1978-02-06

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. The government's proposed legislation to implement its pipeline agreement with the United States is seriously deficient in a number of respects. There is no guarantee that Canadian manpower or materials will receive preferential treatment in the construction of a pipeline in Canadian territory. There is a serious erosion of legal authority in that there would be only a very limited right of appeal from decisions of the proposed pipeline agency. In view of these and other very serious matters and deficiencies in the bill, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander):
That this House condemns the government for not including in the bill adequate guarantees for Canadian content, particularly full utilization of the Canadian labour force and the supply of the majority of materials from Canadian sources on the Canadian sections of the pipeline, and that this House condemns the government for denying the rights of Canadian citizens to full access to the courts, which constitutes a denial ot rights which have existed from time immemorial under our British system of justice.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


KITIMAT PIPELINE-REQUEST CONSIDERATION OF APPLICATION BE DEFERRED-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. T. C. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43,1 desire to raise a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Last fall the public hearings being conducted by the west coast oil ports
inquiry headed by Dr. Andrew Thompson were cancelled due to the request of Kitimat Pipeline Ltd. that its application before the National Energy Board be held in abeyance. The result has been that many communities in British Columbia have been denied an opportunity to present their views to the inquiry. Kitimat Pipeline Ltd. has now reactivated its application to construct the pipeline from Kitimat to Edmonton, and the people affected have a right to be heard.
I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt):
That this House urges the government to reactivate immediately the Thompson inquiry and provide facilities and funding for public interest groups to present their opinions, and that the National Energy Board be instructed to delay any consideration of the Kitimat application until the Thompson inquiry has submitted its report to the government.


Mr. Speaker:: The presentation of such a motion for debate can be made, pursuant to the Standing Order, only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INDUSTRY
Mr. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that Madame Ritchie of the anti-dumping tribunal, in the matter of the dumping of wide-flange steel shapes in Canada and alleged injury to Algoma Steel, found on December 29 that the evidence justified special consideration for British Columbia and Newfoundland, where Algoma did not sell or compete, but that an exemption for Newfoundland and B.C. had to be left to the governor in council, in view of the fact that any increase of duty will raise construction costs in Newfoundland without helping Algoma Steel, which does not sell in Newfoundland, and in view of the submission of the Newfoundland government to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) that the tribunal's decision will jeopardize local steel fabricators and 300 jobs, I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That the governor in council alter the majority decision of the Anti-Dumping Tribunal by exempting Newfoundland as well as B.C. as separate regional markets from the dumping duties on wide-flange steel shapes.

February 6, 1978


Mr. Speaker:: The presentation of such a motion for discussion can be made only with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
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. The displacement and transfer of staff caused as a result of the transfer of veterans' hospitals is causing serious disruption in the lives of the employees affected. The recent transfer of Westminster Hospital emphasizes the fact that after every transfer grievances arise, adversely affecting veteran patients and denying the assurance of job security, contrary to the spirit of the handover policy of this government. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Norfolk-Haldimand (Mr. Knowles):
That all further transfers of veterans' hospitals be stopped until a review of the effects of all transfers which have taken place, to the detriment of veterans and staffs of veterans' hospitals, is made.


Mr. Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion for discussion at this time can be made only with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


REQUEST GOVERNMENT NOT ALLOW IMPORTATION OF PRODUCTS MADE IN CANADA-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the terms of Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion dealing with an important and urgent matter.
As the employment situation has become nearly disastrous in almost every part of Canada, as that situation can, to a large extent, be blamed on our trade policy which allows goods into the country that we could easily manufacture here, as the very countries from which we import goods depend even more on our raw materials than we do upon their goods, I move, supported by the hon. member for Kamouraska (Mr. Dionne):
[Mr. Crosbie.J
That this government completely review its trade policy with a view to encouraging the production in Canada of what consumer goods we now import, and that specifically for the purpose of fighting unemployment efficiently.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Under the terms of Standing Order 43, such a motion cannot be put without the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that the expenses of the Prime Minister's political trip to British Columbia last week-which amount to thousands of dollars- will be paid entirely by the people of Canada and not by the federal Liberal party, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House reminds the Prime Minister of his own words in a speech given in British Columbia that "there is no free lunch", and therefore urges him to practice what he preaches and pay back the people of Canada the costs of this political trip.


Mr. Speaker:: Order please. Presentation of such a motion for discussion can be done only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


WHEAT-CALL FOR HOUSE REVIEW OF 1977-78 POOL ACCOUNTS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Frank Hamilton (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Wheat is now over $4 a bushel at Vancouver and indications are that it will rise to $5 before year-end. As the minister's confirmation that there will be no further payment to producers above the $3 initial price means bankruptcy for a good many farmers, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil):
That this House review all orders in council bearing on the 1977-78 pool accounts for wheat as they all seem to be milked dry for political reasons.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The motion can be presented for discussion at this time only with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?
February 6, 1978


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TEXTILES-REQUEST FOR EXEMPTION FROM TARIFF REDUCTIONS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity regarding the GATT negotiations going on at the present time, and the effect they would have on the textile industry in Canada. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That because of the nature of the worldwide textile industry, its peculiarities and special problems, the Canadian government ask that textiles be exempt in their entirety from the negotiations on tariff reductions.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The motion can be presented for discussion at this time only with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


"ICE HOGGY" COMPETITION BETWEEN MPs AND MEMBERS OF PRESS GALLERY-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43


Mr. Maurice Harquail (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Young), that the result of an "ice hoggy" competition on Friday last, ice hog day, between members from both sides of the House of Commons and members of the press, be tabled, when supremacy reigned and hon. members won a decisive victory. I have the honour to present to you, sir, the first commoner, the trophy which we won, which is emblematic of our supremacy on this occasion.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I cannot think of a better symbol of the skills needed to succeed in the business of this parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General PRIVILEGE


ANSWERS GIVEN BY SOLICITOR GENERAL
Mr. Speaker:: On Friday last a question of privilege was raised concerning answers given by the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) during the question period. It was evident at that time that hon. members sought the opportunity to examine the transcript over the weekend and that we have an opportunity, as I said on Friday, to raise again today the same subject and continue the argument after examining the transcript, and particularly to put a specific motion in connection with that incident if that was the desire of members. I have had two notices of request to do so, one from the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), and one from the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles).
The hon. Leader of the Opposition has further requested, and I have given his request serious consideration since it bears on events that took place in the question period, that the matter ought to be considered before the question period rather than after it. It is only under extraordinary circumstances that that can be done. I believe it is a serious proposition and I will, therefore, hear argument first to see whether or not it will have a bearing on the performance in the question period today. I will safeguard the question period by allotting 45 minutes to it when the time comes.


Mr. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief in continuing this matter which was raised the other day.
We have available to us now, not only the record of Hansard recording the remarks of the new Solicitor General (Mr. Blais), but also a transcript of remarks which he made outside the House. In essence, sir, the relevant portions of the remarks made by the Solicitor General are as follows. I will quote from page 2511 of Hansard for Friday, February 3:
It will be my policy to leave the McDonald commission to make its own conclusions on the evidence that is adduced. I will not be commenting on a day by day basis on evidence that may be adduced before that commission on a prior occasion.
In other words, the Solicitor General made it very clear that it was not his intention to answer questions in the House of Commons relating to matters that are before the McDonald commission. Later on in relation to ministerial responsibility he offered this view, and I quote:
That ministerial responsibility is dated as of February 1 of this year. What happened prior to that time and prior to the nomination of the previous solicitor general is a matter presently under study by the McDonald commission.
He is referring here to his responsibility for that ministry. In other words, he again seeks to avoid the responsibility of answering questions in this House on those matters because those matters are under consideration by that commission.
I would like to point out that the minister's view of ministerial responsibility and the capacity for it to be curtailed by the appointment of a commission outside this House is a view that, in our judgment, is totally wrong. To underline the

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General dilemma that it has caused for the House of Commons, it leaves us in a situation where we are virtually without a minister to question, and without any opportunity to seek information which, in the interest of the Canadian public, it should have.
I wish to refer to a ruling of your own, sir in relation to the
ministers to whom questions can be put, a ruling reported on page 6851 of Hansard for June 20, 1977, and I quote:
Can members ask a question of a minister in that minister's former capacity? The clear answer given time and time again, without any doubt about our practices and precedents, has been no. It is tied very directly to the theory of ministerial responsibility, that the present incumbent of a ministerial office has responsibility which goes back for all time. It does not stop at the time that that incumbent took office. Therefore there cannot be two people responsible to the House in the parliamentary sense for that continuing responsibility.
In your own words that seems to me to answer the suggestion put forward by the Solicitor General the other day to the effect that his responsibilities began only with the assumption of his duties as Solicitor General. There are some statements made by the minister outside the House which indicate that it was no slip of the tongue but a deliberate statement of considered policy by the minister. This refers to his stated intention not to answer questions in the House of Commons relating to matters before the McDonald inquiry. I will read three quotes from the transcript:
-when the alleged conduct, or questions relating to their administration, is before a royal commission or commission of inquiry, surely I am not going to supersede that commission of inquiry-
There is a second statement made in answer to a question from a journalist:
-I may answer questions from the opposition so long as those questions relate to matters that are not within the mandate of the individual commissions.
Finally, in answer again to questions from journalists, he said:
-I cannot answer questions relating to matters that come before the commission, or that the commission is presently dealing with.
It is very clear that the Solicitor General seeks to introduce into Canadian practice for the first time in memory-certainly that kind of startling introduction of a theory of silence before the House of Commons would have been noted had it been tried before-the idea that a government which does not want to answer questions can appoint a royal commission or inquiry to look into those questions. Then, because it has created that outside body, it is itself protected from the lifelong, historic obligation to answer to the House of Commons for the activities of the government. That clearly underlines, undercuts, and destroys any principle of ministerial responsibility in this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I want you, Sir, to consider the situation in which parliament is left by the clear statement of the Solicitor General, inside and outside this House, and your own ruling, when the only person we can question is the minister who refuses to answer questions relative to the McDonald inquiry.

We are left in a situation where there is literally no one we can question about matters which are now before the McDonald inquiry.
It is important for us to recognize as we deal with this question that when we, in the opposition, raised with the previous solicitor general the concern that the terms of reference of the McDonald inquiry were too narrow to allow the kind of inquiry into some of the matters that we thought were essential, the answer of the then solicitor general was that the terms of reference of that inquiry were all-inclusive. In other words, they deal with any matter that might perceivably pertain to the conduct of ministers, the conduct of the security service, or any of the other matters at issue before the House.
If we take those two statements together, it means that the Solicitor General now is saying that he will not answer questions relating to anything that comes before the McDonald inquiry. His predecessor said that every question we might want to raise in this House is a question that can come before the McDonald inquiry. That is to say, there is not a single question that we in this House of Commons can put to the present Solicitor General and expect an answer to because his statement, taken in context with the statement of his predecessor, is that he will not answer anything that comes before a royal commission which can consider every question that we might want to ask. If this position by the minister is upheld, the House of Commons is in a position where we are not able to ask any questions about anything relating to this very serious matter.
When we note this royal commission, it is important for us to understand and to emphasize that the royal commission is not a body that was set up by this House of Commons. Nor is it a body which will report to this House of Commons. This parliament has delegated no responsibility at all to this royal commission. It is a creation of the government. It is an emanation of the government. It is not an emanation of this House of Commons. It does not take any of its powers or responsibilities from this place.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: What it has done is assume a government responsibility, which was a responsibility to look at past executive actions and examine their propriety. It was appointed by the government. It was appointed with terms of reference which were set out by the government and which were not accepted as being complete by the members of the opposition. Its staff has been chosen by the government and will report to the government exclusively, and indeed at a time, one suspects, when it will suit the government's own convenience.
Unless the government chooses, there will be no debate in this House of Commons about the conclusions or findings of the McDonald royal commission. Even if there had been more agreement about those terms of reference and the purpose of that commission, I think it has been well established in the history of our institution that any commission is complementary to the House of Commons and cannot replace the role and the function of this House of Commons.
February 6, 1978


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Indeed, and this is a matter of some continuing concern to us, while it is the view of the government that the terms of reference of that commission are all inclusive, consequently the denial of information by the present Solicitor General to the House is all inclusive.
It is our view that that commission does not have the power to look adequately into questions of ministerial responsibility and into questions of the role of ministers in this whole affair. Nonetheless, it is the interpretation of the government itself that it does have that power. Therefore, by extention, what the Solicitor General was telling this House the other day is that the government feels itself under no obligation to answer questions in this House on any matter relating to ministerial responsibility and the security affair.
It is clearly the right of the House of Commons, and within its power, to reach clear decisions as to the manner in which ministers opposite have carried out their responsibilities. That is something which cannot be delegated to a royal commission. Nor can we allow a situation where the establishment of a royal commission prevents us finding out how ministers have acted and discharged their responsibilities.
The matter of the McDonald royal commission has always been a contentious one. There is disagreement as to the adequacy of the terms of reference which the government has established for that body. The point remains, though, that the government has one very strong view: it is that the terms of reference allow the commission to look into every question which impinges directly or indirectly upon the conduct of the RCMP or the security services. According to the government, nothing is excepted from its ambit. That was the testimony of the previous solicitor general. Now we find the present Solicitor General, both inside and outside this chamber, making it clear that he does not intend to answer questions here related to matters before the McDonald royal commission. Mr. Speaker, every matter involved in this issue is before the McDonald royal commission, so what the Solicitor General is telling us is that no answers will be forthcoming on anything which has to do with this subject.
We are being asked, in effect, to accept a proposition that the executive is not obliged to answer to the House of Commons if it sets up a public inquiry to look into matters which the House wants investigated. That principle is obviously not acceptable to parliament, and I think, Mr. Speaker, that you will find it is not acceptable. The inquiry is an extension of the executive; it is not an extension of the House of Commons. Consequently, it should not be a limitation upon members of this House doing their duty and asking questions.
Parliament would be neglecting its whole purpose, let alone neglecting its rights, if it allowed the principle of ministerial responsibility to be wholly passed over in the course of an inquiry set up by the executive. We would be undermining our rights if we accepted the strange and dangerous doctrine put
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General forward by the Solicitor General that he is not obliged to answer any questions about any of the security issues which might come before the commission.
For these reasons, in the light of the very difficult position in which parliament is placed, in the light of the fact that we are precluded by Your Honour's earlier ruling from asking questions of any of the three previous occupants of the office of solicitor general, and in the light of the Solicitor General's statement that he does not intend to answer questions on matters which are the subject of the inquiry by the McDonald royal commission, and since we are assured that the commission's terms of reference are sufficiently broad to cover every conceivable aspect of these issues, if Your Honour finds that a prima facie case of privilege has been made, I should like to propose the following motion, seconded by the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham (Mr. Lawrence):
That the declaration by the Solicitor General that he will not be answerable to the House for certain areas of his responsibility and, in particular, for any matter within his ministerial responsibility which has been, is, or could be before the McDonald commission and the question whether the same constitues a breach of the privileges of this House and of its members be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. MacEachen:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether we might have a copy of the motion which has just been put forward.


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I shall also be pleased to send over to the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. MacEachen) a copy of the motion which it is my intention to move.
Sir, I wish to express my strong support of the case made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) with respect to what happened in this House last Friday. Several of us suggested at that time that it would be appropriate to delay further consideration of this matter until we had had an opportunity to study the record. Suggestions were made that maybe some members were misinterpreting what had been said. I believe the interpretation now given by the hon. Leader of the Opposition is certainly a valid one.
The fact is that on Friday, in responding to questions put by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt), the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) said the following:
Mr. Speaker, with regard to the initial remark of the hon. member, I want to assure him that I take my ministerial responsibility very seriously indeed. That ministerial responsibility is dated as of February 1 of this year.
The next sentence of the Solicitor General reads as follows:
What happened prior to that time and prior to the nomination of the previous solicitor general is a matter presently under study by the McDonald commission.
The hon. Leader of the Opposition has those sentences, as well as those remarks made outside the House, to support the position we are taking. The Solicitor General said on Friday that his responsibility dates only from February 1; that everything prior to February 1, both in the regime of the previous

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
solicitor general and the regime of the solicitor general before that, is before the McDonald commission; and that he will not answer questions on matters which are before the McDonald commission.
In other words, we have had a very strong assertion by the present Solicitor General that he will not answer questions which relate to anything dated prior to February 1, 1978. As I said in my remarks the other day, I would not quarrel with the right of the Solicitor General to take questions on their merit, to consider each one and decide whether it should be answered or not; but for him to make that sweeping statement, that he will answer no questions on matters dated prior to February 1, 1978, is an affront to parliament.
I am almost inclined to read some of the sentences contained in Beauchesne's fourth edition to the effect that anything which may be considered a contempt of court by a tribunal is a breach of privilege. There are other comments as well. That particular paragraph has a lot of bizarre things in it of which the minister is not guilty; but surely it is in contempt of parliament for a minister to refuse, in advance, and carte blanche, to answer any questions in an area as broad and as important as this one.
When considering matters of privilege, Your Honour and your predecessors have frequently made the point that in order for a matter to have the quality of privilege it must be something which interferes with the capacity of members of this House to do their job. Could anything fit that definition more clearly than what the Solicitor General has said? If we are to be able to do our job, we have to be in a position to ask questions, certainly the kinds of questions the Chair allows. For a minister of the Crown to say before such questions are put that he will not answer them at all, surely is interfering with our capacity to do our job as members of this House. It is on that basis I feel we have a genuine case of privilege.
On the other hand, as I said to Your Honour the other day, although you can stop us from asking certain questions and you can stop the ministers from giving certain replies or wandering from the question at issue, Your Honour is not in a position to force anyone either to ask or to answer a question. Therefore, we would be going a bit far if we were to ask Your Honour to make a ruling that the Solicitor General must answer the questions he refuses to answer. This brings to a head what is really at issue here. That is one of the reasons why I did not want to proceed with the matter on Friday. I wanted to wait until today in the hope that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) would be here, and he is.
What is involved is the entire question of ministerial responsibility and how that responsibility will be exercised. The Prime Minister must clarify this matter in a much better way than his deputy attempted to clarify it on Friday. He must tell us what we have the right to expect of ministers of the Crown, not only of the Solicitor General but of all the other ministers. We accept the proposition, the rule, the tradition that we cannot ask persons who are not now ministers of departments questions about the time when they were in charge; but it has been established clearly that the current minister of any depart-

ment is responsible for dealing with that department throughout its history.
The reason I feel this is a question of privilege and that the matter should be referred to the appropriate committee is so that the Prime Minister can clarify the situation. I know he has been reported in the media as having said certain things in British Columbia which seem to endorse the position taken by the Solicitor General. I hope, on reflection, and out of his concern for the workings of parliament, that he will study the record and give the matter serious thought. Surely we are not to be left in the position where any new minister can say "I will answer questions concerning my department only after the date I became minister". That gives the government the opportunity, any time things get a bit hot, to appoint a new minister and close the book. If it is true that by referring the matter to a royal commission, questions cannot be asked, what a wonderful way to put a stop to the asking of questions!
I feel very strongly that it is a matter of privilege in the sense that the capacity of members to do their job is being limited by the position taken by the Solicitor General. Also, I feel very strongly that on the issue itself, namely, should the Solicitor General answer or should he not, it is not for Your Honour to rule, but we should receive a clear statement from the Prime Minister himself. Therefore, if Your Honour finds that we have a prima facie case of privilege, even if it means that you will have to choose between two motions, I offer a motion, the wording of which is slightly different from the one you already have, but it makes the point that I feel gives us a valid question of privilege. Therefore, if Your Honour finds in my favour that we have a valid prima facie case of privilege, I would move, seconded by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt):
That the matter of ministerial responsibility, particularly as it relates to the obligation of ministers to deal with questions concerning their departments prior to the date of their appointment, be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, so that the Prime Minister can appear before that committee and clarify the situation.
I conclude by saying that I have tried to word the motion in something other than a provocative way. I have tried to word it in a way that the government could accept. I am not saying that the Prime Minister must appear before the committee. I am simply saying that he should be given the opportunity to appear before that committee. 1 am not making any charges in the motion. I am simply raising the whole question of ministerial responsibility which many of us in the House feel needs to be clarified after what happened in the chamber last Friday.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, 1 knew some of the points I would be advancing would be contentious, but I did not intend to create such a contentious context so early after my appointment.
I should like to indicate that the interpretation placed on the words I advanced on Friday in reply to the question posed by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt) indeed
February 6, 1978

