintaining section 272 in the Railway Act and maintaining
Restraint of Government Expenditures the Act at and east rates is the anwer. The section does not need to be changed, and it should not be eliminated. Millers know exactly what their situation is and they know whether or not they will get the subsidy from one year to another. Granting such a subsidy is a dangerous game. This is not the way to encourage capital expenditures. The milling industry cannot afford the risk of a change of mind by the government.
If the competitive position of Canadian flour is reduced by $15 to $20 per ton, the outlook is for an immediate reduction of exports to markets other than Cuba, and the reduction of exports to that market beginning in 1977, not somewhere down the road but in the very near future. It is more than likely that in the longer run Cuba will either expand its milling capacity and reduce imports to minimal levels, or else turn to other suppliers. The resultant loss of export markets will cause tremendous rationalization to take place in the milling industry and require the industry to close several mills.
As I said earlier, back in 1956 there were 78 milling plants in Canada; today there are 39. How much further can we retrench? We have already lost a large percentage of the world's flour market. Ten years ago we captured 18 per cent of it. The flour market has not shrunk, but our share of it has fallen. Today we are capturing less than 10 per cent of it, even with the record shipments to Cuba of 375,000 tons this year. In my opinion it behooves the federal government, in an inflationary period and in a period of high unemployment in regions of Canada where we have consistently had what one might call higher unemployment than acceptable, to do everything it can to maintain the industry instead of allowing it to be destroyed, something which may well happen as a result of the elimination of Section 272 from the Railway Act.
I know that the government will say that it will subsidize the milling industry directly, but the whole purpose of Bill C-19 is to reduce expenditures. If the government is to subsidize the milling industry directly, why do so through Bill C-19, the purpose of which is to reduce expenditures? One can believe that there is no real reduction if one has faith in the government, but one does not have such faith in the government, nor do the millers have it. They have no confidence that the subsidy will be maintained for any length of time.
It can be argued that, if a fixed subsidy is paid, the millers will tend to use the least costly routes. That is an old argument. One would like to think that the least costly routes are being used right now.
By passing this bill on second reading and sending it to committee we can assure the milling industry that a lengthy and careful examination will be given to this aspect of the bill, because we on this side of the House are mighty concerned with every part of Canada. Maritime members are and were violently concerned about the old bill, Bill C-87, and we thought we had successfully convinced the government to delete Clause 15 of the old bill. It was Clause 15 in the old bill, and it is Clause 15 in this bill. We thought that in the last session we had convinced the government to delete this aspect of the legislation. However, the government continues to

November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures plough blindly on, insensitive to the wishes and concerns of the people of the nation, and wonders why it is so unpopular.
The Prime Minister goes across Canada bleating and asking people why they do not like him. People in every region of Canada do not like him because he has demonstrated insensitivity to their concerns. This bill is a prime example of that insensitivity, and so is the repeal of section 272. We thought we had the government convinced that it could not proceed in this manner, but it is obvious we were not successful.
The Russian bargaining agency has told the government that it will cease to buy if flour rates go up. It has told the government that Russia will build a milling industry in Cuba to mill our wheat, the thing we should be asking them not to do. We should be maintaining our industry, particularly in areas where unemployment has been a persistent problem.
The government pays no attention to the wishes of the people, and when that happens it is the responsibility of the people to remove the government at the first opportunity. I am certain that that time will not come too soon for the people who are affected by this bill, and one cannot blame them for feeling that way. The Prime Minister can claim that he is unpopular because he is French and he promotes the French language, if he likes, but that is not the reason at all. He is unpopular because he is insensitive to the wishes and needs of people in every region of Canada.
The government could boost its popularity a great deal if it proceeded step by step, and one of the steps I suggest would be to agree that Clause 15 should be deleted from this bill. It would be simple to accept such an amendment, and the milling industry would be much happier and have more confidence and trust in the government if the government did so.
That is really all I have to say about Bill C-19. I want to assure the milling industry that we on this side of the House will proceed very cautiously to make certain that that industry is not eliminated, that employment opportunities will continue and, if possible, that there will be a substantial expansion. We hope the Canadian Millers' Association will be called before the committee to present its case so that we can ascertain whether the subsidies with which the government will bait the industry will be ample to maintain its existence. If not, we hope the committee will take action to bring this about.
Certainly for me the essence of governing is creating opportunities for Canadians, not diminishing them. This bill appears to limit the milling industry, which once played a very vital part in Canada and which at one time was competitive throughout the world. Now it is not because the European Common Market is heavily subsidizing its milling industry, and we are placing our milling industry in a disadvantageous position.
I see that the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Goodale) is eagerly taking notes. I hope he has noted my words of caution, because this means a great deal to the grains industry as a whole.
[Mr. Horner.J


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy taking part in a debate in this House when I have the opportunity to follow my friend, the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Horner), and I hope I can offer to him some of the reassurance which he seemed to be requesting in his closing remarks. I was interested in his very plain spoken statement about the importance to Canada of our trade with Cuba, particularly the importance of our trade in agricultural commodities and, more particularly, flour. I wonder, though, if my hon. friend might not be accused by his colleague, the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) of "cuddling up to Castro", in view of the comments he made this afternoon.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: That is how little you know about it.


Mr. Fairweather:: It is exactly the reverse.


Ralph Goodale: There is a double standard on the other side of this Chamber when the right hon. member for Prince Albert can make the kinds of comments he makes in attacking Canada for maintaining trade relations with Cuba and accusing the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) of all sorts of sinister-


John (Jack) Henry Horner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member insists upon making statements which are completely wrong. When the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) was prime minister, he continued to trade with Cuba, in spite of urgings from the United States to assist them in their embargo against Cuba. We continued to expand our trade with Cuba, and 1 do not think my remarks today were in any way-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member that this is not a point of order but a point of debate.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I had to straighten him out.


Ralph Goodale: My friend has again highlighted the very inconsistency on the other side about which I was just talking. On the one hand the right hon. member for Prince Albert can be as critical as he was of the Prime Minister and of his visit to Cuba on trading and diplomatic matters earlier this year, and at the same time the hon. member opposite can applaud the trading relations Canada has traditionally enjoyed with Cuba. I suggest that that is a gross inconsistency which neither the right hon. member for Prince Albert nor the hon. member for Crowfoot can explain away as simply as the hon. member has just tried to do. That is an inconsistency which 1 think it is impossible for them to justify.
In any event, in a moment or two I would like to deal with the concern the hon. member for Crowfoot expressed about the milling industry in Canada, but as I begin my remarks I want to deal specifically with another provision in Bill C-19, the one relating to the western grain stabilization plan, which proposes to amend Section 41 of that plan. I think to understand the impact of this clause it is important to understand one or two basic points about the mechanical operation of the western
November 5, 1976

