1976-04-28

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Implementation of new regulations to exclude certain lobster fishermen has been delayed in the maritime region but appears to be discriminatory against Newfoundland. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That this House requests immediate consideration by the Minister of State (Fisheries) to include the province of Newfoundland which will allow all lobster fishermen in that province to engage in normal operations for this season.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Pursuant to Standing Order 43 the motion can only be presented with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AIRPORTS
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I too rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to move a motion that arises more particularly out of the lack of adequacy of answers provided in the House in the past few days. Considering that standard Department of Transport policy as acknowledged by the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) is to require the submission of public tenders for contracts like that extended to Sky Shops by an order in council on August 24, 1972, and considering that this specific extension was previously denied by Mr. O. C. Stoner, then deputy minister of the Department of Transport, on the grounds that public tendering would be required, and considering that the order in council on August 24, 1972, which reversed Mr. Stoner's position, was based on the recommendation of the then Minister of Transport and of Treasury Board, I move,
seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House instructs the present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the present Minister of Public Works to provide a full explanation for their recommending the extension of the Sky Shops contract at Dorval airport without calling for public tenders.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FISHERIES
Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to discuss a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that the apportioning of quotas for carps, commonly known as goldfish, is prohibited; that the government ought to protect the spawning of goldfish which really need another generation to regenerate; that the fishing season in the Gulf of St. Lawrence opens only in late April and that fishermen in Gaspesia, Magdalen Islands and northern New Brunswick are now facing serious problems because big trawlers from coastal ports on the Gulf of St. Lawrence are plundering the sea bottoms of the gulf, particularly the Banc des Orphelins, which results in reducing the catch of deep sea fish, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. Laprise):
That the government allow the Department of the Environment to take any concrete measure it would deem necessary to ensure fishermen in Gaspesia, Magdalen Islands and northern New Brunswick better catches in keeping with their needs and to forbid all trawlers which are not based within the limits of the gulf waters to fish in that area.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Pursuant to Standing Order 43, this kind of motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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

April 28, 1976

Hospitals


AIRPORTS
Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a motion to propose under the provisions of Standing Order 43 arising out of a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the explanation of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), made outside this House yesterday, that Mr. "Gerry" Stoner, during his tenure as the deputy minister of transport, was authorized to make a serious intervention in a tendering procedure, to wit, making suggestions to one bidder for the food and beverage concession at Mirabel airport that they explore merger possibilities with a second bidder for the same concession, without apparently informing any or all of the other bidders, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay):
That the Minister of Transport obtain and table in this House a written explanation of Mr. Stoner's behaviour, explaining the circumstances surrounding his behaviour vis-a-vis the aforementioned intervention in which it is made clear whether his minister of the day simply authorized the intervention or, indeed, ordered or suggested it.


Mr. Speaker:: Standing Order 43 requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
*
* *


HOSPITALS
Mr. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Water-loo):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to raise a matter of urgent and pressing necessity which I hope will have the support of all members of the House.
In light of the fact that Durham Memorial Hospital is now before the Supreme Court of Ontario to challenge the legality of the Ontario government's decision to close the hospital, I would move, seconded by the hon. member for Perth-Wilmot (Mr. Jarvis):
That this House instructs the government not to agree to any amendments to the memorandum of agreement between Ontario and the federal government dated March 3, 1958, concerning the provisions of hospital services in Ontario which would in any way affect Durham Memorial Hospital at least until after the Supreme Court of Ontario has ruled on Durham Memorial Hospital's application for judicial review.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43 this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HIGHWAY SAFETY
Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, my motion under Standing Order 43 is similar to one I presented shortly before Christmas, but in view of the action yesterday by the governments of Saskatchewan and Quebec I trust that this will find general acceptance by hon. members of this House. I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That this House supports the efforts of provincial governments in implementing laws designed to protect Canadians through the legislated use of safety belts, and encourages these governments to achieve uniformity across Canada in such laws, where practical.


Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43, such a motion can only be presented for debate with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. G. H. Whittaker (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a motion under Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas the Department of Agriculture has no real and concrete evidence that the eradication program for blue tongue disease through the slaughter of cattle in the south central area of British Columbia will be successful because the disease is known to be spread by flies which can easily fly across the Canadian-U.S. border, because deer and other wildlife animals are known to be carriers of this disease, and because there is ample evidence that this disease has been in the area for years, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Brisco):
That the Department of Agriculture establish a moratorium on this slaughter program until the full extent of this disease can be checked throughout Canada.


Mr. Speaker:: Standing Order 43 requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SUGGESTED REFERENCE TO COMMITTEE OF EMBARGO AGAINST UNITED STATES CATTLE BECAUSE OF BLUE TONGUE-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Ken Hurlburt (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the charge made by United States cattlemen that the Canadian Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) imposed a non-tariff embargo against American cattle, and that he attempted to indict U.S. breeding stock so that it
April 28, 1976

would damage potential export trade that Canada and the U.S. compete for by summarily and without consultation instituting the blue tongue embargo, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ritchie):
That this matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture for study.


Mr. Speaker:: Standing Order 43 requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.


An hon. Member:: Where is Joe?


Walter David Baker: It has to do with the unfortunate matter of the Sky Shops affair about which that government over there has nothing to cheer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: Where is Joe? We want Joe.


Walter David Baker: On Monday, April 26, the Prime Minister indicated that he had requested the Solicitor General to investigate the jurisdictional question which seems to have arisen between the RCMP and the Quebec Department of Justice with regard to the laying of charges in that matter. Now that the Solicitor General has had had some time to consider the matter I wonder whether he might tell the House if he was consulted by the RCMP on its decision to lay charges in the province of Ontario and, if so, would he describe the nature of those consultations?


Hon. Warren Allmand (Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, I was not consulted, and that is the usual thing. The police laid charges without consulting me. They have told me since that they had jurisdiction to lay charges in both Ontario and Quebec, the alleged offence having been committed in both provinces, and that they had consulted with the Crown Attorneys of both provinces, and finally laid the charges in Ottawa.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Solicitor General for that answer. In the course of discussions the hon. gentleman had with the RCMP, consultations that took place after the event, having indicated a choice of jurisdiction, did the RCMP indicate to the Solicitor General, and can he in turn indicate to the House, the reasons for that choice of jurisdiction?
Oral Questions


William Warren Allmand: Not completely, Mr. Speaker. There was some disagreement between the RCMP and the Crown Attorneys in Quebec on the nature of the charges to be laid. I am presently gathering more information on the basis of that disagreement. But there was a disagreement on the nature of the charges to be laid.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the difficulty the Solicitor General may have in getting that kind of information. Would he be prepared to undertake to the House that within the next few days when his investigation is complete that he would respond either to questions or make a statement with regard to the complete reasons because I think this is of interest in the course of the administration of justice.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I have made arrangements to meet with the Solicitor General of Quebec and following that meeting I hope to have more information.


NAME OF PERSON WHO AUTHORIZED VISIT TO MR. RIVARD
Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I wish of ask a question of the Solicitor General.
After the Minister of Justice said yesterday that a notice was necessary to get an appropriate answer, the Solicitor General said that he would find out which RCMP officer authorized the examination of Tele-Media reporter Mr. Rivard. In such circumstances, can the minister tell the House today who authorized this visit and why was Mr. Rivard questioned?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I do not yet have a complete answer on that. I know that the agent of the RCMP who approached Mr. Rivard was from the A Division here in Ottawa. I am trying to find out who authorized or ordered that particular approach to Mr. Rivard. I have not yet received a full answer.


REQUEST FOR REPORT ON ALLEGED RAID ON QUEBEC NEWSPAPER OFFICE
Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary question.
Considering that the Solicitor General said last week that he would ask the RCMP to report on the search made at the Agence Presse Libre du Quebec, can the minister give the House some information or else is he considering it would be better to make a specific statement on this matter?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, there again I have quite a bit of information from the RCMP. There were three participating police forces. By the way, it is clear now there was no warrant obtained from the court to enter, search or seize, but this will be another matter I want to discuss with Mr. Lalonde, the Quebec Solicitor General when I meet with him shortly.

April 28, 1976
Oral Questions


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a final supplementary.
Can the Solicitor General give the House the assurance that he will make a statement as soon as he gets the information he is now looking for?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to answer questions in the House and give as full a report as possible once I have more information.


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister arising from questions I put to him yesterday and the day before concerning specifically the Order in Council that was passed by the cabinet on August 24, 1972. Since this Order in Council, which was passed on the recommendation of both the then Minister of Transport and the President of the Treasury Board, contradicted the general principle that there should be no extension of such leases prior to the resubmission of bids, I wonder whether the Prime Minister now can give us an answer to the earlier question concerning the reason cabinet reached the particular decision it did on that date?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, as I understand it, it was a decision of council which was recommended to it in the normal way by official recommendation and which was passed in the routine fashion. I understand that the hon. member may want to have further explanations on this. I have looked into some of the answers given in this House and elsewhere beginning back in November by the Minister of Transport and others. If the hon. member opposite or any hon. member on the other side wants to ask further questions on this, I suggest that they take up the offer of the Minister of Transport. His estimates are still before the committee. He has been heard during three days and I am informed that there was practically no curiosity expressed about Sky Shops or about Dorval or about Mirabel or any of that.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Members had no comments; they are not interested when they have the chance to ask questions.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: In all earnestness, and in an effort to make sure that answers to questions come in a consequential way and not piecemeal from day to day, I urge the opposition to accept this invitation from the minister to ask any questions they wish to ask and to make any suggestions they might have. The hon. member for Fundy-

Royal suggests parliament. If hon. members wish to revert to committee of the whole, we are prepared to do this also.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We are prepared to answer every and any question. If it is truth that is to be obtained, the way to get it is to have the minister in the House or in committee- this is the choice of the opposition-where he will be able to answer every question that opposition members can think of. I repeat this invitation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had this precise question-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Question.


John Edward Broadbent: The Prime Minister has had-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Despite the atmosphere of slight political antagonism in respect of these questions, I wonder if the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby could be given the opportunity to be heard.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has had this precise question put to him three days in a row. If he had answered it on Monday, we would not have to repeat it today.
I should like to ask the Prime Minister again, given the exceptional nature of the decision which was reached in the cabinet on August 24, 1972, a decision not reached by officials, as the Prime Minister said yesterday and again implied today, but by ministers of the Crown responsible politically for the decision, would he or the Minister of Transport give us an explanation for that precise decision?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the explanation was given by the Minister of Transport and is recorded in Hansard of November 6. He explained the circumstances under which this lease was recommended for renewal under improved terms. It was recommended by the officials without any political pressure being put on the officials for that recommendation.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: It resulted in improved benefits for the Crown. I could repeat the answer given at that time by the minister, but I am sure that what the hon. member would like to have is not bits and pieces of answers to questions asked sometimes by him and sometimes by other hon. members. I urge them to summon the minister before a standing committee or before committee of the whole to get the truth on all this.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If indeed there is a wish for truth rather than to create insinuations.
April 28, 1976


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, for my final supplementary I will try the minister himself. There might be some hope of getting an answer.
In three days of dealing with this issue last November the minister made two points, if I understood him, for renewing the contract without a new bid being submitted. The two reasons given were that there were certain financial benefits greater than was the case under the previous contractual arrangement and, second, that there was going to be some kind of needed capital expansion in the facility at Dorval by Sky Shops to be paid for by Sky Shops themselves. Given the fact that there was going to be reduced international activity at Dorval, what sense does it make to say that they needed to expand the Sky Shops facility at Dorval when the expanded operation in fact was going to take place at Mirabel? Secondly-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


John Edward Broadbent: -would the minister not agree that if the contract had been put for public tender, as it should have been, it might well have been the case that other people submitting bids could have provided benefits to the public of Canada which would have exceeded those submitted by Sky Shops? How would he have known if he did not put it out to tender?


Mr. Paproski:: Would you repeat that question?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member has missed one element, and that is that the volume of activity at the Dorval duty free shop was due to decrease significantly at some point in 1975, 1976 or 1977. We are looking at it at the present time. We must remember that then we were looking at it in 1972, at that point in time there was no opportunity for a tender of the operation for three more years. What we entered into in 1972 was an upward revision of a lease which had three years left to run where, in other words, a much higher price was being paid for the remaining three years in order to get the extension.


John Edward Broadbent: To 1980 as well.


Otto Emil Lang: But we could look at the fact that the situation would be very different in that particular duty free shop with a good deal of the business transferred away from it in 1975.
In the complex business of business, which hon. members opposite will, I am sure, not understand-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Nowlan:: What do you know about business?


Otto Emil Lang: In the Annapolis Valley there are some who would, although their voices are not heard here.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Otto Emil Lang: The issue of whether a tender is called or an extension is given to a lease is a matter of business judgment, and what a government should be expected to do is to apply its best business judgment to that question. To the
Oral Questions
hon. member there seems to be some misunderstanding about this, and I should like it to be understood that the recommendation for the extension of the lease came after a final offer from Sky Shops which was much improved over anything which had been discussed before, and it was to be made effective virtually immediately.
At that point in time the view was taken by the Department of Transport that that was an extension which should be granted, and therefore the information was put to the company that indeed it would be recommended. For practical purposes it was taken at that point as approved, and I should just like the hon. member to know that the only approval which is needed-beyond that of the government-for a minister or his department to sign a contract of that sort is the official approval of Treasury Board.
In due course that was sought and obtained, but that is not the approval of cabinet which is referred to. It is not as if a major issue of principle were before it. The judgment of the Department of Transport was that that was a good transaction which should be entered into then for the benefit of the higher amount of lease which could be obtained from 1972 to the end of 1975 where there was a firm lease, about which we could do nothing.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FINANCE
Mr. Real Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Finance.
We learned this morning that some American and Canadian banks have agreed to grant loans and credit to Chile for an amount of $125 million. Is the minister in a position to tell the House the conditions of the loan, that is its term as well as the rate of interest charged to Chile for such a loan of $125 million?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of such a transaction, but I will take the question as notice.


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question.
When the minister will be asking about the nature, the interest rates and the term of the loan, would he also inquire whether the Canadian provinces could obtain such loans from chartered banks in Canada?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

April 28, 1976
Oral Questions


AIRPORTS
Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister on a point of clarification of ministerial statements in today's and yesterday's press involving the food and beverage concession. The present Minister of Transport is quoted in the Globe and Mail this morning to the effect that Senator Giguere was not involved and there was nothing to indicate that he was. The former minister of transport is quoted in yesterday's Ottawa Journal as saying:
... of course Senator Giguere approached me and was told that he was not going to get it because he was not the lowest bidder.
On a point of information for the former minister of transport, Mr. Speaker, I hope he understands it was the highest and not the lowest bidder who should have got it. That is pretty complex, but I hope he understands that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: I want to ask the Prime Minister which, if either, of these statements is correct?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not even know if the quotations attributed to the ministers by the hon. member refer to the same series of incidents. Maybe one was-


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: You don't know anything.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, in case you are wondering, the animal noises over there are from a bunch of hyenas.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Steve Eugene Paproski: You are getting pretty testy.


Mr. Fairweather:: You have had a week's holiday; you cannot be as testy as that already.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Why don't we have an election?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They are not all hyenas, Mr. Speaker. There are also some donkeys over there.