is a very extreme one. I was addressing myself to a question which was specific and dealt with evidence presented before a commission. The question which was raised, and to which I replied, dealt specifically with evidence before that commission. In reply, and I quote from page 2511 of Hansard, I referred to the McDonald commission:
It will be my policy to leave the McDonald commission to make its own conclusions on the evidence that is adduced. I will not be commenting on a day by day basis on evidence that may be adduced before that commission on a prior occasion.
Later, as reported on page 2511, I said:
The allegation the hon. member has brought to our attention is, again, a matter that was brought forward in evidence before the McDonald commission. I suggest to the hon. member that he not only rely on his interpretation of a reporter's interpretation of the evidence, but that he read the transcript.
Subsequently at page 2518 lam reported as having said:
I am not going to be led by the opposition to comment on a day to day basis on evidence which is adduced before that commission. It would be usurping the function of the commission if I qualified comments made before it respecting the validity or invalidity of one statement or the other. Surely that is part of the process of the investigation itself.
Then as reported on page 25191 stated:
-I will not comment, nor will I offer any judgment relating to the value of the evidence or indeed the completeness of it.
That was the narrow point on which I resisted the queries from the other side.
I made it quite clear from the context of my replies that I recognize I will have to present information relating to the administration of previous solicitors general when such questions are put to me. In reply to the hon. gentleman, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), I did indicate I would analyse each one of the questions put to me as they arise in order to address myself as to whether the information can be provided this House.
What amazes and has preoccupied me, and I say this quite readily, as a result of the comments that were made, is the suggestion that in some way I have a lack of respect for this House. I would invite hon. gentlemen to consider that I have been in this House since 1972, and since coming here I have participated in the debates more I think than most members on this side of the House. I have acted as parliamentary secretary to the government House leader and have honoured this House, its concept, and its procedures. What I advanced on Friday was on a specific point, and I stand by that point. Unfortunately, some interpretation has been made, and I suggest to hon. gentlemen who have spoken that this interpretation is not that which they ought to have drawn.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, that is an admission of sorts, but if we on this side of the House must rely on that type of indication of what the minister is going to do in future in respect of questions, this is a pretty sad day, and let me assure the House that we do not intend to accept that.
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald William Baldwin: We must look at what the minister said. When speaking on Friday he said, as reported at page 2518 of Hansard in the right hand column:
In terms of my own ministerial responsibilities relating to any actions they commence as of February 1, the date of my appointment.
Taking that statement together with statements which have been read into the record by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), together with the answers given at a press conference held by the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) after the House had recessed on Friday-the questions do not appear-there is no doubt at all, or there should be no doubt at all in the mind of anybody in this House or in the country that the minister is going to be as limited as he thinks is essential in saving the face of his government and his Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) when answering questions in this House on this issue.
What has happened and what will happen if what the government is attempting to do is sustained? This will, in effect, have drawn a curtain over all the events which took place with regard to the office of the Solicitor General from 1971-72 until the early part of 1978. A curtain will be drawn and so far as this House is concerned none of us will be able to peer behind it. That is the situation as I see it. That would be bad enough in respect of any government which had a reasonably decent record in releasing information, but in respect of this government which has all the characteristics of a group of pack rats so far as hiding information is concerned, that is simply not good enough, Mr. Speaker. I am saying that in a non-parliamentary sense, and I think everyone knows the characteristics of a pack rat which takes little pieces of useful information and goods and hides them away.
I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, in the pursuance of the duties of your high office, to bear this in mind. This is more than just a simple procedural point. This goes to the fundamental root and issue of parliamentary government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald William Baldwin: It should be considered not simply as just a local issue, but as what would happen, for example, not only in the House but in committees, if we were to be limited in the extent to which we could pursue issues and ask questions. What would happen in this regard not only in respect of the Solicitor General's Department but in respect of other departments? If this is a precedent the government can get away with, how far will it go and how many ministers will be changed?
I have been told that over a period of the last few years there have been 150 ministerial changes. The Prime Minister has taken to heart what was described as being the attitude of a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, "Greater love hath no prime minister than he lay down his friends for his life."


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General


Gerald William Baldwin: That is a model apparently followed by this Prime Minister.
In passing, I too support the very serious proposition put before the House and Your Honour who, of course, has the primary responsibility.
This House probably has three very important functions. The first is the handling of money, and it is common knowledge that has been taken away from us. Maybe some of the wounds have been self-inflicted, but there is no question, if one reads what the Auditor General has said, and not just the present Auditor General, this House has lost the capacity to hold the government responsible for the expenditure of money.
Secondly, the House has a function with regard to federal-provincial issues which has been taken over by federal-provincial conferences.
Finally, however, this House has the right to hold the government accountable. We have heard a lot of talk about ministerial responsibility. This government has a very flexible attitude toward ministerial responsibility. It used these words in a green paper in respect of legislation on public access to government documents issued by the Secretary of State (Mr. Roberts) in June of last year. It used the defects of ministerial responsibility to indicate it did not intend to be very forthcoming with regard to piercing the screen around government information. The government said this in that green paper:
It is the consciousness of the public interest which has led to the parliamentary traditions of ministerial responsibility-
Later it stated:
The corollary to this privacy of decision has been the insistence on ministerial responsibility. If advisers are to remain anonymous and protected, those who take decisions must bear the brunt of public scrutiny and public responsibility.
How does that jibe with what the present Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) is trying to do and the extent to which he is trying to escape responsibility on behalf of the government in having to answer for what has happened in his department?
Again at page 4 of that same green paper the following is stated:
Ministerial responsibility implies, very simply, the answerability of ministers to parliament for the actions taken by them or by public servants responsible to them.
Surely the word "minister" there as used must have some measure of extension. If it is possible for the government or the Prime Minister to take one minister out of his office and put him someplace in the back benches, does that not mean, as far as this House is concerned, we are denied the opportunity to conduct the kind of cross-examination and questioning which is essential if there is to be some remnant of public accountability in this parliament?
I think that is the issue, and on that issue I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, very strongly indeed, not to take the sole responsibility. 1 know that you must find a prima facie case. I suggest that on an issue of this kind which so deeply affects this parliament, this House of Commons, you should be diligent to

find a way by which you could let this matter go before a committee so that in coming to a final decision you will have the benefit of suggestions of the members of the House who are most intimately affected by what would be the result if this motion were denied.
Dealing with ministerial responsibility for a moment before I subside to allow the Prime Minister or somebody on the other side to answer, if they have an answer, let me say that just last year the Hon. Frank Walker, attorney general for New South Wales, a distinguished parliamentarian who holds ministerial office, and who held it at the time he made the statement, had this to say about it:
According to the theory of individual ministerial responsibility for example, the minister is responsible for every act done in his department. On this basis, administrative accountability would seem to lie in parliamentary scrutiny of the executive-
The fact is, of course, that parliamentary disapproval of a minister's conduct, whether in his personal or vicarious capacity, will bring him to account only if he has lost the confidence of his party. In other words, in terms of the use of the sanctions of accountability it is to his party colleagues, holding a majority in the House, that he is "responsible".
We all know that to be the case. Under the rules which prevail in the House, and with our limited capacity to ask questions in the House and in committees, if the minister does not want to answer, he does not need to answer. In addition to that, a minister would now have the benefit of not having to answer for anything that took place in his department or for actions which were committed by his officials prior to the time he took office, and that would be a very sorry and very serious situation. I suggest on this issue, Mr. Speaker, you should be very diligent to seek ways by which the House can advise you. Under those circumstances the motions put forward by the Leader of the Opposition and by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre should be allowed to proceed to committee.
It is not just on this particular issue that we wonder what may happen in the future. Will we be denied what is the one, main opportunity which this House has to question ministers and to hold the government accountable if the proposition put forward on behalf of the government by the Solicitor General is given effect.
I noticed just today that the former aide to Mr. Nixon, Mr. H. R. Haldeman, has put out his book in which, on the question of concealing information, he makes the disclosure that the I8'/4-minute erasure on one of the White House tape recordings was done by Mr. Nixon and not by his secretary, Rosemary Woods. What we are seeing here is the application of the same principle. By moving ministers under that system of flexibility of ministerial responsibility which this government seems to have accepted, the ministers will be put in the position of denying us the opportunity to hold the government accountable on this issue as well as on other issues.
In the case of the Berger royal commission the House was not deprived of the opportunity to question government ministers with regard to the voluminous issues which were involved. Now the government, for reasons best known to itself, is very sensitive on this particular matter and is taking a position,
February 6, 1978

which is to take away from members of the House the opportunity to look at the events of 1972, 1973 and 1974 in the office of the Department of the Solicitor General. If that is to be the case, it will be a grave injustice to the House.


Mr. Gilles Caouette (Tfemiscamingue):: I would add only a few comments, Mr. Speaker.
It is clear that we cannot accept the attitude of a minister who tries to shirk his responsibilities. In the House of Commons the opposition enjoys the acknowledged privilege to question the government about its administration and to see whether it is now trying to hide behind its responsibilities through royal inquiry commissions. We cannot endorse this kind of policy.
We certainly support the Leader of the Opposition in his motion to refer the whole matter to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, but there is a point I want to emphasize. A lot of questions on various subjects have been asked in this House before now and we already had several examples of the same kind with the solicitors general who came before the present Solicitor General. Even if it is our right to ask questions, it often happens that the answers are only half-truths.
I think that if we refer this matter to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, we should also find some way of compelling ministers to answer our questions honestly. [English]


Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if it might be of some assistance if I could direct Your Honour's attention to the questions that were asked on Friday and the reasons given for not providing answers to those questions.
If you will recall, sir, the questions dealt, first of all, with the information that had been provided at the ministerial level by the RCMP to the minister in respect of mail opening and thereby the statements that we have received. Next, they dealt with the question of whether the Privy Council office, not the RCMP, had initiated steps against a legally constituted political party in Canada, the Parti Quebecois, and what evidence the Privy Council had to initiate those steps. I think those are both serious and important questions, neither of which deals directly with the RCMP security service. Clearly they deal with the question of ministerial responsibility, and surely that is the distinction that we must make in these kinds of questions.
I am sympathetic when the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) says, "Do not comment on the quality of the evidence before the commission". All of us who have practised law are aware of the fact that we must not try to prejudice, if possible, matters before a court. But when those questions are specifically directed to ministers of the Crown in regard to their carrying out of their responsibilities, I submit they are clearly in order, and I submit that the refusal to answer is a violation of the privileges of every member of the House.
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
I am sensitive, of course, to the rules in Beauchesne which indicate that a minister is not obliged to answer a question in the House. But I would like to refer you to page 154, fourth edition, where Beauchesne says the following:
An answer to a question cannot be insisted upon, if the answer be refused by the minister on the ground of the public interest;
The question comes back to this: what is the public interest? I have not heard the issue of the public interest specifically raised by the minister as a defence for not answering these questions. Surely the public interest is that the inquiry not be prejudiced, and I can understand that kind of argument, but there is an overriding public interest that responsible questions to responsible ministers about their responsibilities in carrying out their functions must be permitted and, if they are not answered, the government has to pay the political cost of that kind of stonewalling.
To get back to the initial point, let me state that the questions did not deal with the RCMP; they dealt with the minister's responsibilities.
I am going to quote two parts of the terms of reference under which the McDonald inquiry is operating. Subsection (a) reads in part as follows:
-to inquire into the relevant policies and procedures that govern the activities of the RCMP in the discharge of its responsibility to protect the security of Canada;
Subsection (c) also deals with the policies and procedures governing the activities of the RCMP in the discharge of its responsibility to protect the security of Canada. The McDonald commission is not an inquiry into the conduct of this government or of its ministers. That is the job of this House, not the job of the royal commission, and I do not expect the royal commission to conduct that kind of inquiry. I agree that the terms of reference could be broad enough for the inquiry to look at some aspects of that, but the fundamental duty of members of parliament is to continue to ask these questions. We are not represented as political parties before that inquiry in any way. We are unable to ask questions in our own committees, and now we are being told that we cannot ask questions in this place if they apply to evidence.
I would like to refer again to questions asked and answers given on Friday. I must say that the award you recently received, Mr. Speaker, should really have been given to the Solicitor General because he has been skating around like you would not believe.
The hon. member for Northumberland-Durham (Mr. Lawrence) asked a question to follow up some questions I asked concerning whether the minister was going to advise himself. The hon. member said this:
Obviously, it is our responsibility to ask the minister these questions so that we can receive the truth in this House. Will the Solicitor General reconsider the rather inflexible attitude which he has just displayed, so that we can ask him these questions in the House about this important matter and not have to rely on what is happening in a judicial inquiry?

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
The Solicitor General answerd simply, "No, Mr. Speaker". The answer he gave today sounded like a "maybe" or perhaps even a "yes". I am not sure. Perhaps the Solicitor General would like to clarify one of his answers.
Provided we do not refer to information as being evidence before the Royal Commission, can we now expect to have answers to questions we ask about matters which concern ministerial responsibility? Is that what the minister is telling the House today? If that is the case, I will be sure not to use the word "evidence" in any of the questions I ask the Solicitor General. Hon. members can see the ridiculous position the government has been put into by the Solicitor General. There is a genuine question of privilege here. It goes to the root of the way we conduct our affairs in this country, and I would like to support both of the motions because I think they are excellent.


Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, like other hon. members, I certainly want to look at the minister's very carefully worded statement. I am sure the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) has been working hard on the statement-or perhaps others have been working on it over the week end on his behalf-which he gave a short time ago. It may well be that the minister's words indicate a withdrawal and a recantation, which would make the retreat from Moscow look like an air-conditioned bus ride. I am not sure, but we must take a look at it.
However, when the minister stands in this House today and says it is his desire that we take a very narrow interpretation of what he said on Friday, I think we should look again at just exactly what he did say on Friday outside the House. Any hon. member, presuming he is literate, can look in Hansard at what was said in the House. However, just after the exchange in this House on Friday the brand new, heavy-handed, ham-acting Solicitor General went down to the television room below us and there in his few statements to the media the minister gave an impression which was completely contrary to the impression he gave in the House today.
I want to quote from the transcript of what was said in front of the television cameras and the radio microphones in this building on Friday afternoon. The Solicitor General said the following:
I am responsible in the House of Commons to inform the House of theconduct of previous solicitors general, but when the alleged conduct, or questions relating to their administration, is before a royal commission or commission of inquiry, surely I am not going to surpercede that commission of inquiry which was appointed by the government at the request of the opposition in the House by bringing forward information in the House that ought to be submitted to the McDonald inquiry.
I do not know how the minister could be more definite than that. A little later the following question was asked:
Anything done wrong in the last seven years is something the McDonald commission, in my definition, will be looking at.
The Solicitor General gave the following answer:
That is exactly what they are looking at.
The next question was, and 1 quote:
Then you cannot answer any questions about it?

The Solicitor General replied:
Well, I cannot answer questions relating to matters that come before the commission, or that the commission is presently dealing with. Yes, that is so.
The next question was the following:
Therefore, no questions in the House of Commons will be entertained that deal with RCMP wrongdoings in the past?
The minister answered:
If the matter has been referred to the commission, no.
The minister later said:
Once the commission has made a report, the opposition will be free to debate fully the terms of that report or whatever matter the House is seized of.
This is too important a matter of principle to be sloughed off by a man having that kind of dangerous concept of the responsibility and accountability of a minister of the Crown to this House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Frederick Lawrence: In my submission this important matter should be sent promptly to a standing committee, it is to be hoped the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, so that the matter can be fully determined. It is too important a matter to be sloughed off by the Solicitor General in the way he has attempted to do this afternoon.


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, both motions which are before the House have the same objective-to find out the government's position on the question of ministerial responsibility and, in particular, to establish my position on the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. I regret that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) did not ask me that question at the beginning of the question period. I would have given a very simple answer. The hon. gentleman's question could have been followed by supplementary questions, but we could hopefully have dispensed with the last hour or more of argument by the opposition to the effect that ministerial responsibility should be defined in a certain way.
This government agrees with the opposition. As far as we are concerned, there is no debate. Of course the government has to answer for acts committed under its administration. The government as a whole is responsible for things which happen or things which do not happen during its terms of office. A change of cabinet ministers from time to time does not allow the government to escape the duty and obligation of answering for its administration. This is the government's policy; this is the government's belief; this is the government's practice, and this is what the opposition has been arguing-with which we agree. There is no argument, Mr. Speaker. The Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) has to answer not only for his administration in the period during which he will be Solicitor General but he will answer for acts committed or not committed during the period in which this government has held office. This is very clearly our position. That is what I stated-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


February 6, 1978


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I understand that the opposition would like us to take another position because that would justify their verbiage in the past hour and ten minutes. I was asked this question at a press conference in British Columbia on Friday afternoon. I gave the answer which hon. members are arguing should be the government's answer.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) wants me to come before the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections to find out what I think and so that 1 can clarify the situation. I would have clarified it at two o'clock if the opposition had not wanted to drag a red herring across the floor of the House of Commons.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I stand up now because I see other members of the opposition trying to catch your Honour's eye to carry on the debate. 1 think it is too bad that we have lost the question period once again as it might have settled this matter.


An hon. Member:: We have not lost it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is true. According to Your Honour's ruling, the question period will take place after this matter has been debated. But some members of the government have other business and will have to leave.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Surely any reasonable person in the public would understand that it is not necessary for 20 or 25 ministers to be present-


An hon. Member:: Thirty-four.


Charles Joseph Clark: You cannot count them either.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. Leader of the Opposition is so good at numbers he should count them and see if he can reach the number 34. There are not 34 ministers in the ministry and there are not 34 ministers in the House, any more than there are 34 in the front benches of the opposition!
I hope I made the position of the government very clear a moment ago as I think I made it very clear in answering a question from the press on Friday.
The opposition is reading from Hansard and is trying to get the Solicitor General in the position where he would have said something that he did not say. I suggest that the question is very clear on page 2511 of Hansard. The question put by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt) reads as follows:
Mr. Speaker, 1 would ask the Solicitor General to clarify his last answer. Is it his position that he will not be informing himself of anything that has occurred previously in his department, in order to advise this House concerning the political responsibility of the government? Is that precisely what the minister is telling the opposition today?
The Solicitor General answered:
Of course not, Mr. Speaker.
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
The opposition has been repeating for the past hour that the Solicitor General took a position in this House last week; he was asked specifically if that was his position, and he said, "No, Mr. Speaker." It is very clear that is not his position, that is not my position, and it is not the position of the government; so what is the argument all about, Mr. Speaker?
The argument arises because the Solicitor General-quite properly in my view-did not want to put himself in the position of having a day to day running commentary on the judgments of the royal commission on the testimony of witnesses before that commission and on the interpretation of the credibility or otherwise of those witnesses. Surely this is a tenable position.
If the government had not set up a royal commission I am quite sure we would, to this day, be hearing from the opposition that we should set up a royal commission, that the government cannot discharge its duties simply by answering questions in this House of Commons, that the government has a majority in the House of Commons and it will have a majority on any committee investigating this, and that therefore it cannot be trusted to have an inquiry and report on the past deeds or misdeeds of the RCMP. This was the position of the opposition. It was their position not only on the RCMP, it was their position before, whether we were talking about Hamilton Harbour, Sky Shops or anything else.
What happens now? We say that the opposition is right in this particular case, that we should set up a royal commission of inquiry. We set it up so that the opposition and the country will be sure it is not the government investigating itself and controlling that investigation with its majority. But what do we hear, particularly from the Leader of the Opposition, however? We hear that this royal commission is an emanation of the executive-those are his words-therefore implying it cannot be trusted. It is set up by the executive, it is named by the executive, the staff is instructed by the executive, and so on. Why, then, have they been asking us for so many years to set up royal commissions of inquiry if they are going to argue now that they cannot trust this royal commission? What is the point of asking for a royal commission if, in contempt of that royal commission, you attempt to discredit it?
I find it somewhat distressing and perhaps even shameful that the commentary from the opposition parties these past several months has led to the clear conclusion that one can and should trust the Keable commission in Quebec-that they are doing a good job-


Charles Joseph Clark: Another red herring!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That the commission was set up by the government of Quebec, that it appointed a lawyer who was a former candidate of the Parti Quebecois is completely irrelevant-it is a royal commission and therefore its proceedings should be watched with great respect, but the royal commission set up by this government headed by a Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario-of Alberta, associated


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh!

