1976-05-26

Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact there are now more than 760,000 people without jobs in Canada, and unemployment is at its highest level in 15 years, and in view of the fact unemployment in the last six months has escalated rapidly in the Atlantic provinces, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn):
That all Atlantic MP's, regardless of party, write to the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, protesting the increase of the qualification period for unemployment insurance benefits from eight to 12 weeks.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion dealing with a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Considering that the Minister of Agriculture stated on many occasions that the surplus made by milk producers last year came from mismanagement by the people who are responsible for industrial milk in Canada and considering that the same people are still employed with the government notwithstanding their error which will cost producers several million dollars, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Tessier):
That the minister order a complete review of the qualifications of his senior civil servants responsible for the administration of industrial milk producers in Canada so that, if necessary, and I believe it is, a
clean sweep be made among these people who are mainly responsible for the serious problems industrial milk producers now have.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


Léonel Beaudoin: Who said no?


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I also rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House requests the Minister of Finance to bring forward a budget which deals with the serious problems Canadians now face and which he managed to avoid completely in the effort he produced yesterday, namely, the fact that job creating programs are needed for the 761,000 unemployed, tax reductions are needed for the average and the poor, both in fairness and as a major stimulant to the economy, and immediate action is required to increase the supply and reduce the price of housing.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Standing Orders of the House provide for six days' debate on the budgetary resolutions presented by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald). It would seem to be an abuse of the procedures to introduce a motion of this kind at this time.


HOUSING
Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Given that the annual rate of increase in the cost of home ownership has been in excess of 10 per cent since August of last year, and in fact was 14.3 per cent last month, and given that housing takes over 30 per cent of the average wage earner's dollar, I move,

May 26, 1976
Criminal Code
seconded by the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Brewin):
That this House condemns the failure of the government to include any measures in its budget to reduce the cost of home ownership to the average Canadian.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. For reasons already stated I would not propose to put, pursuant to Standing Order 43, a motion which relates to the general budgetary provisions of the government.


Mr. John Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to ask the unanimous consent of the House to deal with a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that the budget brought down yesterday will lengthen the minor attachment period-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please; the hon. member for Villeneuve.


CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion on an urgent matter calling for immediate attention.
Since the committee set up to study the enforcement of the abortion legislation in hospitals is only concerned about having a greater number of hospitals provide abortion services, without checking whether the hospitals now having committees for therapeutical abortions conform to the legislation instead of providing abortion on demand, and since one member of this committee, Dr. Marion Powell, is openly advocating abortion on demand and therefore lacks the necessary objectiveness, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard):
That the House direct the Minister of Justice to withdraw the terms of reference of that committee and set up another one precisely with the task of ensuring the enforcement of the abortion legislation so as to prevent some hospitals from providing abortion on demand. If this committee is to work properly, it should be made up of people in favour of respect for life.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Gilbert Rondeau (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion of pressing and urgent necessity.
Last night, during the news broadcast on the CBC French station, the news time was extended because of the budget and this time extension was given to a sitting of the Commission of Inquiry into Organized Crime, while almost no time at all was granted to the representatives of the political parties to speak on the budget, particularly the Social Crediters of Canada, of which I am one, whose interview was cut down from four to one minute. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette):
That the Committee on Broadcasting, Films and Assistance to the Arts inquire into the lack of cooperation from the CBC officials in Montreal who seem to specialize in eliminating or cutting down news sent by Ottawa CBC reporters, while the Montreal CBC officials do not seem to care a fig for general federal policies.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


HOUSING
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, I too rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity concerning the deplorable lack of low cost housing in Canada.
Whereas this government has failed to provide low cost housing, confirming that the lack of supply of decent, reasonably-priced shelter is not an accidental by-product of market forces but a deliberate policy; in view of the fact that house purchasing costs have risen over 14 per cent over last year across the country, for example in the district of Coquitlam a representative net profit was over $14,000 per lot; in view of the fact that the federal government is standing idly by while the government in British Columbia sells off at large profits housing estates built with federal funds intended for low-rental housing; and in view of the fact that experts now charge that the federal government is deliberately discouraging investment in low-cost housing in order to make capital available for extravagant, conspicuous projects like the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, which is ecologically and socially venal
May 26, 1976

and economically beneficial only to the large resources companies; I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn):
That this House condemn the government for its cruel policy of deliberately denying working Canadians the shelter to which their resourcefulness and productivity entitles them; and instruct this government to introduce legislation to correct this distortion immediately, and at the same time to plug loopholes in the National Housing Act, in order to guarantee that federal funds alloted to low-rental housing are used for the purpose intended.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. In the budget address last night and in the minister's press conference the minister has described the over-all fiscal posture of the budget as mildly stimulative. Sticking strictly to the budget itself, would the minister explain how he could make that statement in light of the fact that his own senior officials are reported as saying that it will have a slightly restrictive impact on the economy, a conclusion, I should say, that has already been reached independently by the Conference Board in Canada?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that when we are still running a deficit of several billion dollars it could hardly be regarded as being a very restrictive stand.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a couple of questions to the Minister of Finance relating to unemployment and job creation. In the budget address last night the minister stated that the unemployment rate will decline- and I think I am quoting him correctly-as the cyclical expansion takes hold. Since the budget anticipates an increase of some 250,000 jobs this year while the labour force grew by 353,000 jobs last year and is expected to grow by over 300,000 jobs this year, how does the government plan to reduce unemployment and avoid further unemployment in this year, 1976?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated both in the budget speech and in statements outside, the slowdown in the Canadian economy has come primarily because of the reduction on the export side. As I mentioned, we are anticipating improvement in the performance of the other OECD economies with the consequent benefit for Canadian industries and an increase of our export of commodities. In that sense, we see a recovery coming in the world at large which will have beneficial effects in Canada.
Oral Questions


Charles Joseph Clark: The unemployed in Canada and those seeking jobs are asked to look to other governments for comfort because the government of Canada is doing nothing at all.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR LABOUR FORCE PROJECTIONS AND EMPLOYMENT TARGETS
Charles Joseph Clark: So there might be some indication as to the parameters within which this government is working, can the minister give the House now any labour force projections and any new specific employment targets, preferably by region and by sector, which would back up the government's expressed concern about high unemployment in the country?
Hon Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance): It
seems to me that there is a fundamental fact which the Leader of the Opposition should recognize, that approximately 50 per cent of the merchandize produced in Canada is sold in foreign markets. If those foreign markets are not strong, that merchandize will not find a market.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: In that sense it is a purely phoney suggestion to say that the drop off in Canadian exports will not affect Canadian performance. That is the thrust of the budget, the fact that our exports have dropped off, that is the recognized fact in the OECD countries and with that kind of recovery it will be evident as well that the Canadian economy will have the advantage.


Charles Joseph Clark: Will the Minister of Finance or his colleagues give the House of Commons any indication of national and regional employment goals which are guiding the government in the conduct of its own affairs rather then simply leaving the creation of jobs in Canada to the policies of other countries?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: The hon. gentleman again repeats the little dishonesty-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: You are very touchy today.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: -about the economic
performance in Canada being independent of the export performance. The Canadian economy does not work that way and never has.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AREA IN WHICH JOBS WILL BE CREATED THIS YEAR
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance. Would the minister indicate to the House more precisely where he sees the 250,000 jobs being created in the current year?


Mr. Chretien:: In Canada.

Oral Questions


Donald Stovel Macdonald: There will be opportunities in the course of the budget debate and my colleague will be glad to comment on this point.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: My supplementary question is again for the Minister of Finance. As he has referred in his budgetary statement presumably to auxiliary work being created as was contemplated by the Economic Council of Canada, would the minister indicate if part of the 250,000 job creation is this auxiliary work concept of the Economic Council of Canada or, more specifically, is this a concept that will fall in place some time but there is no anticipation it will take hold in the current year?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: This government has pion-neered with regard to direct employment programs, and indeed there are a number of those currently in operation under the jurisdiction of my colleague, the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I will be looking forward, as I am sure the hon. gentleman will, to the participation of the minister in the budget debate pointing out the direct employment measures that he has in contemplation and in active operation in Canada.


REASON FOR FAILURE TO PROVIDE STIMULUS BY REDUCING TAXES AND INCREASING EMPLOYMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of Finance, the minister in the cabinet who specializes in major dishonesty.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: The shoe is obviously on the other foot. Given the fact that the Canadian manufacturing sector is only operating at 80 per cent capacity and that therefore an increase in consumer spending at this time would not be inflationary but would simply lead to the creation of more jobs, I would like to ask the minister why, with 760,000 out of work in this country, he did not provide a major stimulus to the economy in his budget last night to get people back to work by reducing taxes.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I point out to the hon. gentleman what has been very clearly detailed in the Economic Review, that final domestic demand in Canada is and has remained at a very strong level for the past 12 to 18 months. Therefore, the further stimulus of consumer demand in Canada will not take up the slack in current production. Again, as I pointed out to the Leader of the Opposition, the export sector is and has always been a strong factor in Canadian economic performance. It is now recovering. This is an area of recovery which we see as important for full employment in Canada.


John Edward Broadbent: I say in all seriousness now-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Edward Broadbent: -that I may well have missed the metaphysical point of the minister's answer, but would he please explain to the House why an increase in consumer demand on top of what is already described as healthy consumer demand would not lead to further employment? I do not see the minister's argument in that regard. Would he kindly explain his point? Similarly, if 50 per cent of what we produce is now being exported abroad, what has that to do with the fact that by increasing domestic demand we would simply increase the percentage of goods sold at home? On both grounds, I simply do not accept the argument of the minister.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: If the hon. gentleman does not understand, perhaps it would take longer than the question period to go into the details again.


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


ESTIMATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT THIS YEAR
John Edward Broadbent: The minister may know a lot about law; I hope he learns some economics in the next few weeks. Would he answer a final question? Given the fact that his budget papers predicted an increase in the supply of jobs by some 250,000 next year-without giving any reasons to expect it, I might add-and given the fact that the increase in the number of people coming onto the labour market in recent months vastly exceeds that forecast for the increase in jobs, would the minister tell us whether he is really expecting, during the current year, a continuing rate of unemployment in excess of 7 per cent?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I set
out the anticipations of the government at some length in the speech last night.


John Edward Broadbent: There was no unemployment forecast.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Indeed, there was an unemployment forecast. Perhaps if the hon. gentleman and his colleagues had not been making so much noise during the speech, they might have noted that as well.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AGRICULTURE
Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a question to the right hon. Prime Minister.
In the opinion of the Minister of Agriculture, it is last year's production surpluses that make the situation difficult for milk producers this year. Could the right hon. Prime Minister tell the house if the mistake is to be borne by the producers who obtained quotas to achieve a specific performance or to officials who distributed quotas, thus
May 26, 1976

unbalancing the whole dairy system in Canada? If so, why penalize producers and not officials?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I think the facts are somewhat different from those the hon. member is speaking about. Quotas allocated under the milk policy were exceeded by producers last year. We even have alarming indications that they are going to be exceeded again this year. Facts are obviously different from what the hon. member has said.
As for the burden, we have decided as a policy that it will have to be shared, on the one hand, by producers who exceeded the quotas and, on the other hand, by the taxpayer in general who pays his share of the milk support price and, finally, by the consumer for whom prices will increase lightly.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a supplementary question to the Minister of Agriculture.
As the Prime Minister just said that only those who exceeded their quotas will be penalized and as, in fact, those who did not even exceed their quotas of 1973-74, 1974-75 are penalized, can the Minister of Agriculture explain why the latter are penalized?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, as I said yesterday the provinces run the quotas within their jurisdiction through the provincial marketing boards and we run the over-all quota. How they administer them within their provinces is up to them.


REASON MARKETING COMMITTEES COMPOSED MAINLY OF FLUID MILK PRODUCERS
Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a final supplementary question to the Minister of Agriculture.
Considering that the Prime Minister said recently to a colleague of mine that fluid milk was the responsibility of the provinces, can the minister explain why the positions on the management committees are now almost exclusively filled by fluid milk producers?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I do not appoint the management committees. Management committees are appointed by representatives of the boards from each province to represent them on this committee. I do not appoint them. The only appointments we make are to the Dairy Commission. This commission is not overly representative of any one group. One member of the Canadian Dairy Commission is not a producer, and one member is part fluid and part industrial producer, while the production of the other member is 80 per cent fluid.


ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAM EFFECT OF REDUCING FIVE-YEAR ALLOWABLE PROFIT ON CAPITAL FORMATION
Mr. Bill Kempling (Halton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Bearing in
Oral Questions
mind that capital formation is the key to expanding industry and taking up the slack in unemployment, and noting that it is estimated we will have a shortfall in capital requirements in the next ten years of about $70 billion, can the minister explain how reducing the five year average allowable profit under the Anti-Inflation Board regulations from 95 per cent to 85 per cent will allow for the capital formation required?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the changes in the anti-inflation regulations was twofold: first, to ensure more equitable treatment as between firms because of differences of application of the guidelines and second, to impose on firms a stricter control for the purpose of more effective control of prices. It seems to me that the essential part of further economic development, and capital formation in particular, in the next decade in Canada is going to be to get the current rate of inflation under control. In this sense, the effective operation of the anti-inflation program has to take priority.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
William James Kempling: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Noting that the continuing balance of payments deficit and the forecasted trade deficit of $4.5 billion and noting as well that our manufacturing is about 20 per cent underutilized, may I ask the minister why he did not move in the budget to stimulate this sector in an effort to spur production that would be consumed domestically and so reduce the level of imports and lower the trade deficit and balance of payments deficit?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman is referring to a stimulative measure such as was introduced in the last budget with regard to the investment tax credit or in the previous budget with regard to the favourable rate of capital cost allowances for new investment in Canada, it seems to me there are already in place very substantial incentives on the business side for futher investment. The really critical question for a businessman is whether he is going to find a market for his products. An exporting firm must depend on the state of affairs in foreign markets. We have noted that they are improving and expect Canada to gain the benefit of that.


REASON FOR FAILURE TO ADOPT MEASURES TO STIMULATE INVESTMENT IN INDUSTRIAL PLANTS
William James Kempling: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. As reported on page 10424 of

May 26, 1976
Oral Questions
Hansard, the minister, replying to a question of the hon. member for Halifax regarding investment in plant and industry and steps the minister would take to stimulate investment, stated that questions of this type involving fiscal changes are best dealt with within the context of the budget. I ask, why did he not deal with this matter and the whole area of high interest rates, bearing in mind the difficulty all businessmen will face in putting together capital to expand their industrial plants in order to create the 250,000 jobs which the minister is forecasting?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I did, indeed, deal with that in the budget speech last night, pointed out that the panoply of measures we had in place for the purpose of stimulating investment in manufacturing in this country is very considerable and that a further tax change at this time is not necessary. The hon. member referred to the question of interest rates. Of course, they reflect the rate of inflation in Canada, and also the restrictive monetary policy which the hon. gentleman and others have been calling for the Government of Canada to adopt in the management of the economy. So, the hon. gentleman cannot have it both ways. If he wants a restrictive fiscal and monetary policy for the purpose of controlling inflation, he must expect higher interest rates.


REASON NO MENTION MADE IN BUDGET OF DISCUSSIONS WITH PROVINCES ON SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Finance? In the budget speech last night he suggested that there would be a tightening of unemployment insurance funds in order to save in the neigbourhood of $200 million; but no mention was made of the social security talks which are going on between the federal Minister of National Health and Welfare and provincial ministers of health and welfare, which suggest that $350 million in additional expenditure may be incurred in added social security costs. Are we to conclude from the fact that this was not mentioned that these talks will not go ahead?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the talks will go ahead. Discussions with provincial governments have been going on for a number of years in an attempt to find a more effective application of public funds in the social security area of our economy. Any changes, of course, will have to fit themselves within the fiscal framework which the federal and provincial governments have set themselves for this year and subsequent years.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The House and country are well aware that these talks have been going on and involve a suggested additional cost of $350 million in social security. Is the minister now saying that any changes will bring about no additional cost?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I am saying that subsequent and further commitments of that kind will

either have to be made within the existing fiscal framework, or there will have to be a conscious decision by both the federal and provincial governments to reallocate additional funds to this area of the economy.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Therefore the deficit will be larger.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: No decision has been taken to that effect. These discussions will be subject to over-all fiscal controls which governments in the plural have set for themselves in Canada.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: You have not set a very good example.


