1976-11-09

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jack Marshall (Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. During the last session, as a result of the Hermann Report, a recommendation was made to the Government of Canada to provide pensions for those widows whose veteran husbands were in receipt of a war disability pension of less than 48 per cent and who, under present circumstances, are placed in the discriminatory position of being denied that deserved assistance. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Portage (Mr. Masniuk):
That this House orders that the Government of Canada reaffirm the commitment made to veterans by Sir Robert Borden in 1917, and by successive Prime Ministers since, and implement amendments to the Pension Act to provide widows of veterans pensions in line with the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, since the provincial-federal conference of finance ministers is scheduled to meet at the end of this month in Ottawa, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I move, seconded by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent):
That the Minister of Finance, in consultation with his provincial counterparts, reactivate the federal-provincial capital works projects to reduce and eliminate the high level of unemployment in this country.


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


Some hon. Members:: No.


RECOMMENDATION THAT PUBLIC BE ADMITTED TO HOUSE DURING PRAYERS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion dealing with an important matter.
As we need more than ever the guidance of Providence to face our obligations, and as it would be advisable to associate the people with the prayers hon. members say every day at the beginning of the sitting of the House, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier):
That this House recommend an amendment to the Standing Orders of the House allowing the public to take place in the galleries before the start of the sitting so that they might join the House in heart and in mind, in its prayer and that our deliberations might be fruitful and profitable to the well-being of the people.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Mr. Speaker:: Since the House is unanimous in its consent, I shall put the motion. Seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier), the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) moves:
That this House recommend an amendment to the Standing Orders of the House allowing the public to take place in the galleries before the start of the sitting so that they might join the House, in heart and in mind, in its prayer and that our deliberations might be fruitful and profitable to the well-being of the people.
Does it please the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
November 9, 1976
Mounted Police
[English)

Mr. J. H. Horner (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, 1 rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, namely the misunderstandings, the confusion and the irregularities that exist in the Ministry of Transport in allocating car rental concessions at the nine MOT airports. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser):
That this House instruct the Minister of Transport to call for an immediate inquiry into the Ministry of Transport's system of allocating car rental concessions at its nine airports.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The provisions of Standing Order 43 require the unanimous consent of the House for the presentation of such a motion. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


U4I0) ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE   PROVISION OF COUNSEL FOR MEMBERS CHARGED WITH BREAKING INTO NEWSPAPER OFFICE IN QUEBEC-MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, relating to the alarming precedent of police entering the premises of a Quebec newspaper some time ago. In view of the type of treatment received in recent years by RCMP members in terms of natural justice and in view of the delay by this government in implementing any provisions in the report of the Marin Commission of inquiry with respect to the RCMP, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker):
That the Solicitor General take whatever steps necessary to ensure that those officers accused with respect to the break into L'Agence de Pressc Libre du Quebec are provided with counsel to defend them in order to make certain that these men are not made scapegoats for that type of activity which should be the responsibility of those who make, direct and interpret police and security policy.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
[Mr. Speaker.)


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Robert McCleave (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday 1 gave notice of this motion under Standing Order 43 with regard to a change in procedure to be used in connection with Montreal courts. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie):
Thai this House request that the government consider an attempted solution of the impasse over the payment of certain legal charges arising from the Ouellet contempt of court proceedings by taking two steps: First, to approach the Quebec government and ask it to agree that there be a binding decision in the matter by the Batonnier of the Montreal Bar as to all disputes between the federal and provincial governments in this matter; and second, that both governments make it clear that the account will only be so considered after it is approved by the Arbitration Board of the Bar of the province of Quebec.


Mr. Speaker:: Standing Order 43 requires unanimous consent for the presentation of such motion. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOUSING
Mr. John Gilbert (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, given the high level of unemployment in Canada, I rise under Standing Order 43, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) to move the following motion:
That this government increase its capital budget under CMHC to provide additional housing, particularly for cooperative and low income housing, which will both provide additional jobs this winter and increase our much required housing stock.


Mr. Speaker:: Standing Order 43 requires unanimous consent for such a motion. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF BRIGADIER GARBA OF NIGERIA
Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, may I use this occasion to call to your attention and that of hon. members the presence in the visitors' gallery of a most distinguished visitor, my counterpart from the Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Brigadier Joseph N. Garba.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
November 9, 1976



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put my question to the Minister of Finance. With 784,000 Canadians out of work 53,000 more than last May, and with unemployment at 7.6 per cent, a half point higher than in May, would the minister indicate when he anticipates a decline in this tragic situation, bearing in mind that in his May budget the minister predicted that unemployment would follow:
... a level trend in the near term and gradually decline as cyclical expansion takes hold.
It has not happened and now we have thousands of Canadians needlessly out of work, with many feeling severe hardship.


Hon. Donald S. Macdonald (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the member has referred to it at the end of my comments in the May budget, and it is quite clear that the cyclical trend which was hoped for has not materialized. The analysis of the October labour force survey is now underway. It indicates regional differences in Canada, in Ontario in particular, having been occasioned by the strike in the Ford Motor Company at the time the survey was taken and also indicates some severe regional problems in the eastern parts of Canada. At the moment I do not propose to make any further announcements or changes.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: In view of the minister's statement that the cyclical trend anticipated in his budget has not materialized, and as job creation has been virtually static since January, with an actual decline in employment since March, would the minister indicate if he still believes that the Canadian economy will generate more than 250,000 new jobs this year, as he stated in his May budget, and would he agree that the anti-inflation program has acted as a damper on our economic recovery and has cost tens of thousands of jobs?


Mr. Broadbent:: It is your program, fellow.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: If the minister does not agree that the antiinflation program has aggravated the problem of unemployment, would he allow-certainly before Christmas-an immediate parliamentary review of the entire program?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, 1 do not agree that the anti-inflation program has been the reason for the slow increase in growth of the gross national product. 1 point out to the hon. gentleman that this is the same kind of slowing in recovery from the recession which has occurred in the United States, and indeed, in all the other OECD countries.


John Edward Broadbent: There is a new government in the United States, too.
Oral Questions


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Under the circumstances, it seems to me that our primary concern should still be the level of Canadian inflation, and I think the suggestion of the hon. gentleman that we should forget about inflation is really not well founded.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: He never said that.


UNEMPLOYMENT-EFFECT OF TARIFF REDUCTIONS
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Hon. members know that I made no reference to inflation not being a serious problem in Canada at the present time.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: The government is a serious problem, too.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: As a contributing factor to rising unemployment has been our sagging trade position, especially in manufactured goods, where we have an amazing $10 billion deficit, would the minister indicate if he plans any new approach with respect to our trade negotiations in Geneva or elsewhere, and specifically, does he intend to alter the tariff changes made in his May budget, at which time he stated that such tariff reductions would be withdrawn if they have serious effects on employment or production in Canada?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: I will correct my previous answer. The hon. gentleman says he is concerned about inflation, but his concern is that we should not take any initiatives against it.


An hon. Member:: You are just concerned about power.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: 1 point out to the hon. member that the budget of last May proposed reductions in tariffs on consumer goods, which would be of value in maintaining a restriction on the increase of consumer prices in Canada. It seems to me that the suggestion of the hon. gentleman that we should increase tariffs and thereby increase the cost of consumer goods in Canada-


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It is your suggestion.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: -is hardly a stance consistent with concern about inflation.


MANPOWER
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration, who I know is interested in unemployment, or at least in his employment strategy. Given the fact that the University of Toronto Institute for Policy Analysis and the Conference Board of Canada have indicated that in terms of 1977 and years following we are going to experience very

November 9, 1976
Oral Questions
sluggish growth and higher unemployment, which is, of course, little encouragement to those who are presently unemployed or those who will be unemployed, why is it necessary to wait until January 1977 to commence discussions with the provinces on a consultative basis regarding unemployment programs, as envisaged by the employment strategy, and has the minister actually stated that he finds it impossible to implement these programs before April, 1977?


Hon. Jack Cullen (Minister of Manpower and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the sincere concern of the hon. member about the level of unemployment. That is a feeling which is shared by everyone; it is not something one can treat with equanimity. At the present time we have ongoing programs. The Minister of Finance has indicated part of the reason that this particular figure is so high and has laid at least some of the blame on the strike picture. After we announce our programs and announce that there will be $100 million for LIP and $40 million or so for the training program and other programs, we run into problems. Then, there is concern that there has not been enough consultation with the provinces. We propose to do that. Quite frankly, if our analysis of the situation is such that further measures are needed and needed immediately, then 1 will not hesitate to recommend them.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Mr. Speaker, I am not interested in a story from the minister. I want to know why, some eight or nine months after we first heard of this program from the former minister, the government is taking so long about this consultative process. Will the minister assure this House that he will contact his provincial counterparts to see to it that the consultative process does take place immediately so that there is a possibility that the programs to which it refers, that is employment strategy, can be introduced before April, 1977? Can the minister do that or does he not care?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, 1 think the hon. member knows that I do care and that I am somewhat ahead of him in that about two weeks after I assumed this portfolio I met with the provincial ministers to discuss any other areas in which we have to share some jurisdiction.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: For example, there is the situation that arose in my own constituency where some 700 or 900 jobs are being filled by Americans now because we have not had proper apprenticeship programs to enable us to fill all these jobs.


An hon. Member:: Whose fault is that?


An hon. Member:: What are you doing about it?


An hon. Member:: Get a new member.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, the opposition seem to be yelling about whose fault it is rather than finding solutions.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: 1 would simply say that my provincial colleagues and I have been able to work very closely together. Some $64 million has been spent on the apprenticeship training program alone, which is an area clearly within the jurisdiction of the provinces, so we are endeavouring to move in the areas where we have authority and where we can work together. The opposition would have us wave a magic wand and all the jobs would be created.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Mr. Speaker, a further supplementary. I should like to refer the minister to Hansard for October 28 with respect to this consultative process to which he has referred. At page 535 the minister is reported as saying:
I expect we will commence our discussions with regard to programs on a consultative basis probably early in January, 1977 with a view to implementing them in approximately April of that year.
I would ask the minister if he is really meeting his provincial counterparts now on a consultative basis as envisaged, and why we have to wait so long for this particular type of consultation that he required? I am asking the minister if he can not speed it up and contact the provincial-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FINANCE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance who has told the House that the rate of recovery in Canada is about the same as that in the United States. I would remind the Minister of Finance that they have just changed the government in the United States because of the slow rate of recovery. Given the fact that we now have the highest level of unemployment in 15 years-since the last time we had a Tory government, I might add-1 should like to ask the minister why the government cannot bring in a tax cut at this time which would not be inflationary because we are only operating at 85 per cent capacity in the industrial sector?


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I am not proposing to make any budgetary change at this point. I think it is clear, as I indicated in a reply to a previous question, that the unemployment figures at the present time, high as they are, have been of a regional nature. Indeed, in some parts of the country there are very substantial levels of employment. In these circumstances, it does not appear that at the moment at least a macro-economic change such as a tax cut would have the result for which we would both hope.
November 9, 1976


INCREASED BUDGET FOR HOUSING AS MEANS OF STIMULATING EMPLOYMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, if the minister sees the entire country as one region, he is right in saying that we are concerned only about regional unemployment. If the minister will not consider a tax cut as one method of dealing with unemployment, will he contemplate the kinds of changes proposed earlier, namely, stimulating the housing budget at the national level? This would affect municipalities across the country, create jobs and meet housing needs.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, 1 would be glad to take that as a suggestion. 1 have noted in the recent report that the rate of housing completions in Canada has been, I think 1 am right in saying, almost at an historic high. Obviously, the government will want to give close attention in the months to come to the hon. member's proposal, along with others.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, may I direct my last supplementary question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration? Will he confirm that the $110 million saving which he anticipates next year from changes in the Unemployment Insurance Act is based on something printed in one of his own department's documents, namely, the assumption that unemployment next year will remain at between 7 per cent and 8 per cent?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, one would have to be beaten with a stick to remember all the statistics thrown at one by the hon. member, and particularly by my department. 1 shall certainly look at the hon. member's question. The figures of saving are based on a series of figures to do with unemployment at particular levels.


MANPOWER AND IMMIGRATION
Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration.
Can he tell the House whether we members of parliament can still rely on adequate service from civil servants of his department to help people who appeal to us?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, we have one of the greatest departments there is. It is made up of a dedicated group of men and women
Oral Questions
who give service to the public. If the hon. member has a particular case in mind and wants to bring it to my attention, I can assure him it will be investigated.


Armand Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask a supplementary.
Can the minister explain to the House why my riding and particularly my office are not provided with the necessary services to help constituents who pay dearly through taxes? Furthermore, how come the requests by my constituents, which are transferred to the Montreal regional office, remain unanswered for such a long time? If the minister thinks it is because of a lack of personnel, can he undertake to remedy immediately the situation to provide justice to Canadian citizens and those from northwest Quebec?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I shall look into the situation described by the hon. member.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Bill Kempling (Halton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, but in his absence I will direct it to the acting minister. Noting that Canada will have another disastrous trade deficit this year, the fourth consecutive trade deficit which this government has posted; noting that it has been the policy of this government to promote and finance turnkey operations off shore; and noting that in almost every instance those facilities are far superior to any we have in Canada and that we end up importing such production or competing with it in the international market place, I ask, what immediate steps is the government planning for increasing productivity in our manufacturing sector?


Hon. Len Marchand (Acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I will have to take the hon. member's question as notice but want to assure him that the Canadian government is most interested in increasing its activities all over the world; these include various aspects of trade, turnkey operations and joint ventures. We are interested in increasing these activities.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, may 1 ask the Acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce a supplementary question? Noting recent unemployment figures, 1 ask, do you plan to table the study on productivity produced by your department for the DM-10 group? If so, when will we see it and will you refer it to a committee of this House for discussion?


Len Marchand: Mr. Speaker, 1 will take that question as notice and advise the hon. member.


An hon. Member:: Are you the minister?

November 9, 1976
Oral Questions


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Mr. John Reynolds (Burnaby-Richmond-Deita):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. What substance, if any, is there to the report that the former Postmaster General and Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs tried to steer a $150,000 advertising contract to a personal friend in a Montreal advertising agency?


Hon. A. C. Abbott (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member must be referring to an article in today's Citizen by Mr. Frank Howard which apparently sets out a careful review of internal departmental correspondence of my department. I certainly felt privileged to be able to read that correspondence in this article. I understand that a certain advertising contract that was recommended to Treasury Board was later returned from that place. I was asked whether I wanted to pursue it. I said I thought we would cancel that one and review our advertising policy.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Douglas Reynolds: In view of the fact that approximately 80 per cent of that company's business is with the government and because their only notable client is Sky Shops, will the minister table copies of all contracts between the RPR Company and the government?


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Mr. Speaker, I presume the hon. member is continuing to ask me about this question. As far as I know, this company is a reputable advertising agency. I do not think there is anything about it that is improper. I simply want to review the advertising policy of the department. That is all. There is no implied suggestion in what I said which would give rise to any of the implication the hon. member is trying to convey.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mrs. Simma Holt (Vancouver-Kingsway):: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Solicitor General, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Simma Holt: It is a very serious question, gentlemen. You would be concerned too. In view of the fact that the Canadian Pension Commission admitted error in raising the pension last March of former RCMP Constable Eugene Hale from 20 per

cent to 100 per cent retroactively to 1969, through intervention of Senator Perrault, former Solicitor General, and myself, and now again have cut Hales back to 20 per cent or $128 a month because his wife, a practical nurse, is caring for him at home in Rossburn, Manitoba instead of a hospital, would you intervene-


Some hon. Members:: Who?


Simma Holt: Either the Solicitor General, the President of the Treasury Board or the Prime Minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Epp:: Simma to the cabinet.


Simma Holt: Would you intervene to reverse this insensitive if not cruel and wasteful decision or, alternatively, if the regulations preclude intervention, would you act to correct such wrong-headed regulations? To the Minister of National Health and Welfare-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


MANPOWER
Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. I want to take up the answer given by the Minister of Finance to the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby in which he described our present unemployment as largely of a regional structure and therefore not susceptible to correction by macro-economic policies. Given the high level of unemployment in Atlantic Canada, as revealed in statistics released today or yesterday, will the minister be making a statement on motions outlining what additional measures he will be introducing to reduce and eliminate the tremendous economic waste and human misery associated with the high levels of regional unemployment in the Atlantic provinces?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, it is precisely as a result of our concern for that particular area of high unemployment that agencies such as DREE and LIP are set up. They are heavily weighted in favour of high unemployment. Our Manpower consultative services are on the spot and available to meet with management and unions where difficulties occur. When in some areas of the LIP program there is a slippage of funds, we endeavour to push them into areas where they will be of most assistance.


INACCURACY OF UNEMPLOYMENT STATISTICS USED AS BASIS FOR LIP GRANTS
Andrew Hogan: Mr. Speaker, I find the minister's answer highly unsatisfactory as these agencies have been there for a long while and our
November 9, 1976

unemployment keeps increasing. As the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is finally going to get around to correcting the gross national product statistics, will this minister look at the terribly inaccurate unemployment statistics used by his department to slash LIP grants to the Atlantic area this year?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, this is an ongoing problem that we have each year trying to determine the appropriate and fair method of computing the amount of LIP money that should be put into a particular region. I can say that complaints come from both sides of the House. In one region of a province a million dollars may be made available and in another corner of it some $250,000. However, if we suggest other methods, we are told they smack of patronage and are subject to attack. It is something we have to look at. The criticism is well founded, but it does not come only from the hon. member.


AIRPORTS
John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. It has to do with car rental concessions at MOT airports. In allocating Tilden, the third highest overall bidder, to a domestic counter and forcing them to take fifth place in the allotment of these counters, is the minister not creating a second class citizen out of this domestic car rental agency?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: No, Mr. Speaker, clearly not because the bid from Tilden which was accepted was in the domestic category. The ranking of counters was according to the value of the bids accepted, as had been stated in the pretendering documents, and the Tilden bid was fifth.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: As I understand the situation, Mr. Speaker, the Tilden bid was third in overall bidding for the nine airports. In many of the individual airports, it was third or better. Either the minister is not aware of the facts or he is misleading the House.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, let me try to help the hon. member understand the facts. The Tilden Company put in two bids, one in the open category and one in the domestic category. The bid which was accepted in the evaluation of the overall best returns from the car rental system, which is also dealt with in the pretendering document, was the Tilden bid in the domestic category. That bid was fifth. The other bid would have ranked higher but it was not the accepted bid.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, the regulations put out by the minister when he called for tenders state as follows:
Oral Questions
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 bidder will have the first choice, the second bidder will have the second choice, the third bidder will have the third choice, and so on.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION
Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs. Yesterday the minister's parliamentary secretary admitted outside the House of Commons, consulting the minister's briefing book for his source of information, that StatsCan employees, whom we have been discussing in the minister's absence for the past few days, attempted to sell material to the National Capital Commission. Will the minister tell the House whether that statement is true and, if so, the amount requested in the offer to sell this information to the National Capital Commission?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I very carefully read the answer given by the parliamentary secretary which is recorded in yesterday's Hansard. Unfortunately, 1 cannot find the information that the hon. member seems to have given. I should say that my predecessor had already answered such a question and the parliamentary secretary has taken a position that I approve in every way.


Walter David Baker: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. It is regrettable that the quality of the minister's answer did not match the quantity of applause that he received when he rose. My question was clear. There has been a statement made by his parliamentary secretary that this information was sold. That statement is made in the press today. It is not in Hansard. My question is, is that so? If the minister does not know the answer will he find out; and if it is so, what was the price asked for that information? That is the question.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I was referring to the remarks made by the parliamentary secretary to the House of Commons and the information at my disposal. With regard to the amount disclosed outside the House, if the parliamentary secretary mentioned an offer of $250, that is accurate and I can confirm it.

November 9, 1976
Oral Questions


REASON FOR FAILURE TO NOTIFY POLICE OF ATTEMPT BY STATISTICS CANADA EMPLOYEES TO SELL INFORMATION
Walter David Baker: A final supplementary question. That is hardly an answer. In view of the statement also attributed to Mr. Robert Desramaux, assistant chief statistician, in which he says that if those people involved had been compiling their data in the form of estimates and selling them-and that is the issue in this matter-it would be a criminal offence, would the minister inform the House why it was decided not to call in the RCMP directly when this was ascertained, rather than following the practice of allowing a letter to be written by the then chairman of the NCC to the chief civil servant at the time, Mr. Gordon Robertson? Why was the bureaucratic route chosen in this particular matter rather than calling in the RCMP, in view of what has been stated to be the state of the law and if such an offence occurred?
[ Translation]


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I cannot presume the judgment made at that time by this senior official. I think that the action he took was quite logical and worthwhile and that the hon. member should accept it as something he had to do.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. My question arises out of press reports last week which implied that the Canadian government was in fact actively negotiating with French officials with respect to the purchase by Canada of a French designed nuclear powered icebreaker. In reply to a question on the subject from my colleague from Esquimalt-Saanich the minister said that he had not seen the report. Has he now had an opportunity to read through these reports, and can he without any equivocation indicate that the government has no intention of going offshore for the design and construction of ships capable of operation north of 60 degrees?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, may I first of all thank the hon. member for having given me notice. I have not personally seen this news report. I have asked whether anybody else has and perhaps the hon. member would be good enough to let me see a copy of it. I can certainly assure him on the second part of his question that there was no involvement and none is anticipated in regard to the purchase of an icebreaker offshore.
I should like to explain that the situation is that an icebreaker is being designed in Canada. Government officials or perhaps I should say technicians are seeking to determine whether

or not it will have a conventional power plant or a nuclear power plant. It was in relation to the possibility that a nuclear power plant might be used that the French people made representations regarding provision of that power plant. But no decision has been made as to the kind of power plant that will be used, and that is where the matter rests at the present time.


TRANSPORT
J. Michael Forrestall: One brief supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that response, particularly in light of the plight in which Canadian shipyards find themselves, or will next year. Might I direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Transport in the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. 1 should like to ask the minister what particular pressures are being brought to bear by his authorities respecting the development in Canada of the necessary technology to get on with the development of our own nuclear capacity to provide a power plant that we might desire to use in marine vessels north of 60 degrees?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, to this point we have been doing preparatory work on the feasibility of such an icebreaker powered by nuclear power. Until those phases are complete it would be premature to attempt to conclude where the necessary technology could be found.


CITIZENSHIP ACT
Hon. Stanley Haidasz (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Secretary of State whether he would inform the House why the delay in proclaiming the New Citizenship Act which was given royal assent last summer, and when publication of the regulations under this new Act may be expected?


