1976-12-01

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
{Translating

Mr. Jacques Lavoie (Hochelaga):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, 1 request the unanimous consent of the House to discuss a matter of pressing necessity.
Considering that a person over 65 receives the old age security pension and that his or her spouse who is at least 60 receives the spouse allowance; considering also that when a pensioner over 65 dies, his or her spouse who is under 65 loses this vested right and goes back on social welfare, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle):
That the Minister of National Health and Welfare should correct this situation so that senior citizens who receive the spouse allowance retain this vested right.


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


Some hon. Members:: No.


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: There not being unanimous consent, the motion cannot be put.


ROYAL COMMISSIONS
Mr. John Reynolds (Burnaby-Richmond-Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the obviously high priority the government has placed on the royal commission of inquiry on financial organization and accountability, since we have already had one resignation based on the position in which one of the nominees found himself because of past associations and since Mr. O. G. Stoner was deputy minister of transport at a time when very unorthodox tendering procedures were directed between Mr. Matchett of Cara and Mr. Bellehumeur of Kebec Restaurants, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn):
That the President of the Treasury Board make a statement on motions concerning Mr. Stoner's continued participation in this royal commission.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Such motion pursuant to Standing Order 43 cannot be presented to the House without its unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SUGGESTED CONTINUATION OF BUSINESS IN ABSENCE OF MEMBER FOR WINNIPEG NORTH CENTRE-MOTION UNDER S O.
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I too, rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Although the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is not able to be with us this afternoon, I should like to move that the House proceed with business as usual.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


NORTHERN CANADA POWER COMMISSION
Mr. Wally Firth (Northwest Territories):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the Northern Canada Power Commission's decision to increase its rates for Yellowknife by 89 per cent and make this increase retroactive to November 15, and as the residents of Yellowknife already pay some of the highest power rates in Canada, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn):
That the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development see to it that these rates are rolled back to a reasonable level.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

December 1, 1976
Oral Questions


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS ESTABLISHMENT OF COMMITTEE TO STUDY STATUS OF FRANCOPHONE MINORITIES OUTSIDE QUEBEC-MOTION UNDER
Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the new situation brought about at the national level by election results in Quebec, and considering that francophone minorities in all other provinces are still in a precarious condition and that the federal government must protect the interests of those minorities, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard):
That a House committee be set up to look into the real situation of those minorities at the present time to determine the way they foresee their future.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: There not being unanimous consent, the motion cannot be put.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Prime Minister I will direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister. In view of the extremely controversial and relevant questions which have occupied the House of Commons relating to past dealings between Crown corporations and foreign customers and the possibility of tax evasion, will the Acting Prime Minister bring the House up to date on the current situation concerning the multimillion dollar projects in Venezuela which involve such Crown owned corporations as Air Canada and CNR? Specifically, can he advise whether he and his cabinet colleagues have been given any guidance or, indeed, have been kept fully briefed about the dealings involving the Venezuela bidding? What agent or agents are being used and what will the agents commission be on the potential billion dollar project?


Hon. Ron Basford (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I understand the Prime Minister will be here shortly. The question might well be directed to him at that time.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: In that case, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I might defer my supplementary question.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. Member for Oshawa-Whitby.


John Edward Broadbent: I, too, will wait for the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker.


TRANSPORT
Mr. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Yesterday members of parliament of all parties from British Columbia received information that the joint agreement between Coast Ferries Limited and Rivtow Straits Limited has now broken up. Can the minister advise what arrangement he or the government have made to ensure that the coast traffic, which the minister's action of some months ago seemed to jeopardize to an incredible degree, will finally be put back on a proper basis for the citizens of the coastal ports of British Columbia?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I have not yet had a chance to focus on that statement of fact with regard to the relationship of these two companies. I should say to the hon. member that the greater part of the involvement of Coast Ferries was in an area of service which has never had a subsidy. That was one the critical questions facing us as a matter of policy, the extent to which subsidized and non-subsidized ferries could be operating side by side.


John Allen Fraser: Every one who has looked into this issue on the west coast has agreed that the service was effective until the minister meddled and that it is now non-effective. Has the minister received any official word or taken cognizance of any official word that this joint enterprise has broken up? Does the minister have a statement to make to the people of British Columbia who are dependent upon that service which is now in jeopardy?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, as I said in my first answer, the service in which Coast Ferries was involved was essentially a non-subsidized service. That, of course, was a problem that we foresaw. Of course, there will always be difficulties in the transport of goods by water and to remote areas and the challenges of trying to do it effectively. The point that we were trying to accomplish was better total transportation facilities for that area over a period of time by ceasing to expend large amounts of money on annual subsidies for particular types of movement in the face of development of some alternatives which are probably cost effective. That means they can produce far better transportation for those people involved over a period of time if we spend on such things as airports, navigational aids and the like.
December 1, 1976


John Allen Fraser: Now that the minister has explained the objectives of this whole exercise, will he state exactly what the government is now going to do to repair the damage that has been done? That is what the people of British Columbia want to know.


Otto Emil Lang: I am expecting later this day a report from an official who has been surveying the entire scene of the current new operation. Naturally, and I hope hon. members will understand this, as one moves into a new type of service one can encounter special difficulties which can be overcome in time. What the hon. member is rejecting, I suppose, is the notion that a subsidy of $4 million for a service might not be the best way of spending the money. I hope he will realize that if we go on subsidizing services in the transportation field in ways which are less than the most effective, we end up doing a great deal of disservice to the people of Canada.


INCREASE IN PASSENGER RATES ON BRITISH COLUMBIA COASTAL FERRIES-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: A further question to the Minister of Transport. On November 3 the hon. gentleman announced a new and improved shipping service in British Columbia and said in the statement that Rivtow Straits had announced a tariff compatible with that of Northland Navigation and promised to hold the tariff rate while experience was gained. According to the statement, no major increase was foreseen. Since that announcement was made, the cost from Prince Rupert to the Queen Charlottes has gone up by 150 per cent. How does the minister reconcile this with his promise?


Otto Emil Lang: That is not a fact in terms of ordinary passenger travel where I am told the rate is what it was previously. The hon. member is a day late with the point raised yesterday by the member for Dartmouth-Halifax East, and he is referring to the same specific item in a newspaper which I have not been able to track down. If he has any additional information, I would be glad to receive it.


Benno Friesen: In the same statement, the Minister of Transport said the change would result in a saving to the taxpayer. I would like him to explain to the people of Queen Charlotte just who, among the taxpayers, are going to save.


Otto Emil Lang: That is a fundamental point. Each time a subsidy is removed the people who are getting the benefit of the subsidy do not like the change but in total all the taxpayers are paying dearly because of the many subsidies, sometimes involving an inappropriate use of funds, which exist.
Oral Questions


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, may I repeat my question to the Prime Minister? In view of the controversial and relevant questions which have occupied the House of Commons in relation to business dealings between Crown corporations and foreign customers and the possibility of tax evasion, would the right hon. gentleman bring the House up to date on the current situation concerning the multimillion dollar projects in Venezuela which involve Crown corporations such as Air Canada and the CNR? Has he or have his cabinet colleagues given any advice or guidance? Have they been kept fully briefed about the dealings involving the Venezuelan bidding and can he tell the House what agents are being used and what the agents' commission will be on this potential billion dollar project?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: I do know there is a Canadian consortium which is interested in bidding on this multimillion dollar project in Venezuela. I believe the deadlines are some time around December 6. Therefore, the matter will have to be dealt with immediately if a proposal is to be put in by the Canadian applicants. I do not have any details. I do not know whether an agency is included in the arrangements. I will find out. I would just indicate to the hon. member that the relevant point to my mind would not be whether there is an agent or not. I would imagine that a lot of enterprises have to act through local agents. The relevant question would be whether the agent is doing anything illegal or improper on behalf of the corporation. I do not even know whether there is that kind of agent involved.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: May I thank the Prime Minister for his answer and ask this supplementary question. Since he is reported to have shown a fair amount of interest in this particular transaction, as he should, and since he himself promised in September of this year more financial backing to consortiums such as this, can the Prime Minister advise the House to what extent the government is pledged to provide financial assistance to this particular consortium?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the transaction is that in order to proceed there would have to be a very large guarantee, backed by the government of Canada, should the project not be profitable. I believe that is the matter being discussed between ministers and with the consortium itself. Of course, in order to promote Canadian exports and manufacturing it has been our policy to encourage Canadians to seek contracts abroad, particularly this type of contract which would involve very heavy offsets, I believe, for Canada in the order of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of sales of Canadian goods and services.
The government has been trying to encourage both private and public companies to involve themselves in such proposals. Indeed, as the hon. member recalls, when I went to Venezuela

December 1, 1976
Oral Questions
11 months ago it was on my agenda to indicate Canada's interest in bidding in such enterprises. Our bids, I believe, are being prepared, as I say, within a week or so and we have to be satisfied whether or not we will put them in. Whether or not there will be an agent and whether we could proceed without an agent is a matter, I suppose, that the bidders themselves would have to ascertain. If they are fairly cautious they probably should go without an agent, which probably would mean that they would lose the bid.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the current concern of the House and the fact that the Prime Minister was aware of questionable dealings involving Crown corporations, is the Prime Minister saying that he has not been fully briefed on this particular subject respecting the use of agents?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John Allen Fraser: No answer.


CROWN CORPORATIONS' BID ON VENEZUELAN PROJECT-REQUEST FOR ASSURANCE NO IMPROPER AGENCY FEES
Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of this matter, and in view of the fact that it has been extremely difficult to elicit any information from the Canaven project chiefs-I myself tried this morning, without any success-I wonder whether the Prime Minister could assure the House and the people of Canada that all of the Canadian companies involved in the Canaven project are receiving the maximum possible encouragement and legitimate help of the government of Canada; and in view of the fact that there is massive unemployment in different parts of the country which could be alleviated to some extent if the Canaven consortium is successful in their bid, would the Prime Minister assure the House at this time that no arrangement has been entered into, either expressed or implied, by any of the participants in the consortium related to any unusual payment of agent's fees or any tax concessions which might be repugnant to Venezuela?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, 1 am not quite sure whether I can help the member with my answer. On the one hand, he seems to indicate that because of unemployment and other factors we should do our utmost to get this bid; on the other hand, he is suggesting that we do not employ an agent. It seems to me that the question of the agent is not whether there is one or not but rather whether he and the consortium are doing anything illegal. I repeat what 1 said in the House yesterday, that the government would not permit or would not want any illegality, kickbacks, briberies or graft to be embarked upon by any Crown corporation or any of their agents. That has been the position of the government. On the question of fact as to whether there has been any such impropriety in regard to the other case which has been discussed, the Minister of Finance and myself read at length the Auditor's report, who certified that there had been no such illegal act, bribe, graft or kickback. That is the situation.


CROWN CORPORATIONS' BID ON VENEZUELAN PROJECT-REQUEST FOR DETAILS CONNECTED WITH USE OF AGENT
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: One final supplementary, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Prime Minister for his reassuring answer and suggest to him that, of course, we want to see everything done to facilitate the success of the Canaven project. However, I want to ask most seriously, if the Prime Minister does not have the information now, will he attempt to report to the House the identity of the agent or agents being used, the date that they were retained, the amount of service they have performed to date, the amount of fees, which I think is very relevant, and whether any of those fees have been advanced?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not know whether such information can be given during the question period.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: No, he didn't ask for information.


PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. The Public Accounts Committee is currently investigating the rather curious financial transactions of the Polymer Corporation involving certain numbered Swiss bank accounts. After the Prime Minister received notification of this some three and a half years ago he requested the then President of the Treasury Board to conduct an investigation into this situation, a situation which is now being investigated by the Public Accounts Committee. I would ask the Prime Minister whether he regards the presence on that committee of the present hon. member for Westmount to constitute in any sense a conflict of interest in that he would presumably be asking himself questions about his own part in the affair?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, 1 have not discussed the matter with the hon. member for Westmount. I do not know the details of this, but offhand it would seem to me that he should be made as welcome on that committee as any other member who would want to sit on the Public Accounts Committee and serve Canada as a parliamentarian, with the usual proviso, which comes under our guidelines for members of parliament, that if a particular matter, such as the Polymer subject, is raised before that committee and in respect of which he is suspect or accused of having any conflict of interest position he would withdraw from that item. I see no reason for him to withdraw from parliament or from the committee when it is dealing with other subjects.
December 1, 1976


POLYSAR
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, 1 should also like to direct a question to the Prime Minister with reference to his request to the former President of the Treasury Board some three and a half years ago to investigate what the Prime Minister regarded as an extremely serious and potentially embarrassing situation. Does the Prime Minister regard the course of action taken by the President of the Treasury Board at that time, namely, making only one telephone call to an important official of the company, but not having consulted at all with the former Auditor General who drew the matter to the Prime Minister's attention in the first place, as being sufficient action over the three and a half year period of time to constitute an adequate investigation into this matter?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, there seems to be some argumentative aspect to this question which I have answered in the past several days several times. May I repeat that the test should not be whether one telephone call or 50 were necessary. The test should be whether the telephone call produced the intended result, and from all the evidence we have it did. The telephone call brought forth the evidence that the subject had been raised by the former Auditor General who, let us not forget, signed the audited books and the report of Polymer; the matter had been discussed with Mr. Hampson, President of the DC, the disagreement between Mr. Hampson and the auditors, Peat, Marwick and Mitchell, and he challenged Mr. Henderson to disagree if he thought there was something untoward. Not only was there no disagreement, Mr. Henderson signed the audited books and the auditor's report for that particular year, and the leader of the NDP can see that. Having obtained those results from one phone call, I do not see why the hon. member argues that perhaps 50 phone calls would have been better.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I say with serious respect that I think the Prime Minister has missed the point. The former Auditor General wrote to the Prime Minister after he had signed the report to which the Prime Minister has just referred. It was after he had conversations with the officials and the accountants that he still had reservations from a moral point of view, and possibly a legal point of view, which were outside his jurisdiction as an Auditor which lead to his letter to the Prime Minister. It is obvious that the Prime Minister does not care one whit about the morality of the practice so I will not repeat the question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, that statement-


Mr. Speaker:: There is at the moment no supplementary question on the floor.
Oral Questions


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Manpower and Immigration being absent, I would like to address my question to the minister in charge of this department.
Since the Superior Court has maintained the ruling given by the board of referees that any person aged 65 or more and receiving unemployment insurance benefits before January 1, 1976 would, in spite of the new Unemployment Insurance Act, retain all his or her rights, would the minister in charge of the department involved tell the House whether he will consider giving directions to his officials so that the people who have been suspended may recover the benefits they have lost as soon as possible?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, I take note of the question and will draw his attention to it and ask him to answer the hon. member as soon as possible.


ALLEGED LACK OF SPACE FOR DOMESTIC GRAIN IN MONTREAL ELEVATORS
Mr. Albert Bechard (Bonaventure-!les-de-la-Madeleine):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport, who is responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board.
Could the minister tell the House whether he received from l'Association professionnelle des meuniers du Quebec a telegram vigourously protesting against the privileged situation of export grain in Montreal port elevators while ships loaded with grain for the domestic market are waiting, thus threatening eastern farm producers with insufficient supply during the winter months and also with increased prices, which they will have to pay in the end? If he did receive that telegram, what action does he intend to take to reassure eastern farm producers?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, such a telegram has just arrived in my hands. It somewhat contradicts a prospective analysis of the situation which seems to indicate there would be no great problem in providing space for this domestic grain which will arrive. I will check into the situation immediately. I believe at this point in time it would be a temporary situation. Vessels arriving for grain to be moved out of the terminal elevators at Montreal will soon allow for that domestic grain to be placed in.

Oral Questions


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
[Stage Direction]
December 1, 1976

Mr. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to those asked by my colleagues from Vegreville and Central Nova and relates to the Canaven negotiation in which the Prime Minister himself in September, as my colleague from Vegreville indicated, became involved by personally promising more federal financial backing in this matter. Given the prevailing interest in agency arrangements involving Crown corporations and the possible effect upon Canada's international reputation of this kind of arrangement, will the Prime Minister tell the House whether he has sought and received a full briefing on all the agent arrangements and other aspects of the Canaven negotiations.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in answer to an earlier question, this matter was discussed between other ministers and myself several weeks ago. It was at that time I believe 1 was reminded of the deadline of early December. The question at that time was the extent of the exposure of the Canadian government in any unsuccessful conclusion of the operation.
Certainly what I said in September still stands; that is, we want to encourage this project and even involve ourselves in some risk as it concerns the question of viable economic fall-out for Canada and I believe this procedure is reciprocated by the Venezuelan government which would be interested in seeing Canada get the contract. This approach was discussed in my presence as late as a few weeks ago. The specific subject of agencies and agents was not brought up at that time. I am reminded now by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce that it would appear to be the Venezuelan government itself which insists that an agent be hired, and if we are not to hire an agent I understand we can forget about bidding for the contract.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that historic answer to a question which was not asked. My question had to do with whether or not the Prime Minister, in light of the new and prevailing interest created by the Auditor General's reports relating to agents involved in Canadian Crown corporations, has acted to inform himself on all aspects of agent arrangements involving Canadian Crown corporations involved in the Canaven venture. If he has not, will he tell us why and will he also-


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: It is quite legitimate.