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member is arguing again that we should not trust this royal commission because it is headed by a judge who at some time in the past was a Liberal candidate. Mr. Speaker, this is a new view of the judiciary and of the role of royal commissions. In that sense we should say that the entire judiciary is an emanation of the executive. After all, judges are named by the executive of the government of the day, whether it be our government or the former government of the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefen-baker). The judiciary is named by the government of the day, whether the opposition likes this or not. It would be a new theory under our parliamentary system to say that you cannot trust the judiciary or you cannot trust a royal commission because somehow the executive was the source of their nomination.
It seems to me once again that there has been a lot of debate on what the Solicitor General said or did not say. A great deal is made of the fact that he said that before February 1 he would not be responsible for what had happened in the Solicitor General's office.


Mr. MacDonald (Egmont):: First of all, they do not know, and now they are not responsible if they have just assumed office.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, with a minimum of good faith and good will it is very simple to understand the words of the Solicitor General. He is saying that if something wrong was committed by a previous solicitor general-he is an individual, and those are the words he used-he is an individual who is not going to be blamed for a judgment made by a previous solicitor general. In that sense his administration as Solicitor General begins on February 1. If the McDonald commission chooses to find blame for something committed before February 1, the blame will not be upon the present Solicitor General, it will be upon the previous solicitor general.


An hon. Member:: Warren, why is your face red?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: There is obviously some disagreement with this, and I will repeat it, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the opposition will then understand. If the royal commission of inquiry finds that some previous solicitor general did something wrong it will not blame the present Solicitor General, who was then the postmaster general; it will say that so-and-so, who was the solicitor general and who committed such an act or admitted to such an act, is to blame. This is very simple.
Of course the government as a whole will be responsible for acts committed during the time of its administration. This point I established at the very beginning of my intervention.


Mr. Fraser:: If we find out about them.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This is the position of the government and of the Solicitor General. Mr. Speaker, if you wish to make a ruling, I can assure you in advance that we will agree to it. But I find no need personally to be brought before a committee of

inquiry or a standing committee of the House to state my beliefs and those of this government. I made them very clear a moment ago.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. There were a number of members who were seeking to participate in this discussion prior to the intervention by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). I will see as many as is reasonable. However, the matter has been discussed at great length now. I would ask that any other hon. members who wish to participate in the discussion please to have regard to the arguments that were made on Friday and today, all of which have assisted me greatly to this point. I do ask hon. members not to review the same arguments but to let us have the benefit of anything that may not have been brought forward so far.


Hon. Robert L. Stanfield (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, quite frankly I feel a little embarrassed today after listening to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to think that a man who would put forth such arguments defeated me in three elections.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Very briefly, we would like to know the government's concept of ministerial responsibility. The Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) said today, as I understood him, that he would treat each case on its merits. On Friday he made it very clear what those merits were. If there was any ambiguity as to what he said in the House, he removed that ambiguity when he spoke to the press. He said:
Yes, I may answer questions from the opposition so long as those questions relate to matters that are not within the mandate of the individual commissions.
What could be clearer than that, Mr. Speaker?


Miss MacDonald:: That is exactly what he said.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Neither he nor the Prime Minister withdrew from that position one iota this afternoon. The Solicitor General also said before the press that there may be situations where certain questions relate to matters that remain in areas of political responsibility, and I think he said "which could be separated" from the terms of reference of the inquiries. I will not take any more time of the House. I think it is as simple as that. The commission has a job, and we have a job in this House. The Solicitor General is trying to prevent us from doing that job.


Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I never thought that the day would come when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) would prove that his mentor was Machiavelli. Over and over again he has praised the manner in which Machiavelli would say one thing today and a different thing tomorrow, and make them coincide!
I presume, in what was supposed to be an alibi, the Prime Minister today has presented a lamentable excuse for the stand taken by the minister on Friday. He trotted forth what he said the other day on one of these trips of his, 90 per cent of
February 6, 1978

which are devoted to praise of the Liberal party and the election of Liberals in the next election. It is not going to be beneficial. The other day he made a joke about Prince Albert, that he would give me assistance by allowing the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) to visit Prince Albert. I offered him the opportunity to come to Prince Albert and speak there and if he did, my majority would be more massive than ever before. Anyway, he went on one of these trips, spending the people's money by the thousands.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have to insist that all members address themselves only to the procedural matter that is before this House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: I have been in this House for some years. 1 remember very well in 1956 when he had a Speaker with a wonderful record. In a few short days he destroyed it because of the activities of certain ministers of the Crown who endeavoured to lead him along the path that led to the degradation of parliament.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not find the right hon. member's last intervention any more tasteful or relevant than the one to which I objected. I have seen to it consistently, as I have just now, that he has an opportunity to participate in a very important discussion, and I am asking him to stay relevant to that discussion.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, with great deference to you, 1 am asking you to allow a debate in this House to take place as it should automatically on a matter so important to the Parliament of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: What did the Prime Minister say on his little trip? Here is the way it is reported in the Canadian Press, the revised version of today being quite different from what was actually said by the Prime Minister.
Vernon, B.C. (CP)-Prime Minister Trudeau defended Friday his newly-appointed solicitor general's decision not to answer daily House of Commons questions about RCMP activities.
In a brief news conference here, Trudeau said he does not believe Jean-Jacques Blais has made a blanket refusal to inform parliament about investigations.
Sir, what the Prime Minister said today is the antithesis of what he said three days ago in Vernon, B.C. If you accept what he said three days ago, you will be accepting a stand taken by the minister from whom 1 had expected today an apology to parliament, because all of us sometimes say things during the course of debate that, upon looking them over, we conclude we could have done better.
What is his attitude today? Smiling! Laughing! Ministers are turning around, smiling in his direction. You cannot treat parliament that way, I say to the minister. Parliament is
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
entitled to the consideration of the fullest maintenance of parliamentary traditions.
What this government has done, and it has been doing it more and more, is, while multiplying the number of ministers, decreasing the opportunity for answers to be given. The kind of attitude displayed by the minister was apparently in consequence of the viewpoint of government because it was not accepted that he could not have said what he said.
Instead of today endeavouring to defend, instead of facetious casuistry, he should have stood up in the House and said he was wrong. He would have received a tremendous reception. We would be assured that parliament is being maintained.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: Instead of that, he engaged in simple arguments for the purpose of throwing dust in the face of parliament.
These debates have their use. The Prime Minister won an election by the just society argument. We have not heard of that lately. Is this example of the throttling of parliament at the essence of a just society? We cannot accept the view taken by the Prime Minister, because it is not true. What the minister did was simply carry out a philosophy that the present Prime Minister has imbued his cabinet with, namely, that they are above parliament.
The hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin) today quoted a statement made in the British House of Commons by a Liberal leader. When I look at this government and listen to the arguments being advanced today, I think of what Churchill said about an opposition member who wrapped himself in the garments of purity in his endeavour to dissemble what he said. Churchill said, "There, but for the grace of God, goes God". That is the attitude of this government. It cannot be accepted in any way whatsoever.
If you accept that principle, what about setting up a commission on finance? The government has a deficit of approximately $1 billion a year. When I was Prime Minister, the deficit was $750 million, because we assisted the aged and equalized opportunity for the provinces.


Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Order!


John George Diefenbaker: Order, says some backbencher.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: Setting up a royal commission on finance and then denying parliament the opportunity of asking the government about this deficit would be a grand thing. You could do it in any department. The deficit costs the Canadian people in exchange on the borrowed money approximately $1 billion a year. They could cover all that by setting up a royal commission and say they are not going to answer any questions because a royal commission has been set up. It is a preposterous argument, one that cannot be accepted by parliament.

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
Today the Prime Minister, with ingenuity but not with much energy, with the realization that he was actually trying to delude the Elouse, put forward the proposition that what he said had not been said.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be very brief. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) got to his feet this afternoon and chastized members of the opposition for using all the time but not clarifying the issue. The Prime Minister could have gotten up very early in the proceedings this afternoon, right after the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) made his excellent case, and clarified the matter.
When the Prime Minister spoke, rather than clarifying the situation, he made it even more ambiguous. I do not want to waste the time of the House. If the Prime Minister will get up again soon, I am sure he could remove the problem entirely. I want to address myself to what I see as the essential ambiguity in the government's position.
The Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) and the Prime Minister have indicated this afternoon that, in their view, there are still some aspects of information pertaining to the royal commission on a continuing basis about which the Solicitor General does not feel obligated to answer questions before the House.
The Solicitor General, ostensibly to clarify his position and partially withdraw it, intimated he would be prepared to consider questions about previous ministers in that portfolio, but would not accept moral responsibility for what went on. He clarified it to that extent.
The Solicitor General indicated, as did the Prime Minister later, that in terms of ongoing testimony before the royal commission, either of them presumably, he did not intend to answer questions in the House. The Prime Minister this afternoon used the word "espoused". He said it was a tenable argument for the Solicitor General to make, that in terms of evidence on a day to day basis before royal commission he did not have to answer questions in the House. With all respect, that does not clarify the situation. It makes it even more ambiguous than before.
The previous position of the government was that it felt responsible from time to time in answering questions about matters that were brought before the royal commission. I refer to an answer given by the Prime Minister a week ago today. I was asking him about certain testimony that appeared before a certain commission which left very important matters in a state of contradiction or irresolution because of positions taken by the previous solicitor general. In the absence of the Solicitor General last Monday, the Prime Minister stated to me in the House:
I will gladly take notice of that question and make sure he provides an answer.
He was saying in the House that he was going to check it out with the solicitor general, whom we subsequently found out had resigned. However, the Prime Minister did take it as an ongoing responsibility for a minister of the Crown, in this
[Mr. Diefenbaker.J
case the solicitor general, possibly to answer questions that arose from testimony being given before the Royal Commission. I do not see how ministerial responsibility can be defined in any other sense.
Of course it makes sense not to set up the House of Commons as another judicial body. As a number of members have said, we are not here to do the job of the royal commission. However, we are here to make sure that ministers are honest. We are here to question ambiguities or conflict of testimony given by ministers which might impinge their credibility and the credibility of the government. It is our responsibility to pursue those questions regardless of whether they come before a royal commission.
If the Prime Minister and the Solicitor General want to clarify this and get on to other business, all the Solicitor General has to do is get up and say to the House that he withdraws the comments he made last Friday in the House and that he gives unequivocal assurance that all future questions on this or any other matter will be considered on their merits, with no qualification of the kind he and the Prime Minister gave this afternoon.


Mr. Speaker:: I see that the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams), the hon. member for the Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) and the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) are seeking the floor. I shall listen to them, after which I believe the Chair will have heard sufficient argument on the matter.


Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I believe I can add two points to this argument. Before doing so, I would say this: the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) accuses the opposition of wasting an hour this afternoon. Should that be the case, it was the best hour ever wasted if it establishes the supremacy of parliament over the executive.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: I come, now, to my two points. I am particularly concerned about the first because of the number of hours I spend in standing committee. We on this side submit we have a prima facie case of privilege. I do not think any defence was put up by the Prime Minister with reference to the words used on Friday. They were clear and concise. They were not ambiguous.
As I say, we submit we have a prima facie case of privilege, but if a ruling is made against the opposition today we are caught in those committees because parliament lost the purse strings when the rules were changed allowing the government to move all the estimates to that circus known as the standing committees of the House of Commons where ministers tyill neither answer questions nor give us information. So Your Honour's ruling is one which will affect all the committees, too; I can almost hear the various chairmen of those committees saying " Well, the Speaker has ruled against you, so you
February 6, 1978

cannot ask those questions." This is an aspect which I sincerely hope Your Honour will bear in mind.
My second point concerns the McDonald commission. Members opposite argue we cannot usurp its jurisdiction. But 1 would point out that the government has already discredited that commission by its undertaking to bring in a bill legalizing the opening of mail by the RCMP before the commission can even bring in a report. We have asked it to wait, but the government has refused.
Along with those two arguments I incorporate everything else which has been said this afternoon by speakers from this side of the House, and that is quite a lot. The opposition has made out a very good case, and it has done so to save parliament. The hour the Prime Minister talked about as having been wasted will probably go down as the best hour in the history of the opposition.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I hope I can confine my remarks to the question before the Chair, that is, whether or not there is a prima facie case of privilege which would justify consideration of a motion.
I might say that in all the time I have been here I have never seen a sadder display than that given by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) today. Time spent defending the rights of parliament and, specifically, the rights of the opposition, is always time well spent. In the last ten years we have spent too much time eroding those rights, to the point at which we are simply a nuisance, as the Prime Minister has described us on more than one occasion, a bunch of nobodies when we are five minutes away from the Hill. I make no apology for participating in this debate if it will have the result of preserving some of the few rights remaining to the opposition.
One of the first observations to be made with regard to the Prime Minister's intervention was that he failed to deal with the real question at issue, namely, the statements made initially by the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) in the House-statements which were confirmed by him even more forcefully outside the House. The right hon. gentleman chastised us for taking an hour in which to discuss this matter, one which concerns the rights of the opposition and the rights of all hon. members, yet he himself took almost 25 minutes immediately afterward to intervene in a wishy-washy fashion. That is to be expected of the right hon. gentleman because he does not understand this place. He has no real feeling for parliament. For example, in 1968, when he was minister of justice, the government was defeated on a tax measure by two votes. And those who were there heard the minister of justice, now Prime Minister, say the defeat meant nothing even though the vote was on a tax measure. This was his view, though hundreds of years of tradition demand the resignation of a government in such circumstances. This gives us some insight into the Prime Minister's failure to understand how this place operates.
I wish to comment, now, on the point raised by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). If the concept put forward by the Solicitor General last Friday is followed, the ministry can avoid responsibility and take cover
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
simply by playing the game of musical chairs. If that concept were followed to its logical conclusion the entire ministry could escape all responsibility for past actions by adopting the absurd strategy of changing round the whole ministry. The administration would then be able to wipe the slate clean and start afresh. I have never heard of a more ridiculous concept, nor can I find any justification for it in the precedents.
As to whether or not a prima facie case exists, I submit there can be no question that, as Your Honour has ruled on past occasions, the sub judice rule as it applies to the courts does not apply to administrative inquiries and commissions set up by the government. In support of this assertion I could cite May's eighteenth edition, page 328, paragraph 11. If it were necessary to cite a precedent 1 could refer to the Dorion commission, very embarrassing to the government of the day, set up by the right hon. gentleman's immediate predecessor, and to the Spence inquiry. During each of those inquiries questions were repeatedly raised in this House by members of the opposition, questions which were, in fact, answered by ministers on the government benches.
What the Solicitor General failed to quote from the Hansard of Friday was far more important than what he did quote. Incidentally, the Prime Minister's interpretation of what was said is beyond belief. The Solicitor General asked us to believe we were placing an extremely fine interpretation on his words. He said he was not going to deal with questions concerning evidence given before the commission. Let me read from Hansard what he did say-he did not refer to this in his remarks today. As reported at page 2511 he stated:
It will be my policy to leave the McDonald commission to make its own conclusions on the evidence that is adduced. I will not be commenting on a day by day basis on evidence that may be adduced before that commission on a prior occasion.
Suppose that evidence gives rise to a question about the conduct of a ministry. Are we precluded, on the basis of the hon. gentleman's theory, from directing questions to ministers and obtaining answers?
On the same page of Hansard in the left hand column the Solicitor General is reported as saying:
I take my ministerial responsibility very seriously indeed. That ministerial responsibility is dated as of February 1 of this year. What happened prior to that time and prior to the nomination of the previous solicitor general is a matter presently under study by the McDonald commission.
The hon. gentleman did not read that part into the record. Again, on the same page of Hansard, we find a question put to the minister by the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham (Mr. Lawrence), who said:
Obviously, it is our responsibility to ask the minister these questions so that we can receive the truth in this House.
The hon. member for Northumberland-Durham asked for the assurance of the minister that he would answer questions relating to evidence adduced, and he received an emphatic no from the Solicitor General.

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
As reported at page 2518 of Hansard dated February 3, 1978, the Solicitor General said the following:
The McDonald inquiry is studying certain issues and matters within very wide terms of reference. It is for that commission to deal with those issues.
I emphasize that comment, Mr. Speaker. Ele continued by saying in effect that parliament has no right to have its members dealing with those issues as they affect the ministry. The Solicitor General also said:
Until such time as a report is received from the commission, Mr. Speaker. 1 will not comment, nor will 1 offer any judgment relating to the value of the evidence or indeed the completeness of it.
Surely it is within his responsibility as the minister to see that all possible evidence is placed before that commission in order for it to fulfil its terms of reference. These are some of the matters he did not refer to which appear in Hansard for last Friday.
The Solicitor General referred to page 2518 of Hansard by reading the first part of the paragraph which appears in the right hand column. I will conclude that for him. It reads as follows:
The decision which I have made that I will not reply to questions relating to matters presently before the royal commission which has been set up by this government-at the request of the opposition, Mr. Speaker-
Nothing could be plainer than that. What would be the result, irrespective of whether or not there is a prima facie case before the Chair? What would be the result in terms of the rights of hon. members and the rights of this Elouse? These are questions which the minister could refuse to answer and which we have every right to ask. For instance, we could ask when the Solicitor General was informed of the La Minerve communique calling for violent action which was fraudulently and perhaps illegally prepared by the security service-but we would be prohibited from that. We could ask whether there was knowledge on the part of the solicitor general of the day concerning the use of agents provocateurs against left wing groups-but we would be precluded from doing that.
We could ask whether one of the previous solicitors general, the present Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Goyer), was fully briefed on all aspects of the operations involving phone taps which he authorized-but we would be prevented from doing that. We could ask whether the then solicitor general authorized any telephone surveillance of the APLQ and, if so, why did he not bother to fully inform himself about the complete scope of security service operations-but we would be precluded from doing that, if the philosophy of the government is adopted.
We could ask the Solicitor General about his statement indicating that he was not misinformed about operation Cathedral by his director of security, in light of the fact that the director of security knew of Cathedral in mid-October, 1977, and the Solicitor General specifically stated that the mail was not being diverted. He indicated that in his previous portfolio. We could ask him why he misled the House-but that kind of question would be precluded.

I could continue giving examples of questions we would be prevented from asking if the government's idea of ministerial responsibility were accepted.
The government is attempting to muzzle the opposition further than the restrictive rules now preclude the opposition from performing its function. We have every right to preserve what remains of those rights by adopting the motion which has been put forward by the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark).


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to intervene in this discussion this afternoon because I am deeply worried about where parliament is heading. The philosophy which was expounded by the newly appointed Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) on Friday matches dangerously the philosophy which was expounded by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) on December 9, 1977. At that time, in a press conference, the Prime Minister said the following:
It is a matter of stating, as a principle, that the particular minister of the day should not have a right to know what the police are doing constantly in their investigative practices, in what they are looking at and what they are looking for, and in the way in which they are doing it.
It is frightening. They are expected not even to have the right to know, so how could they reply to questions from this side? This is a philosophy which undermines the whole principle on which this parliament stands. I am deeply concerned and worried.
It is important for hon. members to understand exactly what is meant by ministerial responsibility. Before dealing with that, I should like to make a comment with respect to questions raised by the opposition on matters before commissions. The notion that the opposition may not ask questions on matters before commissions apparently has no effect on the government.


Mr. Paproski:: Or the Prime Minister.