Hon. John Roberts (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, 1 share the hon. member's regret that we have not yet been able to proclaim the Act. The delays are a result of the problem of drafting the regulations and translation. I very much hope that we will be able to proclaim the Act within the month of February.
November 9, 1976


ELDORADO NUCLEAR LIMITED
Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, Eldorado Nuclear Limited, a Crown corporation, has the monopoly in this country for production of nuclear fuel and its employees are on strike. It reports to the House through the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources so my three part question to him is this. First, what specifically is the minister doing to end this unfortunate work stoppage? Second, in view of the recurring rumours floating around that reserve stocks of U02, which is uranium oxide, is at a very dangerously low ebb, would he mind telling the House today what these reserve stocks are composed of? Third, how will a long strike affect the government's plans to break into the uranium hexafluoride market?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, on the first point I am told that officers of the company and the union met for many hours into the very early hours of this morning trying to reach an agreement. So far no agreement has been reached but 1 think there is some reason to believe that the parties wish to reach an agreement and there will be a further meeting in the very near future.
As to the question concerning dangerously low levels of uranium oxide, I have not got that information but I have been assured that even with a fairly prolonged strike there is sufficient uranium oxide to look after existing requirements.
On the third question respecting uranium hexafluoride, I do not have a specific answer. I think this has to be seen rather as a temporary setback, but I do not think it will in any way affect the progress that Eldorado is making in its sales promotion efforts.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs which follows along the questions asked yesterday by the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe regarding the conversations that the minister had in France on nuclear expansion. Can the minister tell the House whether he had any specific discussions with the French government about the possibility of the government of France selling to Pakistan a device for reclaiming plutonium fuel from the Canadian nuclear reactor.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, I will do my best to be as informative as I can while respecting to some degree the confidentiality of the discussion with the foreign minister.
Oral Questions
First of all, the question of sales to Pakistan did arise. 1 inquired as to whether the new policy as outlined about three weeks ago by France now precludes the sale. The answer 1 was given was it did not, and France felt that it had an obligation and a contractual commitment to sell the reprocessing plant to Pakistan. Whether that sale will go through, of course, I have no way of knowing.
In so far as Canada is concerned I think the hon. member knows we are in the process now of negotiating with Pakistan in relation to continuing co-operation with regard to the reactor which is presently in place there and the supply of fuel. So far, we have not come to any satisfactory solution through these negotiations but they are continuing and I hope that something positive will come out of it within the next little while.


James McPhail Gillies: Mr. Speaker, did the Secretary of State for External Affairs communicate to the government of France that if the government of France sold a reprocessing plant to Pakistan that Canada would not go ahead with the supply of a nuclear reactor and nuclear fuel to Pakistan?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Yes, Mr. Speaker; I think I can say that. 1 did not couch it in precisely those words but the meaning was perfectly clear. I indicated we were much opposed to the idea of Pakistan acquiring a reprocessing plant and that our continued co-operation with Pakistan would be affected and affected very adversely if in fact they acquired the reprocessing plant. I was not unequivocal to the nth degree because of the negotiations which are now going on to see if safeguards and the like can be negotiated with Pakistan, but as at the moment I report to the House that no such agreement has been reached.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. 1 am sure the minister has received the material from Bell Canada backing up its proposed application for a rate increase, as have all other members of parliament. I would put the question to the minister as spokesman in this House for consumer interests, will the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs be supporting such an application for a rate increase now that he has had time to study their precise application?


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Well, Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member I have received the material from Bell Canada but unlike the hon. member I have not had time to read it.

November 9, 1976
Oral Questions


William Heward Grafftey: Mr. Speaker, since this is a very important matter for all consumers in Canada, and since Bell Canada has a relatively monopolistic position in this regard, will the minister assure the House that he will read this documentation very soon and report to the House whether or not he supports this application for an increase.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: Well, Mr. Speaker, I certainly expect to read the material as it does have a very important impact on the consumers, at least in this part of the country. As to whether I would appear in the House and give an opinion I doubt very much that I would, unless questioned, but we will be looking at it and if it does have an inappropriately adverse effect on the consumers I will certainly make my views felt here or elsewhere.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. J. R. Holmes (Lambton-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. It is related to the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia and their concern for the future of the estimated 1,500 native fishermen from the province. I would like to ask the minister if he is now in a position to indicate if he will extend the Indian Fisherman's Assistance Program to March 1978.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, that matter is now under review. It is my intention to go to Prince Rupert in a couple of weeks and meet with the Native Brotherhood. I would hope to have an answer at that time.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Speaker, to ensure the future stability of the native fishing industry the minister's predecessor indicated to the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia that he would support a replacement economic development program for their industry. I should like to ask the minister what progress has been made in developing the program and specifically if he can indicate when he will announce the details of the program.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, that is part of the review to which I referred. I hope to have something to announce when I go to British Columbia and meet with the Native Brotherhood.


GOVERNMENT POSITION ON CONSTRUCTION OF INTERPROVINCIAL TRANSMISSION LINES
Mr. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Has the Government of Canada decided whether or not it will
exercise its constitutional powers under the BN A Act to permit the construction of energy transmission lines across the territory of a province to permit interprovincial transmission of hydro energy from one province to another even if the intervening province objects as for example from Newfoundland and Labrador to the Maritimes or to Ontario across Quebec with or without the consent of that province and in a similar manner to oil and gas pipelines which the minister said he favoured in July when he made a visit to Labrador. Is that now government policy or what has happened to his opinion on that?


Alastair William Gillespie: Mr. Speaker, I answered a question yesterday for one of the colleagues of the hon. member in which 1 indicated there were a number of matters which were under consideration at the present time with a view to bringing on the power of the Gull Island potential site which one would hope would provide power to Newfoundland, parts of Labrador and the maritimes as well. But I am not at this particular moment in time able to state the details of those considerations.

>


FINANCE
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to ask the Minister of Finance whether at the forthcoming meeting of the federal-provincial ministers of finance he will consider proposing the reactivation of the capital works projects between the federal government and the provinces in order to have an immediate impact on the high rate of unemployment.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, that subject will not be on the agenda. The agenda will be related primarily to the fiscal relations between the provinces and the federal government as now covered by legislation which will expire at the end of March 1977. However, there will undoubtedly be a general discussion of the economy at that time and it will be of extreme value to the Government of Canada to get the appreciation of the various treasurers and finance ministers on appropriate measures to deal with the economy in general terms.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, in view of the very high rate of unemployment will the minister consider getting the question of unemployment put on the agenda and would the minister, together with his colleague the minister in charge of housing, look at the program now in
[Mr. Abbott.)
November 9, 1976

operation in the province of Manitoba which provides for large-scale renovations and repairs of housing for senior citizens and people in the low income brackets and extending that to the country as a whole as a means of getting people back to work.


Donald Stovel Macdonald: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the second part of the hon. gentleman's question and I will make a point of inquiring further about that program to which he has referred.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. J. R. Ellis (Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence after our discussion last week about helicopters. Will the minister explain why this morning there is not a single helicopter left at the Canadian forces base Trenton?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I think if the hon. member goes to or phones Trenton he will find there is a Hercules, a Buffalo aircraft and two Huey helicopters moved in to reinforce from Petawawa as I said would happen.


John Raymond Ellis: Mr. Speaker, 1 appreciate the lightning swift response probably in anticipation of my question. Now, can the minister tell us when he intends to move back the air-sea rescue helicopters which should be there?


Barnett Jerome Danson: Mr. Speaker, these Huey helicopters have an air-sea rescue capability. The helicopter that was there is being refitted for night operation and that is the reason it was out. This was the purpose of this operation. The armed forces acquitted themselves admirably and the hon. member for Hastings is very much aware of this as well.


MANPOWER
Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Because of the high rate of unemployment in Nova Scotia and particularly in Cape Breton Island, my question refers to a statement by Labour Minister Walter Fitzgerald of Nova Scotia who has stated that a massive training program involving 3,000 workers would be launched this fall to provide qualified construction workers for a major new steel complex in Cape Breton. On the assumption that the minister is aware of such a program because of Mr. Fitzgerald's assertion that discussions have taken place with the minister's officials,
Oral Questions
would he be good enough to advise if he himself has been involved in these discussions and would he also inform the House how soon such a program will commence?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I will have to look into that. From the sound of it the contact has been made at the official level.


Robert Muir: Would the minister be good enough to advise us either in the House, by telephone, by mail or in person, that his program will start the day after tomorrow or as quickly as possible?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Before I communicate with the hon. member 1 would like to find out what it is all about.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. John Wise (Elgin):: My question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. It stems or is caused by rumours to the effect that measures will soon be taken by this government to prohibit Canadian producers from making direct purchases for their own use of chemical sprays and fertilizers from United States outlets. Canadian producers have to compete directly in the marketplace with their United States counterparts. Such a move would create further difficulties for Canadian producers, and savings of up to 25 per cent and 30 per cent would be lost. Can the minister indicate now what the government's intentions are with respect to this very important matter?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have received no official representation that 1 am aware of from any producers' organization about this but, as I said before, before any decision is made I will meet with official farm organizations to discuss it with them. It is a two way street. If farmers want to place embargoes and duties on products they are producing in this country and we want to build a chemical industry, we must also ensure it has some protection so it can exist.


AWARDS AND DECORATIONS
Mr. William Rompkey (Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. Can the minister advise what progress is being made toward making widows and mothers of Newfoundland and Labrador servicemen killed while serving with the Canadian

November 9, 1976
Order Paper Questions
and allied forces eligible to receive the Memorial Cross award?


Barnett Jerome Danson: Mr. Speaker, before I answer the question I should like to point out that it was the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings who has shown an interest in the situation at Trenton. 1 believe 1 used the wrong constituency.
With respect to the question put to me by the hon. member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador, let me say that certainly the representations he has made have been listened to. An order in council has been passed and a press statement will be released this afternoon announcing that widows and mothers of Newfoundland servicemen killed while serving in the allied forces during the wars will receive the Silver Cross award. An armed forces plane is going out for four widows, and, I believe, one of the mothers who will be in Ottawa for the Armistice Day ceremonies on November 11. We are proud and pleased to honour them as they deserve to be honoured.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to the question that was asked a short while ago by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kings-way (Mrs. Holt). I realize that Your Honour felt the question was taking rather too much time, but as one who is also very familiar with the case of former RCMP constable Eugene Hale, it seems to me that an answer to the question should have been permitted. I hope that you will now permit the Solicitor General (Mr. Fox) or the Acting Minister of Veterans Affairs to give an answer to this quite important and very serious question.


Mr. Speaker:: Or the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) or the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Lalonde). Order, please.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Second report of Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs-Mr. Cafik.
[Editor's Note: For text of above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Ralph E. Goodale (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 69, 100 and 114.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that the remaining questions shall stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Did Mr. M. Mogiljansky, Head of the Russian section of Radio Canada International write a letter dated May 25, 1976, to Dr. F. Yaroshevsky of Toronto, a member of the Russian section of Radio Canada International, in which he quoted the following from a memo written by Mr. L. C. Chipman, Supervisor of East European Programming, as follows: "The Director has asked me to look into the charge reiterated by External Affairs that Yaroshevsky, apparently last fall,. . . reported on a demonstration of an anti-Soviet nature that had taken place in the city: the suggestion was that Yaroshevsky had concocted the demonstration so that he could report it" and, if so (a) what are the names and job designations of the persons in External Affairs who made such representations or charges to Radio Canada International and for what reason were they made (b) what is the name and description of the highest ranking person in External Affairs authorizing such representations or charges?
2.	(a) How often since April 20, 1968, has External Affairs made representations to Radio Canada International on what it should or should not broadcast to the Soviet Union or to other Communist countries (b) have any such representations been made as a result of complaints received from representatives of the Soviet Union and, if so, what are all details and who made such representations?
3.	Were the charges against Dr. Yaroshevsky subsequently proven false and (a) if so, has he received an apology from External Affairs (b) if not, for what reason?


Ralph Goodale: 1 am informed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Department of External Affairs as follows: 1. Yes, however, Dr. Yaroshevsky is not a member of the Russian section nor an employee of Radio Canada International, but a freelance contributor in Russian to the section's program. As for the charge against Dr. Yaroshevsky, it was not advanced by External Affairs but by a former RCI employee. No such charge has ever been made or reiterated by the Department of External Affairs, (a) and (b) Not applicable.
2. (a) We have no record of representations having been made by the Department to Radio Canada International on what it should or should not broadcast to the Soviet Union or to other communist countries. The Department is prepared to and does receive officials of RCI to discuss questions that may be of mutual interest. It does not, however, seek to influence RCI's programmes in any way whatsoever, (b) No such representations have been made. RCI is required to consult with the Department of External Affairs pursuant to Order in Council PC 1968-525, dated March 19, 1968 which directs the CBC "to provide, in consultation with the Department of External Affairs, an International Service. . .". The Department of External Affairs routinely informs Radio Canada International of any complaints about programs received by



November 9, 1976

the Department, whether from foreign nationals abroad or foreign diplomats in Canada. This is done for the information of RC1 and material for reply is provided by RCI, either verbally or in writing, to be passed on at the discretion of the Department of External Affairs to the person or official who complained. No directives are received by Radio Canada International from the Department of External Affairs as to what should or should not be broadcast to any country. A frank review of criticisms received from abroad is normal procedure.
3. Dr. Yaroshevsky's denial was conveyed to the Director of RCI and accepted by him. Dr. Yaroshevsky is still a contributor to RCI programs. There is no proof that he concocted demonstrations in order to report on them, (a) and (b) Not applicable.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	How many retirement claims have been filed with the Unemployment Insurance Commission in each of the past two years by applicants just prior to their going on the Canada Pension Plan and what is a breakdown of these in each Region of the Commission?
2.	How many applications for the Canada Pension Plan from those retiring from the work force were received during the same period of time?


Ralph Goodale: I am informed by the Unemployment Insurance Commission and Health and Welfare Canada as follows: 1. Statistics are not maintained for applicants just prior to their going on Canada Pension Plan. However, the number of retirement claims (not in receipt of CPP/QPP) is available in Statistics Canada Publication No. 73001 entitled Statistical Report on the Operation of the Unemployment Insurance Act.
2. Fiscal Year 1974-75, Number of Applicants 93,867; Fiscal Year 1975-76, Number of Applicants, 113,391. The above Figures represent all applications for retirement pensions in these two years. As the Canada Pension Plan legislation does not require a person to be retired from the work force in order to be eligible to receive a retirement pension, it is not possible to answer the question within its specific context.


Mr. McKinnon: Is the Social Director for the Veterans' Hospital in Victoria (Mr. Cassels) due to retire in the spring of 1977 and, if so, has the Department of Veterans Affairs made plans to replace him or to continue employing him on a part-time basis?


Hon. Daniel J. MacDonald (Minister of Veterans AfTairs):: No.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to the answers given during the question period. Normally I would not raise this matter except for the remarks of
Labour Conditions
the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources yesterday evening. I have a number of questions on the order paper relating to plans for the development of a uranium refinery in the province of Saskatchewan. I have had these questions on the order paper for a considerable period of time, but no anwers have been forthcoming. An allegation was made yesterday by the parliamentary secretary that I was misleading my constituents on this issue. I would ask the parliamentary secretary, who is in charge of responding to these questions, to ask the minister for answers to the questions so that 1 will not be accused of misleading people in Saskatchewan.


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, with all questions we proceed as quickly as we can to provide the answers which hon. members are seeking. In this case we will proceed as diligently as we can to obtain the information for the hon. member.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 26 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the revelation today that unemployment has reached the highest level in 15 years and will increase even further in the coming winter, resulting in having the highest number of Canadians unemployed since the great depression.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent) has given the Chair notice, pursuant to Standing Order 26, of his intention to move the motion. That has, of course, given the Chair the opportunity, as the Standing Order anticipates, to give the matter some consideration. Standing Order 26 reads as follows:
Leave to make a motion for the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration-
Certainly, that language would indicate that a matter such as unemployment or any other matter of national concern would fall into that category. However, the practice and precedents in the House have indicated that the primary consideration which should govern the decision of the Chair in reference to this Standing Order is not so much whether a matter is one of continuing concern but, specifically, whether it is of critical proportions and constitutes a crisis as opposed to being chronic. While the matter of unemployment can scarcely be brushed aside as not qualifying under the opening paragraph of Standing Order 26, I am sure hon. members
894

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
would agree that it is a matter of continuing concern as opposed to one of crisis proportions.
I am guided, in addition, by another factor, namely, that under paragraph 5 of the Standing Order the Chair must always take into account whether or not the problem is of such a nature that it is likely to be discussed in some other way. Certainly, having just completed the debate on the Speech from the Throne, one can scarcely say there has not been recently a fresh opportunity to discuss in fullest amplitude the problem of unemployment. Between now and the few weeks that remain before the end of the first trimester, a number of opposition days have been set aside, and I would be surprised, as I am sure all hon. members would, if at least on one occasion the matter of unemployment statistics, figures and the situation generally were not discussed.
Therefore, I would have to hold, in the first instance, that rather than being a matter of urgent consideration, unemployment is one of continuing concern; and second, even if the motion were to succeed under the first heading, under paragraph 5 of the Standing Order there was an opportunity during the throne speech debate, which was recently concluded, and there will be an opportunity during opposition days to discuss this matter. Therefore, I do not feel that the matter ought to be given special consideration, pursuant to this rule.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
Mir. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe) moved:
That this House urges the government to discontinue its propensity to act in secret and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, condemns its failure to provide for an open public discussion on future Canadian trade policy and to report to the Canadian people on its policy and progress respecting GATT negotiations now being carried on in Geneva and which will undoubtedly culminate in dramatic changes in world trade patterns.
Mr. Speaker:: The House should note that in accordance with Standing Order 58(9)(a), not later than 9.45 this evening every question necessary to dispose of proceedings pursuant to this motion shall be put.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on this motion I feel that I should first put today's debate into its proper context. I believe it is important that when we discuss the question of secrecy on the part of this government and the questions of trade, GATT and the International Monetary Fund, we must remember that there have been many worldwide meetings dealing with the important subject with which we are going to deal today. There have been many international meetings, particularly with respect to

the question of international trade and international monetary matters.
Hon. members will recall that there have been meetings in Geneva, Jamaica, Paris and Manila. There have been several meetings in Geneva and in Washington, and to date this government has never come to this House or to the people of Canada and clearly outlined exactly what transpires at these lofty international meetings to which we have become parties. I believe that what is being agreed to at many of these meetings is of great significance to Canadians. We in the House will be asked to respond to various legislative matters as a result of those agreements, and this government should give this House some explanation as to what it sees in the future for the Canadian trade position in the world. That is the reason we suggested this debate today.
Many speeches have been made decrying the tendency of this government to be secretive. Nowhere has that tendency shown more than on the tremendously significant questions of international monetary conditions and international trade. Just look at the disdain this government has for the House of Commons. Look at the benches opposite.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Where is the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald), who is in charge of GATT negotiations in Geneva at the present time?


Walter David Baker: Hiding somewhere.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Where is the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien), who should be interested in this debate because it touches on trade?


Walter David Baker: Out decentralizing some government department.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Where are the various ministers who are not in attendance as we begin this debate? For some reason there is a strange contrast between what our neighbours, the Americans, do with respect to their trade negotiations and what we in Canada do with respect to our rather secretive approach. The fact is that before the United States enters into such things as the Geneva discussions with respect to amending the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, they secure an act of Congress setting out the parameters of the negotiations and exactly what the negotiators may and may not do.
With regard to the present negotiations which are under way in Geneva and which are generally referred to as the Tokyo Round, on January 3, 1975, the American Congress passed the trade act of 1974. Surely it is time the Canadian public became aware of the second last section of the American trade act of 1974. How many in this House, and how many Canadians realize that in section 612 of the American trade act, passed in anticipation of current negotiations in Geneva, the American Congress authorized the President of the United States to enter into a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States? For the record, let me record
November 9, 1976

section 612, which is entitled "Trade relations with Canada". Incidentally, we are the only country singled out in this act for specific comment. That section provides:
It is the sense of the Congress that the United States should enter into a trade agreement with Canada which will guarantee continued stability to the economies of the United States and Canada. In order to promote such economic stability, the President may initiate negotiations for a trade agreement with Canada to establish a free trade area covering the United States and Canada.
We know where the United States Congress stands with regard to free trade with Canada. What we do not know is where our own government stands with respect to such free trade. That is why we are having this debate today-in the earnest hope that perhaps we in this House will hear about some of the policies and some of the thrusts the government hopes to take in Geneva. It is strange that private negotiations are going on in Geneva in which the Americans have empowered their negotiators to enter into free trade with Canada, yet the Trudeau administration has given no indication of how it intends to deal with this important issue.
The concept of free trade is not new in Canada. The most recent advocate of such an agreement was the Economic Council of Canada which produced a report entitled "Looking Ahead". I presume most hon. members have read it. That report was produced more than a year ago, yet we who are vitally affected by this question must wait on the sidelines while the government stalls, sits silently and, presumably, searches for a policy with respect to free trade and the trade policy Canada should be following. The question of free trade is too important to be left to one party, or even to one government. The magnitude of a decision of this kind is too great. The fact is that we need nothing less than an ongoing discussion between the people and those who negotiate on their behalf.
Let us look at the American approach with respect to international trade, and how their approach differs from ours. As I have stated, in the United States the President is empowered to enter into actual trade negotiations not only with respect to the GATT negotiations but to secure a free trade area with Canada. In that context, however, we find that the president is instructed by Congress to appoint an advisory committee to deal with trade negotiations. This is mandatory, Mr. Speaker. The committee is to include representatives of government, labour, industry, agriculture, small businesses, service industries, retailers, consumer interests and the general public.
What do we have in Canada, that is similar to this advisory committee, to enter into the type of negotiations our government has entered into in Geneva? We have Donald Macdonald in Ottawa, Rodney Grey in Geneva, and a silent band of seven. In these gentlemen we may have the best negotiators in the world, but surely they should not be working in such splendid isolation. I suggest this is akin to a lawyer taking a case and refusing to see his client. Believing he knows best, he wants to work on the case alone, with a free hand, totally ignoring that what he negotiates might not be suitable to his client. To date,
Canadian Trade Policy
the government has been silent on our position at Geneva. Deals are being made, and we know that; but there is little review or discussion with those who would be most affected, the farmer, the miner, the logger, the manufacturer, and the consumer. How strange that we should learn, not from our own government but from the Americans, that there is a Canada-United States free trade proposition now being discussed in Geneva.
American trade negotiations began with Congress passing the trade act to which I have referred. As I have stated, this legislation sets out their approach to trade and authorizes negotiations. Let us remember, Mr. Speaker, that when the President of the United States enters into such negotiations on behalf of that country, he must consult with committees in both the Senate and the House of Representatives before entering into any trade agreement which provides for the reduction or elimination of a barrier to international trade.
Mr. Speaker, do we hear the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), or the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, proposing any reference to our standing committees so that we may review the trade policy of this nation, or that we may review such things as current international monetary conditions? The answer is no, we do not. On the other hand, the Americans, by an act which they passed, require public hearings; and they also require the President to establish the advisory committee to which I have referred which is made up of representatives of every sector of the economy.
There is no similar approach in Canada, yet millions of Canadian jobs, Canadian prices and the future of our economy may be affected by a simple order in council under the authority of section 10 of the Customs Tariff Act. All we know about it in this parliament is when the accomplished fact is presented, without debate and without any real, prior consultation. When I discussed this matter with a businessman, he said, "It is a terrible feeling to know I might be wiped out by an agreement in Geneva, not only without any change to state my views, but I will not even know it has happened until the deal is signed."