Charles Joseph Clark: Will he also, after he has taken that initiative, if he has been delinquent in doing it to this date, give an undertaking now that he will reply in a formal way in this House to the specific questions asked by the hon. member for Central Nova.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I take very strong exception to the question indicating delinquency on my part because I did not look on a day-to-day basis into every aspect of every contract negotiated abroad by Canadian people.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, is it then an interpretation which the Prime Minister will accept that his refusal to answer the questions which I and my colleagues have placed on this matter means that he has not, despite the current controversy and special attention given to agency arrangements involving Crown corporations, looked into the implications of agency arrangements entered into by Crown corporations in a matter in which by his own admission last September the Prime Minister has taken a personal interest? Is it fair to conclude he has not carried out his responsibility,-


An hon. Member:: Right on.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: -and will the Prime Minister do the House of Commons the courtesy-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It seems to me that the Leader of the Opposition is about to repeat his question.


Walter David Baker: It has to be repeated.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It is impossible for me to rule on the question because I cannot hear it.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I never repeat questions that are answered. I should like to ask the Prime Minister if he would pay the House of Commons the simple courtesy of inquiring into this matter and replying tomorrow to the specific questions posed by the hon. member for Central Nova, and also advise the House in detail of the implications for Canada and our international reputation of any agency involvement with Canadian Crown corporations in this matter.


Mr. Hees:: Just answer yes or no.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes or no.


An hon. Member:: Shame on you.


George Harris Hees: A petulant little boy.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


POST OFFICE
Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. In view of the Postmas-

December 1, 1976

ter General's statement at the Canadian Postal Users Conference that management has broken the spirit of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers contract and that management would have to become less autocratic, why did the Postmaster General allow the Post Office management to take such dogmatic positions at the mediation table, eventually forcing the mediator, Noel Hall, to leave? Is one to assume that the Post Office is trying to break the union through confrontation?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Postmaster General: Mr. Speaker, there is no assumption that can be made on the facts that have transpired since I have taken this responsibility. I take some issue with the premise at the end of the hon. member's question. I did not state there had been a breach of the terms of the contract. The mediation has broken down, which is a fact to be regretted. I hope that the consultation which has been undertaken by the Post Office with CUPW will continue and that the long-term problems in the Post Office, and especially in our relationship with CUPW, will be resolved. I hope the hon. member will join me in that particular hope.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: Bring back Bryce.


Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: Hope springs external, Mr. Speaker. In light of the CUPW president's statement this morning that the only alternative to more strikes in the Post Office is the government's willingness to live up to its agreements, and that according to both Mr. Davidson and the Postmaster General- who did say this in his speech to the Canadian Postal Users Conference-the spirit of the contract had been broken, what steps is the Postmaster General prepared to take to ensure that there will not be a repeat of last year's crippling disruptions in mail service and delivery? In other words, is he willing to meet with the president of CUPW? We discovered this morning that he had only met for a half hour session with that gentleman since he assumed the portfolio.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Mr. Blais:: That information is inaccurate, Mr. Speaker, 1 have met with Mr. Davidson on two occasions.


An hon. Member:: Fifteen minutes each.


Jean-Jacques Blais: I believe that in labour relations there is no benefit to be gained from having discussions in the public arena.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Jacques Blais: I have resolved to let the professionals on both sides deal with the issues in a professional way, and that is the way 1 intend to pursue the matter, out of the glare of publicity. I hope I will get the co-operation of hon. gentlemen in doing that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions


An hon. Member:: That is not like Mackasey.


Mr. Horner:: Bring back Bryce.


ALLEGED BREAKING OF CONTRACT BY HIRING CASUALS
Walter Gilbert Dinsdale: As a final supplementary question I should like to ask whether, given the assurance that members of the official opposition have always shown responsibility in these matters, the Postmaster General could explain why the Post Office has hired over 4,000 casuals, many occupying positions which are classified as permanent. Does this not violate the spirit of the contract with CUPW?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Postmaster General: The facts behind the statement that was made this morning in the press release are being reviewed. I have no further comment to make on that.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. In view of the obvious concern with respect to the use of secret accounts in Switzerland, as revealed in the Polysar debate, would the Prime Minister indicate if the government will reconsider proceeding with passage of the Swiss part of Bill C-12, which is a ratification of the treaty with Switzerland which facilitates the use of that country in a much more relaxed way as a tax haven in relation to Canada?


Mr. Bob Kaplan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, this subject has been discussed in committee and the opinion was expressed at that time that far from making it easier, it would make it more difficult for taxes to be evaded once the Swiss treaty has been entered into.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the Prime Minister. As in the committee to which the parliamentary secretary has referred it was made quite clear that under this treaty we do not have any access to information pertaining to numbered accounts, would the Prime Minister indicate why he feels it necessary for Canada to become a party to such a treaty, which in effect condones the use of such unsavoury practices which obviously result in one law for the rich-at least those rich enough to use this facility-and another law for the poor?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Hon. members are aware of the considerable advantages to be obtained from a treaty with a country such as Switzerland which has substantial funds available for investment in other countries if a taxation agreement can be entered into to avoid double taxation. The problems which the hon. member has referred to are minimized by the agreement that

December 1, 1976
Ora! Questions
was entered into, and this is being discussed fully in the committee.


TREATY WITH SWITZERLAND ON DOUBLE TAXATION-PROPOSED DELAY IN RATIFICATION UNTIL INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON NUMBERED ACCOUNTS
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary is directed to the Prime Minister, and I would appreciate it if the Prime Minister would answer it. If the Prime Minister feels it is necessary to proceed with this Swiss-Canadian double taxation treaty, would he consider delaying the ratification of such a treaty until such time as we may be assured that relevant information behind Swiss numbered accounts will be made available to our authorities who may be in pursuit of tax evasion?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, in order to give proper consideration to that question, I would like to know one thing-and I am not asking the hon. member a question but perhaps, after the House adjourns, he could add to this question. We have double taxation treaties with literally dozens of countries, and I have always been enjoined to go ahead with such treaties in order to permit more investments between Canada and other countries, more exchange of investments and a fair treatment of our corporations and citizens so that they should not be subjected to double taxation. If the hon. member wants us to suspend this particular treaty, I would be interested to know whether he would like us also to suspend all other such treaties?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


NORTHERN CANADA POWER COMMISSION
Walter (Wally) Firth: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. In view of the recent news reports that the Northern Canada Power Commission is going ahead with its proposed 89 per cent power rate increases to the residents of Yellowknife, retroactive to November 15, can the minister inform the House if the rate increases are in line with the recommendations contained in the task force report, and did the minister himself approve these power rate increases?


An hon. Member:: That is a crime.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, the House will recall that several weeks ago the Northern Canada Power Commission announced new rates for Yellowknife and applied to AIB to see if the proposed rates were in order. At that time AIB asked NCPC to hold these increased rates until I had received the task force report on this matter, and then to apply again. I received the report last week, and now NCPC have announced

they will go ahead once more, but I was told just before the question period that AIB has asked NCPC once more to hold back their proposed rates. It is not clear whether NCPC will oblige and, if they do not, the matter may have to be referred to the Administrator. I have not approved the rates and I am still studying the options put forward in the report, although the report does not offer too much hope.


REQUEST FOR TABLING OF TASK FORCE REPORT
Mr. Doug Neil (Moose Jaw):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. He referred to the report of the task force. Is he prepared to table that report in the House and refer it to the Standing Committee?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, when my estimates were being discussed the other day in the committee of the whole House, I said I would make the report public. It is presently being translated but if the House or committee feels it should be tabled before the translation is made I would be willing to table it.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Frank Maine (Wellington):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and a supplementary for the Minister of National Defence. I should like to ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce whether, in view of the fact that General Electric Company of London, England, the United Kingdom parent of Canadian Marconi Company, has apparently decided to ignore the guidelines established by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce for good Canadian corporate behaviour through its decision to fire the Canadian vice-president in charge of research and development and prevent Canadian Marconi Company from profiting by its excellent research work in the field of aviation electronics, the minister will take steps to ensure that this company will receive no further government assistance until it demonstrates its intention to behave as a good corporate citizen?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I have already looked into this matter and sought information. My early information is that the layoff has been made for no other reason jhan this: the company has judged that the person concerned was not performing his duties satisfactorily, and this had nothing to do with government guidelines. Still I have asked my officials to make a more detailed inquiry, and if this firing has really been
December 1, 1976

made for considerations other than those I have indicated, we will take the necessary action.


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Within a few days of the minister transferring to the portfolio he now holds he went to Venezuela specifically in relation to this billion dollar railroad construction project that was discussed earlier. In view of the fact that the Venezuelan government insists upon some type of very strict guarantee in regard to bidders, and in view of the fact that the Prime Minister indicated on Monday next the bids close, surely the Canadian government involvement-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Would the hon. Minister kindly tell the House today just what is the extent of the financial involvement in that project by the Canadian government?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, there is no final decision on that. I understand that the Canaven people met yesterday and they are talking with the people of my department today. I intend to inform the Cabinet tomorrow of the nature of the bid. I understand it is impossible to meet all the requirements of the Venezuelan government and it is likely that the bid will not comply completely with all the terms. I hope the government of Venezuela will accept it. I should like to inform the House at the same time that when I was in Venezuela to talk about the railway, at the request of the Ontario government I made representations to help an Ontario Crown corporation to get a contract for developing a metro in Caracas.


CROWN CORPORATIONS' BID ON VENEZUELAN PROJECT-APPOINTMENT OF AGENT AND AMOUNT OF FEE
Allan Frederick Lawrence: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that the railway project in Venezuela is quite different from the subway project referred to by the minister, and in view of the fact that there is some indication that an agent is required by the Venezuelan government in respect of the railroad even though the UDCI, which is the Ontario Crown corporation on the subway, has not had to appoint an agent, I wonder if the minister could tell the House today if he is aware of the appointment of an agent by the Canadian consortium and if it is true that the fees for that amount to 5 per cent of the contract which amounts to $50 million?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to inform the House
Oral Questions
that no agent has been appointed at this time. If there is an agent for either the metro or railway I gave instructions to my department that everything should be in the form of a contract, and everything should be paid above the table and that all the-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I should like to point out to hon. members of this House, especially members of the Official Opposition, that the minister of industry in Ontario was quite worried about the kind of debate we are having because most of the trade abroad is done by industry from the province of Ontario.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In light of the fact that the United States has consummated an agreement with Mexico for the exchange of prisoners, namely American prisoners for Mexican prisoners may I ask whether negotiations are going on between Canada and Mexico for either an exchange of prisoners or a return of prisoners to Canada so that they can be incarcerated under conditions fit for human beings, or the release of prisoners now held in Mexico?


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I answered this question in part the other day and I am glad to amplify that response today. We have had discussions, first of all, with the United States as a result of an initiative taken by Canada for the exchange of parolees. It began with a discussion on the exchange of parolees between Canada and the United States. While those discussions were going on it became apparent it would make sense to extend those arrangements or negotiations to cover prisoners from each country. Simultaneously, the United States was negotiating with Mexico. We have now instructed our ambassador in Mexico to involve himself in those discussions as well, with a view to seeing if we can get the same kind of arrangement between Mexico and Canada as now appears to be just about concluded between the United States and Mexico.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the minister for that answer and put a supplementary question to him. On October 27, at page 505 of Hansard I asked the government House leader, who was the Acting Prime Minister on that day, about Canadians being held in Mexican jails with or without charges. At the same time, I asked him to provide a list of Canadian prisoners held in the said jails and to supply information as to what charges were laid. May I ask the minister, after a month, if he has obtained that information and if he could supply it to me by letter giving the names, the

December 1, 1976
Oral Questions
kind of charges that were laid, the conditions under which the prisoners are held and also information on prisoners being held without charges being laid at all?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, I can assist the hon. member to some degree, but I suppose it would be a matter of judgment as to the kind of conditions in which these prisoners are being held. Obviously, we made representations frequently on behalf of Canadian prisoners in Mexico, as in other countries, asking for an improvement in their condition. To the extent that our ambassador or representative advises on jail conditions in Mexico, I will do that.
I have looked carefully at the hon. member's request with regard to the submission of names and 1 should like to discuss the matter privately with him. 1 am not at all sure that it would be appropriate for us to do that in the circumstances. In many instances there could conceivably be embarrassment to families. I think I can go so far as to say on some occasions at least persons incarcerated, whether properly or improperly, in Mexico and elsewhere do not wish to have that information publicized. I would be glad to discuss an appropriate way of giving legitimate information, but I should like hon. members to examine the question of whether disclosure of names of prisoners in other countries is desirable.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Cecil Smith (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. It is my understanding that his department will be moving their offices from Ottawa to Hull in the near future. I have two questions. I should like to ask the minister whether the Indian people were consulted prior to this decision being reached and also, is this move part of the government's decentralization program?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member put these questions to me in committee yesterday but I shall answer them again. This is the plan of the Treasury Board and not my department. They do have a plan that we should move our offices to Hull in due course and 1 do not think that plan was made in consultation with the Indian people.
(Mr. Woolliams.)



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
First Report of Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence-Mr. Prud'homme.
(Editor's Note: For text of above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.)

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Ralph E. Goodale (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 42, 62, 285, 312, 313, 318, 321, 361, 449, 450, 451, 453, 454, 489, 491, 492, 588, 589 and 978.


POLICY ON ORDER PAPER QUESTIONS
Mr. Cossitt: What is the government's policy to having answers to questions on the Order Paper made Orders for Returns?


Ralph Goodale: See Standing Order 39(4) of the House of Commons.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Did RCMP officers Lawrence Lafonde and John Tyler visit the home of Mr. Greg Robinson of Toronto on or about the evening of June 21, 1976 and, if so (a) what was the purpose of the visit (b) were they seeking information from Mr. Robinson concerning two United States diplomats presently in Canada, namely Mr. F. Pierce Olson stationed at the American Consulate in Toronto and Mr. Daroslav S. Vlahovich presently stationed at the American Consulate in Winnipeg and, if so (i) for what reason (ii) who authorized or ordered an investigation into these two individuals or their activities and on what date was such an investigation authorized?
2.	Did the investigation in any way involve allegations of former Communist associations on the part of the diplomats and, if so, what are all the details?


Hon. Francis Fox (Solicitor General):: 1. Yes. (a) To inquire about the existence of a chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom in Toronto, (b) No. (i) and (ii) Not applicable.
2. No.
December 1, 1976


Mr. Huntington: 1.	Is there any cost to the government, its agencies or Crown corporations for the study being conducted by the Fludson Institute of Canada Ltd. entitled "An Inventory of Priority Industrial Projects for Algeria" and, if so (a) what government department, agency or Crown corporation is involved (b) what is the (i) estimated (ii) final cost?
2.	Is CNR participating in the "Future of Canada" study being undertaken by the Hudson Institute of Canada Ltd. and, if so, in what amount?


Ralph Goodale: 1. No.
2. The Management of the Canadian National Railways advises as follows: Yes, $25,000.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	(a) Who is the Deputy Director, Interpretation, of the Anti-Inflation Board (b) what is the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?
2.	(a) What previous position in the Public Service did he or she hold (b) what was the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: 1. (a) D. Creech; (b)(i) SX1; (ii) $27,500-536,500.
2. (a) Consumer and Corporate Affairs; (b)(i) C04; (ii) $27,338-534,026.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	(a) Who is the Director, Monitoring Division, of the Anti-Inflation Board (b) what is the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?
2.	(a) What previous position in the Public Service did he or she hold (b) what was the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: 1. (a) D. Boulter; (b)(i) SX1; (ii) $27,500-536,500 (the position is classified as SX2 $31,500-541,500).
2. (a) Statistics Canada; (b)(i) ES5; (ii) $29,840-536,840.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	(a) Who are the Deputy Director/Generals, of the Anti-Inflation Board (b) what are the (i) classifications (ii) salaries or salary ranges of the positions?
2.	(a) What previous positions in the Public Service did each hold (b) what were the (i) classifications (ii) salaries or salary ranges of the positions?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Compensation Branch: 1. (a) G. Orser; (b)(i) SX2; (ii) $31,500-541,500.
2. (a) Chief, Manpower Policy Group Treasury Board; (b)(i) SX1; (ii) $27,500-536,500.
Prices and Profits: 1. (a) E. Clark-Seconded; (b)(i) ES3; (ii) $28,034-531,377.
2.	(a) Department of Finance; (b)(i) ES3; (ii)


[Stage Direction]
Order Paper Questions A1B-OVERTIME PAY FOR EMPLOYEES
Mr. Orlikow: How many employees of the Anti-Inflation Board in the annual salary range of (a) $10,000 to $15,000 (b) $15,000 to $20,000 (c) $20,000 to $25,000 (d) $25,000 to $30,000 (e) $30,000 or more have made claims for overtime pay for each month since employed by the Board and what was the amount in each case?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Overtime Claims of Anti-Inflation Board Employees Salary Ranges 1976
$10,000	$15,000	$20,000	$25,000	$30,000to $15,000	to $20,000	to $25,000	to $30,000	or moreFebruary $3,496.81 (28)	$ 617.04 (5)	March $ 843.74 (12)	$ 945.04 (3)	April $6,135.35 (28)	$1,661.71 (9)	May $4,381.33 (43)	$ 711.59 (5)	$186.52 (1)	June $3,509.46 (23)	$1,552.43 (11)	$1,600.70 (2)	$230.41 (1)	July $1,680.67 (20)	$1,178.42 (4)	$ 745.65 (3)	August $4,346.66 (28)	$2,557.68 (12)	$1,211.45 (4)	September $2,835.33 (46)	$4,380.70 (16)	$ 890.51 (3)	$117.03 (1)


Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): 1.	(a) As of December 31, 1974, what was the Canadian money supply (b) of what did it consist?
2.	Of the total amount, how many billions came from (a) the Bank of Canada (b) chartered banks?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: 1. (a) As of December 31st, 1974, the Canadian money supply was $15,772,000,000 for currency and demand deposits and $57,442,000,000 for currency and privately held deposits, (b) The first definition of the money supply is currency outside banks and chartered bank demand deposits. The second definition includes currency outside banks and privately held chartered bank deposits.
2. First definition: Currency outside banks (a Liabilities item of the Bank of Canada's Balance Sheet), $5,868,000,000; Chartered bank demand deposits, $9,904,000,000; Second definition: Currency outside banks (a Liabilities item of the Bank of Canada's Balance Sheet), $5,868,000,000; Privately held chartered bank deposits, $51,574,000,000.