INQUIRY IF SAVINGS ON UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WILL BE USED TO CREATE JOBS
Mr. Pierre De Bane (Matane):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question.
Concerning the announced amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act, can the Minister of Manpower and Immigration assure the House that all the money saved through these new amendments will be used to create employment in areas in Canada where unemployment is highest?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I can give that assurance, based on understandings between myself, the Minister of Finance and the cabinet. The expenditure reduction is intended to be redirected to employment producing programs which will cover the whole field of manpower, for instance, training, short work week supplements and job creation. The details, of course, still have to be worked out.


EFFECT OF INCREASED OIL PRICES ON COST OF ELECTRICITY IN ATLANTIC PROVINCES-GOVERNMENT ACTION
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. In light of the confirmation in the budget last night that oil prices are to increase to about $2 per barrel, from $1.75, the devastating impact this increase will have on electricity prices in the Atlantic provinces and the lack of any statement in the budget regarding aid or assistance for the people of the Atlantic provinces, may I ask if this means that the government will not do anything to help the people of the Atlantic provinces deal with this enormous increase in electricity costs which have been as high as 100 per cent in one year for consumers in Nova Scotia?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources dealt with this question previously.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: He said, turn off the lights.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. lady just confirmed that.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Will you accept that?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Yes, he said they should turn off the lights.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, hon. members opposite seem remarkably well informed on the answers to their own questions.


Charles Joseph Clark: Someone has to answer; somebody has to answer questions around here.
May 26, 1976


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: There have been some discussions between the federal government and some Atlantic province representatives. They made submissions to the government. I have received some letters from one of the premiers of the region making certain proposals and we have said we will study them. I have not encouraged them to think that there would be any great relief. As the hon. member knows, the federal government is short of funds. We are being enjoined every day to spend less-


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: And every day you are spending more.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -and this applies all across the board. Nonetheless, we are looking at the problem to see if we can find some solution.


James McPhail Gillies: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Can the Prime Minister say when a decision with respect to these consultations may be arrived at?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo-Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration? Last night the Minister of Finance said that changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act were designed to encourage those who are unemployed to find suitable jobs. Can the minister tell the House his estimate of how many people this is likely to affect, that is, how many people who are presently unemployed will find work because of these changes? I assume the minister has carried out some studies in this area.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the opportunity to elaborate on this and other aspects of my responsibilities in the budget debate at the earliest occasion, probably next week.


REQUEST FOR ESTIMATE OF NUMBER OF PEOPLE DISQUALIFIED AS A RESULT OF NEW REGULATIONS
Max Saltsman: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps, because of the importance of the matter, it should be dealt with now, while the budget speech is fresh in people's minds. May I ask the Minister of Manpower and Immigration if his department has made any estimate as to how many of the people disqualified under the new system will have to obtain relief from municipal and provincial governments, and whether the $200 million listed as a saving to the federal government is really no saving at all but a transfer of cost to municipal and provincial governments?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the matter is complex and I would not accept the final conclusion which the hon.
Oral Questions
member appears to have reached. I will go into those kinds of details when I make my comments, but I will say this: There is one interesting statistic applying to those who exhaust their benefits, that is, to those who use the full time of their entitlement. Among those in the eight to eleven week bracket, 70 per cent find jobs within six weeks after exhaustion. Something like 2 per cent of our claim load who exhaust benefits end up on the welfare rolls. That kind of calculation will be applied and made known in precise terms as a result of these amendments. I also point out that the hon. member is singling out only one proposed amendment and, conveniently or otherwise failing to note the other three important components of that package.


HOUSING
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my question to the Minister of Finance? In the absence of measures in last night's budget to stimulate housing starts in Canada, and as housing continues to be a major factor in the consumer price index, I ask the minister what programs the government intends to bring forward to stimulate house construction in Canada, particularly to provide low-cost housing for the many thousands of Canadians in the country who can no longer afford to buy a house?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman has obviously overlooked the considerable program which my colleague, the Minister of State for Urban Affairs in charge of housing, brought before parliament and which is now in successful operation in Canada. As the hon. member will have noted, housing starts since the beginning of the year have been running at one of the highest rates ever in this country.


James Aloysius McGrath: If the government's housing program is so successful, can the minister explain to the House why housing costs in Canada continue to rise and why there are so many Canadians who cannot afford to buy a house because of exceedingly and critically high interest rates?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: On the latter point, Mr. Speaker, the fact is the hon. member and his colleague have been talking favourably about a restrictive monetary policy in this country. If they are in favour of that policy, they have to accept the consequence of higher interest rates while inflation is at the present level in Canada.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Manpower and

May 26, 1976
Oral Questions
Immigration regarding a matter referred to last night by the Minister of Finance in his speech. There is a problem in connection with payments on a discretionary basis to unemployed persons. Can the Minister give some indication of what he is talking about with regard to legislation, regulation and so on?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, we are proposing amendments to the legislation as part of this package. I think the hon. member is already familiar with some of the details and the possible use, to wit, the Newfoundland UI Manpower training experiment which is in its second year, and it has proven to be a wise decision, and other areas of that type. I will be giving further details when I have a fuller opportunity during the budget debate.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the minister, as I asked him before, if he is prepared to table or give some indication of the studies and conclusions which he has undertaken over the past two or three years and which allowed the Minister of Finance to come to these several conclusions with regard to UIC. Will the minister give us the benefit of all of his studies and the conclusion reached?


Robert Knight Andras: That is my intention, Mr. Speaker.


FISHERIES
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of any reference in the budget to fisheries and the loss of jobs in Atlantic Canada, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of State (Fisheries). According to press reports, the Minister of State (Fisheries) agreed in Moscow to a Soviet request for an even larger quota on capelin than the present 250,000 tons to be caught in 1977 on Hamilton Bank in return for part of Russia's redfish quota in 1976 in the northwest Atlantic,-


James Aloysius McGrath: The biggest sellout ever.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: -and since many species are now fished below the sustainable yield level, causing us to go begging to Russia for a share of their redfish quota, when does the government intend to announce a 200-mile limit for Canada?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of State (Fisheries)):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to answer this question if the House will allow me to correct some of the mistakes made by the hon. member. The employees of those plants who will benefit from our negotiations in Moscow will certainly remember the words of the hon. member for St. John's East when the time comes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roméo LeBlanc: The Soviet Union did not ask us for assistance; we asked them for assistance to overcome a very difficult situation which results, in part, from the fact that part of the industry did not careful-

ly husband those stocks of redfish which were available in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I might remind the hon. member that this is simply a situation whereby we get part of the Soviet Union's quota in 1976 in exchange for our support for a higher quota on their part for capelin.


James Aloysius McGrath: Shame!


Roméo LeBlanc: If the hon. member listened instead of shouting, he might learn something.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roméo LeBlanc: The hon. member might be interested in knowing that the total allowable catch for capelin on the northern capelin fishery is 300,000 ton. At the moment, somewhat less than 200,000 ton are taken. This means that whatever arrangement is made within the ICNAF regulations on capelin, it will be well below the total allowable catch in the first instance.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, the minister's own officials have indicated that they cannot police the capelin quotas and, in some years, double it. Therefore, the minister's statement is open to question in that regard. In view of the concern in Atlantic Canada about the extensive overfishing by foreign fleets on our continental shelf, will the minister undertake to make available to this House the details of our agreements with Britain, Denmark, Portugal, Norway, Spain, France, the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union so that all Canadians will know the terms of these agreements that have been arranged with these countries by the minister and other officials of the government?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, three of the documents, namely the agreements with Norway, Poland and France, are already public. The two with Spain and Portugal will be released when they are officially signed, which is the normal diplomatic tradition. As for the agreement signed last week with the Soviet Union, it will be tabled in the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry within the next hour.


RUSSIAN QUOTA OF CAPELIN-METHOD OF POLICING VIOLATIONS
Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of State (Fisheries). As a result of Canadian inspections under our bilateral agreements with these nations, it was found that the U.S.S.R. overfished capelin by 80,000 ton. Will the minister tell the House and the country what quotas he is talking about with regard to Russia and how he expects to police in view of the 99 individuals vessel violations which have already been found under the bilateral agreements?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, the figures with regard to actual tonnage involved in both redfish and capelin will be part of the discussions which will take place at the ICNAF meeting next month. For that reason I am not at liberty to express what they are. As for violations, the hon. member will recall that last year the ports on the east coast were closed to Soviet vessels as a consequence of our warnings about
May 26, 1976

violations. In fact, the hon. member for St. John's East opposed that action at that time.


James Aloysius McGrath: That's not true.


Roméo LeBlanc: I will look up the page number of Hansard and give that to the hon. member tomorrow. At that time violations were reported, we moved and the violations ceased for the rest of that year. For the present year, the quotas were reached seven days ago and the fleet left area 3L, if my memory is correct, and there are no records of violations.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Charles Lapointe (Charlevoix):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, I would like to direct my question to his parliamentary secretary about the United Nations Conference on Trade, Aid and Development.
Could the parliamentary secretary tell the House whether Canada intends to go further than giving sympathetic consideration to the establishment of a common fund for the regulation of raw material prices, and whether we intend to take a definite step in this field before the conclusion of the conference?


Miss Monique Begin (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, Canada, which is part of the "B" group of developed countries which are political partners at UNCTAD IV now in its last week of deliberations in Nairobi, is in the vanguard among that group, I believe, and is trying the best it can, as I indicated yesterday to the hon. member for Egmont, to work in a positive manner with "B" group countries towards a resolution on the stabilization of the raw material market. We keep thinking that the idea of a common fund is not necessarily, if I understand well, the best stabilization technique. That principle would perhaps be worthwhile only for half the ten vulnerable commodities in question, and it is not sure it would be helpful most of all to the poorest nations, which is Canada's strategy. However, any effort which would seem to lead to a reasonable arrangement with a view to helping Third World countries will certainly be encouraged and promoted by Canada.


HARBOURS
Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport.
Oral Questions
Following a question I asked on November 3, 1975, which can be found on page 8778 of Hansard, I would like to know whether the minister is in a position to inform the House of the conclusions of the in-depth studies which were made into the development of the deep-sea port at Gros-Cacouna?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, a number of discussions have been going on with persons interested in investing in that port area but these have not yet reached a final conclusion. The joint study undertaken between the province of Quebec and the government of Canada is not yet complete.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In view of the serious trade deficit from which Canada is now suffering, why did the Minister of Finance not take the opportunity that was available to him in the presentation of his budget to forecast the economic climate that business can expect in the years 1977, 1978 and 1979 so that proper planning can be undertaken by the business community with a view to balancing this serious deficit?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I have previously had occasion to point out the essential difficulty of making a reliable forecast that far in advance. Indeed, this has been recognized by governments in Canada for a long time. We prefer to leave to institutions like the Economic Council the responsibility of predicting what economic events will be in the medium and long term.



ANTI-INFLATION PROGRAM RESULT OF CHANGE IN REGULATION CONCERNING PRE-TAX PROFITS

Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In his budget speech last night the minister, in referring to the AIB guidelines, reduced the net pre-tax profits from 95 per cent to 85 per cent, with an option on the base line. Will this not have a very dampening and depressing effect on business activity and efficiency, particularly since the base period stretches back over five years, a period in which we have had inflation?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of providing an option is so that the firm in question may pick whichever, from its standpoint, is the most favourable of the two positions. Our conclusion from the returns analysed by the Anti-Inflation Board is that it is important in terms of equity to a very large number of firms to get all firms on an equal basis, and it is

May 26, 1976
Oral Questions
our belief that this is a basis which is fair to all firms generally and which will also exercise some discipline on the increase in prices in Canada.



FINANCE


John Gilbert: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. In view of the fact that housing costs have increased 14.3 per cent in the month of April and 11.5 per cent over the past year, in view of the fact that the average wage earner pays 30 per cent of his wages for housing, and in view of the fact that interest rates are 12 per cent and increasing, it must be obvious to the minister that the housing programs that he had proposed are not working. What measures does the minister intend to take to control high interest rates and housing costs?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, from the housing starts level in Canada I would draw the opposite conclusion. I point out to the hon. gentleman that in the range of programs being administered by my colleague there are indeed provisions to bring down the net interest cost to those at the lower level of the income scale.


John Gilbert: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the minister will understand my next supplementary question. In view of the high vacancy rate, especially in urban centres like Toronto, and the excessively high rents being paid, and in view of the lack of a program with regard to low income housing, would the minister pay shelter costs to people of low and moderate income so that they may be able to pay the high rents they are now paying, as well as following the suggestion of the Ontario government and social agencies?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. gentleman knows, both in his constituency and in mine there are programs in place already to provide favourable rates of rent to those in the lower income brackets. Indeed the programs now in place and being carried out by my colleague's department are specifically related to favouring the situation of those at the lower end of the income scale.

f Translation]



MANPOWER


Mr. Raynald Guay (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Given the work incentive measures announced in the budget yesterday and the proposed amendment to the Unemployment Insurance Act, which will make it a work or wage insurance, and the proposal to merge manpower
and unemployment insurance centres, does the minister intend to propose that these manpower and unemployment insurance centres be simply called employment centres and that his department become a Department of Employment?


Robert Knight Andras: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The exact name has been narrowed down to one or two choices which probably I will be able to announce next week, Tuesday or Wednesday; but I can assure the hon. member and other hon. members of the House that it will emphasize the word "employment" as compared with "unemployment".



PENSIONS


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board. In consideration of the government's program of budgetary restraint, would the minister advise the House whether the government has deferred any payments or obligations that it may have toward the public service superannuation account, the armed services superannuation account and any other pension fund to which the government has the right and obligation to make payments? If that was done this year, was it done in previous years? Perhaps the minister would refer in his answer to the exact amount by which the accounts may be in arrears, if they are.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I have no indication that any such thing was done. However, I shall check and give the hon. member a more specific answer.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. Since the budget speech has failed to provide any new stimulus for resource based industries in New Brunswick, does the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion have any new development initiatives in mind, or does the reduced purchasing power of his budget indicate that DREE is no longer a priority of this government?


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the hon. member can come to the conclusion that because the budget of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion was frozen, like every other department's, activities in the Maritimes have been reduced. On the contrary: precisely as a result of

May 26, 1976

the budget tabled a few months ago and the estimates being spent this year, we will be spending even more in the Maritimes this year than last.
With regard to specific programs we are now in the process of planning to face specific problems in the Maritimes, the hon. member can take for granted that the department, my officials and myself continue to dwell on specific problems, and we will be coming forward with proposals to deal with some of those difficulties within the next few months.



FINANCE


Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance.
A while ago, the hon. member for Matane said that the savings made because of unemployment insurance changes would go towards job creation. From what I understood last night, the minister underlined the importance not only of stopping budgetary deficit increases, but also of reducing the deficit. I wonder if the Minister of Finance is in agreement with the Minister of Manpower and Immigration or if his budget aims rather at reducing this budgetary deficit?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, we have indicated a ceiling for our budget, and the funds mentioned by my colleague will be transferred from unemployment insurance to the programs referred to.



THE CANADIAN ECONOMY


Mr. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.

My supplementary question is addressed to the Minister of Finance. Would the minister specifically advise the House whether he forecasts 7 per cent, 7.5 per cent or 8 per cent unemployment for the following year?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could invite the hon. member to read my speech.
Oral Questions



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Would the right hon. gentleman indicate whether Canada was consulted, or was there any advance notice of Cuban troops leaving Angola? Did Premier Castro advise the Prime Minister of any movement of troops, and are those troops being transported via an Air Canada DC-8 that he lent him?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have some difficulty in accepting that as a supplementary question.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege involving the Minister of State (Fisheries), whom I have always found to be fair in my dealings with him, though never entirely as competent as I would like to see him in carrying out his administrative responsibilities. My question of privilege today, Mr. Speaker, is that at the time of the closing of our ports to Soviet fleets I said publicly this was a sacrifice we were prepared to make to cover up for the failure of the government adequately to manage this important resource.