Donald W. Munro: We have learned that the government is planning to introduce legislation relating to the interception of mail, amendments to the Post Office Act, when this matter is before a commission. The government can intervene. Are we to be muzzled and unable to comment on that legislation when it comes before the House? Is that what this ruling will mean?
Returning to the meaning of ministerial responsibility, I wonder if all members understand clearly the basis on which it rests and the importance it is to parliament. To all students of parliamentary government, and until now to most practitioners, the principle of ministerial responsibility is considered to be absolutely basic to the form of parliamentary democracy which we have come to know in Canada and by which Canadians have agreed to be governed. I thought this principle was so deeply imbedded in our traditions that it was indisputably integrated into our parliamentary system and it would never be questioned. I appear to have been wrong. It has been questioned by the Prime Minister, as well as by the Solicitor General.
February 6, 1978

I should like to refer to what was said by Professor Finer, a British scholar and a student of parliament and its institutions, in an article which was published in "Public Administration" in the winter of 1956. It reads:
Ministers are expected to explain and defend the exercise of their powers and duties in parliament.
Later in the same article, it continues:
Each minister has a positive duty to answer to the House for the matters with which he, specifically, is charged.
In his opening remarks to that article, Professor Finer paid tribute to another great scholar, Sir Ivor Jennings. He quoted from the Jennings classic in the area of "Law and the Constitution" as follows:
Each minister is responsible to parliament for the conduct of his department. The act of every civil servant is by convention regarded as the act of his minister.
Not only observers and analysts of the political scene hold this view, but practitioners have voiced it also. In 1954 Herbert Morrison said in the British House of Commons:
There can be no question whatever that ministers are responsible for everything that their officers do.
He went on by indicating the following:
The minister is responsible for every stamp stuck on an envelope.
Not only did he say that in the British House of Commons, but it was repeated in his book entitled "Government and Parliament" which was published in April, 1954. It reads as follows:
If a mistake is made in a government department the minister is responsible even if he knew nothing about it until, for example, a letter of complaint is received from an MP or there is criticism in the press, or a question is put down for answer in the House; even if he has no real personal responsibility whatever, the minister is still held responsible.
This is fundamental. Herbert Morrison went on to say the following:
Somebody must be held responsible to parliament and the public. It has to be the minister, for it is he, and neither parliament nor the public, who has official control over his civil servants. One of the fundamentals of our system of government is that some minister of the Crown is responsible to parliament, and through parliament to the public, for every act of the executive. This is a cornerstone of our system of parliamentary government.
One might say that the foregoing refers to the British House of Commons, but it is worth recalling that the institutions developed there over the centuries were transferred to this House. We have benefited from them. We have adapted and adopted them. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that aside from the establishment of responsible government in the colony of Nova Scotia in 1848, we find these institutions were transplanted to Canada as well.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. member but he is making arguments that are well known and well documented in parliament. I hope perhaps he can be persuaded to summarize his argument in the belief that I have no difference of opinion with him in respect of theories on ministerial responsibility. I hope to set his fears aside, perhaps very soon, so perhaps he could summarize.
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General


Donald W. Munro: 1 am glad you have no differences, Mr. Speaker, but the government does. This government does not understand what ministerial responsibility is all about, and if I have to be professorial about it I think it is time somebody read these precedents into the record so this government knows the dangerous course into which it is leading this parliament and the country.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the introduction to the British North America Act which was agreed upon by Canadians before the text was written in this country, passed by the British parliament, reads as follows in part:
-the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom.
I think it is worth underlining those words, "with a constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom". This means that the constitutional monarchy, the cabinet exercising authority in the name of the Crown, but responsible for its performance to parliament, properly elected, is part of our tradition. That is, the government exercising authority in the name of the Crown is responsible for its performance to parliament properly elected. To me this means, along with sections 12 and 129 of the BNA Act, that not only the forms of governing but also the means of governing were transplanted to Canada at the request of the recipients. Along with all the other things came responsible parliamentary government.
By my reading of these transfers of authorities, we in Canada have inherited and can legally exercise here in this parliament, of which we in the House of Commons are but a part, not only the powers acquired by the British parliament, including those legislated in its own interest by that parliament, but also those still remaining in the royal prerogative. Along with these powers, I suggest, we decided we were prepared to be governed by those British statutes that we do not as a matter of deliberate policy reject.
It is very important, therefore, that the responsibility aspect of the British tradition, developed in the British parliament and transferred to this parliament, should in no way be eroded. I have cited one instance this afternoon, of the manner in which it was being eroded, in the words of the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). We heard on Friday another statement which rejected completely the notion that a minister of the Crown would be answerable to this House. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I feel that on the strength of this explanation of what ministerial responsibility is, your decision is vitally important.
The future of parliament, to my way of thinking, Mr. Speaker, is very much at issue here. This is one of the most important discussions I have had the opportunity to listen to since coming to the House first in 1972. It is critical and it is vital. We either go on having parliamentary institutions in this country or we do not, and ministerial responsibility is a part of that. If you remove that cornerstone or pillar, the rest collapses.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Earlier in the day I indicated I would hear this argument before the question period began,
80031 -21

February 6, 1978
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General
obviously because it relates to events that might take place in the question period. That is self-evident. That being the case, it seems very difficult to ask that I should attempt to adjudicate on these complicated matters and, perhaps mistakenly, try to make instant law.
On the other hand, that reasoning is going to persist and it is difficult to launch into the question period without at least attempting to resolve some of the issues that have been raised both Friday and today. The importance of the matter is so fundamental to the operation of parliament that I think it deserves that kind of priority.
I should clarify just briefly the procedure involved. I have received two motions which, to the purists of parliament, of course, would raise some fears that I had taken leave of even the most fundamental knowledge of parliamentary procedure. However, it will be recalled that because this is being put forward as a matter of privilege it is necessary first to persuade the Chair that it is a matter which falls so within the definition of privilege, that it ought to be given that priorized treatment often referred to as a prima facie case of privilege.
However it is to be described, it requires some intervening or preliminary decision by the Chair in acceptance of the subject as having that priority attached to privilege so that all other business should be stopped while this is considered and, therefore, those who raised it be given the opportunity, without notice and without the other constraints that stand in respect of the introduction of a motion, to put a motion forward at that time.
Hence, both motions are quite properly in the possession of the Chair in the form in which they were put forward, because both advance the thesis that if the Chair first decides that the matter should be given that priority of privilege then the motion can be examined on its merits to see if it has any other technical flaws. If both of those conditions are met, presumably the first motion, if it met all other criteria, would be put forward and, therefore, the second motion could not be put. On the other hand, if the first motion fell on some technical ground the second motion could be received, and it is on that basis that I am in possession of two motions at this time.
The whole matter and argument are centered around the theory of ministerial responsibility. This is a very clear doctrine that has been repeated and repeated many times, because it touches the procedures of the House so frequently. The hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) raised my own paraphrasing of that repeated definition reported on page 6851 of Hansard. It is simply based on the cornerstone that a minister must have responsibility in the informational sense, and here I make the division which was referred to by the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby (Mr. Broadbent). This refers to the responsibility of a minister, since we have said that we cannot put questions to former ministers in their previous capacity simply because to do so would mean that the responsibility of the present incumbent would only go back to the date of his appointment.
We hold to the theory as being very fundamental to parliamentary practice, that the responsibility to this parliament in

the informational sense, and I hope this is not a misleading term, goes back for all time. I do not need a standing committee of this House to undertake some kind of study to reaffirm that proposition. In deciding the ambit of responsibility of a minister to whom questions can be directed in this House, we have decided that such responsibility goes back for all time in that portfolio.
Now, the hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby referred to another aspect of ministerial responsibility, to moral responsibility. I believe that was the term he used. It is obvious that the direct administrative responsibility to parliament of any minister for the department cannot go back prior to the date of his appointment. I think that is fundamental as well. If it turns out that the evidence discloses that a civil servant in that department has been somehow misinformed or has been guilty of misconduct for which the minister has to direct an apology to parliament, surely the minister cannot be called on to resign. However, if it is during the period of time when that minister has been in office, then either the civil servant is fired or the minister resigns-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: - which is the administrative aspect-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: -perhaps instead of saying fired I should have said disciplined. I do not want to make instant law, but the point is that again I say I do not need a standing committee of the House to undertake a study and report back to me on this issue. If the House takes any comfort in that definition, I am trying to make it as clear as I possibly can.
If the minister says that his responsibility goes back to the date of his appointment, he may be correct in referring to some direct responsibility so far as defalcations in the department are concerned, but he is incorrect if he is referring to the informational responsibility to receive questions in the House in connection with that particular department. I hope that that is clear now.
Now I do want to clear up another matter because it was referred to at some length by both the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) and the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen). In attempting to involve the Chair in this problem I believe we must make a very clear division. It should be remembered that what was being discussed by the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) last Friday has a certain obvious limitation. On Friday the Solicitor General could speak only about what position he might take in answering questions. That does not in any way transfer to the Chair the responsibility to provide an opportunity to put questions, which is quite a different thing. It is for the Chair to decide whether the questions that are put are proper questions. What happens when they are put is another area with which I will deal in a moment.
February 6, 1978

I have already made known my views on the sub judice matters. As hon. members who have taken the trouble to read the report of the Special Committee on Rights and Immunities will know, I take a very narrow view of the whole question, and if it is to be used as a defence in answering a question, it seems to me that it is the minister who seeks to invoke that defence for not answering a question who should be able to justify it. Rare would be the occasion in my tenure of this Chair that 1 would ever intervene to prevent a question on that ground, because I do not see a situation in which the Chair would be in possession of specific information which would justify that decision. That seems to me to be something which rests entirely in the possession of those who are called upon to make an answer, and therefore I would confine it to that ground.
So we should be clear that we are not talking now about some theory which has to do with the adjudication upon the propriety of questions; we are talking about a theory which has to do with the right of a minister to answer or fail to answer a question, as he sees fit. I believe we must keep that very clear.
Hon. members know, I am sure, that the Chair has no authority to compel an answer for a number of reasons which are well known to all of those who have advanced arguments, not the least of which is the very practical consideration that, if there were such an obligation, 1 do not know how anybody could judge when the obligation had been fulfilled. I suppose the Chair would have to decide, when a minister rises and says, "I refuse to answer that question", that that probably constitutes an answer within those kinds of rules. So there can be no obligation to provide an answer.
That raises again the very interesting academic position, namely, if there is no obligation upon the minister to answer a question, what difference does it make upon what grounds he chooses to refuse? Since the minister can refuse to answer without grounds, why should the Chair try to make a decision as to whether or not any grounds put forward by the minister for refusing to answer a question were proper grounds? In any case, regardless of whether the grounds are proper or improper, the Chair does not have the authority to compel the minister to answer. These considerations must be taken into account.
In the final analysis, the most serious practical difficulty we have to face is the matter of the executive accountability to parliament. We are dealing with a matter which is fundamental to the whole question period, and the question period, as I have said publicly many times, is a source of great pride to the Canadian parliament. In my opinion the question period here is a session of daily accountability, which is an absolutely paramount feature of the Canadian parliamentary life.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Fundamental to the Canadian question period-which, I take it, is an example to be held up to all the legislative bodies around the world-is the matter of the responsibility of the executive to be accountable to parliament in this daily session. As hon. members will realize, that cannot be judged in the procedural sense; it is judged in the political
Privilege-Answers of Solicitor General sense, and in the final analysis that is the ultimate sanction of everybody who has the honour of representing his constituents in the chamber. Therefore, in the final analysis, the Chair is not in a position to compel an answer-it is public opinion which compels an answer. However, that does not diminish the importance of this exercise and the importance of the theory of ministerial responsibility, which makes the question period work on a daily basis in the Canadian parliament. Therefore, we are dealing with something which is fundamental to the most important aspect of our Canadian parliamentary system.
On the other hand, both motions that have been put forward call upon the Chair to interpret what the minister said was going to be his future intention in handling questions. In fact, as the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt), whose question has given rise to all of this, said, the minister's comments on Friday were a definite "no"; his comments today were perhaps "maybe" or even "yes". The hon. member for Oshawa-Whitby and the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) said we could have avoided all of this perhaps if it had been made clear by the Solicitor General at two o'clock that if he gave a certain impression which alarmed the House on Friday, it was not intentional and he proposed to proceed today to answer questions and to receive each one on its merits.
I only raise all of this because in both motions what is really being asked is that I rule in such a way as to let the House send this matter to the committee for the committee to decide what the Solicitor General is going to do and how he will handle questions. Surely that matter need not go to the committee. The way for the House to find out what the Solicitor General is going to do in response to questions is to proceed to the question period and ask him questions. On the other hand, I think it would be disrespectful of a very serious argument and of the very serious position put forward by the opposition which is fundamental, simply to push these motions aside.
I think I have exposed the difficulty and I hope I have made my thinking as clear as possible on decisions on which I really do not need any help from the standing committee. Therefore, I think the appropriate action for me to take would be to reserve my judgment on both these motions, not for one day but for several days, because I think I can be aided in my deliberations by determining, in the manner in which I described, exactly what the intentions of the minister are and what will be the reality. Therefore, I propose to set these motions aside for a few days and see what happens.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
80031-2 lH

February 6, 1978
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Bill Jarvis (Perth-Wilmot):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. I wonder if the minister can explain the obvious discrepancy between the evidence adduced before the McDonald commission through the witness, former commissioner Higgitt, which would indicate that one of the Solicitor General's predecessors, now Minister of Supply and Services, was aware of the APLQ break-in in 1972, and the statement of that minister which indicated that he was not aware of the incident until 1976. Will the Solicitor General explain that discrepancy?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, I call the attention of the hon. gentleman to a statement made in this House by my predecessor, the present Minister of Supply and Services, who gave a very explicit explanation in which he denied any knowledge. The hon. member for Argenteuil-Deux-Montagnes alluded to that statement in his own statement in this House, and indicated the circumstances as well. In making his statement, the present Minister of Supply and Services indicated that he was making it as though under oath. I accept the statement he made with reference to the evidence which has been given to the inquiry by former commissioner Higgitt.
I suggest we wait and see what other evidence may be adduced before that commission, before making any comment. I hope the hon. member will be patient enough to wait until all the evidence is in, so that proper conclusions can be made.


William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, the Solicitor General is asking for a considerable amount of patience. Did the previous solicitor general, the present Minister of Supply and Services, authorize any telephone surveillance of the APLQ and, if so, can the Solicitor General explain why his predecessor did not fully inform himself at that time of the complete scope of security operations which were being directed against the APLQ?


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Speaker, again I refer the hon. gentleman to the statement, which was made on a question of privilege, of the Minister of Supply and Services with reference to the other aspect of the question, I wish to reserve. Perhaps the hon. gentleman will choose to ask that question again at some future time.


William Herbert Jarvis: The Solicitor General is well aware, as are all hon. members, that we cannot ask former ministers questions, and we cannot be represented before the McDonald commission because counsel for the minister's predecessor argued against that-unfortunately, successfully. However, is it the policy of the present Solicitor General to continue the policy of his predecessor, whereby before the standing committee studying estimates officials of the department were not allowed to

answer questions put to them by members of the committee with regard to the dates upon which certain official- and ministers were informed of certain events? Is that a continuing policy of the present Solicitor General?


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, I will have to look at the record, consider what the hon. gentleman is advancing and perhaps provide him with additional comment at some future time.


MCDONALD INQUIRY-ACTION TAKEN RESULTING IN ARREST OF RED ARMY TERRORIST
Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, by way of a supplementary question I would like to test the Prime Minister with regard to the bona fides of asking and answering questions in the House. At a press conference on November 18, the Prime Minister said that the mail opening activity of the security service resulted in the arrest of a Red Army terrorist. In view of contradictory testimony to the royal commission last week, which indicated that a wiretap, not a mail opening, resulted in the arrest of this Red Army terrorist, can the Prime Minister now revise his statement to coincide with the testimony provided by Staff Sergeant James Pollock?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am informed that that testimony covers some 30 pages: I believe the Solicitor General indicated that in his answer on Friday. I have not read the 30 pages, and I was not present at the royal commission, but I am informed that the purport and intent of the testimony was that the mail opening was very fundamental and necessary.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Hon. members opposite have probably read the press reports, but 1 enjoin them, as the Solicitor General enjoined them on Friday, to read the 30 pages and reach their own conclusions. I have not read them. I have been informed that the testimony of the witness was to the effect that if the police had known at the time that they could get information of future value from other sources, they perhaps would not have opened mail. However, when you are conducting an investigation, you do not know what further evidence you might get in the future.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: There was no evidence as a result of opening mail.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am told that that is the conclusion of the witness but, unfortunately, that is not the impression which was created in the reporting of that testimony. I will gladly continue to attempt to elucidate on such questions and so will the Solicitor General, but if we are called upon, on a day to day basis, to comment on the credibility of witnesses, I think it will be obvious to the Chair that we will be engaging in an operation which will be completely unproductive.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, I am told that in the small portion of Staff Sergeant James Pollock's testimony with



February 6, 1978

regard to Red Army terrorist activity there is no question whatsoever about the interpretation.


An hon. Member:: You are told. Have you read it?


Allan Frederick Lawrence: The Prime Minister was obviously wrong in what he said at his press conference on November 18. Who misinformed the Prime Minister? Was the former solicitor general involved in briefing the Prime Minister on this matter?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I presume the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham is admitting that he has not read the 30 pages of testimony. 1 suggest he do so; then he can make a judgment as to whether that testimony corresponds with, or denies, what I said at a press conference in the month of November. If he still believes what he has said today, I would like him to make that quite clear tomorrow by using quotations from the witness, and not from the press.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Was the former solicitor general involved in briefing the Prime Minister on this matter, or not? "Yes" or "No"?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the former solicitor general and, indeed, the commissioner of the RCMP, gave me this as an example of the usefulness of mail opening.


ACTION TAKEN RESULTING IN ARREST OF RED ARMY TERRORIST-STATEMENT OF FORMER SOLICITOR GENERAL-MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, in this House, on November 15, the former solicitor general, when citing illegal acts, made reference to the opening of mail but he did not say it was related to the apprehension of this particular terrorist. He was very categorical and I would like to quote what he said:
Through (he mail opening devices which have been described in parliament, the RCMP obtained access to it. As a result of this interception they were able to identify someone who was a member of the Japanese Red Army. He was arrested at the border and deported to Japan.
In a direct voice clip on radio, I heard the constable in question making it clear that the letter opening had absolutely nothing to do in a direct way with the apprehension of this Japanese Red Army member. 1 would like the Prime Minister to assure the House that he will check with the present Solicitor General as to the basis for this categorical assertion made by the minister's predecessor.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I noted the words of the leader of the New Democratic Party to the effect that the witness said that the letter opening had absolutely nothing to do with the apprehension of the terrorist.


John Edward Broadbent: In a direct way.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. gentleman now says, "In a direct way". I am not sure: if it had absolutely nothing to do with the apprehension of the terrorist, obviously I was misled by the commissioner who reported on this.
Oral Questions


Charles Joseph Clark: Or the former solicitor general.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Or the former solicitor general who got the information from the commissioner.


Charles Joseph Clark: Blame the commissioner.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am not blaming anyone. 1 was asked by a member of the Leader of the Opposition's own party who had given me this information, and I told him it was the commissioner. I submit today that the commissioner took that position, and I repeat: my information is that it was confirmed by the testimony of the witness, and not inferred, that the interception of the letter was the first clear link established between the terrorist and the Toronto resident.
I submit that the Leader of the New Democratic Party had better not only hear an excerpt of the testimony, but I enjoin him to read the 30 pages and see if he can stand on his feet tomorrow and reassert his accusation, which I submit is false, to the effect that the letter opening had absolutely nothing to do with the apprehension. If he can make that statement tomorrow, then indeed we will have the question of a witness contradicting what the commissioner has said, and probably will say if he is brought before the royal commission of inquiry. Then what will the House do, Mr. Speaker? Will it ask the government to try and arbitrate between the testimony of the commissioner and that of the witness? Obviously, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Obviously, Mr. Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Your light is off.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


John Edward Broadbent: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Considering that the Prime Minister has admitted in the House that he has not read the 30 pages-


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Nor have you.