grain stabilization plan. It is a mechanism which is now in place to provide a way whereby the incomes of western grain producers can be cushioned against the jolting, recurring impact of the fluctuations in grain receipts which are so painfully familiar to many of us from western Canada.
The technique adopted is the establishment of a western grain stabilization fund. The fund draws revenue from four sources. First it draws from the producers who will be asked to contribute a certain amount of their gross grain receipts annually to the grain stabilization fund. As has been mentioned, this is a voluntary plan, and producers may exercise the option to withdraw, but if they are in it they will be asked to contribute this levy. Second, the Government of Canada contributes to the fund $2 for every $1 the farmer puts into it. Third, when the fund is in a surplus position the government will pay interest on it. Fourth, the Government of Canada backs the grain stabilization fund with a fundamental guarantee of solvency so that it can never run out of money. It will always have sufficient money to pay out to grain producers on those occasions when payments are required.
The amendment proposed in Bill C-19 in so far as it affects the western grain stabilization plan is concerned, allows possible deferment of government contributions to the plan until that money is needed. When it is needed farmers and people in western Canada can be assured that the full amount will be there, with interest as provided in clause 14. The western farmer's position is protected; there can be no detrimental effect upon the western grain stabilization plan or the interests of western Canadian farmers.
Earlier today my hon. friend opposite asked why the producer is not in a position to defer his contribution to the grain stabilization fund as well. Of course that issue is not as he tries to make out. There are 140,000 or 150,000 participating producers in the plan and, as was discussed thoroughly in the Standing Committee on Agriculture when the bill was before it last year, the possibility of establishing an individual and separate account for each of 140,000 or 150,000 participants would be an administrative nightmare which I do not think even he would want to sanction.
The idea of the levy is that producers' contributions to the fund would be deducted at source by licensed elevators and others. It is administratively convenient and has the sanction, approval, and support of the vast majority of farmers in western Canada and of Canadian farm organizations. My hon. friend opposite will know that some contributions do not lend themselves to automatic deduction at source; they are essentially voluntary and can be contributed at will by producers if they deem it in their interest, on grain receipts that do not lend themselves to an automatic or simple deduction at source.
An important point to remember is that when the farmer contributes to the grain stabilization fund, and when the fund is running a surplus, that money is earning interest paid by the Government of Canada. The money is not sitting idle but is at work for western grain producers.
Restraint of Government Expenditures
Another important point that should be highlighted relates to the question that the hon. member for Crowfoot brought up about trust in and support for the western grain stabilization plan. The fact is that about 80 per cent of western grain producers participate, and it has become plain that the number of those who earlier opted out and now want back in, is increasing. It could happen that by the end of the year the participation rate will be higher than 80 per cent.
Any government program of any kind, sponsored by any government anywhere, that has an 80 per cent participation rate-a plan that is essentially voluntary-must enjoy a significant measure of support among the people to whom it is available. In the last few months I have had the privilege of conducting a number of meetings across western Canada and in different parts of the prairies where I have talked to farmers and others about the grain stabilization plan. After more than 50 public meetings it is clear to me that there is keen interest in the plan and a sound understanding of how it is intended to operate. There is a broad measure of support for it. I suggest to the House, with confidence, that this measure of trust and support for the plan is real and is not being eroded by anything taking place at the present time.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Call an election and find out.


Ralph Goodale: Clause 15 of Bill C-19 refers to what is commonly known as the "at and east subsidy" or section 272 of the Railway Act. I think it is clear that this provision in the Railway Act supports what has become an expensive and inefficient system of grain movement which is not in the interests of producers nor in the interests of Canada. It is interesting to examine the kind of grain movement this particular section of the Railway Act tended to foster in the past. If you move grain from the farm to the prairie elevator, out of that elevator into a train which goes from the prairies to Thunder Bay, unload it at the Lakehead into a terminal, clean it, store it for a while, load it on a ship, move it across the lakes-not down the Seaway, but just across the lakes-take it out of the ship and put it into an elevator, take it out of the elevator, load it on to a train and move it further east-if you do all that then you get a subsidy. If you do it any other way you do not get a subsidy. 1 think that demonstrates the problem with this type of provision in the Railway Act. It is a subsidy which is uneconomical and counter-productive, and which does nothing to enhance the system of grain movement we have in Canada.
Bill C-19 proposes that section 272 of the Railway Act be repealed. It has been mentioned earlier today, and it is recognized by this government that such action would have an impact upon the Canadian milling industry. Various ministers of the government have been engaged in intensive discussions with representatives of the milling industry in the last few months in order to try to deal directly with the economic and industrial problems facing millers. The mechanism needed to provide the assistance they claim they require has been under intensive discussion inside government, and outside with industrial representatives. These discussions have borne fruit, Mr. COMMONS DEBATES
November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures Speaker. The minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), will, I understand, be participating later in this debate to explain to members opposite and to the industry the details which have been worked out to provide a more sensible, economic, and effective method of dealing with the problems of the milling industry. 1 think my hon. friend and the industry have the assurance they seek that the kind of proposal forthcoming will meet their requirements.
With these few remarks, Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to conclude. I was interested in the tone of the debate this afternoon, with members of the Conservative party saying that the bill does not do anything, members of the New Democratic Party saying the bill does far too much, and the hon. member for Crowfoot managing to say both of these things at the same time. Perhaps that is rather typical. I hope in the debate which follows, both in the House and in committee, that we can have a full discussion of what is intended by C-19, how it will effectively restrain government expenditures, and have a positive impact upon the economy of the country.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Mr. Speaker, will the parliamentary secretary permit a question?


Ralph Goodale: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to know seriously whether the hon. member has consulted his colleague and my neighbour, the hon. member for Saint John-Lancaster (Mr. Landers), to learn about the serious way in which the passage of clause 15 will inhibit the movement of flour through the port of Saint John. A cabinet document states:
Flour exports will be seriously affected by the elimination of the At and East subsidized rates.
What does my friend have to say about that?


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, not only have I been involved in discussions with my colleagues on this side from the Atlantic region, but the ministers involved in the development of Bill C-19 have taken part in those discussions as well. The government has benefited indeed from the wisdom and advice that our Atlantic colleagues have offered to us.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Where is the policy?


Ralph Goodale: The point I was trying to make in my remarks is that in reading Bill C-19 one should not think that the total sum and substance of the government's policy relating to the Canadian milling industry and the level of activity in Atlantic ports is contained in Clause 15 of Bill C-19. Those matters are much more important and complicated than could be dealt with in one simple clause in one bill.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: We're from Missouri; we have to be shown.


Ralph Goodale: The hon. member says he is from Missouri and has to be shown. I can assure him he will not have to wait
very long before that proof, in very graphic terms, is before him.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Mr. Speaker, I have looked at this so-called restraint act, Bill C-19. Some of the things that it provides do in fact show some restraint on the part of the government. However, I question the effectiveness of some of them.
What first came to my attention was the treatment of the adult occupational training grants. They are set by regulation, not by this House of Commons. The House of Commons will again be unable to approve the appropriateness of those allowances. The minister is instructed to make an annual review of these expenditures. However, there is no suggestion or requirement that he make any kind of a reduction in them. Therefore I am not at all sure what kind of restraint will be shown in that case.
1 notice the elimination of the Company of Young Canadians. I well remember that promise being made by the former leader of this party in at least one if not two election campaigns. While that certainly is a matter of restraint, I note from the Public Accounts recently issued that it will be a saving of something less than $6 million.
I note the removal of Information Canada, another recommendation made by this party on a number of occasions. This will be a saving of $10 million. Presumably some operations of Information Canada will be taken over by the Queen's Printer and some measure of those costs may continue. That is not told to us in the figures that are available.
The freeze on family allowances is a little harder to take. The figure I have heard in the House today is a saving of $230 million a year. I also note a proposal to postpone credits under the Western Grain Stabilization Act. My colleagues from farm areas will adequately deal with that provision as well as the one that proposes to adjust grain freight rates.
I think we can identify something in the order of $250 million a year in restraint specifically in the program. When we are talking of a budget for the country of some $42 billion, an increase of something like 16 per cent over the previous fiscal year, I am not sure that those are restraint measures that deserve very much in the way of laudatory comment.
I want to make some suggestions to the government on some real savings that could be made with restraint. I want to spend a few minutes on the area of Crown corporations. Volume III of the Public Accounts which came into our hands about a month ago lists the financial statements of the Crown corporations. In the table of contents there are no fewer than 43 Crown corporations listed. They run from Air Canada to Uranium Canada Limited. It is not my proposal to deal with all of them, or even with a lot of them today, but I do want to touch on a few, starting at the top with Air Canada.
The Air Canada statement reported an operating loss of $12 million in the fiscal year ended December 31, 1975. That is not a lot of money in the over-all expenditures of the Government of Canada of $42 billion. Compared to the passengers carried it is only about a $1.12 loss for each passenger carried on the