December 1, 1976
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Bath Institution and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?


Mr. Art Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General):: note: This Institution opened in 1972. (a) 1972: One Classification Officer, (i) BA, BSW. (ii) Transferred from Millhaven Institution. School Teacher, Kingston, (iii) $11,236-$12,767. 1973: One Classification Officer, (i) and (ii) see 1972. (iii) $ 12,416-$ 14,108. 1974: Three Classification Officers. (i) and (ii) see 1972. (iii) $13,658-515,519. (i) BA. (ii) Graduate from Carleton University, Ottawa, (iii) $13,658-$15,519. (i) BA. (ii) Former School Teacher in several Ontario schools, (iii) $13,658-515,519. 1975: Three Classification Officers, (i), (ii) and (iii) see 1974; (i), (ii) and (iii) see 1974; (i), (ii) and (iii) see 1974. (b) None.


Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Saskatchewan Farm Annex and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?


Arthur John (Art) Lee: (a) 1970: One Classification Officer, (i) BA. (ii) Teacher, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, (iii) $10,143-$ 11,525. 1971: One Classification Officer, (i) and (ii) see 1970. (iii) $10,701-$12,159. 1972: Two Classification Officers. No. 1 (i) and (ii) see 1970. (iii) $11,236-512,767. No. 2 (i) BA. (ii) Student, University of Saskatchewan graduate Summer Student jobs, (iii) $9,236-511,107. 1973: Two Classification Officers. No. 1 (i) and (ii) see 1970. (iii) $12,416-514,108. No. 2 (i) and (ii) see 1972, No. 2; (iii) $10,305-512,273. 1974: Three Classification Officers. No. 1 (i) and (ii) see 1970; (iii) $13,658-515,519. No. 2 (i) and (ii) see 1972, No. 2; (iii) $1 1,336-513,500. No. 3 (i) Grade 12; (ii) Farm Assistant, Saskatchewan Penitentiary; (iii) $9,052-511,913. 1975: Three Classification Officers. No. 1 (i), (ii) and (iii) see 1974. No. 2 (i), (ii) and (iii) see 1974. No. 3 (i), (ii) and (iii) see 1974. (b) None.


Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Landry Crossing Correctional Camp and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?


Arthur John (Art) Lee: 
Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Montee St. Francis and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?


Arthur John (Art) Lee: (a) 1970 and 1971: One Classification Officer, (i) BA; (ii) Transferred from St. Vincent de Paul. Served in Quebec Provincial Corrections; (iii) 1970, $10,143-511,525; 1971, $10,701-312,159. 1972: Two Classification Officers, (i) and
(ii)	see 1970; (iii) $11,236-$ 12,767. (i) Grade 12; (ii) Correctional Officer, Leclerc Institution. Courses in Social Work;
(iii)	$11,236-512,767. 1973: One Classification Officer, (i) Grade 12; (ii) Correctional Officer, Leclerc Institution. Courses in Social Work; (iii) $12,416-514,108. 1974: Three Classification Officers, (i) and (ii) see 1973; (iii) $13,658-$15,519. (i) BA; (ii) Teacher, Ste. Therese College; (iii) $13,658-515,519. (i) BA; (ii) University of Laval (direct entry); (iii) $13,658-515,519. 1975: Four Classification Officers. (i) BSC; (ii) Transferred from Federal Training Centre. Professor at Laval University; (iii) $15,886-518,052. (i) Grade 13; (ii) Living Unit Officer, Correctional Officer, Leclerc Institution; (iii) $13,658-515,519. (i) BA; (ii) Graduate student, Laval University; (iii) $13,658-515,519. (i) BA; MA; (ii) Department of Health, Province of Quebec; (iii) $ 13,658-$ 15,519. (b) None.


Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Ontario Pre-release Hostel and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?


Arthur John (Art) Lee: Nil. Note: This Hostel was opened in 1973 and was known as the Portsmouth Release Centre. In 1974, its name was changed to the Pre-Release Hostel, Kingston.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	(a) Who is the Administrative Officer of the Anti-Inflation Board (b) what is the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?
2.	(a) What previous position in the Public Service did he or she hold (b) what was the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: There are no positions with the Anti-Inflation Board carrying this title. See answer to Question No. 304.
December 1, 1976


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	(a) Who is the Deputy Administrator, Prices and Profits, of the Anti-Inflation Board (b) what is the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?
2.	(a) What previous position in the Public Service did he or she hold (b) what was the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: There is no position with the Anti-Inflation Board carrying this title.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	(a) Who is the Deputy Administrator, Compensation, of the Anti-Inflation Board (b) what is the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?
2.	(a) What previous position in the Public Service did he or she hold (b) what was the (i) classification (ii) salary or salary range of the position?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: There is no position with the Anti-Inflation Board carrying this title.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	On (a) April 30, 1975 (b) April 30, 1970, how many classified positions existed in each department at the A1-9 level?
2.	By department, of the authorized positions in the category, how many incumbents occupied the positions on (a) April 30, 1975 (b) April 30, 1970 whose annual salary was more than $27,500?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (President of the Treasury Board):: 1. (a) The number of classified0' AI 9 positions by Department as of March 31, 1975 was: Transport Canada 9. (Information retrieved from quarterly-end of March-report), (b) No reliable data is available for April 30, 1970.
2. (a) The number of incumbents occupying the positions in 1(a) whose annual salary was greater than $27,500 was 4. (b) No reliable data is available for April 30, 1970.
(" Classified positions in some cases may not be consistent with the man-years allocated to department. Source: Official Language Information Sub-System, Treasury Board Secretariat. Master Output Support File, Supply and Services, Canada.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	On (a) April 30, 1975 (b) April 30, 1970, how many classified positions existed in each department at the AI-8 level?
2.	By department, of the authorized positions in the category, how many incumbents occupied the positions on (a) April 30, 1975 (b) April 30, 1970 whose annual salary was more than $27,500?


Robert Knight Andras: 
Mr. Beatty: What are the names of (a) advisory committees (b) boards (c) corporations (d) institutes (e) tribunals (f) other special-purpose bodies funded by the government and, in each case (i) under what statute was the body created (ii) what is its purpose and function (iii) what is its annual budget (iv) what number of paid employees are on each?


Ralph Goodale: The answer to this question can be found by referring to the Blue Book of Estimates and the book entitled "The Organization of the Government of Canada 1976".


QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS
Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, if questions No. 125, 447, 448, 452, 610 and 885 could be made orders for returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.
I Text]


NATIONAL SIGNAGE PROGRAMME
Mr. Darling: 1.	On what date was the National Signage Programme established and by whose authority?
2.	What criteria were used to establish the list of geographic priorities for installation of the new bilingual signs?
3.	How many persons are involved in the programme in its entirety, i.e., administrative, information, advertising, production, etc?
4.	What is the total estimated cost of the Programme?
5.	What department or agency assumed the function assigned to the now-defunct Information Canada in the original Programme flow-chart?
6.	(a) What companies are, or have been, involved in the production of signs installed, on premises occupied by government agencies (b) what are these addresses (c) were tenders called and if not, for what reason?
7.	Will the new bilingual signs be identical in every way, in all provinces and if not, for what reason?
Return tabled.

December 1, 1976
Order Paper Questions


CLASSIFICATION OFFICERS COLLINS BAY INSTITUTION
Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Collins Bay Institution and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?
Return tabled.


CLASSIFICATION OFFICERS WARKWORTH INSTITUTION
Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at Warkworth Institution and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?
Return tabled.


CLASSIFICATION OFFICERS-LF.CLERC
Mr. Hnatyshyn: For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of (a) full-time (b) part-time classification officers at LcClerc and, in each case, what were their (i) educational qualifications (ii) previous work experiences in Canada (iii) individual salaries?
Return tabled.


DEPARTMENT OF SUPPLY AND SERVICES-REGIONAL OFFICES
Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich): 1.	(a) How many regional offices arc maintained by the Department of Supply and Services (b) where is each located (c) for what area is each responsible?
2.	On what date was each established and with how many personnel?
3.	What is the present personnel strength of each office?
4.	In addition to regional offices, are district or other sub-offices maintained and, if so (a) in what locations (b) how many?
5.	Are the duties performed by those manning the regional and/or district offices line functions, in the chain of command from Ottawa to the operator in the field, or do they have other functions to perform and, if so, what are such functions?
Return tabled.


PUBLIC SERVANTS CONFLICT OF INTEREST GUIDELINES
Mr. MacKay: L Since January 1, 1972, was authorization given by any official of Statistics Canada to any employee or to any organization in which one or more employees had an interest, to engage in activities for private gain outside of official duties and, if so (a) what were the (i) names and official titles of the persons giving such authorization (ii) names of the persons or organizations receiving such authorization (b) on what date (c) in each case, what was the activity authorized?
2. (a) How many employees have disclosed to date, as required by the Public Servants Conflict of Interest Guidelines (Canada Gazette, January 9, 1974) their business, commercial or financial interests where such interests might conceivably be construed as being in actual or potential conflict with their official duties (b) how many such employees held positions (i) which were designated as management (i.e. management exclusion) (ii) with salaries above $25,000 annually?

3.	As a result of disclosure under the Guidelines, how many employees were found to have been in conflict of interest situations and, in each case, what steps were taken to remedy the situation?
4.	Since January 9, 1974, were any cases discovered of employees who were in an actual or potential conflict of interest situation and had not declared such a situation and, if so, what are their names?
5.	Since January 9, 1974, were any cases discovered of employees having a pecuniary interest that could conflict, in any manner, with the discharge of their official duties and, if so (a) what are their names (b) what was the nature of the conflict (c) what action was taken in each case?
6.	Since January 9, 1974, were any cases discovered of employees benefitting or appearing to benefit, from the use of information acquired during the course of their official duties which information was not generally available to the public and, if so (a) what are their names (b) what was the nature of the benefit (c) what action was taken in each case?
7.	Since January 9, 1974, were any cases discovered of employees who were in a position where they could have derived any direct or indirect benefit or interest from any government contract over which they could influence decisions and, if so (a) what are their names (b) what was the nature of the benefit (c) what action was taken in each case?
8.	Since January 9, 1974, were any cases discovered of employees who held outside offices or employment that could have placed on them demands inconsistent with their official duties, or could have called into question their capacity to perform those duties in an objective manner and, if so (a) what are their names (b) what was the nature of the office or employment (c) what action was taken in each case?
9.	Since January 9, 1974, were any cases discovered of employees who accorded, in the performance of their official duties, preferential treatment to relatives or friends or to organizations in which they or their relatives or friends had an interest, financial or otherwise and, if so (a) what are their names (b) what was the nature of the preferential treatment (c) what action was taken in each case?
10.	What steps have been taken to ensure that all employees comply with the Public Servants Conflict of Interest Guidelines?
11.	As of October 14, 1976, how many employees were related to each other as (a) husband and wife (b) parent and child and, in each case, how many were earning salaries in excess of $20,000?
12.	What was the number of employees, permanent, temporary or casual, in Statistics Canada as of March 31 (a) 1968 (b) 1972 (c) 1975 (d) 1976?
13.	What was the expenditure in Statistics Canada for (a) salaries and wages (b) professional fees (c) travel in the fiscal year (i) 1967-68 (ii) 1971-72 (iii) 1974-75 (iv) 1975-76?
14.	What was the number of Statistics Canada employees in the (a) SX I (b) SX 2 (c) SX 3 (d) SX 4 levels as of March 31 (i) 1968 (ii) 1972 (iii) 1975 (iv) 1976?
15.	What was the distribution of permanent employees of Statistics Canada in the salary range of (a) less than $5,000 (b) $5,000 to $9,999 (c) $10,000 to $14,999 (d) $15,000 to $19,999 (e) $20,000 to $24,999 (f) $25,000 to $29,999 (g) $30,000 to 34,999 (h) $35,000 to $39,999 (i) $40,000 to $44,999 (j) $45,000 and over as of March 31 (i) 1968 (ii) 1972 (iii) 1975 (iv) 1976?
16.	What was the number of (a) Chiefs (b) Assistant Directors (c) Associate Directors (d) Director Generals (e) Assistant Chief Statisticians (or Assistant Dominion Statisticians) in Statistics Canada as of March 31 (i) 1968 (ii) 1972 (iii) 1975 (iv) 1976?
Return tabled.


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, by way of explanation, I point out that question No. 125 is in seven parts which required response at length from three separate departments. Questions No. 447, 448 and 452 asked lengthy details about penitentiary officials. Question 610 is a request for somewhat complicated information about the regional organization of the Department of Supply and Services. The response to question No. 885 is a fully detailed reply to a question in 16 different parts about
December 1, 1976

Statistics Canada. I hope the foregoing will explain why those questions alluded to have been answerd in this form.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


MOTION FOR PAPERS
[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 23-Mr. Whiteway:
That an Order of the House do issue for copies of any task force reports, reviews or studies with respect to the use of leg-hold traps.
Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


John Edward Broadbent: That this House condemns the government for its failure to take seriously the recommendations made year after year by the Auditor General, and calls on the government (a) to take steps to ensure that the annual financial reports of all Crown corporations are referred to the appropriate committees of the House of Commons;
(ft) to provide the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with adequate staff so that it can do its job thoroughly; and
(c) to appoint immediately a comptroller general as recommended in the Auditor General's report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1976.
He said: Mr. Speaker, Canadians have witnessed for more than a decade the spectacle of auditors general in sequence publishing ever lengthening lists and detailed reports of mismanagement by this government on the one hand and, on the other, the government responsible for this waste failing year after year to take the slightest bit of corrective action. The Liberal cabinet has ignored the Auditor General and ignored what have properly become known as "horror stories". I will not waste time this afternoon listing all the examples of mismanagement with which we have become all too familiar in this House. The worst examples have already become part of Canadian folk lore-acres of unused office space, fishing boats
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which will not float, boots for one foot only, and so on. Neither Farley Mowat nor our fine Canadian poet, Earl Birney, could have known that their delightful fiction would be produced, live and in living incompetence, not by the National Film Board but by the Liberal cabinet and a host of senior bureaucrats in Ottawa.
The humour associated with such mismanagement, if ever there was any, has long since gone. The demands of those of us in opposition over the years have now been joined by almost every taxpayer in the country. Knowledge of this government's incompetence has escaped no one. Excuse me, Mr. Speaker; it has escaped a few: the Liberal cabinet alone remains deaf to the universal demand for corrective action. As members of parliament, neither we nor the cabinet can ignore the Auditor General when he says:
I am deeply concerned that, on the evidence of the two-year examination carried out by the audit office, parliament-and indeed the governement-has lost or is close to losing effective control of the public purse.
That is a serious judgment made by a serious man. As I said, we cannot ignore this carefully-considered statement and the damning evidence contained in the report which substantiates it.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), unfortunately, has ignored the documented mismanagement of the government year after year. He has never shown concern about financial control. Indeed, as events of recent days make abundantly clear, he wants now to ignore and hide the mismanagement of the nation's Crown corporations. Despite 3 'A years of knowledge of financial shiftiness, to put it politely, by Polysar Limited, knowledge provided by the former auditor general about activities which might well include criminal offences either at home or abroad, the Prime Minister is still unprepared to take corrective steps to end the objectionable behavior. Witness the supercilious attitude which the Prime Minister made evident not more than 45 minutes ago in the House when he answered questions asked by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), myself and other members of opposition parties. He simply does not care.


Mr. Paproski:: Right.


