1976-11-17

OFFICIAL REPORT

[Stage Direction]
SECOND SESSION-THIRTIETH PARLIAMENT 25 Elizabeth II

[Stage Direction]
Published under the authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada Available from Printing and Publishing, Supply and Services, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S9
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[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, November 17, 1976


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Recognizing the debt that freedom owes to Great Britain for her stand in two world wars and in particular during the darkest days from June 1940 to December 1941 when she and the Commonwealth stood alone for freedom, and that her sacrifices of resources and blood have contributed to her present perilous financial position, and whereas even if the International Monetary Fund does provide Great Britain with a loan of $3.9 billion it will not be sufficient to tide her effectively over her existing financial difficulties, and because of this the United States and West Germany are now giving consideration, which is expected to be favourable, to providing loans from their respective countries, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Rynard):
That Canada should give a lead to the other member nations of the Commonwealth by making a substantial loan to Great Britain immediately and should encourage Australia and New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries to take similar action.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


OLD AGE SECURITY ACT
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of great urgency to many Canadians and that is why I ask hon. members to permit it to be presented
under Standing Order 43. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas):
That this House urges the government to put an end to the shameful practice of taking away the spouse's allowance from about 200 widows or widowers a month, simply because of the death of the older spouse, and that the ending of this practice be achieved by bringing in without delay an amendment to the Old Age Security Act to provide for the pension under that act to be paid to all persons between ages 60 and 65 who are out of the labour market, regardless of marital status.


Mr. Speaker:: Such a motion pursuant to Standing Order 43 can only be presented to the House if there is unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


MISS CANADA CONTEST
Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of the most urgent and pressing necessity. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton Centre (Mr. Paproski):
That this House extend its congratulations to Yvonne Foster from the city of intellect and pulchritude. Saskatoon, on the occasion of her winning the Miss Canada contest.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Mr. Cyril Symes (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to move a motion under Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas the chairman of Northern

November 17, 1976
Double Taxation Treaties
Telecom has stated that his corporation, a subsidiary of Bell Canada, has threatened to shift a major portion of its operations to the United States due to the business climate; whereas Northern Telecom is the major supplier of communications equipment to Bell Canada, and as such is a major contributor to costs that Bell passes on to telephone subscribers; and whereas the proposed shift would have very severe economic and employment repercussions for this country, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn):
That Bell Canada and its subsidiary Northern Telecom be placed under full public ownership and operated as a public utility to ensure both employment for Canadian workers and an export capability in communications technology for this country.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The introduction of such motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



INCOME TAX


Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Whereas this House is currently considering a series of bills dealing with double taxation treaties with several countries, which bills cover transactions involving several billions of dollars; whereas the government is currently negotiating such a treaty with the United States which will certainly be the most important of these treaties; and whereas this government has consistently circumvented the spirit of parliamentary review of such treaties before finalization both in this House and in committee, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke):
That this House deplores the attempts of this administration to reduce parliament to a rubber stamp and requests the Minister of Finance to provide a reference so that there may be a full and meaningful review during negotiation of such treaties, particularly in respect of the current treaty with the United States.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The introduction of such motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my first question to the Minister of Finance? In response to the question I put to the minister yesterday concerning his budgetary forecast of a 5 per cent real growth in the economy this year, the minister said that the experience in Canada will very likely parallel the experience in the rest of the OECD countries. As it has now been indicated that such expectations may be down considerably, that average real growth may only be 3.5 per cent, will the minister indicate what is his current forecast regarding the rate of growth in the Canadian economy?


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it would be wise of me to do that particularly before the third quarter results have been received.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, may I direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Finance? In view of our sagging economy in which over three quarters of a million people are out of work and in view of the minister's "I'm all right Jack" attitude as revealed yesterday-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: -an attitude revealed in his reply yesterday-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member has already put forward a lengthy and unacceptable preamble to his supplementary question.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, would the minister indicate if he reviewed the suggestions made last May by my party with respect to certain tax expenditure cuts with regard to federal spending amounting to about $1 billion? If so, will he indicate if he also gave consideration to our proposal last May of a 10 per cent tax credit to those earning $8,000 a year or less and a scaled down credit for those earning between $8,000 and $16,000, a proposal made basically because it was anticipated that a 26 per cent income tax increase-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Nanai-mo-Cowichan-The Islands.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker.
November 17, 1976


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS PROPOSALS FOR COST-SHARING-CONSULTATION WITH PROVINCES
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my question to the Minister of Finance? In view of current reports that the federal government proposes opting out of existing federal-provincial cost-sharing arrangements for hospital insurance, medicare and postsecondary education by imposing a ceiling on increased costs and in lieu thereof granting the provinces half tax points and half cash, may I ask the minister this question: Can the minister confirm whether such proposals have been placed before the provinces and what is the nature of their response with respect to their acceptability?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the proposals with regard to a change in that part of the fiscal arrangements were put before the provinces some months ago at the federal-provincial meeting and there have been discussions since that time. It would not be accurate to say we are opting out of the funding of these programs. What we have proposed in response to requests from the provincial governments is that we could bring to an end the process of cost-sharing by which the federal government is put in the position of auditing provincial expenses and that we could make available to the provinces equivalent sums of money to that made available in the year 1975 but subject to escalation of the gross national product.
As to the question of the manner in which this should be done, whether it should be a transfer of all tax points as requested by some of the provinces or continue to be a totally cash payment as requested by others is obviously a matter upon which there is no single provincial agreement. We will be going to the provinces to talk about a number of possible compromises on this to try to meet a part at least of the two contending points of view that have been put to us.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, since any change to tax points will adversely affect the economically disadvantaged provinces even more than the others, and since some of the provinces have stated that the change in the formula for the revenue guarantee will require them to increase their provincial income taxes which will have serious consequences for the economy of the poorer regions of Canada, is the federal government prepared to reconsider its cost-sharing proposals and the provincial revenue guarantee formula in favour of proposals designed to assist the provincial governments rather than hamstring them?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's analysis is not correct. Indeed, the calculation we have made is that over any period of time the proposal would produce a greater transfer of financial resources for provincial programs than would be available under a continuation of the existing program. I go back to the point I made. There have been extensive provincial representations over the years that we should transfer the taxation responsibility to the provinces.
Oral Questions
We are prepared to a degree at this point that where a province is responsible for the major spending, it should also be responsible for a major part of funding of that program. However, we recognize that in the case of the less well to do provinces a continued federal cash payment will have to be made. What we are seeking to do in an act of compromise is to meet all of the competing claims that the provinces have put on the federal government.


EFFECT OF FEDERAL PROPOSALS ON COST-SHARING- GOVERNMENT ACTION
Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my supplementary question to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that tax points will bring greater benefits to the wealthier provinces and since the Prime Minister has stated that he wants a unified and indivisible nation, a sentiment with which we heartily concur, may I ask him if he is not aware that the Financial changes his government is advancing will only further aggravate federal-provincial tensions and will tend to alienate even further the economically disadvantaged provinces, such as Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, at the very time when our federal system needs to be strengthened rather than weakened by unnecessary discord?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the statement of the hon. gentleman and I disagree with the premise of his question when he says that this proposition will not be in the direction desired by some of the less advantaged provinces. I can give him one clear example, that of the province of Quebec which has always asked for tax points rather than cash. It seems to me that demolishes his thesis pretty neatly.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the Minister of Finance a question arising out of what he has described as a rather disappointing performance of the economy compared to his budgetary expectations. As I understand it, the minister has indicated that he does not intend to present a budget at this time, probably not until the spring. In view of the serious consequences of the slow rate of growth, and in light of other difficulties which confront the country as far as Quebec is concerned, would the minister be prepared to make a comprehensive statement on the economic situation as he sees it and the stance taken by the government within the next week or so?

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Oral Questions


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I would be prepared to consider that suggestion. It seems to me that our rules do not provide for the kind of quasi budget statement the hon. gentleman has in mind, but commencing Friday there is to be a debate on the second reading of the income tax bill and I will be glad to take into consideration the possibility of expanding the remarks I would normally make on the presentation of this bill and give some current review of our perspective on the economy.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Might I ask the minister not only to give consideration to this suggestion but to give the House an assurance that he will make such a statement? I ask him this in all earnestness in view of the impression-and I do not mean to be impertinent-that either the government does not know what it should do in the present circumstances or feels that its present stance, the stance outlined in the budget, is the right one even in the face of deteriorating conditions. I ask for this assurance in face of the grave problems confronting us- the slow rate of growth, rising unemployment and so on-in this country at the present time.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I have made it clear that I do not anticipate bringing in any further taxation changes at the present time. Equally, I have left open the possibility of re-ordering the government's spending priorities within the fiscal framework so as to be of particular assistance to those in the community or in the work force who have been most disadvantaged by the slow rate of growth. As I mentioned to the hon. member for York-Simcoe, I would be reluctant at this point to make a definitive statement on the performance of the economy this year until I have received the figures for the performance in the third quarter.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Would the minister not agree that the answer he has just given will be interpreted as an indication of drift on the part of the government which, in turn, will cause uncertainty in the minds of everyone concerned with the economy?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Not at all, Mr. Speaker. It is an indication that our primary concern is still the fight against inflation and that we do not intend to take any action which would make it more difficult to achieve the inflation targets we have set and which we believe it would be in the interests of the country to pursue. At the same time, as I have said, we are prepared to place more emphasis on the needs of those sectors of the community which are particularly disadvantaged by unemployment; we are giving close attention to doing just that.
[Mr. Stanfield.)


HOUSING
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs.
I believe he has left the House for a few minutes. Since we are currently receiving letters from builders of single family dwellings advising us that these are hard to sell at the present time because interests rates are very high, which means that monthly payments are much too steep, would the minister advise us whether the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, through him, or else the government, intends to improve the situation so that whoever is able to buy a single family dwelling can do so without having to pay out $350 or $400 a month?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, on a supplementary.
Can the minister tell us whether he will suggest to the government next year that the owners of single family dwellings be allowed to deduct from their federal income tax part of their mortgage interests?


André Ouellet: Any statement on this subject, Mr. Speaker, will be made in due course to the House.


FAILURE OF MANITOBA HOUSING CORPORATION TO REVEAL LAND VALUES-REQUEST FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY
Mr. Dean Whiteway (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs and has to do with serious charges which are contained in articles appearing in the Winnipeg Free Press. Manitoba Housing Corporation has been receiving millions of dollars in funding from Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, at the same time not revealing the true price paid for land. In view of the fact that CMHC would be expected to have a thorough knowledge of land values in Winnipeg, thereby raising serious implications of impropriety, I would ask the minister whether he would now begin a public inquiry on that matter.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I am quite familiar with this case. Officials of CMHC have already asked the Manitoba Housing and Renewal Corporation to give an explanation of these questions. I want to say to the hon. member that in seven out of 22 projects approved by the city of Winnipeg this year, the amount of loans approved by CMHC has been 5 to 10 per cent lower than the amount requested by the province.


Dean Waldon Whiteway: Mr. Speaker, I believe the minister misunderstands the thrust of my question. In view of the inflationary impact that these transactions have on the price of serviced
November 17, 1976

land in Winnipeg, to the extent it is 50 to 75 per cent higher than market price, would the minister reconsider, if not establishing a public inquiry, at least undertaking a ministerial inquiry into the matter?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, we are already inquiring into the matter. 1 do not think we have to have public inquiries every time something is happening. We are having a departmental investigation into the matter and are looking very seriously at the question.


AIRPORTS
Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport similar to one 1 asked him on November 9. In light of the fact that it is the right of the successful bidder to select car rental counter locations within the airport on the basis of the highest bids received, not on the basis of the highest bids accepted, and having regard to the regulation the minister authorized in setting out tenders, which he has called an unfortunate choice of words, namely that "counter space within the terminal building will be leased to car rental concessionaires for the term of their agreement with the location preference in accordance with the offers received, i.e. the highest bidders will have the first choice, the second highest bidder will have the second choice and so on," I should like to ask the minister this. Having clearly read his own words back to him I ask the minister, a former dean of law, why he will not accept his own regulation and allow Tilden, the third highest bidder, to be allocated the third counter instead of the fifth counter at Ministry of Transport airports.


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, let me say, first of all, whether the hon. member gets his information from the press or from Mr. Tilden, my expression concerning unfortunate words had nothing to do with the words the hon. member has just quoted.
It seems to me to be perfectly obvious that when you are saying the highest bidder will receive the best space, you clearly mean the highest bid accepted. It is the bids accepted which count. In this particular circumstance, I should remind hon. members that we opened up two places for bids, especially for domestic tenders, after the very strong complaints from Tilden, among others, and as a result of the bidding which was received we now have two Canadian companies in two places among five at our airports as well as a local bidder in a sixth. In arranging space it is our view that we are clearly committed to the placing of those bidders in the order of the bid accepted, and that is what we are doing. To continue to complain about that is completely inappropriate.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister authorized the printing of the tenders. The tenders
Oral Questions
clearly called for and stated "in accordance with the offers received". If the minister can call that an unfortunate choice of words, he still has to defend it.


Some hon. Members:: He did.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I know that. He has to defend that-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It is a fascinating argument but arguments should take place at another time. If the hon. member has another question would he put it.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I just think it is deplorable that a minister of the Crown-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, it was stated by a former minister that Canadian control of privately owned carriers should be the objective. I read that out for the benefit of the minister. My question is, why again did he abandon page two of the regulations in the call for tender which clearly states, "where a tender is successful within more than one counter group only one counter will be awarded and the award will be made on the basis of the highest offer made by the tenderer-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.


Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs if we could give him a moment to get to his chair again.


An hon. Member:: He is out campaigning.


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


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. It relates to a statement by the Minister of Regional and Economic Expansion last night on Radio Canada. Is the Prime Minister aware and does he agree, or perhaps has he authorized the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion to state as he did last evening that from now on whenever a decision has to be taken with regard to Quebec he will have to take into account the fact that Quebec's government pursues the goal of separation. If he did authorize or was aware of that statement, would he indicate what implications that has, not only for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion but for the general level of activity on the part of the federal government, given this statement yesterday
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Oral Questions
with respect to the clear assumption that this is a federal system and that Quebec is a province like the others.


Mr. Paproski:: What is the policy, Pierre? It is up to you.
[ Translation]


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I stand responsible for the statements I made. Those statements are made within my responsibilities as Minister of Regional Economic Expansion whereby I have to make sure that the agreements negotiated with the provinces and the amounts of money spent in each province are in line with the department's objectives. On the other hand I must never forget that the department is concerned with the regional economic development of all regions in Canada and, for this reason, I must also consider the objectives of the present provincial governments, including the government of Quebec.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, in light of the seriousness of the minister's statement last night and again today I am amazed that the Prime Minister has not answered directly in respect of a very obvious contradiction in the statement of the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion and that of the Prime Minister both inside and outside this House yesterday. Can the Prime Minister possibly explain in what way procedures will be different or policies will be altered in respect of this obvious statement of panic expressed by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion yesterday with no clear authorization either from a cabinet decision as expressed by the non-answer of the Prime Minister or as expressed just a moment ago by the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear the minister last night but I heard him in the House a moment ago. It seems to me that he did not say what the hon. member is quoting him as saying about treating Quebec differently. What he did say in the House a moment ago was that it was his duty, as a minister, when he signs agreements with provinces to make himself aware of the aims of the province in the fulfilling of those agreements. This applies to Quebec as it applies to any other province. As a matter of fact, this whole department is based on the principle that regional development cannot be the task of the federal government alone but that it must do it in co-operation with the provinces. I support the minister completely when he says he will ask Quebec, just as any other province, that they explain their purposes in order that we know whether or not co-operation is possible.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Alan Martin (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Communications. In connection with the application of Bell Canada dated November 3, 1976 before the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission wherein the Bell is seeking an increase in rates for 1977 that will render the company a return on equity of 12 per cent and a return on total average capital of 9.7 per cent for its 1977 operations, will the minister request of the commission that all consideration of this application by it take into account the government's anti-inflation policies and guidelines currently in practice.
[ Translation]


Hon. Jeanne Sauv6 (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, to avoid duplication of work and comply with the philosophy of the regulatory function, the Anti-Inflation Board transferred its powers to the CRTC, particularly as regards consideration of acceptable profit margins.


CAPE BRETON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Expansion. The coal miners of my constituency who were preretired between 1969 and 1971 are still waiting for an ex-gratia payment from his department or from the Treasury Board to his department which is morally due to them on the word of the previous minister of regional economic expansion as well as on many occasions by the present minister. Would the minister please present this matter immediately to the attention of the Treasury Board, as the preretired miners are running completely out of patience and we who represent them here in the House of Commons are as well.


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, I am well aware of the situation of Cape Breton miners who had an early retirement around 1967, and I also know about the regulations which were made at that time. The hon. member also knows that the situation of those retired people has been highly improved since then, but under the circumstances my representations to the President of the Treasury Board are rather to obtain additional funds for DEVCO so that conditions in the mines keep on improving for workers. Unfortunately, I am not now in a position to answer positively to the hon. member's representations. I do hope that eventually we can perhaps do so, but unfortunately the circumstances are not appropriate now.
November 17, 1976


Andrew Hogan: Mr. Speaker, we are getting pretty darned tired of hearing that kind of answer.


Mr. Speaker:: Order,	please.	The	hon.	member	for
Esquimalt-Saanich.


An hon. Member:: He is going to go back to the Treasury Board and give these men their cheques.