An hon. Member:: Are you for, or against?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, that is the point. We in this House are not told enough to know whether we are for, or against, what the government is doing.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. MacFarlane:: You had better change your detective firm, then.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It is time that some of those silent mouths who sit on the government backbenches become disturbed when they see unemployment rising as it did this month. It is time that those silent mouths that might like to, but cannot, speak when they think they are not being noticed. It is time they got aroused and realized that the "whizz kids" on the front
80001-57V2

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
benches are not "whizz-kids" at all. In fact, they are totally inept at running this country.


Mr. Hees:: Where are they? It is an insult to parliament that none of them are around.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I note that there is only one minister in the House, the Solicitor General (Mr. Fox), who is presumably going to reply to what I am saying. I notice a former minister, the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Sharp), who seems to be very keen to get into the debate. It may be that he intends later today to preach for a call back to being finance minister.


George Harris Hees: I just heard him say it was not like this in the old days.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Since the issue of free trade is today very much a question of what is really the response of the Canadian government to the United States trade proposal, and is very much a question of this government's response to the report of the Economic Council, we in this House and the country should be the first to know where our government stands on this important question, and not the last.
I should like to take this opportunity of asking the government where our learned negotiators stand. What course are they charting for us without the benefit of any parliamentary counsel or consent? I believe this House should appoint a permanent advisory committee on trade negotiations, comprised of representatives from all sectors of the economy, to work closely with the government on all matters of international trade negotiations. Such a committee would be required to report to parliament on impending major trade negotiations and have the benefit of the feelings of this House on such negotiations.
I would suggest that in addition to having members from the general public, such committee should include representatives of consumer groups, retailers, small businesses, manufacturers, miners, labour interests, provincial governments and the regions of Canada. In short, it should be a meaningful advisory council to which the government and this parliament could turn for guidance on what is the proper trade position for the country.
In view of the government's admission in the working paper entitled "The Way Ahead", and the Speech from the Throne, that it can no longer unilaterally dictate answers for the problems of the seventies, and that it will seek a new era of public consultation and participation, perhaps it will see the merit of the suggestion I have just made. We cannot afford to have this inept government act in secret any longer. Their whims are not enough, when trade patterns are being set that may have far-reaching results for Canadian working people, businessmen and consumers.
I have mentioned what the government might do if it is serious about seeking a new public consensus. Let me touch briefly on what it certainly has not done to date. Neither the paper "The Way Ahead" nor the Speech from the Throne

mentioned in any real manner this country's worsening trade position. Last year Canada had an over-all trade deficit of $5 billion and a manufacturing deficit of $10 billion. Strangely enough, the government feels that it does not have to spell out these economic facts of life at a time when the most far-reaching trade agreements in the history of GATT are being negotiated in Geneva.
To put these negotiations in perspective, let me repeat that the Bank of Canada Review, which highlights the magnitude of our current international trade imbalance, estimates the 1976 deficit of OECD countries to be about $20 billion. Of that total deficit in current account and trade balances, this country alone will incur the astonishing proportion of 25 per cent. Mr. Speaker, 25 per cent of the total deficit which all OECD countries expect to run up this year will be incurred by Canada. Ours will be the largest single deficit among OECD nations listed in the Review.
Contrast this figure with that applying to the United States, a country about nine or ten times our size. It anticipates a deficit of about $3.5 billion, France anticipates a deficit of $2.75 billion, and the United Kingdom a deficit of $2.5 billion, half the size of ours. At the same time, Germany and Japan will run up surpluses. The OPEC countries, the petroleum exporting countries, contemplate a surplus this year of $51 billion. The non oil-producing countries expect a deficit in the region of $21 billion. Other countries will run up a deficit of $13 billion. According to reported figures, the total world deficit will equal about $3 billion.
In short, we are in this situation: two industrialized nations, Japan and Germany, will have a surplus. The largest surpluses are being run up among the OPEC nations and the rest of the world, led by Canada, is piling up huge deficits. That is the framework within which negotiations in Geneva are being conducted. That is why we keep saying that it is time for the government to put an end to the secrecy with which it surrounds its trade negotiations. It should level with parliament and the people of Canada on the policies it will propose to correct this country's huge trade imbalances and deficits.


Mr. Paproski:: Level, or resign.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Where does Canada fit into all this? A report prepared by the general economic advisory group, economic and policy analysis, of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, dated October 6, 1976, which is little more than a month ago, entitled "Canada's Trade and Balance of Payments, 1971 to June, 1976", clearly spells out the trouble we are in. The report states, as I have mentioned, that Canada's current accounts balance fell from a surplus of $431 million in 1971 to a deficit of nearly $5 billion last year. The report add:
The change was even more remarkable than this because as recently as 1973 Canada had a small current account surplus.
Both the merchandise and non-merchandise accounts showed marked deterioration in the period, the merchandise trade balance moving from a peak of $2.7 billion in 1973 to a
November 9, 1976

deficit of $639 million in 1975. Canada's customary deficit on non-merchandise trade approximately doubled from 1971 to 1975, from $2.1 billion to $4.3 billion. The deficit for the first half of 1976 was about $600 million highef than for the same period in 1975. The non-merchandise deficit for the year as a whole is expected to be in the neighborhood of $5 billion.
The report also indicated that the service transaction balance has deteriorated for nearly all categories, although the most marked change has been the increase in the deficit on interest and dividends from $1.1 billion in 1971 to $7 billion in 1975. The freight and shipping account, which was in approximate balance in the early 1970s, has moved into a deficit of $370 million in 1975. The deficit on other service transactions went from $765 million in 1971 to $1.2 billion in 1975. For the first half of 1976 the deficits on travel account and on interest and dividends account have increased substantially. It is interesting to note that this report states that Statistics Canada has not kept records of trade with individual countries except the United Kingdom and the United States. This may partly explain why the government is so secretive. It does not know what position to take with respect to individual countries.
Something else which may help to explain Canada's position in world trade is the rate of turnover of cabinet ministers. I see few cabinet ministers sitting in the House.


Ralph Goodale: Where is the hon. member's leader?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It is difficult for a minister to acquire knowledge of his portfolio in less than one year-


An hon. Member:: The back rows on the hon. member's side are almost empty.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can make a speech if he wishes. Perhaps he will allow me the courtesy of finishing my speech. The fact is that we have had three different ministers of industry, trade and commerce since 1973. As I said, it is difficult to understand a new portfolio in less than a year, and we have had three ministers appointed in the last three years. I suggest that those ministers did not have time to discover the location of the washrooms in the department. Therefore, how can one expect them to draw up a proper trade policy on the basis of which Canada should negotiate at Geneva?
Let me refer again to the conditions which form the framework for the current round of negotiations in Geneva. The world has changed substantially since the Kennedy Round of negotiations to which I referred. We must now deal with at least three economic blocs. There is the United States block; the European Common Market, which for the first time is negotiating on behalf of all countries forming part of that market, as opposed to having each one of them take its own individual, nationalistic approach; and a third big bloc, the Soviet Union and eastern bloc countries. Japan may herald the emergence of a fourth bloc, and the OPEC nations a fifth bloc. Canada seems to be the odd country, outside of a bloc. The government must explain the reason for this. Is this what it wants? Does it want Canada to be among the few countries in
Canadian Trade Policy
the world isolated from one of the big five economic blocs which have been formed or are in the process of formation, or does it want Canada to join a bloc? In any event, we have the right to know what the government intends in this regard.
Surely the government would wish to present a bipartite policy when engaging in international trade negotiations. Hopefully, it might even consider a tripartite policy which ought to be presented to parliament when engaging in international negotiations. But the government has not done this. Instead, it has engaged in a highly partisan approach; it has dealt in secret and come back to parliament asking for rubber-stamp approval with respect to agreements entered into. Surely the best forum for consultation with respect to trade matters is parliament, the institution of which we are one part. In parliament, the people of Canada, through their elected representatives, have the opportunity to participate in decisions of the day; and, Mr. Speaker, no more important decisions than those currently being taken in Geneva will be made during the balance of this decade.
Let me now turn to tariffs. It is interesting to note the magnitude of the revenues the government derives from certain tariffs. In the 1976 fiscal year, the total revenue was $1,887 million. If we look at the American trade act, it calls for a 100 per cent reduction of tariffs of 5 per cent or less, and a 60 per cent reduction of all other tariffs. If that is the view that prevails in Geneva, and if there is such a cutback in tariffs, it will mean, for example, an estimated $1.1 billion of lost revenue as far as our Customs tariffs are concerned. The odd point is that that fact is not even known by the negotiators who are presently negotiating on our behalf in Geneva.
Often, when we speak in terms of tariffs on trade, we do so in the abstract. However, let us not forget that what we are really talking about is jobs-jobs for Canadians in the electronics industry, the textile field, the leather industry, the furniture industry, the china industry, lock-making and many other diverse forms of activity. That is why we believe, in proposing this motion today, it is urgent that there be a less secretive approach to what is transpiring in parliament, and certainly with regard to our trade negotiations at the present time in Geneva.
It is not just a question of tariffs. Perhaps the most important items that are going to be negotiated in Geneva are the non-tariff items, the so-called subsidies, the countervailing duties. That is where Canadian businessmen, people in the export field and consumers could have an important input in contributing to the negotiations in Geneva, if they were allowed that privilege by this government that is now, temporarily, in office.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Continue.

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there consent to allow the hon. member to complete his remarks?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I thank hon. members for their patience. I should like to continue and I shall be brief. You would expect that the Canadian government is much more attuned to what Canadian producers are experiencing. This rarified approach, this attitude that somehow an elitist group in Ottawa or Geneva knows best, in today's volatile and changing world, shows once again the government's disregard for those who must bear the brunt of its policies. It is not enough for Canada to hope and pray that the world economy may turn out to our benefit. As a major trading nation, we should be aggressively in the vanguard, establishing a meaningful position for our people to allow them adequate competition in the markets of the world. This requires selling, not only abroad but it requires a review sector by sector, industry by industry, of our capabilities in Canada to determine how we may most successfully tap the world's potential trade. In this process, rather than run from the advice of Canadians, rather than shelter itself from comment-yes, even criticism-the government should actively pursue ongoing discussions so that they may better understand the wishes of Canadians.
Regardless of what the Prime Minister and his cabinet may feel, the fact is that you can trust the Canadian people. They would like to help with regard to these trade negotiations. I say to the government, why not ask for their help? Why not consult with those who are going to be most affected? Who knows, even this government may make fewer mistakes than they have been wont to make to date.


Mr. Kaplan:: Will the hon. member permit a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It is not for the hon. member to decide, as his time has expired. This can only be done with the consent of the House. Is there consent to allow the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Kaplan) to ask a question?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, in his allegations about secrecy the hon. member neglected to mention a consultative process with industry of which he is very much aware because he participated in it. I want to ask whether he did, indeed, participate in this consultative process and meet with the Canadian GATT negotiators. Perhaps he can share with the House for a moment or two his impressions of that process.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: If I may reply to that, Mr. Speaker, I take it the parliamentary secretary is referring to an opportunity I had to attend a briefing given to the Canadian Institute on International Affairs in Geneva. Mr. Rodney Grey, the head of our negotiating team there, gave us the Canadian position. Mr. Long, the director-general of GATT, gave us an overview concerning the GATT negotiations in world perspective.

I say to the parliamentary secretary that the briefing I received as a member of that group is one of the reasons we are having this debate. I, and business people who were in attendance at that briefing, were shocked at the decisions that were to be proposed in Geneva with absolutely no reference to this parliament or to the people of Canada. I was shocked to hear that the negotiations are decided by the whim of one minister, the Minister of Finance. If he says, "Do," it is done. If he says, "Don't do," it is not done. It is time the government got away from this secretive approach, opened up and let the people understand exactly what is being proposed in these negotiations.
I thank the parliamentary secretary for asking me this question, because he could not have hit the quick more. The fact is that the government is totally non-committed to an open course with respect to trade negotiations at the present time. Unfortunately, it may have a devastating effect on our economy and, most important, on those who rightfully can expect jobs to be created in this country and to create a meaningful approach to trade as far as Canada is concerned. Canada's future is an international future, and it is time we ended secretive discussions such as those which have been taking place in Geneva.


Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo-Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the remarks of the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) with great interest. I agree with him on the importance of this issue. However, it seems to me that if rhetoric were the coin of the realm, we would all be tinkling with prosperity instead of just clanging in confusion. The confusion is on both sides of the argument.
The hon. member for York-Simcoe accuses the government of secrecy. He should know better than that. It is not that they are secretive; it is just that they do not know what they are doing. The problem is that when we look at the statement made by the hon. member for York-Simcoe, we are not sure where they stand, either. It is fine for the hon. member to say to the government that we want to know what they are doing because we do not think they are a good enough target. However, I would dispute that with the hon. member. I think the government has made itself into quite a target. It is all right to say to the government, "State your position on free trade so that we can work on it." The other question is, what is the position of the Conservative party on free trade? Let me be frank, Mr. Speaker, and commence my remarks by saying that this is a serious and important debate. I would tell my friends on the right, with the greatest respect, that it does not further the cause of this debate not knowing where the official opposition stands on this issue. How can you have a debate when you do not know where the sides stand?


Mr. Lambert (Edmonton West):: Tell us where you stand.


Max Saltsman: I will tell the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) where I stand. I was expecting that, and I happen to have a note on it which I will pull out. It is quite
November 9, 1976

clear that this country is heading toward free trade with the United States. 1 think free trade with the United States is a misnomer. Free trade is generally associated with trade in international circles and I, for one, as a member of a democratic socialist party, am not opposed to international free trade.


Walter David Baker: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) is rising on a point of order.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I rise not in any facetious or light manner, and I know that this would be the concern of the hon. member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Poulin). It has been the practice in this House, on opposition days and during the course of general debate, to have at least two ministers of the Crown present. There is none now. I see one just coming in. I hope that the parliamentary secretary will make arrangements to have the proper complement of ministers in the House, in accordance with our traditions.


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, on that very point, the House leader for the Conservative party will, I am sure, have noted that during the course of this debate-which has been going on now for about 45 minutes-various members of the cabinet have indeed been present to listen to the contributions that have so far been made. Ministers will continue to be present throughout the afternoon to listen to what transpires.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, I hope you will take account of these interruptions when looking at my time. In some ways I was not unhappy to see ministers out of the House while the hon. member for York-Simcoe was speaking because, as confused as ministers may be, I do not think they were particularly enlightened by the comments that were made. So I would sooner have them somewhat less confused than they are now.
I was saying that it seemed to me we were heading in the direction of free trade. When the hon. member for York-Simcoe says there is no consultative process going on in this country regarding trade matters, I think he is not completely aware of the enormous influences that exist at the moment in terms of consultation in government circles on continentalism with the United States. This is the other point I am making, which is a separate concept from free trade. Free trade with the United States works out to continentalism. Free trade with the United States only means that we are cutting ourselves off pretty effectively from the rest of the world, as has been demonstrated by some of the limited free trade agreements that have been arrived at between Canada and the United States.
If you look at the composition of committees in this country, like the Canada-U.S. committee, the C. D. Howe committee, the Economic Council, you find a number of token labour people on them; but by and large they are composed of the captains of industry, the people who are running the branch plant economy in this country. These are the people who are
Canadian Trade Policy
constantly giving the government advice and moving in the direction of the reinforcement of free trade in this country. I would not object to free trade if Canadian industries and companies were independent and our industry was strong and Canadian. But Canada has the highest level of foreign ownership of any country in the world. Many of our industries take their directions from across the border.
So what are we talking about when we speak of free trade? We can look at a number of examples in order to see what are the possible consequences of free trade. We are told that some commodities will come down in price, and that is true. But what about the principal concern of Canadians, that of opportunity for useful employment and for employment generally? There are a couple of questions to examine here. One area where there has been free trade for a long time now is in agricultural equipment. What has been the consequence of free trade in this area? Has it increased employment in Canada? Has it brought technological plants to this country? I am talking about Canadian companies such as Massey-Fergu-son. The consequence has been a concentration of all new plants in the United States, and what has been left for Canada is the labour-intensive part of the operation.
A number of years ago, faced with a labour dispute, the Canadian people were affronted by the Massey-Ferguson company which stated that the only reason it was continuing some of its operations in Canada was that our wage rates were lower than those in the United States. All of the highly technical and automated operations were moved out to the United States and new tractors were constructed there. The tractor assembly plants and combine plants which required a lot of manual input remained in Canada. The company then stated that if the workers in Canada demanded parity with the workers in the United States, there was no point in their keeping the plants in Canada. So it seems to me that inevitably free trade means that we in Canada will have to accept a permanently lower standard of living for most people than that of the United States.
Free trade also means that when a country like Canada, which over the years has tended to be an exporter and developer of natural resources, is coupled with a country like the United States, which has a highly sophisticated manufacturing industry, what will be traded will be our raw materials for their manufactured goods, but at an accelerated rate. Trade, in itself, is not necessarily a good thing. If you trade down, or trade badly, obviously you do not get a good deal. The whole point of trading is to get some benefit from it.
When you exchange irreplaceable raw materials, as we have in the past with gas, oil, iron ore and copper, the result is that these products are not so readily available and cost far more than otherwise would be the case. I do not blame the United States for this sort of thing, nor do I say this with any rancour against the United States. They are pursuing their best interests and they expect us, as intelligent people, to pursue our own best interests. But they need our raw materials. They do not need our manufactured goods. If our two countries are put together in a free trade package, there would have to be very

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
complete safeguards. It is quite clear that the United States does not propose to enter into any kind of free trade agreement with Canada in the future that includes even the limited safeguards that now exist in the Canada-United States auto pact; they have made that quite clear. There will be no more safeguards. If we enter into any trade agreement with the United States, we will have to do without that.
Where does the Conservative party stand on this issue? The motion that has been moved is an important one, and I want to know where the great Conservative party stands on this issue. When I heard the hon. member for York-Simcoe open the debate, I thought for a moment that he was going to coin the great and original phrase, "No truck or trade with the Yankees", and use it in the next campaign. But nothing like that was said. If you want to debate an issue, Mr. Speaker, you must know where the different sides stand. If all that is being said is, "Tell us where you stand so we can take pot-shots at you from any direction we want", then that is not debate. That does not do a service to this House or to the Canadian electorate which has to decide how to vote. We have stated our position.
We in this party will not agree to a continental agreement on free trade between Canada and the United States so long as we know that our industry is foreign-controlled and so long as much of that industry will have divided loyalty in any kind of free trade agreement. Over the last number of years we have seen many nations get themselves into difficulty, ours included.
What happens when we get into that kind of difficulty vis-a-vis the United States? The most logical and intelligent thing for the United States to say to its industry, at a time of high unemployment in that country, is that it should keep its production in the United States and concentrate on creating jobs there, instead of running around in someone else's country and creating jobs there. This makes trade and finance impotent in this country because we do not control it. We do not control it, and the government certainly does not make any attempt to control it.
It is fine for the government to move in the direction of free trade. It seems to me the reason they do that-and I know there are people on the other side of the House who have reservations about the consequences of free trade-is that from the government's point of view free trade means it does not have to do any planning or take any decisions, and all it has to do is allow things to drift and somehow or other the market will sort it out.
Free trade is a cop-out. It is a way in which the government refuses to face up to responsibilities and to manage the economy. For that reason, I do not think we can support such measures. Instead, we think there should be a determined effort on the part of the government to bring in a trade policy based on planning and an assessment of the Canadian situation. We also think the government should take some chances and show some courage in making decisions.
[Mr. Sallsman.l
I should like to refer to the Financial Post of October 2 and an article under the heading "Break up ITC?". That is a reference to the Canadian Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. It reads in part:
Decisiveness, not more money, is what the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce in Ottawa needs. That was what Jean Chretien told FP last week, just after taking over as minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Max Saltsman: My friends on the opposite side applaud, and so they should if it were true. If it were true, I would applaud myself. The point is that it is not true. There is no evidence that the minister-and I know he is a very determined minister and a very intelligent man-is really in a position to break out of that box in which every Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce has found himself.
About the only decision which seems to be coming from the government side of the House regarding matters of trade is a decision not to take a decision. What has the government ever been decisive about, or what has it been decisive about recently? It has been marching backward. It has not come out with any real measures. Sure, there have been some changes in support programs for industry-but that is not where the problem is: the problem is that we have to tackle the question of trade from the over-all approach of the whole economy, and there is no evidence that that is being done.
Let me give an example of the kind of circuituous events which take place where you start off at one point, go around the circle and wind up right back where you started, no wiser and no further ahead. The government starts off by saying it has to keep interest rates high in order to cover the trade deficit which has developed and to bring in capital in order to go ahead, very often with natural resource projects. The consequence of that is that the value of our dollar starts to rise. The value of the dollar is unnatural. There is no way the Canadian dollar is worth its present $1.03 vis-a-vis the United States dollar, and the government knows that. The consequence of the first action is that the dollar will rise. In order to keep that dollar high, the interest rates are kept high and we tend to price ourselves out of international markets. Our over-all productivity is not so great.
When I talk about productivity I am talking about not only the price of labour but also the way labour is combined with resources and the quality of management as well as the type of industrial structure we have which is often far more important than the actual price of labour. We are pricing ourselves out of international markets as a result of the high dollar and high interest rates. So we do not go on restructuring our industry, because it is very difficult to do that. First of all the government does not have an industrial strategy, and when one asks the government for its plans on industrial strategy it pooh-pooh's the idea that you can do such things and plan the over-all economy. The government says it has a sectoral strategy, that it has something going for the furniture industry, and that it has something going for the textile industry. Often they are in conflict with each other-but that is called a
November 9, 1976