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, I
undertook to verify the exactitude or precision of the words I used. If I did mislead the House or offend the hon. member, I will be the first to stand up and apologize.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order involving the Minister of Finance, the budget address last night, what was contained therein and what may have occurred prior to it. I am referring to a report in yesterday's St. John's Daily News in which the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception is quoted as saying-and this prior to the budget speech last night- that he would be resigning, or at least was considering resigning because of the budget provisions. He used those general words, then he specifically related his reason for resigning to changes contemplated in the budget to the unemployment insurance matter.
I have raised matters of budget leaks or pre-information with the minister before, and the minister has looked into these matters. I am raising it again because there is an indication in the media that somewhere, something in respect of the provisions of this budget was discussed, as a result of which the particular member, who is not now in his place, made a statement regarding his own personal position. I think the minister owes the House an explanation, if he is able to give one today. If he is not able to give one today, he owes the House an explanation on some other occasion. I think, as well, that the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception owes the House some indication as to where he received that information.
Not only does this situation lead us to that conclusion, confirmed last night in the budget speech in the fact that it
13854 _____________________COMMONS DEBATES____________________May 26, 1976
Oral Questions
did mention unemployment insurance regulations; it leads us to the question of what else was discussed, perhaps in the Liberal caucus, perhaps in some other place or in some other media, in respect of the budget and information which ought not to have been released ahead of time. That is the first question in my point of order.
The second matter is something that affects members of this House directly and results from what occurred last evening. During the course of the pre-budget briefing, certain members representing our party, and members of the press, were locked up in the usual fashion and an indication was given of the budget speech the minister would be making later on. I am advised that during the course of the lock-up yesterday, the minister taped a television program. I am not quarrelling with the idea of security in respect of this matter, but he taped a television program in the form of a press conference which was then delivered on national television immediately following, or within minutes of the minister rising to make his speech in the House.
As I indicated to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the minister, I am not quarrelling about the secrecy aspect of it. The unfortunate thing is that we who are members of parliament in this House of Commons did not even have the benefit of a copy of the minister's speech on this matter until the last two or three minutes of his speech, when we were informed that the speech had become available in the lobby. The difficulty for hon. members, regardless of the side of the House on which they sit, is that there is no opportunity at all, especially in the course of a long budget speech, for members to prepare themselves in order to answer questions to be asked of them by the media in the way of interviews outside or by boards of trade and chambers of commerce, in a local sense, in the areas represented by members of parliament.
I know we cannot undo what was done last night, but I respectfully suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the Minister of Finance, that if he is to be on national television at eight o'clock, by way of a prerecorded broadcast made in the lock-up, then members of this House are at least entitled to copies of his speech immediately he begins to deliver it in the House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: The speech at that time ceases to be a matter of secrecy, but it does not cease to be a matter of importance in this House to the members here and the people we are representing. I do not want to accuse the minister of bad manners, and I will not, but I am going to say-


An hon. Member:: Go ahead.


Walter David Baker: -that we tried
throughout the course of the speech to get copies, and I am sure this occurred to others, so that members of our party who had an interest and a particular responsibility could prepare themselves and follow the written text by the minister. I refer to members other than those who were involved in the lock-up. If that is the tradition around here, it is one of those traditions that ought to be changed. My experience is certainly not as long as others in this place, but my understanding is that it is not the tradition
[Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton).l
that speeches be distributed to members in the lobbies within a few minutes of the end of the minister's speech. Rather, it has been the tradition that the budget speech is made available more or less at the beginning of the minister's speech in the House. If that is the tradition, it should be observed. It was not observed last night, and I think the minister ought to give the House an undertaking that this practice will not occur again, if he is responsible in the future.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised two points in his point of order, although I think the second would essentially be a grievance. I can tell the House, with regard to the fiscal statutes-which are under my specific responsibility as Minister of Finance-that no element of those statutes was discussed with any person other than a member of my department, or another member of the Privy Council, that is to say, another member of the present cabinet.
The changes in the unemployment insurance administration have, of course, been under discussion in this House and in the Liberal caucus for many months. It is indeed true that the options the government was considering, which had been indicated to the House and to the committee by the minister some months ago, were the subject of discussions. The other economic statutes that may be related to the responsibilities of the government have not been subject to the same rules as those involving taxation or the operation of fiscal policy, and there has been no violation of the proceedings in this regard. With regard to the second point-


Mr. Woolliams:: Mr. Speaker, before the Minister of Finance moves to the second point, could I just-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: With regard to the second point, the hon. gentleman used the phrase "the minister taped" a program. In fact, I did attend a press conference in the press lock-up yesterday afternoon prior to delivering the budget speech. At that time I answered questions from members of the press who subsequent to that, of course, remained in the lock-up until I rose to my feet to deliver the speech at eight o'clock. I am advised that for at least 20 years, if not longer, it has been the practice that members of the press gallery be admitted in advance for a briefing during the lock-up proceedings, and that it has also been the practice at eight o'clock for the press to be free to use the information then for the purpose of filing their reports whether it be through the written media or put out through the electronic media.
The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby contacted me last Friday with a number of requests concerning the practice that had taken place for advance briefings in respect of selected members of the opposition, as opposed to the press, who would be present prior to delivery of the budget statement. The member pointed out, I think with some reason, that the press were at liberty to make public the briefing once the budget speech had commenced, but that
May 26, 1976

under the practice which had been operative for some time, members of the opposition were not permitted to comment on it until after the Minister of Finance had completed his speech.
The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby made the point that surely it would be common sense and appropriate that members of parliament should be at liberty, as are members of the press, to comment from eight o'clock on upon what they had learned in the course of the budget briefing. I considered that over the weekend my staff advised the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby and, I am advised by the staff, also the Leader of the Opposition and other parties, that they would be free to do so. I am informed that, acting on this advice, the hon. member for York-Simcoe immediately after eight o'clock took advantage of it to put his own interpretation on the budget at 8.15.
The point is that if the hon. gentleman is to be entitled to make his comments, as I agree, immediately after eight o'clock, it seems to be equally clear that I should be entitled to have my comments put on the air. To do otherwise would be to have put the press in the position of being able to comment on the budget speech while it is being given, and to give the opposition the opportunity to comment on the budget speech while it is being given, but not to permit the deliverer of the speech to have his views expressed at the same time. So, Mr. Speaker, I conceded right away that this is a change in practice. It seems to me to have been a sensible change in practice. In the first place, it makes it possible for the opposition spokesmen to comment on the speech and for my views to be made known in that manner.
In connection with the distribution of the copies, I obviously did not have direct administrative control of the manner in which they would be distributed. However, I agree essentially that they should be delivered to members as soon as possible. I suggest that this procedure, based on a collection of precedents and conventions which have arisen around this, obviously is one area in which our whole budget procedure should be changed. It seems to me that by enabling statements to be made outside the House while the speech is going on, we are really debasing the procedure here in this chamber. There are several options in this regard. One is the notion that we should come back to the custom, which I understand from the hon. member for Mississauga was the case when his father occupied my present portfolio, of locking up the press until 9.15, 9.30 or until the minister had finished.
It seems to me that there would be no particular value in reverting to that practice. I suggest a change should take place in the procedures of the House so that we can have really a more current debate dealing with the budget speech when given. My present preference in respect of the budget statement would be to have all the proceedings of the House of Commons broadcast from the House through the media of television or radio broadcasting.
Since the budget statement is a lengthy and closely reasoned argument with regard to the state of the economy and what should take place, it seems to me that the budgetary statement should be made available in written form, in advance, and that we should then find procedures by which members would be able to debate orally on its contents under appropriate safeguards with regard to
Oral Questions
advance information. That is the background of the situation.
I come back again to the fact that I was yielding to an opposition request to improve procedures in dealing with the budget speech. I regret, in particular, that members on that side-and indeed I apologize to colleagues on my side-were not given copies of the budget statement or that they were not available to them as the statement was being given. The conclusion I draw from it is that this is one of the areas in which the ancient procedures which have gathered around this practice should be re-examined. We should see if we can find some twentieth century way of dealing with this matter.


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


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I could ask a question on the first point.


Mr. Speaker:: I presume there will be further comments. The Minister of Finance did refer to the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby, who was seeking the floor simultaneously when I recognized the minister.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, following the two previous speakers on this point of order, I should like first of all to acknowledge the point the minister made in reference to my specific request to him last Friday about changes in our procedure to enable spokesmen from all opposition parties to comment on the budget just as soon as he presents it at eight o'clock. As he said, it would seem to be common sense that for those of us in opposition to be able to make public comments at 8 p.m. if the press and the minister can be quoted outside the House at that time. Certainly, on behalf of my colleagues-and, I hope, all members of the opposition-I appreciate the change in this regard.
He did not mention a further request which he did not concede to but which I hope he will consider adopting, that is, that members of the research staff for the opposition parties be permitted to be in during the lock-up for the briefing. Just as he had his public servants working for him, some of us rely from time to time on our much more limited in size, but not in quality, research staffs as well. I think this is an appropriate and serious consideration the minister should think more about in terms of further changes in this procedure.
With regard to the points made by the House leader of the Conservative party about the speech not being delivered in advance to members on both sides of the House, I agree, of course, with the suggestion made that it should be; but I can fully understand, particularly in light of last night's budget, why it was not. Such a budget would have driven not only members of the opposition out of the House at the outset but would have had the same effect on the minister's colleagues.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to answer according to what the Minister of Finance may reply, I should like to ask him a question in reference to the first point raised by our House leader concerning the statement made by the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception in which he mentioned that he would resign if, in the budget, there were changes in the term and time

May 26, 1976
Oral Questions
which would increase the period from eight weeks to 12 weeks.
My point is-and I think it would clear the air if we could get a clearcut answer-that I am not talking about a general discussion in relation to unemployment insurance statutes but lam asking the minister: Did he discuss with any member of parliament, either on his side or on this side, that these facts would be contained in the budget speech that he read last night? That is the point. If his answer is yes, then to me that would be a definite leak of the budget.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I will say that the possible changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act were discussed in the Liberal caucus. The point I would make to him, and I made it before, is that in relation to fiscal statutes which are my specific responsibility, there was no discussion of these matters, either with the Liberal caucus or with any unauthorized person.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I have a few brief remarks. Unfortunately, last night's presentation of the budget address was hollow and unreal. First of all, I would like to say that I, personally, having participated in budget addresses for many years, have always felt that the Minister of Finance is addressing the House on these occasions. He is speaking to the House, not to the media or not to outside persons at all. This is merely another instance where I think well-meaning people actually downgrade and denigrate the status of this House.
It is not so many years ago that members of the opposition were allowed a period of prebriefing which the press has had for years. I recall that it is not so many years ago, either, that the press could release information only when the minister finished reading the budget address. If one went back to that practice, there would be none of this so called argy-bargy that is going on at present. If the press and the media have access to the air waves and to the television screens immediately after eight o'clock, then, naturally, there is pressure by members of the opposition who may have had an opportunity to see the budget to seek the same access.
Then the minister comes along and says that if the media have access and so has the opposition, why should he not have it. In other words, what tail wags the whole dog? I suggest to you, sir, that merely the fact the media have been allowed to comment on the budget immediately at eight o'clock has been at the root of this difficulty. In my view, the answer is not to put this on the television screen. It was tried at Queen's Park some three years ago. The provincial treasurer spoke at that time for the same length of time as did the minister last night, for 90 minutes or more, and the total audience was lost insofar as the budget was concerned. No minister can hold an audience for 90 minutes, particularly with the type of budget that is sometimes delivered.
It is my suggestion, as a means of improving the procedure, that if there is to be a lengthy budget statement, the minister, within the rules as they now stand, should indicate that he will make a short address, seek the leave of the House to table his budgetary statements, then merely give

the highlights and sit down. The document will have been in the hands of the opposition and the opposition spokesmen, instead of having to wait until ten o'clock to make their comments to the press-as was done last night- could wait, as I have done in the past, until the minister had finished his comments on the budget.
I suggest that if we are going to pay attention to the media, the national audience is lost if it has to watch the whole proceeding. This is my suggestion regarding how these proceedings could be shortened. The budgetary statement and the accompanying documents would be in the hands of hon. members, there could be a statement and questions, and then debate could start by ten o'clock. I offer that suggestion.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Edmonton West has made some remarks on the point of order which was originally raised, and logically put forward his suggestions. I would not want this afternoon to get into a situation in which all hon. members who have suggestions with regard to this point of order would seek the floor to speak. The point has been discussed and I think the general will has been expressed. Surely the competent body, which I think is the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization, should look at this question of the budgetary presentation to see whether or not before the next budget is presented all recommendations by hon. members might be given proper consideration, in the hope that a procedure can be developed which will satisfy the desires and ambitions of anyone who wishes to make some comments this afternoon.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Mr. Speaker, I have a question-


Mr. Speaker:: Questions have been put to the minister, and there are others who seek to ask questions of the minister. This procedure is irregular. A point of order has been raised. There is much interest in the subject. Those who seek the floor this afternoon in the capital punishment debate are expecting to speak, and I do not think we should now get into a further question period with the Minister of Finance.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise a question of privilege resulting from the question I raised earlier. I have two short examples. One is a case which arose in 1936 in the British House of Commons. At that time Mr. Thomas, the colonial secretary, merely made a remark to a member of parliament of his own party, a Mr. Butt, that taxes may increase on tobacco and beer, following which he went into the House to read his speech. Later it was reported. In cabinet next morning he realized his indiscretion and resigned. It was laid down in Keith's book on constitutional law that there is a fundamental principle behind the doctrine of secrecy when a budget is drafted. The idea is not only to avoid evil, but to avoid the appearance of evil. The idea behind the whole thing is that a leak might permit someone to benefit from the information.
Then there is a second case, that of Sir Hugh Dalton in 1945. When he was walking into the chamber, he spoke to a Mr. Carvel, a newspaper reporter for the Star in England, and made some remark about taxes on sugar. After some
May 26, 1976

discussion, a committee was set up to study the situation. This is what Mr. Dalton said in his letter of resignation:
My dear Prime Minister,
In view of the incident which was raised today in the House I think it is my duty to offer you my resignation. If you accept it I shall continue, though now outside its ranks, to do my utmost to support the government-
In reply, the late Sir Winston Churchill wrote the following:
I realize that this indiscretion in itself did not result in any action detrimental to the state, but the principle of the inviolability of the budget is of the highest importance and the discretion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who necessarily receives many confidential communications, must be beyond question.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we must not consider this matter hastily and dismiss it. A special committee was set up at that time, and this is what they said:
1.	Mr. Dalton made a premature and unpremeditated disclosure-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I should stress to the hon. member for Calgary North that there is no serious disagreement with the precedents he is citing, but I am not clear as to what he is attempting to raise. Is he putting forward a question of privilege that there has been a budgetary leak of any sort? If so, I would welcome hearing that proposition from the hon. member. His arguments in support of that matter are not being questioned.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, my point is this. I ask the Minister of Finance what was discussed in caucus in a general way: Was it in reference to the statutes, or was the Liberal caucus asked, "If I put this in the budget, will it be palatable to the constituents you represent?" If he went that far, or if he admits he disclosed information to his own caucus, then I say he is vulnerable. He should take the responsibility for the decision he made. That is why I quoted examples. These are very important precedents. That is why we have a rule of secrecy with regard to the budget. Everything depends on the manner in which these matters were discussed. I put this fairly and squarely through you to the minister, Mr. Speaker. I hope the minister will answer me in that regard.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, surely I have already answered this.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I indicated that the possibility of a range of changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act was discussed in the Liberal caucus by the members of that caucus.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: In reference to the budget?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: In reference to possible changes to be announced at the time the budget was announced. I also remind the hon. gentleman that he also has confirmed my own case. The two examples he cited have been with regard to the statutes affecting the fiscal responsibility of the Minister of Finance, and not those relating to the responsibility of another minister.
Order Paper Questions



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to lay upon the table an extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Commissioners of Internal Economy held on Wednesday, March 24, 1976, concerning telephone facilities. The text of the foregoing extract will be printed in today's Votes and Proceedings.


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to move the concurrence of the House in the report which you have just tabled.


Mr. Speaker:: Such a motion can only be moved at this time with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Eleventh report of Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders-Mr. Loiselle (Saint-Henri).
[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.   J.-J. Blais@Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 5,157, 5,309, 5,311, 5,351, 5,352, 5,358 and 5,416.


Mr. Cossitt: Have any architects, consultants, or interior decorators, etc. been engaged by the government in connection with any proposed new premises to be occupied by the Ottawa Unemployment Insurance Commission office presently located at 1650 Carling Avenue and, if so (a) what are the names and addresses of such persons or firms (b) what is a full description of the work that they are performing (c) what is the estimated amount of money that will be paid to each such person or firm (d) what is the total amount of money estimated to be expended in this regard?