An hon. Member:: One of the donkeys is for
Ottawa-Carleton.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: There are a few horses' asses on their side.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Walter David Baker: There is the north end of the horse pointing over there.


Mr. Speaker:: Happily, without being called upon to make any sort of judgment upon that assessment,-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: -I might say that at various times during this question period the noise has been equal from both sides of the House. I think it would be better if we were to allow those putting the questions to put them and those answering them to answer.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: How do hyenas put questions and horses' asses answer them?


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a supplementary question to the President of the Treasury Board. Might I ask the hon. gentleman if he could indicate to the House whether he agrees that it is proper procedure for bidders or tenderers to be encouraged to change their status after they have submitted bids or tenders and before tenders have been awarded? Could the minister also inform the House if his department is investigating this acknowledged intervention in a normal government tendering procedure to see what violations may have occurred with respect to the provisions of the Financial Administration Act?


Hon. Jean Chretien (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, when tenders are made to the departments, we examine each one individually and accept the recommendation of the departments after having studied it seriously. I do not know whether there are negotiations between the parties once the Treasury Board has made a decision. In this case, the decision was made in the light of avaiblable information.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister has provided a general answer. In terms of this specific case, is he or any officials of his department investigating the alleged irregularities that have taken place in the handling of this particular tender?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I do not know what tender he means, but if he is alluding to the decision whereby a restaurant in Montreal was leased to Entreprises Cara Quebec Ltee, then the award was made to the best offer, that is to the tender who made the best offer to the government. That is all that counts.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: A final supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Am I to take it from the minister's answer that he is in agreement that those tenders can be manipulated, that there can be intervention after the tenders have been set up and before the award has been made? Is the minister saying he is condoning that practice?


An hon. Member:: Patronage!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member raises those things when he acknowledged that
April 28, 1976

the best bid was accepted by the government. It is complete nonsense.


An hon. Member:: What about the intervention?


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Has the minister satisfied himself that the consumer interest is being protected in relation to permits issued this week by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce for the importation of eggs into Canada and if not, will he inform the House what specific action his department is taking?


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, in his question the hon. gentleman did not indicate the whom the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce issued these permits. If he would do that, perhaps I could answer more fully. I would give him an opportunity for a supplementary in order to be more specific.


William Heward Grafftey: I said this week, Mr. Speaker. This week permits have been issued by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce to import eggs into Canada. That being the case, has the minister satisfied himself that the consumer interest has been protected? If not, what specific action is his department taking?


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, the role of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is to issue permits to traditional wholesalers or importers of eggs from the United States whenever there is a shortage. I presume that is what the hon. member is talking about. In that case, I am quite satisfied that consumer interests have been protected. So far there is no evidence that eggs were being sold at a higher price than set by CEMA and there is no evidence of any shortage. If, on the other hand, which I think is what the hon. gentleman is really getting at, the permits were issued to other than regular importers such as to CEMA directly or indirectly, I would be very upset because this would be in contravention of all the concepts of CEMA in the first place.


SUGGESTED EXAMINATION OF USE OF VETO POWER BY CANADIAN EGG MARKETING AGENCY OVER ISSUANCE OF IMPORT PERMITS
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In pursuing his responsibility of protecting the consumer interest has the minister examined the use of the veto power that CEMA has with respect to import permits issued by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and confirmed that they are not in fact using these legal powers to make windfall profits on eggs imported into Canada?
Oral Questions


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, I have no evidence of any veto powers of CEMA. In fairness to the question I come back to the point that when there is a shortage of eggs in this country it is traditional to import supplies from the United States, as the hon. member knows. For many years traditional importers have imported eggs. Government policy at the moment is that they should be allowed to bring eggs into Canada, when eggs are needed. This is done by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce in such a way that everyone has an equal opportunity. Some rumours, which my department is attempting to trace, suggest that CEMA themselves have circumvented this process. If they have, CEMA should be condemned. My job, which I did not take under false pretences, is to concern myself with the consumers of this country. I intend to do so.


HOSPITALS
Mr. C. Douglas (Bruce-Grey):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare arises from a motion moved earlier. Whereas Durham Memorial Hospital, in its effort to continue operation despite notice of closure from the Ontario government, contends in the Supreme Court of Ontario that such closure can only take place under the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act if the federal Minister of National Health and Welfare consents to a change in the act, will the minister give assurance that he will not consent to such a change until the Ontario Supreme Court has decided the case concerning Durham Memorial Hospital?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, there are agreements with various provinces concerning hospitals under the Hospital Insurance Act. I have heard of the particular case in which the hospital concerned is contesting action planned by the government of Ontario before the courts. I assure the hon. member, since the matter is sub judice, I will not consider an amendment to the agreement concerning Durham Memorial Hospital until the court has disposed of the case.


OIL-DATE ON WHICH SELF-SUFFICIENCY ACHIEVED
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In his statement yesterday, on the so-called energy self-reliance policy, the minister said that by 1985 we shall probably import 800,000 barrels of oil per day, in contrast with present imports of some
240,000	barrels a day. In view of this gloomy prognostication, can the minister estimate the approximate date by which Canada can hope to reach the self-sufficiency

April 28, 1976
Oral Questions
toward which the government, according to what it has been telling us, has been aiming for the last few years?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, as I told the committee last night, I should like to be able to give a date. Clearly, it is impossible. It will depend a great deal on good luck and on a great deal of exploration in the north. That is the main thrust. We must have exploration and development activity in the frontier regions of Canada.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: The minister doesn't know what thrust means.


POSSIBLE INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION ESTABLISHING
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I thought the government was running the country, not running a lottery. In addition to luck, you need policy. The Science Council of Canada having said that with proper conservation methods we can save between 20 per cent and 30 per cent of the energy we consume, and that industrial users could save large quantities of energy by following proper programs, I ask the minister if he intends during the present session, or in the near future, to introduce legislation which will provide for mandatory guidelines for saving on energy consumed in this country?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the hon. member does not understand the oil industry. He thinks you can make a hole in the ground and expect to find oil.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: No; he knows if you have a dry hole you will find the minister.


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I am amazed. If the hon. member knew more about the oil industry, he would know that it takes much luck to find oil. To speak on his second question, again, I am surprised that he, as official energy critic of the NDP, has not been following our debates. If he had followed them, he would remember that I tabled a full document on energy conservation measures some weeks ago, when I indicated that we shall introduce mandatory measures.


PROPOSED DELAY IN APPROVAL OF MACKENZIE VALLEY PIPELINE PENDING APPLICATION FROM POLAR GAS
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I know we must drill holes. I also recognize that the oil industry puts down lines and, every once in a while, catches a sucker. They caught one when they caught the minister.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development having said that supplies of gas presently available in the Mackenzie Delta put in question the advisability of proceeding with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, I ask the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources if he will consid-

er asking the National Energy Board to postpone a final decision on the Mackenzie Valley pipeline until Polar Gas, which has found adequate amounts of proven gas to warrant a pipeline, has had time to apply to the National Energy Board, and the board has had opportunity to consider that application?


Alastair William Gillespie: No, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that the National Energy Board proceed as expeditiously as possible.


BROADCASTING
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: -my question is to the Minister of Communications. In view of the rhapsody that her speech occasioned with the "sterile press" of this country-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: -I congratulate her on the attainment of her portfolio. Having congratulated her, may I ask this. We are talking about communications.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: In view of the expansive response of the press of Canada to the minister's speech given to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters' meeting on Monday, can the minister say what definite proposals she will make in this House or elsewhere for making even more Canadian the broadcast air waves of this country?


Hon. Jeanne Sauve (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome my new critic, the hon. member for Fundy-Royal.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: It's Annapolis Valley.


Jeanne Sauvé: I so much like the hon. member for Fundy-Royal. That is why I made a mistake. I will try to like the hon. member for Annapolis Valley, my critic, as well. I disagree with the hon. member, who suggests that the press is sterile. Considering all the comments it made about my speech, I think it is very prolific. I did not make a specific proposal to the broadcasters, but threw in an idea which I think would help them to increase their revenues in an industry which, as we know, is fragile. It was not a specific proposal. It was an idea, to which I want them to respond. I think it is important to enhance the revenues of broadcasters, so that we may have in this country still better broadcasting.
April 28, 1976


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the minister's response, and her congratulations. It has taken me four long elections and some extracurricular activities to get this far. But, Mr. Speaker, in the words of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong, the next big step is going to be a big step for Canada and a small step for me because we are going right across the way.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Those were reciprocal congratulations. So now we can cut the mustard and get down to business. I should like to know from the hon. lady, the minister who is most genteel and not necessarily gentle, whether the fact that she took the CAB as her forum to talk about Canadi-anizing the air waves-


An hon. Member:: What is the question?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Perhaps the hon. member for Annapolis Valley would now come to the point. In fairness, I must say he has been allowed considerable latitude with respect to the preamble.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: And quite rightly so, Mr. Speaker, because this is the first time I have paid attention to the hon. lady minister. And it is the first time she has paid attention to me.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: The point is, and especially with regard to the digression by the rabbit from St. Boniface-he hasn't learned the first law of philosophy, and that is from Descartes

"I know, therefore I am"-


An hon. Member:: Bravo!


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Egmont.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. It relates to the announcement earlier this week of the increase of rates on the car ferry to Prince Edward Island by some 60 per cent this year and the announcement or non-announcement, made yesterday by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources with respect to the provision for assistance in terms of sky-rocketing electricity costs in Atlantic Canada. Has the department made an assessment of the impact of these two moves by two other departments of the federal government in terms of the deterioration of federal assistance when it comes to reducing the disparity between the economically disadvantaged regions of Canada and others.
Oral Questions


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, in fact the department follows very closely the evolution of energy costs in the Maritime provinces and especially in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. We keep an eye on the influence additional costs could have on the activities of the industries as well as the general population.
We have expressed our concern in this regard to our colleagues of the cabinet, and I can assure this House, Mr. Speaker, that the department and myself keep watching the situation very closely and try by every means at our disposal to ensure that the effects are not too severe in that part of the country.


FINANCE
David Samuel Horne MacDonald: In view of the remarks made just now by the minister and the comments of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance which were made last night in the course of the adjournment debate, I would direct a supplementary to the Minister of Finance. Inasmuch as the parliamentary secretary was not able to complete his remarks but indicated at the end that the federal government was committed to implementing a single price policy but was not able to clarify whether that will be extended now to electrical costs, can the minister tell us whether or not such a move is now under consideration and whether it will be an item for discussion by first ministers when they meet next week?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, a single price policy is now in effect and has been for the last several years with regard to petroleum.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I am well aware of that fact, Mr. Speaker. Could the minister inform us, in view of the remarks of his parliamentary secretary and suggestions at the earlier conference of finance ministers about adjustments in the equalization formula which the minister said were under consideration, whether there will be consideration of government policy which will have the effect of widening the gap of disparity of electrical costs in, say, the Province of Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia as compared to the cost in, let us say, Central Canada?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: There will undoubtedly be discussion of this question at the meeting with regard to petroleum and natural gas prices which will occur early in May. I have to point out to the hon. gentleman that there is presently a great variation in electricity costs right across Canada and even within provinces. The notion of attempting to equalize to a single price would, of course, place a tremendous burden on the treasury.

Oral Questions ENERGY


EFFECT OF NEW ENERGY POLICY ON CONFERENCE TO ESTABLISH OIL AND GAS PRICES-AGREEMENT OF PROVINCES WITH POLICY
Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In view of the fact that the main item on the agenda of the first ministers' conference next week is the establishment of the domestic price of oil and natural gas, and since the energy policy tabled yesterday states that the first target is to move domestic oil prices toward international levels and to move domestic prices for natural gas to an appropriate competitive relationship over the next two to four years, would the minister tell us whether all the provinces have agreed to this policy and, if not, would he agree that the purpose of the first ministers' conference next week to establish oil and gas prices has been pre-empted or at least seriously inhibited by his announcement?


Alastair William Gillespie: I would not say that the announcement in any way inhibits the conference. Indeed, I think it will be a very useful background to the conference. I might add in that connection that contrary to the views expressed by the hon. member's benchmate yesterday there has been a great deal of consultation between myself and the other energy ministers. At least two conferences of energy ministers dealt with this matter as one of the items on the agenda and there have been further conferences between the leading officials of the various provincial departments of energy or their equivalent extending over some months. So there has been a great degree of consultation and, I might say, a broad measure of approval for the measures introduced yesterday.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. I know he has had an opportunity of studying the recent report of the Economic Council of Canada, "People and Jobs", which has concluded that the present Unemployment Insurance Act raises the unemployment rate and fosters a disincentive to work. Is the minister in a position to respond to these findings? In short, does he agree with the findings of the Economic Council?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: As I indicated to the hon. member the other day, we will have a chance to discuss this matter in detail when I appear before the standing committee which I think is the more appropriate occasion. As to agreement with the council's conclusions, I think the hon. member, as is sometimes the case, has taken one single portion of the report and exploited it to illustrate a particular point

without covering other portions of the report. In other words, it is slightly out of context.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: I know the minister is very concerned about the eight-week eligibility period and the time during which a person can receive unemployment insurance benefit. He stated on October 27, 1975, when dealing with Bill C-69, that he was assessing or reviewing the benefit structure which includes those matters to which I have just referred. Has he concluded this study and if so is he able to give us any hint as to what he has found? In particular, will he assure us that he will lay before the standing committee or before the House the findings of the study he has made with respect to the benefit structure?


Robert Knight Andras: I believe I have already laid before the standing committee considerable detail as to the findings which have emerged from this study, but I will be glad to do more when we consider the matter in committee.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Speaker:: I know all hon. members will join with me in welcoming the presence in our gallery of a most distinguished visitor in the person of the Prime Minister of Belgium, Mr. Leo Tindemans.
During his all too brief visit here the Prime Minister is accompanied by Mrs. Tindemans, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Development Co-operation, in the person of Mr. Renaat Van Elslande, and Mrs. Van Elslande; and a person who may be "slightly familiar" to the members of this House-our very distinguished ambassador to that country, the Hon. Lucien Lamoureux.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Surrey-White Rock has a question of privilege.


Mr. Friesen:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Communications, recently said that she wants to eliminate violence on television. In view of the proceedings in the House today, I wonder whether she would get together with the government House leader and shelve his plan to have television in the House.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been complaints in this House for several days about the denial of the right to bid on certain projects. I wish to enter a protest on behalf of the hon. member for Egmont, the hon. member for Nanai-mo-Cowichan-The Islands, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, as well as on my own behalf, in that we were not given the opportunity to bid on a certain project. I may say that if we had been given that opportu-
April 28, 1976

nity, any one of us would have done it completely free of charge. So I wonder why the President of the Privy Council had to run off to Toronto to get married!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Even so, Mr. Speaker, we would add to the congratulations that were expressed on the floor of the House the day after he did it. We wish him and Mrs. Sharp the very best, and we are happy to welcome him back to the House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I should like to join the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre in once again expressing, now in the presence of the hon. gentleman, the good wishes which we expressed on the day he "flew the coop" from us and took upon himself a wife. I was looking at the tanned visage of the government House leader, and judging from his tan I, for one, would have to second guess whether or not he was in fact on honeymoon when he was away. Nonetheless, we do welcome him back and all of us join in extending to him and his wife our very best wishes for a long and happy married life.