John Edward Broadbent: Instead of attacking the problem, the Prime Minister responded facetiously to criticisms of Crown corporations by attacking the Crown corporations and saying that maybe they should be turned over to private control. He deals with such serious questions by trying to brush them off with flippant comments. Crown corporations in our country ought to be efficient, they ought to be honest and free of meddling. Crown corporations, as we well know in this House, have been operated at arm's length so they can be free of political meddling in their day to day operations. But what has happened after the years of control exercised by the Liberal government over our Crown corporations? Listen to what the Auditor General has to say in his report-and I say to cabinet ministers who are present this afternoon, read the report with care if you have not done so already.
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Talking about our once glorious Crown corporations, our Auditor General says, first, that no central government agency recognizes the need to identify all corporations owned or controlled by the government of Canada. Second, commercial enterprises in the private sector are subject to a greater degree of financial accountability than Crown corporations. Third, financial management and control is not a priority within Crown corporations. Fourth, the annual deficits and net debt of the government of Canada are substantially understated due to the manner of accounting for Crown corporations. Fifth, parliament is presented with incomplete and fragmented financial plans and inadequate financial reports. Sixth, financing practices would preclude evaluating management performance even if central agencies had the responsibility to do so. As a result of these observations and other findings, the Auditor General reached a very serious and sad conclusion, and I quote:
In the majority of the Crown corporations audited by the Auditor General, financial management and control is weak and ineffective. Moreover, co-ordination and guidance by central government agencies of financial management and control practices in these Crown corporations are virtually non-existent.
What a shattering indictment of the Liberal government. What a complete summary of mishandling of what should be the proudest set of corporations in our land, those directly responsible to a nationally elected government. The Liberals have erroneously translated an arm's length relationship to mean financial indifference. The result has been utter financial chaos. It is as serious as that.


Mr. Breau:: You are exaggerating.


John Edward Broadbent: Read the report.


Herb Breau: I did.


John Edward Broadbent: Any criticism seen by a Liberal is, by definition, an exaggeration.


Herb Breau: What you just said was exaggeration.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby has the floor for the purpose of making a speech. I suggest that we listen.


John Edward Broadbent: It has been correctly pointed out that when a Liberal makes an interjection, it ought to be both factual and intelligent. He is normally neither. The principle of an arm's length relationship with Crown corporations is valid for most aspects of their existence but, emphatically, that does not mean that Crown corporations should be free of scrutiny of their financial operations by parliament or that their standards of business ethics can be a matter of total indifference to the government.
Neither financial incompetence nor moral turpitude is tolerable to the people of Canada. They are, after all, the shareholders of Crown corporations. They want their money spent intelligently and honestly. At the end of each year the financial operations of Crown corporations must be open to exami-

nation by parliament. If at any time morally unsound actions are discovered, they must be stopped.
As it states in the motion now before the House, financial reports of every Crown corporation in Canada should automatically be sent to the appropriate committee of the House of Commons for examination. It is in this sense that we believe Crown corporations must be accountable to parliament. To make this possible, the committees, and the public accounts committee in particular, must have the staff to do an adequate job of examining these reports and other matters. As every member of this House knows, at present the staffing requirements are so inadequately filled that members cannot do the minimum job expected of them in terms of assessing the financial operations of this government.
I wish to say something in general about the central recommendation in the Auditor General's report, namely, the recommendation that we establish in Canada a comptroller general as a general supervisor of government spending. This key recommendation was made after a comprehensive two-year study. It was not lightly made nor was it casually thrown out. The Auditor General's discoveries are deeply disturbing. He found an indifferent attitude among senior government managers. It was not their money with which they dealt; therefore, they simply did not care. In his judgment there was an utter lack of comprehension of what financial control really means. Among the senior civil servants there was a total absence of knowledge of what senior management roles are when it comes to enduring financial control. The Auditor General attempted to explain why this situation has been allowed to develop. He said that despite an expansion of the Treasury Board staff, Treasury Board simply cannot cope with the problems because it is overburdened with other responsibilities, including the recently acquired responsibility for collective bargaining and implementing the Official Languages Act.
The Auditor General called for four sensible basic requirements for the federal government to achieve effective financial management and control-four basic requirements that had been systematically ignored by the government. The first is a financial plan that serves as a cornerstone for managing and controlling financial resources. Second is a central system of budgetary control based on an effectively functioning control system in each department and agency. That is crucial. Third, complete and appropriate financial reports. Fourth, effective financial control based on a system of continuous and automatic check on expenditure decisions. It is a lamentable fact, but a fact, nonetheless, that he should have to recommend that these steps be taken when year after year his predecessor documented evidence of grotesque mismanagement. We should not now, in 1976, be calling for these sensible proposals to be implemented: they should have been implemented years ago. To achieve these objectives, the Auditor General also recommended, and I quote:
The establishment of the position of chief financial officer of the government, preferably with the title comptroller general of Canada, with deputy minister status and a direct reporting relationship to the President of the Treasury Board,
December 1, 1976

and with duties and authorities fully commensurate with the important responsibilities of such a key position-
In the time left to me, I wish to deal with the pitiful excuses of the Prime Minister for failing to implement this central recommendation of the Auditor General. They are excuses which I believe are based on deliberately misleading and erroneous information provided by senior bureaucrats, I suspect, in a highly self-serving way. This does not, of course, lessen the Prime Minister's responsibility but only indicates that the government and parliament not only have lost control of the purse but have failed to maintain their over-all ascendancy over the senior civil servants: either that, or the Prime Minister had deliberately passed on erroneous information to members of the House of Commons and to the people of Canada. What did the Prime Minister actually say? I quote from his press conference of just a few days ago. Referring to the Auditor General, the Prime Minister said:
He said the way to control it from the top is to name a comptroller general, not the kind of one we had before the Glassco commission but a new one. If I understand him correctly, he calls him an umpire.
We don't quite understand and I don't think he, himself, is quite sure as to what the umpiring would be between, what parties. In other words, how do you exercise the responsibility? Is the umpiring between the ministers and their deputies, or is the umpiring between the deputies and the Treasury Board, or is the umpiring between the deputies and myself? Because they are responsible to me in the very real sense.
There we have the Prime Minister at his Jesuitical best, trying to totally confuse the issue by asking a series of unrelated questions. This is the red herring which the Prime Minister has introduced to justify a totally unnecessary royal commission. This is the escapist argument he uses to cover up his government's failure to end financial mismanagement by implementing a sensible recommendation to appoint a comptroller general.
The Auditor General has openly and honestly explained that the reference to an umpire which he made many months ago was confusing, and at that time he went to the Treasury Board and explained precisely what he meant by the term. So there is no excuse now for present members of the Treasury Board who are passing on advice to the Prime Minister to remain in a state of confusion. They have known for months precisely what the Auditor General had in mind, and if there is any doubt remaining, his recent report spells it out clearly. It is well within the limits of established parliamentary procedures followed in Canada and elsewhere. In the course of a recent television program, the Auditor General had this to say:
I haven't recommended anything that has any constitutional implications at all, as far as I can see. If I can boil this down in a nutshell, the government now has, in round numbers, say, 30 deputy ministers. What I have said is that one of those deputy ministers, and a pretty senior deputy minister, namely, the secretary of the Treasury Board, has a very large conglomeration of duties attaching to his position over and above financial management control, which is one of them. He has six deputies reporting to him. Financial control of public funds is such an important function that I have, in effect, said: Let us have two deputy ministers reporting to the President of the Treasury Board.
It is as simple as that. I would have thought that even a Liberal cabinet could have comprehended it. He wants the
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cabinet to recognize the clear truth that the present deputy minister of the Treasury Board has too much to do, and since financial control is of such major importance, its function should be separated and made the exclusive responsibility of one deputy minister.
Allan Lambert, a favourite of the government, recently-appointed chairman of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Financial Organization and Accountability, which is central to the issue under discussion here, has given his support to the Auditor General. Far from criticizing the recommendation that a comptroller be appointed, he sees it as essentially complementing his work. Here is what Mr. Lambert has said:
The royal commission would not be affronted nor its work hampered in any way if any and all of the Auditor General's recommendations, including that for a comptroller general, were implemented immediately.
Mr. Lambert added that he has already informed the government, presumably either the Prime Minister or the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras), of his views on the matter. So here we have a case where the chairman of a royal commission set up to deal with the broader aspects of the subject joins the Auditor General in recommending the establishment of the position of comptroller general. Both reject the government's refusal to do so, precisely because they recognize the phony arguments of the government for what they are.
Finally, the government and its ministers must change their extravagant ways. A good part of political life is unconnected with law-making or debates in the House of Commons. A great deal of importance attaches to the style of existence of politicians themselves. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), to name a few members of the cabinet, have failed to set a good example. In fact, their example of waste, of extravagance and of lack of concern about taxpayers' money has done just the opposite. The Prime Minister has spent so much money on his official residence since he came to office that he has so far refused to answer questions on the subject which have been on the order paper for months. He refuses to answer because, according to some official in the government, embarrassment would be the result.
The Minister of Transport, dear old Otto, has logged more flying hours, I am sure, than any of the pilots employed by his department. It is our view that what might be described as the maximization of conspicuous consumption on the part of cabinet ministers should come to an end. It is time another style of life was followed in the conduct of their offices. Cabinet ministers should set an example of restraint; they should set a standard, not of consumption but of decency. That is what the people expect, but it is not what they are getting. I regret to add that senior civil servants in too many cases have taken this bad example coming from the cabinet and have made it the basis of their own operations.
The attitude which the Auditor General has documented in his report seems increasingly to be: Who cares? Well, the people who pay the bills care, and they are now piping a new tune. That tune is: The Jig is Up. They want government programs; there is no question about that. They want govern-
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ment services; there is no question about that. But Canadians also want efficiency and integrity. For many years the Liberals have left the clear impression that they care not one whit for either. The longer they persist in this indifference, the longer they do a disservice to our good civil servants and to the people of Canada who ultimately must pay both the economic and the moral cost. The time for an abrupt change in all this is long overdue.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I should like, first of all, to thank the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) for giving me an opportunity to speak right now. I have been caught somewhat by surprise. I intervene in the debate because the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) is out of the country. As acting minister, I am glad to stand in for him. Of course, I left the Treasury Board a few months ago. I have followed the debate. I have some notes here which, unfortunately, 1 have not had time to work on very much because between the question period and the time I came back-


John Edward Broadbent: You've known the topic since yesterday.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I do not need anyone to prepare a speech for me. I always know what I want to say. I am quite used to the kind of sanctimonious attitude I hear expressed from across the way. I have dealt with the Auditor General for two years and a few months. If the hon. member had been there, he would have seen the quality of the relationship I established. The Auditor General said it was "cordial but not cozy". I think that was the right term to use. Of course, everyone overlooks all the things that have been done. When the Auditor General presented his report a year ago, he proposed to the government, if I recall, 33 recommendations.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Thirty-four.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Thirty-four. I would have been more precise had my notes been prepared by my researchers, but I have not had time for that. I accepted 32 of them, and the Auditor General said so in committee. We had to deal with a new act for the Auditor General of Canada. This act is in front of parliament at this time. We met every one of the requirements he asked for, but no one has paid any attention to that fact.
Then, in a time of austerity, I became a most unpopular minister among all my colleagues. I cut the budget of every department. I permitted the Auditor General to increase his staff, despite the fact that I was preaching restraint to everyone else. It is very convenient for the opposition and the press gallery to forget that and to concentrate on other points. However, the government did have some difference with the Auditor General in one respect, and that was that he wanted us to appoint a comptroller general. I discussed this question extensively with him. He was giving me that advice and I had great respect for his advice. I did appoint someone in the Treasury Board at the time to be deputy secretary for financial administration, and he was satisfied with that. We have sup-

plemented the staff of that branch of the Treasury Board to the extent of many man-years, despite the restraint program. This is why, Mr. Speaker, a commission is going to look into this. I am not an expert. I do not claim to know everything and to have all the answers. I am not like the leader of the New Democratic Party who knows everything except how to win elections.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Chr6tien:: I am just a little country boy lawyer. The problem that the government had was this.


An hon. Member:: You are always having problems.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Well, I know that what I am saying hurts a bit, but I also know that hon. members opposite to my right will never have occasion to sit over on this side. The recommendation of the Auditor General was to the effect that we re-establish the system of the comptroller general which existed prior to the Glassco Commission. That was the commission that was appointed by the Conservative government of the day to look into the operations of government. I am glad to see in the chamber a very distinguished member of parliament who was a long-standing member of the previous administration and who as a former deputy knows about these things, the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Sharp). At that time there was a comptroller general, and Mr. Glassco recommended to the government that it had no place any longer because the system was too cumbersome for proper administration. As I say, this was a commission appointed by the Conservative administration.
Eventually we accepted the recommendation of the Glassco commission, and one of the valid reasons for doing so was that at that time the budget of the government was around $4 billion or $5 billion. If I recall from memory, there were something like 20,000 documents that had to be referred to Treasury Board of the day before we took that decision. The process of government was being slowed down to the extent that the Tory government of the day found that something had to be done about it. As a result, they appointed the Glassco commission, which reported that if we wanted more responsive government we would have to dispense with the then system and give control of each department to a deputy minister. This was a recommendation of the Glassco commission in 1962, 1963 or 1964.
Now, after 12 years, we have a new system. I am not surprised to hear people question whether it is the best system. The circumstances are not the same. I respect the recommendation of Mr. Macdonell and I have discussed it with him. I pointed out to him the difficulty of accepting this new establishment, knowing all the consequences. I did not conclude my discussions with him because, unfortunately-or perhaps fortunately-the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) asked me to serve in another portfolio in order to help the country and even to help the Tory government of Ontario.
Sortie hon. Members: Hear, hear!
December 1, 1976


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I see Mr. Mensforth in the gallery, who is doing a very good job in Treasury Board. He worked with me when I was in Indian and Northern Affairs and I have confidence in him. He is deputy secretary in Treasury Board. Now, the question is, should this post be elevated to the role of deputy minister? I don't know. That is one point the Auditor General insisted upon.


Mr. Gilbert:: You don't know?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: No, I don't know. But I want to know before I make a decision. I do not make a decision without knowing what I am deciding.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I hope hon. members opposite are not expecting me to. As I say, I respect the recommendation of Mr. Macdonell, and he said he was happy that the government was taking steps to look into his suggestions. Of course, he would have been happier had we said yes right away, but we have accepted 32 of his 34 recommendations and he gave me credit for that in committee. I am glad the hon. member for Vegre-ville (Mr. Mazankowski) was in committee at the time he said that. The press did not report it and neither did the opposition, so I have to report it myself. As I say, this commission will be looking into the recommendations and I hope they will report very quickly.
I know the difficulty of administering departments. When I was Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development one of the biggest complaints the Indians had was that they had to fill in form after form in 10 different colours, in two official languages and four different dialects before they could get the dollars they needed. The biggest concern of the Indians was that they did not have enough automony, that they could not make their own decisions. They said they had to have a bunch of bureaucrats at their backs before they were allowed to spend ten bucks. Sometimes they complained-and I think it made sense-that in order to make sure that nobody got away with ten bucks we spent a thousand bucks on controls.
Members of parliament on both sides of the House will agree that when we are dealing with the problems of the citizens of this land we all come across the same difficulty, that things take too long and there are too many bureaucrats doing everything 10 or 20 times over. I have heard that complaint before. We would now like to have a new system, one that is better, and I am willing to look into it. As I say, I respect the point of view of the Auditor General; he would like parliament's expenditures to be controlled, perhaps in the same way as the private sector. As for the private sector, I know GM is not the best example of proper management-


John Gilbert: You are right there.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am glad the hon. member agrees with that statement. So it is clear that the private sector is not necessarily perfect. When you are involved in the public administration, you have to check the expenditures of the government and of members of parliament; but when a manager of a firm in the
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riding makes a mistake, there are no MPs to point it out. That control has to be different because there are no local people who will get up and complain in the press. There is no opposition member of parliament who receives a note either from the press gallery or from a constituency suggesting that questions be asked of the minister in the House or at the committee. We have a different type of control in the public administration.
When the president of any corporation or private business decides to buy new furniture, nobody knows about it. I know that last year, when I paid $1,000 for a new rug in my office, the fact was reported in the press, even though the old rug was an embarrassment when I received people in my office. Because I happened to be a minister, the price of that rug in my office was reported in the press. However, when members of the opposition have new rugs put in their offices, nobody knows about it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Come on, now, you know that's true-and it is because these controls do not exist in the private sector. The point I want to make is that that was a good report. I see that my predecessor, the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees), agrees with me. He proposed some reforms, most of which, if not all, were accepted by the Liberal administration. We did not accept them all, but we accepted the great majority.
When the Auditor General last year appointed a group to look into the reforms needed in order to have better control he made a lengthy report. I debated the matter with him in the committee on public accounts in the presence of every member of the House who wanted to be there. It was agreed at the time that the Auditor General was satisfied that I had accepted 32 of the 34 recommendations. In regard to the other two, I strengthened that branch of the administration of my former department in order partially to meet his recommendations. Following that discussion with the Auditor General, people got up in this House for months and months asking me when we were going to bring in a new Auditor General's Act. I said it was coming, and because of the touchiness of the situation I made sure that this act would be acceptable to the Auditor General. Nobody has paid any attention to the fact that this act is now before the House, designed to create all the powers that the Auditor General wants. Nobody pays any attention to that and nobody writes about it.