Hon. C. M. Drury (Minister of Public Works):: Yes; (a) Edward J. Chuhaci, Architect, Suite 5, 46 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario, KIP 5K6 (b) The consultants prepared furniture layouts, final working drawings indicating partitions, telephone and electrical requirements, detailed construction drawings for fitments and cabinetry, and specifications for finishes and colours in the L'Esplanade Laurier Building, Ottawa, (c) $15,000. (d) $15,000.

May 26, 1976
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Lawrence: 1.	What is the maximum concentration of the radioactive gas radon which is presently considered by the Atomic Energy Control Board to be permissible without causing a public health hazard?
2.	Does the Atomic Energy Control Board have any plans or proposals for reducing, or otherwise altering, the current safety standard and, if so (a) what will become the maximum permissible safe level of radon concentration (b) on what date will the new standard be adopted (c) what is the purpose of and reasons for changing the existing standard?


Mr. Maurice Foster (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: The Atomic Energy Control Board reports as follows: 1. The maximum permissible concentration of radon in air, as of other radioactive isotopes, is derived from the maximum permissible doses of ionizing radiation specified in the Atomic Energy Control Regulations. In the case of radon almost all of the dose comes from the radioactive "daughter" products produced by the decay of radon. Depending on the rate of change of air in a particular room or space, the amount of dust, and other factors, the amount of these daughter products present may be equal to or considerably less than that which results from radioactive equilibrium. Assuming radioactive equilibrium, the worst case, the maximum permissible concentrations, for members of the general public, are: (a) 1 picocurie per litre (above natural background) for continuous occupancy (in a private dwelling); (b) 3 picocuries per litre (above natural background) for 40 hours per week occupancy (public buildings or business premises). The naturally occurring background in dwellings in the Port Hope region range from 0.5 to 3 picocuries per litre. Measurements made in buildings in Port Hope indicate that the daughter products are present only to 20 to 40 per cent of that which would result with radio-active equilibrium. The maximum permissible concentration for radon varies inversely with the per cent of equilibrium of the daughter products. If, for example, the daughter products are present to only 25 per cent of equilibrium the maximum permissible concentrations are (a) 4 picocuries per litre (continuous); (b) 12 picocuries per litre (40 hours per week occupancy).
2.	The Atomic Energy Control Board does not have any plans for reducing, or otherwise altering, the maximum permissible doses of ionizing radiation specified in the Atomic Energy Control Regulations.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton): 1.	How many seats have been purchased by the Department of Manpower and Immigration for training of students in English, as a second language, at Algonquin College and other similar colleges in Ontario for the period April 2, 1976 to December 31, 1976?
2.	Is it the intention of the Department to carry on a similar programme for the year 1977 and, if so, to what extent?


Robert Knight Andras: 1. For the period April 2, 1976 to December 31, 1976 there have been 4,401 seats purchased in English as a Second Language Course in Ontario Community Col-

leges (60 of them being in Algonquin College) to provide language training to immigrants.
2.	The Department has every intention of carrying on a similar program in 1977 but its extent has not yet been fully determined.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	With reference to the answer to Question No. 3,776 which stated in part that fifteen persons spent from December 8 to 11, 1975 at Chateau Montebello studying French at a cost to the taxpayer of $2,186.55, what are the names, job designations and addresses of such persons?
2.	What is the specific breakdown of the cost figure of $2,186.55 and how much of this was for (a) room accommodation (b) meals (c) drink (d) tuition (e) anything else?


Miss Coline Campbell (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State):: I am informed by the Public Service Commission as follows: It should be noted that the Public Service Commission's records show the students' departments, not their addresses. 1.
Name	Department	ClassificatiCleve, D. H.	Industry, Trade and Commerce	CO-3Fletcher, R. G.	Regional Economic Expansion	ES-4Oliver, E. W.	Regional Economic Expansion	SX-1Pettis, John	Indian Affairs and Northern	Development	AS-7Purdie, Betty	Labor	AT-1Schooley, A. S.	Health and Welfare	AS-4Sedgewick, M.	Environment	ES-1Cooke, E. V.	Transport	PE-1Fraser Lee, C.	Transport	IS-3Fullargton, J.	Taxation	AU-7Gorrell, L.	Archives	AS-7Hill, L. L.	Manpower and Immigration	PE-4Mayhood, J.	Manpower and Immigration	SX-1Mullance, C. T. P.	Justice	LA-2Nauma, A.	Manpower and Immigration	FS-22.	(a) and (b) $2,070.00; (c) nil; (d) *; (e) transportation 92.50. Total: $2,162.50**
* Cost of teachers not calculated as part of the cost of the trip.
** The difference of $24.05 between this and the amount given December 11, 1975, is due to a reduction in the cost with receipt of final bills.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	With reference to the answer to Question No. 3,776 which stated in part that seven persons spent from November 12 to 14, 1975 at Chateau Montebello studying French at a cost to the taxpayer of $1,013.88, what are the names, job designations and addresses of such persons?
2.	What is the specific breakdown of the cost figure of $1,013.88 and how much of this was for (a) room accommodation (b) meals (c) drink (d) tuition (e) anything else?


Coline M. Campbell: I am informed by the Public Service
May 26, 1976

Commission as follows: It should be noted that the Public Service Commission's records show the students' departments, not their addresses. 1.
Name	Department	ClassificationBaxter, Wayne	Labor	ES-1Cooper, Gerard W.	Industry, Trade and Commerce	CO-3DeCosta, Manuel	Secretary of State	PM-4Gray, John F.	Transport	PE-4Mazopolis, Janis	National Parole Board	PW-3Going, Anne	Secretary of State	AS-1Markus, Sandra	Agriculture	AS-32. (a) and (b)	$799.26; (c) nil; (d) included	in (a) and
(b); (e) transportation $209.98*; telephone $4.77. Total: $1,014.00
* Includes a field trip in surrounding country side.


Mr. Forrestall: 1.	In December 1975, by province, how many family allowance cheques were mailed to families in Atlantic Canada?
2.	By province, what was the total value of such cheques?
3.	By province, what is the government's best estimate of the amount of money which would have been paid through indexing the family allowance thus far in 1976 to families in Atlantic Canada, but which has not been paid by virtue of the suspension of the indexing of such payments?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1.
Number of Family Allowance cheques mailed
Province	December, 1975	January, 1976Newfoundland	90,169	90,536P.E.I.	17,356	17,258Nova Scotia	124,410	124,571New Brunswick	105,080	104,709Totals	337,015 '	337,074Total value of Family Allowance cheques mailed	2. Province	December, 1975*	January, 1976Newfoundland	$10,006,411	$5,050,911P.E.I.	1,791,994	946,576Nova Scotia	12,247,996	6,147,337New Brunswick	10,554,251	5,295,756Totals	34,600,652	17,440,580
* Due to the postal strike, Family Allowances payments for the months of November and December, 1975 for Atlantic Canada were combined in a single cheque and mailed by special arrangement on December 3, 1975. This was done in order to ensure that those eligible received their proper entitlement for November and December despite problems of delivery associated with the postal strike. As a result the December, 1975 statistics listed above include
Order Paper Questions
the Family Allowances payments for both November and December, 1975. The normal value of Family Allowances cheques sent to families in Atlantic Canada is reflected in the figures for January, 1976.
Estimated amount of Family Allowance not paid due to suspension of indexing
3.	Province	January 1, 1976 to March 31, 1976
Newfoundland

Nova Scotia New Brunswick


[Stage Direction]
Total
5,783,512
It should be noted that persons in need have recourse to provincial social assistance programs, which are cost-shared by the federal government.
Mr. Fairweather: Did Parks Canada acquire a service station owned by Imperial Oil Limited in Fundy National Park and, if so, how much was paid to Imperial Oil Limited?


Coline M. Campbell: Parks Canada acquired a service station from Imperial Oil Limited held under lease for the sum of $55,000 for the estate in leasehold together with improvements.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Korchinski:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point or order. On February 6, I placed on the order paper question No. 4040, and it is now almost four months since I raised that question. I think that is ample time for any kind of slowpoke to give an answer.


Mr.   J.-J. Blais@Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.


Mr. Orlikow:: Mr. Speaker, on March 10 my motion No. 94, which was agreed to, read as follows:
That an order of the House do issue for a copy of the most recent magazine, newspaper or newsletter published by each department, agency or Crown corporation.
I do not like to complain, but it has been 2'A months and I still have not received copies of the material which it was agreed would be tabled. I would appreciate it if the parliamentary secretary would do something about that. I also wish the parliamentary secretary would do something about my motion No. 86 which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre asked to be called last week.
95568 - 43

May 26, 1976
Capital Punishment



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Tuesday, May 25, consideration of the motion of Mr. Allmand that Bill C-84, to amend the Criminal Code in relation to the punishment for murder and certain other serious offences, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, at the conclusion of the business at six o'clock yesterday I had embarked upon a discussion about the causes of crime and also about the arguments those of us on the abolition side of this issue have made. The entire debate, in a sense, deflects the public mind away from dealing realistically with the subject of murder and with other crime.
With regard to the argument dealing with the causes of crime, the great tragedy in this country continues to be that we do not take a realistic view of how to reduce anti-social behaviour. By concentrating on whether we hang or do not hang, I do not think we make much of a contribution in either direction in terms of the reduction of the murder rate. If we go back to capital punishment, I have no doubt that there will be a public storm to remove hanging again because then the media will concentrate not on the victims of crime but on murderers. The media will give us three pages dealing with a murderer's last hours, what his last meal was, how the priest led him down to the scaffold and how the murderer's face went blue in the agony of the whole thing.
I believe the public mood will turn, and I have no illusions about the public mood. I am satisfied that a majority in this country favour the return of the death penalty, and that in my own constituency there is a majority which favours the death penalty. I must apologize to those constituents who disagree with the position I take, but I believe they understand that position. I believe they understood it in the last election in 1974 when I was re-elected. I made my position clear in 1972 and in 1974, and I am making it clear again today.
I do not expect a man who runs for parliament to change the views he holds at the time he runs depending on the winds which may be blowing back and forth across his riding. I have taken a very strong position in this House in terms of removal of abortion from the Criminal Code, but I would say that if a person running for parliament believed in the principle of the right to life on that issue and made his position clear in his riding, I, as his constituent, would not expect him to come to this place and change his vote on that fundamental matter of conscience. That is the principle we have to abide by, and that is the tradition of this place.
It is absolutely vital that we continue to support that principle, because if we abandon it we abandon parliament and the traditions of parliament. If we really want to reflect the opinion of every constituent, we can plug them all into a television set. Every bill in the House could be

voted upon by every eligible voter. That is quite feasible. Computers can do it but, quite frankly, parliamentary democracy would become irrelevant in that case-and I do not want to see parliamentary democracy become irrelevant.
As I have said, I think this argument deflects a meaningful discussion of the question of whether we have death or not in terms of the sanctions under our Criminal Code. What we have created in this society is tremendous disparities of income. Every study shows that in the urban areas, regardless of the general wealth, the greater the disparities, the higher the crime rate and the higher the murder rate. One could go to New York, Detroit, Vancouver or Montreal; this is consistent throughout the world. Expectations are raised and people are brain-damaged and manipulated by exposure to violence on the media. When you put these factors together, you clearly increase that risk.
I should like to turn, again, to the responsibility of the media, although I spoke about it at some length yesterday, Mr. Speaker. The time has passed when we should allow the media to peddle violence for the purpose of selling any product. I think that is wrong. We must give some attention to the effect that violence in the media is having. I should like to refer to an article which appeared in Monday's Globe and Mail which carried a report from Miami Beach. The article said:
A psychiatric research team reports that violence on television may produce similar behaviour on the part of the viewer.
The study, by three researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles, was presented here yesterday to the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.
Dr. Roderic Gorney, associate professor of psychiatry and director of the study said that men assigned to watch only violent programs showed more hurtful behaviour in their homes than men who watched only programs regarded as helpful or pro-social.
The media have some responsibility, but they are not cleaning their own backyard. Mr. Speaker, I have known the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) for a long time. She has taken a keen interest in all matters of crime, not merely the death penalty, and has dealt quite articulately with the case for retention. I should like to deal specifically with some of her arguments now. The hon. member indicated that the probability of mistake is minuscule, that the only known mistake is the Evans-Christie case in England. She is willing to admit that in that case an innocent man was hanged. I am sorry she is not here, because I should like to refresh her memory about a number of cases that she was involved in as a journalist.
When I was in law school, a man called Ducharme was accused of killing a woman. The prosecuting lawyer was Tom Norris, who later became Mr. Justice Norris, a judge of the Supreme Court and a judge of the Court of Appeal, and subsequently head of the Norris commission which was instrumental in cleaning up the Great Lakes in terms of related labour gangsterism. Mr. Norris has been an abolitionist for a long time and is an articulate spokesman for that side of the case. I am convinced that one of the reasons for his view is his involvement as prosecutor in the Ducharme case. There was no confession in that case, and while there was suspicion, there was never any hard or
May 26, 1976

conclusive evidence that Ducharme had in fact killed the 44-year old spinster. Although the circumstances were extremely suspicious and overwhelming enough for the jury to convict, I think everyone involved in that case had some real doubts.
Then we have the Coffin case, the Truscott case and the Raymond Cook case. We can read and read and read, Mr. Speaker-but how do we give a man back his life? How do we correct the awesome error the state makes when it takes the life of an innocent man? Yesterday the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay) pointed out that the capacity for error is small-and I agree. There are a number of safety factors within the Criminal Code to guard against mistakes. But no justice system is perfect, and that is one of the reasons why so many people involved in it are abolitionists, why so many who are prosecutors, defenders of judges come down on the side of abolition. The circumstances and facts of every case vary. They know that there are many cases where they can be certain-but are they morally certain? I think before we take anyone's life we should be morally certain.
Some people say we should exclude the circumstantial case. To paraphrase the Hodges' rule, it says that circumstances have to be consistent with guilt and inconsistent with innocence. They forget that the question of identification of the murderer becomes a key part of any murder trial where there is a dispute about identification. If we exclude that, then we exclude almost every case in terms of the death penalty.
The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway dealt with the case of James Carey in which she was heavily involved. His is probably the living embodiment of a case for abolition. He continues to live in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and I believe was head of the Rotary Club. He has been an exemplary citizen since his release from penitentiary. He was charged with the murder of a police officer in Vancouver, and the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway was instrumental in having his death sentence commuted. I think all of society is in her debt for the work she did to*see that James Carey did not die.
The hon. member has justified the change in her position on capital punishment on the fact that Carey did not pull the trigger. But I want to ask her about the case of Miller and Cockrell who are presently awaiting the death penalty for the murder of a policeman in Cloverdale. One pulled the trigger, and the other did not. Is that a case where one sentence should be commuted but not the other? I do not believe we should commute the long prison sentences involved in that case; there should clearly be long sentences for that kind of despicable murder. But the death sentence in that case will not provide safety for the police officers of Canada. The death sentence would not have saved the life of the constable who was killed.
Some confusion in this debate arises from the belief that those who argue for retention argue for safety. I say they argue a case that will not stand in terms of deterrence, and will not stand in terms of providing additional public safety. In the history of man, the death penalty itself has never been applied in a non-discriminatory way. The prejudices of people, the politization of the penalty, mean that the underprivileged hang and the rich never hang.
Capital Punishment
That will be just as true if we return to the imposition of the death penalty in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I do not think my son, if he ever committed the crime of murder, which God forbid, would hang because of the political pressure that would be placed upon cabinet by the PTA and people who would have known his history, and so on. But if you take the case of a native child on a reserve who may kill, he would probably hang. That was the tradition in Canada, and certainly in the United States where 50 per cent of those hanged were black. They certainly did not commit 50 per cent of the murders in the United States. We have to ask ourselves some deep and searching questions about the way we apply the death penalty. The final decision belongs with the cabinet, Mr. Speaker, but we are all fallible and human. There is no way we can bring the death penalty back in Canada and apply it in a fair and consistent way. If we bring it back, we will be lowering the standards of justice in the country in a very significant way.
Yesterday the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta) referred to the problems faced by the people who have responsibility for guarding long-term prisoners who are also murderers. I have some sympathy for their position, Mr. Speaker. We know that a 25-year sentence is really a 15-year sentence in terms of this bill. I suspect that in almost every case, certainly the majority of cases, parole will be granted shortly after 15 years have been served, when the judicial report is made. If we argue that abolition of the death penalty creates a high risk for guards-and I admit there is some risk-we must concede there is also a high risk for police officers trying to apprehend someone when the death penalty is imposed for murder. In those circumstances, the felon has nothing to lose. That is why the death penalty was abolished in Austria, and indeed the police were instrumental in having it abolished. They felt it compromised their safety when apprehending dangerous criminals. I hope we will give serious attention to this view. I think it is important that we have hope and confidence in our fellowman.
When we do something which leads people to abandon hope and confidence, we take a backward step; we go opposite to the direction of social progress, opposite to the direction which leads to social improvement. When Wilber-force argued in the British House of Commons that slavery should be abolished, people thought he was crazy. After all, slavery had been with us since the dawn of history. His concept was revolutionary; but Wilberforce fought for his ideals and won, and his victory was a small step forward for man. When we abolish the death penalty, we shall take another faltering step forward, a faltering step which will lead to the long-term improvement of mankind. As a society, we must seek to become more humane, compassionate and civilized. Surely that is the end we seek.
I urge members of parliament to gird up their courage, to listen to their conscience and to abolish the death penalty.
I say, you will not increase the murder rate in Canada; you will enhance the safety of all Canadians.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, the bill now before us expresses the will of this government to
955 68-43(4