Mr. Sharp:: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank all hon. members for their good wishes on my recent marriage. I feel very fortunate: I mean fortunate to have married, not just to have been away from the House-so that there is no misunderstanding about that. It is one of those happy occasions. Indeed, when I let my parliamentary secretary into the secret the night before, so that he would be equipped to speak for me the following day, he said, "I'm glad there's a little romance around here".


David Réal Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize. Earlier while someone was talking about the minister, I was discussing with a colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party. Still I want to extend personally, on behalf of my colleagues and on my behalf, our best wishes to the minister and congratulate him for having recognized the official bilingualism in Canada by marrying a French Canadian. This is an outstanding quality of the minister which I want to point out to the House. So we sincerely wish him many years of happiness.


Mr. Nystrom:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a different point of order. Two weeks ago today, the last day the House sat before the Easter break, I asked a question in the House which is to be found at page 12811 of Hansard and to which I should like to make a correction. My question was:
Has the Prime Minister been advised that a company whose principal owner is a fairly senior employee of the Bank of Canada has been awarded at least four cleaning contracts in federal government buildings in Ottawa since 1972 and, if so, does the minister consider that to be a conflict of interest?
During the Easter break I found out that some of the information on which I had based that question was incorrect, and I thought it only fair for the record to point this out in the House. The information was honestly obtained. I also want to say that I regret if I have caused any inconvenience to anybody in the Bank of Canada. I also want to
Order Paper Questions
point out that a case like this illustrates that it would be wise if the Department of Public Works discontinued the practice of issuing contracts to companies whose principal owners are unknown to the government.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD TABLING OF REPORT ON ASSOCIATION MARKETING
Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I should like to table a further report from the Anti-Inflation Board with regard to the question of association marketing in certain industries.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 3,813, 3,815, 5,035, 5,159 and 5,207.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Howie: To what extent is linguistic knowledge of (a) English, (b) French a factor in promotions to and within the commissioned officer class in the Canadian Army?


Hon. James Richardson (Minister of National Defence):: (a) and (b) Linguistic knowledge of both English and French is not a factor in promotions to commissioned rank and within commissioned ranks up to the rank of Captain. However, in all officer classifications, (except for some specialist officer's classifications) knowledge of English is necessary to complete classification training which is a prerequisite to promotion within commissioned ranks up to the rank of Captain. For promotion to the rank of Major and above linguistic ability in a second official language is a factor. The total scoring system which determines relative merit is based on two major appraisal scores, "Performance and Potential". "Performance" accounts for 80 per cent and "Potential" for 20 per cent of the total possible merit score, and linguistic ability is one of the factors considered under "Potential". Other factors under "Potential" are qualifications, experience, personality, age and such other factors considered appropriate by the promotion board membership. Thus linguistic ability in a second official language, whether English or French should enhance an officer's position with respect to promotion to the ranks of Major or above in relation to a unilingual contemporary when all other factors are equal.

April 28, 1976
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Howie: Does any linguistic quota system exist in the commissioned officer category of the Armed Forces that could require the promotion of a junior officer to a senior position in preference to a more senior officer and, if so, what is the quota system?


James Armstrong Richardson: To support the Government's Bilingual program the department is endeavouring to establish by 1987 an Anglophone/Francophone balance of personnel in the forces corresponding to the national ratio of the two groups, currently 73 per cent Anglophones/27 per cent Francophones. To provide an equitable distribution of this ratio in all classifications and trades and at all rank levels some adjustments to the promotion merit lists as described in Question No. 3813 are made periodically, when possible and practicable, in the ranks of Major and above. Where such an adjustment is made the promotion of the officer who would otherwise have been promoted is protected and he or she will be promoted when the next vacancy occurs.


Mr. Lawrence: 1.	In (a) 1974, (b) 1975, how many persons receiving unemployment insurance benefits had a gross annual income (i) in excess of $50,000, (ii) from $40,000 to $50,000, (iii) from $30,000 to $39,999, (iv) from $20,000 to $29,999, (v) from $10,000 to $19,999, (vi) of less than $10,000?
2.	What was the total number of persons who received unemployment insurance benefits in (a) 1974, (b) 1975?


Robert Knight Andras: In so far as the Unemployment Insurance Commission is concerned: 1. (a) and (b) Information concerning the number of persons receiving Unemployment Insurance Benefit by gross annual income is not compiled by the Commission.
2. (a) 1974 2.03 million, (b) 1975, 2.44 million.
Note: estimated from T4u and TP4u


Mr. Matte: For the fiscal years 1973-74 and 1974-75 what were the amounts of estate taxes collected in (a) Canada, (b) the Province of Quebec?


Hon. Jack Cullen (Minister of National Revenue):: 1. (a)Canada
1973-74	1974-75
(i)	Estate tax	$14.4 million $7.1 million
(ii)	Provincial succession duties $24.8 million* $17.6 million*
Includes provincial gift tax.

Tax reform for 1972 discontinued the application of federal estate taxes for the years subsequent to 1971. All estate tax activity in recent years has been in respect of estates arising before that time and revenue collected during the period in question is strictly due to reassessments and prolonged assessments of estates that arose before 1972. Provincial succession duties were collected in 1973-1974 and 1974-1975 when the Department administered the Succession Duty Acts and Gift Tax Acts of the provinces of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, (b) Quebec, (i) No provincial breakdown is available of collections of estate tax in 1973-1974 and 1974-1975. (ii) The Quebec Succession Duty Act is administered by the Quebec provincial government and we have no information with respect to amounts collected in 1973-1974 and 1974-1975.


Mr. Matte: 1.	Have any monies been voted for the development project of a park near Lake Long of Montauban in the Constituency of Champlain and (a) if so, in what amount, (b) if not, for what reason?
2.	Is the project (a) the subject of a conflict between the government and the Province of Quebec, (b) hindered by the existence of the National Saguenay Park?


Mrs. Iona Campagnolo (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. No. (a) None, (b) Parks Canada has no such project under active consideration.
2. (a) Answered by 1. (b) Answered by 1.


Mr. Horner: 1.	In what years did the Hutterian Brethren pay income tax and what was the total amount in each case?
2.	Has the government refunded this money to the Hutterian Brethren and, if so, was interest paid?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: 1.
This information is not available as departmental records are not maintained according to the religion of taxpayers.
2. See answer to Part 1.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
April 28, 1976



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Tuesday, April 27, consideration of Bill C-89, to amend the Anti-Inflation Act, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place at this time. Having spoken last night for five minutes, I did not appreciate that today I would be honoured by the return of the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Sharp). From the grassroots of the House of Commons, not just through the House leaders, I should like to congratulate him and to echo and repeat ad infinitum the good wishes that we all have for him regarding the very happy step he took at Easter. I would not pontificate about the Easter message, but I would question the fact that the government House leader took only a week's Easter recess. In view of what happened over the Easter recess to the President of the Privy Council, I think he would have had the almost unanimous blessing of members on all sides of the House if he had taken two, three, or perhaps even four weeks to make sure that the happy union that occurred at Easter shall continue thereafter, as I am sure it will.
After those Goldilocks words and, as the leader of the Social Credit party said, after the happy moonglow of romance, I find it difficult now to shift from platitutes about honeymoons and marriage to the realities of the Anti-Inflation Board. Not since the doctor created Frankenstein has there been a creation on the floor of this House to equal Bill C-89. There are many of us humble people from the grassroots of Canada who believe in what our leader has said. We campaigned, we fought, we talked, and sometimes we were even questioned about what went on in that grand old election campaign of July, 1974. I was one of those who took a stand in trying to defend something that was vital to Canada, with all its imperfections.
Like other members in my party, I took a stand and our party was politically lacerated by the people of Canada: we are not now sitting over there. I will not waste too much time on sad, bittersweet memories or thoughts of what might have been-because we will be there. One thing that many people can say about the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Stanfield), my former leader, is that he may have many pluses and he may have many minuses, but he speaks because he believes in something, and because he believes, he remains true. He did not do a flip-flop like this government. This government is like a gosh darn cookie jar in a lumberjack camp. This government wanted to cook pancakes; they put all the ingredients into the old frying pan.


An hon. Member:: Come to the point.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Now we hear from the mountain member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. MacFarlane). If he wants to
Anti-Inflation Act
get involved in this debate, I would like him to speak now or go back to his riding and try to match his words of today with what he said in July, 1974. There may be a Gregorian calendar, a Christian calendar and there may be a Judaic-Christian calendar. The fact of the matter is that my happy friend from Hamilton Mountain, who is one of the lovelier people in this House, cannot face himself in the mirror. That is why the Secretary of State (Mr. Faulkner) does not shave his face; that is why he has a beard.
I am amazed that the hon. member from "Happy Mountain", or the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain, has the temerity to even look in the mirror. I guess he does shave, though, and has never got over the baby fuzz. "Happy Gus MacFarlane, I do not know how you can face yourself in the mirror after the way you people campaigned in July, 1974, as compared to the facts of reality today." In any event, I do not want to get too political.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Go ahead, Pat.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I do not want to get too political, but the fact of the matter is, in very serious vein, that my colleague the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) has moved an amendment to a clause that in fact will allow controls for 18 months. Then my happy friend the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent), who has to find happiness somewhere, and my friend the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), who is a happy fellow too, have concocted what I call the maypole dance. They have proposed a subamendment, not to have controls for 18 months but to end them on May 1, 1976. I am not going to waste too much time trying to analyse that subamendment because, quite frankly, it has no credence at all when taken in the light of what this party believes in or what this party stood for and campaigned for, namely, that this government should get off its duff and try to do something about inflation. This subamendment comes from my friends to the left, and they are so far to the left that I think they should be locked up in some type of sanatorium. They are so far to the left that obviously they do not put any credence in the fight that every Canadian is trying to win that is, the fight against inflation.
I said last night, in the few remarks I made before the hour of ten o'clock, that I respected the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) and Jean-Luc Pepin, chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board, and that I had some respect for the government. However, unless each individual Canadian begins to fins some personal solution to inflation, quite frankly we are not going to dampen these inflationary fires. The point is that some hon. members in the back row across the way have lately echoed what my leader has said. We want a 90-day freeze to wet the towels of all Canadians across the country so that we can get out of this inflationary psychology. We want people to stop and think before buying, perhaps because they know the cost will be 20 per cent lower tomorrow. This might cause people to pause and think. Perhaps that is what this government should do: it should begin to think.
Coming back to the bill-and I am very serious about this-this is the party that wanted some type of government intervention, and this was part of our campaing back in July, 1974. I found it very difficult to campaign because-

April 28, 1976
Anti-Inflation Act


An hon. Member:: And your party lost.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: My hon. friend from Bathurst-


Mr. Breau:: Gloucester.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: We have heard from my friend Herb from Gloucester. The point is that this was the only party to take a stand in 1972 and 1974. We tried to tell the Canadian people that something could be done.


An hon. Member:: And you struck out.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: The hon. member is right; electorally and politically we failed. However, there is something that means much more to many of us, and that is our country.


An hon. Member:: And integrity.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Yes, and integrity, as my hon. friend says. We did not fail because our integrity was not intact; in fact, our integrity is even better today than it was, as is the integrity of the hon. member for Halifax. His reputation for integrity is better today than it ever was as a result of those heydays in the summer of July, 1974.


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member permit a question?


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I have not finished, but the hon. member wants to ask a question.


Herb Breau: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity of putting a question. I agree with the hon. member that we all value integrity and that there is integrity in that party. I do not quarrel with that, but he seems to be questioning the integrity of other people.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Certainly.


Herb Breau: Is he not aware that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) admitted during the election campaign of 1974 that the government of Canada had a contingency plan for some kind of wage and price controls, and that under certain circumstances they would be brought forward?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Before returning the floor to the hon. member for Annapolis Valley (Mr. Nowlan) I should indicate that his remaining time is rather short.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: How many minutes?


Mr. Speaker:: About three, officially.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I am not going to take up those three minutes in answering the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau). I am talking about integrity, and the fact of the matter is, as I said last night, if you are really going to sell the inflation package, the person who should sell it is the leader of the land, your Prime Minister and my Prime Minister. Why is that right hon. gentleman, who is a persuasive man, not out across this country from sea to sea preaching the message of belt-tightening, discipline and integrity? The reason he is not, has not and will not, is that there is no integrity: he has done a flip-flop that is the biggest pancake in the political history of Canada.

Getting back to the anti-inflation bill, this country of Canada in 1968 was caught up in something called "Trudeaumania". Many members won and are here. There were many members on this side who lost as a result of that so-called "Trudeaumania". It is a sad thing to this particular member of parliament, who happened to win in spite of Trudeaumania, that the so-called just society will, under Bill C-89, become a controlled society. I am seriously suggesting to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all my colleagues in this House that controls are alien to the Canadian public. This country was not built on controls. It was built on the initiative of individuals who were sometimes rewarded by tax incentives.
One of the reasons I do not hesitate to support the amendment of the hon. member for York-Simcoe, who is trying to restrict the controls to a period of 18 months, is that this bill is not designed to allow controls for three years but allows, by order in council, the Treasury Board to impose controls ad infinitum. Controls are alien to the North American continent, and certainly to parliament. This bill distorts the economic picture. I give great credit to my friends to the left for their sincerity and because some of them are school teachers. I have a brother-in-law in Nova Scotia who is a school teacher. The package in respect of the school teachers in Nova Scotia which was brought before the Anti-inflation Board has been distorted. These teachers did not ask for an increase for a long period. However, through a collective agency which bargains for all teachers in Nova Scotia, a package was prepared which has been challenged by the Anti-Inflation Board.
We have the idiotic situation that the teachers in that province must come to Ottawa to make sure that they get what they are entitled to. Because they did not make a demand for three years, what they have asked for in a one-year period appears to be above the guidelines set out by this government. They are being penalized by school boards in other parts of this country who have successfully negotiated in the last three years and are far above the level of the teachers in Nova Scotia. They are so far behind they can never catch up. There is no more responsible body in Nova Scotia than these teachers.
This is one reason controls are anathema to this country. I would not be in the House of Commons if there was equality. I am here because of the fundamental disparities and differences which are our curse and our challenge. That is why this House of Commons must deal in its funny way with procedural rules which are almost archaic and which you, Mr. Speaker, labour on and on to give fundamental judgments. However, you are a captive of this system that has been a fundamental part of our procedure.
In any class in which I have spoken to my students I always told them that when this House of Commons is in session it is the closest thing there is to the heart of Canada. I do not know of another institution which is so symbolically representative of the 23 million or 24 million Canadians, even with all its imperfections. Earlier I said that I would not be here if we had controls, because if we had controls and equality in my area we would never have survived.
April 28, 1976