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airline. However, those figures by themselves hide quite a lot of true financial information.
If you dig deeply into the report of Air Canada you find that the passenger load factor for that year was down to 58 per cent, the lowest since 1971. In a business like that, with huge gross revenues of close to a billion dollars, it is obvious that a very small change in the passenger load factor, which could be achieved through scheduling and so on, could have had a great effect on the expenditures of the Government of Canada.
I should comment that Air Canada does not always lose $12 million. The figure for the year before was somewhat lower. However, there is a lot of money invested in Air Canada. In fact it has a debt of over $1 billion. Of course the government owns approximately three quarters of that debt. In other words, the Government of Canada has a cash investment in the debt of Air Canada of three quarters of a billion dollars. Investment, on anybody's part, might not be too bad provided there is an adequate return. But Air Canada's own report shows that the return on investment is 5.1 per cent-that is an average return; they have had some higher and some lower figures in the past ten years. But we must inquire where the government gets the money to invest at that return of 5.1 per cent.
As we know, the government goes each year to the citizens of Canada to borrow money. If we look at one aspect of this process we see that Canada Savings Bonds probably carry a lower rate of interest than many similar government bonds and we find that the government is borrowing at a rate of something over 9 per cent. And, as we have noted, it is earning 5.1 per cent, which does not appear to be very good business. This makes one wonder what kind of restraint is not being practised by an organization like Air Canada.
I have maintained for a number of years that the government should look closely at selling Air Canada. I understand that when the industry was very young in the thirties, many companies went into business and, like other young companies, ran into financial difficulty. I think there might well have been some justification for the government getting into the operation at that stage, bearing in mind the huge amounts of capital which were needed to get the thing going and the need to consolidate all the companies which were experiencing financial difficulties.
It might be said that the people of Canada could not afford to buy Air Canada. But there is evidence that Canadian investors whether through pension funds, trust companies, banks or whatever, have already invested in bonds covering three quarters of the total debt of that corporation. I was delighted, from one point of view, to read recently that the government is presently considering the return in some measure of Air Canada to private enterprise. I have not seen the details but I am waiting eagerly to see what ideas it has in mind and whether some of mine have filtered down to the government.
Restraint of Government Expenditures


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is what I am afraid of.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: I do not want to see all my ideas taken over by the government because I know what would happen then whenever members opposite can summon up the courage to go to the people again. They would say "We have already used all the ideas put forward by the opposition; we have them all in place, anyway."


An hon. Member:: That is when you would wake up.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Air Canada is only one example of an area where restraint could be exercised at enormous saving to the taxpayer.
We might well take a look at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We find from an examination of the Public Accounts that for the year ending March 31, 1976, the net cost, otherwise known as the loss, of the CBC in that year was $310 million. This was the figure for the most recent fiscal year; in the preceding fiscal year the loss was $260 million. So instead of there being any kind of restraint program in the CBC the cost increased by $60 million in one year. Even so, one could say, I suppose that that is not very much money because apportioned among the people of Canada it amounts to only $14 per capita. But again we must look at the investment which is required before these losses can be incurred. And we find from the Public Accounts that the total assets of the CBC amount to some $316 million. Bearing in mind then that the investment amounts to slightly more than the loss on the operations this year, it seems that the return on investment amounts to about minus 98 per cent.


An hon. Member:: Not very much.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: It is not excess revenue, anyway. They would never get hauled up before the Anti-Inflation Board.
If I can find the report of the Auditor General I have one or two other comments to make on those figures. Referring to the CBC financial statement it says, having set out the figures I have quoted:
The corporation has not recorded accrued interest of $28 million of which $14 million is the interest for the year on loans from Canada and payment of such interest has been deferred until March 31. 1979.
I take it the results were so bad that the people who make up the statement for the CBC could not bear to put in another $28 million of accrued interest. The Auditor General also says that severance pay is recorded in the accounts when paid on employee retirement or separation and, he says,
No provision has been made in the accounts for benefits accruing to employees amounting to $28.7 million at March 31. 1976 and expenses for the year have been understated by $3.4 million.
I suppose this aspect will be considered if and when the accounts of the CBC come before the Public Accounts Committee. However, as hon. members know, that committee is not privileged to examine regularly the affairs of every Crown corporation or even every department, so perhaps we shall

November 5, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures have a chance to comment on that observation by the Auditor General, and perhaps not.
It will probably be said that the CBC provides Canadians with some very special features and that it should not be concerned directly with cost. I go along with that to some extent, except that I find that effective the first of this month, for example, after 30 years the CBC has ceased to carry the BBC news direct from London. Now, Mr. Speaker, that is one of the features whose cost could have been included, I would have thought, in the $300 million loss the people of Canada can expect to see continuing.
One of the other things we like to think of, as far as the CBC is concerned, is that we have freedom from most advertising and freedom from a lot of unimportant detail. I find that in place of the BBC news we are to be subjected to sports reports, so we must now listen to what is happening in all the sports arenas around the country.
What is the true cost per capita of this monster of the CBC which is costing us $300 million losses on total assets of $300 million in capital? I do not know what percentage of the people listen to the CBC, but the corporation is obviously competing with hundreds of other stations around the country, so the per capita cost per listener must be astronomical.
Why cannot we get rid of the CBC? We would free up the $300 million we would not have to borrow, and save $300 million in annual losses which we are now carrying. Hon. members may ask: who is going to buy the CBC? Well, I have talked to the radio and telecommunications industry in Canada. These people have enormous resources and enormous investment in their own physical plant. Many of them would take over and pay a fair price for the assets of the CBC.
What would we lose, Mr. Speaker? We would lose a national network to which few people listen. Perhaps in the days when the CBC was first formed it was necessary in a country like Canada to have a national network. But with networks flourishing all over the place-I understand there is not a single independent radio station left in Ottawa; all are members of a network of some kind or other-we could let the CBC become part of another network. Just think of all the resources of Canada that would be saved thereby.
Some might say that no one is going to take radio and television into unprofitable areas such as the far north, where there is insufficient demand for a commercial operation. Well, there is a simple answer to that. If the government would adopt a policy of being a regulatory body, instead of competing with people already in the business, there would be no problem. For example, there is no reason why the government could not sell off the CBC and issue licences as it does to all other broadcasters in Canada. It could make it a condition of the licence-heaven knows, enough conditions are attached to licences issued by the CRTC, the governing body in Canada- that those who acquire the assets of the CBC must serve outlying areas as well as profitable areas.