Mr. Speaker:: Order,	please.	The	hon.	member	for
Esquimalt-Saanich.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker,
I should like to address my question to the Minister of Transport. In a reply to me yesterday he said there would be a mandatory system of communications in the waters of Juan du Fuca when arrangements with the United States authorities had been completed. Can he give the House and the people of British Columbia particularly any indication of where those negotiations stand at the present time and when they are likely to be completed so that we will know when this mandatory system of traffic controls in those waters will be in effect.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I do not have a precise date at this moment, but I understand the discussions are going on and I will attempt to get a better prediction for the hon. member.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, could the minister say whether those discussions are actually going on now or whether they are in abeyance for the time being.


Otto Emil Lang: My last information, Mr. Speaker, is that they were going on.


NARCOTIC CONTROL ACT
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. In view of the fact that the largest percentage of inmates in Canadian penal institutions are those convicted of drug offences or drug related offences, and in view of the fact that our penal institutions are overcrowded, could the minister indicate why part II of the Narcotic Control Act, enacted more than 15 years ago and dealing with rehabilitation centres for drug offenders and care centres, has not been proclaimed as law so that it could relieve
Oral Questions
the congestion and the problems we are now having in our penal institutions?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, that is really the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The reasons it was never proclaimed have been explained by him in the House, namely, a lack of facilities, a lack of agreement with the provinces as to treatment centres and a lack of agreement as to what the treatment should be. However, in a more positive light, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, the Solicitor General and myself are reviewing work which was done in the Senate last session with regard to certain aspects of the drug situation, and we anticipate introducing measures in this House in the not too distant future.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: In view of the fact that the Narcotic Control Act comes within the body of Criminal law and therefore is within the jurisdiction of the Minister of Justice to proclaim, would the minister make sure that this matter is on the agenda for discussions he will have from time to time with the various attorneys general of the provinces of this country?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Yes, I will, but there is already a liaison between the Department of National Health and Welfare and provincial departments with regard to this situation, and in a number of provinces the Department of Justice is involved in that liaison both with provincial ministers of health and provincial attorneys general.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. On Friday, November 5, the minister stated that he would prepare a statement for the House regarding the Cana-da-France negotiations. I would like to know if this has been prepared and when it will be available.
At the same time, I wonder if the minister or his colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment, would explain the reason for recommending, in the proposed fisheries management plan for 1977 covering the Gulf of St. Lawrence, that the cod quota for Canadian ships over 65 feet-which is actually the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia fleet-is only 16,500 metric tons while the quota for France is 18,500 metric tons. Would the ministers consider offering at least the same quota of codfish to Canadian deepsea fishermen they are now offering to France?
Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I will leave the latter part of the question to my colleague the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment. With regard to the first part of the question, I
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November 17, 1976
Oral Questions
believe the member has been advised. I am sure the member was not present in the House for very good reasons, but I have had the statement for three or four days and was awaiting his return. I will see that he, along with spokesmen for other parties, gets a copy of it, later this afternoon, and by agreement we can decide whether the statement will be made tomorrow or Friday.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: 
Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment. Since the east coast fleet simply cannot expect to survive under the proposed fisheries management plan which has been put forward for 1977, will the minister undertake to review immediately the quotas proposed for Canadian fishermen in the plan as it is presently implemented in the hope of eliminating what I feel is a form of discrimination which will have serious social consequences in Atlantic Canada?


Mr. LeBlanc (Westmorland-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, this plan is still the subject of consultation with the fishing industry. In fact, this very Monday I met with a group of skippers of large trawlers. These discussions are still going on. There will need to be some belt tightening by all segments of the industry, but we are trying very hard to share and to share fairly.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Labour. In July, 1974 Dr. Noel Hall was commissioned to study and report on pension plans in the railroad industry. I understand that that report was completed and delivered to the minister early in September. Can the minister advise what action is being taken on that report, and when it will be made public?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, it should be made public very soon. It is a voluminous and technical report, and it is going through the translation stage now. This should be finished any time.


John Allen Fraser: On October 18 the minister said in this House that that report would be ready in a couple of weeks. Is the delay in any way accounted for by the fact that the government is making its own deliberations on the report, and when

the report is submitted, will the minister make a statement as to the government's response to it?


John Carr Munro: I can assure the hon. member that that is not the case. A good deal of pressure from myself and others in this House was put on Dr. Hall to get this report in as quickly as he could. He finally got it in. He had some difficulties due to actuarial reports and so on, and we have all the resources available to us trying to get the translation completed, so there is no delay of an intentional nature whatsoever.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, my question has to do with Bill C-16, commonly known as the borrowers and lenders legislation. I direct it to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Has he met with representatives of the Canadian Bankers' Association in this regard, and more importantly, in going to meet with the Canadian Bankers' Association did the minister ride in their aircraft or in an aircraft supplied by one of the member banks?
Hon. A. C. Abbott (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I met last Friday with a delegation from the Canadian Bankers' Association, and following our meeting, which delayed my departure to make a speech in Toronto, I was offered a ride. I accepted it with pleasure because it was free.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald W. Munro: Nothing is free in this life.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Calling Marc Lalonde. What do you think about that, Marc?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Heward Grafftey: Does the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs feel it is proper that when a bill which is meant to protect the interests of Canadian consumers is before the House he should accept free transportation from the banking interests of this country?


Mr. Abbott:: I hope my reputation with my hon. friend has not sunk so low that he thinks I can be bought with a free ride to Toronto.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Steve Eugene Paproski: What is your price?
November 17, 1976


Mr. Nowlan:: We have established what you are; now we want to know your price.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Do you fly once a week like Otto?


ACCEPTANCE BY MINISTER OF RIDE ON AIRCRAFT OWNED BY BANK-POSITION OF PRIME MINISTER
William Heward Grafftey: Mr. Speaker, I repeat my supplementary question to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister feel it is proper that when a consumer bill is before the House-a consumer interest bill to protect borrowers and lenders-a minister of the Crown should accept free transportation from an interested group? The question is as simple as that.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, there are conflict of interest guidelines which exist in the government.


An hon. Member:: That's right; you can say that again.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: There is one for the government and one for the rest of the people.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, 1 am told by the hon. member opposite that there is one for the government and one for the rest of the people. Members on the other side can accept a ride on somebody's aeroplane without feeling they have sold out to that particular interest and the same applies to this side.


PROPOSED OIL PIPELINE FROM KITIMAT TO EDMONTON- SUGGESTION GOVERNMENT EXPRESS CONCERN TO ENERGY BOARD
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and concerns a proposal for the construction of an oil terminal and pipeline from Kitimat to Edmonton by Trans-Mountain Pipe Line Company. In view of the fact that the National Energy Board is expected to hold hearings on this application prior to Christmas and in view of the very strong reservations expressed by the Department of the Environment and the British Columbia department of environment as well as the federal Department of Transport, would the minister advise if he has been in communication with the National Energy Board to express the reservation of the government concerning this dangerous proposal?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is inviting me to do something entirely unproper.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: That will not bother you over there.
Oral Questions


Alastair William Gillespie: I think it is an incredible suggestion from a member of the New Democratic Party that a minister of the Crown should intervene on a matter which the National Energy Board was set up to deal with independently.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Studies which the minister has available indicate that at least a three year environmental impact study is necessary before consideration should be given to that proposal. While the minister may say it is improper for him to communicate with the National Energy Board, would he announce to the House in terms of government policy whether they would wish that proposal to be delayed until proper and complete studies take place over a three year period? Would the minister go on record?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, the National Energy Board was set up by parliament to deal with situations of this kind; that is to say, to consider the public interest before issuing any certificate of public convenience or necessity. Clearly the National Energy Board has the power to call the various parties together, including those concerned with the environmental effects, and to have a proper hearing. It would be because of the potential effect of this measure on the area and Canada that these hearings should get under way relatively shortly.


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS NAME OF FINANCE MINISTER REPRESENTING QUEBEC AT NEXT CONFERENCE
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister.
Given the forthcoming conference of federal-provincial finance ministers, would the Prime Minister tell the House whether or not he had discussions with the new premier of the province of Quebec as to who will attend this conference as finance minister? If so, would it be premature to ask him the name of this person?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. I do not think I will know that name before Mr. Bourassa has resigned officially as premier and his successor has formed his cabinet. I do not know who he will appoint as finance minister but 1 can assure him that we expect this person to be here, at the federal-provincial conference, as we do all finance ministers of the other provinces.

November 17, 1976
Oral Questions


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Bob Brisco (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In view of the statement made earlier today by the minister to the effect that he has a handle on all the affairs of DREE across the nation, may I ask what he has in mind for British Columbia in view of the fact that in that province the staff of the department has been reduced from 24 to four people? Is this an indication, with four employees and eight telephones, that we are going to be treated in the same fashion as the miners of Cape Breton?
[ Translation]


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member that before the end of this month officials in my department as well as in several other government departments will meet with British Columbia officials. On this occasion, we will determine together which courses of action will be considered and developed during the next few months. I really hope that following this meeting both parties will be able to announce which programs could be developed.


Robert Hylton Brisco: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would you indicate, Mr. Minister, that you will be in a position to make a statement-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order!


Robert Hylton Brisco: -regarding the position in your department and the problems of British Columbia-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Robert Hylton Brisco: -for the ensuing year. Can you indicate whether or not you will be asking-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


An hon. Member:: Address the Chair.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Pembina.



NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD


Mr. Peter Elzinga (Pembina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. On Wednesday, November 10, the President of the Treasury Board, in response to my question, indicated that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources had introduced measures to ensure that the illegal action taken by the National Energy

Board in transferring $90,000 of its operating costs to the operations of the Energies Supplies Allocation Board would not occur again. Would the minister now be kind enough to share with the House the measures he has taken to ensure this will not happen again?
Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, I forthwith wrote to the chairman of the National Energy Board and conveyed to him the sentiments of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts as expressed in their report, and adding my own stating that I would expect him to take the necessary disciplinary action to make sure that this kind of thing did not happen again.


Peter Elzinga: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. In view of the fact, as the minister stated, that the Public Accounts Committee recommended in its sixth report that disciplinary action be taken immediately by the minister as the transfer of funds clearly contravened the provisions of the Financial Administration Act, would the minister now advise the House what disciplinary action has been taken?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, that course of action was left in the hands of the responsible chief executive officer of the National Energy Board.


Peter Elzinga: Don't you know?



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. I wonder if the minister would indicate whether he has been approached by the province of Newfoundland in view of the continuing high unemployment there and particularly with regard to the proposed closure of a linerboard mill which will affect 1,000 jobs in the economy and the social climate?


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, I cannot report something specific regarding the industry the hon. member was referring to, but I can inform the hon. member and the House that I intend to go to Newfoundland and Labrador those next few days and that on this occasion both governments will sign an agreement to help develop some part of the province. It is a very important agreement. I think the hon. member will be very interested in its content.


Jack Marshall: A supplementary question. I am glad to note that the minister has shown responsibility by visiting, but would he initiate efforts on behalf of this particular industry which is depressed because of certain difficulties facing it? Would he also co-ordinate with the Minister of Industry,
November 17, 1976

Trade and Commerce and others who could help in the revitalization of this important industry?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That, of course, is a clear representation as opposed to a question.



CONFLICT OF INTEREST


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister and is following up earlier questions 1 have asked in regard to the judgment rendered by Mr. Justice O'Driscoll of the Ontario Supreme Court in regard to Mr. Rudnicki and Mr. Teron. My question today concerns a statement made by Mr. Teron, chairman of the board of Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and deputy minister of urban affairs as reported in the press on October 27, 1976. In that statement Mr. Teron presented himself as spokesman for Urbanetics, a firm involved in a major way in urban development. Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether the action and behaviour of Mr. Teron is in conformity with his conflict of interest guidelines and in conformity with section 44 of the Central Mortgage and Housing Act?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. This is clearly not the place to find out the Prime Minister's opinion on a legal matter. If the hon. member has a question he should put it.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, my question was whether the behaviour of this senior civil servant is in conformity with the guidelines and policies that the Prime Minister has established and in conformity with section 44 of the Central Mortgage and Housing Act?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I would have to take cognizance of the statement Mr. Teron is alleged to have made. 1 do not know what he said nor what the hon. member is alleging. I can say that when Mr. Teron was hired by the civil service he did of his own volition divest himself and arranged his business to ensure that he would not be in a conflict of interest situation. 1 looked at the arrangements and found he had taken the right course. Only some months, perhaps even years later, did we announce specific conflict of interest guidelines. I understand that Mr. Teron has had to make certain re-arrangements in order to adhere to the later published conflict of interest guidelines. There was obviously a movement from one position to another; but the first one, I repeat, was established before firm, written guidelines had been known. Mr. Teron at that point had put himself in the position not to be in conflict of interest, but he could not guess what the guidelines later to be published would say.
Oral Questions


Frank Oberle: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. May I briefly quote Mr. Teron's response to the reporter's question. He said, as reported:
Let's set something straight right away... Urbanetics is not going out of business.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member wishes to ask a supplementary question. Perhaps he will put it shortly.


Frank Oberle: Since the Prime Minister promised previously to study the matter and apprise this House of his opinion on it, can he now indicate when we may expect that investigation to take place and expect a report to this House concerning the propriety of this gentleman's conduct?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I must confess that I do not recall that the previous question was framed in those words; I will ask for a report on the subject now, Mr. Speaker, and hope I will get it very soon.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order with respect to the question period which has just concluded. It is not a pleasant or an easy task to deal with decisions that are made by the Chair with respect to the question period, and I think that in this instance I would be happier not to. But you will recall that in the context of today's question period 1 was seeking to obtain from the Prime Minister specific information with respect to a major shift in policy concerning an event which took place in one of our provinces this week.
The Prime Minister initially refused to answer the question. It was only after the first supplementary that the Prime Minister began to respond to this very important question. Mr. Speaker, you made a judgment at that point that there should be no further discussion of that important subject. One of the difficulties we are under with respect to the present system of rules introduced on a temporary basis is that in previous parliaments, when the Speaker made a judgment without indicating the nature of that judgment, there was opportunity for the member, either by way of point of order or question of privilege, to clarify the situation and perhaps rephrase his question. In this instance, Mr. Speaker, there was no clarification from yourself and there was no opportunity for me to put a further supplementary question. I feel that while all questions are important in this House, it is obvious that, given the nature of the question and the need to give the Prime Minister the opportunity to clarify if some subtle brand of blackmail is to be practiced by the federal government with respect to the province of Quebec, some clarification of that matter should have taken place during the question period.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: If I may say so, sir, your judgment on that matter I regarded as improper and incorrect. It leads one to believe that you are unduly shielding either the Prime Minister or the minister-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!

November 17, 1976
Oral Questions


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: -with respect to this important matter-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: -or exercising some form of discrimination against members on this side of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is interrupted, again in his own interest, I hope, rather than letting him go further in what appears to me to be a rather intemperate observation.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Crowfoot.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to raise my point of order, having had a long friendship with you and knowing of your deep respect for the Chair. The opposition's job, though, is to examine government spending, to determine whether or not there is waste and whether or not there is efficiency. One of the primary hallmarks of a democracy has to do with a government's tendering process. The government allots tenders. If the contract is over a certain amount of money, it is obliged by the parliamentary rule to accept the best tender. The tenders issued are carefully worded and carefully drawn up with the highest degree of efficiency and accuracy. It is the object of the minister to abide by the tenders he has so issued. I tried on November 9 to pursue this matter. I clearly gave the House and the minister the exact wording of the tender in question and I did so again today. I failed to get a proper answer from the Minister of Transport.
Why have I failed? That question affects all members of the opposition. I failed because of the practice that has grown up in the House of Commons of you, sir, rising and saying that you will now hear somebody else because catcalls have developed from the government side. The government know they are in trouble across the country and they quite correctly and humanly try to defend the minister in trouble, and they let out a bunch of catcalls; and you, sir, believe that those catcalls suggest that the question is not in order. The hon. member for York-Simcoe, who sits close to me, was the lead-off questioner today. His last supplementary question was not even answered by the Minister of Finance because you gave him no chance to answer, and the same thing applied to me.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps all hon. members may be assisted by the common observation that today was perhaps one of the most difficult question periods which has occurred since I have been in the chair. It was difficult because of what happened on an extraordinary number of occasions, in which I include the example referred to by the hon. member for Crowfoot to do with his questions and those put by the hon. member for York-Simcoe.
The observation by the hon. member for Egmont is as close as any that has ever come to being so disrespectful of the

actions of the Chair as to amount to contempt, and I am astonished by it.
The considerations which have gone into the decisions I have had to take during the heat of the past question period- indeed, in the heat of all question periods-have nothing to do with any catcalls, observations or references to partisan politics. In the instance referred to today, the supplementary question of the hon. member for York-Simcoe was, in fact, in its substance, a question as to whether or not the Minister of Finance had taken into account the position put forward by the opposition party last spring. That, in terms of even the most elastic definition of the use of the question period,, even for a lead-off questioner-and it has been, in my opinion, in almost every instance stretched to the limit for the lead-off questioner-is stretching the principle of the question period beyond the limit.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Besides that, the question, which itself seemed to me to be totally out of order and not seeking in any way information, was preceded by a preamble which was equally and clearly out of order. Finally, after being warned about the preamble, the hon. member for York-Simcoe attempted to follow up by giving reasons for the position put forward by his party last spring. I am going by memory, but if my memory is accurate it seems to me that if we exclude those three disabilities, the question, the preamble and the sequela which followed it, the question was absolutely letter perfect for acceptance by the Chair.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Crowfoot put a preamble to his question which consisted of reading a regulation to the Minister of Transport which I did not interrupt and which I allowed him to put in some detail. It was far more extensive than the preamble normally allowed. However, I thought in fairness to him that he ought to be able to set the record straight. Unfortunately, in his second question the hon. member for Crowfoot attempted to read further legal language which I thought was an unwarranted use of the question period.
In respect of the hon. member for Egmont who has now risen to express what I can only classify as a rather intemperate and unfortunate observation, I have an instant decision in every case whether or not to permit hon. members to continue.
I have cut down the hon. member for York-Simcoe for improper use of the question period, and the hon. member for Crowfoot, both of whom I am sure are unhappy.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must ask the hon. member for Egmont either to apologize for his intemperate remarks or withdraw from the chamber.
November 17, 1976