An hon. Member:: Oh, we have.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Unfortunately, I was not here to listen to the leader of the New Democratic Party who blamed me for some of the practices-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mrs. Holt:: Ed, you are emotionally disturbed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

December 1, 1976
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. The leader of the NDP has had his turn in court. Now the minister should have his turn.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to deal for a few minutes with a matter raised by the leader of the New Democratic Party about the business dealings abroad of the Canadian government, of provincial governments of Canadian corporations, which are always referred to in a derogatory way.
When I replied this afternoon, I expressed my views briefly on this subject, and it is very important. We are aware that a Canadian group is now seeking a railroad building contract in Venezuela. This is a very important project with a possible impact of approximately $300 million worth of sales in goods and services for Canada, and it is of the utmost importance for those Canadians employed in that field.
In the area of railroad building, we, Canadians, probably possess the best expertise in the world, because in the past century, we had to build railroads under the most trying circumstances through all types of terrains, and I think few foreign countries have the same level of technical know-how.
The Venezuelan government agrees that there is a problem with Canada. While we are buying over a billion dollars worth of goods from that country, mostly oil, it is buying from us annually only $300 million worth of goods and services, with a total trade imbalance of some $700 million between our two countries.
When the right hon. Prime Minister and I met the president of Venezuela, we discussed with him the trade problems between our two countries. Provided we are competitive, the government of Venezuela would agree to award to us, Canadians, the railroad building contract in Venezuela.
I hope we can get over the last minute problems. We expect to be able to submit a bid by Monday, December 6. If it is competitive, we may get the contract. Perhaps we will not get it, but I hope everybody wishes that Canada will get that kind of contracts.
Today, the opposition saw fit to turn this into a controversy and to cast doubts in the public's mind as to whether any wrong doing may be involved. I say and I repeat the very words I said to the chairman of the CNR and to everybody else on that subject. Obviously, when you go to another country, you need the help of natives, of local people, to complete the deal. Right here, in the city of Ottawa, when a member of Parliament, a reporter or anybody else wants to sell a house, he goes to a realtor to sell it.


John Edward Broadbent: What is the motion?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Let me finish!
Of course, if we get the contract in Venezuela, we will need to hire competent local people to assist Canadians in the carrying out of the project. And I say: Whether we call them engineers, lawyers or consultants, I do not care. What is

important is that the staff hired to help us plan and carry out the project be hired under a specific and well-defined contract and be payed according to the terms of that contract. That is the normal practice followed whenever professional services are sought.
I said it will be like that. There is no use putting your head in the sand and saying you cannot have anybody work for you in any country of the world. It must be above board and it must be paid in respect of the contract. There is nothing wrong with that. If you have a contract, then you pay under the terms of the contract. Nobody paid anyone to sign any contract. The question for the Auditor General or anyone else is to make sure that the terms of the contracts are respected. So long as I am the minister, it will be done that way. It is beyond my comprehension why it should be suggested that there is a kind of sinister approach to those things. Some people would like to impose their personal morality on other people.


John Edward Broadbent: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I can appreciate the minister deciding to fill in his time, but would he at least show some respect to the motion before this House by addressing his comments to at least one of the three parts of the motion, instead of filling his time with totally irrelevant matter?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Don't worry. It is evident that it is hurting, but it's okay. He talks about Polysar and this and that. I am trying to explain something that is very important for the nation, the way I want the Canadian corporations to do business abroad. Everything should be on the table in respect of the contracts. At any rate, I think that is pretty essential. I will not elaborate on that. I just say, being the minister responsible for industry, trade and commerce in this land, knowing we have a $5 billion deficit position in the year, and knowing we must sell abroad, that I think it is important to tell the business community, despite all the innuendoes, that it is invited by the government, and I hope by the people of Canada, to try to sell abroad as much as it can.
It has been said that the government has approved a wrongdoing. As I have said, I gave very strict instructions that everything should be done above the table in respect of the contract. Commercial practices in other countries sometimes are different from ours. I am not about to condemn the morals of anybody. It would be very presumptuous for Canadians to tell other people how to conduct their morals. I remember a few years back in this House when we were telling the people that the government had no business in the bedrooms of the nation. You voted for that and I voted for it. The people in my riding complained and told me I was approving homosexuality.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Alexandre Cyr: My majority went down on that, but I knew that what went on between two consulting adults in their bedroom was not my business. It is as simple as that. So if I
December 1, 1976

cannot impose my morality on adults in the bedrooms of Canada, I do not see how I can go to another country and judge their morality.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: This is being taken down. Do you understand that, Mr. Minister?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Sometimes I get fed up with the kind of hypocrisy that flies around. I want to say that I hope hon. members in this debate will take the time to look at the debate in the public accounts committee on that issue, and the fact that the Auditor General has recognized that we accepted a great majority, 32 out of 34, of his recommendations and we made a partial movement in respect of the last two. He said that despite the fact that he wanted us to move right away, he recognized the need to have kind of a new Glassco commission to see how we can improve the situation to make it more efficient. I think that if it was appropriate in 1961-62 for the then administration to have a review of the public administration, it is appropriate at this time, in light of the recommendations of the Auditor General to do that.
In respect of the commission, may I say that I know Mr. Lambert. I think he is a very honest and commendable man. I am sure he would want to report as quickly as possible. The fact that he is the president of a bank does not distract me or cast any doubt in my mind. I think those people have served this nation very well. I am not a doctrinaire person who thinks that everyone from the private sector is necessarily not good. I have more respect for the business community than that. I was a bit shocked, when my deputy minister was appointed to that commission, that some doubt had been cast upon his character by some members of this House. There is a lot of abuse going on.


Walter David Baker: Just his suitability, not his character.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: When, in the discharge of his responsibility, a deputy minister calls a bank president to ask for an explanation in relation to the commercial responsibility of Canada vis-a-vis Rhodesia, and an explanation is asked concerning why it is his duty to do that, in an attempt to create an impression that this is not desirable, I think that is abuse by the people who raise that question. Although I have not known Mr. Stoner for too long, I find him to be a very dedicated public servant who has worked hard to serve me and the government and who has had more than 30 years in the public service. Perhaps he has not done a perfect job. Even I do not do a perfect job. I am not very good, but compared to those on the other side, I look good.
I think, Mr. Speaker, we should let the commission do its work and produce a report as quickly as possible. We should recognize the progress we have made and deal very quickly in this House with the new bill on the Auditor General that would give him all the power he is asking for to do his job. We should recognize the fact that we are increasing his staff to help him meet the requirements. I think that if we look at all
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those facts, we will find how frivolous is the motion of the New Democratic Party.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) began, he thanked me for my courtesy in giving way to his speaking second. I did that for two reasons. First, I think the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is always great entertainment when he speaks in the House, particularly when he has a cause he cannot defend. The second reason is that he had to leave to take a train. Taking a train is a precedent I want to encourage among ministers.
There is one rather substantial correction that has to be placed on the record in respect of an impression left by the minister. He made a great deal of the fact that the government of Canada has accepted 32 of the recommendations of the Auditor General. What he failed to say was that they have not acted on them. They have accepted the validity of the criticism, but they have done nothing at all to repair the weaknesses the Auditor General pointed out.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: One can always tell when the government is in trouble, because then they bring in the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. I prefer to think of him as the minister responsible for red herrings.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: All his modesty aside, he is not just a poor country lawyer like the Postmaster General (Mr. Blais). The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is the government's great evader. He is the minister responsible for evasion, and in that regard he is greatly overworked on that side of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: One other point he made in relation to the matter which my colleagues and I raised in the House today concerns negotiations in Venezuela. There in no question at all that this country had retained, and wants to retain, a good reputation in our trade deals. That is not the question. The question is that we on this side of the House, at least, are also anxious to ensure that the government of Canada and the Crown corporations which are its emanations, as well as the business community of Canada, enjoy a good reputation for the manner and the morality with which we conduct ourselves in our international activities, be they business or otherwise.
The former auditor general of Canada has raised questions about the conduct of an agency of this government in one regard. I and my colleagues in the House today raised questions relating to possible problems involving other agencies of the government in another undertaking. We asked the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) whether he would look into this. We asked him a serious question-it took us three or four times, as it usually does, to get it through to him-as to whether he

December 1, 1976
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would look into this matter and then report back to the House of Commons. He answered, with that respect for parliament which has come to characterize the man and the government, "Yes, or no". In other words, he gave no answer at all, which is the kind of conduct that has won this government-whose ministers are now mostly absent-the kind of respect that causes it such fear when it contemplates going now to the polls in the country.


Walter David Baker: Even the ministers here are absent.


Charles Joseph Clark: The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce made the point that the private sector is not perfect. Certainly, that is a view that we on this side of the House are prepared to accept, but I think it has to be recognized that this is the only cabinet in the history of Canada that is made up entirely of old Edsels. I am reminded of a predecessor of the minister some two decades ago, the late Right Hon. C. D. Howe, who was minister the last time the Liberal government acted with the contempt toward parliament and toward the people of Canada which characterizes this government now: he said, "What's a million?" Even with that capacity for wasting money, C. D. Howe could not qualify as the petty cash accountant in this government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The motion before us this afternoon centres on the continuing failure of the government to pay any serious attention to the recommendations of the Auditor General. That is a serious matter and I intend to deal with it as such, as my colleague, the leader of the NDP did and as the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce did not. But I think it would be a mistake to regard this government's cavalier attitude toward the Auditor General as an isolated issue. Serious as it is in itself, it is simply part of a broader mentality which dominates virtually everything this government does or everything it fails to do.
Some questions take on much broader significance than the acts themselves, and that is clearly the case with the treatment by this government recurrently, regardless of the personality or the nature of the appointment of the auditor general. It indicates a mentality which I want to elaborate on in my remarks because the real issue here is not just whether this government ignores the urgings of the Auditor General; the real issue is that this is a government which consistently ignores the whole subject of its financial management and its financial accountability. It is not only that the Auditor General expresses-and I point out to the House what the Auditor General pointed out in words which he chose with particular care-his concern that this government's spending is virtually out of control; the central point is that this government has consistently shown no interest whatsoever in improving either the efficiency or the standards by which it conducts the nation's affairs. The question is not simply the lack of acceptable guidelines of financial conduct; it is that this government, and particularly this Prime Minister, who sets its style, shows

no interest in establishing acceptable guidelines for any kind of conduct.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: That was made abundantly clear during the last election campaign which was dominated by the party led by the Prime Minister with a spirit of absolute cynicism. No one in this House-and, I wager, no one in Canada-will forget the Prime Minister saying on national television, "Zap, you're frozen", trying to caricature a serious position put forward which he had condemned in 1974 and embraced in 1975 in an act of cynicism which has undermined the confidence of Canadians not just in this government but in the political process itself.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Zap!


Charles Joseph Clark: It was not only on that question that they showed cynicism, but on a range of other questions such as the transportation policy one day, and parks on another day, that they trotted out for the simple purpose of trying to buy votes and then immediately forgot about.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Having secured power in 1974 on the basis of that total and utter cynicism, it is hardly surprising that this government has exercised power on the same basis for the past 24 months. What is surprising, and what is the subject of the debate generated by my friend, the leader of the NDP, is that it is not only cynicism which has been demonstrated here; there has also been a level of incompetence unparallelled in the history of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: As I had the occasion to remark the other day in another context with regard to the wholly unnecessary royal commission which the government set up to avoid facing the evidence brought forward by the Auditor General, this government is so incompetent that it cannot even organize a cover-up. We all accept that governments have days when they cannot do anything right. Some governments even have weeks like that. But I think this has to be the first government in Canadian history to make a total career out of incompetence.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Before I deal with the present situation in regard to the Auditor General's report, I want to review briefly, because it is germane to the attitude of this government, some other events we have witnessed in this House during the past 12 months.
The House will remember the judges' affair, an affair which revealed that the government and the Prime Minister neither accept the traditional limits on executive action nor are capa-
December 1, 1976

ble of admitting wrongdoing or making amends. The two ministers involved in contacting a judge and discussing with that judge the political and personal impact of the case before him did resign. Neither apologized, however, and in neither case did the Prime Minister admit that the resignations were necessary or were restitution for wrongdoing. The only result was the decision by the Prime Minister that any further interference with the judiciary should be channelled through the Minister of Justice. That is the very minister who appoints judges and administers the federal courts. That is one issue.
Another issue was the Sky Shops affair which was brought to the attention of the House by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay). I will not go into it in any particular detail because the matter is now before the courts. We remember, however, that the hon. member for Central Nova requested a judicial inquiry into the possibility of conflict of interest on the part of a senator who was also a Liberal Party fund-raiser and an examination of that company's later contract for the concession at Montreal's new Mirabel airport which he claimed was granted over more favourable bids.
One sidelight of the Sky Shops affair was the curious view expressed by the then minister of transport that there was going to be patronage anyway in the way this government carried out its affairs and it would be better left to ministers rather than civil servants. That is a comment on the level of morality that none of us on this side of the House wants to accept.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: There was, in addition, in this same spirit and approach by the government of Canada to its responsibilities, the anti-dumping affair on June 15 this year. The hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) raised questions related to a situation of conflict of interest by the chairman of the anti-dumping tribunal, Mr. Gauthier, and also one of the members. On June 22, 1976, Mr. Gauthier submitted his resignation as chairman because it was disclosed that a clear situation of conflict arose due to the fact that the government allowed what was called a "transitional period" of six months in which Mr. Gauthier would act as chairman of the antidumping tribunal and at the same time pursue private activities. As the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) said after the fact, "The number and variety of matters referred to, in my view go beyond the normal course". Mr. Speaker, the activities of this government consistently go beyond the normal course.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Then there was the Lockheed affair. A year ago the government of Canada decided to go ahead with a $1 billion program to buy 18 long-range patrol aircraft. That affair revealed unprecedented incompetence in management; it also revealed incompetence that went unpunished, and it revealed a distortion of relations between ministers of the Crown and public servants and a shameless attempt at buck-passing.
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Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Charles Joseph Clark: The government of Canada agreed to the project and accepted, on behalf of the Canadian taxpayer, millions of dollars of obligations on the basis that it had an oral agreement-I emphasize "oral"-with Lockheed that would provide millions of dollars in interim financing. The minister responsible for drafting the contract complained that one public servant did not reveal that it was simply an oral agreement. He blamed it on the public servant, and in so doing seemed to suggest that this person, this public servant, stood between him and knowledge of first, what was going on in an interdepartmental task force; second, what was going on in the head of his colleague, the then minister of national defence; and, third, what was going on in the entire defence structure of the government of Canada.
We then had the Rudnicki affair. Walter Rudnicki, a senior employee of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, had been charged with the responsibility of working with native groups to implement a native peoples' housing program. He was dismissed on October 12, 1973, for the stated reason of showing a cabinet document to the Native Council of Canada, the people for whom he was supposed to be working. That matter was raised by my colleague, the hon. member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle) and others in an effort to get an inquiry to get Mr. Rudnicki's name cleared. That was denied. Ultimately, Mr. Rudnicki was forced to sue CMHC for wrongful dismissal. After almost three years he was exonerated by the courts in a trial which revealed that the government has no clear idea of the obligation it has placed upon itself when it promises to consult with people; that Mr. Rudnicki had not leaked a cabinet document, in the first place; and that whimsy and arrogance, not policy, guide this government when it comes to stamping the word "Confidential" on documents prepared at public expense and which are supposedly within the public interest.
We have, as well, the Statistics Canada affair. I will not go into detail on that now because we have the Auditor General's report. I quote from the Auditor General's remarks when he said, in words that he emphasized were carefully considered:
I am deeply concerned that parliament, and indeed the government, has lost, or is losing, effective control of the public purse.
It is to try to get at this matter that this motion was introduced by the New Democratic Party and is supported by this party. A range of other matters could be cited-matters of mismanagement, incompetence or lack of standards ranging from fishing trips for the chairman of the National Energy Board to other trips by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) and his nanny.
This government has staggered from one transgression to the next. It is no longer even a question of whether there is more to come: it is now only a question of from where, and when, the next problem is going to come. When the next problem does come, sir, I think there will be certain characteristics to it, because while each of the transgressions of this government involves different people and different agencies and issues, there are a number of common threads to all of
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December 1, 1976
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them-common, above all, because they reflect the basic character, or perhaps I should say the basic lack of character, of this government.
In every case, for example, it took someone outside this government to draw to the attention of parliament and the people of Canada a particular situation. Sometimes it was raised by the hon. member for Central Nova and in other cases by the news media. Today, in the subject of this motion, it was the Auditor General. The essential point is clear: if we waited for this government to identify or correct its own failings, we would wait forever.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: There is a common thread, as well, to the means by which this government reacts when someone else brings a matter of genuine national concern to its attention. Its first instinct is always to shoot the messenger. Opposition members are harassed and subjected to phony challenges to lay a charge. The news media are dismissed as mischievous or irresponsible. The Auditor General is demeaned as a mere chartered accountant who really does not understand how government works.
When shooting the messenger does not work-and, fortunately, it seldom does-the next reaction of this government is to stonewall, to admit nothing, volunteer no information, mislead or obfuscate where possible. If all that fails, then get the minister out of the way; let him disappear for a while. The result is that legitimate and necessary public information has to be dragged out of this government a grudging piece at a time.
Eventually, however, the truth does come out-at least, most of it does-and the government is left to deal with the consequences. Once again, the pattern is clear: no matter how outrageous the conduct, no matter how serious the breach of public trust, no matter how clear the violation of standards so basic they should not have to be written down, no matter what the transgressors of this government live on with virtual impunity, the Prime Minister turns a blind eye to all of them except when he permits them to resign for 24 hours or a few weeks. Worst of all, not only does the Prime Minister-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Leader of the Opposition, but his allotted time has expired. He may continue with unanimous consent, however. Does the hon. Leader of the Opposition have unanimous consent to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the indulgence of the House. I shall attempt to be brief. What is most serious of all is this: not only does the Prime Minister not deal with the transgressions around him, but he shows no interest in even correcting the situations which permitted that kind of conduct. When it comes to the personal conduct of his supporters, particularly of his ministers, the rule is that if they are not

guilty under the Criminal Code there is nothing to worry about. When it comes to financial management and accountability, the rule is to send off a letter and then dismiss it from your mind.
Frankly, sir, I do not expect this government to change its pattern. It is so committed to this kind of conduct that I doubt whether it could change even if its backroom boys said it was a good tactic to make believe it was changing. The only way we are going to get change-needed change-in this country is by changing the party which forms the government of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The major challenges of a new government-


Mr. McRae:: How would you people run the government? Tell us some of your policies.