The advertising-free aspect of the CBC would be lost, but this would be a small price to pay compared with the $300 million investment and a $300 million loss. Perhaps 90 per cent of the people of Canada do not listen to the CBC anyway but choose to listen to some of the other hundreds of stations that operate on a profitable basis with advertising.
Some might say that this has never been done before. 1 see no member of the NDP is listening to my remarks. I did expect some challenge from that quarter; 1 am sorry they are missing out. I guess that is why it is so quiet down there, Mr. Speaker.
Let me give an example. 1 am sure the telephone industry operates well under Bell Canada, but I know better about my own province of British Columbia. The B.C. Telephone Company is privately owned-that is, shareholder owned-a corporation with huge investment from the private sector. All regions of British Columbia have telephone service. How can this company afford to service unprofitable areas and do so willingly? Perhaps it does not do so willingly, but the point is that the government has granted the B.C. Telephone Company a licence-a monopoly if you like-to provide telephone service.
A telephone licence is not like a licence to carry on the road, such as a licensed taxi. It is difficult to have competition in the telephone business because of the physical plant that is required to provide a service. B.C. Telephone Company get a licence that allows them the right to provide telephone service in areas they want to service because they get a return on their investment, but the licence also requires them to provide service in less profitable areas. No government investment is required. No government competition is involved. And people in outlying areas get telephone service at a very reasonable rate.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to learn that in the outlying areas of British Columbia telephone rates are actually lower than they are in the cities. There is a rationale for this. It makes good sense if you stop to think about it. The larger your settlement, the more use is a telephone; therefore the more the company is allowed to require people to pay for its use. The assumption is that the more you use something, whether telephone service or something else, the more you should be willing to pay for it.


Mr. Raines:: Why don't you come along and give some of your ideas to the broadcasting committee.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: I hear the suggestion that I should bring my suggestions to another committee. 1 think the House of Commons is the place to make these suggestions, and that is what I am attempting to do. I am glad some members of the broadcasting committee are in the House; I hope they will pick up a few of my ideas.
In the few minutes that remain before four o'clock, Mr. Speaker, I should like to move on to the next of these Crown corporations, Canadian National Railways. Let me see if I can find any area of restraint here. Canadian National Railways is a very complex structure, though it had its beginnings in much
November 5, 1976

the same way as Air Canada. During the twenties there were many railway problems and the CNR was formed to consolidate those problem areas.
According to its report there are 13 separately operated trucking companies owned by Canadian National whose operations are consolidated. In addition to the trucking companies, which of course are competing with privately owned trucking companies, there are 53 consolidated subsidiaries all included in the same financial statement. 1 am not going to bother with the 53 consolidated subsidiaries but it is of interest to note that the CNR never considers that money costs anything. It will report to us with a straight face that its 13 separately operated trucking companies earned $6.6 million; and then there is a little note that says that this is before interest. Of course, Mr. Speaker, you cannot pick out the interest figure. It does not say how much money is invested in trucks so you cannot work out what the results of the operation are. However, the total operation suffered a loss of $91 million in 1975. I think I have to be fair and say that that was the first operating loss that the railway had experienced since 1962. For example, in 1974 it had a profit of $17 million. However, in this area of restraint about which the government is so concerned, from a profit of $17 million to a loss of $91 million is not much evidence of restraint.
Furthermore, the note goes on to point out that the $91 million loss is before interest charges-here we do know what the total figure is-of $111 million. I suggest $91 million before and after $111 million in interest are two different things. May I call it four o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. It being four o'clock the House will now proceed to private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely public bills.
Order No. 1, the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Fortin). Shall the order stand at the request of the government?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order No. 3, the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington). Shall the order stand at the request of the government?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: that Bill C-206, to amend the Bank of Canada Act, be read the second time
The Bank of Canada
and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to pilot this bill whose importance is very significant and I am convinced that if it is passed by Parliament, it will have a very favourable impact on the Canadian economy.
This bill is identical to the one my leader (Mr. Caouette) introduced in the House and spelled out so ably during the last session. The purpose of this bill it to amend the Bank of Canada Act. Although its foundation goes back to 40 years ago, the fact remains that the bank still does not have the authority to make long term loans to the government of Canada or the government of a province.
In fact, paragraph 18(1)(/) reads as follows: The bank may
"(/) make loans or advances for periods not exceeding six months to the Government of Canada or the government of any province on the pledge or hypothecation of readily marketable securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province;"
In my opinion, this cannot be considered a way to ease the credit of the nation for financing the public sector to the benefit of the Canadian public.
Paragraph 18(1)(/'), which is no longer valid as it only limited the time allowed for the reimbursement of the advances made, reads as follows:
"(/') make loans lo (he Government of Canada or the government of any province, but such loans outstanding at any one time shall not. in the case of the Government of Canada, exceed one-third of the estimated revenue of such government for its fiscal year, and shall not in the case of any provincial government exceed one-fourth of such government's estimated revenue for its fiscal year; and such loans shall be repaid before the end of the first quarter after the end of the fiscal year of such government;"
In other words, if the fiscal year of a provincial government ends on March 31 and the said government had borrowed $150 million from the Bank of Canada, it will have to reimburse these $150 million not later than June 30, so that the province will find itself financially in the same situation as before obtaining its loan and the vicious circle will start all over again. Yet, the Canadian government is a lot more generous with foreign countries, since it is lending them huge amounts of money, sometimes without interest, and at other times at extremely low interest rates.
Why could we not do for ourselves what we are doing for other countries? The purpose of Bill C-206 is to amend the Bank of Canada Act to permit the Bank to make loans or advances for periods not exceeding sixty years to the Government of Canada or the government of any province based on the real credit of Canada or the province at a rate of interest which does not exceed the cost of administration.
Secondly, paragraph 18 (1) (J) of the said act is repealed. Thus, Mr. Speaker this amendment gives the Government of Canada, through the Bank of Canada, the real power to finance the credit of this nation at a very low cost, which should slow down inflation and enable the government to finance the public sector more economically. The government would cease to be the competitor of free enterprise on the loan market, on the money market.