May 26, 1976
Capital Punishment
abolish completely the death penalty as a possible punishment for the murder of a policeman or a prison guard.
The question is still very controversial and even if the bill were to be passed that would not necessarily mean the end of the debate; far from it, because the reasons for the discussions remain very active today despite the fact that, for several years now, the government has tried to decrease the application of the act as much as possible by gradually restricting its application and even simply refusing to apply it. Mr. Speaker, in fact one can say that the act was amended three times since 1961 at which time every murder was considered to be capital murder for which the penalty was always the death penalty.
In September of 1961, the act set up two categories: first, capital murder with the possible penalty of capital punishment. Here we were dealing with premeditated murder, that of a policeman, a prison guard or a judicial authority, and finally murders committed in the course of another criminal act. The second category included all other murders the penalty for which could be as severe as life imprisonment. Later, in September 1967, the act was amended again for a period of five years, reducing the notion of premedidated murder solely to those who were found guilty of the murder of representatives of the law.
In 1972, five years later, the House of Commons decided by a free vote that only the murder of a peace officer would be considered as capital murder. We know, Mr. Speaker, what happened afterwards, and we know very well that, for all practical purposes, it meant the abolition of capital punishment, since all death penalties have been commuted to life sentences for several years. This matter has been discussed for several years, yet it is still with us today.
I had the opportunity to take part in many debates on capital punishment both outside and in the House, where I first came in 1968. I heard practically every possible argument and figure from either side, and I personally quoted many of them to support my views and add weight to my arguments. In 1972, I even went as far as to conduct a survey of 18 heads of families in my riding, the results of which I submitted to the House to emphasize that the great majority of our fellow citizens were in favour of reinstating capital punishment, and it is still practically the same situation that prevails in the riding of Richmond which I have the honour to represent today in the House.
For instance, in February 1976, 1777 heads of families in my riding answered a question which I put to all of them. Question (A) was as follows: Do you agree that cabinet should commute death penalties to life sentences after the court has condemned the criminal to death? Out of a total of 1676 people who answered this question, 330 said "Yes", and 1,346 "No". Therefore, 19.7 per cent are in favour and 80.3 per cent are against. Question (B) was as follows: In the case of premeditated and capital murder, do you approve of the death penalty? Out of a total of 1,688 answers to this question, there were 1,469 "Yes" and 219 "No". Which means that 87 per cent are in favour, while 13 per cent are opposed to it. To question (C): Should parole be granted to a criminal convicted of premeditated murder, 1,676 people answered, 97 said "Yes", and 1,579 "No". This means that 5.8 per cent are in favour and 94.2 per cent are against.

Since the matter has again been brought in the House today, I intend this time to deal with it in a completely different way. This is why I will not refer to statistics and various views to discuss more particularly the basic principles involved as far as the death penalty is concerned. I want my intervention to be objective and clear of all emotivity or passion often raised during such discussions. First I will state the main points generally made for both sides of the matter. I then intend to put the death penalty in its present context where society is confronted with criminality, while recalling also how the penalty was applied throughout history. Afterwards, I would also like to interpret the policy of government authorities on the question and finally indicate my own position.
Should we be for or against the death penalty? This is the question. As to arguments made for the abolition or retention of capital punishment they are numerous and I will mention only the main ones. Those who wish at any cost to abolish entirely the death penalty sometimes say that it is merely a barbarian remnant which has no room in a so-called modern and civilized society. Some will advocate the humanitarian rehabilitation of murderers alleging the dignity of human life. Others will say that it is mere revenge, a backward application of the law of retaliation. Finally, a few, such as the Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) for example, will argue that it is a useless step since, according to them, figures do not prove that it reduces the number of murders. Those are the major reasons advanced by those in favour of abolishing this penalty.
On the other hand, the retentionists suggest mainly that this is an effective means to reduce the number of murders by arousing the fear of punishment in the criminals. Others suggest that the carrying out of this sentence would be a deterrent for potential criminals. Finally, others say that the implementation of capital punishment would automatically deal with those who relapse into crime and commit more than one murder.
All those arguments from both sides may be discussed one by one and supported by figures and striking examples. I will return indirectly to this later on, but for the moment I would like to place this issue in its true context of everyday life and to relate it to our own society. I sincerely believe that only this way will we be able to deal with the issue realistically, because otherwise the discussion remains philosophical and I consider, if I may use that phrase, that it is only hot air which leads nowhere.
As a matter of fact, if we do not want to miss the point completely, we must agree at the outset that the problem of capital punishment is closely linked to several other social problems. Therefore, we cannot deal with it and analyze it without relating it to the other problems our society is afflicted with, because they are the other pieces of the puzzle of crime, of which murder is the last and most serious one. We must therefore criticize society as a whole if we are to understand the role capital punishment may or may not play. One must be completely blind not to admit that our modern society is faced with huge difficulties with regard to crime. And what becomes particularly alarming is that this phenomenon becomes general and affects all social strata.
May 26, 1976

To give a good description of the problem, let us say that there are two kinds of crimes: flagrant crimes and discrete crimes. Among flagrant crimes there may be various types of thefts (housebreaking, simple theft, car theft, robbery) as well as assault and battery, rape and, finally, murder. On the other hand, among the so-called discrete crimes, there are a great number of actions that are sometimes very surprising on the part of quite ordinary people which nobody would consider as reprehensible actions. Nevertheless, we may put in this category all kinds of tax evasions, secret stock exchange transactions, bribes, time stolen by an employee idle at work, and lies.
To convince oneself of the gravity of the situation, one just has to consider the worth of a promise in today's world, where even a signed contract is not honoured any more. Even if it seems a very strange thing to say, crime is almost accepted socially as something which is not quite bad or wrong.
That is why it is not unusual to hear people boast about the way they have financially deceived a partner, an employer or someone else, as though it were an achievement. Unfortunately, this way of thinking has been spreading on a large scale during the last few years and has literally poisoned human relationships in the financial, social and domestic fields. It is thus that we have progressively destroyed honesty, a sense of honour and trust to make way for this new type of morality which is actually nothing more than the resurgence of the law of the jungle under which each individual tries to grab all he can get without offering anything in return. If carried to the extreme, this goes as far as the elimination of the other individual, and there we have the whole process of crime which is almost accepted today and ranges from mere lie to murder. And this social acceptance of crime is emphasized even more by advertising which, generally speaking, pictures various offences under a glamourous guise and even turns some criminals into international stars. I shall go even further and suggest that our laws treat criminals better than they treat the honest silent majority of people.
To be convinced, one only has to see how considerate we are about providing sports facilities, entertainment and weekend passes for the criminal, whereas the jobless father has to fight with the unemployment insurance office to get the cheque he is lawfully entitled to. We are thinking of giving a salary to prisoners, but because of the anti-inflation program we reject higher family allowances and so on. One may notice in all this that the victims are forgotten and that he who is against this new morale is not even considered as up-to-date or normal. This brings me to say that the present debate is biased, because generally our laws as well as society itself already favour the criminal. I would go as far as saying that the present discussions are basically false; as evidence, one only has to recall how senior employees of the department succeeded in bringing the minister to sell the idea of abolishing capital punishment by reducing it gradually these last years.
The other question which arises, Mr. Speaker, is this: Is justice capable of being just? Before going any further on capital punishment as such, I wish to ask a question which, in my view, is fundamental and which has not been mentioned by anyone or very few people. Can justice as we know it today be trusted and is it capable of applying
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effectively and fairly laws such as the one on capital punishment? This question is extremely important since it must be expected that those who are responsible for administering justice practice what they preach, so that the whole of society is trustful and their work is fruitful.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, the answer is not completely reassuring. Unfortunately, one must see reality as it is, and integrity seems to be gradually stepping aside to be replaced by bribery, political dealings, patronage and all those types of new ethics which creep into large corporations, governments and even justice. One only has to see how certain judges are appointed, sometimes more for their political services than their integrity.
The death penalty is not something new and history tells us that it has been applied through times in every possible way and for all imaginable purposes. In the beginning of mankind, millions of men, women and even children were executed; in ancient times, for instance, criminals were done away through stoning, hanging and crucifying. In ancient Rome, they were thrown to the lions and throughout the medieval period, in the name of religion we burned, quartered and beheaded those who were called heretics.
Then the guillotine appeared in France. After came the electric chair in the United States as well as the gas chamber. Those were the ways to apply capital punishment but there were also other means; during the Second World War, Hitler's Germany condemned to death millions of human beings-Polish, Ukrainians, Jews and others-who were hanged, shot or passed through the gas chamber. The death penalty in those days was called Dachau, Auschwitz and so on.
Closer to us, Vietnam has been the scene of numerous executions under the cover of the raging war. Quite recently again, according to the media, capital punishment was imposed in Angola on several people unwilling to help the UNITA, and I can well imagine that it was the same with ALNF and ALPM. To be convinced, one only has to recall the recent piece of news indicating that in northern Angola every woman was raped at least three times by Cuban soldiers. We can then understand why the death penalty may be imposed for whatever reason in some countries.
Yet that is only a very brief historical account on capital punishment, but I think it is sufficient to realize all the abuses to which this penalty gave rise from the beginnings of humanity until today. If I take the trouble of raising all these facts on the death penalty, it is to place the issue in its context. Closer to us, Mr. Speaker, let us see what are the attitudes of governments and ministers responsible for that issue. Last year, the chiefs of police in the province of Quebec, meeting in a convention, adopted one resolution as did the Canadian association of mayors, urging the government to impose capital punishment in view of the incredible increase in violence and in the number of murders.
In reply to a question, the Solicitor General (Mr. All-mand) later stated:
I categorically refuse to be associated in any way with a hanging.
That is his privilege. On the other hand, the then minister of justice of the province of Quebec, Mr. Jerome Cho-quette, stated he disagreed with that resolution and the

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death penalty was not consistent with the concept of human progress. That is serious. If someone in the street had made such a suggestion, there would not have been great harm. But when one or two ministers responsible for supporting and enforcing the law will not enforce it or respect it themselves, it is getting serious. Is that the so-called progress concept? Is that the kind of attitude public authorities should have to instill respect for the law? In such circumstances, how can they require citizens to abide by the income tax act, for instance, or any other act for that matter? Maybe that is one of the links in the heavy chain of crime that is crushing society at all levels.
Mr. Speaker, some people refer to the Bible to defend their theory on capital punishment or in support of this legislation. As far as the Solicitor General is concerned, I wish he had been as energetic to enforce the law as it now stands as he has been in selling his or his officials' idea of complete abolition. He spoke on the subject on a number of occasions and I shall refer to the speech he made in March 1975 entitled: Prevention and control of violent crime in Canada. At some point, he referred once again to the Bible forbidding to kill. That point is made now and then, and it deserves closer examination.
The Solicitor General stated, and I quote:
The paramount issue is one of morality. Are we justified in taking a human life through capital punishment? Execution does not erase the crime of murder. It takes away another life. The commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" is part of our Judaeo-Christian heritage. It emphasizes the value of human life.
True, the Lord gave that law. It is also a fact that this same law stresses the paramount importance of human life. But it is not quite fair to use that one verse out of context and without any reference to the other directions God gave us, in an attempt to prove He is against capital punishment. That would go against what the Bible says further on. First of all, God created man free, so that he may accept or reject the commandments He gave him to be happy. Now, man misused that freedom by rejecting the divine commandments, preferring to decide by himself what is good or wrong, and we know with what result which was not long coming, since the first generation had its first murderer, Cain.
So, in the beginning, seeing that man misused his freedom and rejected even His commandments, the Creator determined penalties according to offences, and that is why God said, as reported in the Bible, and I quote:
Whoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
That is quite different from what the Solicitor General said.
Mr. Speaker, in the same address, the Solicitor General proposed a whole series of preventive measures, and I quote:
What, then, do I suggest in place of this? Some of the measures that I propose to prevent and reduce crime are the following: better trained, better deployed and better equipped policemen; effective gun control, proactive rather than reactive police work, more effective correctional programs for juveniles and adults ... and so on . ..
Mr. Speaker, I want to stress that those are truly fantastic proposals and the minister must be commended for them.
The only thing I regret is that those are very nice words to put on a postcard, for instance, but apart from that, they

are nearly useless since they do not correspond at all to reality. They are more like smoke than anything else. I have the impression that the minister is still thinking like a Pee-Wee and that he has been drafted by the major leagues without realizing it.
Professional criminals and organized crime are omnipotent and some people even say that they have friends quite near the government... Gangland murders are becoming more and more frequent, and so are senseless murders. The streets of our major cities are no longer safe. Violence increases everywhere. Our "modern and sophisticated" civilization has become that of highjacking, political assassination, hostage taking and kidnapping. Even our youths take part in this spiral of violence and seem to prepare a society which will be far from restful.
For instance, the United States News and World Report issue of January 26 last published an especially impressive article entitled "Terror in Schools". It says that violence and vandalism have taken epidemic proportions to which no one seems able to remedy. Between 1970 and 1973, murders in schools increased by 18 per cent, theft by 37 per cent, assaults on students by 85 per cent and assaults on teachers by 77 per cent. Indeed, in view of the urgent need to put a stop to violence, the Attorney General of the United States, Mr. Edward Levi, who had been against this penalty before, is now in favour of capital punishment in certain cases.
During this time, the Solicitor General intends to aim his action nearly exclusively at prevention, as if this were sufficient. This is very naive reasoning! I believe there must be prevention, but it is not enough; as in the education of children, it is necessary to have just but strict penalties according to the seriousness of the offence. Whether we accept this or not, it is a deterrent which, to some extent, will stop certain criminals. Mr. Speaker, these last few years, we have forgotten the victims.
Our justice has become so slow and lax that we forget about the victims and we even go as far as considering it horrible to punish criminals for the simple reason that too much time has elapsed between the crime and judgement or the carrying out of the judgement so that it is hard to see why they are punished. In this sense, the death penalty has long become ridiculous because of a simple political game.
As I have already said, to be efficient, a judgement must be carried out. Even if it is in the Criminal Code, that is not enough. It must be carried out immediately after the judgement and it should not be delayed by never ending time lapses, until the crime if forgotten or until it seems almost innocuous. Otherwise, the criminals are finally considered as victims, as this bill wishes and we forget about the true victims. Besides, I would like, Mr. Speaker, to read to the House a letter written on February 8 this year, which I have just received, and which tells a lot about this subject:
Dear Mr. Beaudoin:
I send this letter to you and to anyone who might be interested in this subject. The results of the present discussions about the death penalty affect the whole country. A bill to abolish the death penalty will be introduced in the House on February 9, 1976. This is a rather curious coincidence but for me this particular date is the saddest of all. You see, sir, February 9 is the date of my daughter's birthday. She would have been 17 this year but she will never be. My daughter Sharron was
May 26, 1976