strategy. So there is no attempt to restructure the Canadian economy in a way that would be more helpful.
The foreign ownership goes on, and it goes on in a vacuum. I do not think it is because the government wants more foreign ownership now. There was a time, from C. D. Howe on, when perhaps it did. Now, however, it does not want it, but it cannot do anything about it. The Canadian economy has become such that there are virtually no independent Canadian manufacturers left, certainly not of sufficient size and strength to prevent the takeover of our economy. If we want to have any investing in Canada, we have, virtually, to agree to foreign takeovers. So we go on that way. Then we have to export raw materials in order to cover our deficit or do any kind of balancing at all, which means that we have to borrow again because the development of raw materials takes a great deal of money and is very capital-intensive.
There we are, right back to where we started. We have borrowed, the interest rates are high, the dollar is too high, and we have to continue borrowing. What happens? The chickens come home to roost. It is already evident, now, that the outflow of interest and dividends far exceeds the inflow of capital. The municipalities and the provinces have borrowed from the United States because of the difference in the value of our currency. We are now afraid to drop the value of the Canadian dollar even to help the manufacturing industry, for fear that some of these municipalities which have borrowed in foreign markets may be close to bankruptcy if they have to repay in terms of evaluated American dollars vis-a-vis Canadian dollars.
We have put ourselves into a pretty box. We talked earlier about what is the point in trade. Canada has close to 27 per cent of its gross national product in trade. This is one of the highest percentages of any country in the world. What is the point? Is it trade for the sake of trading? The point is not good if on balance we are losing jobs. This is what we are doing. We are exporting, basically, raw materials which cost us jobs in the manufacturing industry. This is what is happening at a time when we have one of the highest growing labour forces in the world. It seems to be entirely the wrong policy. The kind of policy we are pursuing at the moment would suit a country with a very stable or declining population-not one which is growing and needs employment. The consequence, as my leader pointed out, is that we are approaching a level of unemployment which is the highest since the great depression, and that can be laid directly at the feet of the government and its failure to come in with a trade policy.
I want to take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) for inviting two members of the opposition, myself and the hon. member for Halton-Wentworth (Mr. Kempling), to accompany the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) on a recent trade mission to Russia. That was very helpful. We learned a number of things. Despite the fact that other countries want to trade with us, we have virtually priced ourselves out of foreign markets. This is not just because of labour, because some of the things we were trying to sell contained a
Canadian Trade Policy
very low labour content. We found that there is no one in Canada big enough to take the risk involved in going into foreign markets.
It is difficult to put together consortiums of Canadian businessmen even though some Canadian businessmen are interested. It is difficult to put them together, despite the fact that the government had underwritten some of the trade, for instance, through the Export Development Corporation. The businesses are insured in this way through the establishment of credit with the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was quite willing to buy from Canada. It was quite obvious to most of us that for their own reasons, for political reasons and for reasons of friendship, the Soviet Union wants to do business in Canada and yet cannot. Yet the one instrument that might have been available to the government to solve this kind of problem was shot down by the government.
When we in this party proposed the Canada Development Corporation, we proposed it to make up for the deficiencies of the capital market and the entrepreneurial market in Canada. We said at that time that we needed an instrument of government policy that would put together industries and enable them to take risks collectively that they could not take on their own under the leadership of the federal government. Instead of that, the CDC has been turned into a kind of penny-ante fund so that Canadian investors can put in their five bucks and get some dividends. If that is what we need, there are lots of funds in Canada for that. What we do not have is an instrument with which to do something for industry, an instrument with which to go to foreign markets, to take risks and to have the technological know-how to deal with the giants among the international corporations.
Mr. Speaker, I want to move an amendment to the motion, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). It reads as follows:
That the motion be amended by inserting therein, immediately after the words "generality of the foregoing", the following words:
"thus condemns the failure of the government to develop the kind of trade
policy best suited to maintain high levels of employment, and"-
The remainder of the words stay as they are. To us, the point of going to international markets is to create employment for our people. Of course, there are other reasons as well. We are international citizens and we have an obligation to help other countries. If trade is one of the ways of doing it, then we should be doing it. There has been a kind of worship of trade in this country without any thought of the consequences, of whether it is good or bad, or whether the terms should be different than they are. Therefore, it seems to me that it is terribly important that this amendment be accepted, to make it quite clear that the real reason for trade is to provide employment which is so desperately needed by our people and from the lack of which our society is suffering at the moment.


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, when I came into the House 1 was quite
902

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
disappointed to learn that hon. members opposite referred to the fact that 1 was not in the House. When I came into the House I saw that those members who were complaining about me had disappeared themselves. Now I see the mover of the motion is back in the House, but not even in his seat. Yet it is he who complained a few moments ago about my not being here. I think he is in a very weak position.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: His motion is one of those that does not make much sense. A few days ago he was in Geneva. I asked the officials of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and of the Department of Finance who were there to give him a full briefing. Yet he comes to the House and his way of thanking us is to say that we work in secrecy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The hon. member is always very quick to complain about everything, but he has very little consideration for what is at stake, and he is determined to score petty political points all the time.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It is pretty easy to do.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I know it is very easy for him, because he is not interested in the welfare of the nation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: When we tell them the truth, they cannot stand the heat. They are very touchy people. They like to give it to us, but they don't know how to take it. Next time the hon. member asks for a briefing, we will not give it to him, because he does not want to know anything. When we give him the facts, he comes here and complains that we are being secretive. I have been Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce for two months now, but the hon. member has not been here to ask me one question during the question period. He speaks about secrecy, and yet he has not formulated any question in the House either for me or for the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald).
I am sorry I arrived late today, but the reason is that I was in Montreal talking about these problems with the textile industry.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, they are always provoking me.


An hon. Member:: You are being smart.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Our attitude cannot be that bad, Mr. Speaker, because I am forced to say they gave me a standing ovation at the end of my speech, and there were two times more people than usual at the meeting today. They probably knew that this government and this minister will accept their responsibilities and carry them out.


An hon. Member:: And be modest.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I told them today, dealing with the problem of multilateral trade negotiations, that my main preoccupation is that there are 200,000 employees in the textile industry and I intend to do the utmost to keep these people employed. At the same time, I said to the industry that I do not believe in carrying crippled people around in that field, and that they themselves, as an industry, will have to do their part by being efficient, productive and imaginative. They agreed with that. I was glad to tell them today that we are working hand in hand with the industry, with provincial governments and the unions. It was the first time that we managed to get around the same table the unions, the provincial governments and the federal government, because as Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce I think it is as important for me to be in the lunchrooms of the nation as it is to be in the board rooms of the nation.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: It is very important to have everyone together. Ten days ago we decided that because of our balance of payments problem we should build the Lear Star aeroplane in Montreal, for which we already have 61 signed contracts. I decided to take that gamble because this program is export-oriented. If it is successful, and I hope it will be, the returns in exports in five years will be $ 1 billion. The aerospace industry is underemployed at this time. However, when we made that decision I went right into the factory to tell the employees that it was also their responsibility, because if they are efficient and productive we will sell those planes, and Canada will be better off. If the Lear Star project is a success, there will be 3,000 jobs created in one shot in a high-technology industry.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Because I am a minister, and because I believe in trade, last week I approved grants to de Havilland to the tune of $7 million to develop the DASH-7 for reconnaissance, so that not only can it be used for Canada's own surveillance but also to be sold abroad. We are trying to move in the right direction but if we want to export, we have to be very careful in the negotiations in Geneva.
I am very surprised that the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) should talk about secretive negotiations. When you are negotiating you do not show all your cards to the other fellow. That is probably the way the hon. member ran the Bank of Western Canada, and it was not a great success.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: When you are negotiating, you have to reserve your position. It is important to invite those Canadians who have an interest to inform us of their views, and they should also be informed. Since the new trade negotiations started, and since we made a statement after the meeting in Tokyo in September, 1973, the Canadian trade and tariff committee has been set up and so far it has received over 200 briefs from industry and has had over 70 oral consultations with firms. The CTTC has also conducted briefing sessions for
November 9, 1976

the private sector, and we have brought our chief negotiator back from Geneva for this purpose.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: What have you done in parliament about it?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We are waiting for your questions.


Ralph Goodale: When was the last time you asked?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The hon. member was in Geneva, and we asked officials to brief him.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: You didn't even know I was there.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: My people keep me informed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: It is terribly dishonest for a man to talk about secretive policies of the government when we have taken the time to have our officials brief him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: How could the hon. member be minister of finance in a Tory government? The people of Canada will not stand too much double-talk with regard to a problem like this.
I think the people of Canada believe that this House can be a debating place where the truth can be put on the table-and I am not shy at all about what our government is doing in this field. In tariff negotiations we have a lot to say, but we have to play the game according to the rules. If hon. members think we are wrong, let them try to make some political brownie points. The hon. member should tell us in this House what he thinks.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: That is what we are doing today.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I would have welcomed a positive speech as a result of which we could have learned something, but today the hon. member just tried to score points. The hon. member who spoke for the New Democratic Party at least had a position. He did not entirely agree with what we are doing, but he was contributing to the debate. He expressed his views. I do not agree with all of them, because in many fields if we become too protective we can destroy what we have.
We are great exporters of many agricultural products and other products, and in order to keep those markets we have to make concessions. As I said earlier, we have to protect the jobs of the people in the textile industry. This is a position we take-and we have stated that-but at the same time we know we have to open our market to developing countries. We cannot be the great exporter we are and be too protective, and that is why it is difficult to develop a large industrial strategy. We are not a communist state or a socialist state where everything is controlled by the government. Sometimes we have to adjust our position because it is dangerous to be too doctrinaire.
Canada is a very complex country to administer. It stretches 4,000 miles from east to west and 4,000 miles from south to
Canadian Trade Policy
north. We cannot have one single sector and one system which applies all across the country. We need flexibility. For example, I do not think the textile industry is the best industry we have because it is not highly technological. At the same time I am a realist and I know that if we close the textile industry in some parts of the country in order to have a higher technological industry, the new industry will not necessarily go to the places where the textiles were. I feel that it is not very good to have everything concentrated in certain parts of Canada, because what we have to worry about are the workers in Waterloo, in small towns in eastern Quebec, New Brunswick, or even in Winnipeg where there is now a textile industry of some substance. If we close there and all the jobs are created in other parts of Canada, we are no better off and we have to cope with unemployment problems in that industry.
The hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay) has always been very aggressive in trying to promote the interests of the shipbuilding industry. That is another industry in which there are some problems and we have to be protective; but at the same time there is a softening in the international market. There are fewer ships being built at this time than before. It is a very difficult problem and perhaps we will have to develop a sectorial strategy for the problem because, as the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge (Mr. Saltsman) mentioned, we cannot have an across the board policy which plans everything, because we are too dependent on what is happening in the world. Canada is an exporting country, and we have to import. There are fluctuations in the world, and we cannot brace ourselves against every wave coming from abroad. I think the negotiations are very important for Canada. The trend will be for a reduction in the tariff, but we will have to be very careful because we need some protection for certain sectors.
A moment ago I mentioned the textile industry, but we have an interest in having a freer trade policy around the world. I am sure that would benefit Canada in the long term. If every country becomes more and more protective-and I am very surprised at the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge-how will we be able to help the developing countries emerge with new industries? Because I am the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, this morning I received the minister of external affairs from Nigeria. I receive ministers of trade and commerce from other developing countries; they want us to open some of our markets for some of their goods. How can we achieve that and be completely protectionist? I think we have to strike the proper balance. Perhaps we have been too liberal in some sectors. I am informed that in the textile industry 55 per cent of the goods which are brought by Canadians come from abroad, compared with 45 per cent only two years ago. People from Winnipeg, from some parts of Quebec and from some parts of Ontario complain that because of too many imports local employment is suffering.
We have to balance those things. At the same time we have to keep in mind that if we become too protective, some of the goods we are making will not find a market, and sometimes
80001-ssyi

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
some of the goods we make here are more rewarding for us in terms of benefits than some of the jobs we are protecting.
I do not believe we can have an across the board strategy. 1 think we have to be practical, to look at the sectors and try to take into account all the factors involved. What is important is to ensure that in these negotiations our interests are well protected. I would urge members of the House who have specific views to stand up and make their points, and we will listen to them. I am not sure that we will be able to agree with all of them, but I would welcome the debate. The type of negotiations we are getting involved in at this time are very important.
I cannot elaborate any more, Mr. Speaker, because 1 am a bit off base. This motion was introduced last night and I had to make a speech in Montreal today, so I did not have time to research enough to make an extensive speech. However, I just wanted to record something of my gut feeling about the situation. I think that not only should Canadian interests be protected, but we have to look at the consequences of tariff negotiations in relation to the developing world. 1 have some strong feelings on that subject which I think are shared by many members of the House.
We in Canada cannot be too selfish. We have to think about people who are weaker. If we are too selfish we will pay a big price but, of course, at the same time I know we have problems. The Canadian dollar is perhaps too strong in terms of exports, but we have inflation. The Minister of Finance has put forward a very effective policy for controlling inflation and this has generated a lot of faith abroad, so now people are ready to invest money in Canada.
Of course, we have a balance of payments deficit of $5 billion this year, but a lot of money is coming into Canada. Now some people are complaining that the money is not coming in equity but is coming in bonds. 1 remember a long time ago that people wanted money to come in bonds so we could control more easily foreign investment and only have to pay interest and capital in due course. I am not so sure, now that we have the situation, that it is so marvellous.
The hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge referred to the trip he made to the U.S.S.R., and I am very pleased that he went. I could not go, as I had to stay in Ottawa to cope with some problems. I am informed, however, that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) did very well, and I congratulate him for his excellent work. The Minister of State for Small Businesses (Mr. Marchand) replaced me. I should like to inform the House of something very interesting. Some hon. members were complaining because I asked the minister to replace me, but he is an associate minister in my department and is there to help me. On his way back from the U.S.S.R. he stopped in Poland, and a message has been received from the industry which managed to sign contracts with the Polish people, that they feel if the minister had not been with them at Warsaw, the contracts would not have been signed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I see the hon. member for Edmonton Centre (Mr. Paproski) laughing about that.


Steve Eugene Paproski: If it was the pulp and paper contract that was going to be signed three or four months ago, it would have been signed anyway, so do not give us that.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am just reporting what the private sector told me. They said that in a situation like that with the Polish government, it was very important to have a minister with them. That is why the Minister of State for Small Businesses was there. I am not saying it was I who had the satisfaction; it is the industry that expressed it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I should like to make one point to the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge because I see the contradiction in some of the things he proposes. Whenever there is a debate about the corporate sector in Canada, great speeches are made in that corner of the House about corporate bums, and so on. Now the hon. member is complaining that industry in Canada is not big enough and that we should have bigger consortiums in Canada.


Max Saltsman: The Canada Development Corporation; the private sector is not going to do it.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We are not ready as yet to give Canada to the socialists, although I agree that it is true we need good consortiums. That is why I went to Venezuela not long ago. We stand a chance of building a railway there. Canadians are good at building railways because Canada itself was built by the railways. We can export technology in that field, but we have to put the people together, CPR, CNR engineers, car manufacturers, and so on. This is the type of specialty that suits us.
I am thinking in terms of consortiums all over the world. We have this technology and are very efficient in the field. This Friday I was supposed to go to Peterborough but I had to cancel that because of other duties in Quebec that hon. members will understand. I was to visit the factory of CGE to tell employees and management, in both the lunch room and the board room, that the effective work they are doing has helped us get a contract for almost $50 million for a generator for a dam in Venezuela. We have to be more aggressive in that field and have a consortium we need to get the market.
In the meantime there will be a little bit more intervention by the government because I do not think we can afford to send four or five different groups in one area to try to get a contract, with each of them cutting the other's throat. I was informed that in one place in the U.S.S.R. two Canadian manufacturers were trying to get a $10 million contract. The Russians managed to force them to bid against each other, and at the end of the day the Canadians left $2 million on the table. In a situation like that it would be in the interests of Canada for the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce to pick one Canadian company to go and make a sale, rather than to leave $2 million on the table. That would mean a little
November 9, 1976

bit more intervention, but it would make us more credible in the markets.
There are billions of dollars all over the world waiting for Canadian technology, Canadian companies and the Canadian personality as such. That is why I am glad ter announce that I am going to Iran next month. We are losing many markets because we are perhaps not aggressive enough.
This morning the minister of external affairs for Nigeria told me he thought Canadians were not interested because we had no spare capacity in Canada. I told him we have spare capacity and if he has any good projects in mind we will be delighted to consider them. We have good people all over Canada and some are interested in participating in such projects.
If we are to develop our business opportunities, we must develop the proper mechanism for expansion. One of the difficulties with which we must cope is known as the downside risk which is apparent when companies are involved in big ventures such as the Venezuela deal. Our Canadian companies can take so much of the risk on their own shoulders, but they have to consider the level of inflation.


William James Kempling: And changes of government in Venezuela.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: There was no difficulty concerning the change of government. I am thinking of the Export Development Corporation's insurance plan which provides guarantees with respect to political stability. The difficulty has to do with the downside risk which involves inflation and factors of that kind. Therefore, I will need to develop a policy in this regard. I am thinking of bringing forward some kind of insurance scheme under which consortiums or big corporations will pay a fee and we will guarantee the downside risk. The risk will be spread over a number of projects. Perhaps we may need to pay out a little in connection with some projects, but we shall collect fees from other participants and the program will probably stabilize. I think programs of this kind have been brought forward in most countries of the world. Unfortunately, we have not done it in Canada.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Is that how CIDA operates?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: CIDA is a different operation. It is not a business. It is a billion dollar organization through which Canadians try to help some of the less fortunate countries of the world. I do not think that CIDA should be related too closely with business. It should be businesslike, wherever possible. At the same time, we should not run our charities as we would run a business.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Charity begins at home; remember that.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I tell the hon. member that although we are encountering certain problems in Canada, few in Canada would trade our problems for those of any other country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Canadian Trade Policy


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The hon. member said charity begins at home. I suggest that the attitudes of some local governments, that of Alberta especially, are not an example of charity beginning at home.


Steve Eugene Paproski: We do not spend our money foolishly.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Steve Eugene Paproski: We know where the money is going. We double-check.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: How can the hon. member say that, in view of what has happened.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. May 1 say that the minister will need the unanimous consent of the House if he is to continue, his time having expired. Does the minister have unanimous consent to continue?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I thank hon members. I shall be brief since I know that others want to participate in this debate. 1 suggest to the hon. member opposite that the people of Alberta ought to remember that for many years the people of Ontario paid a higher price for oil in order to permit Alberta to develop its oil. That is sometimes forgotten.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, it is not forgotten. We cushioned the rest of Canada from world oil prices. We in Alberta cushioned the rest of Canada from world prices. We do not forget.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am glad to hear that, although some of us were wondering in the province had forgotten. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to make my statement and I am glad the hon. member was present to hear me. I ask him not to be so touchy.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I am not touchy.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I have said all I intended to say. I thank hon. members for granting me an extension. In my enthusiasm I forgot to speak in French. Next time I shall deliver my speech in French.


Mr. Beatty:: Mr. Speaker, would the minister permit a question?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: This can be done only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for giving unanimous consent and allowing me to ask my question, which is important. I listened with great attention to the minister's comments. He singled out the Waterloo area, my area, when expressing concern about jobs for Canadians. Since Kinney Shoes announced within the last 24 hours that it will close

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
three plants in Ontario, two of them being in my constituency, one in Mount Forest and one in Markdale, and since 150 people will be thrown out of work in each plant, is the minister prepared to intervene and do what he can to save the jobs of those 300 workers whose earnings affect directly the economies of their areas?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I should like to look into the matter. I have not been informed of it and do not know what can be done. Factories in Canada close down for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps we have been too liberal in the last several years in the matter of exports and imports. I intend to take action.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Will the minister look into the case I have brought to his attention?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I will look into that case. I hope to do my utmost in situations of the kind just brought to my attention. But the hon. member must realize that when the matter involves imports, one cannot turn a switch and expect results right away. Sometimes goods entering Canada have been ordered for several months. The market may be flooded and buyers do not want to buy. There is always some lead time between when you decide to stop the flood and when you see results. I shall certainly look into the matter and hope that not too many similar cases will arise.
Since the hon. member raised the matter, may I give an illustration of the sort of difficulty one encounters in different fields. For example, let us consider double-knits. Double-knits are no longer in fashion. What can one do if one has a stock of double-knits? The use of double-knits in Canada has been reduced fantastically. The market for double-knits has shrunk to about 20 per cent of the market of three years ago.
Therefore, even if one stopped all imports, one could not generate the market for double-knits, as I said. Double-knit fabric is made in my area and I bought two suits. I found them comfortable, but Canadians are no longer buying the material. I have imposed quotas. Now people making the suits tell me that because we have stopped the import of double-knits from the United States, the price has risen. It is too high, and retailers cannot sell stocks on hand. Therefore, one cannot look for simple and cosy solutions because the market does not work that way. I wanted to give this illustration to show some of the difficulties with which we must deal.
As for the shoe industry, the matter the hon. member raised, I shall look into the question. I must tell the hon. member that I have encountered similar problems in my own area, there being textile and shoe industries in the district I represent.
, Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar): Mr. Speaker, 1 assume the minister flew in from Montreal to participate in this debate. I hope he stays for the rest of it. The minister spoke of what he had accomplished in the past few months; actually, he bragged about his accomplishments. Unfortunately, what he said makes little sense if one views his remarks in the context of present-day business conditions in this country. The minister spoke in glowing terms of the government's accomplishments.
[Mr. Bcatty.l
I can say with 100 per cent accuracy that his speech will not enhance the government's standing and will not convince this country's businessmen that the government will support them in the search for new markets. To use a colloquialism, the government has not put its money where its mouth is. I also think that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald) ought to be present to participate in the debate this afternoon.
What we are saying is that our motion has far more direct implication on the Department of Finance than on the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. I hope that either the minister or his parliamentary secretary will give us the government perspective in the debate this afternoon.
I, too, was in Geneva for a few days talking directly with our people involved in the negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Regardless of the members of parliament who journeyed to Geneva to discuss international trade, the point is that industry officials, those who run the plants and employ people in this country, have not been adequately informed. That is the problem-but it was not mentioned by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien).
Today's debate will be one of the more important during this session of parliament. To begin my portion of the debate, I wish to outline how I view the Canadian economy at the present time. I will then move to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as it pertained to the Kennedy Round in the sixties and what has gone on in the seventies vis-a-vis the so-called Tokyo Round now being held at Geneva.
By any standard, Canada's economy at the present time is in poor condition. Our deteriorating balance of trade at this time is an important and disturbing aspect of Canada's economic performance. Over the years, international trade has become increasingly important to the standard of living in most countries. It is certainly true for Canada which each year imports no less than $1,520 per person. Those exports are mostly in manufactured goods. That shows the magnitude of our imports and the importance of them to Canada. It is not widely known that Canada is the largest per capita importer of manufactured goods among the major trading nations of the world.
The Conference Board of Canada recently issued a report by Professor Charles Barrett entitled "Canada's International Trade, Trends and Prospects". Although the report does not suggest policies to remedy the situation, the implication is clear. I wish to quote briefly from that report. 1 do so because the Conference Board of Canada is one of the most prestigious bodies in this country when it comes to the economy. 1 quote:
The weakening trend in our balance of trade has been evident since about 1970, and although things looked good temporarily in 1973-74 because of the cyclical high prices of our resources, the underlying weakness was still there and resulted in an overall deficit of $5.4 billion in 1975.
I may add that by carrying that kind of deficit in 1975 there is every indication the deficit will be carried into the eighties and will increase as time goes on. I again quote:
November 9, 1976