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I would very much like to know the reasons why the initial exchange with the Prime Minister was terminated abruptly without explanation. As I understand it, you were simply saying that you made a decision that that was enough of that kind of question. I find it incredible given the importance of the question, for a refusal-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have never had the experience of coming to the point of naming a member. I have often wondered as to the circumstances under which that practice would be necessary. I sincerely hope, and continue to hope, that it will never be necessary during the time that I occupy this chair. However, I have to indicate that whether hon. members agree or disagree, obviously there is always disagreement about difficult decisions taken by the Chair.
The discretion to be exercised by the Chair is always a difficult one. It has to be exercised on the spur of the moment. When it has not been satisfactory, I have always been prepared to listen to objective argument as to whether or not it was correct. However, I am not prepared to suffer observations that the discretion which the Chair has exercised has been based on some principles that are not only questionable but, indeed, unsavoury. I am not prepared to suffer that imputation now by the hon. member for Egmont. If he is not prepared to withdraw that remark and apologize, I shall have to name him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, if I may rise on this matter for a few moments, I have some responsibilities with respect to this House of Commons. I hope members on all sides of the House understand that. I understand the difficulties of the Chair.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: What did you say? Say it louder. Have the guts to say it in your chair. You have not got the guts. No wonder you lost in Quebec. You don't deserve anything. Get on your feet. You have not got the guts to say it on your feet. You have not got the brains, either.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Walter David Baker: I understand the difficulty that you, as Speaker, have with regard to making judgments. I hope that there is a corresponding of the difficulty, and I say this with great respect, for those of us who are sitting in these benches; and you come from these benches, sir, in terms of matters that happen on the floor of the House of Commons.
This may well have been the most intemperate or difficult question period for Your Honour. I want to respectfully suggest to you that the difficulties, in terms of the question period, do not all come from this side of the House. I am sure that while Your Honour must make instant judgments with
Oral Questions
respect to questions, you are not claiming infallibility. We do not claim infallibility with regard to advancing questions, and ministers do not claim infallibility when answering them.
1 hope there is not the same necessity for an instant judgment with respect to the decision of naming a member of parliament-because that happens to be a very serious matter.
I hope that in the course of this you will not exercise any judgment which you feel you may have to exercise immediately, but will wait until you have examined the record of the proceedings of this day.
In the course of the responsibilities with respect to my membership in this House of Commons, I have had responsibility for the question period. I want to say, and I mean no disrespect to you, sir, or to members of this House, that while we labour mightily, some perhaps may say foolishly, to put forward a question in the question period that is meaningful in the parliamentary sense, and we can do nothing less than put whatever we have into it, however adequate or inadequate it may appear to be, this government in particular has relied to a greater and greater extent on the fact that they do not have to answer-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: -and this raises a problem in this House.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Walter David Baker: If I may say so, I do not
believe the people who never have to ask questions are the best judges of that, as they are trying to be. That is why I say that there are legitimate frustrations that develop in the course of life in this place day by day which, I am sorry to say, some of my friends on the other side cannot understand.
It is for that reason, the reason for the build-up of tension in this place as a result of what I have tried to describe to Your Honour, that I hope any judgment that you have to make with respect to this matter will not be made until all of us have an opportunity to examine the record of this day.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that most, if not all, of us in this House regret that this impasse has been reached. I am sure that most, if not all, of us hope that it can be resolved without any precipitate action having to be taken. I must say I agree with the statement Your Honour made that the question period for you today was a difficult one. It is true that a number of the questions were poorly phrased. It was an hour of difficulty for you.
With respect to the exchange between my friend, the hon. member for Egmont, and the government, I must say that if Your Honour erred at all, I think you erred in favour of the hon. member. I heard his question to the Prime Minister. It was to the effect that the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion had said something outside the House and the hon. member wanted to know from the Prime Minister whether what he said was a matter of government policy. According to my understanding of the rules, the Minister of Regional

November 17, 1976
Oral Questions
Economic Expansion should not have been allowed to answer the question. It should have been answered by the Prime Minister. However, when the minister rose you permitted him to answer. You offered no objection. If you made any error, that is where you made it.
Let me move on and say that although at that time I thought of raising a point of order, when the Prime Minister got up to answer the supplementary question, that seemed to take care of the situation. My reason for reciting this is to suggest that any errors you might have made during the question period went both ways and that there were members on this side of the House who were given the benefit of the doubt as well as those on the government side.
I come to the point that is really before us, and I come to it by making a direct personal appeal to my friend, the hon. member for Egmont. If necessary, I make it on the basis of something that is common to the past of both of us. He knows what I mean by that. I suspect that he realizes some of the words he used were a bit intemperate, particularly when he said that Your Honour was protecting or shielding the government. Sir, I do not think any member of this House should say that. I do not know what it was he said later when you were answering the hon. member for Crowfoot. Apparently he interjected something Your Honour did not like. However, I did hear the words in which he charged that Your Honour was protecting or shielding the government. I am sure that on reflection the hon. member for Egmont would not want that statement to stay without his apologizing for it and withdrawing it.
Sir, there is something to be said for the point made by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton, that if a final judgment has to be made, it might be made later this day or tomorrow. But I would hope that the necessity for this will be obviated by my good friend doing the straightforward and gentlemanly thing by expressing his regret for the words he used which were an offence to the Chair. If he does that, then we can get on to the business of the day.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[ Translation]


Mr. Fortin:: On this point of order, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Social Credit Party I would like to make it clear that, as far as I know, our party is not known to have taken advantage of the oral questions period in the past. We are therefore in a position to make some remarks on this issue. The oral questions period, as hon. members should understand, is a period allocated to questions and, as we all know through experience, certainly not an answer period, judging by the answers made by the ministers.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, the Standing Orders are very clear about this oral questions period; there are some rules which cannot be avoided, but experience shows that these rules are being abused when it comes to the type of questions asked and answers given.

We should certainly learn something from these conditions. Perhaps we should amend the rules on the question period so as to make the task easier for the Speaker when he has to decide if a question is out of order. Anyway, I do not want to decide on behalf of my party whether the remarks of the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald) are acceptable or not but I think that, for the well being of this democratic institution, our group will certainly support the ruling of the Speaker.


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Speaker, as acting House leader-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Jacques Blais: -in the absence of the House leader I intended to make my representations in view of the fact the House leader was not here at the time the exchange took place.
As the hon. member for Egmont knows, in this instance there would have to be a motion presented by the House leader relating to the suspension of the hon. member. That would have to take place because, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton, the Speaker of the House is a member of the House who has been enthroned as a result of the choice of other hon. members who sit in this chamber. Since there is no longer any provision for appeal from the Speaker's ruling, there is an added obligation on all members to support the Chair.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Jacques Blais: We have been very fortunate. I have had the honour of serving in this House since 1972.


An hon. Member:: A newcomer.


Jean-Jacques Blais: I have served under two ideal Speakers. The Speaker we have now not only comes from my area-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Jean-Jacques Blais: -but he has discharged his responsibility-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. These personal observations are not going to make this any easier. There is only one question at issue now. I have attempted to put the matter as clearly as I can. There is every reason, on a daily basis, for members on both sides of the House, more often, certainly, on my left than on my right because of the obvious nature of a parliament, to be disgruntled about positions which have to be taken by the Chair. That is to be expected and, I think, to be expressed.
There are tremendous pressures operating on members within the sphere in which we work in this chamber, and it is not always expected that these disagreements are to be expressed in the most temperate language. However, there is outstanding an observation that there is a motivation, or was a motivation, behind the rather difficult decision the Chair had to make. That is the only issue at stake. I do not think, really, out of respect for the dignity of the Chair, I can let that observation remain on the record. I really feel, out of respect for the position of the Chair, that I must insist that the
November 17, 1976

observation, the one pertaining to motivation behind my decision today, has to be removed, failing which some other action will have to be taken. That is the only issue on which I think there should be any comment.


Jean-Jacques Blais: In conclusion, 1 should like to say to the hon. member for Egmont, through you, sir, that we are here, all of us, to do a job and I ask him at this point to do as requested by Mr. Speaker, namely, to withdraw his statement and, further, to apologize for having made it.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for having taken up unduly the time of the House on this matter.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I have not had an opportunity to look at the transcript but if, on reflection, I have in any way suggested that I believe there has been any deliberate bias on the part of the Chair, I certainly would apologize for that. One can only express one's own frustration at times at the difficulties which occur, and inasmuch as there is no opportunity at the present time to deal with that aspect in the context in which issues have been raised, it seems to me that the whole situation this afternoon points up a difficulty which 1 hope will be examined by the Committee on Procedure and Organization with respect to further reflection on the question period, because I agree very much with our House leader and others who have suggested that the question period, which is so important to our system of government, must work in the interests of the people generally with respect to information on vital questions of the day. I felt this was not happening today, and this was the cause of the considerable frustration I expressed following the question period.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: That is no apology.


Mr. Speaker:: I shall, I think, take the option which seems to be the one of most wisdom, and that is to enable the hon. member for Egmont to see the transcript to examine what he did say and to make some reference to it 24 hours hence, failing which I might have to take other action tomorrow.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Third Report of Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs-Mr. Cafik.
Public Service Performance PUBLIC SERVICE

Hon. Robert K. Andras (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table, in both official languages, copies of a progress report on the measurement of performance of the Public Service of Canada.


ANTI-INFLATION BOARD TABLING OF REFERENCES TO BOARD
Mr. Bob Kaplan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Finance I should like to table six references of the Anti-Inflation Board, in both official languages.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform the House that as part of its continuing effort to restrain federal expenditures and improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of federal programs, the government has decided to pursue with vigour and urgency the development and use of operational performance measurement systems in the public service of Canada. I have instructed the secretary of the Treasury Board to write to all deputy heads of departments and heads of agencies to remind them of the obligation placed on them by TBS Circular 1976-25 to develop such systems, to provide performance data in support of submissions to the Treasury Board concerning the operations of their department or agency and, generally, to comply swiftly and comprehensively with all the provisions of that circular.
I also wish to announce that in mid-1976 the Treasury Board secretariat began department by department audits of performance measurement systems within the public service. Each audit will conclude with a report to the Treasury Board, and to the department or agency involved, on the latter's compliance with TBS Circular 1976-25. These audits will be repeated periodically to ensure that adequate progress is made toward these goals; that all departments and agencies have functioning performance measurement systems by 1980 for all government operations where this is feasible; that these systems be used, not only in support of submissions to the Treasury Board, but also for management planning and control within each department and agency; that the quality and reliability of performance indicators be continuously improved.
A few minutes ago I tabled a progress report on the measurement of performance in the public service, to which are appended concrete examples of performance indicators developed by federal government departments and agencies

November 17, 1976
Public Service Performance
over the past six years. That document responds to a request made to my predecessor last May at a meeting of the miscellaneous estimates committee and shows the government's concern is not merely a by-product of the current spending restraint program. At last count, government activities involving some 166,000 public servants were covered by performance measurement systems-close to 39 per cent of all authorized man-years in the current fiscal year, and about two-thirds of the potential number of employees to which these systems could apply at their present stage of development. Moreover, 21 departments and agencies had sufficiently developed systems to present some performance data to the Treasury Board in support of their 1977-78 expenditure programs.
At the departmental level, performance indicators have been used by Health and Welfare Canada to monitor and reduce the unit cost of issuing family allowance and old age security payments, as well as payments made under the Canada Pension Plan. Similar indicators have been used by Revenue Canada to improve the effectiveness of excise tax audits, and by the National Capital Commission to manage more efficiently its maintenance operations. The document I tabled describes in considerable detail the performance measurement systems which are now well established in these administrative entities.
Much more remains to be done. In many departments and agencies measurement systems still have to be perfected before they can become a functional tool for public service managers. Research and experimentation is also needed before performance measurement can be systematically applied to activities which do not readily lend themselves to it, such as overhead operations like personnel or financial administration, or project-oriented activities like scientific research. More importantly, perhaps, it is essential that all federal public servants come to "think performance" as they discharge their prescribed duties. They must come to think more consistently of the Canadian public they serve, not only as the customers or clients for the public goods and services they help to produce, but also as the taxpayers who finance this production. This publication, which I also tabled earlier, is being distributed to all public service managers through their respective departments or agencies.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, allow me to remind hon. members that in order to restrain government spending and curb the growth of the public service in a rational and socially progressive way, we must be able to measure the effectiveness with which public goods and services are currently delivered and the efficiency with which programs are administered, given their stated objectives. In other words, we must be able to determine how well the federal public service is meeting the challenge of delivering essential goods and services at an adequate level of quality and service but also at minimum cost. Indeed, knowledge of past and present performance is essential for devising and implementing future improvements. But in working toward these improvements we may soon have to

make some hard choices between the cost of providing services and the quality of these services.
As long as there is some slack in the system, and as long as there are possibilities for further technological and managerial innovations, departments and agencies can continue to improve their efficiency while holding constant or even improving the quality of their services. However, as further increases in efficiency are sought, a point may be reached where further gains may be obtained only at the cost of lowering the quality of services to the Canadian public. I hardly need to point out that the decisions which we may have to make at this trade-off point between the efficiency and the quality of public services will be difficult ones, and reliable measures of performance will be of considerable assistance in arriving at the most acceptable solutions and in monitoring their impact on the general public.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, not even the most reliable measures of performance will ever be, nor should they be, mistaken for substitutes for sound administrative judgment and political common sense. These measures provide us with what, in the final analysis, statisticians call "index numbers"-data on the performance of ongoing operations which always referred to a point in time relative to an earlier period-which will enable public administrators and politicians to exercise judgment and common sense on the basis of more information. Performance indicators, Mr. Speaker, will never tell parliament or the government what should be the goals of our policies or programs, nor what are the most efficient and effective means of achieving these goals. But it has already been proven that performance measurement can greatly enlighten our relentless search for these elusive "best means", optimizing the welfare of all Canadians.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, it is customary to thank the minister, the President of the Treasury Board, who is to present a paper and for providing in advance a text of the comments he plans to make. This I do, as is expected. The advance notice was considerable, I might add. The material reached me about 11.30 this morning; but-and here I enter my caveat-I did not expect so much documentation, especially upon an esoteric subject such as servimetrics or performa-metrics, the measurement of the performance of a service which is presumably, but not certainly, a measure of productivity. The statement extended to three pages, which is about normal, but the minister also tabled a lengthier document of 10 pages with two appendices, one of 21 pages, the other of 13 pages to which was attached a further appendix of several pages.


Robert Knight Andras: You are damned if you do, and damned if you don't!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Order.


Donald W. Munro: That is right. It might have served everyone's purpose better if appendix B, at least, the instructions to deputy ministers sent round to departments and agencies, had been released at the time of its circulation so
November 17, 1976

that everyone would have an idea where the government was heading and what instructions were being issued to department heads and heads of agencies. I must ask myself at this point, and I also ask the minister, whether all agencies as well as Crown corporations have been included in this round-robin. But even with these reservations and the suggestion that it has not been possible to digest the matter in its entirety and in its detail, I do thank the President of the Treasury Board for the courtesy of that extra little bit of notice.
As to the substance of the statement, namely the progress made in performametrics, I note, first of all, that along with his statement, appendix A, the President of the Treasury Board has tabled a report containing examples of performance indicators developed in departments. This was in response to the request made earlier at a meeting of the miscellaneous estimates committee. I take it as a good omen that the government has responded positively and, 1 suggest, fairly rapidly to a directive formulated in a standing committee. That is a brownie point and I give him credit for it. It is probably worth acknowledging, further, that the government, in responding so promptly to the directive of the miscellaneous estimates committee, has formulated some high ideals for performance-theoretical ideals though they may be. Transforming those ideals into practical action, of course, without the leadership that is needed is another matter.
In this connection I would like to comment on that part of the statement in which public servants are being urged to "think performance". This, to me, sounds like a college cheerleaders' chorus aimed at spurring on the team to attain a few more goals. To my way of thinking, first of all, 1 suggest that it is the government that should be "thinking performance" rather than suggesting, as the statement itself does, that failure to perform can be laid at the door of public servants. Such suggestions, I venture to say, are unworthy. From my personal experience, there was no need, in a properly motivated public service, to employ cheerleaders to stand on the sidelines and urge the team on. Public servants were, and I venture to say still are, servants of the public. All they need for fulfilment of that objective is internal motivation and earned loyalty derived from performance attainment set by their political masters, not performametrics such as they are now being called upon to live with.
Another aspect of the statement that worries me, as did the management teams that began to ferret around in the public service seven or eight years ago, is whether with performamet-ricians, those whose business in life is to measure performance in this industry which above all is a service-providing industry, this exercise will end up, as did the others, with a residue of management experts attached to each department to see whether public servants are continually thinking performance and, more important, performing performance.
How many new people will be added laterally to the public service to measure this performance? Are they themselves cost-effective? Who will measure their cost-effectiveness? I do
Public Service Performance
not consider this to be a cost restraint measure. I come back to my earlier comment: a properly motivated public service, inspired by the performance of its political masters, does not require this elaborate paraphernalia. It is a comment on the political masters themselves that these studies have had to be instituted.
The studies or techniques are presumably designed to hold public servants accountable for the services they are expected to deliver. Again, this is a matter of blaming the public service for a sloppy political performance; there is no other way to look at it. Last April, when speaking before the public accounts committee, the Auditor General said he was afraid that the day might come when he really could not give a clear certificate on the accounts of Canada. The real heads of departments, that is, the political heads of departments, have been doing a sloppy job in direction and performance motivation. Otherwise that comment would not have had to be made by the Auditor General. Now the government is seeking to throw the blame for faulty performance on the public servants. It is, after all, the political heads of departments who are accountable to the public.
I favour every practical method of ensuring that public servants are properly accountable to their political masters, but the best way to ensure that, to my way of thinking, as I have already said, is proper motivation and inspired loyalty. Is that what is wrong? Is that what the government is trying to correct by instituting performametrics? I think that might be so because I cannot see performametrics as a proper substitute for adequate motivation.
I have one final comment. It is, of course, individual worth that counts in any public service. That, no one will question. What happens to worthy individuals who may run afoul of the performametrician. Is he to find himself in the street? Are these performance measurement "wallahs" able to assess the performance of individuals, or is the government only thinking of program efficiency? We should be very careful not to let a transfer of the measurement values from projects and programs, where they might properly apply, flow over into the measurement of persons. Elimination of wasteful practices is one thing and if performametrics will ferret these out, all well and good. But we must still rely, as I hope we do, on individual assessments from immediate supervisors to determine career prospects by individual public servants. All these matters must be, and will be, kept constantly under review by members on this side.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I join with the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich in thanking the President of the Treasury Board for having given us in advance a copy of the statement he has just made and also a copy of the documents he tabled in the House this afternoon. Actually, sir, we are again discussing something that comes under the heading of "motherhood".