savagely killed on March 29, 1975. She had gone to see some friends four blocks from where we live but never got there. Three days later, her body was discovered in a field a few miles away. She had been kept prisoner for three days, raped, hit so hard that she had a double jaw fracture, a skull fracture, a broken nose and ripped organs.
The cause of death: asphyxia by blood in her lungs and her abductor also strangled her. She had been bound and gagged. In looking at statistics about murder in recent years, I must say there has been a very steep increase in the number of murders. As an example, in the province of Quebec alone, there were 17 murders in 1955, 53 in 1965, 217 in 1975. Something has to be done.
Not only is the number of murders increasing dangerously, but also the nature of the crime is becoming ever more sadistic. With the laws as they now stand. I have to believe in capital punishment, not neccessari-ly by hanging or by the electric chair, but by sleep, the same way we put a dangerous dog to sleep. As to the argument about the risk of putting innocents to death it would be the exceptions who would remain in prison until they are recognized innocent. In my view, the law is a joke. At present, capital punishment for the murder of a policeman or prison guard exists, but only in the texts of law and not in reality. If you cannot trust the law, whom can you trust? I believe in God and I consider myself a Christian and I believe in the word of God when he speaks to Moses in the Bible in Numbers, chapter 35, verses 16 to 21. Those assassins eat, sleep, play cards, tell jokes, have a lot of fun and now they want to form an association in prisons while their innocent victims who had their lives taken away lie in their coffins.
Those victims cannot speak for themselves.
They need your vote.
I trust in God to help you.
Mrs. Yvonne Prior 445 Congregation Street Montreal.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, in the present state of things where reality indicates a frightening increase in murders and violence in general, continuing to spare hard-core murderers, as proposed in the bill before us, is automatically to condemn others, that is innocents, to pay the price with their lives. So under this legislation the government and particularly the Solicitor General indicate that they want first to protect criminals by reducing their sentences-pending the time when they will offer them trophies and trips to the South-rather than protect the citizens.
Not only must I be against this bill but I must say that in my opinion a responsible government should immediately reinstate capital punishment in Canada, and I should be actually enforced in cases of capital murder-I stress capital-premeditated or committed in the perpetration of another criminal act. However, I expressed certain reservations and that is why I pointed out certain abuses that had resulted from the death penalty in history. I also think that the death penalty alone will not solve the problem of murder because murder represents only the last link in the whole chain of crime which should also be reduced by other means.
However, I know it would check the increase of all types of murders. But I also know that the Solicitor General, as well as the government, wants his legislation to pass at all costs with what is, I hope, nothing but touching guilelessness. I for one took the time to consider all the basic principles of that issue. As for the rest, the Solicitor General, supported to some extent by the cabinet and his caucus, will have to assume the responsibility of the view he defends so desperately. Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I wish to quote a few sentences spoken on April 21, 1968, at Notre-Dame de Paris by Reverend Marcel Cornells, on the
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53rd anniversary of the mass murders of Armenians. This reverend father said, and I agree whole heartedly:
Each time we remain unconcerned or shed hypocritical tears in the presence of crime, an even more serious crime is about to be committed, a crime for which we shall no doubt assume our share of responsibility.
He who through his passivity and unconcern is an accessory to a crime committed today is already an accessory to the more serious crime which will be committed tomorrow, and let him beware because he who is now only an indifferent spectator could become tomorrow a bleeding victim.


Mr. Ross Milne (Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I want to start by congratulating the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt). I have attended the House and listened to a good deal of the debate on this very important and emotional issue, and I thought he was one of very few members who brought some new thoughts and new approaches to this over-all problem. Were he in the House, I would congratulate him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Ross Milne: Unlike some of the members of this chamber who have been here for some years, this is the first occasion I have had to address the House on the subject of capital punishment. Since the time I was elected to parliament I do not believe I have dealt with any issue that has been more sensitive or more difficult in coming to a conclusion. I think I can say in all truthfulness that I have approached this subject with an open mind. I did not have any great depth of knowledge of the law when I originally analysed this problem, and I sincerely felt I could be persuaded by arguments for either side. I wanted to maintain an objective perspective on capital punishment because I considered it my duty to evaluate all reasonable arguments on both sides of question. It is my respectful submission that members of this House who have prepared themselves as either ardent abolitionists or ardent reten-tionists have seriously limited their capabilities of giving their constituents' arguments a fair hearing.
Because I am not a lawyer I did not have a full grasp of the legal intricacies of the question. I should like to express my indebtedness to Senator Neiman, of the other place, whose excellent speech of May 29, 1975, illuminates the salient legal issues of the capital punishment question, and I recommend it to all hon. members to read.
I have, personally, made every attempt to research the capital punishment question thoroughly. I have spoken with lawyers, policemen, criminologists and social workers. Indeed, I have had the opportunity of discussing the issues with people who have spent a considerable number of years on death row. For the benefit of my constituents and for my own discipline in preparing for this vote coming up, I have written papers on the history of capital punishment, on the law on capital punishment and on the referendum on capital punishment. In addition to that, I have distributed to a good number of people a number of papers, particularly one on theology and capital punishment.
The greatest part of my study was devoted to discussing this subject with my constituents. Like most members, the correspondence I have received on the subject has been voluminous. The topic arose at the two latest series of town

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hall meetings recently held in my riding, and I certainly gained a great amount of valuable information from my constituents on those occasions.
Like all Canadians, the people of Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe have a deep-rooted concern about the direction our criminal justice system is heading. They are concerned that society may not adequately be protected against violent crime. They want reassurances that our legal institutions are capable of dealing with anti-social elements properly and effectively. A sense of anxiety or uneasiness has naturally followed the wave of violent crime of recent years which has taken unprecedented sensational dimensions. Through radio and television, Canadians are intimate witnesses to such incredible international incidents as the recent murders of diplomats in Paris, and each day on the news we hear about the incessant, senseless violence that troubles Northern Ireland. Disturbing incidents of this nature cannot help but exert an unsettling influence on our own feeling of security here in Canada.
Here at home many Canadians perceive that violent crime is spiralling out of control. The truth is that we enjoy one of the safest societies in the world. To a large extent, this distorted perception of violent crime has been fostered by the media's sensational treatment of isolated incidents such as gangland murders in Montreal and hostage incidents in British Columbia prisons. We often hear the viewpoint that criminals in Canada are conducting their nefarious activities without any fear of restraint or apprehension. I do not believe this reflects reality. If it were true, Canada would by now have fallen into the same hopeless state of anarchy and confusion which engulfs more and more nations.
This is not to say that various aspects of our criminal law process are not in desperate need of reform. People are genuinely concerned about the shortcomings in our system of granting bail, and I am glad to see the provisions of Bill C-71 have now been proclaimed into law. This legislation should make strides in reducing the abuses which our bail laws have suffered in the past.
The vast majority of Canadians are disturbed about the proliferation of guns in our society and their increasing use in criminal acts. Part of Bill C-83 seeks to redress this problem, and as I have spoken on this matter on two earlier occasions in the House I will not deal with it further today. There is concern about the parole system in Canada, about the process of temporary release of inmates convicted of dangerous offences, and about the sentencing procedures for dealing with incorrigible offenders; but Bill C-83 attempts to respond to these problems also. The peace and security proposals before parliament are, again, the kind of action many Canadians are demanding. They are anxious to see effective measures placed into law which hold a promise of combating the trend toward violent crime.
I should like to put this in better perspective. What is the question with which we are dealing? I do not believe we are dealing in isolation with the question: Are members in favour of capital punishment or not? Or, on a theoretical basis, whether or not they are in favour of capital punishment. If that were the case, certainly I would think that the polls are correct in that 70 per cent to 75 per cent of
[Mr. Milne.l
Canadians favour the retention of capital punishment under these conditions.
Surely, the question parliament is considering at this point in time and, indeed, will be voting on in perhaps not too many days, is the following: Given better law and order through the provisions of the peace and security bill, such as gun control, sentencing of dangerous offenders, wiretapping, crime inquiries, parole, bail as passed recently, crime prevention and redefinition of murder, with first-degree murder carrying a life sentence of 25 years, certainly before parole can even be applied for, do we still need capital punishment on the law books of Canada to deal effectively with crime in our society?
With respect, Mr. Speaker, may I say that I think that is very different from the question: Are we, or are we not, in favour of capital punishment? This is the difficulty I have with public opinion polls. I do not think they accurately reflect on the question with which parliament is dealing, because most of the polls I have seen which have given this preponderance of opinion on the retentionist side have asked the simple question concerning whether or not we are simply in favour of capital punishment.
My experience with town hall meetings, which I should like to share with the House, has been that when the question of capital punishment has come up, it is true that when a poll is taken often 75 per cent of the people attending are in favour of capital punishment. But on a review of the law, the royal prerogative, the plea of clemency and the history of the law as it has been developed, and after discussing the provisions of Bill C-83 and then asking how many people are still in favour of capital punishment, the result is very evenly divided. In fact, we have had meetings at which perhaps only one-third of those present, with a better understanding of the law, would still want capital punishment retained.
I think, as many members have mentioned, that is reflected in the Gallup poll as published in the Ottawa Citizen of March 4, to the effect that what society wants is better law and order and that it may be satisfied with that instead of capital punishment. The question is asked: If we can achieve better law and order, would we, or would we not, be satisfied to see an end to the death penalty in Canada? I really think that is the question. The national poll indicated that 48 per cent would say yes, that 48 per cent would say no, and that the other 4 per cent are not sure. I would point out to hon. members that should this bill fail to pass and we return to capital punishment and carry out capital punishment with the three people on death row on July 15, I really suspect there would be a very different feeling across Canada and I would think that a poll taken at that time would indicate that a very small percentage of the people would in fact support capital punishment.
There is one other aspect of this on which I want to comment because I think it is rather important. I refer to the question of the numbers. In 1974 there were something like 545 murders in Canada. Only seven of these involved policemen or prison guards. If the law had been applied systematically, I wonder if we would have had seven cases of capital punishment. One thing that is disappointing to
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me is why in this House we are not debating more seriously the question of the 538 other murders. Surely they should be of equal importance and should share a good deal of the time of the House. I think this is what the hon. member for New Westminster devoted most of his speech to.
I have been reading that some 70 per cent of the people who have been murdered have been known to the person committing the murder, and that probably 40 per cent of all these murders, which is well over 200, are domestic murders. It would seem to me that the time of the House would be well taken in a good discussion of some of the trends in our society which lead to the rapid increase in murder in domestic situations. I think of such things as our rapid trend toward urbanization, the poverty levels we have in certain areas, versus the expectation certain people have, the display of violence by the media on television, and so on, and such things as job frustration, overuse of alcohol, depression and drugs. I think members really should be talking about all these things, because in the case of prison guards and policemen we are dealing with something like half of 1 per cent of the crime and we are dealing with a very small percentage of the murders committed in Canada.
It seems to me that in coming to a conclusion on this very difficult question there are three major considerations. One is the revenge approach. There is the question of is, or is not, capital punishment a deterrent, and whether or not we really are interested in rehabilitation of people who commit crimes. I might just comment on revenge. It certainly is an opinion held by many people: they equate revenge with justice. A high percentage of the mail I have received merely supports capital punishment on this basis. I have great difficulty with that.
The law has developed over the years. Members will know, as well as I do, that we have hanged over 700 people during the history of Canada. The first person to be hanged, I understand, was a 15-year old girl, for the crime of stealing. Surely, the law and our society have developed a good deal since that point in time, who committed the offence is concerned. I really think that in this debate we would be wrong not to talk about some of the needs for rehabilitation and the reform of our penal institutions, because as an alternative to capital punishment, if we are to commit murderers to prison for terms of 25 years, we cannot neglect our present responsibility to modernize the prison system and provide work and rehabilitation situations in order to prevent the further development of a potentially violent and destructive malaise among our prison population.
Surely, it is socially unconscionable and irresponsible to imprison a murderer or any offender for practically indefinite periods of time without seriously evaluating the environment to which they will be subjected. It is of no benefit to society to throw away the key and by doing so increase the volatility and inhumanity of the prison setting. I think a policy of longer prison terms must be accompanied, not by a superficial satisfaction that greater justice has been done, but by an augmented concern for the treatment of the prisoner over these longer periods of time. Really, the key question is whether or not capital punishment is a deterrent to others who might commit murder.
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My research-and I would like to think that I have done as much as any member of this House-cannot substantiate that it is a deterrent to other people who might commit crime, at least this type of crime. Certainly, if there is some question concerning whether or not it is a deterrent, it would seem to me that the responsibility really should be on those who support the retentionist stand to prove how strong a deterrent it is in fact.
I have reviewed, as I am sure have many others, the experience in other countries. I think Italy and France are two countries which might be compared. In Italy, which is an abolitionist country, the murder rate is 3.21 per 100,000, compared to France, which is a retentionist country, with a rate of 5.11 murders per 100,000. When we look at the statistical evidence in the United States there is very little difference in the murder rate between bordering states which have or which do not have capital punishment. I think, in reviewing this, we might refer to a few statements made by people who have looked into the matter in great detail. In 1958, the Massachusetts special committee investigating the abolition of the death penalty concluded:
There appears to be, in fact, no greater deterrent effect in capital punishment than in a sentence of life. It does not contribute to the reduction of murder, it is simply an easy and harmful way of satisfying the need "to do something about it".
In Great Britain, the royal commission on capital punishment, which held hearings on the subject from 1949 to 1953, reported:
The general conclusion which we have reached is that there is no clear evidence in any of the figures we have examined that the abolition of capital punishment has led to an increase in the homicide rate or that its reintroduction has led to a fall.
I fully concur with Schusessler in his report entitled "Murder and the Death Penalty" that statistical studies have uniformly concluded that the death penalty is consequential as a deterrent and that the relative frequency of murder in a given population is a function of the cultural conditions. So the basic point is: does capital punishment deter anyone from committing murder more than the prospect of life imprisonment? Professor Wilson says, as quoted in the minister's opening speech:
It is a matter of dispute whether any penalty will have a deterrent effect on murders, but surely the prospect of a long prison term will have as much as most others.
I support that point of view quite strongly. There are a couple of other arguments that 1 would like to put forward. There seems to be a strong viewpoint that if we were to hang one, two or more people, that would effectively control crime in our society. I do not believe that and I do not subscribe to it. I oppose that point of view, because surely members who have been studying Bill C-83 carefully and the background to it would see in the statistics that the explosion of crime is really at the lower end of the crime scale. Crimes of violence as a percentage of both total and Criminal Code offences have not changed over the last 10 or 12 years. If anything, as a percentage there are less of them today than there were 10 years ago. What we are dealing with is a rapidly increasing rate of armed robberies, of arson, of sexual offences, of assault, and so on. There are more murders within the domestic setting. I do not think that if on July 15 we decide to hang two or three
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people, that will effectively control crime and there will no longer be any more corner milk stores robbed.
I am impressed with a quote from the Church Council of Justice and Corrections which reads as follows. I assume all hon. members have received material from them, but I would like to quote the following sentence:
The available evidence suggest that the sanction of capital punishment does not really promote public safety by deterring potential killers, but that it does engender a false security in the public mind, which in turns delays community and government efforts to seek creative, realistic and humane alternatives more likely to prevent violence and restrain the violent.
I would recommend this material to hon. members, particularly the point of view that is set down there. The other argument which I would like to put forward and which I think is relevant here is respect for the law. All members of the House have been receiving in their mail letters which show that the country is demanding a return to real, tough law and order to combat a perceived rise in violent crime. A great deal of concern focuses on the administration of laws which already exist, and there is a feeling that our courts and prosecutors are being too lenient with dangerous offenders.
It is important in this debate that the citizens of Canada be reminded of the dichotemy of the justice system provided under our constitution. Simply put, the federal government enacts the laws and the provinces are charged with their administration from the arrest stage through the prosecution and sentencing stages in our courts. It is my opinion that the large degree of public concern should be directed at the provincial attorneys general who have the responsibility of directing the administration of criminal justice in Canada. Many of our present laws provide our courts with sufficient latitude to dispose of cases involving public safety in a way that conforms with public opinion. But our courts have been reluctant to administer the present laws to their full extent. I submit that if we were to make the law so tough or to revert to laws which existed back in the eighteenth century, as many people are demanding, many people would not respect the law and I do not think the courts would administer such a law, nor do I think the police would police the law if we were to do that. I think we want to be a little careful in how tough we make the law in response to many people who are demanding a return to the law which existed at the turn of the century.
In the remaining few minutes I have, I want to touch briefly on two other points. I want to speak as have many other members, about the concern I have about an individual who might be convicted of committing first-degree murder receiving a fair trial. I would not have thought this issue to be so important a year and half or two years ago, but I do today. Surely, all hon. members are conscious of the attitude being displayed toward minority groups here in this country recently and even, in fact, toward some language groups. That is why I raise this question of whether a fair trial can be held, because when we talk about the state taking the life of a human being we must have absolute confidence that the state can guarantee consistently fair trials with the minimum possibility of error, and I am not sure that is possible.
Let us consider, as an example, a wealthy person who is very articulate, well dressed, can afford the very best
[Mr. Milne.1
lawyer and witnesses brought from anywhere around the globe. The perception of that person by a jury, as compared to their perception of someone who may have considerable difficulty with the language, may not be articulate or well dressed and cannot afford the best legal support or witnesses, would be very different. I have heard lawyers discussing this in relation to the law courts. A businessman driving a very expensive car, who has had a few drinks at lunch, gets picked up by the police. Is he not treated quite differently from a youth with long hair, in a rusty old car who is charged with the same offence? There is a question as to whether in fact these two people are judged exactly the same in court. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled capital punishment to be unconstitutional on these grounds.
We have to take into account that this is not an easy time to deal with the subject of capital punishment, given the present backlash with regard to minority groups, to those living in poverty, and, as I said, even to some linguistic groups. There is an old saying which applies here, that it is difficult to get a rich man into heaven and it is probably impossible to get his head into a noose. On the basis of religion, again, many people hold deep convictions on both sides of the issue, using religion as the basis of their viewpoint. Perhaps half the mail I have received is written from a religious point of view, and the same applies to people who have spoken to me on this subject. In fact I have in my files-and if time permitted I would even read them into the record-two excellent letters I have received from ministers in my riding, each minister representing a different church located across the road from each other. Both letters are excellent, well referenced and written with feeling and conviction. Each of them takes exactly the opposite point of view.
I respect these opinions completely using, as they do, religion as their basis. I only want to say that some people take a pretty narrow view by using a tew words from biblical writings to support their argument. I suggest that people should look at how the law changed from the early biblical times to later times and how the attitude toward the law changed over that period. I came across an excellent paper, in my view, entitled "Theology and Capital Punishment". It was written by a very learned scholar, and I recommend that hon. members read it. I found it most useful in responding to people with this viewpoint.
In summary, I do not challenge the right of the state to take a life. In fact, I found little fault and was relatively comfortable with the present law and how it was handled; in other words, that capital punishment is on the books but very rarely, if ever, carried out. In fact, in Canada it has not been carried out since 1962, but the law has been there in case some very extreme case should happen to warrant capital punishment. Like the hon. member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan), I would not be opposed to capital punishment for anyone who committed a second murder, either in or out of prison. My only apprehension in this whole question is about the security of prison guards, and so on. As a matter of fact, I thought about proposing this amendment myself at one time, and if the bill goes to committee-which I hope it will-and comes back with this amendment, I would most certainly support it.
May 26, 1976