November 5, 1976
The Bank of Canada
I know that some hon. members are already stating that this will fan inflation. Come on, let's be serious. Whether a $50 million credit be generated by chartered banks and put into circulation through government borrowings for the construction of a public building, or a $50 million credit be generated by the Bank of Canada and put into circulation through government borrowings for the same purpose makes no difference. Would there be greater inflation if those $50 million were generated by the Bank of Canada? I suggest not. Now, there would be a difference for Canadian taxpayers. Instead of paying taxes and levies to pay out 12 and 15 per cent interest rates as is presently the case, they would pay for administrative costs only. We should not forget that a country's monetary system should first of all be a service, not a merchandise which can be produced and destroyed to the liking of those who are controlling it, as is presently the case.
I might be told that those who have money to lend will be the losers, as the rates would surely decrease. To this I would answer that this is precisely the avowed purpose-lower interest rates. But if Canadians pay less income and other taxes to finance the public sector, they will have more income left, which will compensate them for the loss of income issuing from interest on investments. Though there may be more private borrowers than lenders in Canada, I feel that, in the final analysis, this bill will benefit everyone. Here is another advantage of lower interest rates: industrialists, businessmen and the whole private sector would see their operating costs drop, this would lead to a generally lower cost of living, and that is what we are all seeking.
To my mind, it is far more difficult to adopt the metric system in this country than to implement a monetary reform. Still, the government, through an act of Parliament, implements a major economic reform by adopting the metric system. The Canadian Parliament, the supreme authority in this country, has the power to change our monetary system, and one of the best possible means of doing so is to pass Bill C-206.
Mr. Speaker, many people have very confused ideas about money. For instance, they often think money is automatically created by economic activity. That is far from the truth. The beef producer who has a herd of cattle does not create through cattle breeding the monetary value of his herd. I am convinced a large number of producers would now accept those means if it were possible. The production of goods and the production of money are the result of two very different processes:
Money is largely generated through chartered banks, although general control over the money supply is assumed by the Bank of Canada. Under section 72 of the Bank Act, it controls the reserves of chartered banks. These reserves allow chartered banks to create and issue the financial credit used by Canadians but since chartered banks have the power to issue up to 16 times more credit than they have in the form of reserves, these institutions exert a decisive influence on condi-

tions which allow Canadians to acquire their purchasing power.
It goes without saying that credit creation is geared to credit reimbursement with interest. Just as a family can pay a house three times over in interest before enjoying ownership, so do governments usually pay three, four and even five times in interest the original price of public works. Mr. Speaker, there is the cancer of inflation. However, I do not like to make such a statement without backing it with some evidence.
So, Mr. Speaker, allow me to give an example that is quite recent. I refer to Hansard for February 23, 1976, page 11151, question No. 3580 put by the hon. member for Bellechasse and answered by the Minister for Urban Affairs. It is about two housing projects for retired people. Under an agreement between the province of Quebec and the federal government, the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation lends the Quebec Housing Corporation 90 per cent of the project's estimated value, and for one of them the loan in the amount of $537,863 at 103/s per cent, is to be repaid over a 50-year period. It is clearly stipulated that the yearly repayment of capital and interests will be $57,61 7.24.
If you multiply the yearly repayment by 50, since the loan is refundable over 50 years, the total amount Quebec will have to pay for these 30 units will be $2,880,862, that is $2,342,999 in interest only, which represents the value of 130 units worth $17,929.00 originally. Thus, 30 housing units for retired people, plus the value of 100 units in interests, which goes to the credit and finance monopoly, that is to say, the loan sharks.
Mr. Speaker, this is a clear illustration of the financing system of the public sector. In order not to be the exclusive boss of the monetary system, the government requires the Canadian people to pay five times the value of a public good, which is why the national debt doubled between 1967 and 1975 and will continue to rise during the next years if we do not have the courage to amend the Bank of Canada Act by allowing it to authorize long term loans to the government with an interest rate equal to the administration costs. If I were authorized under our rules, I would submit to the clerk, Mr. Speaker, tables indicating the difference between those two financing practices in the public sector. The first concerns the fact 1 just mentioned, that is a loan of $537,863 with an interest of l3/* p. 100, calculated twice a year, which means that six months only after the lending transaction, the debt increased by $27,901.64 and that after 12 months, the interest will be calculated on the interest of the first six months, which means that the repayment of capital with the first yearly payment of $57,617.24 will only be $366.56. That is the cancer.
In my opinion, government loans should be made at a simple interest rate, since experts like architects, engineers and other people estimated that the building could last at least 50 years. Thus, it would be normal that the depreciation be deducted from the repayments. Consequently, in this case, the repayment would amount to $10,757.26 a year; thus, the second year, interest costs would be reduced in proportion. It would
November 5, 1976

therefore be on a decreasing scale. The lender could lend to others the $10,757.26 repayment. Even at a simple interest of 103/# per cent, taxpayers would pay $1,423,667.00 in interest, but in any case this would save $1 million on this building. At a simple interest rate, Mr. Speaker, to pay $2,342,999 in interest on a $537,863 loan refundable over a 50-year period, represents all the same a 17 per cent interest rate. If this is not loan sharking, I wonder what loan sharking is. We should keep this in mind when we consider Bill C-16 on criminal interest rate.
This bill gives to the Bank of Canada authority to lend money for financing public utility buildings, for example, a $537,863 loan for the erection of a 30-apartment building, the principal to be paid back, as in the case I referred to, over a 50-year period, at an interest rate of 1.5 per cent, which covers service charges. So, the total cost will amount to $743,150, covering both the principal and the interest, or $14,863 annually instead of $57,617.24. On this particular building, which would be just as solid as the one costing $2,880,862, there would be a saving of $2,137,712. The only difference would be in the financing. The government could therefore build more housing without getting future generations into debts they can never pay back. One needs only look at the increase of the national debt.
In Fortune magazine it has been reported that Prime Minister Trudeau said that the worst complainers were bankers. They take it easy, he said, as never before since I became head of this government. And he added: "I am ashamed. They are making more money than the manufacturing sector or the natural resources sector and all service industries". He is right, Mr. Speaker, when he says that bankers are the worst complainers, but it remains that they are the ones who make all governments in Canada crawl on their knees. I know that some are afraid to attack finance, that some will argue: "Well, if we alter our monetary system, how are we going to trade with other countries?" Let us begin by properly organizing our domestic trade. Are we not free to adopt our own monetary system, as we have adopted our own postal system.
And yet, if there is such a service which does business with every country in the world, it is the postal service. Our letters go all over the world. Whatever the colour, the size or the design on the stamps we affix to envelopes, that comes under an international agreement and it is working very well. Why should things be different if we reformed our monetary system? Why do some suggest that our currency would lose some of its value? It does not get its value from the banks but from our gross national output which comes from Canadians. Money is not the real wealth but only a symbol to measure the value of things and services and also an instrument of exchange.
I ask the Liberals to meditate on the words of the late leader of the Liberal party during a general election in 1935, and I quote:
The Liberal party believes that credit is a public matter which docs not only concern the bankers but which is of direct concern to the ordinary citizen.
The Bank of Canada
The Liberal party is in favour of the immediate creation of a well-constituted national bank to control the issuance of currency to meet public needs. Capital flow should be related to the domestic, social and industrial needs of the Canadian people.
And I think so too. He went on to say:
Once a nation loses control over its currency and its credit, it does not matter much who in that nation makes laws. Once in control, money lenders will ruin any country. As long as control over currency and credit has not been restored-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: I regret to inform the hon. member that the time allotted to him has expired. He may continue with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, as well as all my colleagues.


Mr. Bechard:: Once more we heard the theories of the Social Credit Party of Canada.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: I am reading the theory of Mr. King-that of the Liberal party, in 1935.
In any event, Mr. Speaker, I accept those very friendly remarks, but the fact remains that we are dealing with a very serious matter. In the present economic context when things are going very badly in this country, when all governments are complaining precisely of a shortage of dollars to run either the country or the provinces and everyone is rising early to run after those famous dollars, it is important that at least in the public sector we empower our bank-the bank of Canadians- to help the government, whatever it may be, to run the country.
I continue the quotation I was reading earlier. Mr. King was saying:
-its most obvious and most sacred responsibility, any talk of democracy and Parliament supremacy is vain and futile.
I am talking to the Liberals, those who have the majority in the House ...