Mrs. Holt:: "Fatherhood".

November 17, 1976
Public Service Performance


Stanley Howard Knowles: My hon. friend from Vancouver-Kingsway wants me to say "fatherhood". Perhaps I should say "parenthood".


An hon. Member:: Right on.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am trying to think of some way to mention the fact that I became a grandfather again last night.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: When it is number five, one can take it without too much loss of calm.
It is true that we all want to see efficiency in the public service and anything that can be done to improve that efficiency should, and does, have the support of the House of Commons. I think the first statement I want to make is that I do not want it to be thought, when we talk about improving the efficiency of the public service, that there is an implication that there is on our part any lack of confidence in the efficiency of those who now serve us in the public service of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Like the hon. member who preceded me, I express the hope that this new concept of operational performance measurement will not simply result in the addition of more public servants which might, in turn, call for additional public servants to check on what they are doing. Even so, I support the proposition that an effort should be made to measure the efficiency with which we are served by our public service.
I cannot help but recall that I belong to the generation that was brought up on the wonders of efficiency experts. About all that has happened is that instead of calling them efficiency experts we now call them operational performance managers. In my day there were various jokes about efficiency experts. I will not try to tell any of those jokes to the House at the moment because I also recall that I knew a great many persons in the thirties who lost their jobs because efficiency experts went into plants, offices and factories and decided that the best way to put those plants, offices or factories on a better basis was to dismiss all those persons over a certain age. In fact, it was because that happened to certain persons whom I knew that I went into politics and am here today.
The next thing I want to say about this statement is that when it comes to the dilemma the minister referred to near the end of his remarks about the hard choice that might have to be made between further reductions in cost and the provision of service, I hope the government will not make the kind of mistake that could result in false economy, that is, by simply trying to save more money because efficiency experts or operational performance managers decide that a number of people should be fired, with the result that poorer service is given to the people of Canada. That, in the end, will not save

money, let alone give a good name to the public service of this country.
It is important to have efficiency and to have things done according to the rule and the book, but I should like to suggest that there are times in dealing with people-and most of what the public service does is in relation to people-when sensitivity, understanding and compassion are more important than competence. So let us go for this approach and measure efficiency of our public servants, but let us not forget the fact that what we are dealing with is a human operation. The main purpose of everything done by the government and by the public service of Canada is to make life better for the persons who make up the population of this country. Let us keep the operation on that basis.
In that connection there is something else I would like to say. I hope the minister will not mind my saying it. I know, from personal conversations with the President of the Treasury Board, that he agrees with me on this. I think the time has come when the government and we in parliament should do a little more defending of the public servants of this country. I am annoyed with the one and two-page advertisements which have appeared in some of our newspapers denigrating public servants and making out that they are a pampered lot who get benefits and privileges not available to other persons. When I think of the money it costs to run those kinds of advertisements, I wonder where that money comes from. I think there are times when we ought to take a moment-and I am doing it right now-to say that those who are in the public service of this country are workers just like the workers back home in our constituencies, and we should not treat them as whipping-boys and blame them because things do not go as they ought to.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: I suggest that for all the troubles and difficulties we have, none of us in this place could serve our constituents by trying to solve their problems if there were not, in addition to the ministers-and sometimes in spite of them-public servants in the departments who deal with the problems we present to them. I wish the minister or the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich had said it, but since they did not I can be the first to say that this is an occasion when we ought to be saying strong and congratulatory things to the public servants who serve the government and the people of Canada. That would be one way to improve performance and efficiency, and I have the notion that that would be an even better way than the econometric proposition which is put before us in these documents which are so difficult to read.
Mr. Speaker, you will not be surprised if I say this, and if I dwell on it too long you will call me to order-and I see you are ready to do so-but I suggest that if we would pay a little more attention to the pension rights of public servants, to what happens to their widows, and so on, this would improve the
November 17, 1976

morale of those who are working for us. Once in a while hon. members of this House, instead of shouting "no" to motions I make along that line, would do better to let some of those motions be put if they really mean what is being said by the government today that we want efficiency in the public service.
I have just one other suggestion to make, and that is that the President of the Treasury Board and the President of the Privy Council, or whoever with him will be responsible for it, do some very hard thinking about the amendments which are to come in this session to the Public Service Staff Relations Act. One way to get really efficient service and to achieve satisfaction on the part of those who work for us would be to make sure that the relations between the government as employer and our workers as employees are on the best possible basis. There are improvements which need to be made in the Public Service Staff Relations Act, and some of those improvements must be a lot better than a number of the suggestions contained in the report of the joint committee of the last session.
However, I wish to make the point that if we want an efficient public service of the kind suggested in the material tabled today, this is another of the areas in which we should be doing our best. So I plead for a new Public Service Staff Relations Act which would move in the direction of better relations between employer and employee instead of in the direction of tightening up and imposing restrictions and penalties and that sort of thing.
I sit down with the plea, again, that we do have a very good public service. Let us do all we can to encourage those who work for us and for the people of Canada.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, 1 will be very brief. I wish to thank the minister for having sent us a copy of his statement and the paper which he tabled, a report that I will carefully examine. Anyhow, this control of performance, according to the minister's statement, will apply to 166,000 employees-quite a large number of people.
1 am convinced that among so many public servants, there are various groups of persons whose working methods vary substantially. However what the government is trying to do, and we all hope it will be successful, is to obtain better efficiency from civil servants while treating them more humanely so that they enjoy their work better. When I had people under my orders I always felt that first I had to find their main qualities to assign them to a field where they would naturally do their best and enjoy their work better.
I am convinced, in spite of all precautions that may be taken, that the civil service harbours people who care a little less about the responsibilities related to their position and sometimes perform their work a little nonchalantly. Nobody likes to say these things because such practices are too general not widespread. 1 must say that I often call on officials Department of National Health and Welfare about family allowances or social security matters, and I have always obtained excellent cooperation. When I asked for information, I did get them very quickly. 1 give them credit for that,
Public Service Performance
because when we are in a hurry we are often prone to criticism. If we meet a person who wants to help us, who really wants to collaborate, we are happy about it and we should let it be known if we want to make a deserved criticism at some other time.
In any case, to help those who work in the civil service it is important to choose good directors, people who are able, when an employee does not give a satisfactory performance, to find out why. The department head should have a tactful discussion with the employee and try to understand what is wrong. We all have problems in our lives which interfere with our efficiency, therefore we should not expect others to do the impossible. They are entitled to a few shortcomings. A good chief, Mr. Speaker, must manage in a human manner, seek out the reasons for weaknesses, what stands in the way of good performance and try to help those who have devoted their working lives to the public service. We should not forget either that, in applying this system, we are dealing with people and not with machines.
In that regard, even if maximum efficiency is sought without compromising on quality, it must be recognized that we are dealing with human beings and not machines.
In conclusion, I would like to remind that whether we like it or not, civil servants are needed. They are responsible for the administration of what we enact here in this Parliament. There were some case where officials wanted to substitute for legislators, but that was rather accidental. However we often hear it said by the public that civil servants are the bosses, bureaucracy runs things. That may be true in some cases, but I would not generalize because that would be debasing us in this House. Parliament is the supreme authority. The executive, Cabinet is charged with implementing Parliament's will, with administering its enactments, and this is why there are civil servants. Each of us must meet his responsibilities. We as members of Parliament have an obligation to enact laws that are as clear as possible so that civil servants will require less time to prepare regulations under our enactments, regulations needed to implement the acts that must apply across the country.
Unfortunately, as I said before, regulations made under our enactments, even though with good intentions, are sometimes so far away from the act as to be unrecognizable, because they were made in a totally different frame of mind.
For this reason I suggest once more that regulations prepared under an act of Parliament be sent to us for referral to one of our standing committees, before final approval by Cabinet. It seems to me this should help ministers. Such a procedure will not take much more time, and members themselves could get familiar with the regulations and explain them to their constituents when the latter complain about something in the administering of our laws.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it is my earnest and honest suggestion that this should be considered when we discuss procedures, in order that we become more efficient. This in turn would make for a much more efficient public service and a much better administration in every area, and at less cost.

November 17, 1976
Public Service Performance


Mr. Mazankowski:: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the President of the Treasury Board a couple of questions arising out of his statement. First of all, may 1 point out that the announcement really has nothing to do with improving performance but concerns the establishment of a performance measurement system, something that was to be incorporated in 1973 and in place by 1977-78. In the background document which the minister has provided, entitled "Progress Report of the Measurement of Performance of the Public Service of Canada" the following statement appears:
Furthermore, some departments failed to modify their performance measurement systems in accordance with changes in organizational structure, outputs and procedures, as is essential. Where this happened, the systems deteriorated and managers no longer had confidence in the results they produced. In a few cases, the systems fell into disuse.
Moreover, some departments were slow to respond to the Treasury Board's 1973 directive-
Can the minister give the House any assurance that the directive he has now issued will be complied with? It seems to me that according to the report of the Auditor General and the testimony given before the public accounts committee, one of the major problems within the public service is that guidelines being formulated by the Treasury Board and departments are not being followed. We have the guidelines and the regulations, but they are not being followed. Can the minister give any assurance to the House that they will be?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has identified a concern that I have and was aware of when I took on this portfolio a couple of months ago. Like everything else, it is a matter of degree. There is substance to the sentiment he expresses, the questions raised by the document 1 tabled and some of the comments of the Auditor General. As to assurance, I could not stand here and say that by virtue of my taking over this portfolio or with a sweep of the hand, all those things will be solved.
With all due respect to the hon. member, if he were ever in a position to be asked that question he would, in all honesty, have to say the same thing. This, in fact, is one of a series of measures and I hope hon. members opposite recognize that I am making them public as I go along, as quickly as I make the decision, after the various options are presented to me. One of them was the tabling of the document on public service pensions, and there will be others to come. I will do my best to get on with that. Much of the work was done before I appeared on the scene, of course, but I believe the effect of this in some cases will tighten things up and in other cases will motivate people.
I totally agree with these kinds of comments. This is just a measurement; it does not of itself improve performance, but it is a very important instrument by which we can get improved performance. If we do not know, then we do not have standards by which to judge. By itself, it will not solve the problems. All I can say is that the commitment was shared by the secretariat to determine that where the directives of the Trea-

sury Board have been looked at again, and where we have felt they were not totally adhered to, we are going to make sure that happens in future.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his answer and for his openness in tabling the document, because it is very helpful when we address ourselves to this important problem. I also thank him for his admission that this measurement system alone will not improve performance in the public service. To that extent perhaps the press release is somewhat overstated. I should like to ask the minister if he could explain a passage on page 3 of the document. I think this is important because it falls right in line with the original problem of not only identifying the problem areas in performance but in then taking the necessary steps to improve that performance. On page 3 the following statement appears:
As a process, performance measurement is in fact essentially neutral. Only the results revealed by the process indicate whether operations are better, worse or unchanged. Regardless of the trend of the results, the fact that a department has taken the trouble to set up a measurement system is "good" in the sense that it is applying sound management practice to its operations. This means that any application is "good" in the above sense, even though operating results may show a falling trend, say, for efficiency.
I ask the minister how he can rationalize a falling off in efficiency as some form of good management practices and principles.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I think that if the hon. member would read the passage again he would realize the answer is self-evident. Deteriorations of improvements in efficiency are identified, so there is a measurement by which to judge performance. If you do not have a measurement, you do not know whether efficiency is improving or not. I think that in itself is an indication and a candid observation that in some cases efficiency is falling off, although I do not think it, by itself, necessarily means that somebody can do something about it. The knowledge will stimulate concerted action.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I have a further question about the objective of establishing greater accountability to parliament. In this whole question of performance management, is there any way in which parliament will be made aware of these internal assessments or will be able to pass judgment on the application of the performance objectives that will emerge as a result of this system, or are we only going to see the positive side of the program?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, as I am learning in my dealings with the hon. member, that is a loaded question. Of course, I would lean to maximum disclosure of these matters and that is a subject to which I am addressing myself at Treasury Board. In line with my responsibility I have looked at the whole question of evaluation, and so on.
I will not give the hon. member a final answer. It is connected with many other discussions which have taken place, as well as on freedom of information, and so on. Most certainly we are looking at the matter. As for the maximum
November 17, 1976

allotted, the answer is yes. Having said that, which indicates my bias, 1 must say that I know from practical experience that at certain times and places it is not totally productive to say much more. Some of these are internal measurements for management decision. All of us live under the spotlight. I think the public service has the right, in many cases, to time for adjustment and for correcting itself, provided action is taken to make sure this happens.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, may 1 ask the minister two or three questions? Will he clarify the extent to which this instruction has gone out? At the bottom of Mr. Osbaldeston's letter is a list of agencies and departments. I wonder if it is possible to have tabled, as a supplement to the document tabled today, the actual list of the agencies and departments to which that directive went, so that we will know if Crown agencies, for example, are included or whether only direct agencies of government are affected.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I shall look at that request. I shall need to refresh my memory about the extent to which the instruction went out to agencies outside the formal public service, and if Crown agencies were excluded. Hopefully, it will be possible, certainly desirable, eventually to have this approach applied to all entities within our jurisdiction, the public service, Crown agencies, etc. Indeed, we are making the method known in the private sector, too. There are arrangements whereby this highly sophisticated technique is being examined and adopted; at least, it is being considered for adoption by large firms in the private sector. It is also being looked at by the academic community. It is a question, really, of how quickly we can move on this.


Donald W. Munro: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Does the minister know how many measurers have been employed in the various departments, or have internal officers in the departments been diverted to this operation as part of the administrative weighting, if I may use that term, of a department? I notice that the document tabled alludes to certain sections as examples. I wonder if in the course of time we shall receive the objectives and goals as set out in the document. Will they be tabled so that parliament will be able to look at the full picture?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I must confess to not knowing how many measurers there are. Of course, next we shall be asked to do a cost-benefit analysis of the cost-benefit analyses.


Donald W. Munro: That is what I am afraid of.


Robert Knight Andras: I am not being entirely facetious. I think you always have to consider what the real monetary savings will be. I have had some experience of this in the business world. We were enticed into adopting a monitoring system. When I looked at the loss, over 20 years it was far less than the cost of having the loss checked out. Mind you, other factors were involved as well. I will try to give the hon. member details; I do not now have them at my fingertips.
French-Canadian Culture TV Program


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I notice that two other hon. members seek to ask questions, the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton and the hon. member for Bellechasse. That, I think, should be adequate.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, my question is related to what the hon. member for Vegreville raised. Has the minister plans to introduce restructuring changes by way of legislation to provide formal public access to the monitoring process? Will this be done in a way which will allow the matter to be brought before a committee of parliament? To be candid, I am thinking of changes to the Auditor General's legislation which might have some effect.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That matter is included in the act now.


Walter David Baker: Does the act have reference to any other structure beyond that mentioned?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is talking about a measure as detailed as that to which I referred in my statement, I must say that I cannot be precise on whether it deals exactly with what the hon. member has in mind. But I think the matter is clear in the Auditor General's act which was given first reading the other day. I know the hon. member asked a similar question a few days ago. Although I cannot remember the exact clause, I think clause 13 clearly indicates the extension of the Auditor General's access to information concerning Crown corporations and the like. It is set out in the bill.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, in view of the importance of this new development for the Public Service, could the minister advise the House of the response, both positive and negative, he may have received from civil servants, so that this measurement system may be applied in an orderly fashion and give the expected results?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I can only comment that I have received favourable comments from my officials at Treasury Board.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. J. R. Holmes (Lambton-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 67, I hereby present a petition relating to a documentary program concerning French-Canadian culture in Paincourt which was televised over CBET channel 9 in Windsor on Monday, October 25, 1976, between 7 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. That program was a gross misrepresentation of the culture of the French-Canadian community of that village and the petitioners pray that this honourable House will inquire into this matter and provide such remedy as this honourable House may determine.