John Edward Broadbent: Considering that he has admitted that he has not read them, I find it a little surprising that he makes the categorical assertion that what he says now is the case. Considering that, at least, the excerpt I heard from the man giving the testimony clearly indicated that the apprehension of the terrorist was obtained by a legal wiretap-the obtaining of necessary information-and that the letter opening was not connected with it, I should like to ask the Prime Minister, and we can both read the testimony in the interim, if he will check, before the House sits tomorrow, to find out if there was a direct connection between the letter opening and the apprehension. Or was it merely a legal wiretap, within the framework of the law, that led to this apprehension?

February 6, 1978
Oral Questions
If so, will he admit that the government's intention to bring in legislation which will permit the legal opening of mail is totally without foundation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the New Democratic Party suggests that I made a categorical assertion. I did not. I indicated that I had been briefed on the testimony, that my briefing indicated quite clearly that the witness did not say that the mail opening was irrelevant and unimportant and that it did not lead to the apprehension of the terrorists. That is what I have been told by those who have analysed the briefing. They went on to say that the media reports are completely contrary to that.
Mr. Speaker, I stand on that: I stand on the information I have received. All I ask the opposition to do is to have the decency and the honesty to read the testimony themselves before they make this categorical assertion.


John Edward Broadbent: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. 1 say seriously, but with respect, that just as the Prime Minister is briefed by officials he assumes to be reliable, so are we on this side of the House. We both have some things to confirm before tomorrow.
Referring back to the question of ministerial responsibility that we were discussing earlier today, I should like to ask the Prime Minister whether, when he does the checking, he will do it with specific reference to the statement of the former solicitor general as reported at the bottom of page 884 of Hansard, where he said:
As a result of this interception they were able to identify someone who was a member of the Japanese Red Army. He was arrested at the border-
That is a categorical link between the interception and the arrest. If, when the Prime Minister checks the record, he finds out there is a clear contradiction between what the RCMP officer said and this kind of assertion, will he find out whether the minister deliberately misinformed him-in which case, would he tell the House-or will he ascertain if it was an official within the minister's department who misinformed the minister? If so, will he ensure that disciplinary action is taken with regard to that official?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have already informed the House of that in answer to the question from the hon. member for Northumberland-Durham. I said quite clearly in the House that I had received this information from the commissioner. The hon. member for Argenteuil-Deux Montagnes, the former solicitor general, presumably received it from the commissioner, too. It was stated to me by the commissioner in my office.
I think this whole series of questions, Mr. Speaker, proves the wisdom of the Solicitor General when he said we should not engage in a running commentary on the testimony before the royal commission. If the opposition is right in its interpretation of the testimony, and we will see after we read it-


An hon. Member:: You will resign.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -who are we supposed to discipline: the commissioner, or the witness? Obviously, if they are right

there is a contradiction between the two. Who are we to discipline? I ask the opposition to give me the answer to that question, Mr. Speaker. Or should we wait for the royal commission of inquiry?


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. Answering a question put by the hon. member for Temiscamingue on December 14 last, the minister said that he was considering the possibility of declaring the Outaouais region in Quebec a designated area. The conditions having grown worse since then, could the minister tell us what criteria the Outaouais region does not meet to qualify as a designated area?


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, when the question was put, I said that we had received representations and that meetings had been held to discuss the economic conditions in the Outaouais region. I then indicated that negotiations were under way with the Quebec government and that I hoped some decisions would be taken for the benefit of the area. Since then, as the hon. member knows, we have concluded an agreement with Quebec dealing with industrial infrastructures and within the next few months the Outaouais area may benefit from some assistance which could perhaps to some extent contribute to give it an economic impetus. As for designating the area, such request was also made to us. I have also received representations from colleagues on this side of the House. That is something I am not prepared to grant at the moment.


Armand Caouette: I would like to ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
Would the minister tell the House whether or not eastern Ontario municipalities and the National Capital Commission have made pressures within his department so the Outaouais region does not obtain this designation?


Marcel Lessard: No, Mr. Speaker, I did not receive such representations.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Solicitor General because of the ambiguity today and the fuzziness of his argument
February 6, 1978

earlier in the afternoon. My question is very simple, and it may clear the muddy waters.
Is the Solicitor General prepared to answer questions put to him by members of the opposition on any matters that may come before, have come before, and could come before the McDonald commission? I refer, for example, to the statement that it was necessary to open mail in connection with the Japanese terrorist, when in fact the evidence this afternoon seems to be that the real meat of the evidence came from an authorized wiretap. Is the Solicitor General prepared to answer such questions whether on the McDonald commission, the Laycraft commission or the Keable commission?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Surely, the proper way to test that matter is to put one such question, rather than asking again for an interpretation. I say respecfully that the whole import of what I attempted to do earlier this afternoon was to indicate that the way to find this out is to put the questions. I really do not want to invite a renewal of the rather long, though important, argument we had this afternoon. If hon. members have questions and want to find out whether the Solicitor General is going to answer, they should put them.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, 1 shall come to the last part of my question. In light of the argument between the Prime Minister and the leader of the New Democratic Party, will the Solicitor General take it upon himself to clear the air about the evidence in reference to the Japanese terrorist? Was it, in fact, as a result of a legal wiretap, or the result partly or wholly of opening mail, which was illegal at that time and which the minister is now going to try to make legal?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, surely that is evidence which is presently being dealt with by the commission. There has been evidence, as was indicated by the Prime Minister and myself on Friday, which covers about 30 pages of transcript. I do not know whether counsel for the commission will be calling other evidence on that particular point. I am awaiting that decision with some anticipation.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, I certainly bow to your ruling, but I have asked a clearcut question. We have had wiffling and waffling from this minister, even though he has only been in the portfolio for a short time. He may go down as "the minister of wiffling and waffling." I put a direct question to him: Will he ascertain from the evidence, of which he has a transcript, if the evidence determined whether the Japanese terrorist was apprehended as a result of opening mail illegally, or from a legalized, or legal, wiretap? It is a simple, concise and precise question: please answer in the same way.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, indeed, I am proceeding to read that particular transcript in order to draw my own conclusions. They will be my own conclusions.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Draw them.
Oral Questions


Jean-Jacques Blais: I will draw my own conclusions, because I am sure they will be germane to the debate on the bill which I will be introducing, hopefully this week, relating to mail opening and amendments to relevant legislation.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, the minister says he is going to bring in a bill. Is he prepared, as the right hon. gentleman from Prince Albert suggested, to wait before he produces a bill to legalize the opening of mail, that is, to wait until the commission has either brought in an interim or a final report in that regard? Or is he going to rush into this House of Commons, like a bull in a china shop, with the legislation?


Jean-Jacques Blais: I will be introducing the bill, hopefully, this week. As was pointed out last week, I believe by the Acting Solicitor General, the Minister of Justice, when a similar question was put, the bill contains a clause whereby the duration of that provision will be limited, I believe, to one year after the McDonald inquiry has made its report.


NATIONAL SECURITY
John Allen Fraser: My question is directed to the Solicitor General. In December, the Prime Minister said that a minister should not have the right to know how security personnel are carrying on their work. He went on to say that if there is illegal activity, we have the protection of the courts. 1 ask the Solicitor General if he discussed this theory with the Prime Minister before his appointment, and does he agree with that theory of ministerial responsibility?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, I would like to review the comments of the hon. gentleman.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I presume the Solicitor General wants to reconsider the Prime Minister's comments. Let me put the exact statement to the Solicitor General. The Prime Minister said that it is a matter of stating, as a principle, that the minister of the day should not have the right to know what the police are doing constantly in investigative practices, what they are looking at, what they are looking for, and the way they are doing it. The Prime Minister went on to say that if there is concern about illegal police activities:
We have the protection of the courts. If you want to break into somebody's house, you get a warrant.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I do not want to interrupt the hon. member, but that is rather a long preamble to a supplementary question.


John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I will try to shorten it. I should like to continue, as it is a matter of some importance. I will continue the quotation:

February 6, 1978
Oral Questions
A court decides if you have reasonable and probable cause to do it. If you break in without a warrant, a citizen lays a charge and the police are found guilty. So this is control on the criminal side-
That was a statement made by the Prime Minister. Can the Solicitor General tell this House how a court will ever find out about a secret and illegal break-in, keeping in mind the fact that a court cannot do anything until evidence is gathered and a charge laid? I think it is important that the House knows whether the new Solicitor General agrees with the Prime Minister.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, evidently it is a very important statement, and I would like to read it in full. I will comment on it at some future time.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Erik Nielsen: I should like to ask the Solicitor General whether his immediate predecessor in office, once removed, was ever informed of the surveillance activities against the National Indian Brotherhood?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, I will take the hon. member's question as notice.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, when the minister does that, will he also determine, for members of the House, whether the present Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, when he was holding the portfolio of solicitor general, was aware of the approval by the security services of the use of FBI agent Douglas Durham in infiltrating the National Indian Brotherhood. Was he aware of any agent provocateur activities carried out by Mr. Durham?


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, without accepting the premise of the hon. gentleman's question, I will take it as notice as well and provide him with a reply in due course.


MCDONALD INQUIRY-ALLEGED DISCREDITING BY GOVERNMENT FOR POLITICAL GAIN
Mr. Lincoln M. Alexander (Hamilton West):: i direct my question to the Prime Minister.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Big guns.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Not big guns.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Take your hand out of your pocket.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: I will keep my hand in my pocket as long as the Prime Minister leans over his desk and points. I am a little confused right now because the Prime Minister has indicated that the opposition is discrediting the royal commission when it asks questions on the matter of the RCMP and national security. On the other hand, the Prime Minister, through his

yet to be tried Solicitor General, has indicated in no uncertain terms that he is going to introduce a bill dealing with the opening of the mail. I want to know if the Prime Minister can rationalize that statement, and 1 charge the Prime Minister with deliberately discrediting the royal commission for political gain.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, 1 did not say that opposition questioning would discredit the royal commission.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: Yes; I copied it down.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I said the assertion made by the hon. gentleman's leader, that royal commissions were only emanations of the executive, and the inference that we could not trust them, tended to discredit the royal commission. That is what I said.


Charles Joseph Clark: You said it; do not apply your inference to me.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: In so far as questioning by the opposition of the government, of the Solicitor General, on what is going on before the royal commission, I am not saying that is discrediting the royal commission; I am saying it is proving the unwisdom of the opposition, as in the example just given. If we have two people who say opposite things, the commissioner and, according to the interpretation of the opposition, the witness of last week, what is to be the government's position?


Charles Joseph Clark: Find out.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Leader of the Opposition says we should find out.


Charles Joseph Clark: Right.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He is suggesting, therefore, the government should do its investigation of witnesses; that we should reach a conclusion and decide which of two witnesses should be disciplined. Obviously, Mr. Speaker, the opposition is suggesting that the government should do the job that the royal commission has been set up to do, and that is a contradictory position.


An hon. Member:: Rubbish.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: In light of the fact that the Prime Minister wants us to wait until the commission has done the job which it has been charged to do, would the Prime Minister now like to reconsider the introduction of the bill which would legalize the opening of the mail? You cannot have it both ways. In view of the concern which the Prime Minister has, and because of the importance of the findings of the commission and in order that this House will know which direction to take, will the Prime Minister now state that he has changed his mind? Also, in order to be consistent, will the Prime Minister wait until we are all apprised of the findings of the commission? Does he not think that is the proper approach to take to this very serious matter?
February 6, 1978


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: M. Speaker, if that were the proper approach, it would mean that during a period of months, and perhaps more, the RCMP would be put in the dilemma of either opening mail and doing something illegal, or of not opening mail and perhaps failing in its duty to protect the security of the country. It is a very difficult dilemma, and that is the reason the government has taken the position that the bill which we are introducing will only be for an interim period; it will only last until after we have read the report.
It may be the royal commission will instruct us that the police do not need this authority, that Canada, of all democracies, is a country where the police should not have a right to look at the mail in order to protect the security of the country. If this is the position of the opposition, and if they think that will be the position of the royal commission, surely their role is to argue that when the bill comes before the House. We will hear their arguments at that time. Indeed, if they are convincing to themselves, to the government and the country, the bill will not pass. However, if they do not make that demonstration, obviously the bill should pass.


Lincoln MacCauley Alexander: As I stated in my preamble, I deliberately charge the Prime Minister with discrediting the royal commission. Will he answer that?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if this is a charge, I must say I do not feel broken and crumbled. I wish the hon. member would substantiate that charge in some way. I return to the substance of the question of the hon. member and suggest to parliament and the country, as we will when we examine this bill, that if a man's house, which is his castle and which is very sacred, can be broken into by the police under certain conditions with a warrant, and so on, what is so offensive about a man's mail being looked at under certain conditions? Certainly, there is nothing more sacred than my house, or the house of the hon. member for Hamilton West. He knows that in certain circumstances the police can go into his house, his office or through his belongings and search them. He is not shocked about that, but he would be if they went into his house and opened a letter. That does not seem very consequential.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion.
A few weeks ago the minister signed an agreement with the province of Quebec on industrial infrastructures and I realized that nothing new has been provided for the Gaspe area and eastern Quebec, except stale programs from former governments since 1968. Could the minister explain to the House why the government of Quebec insisted on industrial parks and industrial development in the Montreal, Quebec city and
Oral Questions
Trois-Rivieres areas and why it has not scheduled any new initiatives for the Gaspe area and eastern Quebec?


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, in our negotiations and in our review of the proposals which have been made to us and also in our counterproposals, the infrastructures needed to support the industrial development, that is to say, the infrastructures for industrial development, were recognized as those which had to be privileged.
Finally, this was also part of the general plan of the previous administration, namely that we were to help establish infras-tractures to facilitate the development of industries within these municipalities. As the hon. member doubtless knows, financial assistance has been earmarked for industrial developments within his Gaspe area and also for fishing industrial developments.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. It is very similar to the one I asked on Friday and which he refused to answer. He has had the weekend to inform himself of this matter. Will the Solicitor General advise the House whether the allegation is true that it was the Privy Council Office which submitted information to the security service of the RCMP that led to the break-in and theft of PQ records? Can the Solicitor General confirm, whether, in fact, it was the Privy Council office which inspired that activity?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I cannot inform the hon. gentleman at this time. I will take the question as notice.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: In taking the question as notice, will the Solicitor General also provide to the House the evidence which the Privy Council officers relied upon in advising the RCMP security service? Was it rumour, or was it hard evidence which led them to instruct the security service to attack a legally constituted political party in Canada?


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, I will take that question as notice.


MCDONALD INQUIRY-AVAILABILITY OF TRANSCRIPT OF EVIDENCE
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to all the arguments about the opening of mail. A letter directed to me was opened the other day. I honour the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for having done so. They said there was nothing of an explosive nature in the letter. As long as we have a police force, for which I have
80031 -22

February 6, 1978
Oral Questions
tremendous admiration, that will open mail in order to protect the recipients, I am all for it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: My question arises out of the controversy as to the contents of the 30 pages of evidence which the Prime Minister suggested we should read. That is very costly matter today. In my day, 30 pages of transcript could have been produced for possibly $15. I am now told they would cost hundreds of dollars. My simple suggestion is that those 30 pages be tabled in the House, so that each of us can read the transcript and determine for ourselves the nature of the evidence given.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am informed that this whole matter was discussed in an in camera session of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. In order to save the expense about which the right hon. member is so worried, perhaps we should ask the members of that committee to refer back to the minutes of that in camera session.
In so far as the position of the right hon. member regarding the opening of mail is concerned, 1 think he is taking a very sensible and logical position. He was prime minister of this country for some six years. He said he knew everything which went on through actions of the RCMP. Therefore, he was obviously aware that mail was being opened by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the period he was prime minister. He sees nothing wrong with it. I just ask his own party to have a little huddle with the right hon. member before they take the position of the leader of the NDP.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The clock now shows five o'clock. As hon. members will realize, the question period began at twenty minutes past the hour. The most sensible arrangement would seem to me to continue questions until five minutes past five, and then go on to routine proceedings. If routine proceedings do not prove to be too lengthy, we could delay the commencement of private members' hour accordingly and extend it into the supper hour. Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Steve Eugene Paproski: It is so agreed, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: It is so ordered.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the Prime Minister's answer referring to the 30 pages of evidence, if I were given to be suspicious, I would wonder what he was covering up. I simply want to see those 30 pages. The government has them. They were not discussed in the committee at any time. Why not just produce them, because it would clarify the situation? If the Prime Minister is borne out in his interpretation of what those 30 pages contain, everything will

be cleared away. Just produce the 30 pages and we will know who is hiding what, and why.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the testimony in front of the royal commission was obviously public; it was reported upon by the media. It was on the basis of that report that I suggested the opposition was asking the wrong questions. What I said was in camera-


An hon. Member:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I say to the interrupter from the Tory party that it had to do with the proceedings in front of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. We will ask the McDonald commission if this testimony can be transcribed. If so, expense apart, I am sure the government will have no hesitation in letting anyone in the country see copies of it. However, it is, once again, indicating that we will be engaging ourselves in judging the credibility of witnesses in front of a royal commission.


MCDONALD INQUIRY-POSITION OF GOVERNMENT ON ANSWERING QUESTIONS BEFORE REPORT HANDED DOWN
Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. It goes back to some of the earlier questions which have been answered in the House. 1 want to be clear as to the policy of the government. Is it the policy of the Prime Minister, in the event of an inconsistency relating to the activities of ministers, or any other kind of inconsistency-an inconsistency as between testimony before the commission and statements in this House, or evidence otherwise becoming available-that the true facts should be hidden from the House of Commons until the royal commission reports? Is that the position the Prime Minister is taking?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker. If there is an inconsistency in the testimony, of course it will not be hidden. It will be in the testimony. The hon. gentleman has only to look at it and he will be able to make up his own mind as to whether it is inconsistent or not. What I am saying is that the ultimate decision as to whether a witness is credible or not should be left to the royal commission.
The former solicitor general, the Minister of Supply and Services, in a statement on privilege made to the House, made a position quite clear. I took the hon. gentleman at his word. If something comes out through other witnesses which tends to contradict that statement, the Leader of the Opposition will make up his mind which of the two witnesses is credible; we will make up our minds as to which is credible. All I am saying is that in the last resort we will not trust the judgment of the opposition, and they will not trust ours. We should trust the royal commission of inquiry, and that is the position taken by the Solicitor General.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: This is an important question for parliament. The Prime Minister is saying that when evidence becomes
February 6, 1978

available before a royal commission, or elsewhere, suggesting that a minister of the Crown was giving inaccurate or false information, for whatever reason, to the House of Commons, the House of Commons must be barred during the existence of the royal commission from finding out the true facts of the case. My question to the Prime Minister is this: Is it the policy of the government that in the event of a contradiction between what a minister of the Crown tells the House of Commons, and evidence before a royal commission, the government, as a matter of policy, will not itself seek out the true facts and make those true facts known to the House of Commons immediately, so that hon. members may know whether or not they can trust the government?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I have in no way said the opposition would be barred from forming its judgment as to which of the witnesses would be credible. I have made it clear that, as far as I am concerned, I stand by the word of the minister. If the opposition, or a royal commission, judge that another witness is more credible and that, indeed, he contradicts the minister, it will become known. I am not suggesting the opposition should not make up its own mind. Indeed, it obviously has made up its own mind: The government is always wrong and the opposition is always right.
But I repeat, Mr. Speaker: What does the government, or the opposition, do when the commissioner says one thing and a police officer says the contrary? Is the opposition suggesting we should chastise or discipline the commissioner or the police officer? Or is the Leader of the Opposition suggesting, as we do, that the government should wait for the commission to tell us who is credible and who is not?