However, I just cannot support capital punishment on a routine basis for every case either under the law as it is now written or for all first-degree murders, as recommended by many people and some hon. members of this House. That is why I will certainly support Bill C-84. The debate really boils down to the question of removing capital punishment from our Criminal Code or of practicing it on a systematic basis. These questions must be evaluated within the context of the facts which, in my opinion, show that capital punishment is not a significant deterrent to murder and that the mandatory use of capital punishment might well result in less possibility of punishing murderers, in view of the hesitation of juries to convict for capital murder. A couple of hon. members commented on that point this afternoon.
I believe very strongly that the death penalty creates the false expectation that we will reduce the amount of violence in our society. I suggest that the reverse is true, and that using murder or violence by the state to control violence would be neither an effective nor a desirable way of producing peace and security in Canada.
Having researched the subject carefully, given it much thought and shared many evenings with my constituents discussing this, and corresponding with them, I will certainly vote to support Bill C-84, Bill C-83 and any reasonable amendments which might appear when they come back from committee.


Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, I enter this debate with a sense of having been here before, because I was in parliament in 1966 when the resolution on abolishing capital punishment was debated in this House. At that time there was a free vote, the freest vote this House has ever had and far freer than the one which is shaping up now. We debated the concept and not the legislation, and the concept of abolition was lost in that vote. The vote was followed by subsequent legislation, which is the legislation on the books now. The legislation which was brought in at that time was bad law, but it did something which was even more reprehensible; it ignored the free vote of parliament. I recall the debate which took place a little later on the legislation, when virtually all the debate which had taken place on the resolution was repeated. As it got down to the wire, I remember that it was a little doubtful whether that bill would pass.
At that time I was approached by a member of the NDP behind the curtain and asked how I was going to vote on the bill to limit capital punishment to the slayers of police officers and prison guards. I said I was going to vote against it. He expressed amazement and asked how I could vote against it. He pointed out that I had voted for abolition, and I replied that it was not an abolition bill. He said, "Yes, but you know they will commute them all". I knew, he knew, and I suspect that the government knew that it would commute them all and that what had been achieved was a kind of abolition but not, in a sense, by a vote in parliament.
I know that there were hon. members on both sides of the House who voted for that bill saying to themselves that at least in this instance the death penalty would be carried out, and I know that a great majority of the public accepted the bill which was presented in that light. It is from that shift and from the fact that the commutations have
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been virtually automatic that a truly appalling situation has developed in this country in which there is now little faith in the law-making of this institution. We hear demands for national referendums because of the sense of frustration which has built up. We know that the government has come to an appalling point. I knew this would develop. It was only a matter of time after passing the legislation that the government would be faced with the terrible choice between mass commutation for all those people on death row, which is not politically acceptable, or mass execution, which is something very foreign to this country.
Then the government has compounded that problem one step further by offering abolition as a trade-off for gun control, or gun control as a trade-off for abolition, in a sense offering the public gun control in exchange for abolition. The people who own guns know that that is not a gift, but that it will be charged against them. It is not much wonder that the public is frustrated and that we in parliament find ourselves in this difficult situation.
As a person who voted for abolition then, and who is convinced now that the only sensible course for this parliament is to abolish capital punishment by a vote of parliament, I know that I probably go against a majority of my constituents, although that has not been accurately assessed, and I defy a great many of the simple polls which have been taken as representing accurate assessments of the will of the total constituency or, for that matter, the nation. Nevertheless, they create a sensitive, difficult problem and tension between members of parliament and constituents which should not be necessary. Abolition should come by a vote of this institution, and it must still be argued by the people who believe in abolition.
I did not blame police officers for wanting to broaden the grounds for capital punishment because the legislation which was passed singled them out in a way which was cruel. The other group, prison guards, are not visible to the public, but police officers are, and they have been the only visible people whose murder fell into a different class. That has concentrated attention on them which has not been in their best interests, and certainly the potential threat of the death penalty has not served to prevent their murder, either.
I deny the deterrent value of the death penalty, but the very singling out of those two groups in the legislation ascribed to the death penalty a deterrent value it did not have. Hon. members accepted the bill and voted for it because they felt they were protecting the people they wanted to protect. Here, again, the frustration of the commutations has compounded the intensity of feeling which has developed in the public. I still argue that it has been many, many years in this country, if ever, since life was forfeited for a life in murder. Our system of justice does not, and has not, rested on that delicate balance of a life for a life, although we have heard from all sides that it does and that if we do not maintain this balance, somehow the very structure of our system of justice will crumble under us. I do not believe that. It is easier to reply on a coupon in one of the advertisements run in the newspapers than it is to sit on a jury, as people still must, in our judicial system and after listening to the evidence, decide what the verdict should be. I find that juries have not changed since the one
95 568-44/4

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about 1947 which refused to convict a murderer of two people very close to the community in which I had lived. I have not had much faith in the death penalty since that time, Mr. Speaker. My basic argument against it is its terrible unfairness.
In the Okanagan Valley, in the last year, there have been four cases of murder reduced to manslaughter, for which the sentences ranged from four to seven years. There was the case of the Crown v. Brown for the murder of Sadie Edwards at Sicamous. That case did not go to the jury because plea bargaining entered into it. There was a plea of guilty and a sentence of seven years was imposed for that murder. During the Christmas season, Sophie Loria West was charged with murder in the death of Earl Edward Walker. The circumstances of that murder fitted the very circumstances that so many people argue should lead to the gallows. It was murder for gain. There was a jury trial but, again, the charge was reduced to manslaughter and the sentence was four years. I have not had a single letter of protest from my constituency about any of these cases, Mr. Speaker. One was in my constituency, and the Walker case was just outside. There have been no letters of protest, so it would seem that the verdicts were acccepted.
Mr. Speaker, I am not convinced that a jury that would not convict on a charge of murder in a case which would carry life imprisonment would have the heart to convict in a case where the penalty was death, or that anything would have been changed in any of these cases if we had returned to the death penalty two years ago or in 1973 when this House last debated the subject.
I have talked to my constituents on this topic since 1966 and I find that everyone makes exceptions, everyone names categories of murderers that should not go to the gallows. Some tell me that I would change my mind if I came home one night and found my wife lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. I reply that I do not know how I would act in a moment of such extreme emotion and tension. Then I ask them, how they can be sure that the murderer would hang? I know he would not if he were wealthy or influential-and that point has been dealt with before. He would not if he were young and caught the sympathy of the jury. He would not if he were insane and judged not fit to stand trial. He would not if he were drunk at the time and this lowered his ability to reason. And she would not if she were a woman. It is many years since a woman was hanged in this country. Very rarely, in English-speaking Canada, have we hanged a woman. They are the great exception.
I would point out that if I had committed the murder myself and called it a crime of passion-that other great excuse for murder that still runs through the domestic life of this country and treats the wife as a piece of property to be disposed of by the husband-I probably would not hang. Mr. Speaker, in my experience in this country, life has not been forfeit for life taken in every case.
Those people who send in the coupons in the newspaper advertisements are not asking for the death penalty as the law states it should be applied, or a simple broadening of it; over and over again they are asking for the death penalty without exception. I have written to some of them

and told them that 1 do not believe they really mean the death penalty without exception. I find that everybody has an exception. When we had capital punishment, in the end it involved hanging very few people. They had to be poor, old, ugly and male before they went to the gallows.
I should like to say a word to the abolitionists, Mr. Speaker, because I feel they have been strangely quiet in this debate. This is no time for silence. Although the argument may be tougher now, and although they will be up against a determined public, if they believe the death penalty as it used to be carried out was something that did not benefit this country and did much harm because it diverted attention from the causes of crime, their voices should be raised for abolition. I praise the courage of those people who continue to write-theirs is a more slender stream of letters than from those who support the death penalty-but they should continue to write and urge the total and final abolition of capital punishment in this country.
Can we go back after a generation without capital punishment? The country has changed a lot in that time, particularly the minority groups and native people. Now there are demands for nations within the nation-but how much greater this would be if we returned to capital punishment and the federal government attempted to carry out that sentence without exception? A return to capital punishment would speed the demand for nations within the nation. Within the last two weeks there has been a suicide which has been widely published and is being called a martyrdom. Imagine the tensions that would arise if we were trying to execute a member of the native population. In Vancouver, at the moment, an extradition case is being argued and tensions are rising, although in a sense it is somebody else's problem. These are things we have to consider, Mr. Speaker. The women's liberation movement has made great strides, but I wonder if they would argue for the right to hang women when it has been so long denied them.
I reply to the women who talk to me, write to me and are vehemently in favour of the death penalty, that no woman in the country should argue for capital punishment, partly for the reason I have just mentioned, and for other reasons. Women have been the great exception. For many years half the population has been automatically exempt from the death penalty, not by reason of law but by reason of our custom, tradition, the benevolence of our courts and the kindness of juries. Women have been exempt from the penalty, and the exemption has remained.
The question of the death penalty is closely related to the question of abortion, another tough question which parliament may need to consider again. I get letters which say, in so many words, "Abortion is murder." It seems to me that the public which is aroused about the death penalty and prepared to see a return of the death penalty may also become aroused about the scandal of abortion and seek to change the law in that regard. It seems to me that since some women call abortion murder, and others a matter only for the woman involved and her doctor, there is a split in the nation, a split which a referendum will not settle. I say that because you would have to argue whether men would have the right to vote in that referendum.

May 26, 1976

While we have been arguing whether to retain the death penalty or abolish it, we have not been at all prepared to abandon our thirst for violence as depicted on the media. In this country and in the country to the south of us we have been steeped, hour by hour, day by day and week by week in a compendium of violence and crime on television which has influenced for more than a generation virtually every child growing up on this continent. We have not been prepared to remove those instructions in violence from our television sets, but have freely sat in front of our sets and enjoyed the stories of violent death and murder in every conceivable shape and form. Then we wonder, as we reap some of the harvest of that depicted violence, whether we should retain the death penalty, whether we should say, "Let us return to capital punishment", and try to clean up a situation which has been spawned by a variety of causes.
It is essential for members of parliament to vote on this issue according to their conscience; and I include the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the cabinet. Since this subject is of the utmost importance to the public, I suggest that we ought to be debating a resolution, not a bill. Certainly, we ought not to be debating two bills concerned with so vital an area. The people should trust their elected representatives to vote either for or against abolition. I know that some call for a national referendum on the subject; but a national referendum is not part of the parliamentary tradition we inherited from Great Britain. It was not to the credit of former prime minister Harold Wilson that he employed a referendum in connection with Britain's entry to the Common Market. It was unnecessary, and a waste of public money. Fortunately for Mr. Wilson, the results of the referendum agreed with the vote in parliament.
We should recall, as well, Mackenzie King's referendum on conscription. That referendum raised more questions than it answered and was not followed by legislation based on the results obtained. Therefore, a referendum is unsatisfactory, and until the constitution is changed the ultimate responsibility for action rests in this House. It is our duty to act as the representatives of the people.
This is not a convention of delegates. This is a parliament. It is our duty to debate and then to legislate. If we received our instructions automatically from our constituents, debate would be unnecessary. We would await the results of the polls on any topic and become mere ciphers, carrying out the instructions of our constituents. We do not do this; that is the glory of our parliamentary system.
Let me now say a word about the churches. I have received letters arguing both sides of this question, but have been astonished, after reading some of the letters, to note that they are signed by a minister or a pastor of a church. I am afraid I am not much good at quoting scripture chapter and verse. I had a formidable grandmother who preached endless sermons to me, my brothers and sister; she could quote chapter and verse endlessly. Perhaps, because she did it so well, I have never been able to do it at all. But one thing she did say: her Christianity was based on the New Testament, not on the old law. She told us time and again that the old law was written for our admonition, but our instructions lay in the New Testament.
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I still cannot understand why those who study Christ's life and devote their life to His service cannot stand back a bit, so to speak, from the narrow language of chapter and verse and let the glow of the stories of the New Testament light their way through life. Surely that is a better ideal. One remembers many stories. I cannot tell you in which part of the Gospels these stories are to be found; some of them need to be examined thoughtfully, from a little distance. I think, first, of the story concerning the rejection of political power. Christ was taken to the top of the mountain and shown the whole world. I suspect if He had heeded the teachings of some of our modern-day churches, He would have said at the top of the mountain, "Here is a chance to clean up the world." By doing that He would have accepted temptation, rather than rejecting it. But He rejected political power and chose the different route. I think also of the beautiful story in which He commuted the death sentence of the woman taken in adultery. The law called for death and He commuted the sentence at some risk to Himself, because the group which was about to stone her to death was in the heat of passion and thirsted for blood. He dared to commute the woman's sentence. I think of the beatitude of the noble sentiment enshrined in that story: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy.
I think of the story, perhaps most crucial of all but seldom referred to in this context, of that crazed individual in the cemetery. We do not know if he was guilty of murder; he was guilty of something, perhaps of disturbing the peace. He had been chained, put in the maximum security institution of the day, but still had broken out. Nobody dared to touch him. One suspects the worst about his background. The scripture is silent on that point. The stories of the New Testament teach us that Christ permitted no man or woman to be regarded as an animal, not even one who had been treated as a beast. And I get letters from constituents saying we should sort out the animals from the people. They fail to see how closely interwoven the two can be. But Christ talked to that strange person; nobody had the courage to go with him. Then, when the curious crowd gathered round, they found the sinner seated and in his right mind. There was no suggestion that he needed to serve the rest of his sentence. His rehabilitation was complete and final.
Of course, Christ himself was eventually the victim of capital punishment. Pontius Pilate took a poll. That is something that people forget. He was given the answer very quickly; it was Barabbas. He responded to that impromptu poll. Gallup comes later. We should not forget that part. We should not forget the crucifixion between two common criminals, because that was not accidental. He was numbered with the transgressors. I will not go into the theological difficulties and the "ifs" and the "ors", because what was done was done. It should serve to illuminate the debate going on at the present time.
I have a concern for all the victims, whether it is the battered wife hit too hard once after years and years of battering, whether it is the so-called unfaithful wife, or whether it is somebody beaten to death by somebody while in a drunken stupor. I have a regard for those victims. It

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has been a long, long time in this country that a life has been demanded for a life in those circumstances.
If any women in this country feel strongly about it, they should read "Crimes of Passion" in the July, 1975, issue of Chatelaine, by Barbara Amiel. She writes well on that subject. She writes about the problem of domestic quarrels, the integrity of the law and concludes with this paragraph: But perhaps the integrity of the law might be better maintained if we called a spade a spade and a murder a murder and started indicating that our society will not consider the marriage license a discount certificate for reduced rates in case of violence.
One thing is certain; it must be abolition or it must be broader. This is part of what we face. Those who demand a much greater broadening of capital murder have a point because it would make much more sense if it were all or none. We must leave no crack open. In the law as it now is, two cracks were left open. The hope was that no one would dare squeeze through, but they have done so in surprising numbers. Out of that grew a dilemma. Therefore, we must not close off those two and open one more. Here I would refute the argument about the second murder because somebody will squeeze through that very swiftly. Then all the arguments that apply to the first murder will apply to the second: Was it accidental; was it premeditated? All that will arise again and we will have achieved nothing. Sooner than we think we will be back into debate once again.
Would we be able to resist the demands of television to televise executions? We can hardly resist the demand to televise the proceedings in this chamber. If television can enter here and change it as it will inevitably change the role of this institution, how long can we deny the camera access to executions themselves and with results that are not predictable? A great many people say there would be a revulsion if hangings were televised across the nation. I am sure there would be a revulsion if we returned to capital punishment. However, if they were televised, I wonder whether we have not become so depraved that we could enjoy, as a mass, those spectacles. One cannot predict the effects of television. Therefore, I urge that we abandon capital punishment once and for all, altogether, completely and utterly, so that we will not have this ritual sacrifice.
When there have been so few people executed, the executions are in a sense rituals, a sacrifice for the sins of all. Getting back to the church, that has not been necessary for over 1,900 years. Once and for all, the final sacrifice for the sins of the world was made. If we listen to the story at all, we cannot deny the redemptive power that comes through that sacrifice. We should remove capital punishment once and for all and work toward building a society where the causes of murder are removed. We should work toward educating our people to do no murder in this land.