November 17, 1976
Order Paper Questions QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)


Mr. Ralph E. Goodale (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 37, 58, 81, 378, 379, 380, 647 and 809.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


MR. MICHAEL PITFIELD
Mr. Cossitt: 1. (a) What is the annual salary of Mr. Michael Pitfield, Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet (b) what is the total amount of remuneration he has received from the date of his appointment to the date the answer to this question is prepared (c) what is the total amount of all expenses, or anything
whatsoever, paid for from public funds for Mr. Pitfield up to the date this question is answered (d) has Mr. Pitfield made any trips away from Ottawa which were either paid for from public funds or which involved travel on government owned aircraft and, if so, for each trip (i) what were the dates involved (ii) what was the purpose (iii) what was the total cost (iv) what was the destination?
2. On what date was the answer to this question prepared?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1. (a) and (b)
See reply to question 2984 answered February 6, 1976. (c) $4,278.71 (January 8, 1975 to date), (d) Yes-none involved travel on government-owned aircraft. See statement following. Costs included in (c) above.
2. The Government takes responsibility for the answers it provides to questions on the Order Paper and for the process involved in reply to such questions. It is not appropriate therefore to provide information such as asked in this question about internal administrative workings.
Dates	Destination
1975	
January 8	Montreal
January 14	Montreal
January 18-22	London, England
January 31,	
February 1	Montreal
March 6-10	Boston, Mass.
April 26	Montreal
May 7	Montreal
May 9-11	Montreal, New York
June 5-7	Toronto
June 28-29	Boston, Mass.
October 15	Montreal
November 21	Montreal
December 17	Montreal
1976	
January 11	Montreal
January 17	Toronto
July 12-13	Montreal, Boston
July 20	Montreal
July 22	Toronto
July 26-27	Toronto
August 28-29	Toronto
September 9	Halifax


MR. FRANK HORSFIELD
Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Were charges laid against Mr. Frank Horsfield presently of the Manpower and Immigration Regional Office in the City of Toronto on March 22, 1974 and, if so, what is a list of all charges involved?
2.	Has any trial taken place and, if not (a) for what reason (b) on what date will the matter come to trial?


Hon. Francis Fox (Solicitor General):: 1. On March 22, 1974, one charge under Section 324(1 )(b), Criminal Code- Forgery was laid against Frank C. Horsfield. On October 1,

Cost	Purpose
$ 43.90	To conduct government business
64.18	To conduct government business
1,575.34	To attend Commonwealth Conference of Senior Officials
82.45	To conduct government business
177.56	To lecture at the Kennedy School of Government
42.68	To conduct government business
60.56	To conduct government business
269.30	To conduct government business
205.14	To conduct government business
236.10	To conclude fellowship at the Kennedy School of Government
53.28	To conduct government business
53.29	To conduct government business
53.29	To conduct government business
32.40	To conduct government business
51.03	To conduct government business
207.52	To conduct government business
88.60	To conduct government business
102.72	To conduct government business
177.17	To conduct government business
140.23	To conduct government business
241.93	To speak at IPAC annual conference
1974, an	additional four charges under Section 324(l)(b),
Criminal	Code were laid together with seven charges under
Section	110( 1 )(c), Criminal Code-Government Official
Accepting Reward.	
2. On	October 21, 1975, the Preliminary Hearing was
completed at which time Mr. Horsfield was committed to stand trial on all but two of the charges under Section	
110(1 )(c) trial.	. The date of November 29, 1976 has been set for
November 17, 1976

Order Paper Questions
trips made by JIM McDonald of the prime minister's 1976, Montreal, Quebec, (b) $9,604.10. Trips were made on OFF1CE	behalf of the Prime Minister.


Mr. Cossitt: What is a complete list of all trips made throughout Canada by Mr. Jim McDonald or the Prime Minister's Office since his appointment to that office (a) what was the destination and purpose of each trip (b) what were the total expenses paid by the taxpayer for these trips?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: (a) November 15-17, 1974, Halifax, Nova Scotia; January 13-14, 1975, Toronto, Ontario; January 25-February 9, 1975, Banff, Windsor, Edmonton; March 4-9, 1975, Calgary, Alberta; March 21-22, 1975, Arnprior, Ontario; June 10-16, 1975, Toronto, Ontario; September 2-19, 1975, London, Ontario; September 29-30, 1975, Toronto, Ontario; October 23, 1975, Montreal, Quebec; October 25-26, 1975, Vancouver, British Columbia; November 28-December 7, 1975, Yellowknife, N.W.T.; March 20-28, 1976, Yellowknife, N.W.T.; May 26-30, 1976, Vancouver. B.C.; September 30-October 1,


QUEBEC REGIONAL PSYCHIATRIC CENTRE
Mr. Hnatyshyn: 1.	For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of staff at the Quebec Regional Psychiatric Centre?
2.	In each case, what was their (a) classification (b) position (c) salary by classification level?


Mr. Art Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General):: 1. For the years 1970 to 1975, the number of Staff at the Quebec Regional Psychiatric Centre was as follows: 1970, Nil; 1971, 32; 1972, 63; 1973, 121; 1974, 128; 1975, 135.
Note: Security Personnel provided by the Laval Institution. 2. See following statement.
Position
Clinical Director Psychiatrist Teacher Social Director Dentist
Medical Doctor
Occupational Therapist
Pharmacist
Chief Psychologist
Psychologist
Social Worker
Director of Nursing
Senior Health Care Officer
Psychiatric Health Care Officer
Assistant Director
Classification Officer
General Office Clerk
General Office Clerk
General Office Clerk
Typist
Stenographer
Secretary
Senior Health Care Officer
Psychiatric Health Care Officer
Supervisor, Institutional Services
Clothing
Instructor Tailor
Instructor Metal
Instructor Tailor
Instructor Carpenter
Assistant Director
Squad Leader
Senior Correctional Officer
Senior Correctional Officer
Recreational and Physical Fitness
Instructor
Visits and Correspondence Officer Visits and Correspondence Officer Reception and Discharge Officer
Quebec Regional Psychiatric Centre
Classification	1970	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	Salary RangeMD-MSP-2	1	-	-	2	2	$34,500-544,900MD-MSP-1	1	3	3	4	$31,700-541,700ED-EST-1	-	-	1	1	1	1	$9,793-523,694ED-EST-4	-	-	-	-	1	1	$9,793-523,694DE-2	-	1	1	1	$24,176-530,070MD-MOF-2	1	1	1	1	1	$29,717-537,778OP-1	1	1	1	$8,223-511,300PH-DIS-2	1	1	1	1	1	$13,972-517,159PS-3	1	1	1	1	$18,771-523,316PS-2	-	1	1	1	1	$15,634-520,384SW-SCW-2	-	1	-	2	2	2	$14,177-517,058NU-HOS-6	-	-	-	-	-	1	$14,835-519,008NU-HOS-5	-	3	5	6	8	8	$13,735-517,358NU-HOS-3	-	3	5	8	9	9	$12,085-515,213AS-4	1	1	1	1	1	$14,937-516,934WP-3	1	2	3	3	3	$13,658-515,519CR-4	1	2	2	2	2	$9,280-510,146CR-3	2	3	3	3	3	$8,360-$9,136CR-2	-	1	1	1	1	1	$6,936-57,568ST-TYP-2	-	-	1	1	1	1	$6,489-57,078ST-STN-2	-	2	3	4	4	4	$7,808-58,526ST-SEC-2	-	1	1	1	1	1	$8,324-59,097EG-HOT-7	-	1	1	1	1	1	$14,207-516,059EG-HOT-6	3	9	33	33	34	$13,215-514,928GS-STS-6	-	1	1	1	1	1	$5.18 per hourGS-STS-4	-	-	-	1	1	1	$4.81 per hourGL-MOC-7	-	-	1	1	1	1	$5.56 per hourGL-PRW-7	-	-	-	1	1	1	$5.83 per hourGL-MOC-6	-	-	-	1	1	1	$5.35 per hourGL-WOW-9	-	-	1	1	2	2	$5.86 per hourCX-COF-9	-	1	1	1	1	1	$16,746.93-518,524.00CX-COF-6	-	1	5	5	5	5	$13,810.99-514,657.80CX-COF-4	4	5	5	5	5	$13,000.17-513,769.77CX-COF-2	-	-	6	23	23	27	$9,330.11-513,026.26CX-COF-4	_	1	1	1	$13,000.17-513,769.77CX-COF-5	-	1	1	1	1	1	$13,425.93-514,273.27CX-COF-3	-	-	1	2	2	2	$12,615.11-$13,384.71CX-COF-3	-	1	1	1	1	1	$12,615.11-513,384.71


ONTARIO REGIONAL PSYCHIATRIC CENTRE
Mr. Hnatyshyn: 1.	For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of staff at the Ontario Regional Psychiatric Centre?
2.	In each case, what was their (a) classification (b) position (c) salary by classification level?


Arthur John (Art) Lee: 1. For the years 1970 to 1975, the number of staff at the Ontario Regional Psychiatric Centre was as follows: 1970, Nil; 1971, Nil; 1972, 30; 1973, 56; 1974, 83; 1975, 82.
Note: Security Personnel provided by the Regional Reception Centre.

November 17, 1976
Order Paper Questions 2, See following statement.
Position	Classification
Medical Doctor	MD-MOF-2
Senior Health Care Officer	NU-3
Health Care Officers	EG-HOT-6
Hospital Clerk	CR-3
Clinical Psychiatrist	MD-MSP-1
Director, Nursing Services	NU-4
Occupational Therapist	OP-1
Shift Nursing Supervisor	NU-3
Senior Psychiatric Health Care Officer	EG-HOT-8
Psychiatric Health Care Officer	EG-HOT-6
Hospital Clerk	CR-2
Typist, Psychiatric Unit	ST-TYP-2
Chief Psychologist	PS-3
Clinical Psychologist	PS-2
Inmate Classification Officer	WP-3
Psychological Testing Clerk	CR-3
Social Worker	SW-SCW-2
Chief, Occupational Development	ED-EST-4
Teacher	ED-EST-1
Shop Instructors Recreation & Physical Fitness Instruc-	GL-MAN-7
tor	ED-EST-1
Director	MD-MSP-2
Secretary to Director	ST-SEC-2
Clerk, Inmate Records	CR-4
General Office Clerk	CR-3
Stenographers	ST-STN-2
Hospital Administration Officer	AS-4
Finance Clerk	CR-3
Ontario Regional Psychiatric Centre
1970	1971	1972	1973	1974	1975	Salary Range 1975-	-	-	1	1	1	$29,717-$37,778-	-	-	-	-	-	$15,082-517,909-	-	-	8	8	8	$13,215-$14,928-	-	-	1	I	1	$ 9,363-510,232-	-	-	1	3	3	$31,700-541,700-	-	-	1	1	1	$16,172-519,544-	-	-	-	I	1	$ 8,233-511,300-	-	-	2	7	7	$15,082-517,909-	-	1 22	1 22	-	-	$14,310-516,178-	-	39	37	$13,215-514,928-	-	1	-	-	-	$ 7,768-5 8,476-	-	-	1	1	1	$ 6,489-5 7,078-	-	1	1	1	1	$18,771-523,316-	-	1	1	1	I	$15,634-520,384-	-	2	2	2	2	$13,658-515,519-	-	-	1	1	1	$ 9,363-510,232-	-	-	1	1	1	$14,177-517,058-	-	-	1	1	1	$ 9,793-523,694-	-	-	1	1	1	$ 9,793-523,694-	2	2	2	$6.23 per hour-	-	-	-	1	1	$ 9,793-523,694-	-	1	1	1	1	$34,500-544,900-	-	1	1	1	1	$ 8,324-5 9,097-	-	-	-	I	1	$10,394-511,364-	-	-	1	1	I	$ 9,363-510,232-	-	-	2	3	3	$ 7,808-5 8,526-	-	-	1	1	1	$14,937-516,934-	-	1	1	1	$ 9,363-510,232


PACIFIC REGIONAL PSYCHIATRIC CENTRE
Mr. Hnatyshyn: '[DOT] For the years 1970 to 1975, what was the number of staff at the Pacific Regional Psychiatric Centre?
2. In each case, what was their (a) classification (b) position (c) salary by classification level?


Arthur John (Art) Lee: 1. For the years 1970 to 1975, the number of staff at the Pacific Regional Psychiatric Centre was as follows: 1970, Nil; 1971,4; 1972, 153; 1973, 167; 1974, 183; 1975, 180.
2. See following statement.
Pacific regional psychiatric centre
Position	Classification	1971
Senior Food Service Officer	GS-FOS-8		
Food Service Officer	GS-FOS-6		
Supervisor Institutional Services	GS-LAS-8		
Laundry Manager	GS-LAS-6	-
Assistant Director Security	CX-COF-9		
Senior Squad Leader	CX-COF-7		
Squad Leader	CX-COF-6		
Senior Correctional Officer	CX-COF-4		
Correctional Officer	CX-COF-2		
Chaplains Assistant	WP-I		
Chief Psychologist	PS-3		
Social Worker	SW-SCW-2		
Psychological Testing Clerk	CR-3		
Teacher	ED-EST-1		
Chief Occupational Development	ED-EST-4		
Occupational Therapist	OP-1	-
Arts and Crafts Instructor	GL-PRW-6		
Chief Social Development	SW-SCW-1		
Recreation Officer	CX-COF-4	-1972	1973	1974	1975	Salary range 19751	1	1	1	$6.70 per hour2	2	2	2	$5.98 per hour1	1	1	1	$6.73 per hour2	-	2	2	$6.11 per hour1	1	1	1	$16,746.93-518,524.00-	-	1	1	$14,311.88-515,158.696	5	6	6	$13,810.99-514,6.57.805	7	9	11	$13,000.17-513,769.7745	51	52	54	$ 9,330.1 1-513,026.26-	-	1	-	$ 9,052-511,913-	-	-	-	$18,771-523,316-	-	1	1	$14,177-517,058-	-	1	1	$ 9,363-510,2322	2	2	2	$ 9,793-523,6941	1	1	1	$ 9,793-523,694-	1	-	-	$ 8,233-511,300-	-	1	1	$6.92 per hour-	-	1	1	$10,107-515,2331	1	1	1	$13,780.20-514,595.71

November 17, 1976

Visits and Correspondence Officer	CX-COF-4	-Library Clerk	CR-4	-Director	MD-MSP-2	-Secretary to Director	ST-SEC-2	-Stenographers	ST-STN-2	-Inmate Records Clerk	CR-4	-General Office Clerk	CR-3	-Hospital Administration Officer	AS-2	-Finance Clerk	CR-3	-Computer Programmer	CS-2	-Electro-encephalogram Technician	EG-HOT-4	-Research Clerk	CR-3	-Director of Nursing	NU-6	-Shift Nursing Supervisor	NU-5	-Psychiatric Nursing Officer	EG-HOT-6	-Psychological Testing Clerk	CR-3	-Chaplain	SW-CHA-2	-Security Clerk	CR-3	-Medical Officer	MD-MOF-2	-Pharmacist	PH-DIS-2	-Medical Records Librarian	CR-4	-Clinical Director	MD-MSP-2	-Secretary to Medical Director	ST-SEC-2	-Chief Psychiatrist	MD-MSP-1	-Psychiatrist	MD-MSP-1	1Chief Psychologist	PS-3	-Psychologist	PS-2	1Classification Officer	WP-3	2


INFORMATION RELATING TO INDIVIDUAL TAX RETURNS
Mr. Beatty: 1.	Under what circumstances may the Department of National Revenue make available to a third party personally-identifiable information relating to an individual's tax return without obtaining the prior consent of the individual in question?
2.	Were any requests for personally-identifiable information concerning individual tax returns received in 1975 and, if so (a) from which departments, agencies, individuals or organizations (b) in how many instances did the Department accede to such requests?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Revenue):: 1.
Section 241 of the Income Tax Act prohibits communication of any return and its content, including personally-identifiable information, other than for the purpose of administration of this Act or in response to a subpoena from a criminal court. In addition, subsection 241(4) allows the provision of returns or their contents, under conditions prescribed in Regulation 3000, to the provincial governments for which there is a federal-provincial tax collection agreement, for the purpose of administration of an Act that imposes a tax similar to those imposed under the Income Tax Act. Identifiable information derived from income tax returns is provided to other federal agencies where there is entitlement through one or more federal statutes. Such is the case with the Statistics Act which authorizes the furnishing of identifiable data to Statistics Canada, and
Order Paper Questions
1	1	1	1	$13,780.20-$ 14,595.71-	1	1	1	$10,394-$ 11,3641	1	1	1	$34,500-544,9001	1	1	1	$ 8,324-$ 9,0973	3	4	5	$ 7,808-$ 8,526-	-	1	1	$10,394-511,3642	2	2	3	$ 9,363-510,2321	1	1	1	$12,819-$ 14,5331	1	1	$ 9,363-510,2321	-	$17,250-520,267-	1	1	$11,100-512,525-	-	$ 9,363-510,2321	1	1	$16,292-519,5989	9	8	6	$15,202-517,96362	65	65	59	$13,215-514,928-	1	1	1	$ 9,363-510,2321	1	1	1	$15,270-517,6611	1	$ 9,363-510,232-	-	-	-	$29,717-537,7781	1	1	1	$13,972-517,159-	-	-.	$10,394-511,364-	-	-	1	$34,500-544,900-	-	1	1	$ 7,808-5 8,526-	-	1	-	$31,700-541,7002	2	2	3	$31,700-541,700-	1	1	-	$18,771-523,3161	2	2	2	$15,634-520,384-	-	-	-	$13,658-515,519
the Canada Pension Plan Act and the Old Age Security Act which authorize release of the content of income tax returns to Health and Welfare Canada. While providing entitlement, these statutes also provide sanctions against secondary disclosures. In addition, information exchanges exist with governments of other countries under reciprocal income tax treaties.
2. During 1975, requests for personally-identifiable data as extracted from personal income tax returns were received from Statistics Canada, Health and Welfare Canada and from all provinces under federal-provincial tax collection agreements. All requests were acceded to, as legal entitlement was clear.