I think, quite frankly, that the strength of this country lies in what the late right hon. member for Algoma East, Lester B. Pearson, used to say. He said that through diversity there is strength, and with unity there is common cause. Here we have a long-term control package at a time when we have escalating energy problems in Atlantic Canada, where people on moderate incomes have electricity bills of $300 and $400.
The fabric of this country is not based on linguistics or on race. This is an integral part of the country, but we must do something about an economic condition. As yet there has not been too much hue and cry from the people of Atlantic Canada. This is the reason I am happy to have an opportunity to participate in this debate on the amendment. We go along with controls that are down to earth, but I will never vote for a bill that puts controls in force for three years which, by order in council, can be extended ad infinitum. I am amazed that the Minister of Finance could acquiesce in this. I am amazed that he would ask the opposition to become an accessory before the fact in respect of Bill C-89.
The cabinet will change, and we do not know what attitude another cabinet will have. Ministers come and go. Very many of them will go. In fact, they should all go and I hope they do. Seriously, however, I cannot understand how my good friend from Rosedale, the Minister of Finance, who has taken constitutional law, let alone any government whether Liberal, Conservative or, in the name of infamy, NDP, could have brought in an open-ended program of controls. While I was interested in the endorsation of the just society, I will not be a part of this controlled society.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) has returned. I am always interested in noting the behaviour of the Minister of Finance. He seems either to take some words out of context to take simplistic attitudes or come to simplistic conclusions concerning the attitude of the opposition. Yesterday he referred to the remarks of my colleague for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens). He referred to what he claimed might have been insincere words and attitudes by the former leader of our party the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Stanfield), with regard to parts of this bill.
Bill C-89 is not only concerned with the granting of the right of appeal from decisions of the Anti-Inflation Board by salaried and hourly-rated workers or parties to a decision, but there is something much more fundamental. There is an amending of section 46 of Bill C-73, which has to do with the period of these controls and the procedures and formulas that may be adopted. I think it was dishonest of the minister to say what he did about this party. This party voted in favour of Bill C-73 on second reading in order to have it sent to the committee, although we had reservations which were clearly expressed by the then leader of the party and other spokesmen in respect of the period of controls which we considered to be excessive.
We said we would do everything we could to have the period shortened and, depending on the action and attitude of the government in committee, we would then reserve our position at third reading. We voted against the bill at third reading, as we had undertaken, because the govern-
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ment refused to change it one iota except for the introduction of a review formula that was of little consequence. In the same way, there is nothing insincere about our having voted for Bill C-89 to go to the committee. That is not approval of the bill. This is the reason I say it is wrong for the Minister of Finance simply to say we voted before for this bill on second reading, and now are bitterly complaining about it and doing a flip-flop. That is not so. It was clearly indicated that we wanted to see the bill go forward to committee. That is where bills are supposed to be studied. The Minister of Finance is the author of the present rules under which we operate. All he has to do is review the speeches he made in proposing and supporting the rules.
My colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke), in committee raised a point with regard to the power of the governor in council to extend by way of order in council the ambit of the Anti-Inflation Board under Bill C-73. Even with regard to the construction industry section 3(2)(b)(i) provides for a limitation of jurisdiction on firms employing 20 or more persons. Yet we now see the jurisdiction extended to all construction firms, even one-man firms. I wish hon. members and other persons outside the House, particularly those who write and comment about what goes on in the House, would realise that under section 12 of Bill C-73 the governor in council has the right to refer a question of extension to the AntiInflation Board, the board then will consider it and make a recommendation back to the governor in council, who in turn issues an order in council implementing the recommendation of the AIB as to the extension of jurisdiction.
It is as simple as taking a tennis ball, bouncing it against a wall and then having it come back to the hand, because the governor in council is extending the jurisdiction of controls not only from the few Galbraithian, selective controls that they allege were to be have been the basis of this program last October, and then in November and December, but from when the legislation was under consideration in the House. We have seen them go from some 650 firms to possibly 65,000 or 100,000 firms; and we will see the jurisdiction extended to insurance companies, property and casualty insurance companies, life insurance companies, banks and all the other institutions which are to be gradually brought under the net of controls.
How is it to be done? Not straightforward, but covertly, as I have said, by throwing a ball against the wall and catching it. The government say it thinks it would like to extend the jurisdiction of controls over this or that section of the economy. They turn to the Anti-Inflation Board, which merely reflects back the thinking in the form of a recommendation, and on that recommendation which was generated by the governor in council the order in council is issued and the extension made. That is how control over the construction industry was extended all the way down to one-man firms.
Some surveys of results of the AIB decisions have appeared recently, one of which is to be found in the Financial Times of April 26, 1976. This is an indication of what has been happening. Because I do not have much time, I will read directly from the report. All credit for this

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must go to those people who researched and prepared the story. The story originates in Ottawa and reads:
Ottawa-The Anti-Inflation Board has been allowing far more generous pay increases in the public sector than in private industry.
A Financial Times survey of 104 wage decisions made by the board shows this divergence clearly.
The survey shows 69 per cent of workers in the public sector have been allowed increases of 20 per cent or more, while raises for 79 per cent of employees in the private sector have been held to 15 per cent or less.
The survey also raises the question of whether the board is controlling wage levels at all. It finds that in most decisions the awards handed down from Ottawa have been in line with the pace of wage settlements before last October when the board was created.
This is particularly true for public sector employees who, in several recent cases, have won pay increases of 20 per cent or more when the guidelines the board is supposed to enforce allow first-year pay rises of little more than 10 per cent.
During the whole of 1975, wage settlements averaged 19 per cent for government employees and 14.2 per cent in the private sector. This is the situation that the board was brought in to control last October, with the wage ceiling set at a maximum 12 per cent for this year.
Analysis of 104 cases involving 57,000 workers meriting "special consideration" show that in the case of first-year wage settlements, the board has approved:
Wage increases of 20 per cent or more for 15,000 public servants, most of them employees of Ontario school boards.
That is over 15 per cent in one year. The article continues:
Wage rises of 15 per cent or more for 7,500 private sector workers, and pay hikes in about the same range as last year's settlements (10 per cent to 15 per cent) for another 27,000 employees in private sector cases.
A mere 1,000 private sector workers, and 500 government employees, have been held to the government's intended guideline of a 10 per cent salary advance (8 per cent for inflation, and 2 per cent for productivity).
The figures on the number of employees covered by board decisions are not complete. In handing down decisions before March, the board did not always detail the number of workers involved.
What has been the effect of the AIB with regard to wage rates? Have they, in fact, slowed down the wage rates that were being negotiated and won during 1975, which were this prime motivation for the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the government to come forward with this program of wage controls last October? Why were the increases so high in the public sector as against the private sector? These are questions which the AIB will have to answer.
Let us talk about some other impacts. My colleague the hon. member for York-Simcoe referred yesterday to the restrictions imposed upon property and casualty insurance companies. I cannot warn hon. members too much about the perilous condition in which property and casualty insurance companies find themselves in Canada at present. Do they know that there are many major building projects for which insurance cannot be obtained, that performance bonds cannot be obtained, that firms with fleets of automobiles and trucks are restricted to two or three brokers in the country, and that 27 major and minor foreign insurance companies withdrew from Canada in 1975?


Mr. Benjamin:: Good.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin) says it is good that insurance companies are withdrawing from Canada

because the NDP operate a deceitful plan so far as the public is concerned. One has only to look to British Columbia and to the difficulties in Manitoba and Saskatchewan with regard to public insurance.


John Edward Broadbent: In Manitoba and Saskatchewan they have the lowest auto insurance in Canada.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Speaking about lower-priced insurance, look at the mess which came about in British Columbia, with hundreds of millions of dollars of loss and additional gasoline taxes to cover deficiencies in the insurance program. In Manitoba that is the only way they are able to reduce the losses to several millions of dollars a year.


John Edward Broadbent: Absurd.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: In any event, we know there is a very difficult decision to make in Canada. Casualty claims are far too high. We know that the performance in 1974 was nearly disastrous. There is insufficient insurance in Canada today to meet the requirements of the Canadian market. Why? Because insurance companies at the present time are not being allowed to increase their rates in order to meet the level of casualty claims, and the casualty claims include inflated damage settlements and inflated claims for property damage from body shop repairs where the charge by automobile companies for parts increased from 40 per cent to 70 per cent last year. This situation is scandalous. The cost of building is high and any damage claim resulting from fire damage to a building is out of this world. Some of the blame has to be levelled at the courts because of the extent of the damage awards they are making. They are entirely out of line. That is one of the effects on the insurance industry.
I want to quote from a speech made by R. M. Macintosh, executive vice-president of the Bank of Nova Scotia, on April 15, 1976. Mr. Macintosh is a man who has appeared before many committees of this House and who is well known as one who really understands banking and business. He said:
The general philosophy of the anti-inflation guidelines is to weigh more heavily on corporations whose profits are in a high and rising profile. This necessarily follows from the use of a five-year average as the base for calculating "excess" profits in 1976. Those who have been successful, efficient and productive-
That is anathema to the New Democrats. The quotation continues:
-are penalized more than those who have been the opposite. So also are those who may have had some poor years during the base period for whatever reason, but have since experienced a turnaround. A record of declining or flat corporate performance is a badge of honour under the guidelines.
Also for the New Democrats.
This being the case, the guidelines are forcing the more profitable firms to become price leaders. They are the ones who must raise their input prices or reduce their selling prices relative to others. Since the market system still impacts even the biggest fellows, no matter what Ottawa ideology may declare, the less profitable will have to meet these market prices. By definition the most profitable will be best able to withstand regulatory control of profits in the short-run. The greater the severity of the AIB's interpretation of the guidelines, the greater the marginal impact on those who are least able to stand it. Hence through
April 28, 1976

the price system, those firms which already had inadequate profit margins for whatever reason will not benefit from the welfare approach to the application of the guidelines to profits. If the margins of the profitable are squeezed, so will be those of the unprofitable, thus making it more difficult for the latter to raise capital, expand and compete.
In summary, the underlying theory of using heavy leverage on the most profitable to achieve control over inflation may well prove to have unintended side-effects on the unprofitable. This is not an argument against having wage and price guidelines at all, but against the particular methods of application.
I underline this because in 1973 and again in 1974 I, along with my colleagues, advocated a total wage and price freeze with selective controls to follow.
In retrospect, it would have been better to use the U.S. technique of a total short-term freeze to break expectations, followed by a selective removal of controls over perhaps a year.
I would have said 18 months, but Mr. Macintosh says a year.
The only real purpose of controls is to break the psychological spiral-
This is admitted by the Minister of Finance and by the Prime Minister.
-and to seize the occasion in order to establish a tougher combination of fiscal and monetary policies. Unfortunately the whole issue of antiinflation technique has become obscured by a quite different debate over the social and economy structure.
We are not against any question of appeal. That should have been in Bill C-73. What we are against, though-and this is why the hon. member for York-Simcoe advanced amendments Nos. 1 and 2-is that Bill C-89 amends the formula contained in clause 46 of Bill C-73, and it is perfectly proper to come back to this House to review the decision about three-year controls and to reduce them to 18 months. We support the idea of 18 months. That is the essence of the amendments of the hon. member for York-Simcoe and we intend to support his amendments. To my mind, that is a justifiable reason to vote against the bill, because that is consistent with the statements and the votes of this party a few months ago on Bill C-73, at which time the same question was at issue.
We do not oppose the right of appeal, but we find that there is greater wrong in the terminal danger of the period of control and the extension, by way of order in council- after a totally inadequate debate in this House-of controls for an indefinite period into the future. To us that is totally wrong and fatal to the program and that is why we will vote against it.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I should like to respond to some of the points made by the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert). First, with regard to his quotation of Mr. Macintosh in his discussion about a one-year period for American controls, I remind him, as I would remind Mr. Macintosh, that the American controls were on, not for a period of one year but for a period of just under three years, with at least two freezes and with several different selective methods of control. So if in his quotation the hon. member is using the American experience as any kind of example of what the expected lifetime of controls should be, it seems to me that should be an argument in support of a three-year period rather than the shorter period he is talking about.
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Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Just to make sure that we are talking about the same thing, would the minister accept, however, that in the United States the program started with a total freeze and then a phasing out of the controls, and it was that period when there was a total freeze, and the first phase of removal or relaxation lasted a year?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I think the hon. member should go back and look at it, because they started in with a total freeze, went to another phase, had to come back to a total freeze again and had to go to a fourth system. So I think when we look at the record of the American program it is perfectly clear that it was a highly erratic one and that they would have been better off in the long run to have tried to set for themselves a planned interval in which the program would be effective than to have stopped and started the shift from freeze and off and on again, as in fact they did.
The hon. member made a series of arguments in favour of casualty and property insurance companies not being covered by the anti-inflation program. I think the best way to answer him would be to read a letter dated April 9 on the notepaper of Walter Baker, QC, MP, to me as Minister of Finance. The letter reads as follows:
I realize that the government has brought the property insurance companies under the umbrella of the anti-inflation guidelines and subject to the review of the board, but I have had a letter from constituents of mine, who indicate that they recently received an invoice for renewal of their car insurance policy which is due on April 1st, 1976. They were amazed to see that there was an increase of 26 per cent on the wife's car coverage and a similar increase on the car operated by the husband, who are insured on the same policy and this occurred after a period when there have been no claims in the last 12 months.
Mr. Speaker, things may be all right for the casualty insurance companies a far as the hon. member for Edmonton West is concerned, but the constituents of the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) and a lot of other people in Canada are concerned about the rate of their car insurance and insurance on a number of other things such as property. They are not unreasonably expecting to have some kind of protection from the Anti-Inflation Board, to the extent that it can be done, from unjustified increases in costs.


An hon. Member:: Why do you not intervene?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: If the hon. member is advocating that we should not have the kind of protection that the constituents of his colleagues seem to be concerned about, that is an interesting observation. At least we have two viewpoints on the question.
On the third point, an article appeared in the Financial Times of April 26, 1976, with regard to the settlements which were scrutinized by the Anti-Inflation Board. I might say it was a highly misleading article in which the author sought to establish that the board had been unduly discriminatory in favour of the public sector rather than the private sector, in his judgment. I should like to point out to the House that of course the principal group that the board has had to consider in the public sector is the Toronto school teachers and other school teachers in the

April 28, 1976
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province of Ontario, in the cases of all of whom the opportunity to catch up in terms of salary and inflation had not been present in the way it was for the private sector.
Prior to October 14, two-thirds of the Ontario teachers had signed collective agreements which were predominantly in the 25 per cent to 30 per cent range for the first year of the contract. To restrict the other one-third to increases of 10 per cent to 12 per cent would have seriously impaired historical relationships by opening a 10 per cent to 20 per cent salary gap between teachers who had previously received similar salaries. If the article had been written with some honesty, I think the writer should have taken into account the fact that for historical reasons the school teachers in Ontario had not been able to catch up with the rest of the community but were in the course of doing so in this particular year. It was for that reason that the school teacher settlements have distorted the over-all settlements scrutinized by the Anti-Inflation Board.
By way of comparison, in the same period 18 non-teacher public sector cases covering only 1,776 employees came before the board. On average the award was 13.1 per cent, a rollback of 1.7 percentage points from demands of 14.8 per cent. This contrasts with total non-teacher awards of 14.6 per cent which were 1.9 percentage points below demands of 16.5 per cent. In other words, taking out the Ontario school teachers' case, because that particular group had not had an opportunity to catch up as had most others in the community, one can see that there was not in any sense an unbalanced favouring of the public sector over the private sector.
I am sure this article will continue to be quoted by hon. members. I think they should bear in mind, however, that the writer of the article, whether deliberately or otherwise, failed to take account of the distortion that was introduced because of the high school teachers' situation. If hon. members opposite want to say that the Toronto high school teachers, or Renfrew high school teachers and others in Ontario should not be permitted to catch up, that in those particular communities where, because of the accident of time they have not had the opportunity to catch up, that is one thing. If they are saying that people in my city and some others should be held down to 10 per cent or 12 per cent, then I think they should honestly come right out and say so. If they agree, however, that this particular group had fallen behind and that some of their colleagues throughout the province had other chances to catch up and they were caught by the program in the middle, then I do not think they can fairly argue against the historical relationship exception being applied in their favour.
I see the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Smith) in the House. He was calling for historical relationships in favour of the steelworkers in his constituency. Surely he is not going to say that should be applied as well in favour of the Toronto high school teachers.