Charles Joseph Clark: I shall. I am invited to say how we would run the government. I shall be delighted to do that, Mr. Speaker. Basically, those major challenges are threefold. First, the government must lay down firm and clear guidelines covering the personal conduct of its members and their senior advisers and the conduct of its departments and agencies in areas of potential conflict or abuse of public trust.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Are you people opposite taking notes?


Charles Joseph Clark: 
George Harris Hees: In other words, simple honesty.


Charles Joseph Clark: I have remarked on several occasions that I just cannot understand why this government insists on stonewalling; because every time it puts up a stone wall it gets itself deeper and deeper in trouble. I speak for this party and for the government we intend to form in saying that I expect that a system of openness will cause our cabinet to be uncomfortable when matters are drawn to their attention. I think a cabinet
December 1, 1976

should be uncomfortable: it should know the truth, parliament should know the truth, and the people should know the truth.
Some bon. Members: Hear, hear!


Mr. Grafftey:: When will you learn?


Charles Joseph Clark: I need not spend time today restating our position on the issue of freedom of information. The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) has been the national leader on this question and, while considerable credit is due to him, his position and his commitment is the position and the commitment of this party and of myself as its leader.
Finally, and this speaks to the detail of the motion before us, a new government simply must restore the relevance and primacy of parliament to the affairs of our country.


An hon. Member:: What about the proposed comptroller general?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, having a comptroller general is quite consistent with that principle, as the hon. member knows very well.


Walter David Baker: I wish hon. members opposite would not make their comments from behind the curtain.


Charles Joseph Clark: It is very often the case that the question of the role of parliament is regarded as a question of interest only to this institution. But it is a question to everyone who is anxious to ensure not only that democracy shall continue in Canada but that the nation shall continue, because this is the only truly national forum in the country. One reason for the difficulty in which the present government finds itself and in which the country finds itself on questions of national unity is that the government has sought to silence the only forum of diversity in this country.
The motion by the NDP suggests a number of steps which would strengthen parliament's effective ability to assert its rights and carry out its responsibilities in regard to the financial management of the government. 1 am in general sympathy with the thrust of the motion, although I might question some of the detailed procedures which are proposed. In regard to the accountability of Crown corporations, for example, if the government is going to persist in the fallacy that it has no direct responsibility for them, perhaps we should as a parliament consider the British practice by establishing a special parliamentary committee on Crown corporations which would look at their activities and function in a way similar to that in which the public accounts committee functions.
Surely all committees, and not simply the public accounts committee, must be given the staff and resources necessary to carry out their responsibilities. It is important to discuss the best way we can accomplish this end. However that is to be done, that, clearly, has to be accomplished if parliament is to count again in Canada. I came recently to a position of leadership in my party and in this House. Not long ago I was serving personally and frequently on the standing committees
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of this House, and I know from personal experience what a farce and a fraud they are. We know that in this House-


Mr. MacFarlane:: Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Sit down, basketball.


Angus (Gus) MacFarlane: -I rise on a point of order. As one who serves on three committees, I resent very much the remark that committees are a fraud. I think that is really infringing on my rights and privileges, and it is unfortunate indeed to hear a senior member making that kind of remark.


An hon. Member:: They have no respect for parliament.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I was not speaking for the hon. member; I will let him speak for himself in his actions or his words. But I make the point that the way the committee system is structured in this parliament, and the fact that committees have to go to the government to get references to look into the functions of the government, makes the system a farce-and it is a fraud to pretend otherwise. I think it is appropriate, in the context of the issues raised by the Auditor General, that our committees should be given some power of independent initiative in deciding what matters they want to look into. How can any committee of parliament have any rights or real responsibilities when it has to go cap in hand to the government even to get permission to look into something. As 1 have often said before, taking an analogy from another system, if the United States of America had this kind of system Senator Sam Irving would have had to come to the House and seek from former president Nixon the right to launch the Watergate inquiry. That is the kind of incentive and constraint we have here.


An hon. Member:: What's your theory of government?


Charles Joseph Clark: I am prepared at any time, if hon. members opposite are prepared to stand up, to argue the question of responsible government and its theory. But I make the point that when there is a new government elected by the people of Canada, there will also be a new openness and a new capacity to initiate inquiry.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: And the people opposite will not be here.


Charles Joseph Clark: The backbenchers of the party opposite make clear by their words and interjections what ministers of the government have made clear in their conduct, which is that principles of openness, principles affecting rules of conduct, standards to guide governments for the reassertion of the role and responsibilities of parliament, are principles alien to the Liberal approach to government in Canada. Unfortunately, sir, we are left to draw public attention to the worst excesses of this administration and lend our support to true public servants like the Auditor General who seek to promote constructive and necessary change. It is in that context that I have no difficulty, and a great deal of enthusiasm, in supporting the essence of the motion before this House.
80005-32i/2

December 1, 1976
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[ Translation]
Mr. Charles-Eug&ne Dionne (Kamouraska): Mr. Speaker, the subject of the matter being debated today sums up the concern of Canadians which has surfaced since the Auditor General of Canada published his report for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 1976. It is not the first time recommendations are being made by those whose responsibility is to audit the often extravagant expenditures made by some departments.
In such a situation, it is fitting that the government take seriously the Auditor General's recommendations to appoint a comptroller general and take steps to ensure that the annual financial reports of all Crown corporations be referred to the appropriate committees of the House of Commons. It is obvious that accounting errors have been repeatedly pointed out. It is not for nothing that the Glassco Commission was set up some years ago; its report did show that expenditures had been exaggerated in several areas. Since then, the following governments have not made any great effort to improve the situation.
I understand that supervision and control of expenditures is not an easy task. However, when practical suggestions are drawn to the attention of the government by those who are responsible for auditing the accounts, it is normal that decisions should be taken by the authorities. We can read some comments which could create much concern among the people one of which is a report in a Montreal newspaper headlined "Ottawa has lost all effective control over public funds" and I quote a few excerpts of that report:
The government, and consequently Parliament itself, has gradually lost all control o''er public funds and has taken no concrete action to correct the weaknesses of the present treasury control and management system, which is judged "ineffective". The Secretariat of the Treasury Board should be completely reorganized and the management of public funds should be handed over to a general financial comptroller who would have the position of deputy minister.
One of the main causes of the bad financial management of the government is the lack of real and general understanding among senior government officials of what constitutes effective management and control of public funds.
This article also states, and I quote:
The report reveals the fact that the government does not have an exhaustive list of all associations, agencies and corporations in which it has interests, and that consequently the government cannot have any effective control over the management of the public funds for which it is responsible. This year, the study dealt mostly with the management systems of Crown corporations rather than of departments. Present directives and policies concerning the allocation and distribution of government offices show that certain present practices have a tendency to promote inefficient space utilisation and give the impression of overly expensive planning. As concerns travel expenses, the departments, reviewed make no real effort to ensure that the directives are implemented.
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) spent approximately $826,000 on March 31, 1976, to purchase and outfit a fishing vessel which was afterwards discovered to be unfit for sailing. Because of transportation delays and insufficient protection of the shipment, potatoes sent to Haiti by CIDA were completely rotten on arrival and had to be destroyed. This shipment was evaluated at $63,900.
When we read the report of the Auditor General, we find many things and discover that some expenditures have been excessive. Here is an example of an expenditure which was unauthorized or not supported by vouchers or attestations:
(Mr. Clark.]
In 1975, the Canadian International Development Agency made a nugatory payment of $35,000 in respect of a claim made on termination of a transportation contract. This payment was made without the required approval of the Governor in Council.
Net losses attributable to fraud, default, or mistake of public employees totalled $217,131 in 1975-76 as reported in Section 12 of Volume I of the 1975-76 Public Accounts. Also, as a result of a mistake on a cheque requisition by the Department of National Revenue, a loss of $13,000 was incurred on the exchange of foreign currency.
At page 28 of the Conspectus of the report of the Auditor General, we find this:
My 1973 Report referred to deletion from the accounts of Canada of income tax revenue that could not be collected because the taxpayers were no longer resident in Canada. In 1976, such deletions amounted to $850,000 owed by 161 taxpayers. The Departments of Justice, National Revenue, and Finance are considering the question of confidentiality with respect to possible publication, as a deterrent measure, of the names of taxpayers whose accounts are written off.
We often find that the employees of the Department of National Revenue practically persecute small earners who do not have the financial means to pay their dues on time.
Quite often, they will go as far as garnisheeing the wages, without taking into account the needs of a family which, on top of its immediate needs, has to pay some bills regularly because of installments or other similar debts. Quite often, the employee is laid off on such an occasion because his employer does not want to be involved in the garnisheeing. Consequently, the worker is "overpenalized" in that sense.
Here are other irregularities relating to the wheat inventory reduction and grassland incentive payments. The aim of the wheat inventory reduction program, which was administered by the Department of Agriculture, was to take out of production up to 22 million acres of land in order to reduce the stock of surplus wheat. Under this program, farmers were eligible for a payment of $6 for each acre of cultivated land taken out of wheat in 1970 and summer-fallowed or planted to perennial forage. A further $4 per acre was payable with respect to land seeded to forage in 1970 and still in forage on July 15, 1971. Interim payments of $3 per acre were made on receipt of the applications and the balance of $3 per acre was paid following verification of the applications by reference to field inspection reports and aerial photographs. This method of payment resulted in some payments being in excess of the amount eventually determined as owing to the farmer, and at March 31, 1972, overpayments totalling $365,000 remained uncollected. This amount had been reduced to $288,000 by December 1, 1972.
I thought it was appropriate to quote that extract from the Report of the Auditor General for the financial year ending the March 31, 1972, first because it is not the first time that we hear about excessive spending and because, as I said earlier, I felt that it was appropriate to point out that problem to demonstrate two things: administrative errors about the payments relating to the reduction of the production of wheat, and the same thing happened in 1976 because of the method used to reduce the milk quotas. Instead of being compensated for over-production, milk producers are penalized because of their surpluses and, consequently, a high percentage of them are in a particularly dramatic situation.
December 1, 1976

By using means to eliminate excessive spending, I think it would have been possible to find a formula to compensate the milk producers who are at grips with the complicated problems we know.
The summary of the 1973 report of the Auditor General points out a host of administrative errors. I shall limit my comments to a few items only to demonstrate that it is not the first time the Auditor General brings the situation to the attention of the government. Here is a quotation from the summary of the 1973 report: Bad planification concerning the installation of computer systems. Almost $70,000 were spent for consultant and computer services without any apparent benefit for the Canada Council. Another point concerning offices rented unnecessarily by the Canadian Transport Commission: from November 1, 1968 to March 31, 1972, rental costs amounted to $1,898,000, including costs for offices that were not necessary in the opinion of the Auditor General.
It is obvious that if ordinary citizens realized those facts, they would feel a frustration that could lead them to revolt. It is fortunate for the government that our workers are not very interested in politics and not very aware of public issues.
I find that situation very sad as I have been myself a manual worker, I have been close to those who work hard for their living and I share their distress, the difficulties of those who are handicapped in front of a bureaucracy designed by people who do not care about the less privileged. You are not interested in high philosophy or you do not keep abreast with political and social realities when you are tired out or exhausted by physical and psychological burdens.
A great man once said: You can fool some people all the time, you can fool all the people sometime, but you can't fool all the people all the time. The truth in that quote became more than evident during a recent election somewhere in Canada. The government say they want a just society for every Canadian, but in my view this is still only a pious wish. Let them open their eyes to the have nots in our society, let them hear their grievances, and above all let them take heed.
A number of ancient cities were once prosperous and progressing as far as production and standards of living were concerned. Then suddenly something happened, and we wonder what. There must have been something, although we cannot pinpoint it. We then go on to wonder whether ours will be the same fate. We must go back through history, and remember what happened to the Turkish, the Roman, the Greek and the Moslem empires. Today the sun is setting on the British empire. What happened? What will become of us?
I believe that we ourselves are the makers of our doom. Our monetary system is self destroying. Our society is going through revolutions. Heavy burdens are laid on legislative parties, and taxes are crushingly high. The people themselves are divided. We have high costs of living and average revenues. We have a segregation between the poor and the rich, we have high production costs, we have disorder and chaos in our education system. This and many other factors lead me to the
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conclusion that we are in a precarious position. Canadians today are concerned, they live with the fear that our democratic system will collapse, and the monetary system will crumble. We live in fear. It is time to reassess ourselves, to see what our position is in the world, to try and do something without delay.
I do not believe that the solution to the situation we are now discussing lies in the establishment of a commission. I remember in 1969 I had the following question standing in my name of the order paper:
How many study or investigating boards and commissions were appointed by the Canadian Government since 1950?
The answer was:
1. Fifty royal commissions of inquiry and three task forces.
And according to the list I have in front of me, I realize very well that the Glassco royal commission on government organization has cost $2,791,915 and that we are again faced with a similar situation. Therefore, I do not think that a commission of inquiry would solve our problem. More than 50 such commissions have cost over $1 million and as we can plainly see, the results have not been as expected.
Therefore I do not think that the government's decision to appoint a commission of inquiry would solve our problem. Let us accept the Auditor General's suggestions. He has the authority to make enquiries, to check the government's accounts and considering that we have chosen him for that posting he is certainly a trustworthy man. Having conferred with his colleagues, he suggests a way of so doing and we must not forget that the various auditors nominated to that position over the years have also made suggestions. I believe it is time that we accept that of the Auditor General.


Mr. Alan Martin (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate on the opposition motion put forward by the leader of the New Democratic Party, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent). This is a subject which is very much in the national interest and it is to the hon. member's credit that he should have placed it before parliament at a time when certain supporters of his own party, particularly in provincial areas-I am thinking of British Columbia-might not be so anxious to talk about controls in the area of public expenditure. Notwithstanding these considerations, he has brought forward a motion on a subject in which the people of Canada are very interested, and I am pleased to participate in the debate. The leader of the New Democratic Party drew attention this afternoon to three specific matters. I should like to discuss each of them individually, but before doing so I should like to take a few minutes in which to review the background against which the debate has been proceeding-the entire subject of the Auditor General's report, government expenditure, financial control, or the lack of it, and so on.
It is important to understand some of the things that have been done in this House in the last few years on the government's initiative. The appointment of the present Auditor General was a very important step. In Mr. Macdonell we have

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a man who I would describe as altogether different from the old style of accountant. We have a man who is professionally experienced as a qualified consultant, and in keeping with that kind of professional approach three important examinations have been initiated, with the co-operation of the government, since his appointment. First there was the study undertaken by the independent review committee. That committee, I believe, consisted entirely of professional people from outside. They came up with a very substantial report recommending significant changes in the responsibilities and functions of the office of Auditor General.
The government has acted on this report: we have before us in this session of parliament a new Auditor General's Act. It is my understanding that this is the first time the Canadian parliament has been given an Auditor General's Act. It is also my understanding that in the past the Auditor General has carried on his function under terms of reference that are found, I believe, in the Financial Administration Act. We are now going to have a completely new Auditor General's Act, the purpose of which will be to ensure that Auditors General in future in this country will have the kinds of responsibilities and authorities that the most modern professional opinion feels they should have in order adequately to report on the affairs, the expenditures and the revenues of government. I think that is a very important step. The government has not only indicated that it intends to adopt the recommendations, but it has placed before the House of Commons an act which I understand incorporates just about all the recommendations of the independent review committee. That is point number one.
Point number two, Mr. Speaker, is that another important study was undertaken, I believe in discussion with the Auditor General but more on the government's initiative, which was a review of the public accounts of Canada. That was a very comprehensive study. Those of us serving on the public accounts committee-I see some members sitting opposite who participated in the debate-will appreciate the size of the report alone which emanated from this particular examination. It was a very detailed review of how the government was doing its basic bookkeeping, its accounting of revenues and expenditures, its monthly financial reporting, the kind of report that is issued within departments and which is sent to central agencies and people outside.
There are some very substantial recommendations for change in that report, Mr. Speaker. I believe there were some 41 recommendations. We in the public accounts committee last year, a committee, I might add, contrary to what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) said earlier, which is an extremely effective committee in the House of Commons-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Alan Gray Martin: It is a committee of which I am proud at the present time to hold the position of vice-chairman. It is a committee that has been noted in the past for its impartial approach to the problems before it. I can only hope, and I am

sure it will be the case, that the committee will continue to act in an impartial manner. All members of parliament are interested in ensuring that the kinds of matters that come before the public accounts committee are handled in an efficient and effective way.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: But nobody listens.