Charles Joseph Clark: The opposition is saying that when there are facts which are relevant to the role of ministers in the House of Commons, when there are facts which parliament and the people should know, those facts should be made available to the House of Commons. We are not talking, now, about differences in judgment. We are talking about differences in fact. I refer to differences in fact between evidence adduced before a royal commission of inquiry and statements made in the House of Commons.
The government knows these facts or, because it is an employer of public servants, it has the means to find these facts. In face of the kind of contradiction in evidence to which 1 have referred, will it be the policy of the government to go after those facts right away and publish them for the benefit of the House of Commons, or will it be the policy of the government to hide them until the royal commission has reported?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the government has gone after these facts. It has not hidden them. It has made its own inquiry. It has made its own inquiry into this particular set of facts, and the former solicitor general, the Minister of Supply and Services, in a statement to this House on this particular set of facts said he had not been informed of the APLQ break-in. He also said, if my memory is correct, that the commissioner of the RCMP at that time, Mr. Higgitt, said he
Privilege-Mr. Nielsen
could not remember having told him of this break-in. These are the facts. We looked into them, and on the basis of those facts the former solicitor general raised the matter in this House as a question of privilege and made his position clear.
The former solicitor general will obviously be called upon to testify before the McDonald royal commission. He will be asked these questions. 1 am reasonably certain he will say to the royal commission what he has said to the House of Commons, that he had not been informed of the break-in of the APLQ by the RCMP. We shall, therefore, be placed in the position of having the former solicitor general say he was not informed, and the former commissioner saying either that he did not remember or that he thought he might have told him. What is the government to do? I suggest our duty, and the duty of the Leader of the Opposition, is to allow these facts to be adjudicated upon by the McDonald royal commission.


Charles Joseph Clark: One final question, for the sake of clarification. Is the Prime Minister now telling us that he, himself, after investigating all these matters, accepts and supports the statements of the former solicitor general?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


PRIVILEGE
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I am sorry the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has left the chamber, because it involves him. A moment ago the right hon. gentleman made a statement which disclosed information concerning certain discussions which took place during an in camera session of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, I sat in on those discussions. The Prime Minister informed the House a few moments ago that 30 pages of testimony, to which reference has been made, were somehow made known to members attending that incamera session.
While members who attend in camera sessions of standing committees do not take any oath of secrecy, they are upon their honour not to discuss any of the proceedings with anyone. The Prime Minister has disclosed information with respect to proceedings which he thinks took place in an in-camera session. As one who sat in on those sessions I feel compelled, without disclosing what did take place, to refute the Prime Minister's assertion that those 30 pages of testimony were discussed or produced in any way. I believe my colleagues who sat in with me on those sessions will bear me out in this.


Mr. Speaker:: I will examine what was said to determine whether any reference to the meetings of that committee shows evidence of there having been a breach of privilege.
80031-22'A

February 6, 1978
Order Paper Questions



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 389, 431, 485, 487, 489, 790, 804, 985, 991, 1,009, 1,022 and 1,134.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. McKenzie: 1.	What is the total number of persons under contract to the Blue Water Bridge Authority (Canadian Section) and how many are retired public servants?
2.	What was the total amount in (a) 1975 (b) 1976 paid to those under contract and how much of this was to retired public servants?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: The Blue Bridge Authority advises as follows: 1. Nil.
2. (a) 1975, $24,449.32; (b) 1976, $2,153.59. None of these amounts was paid to retired public servants.


Mr. Brisco: For each year 1970 to 1977 to date, what was the total dollar value of the total number of applications for assistance under the Community Airport Facilities Fund?


Otto Emil Lang: The total value of all applications received for financial assistance appears below:
Year	Number of Applications	Total Dollar Value70	25	2.227,00071	20	4,979,80072	47	9,644,90073	41	9,255,90074	68	19,417,80075	59	15,186,20076	41	11,489,80077	23 (To November 25)	13,621,600Total	324	85,823,000


Mr. Bawden: 1. What were the actual aircraft movements at (a) Calgary (b) Edmonton (c) Vancouver (d) Winnipeg (e) Regina (f) Montreal (g) Toronto (h) Halifax (i) Moncton International Airports for the year (i) 1974 (ii) 1975 (iii) 1976?

2.	For the same airports, what are the projected aircraft movements for the year (a) 1977 (b) 1978 (c) 1979 (d) 1980?
3.	(a) How many terminal services personnel was the Department of Transport first planning for the new Calgary International Airport (b) has the number of personnel been reduced and, if so (i) on what basis was such a decision made (ii) how does it affect the safety factor for ramp control?


Otto Emil Lang: 1. Table 1, following, contains statistics for the years 1974, 1975 and 1976 on air carrier aircraft movements, total itinerant aircraft movements, local movements and total airport aircraft movements for the requested airports.
2.	Table II, following, contains forecasts for the years 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980 for air carrier aircraft movements, total itinerant aircraft movements, local movements and total airport aircraft movements for the requested airports.
3.	A total of 16 terminal services personnel was first planned for the new Calgary International Airport to carry out the functions of ramp control, gate assignment, baggage control, information services and facility monitoring. Since the ramp control function is now being provided as an advisory service by Air Traffic Services (ATS) staff, this allowed terminal services personnel to be reduced to a total of 13. The safety factor for ramp control is unaffected by this change, as this service by ATS is consistent with apron operations at all other airports in Canada, with the exception of Mirabel which uses terminal services personnel to control Passenger Transfer Vehicle (PTV) operations.
Table I
Historical Aircraft Movements
Itinerant*
Airport	Year	Air Carrier	Total	Local*	Airport TotalCalgary	1974	50,081	110,266	61,676	171,9421975	54,567	117,750	58,889	176,6391976	54,204	124,159	75,615	199,774Edmonton International	1974	26,065	49,890	47,211	97,1011975	32,302	58,862	47,969	106,8311976	33,468	59,411	40,093	99,504Vancouver	1974	61,953	180,759	15,762	196,5211975	70,149	198,416	4,837	203,2531976	74,205	211,102	5,520	216,622Winnipeg	1974	38,516	112,942	38,873	151,8151975	41,789	114,459	34,044	148,5031976	40,972	115,569	35,179	150,748Regina	1974	10,623	35,163	75,021	110,1841975	11,547	54,417	83,123	137,5401976	11,725	55,976	82,638	138,614Montreal**	1974	121,431	186,097	6,861	192,9581975	121,137	191,795	4,797	196,5921976	125,479	206,783	2,496	209,279
* Local movements operate in the local traffic pattern or within sight of the control tower (within a 30-mile radius). Aircraft movements other than local aircraft movements are itinerant movements.
** Montreal Area i.e. Dorval and Mirabel.
February 6, 1978

Airport	Year	Air Carrier	Total	Local*	Airport TotalToronto	1974	151,678	226,921	14,814	241,7351975	150,958	228,688	9,509	238,1971976	152,742	235,998	8,851	244,849Halifax	1974	22,980	39,204	42,695	81,8991975	23,703	41,129	37,421	78,5501976	24,039	44,772	28,394	73,166Moncton	1974	10,092	25,545	80,722	106,2671975	8,924	33,169	82,666	115,8351976	8,581	37,815	67,362	105,177
Table II
Forecast* of Aircraft Movements
Itinerant
		Air			Airport
Airport	Year	Carrier	Total	Local	TotalCalgary	1977	62,700	130,800	73,800	204,6001978	66,700	140,300	77,000	217,3001979	70,200	150,700	80,400	231,1001980	75,400	161,200	83,900	245,100Edmonton International	1977	35,700	64,400	34,300	98,7001978	36,900	70,100	48,400	118,5001979	38,500	76,300	52,000	128,3001980	39,900	83,100	56,000	139,100Vancouver	1977	74,200	218,700	5,000	223,7001978	77,400	229,300	5,000	234,3001979	80,700	239,900	5,000	244,9001980	84,000	250,800	5,000	255,800Winnipeg	1977	43,800	115,000	40,300	155,3001978	43,900	113,800	38,600	152,4001979	45,000	113,700	36,900	150,6001980	46,100	112,800	36,200	149,000Regina	1977	12,100	58,100	89,000	147,1001978	12,200	59,700	92,100	151,8001979	12,300	61,500	95,400	156,9001980	12,500	63,500	98,700	162,200Montreal	1977	125,000	212,000	10,000**	222,0001978	130,000	221,000	10,000	231,0001979	135,000	229,000	10,000	239,0001980	140,000	238,000	10,000	248,000Toronto	1977	154,600	238,400	8,900	247,3001978	156,400	240,800	9,000	249,8001979	158,200	243,300	9,000	252,3001980	159,100	249,700	9,000	258,700Halifax	1977	23,300	52,300	40,000	92,3001978	24,700	54,900	40,000	94,9001979	25,700	57,700	40,000	97.7001980	26,400	60,200	40,000	100,200Moncton	1977	9,000	39,400	65,000	104,4001978	9,300	41,600	65,000	106,6001979	9,600	42,800	65,000	107,8001980	9,900	44,000	65,000	109,000
* These forecasts are based on longer range forecasts to 1986 and are not intended to reflect short term year to year fluctuations.
** A substantial increase in local movements was reported at Mirabel in the first nine months of 1977. Local movements at Dorval are approximately the same as last year.
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Forrestall: 1.	Did CP Ships agree with the National Harbours Board to transfer its port operations from Quebec City to Montreal and, if so, will the two gantry cranes be moved from Quebec City to Montreal and, if not, for what reason?
2.	What area of the Port of Montreal will accommodate CP Ships' Montreal port operation?


Otto Emil Lang: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: 1. No agreement has been made between CP Ships and the National Harbours Board to transfer CP Ships' operations from Quebec city to Montreal.
2. In the event that CP Ships transferred its operations to Montreal, the vessels could be accommodated at the proposed Racine Wharf Container Terminal in the area between sections 58 and 62.


Mr. Forrestall: 1.	Did the government consider the possibility of building a container handling facility on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River at the Port of Montreal near the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine bridge and tunnel and, if so, what is the government's best estimate of the cost of a one berth facility with two gantry cranes including all dredging costs?
2.	Are other locations in the Port of Montreal being considered as sites for container facilities and, if so, which ones?
3.	Will the government consider that prior to any construction of additional container facilities at Montreal, that the same degree of private and provincial government financial involvement will be required as was the case at the second Halifax container facility?


Otto Emil Lang: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: 1. No.
2.	Yes, the Racine Wharf Container Terminal between sections 58 and 62.
3.	The project has been developed on the basis of financing from accumulated surplus funds of the port of Montreal and loans from the Government of Canada.


Mr. Huntington: 1.	Who, in the National Harbours Board, was responsible for conducting or approving the initial marine survey which indicated that the proposed patrol vessel, the Supply Venture, was seaworthy?
2.	Who are, or were, the principals of Halifax Fishing Ventures Ltd.?
3.	What was the total cost of shipping the Supply Venture from Halifax to Vancouver aboard the Norwegian freighter MS Belstar?


Otto Emil Lang: The National Harbours Board advises as follows: 1. A reputable firm of marine classification surveyors performed a condition and evaluation survey on the vessel MV Supply Venture. In addition, a certificate of seaworthiness was issued by the MOT Marine Safety Surveyor for the voyage from La Havre to Halifax.

February 6, 1978
Order Paper Questions
2.	Halifax Fishing Ventures Ltd. is unknown but the principals of Maritime Fishing Ventures Limited are as follows: Mr. A. C. Huxtable, President; Mr. Paul P. Russell, Vice-President; B. A. Huxtable, Secretary-Treasurer; Mr. Gordon Elliott, Director.
3.	$16,503.61.


Mr. Beaudoin: Were any tenders received in response to the Department of Transport's 1976 call for tenders regarding the renewal of car rental licences at the Quebec City Airport and, if so, how many?


Otto Emil Lang: Yes, public tenders were called by the Department in 1976 for the awarding of agreements to operate car rental concessions at Quebec city airport. Five companies submitted financial offers.


Mr. Howie: Has the Department of Transport (a) agreed (b) been asked to financially support the cost of construction of a highway from Fredericton to Saint John, New Brunswick?


Otto Emil Lang: (a) The
Department of Transport has offered to pay 50 per cent of the cost of a programme to improve primary highways in the Atlantic region. Negotiations on the details of the program are continuing, (b) Yes.


Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1976, what amount has been spent for the improvement of each of the seaports under the jurisdiction of the National Harbours Board?


Otto Emil Lang: The National Harbours Board advises as follows:
12 months ended 11 months ended
Port	December, 1976	November 30, 1977	TotalSt. John's	$ 437,039	$ 392,267	$ 829,306Halifax	277,402	137,321	414,723Saint John	2,867,699	3,200,476	6,068,175Belledune	-	Sept-Iles	295,106	770,885	1,065,991Chicoutimi	1,806,782	902,353	2,709,135Bai des Ha! Ha!	-	Quebec	1,357,116	517,716	1,874,832Trois-Rivieres	187,214	223,630	410,844Montreal	2,094,601	1,139,251	3,233,852Jacques Cartier Bridge	-	_	Champlain Bridge	243,508	-	243,508Prescott	108,203	1,763,325	1,871,528Port Colborne	218,134	508,185	726,319Churchill	714,745	392,636	1,107,381Vancouver	5,877,016	6,536,642	12,413,658Prince Rupert	2,527,138	2,890,782	5,417,920Total	$19,011,703	$19,375,469	$38,387,172


Mr. Howie: What was the gross revenue from the current $8 air travel tax used to defray the cost of security at airports in each of the fiscal years ending March 31 (a) 1975 (b) 1976 (c) 1977?


Otto Emil Lang: The air transportation tax was implemented on December 1, 1974. At that time domestic and transborder (Canada-U.S.) trips were subject to an ad valorem tax of 5 per cent, maximum $5, while a specific tax of $5 applied to other international trips. On August 1, 1975, the ad valorem tax was increased to 8 per cent, maximum $8, and the specific tax raised to $8. The revenue from the tax helps pay for the cost of airport facilities and services in general and is not allocated to specific services such as the provision of airport security. The annual revenue from December 1, 1974 to March 31, 1977 was as follows:
Fiscal Year Ending	Revenue ($000)
March 31, 1975	$ 7,109
March 31, 1976	53,731
March 31, 1977	71,107


Mr. Jones: With the establishment and operation of VIA Rail Inc., what consideration is being given to the re-establishment of a modern up to date car shop in Moncton, New Brunswick to service, renovate, repair and maintain and possibly construct new modern passenger cars for CN, CP and for VIA Rail or the Department of Transport?


Otto Emil Lang: VIA Rail Canada Inc. will be reviewing the need for maintenance facilities and will be considering alternate sites including Moncton.


Mr. Rodriguez: For each fiscal year since 1970, what amount was spent in the Constituency of Nickel Belt by the Department of Veterans Affairs and those agencies that report to it?


Daniel Joseph MacDonald: Departmental accounting systems are not designed to provide this information by constituency.

February 6, 1978



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie)-Research-Inquiry as to programs to stimulate development of manufacturing sector; the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Marshall)-Manpower-Canada Works Program- Date of announcement of third phase-Use of slippage funds; the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Brisco)-External Affairs-CIDA grants to foreign countries-Request for government reconsideration.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS
Mr. Speaker:: It being 5.12 p.m. o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motions and public bills.
Is there some understanding about the particular notice of motion which will be proceeded with, in view of the lateness of the hour?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the understanding is that we will proceed with motion No. 2 if there is unanimous consent.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Steve Eugene Paproski: Agreed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Agreed. It is at the
top of the list in any event, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: I understand that at 13 minutes past six o'clock the House will adjourn for the supper hour and will resume at the usual time of eight o'clock this evening. Is that agreed and so ordered?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Merchant Marine


MERCHANT MARINE
Mr. Raynald Guay (Levis) moved:: Thai, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of reviving the Canadian Merchant Marine, and applying the recommendations of the Darling report.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I think it is time to start studying serious matters because, as private member of this House, even though I sit in the first row, I am happy to see that television shows the Canadian people how much time is wasted in the House in discussing matters which are already being looked into by commissions or other groups.
In fact, lest I be called to order I shall only skim on the subject, namely the notice of motion I gave the House in October. As you read yourself just a moment ago, Mr. Speaker, this is in fact the tenth time I have taken part in a debate on the merchant marine. In a little while, I shall give the House several quotations to prove that though all hon. members may not have wasted their time, I myself, as member for Levis, feel that I have wasted considerable time because this is at least the tenth debate we hold on the subject, and the various departments have made costly studies to look into the wisdom of having a Canadian merchant marine.
I have been sitting in this House for 15 years. The first year I gave a notice of motion and also supported the notice of motion of the hon. member, if I remember correctly, of Saint-Jean-Albert. I seriously wonder, today, and I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lapointe) who is responsible for those studies or reports, if one must conscientiously wonder whether we have achieved anything. The question 1 ask myself, and ask on behalf of Canadian shipbuilders, on behalf of the shipyard workers, and not only those of Davie Shipbuilding back home, is whether we will once and for all come to a decision. That is what I ask in motion No. 2, that the government say clearly once and for all where it stands with regard to creating a Canadian merchant marine. Recently I received from Davie Shipbuilding a letter addressed to me and which started like this:
The Canadian merchant marine has been making the headlines for so long that we cannot help smiling whenever the subject comes up. And yet Canada is the country in the world which ought to have a merchant marine. Bounded as we are by three oceans extending over thousands of miles and with our tremendous international trade done mostly by sea, there is no valid argument against a merchant marine. Everything has been said about the matter and it would be useless to repeat it. Expansion of the far north will finally provide valid grounds for launching merchant marine vessels built and operated by Canadians for Canada. It would be unforgivable to miss such an opportunity.
And it is signed by Mr. Louis Rochette, President of the Davie Shipbuilding in Lauzon.
I think we have really reached a turning point. The other day in Quebec city, on behalf of the electors of the Levis constituency, I introduced a resolution to that effect which will be considered at the national convention of the Liberal party to be held in Ottawa on February 24, 25 and 26. At a meeting with the delegates of the Quebec city area, I was quite