Mr. Mike Landers (Saint John-Lancaster):: Mr. Speaker, in response to the encouragement of some of my constituents to vote to abolish the barbarism of capital punishment, I can only relate to this House what my conscience tells me to do and how my present state of mind was reached. Throughout my youth I attended many policy sessions and so-called "think tanks" on the issue of capital punishment. In each and every case I voted in favour of the perennial resolutions for the abolition of capital punishment. However, for better or for worse, I became a Crown attorney in the year 1970.

During my four years as a prosecutor I had the misfortune to assist in the prosecution of a West Saint John, New Brunswick, man who was convicted of having murdered a seven-year old child. During the commission of the murder, a sexual assault took place on the person of the young and innocent girl. I did not feel then, nor do I feel now, that society could afford the luxury of keeping the perpetrator of such a heinous crime alive. The possibility, however remote, exists that the murderer in this case will be released into our midst at some time in the future.
The question that preyed upon my conscience then, as it does now, is: What should be done to such an individual? After considerable thought, some of it during restless hours of the night, the answer came to me that he should be executed-not hanged, but put to death in the most humane way possible. My thoughts on the issue of capital punishment were solidified when a short time later, as prosecutor, I was obliged to attend the autopsy of a five-year old girl who was murdered in the Saint John area. Assuming the perpetrator of this foul deed, who was never apprehended, was found to be legally sane and convicted, he too, in my humble opinion, should be put to death.
I wish that I had not been exposed to these two cases. Also, I wish that compassion for this type of killer could prevail over what my conscience tells me to do. However, that not being the case, I shall cast my ballot against the abolition of the death penalty, bearing in mind that its use should be restricted to a very small number of cases. It is my submission that the state should have the right to decide when the lives of certain criminally-ill murderers should be terminated. I should like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that I am pleased to see the issue being put to a free vote.
In conclusion, may I emphasize that I understand the principles of abolitionists, even though my conscience does not allow me to embrace these principles. I trust that the same understanding will flow from abolitionists to me.


Hon. W. G. Dinsdale (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, many members who have participated in this debate have referred to its repetitive nature. To me this only suggests that uncertainty surrounds an issue which has moral overtones. It also suggests to me that the Canadian public has hardly made up its mind on the question of retention or abolition of capital punishment. There is great confusion and profusion of divergent viewpoints.
I think one of the reasons this has persisted over such a long period of time-as some hon. members have indicated, this is the third time we have debated the issue, with inconclusive results-is that the government of the day has failed to provide basic leadership on what I regard as the fundamental function and responsibility of government, and that is the maintenance of peace, order and good government. The style of the present government has had a strong determining influence on the mood of the nation. It has been a style of government that has induced a permissive attitude toward the basic subject of peace, order and good government. Indeed, up until the appearance of Bill C-83, the so-called peace and security legislation, the leadership of the government has been entirely in a permissive direction-easy bail, murders committed while murderers
May 26, 1976

are out on bail, failure on the part of the government to carry out the law that exists and as it has been determined in two successive free votes in the House of Commons. In other words, the government has failed to accept its responsibilities, and as a result we see this continuing confusion revealed in the debate which is taking place in this House.
We are now back to another free vote. But I wonder, Mr. Speaker, whether it will be a free vote when every member of the cabinet votes, as the cabinet did last time, for the abolitionist position. It seems to me that rather than being a free vote, this is following the principle of cabinet solidarity. I think it would be more to the point if ministers of the Crown, members of the treasury benches, were allowed to follow their conscience in this issue as well as the backbench members of the House of Commons.
My position over the years has been expressed in the attitude of the government of which I was a part in the early 1960s, which was to divide the punishment for homicide, for the capital offence, into two categories, that of capital murder and non-capital murder. Many members during the course of this debate-some have followed the same tack this afternoon-have stated that the possibility of condemning an innocent man to death is one of the reasons they are voting for absolute abolition. Others argue-the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leg-gatt) made this point-that very serious injustice would be done in cases of this kind. However, Mr. Speaker, with the two categories of murder-which have actually been the law, with slight amendments, up to the present time-any possibility of condemning an innocent man would be done away with absolutely, because capital punishment, the ultimate penalty, would only be administered to those who were syndicated criminals, those who use crime as part of their daily activity-the paid "hit men", the professional gunmen who are appearing with greater frequency in some of our major cities in Canada, as they have in the United States in recent years.
It is a fact-this has been demonstrated in the reports of the Law Reform Commission-that most murders are committed by murderers who are acquainted with their victims. They are domestic crimes-husband and wife, lovers, "friends"; I put that in quotation marks-people of this sort. These murders come under the category of crimes of passion. Under the legislation as it existed in the time of the Diefenbaker government, this type of homicide was tried under the non-capital murder provisions of the Criminal Code.
The question of deterrence has appeared repeatedly. I am not going to argue whether capital punishment deters the crime of homicide; I do not think it does. When you are dealing with the heinous, horrendous kinds of capital murder which would be dealt with under the capital punishment aspects of the Criminal Code, you are, of course, dealing with psychopathic personalities, people without conscience, people who have no compunction about murdering someone. There is absolutely no possibility of their being deterred even by the threat of the ultimate penalty. The hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) gave some striking examples from her own personal experience of this sort of psychopathic criminal.
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Mr. Speaker, I have had occasion to deal with one such person on a personal basis in the police courts in Toronto back in 1940, and it has had a strong determining influence over the years on the attitude that I have taken toward this issue. The case in point was that of the silk-stocking murder. Bill Newell, a handsome member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, in the early days of the war cut a wide swath in criminal activity in the various places he was stationed across Canada. I came to know Bill Newell in my capacity as a social worker in Toronto and was amazed to find that there was a genuine psychopathic personality, as handsome as a Greek god but without any social conscience or awareness whatever in regard to the crime of murder. He wound up murdering his wife on Centre Island in Toronto in the famous silk-stocking murder.
As the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway pointed out, there is, unfortunately, in our society this category of psychopathic personality. What are we going to do with them, Mr. Speaker? As I shall try to point out as I move along in this debate this afternoon, when it comes to the question of vengeance putting a criminal of this kind away for 25 years, for life imprisonment, it is much more cruel, much more punitive, much more vengeful than execution through the due process of the law.
[DOT] <1740)
I am arguing the case this afternoon from the legal aspect, not from the religious aspect or from any other aspect that might be involved. I am sure we are all abolitionists at heart, wishing we lived in a society where there was no crime and in a world where there was no war. My generation had to make a decision with the onslaught of the Nazi holocaust in 1940. Some of us were pacifists who believed that war was the ultimate evil, and had even signed the Oxford resolution that under no circumstances should we take up arms for king and country, because man was just too good, with the hope that there would never be any more warfare. We had to make the decision whether we would serve, or refuse, on the basis of our sense of social responsibility.
We do not yet live in our utopias, even though we dream of the day of a utopia when the lion will lie down with the lambs and man shall beat his sword into a plowshare and will not make war against our fellowman. Some of those who seek utopia tell us the golden age is just around the corner, but some of these are the worst criminals in the political and judicial sense. I refer to what has taken place in the U.S.S.R. and in Nazi Germany where genocide and mass murder were perpetrated within our own living memory in the interest of carrying out so-called humanitarian justice.
Our system of justice involves a social contract that citizens enter into voluntarily with the understanding that society will protect them. It becomes a very sorry travesty of justice, and it has not happened in Canada but it could according to present trends, when communities of senior citizens are forced to surround themselves with electrified, barbed-wire fences, patrolled 24 hours a day by security guards, in order to keep out marauders and potential criminals. It is almost like putting the senior citizens in jail and allowing the criminals to run rampant in the community and in society.

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What are the methods of handling criminals? At one time society used to ban their criminals, getting rid of them-out of sight, out of mind-by sending them to colonies such as Australia, Canada and notorious Devil's Island. More recently, we have been listening to social scientists and social engineers who believe that all crime has environmental causes, and men and women are criminals because we live in a sick society. They advocate the rehabilitation route for solving the crime problem.
The rehabilitation program has had strong support during our discussion of the subject from time to time in the House of Commons. We must face the sad fact that as we move toward rehabilitation versus the punitive approach, we are faced with the continuing phenomenon of crime repetition or recidivism. Recidivism is a fact, and this can be demonstrated by the prison population which remains at a constant 20,000 inmates, or at least has from the years 1969 to 1974, notwithstanding our system of parole, probation and temporary leaves of absence. It has been demonstrated by scientific analysis that many of these 20,000 inmates are repeaters with numerous sentences behind them.
If this is so, we must point out to our social engineers that prisons cause crimes. This would be true, of course, if the environmental theory is accurate. So this leads to the next approach to solving the criminal problem, and that is to empty the prisons. This is one of the major recommendations of the Law Reform Commission set up by the federal government under the Law Reform Commission Act of 1970 to recommend changes in Canadian law. The Law Reform Commission has been a most powerful advocate of dismantling or downgrading prisons. Some of these recommendations issued in the working papers now before us have been pretty radical. I give as an example the recommendation of a maximum three-year sentence for those violent murderers unlikely to repeat their crime. I challenge any social engineer or social scientist to tell us which of the psychopathic murderers are those who will not repeat their crime.
The law commission has also recommended no greater imprisonment for most violent criminals, and no more life sentences. I mention that because the government, in its attempt to trade off the issue of capital punishment for peace and security, has got itself into a cleft stick. It has been repudiated by the very commission it set up to examine the present state of Canada's criminal law.
If the Law Reform Commission is advocating that we empty our prisons and that there be no more life sentences, how is it that the Justice Department and the Department of the Solicitor General are recommending that we deal with first-degree murder-the imposition of a mandatory life sentence, and for second-degree murder or crimes of passion, which anyone is liable to fall into, but for the grace of God, as John Wesley said-with sentences of up to ten years?
It has been suggested that murder is on the increase, and certainly statistics point in that direction. In 1961, the last year capital punishment was imposed, there were 185 murders, and in 1974 there were 545 murders perpetrated in Canada. This being true, what are we going to do with the recommendation by the social engineers, who have the ear of the government, that we do away with penal institu-

tions completely and divert the prison population back into the community?
There is an interesting article which appears in the current Quest magazine outlining the position of Mr. Hans Mohr, a member of the crime commission. He is one of the strongest advocates of doing away with incarceration of criminals. This is the schizophrenic attitude of the government, and this is why parliament is in a schizophrenic mood with members debating the issue almost in both directions simultaneously. How can we bring about rehabilitation in penal institutions, if penal institutions are basically the cause of crime and recidivism is caused mainly by the atmosphere in our existing penal institutions?
There seems to be anarchy in our prisons today. This is mentioned in the report of the crime commissioners. An editorial in the Globe and Mail states that our prisons are becoming a no-man's land beyond the rule of law and civilized man. The Solicitor General (Mr. Allmand) has said that the situation in the prisons today is such that it is necessary to break up cliques and gangs and transfer them to other institutions. Yet the government intends to deal with the ultimate crime of murder by sending psychopathic and professional murderers, syndicated murderers and paid killers, to our penal institutions-which have been roundly condemned-for a mandatory life sentence of 25 years.
Obviously, Bill C-84 is a backward move in this regard. If the atmosphere is bad now, what will it be when we have an increasingly larger population of murderers serving life sentences let loose in our penal institutions? If we are to solve the problem, it will be necessary to have special institutions because the lives of the guards will not be worth anything. This is why parliament, the last time it voted, provided an exemption for prison guards and police officers. This will create an absolutely intolerable and impossible situation. As I have already indicated, the trade-off is more cruel than the death penalty itself. It would be a living death for first-degree murderers, and even second-degree murderers would be living in an impossible situation. It seems to me that by the present legislation the government is removing one nightmare and replacing it with another that has even more dire consequences for people.
I wish to spend the last minutes of my presentation this afternoon dealing with the victims of crime. Almost exclusively we are talking about criminals.The Solicitor General has bought, almost without reservation, the argument of the social engineers and social scientists. He agonizes over the psychological strain of imprisonment referred to by the social engineers and shares the worry of the Law Reform Commission which expresses itself in similar words by referring to the anxiety which can be induced by incarceration.
Curiously, the Solicitor General is less concerned about the psychological anxiety of society at large. While the social engineers have been studying the psyches of convicts, a similar study of their victims and a most cursory look at the Gallup polls and letters to the editors which members receive on this subject from the majority of their
May 26, 1976

constituents will indicate the far more dangerous psychological trauma of society.
I have already referred to the citizens' group that had to surround itself with barbed wire and hire security guards for protection against criminal attack. The Solicitor General has an almost mystical belief in social science and social scientists, notwithstanding the fact that his own departmental people can prove to him that the results of last week had been anticipated with regard to the impact of rehabilitation. He perceives the criminal as a person suffering from a lack of love early in life, who rebels with anti-social behaviour, and he simply cannot believe that criminals are other than sick people. I would point out to him that there are psychologists who have underscored this as a psychopathic situation where the human spirit has been so warped that nothing less than being born again would take out the kinks from these unfortunate victims of our society.
Even the physical scientists today are not so sure they have all the answers in the realm of the material and the physical. At one time they had all the answers. The chemical engineers have discovered that their attempts to change the material environment by miracle sprays and chemicals have had an impact that they could not possibly anticipate. There are no more modest people today than the physical scientists who no longer play the role of God even in a material world. So, I should like to say a word on
Capital Punishment
behalf of the victims and the traumas they experience in the face of the awful crime of first-degree murder.
Finally, to bring my remarks to a conclusion and coming back to the basic issue of peace, order and good government, we are hosting the Olympic games this year. This has been brought up in the House before by one of our most distinguished members. What happens if terrorism is cut loose at the Olympic games, and what if some of the terrorists are apprehended and are incarcerated in our prisons even though the crime might be subject to capital punishment? What happens if hijackings of aircraft ensue in order to attempt the blackmail release of these imprisoned terrorists?
Surely the state has the right to protect itself against those who are out to destroy the integrity of the state. Peace, order and good government must be preserved. It cannot be preserved if we condone the use of the ultimate crime, capital murder, by those who would destroy our way of life deliberately-not those involved in crimes of passion but those who would deliberately set out to destroy our way of life. This is why I support the retention of capital punishment for those who are guilty of first-degree capital murder.
May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
At 6 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, May 27, 1976