ATOMIC ENERGY CONTROL REGULATIONS
Mr. Leggatt: 1.	How many inspectors are enforcing the requirements of the Atomic Energy Control Regulations?
2.	From which (a) federal (b) provincial departments were they seconded?


Mr. Maurice Dupras (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: The Atomic Energy Control Board reports as follows: 1. Sixty.
2. (a) none; (b) none.

November 17, 1976
Motions for Papers [English] MOTIONS FOR PAPERS	COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND QUEBEC RELATING TO TRANSFER OF STE. ANNE'S HOSPITAL


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind	Motion No. 10-Mr. Marshall:
as to call notices of motions for the production of papers Nos. 1,6, 7,8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 23 and 35? [Text]	That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, telegrams, contracts and/or agreements between the government and the Province of Quebec having to do with the transfer of St. Anne's Hospital in St. Anne de Bellevue.
COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO CANADA'S CLAIM AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE	Mr. Paproski: Stand.
Motion No. 1-Mr. Marshall: That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, letters and telegrams relating to Canada's $11 million claim against	COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND QUEBEC RELATING TO TRANSFER OF QUEEN MARY HOSPITAL
the Government of France as a result of the opting out by France of the NATO military alliance and the eviction of participating units in 1966.	Motion No. 11-Mr. Marshall:


Steve Eugene Paproski: Stand. COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND ALBERTA RELATING TO TRANSFER OF COLONEL BELCHER	That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, telegrams, contracts and/or agreements between the government and the Province of Quebec having to do with the transfer of Queen Mary Hospital in Montreal.
HOSPITAL Motion No. 6-Mr. Marshall:	Mr. Paproski: Stand.
That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, telegrams, contracts and/or agreements between the government and	COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND NOVA SCOTIA RELATING TO TRANSFER OF CAMP HILL HOSPITAL
the Province of Alberta having to do with the transfer of Col. Belcher Hospital in Calgary.	Motion No. 14-Mr. Marshall:


Steve Eugene Paproski: Stand. COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND MANITOBA RELATING TO TRANSFER OF DEER LODGE HOSPITAL	That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, telegrams, contracts and/or agreements between the government and the Province of Nova Scotia having to do with the transfer of Camp Hill Hospital in Halifax.
Motion No. 7-Mr. Marshall:	Mr. Paproski: Stand.
That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, telegrams, contracts and/or agreements between the government and	COPIES OF ALL REPORTS OR REVIEWS RELATING TO NATIONAL FOOD POLICY
the Province of Manitoba having to do with the transfer of Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg.	Motion No. 15-Mr. Nystrom:


Steve Eugene Paproski: Stand.	That an Order of the House do issue for copies of any reports or reviews with respect to a national food policy prepared by or under the direction of the group known as the DMs Ten.
COPIES OF ALL CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND ONTARIO RELATING TO TRANSFER OF WESTMINSTER HOSPITAL	Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre): Stand.
Motion No. 8-Mr. Marshall:	COPIES OF REPORTS OR REVIEWS WITH RESPECT TO LEG HOLD TRAPS
That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all correspondence, minutes of meetings, telegrams, contracts and/or agreements between the government and	Motion No. 23-Mr. Whiteway:
the Province of Ontario having to do with the transfer of Westminster Hospital in London.	That an Order of the House do issue for copies of any task force reports, reviews or studies with respect to the use of leg hold traps.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Stand. [Mr. Dupras.)	Mr. Paproski: Stand.
November 17, 1976


COPIES OF CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO DECENTRALIZATION OF DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 35-Mr. Marshall:
That an Order of the House do issue for copies of all minutes of meetings, correspondence and telegrams having to do with decentralizing the Department of Veterans Affairs to any province.
Steve Eugene Paproski: Stand.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, November 16, consideration of the motion of Mr. Andras that Bill C-19, to amend or repeal certain statutes to enable restraint of government expenditures, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
Mr. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to continue the remarks I began last night on Bill C-19. I see that since last night the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) has been driven out of the House. He is not here today to listen to specific references to that part of the bill which seeks to repeal part of the Railway Act. That, possibly, is not too much of a tragedy in the unfolding saga of this government. We find now that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Abbott) has taken the advice of the Minister of Transport and is finding ways and means of getting around the country in rather unconventional ways.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Allmand:: Cheap.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: It is cheaper than the other one.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: It is obvious that you touch a very sensitive nerve on the other side the minute you mention the functions of this government from day to day. They immediately rise to their collective defence. They would probably be better off if they would duck low, put their collars around their ears and hope that the storm subsides. However, I hear from my constituents that that will not happen.
Restraint of Government Expenditures
With regard to Bill C-19, I mentioned yesterday that the NDP constantly say that the government should intervene in the market-place and expand public spending. While they say that, the Premier of Manitoba has presented to the Manitoba legislature and the people of Manitoba some clear-cut programs by which he hopes to cut the spending of the government of that province. The Premier now finds he is not receiving the support of the federal NDP caucus. In fact, he is not receiving the support of the Manitoba Federation of Labour which felt that once the NDP was in power there would be an endless financial resource from which they could draw.
The Premier of Manitoba is now finding out there is not a bottomless financial resource, that he has to start balancing budgets and, in fact, has to start paying for the large deficits his government has incurred since being elected to office. The stark reality of holding office in Manitoba has brought the Premier of Manitoba around to the fact that you cannot continually spend without reconciling to yourself and the people you are governing where that money is going to come from. The bills finally come in, and they have to be paid.
Speaking of restraint, there is one matter that is central to this issue. Over the past six or seven years Canadian government spending at all levels has increased from approximately 34 per cent of the gross national product to a point which now exceeds 40 per cent. Municipal governments, having to provide infrastructure, are now facing tremendous difficulties in that their revenue base has not expanded. Therefore, they have to increase the amount of taxation on property. Right across the country property taxes are increasing to the point where Canadians are not only faced with high mortgage rates but a high cost of real property taxes. For many people, especially Canada's young married people, the dream of owning their own house is becoming a rather dim prospect.
We are now at the point where government at all levels is spending in excess of 40 per cent of the gross national product. We hear a lot today about Canada's price and wage control program. I submit that if you give any level of government 40 per cent off the top, they are going to control the decisions that people are making in the private sector. The credibility gap which the government now suffers stems from the following: on one hand the government is now spending in excess of 40 per cent of the gross national product; it then comes in with a wage and price control program. In an effort to reduce the inflationary psychology, they place a maximum level on the extent to which salaries and profits can increase. What they forget is that government must be government by leadership.
Yesterday in this House the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) indicated that it was his firm belief the government would not exceed its target spending for this fiscal year, namely 14 per cent. Canadians already thought that the spending of the federal government was too high before the wage and price controls were brought in. Added to that, the government has increased its spending at a higher rate than they allowed Canadians to increase their salaries or Canadian business to increase their profits.

November 17, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures
On one hand the government preaches restraint. They tell the Canadian people they must restrain the amount they take out of the Canadian economy. I have no quarrel with that. However, on the other hand they say that as a government they will take more even though in the past they have taken in excess of what was acceptable to the general Canadian population. There is the credibility gap.
No matter how many copies of Bill C-19 are circulated across this country, or how many other similar bills the government brings in, the government will finally have to reduce its spending to the levels which it is saying to the private sector, both in business and the labour force, it cannot expand beyond. If the government would take that leadership, its credibility gap as far as restraint is concerned would be much enhanced.
Let us take another look at the flimflammery of this government when it comes to restraint. They recognize that they have a perceptual problem. Having seen that, they ask, "How can we reduce the perception that we are a high-spending government and yet continue on our way?" In the recent Speech from the Throne, the government indicated it would try to hold growth in the public service at 1 per cent. Many Canadians, including people in my constituency, were initially taken in by that statement. They believed the government was finally taking a positive position with regard to growth in the public service and the expenditures attached to it.
However, if you look at a 1 per cent growth, that is 1 per cent over the attrition rate. This means that one year later Canadians will pay the salaries and support costs of another 3,000 to 5,000 employees in the public service. Therefore, it is not a reduction. Another 3,000 to 5,000 people will be paid out of the public treasury. That is the kind of flimflammery which has led to the credibility gap from which this government is now suffering.
In simple terms, the Canadian people are tired of the excessive taxes they have to pay. Young people in the labour market, who might have been taken in by some of the programs the government had, are finding out when they go to work that their wages are being cut into very deeply by personal income taxes. The consequence is that their dreams of establishing households had either to be delayed or dramatically modified. One must simply say that many of the expenditures of the government are not made in the interests of the Canadian taxpayer.
So Bill C-19 is simply another chapter in the long litany of a government which says it is concerned about its spending habits, which recognizes it has a perception problem, but which is not willing to make a fundamental change. By "fundamental change" I mean stopping where they are now and taking a deliberate decision, pointing in another direction and moving in that direction. The direction is to say to the Canadian people, "We will not promise you in the heat of election campaigns or at a time when the Gallup poll does not favour us that we will bring in programs which will increase

expenditures which will increase government spending on an open-ended basis." This is the difficulty when we take a look at any estimates, either supplementary or otherwise, Mr. Speaker. It is really an exercise in futility. Much of the spending projected for the fiscal year has already been carried out because of former legislation. So one questions at times whether the exercise we go through has any great value.
Be that as it may, Mr. Speaker. When I say take a new direction, I mean to take the fundamental decision that the government's share of the gross national product is too high and that we ought to make a deliberate move to reduce the 40 per cent plus amount which governments are presently spending out of the GNP. In the last eight years that percentage has increased from roughly 34 per cent to 40 per cent plus. If we could go in that direction, it is surely now possible to go in the other direction. The government could establish a target of one-half per cent per year or one per cent per year, whatever they felt was acceptable, to reduce, not the growth potential or the growth of government spending, but the proportion of government spending from the level it has now reached.
If the government would make that, decision, what would be the result? One thing would be that tax cuts would be possible and they would be realistic tax cuts. One hears so much, for example, of the difficulties facing the working poor, the low income group. As long as taxation continues at the level it is because of excessive spending, and I say that governments have a propensity to well exceed in spending the revenues they get-all governments seem to have that bad habit-if governments would make that move, reduce their spending and with it come in with a tax cut, especially to the low income groups, I believe we would have made a fundamental decision and that is to turn around the concept that governments generate wealth. They do not generate wealth, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired. He may continue only with the unanimous consent of the House.


An hon. Member:: No.


Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few remarks on Bill C-19. As I see it, this bill is supposed to cut costs by following certain principles. The government has stated that a saving of $1.5 billion of expenditure will result if the measure is passed. First of all, I would ask why it has taken so long. First we had Benson; then we had Turner; now we have the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Macdonald)-three ministers since 1968. We remember phrases such as "the just society" and "the land is strong". The people certainly have to be strong to stand the taxes they are expected to pay.
The government has been in power since 1963. Let us look at the record. For seamen, a 30 per cent increase. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has been in power for eight years, from 1968 to 1976, which is two or three years longer than he allowed Mr. Bourassa. However, I want to deal with the health care system in particular at the moment. Is it geared to its
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highest proficiency with respect to its ability to get a patient transferred from a high-cost hospital bed to one which will serve his purpose? Are patients being held too long in hospital areas which lack the necessary facilities or manpower?
Has there been sufficient investigation of surgical procedures? Is a physical condition found, for example gallstones, in a patient who complains of gastric distress, and is it found upon removal of the gallbladder and gallstones that the patient continues to suffer gastric distress caused by a hiatus hernia or other malfunction? Patients in older age groups often suffer from two or three diseases, one or all of which could be responsible for their discomfort, all of which makes for longer procedures after the patient has been actively and successfully treated.
When patients are ready to be moved, how quickly are we able to get them into extended care beds where costs are one-quarter of the costs of an active treatment bed? If the patient has his own home, is adequate home care being provided for at least seven days per week? One nurse should be able to call on five patients a day. If this scheme is to be made more useful, it must be on a seven days a week basis because sickness never occurs on the basis of a five-day week. Health care costs have increased by leaps and bounds. Medicare was forced on Ontario and now the federal government wants to run away from its share. Hon. members will recall what happened in the province of Ontario. They had a good health care scheme there covering 25 per cent of the people who were having trouble meeting costs. Sixty-five per cent were covered by their own plans through their own insurance taken out either in groups or as individuals.
I wonder what is being done in the field of alcoholism, tobacco addiction and the limitation of preventable accidents, especially car accidents occurring on suicide strips. Seat-belt legislation and speed traps are only band-aid remedies. Some four-lane highways are a permanent danger to motorists because they are not marked with barriers or dividing lines: they just have painted signs on them which are useless, especially in winter when they are often invisible. This is the case on trans-Canada highways.
Then we must reckon with the careless spending of money on bilingualism, an issue which has been blown out of all proportion by politicians. The former minister of finance, John Turner, speaking to the Canadian Club in Toronto put this in perspective when he said the Official Languages Act established the right of every Canadian to deal with the federal government and its agencies in either the French or the English language. The brunt of the responsibility falls, of course, on the national capital region and other areas where there are French or English minorities. The legislation in no way imposes bilingualism on the country, nor does it oblige any Canadian to speak the other official language. But it does allow an individual to approach the government in the language he knows and relieves him of the necessity of learning the other official language, thus allowing more people to remain unilingual.	[DOT]
Restraint of Government Expenditures
What did the government do? It decided to change the federal civil service and make it bilingual overnight. Far fewer positions need bilingual occupants than the politicians decided was necessary. In other words, positions were created which were not needed as far as dealing with the public is concerned. Older civil servants with just five or six years to go before retirement were sent to Quebec for one-year immersion courses in the second language, only to find on their return to the job that they rarely used the second language. This cost $80,000 per year per person. What a tremendous waste of money when people are trying to struggle along to buy a home, raise a family or save a little money. In simple words, the government just wasted money like a drunken sailor. It failed to explain the legislation. Instead, the Official Languages Act was taken for granted as the law of the land. Surely any politician should know that you cannot legislate language or morality. It takes more; it takes a lot of facts to prove to and to persuade people that this would give people a better country and in the long run would help the people and their families.
The government should find out that all those not concerned with bilingualism are not bigots. I am sure that both English Canadians and French Canadians are equally as proud of their country and proud to be Canadians. They are mad and upset that the government has spent millions of their dollars and accomplished little except to upset everyone in the country as a whole as well as adding to the tax burden of every Canadian.
The same thing applies to industry. Government taxation to meet some of the things which have proven to be so foolish and so futile has helped price the manufactured article out of competition in the world markets. Not only has this occurred, but the working-man must also pay more for the articles he buys. He is taxed more than he should be, and he finds that he needs more money, which in turn increases the cost of a manufactured article. Just recently I toured a local factory where they produce articles from start to finish. I then looked at its financial records and found out why it was having trouble selling its products. Other firms in competition with them were buying parts from Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, and so on, and assembling them in factories in Canada, thus discharging many employees and adding to the high unemployment rolls.
Today, governments in Canada at all levels are taking approximately 50 per cent of the gross national product. Have we got into the position that state control is now nearly a fact? Would the government please get off our backs, lower its take of the gross national product and allow people to use their incentives and skills so that they may progress in a satisfactory manner? Do we really want a society where priorities, policies and operating methods of all our institutions and organizations will be subject to a political process? Free societies, surely, must control and decentralize the use of power. Potential for disaster is always a result of too much power. It becomes concentrated in one sector of society-the government.
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Restraint of Government Expenditures
There are examples of government failures to deal with situations because it is not forced to deal with them, unless it is a case of the taxpayers refusing to pay taxes because the government just reaches further and further into their pockets. Some provincial governments have made the same mistake, though perhaps on a smaller scale: for example, state car insurance in British Columbia, Clairtone in Nova Scotia, Bricklin in New Brunswick, Churchill Forest Products in Manitoba, the Come-by-Chance refinery in Newfoundland, and of most recent memory the Olympic Games in Montreal.
We should be making use of the system of rewards and incentives which characterizes the marketplace. There must be an adequate system of rewards for those who choose to work extra hard, who save but take risks and innovate. Stifling such urges is an abuse of power and is counterproductive. Frivolous and wasteful consumption in any area should be tackled at its source. The tax system and price system are there to be used. There should be no discouragement of productivity and selfimprovement. Perhaps the recent lesson learned by Mr. Bou-rassa of Quebec will stand out as a model to all who have been placed in positions of power to run the country a little better for the common man.