Alan Gray Martin: I hear the comment from across the way that nobody listens. That is completely incorrect. The report of the public accounts of Canada came before us last year. We asked the President of the Treasury Board to make the clear statement, which he did indeed make, that all those recommendations would be implemented. It is such a detailed and voluminous report that the recommendations will take three or four years to get into the system. The Auditor General has said that he will comment annually on each recommendation that has been implemented or has not been been implemented, and he will report back in this way to the public accounts committee.
As for responsibility of government, the Leader of the Opposition commented earlier that this government is not responsible to parliament. How in the world can we be more responsible, Mr. Speaker, than the kinds of things that went on in connection with the review of these reports in our public accounts committee? In the second report there were 41 specific recommendations, all of which were important and are on their way to working themselves into the system.
Thirdly, Mr. Speaker, we had the financial management and control study, which was really an initiative of the Auditor General, which had the full support of the government. Out of that we heard the former President of the Treasury Board, the present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien), tell us in the House a few minutes ago that 32 of the 34 recommendations in the report either have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented. If, Mr. Speaker, you add up 41 out of 41, and 32 out of 34, you get a very high and significant percentage of recommendations that are indeed being acted upon by the government at the present time. If that is what the opposition calls irresponsibility and lack of concern for the public and parliament, then I am afraid, like so many other arguments they put forward, I fail to understand the rationale.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You cannot say that with a straight face.


Alan Gray Martin: I thought it was important, Mr. Speaker, to put on the record the background of those three studies, and I should now like to deal specifically with the points raised by the leader of the New Democratic Party in his motion. The first part of his motion reads:
-to take steps to ensure that the annual financial reports of all Crown corporations are referred to the appropriate committees of the House of Commons-
In effect, Mr. Speaker, this happens now to some extent when individual agencies or Crown corporations come before the government for a review of their estimates or supplementary estimates. I am the first to say that it is probably
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inadequate. We do not have very much time in our committee meetings to delve into the annual report of the corporation. Very often members on either side have other types of general questions that they want to address to the heads of corporations or agencies who may be before the committee at the time. Yet the annual reports are there and they are normally part of the material given to committee members. It is up to us as individual members of parliament, if we have questions to raise, to take the opportunity to raise those questions. I think we have to look at ourselves, at the kind of performance we give and the way in which we undertake our responsibilities in committees.
I am not entirely speaking against the motion of the leader of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Speaker, but my concern is that there are so many Crown corporations or agencies of various categories and types. I understand they fall under seven or eight categories. There is a departmental corporation category, of which something like the National Research Council is an example-one of the many. There are agency corporations, of which the National Capital Commission is an example. There are proprietary corporations, of which the CNR and CBC are examples. There are unclassified corporations, of which the Bank of Canada or the Canadian Wheat Board are examples. Then there is a category known as "other corporations", and I have no idea what is in that category.
If we were to insist that each one of these annual reports was to come before the appropriate committee of this House for detailed consideration by the committee, my concern is that the work of the committee would be concentrated on that particular matter for so much of its time-indeed, on those matters because more than one Crown corporation could be reporting to the same standing committee-that it would be very difficult for the committee to deal with other work that is before it, including new legislation, all of which is referred to the committee after second reading in the House. So I would be interested in hearing more about this. I just do not know how it could be done physically within the system.
I disagree completely with the Leader of the Opposition. He feels that committes are-I forget his terminology, but he used the term "fraudulent". I think he was referring to the manner in which they are established. I have yet, in my 2'A years in this House, to participate in a committee where I have not felt completely free to ask any question that might come into my head regarding the operations of a particular department, Crown corporation or agency. I think the committee system is excellent. However, it can always be improved. My understanding is that it is a big improvement now over what it was in the days when for a short period in Canadian history the government was administered by people on the other side.
Maybe committees do not have clout, although I do not agree with that entirely. Recommendations can be made in committee for legislative changes and then come into the House. Certainly, the public accounts committee has had a lot of clout. In fact, the Auditor General has told us that without our committee he can go nowhere. He depends on our committee to support him in the kind of work he undertakes. I think
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he would be the first to say that if it were not for the support and back-up of the public accounts committee, then the kinds of reports that he has presented this year and last year would not have been nearly as effective. The mere fact that he quoted in his report comments by myself and other committee members indicates that he felt they were important enough to back up his work. In my view, the committee system is terribly important, so important that I am not sure we can handle the kind of request the leader of the NDP is proposing in the suggestion that all reports of agencies and Crown corporations come before us.
The next point the leader of the NDP has contained in his motion is:
(b)	to provide the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with adequate staff so that it can do its job thoroughly-
I agree completely. I think this is the first committee with which I have had experience in this House that has had a permanent researcher assigned to it since I have been associated with the committee. Just yesterday the chairman of the public accounts committee-and, I might say, without discussing this with the steering committee first, and I think we will forgive him in this instance because it was quite a positive move that he made-did approach the research branch of the library and requested that an additional person be allocated to the research back-up for that committee. I understand we now have a young lawyer who has been seconded from the library to the committee. It is my belief the committee will be free at any time, if we need additional research back-up, to make that request, and I do not envisage it being turned down. I have no trouble in agreeing completely with that recommendation of the leader of the NDP. The only thing I would say is that I think basically, his request is probably being implemented, and if it is not adequately, then I think it is up to those of us in the public accounts committee to make sure we get the kind of research back-up that we want. The third part of his motion is as follows:
(c)	to appoint immediately a comptroller general as recommended in the Auditor General's report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1976.
That is the one that gets a little bit dicey. As a former financial officer in industry and an active member of the public accounts committee and a member of the committee on finance, it is my personal feeling that any large organization does need a chief financial officer. I think those of us in the public accounts committee have felt this all along. The Auditor General obviously had a little difficulty with this matter. In his 1975 report he hinted at it, but he really only came out firmly on the thing when we pinned him down, if I might use that phraseology, in the public accounts committee last spring when we said, "Now look Mr. Macdonell, are you, or are you not, recommending a chief financial officer position?" When he was pinned down in that way he said, "Yes, indeed, that is what I am recommending".
The reason I mention that is simply that in his own mind, and I am sure in the mind of his senior people, he had to

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wrestle with this one himself for a good deal of time before he was prepared to stand four-square behind it. The reasons for that are very evident to anybody who has had any involvement in large business where that kind of position has not been invoked before. The only way in which a position such as that can become effective is if it is accepted by his colleagues in the organization right across the board. That is terribly important, and it is not something that can just happen merely by saying, "There is the position of chief financial officer, and there is the body we put into that position. Good luck, and we hope it all works out".
I have no difficulty in realizing that it is quite appropriate for those who are ultimately responsible for the operation of government, which is the government in power, to sit back and look at this kind of recommendation and say that it is a recommendation over which the Auditor General himself puzzled for a very considerable time before making it, and we had better take a very close look at this to see how it is going to work into the system. The appointment of a royal commission seems to me, by its very terms, to support itself whether or not the position of a chief financial officer is part of the package.
We must all realize that it is 17 years or so since the appointment of the Glassco commission, which was the first honest look at the manner in which government operations were carried out. The level of expenditures in the country were then some $6 billion. If Mr. Glassco himself were alive today, I am sure he would be the first to say that in order to make that kind of recommendation effective over the long term, we will have to look at the situation periodically down the road. I suggest that is basically what the royal commission, which will probably become known as the Lambert commission, is going to do, and it will be doing so at a time when the level of expenditures is up to $40 billion of $42 billion, more than six times what it was before.
It will be doing this at a time when growth in the civil service has expanded tremendously and when the whole system is far more complicated than ever before. To suggest it is wrong at this time to have a royal commission look into the over-all financial operations of the government, I suggest, is really to take a position that basically suggests this was done 20 years ago so we should not worry. That simply is not good enough in this day and age, because things are changing too dramatically.
In concluding my remarks on the royal commission, I should like to say that in my view the kind of recommendations that can come out of such a commission, which from a central point I do not think will be dealing with this matter of a chief financial officer, could help guide us or the government in deciding whether, as a result of the Glassco commission, the strings of control were cut a little too loose, with over-all decentralization to the point where things are floating around a little bit, and with the endeavour to keep them under sort of tight control disappearing altogether.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his allotted time has expired. He may continue with unanimous consent.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to enter this debate in support of the motion placed before the House by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent). I was very impressed by the contribution of the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) and by his frank assessment and evaluation of this government in pointing out that the elements of cynicism, arrogance and incompetence have become the hallmarks of this administration. I am sure hon. members enjoyed the contribution of that little country boy lawyer from Quebec, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien). Even though he missed the significance of this motion, he provided us with an afternoon of fun and merriment. I guess he was out looking for bigger game than a comptroller general. In all seriousness, I must say I am appalled by the way the minister tried to diffuse the urgency of this problem. I think he was less than frank with this House in dealing with the importance and the reality of the situation before us as referred to in this motion.
Today I want primarily to deal with the preamble to the motion that refers to the failure of the government to take seriously the recommendations that have been made year after year by the auditor general, not only the present one but his predecessor. It is certainly worthy of note that if we go back to 1973 we will find the former auditor general advanced some 34 recommendations in his report of that year which were dealt with by the public accounts committee and which have not yet been implemented. We all know that this government was at loggerheads with the former auditor general. While the government did not clip his wings completely, it certainly attempted to stifle his effectiveness and therefore affected his ability to discharge his mandate to parliament and the people of Canada. Deliberate action was taken by this government to reduce his effectiveness. The government downgraded his staff and failed to provide him with adequate personnel and resources to do his job. There was a constant on-going conflict between him and the president of the Treasury Board, and indeed the Prime Minister.
Despite the comment made by the hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Martin), there was a new Auditor General's Act presented to this House in 1970 which would have had the effect of curtailing his powers. We all know what happened at that time. The public looked on this act with such indignation concerning the proposals in respect of the Auditor General that the government saw fit to withdraw that legislation. I am surprised that the hon. member for Scarborough West did not realize this. We had a proposed act in 1970. There was another occasion in 1973 when the public accounts committee presented a draft for a new Auditor General's Act which never saw the light of day.
This is, in effect, the third attempt. The fact remains that in spite of the ongoing feud between the government and the former auditor general, he did carry out a very effective job on
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behalf of the people of Canada. I want to cite some of the recommendations which remained on the table when he left office in 1973. Some of them date back to 1964. For example, we have recommendation No. 16 at page 138 of the 1973 auditor general's report. It deals with loans and advances representing grants to Crown corporations.
Just to cite the situation briefly, the committee again criticized the practice of treating amounts paid by Crown corporations which did not have the means to pay them. That is also contained in the 1976 auditor general's report. We could go on to recommendation No. 23 at page 141 in respect of parliamentary control of expenditures. This goes back to the thirteenth report of the public accounts committee in 1966-67. Recommendation No. 29 has to do with increasing accommodation rental costs. This is at page 143. In the report for 1976 we have a reference to wasteful accommodation. The fact of the matter is that these recommendations were outstanding in 1973, are still outstanding in 1976, and no action has been taken.
Let us put this in perspective. There have been progress reports which I do not have the time to review in detail. However, if one looks at them one will detect that they involve nothing more than delaying tactics, with the suggestion that the matter is under review, that it is being studied or considered. The very vague wording suggests that little or no action is being taken in most of these cases. The hon. member for Scarborough West indicated that 32 recommendations were endorsed and supported by the government. He said that is great, that the government agrees. But what has been done? On page 37 of this year's auditor general's report we have a very clear indication of just how much progress has been made toward implementing these recommendations. So far as I am concerned, there is a great deal of difference between the acceptance of recommendations and their implementation. They may have been accepted, but certainly they have not been implemented to any great extent. The Auditor General says:
-six recommendations where positive action is clearly indicated but without any indication of its form or timing.
- 16 recommendations where there appears to be agreement, but no clear indication of planned corrective action; and
-12 recommendations where some disagreement has already been expressed and there is no indication of alternative corrective action.
That is the fact of the matter. That is what has happened to the 34 recommendations. Only six of the 34 have been acted on, and only to a very limited degree. That is where we stand today, and that is what the debate is all about. This simply means that the government has blatantly disregarded the recommendations of the Auditor General. If the government does not intend to implement them, this means it is disregarding them and I say that is a cavalier attitude.


Mr. Trudel:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member usually is factual when he asserts something-


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: This is not a point of order. He can make his own speech.
Auditor General


Jacques L. Trudel: I should like the hon. member, when he refers to a document, to read it fully because this is last summer's figure he is quoting, and another document was tabled on the same recommendations. He should be factual.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am glad I flushed out the hon. member, because I will deal with that progress report which was presented to the House. I will show the House what a stupid, hilarious document it is, because when one analyses it one will find in absolute terms that this government is engaged in a game of perpetuating bureaucratic jargon rather than implementing the important recommendations in this area. I say it is a blatant disregard of the office of the Auditor General. I say it is disregard for parliament and the public accounts committee because, quite frankly, the public accounts committee unanimously endorsed those 34 recommendations. There is no question about that.
We hear so much about the role of parliament and the concern over the appointment of a comptroller general, because this might affect the effectiveness of parliament. Well, these birds certainly never regarded the recommendations of a parliamentary committee with any great degree of importance, certainly not the degree of importance they so richly deserve. This also means that the government has failed parliament and the people of Canada by not acting responsibly in administering public funds.
I mentioned the financial management and control study which arises out of the very comprehensive and most objective professional analysis and examination of the government's financial management and control mechanisms. We were presented with some 34 very sound recommendations. These were not the recommendations of the Auditor General alone: there were some 150,000 professional man-hours involved in putting together the recommendations. They were the result of a very detailed and comprehensive study. I said earlier that they were endorsed by the public accounts committee. I might say that the government agreed with some 22, extended qualified agreement to 10, and disagreed with 2.
The former president of the Treasury Board announced the creation of a new branch within the Treasury Board responsible for financial administration, headed by a person with deputy secretary status who would have the status of an assistant deputy minister in other departments. This, in the eyes of the Auditor General-and I must say I agree-is ineffective since the deputy secretary is placed in the position of assessing and analysing the work of his peers. The position demands more status and more clout. The government, by agreeing to the 22 recommendations, has admitted that the control systems are not satisfactory, that they are significantly below acceptable standards, but it has failed to respond by taking the necessary corrective action to clean up this mess. It has failed to establish a system which would be considered acceptable to those acquainted with the accounting profession in this country.

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While the establishment of the financial administration branch may be a step in the right direction, the branch does not have adequate resources, and I will refer to that in more detail in a little while. In my view this is a very shallow response to a very urgent problem. It is tantamount to using an aspirin to cure a severe case of pneumonia. What is more significant-and this is what appears so unreasonable on the part of the government and the elitists in the bureaucracy-is that these recommendations from the management and control branch are essentially a follow-up from the Glassco commission's recommendations. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce spoke at great length about the fact that the recommendations of the Glassco commission have been incorporated. That is not really so, because we have heard evidence before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts time after time that although these recommendations certainly flow from the report of the Glassco commission, many of them have not been properly implemented.
Let me quote from the proceedings of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, issue No. 45, page 66. Mr. Dale Harris of the Auditor General's office stated the following:
-virtually all of the observations and recommendations in our report were provided for, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Glassco commission in 1962. Our recommendations are consistent with Glassco in that they vary only in emphasis and degree of detail. The evidence indicates that those responsible chose not to emphasize or implement most of the control-oriented recommendations.
I should also like to quote Mr. Lafferty as recorded at page 13 of the committee's proceedings, issue No. 50, as follows:
It is also our view that until departments introduce effective systems of budgetary control, there is no basis for determining whether or not funds are being spent for the purposes, in terms of activities, for which they were provided.
I will go on to quote the Auditor General as recorded at page 7 of issue No. 51 of the committee's proceedings. He said:
-the resources of the Treasury Board are far too low, not in quality, but certainly in numbers, to cope with such a major responsibility as financial management control.
These are matters to which parliament and the Auditor General are addressing themselves, and these are the salient features of this problem. The progress report which was tabled by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) some ten days ago refers to the role of the new financial administration branch. He sees it as an over-all panacea and a way of resolving the bulk of the problems brought to light by the Auditor General. Whenever the minister rises in the House to answer a question from a member of the opposition, he waves this progress report and orders us to read it. I must say that I have read it over and over again and I am appalled at the fact that the President of the Treasury Board would rely on this document to fend off the criticisms that have been levelled against him and his government.
I want to deal with that progress report to demonstrate the extent to which the government expects to correct everything in the area of government operations, from preparing a response to the Auditor General's report to formulating a

policy for the use and control of departmental credit cards. I do not see how the minister can be serious in using this report to answer the serious questions that have been posed by members of the opposition. Surely the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce cannot hang his hat on this report in defending his government.
Let us look at the responsibilities assigned to this branch. They are all-encompassing. It is a rather innovative superstructure which undertakes to perform many duties but does very little in the way of establishing real control and management of public funds. I should like to point out some of the duties spelled out here that have been assigned to the financial administration branch, and then I want to deal with the resources that have been given to this branch to point out the sheer folly of this particular mechanism. The following is a quotation from the progress report tabled by the President of the Treasury Board some ten days ago:
-the responsibilities of the financial administration branch . . . include:
(a)	the development and evaluation of financial administration policies;
(b)	the development and evaluation of internal audit policies and standards;
(c)	the formulation and maintenance of the accounting principles and standards that are used in the accounts of Canada and in the preparation of the public accounts;
(d)	the provision of advice on the content of the estimates for the purposes of budgetary and financial control and for consistency and continuity with the content of the Canada Gazette series and the public accounts of Canada;
(e)	the development and evaluation of principles and guidelines for financial systems;
(f)	the provision of a central advisory service to departments and agencies concerning accounting and auditing policies and principles, together with the provision of uniform interpretations of financial administration legislation, policies and guidelines;
(g)	the development and maintenance, in conjunction with the Public Service Commission, of professional development programs for financial officers and auditors in the federal public service;
(h)	the co-ordination and preparation of the government's response to the Auditor General's annual report and the presentation of this response to the public accounts committee.
The progress report goes on to refer to the following:
The ongoing, day to day business of the branch includes processing, or advising on, submissions made to the Treasury Board, providing advice to departments and agencies on all financial administrative matters-a function which is growing significantly-and conducting more detailed evaluations of departmental application and implementation of the Treasury Board's financial administration policies.
That is page 1. On page 2 we read-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but the time allotted to him has expired. The hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn).