Mr. Smith (Churchill):: There is no comparison. [Translation]


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make a few comments on the amendment now before us. Is it necessary to remind hon. members of this whole story and the reason for today's debate? An amendment which we consider reasonable has been put forward with a view

to terminating on May 1 of next year the peculiar powers granted to the Anti-Inflation Board, as provided in this legislation.
In view of the effects that we have had in recent years as a result of the adoption of a legislative measure, we have followed the principle and even recommended that steps be taken to control inflation. However, we believe that in view of the huge powers granted to the board, it would be sufficient to end the control period as of May 1, 1977. At that time, we will be in a position to assess the effects of this legislation introduced by the government a few months ago.
Still, Mr. Speaker, I would like to refer to representations made by the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Stanfield), who was then leader of our party, and in particular to the warning he has been extending to the governement for the past four or five years. I would like to remind hon. members of the many representations made by the hon. member for Halifax, supported by his colleagues, as well as the warning he was giving the government when he spoke of the danger that inflation involved. How many times did government members try to make a mockery of him or our party and suggest that we were frightening all the Canadian people? And yet the then Minister of Finance, who was not he who holds this office today, did not listen to these recommendations which we considered good-which were good as a matter of fact-and which would have been very helpful to the government. The Minister of Finance of that time got out of it; he resigned from Parliament washing his hands off it and saying: "It is not my fault!" I believe that we must all remember this period when the hon. member for Halifax went to great lengths to emphasize the importance of this danger and the hardships Canadians would have to face. This problem finally fell on us. Today we are still discussing an amendment and this whole matter.
Of course, one has to recall this government's attitude during the last election campaign of 1974, when we decided as a party to put forward a program that we thought provided a short term solution. It was not easy to tell the truth but we had deemed it necessary and in the interest of the Canadian people to do so. And yet, how many times have we been ridiculed, how often have they attempted to run down our proposal instead of giving it conditional approval with the option of readjusting it later to protect the small man's interests.
I remember very clearly, Mr. Speaker, that it was not easy to make trade unions, agencies and businessmen believe that our proposal was unacceptable, although God knows that the government succeeded very well in doing so. The Prime Minister did not spare his statements and insisted he would never use such a proposal.
Therefore the people were led to believe our proposal was not valid and supported the present government during the elections. It may be asked whether the government has not failed to honour its 1974 commitments and whether it has not deliberately lied to the Canadian people. We are convinced of it because we have seen the government change completely its policy and make to the Canadian people a proposal whose principle had been sug-
April 28, 1976

gested by my party and whose particulars are entirely different especially in certain cases.
I remember having heard the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board regret this absence of a 90-day period to enable the board and the government to pave the way for reaching some agreement with the provinces, organizations and unions. We thought it necessary to provide a period to discuss those agreements prompting the population to endorse that proposal aimed at improving present conditions. That period or preparation was disregarded and then one is surprised by the strong opposition shown in every sector of the country. How can we trust, Mr. Speaker, a government which had undertaken to reject that formula in 1974? How can one trust a government that shows no concern for such a time of preparation and adaptation, and then ask the people to believe in that board or in the principle of inflation control?
There than, Mr. Speaker, are the reasons why many bodies and some provinces are still reluctant in some regards. Even now, we see that the board has to make some changes, some amendments, proving once again that the lack of a period of preparation and adaptation, for better acceptance, is one weakness in the present law, and was the first error the government made.
And so the people have not only a feeling but the proof of having been cheated by this government in 1974, and that the government did not use the absolutely essential tool a period of preparation would have constituted. Under the circumstances, and bearing in mind the excessives powers of the board, we, who believe in the basic principles of the anti-inflation act, and for that very reason, support the amendment of the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens), that is to say, that it should not apply beyond May 1, 1977.
May I be allowed to quote here, a statement made by the hon. member for Halifax who said, in no uncertain terms, and I quote:
It is important to distinguish between a wage and price control program such as has been outlined by the government, such as it is, on one hand and the bill before us because they are not the same.
On November 25, 1975, he said:
We are not being asked to vote into effect a wage and price control program for a period of six months, a year ... or three years ... We are being asked to give the government the authority to write its own wage and price control program, an anti-inflationary program, or to exercise these powers in any way it may see fit. If the bill should pass, there is nothing to prevent this government changing the program beyond recognition without any further reference back to this parliament. That in itself is sufficient reason for limiting the life of this bill to a period not in excess of 18 months.
I think this statement made by the hon. member for Halifax is very serious and very relevant. For this reason, I also regret that this bill provided for increases from 10 to 12 per cent, taking into account some factors. To what extent, Mr. Speaker, is there an attempt to give the small wage-earner an advantage equal to that of the worker with a reasonable income? When we refer to 10 per cent as applied to a salary of $8,000 and to 10 per cent applied to a salary of $20,000, we succeed once again in widening the gap that exists between the poor and the rich. In my opinion, this is not the objective that the government set for itself concerning the establishment of a just society.
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I believe that it is important, Mr. Speaker, to develop a readjustment policy concerning the wage earner who is completely overtaken by the increase in the cost of living and who, under this legislation, has no possibility of getting an increase. On the other hand, those who already have a good income receive increases. Some will say that they have the same percentage of increases. But this is precisely what widens the gap for those who find it hard to keep up with today's cost of living.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, under the circumstances, I repeat that we support to a certain extent the implementation of this legislation. I am not saying to the minister concerned that we are against the principle of the measure and against the efforts that the government wants to make to curb the inflation which is causing so many problems for all Canadian citizens. But we believe that controls extended over an excessive length of time, in view of the changes which happen daily in our economy, we believe that a reasonable limit would be the one suggested by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (M. Stevens) and that, taking this as a starting point, the government will find and introduce other legislation much more brilliant than what we have seen to date so that the problems that Canadians have in view of the present economic situation will disappear.
Mr. Speaker, I know that my time is nearly expired. I hope that after this debate, the minister will consider the arguments advanced by the opposition. I believe that the population in general is aware that the government had committed itself not to use this tool and felt at a certain time the need to do so but, unfortunately, did not provide this preliminary period which would have been quite useful to the board, because of which it must now amend its programs nearly every day. Under the circunstances, we can certainly not follow blindly a government which shows such weakness concerning such serious legislation. In conclusion, I hope that the comments made on this side of the House will not only enlighten the facts, but also cause certain improvements to be made to this legislation.


Mr. Leonard C. Jones (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, as usual, my comments will be brief and to the point. Bill C-89 allegedly amends Bill C-73 in that, as we are told, it provides for certain appeal procedures. But it goes further and leaves open the termination date of the anti-inflation program. It can be extended by decree or order in council on Thanksgiving day, Christmas day, New Year's day or any other time. The point is, the termination date is left open.
I did not support Bill C-73. I have never supported controls which interfere with business enterprise, and still doubt if this procedure is or will be effective. The people of this country, not the anti-inflation program the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) announced on Thanksgiving day, will help our nation overcome our present inflation, poor economic performance, high unemployment, and so on. In no way will the government be responsible. Controls of this kind have never worked effectively.


An hon. Member:: Nonsense.
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Leonard C. Jones: Sure, we need restraint, we need a little belt-tightening and we need to halt inflation and rising unemployment. The process must begin with the Prime Minister and cabinet, with this country's leaders. I come from Atlantic Canada where the effects of the anti-inflation program will be disastrous. Already the program is creating greater unemployment. It is a disincentive to greater productivity and is hurting us tremendously. The government, by introducing such programs, interferes with the individual entrepreneur and wage earner. It is not wrestling inflation to the ground; it is wrestling the average working Canadian and small businessmen to the ground, sometimes into bankruptcy.
[DOT] <1610)
Government has an obligation to encourage selfrestraint and belt-tightening, instead of enforcing it. If hon. gentlemen on the treasury benches enjoyed the confidence of the people, they could do just that. But they have lost the confidence of the people of this nation. Too much power has been given to the Anti-Inflation Board and to the administrator. The administrator himself said in a speech made recently in one of the western provinces that he had more power than the Department of National Revenue. The legislation has merely built up two or three additional bureaucratic empires. If the present bill goes through, I doubt whether this system of control will ever be eliminated. The controls have certainly eliminated collective bargaining.
Controls are repugnant to the thinking of most Canadians, as I have said on many occasions. I believe the program as proposed by the government should be terminated as soon as possible. It should not be open-ended. With less interference and more good sense on the part of the government this nation could decrease its unemployment rate, become more productive, slow down the inflationary trend and do all the things which need to be done for the good of the state.
To sum up, I believe the anti-inflation program as it has been proposed and put into effect by the government is utter foolishness and should never have been thrust upon the nation.


Mr.  R. Gordon L. Fairweather@Fundy-Royal: Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of points to raise at this stage of Bill C-89. As hon. members may have recognized, for the last few years I have been greatly interested in the public perception of government, and for a minute or two I should like to discuss what I believe to be the cause of increasing public cynicism with regard to the government's program. In my view, it would have been better from the point of view of public perception of the program had the government not seen fit to opt itself out of these arrangements. It would certainly have been better from the point of view of encouraging efforts such as the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has asked all Canadians to make in support of the program.
At a cabinet meeting last January the government itself opted out. It did just that. It gave each minister power to rule whether an increase in departmental charges or fees was within the anti-inflation guidelines or not. This can be confirmed by consulting an order in council passed on January 27. Since that date a number of fees, for example

passport charges and postal rates, have been increased substantially. In each case they have risen well beyond the guidelines suggested by the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board or by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald).
It seems to me that by this cynical act of opting out, the government has added to the legitimate criticism which is being directed at the program by the general public and increasing the confusion which surrounds it. We have listened to many injunctions from the head of the government, from the Minister of Finance and from the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board urging Canadians to make sacrifices in the interests of getting inflation under control and to support the program of controls for three years in the time-frame of the government. In the time-frame of the opposition it is about 1 Vi years.
What happens? These injunctions are delivered and advertisements are inserted in national newspapers. As a matter of fact, one newspaper stated in December of last year that the guidelines would apply-I am now quoting- "evenly and fairly to everyone covered by law, including the government of Canada". That was in an advertisement which appeared in December, 1975. On January 27, scarcely a month later, the government itself turned its back on its own advertising campaign by deciding it would not be bound by the regulations administered by the Anti-Inflation Board.
This increases public skepticism. I do not know whether the government is worried about public cynicism and public attitudes toward parliament, but a great many people in the opposition parties are worried about it and a great many people outside this chamber are concerned about the disaffection of the public, about the public attitude toward parliament and toward government in general. I am not given to hyperbole, Mr. Speaker, but I suggest that public disaffection has reached great proportions in this country. One hears evidence of it everywhere, and the situation is made worse by the actions of the government itself.
The chairman of the board has confirmed that the government is exempt from the board's jurisdiction despite the fact that government employees come under the wage guidelines. I am really concerned about the fairness of such a state of affairs. The report of the Economic Council of Canada has now come to hand. We have seen the results of the Financial Times survey showing that of 104 wage decisions made by the board, 69 per cent of the workers in the public sector have been awarded increases of 20 per cent or more, while 79 per cent of the private sector increases have been held to 15 per cent or less. The inconsistencies were defended by the chairman on the ground that precontrolled wage levels must be taken into account.
As the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones) has just said, this is the very problem employees in the Atlantic provinces face. With an over-all program of controls such as the one the government has put in place, people in the poorer parts of the country are much more seriously affected than others. This goes to the very nature of our federalism. I am not thinking in partisan terms, but when a very large number of the people of Canada do not support the concept of responsible government, then we find ourselves in a very grave situation. I deplore the fact that part of the authorship, if I can use the term, of this dissatisfaction is
April 28, 1976

the action of the government in deciding to opt out of the program. Surely the increase in the cost of a passport could have been held to 8 per cent or, better still, the government might have believed its own rhetoric, believed its own advertising with regard to the necessity for control and kept the price of a passport at $10 for the three-year period.
It is not only a matter of the dollars and cents involved; that is not the message I am trying to get through to the House. The problem that I and many other Canadians have is that by substantially increasing postal rates, passport fees, airport landing fees, security costs at airports, and so on, the government is flying in the face of the exhortations given by the Prime Minister as to the necessity for all of us to do some belt-tightening. In my opinion, the increased cost of a passport merely adds to the cynicism shown by the public toward this program.
Many of my colleagues may have already seen a survey, which has appeared in various publications, conducted by an American professor, Daniel Yankelovich. My hon. friend from Edmonton Centre (Mr. Paproski) may be able to brief me on the pronunciation of that word.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Quite correct.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: He informs me sotto voce that I am right. According to Daniel Yankelovich, the public, generally speaking, is very anxious to support the mixed economy system and responsible government. But the public sees, both in the United States and Canada, that those who now have the advantage of power, are not affected fundamentally by a system of controls, whereas the people who have no power, those at the bottom end of the wage scale, are most grievously affected by controls.
I suggest that this situation has serious implications for peace, security and good order in this country. It is a concept that has a fair amount of jurisprudential history in our country and I am surprised that the minister, who in many areas has displayed some sensitivity, would have countenanced the order in council which declared that controls would be all right for the rest of us but would not in any way affect any increases the government itself wished to impose upon the Canadian people.
I think that as a result of that somewhat brutal and insensitive act the government went a long way to changing around the results of polls that were taken by the Canadian Research Centre for the CBC "Newsmagazine" program. The latest polls show that public support for the program has dropped radically. Now only one-third of those surveyed feel that the controls have been applied equitably and will be effective.
As I said a minute or two ago, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister repeatedly urged all of us to give the program our full support and confidence or it would not work. How can the Canadian public have confidence in a government which exhorts us all to fall within the ambit of the controls, and then in the next breath passes an order in council which says, in effect, "It's all right for everybody else, buster, but it is a different game for us. The government of Canada can increase fees and charges well beyond the guidelines. There is one law for all Canadians but not for the government of Canada".
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Donald Stovel Macdonald: That is not true, and the hon. member knows it.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: Perhaps the minister will want to speak again in a moment.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: With the hon. member's consent, may I speak?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: I have no power to give consent. If the minister wants to deny that the order in council was made-


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I would require unanimous consent to speak. Is the hon. member willing?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: I am prepared to, but there is a Chair and presumably the Chair is in charge of the proceedings. If you have a question, go ahead.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Is the hon. member permitting a question at this point or terminating his remarks?