Andrew Hogan: Mr. Speaker, I should like to comment on many of the arguments raised on Bill C-19 concerning restraint of government expenditures. I was under the impression that I would have only 20 minutes, so I did not go into too much detail and look at the bill as closely as I would have liked. I want to make some general observations on much that has been said over a period covering several months about government expenditure and restraint, and apply them to some situations that are special to the Atlantic region, particularly at this time to my own constituency. In every debate on a restraint program or on the causes of inflation in our economy, the level of government expenditure is often the major target of criticism by members of the official opposition. Needless to say, it is the theme of much journalistic concern as well as being the bete noire the business community wants to attack.
I want to digress for a few moments and say that again in the House today emphasis was put on government expenditure as a percentage of the gross national product. First of all, it seems to me that members who use this comparison are not aware just how inaccurate statistics are in correlating government expenditure and the gross national product. Secondly, it has to be pointed out that the most rapid increase in the rate of government expenditure in recent years has been at the lower levels of government, namely, at the provincial and municipal level. Admittedly, this does not change the total economic picture much because all three levels of government have to be involved.
The other type of assumption that underlies so much of this which is debated among serious scholars trying to understand the cause of inflation at this time is that there is a cause and effect relationship between the level of expenditure and increases in prices, which we call inflation; that is, the kind of persistent and sustained inflation we have noticed in recent

years. Many serious scholars who examine the evidence dispute this. I do not think it is fair just to take it for granted that government expenditure, whether considered in terms of federal expenditure or in terms of all three levels of government, is the villain that it is so often made out to be. The basic problem in economic terms is not so much the level of expenditure of the three governments but the rate at which these expenditures have grown, relative to the rate of growth of the gross national product, it is true. Emphasis should be put on the rate of growth rather than on the level of government expenditure.
One of the reforms 1 should like to see in the debates of this House is that one day be set aside each month on which a particular issue could be discussed and a member of a party in the House could do what was done, for example, by the hon. member for Windsor West (Mr. Gray) in the debate on the Speech from the Throne: he gave a very solid, worthwhile talk which any of us would have been proud to give. His basic assumption was that in the shorter and medium term, as well as in the long term, the private sector, as so many speakers about the economy assume, can really solve the problems of inflation and unemployment. I would have liked to have gotten up, and challenged him to debate the issue, say in another week, and each debater would have one helping him. It could be done in a couple of hours and would, in my opinion, improve the quality of our debate.
What the member for Windsor West was saying, and what other people are implicitly saying, and what we in this party are so much concerned about, is that Canada can reach full employment largely through growth in the private sector. History shows that the only time we have full employment in this country, whether it be defined by a statistical index of 3 per cent or 4 per cent, is in wartime, which means that governmental expenditures in the defence sector bring up the level of capacity in the economy and the level of demand on the other side of the market so that private consumption expenditures for durable goods and non-durable goods and services are affected, and at the same time there is an accelerated effect on private and business spending.
Gradually we had the culmination of these demands pushing against the capacity, and we were able to put together at work all kinds of human beings and obtain a full employment level. But it was only under wartime conditions that we were successful in doing that. A few times in the post-war period we have come close to it, but by and large we have never reached the goal in peacetime that was set by John Deutsch in his first Economic Council of Canada report of 3 per cent, which three years later became a goal of 4 per cent. Goodness knows what the goal is now, because while the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) is ready to put a goal on bringing down inflation, he will not mark out a goal for full employment.
The point I want to emphasize is that there is a tragic bias against government expenditures here on the part of many members and others. For example, we often hear the statement that government expenditures are unproductive. It seems that
November 17, 1976

if something is done in the private sector, such as putting chrome on an automobile in a factory in Oshawa or one of the Ontario cities where automobiles are built, that is a very productive thing. But if someone cleans up a public park while working for a government department, then that is an unproductive thing. It seems to me that this type of argument gets us nowhere. I think the basic criticism of government expenditures that must be made continually, and I will be making it again today, is the inefficiency that so often accompanies them and the lack of concern with the quality of government expenditures.
There is a great deal of waste and poor productivity in the public sector which, not having the type of criteria that have to be met in the private sector, often runs into useless waste. But that doesn't mean that the private sector growth can produce full employment. Government waste is visible and is an easy mark for anyone to criticize. This is extremely important, because the growth of the government sector associated with the growth of services rather than tangible things is the essential structural component of a changed economy which is often called a post-industrial economy. That means more and more people are working in services producing non-things, rather than things, and when proportionately more are working for some levels of government, then it becomes one of the important concerns of government that it manage and administer these expenditures and services in the best way possible.
I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that it seems to me this is where the emphasis should be put when talking about government expenditures. I do not refer only to things like Mirabel, and so on, but rather to the lack of co-ordination between the federal and provincial governments when expenditures are to be made to correct regional disparity and situations like that. I will try to show that the failure to do this, while it goes on and is accepted, has enormous implications for people and gets the government in a bind whereby certain problems almost become intractable either at the national or regional level because of this type of waste and inefficiency in government expenditures.
There is an enormous waste in some expenditures. I think it is due in large part to the lack of national planning procedures and regional planning mechanisms. For example, in the Atlantic provinces. It is also due to the inability of some to understand the essential nature of a profit-motivated economy and even by some of the important policy-makers for the government and some of the government spokesmen. 1 refer for example, to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) who was talking very freely in a professorial attitude which I understand well when one is speaking before students, but he was talking to Carol Taylor, and whoever else was interviewing him, at the end of last year on CTV. He said that the free market will not be able to do the job. I do not find that difficult to accept, because if you talk about full employment I think the whole history of the post-war period shows that is true. He framed the reaction in a certain way. He used the expression, "he spooked the country out". Then when we see the actual policies that he uses as Prime Minister, they con-
Restraint of Government Expenditures tradict the philosophy which he seemed to hold. He shows an inconsistency as a leader at a time when the country is calling for leadership because of the complex converging problems which partially, of course, are of our own concern although a great deal of them have to do with our interdependency on the international scene.
I see him failing very badly, because after getting all that flak he then appeared before the Empire Club, or some such place here, and made the traditional plea that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce makes from time to time to the effect that the socially conscious business corporations and others companies should put some industries in the slow-growth and low-income areas. That shows, for example, that the Prime Minister does not understand the part of the economy which depends upon profit-motivation and maximization of profits motivation in most cases.
That is part of the difficulty when we are dealing with the Atlantic region and other areas of Canada and want to get large, multinational corporations or other firms to go down there by giving them incentives to locate. The reason private enterprise left or leaves the Atlantic region or the Gaspe or northern Ontario was and is that they could not maximize their profit. In other words, the rate of return was not sufficient for them to stay there when they could do better elsewhere. The operation of a policy of regional development centered on that basis to me seems to be totally unrealistic. If a firm goes to a given area, it does so because of the criterion of profit maximization. In that case it will go there usually in any event, whether or not there is an incentive. That is the nature of the market system where the goal is competition and the goal is the best profit. It is the exception to the rule for these incentives to make a difference in locational decisions.
Thus it becomes a form of welfare for many of them. Private firms coming into these areas will usually not succeed. They will eventually go belly-up; and the morale of the people is supposed to be built up by this type of thing. That, incidentally, is a prime reason to decentralize government bureaucracies. That is a waste of government expenditures which should never have taken place in giving grants, loans in a give-away program. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main reasons in the area I know best, the Atlantic region, is that there has been a failure to have a planning mechanism which would take into account the needs, resources etc. of the whole area. The Prime Minister is being unrealistic when he expects large, private corporations, or even medium-sized ones to go into those areas with incentives when they can clearly see that it would not be profitable to do so or as profitable as staying where they are and enlarging the plant. That is part of the market system we operate under. So unless areas like my area and regions like Gaspe, northern New Brunswick, northern Ontario and places like The Pas in Manitoba can build their base around a natural resource base, with any attempt to artificially, in terms of our market system, put industries in, there is bound to be an enormous waste of expenditures over the years.
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Restraint of Government Expenditures
There is a classic example of this type of thing in my own riding. The government has put in a heavy water plant there. There was a Sydney Steel plant ready to be modernized, and the governments got together and decided to put in a heavy water plant when they knew only 200 or 250 jobs would be created. That is an extremely capital-intensive thing, and some hon. members know the sad history of it. Let us consider, for example, what is happening in Sydney today. The Sydney Steel plant was owned by a private corporation called Hawker Siddeley, which was a holding company with its head office in Britain. That company came in in 1957, and it was gone in 1967 after promising the people that there would be better times and that the economy of Cape Breton would be turned around.
In order to emphasize this point and tie it in with the waste of government expenditures, I have to recall briefly some of the historical points, because the situation today results directly from things which happened in the past, from expenditures which were made and from the failure of the federal government to play its role adequately. As a result, the federal government is being asked to make expenditures now which should not be necessary but are essential. Hawker Siddeley had taken over from Dosco in 1957, promising great things. On what is known as Black Friday, October 13, 1967, Hawker Siddeley announced that it was pulling out of Cape Breton's steel industry. The intention to give up the coal mines had been announced two years earlier. The federal government had decided to set up the Cape Breton Development Corporation with a coal division and a development division, which it did in 1967.
The federal government refused, however, to put the Sydney Steel plant under the jurisdiction of the Cape Breton Development Corporation. This is how ridiculous things get when there is poor planning and when government expenditures are not used in a sensible way. When the private profit, absentee firm announced its intention to pull out because of a failure to make sufficient returns and because it began to run into losses, the Nova Scotia government was forced to take over the Sydney Steel plant. Private industry left, saying that it could not make any money.
The federal government set up a federal Crown corporation, Devco, which in the first few years was a complete mess. Since Mr. Kent has taken over, it has made more sense. But let us look at how the government tied one hand behind his back. The cornerstone industry, steel, was not even included in this type of thing because the federal government wanted to run away from that and let the province take the major responsibility. It thought that somehow it would push it off on the province, even though it is a small province, even though it does not have much money and did not have any real skill in its civil service to run an internationally competitive steel plant.
The federal government thought that it would not bother about that then, but that it would think about it later. The government is thinking about it now, when the people down there are faced with the possible closure of a rail plant for

three or four months this winter. There is good reason for hon. members from Cape Breton to be overly excited sometimes because of these failures. There are times when some hon. members opposite say that they put so much into Cape Breton. I admit that the federal government put generous money into the coal industry and some in steel, through DREE, but the money has been wasted because of inefficiency and because of lack of necessary planning, just as in the case of the Heavy Water plant. Some hon. members have the gall to try to tell me the reasons government expenditures cannot work there, but the main reason is an inefficient government and mismanagement. It is not government expenditures, per se, despite what hon. gentleman opposite say.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That's what we have been talking about: mismanagement. Get your lines straightened out there, Andy.


Mr. Gilbert:: It is because of the mismanagement of private companies.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Oh, come on.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. All remarks should be addressed to the Chair.


Andrew Hogan: These things were done by those who represented the federal government at that time, not hon. members opposite, but I am trying to say that this has to stop. Government expenditures do not have to stop, but waste and a lack of planning does. A small province with no expertise in its public service tried to do something to keep things from collapsing, and a man who tried to keep things from collapsing is now a senator by the name of G. I. Smith. I give him full credit. The logical thing would have been for the Cape Breton Development Corporation to take over that plant. Hon. members can check this in the debates in the House preceding the formation of Devco, particularly those who are members of the committee dealing with regional economic expansion, and they will find David Lewis was pressing the point at that time. He was unsuccessful, and the Nova Scotia government, after taking over the steel plants, let years go by without adequate financial reports until the Auditor General cracked down on them in 1974.
The Auditor General showed that financial trickery and poor accounting practices were used by the provincial government. The taxpayers of Nova Scotia have put some $200 million into that plant and most of it was wasted. There was incompetent management and lack of proper government supervision and the plant went down the drain. That is a classic example of government bungling which would be laughable if it were not so serious in its consequences for the human beings who are now asked to pay the price with high unemployment, uncertainty and a possible collapse of a community of some 125,000. That is no laughing matter. The people who bungled this can thank God that they were not in the Soviet Union, because they would have been on trial for wasting so much public money.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Rodriguez will read your speech and have a fit.
November 17, 1976


Andrew Hogan: About a year ago a DREE study suggested that there were a number of sites on the eastern seaboard suitable for a very large steel complex. About a year and a half ago the Nova Scotia government formed a corporation called Cansteel Corporation. Let us keep in mind that much money was put into this steel plant. Most of it as I mentioned, went down the drain, and the Auditor General hauled the government of Nova Scotia over the coals for that. DREE had conducted this study mentioned previously and suggested that there were a number of possibilities for a new large steel complex in eastern Canada, specifically in the Atlantic region.
For those members who are not familiar with Cansteel, let me repeat that it is a consortium of steel companies which includes Dofasco of Hamilton, in Ontario, and two of the largest European producers, one German and one Dutch, plus National of Pittsburgh which, with the province of Nova Scotia, is studying in depth all the technical, financial and marketing aspects in respect of the establishment of a new steel complex in eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. They have been involved in this for a year and a half since Cansteel was organized. The decision concerning whether to go ahead should be made by-I previously said May of next year, but in light of new information that has come to me I think the decision will be put off further into the future.
Despite the present uncertain conditions in relation to world steel markets and the large capital financing that would be necessary, there seems to be a strong possibility that in the long run the effort could be successful. For instance, just today in the Globe and Mail the head of the Steel Company of Canada predicted that by 1985 there will be a shortage of steel capacity in Canada and that we will have to import more steel. As most members probably know, traditionally from the nineteenth century forward, steel plants were located near raw materials such as coal, iron ore, limestone or dolomite at sites inland. Later, of course, closeness to markets became strategically important and, of course, the location of Hamilton and Algoma meant that they profited from this shift.
It seems that now in Europe, however, and seems increasingly possible also in North America, there is a trend back to locating near raw materials, especially coking coal and tidewater with great depth of water. The consortium partners would buy much of the semi-finished slabs and billets that would be produced and, hopefully, we could produce some other finished products besides rail, given the fact that there would be a sort of captive market for a majority of the semi-finished steel.
The government must seize the opportunity and encourage such development in every feasible way. It would appear now that there would be available from the Cape Breton Development Corporation some three million tons of good coking coal at internationally competitive prices. Iron ore and generations of steel-making skill are available in the Cape Breton industrial area. There is access to deep tidewater and easy access to limestone and dolomite. In order to make the project a success, the federal government must be deeply involved and commit-
Restraint of Government Expenditures ted. As I mentioned in the House before, given the return of the hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso (Mr. MacEachen) to the duties of government House leader and deputy prime minister, we expect that Ottawa will give more co-operation in depth than it has in the past.
There is a great problem, however. This has become a longer term proposal than was envisaged as recently as a few months ago. The reason is primarily, as all of us could suspect, the changing international economic scene as it relates to all the economies of the western world. I will summarize that as I see it and try to relate that to its effect on the steel industry. I mentioned in the House last week, Mr. Speaker, that the present international economic situation seems to be characterized by something more serious than a pause or a lull in economic recovery. Great Britain, France and Italy have begun to take very tough measures against inflation even as their business activity slows. I am inclined to think that the deflationary policies followed in these countries mark a historic juncture for the western world's post-war economy. They seem to be having a fully-fledged test of monetary theories and the system of floating exchange rates adopted in recent years.
Recently, Mr. Arthur Smith, former chairman of the Economic Council of Canada and past head of the Conference Board, now a vice-president of INCO, said that Canada has a 50-50 risk of a very serious recession in 1978. Many economic analysts believe that Great Britain, France and Italy also run a 50-50 risk of what they are calling a growth recession. Some are predicting it early in 1977 as a result of the deflationary measures being carried out by Great Britain, France and Italy.
A growth recession is a term recently coined to characterize a period when total output is neither rising nor falling materially. Recently, some 14 prominent economists made what is now being called the Brookings Institute plea or warning. In effect, they said the only way to resist a deeper recession in the economies of the western world is for the United States, Japan and Germany to start stimulating their economies.
The answers given in the House today by the finance minister suggest he still has a deaf ear. Maybe he is still waiting, as he was in the last budget policy, for the United States and these other economies to improve so that our export sector will get momentum. It has not, of course, yet he is still maintaining the attitude he inherited from John Turner, who got it from Mr. Simons, the secretary treasurer of the United States, under President Ford, and of course, Jimmy Carter's advisers hope to completely reverse that kind of idiocy that could lead us into an international depression.
Our nation's recent budgetary policy, I repeat, was largely centred on the notion that we could get recovery through American recovery and that of certain European nations. As we said, that seems to be the game that the men in the Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada who are the advisers to this Minister of Finance want to play. I understand his position. He has been a lawyer and has held various positions in government. He does not know much about eco-

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Restraint of Government Expenditures
nomics or finance, and he has to listen to these advisers and mouth in the House what they say. In the answers given in this House, however, there seems to be a great misunderstanding of what is going on in the rest of the world and how rapidly things are changing toward protectionism and the threat of depression.
In my mind, that attitude consists of a one-sided, tunnel-like view that sees only the problem of inflation as being dominant, while neglecting increasing unemployment, the need for growth, for an exchange rate policy that would favour an exporting nation such as we are, instead of handicapping the economy as the present monetary policy practiced by the central bank of this country is doing. High interest rates, which keep the exchange rate up artificially, and the deliberate, restrictive policies being used now by the central banks, do not help our export sector at all. These things are a detriment and at the same time keep us on an overvalued currency in relation to other trading partner currencies.
That is a terribly stupid policy for an exporting nation such as ours to be now pursuing when some 25 per cent of our gross national product has to be sold competitively in international markets. I realize that this is a complex situation and I am probably oversimplifying it, but certainly the things 1 am stressing need to be stressed somewhere, and it does not seem it is being done by the Minister of Finance. Certainly he is not doing it in this House.
I am very fearful about this, Mr. Speaker, and some people might say the scenario is too pessimistic. But it is a serious thing because everybody mouths the fact that we are a global village and are interdependent, and so on, but we cannot isolate ourselves from what is happening in Europe. Despite the willingness of the president-elect of the United States to stimulate the economy, many prominent economists fear that Germany and Japan will be excluded from these very important markets under the scenario I am describing, namely, the markets of Italy, France, Britain and a great deal of the European Economic Community, so they will try to get a larger share of the United States market.
Despite the good intentions of Mr. Carter, we can see what is going to happen in the United States economy because we know the nature of the democratic process. We have a scenario somewhat like that of the 1930s in which protectionist policies could prevail and curtail in a very serious way freedom of international trade. There is little doubt that as the Japanese and West German economies try to direct more exports into the United States market, a variety of industry lobbyists and pressure groups may force that administration into a more protectionist shell, which is the last thing that it wants. Thus, we have the danger of a protectionist treadmill leading to a depression-like situation. This is not my analysis, Mr. Speaker. Qualified people who have studied these matters in depth are alarmed at policies presently followed by various countries of the free world, including our country.
Let me revert to the situation confronting the Sydney Steel plant. As I described earlier, the plant has been losing money, and the government wasted money left and right on that plant.