An hon. Member:: Is there nobody else?


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Yes, certainly there are other members. 1 am talking to all members, specially to you who think you hold power. After 40 years, do you not agree that it is time to change the Bank of Canada Act to put into practice the ideas put forward by the Liberal chief in 1935?
Since Liberals have the majority, I ask them not to kill this bill but refer it to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, and then definitely passed by the House to give the government a good instrument and allow it to run properly the country without jeopardizing future generations.

November 5, 1976
The Bank of Canada
Mr. Speaker, I think I have clearly explained the scope of the bill of which I am sponsor with concrete examples and tables which I have here and which I would like to be put on record. Unfortunately, our procedure does not allow it. All the same, they are available. Any member who would like to consult them can ask me and I will be glad to put them at their disposal so that they can examine them and criticize them.
In any event, this represents a considerable amount of work and it is well worth looking into by parliamentarians like us who are responsible for running the country properly, so that when we leave this House, we may leave to the next generations something which will make them proud of us. If we leave them in debt up to their neck, they will have to provide for their own needs and pay for our present needs, which is not reasonable. Therefore we must make every effort to control this fantastic increase of the national debt and the best way to do it is to give the Bank of Canada the powers described in the bill.
As for the private sector, it will carry on as it does today, but governments will stop competing with it. The private sector will then be able to survive, individuals will regain confidence in the country and will be able to leave to those following us something to be proud of. Thank you once again for these few extra minutes for which I am very grateful.


Mrs. Simma Holt (Vaneouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert).

I regret very much that I cannot make my whole speech in French. The day I can, I will be the proudest lady, I mean member, in this House. I almost was a female chauvinist.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Simma Holt: I agree with the statement of the hon. member that banks play a sinister role in society today. They are manufacturing credit and making money. Bank buildings all over this country are almost as big as those built by lawyers. The lawyers are also a rather sinister group, those present excluded. They have much to answer for, just as bankers have. If I had time I could talk about frauds and the collusion among the lawyers of this country with which I have some personal experience. I am afraid I must tell the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) that it is happening in his city and that I can document it.
I should like to say a few words about this bill. If this were not a time of necessary restraint-and we have taken so much criticism already from the same people who would support this bill about the manufacturing of money-I might say that the idea might have merit. This idea goes back some years ago to Major C. H. Douglas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and some of this Douglas-or Social Credit philosophy-might be worthy of support. I could also say that it would be easy to look at the economy of Alberta, where I grew up, and mistakenly believe something worked because of the wealth today.

1 can remember very clearly the Aberhart period because that was the first contact we had with newspapers. At that time there was what was called "fountain pen" money which was issued very briefly, or funny money. It was a script on which you put stamps. But this did not last long. The economy of Alberta grew and expanded, not because of the money program. Perhaps the old provincial Treasury Branch approach was a useful approach. It consisted of buying and selling your own goods within the province and thus building up the provincial economy. It may have been very useful, but by the same token it was Premier Ernest Manning, and perhaps Premier William Aberhart, who laid the foundations for the strong economy it is-an economy of which Mr. Lougheed now pretends to be the creator and saviour.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Simma Holt: The health of that economy was not his creation but rather God's creation, because it was God who put the riches in the soil.


Mr. Fraser:: And he waited for the right government to come along before it was discovered.


Simma Holt: They have a very good life there; they do not have a sales tax, but it is the richness of the minerals, not the greatness of the mentality of the Conservatives in office at present. Had Manning or Aberhart not abandoned funny money, we might very well not have had the kind of economy that exists there now.
Perhaps in my years of work with crime and courts I have seen too many paperhangers or, in the refined parliamentary parlance of this great House, counterfeiters. They made their money overnight and peddled it wherever it was best to do so. I really do not have too much hope for that system, as much as I admire the hon. member for Bellechasse. I remember the script era. We keep hearing that there is manufacture of too much money, and if money continues to be made this way, it will not be much better or safer than counterfeit. We worry about inflation. Of course this measure would only produce greater inflation, and accelerate the very problem we are now trying to correct. To quote one of the greatest men in this House, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), inflation is a pervasive disease. It causes fear, distrust, and a divisiveness among various segments of society. I do not trust bankers, and bankers do not trust me because I am a woman. We will have to educate Mr. MacLaughlin of the Royal Bank about women in this country.
In the next election we will have to educate everyone so that we can get a few more women in this Chamber. Perhaps then we will not have these superficial banking approaches and resolve the problems with women's intellect working on them-the problems women as homemakers have had to worry about throughout the generations with regard to handling home budgets. It is remarkable that the whole nation is joining in the fight against inflation, and despite what hon. members
November 5, 1976

opposite say, the nation is involved in this-the rank and file trade unionists, the public, and the teachers. We may hear from their leaders who are fundamentally NDP or Maoists- although not all of them-how bad the system is, but they are peddling the Goebbels lie. They figure if they say the lie often enough, people will believe it, but if there was integrity, all of you over there would be-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Order. Address the Chair.


Simma Holt: The people of Canada want the problem of inflation solved, but they do not want it solved the way you people suggest, with a freeze. You want to freeze everything.


Ralph Goodale: "Through you, Mr. Speaker."


Simma Holt: Even through you, Mr. Speaker, it is the same lie. Through you, Sir, I would like to say that they do not know the difference between freeze and formula. The formula for control is quite different from the proposal of hon. members opposite, but they go across the country attacking the very thing the public wants most. They are leaving this House because they cannot stand what I am saying. There are not very many of them over there. There are two Conservatives, one NDP, and three from the party presenting the bill. The Liberals are carrying a quorum. In fact, if you people do not get some people in here in a few minutes we will not have a quorum.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Order. Address the Chair.


Simma Holt: You do not like the fact that after the next election you may be the only one here to watch over us.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I am merely trying to be helpful to the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt), and to teach her that she should address the Chair, not hon. members across the way.


Simma Holt: I apologize to the Chair, but 1 cannot help but notice all those green people over there. Oh! The green people are really empty seats.
The anti-inflation program we have now has not failed, and I think it would be quite disastrous to try to create more money at a time when the country is trying to cut back. Hon. members opposite attacked and have talked about government spending. They try to give the impression that government spending means we are putting money into the pockets of a few civil servants and into our own pockets. Of course nothing could be further from the truth.
Hon. members opposite should tell the truth because some day they will have to answer for their actions here. The opposition is part of the government, and they may have to tell the truth about what government spending really means-that is cost sharing, welfare, pensions, education, highways, courts, police, prisons, subsidies to stabilize food costs and living costs, family allowances, and all the rest. The hon. member for
The Bank of Canada
Winnipeg North Centre has talked about all these necessities.
I do not know how much he has ever done about them, but they are all necessities of life. Hon. members opposite are misleading the public about the need for restraint, and as much as 1 admire the hon. member for Bellechasse and some of the theories he has expounded here, I must speak in opposition to this bill.
It is dangerous to attempt to mislead the public. The public is already uneasy. Women like me and men who shop know what happened a year ago when we went into the market place and saw that every day a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread cost ten cents more than the day before. Everything seemed to be going up, and we panicked. That is not happening now. In fact prices have stabilized, even dropped in some cases.
Prices are a little higher in British Columbia, but we had an N.P.D. government which bought out bankrupt companies, and now we have to pay for it. Chicken prices, for example, across Canada have dropped except in B.C., but that is because in B.C. the N.P.D. thought it would buy up chicken farms, and sell the birds. Would you believe chickens run by a government? But it was a chicken government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Simma Holt: Had you people shared in telling the truth, you might have served Canada better.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Simma Holt: Mr. Speaker, they might have served Canada better had they told the public the truth about the formula. It is not a freeze; it is a formula. It was the contingency plan spoken about long before the election. Hon. members opposite say that the Liberals said one thing before the election and came here and did another. Long before the election the Prime Minister said that there was a contingency plan.
As a reporter before I ever came to this place I remember asking what the contingency plan was. 1 wondered whether it would be a freeze, and at that time I was told that it would not be a freeze; it could be controls. We have controls. The Prime Minister, the former minister of finance, and our current Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) tried to persuade big business, labour, and big government to use restraint. A child who refuses to use restraint requires discipline.