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: I was in the middle of a speech. The hon. gentleman wanted the floor and I am doing my best to give him the floor.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I thank the hon. member very much. Let me point out to the House that the question whether or not the imposition of taxation should be applied both federally and provincially-because exactly the same provision under the agreements applies to the provincial governments as well as the federal-and whether or not it should be under the Anti-Inflation Board has been very much discussed in this House. It was the subject matter of a very full release by the government on January 15, and was the subject matter of questions answered by me in this House both during the time when Bill C-73 was going through the House and since.
The fact of the matter is that unlike the private sector, when a cost in the government service increases it has to be paid for. It does in other cases, too but in this case any cost increase does not come out of any Crown corporation's or anybody else's profit; it has to be paid for by the taxpayers. The question is, is it to be paid for by the user of the service, the person who parks at the airport or gets a passport, or should it be paid by the taxpayers generally?
Yesterday's Globe and Mail report, which I referred to as a false and misleading one, I repeat is just that. The fact of the matter is that we made this issue perfectly clear both before and after the issuance of the particular order in council referred to. We also made it clear that it was either a question of increasing the user fee, or taxation. Very obviously, under those circumstances a different set of criteria would apply to government than that which applies to a private party, who would have a choice as to whether to take it out of his pocket or not. That is the basic position. I know the hon. member may have been misled by the article, and I regret that; but I think that is a fair statement of the position.


Robert Gordon Lee Fairweather: I think that is wonderful, Mr. Speaker. It is great to have that statement in this debate. I was not misled by that article, but I was apparently misled by the government's injunctions and exhortations. I have certain-
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April 28, 1976
Anti-Inflation Act
ly been misled by an advertisement saying that the guidelines would apply evenly and fairly to everyone covered by law, including the government of Canada.
I am interested in the fact that whenever this government gets into trouble with its program, it gently passes the buck to the provinces. The provinces are made the whipping-boy for many of the frustrations of this government. I know that the provincial governments can look after themselves, but I happen to be deeply concerned about the public's conception of the fairness of the government of Canada and its ability, first of all, to get wide public support for controls about which, I say quite frankly, many of us fought an election. At the time the government was pretty cynical about them. Then it brought in controls and we were asked to live with them.
The next thing we learn is that various fees and charges made by the government, including postal charges, passport fees, and so on, are to be increased. It is not the passport and postage increases themselves that are the problem, though it is extraordinary to me how, on the one hand, the government can announce what purports to be a periodicals' policy for Canada, and in the next breath almost puts periodicals out of business by increasing postal rates-but that is an aside. The dilemma is that the public's perception of this program and the public's support for it are being diminished by the cynical attitude of the government which in December said that everything would be fair, even and above-board, and then in January exempted itself from its own regulations.
As I have said, I am deeply concerned about public attitude toward government and toward parliament. If the hon. gentleman is not, then he must be luckier than most of us because I can assure him that judging from the results of polls that I read about, whether in the Globe and Mail or elsewhere, there is a lot of disaffection in this land on the part of the public for government and parliament. I, for one, resent the fact that having spent all my working life trying to support the institution of democratic government, at this stage in my life I am finding-and I do not think we should all take this burden on our own shoulders-that the institution we serve is not perceived by the public to be a place where things happen that matter, that affect the individual citizen.
Although I am probably grossly out of order, except that this is part of the general trend of thought about public perceptions of government, I think in a way this accounts for the popularity of such television programs as "Ombudsman" and the fact that there are so many storefront organizations, as they are called, which have had to interpose themselves between members of parliament, the government and the citizen. I am not criticizing this and I do not think we should be surprised about this development, particularly with a government which does not even support its own advertising.
I am sure the interpretation by the Minister of Finance will grip all Canadian citizens when it is relayed to them in the next hour or so. Presumably the workers at the Irving Pulp and Paper Company will be reassured by the minister's message. Presumably the people of Thompson, Manitoba, who are to be gravely affected by the minister's

decision, along with the people of Elliot Lake and Sudbury, must feel much better now that the minister has interjected himself into this debate by saying everything is fine.
The point I am interjecting today is that if the Prime Minister and his government expect general and wide public support, then it has to be seen and believed by the public that the government is part and parcel of this anti-inflation program and that the Anti-Inflation Board is serious about getting inflation under control. The evidence is very strong, by poll and by individual contact that hon. members have with the public, that the public has not yet been persuaded the government is serious. The public has not yet been persuaded that it can support this scheme as being one fairly applied to Canadians from one coast to the other, by big and small corporations including the largest and most monolithic of them all, the government of Canada.


Cecil Morris Smith: It gives me great pleasure, Mr. Speaker, to speak on this amendment to Bill C-89 proposed by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens). It is my intention today, as it was yesterday when I proposed a motion under Standing Order 43 which this government did not see fit to accept, and when I asked questions similar to those asked by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser), to bring the minister up to date about the cost of living in the north. I really do not believe this government understands how the high cost of living in the north affects the citizens living there. They are there, trying to make a living by extracting the resources this country so badly needs.
Le me start by pointing out the location of Thompson, Manitoba. It seems to me the only time this government recognized there was a place called Thompson was during the 1974 campaign when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and five cabinet ministers paid it a visit in an attempt to win that seat for their candidate. Since then we have not had any representations from the government respecting the north. Thompson is over 500 miles north of Winnipeg. That is quite a distance to those people who are accustomed to travelling in that great corridor from Quebec to Windsor, and I can understand that they would not want to venture that far north.
When this government wants to extract the resources of the north it has no hesitation and no restraint whatsoever. Government forces move in and do the work necessary to take those resources out of the north. However, the government is not willing to put anything back into the north to support the people who are there and have made the north part of their lives. Thompson, Flin-Flon, Snow Lake, Leaf Rapids and Lynn Lake are all mining towns where 80 per cent of the payrolls are from mining. The headline in the Journal today suggested "This city will die" and referred specifically to towns like Thompson, Flin-Flon, Snow Lake, Leaf Rapids and Lynn Lake.
The Anti-Inflation Board recently rolled back an agreement between the International Nickel Company of Canada and the steelworkers of union branch 6166 in Thompson negotiated after many months. The workers felt they had put forward a clear and precise proposal. Built into the proposal were provisions to cover the extra costs to the people who live in the north. As I have said, Thompson is 500 miles north of Winnipeg, a good day's drive by
April 28, 1976

car. The return fare by air is $106. The cost of gasoline is now $1 a gallon, and I see that we can expect a further increase of 25 cents a gallon. The cost of living in the north is much higher than it is in Toronto. The minister was talking about the historical relationship of teachers in Toronto and the steelworkers in Thompson, but he is so far off base that it is obvious he does not know or understand the situation in the north.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Cecil Morris Smith: Let us take a brief look at hydro rates. They have increased by 25 per cent in the last six months in Manitoba. Heating costs have gone up out of all proportion in the past eight to ten months. In the north, people have to heat their homes for ten months of the year, unlike those in the south who heat just for six months. A normal heating bill in Thompson, Manitoba, using an oil-fired furnace in a three-bedroom home, runs from $750 to $850 a year. This is what the steelworkers of INCO meant when they talked about a historical relationship with Sudbury.
I could go on talking about the high cost of living in the north, including the cost of transportation and building costs. There are no controls whatsoever on building costs or on various other costs. All this government has done is impose a wage freeze without putting controls on prices. The steelworkers in Thompson say that they really did not support wage and price controls proposed by the Conservative party in 1974, but they say if they had they would be a lot better off than they are now. They are being hamstrung by the controls this government is imposing. The people in the north do not have access to specialized services. They must travel to one of the larger cities to see a specialist for their children, to look after their teeth or anything of a specialized nature.
I mentioned the historical relationship between Sudbury and Thompson. Thompson is a relatively new city, approximately 17 years old. The Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro) referred to the Falconbridge and Sudbury contracts. The Falconbridge contract was settled before the controls went into force, and the Falconbridge contract was settled after the Anti-Inflation Board was formed. The Anti-Inflation Board considered the Sudbury agreement and then looked at the contract Falconbridge was seeking. They said they had better take a close look at it because if they did not give Falconbridge a wage comparable to that given the workers at Sudbury, the workers would walk across the road and work at Sudbury. They gave them a raise comparable to that given the workers at Sudbury. The rollback proposed by the Anti-Inflation Board in respect of Thompson, Manitoba, is below the Sudbury rate.
Mr. Speaker, through you I ask the minister whether the cost of living in Sudbury is higher or lower than it is in Thompson. Anyone who has any knowledge of northern Canada or of northern Manitoba will know that the cost of living rate in the north is at least 15 per cent or 18 per cent higher than it is in Sudbury. I really cannot understand how he can say that there should be this rollback by the AIB in respect of a negotiated settlement which brings it to a point where it does not even meet the rising cost of
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inflation in the northern areas of the country. This makes a laughing stock of organized labour in the country. I can understand why they have no faith in this government.
Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you how concerned the people of Thompson are in this regard. They called a public meeting as of last Monday night. There were 500 people from the town of Thompson who attended that meeting. It was a well organized meeting. These people were serious. Let me give you an example of what one lady had to say. She said that they had moved to Thompson 18 years ago. They have made their roots in Thompson. They have five children. They have one income, and at the present time are just able to meet the payments on their home and their other commitments, plus the cost of raising a family.
She said that if the decision is not reversed and they have to live with the loss imposed on them by the AIB in respect of this rollback to 12.5 per cent the first year, they will have to pack up and leave Thompson. That leads me into something else that was said last night as recorded at page 12930 of Hansard when the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacDonald) was speaking. He was referring to a question asked by the hon. member for Vancouver South who was concerned about the work force leaving Thompson and going somewhere else. He said:
Where else-Snow Lake, Lynn Lake, or the other communities? If all those communities are restrained in the same way, to what avail is it to leave one for the other? That is the exact point of applying a general system of this kind to restrain incomes throughout the community.
Mr. Speaker, I ask whether this minister is so naive that he believes he can put a fence around a certain region of our country and say that if restraint is imposed in this area the people will not be able to leave and will not have a job. What will those people do? They will just quit their jobs if they cannot earn a living. They will move back to the area from which they came, probably somewhere in Ontario or in the maritimes, and will go back to living on unemployment insurance which this government hands out so freely without any control.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Nonsense.


Cecil Morris Smith: When the unemployment insurance runs out, the people will be forced to go on welfare. I think this is what the government wants them to do so that the government will have control over them.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Don't be silly.


Cecil Morris Smith: The government really feels it does not have too much control over the people living in the north and is damned well going to get that control by imposing this idiotic rollback on the workers in Thompson. That will happen not only in northern Manitoba but right across the north. The government wants to extract the resources of the north. The government exercises no control or restraint in respect of the money it spends in the north in attempting to extract the resources, but in respect of the people who were unemployed in the east and moved to the north to obtain employment, the government clamps down so that they cannot earn a decent living. As the heading in this article in the newspaper reads, "This city will die". I certainly commend this article by Victor Mackie which appeared in the Ottawa Journal of today.

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I close with a reminder that there will be a group of concerned business people and a cross-section of people from the north coming to Ottawa within the next couple of weeks. My only message to the government is that it had better have Bill C-89 cleared up before they arrive here.


Mr. Peter Elzinga (Pembina):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. MacFarlane) wishes to rise and make his maiden speech in the House. I hope to fashion my speech after the women's fashions by keeping it short enough to be interesting and long enough to cover the various points I wish to make.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the amendment that has been proposed by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens), the thrust of which is to limit this program which appears to be almost limitless. I should like to share with the House the wording of the amendment. It reads as follows:
That Bill C-89, an act to amend the Anti-Inflation Act, be amended in clause 11 by striking out lines 10 to 23 at page 7 and substituting the following therefor:
"(2) This Act expires on May 1, 1977, or on such earlier date as may be fixed by proclamation or a motion taken up and considered by the House of Commons that is adopted by the House and concurred in by the Senate pursuant to subsection (8) and (9) unless, before May 1, 1977, or any earlier date fixed by proclamation or any such motion that'is so adopted by the House and concurred in by the Senate, an order in council is made to the effect that this act shall continue in force for such period of time as may be set out in the order in council".
This amendment is consistent with what we advocated both in this House and during the election of 1974. It is the approach we took in respect of Bill C-73. Yesterday the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) stated that the hon. member for York-Simcoe was being rather contradictory in respect of his statements. I suggest that the minister look at the government's record to see how consistent it has been. We in this party might appear at times to be inconsistent, but one thing we are not is dishonest.
As I said earlier, the minister should look at some of the actions of the government. For the benefit of the minister I shall review some of these actions, because it appears to me that far too often the minister in charge of finance finds it acceptable to forget whatever he wishes to forget. During the election of 1974 we advocated a 90-day freeze on all commodities-a 90-day freeze with an 18-month period to follow with flexible controls. This is different from the policy brought forward by the Liberal party which proposes a 314-year policy with open-ended controls which could very easily lead us into having a country with almost dictatorial powers and a controlled society. Let me also stress it was our plan to break the psychology of inflation.
The two main planks in our platform during the 1974 election were government restraint and control of our money supply. I ask the minister if there is any government restraint in his program. We have had indications from all hon. members who have spoken against this bill that the government is not exercising any restraint, but that it asks the public to abide by an 8 per cent increase when the government's expenses will rise by about 18 per cent. How can the public have any faith in an administration that asks one thing of the public and does another

thing itself? There is no consistency in what the government does. In 1974 they campaigned bitterly against our suggested program of controls, yet a short while later we saw the implementation of a control policy without any government restraint or control of our money supply. This government's fiscal and monetary policies are working against the very goals of the program they are advocating.
I ask once again, where is the consistency in this government's action, when they are criticizing us for lack of it? The majority of economists agree that if a program such as this is to work, government restraint in spending and growth of our money supply have to be curbed.
Let me point out another clear indication of the inconsistency of this government. During the 1972 election we were the party that campaigned on the indexing of personal income taxes. We were the party that proposed a modest increase for pensioners. Hon. members opposite on a good many occasions have wanted to take credit for this program, and I commend this government for implementing a program along these lines when they were in a minority in parliament after the 1972 election. They instituted a program which we suggested in our campaign and for which they condemned us, yet when they were elected in 1972 with a minority government they brought in exactly what they had criticized us for advocating. Where is there consistency in that? The rules of the House do not allow me to express my true feelings for this administration and for the way they have dealt with the Canadian public.
A short while ago the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) quoted from an article which appeared in the Financial Times. The minister stated that the article distorted the truth. I think the minister is the man to state that this article distorts the truth, because in my view he knows what distortion of the truth is. The Financial Times stated that the survey they took showed that 69 per cent of the workers in the public sector had been allowed increases of 20 per cent or more, while raises for 79 per cent of the employees in the private sector had been held to 15 per cent or less. The hon. member for Edmonton West quoted most of the article, so rather than read it again I will merely suggest that if someone wants to do some good reading on the subject we are debating, he should read in Hansard the comments of the hon. member for Edmonton West this afternoon.
I find it extremely hard to understand, as do the majority of the Canadian public, how this government can expect the Canadian people to have any faith in it. During two consecutive elections they campaigned against the positive proposals which we put forward, yet directly after that time, when they were elected to govern the country, they implemented the same proposals. The hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Fairweather) did an excellent job in sharing his thoughts with hon. members with regard to the dissatisfaction of Canadian people with this institution. I can easily understand it, because the government has bred this type of feeling across the nation. Today, during the question period, our Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) gave the opposition some suggestions on how they could perhaps derive some truth out of this government, but I am afraid there is very little of that to be derived.