February 6, 1978
Merchant Marine
moderate when I urged the government to take it in consideration. However that resolution which will be presented to the national convention was amended as follows: That the government take a clear and specific stand on the recommendations of the Darling report.
It would not be a bad idea to repeat the recommendations found in the Darling report, but I will simply mention some. First, the Darling report states that the government has to determine very specific objectives with regard to the problems we have to face in relation to Canadian navigation and international trade.
A second recommendation, or prerequisite to the establishment of a merchant marine, is the unification and co-ordination of responsibilities within the government. There is nobody in the government who has the power to make a decision about the establishment or non-establishment of a Canadian merchant marine. I know that the file is in the hands of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lapointe), but studies and numerous reports have been prepared by the Departments of Industry, Trade and Commerce, Public Works and others on the costs and possibilities related to the establishment of that Canadian merchant marine. Therefore, what we are asking for, and it is the main recom-mandation of the Darling report, is to bring together within the government and to put under one minister the whole matter of the final examination of those heaps of reports and studies sponsored by the government perhaps in an attempt to prove-and I am being nasty-that a merchant marine was not profitable or applicable to Canada. But what do you want? Every study we have seen was in support of the establishment of a Canadian merchant marine. I wonder why the government is still waiting to take this position, because, as I said before, I think that legislation on a Canadian merchant marine, for we already have a maritime code, can only bring about new studies and piles of reports that will be shelved as was the Darling report published nearly two years ago, and I wonder how far along is the study by the responsible officials who recommended the drafting of that report. Several agencies are involved, and we keep wondering because each one wants to establish its own priorities. In the end, Mr. Speaker, we no longer have any priorities at all when it comes to a Canadian merchant marine. I for one, as a Canadian, am proud of my country which, as I said a moment ago when quoting the letter from Mr. Louis Rochette, borders on three oceans and boasts a very flourishing international export and import market. I am wondering what the Canadian government is waiting for to consider the question of navigation-I am not saying shipbuilding, Mr. Speaker, I'll bring up that matter in future debates-the issue of shipyards.
Shipping must be considered as being an economic sector like any other, but perhaps more important than some of them. Mr. Speaker, this is what I am asking from the government today, and I hope that I shall not have to come back to it. The last time I spoke on shipping, I told myself: I hope this is the last speech I have to make on this subject. So I hope that today
[Mr. Guay (L6vis).J
I am introducing some new elements in the debate, some arguments that may have weakened the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, and which may lead to a decision, once and for all. About two years ago, a newspaper of the south shore, of my own area, ran an article entitled "Shipping in Canada" let's settle the matter.
That is all I am asking, Mr. Speaker, that is all I am asking of the Canadian government. I am therefore convinced that it is important to establish a Canadian merchant marine. Several hon. members who will take part in this debate are also convinced of that. All the government has to do is to prove to me that it is impossible to establish such a fleet and we will put an end to this debate that I consider as a lot of repetitions that are of no use to the House. I represent an area where the main employer in metropolitan Quebec city is the Davie Shipbuilding Ltd, of Lauzon, a company which gives us both direct and indirect jobs. It is therefore important to Quebec city area residents that marine construction make a step forward, not backward.
Mr. Speaker, I have here a letter which was sent to me by labour unions and these people tell me they are worried because they do not know if the shipyard workers will be able to hang on to their jobs. They are also anxious to know if tomorrow they will still have a job to earn a living for themselves and their families, if they will be able to find a job in their own area; otherwise, they could be forced to move.
Mr. Speaker, I also received from the Canadian Labour Congress a letter commenting the recommendations contained in the Darling report signed by President Donald Macdonald. A long time ago a questionnaire was sent to hon. members concerning the Darling report. I never communicated further with Mr. Macdonald to know if some members had answered that questionnaire which read as follows:
1.	Do you support the main recommendations of the Darling report contained in the attached summary? Yes or no.
2.	If you support the Darling report or if you consider favourably its basic recommendations, will you press for its fast implementation? Yes or no.
3.	If the government persists in ignoring the Darling report, would you support a private member's bill to implement its main recommendations? Yes or no.
4.	Comments.
You are invited to make your comments.
Mr. Speaker, I think that I am trying to answer that questionnaire now. I wish all hon. members would take that same responsibility and tell us what they intend to do, particularly those who must make that decision. I wonder who should make that decision and I shall ask the parliamentary secretary, when he takes the floor, if that decision should not be made by his department unless he tells us who should make it. I am tired of repeating the same thing and of pressing continuously this government to put an end to those very costly studies. It should stop this and tell us yes or no. I do not think it is all that complicated.
Mr. Speaker, there were times when we were first in global shipbuilding. Since 1867 our prestige has plummeted. It may not have completely vanished, but we now rank very low. I
February 6, 1978


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


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, with the exception of how we would go about it, there is no doubt on this side of the House but that a more concerted effort must be made by the government in the very near future to resolve the question of how Canada can protect its imports and exports.
The matter in front of us this afternoon has been very well examined by this chamber and discussed at some length. 1 would not care to mention the number of times in recent years that 1 have found myself on my feet in support of the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay) on this matter and, 1 might add as well, the number of times 1 have heard him supporting the position 1 have taken and the position that has been taken by other members in this chamber in support of the concept he puts forth. Indeed, he is quite correct in saying that this idea enjoys the support of everyone in the House except for the damned government. Nobody on the Treasury benches since the distinguished Senator Jean Marchand, a former minister of transport, has paid any attention to it. The reason probably is quite simple. This government is so preoccupied with the esoterics of life in Canada in the last ten years that it has paid no attention whatsoever, or precious little, to some of the fundamental things that affect our economy and our capacity to help ourselves.
The studies 1 have conducted indicate-and, to the best of my knowledge, they have withstood any serious contradiction-that we are kicking into the pockets of offshore entrepreneurs some $3 billion annually to haul goods out of the country and to bring them into the country. I have my detractors with respect to the validity of that, and mostly they are-


An hon. Member:: -on your side-

February 6, 1978
Merchant Marine


J. Michael Forrestall: -at the back of me. On the other hand, those gentleman have their own particular views and they have not in any way been in opposition to the principle of Canada getting on with establishing, now in the 1970s and as we approach the latter years of this century, the capacity to protect our own manufacturers, the producers of our raw materials and of our agricultural products which we want to move in processed or semi-processed form. Nobody disputes that it has to be done.
Any nation which leaves unguarded its means of ensuring its export trade-and everybody of course will recognize the degree to which the Canadian economy is dependent upon export markets-will recognize and admit the validity of the proposition that we must protect ourselves, and that we must have the means under our control to protect that vital aspect of our Canadian economy.
There is no question about my position on this issue. I have supported the development of the Canadian merchant marine for 25 or 30 years, so I am prejudiced. As a matter of fact, it is interesting how one's thinking about this changes over the years. 1 recognize the difficulties posed by some of our marketing people and our agricultural people in rural areas near water, particularly at the extremities of our country. Of course, they have to move their goods at the lowest possible cost. There is no question about that. Aside from the difference between me and one or two of my colleagues to which 1 have referred, there is no difference at all. I agree with that, and 1 think the hon. member for Levis does also.
What I am supporting in terms of the concept put forward is that this government should find an interested institutional vehicle which can take a look at the information which is available on this question. Where there are deficiencies in that information there should be studies to show the government the way to achieve this without impairing the capacity of our traders, be they involved in intercoastal or international waterborne traffic. Members of the opposition should not be left in the position where they have to justify their positions by reaching out into ad hocery in terms of a Canadian merchant marine. As individual members we do not have access to the resources necessary to provide the proper information upon which a realistic policy aimed at the development of a viable Canadian merchant marine could be achieved. There are deficiencies in the information which is available, and they should be examined very quickly.
1 will not go over what the late Howard Darling had to say about this because we have dealt with that in this chamber on many occasions in recent years. Rather, let me just conclude this point by indicating the need which continues to exist for Canada to protect its import and export traffic with ships of its own. These ships should be designed in Canada, built in Canada, manned by Canadians, responsive to Canadian law and, through ownership, paying Canadian taxes and subject to our regulations. God only knows that the opportunity to protect for Canadian entrepreneurship the waters north of 60

degrees-one of the most fragile environments in the world- exists with our generation of policymakers, yet we do not seem anxious to respond. That is a matter of regret. If we are not the first in our Arctic with the technology and expertise to meet the requirements for protection which has been based on professional help and data, I predict that we will not be in the north carrying our onw natural gas, minerals and supplies. We will not be able to do that through probably two whole generations of ships, 20 or 30 years down the road, and by then it may be too late.
I will take the liberty of being precise by quoting somewhat from an H. P. Drewry study. That is a company of shipping consultants in London. This is an economic study, numbered 37 of a series, dated July, 1975 and titled "World Shipping Under Flags of Convenience." Some very knowledgeable people in the general marine field, for whom I have a great amount of respect, have put forward certain arguments. Donald Kerr from Halifax, Captain Gold of Dalhousie University and others have argued that perhaps sometimes we malign flags of convenience ships too much. They say that flags of convenience ships are frequently good ships. Sometimes they meet standards which are even higher than Canadian standards. I have yet to see any which do, but I concede that it is possible that flags of convenience ships could exceed our own requirements.
1 accept that, but the reality of the situation is quite the opposite. I am not accusing anyone of speaking as a result of a need to represent vested interests. God knows I would not do that. Captain Gold is now an academic in any event. What I want to draw to the attention of hon. members is that while flags of convenience ships may offer the competitive advantage that our processors and manufacturers sometimes feel they need in order to remain competitive in our market and in the market places of the world; I happen to believe that shipping on Canadian registered vessels with Canadian crews does not represent higher cost.
There is a real danger in accepting that it would be useful for our own national purposes to use flags of convenience ships. Incidentally, we do very little of that. On the west coast virtually 100 per cent of our traffic moves in Canadian ships. On the Great Lakes 70 per cent or 80 per cent moves in Canadian ships. On the east coast the figure is 75 per cent. Indeed, I think it is probably a minuscule proportion of traffic, other than our import-export traffic, which moves in ships other than Canadian ships. Canadian shipping companies have demonstrated to users of waterborne modes of transportation that they can be competitive with rail, with land and with ships. When we accept in a general way the proposition that we can safely use flags of convenience ships in Canadian business, there is a very real danger. Apart from the economics of the argument, people say that statistics show that ships which are not flags of convenience ships have more accidents. Indeed, statistics do show this, but that is part of the danger I am trying to get at. Canadian vessels operating in Canadian waters and carrying Canadian goods between one Canadian port and another Canadian port are travelling in restricted
February 6, 1978

waters where navigation is sometimes hazardous, where visibility can be limited, where channels are treacherous and so forth. Generally speaking, flags of convenience ships sail on the high seas and have lots of room to manoeuvre. They are not in danger of running aground if they approach harbours and ports. So in my judgment the argument on the question of safety is not valid.
1 should like to quote briefly from the Drewry report, Mr. Speaker. Part V deals with the future development and growth of flags of convenience fleets. In the mid-1960s there were probably 1,000 ships in the world sailing under flags of convenience; today there are probably 7,000 to 9,000. There is every evidence that this enormous and rapid growth will continue and I think we should be on guard against it. 1 am not taking anything out of context but I should like to quote the following paragraph from part V of the Drewry report. Obviously these criticisms cannot be applied to all free flag operators, some of whom maintain standards as high, or higher, than those of traditional flag operators. However, when an owner does wish to operate a substandard, ill-manned vessel probably the best means of doing so is through a flag of convenience, where he can feel assured of minimum interference in his activities from government levels. With such owners operating perhaps second or third-hand VLCC tonnage, the threat to maritime safety, particularly in congested waters, and to the environment, through pollution, will be enormous.
As we develop our north, the capacity to handle extractive resources north of the 60th parallel grows and the need for waterborne traffic becomes clear, 1 think it is incumbent upon this government to bring together qualified and interested people who can do the necessary studies which will enable Canada to gain a reasonable proportion of the traffic in resources that now leave this country in foreign bottoms.
Transportation today is more than a tool of economic development in this country; it is an industry and should be recognized as such. About 15,000 Canadian seamen sail in Canadian ships at present but the industry could employ 35,000 or 40,000 if we accepted the UNCTAD proposal for a 40-40-20 split. That will not be accomplished until the government takes seriously the message that the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay) and others have been bringing to this chamber for years. 1 do not know why there has been delay unless it is because of the direction of this government-


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


Mr. A. Hugh Anderson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, it will not surprise too many people that I have a passing interest in this subject. To put into a little historical perspective what the hon. member who just spoke was saying, we should remember that as a young and large nation our initial preoccupation was with transportation within the land mass rather than beyond our external boundaries. We have had less than 100 years to provide railroads, highways and air transportation compared with countries like Germany and Japan which have had thousands and thousands of years to develop their transportation systems. It was not dereliction of duty on the part of govern-
Merchant Marine
ments past and present that caused the problem that exists in relation to maritime shipping; rather it was a question of priorities. Perhaps the vastness of our country led us to be too preoccupied with land and air travel.
The two hon. members who spoke earlier-and I congratulate them upon their presentation-were correct in saying that it is time to consider what has happened in our maritime industry. I suggest that not much has happened in the last ten or 15 years. Reference has been made to the report of Mr. Darling, an expert in the field of maritime economics in Canada. According to him, the principal interest situations confronting Canadians are the movement of Canadian resources in the bulk trades, such as coal, ore, et cetera, the role of Canadian ships in the development of the Arctic, and the interests of the container consortia as well as the bilateral shipping policies of other countries.
I think there is a resistance on both sides of the House regarding the shipment of bulk resources in Canadian bottoms. The argument has been put up that somehow Canadian ships are not efficient and that it would cost more to ship Canadian goods in Canadian carriers than in Japanese, German or those of any other nation.
It has also been suggested that this may damage our export market. The UNCTAD Four conference which was held recently recommended that 40 per cent of the exports of a country and 40 per cent of the imports should be handled by the country either exporting or importing. That means that Canada should be using at least 40 per cent of our merchant marine to export our goods. We export tremendous amounts of copper concentrates from British Columbia as well as coal, for which a number of contracts have recently been signed with Japan and other Asiatic countries. We have an export market but all our coal, grain and copper concentrate is going out in foreign bottoms. The hon. member who spoke previously said this is a $3 billion business. He is right but that does not mean that Canada will pick up the $3 billion. Using the UNCTAD formula, however, 40 per cent would mean a great deal of revenue.
It is not just the revenue from the shipping industry that would come our way; repairs and building are also very important items. So this debate comes at a good time; we are trying to create more jobs in Canada, and here is an area where a Canadian merchant service could be competitive.
I would like to turn briefly now to the shipping scene. Since Darling wrote his report there has been, with the energy crisis and the reopening of the Suez canal, a glut of ships on the world shipping market. Given this glut on the world market, why would Canada at this particular time be concerned with increasing its merchant marine? If what has been said is true, there is no question that the cost of purchasing ships on the world market is now lower than it has been for many years. 1 would think, Mr. Speaker, that the time to purchase ships is at a time when the price is low. It is obvious that over a number of years prices will increase again. Although these lower costs

February 6, 1978
Merchant Marine
will not create an immediate market for shipbuilding in Canada, they would certainly help to establish a merchant marine much faster now than later on when we would have to construct ships starting from scratch.
1 suggest that the Canadian government should move into some new programs, perhaps a mortgage insurance program to guarantee payment for ships. This procedure has been successfully followed in the United States. I understand that in the United States this program is in the black; in other words, it has made a profit. It is not a program which will necessitate subsidization by the Canadian government; it would in fact pay its own way and would be a great advantage to the people who would wish to involve themselves in the merchant marine service.
Statistics which reveal that Canada's requirement for certified ship personnel has increased by 12 per cent since 1970 and the requirement for officers 27 per cent in the same period concern me. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we do not have the facilities in Canada to train these people. I hope the hon. member who spoke before me will check his Figures. I believe he used the figure of 17,000 seagoing personnel in Canada, but I understand the correct figure is approximately 29,000 people. At the present time there is a shortage of training facilities, with the result that we are unable to train people to fill positions, and this has had the effect in the last several years of increasing the number of marine accidents in Canada.
For three and a half years 1 have petitioned the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) to set up on the west coast a coast guard training facility-or call it what you want. We will be setting up a volunteer coast guard operation on the west coast of Canada, but we do not have a training facility. Nor do we have a training facility to give fishermen navigation and similar courses to upgrade their skills. Instead of spending millions of dollars on search and rescue facilities to find people in trouble off the coast, whether they are private boaters or commercial fishermen, what we should be doing is using a small percentage of that money for training facilities so that we have people with navigational skills to sail the west coast waters of Canada, which are no doubt dangerous.
In 1978 a council was set up to look into the situation. We are not going to rectify or solve the problem by setting up an advisory board, and in this respect I hope I have some agreement from members on the opposite side from British Columbia. Rather we should be setting up an institution on the west coast to provide training facilities for native fishermen, commercial fishermen and private boaters, and also for our merchant marine. I hope members from the west will support me when I say to the Minister of Transport: "Do not set up any more commissions or advisory boards to tell us what we need. We know what we need on the west coast; give us the money to build institutions and to hire people to provide training for those who risk their lives in the waters off the west coast of Canada."


Mr. Huntington:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Would the hon. member allow a question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: The hon. member for Capilano is rising on a point of order.


Hugh Alan Anderson: Mr. Speaker, when 1 have finished my remarks I will welcome a question from the hon. member.
In this day and age there should not be this serious need for qualified personnel in the marine sector. On the west coast of British Columbia, with the salmon enhancement program, a new era will commence as far as our commercial fishermen are concerned. Therefore, would it not be more appropriate, instead of increased surveillance by teams of destroyers, aircraft, helicopters, which are all very expensive, to funnel a small portion of those costs into the education of people using the waters off the west coast of Canada? We presently face a problem of calamitous proportions in British Columbia in using hovercraft and various other services to help people whose pleasure boats get into difficulties on weekends. This costs a vast amount of money.
I suggest that the establishment of a single facility which could be used by the merchant service, by the volunteer coast guard, by the permanent coast guard, by people in our armed forces, by pleasure boaters and by commercial fishermen is a top priority for the west coast of Canada. Certainly priority is not in the field of a study of what is required in order to train personnel for the merchant marine on the west coast.
I understand there is a coast guard training facility on the east coast of Canada. However, I suggest that the differences between the east and west coasts are great enough to justify two separate facilities.
An advisory council, for all its good intentions, is not what is required at this time. There are 29,000 seagoing people in the merchant marine and other forms of marine activity. The annual revenue is $750 billion, so we are not talking about a penny-ante group or a small portion of Canadian workers. For that reason I support the arguments brought forward by my colleague the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Guay).
Since we are technologically developed and have a good transportation service in the country inland, it is hoped that the same policies can be applied to making the marine industry strong and viable.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the remarks of the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Anderson), who said he would allow me a question at the end of his remarks. The hon. member spoke rather extensively about the need for training programs, particularly on the west coast and for native people there. Can he in the few minutes left explain why the government failed to support the training program that the Indian Brotherhood had in place at Alert Bay? They had there a seaman's and fisherman's training program that failed to maintain the support of the government. Why did the government let that fail when it was very badly needed in that particular area of British Columbia?
February 6, 1978


Hugh Alan Anderson: Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to answer that question. I obviously do not want to talk out this motion. Very briefly, I am suggesting there is a need for a totally co-ordinated, overall view of shipping and maritime activities in British Columbia, not just of one group or another. There should be one organization to cater to the needs of people in British Columbia whether they are involved in the pleasure boat industry, the commercial fishery, the coast guard, coastal trade or maritime trade between nations. Instead of a piecemeal approach, we need an over-all approach which will provide a facility to deal with all these questions, not just one small segment of the problem.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian power squadron is in place through which most amateur yachtsmen have taken extensive training. Most people who use the water are quite skilled in their hobby. The hon. member did not answer the question why his government allowed the Indian Brotherhood training program for fishermen on the north coast of Vancouver Island to lapse, particularly in light of his concern for these things.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order. The time allotted to the consideration of private members' business has expired. I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
At 6.14 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Friday, February 3, 1978, consideration of the motion of Mr. LeBlanc (Westmorland-Kent) that Bill C-2, respecting the administration and development of certain fishing and recreational harbours in Canada, be read the third time and do pass.
John Carnell Crosbie: Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I only have four minutes left in which to conclude the remarks I began last Friday. I will do my best with the time which remains to me.
As the minister knows, the importance of the fisheries to Newfoundland cannot be overemphasized. At least 20,000 people are directly employed in the industry as fishermen, fish plant workers or trawler crews. This figure must be seen
Fishing and Recreational Harbours against the background of a total labour force of 190,000. So the industry has a gigantic impact on Newfoundland. If we use a multiplier factor of only 1.5, another 30,000 people depend on the fishing industry. There are whole sections in Newfoundland-I would say two-thirds of the province-in which people would not be able to live at all in the absence of a fishing industry.
In the last few months the minister has become too dictatorial, too rigid. He may be changing that attitude somewhat; I understand he had a meeting in Halifax on Friday with the provincial ministers, who seemed to be satisfied. Perhaps the minister has learned his lesson and will, in future, be less dictatorial and rigid than he was in 1977. I hope this is the case, because Newfoundland will not be satisfied with any situation in which the federal government dictates to the province how, when or whether it will survive. I should like the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry to consider the major issues which are now before the country affecting the fishing industry.
My final point has to do with the community of St. Lawrence. A few days ago the fluorspar mine there closed. Alcan moved out. The Canadian government did nothing to pressure Alcan to keep that mine open. It did nothing to encourage Alcan to remain in St. Lawrence.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I find difficulty in following the hon. member's remarks. I cannot see how they relate at this point to the bill before us.