Donald W. Munro: So they are children, are they?


Simma Holt: It was because these interests refused to use self-discipline that the controls were imposed on them. The formula has worked, and I know that makes hon. members opposite very sad. I often wonder whether partisan success is more important than the welfare of our nation.
I think hon. members opposite would have liked the program to fail so that they could have said the government is a failure. However, we have had tremendous success in fighting inflation, and by August of this year the inflation rate had dropped from the 11.1 per cent of last October to 6.7 per cent.

November 5, 1976
The Bank of Canada
The Canadian Labour Congress held a phony so-called protest, which was a fancy word in the 1960's. It was as ridiculous then as it is today. The CLC attempted to attack controls by having a national strike. The CLC did not care about the rank and file trade unionists who wanted to work and to earn their pay that day. It only cared about its big conspiracy with a few leaders of the NDP. The rank and file of the NDP are like the rank and file trade unionists; they have come to me and said that they resented any attempt to stop the rise in inflation in this country, so perhaps at the next election that party will be lucky to have even the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre sitting over there to supervise the House.


Stanley Howard Knowles: He'll be here.


Simma Holt: However, the program has not failed, and because of that I would hate for us at this time to become involved in anything which inflates the money of this country. I would like to see the controls continue.
The Prime Minister says that controls will be removed only when the inflation rate reaches 4 per cent. I should like controls to remain until we see it go to zero. When prices and wages are set in the post-control period I hope every segment of society will be responsible, and not seek increases as they did in the past. At the present time people are better off than they have been for years. Food baskets are full. Controls have actually improved the earning power of the worker and the value of the dollar; it is more than 3 per cent higher than it was a year ago. Specious attempts to arouse the Canadian public against controls, and mislead them will not win confidence. Indeed we are losing the confidence of the nation by lying to the public. This is an educated public, Mr. Speaker, not an illiterate public. They know the truth. Women comprise 50 per cent of the population, although it does not look like it in this House.


John Allen Fraser: Fifty-one per cent.


Simma Holt: The 51 per cent do most of the buying although today more men are doing the buying and sharing the housekeeping. These people know when members stand here and on public platforms lying about prices, or when the press sets out to create fear in the minds of the public. People who go shopping, who make purchases in the stores, who live under the new anti-inflation controls know that controls are working. They have absolutely no respect for the story that controls should be dropped in Canada. Most Canadians wanted something to be done, and this government responded with its war on inflation. I do not say the formula is perfect, Mr. Speaker. What formula can be perfect that involves human beings? There are so many human variables that there can never be a formula that can resolve the complexities of these variables in a complex economic society.
The Douglas theory was an interesting formula. But formulas do not work for people or for an economy. This formula
[Mrs. Holt.l
was introduced in 1935 and 1 gather 13 acts were passed in 1937 but they were thrown out by the courts and the following year were disallowed. There were repeated attempts to bring the Douglas "A plus B" theorem into the life of Alberta.
As you know, in the Douglas formula, "A" represented wages paid to employees and "B" the cost of production, which was considered essential to supplement A, the wages. B, I presume was $25, I think in script, which could be used at the treasury board. You had to buy Alberta goods. It sounded a good scheme-especially getting $25-but it was dropped. I think they would have dropped it even if it had not been thrown out by the courts. It was not constitutional at that time and 1 doubt if it would be today. Indeed it would be dangerous today to introduce it at a time when we must all work for one Canada and a strong Canada. We must not divide it by a technique of destruction and disincentive.
Again I come back to those who continually tell the lie, hoping that somebody will believe it, and undermine all government attempts to save our tenuous economy, and the buying power of Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, would the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) accept a question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. Will the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) accept a question?


Simma Holt: Yes, if I can answer.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: The hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard).


Eudore Allard: In the remarks she made earlier, the hon. member spoke of her native province, Alberta. And she seemed to allege that if that province had been able to pay off its debts, which amounted to $179 million in 1935 to such an extent that the province was going bankrupt and was under the trusteeship of the federal government, it did it because of its natural resources.
I wish to point out to the hon. member that Alberta has natural energy resources and oil reserves. I would also point out to her that the Aberhart government was elected in Alberta in 1935 and that from 1935 to 1948, they succeeded in paying off the province's debt. Alberta did not owe a penny to anyone and I would emphasize that before finding oil, the people had found the Social Credit Party. As for the phoney money to which she referred earlier, the fact that bankers disowned that money does not mean that the system was bad. Evidence is shown by the fact that they managed to pay off the debt between 1935 and 1948 with the only means available to them. Would the hon. member answer this question?
November 5, 1976

[English\


Simma Holt: Mr. Speaker, I said very clearly that Mr. Aberhart and Mr. Manning provided excellent government. They had very good fiscal policies but I am well aware that they did not tap the resources-the oil or tarsands-then. As the hon. member says, they could not, because they did not have the finances. They had good policies but they did not have Social Credit policies; they merely had the name Social Credit. I think they were modified policies in that they used their own banks, the Alberta Treasury Bank, and bought Alberta goods. People were buying and paying into their own banks to help the province. I did say that Mr. Lougheed, who now has the resources, had the benefit of good fiscal and economic programs under Mr. Manning, on which to build. That is the reason Alberta is rich today.
[ Translation]


Albert Béchard: Mr. Speaker, I note the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard) has another question for the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt). I have no objection to the hon. member putting his question.


Eudore Allard: Go ahead, I will give you a chance.