The reasons for this trend to a deficit in trade relate to fundamental factors such as the declining availability of our high price energy export and the 1970 exchange rate revaluation.
However, the composition of the flows of trade is much more important. Our deficit in fully manufactured products was about $10 billion last year, the result of the high inflow of manufactured goods which will not be offset by exports of our resources.
The environment for developing new resource based exports has become markedly less attractive in Canada because of the burden of taxation and escalating construction and financial costs.
That is one of the reasons I would like to see the Minister of Finance state his position in this debate. Quoting again from the Conference Board report:
Finally it is clear from the evidence available that our cost performance in manufacturing has deteriorated considerably during the early seventies.
As I mentioned before, the implications are certainly clear for the Canadian economy. Because of the seriousness of our situation, the Tokyo Round of talks, as they are being called in Geneva, take on an added dimension. We have a situation in this country that was alluded to in today's question period as well as in speeches in this debate. Unemployment, because of a slowdown in construction, among other things, is starting to inch its way up once again. This winter we will have an unemployment rate of over 9 per cent, which is truly shocking for a country like Canada.
I hope the government will make some effort to reply to this kind of criticism, namely, that we have self-inflicted wounds throughout our export field. Our deteriorating export position is most serious. Over the past few years it has been rapid. What is happening is that Canada is pricing itself out of competition in a good many world markets. Over the past year, attention from our economic problems has to some extent been diverted by the Anti-Inflation Board and by general statements of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) on the economy. This has caused business confidence to be at an all-time low as far as rapport between the business community and the present government is concerned. That is one of the major problems this government has to overcome.
I wish to mention briefly the Kennedy Round of talks in order to set the stage for discussion as far as the Tokyo Round of talks is concerned. After that gloomy, but realistic picture, of the Canadian economy, hopefully we can view the discussions that are coming up in the proper context. In general, the Kennedy Round of talks that was completed in the sixties was favourable to Canada. The volume of trade effected by concessions in the Kennedy Round has been estimated at $40 billion. Therefore, the Kennedy Round did have a positive effect on world trade. In general, for Canada the results of the Kennedy Round meant easier access to foreign markets for many goods being exported. While tariffs on many of Canada's primary products were already low, the changes offered new potential, particularly in the area of manufactured goods. The most significant reductions were for industrial and manufactured goods, and the resulting tariff did retain a significant degree of protection for Canadian industry in the domestic market throughout the sixties and since the Kennedy Round of talks concluded.
Canadian Trade Policy
Tariffs for most manufactured goods were reduced from a range of 21Vi per cent to 25 per cent to a new range of 17 and a half to 20 per cent. Canadian concessions were generally less than 25 per cent of the existing rate on a selected list of commodities, in contrast to the general reduction of 50 per cent for broad groups of items by the United States. As a point of general interest, the United States tariff rate on most manufactured goods is less than 10 per cent, while the EEC rate ranges from 5 to 8 per cent. That is past history and it has been generally favourable for Canada, although the present economic outlook for our economy would not indicate that we received any benefit during the Kennedy Round of talks.
[DOT] (now
When you look below the surface at the reasons for this, the main reason being the government's misdirection in handling the economy, the short-term strategy the government has adopted for political reasons, and not for the good of the Canadian economy, and the general unsettling of the economic situation in Canada caused by a number of factors, some of which admittedly are outside the control of the government, any gain that we might have thought was attained during the Kennedy Round has been lost.
In turning from the Kennedy Round to the Tokyo Round and looking exactly at what we will have to be facing in the next few years, it is certain that Canada will be forced to take a more positive position than it took during the Kennedy Round of talks. Throughout my remarks on the Tokyo Round of talks I will draw a comparison between the United States and ourselves. It is clear that we trade more goods between our two countries, and that the United States is far more important to us than any other country. What is done at the Tokyo Round of talks will have more impact on Canada than most other countries. Canada will be forced to take a more positive position than it took during the Kennedy Round. The United States will be pushing Canada toward an exposed front-row seat at the forthcoming Tokyo Round of multilateral tariff negotiations. The United States is apparently going to make sure that Canada takes its place among the leaders, rather than hang back while other nations do most of the bargaining and give up most of the tariff ground.
As I mentioned before, in the past Canada's strategy seems to have been to maintain a largely passive role, coming forward mainly in reaction to other national proposals or to protect and promote its own interests. The United States trade officials clearly think that if they can pressure Canada and a few other reluctant players to commit themselves early-and I think they will be doing this very shortly-and then involve them in the main negotiations, the chances of a free ride which Canada is said to have gotten will be greatly diminished.
Because of this fact there appears to be less concern in working United States circles about the actual content of various tariff-cutting proposals than there is about the need to force it on to the table at the negotiations. The United States and EEC proposals, for example, differ markedly in both the depth of the tariff cuts suggested and the extent of the

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
products covered. The EEC wants the major tariff-cutting formula to exclude its highly-protected farm products where some of the highest tariffs now exist. The United States, and 1 hope Canada, too, wants Common Market agricultural products to be part of the over-all tariff-cutting formula. The United States has also suggested that major nations cut tariffs by 50 of 60 per cent for many categories.
Despite denials, the alleged Canadian tactic was very much in the minds of Congress when it was dealing with the trade act of 1974 which really empowers the president to negotiate at the Tokyo Round of talks. This legislation provides the United States President with specific authority to negotiate in GATT. One portion of the act, section 126, known in inner circles in the United States as the Canadian section, aims to prevent any major industrial nation from using the United States to hitch a free tariff ride. The section provides that after the negotiation ends, if the United States thinks that any major industrial nation has not made sufficient concessions equal to what it will gain from the United States, it can exclude that country from sharing the benefits until further equalizing concessions are made. It is understood that one of the preliminary drafts of the Senate finance committee report actually named Canada as a past example of a free-rider, although such reference was deleted from the final report.
There is little question that this approach has created considerable resentment among the Americans both within the administration and also in Congress. The United States is convinced that during the Kennedy Round of tariff negotiations Canada won a free ride on the backs of the United States, giving up much less than they gained in tariff and trading advantages. It has been contended that Canada managed this by holding off until the last minute and avoided, compared with other nations, major tariff concessions in areas that it wanted to protect.
It is interesting to note that under the rules of the game Canada was granted the same tariff advantages that the United States painstakingly worked out with other nations. Canada, of course, has denied this allegation of a free ride and is still very clearly sensitive to the issue. The implication running through all of the negotiations, through speeches that have been made, and certainly the recent speech of Mr. Enders, the U.S. ambassador, is very clear for Canada, and it is that in the new economic order which will be established after the Tokyo Round of talks are concluded, which will be some time at the end of the 1970s or the early 1980s, Canada, regardless of what we in the House of Commons think, will have to be more competitive in the area of international trade. So much for how we are perceived by other trading nations.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Murta:: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will not be much longer. As I understand the Canadian position, it is to eliminate tariffs under 5 per cent and to cut, on what is called an unspecified trade-weighted basis, those tariffs between 5 per cent and 20 per cent, and to reduce all remaining higher tariffs down to a floor of 20 per cent.
In addition, the Canadian position must be regarded in light of the sector approach which Canada has put on the table, which is really Canada's initiative in this particular area. The object of negotiating through the sector approach is the upgrading of Canada's resource development within Canada by eliminating tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The sector question, like those involving multilateral rules on which products to exempt from the negotiations, and safeguard to ensure that countries comply with the outcome of the tariff negotiations, are also up for debate in the coming months.
I should like to touch very briefly on one of the most important, and certainly toughest areas in the present round of negotiations, and that is agriculture. This is the first time our negotiators will sit down and deal in a meaningful way with agriculture and its subsidies. It is hoped that Canada will be backing the move of the United States to reduce tariffs in the economic community. I believe Canada's position is generally along that line. There will be significant benefits from any reduced agricultural barriers to trade. This is because one of the major areas where Canada is an efficient exporter of any type of commodity is agriculture. About 40 per cent of our total farm cash income in Canada comes from the export of agricultural products, so freer trade is very important.
O)
The negotiations will be complex because many of the countries use farm policies for social as well as economic goals, as shown by the farm income policies of the Economic Community. The United States maintains that the objectives must be to create an agricultural trade environment which is based on income support divorced from the price mechanisms, low tariff, as the only form of import protection and export subsidy prohibition. Since the present EEC policy is not compatible with these objectives for progress to take place, the EEC and U.S. positions will have to change or solidify to some extent. The EEC, on the other hand, feels that a move away from its painfully constructed common agricultural policy would destroy the adhesive force which holds the Common Market together.
As I have said before I think one important area is agriculture. I certainly hope, and I believe all hon. members of this House hope, that Canada can make some progress in the area of reducing these barriers to trade. The possibility is that we will be odd man out of negotiations-not being associated in any way with any of the big three, the U.S., the EEC or Japan-in the new economic order that we can expect in the early 1980s. It can easily be seen that competition will be more intense when one looks at past negotiations and what may take place in the future.
November 9, 1976

The current round of multilateral trade negotiations aimed at cutting tariffs and other barriers to trade will not be completed until some time in 1978 following a period of ratification by participating countries, namely because of the slowness of the negotiations in respect of agriculture. The changes in tariffs and other trade practices would be phased in between 1980 and 1985.
Mr. Speaker, because 1 know there are certain other members who wish to speak, I want to close by saying that in viewing the Canadian situation in relation to the negotiations that will be going on at the present time in Geneva, what one sees, having been over there, is a great gap. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce certainly did not close that gap this afternoon. The business community is totally lacking in faith in the government. As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, the government's position over the next few years will be extremely difficult because of its preoccupation with the Anti-Inflation Board and because of the general philosophy of the Prime Minister which he espoused around the first of 1976. Because of this, the Canadian business community will have to be shown in no uncertain terms that the government means business in the upcoming round of the Tokyo talks. This will mean that the government will have to encourage and help business to become more competitive, while demonstrating that it does not want to become a permanent fixture in the life of Canadian business.
There are some thorny problems which must be resolved before we can move ahead as a dynamic trading nation which we would all like to see. I will state four of the problems briefly. First, Canada cannot generate adequate wealth and create the quantity of the right kind of employment through resource industries and service industries alone. We need a strong awareness from the government and unions and a commitment from Canadians generally that we must build and cultivate manufacturing enterprises. This has not been done to the extent it should have been up to this time. Then we need the determination to pursue the kind of policy to build a strong manufacturing industry.
Second, our interest must be refocused on the problems of high costs and high taxes which have cut into Canada's productivity performance over the past year. It is unlikely that we will arrest the exit of Canadian firms which are establishing new facilities in the United States instead of Canada until we take measures to correct the cost disadvantages relative to those of our trading partners, such as interest rates, wage rates, relative productivity and the cost of plants and equipment. Third, the federal government must begin to realize that the purpose of the Anti-Inflation Board ought to be redefined as a vehicle to aid our economic recovery, not simply to burden companies with higher administrative costs while controlling prices. The immediate priority is for Canada to work itself clear of controls as soon as possible. Finally, the federal government should look at pursuing a selective tariff policy to reinforce the sectors of the economy which offer the greater potential for growth and exports.
Canadian Trade Policy
I look forward to listening to the remainder of this debate today because, as I said before, it is a most serious and important matter. I thank you, Mr. Speaker and the Flouse, for the additional time.


Mr. Alan Martin (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to open my remarks in the debate this afternoon by addressing myself to some of the comments made earlier by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) and by the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge (Mr. Saltsman). I think we all understand that this is indeed an opposition motion with which we are faced today. It is a motion which I assume is sponsored by the hon. member for York-Simcoe, the financial critic of the official opposition. It is a motion which in my view would seem to ask the government to encourage its negotiators at GATT to cease their role as negotiators and substitute therefor the role of messenger or of some sort of weather-cock.
I suggest the hon. member cannot really be serious. I am sure he understands far better than many members of this House the difficulties and sensitivities involved in international negotiations of this sort. Surely he must understand the need for quiet and speedy negotiations in such international settings.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: After discussion with those concerned.


Alan Gray Martin: The hon. member refers to discussion with those concerned. I think we all heard earlier the speech by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) in which he indicated that there were no less than 200 briefs received by his department and 70 oral consultations with people particularly from those industries which would be affected by any GATT negotiations which might take place. How can this be termed secretive? What does the hon. member mean by "consultation"? I believe there is a limit to which government can go in the consultative process. When 200 briefs are received and studied by senior departmental officials, and when there are 70 oral discussions with industry people who would be affected, surely that is meaningful consultation.
I suggest that, as usual, the official opposition party this afternoon has indicated that it has no policy and no position. As the minister said, this is more an attempt to simply score some sort of brownie points for the record, which I suggest are rather cheap shots. In my view, the hon. member for York-Simcoe is speaking with a complete misconception or an apparent lack of conception concerning what makes this country tick. There are many international implications which we have as a nation within an ever-shrinking world. We have international responsibilities that cannot simply be turfed aside based on whether we have free trade or not.
The hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge indicated some of the difficulty in this area. Certainly, the government has not come down hard with a policy either for free trade with the U.S. or other countries, or no free trade in the long-term. It is a very difficult and complicated area, and the hon. member for York-Simcoe, I suggest, as the hon. member for Waterloo-

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
Cambridge pointed out, has made no positive contribution to this debate. He has not indicated what his party's position will be and in what direction they would move.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: We started the debate. That is more than your government did.


Alan Gray Martin: I want to speak for a moment on one or two of the comments made by the hon. member for Waterloo-Cam-bridge. He touched on some of the sensitive issues involved in the negotiations, and on the determination of an ultimate position for Canada-whether we move more toward free trade, or less in the direction of free trade. He indicated clearly that in his view many consultations have taken place. I think he appreciated the degree of consultation in which the government has been involved. I was glad to hear him confirm that in his view trade negotiations are not a simple matter. In effect, it is not our opinion only on this side of the House that trade negotiations are not a simple matter, but it has been clearly stated in the House by the financial critic of the NDP that he sees these implications as well. I suggest the hon. member for York-Simcoe also sees them. You cannot tie the hands of the negotiators in the way in which it has been proposed.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: That is why you need help.


Alan Gray Martin: Trade negotiations are not taps to be turned on and off at a whim. Again I say that the fact remains that the official opposition has no policy in the area. It is completely devoid of policy in this as in many other areas. I tend to agree with the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge when he indicates that one of the chief objectives of increased trade must be to create added employment opportunities in Canada. I do not think any of us question that.
But I would like to come back for a moment to the comments made by the hon. member for York-Simcoe. What I detect is a continuing negative approach by the official opposition to matters relating to the Canadian economy. I would like to talk positively about our over-all economic situation. I believe that members on this side of the House tend to conduct themselves in this way, which indicates a differing point of view. We recognize the economic problems that face this nation-and there are some serious ones-but at the same time we on this side of the House are proud, and in my view rightly so, of the positive factors in our economy which are in a number of cases the envy of people even outside Canada.
Let me start with the leadership which, I suggest, has been given to this nation and its people by our Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his cabinet colleagues in the area of controlling the plague of inflation which was besetting us a year ago. I repeat, I think we on this side of the House should be proud of our positive and non-secretive action in this area. Let me quote one noted columnist from outside the country. I am referring to a column on October 19 of this year written by Joseph Kraft. It is very seldom that a noted foreign correspondent, particularly from the United States, would take time to devote

an entire column to Canadian affairs, especially in the closing weeks of one of the closest presidential contests that we have seen in recent years. I want briefly to quote from the opening and closing paragraphs of the column he wrote. He opened with these words:
Last week saw the first anniversary of an exceptional effort by perhaps the world's most gifted leader to put the lid on inflation.
He ends his column with the following words:
No one can look at the Canadian experience and be optimistic about the rest of the world where presidents and prime ministers are so much less intelligent and so much less willing to sacrifice popularity to principle than Trudeau.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: Obviously, he does not live here.


Jack Burnett Murta: You read that with a straight face? You should say that on the radio, where they cannot see your face.


Alan Gray Martin: This excites the official opposition. They do not like to see the Canadian nation receive strong leadership, as it has for several years.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Alan Gray Martin: I will say no more on the subject of inflation other than to point out to the hon. member for York-Simcoe and his party that their failure to appreciate the extent of the problem facing the Canadian economy in October, 1975, and their action in voting against the anti-inflation policy was, in my view, an act of gross irresponsibility on the part of that party which wishes to hold itself out to the Canadian electorate as an acceptable alternative to provide leadership to the nation.
Let us talk for a moment about some of the facts relating to the present state of the Canadian economy. We have talked of inflation. What is the situation? The current rate is approximately 6'/2 per cent. This is not bad at all in relation to the almost 12 per cent in vogue a year ago. It is not bad in relation to the current wholesale price inflation rate of 7.2 per cent which is the October figure prevailing in the U.S.A., and it is not bad-indeed, it is extremely good, I would say-in relation to the rate of 14 per cent or so prevalent in the United Kingdom. No one progresses anywhere without having inflation under control. Canada is bringing it under control. This government is bringing it under control and will continue to do so. I suggest that this is extremely important in terms of our over-all economy and in the long-term interest of trade, jobs and the well-being of average Canadians.
Let us talk for a moment about growth. Our economy is growing reasonably well on target for 1976. There is an annual growth rate of approximately 5 per cent in real terms in the first half of the year. This rate matches the rate of a year ago. Yet it is a rate that prevails during a difficult time when we appreciate that one of the penalties paid for endeavouring to keep inflation under control is that growth is more difficult to achieve. I suggest that a 5 per cent rate in the first half of this year must be examined in terms of the other kinds of things we are trying to do in the area of combating inflation. Consumer
November 9, 1976

spending is up about 15 per cent in personal expenditures in the first half of 1976 over last year. There has been a large gain in residential building. Admittedly, business investment has been somewhat sluggish, and I suggest, again, that this is to be expected during a period of controls. We cannot have it both ways. There is a temporary setback in the area of business investment which, I suggest, will be overcome once the inflation bug has been brought within reasonable grounds.
Merchandise trade provided a welcome boost to the economy, with our merchandise exports up substantially in value over last year. At the same time, our import rise was much smaller. There has been a moderate improvement in employment, due largely to the gradual business recovery that we have experienced; and I think we should understand that in these times of wage and price controls, increases in employment will not be massive. In other words, that again is somewhat of a penalty we have to pay during this period of keeping prices in line. Our unemployment figure is still too high. I think we would all agree with that. I believe it is currently at about 7.8 per cent, yet a small notch lower than the current rate in the U.S.A. Compared with the U.S.A. we continue to stand up well.
With regard to prices, there has been a significant lessening in the rate of inflation. As indicated a moment ago, consumer prices have gone up only 6.5 per cent from a year ago against a target, I might say, which the government set of 8 per cent. Also as mentioned earlier, in each of 1974 and 1975 the annual rate of increase in the consumer price index was in the area of 11 per cent. There has been a levelling out of food prices. There is sometimes a tendency to say that this factor has nothing to do with the anti-inflation measures, but we have to remember-and I think the Prime Minister made reference to this in the throne speech debate-that some 60 per cent of the cost of food we buy is incurred after the food leaves the farm gate. So indeed there is a large element of labour involved, and that is a major factor which is controlled by our anti-inflation policies.
In the third quarter collective bargaining agreements reflected average annual increases of 9.7 per cent, and I might say that this is the lowest quarterly rate since 1972. The increases in industry selling prices have also tended to moderate. The industry selling price index shows a rise of about 4.5 per cent in September compared with a year earlier. The Anti-Inflation Board targets of increases of 8 per cent for this year and 6 per cent for 1977 now seem reasonably likely to be realized, and this again indicates the kind of leadership this government is showing.
In the areas of trade and balance of payments in 1976 Canada's export performance has been encouraging to date. Our merchandise exports were up some 15 per cent on a customs valuation basis, and most of the improvement has been in volume items, as prices have not gone up very much this year. As against this, imports were up by only some 8 per cent.
Canadian Trade Policy
We still have a serious problem in our current account deficit and in our balance of payments situation. Last year we recorded a balance of payments deficit of some $5 billion, and that figure is going to be high again this year. There are many factors involved in this, not the least of which is our inability to continue exporting our natural resources, which at one time were bringing in very substantial amounts of money. We know the double feature which has come into this: our own recognition of fewer resources being available than we had earlier anticipated, and also the extreme increase in prices imposed by OPEC.
There is no question that further efforts must be made in the area of Canadian exports, and I suggest that in his address this afternoon the minister gave some very positive indications of what he is doing in this area. He talked of agreements which are currently being signed, about trips he is taking to the Middle East and elsewhere, and I suggest that this minister and this government are very conscious of the need to promote export industries in this country.
Many of our government programs are geared to assisting those in the export business. More exports mean more jobs, and that is extremely important. We have to continue to show some improvement if our country's dependence on foreign capital inflows to finance a large current account deficit is to be lessened. As long as we have these substantial balance of payments deficits the only way they can be offset is to bring more capital into the country. That is not a very desirable situation, and I suggest that over the next few years it will probably become our key problem on the economic front.
On the matter of consultation I would like to refer to reports which have recently come forward indicating that not only have the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and his predecessors met with industry leaders, and not only has the minister reviewed 200 applications or submissions and interviewed 70 groups of business leaders, but the Prime Minister himself is sitting down with industry leaders in this country. He himself is becoming involved in this process, and he is listening to the concerns they are expressing. Any suggestion that the government does not consult, or moves without consultation, has to be backed up with better evidence than we have heard this afternoon.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. McKenzie:: You guys have been in power since 1968.


Alan Gray Martin: I hear comments from across the way about 1968. The party opposite wants to live in 1968; on this side we do not. This is 1976, and we are concerned about the problems of 1976, not those of 1968 or 1698.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Oh, oh!