A new consortium organized by the province of Nova Scotia may offer hope for the long-term future. The difficulty is that given the international picture which I have just discussed, none of these consortium partners will commit themselves to a 30-year investment until the uncertainty clears up. In the meantime, the older plant keeps deteriorating. Now, about 2,300 men are employed in that plant. That plant, along with the coal industry, forms the economic base by and large of the 126,000 people who live in Cape Breton county.
I have learned, after talking to people whom I trust and who over the years have told me practically everything I know about the steel industry, that two months or even six weeks from now the last order for the rail mills at Sydney will be filled. Why has this situation come about? With the help of the Federal government we have been trying to win orders in Venezuela. The government could not help us very much in Mexico because of the involvement of the international monetary fund. The Canada Export Development Corporation could not help us much in that instance.
What gets me mad is that the CNR, which was going to buy track in order to ship by unit train Alberta coal to the Ontario steel industry, is now cutting back and telling us, "We will not buy any more of your rails." Mr. Speaker, we have orders enough for only two months' rolling and then our orders are finished. I suggest strongly that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) and the deputy prime minister, the hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso, should confer with the executives of the steel plant, with the Sydney Steel unions and their research people in order to get us through an extremely difficult winter when the rail mill may close for two or three months. Perhaps between 1,500 and 2,000 people will be laid off as a consequence.
We cannot stand by in this country and let this happen. Sometimes I wonder if the government knows that this sort of thing has a snowballing effect in the economy. I am thinking of what is happening in Cape Breton and in Pictou county, Nova Scotia. In Pictou county there is a factory equipped for producing locomotives, but it will not get locomotive orders from the CNR because that Crown corporation now says it is cutting back on intended expenditures. So you will see huge lay-offs in Pictou county, perhaps as many as 1,000 men-that on top of a serious situation in their shipyards. At the same time, orders in the shipyards are down, so that in the general area you may see between 12 per cent and 15 per cent of the work force unemployed. It is no joke for people in these areas of Nova Scotia. We do not live in an Alberta economy, Mr. Speaker. Only two areas of this country show any kind of prosperity.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member whose allotted time has expired. He may continue with the unanimous consent of the House. Does the hon. member have unanimous consent?


An hon. Member:: No.
November 17, 1976


Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: I shall not be as long as the previous speaker because I was asked to leave a few minutes for another member before six o'clock. 1 only want to make a few comments on Bill C-19 aimed at saving about $1.5 billion. I think it is another omnibus bill in which family allowances are mixed with grain and flour transportation as well as industrial research. 1 always wonder why this government tries to complicate its legislation so that we are all mixed up.
The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) entitles his bill: An act to amend or repeal certain statutes to enable restraint of government expenditures. And how does he intend to do it? First by restraining the level of adult occupational training allowances. Three clauses of the bill eliminate once for all the Company of Young Canadians, four others freeze family allowances at the 1975 level. Three other clauses set a cut-off date for all applications for industrial research grants. Another clause at last bury Information Canada and the last, but not the least, repeals section 272 of the Railway Act.
Only this government can mix things like that. This is why it is very difficult to evaluate this bill. This small bill contains only 15 clauses, but after three or four days of discussion it seems that hon. members are only beginning the debate as the speakers are many. It is certainly because of the difficulty to evaluate such a bill.
Mr. Speaker, this mixing is probably aimed at making the members of this House pass certain things without realizing what they do. In fact, when you study this bill you do not know what sector of society will be affected most.
1 would have liked to deal with most clauses but for that reason I will limit myself to only two main areas which I think are most affected in this bill. 1 will not comment on the clauses dealing with the Company of Young Canadians because that body was finally disolved by the government and the funds are simply returned to the treasury. The same goes for Information Canada, an organization set up to sing the glories of the government. I already denounced Information Canada in the House suggesting that it was a purely political mouthpiece to spread Liberal propaganda, and I am very pleased that it has disappeared.
Mr. Speaker, they say they want to try to save, to restrain expenditures to the tune of $1.5 billion. I wonder when 1 look at the expenditures-and I saw in the latest paper a reference to the expenses of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) who takes a $10,222 trip to go and see his brother-in-law in Regina when he charged the public treasury for over $740,000 for similar trips in the past three years, this same minister accepts to eliminate the assistance provided for the movement of western grain. I understand full well the anger of western as well as eastern producers following that decision.
If the government wants to cut down a few expenditures in certain areas let it start with the CN. Let it demand that that Crown corporation reduce the fantastic investments in the billions it is making in the hotel business. I think the CN was set up to ensure good transportation service, not to go into the
Restraint of Government Expenditures hotel business thus competing with private enterprise in that area.
Of course, it is sitting in a good position in the hotel business because they are always sure to be helped out of their deficit budget by the taxpayers. But while they are in this business they completely forget the service they must provide to the public in passenger transportation. Mr. Speaker, I did an experiment very recently in my riding of Roberval on the Chambord-Dolbeau run. Indeed, since the schedule change on November, the Chambord-Dolbeau run operates in the small hours of the morning-four five and six o'clock in the morning-at a time when everybody is sound asleep both in the cities and in the country.
Well, those in charge-imagine how brilliant that is-those in charge at the CN found a new way to encourage those potential clients by locking all CN stations on the run. Not one is open. They are all locked. The stations are well lit, well heated, but it is impossible to get inside because they are locked.
One morning I saw a lady forced to get off at the station with her young child in a nice snow storm when no means of transport was available at the station. She wanted to phone but the door was locked. Running out of arguments the conductor, who showed more understanding than the technocrats who give such ridiculous orders, had to call the central office in Chambord on his intercom and ask them to send a taxi from that city to come and rescue the lady.
During all that time the train could not leave the station. How could they leave that person in a snow storm? They had to wait for a taxi to come and pick up that lady. That was in a city. Cases like this are experienced every day since CN management decided not to open the stations, because employees do not arrive before eight o'clock. And the hell with the trains. Employees have to open the stations, and if the train passes before that, who cares? Right now, there is nothing else to do but wait for employees to arrive.
Those big CNR brains have the nerve to say they want to improve the service. They are incompetent, they bring us back 30 years behind, because 30 years ago we had a much better service in our area. We had a foreman and an inspector for the whole area, and everything was going fine. Now we have three foremen supervising two workers, and an inspector that rides along in the train once a week to eliminate or attempt to eliminate another maintenance worker.
So I tell the minister, if he wants to eliminate something in transport, let him reduce bureaucrats in the Montreal offices, let him increase the number of real workers, in order that they provide service. If the minister did something along those lines, certainly he would do a significant favour to the travelling public, while reaching the goal for which the CN was established. Why do they keep on doing such ridiculous things in our area? To push people out of patience, in order that they reject once and for all that mode? I am sure that a number of those people riding desks in the Montreal head office hope for

November 17, 1976
Restraint of Government Expenditures
nothing else. They wish trains were simply eliminated, while they could go on filling the offices in large hotels and Montreal station centers. But we, in the Saguenay Lac Saint-Jean area, need that mode. We are entitled to it, because we also contribute to the 91 million deficit or more incurred each year by the CN.
It seems to me the logical thing to do would be to keep our stations open, at least when trains pass by. 1 put a question to the minister in that regard, and I want him to take his time- he told me he would answer the next day or the day after and 1 am still waiting for an answer-I want him to take his time to consider that aspect of the service. Because as I stated in this House, our area is sending an S.O.S. signal. The minister promised to consider that. I ask him not only to study the proposition but to put an end to those ridiculous orders in my constituency. I sometimes wonder if the big bosses in CN have any common sense left at all. Today every station is closed, and if nobody does anything about it, tomorrow the train won't even stop. The conductor will shout to passengers: Jump out, we don't stop here! Is that CN's new rapid train policy? If there are reductions to be made, I would simply ask the minister to make them at the top so he can increase the number of operations people. I hope that this time someone will listen to what I am saying.
I would like to come back now to another clause of Bill C-19, or I should say to four other clauses since the government needs four clauses to put a freeze on family allowances. My colleague, the hon. member from Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert), who has voiced so strongly his opposition to the government's decision not to index family allowances, has proved conclusively the lack of logic of such a measure. When he introduced in the House a bill to freeze family allowances, the minister knew very well that we would have voted against such a measure if the relevant clauses had been presented as a separate bill but instead he chose to include them in Bill C-19. That is why he introduced his omnibus bill, to induce us to commit ourselves. Indeed, if we reject the bill, it would mean that we have voted against the restraint of government expenditures and that we are in favour of increased expenses, and if we vote in favour of the bill, we will have to accept the clauses that we are rejecting. Consequently we ask the government to be honest and to divide this bill so that we can reject what is wrong and accept what is acceptable. Sure, if the government proposed to reduce some unnecessary or excessive expenses such as the trips that the Prime Minister or the other ministers make on government expenses, we would be particularly willing to vote for the bill but we cannot support the government when it proposes to reduce the revenues of the families which are already too disadvantaged in our society and especially in the area which I represent. Our unemployment rate is the highest and we simply cannot accept the fact that the family allowances are not linked to the increase in the cost of living. The government should have thought long ago to reduce the expenditures of its bureaucracy because they are increasing day after day.

It should stop squeezing low income families! As there are very few tax exemptions, middle income families are taxed on what they need to live. This bill goes even further because there will be a ceiling on family allowances, which will especially affect those who cannot afford to pay taxes. These allowances would have helped them offset the constant increase in the cost of food. 1 claim that this is an anti-family and anti-social bill. This is why I cannot accept that some clauses of this omnibus bill and I sincerely hope that, in committee, these clauses will be deleted and that each clause will be clearly explained so that we can vote on each one of them afterwards in order to adopt or reject the bill in the House.


Robert Hylton Brisco: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-19 is a small bill, a small package with scurrilous intent like many other small bills which are periodically slipped in for observation and comment.
Nevertheless, I am pleased, indeed relieved, to see that finally the bill will put to sleep the Company of Young Canadians. I wonder what has become of the directors of this project, the firebrand friends of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). I was present, along with the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp), at a meeting of the standing committee last year when the CYC appeared before us. It was I who asked its officials to provide us with an annual report, to give us some account of their activities, perhaps a first-hand account. I did have the opportunity of hearing a first-hand account of at least part of their activities. I recall a discussion with a Catholic priest in a small community which had received an extended visit from representatives of the CYC. They caused such division within that small community as to create a total social upheaval, a total loss of respect for the elders of that neighbourhood. What they were injecting was nothing more than socialist dogma.
I share the disgust of the hon. member for Provencher that the annual report which was provided by the CYC a few days ago is for the year 1974. The hon. member for Waterloo-Cam-bridge (Mr. Saltsman) said the CYC was designed to be a trouble-making institution. Well, this is one Liberal program which would naturally have the support and admiration of the NDP. At any rate, today we see the beginning of the demise of the CYC and also the demise of "misinformation Canada". As a bookstore it was probably a success if they could have avoided double-ticketing. It also had a habit of introducing multi-million dollar programs which were half-advanced, half-drafted, poorly conceived and repeatedly rejected by the minister responsible-there is another "half' I am constrained not to mention. This agency, a child wandering in the wilderness of the bureaucracy with a paucity of thought, is well interred. Rest in peace!
The other day, the hon. member from Fort William (Mr. McRae), to whom I listened with some interest, attempted, unsuccessfully, to rationalize for his Prime Minister (Mr. November 17, 1976

Trudeau) the government's 180-degree turn on prices and income control. All of us on this side recall the way in which the Prime Minister and his cohorts vilified the leader of the opposition in the course of the 1974 campaign and made scurrilous comments about price and income controls. They turned up their noses and turned down their thumbs at the suggestion there should be a dialogue between the government, labour, management and the provinces. Then, as all Canadians know, late in 1975 the Prime Minister sired a monster which is so insensitive, a child of the government, that it is now called the AIB, which is an excuse for another name. This organization now has more staff than was employed in the United States on a similar program despite the vastly larger population of that country.
I have listened to the speeches of hon. members on the other side of the House. I have heard them say repeatedly that we do not offer new ideas. Obviously they do not listen to what is said over here, or they do not read Hansard. The idea of controlling inflation had nothing to do with original thinking within the Liberal stronghold. The Anti-Inflation Board today is something like an English sports car I used to drive. I always maintained that the engineers who designed that car did everything the hard way. That is precisely how the AIB operates. It employs twice the bureaucracy it needs-if that is an employment strategy, the Board is certainly serving its purpose. But in my view it is employing people who lack the necessary expertise to enable them to do the job. If the expertise were there, the Board would probably get along with half its present staff.
One of the most serious problems facing Canadians in the field of restraint has not even been scanned. I refer to the outflow of Canadian dollars spent on goods purchased in the United States. When I returned to my constituency last week I noticed that the cars in my home town of Trail were covered with flyers from a store. I had a look at them. They were from a store in Colville, Washington, an IGA operation, and they were advertising food at half the price Canadians would have to pay in Trail, Ottawa or Halifax. Where were the owners of those cars on Armistice Day? Were they at the Cenotaph? No, sir. Thousands of them were streaming into the United States to spend Canadian dollars on American products at one-third the price of those products in Canada: for example, chicken at 39 cents a pound, when the chicken marketing board sets the price at 69 cents a pound in British Columbia. How can a merchant hope to compete with that?
I took the time to go down to the border and observe some of the people crossing, and I talked to them. I do not blame them for going into the United States to make their purchases;
I do not blame them one bit. But when an aluminum window-frame comes across that border at a price of $81.25 and the same item in Trail costs $250, there is something wrong with the economy of this nation. That is a direct reflection on the business approach and conduct of this government. They don't know where it's at. I watched cars coming through that border with trailers carrying furniture, shelves for kitchen cupboards _
Restraint of Government Expenditures and household goods which people could clearly have bought in Trail but at three times the price. Is it the merchants that are gouging? The merchants are doing their best to compete with those in the United States, but they have not got a chance.
I should like to proceed further along this line of thought, Mr. Speaker, but I have noticed the odd rumbling from the other side. I wonder whether, in deference to Your Honour, at this hour I may call it six o'clock?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must confess that I have had some indication that the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald) seeks the floor on a point of order, and this time works out to be extremely propitious.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Because of the seriousness of the discussion that took place shortly following the question period, I had an opportunity a few moments ago to examine the blues and to see there, in black and white, so to speak, that during the exchange that took place on the point of order following the question period, in my frustration and anxiety I did impute motivation to the Chair that I very much regret.
I should like both to apologize to the Chair and to retract any suggestion of motivation or that the Chair was not impartial. I believe, sir, as one member of this House, that it is important that all of us realize that you are, in effect, the impartial servant of us all and seek in your own way to ensure . that this House operates not only to serve the members with total impartiality but obviously directly and in justice to the people generally. I do apologize to Your Honour both for the remarks themselves, and also to hon. members for the time of the House that was taken up on the matter. I trust that it will not occur again.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. A more complete and dignified retraction of what has to be considered an unfortunate outburst would not be possible, I am sure, in the opinion of any member. Certainly the matter is now closed, except to say that the hon. member, in expressing his regret at the particular language, did not say just a moment ago that which he might have said, and that is that while the concern about the particular language that he used has now been adequately expressed, his frustration and the frustration of other members in respect to similar occurrences is none the less.
Indeed, I think that one of the abiding strengths of this chamber is that when these frustrations do occur we have to keep open our channels of communication in order that they can be expressed. Indeed, it is important not only to the members but to the nation that members on both sides of this House be able to do battle with each other. That is, after all, what we came here for. When these frustrations do occur, as they do quite regularly, I think we have to cope with them as best we can and make sure that we are open to communication, so that our frustrations can be properly aired and under-
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Restraint of Government Expenditures stood and we can proceed with the work with which we have been entrusted by the voters.
As I attempted to say earlier, it is never difficult for the Chair to understand that decisions will be questioned and that, furthermore, in the heat of the moment they may be questioned in somewhat less than the most temperate language. However, unfortunately things did go a little far this afternoon. They have now been more than rectified, and I only hope that the hon. member's intervention serves as a reminder to me and to all other hon. members that we have to be constantly on guard that when these frustrations build up because of some of
our procedures, we ought to ensure among ourselves that we keep open the line of communication so that we can try to avoid a continuing difficulty that frustrates members who are, after all, attempting to do their very best in giving good service to the constituents that sent them here.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. In thanking the hon. member for Egmont for his generous remarks, 1 do now see that it is six o'clock. Therefore, this House stands adjourned until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, November 18, 1976