Mr. MacFarlane:: Nonsense.
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Peter Elzinga: Did the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain wish to take the floor?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Would the hon. member please address the Chair.


Peter Elzinga: Please accept my apologies, Mr. Speaker. When a noted individual across the aisle makes his intentions known, courtesy requires that I suggest he take the floor, with your permission, Mr. Speaker. Another example of the inconsistency of this government, their program and the amendment to it, is that on the implementation of this program it was stated that the AIB would have a staff of some 200 people. But six months after the program was put into effect, we find close to 600 people employed by the board. I ask the Minister of Finance, through you, Mr. Speaker, at what point will this increase stop? When will employment in government circles end? In six months we have seen a tripling in the size of the staff estimated by the government. It puzzles me how the government can come forward so often with figures such as this, and when the program is implemented the Canadian people are given a distorted picture. The public's faith will not be restored for this institution or for government so long as the present administration is in office.


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I have spoken on this bill before, as have many of my colleagues, but I welcome the opportunity to make a few brief comments about some of the elements that have come into play since this bill was last before the House and we last had the opportunity to discuss with members across the aisle some of the aspects of the anti-inflation program and particularly the amendments to the bill.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the amendments proposed deal with the appeal procedure which earlier was sadly lacking. One of the new elements that has been introduced into the debate since the bill was brought forward are the statements of the administrator whose appointment was made rather late. He said that anyone who comes before him must be prepared to suffer the consequences of his office adjusting the decision made by the Anti-Inflation Board. That is an interesting statement, because we do not have access to an appeal board, we do not have a man who allows or disallows an appeal or who reconfirms the judgment made by the lower tribunal, but he can go further and say that the lower tribunal missed something and that the rollback or the increase will have to be greater.
That is a strange situation. I have been trying to see whether in the Criminal Code or in any regulatory body that kind of power is bestowed upon an appeal tribunal. If the miners from Thompson, Manitoba, or the pulpworkers from the Irving complex come before the administrator, he might well decide that the lower tribunal was not right in making the adjustments it did, and he might come up with a worse decision than they were faced with at first. The administrator might use his all-powerful and almighty office to run the program further into the ground than it is now.
Many of my colleagues have said the program is not working. I say that it is working: it is working too well, because it is altering human behaviour in our country to
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quite an extent. It is establishing a degree of public cynicism such as we have never known in this country. The government is achieving a degree of public dissatisfaction and disaffection which it has probably never experienced before. Of course, we hope this kind of feeling will be reflected in the next election. But my colleagues and I are concerned because we probably have another two or three years to wait before the next election comes along, and of course this public cynicism and disaffection will rub off, not just on this incompetent government but on the whole political process and on all the agencies of government in which the people of Canada at one time had much confidence.
As I said the last time I had a chance to speak on this bill, I am particularly concerned about the dual standards which have been established as a result of this anti-inflation program. My hon. colleague from northern Manitoba has articulated to quite an extent how this program affects people in the outlying areas and northern areas of our country where the government has such a great influence. Here we have a minister who is practising restraint. He has sent letters to all government agencies throughout the country and told them to find where they can cut corners and make adjustments to their budgets in order to save money. Some civil servants run all over the country doing this, and they are striving to get to the top. That is only human nature. This happens everywhere. They invent all kinds of ways to cut corners.
For instance, when the district postmaster in Prince George received the minister's letter telling him that he should cut corners, where did he cut corners? There is a stretch along the Alaska Highway which is 1,200 miles long and there are about 27 mail stops along that stretch. The district postmaster sent an officer with a car and a helper to find out how many of these mail stops could be eliminated. They found that about seven of them could be eliminated. The mail truck goes up the highway and comes back down, and some of the mail stops which were eliminated are the ones where the truck driver stops for coffee and a snack. However, he could not open the truck and drop off the mail. The postal service there was not very good in any event. The driver merely dropped off the mail. But he could not even do that. He had to get back into his truck, drive another 35 miles and drop off the mail which, of course, necessitated everyone driving 35 miles to pick up their mail. With all respect to the Postmaster General (Mr. Mackasey), when I brought this matter to his attention, he saw how stupid and ridiculous it was, so that order has been rescinded.
However, these are the kinds of things which affect people in the north particularly. My colleague told us about some things which are going on with respect to insurance rates and government agencies which are just unbelievable. All of a sudden the government is on this kick that government services must be self-sustaining and that the users must pay the bill. When we talk about insurance rates-I am coming back to one particular insurance problem which exists in British Columbia-and particularly car insurance, people in the north have a higher accident rate. That is not because they are less competent or more reckless drivers, but because they spend more time in their automobiles.

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As my colleague said, some people in the north have to drive 130 miles to a hospital. They drive for shopping every day and to the post office because there are no mail deliveries. They have to drive their children to school because sometimes the temperature outside is 40 below. There is no rapid transit, so they use their automobiles more frequently. That is why there are more accidents.
Then the government imposed a further gasoline tax to show people how to practice restraint. That is the situation in the north where the automobile is as essential as the knife and spoon with which they eat. People in the north cannot live without automobiles. When the government practices conservation of energy reserves, who pays for it? The people in the north. The same is true of the effect of the excise tax on aircraft in the north. Another ridiculous thing the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) brought in is called landing fees for small aircraft. In the north the aircraft is as essential as the automobile. I, and I am sure several of my colleagues who are here at this moment, cannot get around our constituencies without a private aircraft because there are areas which cannot be reached by car; they are not accessible.
Let us consider that since we discussed this bill last time, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie) has announced the government's energy policy. That was yesterday. He told us that energy prices and the price of gasoline and heating oil will go up another 25 per cent by 1980. The government makes these decisions and the excuse it uses is that this is an essential public service and someone has to pay for it. Either we jack up the rate and make users pay, or it has to come out of general revenues, and eventually it filters back to the taxpayer anyway.
Not all the services this government provides are essential. In many areas, with 60 Crown corporations, the government is in direct competition with private enterprise. When we give CNR $200 million to run commuter trains, that does not help people in the north. But if we did not give CNR $200 million, I suppose the rates would have to go up and some taxpayers would have to pay more for travelling on trains. However, because the trains run between metropolitan areas along the American border we cannot upset the many taxpayers who live there, so we have to subsidize those rates. That is not important for the people in Thompson, Manitoba, Prince George, British Columbia or Gaspe. Certainly transportation is essential, but it is not so essential that if CNR employees went on strike all other private companies would also go on strike.
The question of essential public services should be discussed in this House and we should determine what an essential public service is. The other day someone asked what would happen in Lower Post, British Columbia, which is an isolated community, if the Post Office did not provide mail service. When the Post Office employees go on strike there is no mail in Lower Post, just as there is no mail in downtown Toronto. Who provides the local store with food? Private industry does that, and that never seems to be interrupted; everyone eats all the time. So in this modern day of industrial evolution and technological evolution, is the Post Office an essential public service? It used to be a crime to tamper with Her Majesty's mail; today postal workers walk out on strike and stay out for a

month and nobody misses them. These are the kind of things we have to put in proper perspective, Mr. Speaker.
The minister argues for a 150 per cent increase in hydro rates in the north by saying that if we do not increase the rates the moneys will have to come out of general revenue. But he is in direct competition with some private companies-and what are those private companies going to do? They are going to apply to the Anti-Inflation Board and ask for permission to increase their rates to match those of the government. Of course, the Anti-Inflation Board is going to tell them that they have to justify the increase and show that there has been an increase in their costs. The companies are going to take pains to do that. Perhaps they will be able to show a historical relationship with a government-owned company and maybe that historical relationship will apply as well to private industry as it does to labour, and so forth.
The whole thing does not make sense, Mr. Speaker. The government imposes an increase, and nobody tells them what to do. As a matter of fact, they are making deals with provincial governments, particularly those that are also in the business of maintaining a number of Crown corporations in every sector of the economy-the wood fibre industry and the service industries. There are all kinds of Crown corporations in competition with private enterprise. That is why we have no price control element in this program-because the government sets the standard, private industry follows and the Anti-Inflation Board has to stay away.
I should like to refer to a problem which I previously mentioned in this House in the question period. That is the problem of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.
I should like to read from an article which appeared in the Vancouver Sun early this year where the reporter responds to statements made by the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board, Mr. Pepin. The article begins:
Those pronouncements by Jean-Luc Pepin that Autoplan rates will be subjected to pencil-sharpened scrutiny from the Anti-Inflation Board deserve a little scrutiny of their own along with a lot of cynicism.
This reporter was kind. I have heard another report of a man who said the only reason he is not calling the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board a bare-faced liar is that he has a little moustache. The report continues:
Let's go back to December 23 ... where finance minister Donald Macdonald has his office.
That afternoon Macdonald was meeting other cabinet ministers, including two of his colleagues, labour minister John Munro and consumer affairs minister Andre Ouellet.
The other cabinet ministers were from B.C., finance minister Evan Wolfe, labour minister Allan Williams and consumer services minister Rafe Mair.
If Pepin had been a fly on the wall in Macdonald's office he might not be saying the things that appeared in Saturday's Vancouver Sun.
That is, that he was sharpening his pencil to roll back the increases of the insurance companies. The report continues:
At that point, December 23, the Social Credit government in B.C. was so young that it was hardly breathing. The three B.C. cabinet ministers had been sworn in the day before and their first course of action was to head for the Victoria airport and hop aboard a B.C. government jet for Ottawa.
April 28, 1976

The reason for the urgency concerned B.C.'s potential participation in the federal anti-inflation program.
At that meeting it became clear that the B.C. group had one major hang-up about joining the program and signing a contract with the board. The hang-up was ICBC and the rate hikes that were then in the works.
To put it mildly, B.C. was reluctant to sign on the dotted line when the signature could kill the upcoming boost in car insurance rates.
Mr. Speaker, British Columbia is not the only province to suffer these problems. All provinces have done their share in increasing the cost of their services and then running to the Anti-Inflation Board and saying that professional people, teachers, and so on, want higher wages and would the board come in and solve their political problems. I continue reading the article:
Macdonald and his group were also worried. The anti-inflation program was slow in starting and the change in B.C. threatened to pull that province back to October 13, which was when the anti-inflation program was first announced. Now Macdonald was threatened with the possibility of B.C. balking over ICBC.
With both Wolfe and Macdonald worried, the two ministers came to a quick understanding. If B.C. joined the program, the federal government would not allow the anti-inflation program to interfere with increases in ICBC rates.
This was not an implicit understanding or a vague promise by Macdonald to do everything he could. It was a carte blanche undertaking from the federal Minister of Finance to exempt ICBC from the anti-inflation guidelines.
This verbal pact had been checked and conformed through both parties.
So when Premier Bill Bennett, who has given a record quick commitment to the anti-inflation program, says he is confident ICBC's increases will be approved, he is not talking glibly.
Somebody should tell Pepin to forget his analysing, his pencil-sharpening and his standing on toes over ICBC because its rates have already been approved by a higher authority.
Mr. Speaker, would it be fair to ask the minister just what authority he exercises over the chairman of the anti-inflation program? What backroom deals has he made with the province of British Columbia or any other province? What deals have been made to protect agencies of government such as Crown corporations against the impact and authority that is provided to the Anti-Inflation Board in this bill? There is no way that Canadians will put up with this kind of skullduggery any longer, Mr. Speaker, and there is no way that this government can earn the confidence of the people with actions like this.
The program in British Columbia is not yet in operation and nobody knows where they stand. The small businessman protects himself and so do the large corporations. They formerly engaged people to walk through the plant to see what areas could be made more efficient. Now they are walking through the plant to see where additional costs have occurred which can be demonstrated to the AntiInflation Board so that prices can be increased every four months. That is the new regulation, Mr. Speaker. Prices are not just increased once a year any more; they are increased every four months. Any businessman who does not do that would need his head examined, because if he does not increase prices this period he will not know where the goal posts will be next time around. So every three months businessmen will jack up their prices, particularly in businesses where energy resources are dispensed.
Yesterday the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources laid out certain guidelines which showed the discretion
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businessmen will have to increase prices by 25 per cent by 1980. Anyone in business with control over the pricing and marketing of his product would be very foolish if he did not increase prices in accordance with those guidelines.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his allotted time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: No, sir.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: The hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald).


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the amending bill we are considering today deals with the substance of the dispute raised last October 13, when the government announced its anti-inflation program, by the previous leader of my party and other Progressive Conservatives. We were, and are, concerned about the lack of effective government programs for halting the inflation besetting our country and, indeed, a number of other countries in the western world. The government's attempt to justify the unjustifiable is disappointing, especially if we bear in mind that as long ago as 1968 the government promised that it would do its best effectively to attack regional economic and social disparities in this country.
Hon. members who were here in 1965 will remember how the government acted in its previous attempt at restraint. The government attempted to restrain prices, but we remember how insensitive and inappropriate government policy was on matters affecting regional economic development. We remember how the government attempted, or did not attempt, to restrain its own spending in that period. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) did not then occupy his portfolio, but he was a member of parliament. He will remember, no doubt, that the cabinet ignored the advice of the then leader of the opposition, other members of my party and people outside this House. In 1969 we told the government that inflation did not affect us all uniformly. The problem was not monolithic. Inflation did not work the same way in Toronto, Ontario, as in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. But the government chose to ignore advice which came from respected and influential persons.


Herb Breau: That is not true, I suggest.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: With respect, it is true. I shall be delighted to hear the hon. member from New Brunswick defend the government's program of that period.


Herb Breau: Is the hon. member encouraging a filibuster?


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: No, I am not, and I do not think any member on this side wants to filibuster.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I suggest that the hon. member should address the Chair and speak to Bill C-89.
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David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I am always delighted to discuss these questions with my hon. friend from New Brunswick. He and I share a community of interest with respect to federal government policy.


Herb Breau: About 40 miles separate us.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: We are about 40 miles apart. We are both concerned about federal policies affecting the economic and social betterment of peoples living in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
Important lessons are to be learned from the earlier attempt at restraint. Unfortunately, those lessons have not been absorbed, as is evident if one examines the government's present anti-inflation program and its attempts to restrict federal expenditures. Let me cite two examples to show that the government has failed to co-ordinate its cornerstone policies for social and economic development. Yesterday, when making his statement-I call it a nonstatement-on energy policy, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie) in no way came to grips with rapidly growing energy costs, electrical costs in particular, in Atlantic Canada. Two days earlier we heard that there was to be a 60 per cent increase-


Herb Breau: No.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have not heard the hon. member speak in this debate. He does not agree with facts. But they are on record. I mentioned the minister's statement of yesterday. It is recorded in Hansard. I was about to mention the 60 per cent increase in transport action costs, announced earlier this week, affecting Prince Edward Island. Do hon. members opposite wish to disagree with the announcement of the Minister of Transport concerning increased transportation costs?


Herb Breau: Mr. Speaker, will the hon. member permit a question? Is the hon. member not aware that the government of Canada is participating financially, to the tune of 50 per cent, in supplying a transmission line to Prince Edward Island and will also pay 50 per cent of the financing of the nuclear power plant in New Brunswick?