Alan Gray Martin: Mumble, mumble, mumble; that is all we can get out of them.


Ralph Goodale: How come they keep losing elections?


Mr. Whiteway:: Call one now. We'll see.

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy


Ralph Goodale: We'll just see. Your greatest worry is that you can't last for two years; a flash in the pan.


Alan Gray Martin: I understand the difficulty of the party opposite. I understand its difficulty in coming up with a meaningful opposition motion which can be backed up with substance. They seem to have failed to have put any substance behind the motion. Elowever, there will be more speakers later on in this debate, and perhaps we will hear some yet.
Some of the problems which are facing the economy of Canada are very serious. They are being dealt with by the various ministers in the government, by the Prime Minister, and by those of us on this side of the House who are equally concerned, and I would simply like to say that in my view we are in a far better position to deal with these problems than those who seem to be completely devoid of any positive policy whatsoever with regard to our economic problems.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I think the only thing which could be less exciting than speaking in the House of Commons at 20 minutes to six would be to speak here at 20 minutes to ten. The galleries are overflowing, and everyone is all steamed up!
As has been said, this is a very serious debate, and this is a very complex subject. The concern which has been expressed by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) is that in his view, in the view of many people in parliament and in the country, the negotiations on GATT and our general trade policy have just not been open enough. It is all very well to say that the government has received 200 briefs and had 70 oral consultations with people in industry, but after all the House of Commons is a forum. Matters as important as trade and tariffs should be brought into this House and discussed openly.
The Economic Council of Canada has produced a very detailed document on the subject of free trade, but it has not even been referred to a committee of this House. Other hon. members have mentioned the United States trade act of 1974 which was passed in 1975. They made reference to a section in that act dealing with the authority of the President to negotiate a free trade pact with Canada. Surely, Mr. Speaker, those two points alone would be enough to bring this subject into the open and into this House for discussion. I do not think a discussion on trade and tariff rates should be limited to a couple of hundred briefs and 70 oral conversations in a country as large as Canada.
Very few economists and not too many lawyers or accountants make a success as businessmen. To be successful in manufacturing or trade either at home or abroad perhaps the best qualification is a sense of history, and I think this is what we need today. We need to know how our trade developed and how we arrived at this stage in trade negotiations, and the level of unemployment and inflation that we face at the present time.
There has been mention of this party's position on the matter of free trade, but we are not the government, Mr. Speaker. We expect the government to come forward with a position on free trade and to bring it out into the open. That does not mean the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) calling bankers a bunch of bitchers, professional people gougers, and saying that he is going to clobber labour. The matter should be brought into the House for debate and reference to committee where witnesses would be heard.
In order to understand our position in industry and trade in this country today, we need to know how industry evolved. One can go back a hundred years and look at it then, but to most people the significant period is the postwar period to the present. As everyone knows, a good industrial complex was built during World War II. Then a lot of people returned from the forces and wartime industries closed down so there was a great push to keep industry going and keep people employed.
We must also look at the matter of taxation. People talk about how industry is foreign controlled, about how we allowed industry to come to Canada, but I am glad we did because it created employment when we needed it. We fell down, however, because we did not have parallel taxation laws with the United States and much of the capital inflow came into Canada because of the differential in taxation legislation between United States and Canada.
The hon. member for Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Waterloo (Mr. Beatty) referred to a shoe industry in his riding that is closing down, and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) referred to the textile industry. We should review these, Mr. Speaker, and that is why it is important to have an open forum debate. These matters should be reviewed in the context of the history of the industries.
As I mentioned, we should examine the legislation which pertains to the depreciation and capitalization of industries. The textile industry and the shoe industry have been going down hill for some time. As a matter of fact some of the largest importers of shoes today are the manufacturers. If they find a line of shoes equivalent to what they are producing but which can be imported more cheaply, in many cases they close down that line and import the shoes. Today 55 per cent or 60 per cent of the shoes used in this country are from offshore. The shoe industry built up to a point where buildings and plant machinery were totally depreciated, and management, perhaps because they wanted to withdraw the investment, sold out. Somebody bought it, capitalized it all over again, and began depreciating it all over again, and the government never made a move to upgrade the industry. They did not decide they were going to have a presence in that particular industry for some time.
We have the skills necessary for that industry, Mr. Speaker. We produce the bulk of the raw materials. We have a good chemical industry which produces the oil and gas to look after the components that go into the commodity. The government should have been looking at this industry with a view to upgrading it and retaining the Canadian presence by giving
[Mr. Whiteway.)
November 9, 1976

write-off privileges which would bring it up to a competitive level.
A great deal has also been said about production capacity and I should like to relate an incident which happened this summer. A company from Sweden approached me during the recess about a product. We did some pricing and I said we could not import it because it was too costly. It was a heavy casting. I told them that we have a large foundry in Canada and I would be more interested in a licensing agreement on the product. 1 was told it was no longer made in Sweden but is cast in Portugal because labour in Sweden is so costly. Then I found they had been negotiating with a firm in the United States which could produce the same casting at 20 per cent cheaper than Portugal. I contacted one of our large foundries and found that we could produce it even cheaper than the United States because our technology in that particular type of casting is even more advanced than theirs. We are going ahead in negotiations with this company and hope that by early next year we will have a licensing agreement. We hope the product can be made totally in Canada and some of the production exported to Sweden. The labour cost is not so great where there is advanced technology.
A great deal has been said about productivity, and the government had had a study prepared by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce for the DM-10 group. I should like to see that study and the whole subject brought into the House of Commons for debate, and then go to the committee for discussion.
Too much nonsense is talked about productivity today, Mr. Speaker, and people who do not understand the productive process make remarks about low productivity. They imply that Canadian workers are not productive when in many cases they are using worn out plant and machinery while trying to be productive in line with other countries. We should define productivity. The scale being produced by the OECD is phony as a $3 bill. We need our own definition related to our economy. I do not give a damn what other countries say about productivity; I am concerned about what is going on here.
While some people in industry have made submissions to the government on their position at the GATT negotiations, in many cases there has been no consultation whatsoever. A matter so important should be brought into the open. Seventy oral conversations across the country are not an adequate base. The government produces studies but we do not see them and this is part of the whole secrecy syndrome.
A study was produced on business and government relations. We want it to be tabled in the House after the government has examined it so that we can consider it. The working paper on consensus should be brought forward and tabled in the House. As well, there is a memorandum on initiatives for small business which should be brought before the House, debated, and referred to a committee to enable us to consider that important question.
Canadian Trade Policy
The secrecy syndrome is all-pervasive. For instance I learned that the Ministry of State for Science and Technology produced a study on the ramifications and implications of the 200-mile offshore limit. Would it not have been proper to give a copy of the study to hon. members who participated in discussions on the law of the sea? Would it not have been better if they could have read the report and then attended the Law of the Sea Conference? Would they not have understood better what was going on and been better equipped to engage in dialogue? Would they not have been better informed? In my travels outside this country I have discovered that parliamentarians and legislators of other countries are better treated in most cases by their governments than we are, and better informed. Other governments are more willing to provide information than our government is. Let me add that Statistics Canada produces every quarter, 1 think for the Ministry of State for Science and Technology a special study on manufactured products. At any rate, Statistics Canada regularly produces a secret report which is provided to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce. I submit that it should not be secret; we should be entitled to examine it.
Business evolves, Mr. Speaker. Most businesses in this country did not grow up in the last two or three years, or even the last seven or eight. They have evolved over long periods. Mistakes can be costly. Let me illustrate my point by telling hon. members a story I often tell people of my town. It concerns the Steel Company of Canada, now located in Hamilton. One division of that industry is the Stanley Works. The Stanley Works used to be located in Dundas, where I presently live. Some years ago an argument arose between the company and the township as to who would pay for a drain to take away water flowing off a certain roof. The industry said it would not pay and the town said it would not pay but would build the drain and bill the company. The company said, "If you do this, we shall move out of Dundas." It did. It moved to Hamilton, expanded, and became one of this country's major industries.
I am surprised that the NDP should treat my party as if it were the only opposition in this House. Instead of criticizing the government, that party spends much time criticizing my party, as if it perceives us as the government of the future. NDP members spend much time asking for our position on this and that. Hon. members opposite have talked about free trade and the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 has been mentioned in this House; yet not one NDP member asked what is the government's position on that United States act. My party wants to know what is the government's position?
The minister mentioned the difficulties of consortiums and industries operating in foreign countries. Consortiums, because of their very nature, much each be different, because each individual negotiation is different from all others. After all, the purpose of the consortium is to enable various companies and entities to bring their resources and talent together in order to complete an industrial undertaking.
When all is said and done, perhaps it is easier to criticize by hindsight than to make constructive proposals. I say that for this reason, and will close on this note: we must take advantage

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
of our own initiatives. The snowmobile was developed and built in Quebec and led to the creation of a large snowmobile industry. But the spin-off benefits of that development are being realized in Indonesia, of all places, where no snow falls. Practically all snowmobile suits on the market in this country come in from off-shore. We must avoid this sort of thing in future. The suits are made wholly out of synthetic fibres, mainly nylon. If we had retained the manufacture of snowmobile suits in Canada, our textile industry probably would not be in its present difficulties. Therefore in future we will need to plan ahead in case similar circumstances arise. We do not want the fruits of our own development, the spin-off, as it were, to be harvested by other countries. Such spin-off benefits should be retained in this country. The same could be said for snowmobile shoes, boots, mittens and hats. They are made outside this country but ought to be made in Canada. 1 hope we shall plan ahead and not allow this to happen again.
I have nearly finished, Mr. Speaker. I close with a word regarding the GATT negotiations. Generally I think we are all in favour of freer trade. Increased free trade is the trend in the world. This country has erected relatively few non-tariff barriers and pays few hidden subsidies. For that reason some of us are greatly concerned, and I include people in industry, because many countries with whom we trade pay hidden subsidies and have erected such barriers.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member whose allotted time has expired. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Sharp).


Hon. Mitchell Sharp (Eglinton):: Mr. Speaker, I do not wonder that you are not too familiar with the name of my riding. I am not very familiar with it myself. I have very seldom heard myself referred to in this way, although I must say it is a great tribute to my riding. I have not had an opportunity, as have many other members, of making a speech on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne extolling the virtues of that great riding in the centre of Toronto. Perhaps I will do that sometime in the future.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: This evening I want to participate in the debate on the motion put down by the opposition on trade policy, particularly negotiations respecting GATT. I begin by offering a comment, not so much on the substance of this motion as on the rules of the House and the way they are being used.

It is quite true that an opposition motion does not require more than a very short notice to the government or to the House. However, if a matter like this is to be taken seriously, more notice should be given so that ministers can prepare their replies.
The hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) complained when he came into the House about the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) and of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald). However, the hon. member for York-Simcoe is not here now. However, 1 see he is just about to arrive.
Ministers have many important engagements. If the official opposition wants them to be in the House, they can give more than 24 hours' notice. I hope that in the future, when motions of this kind are proposed, 48 hours' or more notice will be given. I have been a House leader. I always tried to urge the House leaders for the opposition to give us a lot of notice on these motions, not because the government cannot reply, but if we are going to have a useful debate let us have reasonable notice so that ministers can prepare themselves properly.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: The second point I would like to make is this. I was looking at this motion which complains about the propensity of the government to act in secret, and condemns its failure to provide for an open public discussion on future Canadian trade policy. I searched my memory to find if there was any occasion recently when the opposition had placed any questions on the order paper, or orally in the question period, about the Canadian position in the GATT negotiations. It may be that buried in some of the questions on the order paper are some questions dealing with the GATT negotiations. 1 could not recall them. I have sat in this House during nearly every question period for years and years, certainly since 1973 when the Tokyo round began, and I do not remember a single occasion when the opposition in its search for facts asked any questions on this subject, to which we could respond.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mitchell William Sharp: How many questions have the opposition asked orally during the question period? This is the first time I have heard the subject mentioned in years. I find it difficult to take seriously the charge of secrecy on the part of the government, or of not giving an opportunity for an open public discussion. There have been 75 or 100 opposition days since the Tokyo round began. Not one was devoted to this subject. Now at this late date, after three to four years, the opposition complains about the lack of a public discussion. It is a phony.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. member for York-Simcoe, waiting for him to express the views of the opposition on trade policy. I waited to hear him make some suggestions as to what line we ought to take in Geneva, or wherever it happens to be we will be meeting. I waited to hear what the official opposition would like to see by way of
November 9, 1976

policy. I did not hear a word. All 1 heard were complaints and grievances against the government, but no suggestions of any policy whatever. Not one.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Let's hear the government's position.


Mitchell William Sharp: The opposition has no policy. It simply expresses grievances in the hope that when they have to place themselves before the public in an election campaign, the people of Canada will not notice. I can assure the members of the opposition that the completely negative attitude of the opposition is beginning to sink in.
If they have some suggestions to make, let us hear them. Let us hear their social policy. Let us hear their trade policy. We have not heard from any spokesman of the opposition, least of all the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), any indication of the thinking of the official opposition.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Tell us your position.


Mitchell William Sharp: I challenge the official opposition on one very simple proposition.


Mr. Woolliams:: It will be simple.


Mitchell William Sharp: The hon. member for York-Simcoe failed to indicate whether the official opposition is in favour of moving toward freer trade or toward more restrictive trade. I listened to the speech of the hon. member for York-Simcoe. He would be in favour of restrictive trade if it would gain him a few votes here, and he would be in favour of free trade if it would gain him a few votes somewhere else. But there was no indication from his party, or from any member on the other side of the House, of what their position is.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mitchell William Sharp: I heard the hon. member for Halton-Wentworth (Mr. Kempling) speak on the motion before the House, and he made a very constructive speech, I must say a good deal more constructive than that of the hon. member for York-Simcoe.
We Liberals are quite clear on this subject, and I speak now as a private member of the Liberal party and no longer as a member of the government. The Liberals have always expressed themselves quite clearly on this issue. Our view was expressed today by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. I have no doubt that my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald), will express similar views. The Liberals believe in moving toward freer trade. If the official opposition are restrictionists, if they want more restrictions, then let them say so, so the public can judge. So far we have had no indication from the official opposition at all of what their position is.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Let us hear the government's position.


Mitchell William Sharp: I am expressing the position of the Liberal party and I know it is a view shared by all my former colleagues in
Canadian Trade Policy
government. I expect the Minister of Finance will support the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce in expressing a preference for moving toward freer trade if we can persuade the rest of the world to go with us. That is our position.
I had the great privilege when minister of trade and commerce of initiating the Kennedy trade round. At that time the government had a certain policy, which was to make concessions in our tariffs of equivalent value to the concessions that we obtained elsewhere. I think it is generally agreed around the world that at that time the Canadian government made an excellent deal. The value we obtained from the concessions made by other countries was at least as great as the concessions that Canada had to make in return, and that is one of the reasons why over the years there has been such an enormous increase in the volume of Canadian trade.
One has only to go back to the period since 1963 to realize what a transformation there has been in trading patterns in the world. This began with the Kennedy trade round. The attitude of the Liberal government has been amply demonstrated in the position we took in the Kennedy trade round. Now we are in the Tokyo round and our position is the same. We are looking for concessions to open the way for the export of Canadian goods. We are prepared to make concessions, and to make them in such a way as to do the minimum of damage to the Canadian economy.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Tell us about the deficit, Mitch.


Mitchell William Sharp: The trade record of Liberal governments over the years is one of the great success stories of the world. This came about because Liberal governments have always been in favour of promoting freer trade.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mitchell William Sharp: Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that the volume of our trade today is many times what it was in 1963? It is because we were successful traders. We obtained concessions for the sale of Canadian goods.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: And the deficit has never been higher.


Mitchell William Sharp: My colleague, the Minister of Finance, will deal with the question of the trade account; he is much more familiar than I with the most recent figures. However, I make no apologies for the trade record of the government. It is a most extraordinary one, one in which we Liberals can take great pride. It came about as a result of the successful negotiations that we concluded under the Kennedy round, which was the last of the great trading rounds to take place. Now we are entering another round.
The hon. member for York-Simcoe referred to the United States trade agreement which authorizes further negotiations on tariffs. I am sure he is as familiar as I with the nature of the problem that we as a country now face in negotiating this next round, the Tokyo round. The heart of the negotiations lies in the United States, the European Common Market, and Japan. These are the big three that will set the parameters

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
generally of the negotiations. For Canada the task will be within those parameters to gain the best possible deal for this country.
I listened to the hon. member for York-Simcoe talking of secrecy, but what would he do? Would he have the Canadian government set out now the concessions that we are prepared to make in order to gain concessions from another country? I knew the hon. member for York-Simcoe when he was in private industry and that was not the way he operated. I am quite sure that he was not serious when he said that.
Moreover, in dealing with the U.S. legislation he referred to a clause at the conclusion of the legislation which authorizes the United States to enter into a free trade agreement with Canada. I listened to what he said with great interest and I waited for him to give us an indication of what his attitude was toward this proposal, which comes from the United States, not from us. But I heard nothing. All I heard the hon. member for York-Simcoe say was "The government doesn't know it's there".
This is simply untrue, Mr. Speaker. What I was waiting for was to hear whether the official opposition had a view on this question. I can tell the House that the Canadian government has. When I was secretary of state for external affairs, and before that minister of finance, and prior to that minister of trade and commerce, the attitude of the Canadian government toward this proposal was very clear. We were not in favour. At that time the Canadian government made it quite clear that we were not interested in negotiating a free trade agreement with the United States. That was our position while 1 was minister of trade and commerce, and the position was reiterated when I was minister of finance.
When I became secretary of state for external affairs I put the proposition in the form of a government paper. This appeared in International Perspectives and set out three options in our economic relations with the United States. The first option was to continue as we had been doing. The second option was to move toward free trade with the United States. We clearly rejected both of those and came out in support of the third option, which was to live distinct from, but in harmony with, the United States.
We rejected a free trade agreement with the United States as the goal of Canadian trade policy. That is the view of the Liberal party and of this government. I challenge the official opposition to make clear their position. Do they agree with the third option or with the proposal of the hon. member for York-Simcoe, which was to have a free trade agreement with the United States?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I did not propose that.


Mitchell William Sharp: Then you are opposed to it?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: No, I am not.


Mitchell William Sharp: Well, Mr. Speaker, what do you make of a party like this which has no policy?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Just speak for yourself.


Mitchell William Sharp: Mr. Speaker, I think I have said enough-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mitchell William Sharp: -to indicate the bankruptcy of the policies of the opposition parties. I challenge any speaker on the other side to tell the House on behalf of their party where they stand on the issue of a free trade agreement with the United States, or on the position we have taken on GATT, whether they are in favour of freer trade or more restrictive trade. 1 say let us have a little more clarity and fewer words.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this opposition day debate on the motion "that this House urges the government to discontinue its propensity to act in secret and, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, condemns its failure to provide for an open public discussion on future Canadian trade policy."
This has developed into quite a wide ranging debate. We have heard some conflicting statements today. I should like to comment on the remarks made by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Sharp) to the effect that GATT has never been brought up in this House by the opposition. In referring to the Commons debate on GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, I find this has been brought up according to the index at pages 652, 1222, 1313, 1365, 1373, 1377, 1379, 1421, 1665, 1666, 2514-5, 2519, 2542, 2546-7, 3184, 6214, 6218, 7021, 7258, 7599, 7749, 11370, 11378, 13830, and 14119. Then in respect of farm products at page 13114, and on the United States tariff cut proposal at page 12184. The list goes on and on, and yet the hon. member is telling us tonight that GATT has never been discussed in the House of Commons. This is a typical Liberal comment.
Also it was interesting to listen to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) tell us that he will be scurrying around the country. He told us that he has been to Geneva, that he has been to Montreal today, and that he is going to a number of countries to expand Canada's trade. I am happy to see that he is taking a page out of the Conservative handbook which was designed by the former minister of industry, trade and commerce under the conservative government, the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Hees). In those days he worked on a theory. The initials of the theory were YNGADBSOYB, which means you never get anything done by sitting on your butt.
The hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings will go down in history as the most successful minister of industry, trade and commerce. The present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is just in knee pants compared to the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings in respect of accelerating industry and trade for Canada, and we will see whether he will be anywhere near as successful. He was a failure in the Treasury Board. He called himself "Mr. No", the man who was really going to control the heavy government expenditures, but he
November 9, 1976

was an absolute failure in that department, and we certainly hope he is more successful in his new role.
The hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Martin) this afternoon referred to the Anti-Inflation Board and was very critical of the official opposition for not having voted for the anti-inflation program that was brought forward last year by the Liberal government. The reason we could not support the government's anti-inflation proposals are set out by the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark). I would like to use the words of the Leader of the Official Opposition who put it so well in a recent speech when he said:
One remarkable fact about the throne speech is that the government now proposes 'to begin' consultations with the other partners in the Canadian economy. They are going to begin consultations 12 months too late.
It was interesting to hear the comments of the hon. member for Scarborough West this afternoon in respect of the consultation process, which certainly has not been a priority of the Liberal government in the past. The Leader of the Official Opposition went on to say:
That demonstrates the difference between the Stanfield proposal of controls with consultation, and the Trudeau program of controls by surprise. We proposed a program that would start with a freeze to allow all the partners to participate in designing controls. When Mr. Trudeau stole that program, he rejected the process of consultation which was the mechanism essential to make the program work. He did not talk to labour, or to business, or the provinces. Apparently he didn't even accept the advice of the officials of the Department of Finance whom, we understand, told him that if he was going to steal the Stanfield program he should steal all of it, including consultation.
It is also very interesting to note that the present government is very anxious to consult with everybody now that it has the latest opinion polls. The government certainly was not interested in consultation with anyone prior to the results of the latest Gallup Poll.
The Leader of the Official Opposition also said:
But Mr. Trudeau preferred his own advice to that of everybody else, and he rejected consultation when he imposed controls. Now he is prepared to begin, after 12 wasted months. If there had been consultation at the outset, as we proposed, there would have been no need for a day of protest. There would have been less need for the constant changing of the rules of the Anti-Inflation Board. There would have been less hostility, and much more partnership.
There are many areas which are not covered by the AntiInflation Board regulations, such as public utilities. The low income people are still under the Anti-Inflation Board rules and regulations, but we see that water rates have doubled and that hydro bills are going up, none of which are under the guidelines of the Anti-Inflation Board. This is what makes it such a farce.
The hon. member for Scarborough West, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and the hon. member for Eglinton gave great praise to this government and the brilliant job it is doing. It is too bad they were not in tune with the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). It is interesting to note that the Prime Minister when he was in Saint John stated that the Liberals had lied on the controls issue during the 1974 election. He went on to say:
'Why did we lie to you? Unless we can explain the flip flop they have the right to say this' government has lost its credibility.
That is an understatement.
Canadian Trade Policy
Then just recently in Montreal the Prime Minister, when speaking to the Federation of Automobile Dealer Associations, said:
... before we can even begin to solve the problem of your business and our laws, we have to solve a much more basic problem-the understanding between government and the people.
People are not satisfied, and God knows they have cause not to be satisfied in our country-the way we've bungled things.
So, Mr. Speaker, by the Prime Minister's admission this country is being governed by a bunch of bungling liars. Members of this government stand up today praising this brilliant administration, while the Prime Minister goes around the country saying that they are liars and bunglers. What can we expect from them next?
On this great performance of this government we see that in the first six months of this budget year the deficit will be $3 billion, and at the end of September of this year the federal government has spent $3 billion more than it has received. I did not hear any comments on this today and I do not see anything brilliant about this. This is unreal. The estimate of the total deficit for this year will be $6 billion. When the Liberals took over in 1963 the total budget was $6 billion; now we have a $6 billion deficit, and they sit over there glaring and patting themselves on the back. Look at the hon. member for Scarborough West who is smiling. He thinks this is just wonderful. It is an absolute disgrace and it should wipe that smile off his face.
What do we get? We get cabinet ministers going around the country talking about bilingualism. I would like to see them come out to Winnipeg. Let us talk about the $6 billion deficit. What will they do about that? Never mind bilingualism which everybody in this country is opposed to in the way it is implemented, and let us get down to the real issues, the economic issues. They are afraid to discuss these.
Then there is the matter of government secrecy. One of the essentials of a true democracy is that the people and their representatives have the knowledge, and that the political opposition be able to challenge the government on the basis of that knowledge. Do the citizens of the Yukon have the right to know which restaurants were serving them food with unsafe levels of bacteria, and should not the people of Pickering be given a fair start on their airport battle at Pickering by being given access to government reports prepared with the people's tax dollars? The government rejects its duty to account for its actions and is telling its critics that they do not know the facts and it is better for them not to know. In that sense we do not have good government in Canada. Of course this is an.admission by the Prime Minister himself. A long step toward making government responsible to people could be a law spelling out and enforcing the public's right to know.
I should like to comment on an article contained in the October edition of The Parliamentarian. It is an excellent article that has been submitted by the Leader of the Official Opposition in which he comments on freedom of information. He states:

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
A bill should be introduced to promote a more open attitude to freedom of information within government. Information gathered at public expense should be available for press, public, and parliament. We can no longer accept the present practice allowing the government itself to decide what can be released and what cannot. Open to secret abuse as this conduct is, it should be replaced by a legislative code establishing criteria for the release of information, and the criteria should be supported by a neutral appeal tribunal which would apply the guidelines in cases where the government withheld requested material.
If we were in government, we would implement open government.
Secrecy in government also has its humorous side. The hon. member for Eglinton was recently at a meeting in Toronto where he was on a panel with the former minister of finance, John Turner. I should like to quote from a news description of this particular meeting which reads:
It is clearly an issue whose time has come. Why else would former finance minister John Turner have chosen to appear on a panel to discuss the issue- with his one-time cabinet colleague Mitchell Sharp and U.S. consumer activist Ralph Nader-at last month's Bar Association meeting? Turner seemed well aware of the public's concern about government secrecy as he watched Sharp move uncomfortably in his seat during the CBA debate.
That is a big joke. I can remember when this man was finance minister here. You could not get a straightforward answer out of him at any time. Now he is the great proponent of freedom of information and he is going to release all government secrets. I wonder what he is up to.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


A. Daniel McKenzie: I understand it upset the hon. member for Eglinton to hear what Turner was saying. The article goes on to read:
Sharp and Turner sat at the opposite ends of the horseshoe, giving a visible indication of where they stand on the issue. Nader, by contrast, sat close to Turner.
It seems that we are only getting all this criticism of government from people once they resign from the cabinet. It is unfortunate that more cabinet ministers are not speaking out. It would certainly be more beneficial than the secrecy which this group is exercising right now.
Now I should like to say a few words about the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce who is the great defender of the government today. I should like to quote a recent question which 1 posed to him on November 2. It was with regard to Canadair. It reads:
As Canadair is now owned by the taxpayers of Canada and as the board of directors has a majority of senior civil servants presumably representing the taxpayers' interests, will the minister table the document whereby the government authorizes the loan guarantee so that the taxpayers of this country can see what kind of deal the government is getting them into?
The minister's answer to me was:
Mr. Speaker, last Friday in Montreal I held a press conference on this matter during which I gave all the information. We guarantee a loan of $50 million, the government of Quebec a loan of $20 million and the balance of the program will be financed through two Canadian banks. Until now the Learstar program is extremely interesting. Fifty-three orders have already been obtained by Cana-dair's sale committee. 1 think we must all be pleased that Canadair landed such an interesting program.
Nobody could disagree with that. My supplementary question was as follows:
JMr. McKenzie.)
Will the minister table the documents which show that Canada has firm orders for 53 Learstars and has extracted deposits from customers for this number of aircraft, who are these customers, and at what price has Canada promised to deliver these aircraft?
I believe it is a perfectly legitimate question. If the deal is finalized, why cannot the official opposition or the Canadian people see these documents? This is more government secrecy and it creates suspicion. It creates suspicion in my mind because I do not feel that governments should be in the aircraft industry at all. It is one of the most precarious businesses.
We are well aware of the situation of the aircraft industry in Manitoba. The government got into the aircraft building industry there and it ended up being an absolute, total flop. It cost the Manitoba taxpayers $50 million. When you look at large airplane manufacturers such as Boeing and Lockheed you find that when they run into problems they lay off thousands and thousands of people and they suffer great financial losses. I think we pose perfectly legitimate questions when we ask about this government being in the airplane manufacturing business to the extent it is. This government should table all documents regarding Canadair and Learstar aircraft.
Another question comes to mind in regard to this. This is a company wholly owned by the government. Before proceeding with the design and development of a Learstar 600 jet, I think the minister should explain what the authorization means in terms of taxpayers' money and how many tax dollars the minister has committed to Canadair. That is a perfectly legitimate question which he should answer. The minister announced that market surveys show that Canadair should expect sales of between 250 and 300 aircraft in a five to seven year period. He should tell this House what the government guarantee will cost the taxpayer if Canadair fails to capture the one third to one quarter of the luxury jet business which 250 to 300 planes represents. I understand that private industry in the United States is experiencing great trouble selling these executive jet aircraft, so why is the Canadian government getting into the business? I think we deserve some concrete information. Let us have all the documents tabled. However, I certainly hope it is successful now that we are into it to the extent we are.
Does the government's authorization of Canadair's development of this aircraft mean that every plane surplus to any commercial requirement will have to be bought, no doubt at a grossly inflated price, by the government, and that in addition to the Falcon jets available for ministerial travel we will end up with 50 Learstars for no other reason than that the government has been sold another of Canadair's white elephants?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Otto will even have a choice of planes.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Even the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) might have to expand his fleet.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: One for every week of the year.
November 9, 1976


A. Daniel McKenzie: Also with respect to this aspect-Mr. Speaker, has my time run out?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: I regret to interrupt the hon. gentleman, but the time allotted to him has expired. Nevertheless, he may continue with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, this debate, at which I have been present from the beginning until now, has covered many subjects and issues, but there are two in particular which have generated a lot of heat, from the opposition, particularly from the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens). These are the two issues with which I want to deal because they reveal the tremendous extent to which the hon. member has tended to over-state his case. He has done it before, and he has done it again in this debate. He talked at some length and with considerable heat about the current economic performance of the economy.
It is no secret that the government is not content with the current performance of the economy, and we are working to change it and to improve it, but to argue, as the hon. member did, that there are deficits all over the place is just wrong. He argued that we had a deficit in trade. He should know better because figures have been available to him showing that the merchandise account of Canada is now in a surplus position and that the Canadian economy is performing there at a surplus. That doesn't mean that will continue-


An hon. Member:: That's right.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: -but when he went on to say that we had adopted shortrun policies with the objective of winning popularity, how far from the truth could he be? We know that the controls policies which have been introduced are not popular. We chose them because we think they are the right policies. We hope that in time, and with additional measures, the Canadian economy will begin to perform to the standard all Canadians would like, but to argue that we play the short term to win popularity is really ridiculous.
In any event if the Tokyo Round, which is only just under way in Geneva, is successful, it will produce an agreement which will not come into effect until the middle 1980's. To relate current economic performance to charges about the negotiations now going on at Geneva is to introduce an element of hysteria into this subject. The business community and all sectors in Canada affected by whatever agreements are reached will have years and years to organize their affairs in an orderly way, with full knowledge of what is coming, to take advantage of whatever agreement we are able to negotiate in the interests of the Canadian economy. There will be lots of time.
Canadian Trade Policy
The second issue on which the hon. member attempted to generate quite a lot of heat was the issue of secrecy. He began by saying that the government's negotiations were being carried out absolutely in secret, with no one being taken into our confidence and with no one in the economy having any knowledge of what is going to happen, of what is going to be done and what is being proposed. He did not admit, until I asked him a question after he had completed his speech, that he himself was briefed in Brussels by the negotiating committee.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The hon. member did not indicate that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has also been fully briefed by the negotiators. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien) indicated today that the briefing had been a full briefing and that he had instructed his officials to tell them as much as there was to tell, to tell them the whole story, and when the hon. member indicated in his reply to my question how angry he was about what he had learned, I think what he was angry about was discovering something he perhaps had not realized, and that was that these negotiations are terribly important to the future of Canada.
Perhaps the anger of the hon. member should have been directed somewhat to himself and to members of his own party for their failure to recognize a long time ago that this is an important issue.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: It is an issue upon which they ought to take a position, and they have not done so. They have continuously been saying to us in their heckling and in their comments that they want to know the position of the government. Well, that indicates that they have not paid any attention to anything which has been done by way of preparation for the Tokyo Round, because back in 1973 when the Tokyo agreement was signed by the then minister of industry, trade and commerce, who is now the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Gillespie), he set out very clearly what our objectives would be, where we stood on free trade, where we stood on non-tariff barriers, and where we stood on the sectorial approach.
I want to argue that we have put more on the table than has the American government, for all the structures the Americans have established. I want to come back and talk about those in a moment, but for all those structures any Canadian-even a member of the opposition-who wanted to take the trouble to read the public record would have a better idea of where we stand on the upcoming round at Geneva than the Americans do about their own government's position.


Mr. Guay (St. Boniface):: They don't know.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Five major objectives were laid out with respect to the Canadian bargaining position at GATT.


Walter David Baker: You think GATT is a firearm, Joe.

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The first objective was the reduction or elimination of the trade restricting or distorting effects of non-tariff measures and bringing such measures under more effective international scrutiny and discipline. That was our first goal, stated back in 1973. Hon. members will be interested to know that a panel which has been working in this area has been studying the DISC measure introduced in the United States recently. I think most hon. members are familiar with that. Other European tax concessions have also been studied by the same panel and are now in the process of being reported publicly to the negotiators at Geneva.
Our second goal, the goal which was outlined very clearly by the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Sharp), is a substantial reduction of tariffs on both industrial and agricultural products. Does the opposition agree? Perhaps we will never know.
Our third goal is a significant improvement in the terms of access for agricultural exports, resulting in a greater role, over time, for comparative advantage and increased stability in international trade.
Our fourth goal is to select sectors for a comprehensive attack on all barriers to trade, especially where these impede the processing and upgrading of resources in the country of origin. One hon. member opposite referred to the sectoral approach. This is what goal No. 4 refers to. We introduced the idea of the sectoral approach at Tokyo, as this country ought to be aware. We have been advocating that position ever since, and our position on it at this point in time is far more clear than is the position of the United States, for all the machinery Congress has set up to guide the administration.
Our fifth goal is improved opportunities for developing countries to increase their export earnings.
Those are our goals, but it should be obvious when looking at them that there is a lot left unsaid. We have not put our final cards on the table. We have not indicated, at the negotiating table or in the country, what is the final, hard, tough and last package we are prepared to accept, but can hon. members opposite seriously argue that we should put our final position on the table? What interest would it serve if other parties such as the United States or the European Common Market came to the negotiating table, as they are, with their cards pretty close to their chests? They are not yet ready to state what their final bargaining position is, but they would certainly like to know ours. What could be more prejudicial to Canadian long-term interests than having all our cards on the table at this point?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I think that is a wrong-headed notion. There ought to be a close to the chest element at this point in time, and it ought to continue for some while yet. However, as I mentioned, hon. members opposite had their opportunity to be briefed by our negotiators.

1 want to describe the whole process involving and consulting the public, for making sure that the sectors interested in various aspects of the negotiations are consulted. In November, 1973, the government announced the establishment of the Canadian Trade and Tariffs Committee to receive the views of all Canadian interests with respect to Canadian participation in the trade negotiations. The then minister of industry, trade and commerce said that the negotiations would be of vital importance to all sectors of the Canadian economy and to all regions in Canada. He emphasized that, in view of the complexity and potential scope of the negotiations, the government was anxious to receive the views of all interested groups. So that people in ail regions would have a better opportunity to put forward their views it was decided that the Canadian Trade and Tariffs Committee should hold sessions in different parts of the country. He also emphasized that the CTTC would remain in existence throughout the negotiations and that there would be continuing opportunities for further consultations as the negotiations evolved.
This is exactly what has been happening. Indeed, since its establishment, the CTTC has received and considered over 200 briefs. In addition to these written briefs it has also held detailed discussions with many organizations which have requested such consultations. These consultations have provided an opportunity not only to assess and discuss the views of the organizations concerned on individual aspects of the negotiations, but also have provided an opportunity for a continuing exchange of information on the progress of the negotiations. The regular contacts which many departments have with unions, companies and trade associations, have continued and indeed have been intensified during this period, so that this has provided another channel of communication.
The government also established a Trade Negotiations CoOrdinating Committee. This committee, which meets at the deputy minister level, provides a direct link between the government and the delegation in Geneva. Its role is to make sure the ministers are kept informed of the progress of the work and that instructions are provided to the delegation on particular issues. And of course the ministers are here, in Ottawa, totally accessible in a number of ways to the public and to the House.
In order to ensure that the CTTC plays an effective role in the consultation process, the chairman of the CTTC is a member of the co-ordinating committee. I refer to these arrangements because they reflect the concern of the government to ensure that the views expressed to the CTTC are taken into account in the decision-making process and are reflected in the advice and recommendations provided to ministers. I would have thought that hon. members opposite would comment about this structure, but they did not. Perhaps they do not know of its existence. Perhaps they did not take the trouble to look into it.
The actual negotiations are being conducted by a delegation which is headed by Ambassador Grey, former assistant deputy minister of finance. Deputy head of the delegation is Mr. November 9, 1976

Clark, a senior official of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Other departments are, of course, directly represented on the delegation. The resources of the delegation are supplemented as required by senior personnel and experts on particular subjects from Ottawa.
I might add that both the head and assistant head of the delegation have been brought back to Canada on a number of occasions to provide direct briefing on the progress of the negotiations. They have made it a practice on those occasions to speak to a number of groups here, in Ottawa, as well as to visit the different provincial capitals and hold discussions with both provincial government officials and local business interests. Their advice has been made available to the sectors most vitally concerned about the tariff negotiations. This is a twoway street, Mr. Speaker. Many businessmen, and indeed some members of the House have had occasion to visit Geneva and receive more detailed briefing directly from the delegation.
Hon. members should know that the government has made special efforts to keep the provinces informed, and indeed to seek their detailed views on the matters under negotiation. It is perhaps significant that while in the Kennedy Round the then minister of finance only received formal briefs from three provinces, in this round of discussions eight provinces so far have submitted detailed views to the government. Arrangements have also been made for formal and informal contacts between federal and provincial officials at all levels. In addition, there have of course been contacts at the ministerial level. I think therefore I can assure the House that every effort is being made to make certain that we fully understand the concerns and aspirations of the provinces and that they too are kept fully informed about the progress of the negotiations.
I should point out that since the negotiations began there have been a number of speeches made by ministers and by officials which dealt with the questions at issue in these negotiations and their implications for Canada. As hon. members are aware, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce recently spoke on these matters to the annual meeting of the Canadian Manufacturers Association in Ottawa last month. I might also mention that Ambassador Grey himself gave a very detailed and public assessment of where we now stand in these negotiations when speaking to the Apparel Manufacturers Institute of Quebec in September. The speech was widely reported.
Hon. members opposite referred to the advisory committee set up in the United States under its legislative jurisdiction with respect to consultation. They referred as well to legislation which limits the authority of the President of the United States to negotiate on behalf of the United States. Having illustrated the procedures which apply in Canada, I think I have show hon. members that at least as much access is available in Canada as in the United States.
The opposition's real grievances are that they have provided no input into the GATT negotiations, that they have not had any voice in determining what the policies of the Canadian government ought to be as put forward in the negotiations at
Canadian Trade Policy
Geneva. Mr. Speaker, the reason for this failure is clear. They have nothing to say on the subject.


An hon. Member:: Then why do you keep asking for our views?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: All day not one tariff proposal came forward from hon. members opposite to match the government's five goals. We have heard nothing on international trade, except current statistics. Hon. members opposite proposed nothing on which we could agree. Of course hon. members are entitled to have their say. They are entitled to discuss the tremendously important negotiations presently under way involving a tremendously important proposed international agreement. But they must give the House and country some idea of where they stand. If they do, their ideas will get the attention they deserve.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate this evening in this debate dealing with Canada's foreign trade. When I first entered the Chamber this evening the hon. member for Eglin-ton (Mr. Sharp), the former government House leader and president of the privy council, was speaking. Since the question at issue involves secrecy and foreign trade I wondered why he was speaking, until I remembered that at one point this afternoon not one cabinet minister was present in the House. The only minister who saw fit to defend the government's record with respect to foreign trade and secrecy was the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Chretien).


Ralph Goodale: Where are the members of your front bench?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, I think I heard some noise from the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Goodale). After his record of a couple of weeks ago when he failed to say "no", which is his sole responsibility, one would think he would hesitate to be noisy tonight.
I was interested to note that no minister except the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce could be enticed to defend the government's policies, so the government was forced to disinter the former president of the privy council to defend them. I think it is appropriate that the former government House leader should take part in the debate because it centres on the question of secrecy. No one has had such an extraordinary record in this House as has this former minister who is known for dragging his feet on the question of freedom of information during his tenure as government House leader. That would not bother him, I know. Now they put him into the breach to give a stirring defence of government policy on secrecy. The former government House leader, the hon. member for Eglinton, is the sort of person who would chop down a giant redwood tree and then mount the stump to give a speech on conservation. It is appropriate that he should be the one to give a speech tonight on secrecy.
I think it is appropriate that we debate the question of foreign trade today when Statistics Canada released the fig-

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
ures for the October unemployment rate. Those figures tell us something about the government's failure.


An hon. Member:: I wonder who they were sold to first.


Henry Perrin Beatty: My colleague wonders who they were sold to first. If they have been selling Statistics Canada figures to the private sector, that is about all the government has done to stimulate business in Canada.
When we look at the figures I think it is appropriate that we think about the effects of foreign trade on jobs. Foreign trade means the creation of the thousands of new jobs necessary to produce the goods and services and to ensure that our people have the standard of living to which they are entitled. The figures show that seasonally adjusted unemployment is up 31,000. In October the figure was 784,000. Mr. Speaker, that is enough people to fill three cities the size of Kitchener-Waterloo. And that is just the number of unemployed; it does not include the families of the unemployed who suffer equally.
In my home province of Ontario which led the jump in unemployment, we felt the effect of the government's policies when unemployment went up by some 20,000 in Ontario in October. For young people in Ontario at the present time the figure is 10.4 per cent, a whole percentage point above last year. It is tragic when, because of the government's failure to bring in sensible economic policies, one in every ten young people in the labour market in Ontario is without a job.
The government should recognize that without foreign trade, and without aggressively searching out foreign markets, little will be done to create new jobs. And without giving protection to domestic industries and Canadian markets little can be done to protect the jobs of those who have them today.
It is fitting that we should talk about this matter today also, because secrecy is a subject which has often been raised in this House. I am opposed to secrecy in government, and so is my leader. Our party would bring in a freedom of information act and an open administration. The people of Canada would know what the government was doing and how their money was being spent. The history of this government is one of secrecy. The attitude of government ministers is that information belongs to the government and they may or may not choose to let the people have it. When it is inconvenient they will destroy it.
I see the Minister without Portfolio (Mr. Guay) laughing about that, Mr. Speaker. I am a little unclear about his responsibilities but he is the most highly paid attendance taker in the history of Canada. In the latest cabinet shuffle he was given the portfolio and the salary but no responsibilities. He has the same old job.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: You are just jealous. You will never get there.


Henry Perrin Beatty: I think a lot of Canadians would be jealous because they cannot have their jobs reclassified to get around the control guidelines.

During last summer I spoke with thousands of people in my constituency, to find out how they viewed the government's economic record and the problems they thought should be addressed by the federal government. One message was brought home to me: people in the business sector of our economy are frightened because they are uncertain about the future. They are tired of the situation where the rules change behind closed doors and where they are not consulted about what is going to take place. They are concerned because they expected the government, if it was anxious to improve trade and anxious to take people into its confidence as it said in the throne speech, to give an indication of how long controls would last and what would happen following their termination. Of course no indication was given. They are concerned because the government has two sets of behaviour, one for itself and one for everyone else. Certainly this is the case with controls and with many other policies the government has followed in the last several years.
Business people in my constituency are suffering from the government's neglect, its neglect of foreign trade and of any protection for our markets from foreign competition. Farmers suffered while beef was brought in from Australia and New Zealand, depressing Canadian prices. This applies to industry after industry when the government dragged its feet at a time when there was need for action. It must be apparent to everyone in the private sector that the government is hostile to business and that means it is hostile to the jobs of several thousand Canadians.
Time and time again business people in my constituency have expressed their concern about having to work in a climate of uncertainty because the government is not taking the people of Canada into its confidence. I do not think my constituency is much different from other rural constituencies. The industries located in the small towns are typical of the industries locate in other small communities in Ontario, dependent on trade and the auto pact, the textile industry or the furniture business. The thing that distresses me is that I see signs now that the jobs of thousands of people are in jeopardy because of the government's inability to take action in the area of trade and to be open, taking the Canadian people into its confidence about its plans for the future.
According to the figures prepared by the Department of Manpower and Immigration last year which were used to allocate money to each constituency for local initiatives programs, my constituency tied for the second lowest unemployment rate in Canada. Within the last year one industry which was considering expansion was forced to build a plant outside the constituency because of the labour shortage. But within a year, Mr. Speaker, the government had changed the picture. It is worth looking at what happened in my constituency because it is similar to what happened to other similar constituencies in Canada in the last couple of months.
In Fergus, GSW was forced to close one plant and 60 jobs were affected. In Palmerston the only industry of any size, Heritage Kitchens, which employed 60 people closed two weeks ago and the people did not have other jobs to go to, and
November 9, 1976

within the last 24 hours Junior Footware announced they would be closing their plant in Markdale and Mount Forest with a loss of 150 jobs in each instance. 1 referred this problem to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce this afternoon and I appreciate his indication that he is willing to look into the matter. I hope he will do what he can to protect those jobs. In the small community of Arthur where Bell Thread is the major industry, it has been forced to cut back substantially on employment because of uncertainty about the government's textile policy caused by the importation of cheap textiles.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce today launched into a lengthy and partisan attack on our party and a very strident defence of his government's policy as it concerned the textile industry in Canada.