Mr. LeBlanc (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order, with my apologies to the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn) I have been asked to request the unanimous consent of the House to revert to motions very briefly.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Is there unanimous agreement to revert to motions?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. Rom£o LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I have been asked to request the unanimous consent of the House to present this motion with reference to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs. I understand that, following consultations, there has been agreement to it.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Roméo LeBlanc: I move, seconded by the Minister with Portfolio (Mr. Guay):
That the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs be permitted to hear evidence respecting Statistics Canada while considering the items for Supplementary Estimates B already referred to the said committee.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, the minister is quite correct in saying that there have been consultations. So far as we in this party are concerned, we are quite agreeable to passing the motion. I understood that there was some indication during the consultations that the chief statistician would appear before the committee. Of course, this is a matter for the committee to determine since officials of Statistics Canada are appearing before it. On that basis we are certainly agreeable to the motion.
Motion agreed to.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Broadbent:
That this House condemns the government for its failure to take seriously the recommendations made year after year by the Auditor General, and calls on the government (a) to take steps to ensure that the annual financial reports of all Crown corporations are referred to the appropriate committees of the House of Commons;
(b)	to provide the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with adequate staff so that it can do its job thoroughly; and
(c)	to appoint immediately a comptroller general as recommended in the Auditor General's report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1976.
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I should like to say that I was rather put out this afternoon listening to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce
Auditor General
(Mr. Chretien) pinch-hitting for the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras). For virtually all of the 30 minutes that he had the floor, he was out of order. I have to admit this happens rather often around here. The minister is a fine speaker and a likeable person, but I think he entered the wrong profession; he should have followed a career on the stage, not in the House of Commons.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion proposed by my party in respect of the recommendations that the Auditor General makes year after year, most of which the government fails to take seriously, particularly the important recommendations which would bring government spending under control. We have heard that 30 out of 34, or 20 out of 21, and so forth, have been adopted, but in fact most of them have not been implemented and the government has ignored the major recommendations. It would be most appropriate to begin with two quotations from the Auditor General's report for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1976. On page 9 of the report, the Auditor General says:
I am deeply concerned that parliament-and indeed the government has lost, or is close to losing effective control of the public purse. I expressed that concern a year ago in my annual report stating that: "The present state of the financial management and control system of departments and agencies of the government of Canada is significantly below acceptable standards of quality and effectiveness".
Mr. Speaker, that was stated a year ago. On the same page of the 1976 report, the Auditor General has this to say:
The full results of the two-year study lead me inescapably to the opinion that: "based on the study of the systems of departments, agencies, and Crown corporations audited by the Auditor General, financial management and control in the government of Canada is grossly inadequate. Furthermore, it is likely to remain so until the government takes strong, appropriate and effective measures to rectify this critically serious situation".
This is certainly a very damaging statement on government financial management. It is obvious from these two quotations from the Auditor General's report that the government is in deep trouble. It is equally obvious that unless the government acts promptly in implementing the Auditor General's major recommendations, parliament will lose complete control over government spending. If this happens-and many on this side of the House feel it has happened already, and the Auditor General is certainly alluding to this-what is the point of having a parliament at all? After all, it was to control Crown expenditures that the mother of parliaments at Westminster came into being in the first place.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) has already dealt at length with the problem of Crown corporations. I would like to express my party's views on sections (b) and (c) of the motion before us. I would also like to emphasize that both the media and the public have supported the Auditor General's recommendations and have condemned the government's lack of courage to act upon them by shoving the whole issue aside in setting up a costly royal commission to study government financial mismanagement. Obviously, the government is in very deep trouble and wants to cool the whole issue by putting off the inevitable damaging results until after the next election. But even in setting up the royal commission, the government has blundered. One com-

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missioner has resigned because of charges of conflict of interest and another member of the commission has been so closely linked to cabinet as a deputy minister in one of the worst run ministries that his credentials are questionable.
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, there appears at the outset to be a major difference of understanding between the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the recently appointed head of the royal commission with respect to the establishment as recommended by the Auditor General of the office of comptroller general to oversee government expenditures on a regular basis. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) and the President of the Treasury Board feel that a comptroller general may further remove parliamentary control over government expenditures. But the Auditor General recommended that the comptroller general be responsible, as is the secretary of the Treasury Board, directly to the government through the President of the Treasury Board. So what is the problem? Nothing new; nothing innovative; nothing to break tradition. Moreover, the chairman of the newly, but only partly formed royal commission, was quoted in the Toronto Star on November 27, 1976, as follows:
The royal commission would not be affronted, nor its work hampered in any way if any and all of the Auditor General's recommendations, including that for a comptroller general were implemented immediately.
So there is somewhat of a conflict of understanding between the chairman of the royal commission, two cabinet ministers, and the Prime Minister, who are also involved. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, this is a very damaging statement for the government. In the first place, the Auditor General recommended the establishment of the office of comptroller general to scrutinize government expenditures and financial control on a regular basis. The government has refused to accept this on the grounds that such an office might even further reduce parliamentary responsibility on government spending, which is a farce because we have no effective control now. The government also said it needed a royal commission to investigate, among other things, the need for a comptroller general. Yet, Mr. Speaker, the head of the royal commission has stated that the immediate appointment of a comptroller general would not interfere in the commission's work. Who is trying to kid whom in this chamber?
Nor was the head of the royal commission the only one to state that the government should immediately establish the office of comptroller general. As I stated, the Auditor General had said in his report that the comptroller general would be, as is the secretary of the Treasury Board, responsible to the government through the President of the Treasury Board. It is no wonder that in Vancouver last Wednesday the Auditor General said he was amazed that the government has appeared to misunderstand his recommendation to appoint a chief financial officer to oversee government spending. He went further by saying that it was inaccurate for anyone who has read the report to suggest that a constitutional problem stands in the way of appointing such a financial officer. Quoting directly from the Auditor General's statement, he said:

The officials of the departments and agencies know that I have never suggested at any time that this person should be responsible to parliament, he would be directly responsible to government.
He concluded by saying that he could not "see how the Prime Minister and the President of the Treasury Board could have possibly misread my report". That last statement was rather kind to this government. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the government did not misread the report and its specific recommendations. Rather, having read the report in advance of its release and knowing how devastating it would be, they chose a route which they had hoped would put off having to deal with this most serious problem: they shoved the whole thing onto a royal commission.
Mr. Speaker, my party asks for the immediate establishment of the office of comptroller general so that millions of taxpayers' dollars will no longer continue to be wasted and lost because of financial mismanagement on the part of government departments and agencies. The government's first line of defence for rejecting the proposal to establish the office of comptroller general has steadily broken down in the past week and a half. The issue of ministerial responsibility has effectively been put to rest by successive statements made by the Auditor General and the chairman of the newly appointed royal commission, and as well as by members of the opposition, the press and the public.
I quote as follows from the President of the Treasury Board's statement on November 22, 1976:
-basic tenets of our parliamentary system of government, it is the relationship between senior bureaucrats and the governments they serve. We know for instance that the terms of reference of the royal commission will not be to concern itself with financial control, but with the fundamental question of how the government should be organized to manage its operations.
This is a far cry from what the Auditor General wanted looked into, but nevertheless the question still arises: what kind of objectivity can we expect from this commission when one of its members did a study on the history of the public service from 1867 to 1970 and concluded: "The aggrandizement of the powers of the public service may be viewed as a reflection of the superior ability of this institution". That, of course, was stated by Professor Ted Hodgetts, one of the commissioners. If that is not in favour of civil servants as opposed to the House of Commons, I do not know what is. I repeat, what we in this party want and what most Canadians would like to see is the establishment of an office which would scrutinize government expenditures on a periodic basis. This is what the Auditor General recommended; it is what we are demanding and it is what the concerned citizens of this country deserve.
The other part of the motion which I wish to discuss calls on this government to provide the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with adequate staff so that it may do its job thoroughly. I point out that when Harold Wilson was chairman, several years ago, of the public accounts committee of Great Britaih, that committee was supported by 532 back-up personnel. My party and I do not suggest that we should have 532 researchers, legal staff and other personnel to assist our com-

mittee, but we do think we ought to employ sufficient research people in order to counterbalance the hundreds of mandarins and civil servants and so-called experts who every session appear before the committee. Yet here we are, sitting in the middle of all this and attempting to ask cogent and relevant questions. Although we have been ably assisted by one researcher-and I understand now that there is a second with legal background-I still think we should have more support staff.
I should say at this point, and I am sure I speak for all members on the public accounts committee, that the recent appointment of an extra research assistant for the committee was most welcome. At the same time, I personally feel that in previous years the committee worked harmoniously in plodding through the annual report of the Auditor General. Our task in the coming months will be somewhat different, however. In light of the revelations of the past ten days, I noticed for the first time during the committee's initial meeting that the government members of the committee seemed rather jumpy and uptight. I suspect this is a reflection of their uneasiness over the topics that will be discussed and over some of the questions which will have to be asked. I suppose that is an understandable reaction on the part of government supporters. I hope that we can soon turn to our former spirits of conviviality and objectivity which have characterized the deliberations of the committee since I have been a member of it and which were evident, as I understand it, long before I came here.
Some of the topics which have to be aired include the verification of rather questionable expenses paid to agents of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited for their work in securing sales of our CANDU reactors to South Korea and Argentina. The energy minister said last Tuesday that he was concerned about the possible implications of the grandiose sums of money that were paid to these agents and not really accounted for. What concerns me, Mr. Speaker, is why this concern was not shown, or apparently not shown, at the time the payments were being made. AECL officials or the minister responsible for the agency will have to explain why they were originally satisfied with the invoices supplied by United Development Incorporated. Obviously, the Auditor General was not satisfied with the invoices and I am shocked that AECL officials thought little of it at the time. We must determine what happened in this regard.
Yet another matter with which we will have to deal is the allegation made by the former auditor general that he had informed the Prime Minister, by letter, in 1973 that the Polymer Corporation was paying bribes to foreign buyers to sell certain products. This is a serious matter and I hope that during committee meetings we can get the following points cleared up: first, was the letter to which the Prime Minister referred in the House on November 26, 1976, the same letter to which Mr. Henderson, the former auditor general, referred? I hope both the former auditor general and the Prime Minister will appear before the public accounts committee to produce their respective letters. Second, I think Mr. Henderson should
Auditor General
be asked to corroborate his statements and state whether Polymer, or Polysar as it is now known, was the only Crown corporation to which he referred which used questionable invoices.
The former deputy auditor general should also be asked to appear before the committee to discuss his statements as quoted in the Toronto Star, which alleged that $500,000 was paid to agents who acted on Canadian Commercial Corporation's behalf in the sale of 20 fighter-bombers to Venezuela. All we now know is that the $500,000 was simply listed as marketing expenses; and the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Goyer) said yesterday that he thought this amount was reasonable. The committee will want to know what constitutes marketing expenses.
I know my time is running out and I shall make my last point. Since we are speaking of Crown corporations, we must ask how should a Crown corporation operate when promoting sales outside this country? I know a Crown corporation has to compete with the private sector, but I would hate to think that public funds channelled to Crown corporations are being used to pay bribes or for expensive sales promotion gimmicks. I would hate to think that Crown corporations must sink to the level of some private corporations in their sales promotion gimmicks and tactics.
To take an example, I think we should fix the price of the CANDU nuclear reactor. It is the best nuclear reactor today, as is acknowledged by most scientists, and we should say to prospective buyers, "This is the price. If you will not pay it, that is all right; go elsewhere, pay more for another reactor, and pay money for bribes." I have heard that when you deal with the Republic of Korea, the country which used to be called South Korea, you have to grease just about every palm you shake in order to get a contract. We in this House are responsible to the people of this country for our Crown corporations. Therefore, we should not directly or indirectly engage in that kind of nefarious activity. All this reminds me of the immigration case involving Dang Van Quang who was in the opium business or the illicit drug business in Southeast Asia. The President of the Treasury Board, who was then minister of manpower and immigration, referred to Dang Van Quang as nefarious. Will we learn in the committee hearings if bribery has been used? Does the government condone that kind of commercial activity in selling nuclear reactors to a highly unstable and questionable state such as South Korea? I am also thinking of what happened in Argentina, and hope we will not use these tactics in future in selling our reactors. We must make it abundantly clear that Crown corporations must operate on an ethical level much higher than that of some private corporations which in sales promotions have all the morals of an alley cat.


Mr. Robert Daudlin (Kent-Essex):: Mr. Speaker, I regret, since I am to speak at this late hour this afternoon, that I shall be unable to use my prepared notes which I am sure the House would have found most interesting. Unfortunately, I must have to save them for another day. Perhaps I can use some of the remaining time to put right some inaccuracies and misunder-

December 1, 1976
Auditor General
standings evidenced by those on the other side of the House who spoke this afternoon. May I begin with a glaring example of an inaccuracy? The hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) purported to suggest that this government has shown a signal lack of co-operation with the Auditor General with respect to meeting recommendations he made.
The hon. member went back to the 1973 recommendations, but failed to take into account that there had been an intervening second report and, indeed, a progress report since tabled by the minister. The hon. member suggested that the Auditor General was complaining that he had not received the co-operation of the government in terms of the increased numbers of people he needed for his staff. I suggest that since 1973 that staff has risen to 376 persons. Compared to the total staff of Treasury Board, which is only 750, it is rather substantial. Indeed, when interviewed over television on the weekend, the Auditor General suggested he was quite satisfied that the government had given him every co-operation with regard to what he needed in terms of manpower. That being the case, I wonder where the hon. member obtained his evidence with regard to that kind of co-operation not being given.
Even though this motion was moved by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) and his party, none of them had the courtesy to remain in this House to hear the last of the debate.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: With regard to the implementation of recommendations, the hon. member for Vegreville turned to page 37 and, quite properly, read item No. 417. He outlined six recommendations that were acted upon. I must confess that I ventured into this subject only recently. I suppose I am somewhat like the United States secretary of state who once said that he may be foolhardy, but not suicidal. Perhaps I am acting in a suicidal way. A progress report was presented to this House ten days ago. I find that by doing a bit of arithmetic you come up with 22 recommendations that were acted upon. Ten recommendations were agreed to, although in a modified sense, and will be acted upon. There are only two that have not been accepted.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, will the hon. member permit a question.


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: Mr. Speaker, if I had 20 minutes, as the hon. member did, I certainly would. Perhaps he can ask his question when I have finished. I might say to the hon. member that this is not an apology I am making, but a correction of errors made on the other side.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) made much of what his party would do in terms of openness. I do not know what that party can do about openness when they cannot even read the material before them. When they do, they twist it to their own advantage. I do not want to give the impression that I am completely satisfied with the performance of the government in this regard. I do not want to suggest
that everything that needs to be done has been done. However, when it comes to something like the royal commission which was chastised by the last member who spoke, suggesting that it was improper, I want to point out that when interviewed on the weekend the Auditor General said he could think of no better way of dealing with the issue of accountability than a royal commission. He said, as well, that he knew of no better way of dealing with Crown corporations and how they might be viewed by parliament. However, the party opposite has the audacity to suggest that is wrong. I cannot understand them.
I do not believe that the question of the comptroller general has been completely thrown out, even by members on this side. We perhaps do not agree that he should have the power the Auditor General described in his report. Perhaps by upgrading the powers of the financial officer in the Treasury Board, the Auditor General would get what he wants. We want to be assured that the reporting continues to be through the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras). The powers of parliament must not be encroached upon; this House must remain supreme. Indeed, with a royal commission we could get that satisfaction.
The Auditor General has demonstrated that the committee has and will continue to co-operate with him. Indeed, it is trying to implement everything he has put forward. However, I am sure all hon. members realize that even a good watchdog does not expect to be fed every time it barks. This House has to reserve unto itself the independence and right to examine with care the recommendations that officers of this House and watchdogs of this House make. I do not think we can go holus-bolus into this, adopting everything that comes before us, ending up, as we are sometimes described, as a rubber stamp.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, last night the chief government whip indicated to the House that the business for tomorrow would be Bill C-19. As a result of that information, great preparations were made for the continuation of that most important debate, especially in view of this government's dismal record. I now understand he has a correction to make. I am sure it was inadvertent, that he did not mean to mislead the House and now wants to correct the record.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the hon. member is following in the footsteps of his ex-leader, the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker). He said he would never ask a question in this House without knowing the answer. I wish to say to the hon. member that we on this side of the House can take a joke.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. It being six o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to section 11 of Standing Order 58, proceedings on the motion have expired. Therefore, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock.
At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, December 2, 1976