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to say that I am aware of both those programs. The minister mentioned both in the short question period which followed his announcement yesterday. Neither program, I suggest, will resolve the kind of problems to which I have alluded. Should we not be concerned about them? Is that not what this debate is all about?


An hon. Member:: No.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I am sorry; I thought it was.


Mr. Cafik:: Why not talk on the bill and the amendment?


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I thought I was sticking to the bill. I hope hon. members opposite understand exactly what I am talking about.


Herb Breau: We can't hear you.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I am sorry the hon. member opposite cannot hear me. I am talking about the economic
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner).]
burden being borne by the people of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. As well, I must mention the cost differentials which must be borne by people in Atlantic Canada. Present federal government policies are exacerbating the situation in Atlantic Canada and promoting the continuation of these cost differentials. I see the hon. member smiling but I know that he agrees with much of what I say.


Herb Breau: I support government policies.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: How can the hon. member suggest that government policies are helping to alleviate the unbelievably high unemployment in Atlantic Canada, including his area and many parts of my province, where last winter and up to the present unemployment in some regions has run at between 25 per cent and 30 per cent? I would dearly love to hear the hon. member explain how the federal government's anti-inflation announcement of October, its restraint program of December, together with and compounded by present levels of inflation in Atlantic Canada, will reduce our high levels of unemployment.


Herb Breau: I did not say that.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I did not think the hon. member said it and he will not be saying it, because what I have mentioned is a fact of life in Atlantic Canada, as the hon. member well knows. This matter falls under the purview of the amendment we are considering, inasmuch as the continuance of present government programs will defeat the federal government's basic commitment to the elimination of regional economic and social disparity. The government elected in 1968 was committed to eliminating regional disparities. It established the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. For the last two or three years the department has administered a budget of over $500 million in trying to solve the difficulties of the Atlantic provinces, parts of Quebec and some northern parts of the western provinces.
The irony of it is this: we, as members of parliament, are committed to maintain a certain level of expenditure in disadvantaged areas. At the same time, present government programs are making it increasingly difficult for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion to administer its own programs effectively. It will be increasingly difficult for members of parliament to defend programs administered by the Department of Regional Economic Expansion unless the department's programs are coordinated with other major programs of the government. I am thinking particularly of the two programs we are discussing this afternoon, the anti-inflation program and its companion program to do with restraint in spending announced by the Treasury Board last December.
While we are giving with one hand and taking away with the other we are in a self-defeating situation and we are certainly undermining any advance which has been made with respect to closing the gaps in income standards, employment opportunities, and so on. It is crucial that the Minister of Finance and his colleagues realize the implications of what they are asking us to do.
April 28, 1976

The motion put forward by my hon. friend from York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) attempts at least to apply some measure of reality with respect to the continuance of a program whose benefits, whatever they might be, cannot be expected to continue for an indefinite period. As a number of speakers have well stated, we face a major difficulty here. It is one thing for the minister to introduce a program which will last for up to three years. It is quite another for the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to indicate subsequently, along with the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board, that the program of controls is not really a short-term program-if one can refer to three years as being a short period-but that it might be prolonged to become a more comprehensive system of economic controls than anything we have so far experienced.
All members realize that an economy such as ours is not one which operates on an eighteenth century or nineteenth century laissez-faire model. On the other hand, if the government is planning to change substantially the rules under which a mixed economy such as ours operates, then surely it should not do so unilaterally and, in particular, it ought not to do so on the pretext of dealing with one particular phenomenon, namely, inflation. That is the difficulty we face under the present program and its continuance for three years.
Economists not only in our own country but in countries which have had a good deal of experience in the operation of anti-inflation programs concede that such programs are indeed useful during periods in which the fires of inflation appear to be out of control, in periods when great damage is done, particularly to those living on low or fixed incomes. But it has also been concluded by a number of these economic experts that controls exercised for too long a period not only destroy the traditional economic pattern but are extremely harmful to the very people they are supposed to benefit.
This brings me back once again to the people I represent, to those who have to live in areas of great regional disparity, far from the centres of the decision-making goes on with respect to economic policy, people who far too often become the victims of the heavily centralist approach which is so involved in programs of the kind we are considering today. To my mind, the remarks of Jean-Luc Pepin and the remarks made by the Prime Minister have been in no way helpful to the credibility of the scheme for which the Minister of Finance is directly responsible. It must have been chilling for members to read the statement of the Canadian Labour Congress in the annual report and recommendations made to the Prime Minister and members of the cabinet. What disturbed me was not only the rhetoric contained in that document and the extent to which a significant section of the economy so totally rejected the government's program, but the degree to which neither side appeared able to engage in a useful conversation with the other.
We live in a time of very large institutions. We in this chamber do not have to ask ourselves how large the institution of government has become. We are well aware of it. We are also well aware of the strength of the big corporations. One of the other major segments of our society is organized labour. It is not as large here as it is in Britain or in certain other European countries, but it is certainly a
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significant factor. The degree to which the unions find the present program filled with injustice convinces me that it is not good enough for the government to ride roughshod over this basic antipathy, nor is it good enough to believe that a program such as this should be allowed to continue longer than is absolutely necessary.
From the outset, the Minister of Finance has not been able to produce any objective argument in support of his contention that three years is the correct period, the period necessary if the program is to achieve whatever virtues it is expected to produce. The motion which has been placed before us deals realistically with a predicament which must surely have occurred to members on the government side. What I am saying is that, particularly with respect to Atlantic Canada, the longer the anti-inflation program continues the less likelihood we have of getting away from the kind of centralized decisions which have not been helpful in the past. It is obvious that a program which looks at things, presumably, from a national perspective but becomes greatly coloured by the influence of the central regions is slow to take into account particular problems in Atlantic Canada or in the Atlantic portion of Quebec or in western Canada.
I trust hon. members will reflect on this aspect because there has not been a great deal of discussion so far on the impact of anti-inflation policy on regional development. I have attempted during the last few months to put questions to various ministers with respect to this matter. I believe it is incumbent, particularly upon the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, not simply to make recommendations in the secrecy of cabinet but to state publicly from time to time his views as to the real impact of the anti-inflation program on the effective reduction of regional disparity. This is necessary if the minister's own credibility and the credibility of his department are to be maintained. In the absence of such an assurance we shall find it most difficult in the future to defend any commitment made by the present government or any other with respect to making the reduction of regional economic and social discrepancies a cornerstone of the federal position.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, members of the New Democratic Party in Parliament have opposed the government's so-called anti-inflation program from the day the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) first announced his intention to go ahead with it. We said then that the program would not work because it was inequitable and that because it was not equitable the people of Canada would not, in the long run, support it. The other night on "News magazine" we heard the results of a poll conducted by the CBC which substantiated precisely what we had said would happen. In November of 1975 the CBC conducted a poll which showed that 61 per cent of the people supported the idea of wage and price controls. Six months later the proportion which supported controls had dropped to 53 per cent. To another question as to whether the people believed controls were being applied fairly or not, two thirds of the people polled indicated that they did not believe the government's control program was being conducted fairly for all people.
The Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) and sundry other cabinet ministers, both in
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speeches in this House and in cities across the country, have said that the people of Canada as a whole support the government's program, but that a few rabble-rousing labour leaders are trying to stir up opposition among their members to the government's program so as to destroy it. It is interesting to look at what is actually happening, Mr. Speaker. Who is actually opposing the government's wage and price controls, not just in speeches and in resolutions but by actually stopping work? It is not the blue-collar workers, the steelworkers, the autoworkers or the railway workers who have belonged to unions for 25 years or more. It is the teachers, the nurses, the policemen in New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan. These groups, which a few years ago would have killed anybody who suggested that they belonged to the labour movement, have gone on strike and refused to accept the wage increases offered to them by their employers. They are saying in a graphic way that they are not going to accept the government's anti-inflation program.
The Minister of Finance should ask himself why it is that these white-collar workers, most of whom would consider themselves part of the middle class, are so militant. Why are they refusing-I am sure the minister would agree-to be good citizens? Why are they refusing to work despite the laws that this parliament has passed? They are refusing to work because their day to day experiences tell them that the anti-inflation program is nothing more nor less than a program to control wages and salaries. One has only to look at the fact that yesterday the Anti-Inflation Board approved an increase of one cent on a gallon of oil for two of the oil companies in the country. Similar approval was given a week or two ago to Imperial Oil.
Natural gas prices have gone up by about 30 per cent. If we can believe the policy statement tabled yesterday by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie), the price will probably go up by 25 cents within the next couple of years, as will the price of oil. The cost of electric power has gone up. In Nova Scotia the price has virtually doubled within the last year. Municipal taxes in city after city are increasing by as much as 20 per cent. Housing costs are to go up, probably by another 10 per cent this year. The Anti-Inflation Board, which has been preening itself about how the cost of food has gone down, yesterday announced that food will increase in cost by 3 to 4 per cent in the next couple of months.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder that the ordinary people of this country are saying that the anti-inflation program is not working and that they are not going to support it? Even though we oppose the whole program and the way in which it is being administered, we did support the minister when finally, after a great deal of urging, having refused to face up to the unfairness of the situation, he brought in this bill permitting groups of workers who feel that a decision of the Anti-Inflation Board is unfair to them, to appeal. Yesterday the administrator of the antiinflation program made a speech in Edmonton in which, interestingly enough, he came down hard on workers in this country. I must say it was made to a very non-partisan organization, the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce.


Steve Eugene Paproski: What have you got against Edmonton?


David Orlikow: I have nothing against Edmonton.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Then what have you got against the Chamber of Commerce?


David Orlikow: I have nothing against the Chamber of Commerce. They are good people and I give them a good deal of credit for defending the rights of their members, businessmen who are interested in getting work done, and in paying labour-I do not blame them for this-as little as they can get them to accept. After all, that is their job, just as it is the job of the labour unions to get for their members as much pay per hour as they can from the employer. So I make no criticism of the Chamber of Commerce.
Let me quote from a report of what Mr. Tansley, the administrator of the Anti-Inflation Board, said in his speech to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce. According to today's Globe and Mail he warned the unions that his role as enforcer of the government's control program may require him to set tougher limits on wage increases than those allowed by the Anti-Inflation Board. Later in his speech he said:
Unless their case is strong the parties seeking a reference run the risk of ending up with less than the Anti-Inflation Board is willing to grant.
He said those comments applied equally to prices, profits and dividends but were aimed primarily at the trade unions and the more controversial issue of wage controls. To whom, Mr. Speaker, is it more controversial? Are wage controls more controversial than price increases? When the administrator makes that kind of comment I suggest he has virtually ruled himself out as an impartial judge.
I am much more concerned with the fact that the AntiInflation Board permitted a sharp increase in the price of cement in the city of Winnipeg a month or two ago. When I wrote to the chairman of the Anti-Inflation Board he did not even do me the courtesy of replying to my letter. I am much more concerned about the second increase in the price of copper which the Anti-Inflation Board permitted this week than I am in any increase in wages. I am much more concerned about the increase in the price of oil that was permitted last week than I am about the increase in wages. Yet the administrator does not seem to be concerned about those matters; he is concerned about wage increases.
Let me say something about wage increases, Mr. Speaker. I want to refer to a speech reported in today's Toronto Star given by the Minister of Finance in which he showed his complete ignorance of the working conditions and needs not just of workers but of companies in this country. One of the biggest producers of foreign exchange in Canada is the mining industry. One of the biggest corporations in this country is International Nickel, which has an operation in Sudbury and in Thompson.
Traditionally, the wages paid at the two operations in Sudbury and Thompson have been the same. The Sudbury workers and their union reached an agreement with INCO just before the anti-inflation program was brought down. The Thompson workers did not. They reached an agreement a few weeks ago which gave them the same wage rate as the Sudbury workers. The Anti-Inflation Board which received that application from the union and the company
April 28, 1976

turned down the agreement and said that the company and the union would have to accept a reduction in wages. The minister is quoted in the Toronto Star as saying he agreed.
The INCO operation in Thompson employs about 2,800 workers. Last year International Nickel hired 3,100 workers. In other words, there was a turnover of more than 100 per cent. Who goes there and does not stay? I suggest it is single people who do not have any roots and probably live in company bunkhouses. If the Anti-Inflation Board decision is upheld, what will happen in the course of the next year is that the INCO operation will probably be short somewhere between 200 and 300 workers and the company will not be able to produce all the nickel possible which it could export at a good price. The minister thinks that is a very good idea, which indicates to me the minister has not the slightest concept of what is going on in this country or what are its needs.
The same thing is true at Elliot Lake. Hardly a week goes by when we do not read news stories and reports of discussions in the Ontario legislature about the dangers of working in the uranium mine at Elliot Lake and about the possibility of getting cancer being 200 or 300 per cent higher than in respect of workers anywhere else. Obviously, the workers at Elliot Lake and their union people think they should get some compensation for that danger. The company agreed partly because this was right and partly because of its knowledge that if it did not pay the same wages as those paid at Sault Ste. Marie or Sudbury they would not get the workers.
The Anti-Inflation Board has ordered that the wages be shaved. If that situation is allowed to exist and the wages in Elliot Lake are lower than at Sudbury or Sault Ste. Marie, it will mean that the company will not have the workers it needs to produce the uranium which I presume is required for those generating plants in Ontario and the United States which use that product in the production of electrical power.
Again we have this incredible decision by the Anti-Inflation Board backed by the Minister of Finance with his usual ignorance of the realities of life. I have to assume that on the basis of the statement made by the administrator this decision will likely be backed by him. If that is the way the administrator is going to deal with cases which come before him, we are not going to have much in the way of industrial peace in this country in the next year.
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There is one other matter about which I should like some enlightenment before I vote on this bill. At page 3 of the bill, in clause 4(2) it is provided:
"(1.2) For the purposes of paragraph (1) (d.l), the parties entitled to advise the board of their dissatisfaction with a notification from the board and thereby entitled to require the board to refer a matter to the administrator for consideration by him, are
(a) where the notification relates to a price or profits, the supplier
who is charging or is proposing to charge the price or whose profits
are in question;
It then goes on to talk about wage increases. If the administrator is to do the job, and if the public is to accept that the administrator and the program are fair, the administrator should be given the job of dealing with wage increases. I believe he should also be given the job of looking at price increases approved by the Anti-Inflation Board. A consumer, myself or anyone else, should be able to appeal to the administrator to look at high price increases approved by the Anti-Inflation Board.
The workers who produce copper have had their wage increases monitored and there is a limit to what they can get. Why should a company which purchases that copper for use in one of its products not have the right to appeal to the administrator to look into the two price increases that have taken place in just over a month which the AntiInflation Board has permitted?
There is no indication that the companies are not making a fair profit on their sales of copper in Canada. I have no objection to the companies charging every penny the international market will support for copper exported, but I do not think Canadian copper should be sold to the United States at less than U.S. copper, Chilean copper or Zambian copper. I see no reason why the Anti-Inflation Board should have permitted the two increases of almost 10 per cent in the price of copper in just over a month. I should like to appeal to the administrator to look at this. I hope he will be as tough in looking at that increase in price as he threatens to be in respect of increases in wages.
Because I have so little faith in the government's program I intend to support the subamendment put forward by the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broad-bent) which calls for the ending of the program on May 1 of this year. Failing that, I will vote for the Conservative amendment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: It being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, April 29, 1976