Walter David Baker: A defence of the indefensible.


Henry Perrin Beatty: A defence of the indefensible, my colleague from Ottawa-Carleton says.


Walter David Baker: Grenville-Carleton.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: He does not even know your riding.


Henry Perrin Beatty: It will not be very difficult in Ottawa after the next election because they will all be Conservative.
The minister made mention of the fact that this afternoon he spoke at a luncheon to the Canadian textile industry in Montreal. He said they concluded by giving him a standing ovation. I can understand the audience getting to their feet, but not for a standing ovation. More than likely they were getting ready to leave. Perhaps it may be worth while to put on record a letter from one of the people in the audience, the president of Bell Thread. It reads as follows:
Further to my recent letter calling your attention to the serious condition that exists in the textile industry, mainly because of imports from the U.S.A. and low wage countries.
I regret to advise the situation has deteriorated as far as Bell Thread is concerned. One department has been closed permanently causing the loss of 25 to 30 jobs and other departments are also being severely cut back causing a further loss of jobs. In addition, we are now on a four day work week. Needless to say this is creating hardship to our employees and their families.
How can one plan with confidence for the future with this type of situation? Here we are on a direct contraction course when it should be one of expansion to create more job opportunities. We are mindful some efforts are being made by the government through certain recommendations, but we have seen no direct benefit.
I might also add at the present time the Clothing and Textile Board is conducting an inquiry into injury caused by imports. We hope you will do everything possible to assist our cause when this is presented in the near future.
May I respectfully once again request your co-operation to ensure the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the Hon. Jean Chretien, is fully aware of our precarious position. If we allow these imports to continue at the present level, then one wonders how much longer our industry will survive.
That is the reason I raised this question in the House of Commons a week ago. The jobs of literally tens of thousands of people throughout rural Ontario are in jeopardy, but the
Canadian Trade Policy
government does nothing more than sit on the sidelines and issue news releases. In fact when I directed my question to the minister more than a week ago he suggested that I read his news releases issued over the past few weeks. I do not doubt that the minister issued news releases. However, I suggest that the issuance of copious news releases does more for the pulp and paper industry in Canada than the textile industry.
I talked to members of the industry in my constituency about the problems from which they are suffering. They made a number of points. It is worth contributing them to the debate because I hope there will be an open public debate in Canada. They stressed the fact that the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar was much higher than the American dollar, making it easier for foreign competitors to compete in our market. Time after time they were faced with the situation when shipping to foreign markets that their goods were subject to duties but there were no tariffs on goods in their lines being shipped into Canada.
A case in point is Uniroyal in Elmira, which manufactures agrichemicals. In many ways a company in the agrichemical business would be better off locating in the United States. They could ship into Canada without being subject to tariffs, whereas if they ship from Canada to the United States they are subject to tariffs. In addition there is the exchange rate on the dollar and the lower productivity in Canada.
The same situation applies in the case of companies which supply the auto industry. Throughout rural Ontario jobs are dependent upon supplying the auto industry. What has the record been under this government? The share of the market controlled by Canadians has been in a steady decline. It is worth looking at the figures. With regard to supplying parts to the automotive industry in Canada, figures made available by the U.S. International Trade Commission show that between 1963 and 1975 the percentage of the contribution made by Canadian industries or Canadian captive industries declined from 42 per cent to 18.2 per cent. This is in the Canadian market. The percentage contribution of the United States industries or American captive companies increased from 57.8 per cent to 83 per cent in 1975. Unless we give protection to Canadian industries in the Canadian market, there is no way they can survive.
My time has pretty well run out. However, I think it would be worth while to summarize the matter. Our party is concerned about the government's record in the whole field of trade, and its propensity to secrecy. Canadians are entitled to an open government. They are entitled to be consulted about the government's plans for the future. We believe industry has the right to have some confidence in future planning and some knowledge of what the government's policies will be.
We intend to do whatever we can in the House of Commons to bring pressure on the government to open up the doors, to allow Canadians in, to let them see the government's policies and to know the plans of the government. We intend to do what we can to provide a competitive position for Canadian industry, both in the Canadian market and abroad.

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy


Andrew Hogan: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member for Eglinton (Mr. Sharp) give a summary of the Liberal party's contribution to the debate on free trade and protection. He accused the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) of not taking a stand with regard to free trade with the United States. He went on to say that the Liberal party wanted freer trade, promoted freer trade, and had been the party that was instrumental in increasing freer trade. We had a very biased and simplistic incursion into what is referred to as the commercial economic history of this country, involving both trade of goods and services and the monetary point of view, namely, the exchange rate policies followed by this country.
From the way in which the hon. member for Eglinton put his argument, it is plain that the Liberal party has been in favour of motherhood during the time he has been attached to it. As I understood him, the Liberal party has never been in favour of free trade in the sense of free trade with the United States. Obviously in modern times they have not been. Because of what happened in 1911, they never raised the matter again. I would not want to quibble with that.
The hon. member stated that our economy depends upon the export of natural resources. He stated that this accounts for roughly 25 per cent of our Gross National Product. Using the multiplier effect, there are millions of Canadians whose jobs are involved.
We had a special alliance with Britain when they were at the height of their colonial power in the nineteenth century. Orthodox arguments on free trade put forward by nineteenth century economists such as Ricardo were adopted as policy because it suited their colonial structure. It allowed them to get something that is still sought after today, cheap raw materials and cheap food from other countries. We understand that perfectly. In another sense we have been tied into a colonial structure because of the policies that have been followed vis-a-vis the United States. So it seems to me you gain nothing by asking members of the opposition whether they are in favour of free trade with the United States.
The hon. member for York Centre (Mr. Kaplan) made a great ado of the fourth goal that was set out in 1973 when the Tokyo round was first discussed, namely moving toward freer trade through sectors. Again this is a motherhood argument. If you do not have free trade with the United States in the textbook sense so that you have continentalism, for example, or some kind of trade such as that existing within confederation between provinces, you either take a protectionist stance or something in between. The hon. member for Eglinton seemed to be pointing out that this was the great virtue of the Liberal party. As I see the situation, international constraints have forced the government willy nilly into that position. Despite protests to the contrary, the government has not gone a long way to give us free trade.
The facts of the matter as I see them, Mr. Speaker, present a slightly different picture. First of all, in the Canadian

context it must be admitted that the west, and the Atlantic region in particular, have paid one hell of a high price for the tariff protection measures implemented, first by a Tory premier of this country in 1879, which finally did not grip the country until 1890 and which have been pressed with abandon by Liberal governments.
If the hon. member for Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Waterloo (Mr. Beatty) is talking about rural and small town industry today collapsing in Ontario, let me tell him that he is not talking about the merchandise sector. As the hon. member for York Centre pointed out, there is a surplus of merchandise. However, it indicates that the tariff structure that has been part and parcel of this country is finally catching up with many industries which have been over-protected in Ontario. The textile industry is at a comparitive disadvantage, not advantage, in Quebec because it too has been over-protected.
Who has paid the high price of all this, Mr. Speaker? Of course the people of Canada have, especially those in the outer regions. They have had to buy these high-priced, protected goods, despite the claim of the government that it is all for free trade. It negotiated the auto pact and in the name of protecting the jobs of workers, or presumably so, the government refused to allow cars made in the United States to cross the border to be purchased by Canadians at the same price Americans pay plus distribution costs. No, the government has insisted on protecting that which does not need to be protected, unless it is that the government is protecting, as is so often the case, the shareholders of that industry. Certainly the government is not protecting jobs or helping the Canadian consumer.
Another argument of the hon. member for Eglinton seemed on the surface to be superficially acceptable. However, at no time did he put a dollar figure on what exactly this type of protection that he said was freer trade would cost the Canadian taxpayer. Nor did he make reference to any studies made while he was minister of trade and commerce.
Professor John Young, before becoming head of the prices and incomes board which has now gained some kind of ill-repute, did a study in British Columbia-I do not know whether one has been done since-and estimated that the protective tariff in its effective application, as opposed to what the hon. member for Eglinton argued, was costing Canadian consumers over $1 billion a year, and that was in 1960. 1 called an economist friend of mine and asked him today whether there had been any studies done recently. He said no, but there had been debates and suggestions to the effect that protection costs something close to $2 billion. I want to suggest to the hon. member for Eglinton that this is hardly something to boast about in support of freer trade.
The reason, or one of the reasons our manufacturing sector is in so much trouble now, and the reason we have such great difficulty freeing ourselves completely from our dependence on staples and natural resources, is that the government has followed a policy of overprotecting industries. I do not think that anyone at this stage would be senseless enough to argue that we should throw our whole trading patterns open to a free trade arrangement with the United States. But as the hon.
November 9, 1976

member for York Centre said, it is obvious that we should approach the question on a sectoral basis.
If I have one criticism to make of the hon. member for Eglinton and his party, it is not so much that of secrecy, though the general level of secrecy in government in the western world is now subject to criticism. Admittedly I came to this parliament two years ago idealistically, but I have been quite shocked at the amount of secrecy not only in government but throughout the whole bureaucracy.
Let me digress for a moment, Mr. Speaker, and tell the members of the House of an experience I had before ever entering politics. The Hawker-Siddeley Corporation of England owned a steel plant in Sydney which they left high and dry after milking it for as much as they could. It should have been nationalized long ago, but the federal government ran away from that and forced the provincial government of Nova Scotia to take it over. As a result we are still bothered by immense problems down there. Then the government set up the Cape Breton Development Corporation in 1967 in order to help correct Cape Breton's historic economic ills. But the government did not include the most important industry there, the steel industry. This was left to the small provincial government that did not have the expertise required to own it. The government said; "Look, we will throw DREE grants your way every now and then, but we will not actually put it under a Crown corporation".
I wanted to find out what type of subsidies were given the Hawker-Siddeley Corporation in their last five years of existence in the Cape Breton area as opposed to the help given under public ownership, and I wrote to the dominion bureau of Statistics, now Statistics Canada, which more and more is suffering ill-fame, and, so far as I can see, with good reason.


John Gilbert: And notoriety.


Andrew Hogan: Yes, notoriety. I was told to whom to write. I wrote and told them I wanted information about this company, which at that time had departed two years ago. Do you know what they told me, Mr. Speaker? They said that according to the Official Secrets Act they could not disclose anything, even though this company was no longer there, unless I got permission from the head of that corporation. That is just nonsense, but it gives hon. members an idea of just how deep this whole secrecy business goes.
My major point of criticism of the government is that it does not seem to be giving, at least openly, any positive leadership so far as freer trade is concerned. Granted that we are all against free trade in the textbook sense because of the historical pattern of protection, but as I said before, and as hon. members opposite know, history finally catches up to you. They know that if one has an infant one is protecting, and allows that infant to grow up without letting it become really efficient, then one has to keep feeding and protecting that infant or person not at the nominal rate but at the effective rate. The hon. member for Eglinton seemed to skirt that issue.
Canadian Trade Policy
In the manufacturing area in the western world we have one of the most highly protected economies. I would defy members on the other side to produce statistics to show that this is not true. The manufacturing sector of the Canadian economy is one of the most highly protected in all of the western world, so we do not have this type of freer trade or a tendency toward freer trade about which the minister talked. I admit that when we have a dependence of 20 per cent or 25 per cent of our Gross National Product in this area then we have to go along with the other countries. But as I see the scenario now I think there is time for Canada to try to give some leadership at GATT, whether they publicize it or not, because what we are seeing now is a very strong resemblance in many ways to the thirties, on the international scene.
The economists of the major countries are advocating that the major economies, the United States, Japan, and Germany start stimulating their economies so that the rest of the world's economies will pick up. I hope the Minister of Finance (Mr. Macdonald), who has followed John Turner, who in turn followed the Secretary of the Treasury in the United States, will take cognizance of the fact that our economy and the economies of the free world in general need some stimulation, and that we must take some kind of a chance on the inflation end.
We might look at what is happening in Italy and France. Each of these countries is following inflationary policies, with little or no growth, to try to get their exchange rates in balance. We can see the scenario now. Britain, Germany, and Japan will try to get into these markets and will not be able to get into them with freer trade. They will be forced to go to the United States. There is to be a new President there who wants to go into freer trade and who wants to stimulate the economy and so on. But the industries in the United States and the lobbyists and the pressure groups, despite the President's good intentions and philosophies, will push him into a more protectionist position. Therefore it is time that Canada and the countries of the free world really assert themselves because we are at a very important turning point in the international economy.
While one cannot draw too close an analogy between the depression of the thirties and the present, certainly despite the changing evolution and the application of fiscal and monetary policies, the free world now stands in a very precarious position if we are to turn more and more protectionist. It is not enough to say that we are over there at GATT and are trying to get the best deal. We should be establishing a position in which we firmly come out for more liberalized trade and a stimulation of the economy so that we can avoid the protectionism which destroyed the economies in the 1930's, and which some of the countries of the world, in an effort to protect themselves and stabilize their economies, are rushing into willy-nilly now. This might seem to be a pessimistic scenario but it is a very probable scenario. Given the present policies that are being followed by Britain, Italy, and France, and with the assumption that two of the most important countries, including the
926

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
second most important country in the western world from the point of view of economics, Germany, and Japan, will be effectively locked out from many of these markets, I repeat that they will attempt to get a larger share of the American market. But they will find all kinds of protectionist sentiment there.
So, Mr. Speaker, I think this debate is worth while if it highlights this type of thing, that the international economy is at a turning point and there is no way that Canada should go except toward freer trade, not free trade, and that we should plainly enunciate that as our position as a nation, not only for our own survival but for the survival of the free world.


Mr. Hugh A. Anderson (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to bring to the attention of members of the House that from July 3, 1975, to April 6, 1976, a sub-committee for international development held 30 meetings and heard a number of witnesses, including Mr. Joe Morris, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, Mr. Maurice Strong, Ambassador Mills from Jamaica, John Turner, Professor Brecher from McGill University, and Professor Sabourin from the University of Ottawa regarding international trade and Canada's position in respect of the developing nations. We have discussed many aspects of trade and I should like to bring to the attention of the House some of the conclusions reached by this committee which was composed of members of all parties and which reached a unanimous position regarding its report.
Regarding the lowering of barriers to trade the committee stated:
Determined international action will be needed if the developing countries are to obtain a fair share of the world's industrial activity and reverse the unacceptable trend in which they have a declining share of global trade in manufactured goods. Barriers to their products in the rich markets of the industrial world are among the principal causes for this situation and the reduction and removal of these barriers must be high priorities.
The committee also stated:
The expansion or trade opportunities for developing countries in manufactured and semi-manufactured products will bring substantial benefits to Canadian consumers, in terms of lower prices on a wide range of goods. However, it will also involve major adjustments in Canada and elsewhere. If properly managed, this process will support and complement the kind of economic re-orientation which Canada must undergo in any event (as the recent work of the Economic Council of Canada has argued). This kind of adjustment will, over time, benefit Canadian workers as well as the many millions of unemployed and underemployed people in the developing world.
Then we have the following paragraph in the committee's report:
One of the principal points emerging from the sub-committee's work was the need for predictability and reliability in the access which developing country producers enjoy in world markets. If there is to be a constant danger that exporters achieving any success in penetrating new markets will suddenly be confronted with new obstacles in the form of tariffs, non-tariff barriers, or quotas, this undermines the incentive for developing Countries to make the tremendous effort and investment required to launch new export industries.
Regarding multilateral trade negotiations the committee recommended:
Concerted multilateral action to reduce existing tariff and non-tariff barriers is an essential means of expanding the trade opportunities of the developing countries. Yet the process of the Multilateral Trade Negotiations is a slow and

complex one, and the special trade concerns of developing countries do not appear to receive adequate priority.
This is especially true since the existing tariff system is specifically loaded against the developing countries in two important respects. First, the types of goods on which tariffs typically remain highest are those of principal interest to developing countries; and second, tariffs escalate markedly on processed or manufactured goods in contrast with the relatively low rates which apply to the raw materials from which they are produced. Canada clearly shares an interest with the developing countries in eliminating this tariff escalation, and Canada's own sectoral approach in the trade negotiations is designed to attack the escalation problem.
I know my time is very limited, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to discuss also the committee's report on adjustment assistance. The benefits of trade liberalization to the developing countries and, in the long run, to the Canadian economy, should not be allowed to obscure the fact that it will involve tough new competition for certain Canadian industries. Canadian industry is, of course, already highly competitive in many areas, and can be made more so in others. In some sectors where Canada cannot become economically competitive, there still may be sound reasons for maintaining a residual industrial capacity. But it must be recognized that some Canadian industries will have to be radically reorganized and some will probably have to be abandoned.
One of the principal themes of the subcommittee's evidence has therefore been the need for greatly expanded and improved schemes of adjustment assistance to help workers, industries, and localities most affected by low cost competition from developing countries to shift to new, more productive activities.
I should also like to read the subcommittee's recommendation that an early start be made on serious and extensive schemes in certain sectors, and that intensive planning should begin now to prepare for the more comprehensive adjustment challenges which will certainly arise from the multilateral trade negotiations. One of the first steps must be a serious and realistic study of which industries are threatened, of which can and should specialize in more competitive activities, and of which show no realistic prospect of survival without massive protection.
I have one or two minutes left and if I may I should like to conclude by commenting on the general economic climate in Canada and abroad. It is generally recognized that Canada's economy is highly dependent upon the growth rate of the major industrialized countries in the OECD, and particularly that of the United States. In this connection it should be recognized that while the economies of the major OECD countries have recovered from the worst recession of the post-war world, the recovery has as yet been moderate and is now showing some hesitancy. The OECD secretariat's midyear outlook forecast that real GNP growth in the 24 member nations would slow to an annual rate of about 4'/2 per cent in the second half of 1976, after rising at 6V2 per cent in the first half.
November 9, 1976


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. It being 9.45 p.m. it is my duty to interrupt the debate and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the proceedings now before the House, in accordance with Standing Order 58(9)(a).
The question is on the amendment of the hon. member for Waterloo-Cambridge (Mr. Saltsman). All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Call in the members.


Mr. Speaker:: I therefore declare the amendment lost.		
The question is	on the motion of Mr. Stevens, seconded by	
Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton).		
The House divided on the motion (Mr. Stevens) which was		
negatived on the following division:		
	{Division No. 9)
 YEAS Messrs.	
Alexander	Darling	GilbertAlkenbrack	Dick	GilliesAllard	Dinsdale	GraffteyAndre	Dionne	Halliday(Calgary Centre)	(Kamouraska)	HamiltonBaker	Douglas	(Qu'Appelle-Moose(Grenville-Carleton)	(Nanaimo-Cowichan-	Mountain)Beatty	The Islands)	HamiltonBeaudoin	Ellis	(Swift Current-Broadbent	Elzinga	Maple Creek)Cadieu	Epp	HargraveClark	Fairweather	Hees(Rocky Mountain)	Firth	HnatyshynClarke	Fortin	Hogan(Vancouver Quadra)	Fraser	HolmesCrosbie	Gauthier	JarvisCrouse	(Roberval)	Kempling
80001-591/2

November 9, 1976
Canadian Trade Policy
Knowles	Messrs. McCleave	Ritchie(Winnipeg North Centre)	McGrath	RondeauMcKenzie	SaltsmanKorchinski	McKinley	SchumacherLambert	McKinnon	Stanfield(Bellechasse)	Mitges	StevensLambert	Murta	Symes(Edmonton West)	Neil	TowersLa Salle	Nowlan	WagnerLavoie	Nystrom	WhitewayLawrence	Orlikow	WhittakerMarshall	Paproski	WiseMasniuk	Patterson	WoolliamsMazankowski	Pigott (Mrs.)	Yewchuk-78.McCain Abbott	NAYS Messrs. Buchanan	DansonAllmand	Bussi&res	DaudlinAnderson	Caccia	De BaneAndras	Cafik	Demers(Port Arthur)	Campagnolo (Mrs.)	DionneAndres	Campbell (Miss)	(Northumbei(Lincoln)	(South Western Nova)	Miramichi)Appolloni (Mrs.)	Caron	DouglasBasford	Chretien	(Bruce-Grey^B6chard	Clermont	DruryBegin (Miss)	Condon	DuclosBlais	Corbin	DupontBlaker	Corriveau	DuprasBlouin	Cot6	DuquetBoulanger	Cullen	EthierBreau	Cyr	Faulkner
Messrs.
Fleming	Langlois	PelletierFlynn	Leblanc	PennerFoster	(Laurier)	PhilbrookFox	LeBlanc	PinardFrancis	(Westmorland-Kent)	PortelanceGauthier	Lee	Poulin(Ottawa-Vanier)	Lefebvre	Prud'hommeGendron	Lessard	RailtonGillespie	Loiselle	RainesGoodale	(Chambly)	ReidGoyer	Loiselle	RobertsGuay	(Saint-Henri)	Robinson(St. Boniface)	Lumley	RompkeyGuay	Macdonald	Rooney(Levis)	(Rosedale)	RoyGuilbault	MacFarlane	(Laval)Haidasz	Maine	Sauv6 (Mrs.)Herbert	Marceau	SharpHolt (Mrs.)	Marchand	SmithHopkins	Martin	(Saint-Jean)Isabelle	Mclsaac	StewartJamieson	McRae	(Cochrane)Jones	Milne	StolleryJoyal	Munro	TessierKaplan	(Hamilton East)	TrudeauLachance	Nicholson (Miss)	TurnerLajoie	Olivier	WatsonLalonde	Ouellet	WhelanLanders	Parent	Young-119.Lang	Pearsall


Mr. Speaker:: Therefore 1 declare the motion lost. It being after ten o'clock this House stands adjourned until two p.m. tomorrow.
At 10.20 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, November 10, 1976