Albert Béchard: Thank you. Mr. Speaker, in view of the very deep love the Social Credit Party of Canada has entertained since its inception for the Bank of Canada, 1 am not overly suprised by the remarks made this afternoon by the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) on the subject of Bill C-206. This House will remember similar endeavours in the history, not only of the Social Credit Party of Canada, but also of the House of Commons. According to the information 1 gathered from Hansard over the last few years, similar legislation was examined before. As the hon. member for Bellechasse stated earlier, the debate here was on March 15, 1967. So, even before he came here, there were debates here on the subject of the Bank of Canada. Later on, a similar piece of legislation was introduced on March 18, 1969 by the current leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada, and my hon. friend from Bellechasse referred to it on October 22, 1974. The current leader of the Social Credit Party, the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) always showed remarkable conviction during the earlier debate 1 referred to. The sponsor of this bill, the hon. member for Bellechasse, also shows a remarkable sincerity in his comments.
Incidentally, I would like to commend the hon. member for Bellechasse, although I do not share his views, for his persever-ence in attacking not only the Bank of Canada and its powers, by also for addressing himself to a particular subject. In this he deserves commendation. But although I am not an expert in social credit or banking affairs, I believe I can safely state that the provisions included in Bill C-206 by the honourable member for Bellechasse are unrealistic. However, they commend some interest, if nothing else. Considering only the drafting of the bill presented by the hon. member for Belle-
The Bank of Canada
chasse, one would say that he certainly did not spend too much time on it, and the same would be said looking at the finished product as it is very short.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: We should beware of bills that are too bulky.


Albert Béchard: I continue. It is a very short bill. Its author made it short intentionally, I suppose, but it contains suggestions that, if they were implemented, if this bill were passed by 5 p.m. and referred to the commitee and then passed by this House, would change considerably, and I shall not say immediately, but dangerously, the role of the Bank of Canada. But the hon. member for Bellechasse, like his predecessors who proposed similar bills, intends effectively to change the role of the Bank of Canada and this could well have some bad effects.
For instance, if you read the first two lines of the bill, you realize that it would change the Bank of Canada Act by raising to a maximum of 60 years the term for loans or advance payments from the Bank of Canada to the government of Canada and provincial governments.
One must admit, Mr. Speaker, and 1 know that my hon. friend from Bellechasse agrees with this, that this would amount to an awful jump from 6 months, as it is now, to 60 years.
This is what I read in the explanatory note on paragraph 18(1)(/):
make loans or advances for period "not exceeding six months" to the Government of Canada or the government of any province on the pledge or hypothecation of readily marketable securities issued or guaranteed by Canada or any province;
On the other hand, the bill of the hon. member says: "make loans or advances for a period not exceeding 60 years to the government of Canada, et cetera." Everyone will admit, as I said earlier, that an increase from "six months" to "60 years" in the legislation is a considerable jump.
Mr. Speaker, the same terminology has been used in all the bills submitted by the Social Credit Party of Canada since 1967. Every time such a bill has been introduced and debated in the House, we must admit that, as it will happen tonight, the government has always rejected it, but it has not refused these proposals in a spirit of contradiction or to oppose a proposal of the Social Credit Party of Canada or simply because the bill was introduced by the opposition. No! It is because of the dangers that such a policy represents for our economy, and at this point I would like to mention the warning given by the hon. member for Bellechasse who said in his speech: There are some who will say during this debate that this bill is inflationary. Well, yes!
We are now going through a period of inflation and, according to what the Social Credit Party has preached since its beginnings, the hon. member for Bellechasse wants more money to be put in circulation in the country, in the province. The hon. member is making a gesture of denial. But this is what he wants. At least, this is what he said in his speech. Because if we grant more authority to the Bank of Canada, like he says in his bill and in his speech, more money will be

November 5, 1976
The Bank of Canada
put in circulation, and this comes back to the original theory of the Social Credit Party: Put in money; put in a lot of money. The hon. member made a fairly long speech because he was given all the time he wanted. We are polite, 1 even said: Let us give him 10, 15 or 20 minutes more.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker-


Albert Béchard: -in order to conclude this very able speech-


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


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, 1 hope the hon. member will allow a question.


Albert Béchard: Mr. Speaker, 1 would be very pleased to answer all the questions the hon. member might ask me once 1 have finished my speech.
Mr. Speaker, everybody knows perfectly well that the Social Credit Party of Canada, following its theory and its philosophy, has always solved the economic, fiscal and monetary problems, all the problems and even the moral ones by the only way it knows of: "The Bank of Canada". But, Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada-


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the question of privilege.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Bellechasse on a question of privilege.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has just accused me of saying that we want to create heaps of money. That is why 1 raise the question of privilege. I said in my speech, and I will give an example, that we want to get a new tap, that is a tap that costs $1 a gallon instead of a tap that costs $100 a gallon-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I suggest to the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) that that is not a question of privilege, but a disagreement.
It being five o'clock, the hour appointed for the consideration of private members' business has expired. Therefore this House stands adjourned until Monday next at 2 p.m.
At 5 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.
November 5, 1976



APPENDIX

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1976-77 Addendum
As the 1975-76 issue of National Finances was being printed, final supplementary estimates for 1975-76 and the Main Estimates for 1976-77 were tabled. The table below incorporates these new data on a basis comparable with Table 3-3, page 29 of National Finances.
Net Budgetary Expenditure by Principal Item or Department Fiscal Years Ending March 31, 1976 and 1977
(dollar Figures in millions)
	1976*		1977b
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(S)
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(%)
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(S)
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(%)
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Interest on public debt
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National Health and Welfare
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3,930.0
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11.3
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4,650.0
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12.1
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Old age security, spouse's allowance and guaranteed
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income supplement
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4,127.7C
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11.9
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4,506.2
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11.7
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Canada Assistance Plan
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860.1
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2.5
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926.3
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2.4
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Hospital insurance
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1,739.9
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5.0
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2,065.0
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5.4
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Medicare
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796.3
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2.3
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956.7
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2.5
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Family allowances
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1,961.9
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5.7
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2,013.3
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5.2
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Health resources fund
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20.0
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.1
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36.7
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.1
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Other
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380.8
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1.1
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376.9
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1.0
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9,886.7C
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28.5
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10,881.0
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28.3
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Government's contribution to Unemployment Insurance
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Fund
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890.0
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2.6
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1,700.0
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4.4
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National Defence
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2,975.6
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8.6
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3,371.1
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8.8
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Unconditional transfers to provinces
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2,755.2
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7.9
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2,851.1
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7.4
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Oil compensation payments
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1,685.0
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4.9
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1,410.0
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3.7
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Manpower training services and allowances
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518.5
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1.5
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525.0
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1.4
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Payments for post-secondary education
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535.0
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1.5
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538.0
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1.4
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Bilingualism program
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121.2
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.3
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134.4
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.3
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Transport
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Air
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331.3
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1.0
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388.0
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1.0
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Water
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376.9
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LI
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438.5
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1.1
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Railways and roads
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515.5
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1.5
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463.2
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1.2
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Other
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66.2
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.2
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85.3
[Stage Direction]
.2
[Stage Direction]
1,289.9
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3.7
[Stage Direction]
1,375.0
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3.6
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Public Works road and marine programs
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47.2
[Stage Direction]
.1
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64.0
[Stage Direction]
.2
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Post Office
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896.5
[Stage Direction]
2.6
[Stage Direction]
1.122.7
[Stage Direction]
2.9
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Indian Affairs and Northern Development
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854.4
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2.5
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949.4
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2.5
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Agriculture and grains
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957.7
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2.8
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862.2
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2.2
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Other
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7,348.5
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21.2
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7,983.1
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20.8
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Total Net Budgetary Expenditure
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34,691.4'
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100.0
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38,417.1
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100.0
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* Main and Supplementary Estimates (A) and (B). bMain Estimates. c Includes non-budgetary expenditures from Old Age Security Fund.
Source: Estimates.
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Monday, November 8, 1976