John Carnell Crosbie: I will tell you how, Mr. Speaker. Alcan has abandoned the mine and there are now 300 people unemployed in St. Lawrence. In these circumstances the proposal has gone from St. Lawrence to the government asking for assistance in the establishment of a fish plant so that the unemployed miners could work in the fish plant and as fishermen. There is a fine port at St. Lawrence. The fishery is the only way in which these people can now make a living. A proposal has been made by Fishery Products Limited, supported by the Newfoundland government, supported by the St. Lawrence committee which is looking after the unemployed, that a fish plant be built in the town. Some assistance from DREE would be needed and an application has been made to Ottawa. Help is also needed from the fisheries department, because this is to be not just an inshore plant taking fish from inshore fishermen but a year-round operation taking fish from offshore vessels. This would involve Portuguese fishing boats and the minister would have to license them to land fish at the plant before the scheme could go forward.
Two weeks ago an official of DREE said the federal government was a long way from making any decision on this proposed fish plant. According to remarks of his which have been quoted, whether Portuguese vessels would be licensed to land fish at St. Lawrence was a question which was puzzling the minister. I would point out that the unemployed people of St. Lawrence are unemployed in part because the federal government did nothing to oblige or encourage Alcan to continue its operations in a mine which is still a profit-maker,

February 6, 1978
Fishing and Recreational Harbours
although the government went berserk when Sun Life said it was moving its head office from Montreal. I suppose moving from Newfoundland is different from moving from Quebec.
Anyway, there is a chance of putting a fish plant in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland. I ask the minister not to listen to those officials who say it involves a difficult decision. An assistant to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lessard), one Tom Webb, was quoted on January 20 as saying that the federal government was a long way from making any decision on the proposed plant. Well, if that is an accurate reflection of DREE's attitude toward this proposal, Mr. Webb will be a long way from surviving with the present minister. This month the mine was finally closed and the 300 unemployed people there need a chance to get themselves launched again. I ask the minister to act quickly on this situation at St. Lawrence.
I think my time is about up so I leave the House with the plea that a quick decision be made.


Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on third reading of Bill C-2, and 1 delighted to see the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) in the chamber this evening. I was very interested in the remarks which the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Mr. Young) made last Wednesday. He is also a member of parliament from the province of Ontario, which has more than a passing interest in that portion of the minister's budget that is allocated to small harbours and recreation. There are many anomalies within this bill which we cannot support.
As a representative from one of the principal tourist areas in Canada, small craft harbours and recreational facilities are of the utmost importance to me and to my constituents. I want to emphasize just how important it is that the province of Ontario be represented in this debate. Many people think that, because Ontario is one of the most populated and more wealthy provinces in Canada, we naturally benefit the most when it comes to the spending of government money. That is certainly not the case with small craft harbours. In this case, Ontario is getting the short end.
The estimates for fisheries and marines for 1978 allot only $30 million to the important and neglected area of small craft harbours, a mere $4 million of which is destined for Ontario, which amounts to roughly 10 per cent. Sixty per cent of this will be spent on commercial fishing harbours. What is left over will be spent on recreational facilities, development and maintenance costs. The amount left over, which is the actual amount of money that will go to the construction and maintenance of recreational small craft harbours, is disgracefully inadequate.
1 have heard hon. members from the Atlantic provinces and the province of British Columbia speak of the need for funds for fishing harbours and how money allotted for recreational and tourist purposes is being taken away from the fishing area. Recreational facilities are of very high economic priority to my

constituency, as well as to the neglected areas of the province of Ontario.
I would like to point out that in my riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka people trying to make a living depend very heavily on tourist dollars. Those tourist dollars will be generated if, and only if, we have adequate facilities to accommodate those who want to use them. Perhaps some of the hon. members who begrudge the allocation of funds for recreational and tourist purposes are misled by the word "recreational". Perhaps they think we want only to upgrade the facilities for our own use or for the sake of appearance. We need to improve facilities to protect the valuable tourist dollar and the competitive position of tourist operators in the area. I would argue- and I am sure the tourist operators in my riding would agree with me-that the tourist dollar is just as important as the upgrading of fishing harbours to the fishermen in the Atlantic provinces and the west coast.
We in Ontario must be able to accommodate the increase in boating and the number of boating enthusiasts who visit each summer. Boating is growing in Ontario at the rate of 12 per cent per year. This has placed a considerable strain on facilities. In many instances these facilities are badly in need of maintenance and upgrading. I do not have to emphasize the importance of the tourist dollar to Canada. A few days ago, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Florner) announced some very important proposals in an effort to lower our staggering tourist deficit. These are certainly welcome changes, but what is important in my riding is accommodating the thousands of tourists who visit each summer from Canada and the United States and use our small craft harbours.
The recreational aspect of small craft harbours has been largely overshadowed by the importance of the fishing industry on the east and west coasts. I am not advocating that there should be any less emphasis on that very vital industry. Certainly they have very real economic and unemployment problems, which surpass those in my own riding and in most parts of Ontario. Nevertheless, the absolute need to improve and create new facilities in Ontario must not be ignored. Ontario is not receiving its fair share of federal money for the construction and maintenance of these facilities. We in this province depend heavily on tourist income dollars to help the economy grow. Small craft harbours, their upkeep and growth are very important parts of the tourist industry in Canada.
Ontario has a tourist potential which is unmatched in this country. Approximately 110 million people live within one day's drive of the Great Lakes. In 1972 a study of central Canada indicated that Ontario had 774,000 small craft. With the average growth rate, the estimates indicate that this year there are approximately 1,300,000 craft in Ontario. We must rid ourselves of the idea that recreational small craft harbours are somehow not very important compared to the fishing industry in the maritimes and on the west coast. They are important to the tourist industry, to the economy of the province of Ontario and to Canada. In 1976-1977 the value placed on sport fishing in Ontario by the provincial government was $450 million, which is a considerable amount of

February 6, 1978

money. Unless we are able to continue to provide the facilities, the tourist industry will greatly suffer.
In conclusion, I should like to urge that the province of Ontario be given its due consideration and attention in the area of small craft harbours. When the government comes up with a bill which reflects adequately the needs of Ontario, then 1 will be prepared to support it.
Once again, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Niagara Falls. I should like to refer to an article which he wrote that appeared in the Canadian Yachting Magazine. It was entitled "The Marina Crunch". It outlined the plight of recreational boating facilities in Ontario. He referred to some very, very excellent statistics, which I am sure are correct. In part that article reads as follows:
-Ontario has 25 per cent of all the freshwater in Canada, several thousand miles of shoreline and approximately 53 per cent of all the small craft in Canada. The bulk of the population of North America lives either in or within easy driving or boating distance making our waterways very heavily utilized. Consider as well that recent studies have projected rates of growth in boating in the Toronto area at 8.7 per cent per year compounded annually and rates of growth in Ontario over-all at 12 per cent compounded annually. By 1980, there will be nearly two million small craft in Ontario alone, and forecasts for the Toronto area show a need to multiply present facilities five to six times by 1990.
Thus, Toronto and Lake Ontario will be bulging at the seams. As I was flying from Toronto today, I met the Metro chairman, Mr. Paul Godfrey, and I said I would put in a plug for Toronto to see if we could get more recreational facilities for that great tourist city, as well as the areas east and west of it. Let me present another statistic certainly worthy of mention that was contained in this report:
In 1974, Canadians spent 3.6 billion dollars on recreational or leisure goods and about ten per cent of this was for sailboats, boats and motors. Dealers indicate sales of 140,000 boats in Ontario in this same year. With residents taking up water sport activities at an ever increasing rate, with spending on leisure goods increasing 21 per cent faster than total income and 58 per cent faster than spending on all other consumer goods, the marina crunch problem is not going to go away-
The money the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Guay) receives in excise taxes through the sale of boats and motors runs into millions and millions of dollars.
I had the privilege this year of spending a day at the boat show looking at the various types of boats, from the smallest canoe to boats valued up to $150,000. They were really something to see, as well as were the huge crowds taking an interest in boating. With the energy crisis sailboats seem to be moving ahead and will begin to be more popular.
Again I am hoping the minister will give serious consideration to making sure more money is ploughed into the province of Ontario for recreational harbour facilities. Out of the $230 million the most Ontario can expect to get in 1977-78 is $4 million, and that is just peanuts, with all due respect to the minister, when you consider the thousands of miles of shoreline with the Great Lakes and the many other lakes of this province, and the greatest tourist industry in the entire dominion of Canada.
Fishing and Recreational Harbours
I was pleased to hear from the office of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) this evening that under FLIP, the federal labour-intensive program, there has been allocated an expenditure of $300,000 for upgrading the coast guard base in the town of Parry Sound. I understand this will provide 240 man-months of work. Let me add that the entire coast guard facilities there are so old fashioned, or just old, they should be reconstructed entirely, but at least this is a step in the right direction.
Again with a total budget of $230 million hon. members will agree that more should be directed toward this tourist industry which is the second largest in all of Canada, one we should consider very seriously. It is an industry that must be cultivated. The way things have been going lately a great many Canadians are certainly not helping out by heading south, though I admit that the weather we have been facing recently is not the most conducive to keeping Canadians in Canada, especially in January and February. However, when the weather improves and the boating season starts again I certainly hope a great many of our Canadian and American tourists will see fit to come to Ontario, which has the greatest tourist area of all.
The town of Parry Sound is a port used by ocean-going vessels. In August 1976 I had the privilege of attending a regatta or a weekend gathering there of the Great Lakes Cruising Club from Michigan. Most of the participants were from the United States. There was over $3 million in boats tied up in the harbour at Parry Sound. The harbour was taxed to its capacity and the floating docks were not of the best. I suggest the facilities should be expanded greatly, particularly when I see how much money this brings into the area.
As the hon. member of parliament for Parry Sound-Mus-koka, I think primarily of my own riding but the same arguments apply to the riding of Niagara Falls and to all other ridings which border the Great Lakes, as well as the many ridings which have inland lake frontage. The tourist industry is very important and, therefore, money spent on facilities, harbours, launching ramps and so on by the minister's department represents money well spent. I suggest to the minister that if he casts his bread upon the waters he will bring in so much money that Treasury Board will probably give him more for 1978-79.


Mr. Young:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would permit a question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: That can be done only with the consent of the hon. member.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was kind enough to quote some of my remarks made in a speech and in an article I wrote. I wonder if he would now commit himself by saying he has seen the wisdom of the minister's bill, he is willing to join him in support of the measure, and he will help him in getting this bill passed?


Stan Darling: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the hon. member was not here at the time I told the minister his bill contains a lot of

February 6, 1978
Fishing and Recreational Harbours
good points, but certainly it leaves a lot to be hoped for and that is the reason I am not prepared to support it at the present time.


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, in response to the question interjected by the hon. member opposite let me say that there may be some things embraced by this bill that are of value to the tourist industry, but the bill itself does precious damn little for the fishermen.


Mr. LeBlanc (Westmorland-Kent):: Did you ask them?


J. Michael Forrestall: You are a little older that I am, Sir, but not that much. I was handlining halibut in the Annapolis basin in the 1930s too, sir, so I know one end of it from the other. What I have reference to is a $1 billion industry and the value returned to the economy of Canada.
Let me admit at the outset I am not one of those who sat as a member of the committee because of other responsibilities and other commitments. 1 wish 1 had been a member and had had the opportunity to listen to the explanation and rationalization of this measure by the minister and his officials. I should have liked to participate and bring to the committee's attention the view of the fishermen on the east coast.
After reading the evidence produced before the committee in respect of this bill, and having listened to the debates when the bill was before us previously, 1 recognize that the difficulties and problems faced by the fishermen on the east coast of Nova Scotia in relation to this measure are the same as those faced by fishermen in other parts of Atlantic Canada. The concerns expressed by the hon. member for South Shore (Mr. Crouse) going back many years regarding the fisheries in Atlantic Canada and off the west coast are valid concerns. They are concerns based on experience, an awareness of the capacity of government in these areas, an awareness of the realities of the sea, and an awareness of the deficiency of an ad hoc approach to what could potentially be a reasonable stimulant to the Atlantic economy in the years beyond 1980 to the end of the century, and probably even beyond.
It is because of the concern expressed by such members as the hon. member for South Shore that I pay particular attention to his comment to the minister that it is passing strange that the minister and his officials would find it appropriate not to increase the funding available to the fishery but rather to embark, without a useful dialogue, on the halving of the number of small harbours in use in Canada today by our fishermen.
It is particularly strange that the minister seems pressed by his colleagues, by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) and by others on the treasury benches, to take that action. I am not sure whether the minister is a member of the treasury group. If he is, then there is no excuse, but if he is not, it is regrettable. I find it startling and somewhat frightening that the hon. member for South Shore should be alarmed, that he sees in this move, out of his experience and back-

ground, an attempt by the minister and his department to increase his capacity to work with the ports, not by increasing funding but rather by halving the number of ports with the same amount of money, thereby realizing an increase in the amount of money to be spent on particular ports. It is an odd type of economic approach.
It seems surprisingly strange, against the background of a parliament which will witness the write-off of the Seaway debt, the Air Canada debt and the Canadian national debt amounting to well over $2 billion, that the level of funding for the fisheries on the west coast is as disturbingly low as this. It may be that the comments and observations made by the minister in the House the other day are quite valid. I find difficulty in relating the minister's plea, for example, with respect to what the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) said, quite properly, that the reason for restrictions on the Canadian east ports for such things as crew changes, catch transfers, etc., should continue in face of the removal of the very reason why those restrictions were imposed. I find it perhaps acceptable, although I wish the minister could find an opportunity to explain to us in a little more detail how he intends to use these instruments as levers of negotiation. I wish he would be a little more explicit about what it is he thinks he can bargain away with us, because it seems to many of us that now we have an opportunity, as the hon. member for St. John's West observed, to turn our ports into gas stations for the substantial fleet out there.
I think that probably we should go further than that. I think it should be literally one stop shopping. We should take advantage, quite openly and blatantly, of the changed circumstances, for which I give the minister every mark and every credit. We can debate whether or not it was on time and whether or not it should have happened years ago. We can talk about the preoccupation of the government with matters other than those basic to our economy and to our people in Atlantic Canada. We can talk about the very unacceptable impact that that has had in high unemployment in the fisheries and on our general economic well being. But I do not understand the value of this as a bargaining instrument. It seems to me that with the underutilized repair capacity of our shipyards now is the time when we should be trying to attract ships to our yards and to our ports, not only for such things as crew changes and fish catches, but to actively promote the unused capacity of our yards to effect minor and major repairs and overhauls. We are not doing this, and I find this passing strange. It has been a long time since Atlantic Canada has had the opportunity offered by the fishery to help our own people well into the forseeable future. For the government not to take the fullest advantage of the opportunity which is now in our hands is, I think, unacceptable.
It may well be that the minister is fighting his battle alone. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and others have clearly demonstrated in the last ten or 12 years that their concern is centred on constitutional amendments, on bilingualism in the country, on national unity and on all these esoteric questions. It may well be that that is the reason the minister is alone, and
February 6, 1978

if it is the cause of the minister's inability to accept the challenge of the opportunity, then he has my sympathy and my support. If, on the other hand, it is not that, then I suggest that he should give more serious consideration to taking over Mr. Higgins' job. He might be better suited for it. However, 1 suspect it is the former reason. I expect he struggles alone in his fight on behalf of Canadian fishermen. I will just repeat that I find it passing strange.
We have the opportunity, for example, to attract the East Germans to the marine slip in the Halifax shipyards, $1.5 million worth of work, but we have done nothing about it. However, if they were looking for increased quotas, I would not say to the minister he has taken the wrong posture with respect to that because 1 would not give them increased quotas. The fact of the matter is that it is to their advantage to use our yards, our ports and our facilities. They have had a free ride for a long time, as the minister knows. They have used our navigational aids, our search and rescue capacity, and our ports for emergency purposes, and can continue to do so. 1 just think it should be done on an organized basis, with the full awareness of the government, so that the provinces, municipalities, ports and towns could capitalize on onshore expenditures and the supply of ships, overhauls and repairs. Millions of dollars are being missed by not being aggressive. In doing that I do not believe the minister would significantly impair his capacity to bargain for the concessions he has in mind and about which we are all aware.
With respect to the bill more specifically, concerns have been expressed with respect to the broad authority and power of the minister to levy fees without adequate consultation. While the minister may have gone ahead with the establishment of fisheries advisory boards on the east and west coasts- some hon. members seem to feel they have been established; others find that there are people whom the government pays $10,000 or $15,000 for advice on what should be done in herring fisheries or other fisheries-to the best of my knowledge the minister has not carried through on his correspondence with me. As a matter of fact, on February 23, 1977, one year ago, the minister indicated that he would be establishing advisory boards.
Fisheries advisory boards for the east and west coasts, proposed Monday by (the minister), will only benefit the fishing industry if fishermen themselves are appointed board members, spokesmen . .. said-
I wish the minister would find some occasion on which to keep hon. members better advised as to just what is going on. For example, do we have a board on the eastern shore? If we do, it would be very interesting to hear from the board, to know who is on it, to know the work that is being contemplated and to know how the minister feels that he can best be advised by such a board. To the best of my knowledge we do not have one. In late September the minister indicated to me that his officials were presently working on the details of such counsel, but he expected it would be some time before he knew precisely how the boards would work. It would be interesting to follow through a little bit more with that because consulta-
Fishing and Recreational Harbours tion has been seen to be less than effective or desirable in terms of the input the fishermen are capable of making.
Several years ago the Eastern Shore Fishermen's Protection Association met with federal and provincial departmental people and set out some priorities. They were never followed, and nothing really ever came of them. Apart from meetings initiated by fishermen individually or by the president of that association on their behalf, to the best of my knowledge there has not been an on-going and meaningful consultative process. If the minister wants the benefit of the views and knowledge of fishermen, he should involve himself in discussions with individual fishermen. That can be done only through his department.
1 wonder if the minister had any knowledge of what would happen to him when he introduced that little amendment the other night. I am sure the minister is concerned about the sentiments expressed by hon. members. He has shown us the courtesy of being here and listening. He has paid attention as I have watched him today and over the last three or four days. However, in the area of the ability of the department to work with the men in the field, I know this is very difficult, but, on the other hand, it is very important. It is also important that the minister remember that his officials must work closely with fishermen as well as processing and marketing people.
For example, if my information is correct, and I have no reason to believe it is not, the department has had a study in its possession for some time. This study is a very useful one and involves the role large cold storage freezers can play in helping the industry to move from production into marketing or to a combination of both. The department has had this study in its possession for four or five months or perhaps even longer. I know the study dealt with the areas around Sydney, Halifax, Lunenburg, Yarmouth, the strait area and so forth. It dealt with the need for, and the use of, major cold storage centres. I wonder why the study has remained secret. Why can the industry not have access to it? The first complaint I had about this came from the National Harbours Board. Why can the government's Crown agency not have access to studies if they are available? If this particular study is available, I suggest that the minister is not being open and frank with the people in the industry. His failure to consult adequately and continually with fishermen is an admission of his inability to be open and frank with them. There is no question that we need strategically located major cold storage plants. I think they should be privately operated, but it is very important, whether they are in the hands of the industry or of the government, that they be common users. That is a personal feeling I have. If that study relates to cold storage, why can the industry not have access to it? Why do we not know what is going on? Is the minister saving the study for an election gimmick? Is it getting that close?
Far too little has been done in the area of bait freezing and storage capacity. Where attempts have been made by private fishermen to establish bait freezing capacity for their own use in their own areas, those fishermen have been met with frustration either as a result of provincial or federal bureaucra-

February 6, 1978
Fishing and Recreational Harbours cy. Good ideas are frustrated by bureaucracy. I hate the term "bureaucracy", but these people are frustrated by someone reading the letter of the law. The last fisherman I talked to about this is being charged tax on the materials which went into a freezer. It is not a federal problem but it is a federal responsibility. This is a serious question.
There is probably some merit in the suggestion that it is time the provinces began to look at the question of whether control and authority over the fishery should return to them and be taken out of the hands of the federal authority. A hundred years ago or right at the beginning of our fishery it was the old political structure that exercised authority and had responsibility. I am one of those who believe that as the oil in the ground belongs to Alberta, so the fish in the sea off the coasts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia belong to those provinces.


Roméo LeBlanc: Oh, oh!


J. Michael Forrestall: That is a typical Liberal reaction. You would find fault with any concept brought forward. You have been in there so damn long your mind is closed. You have become lazy-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member should address his remarks to the Chair, but I hope he was not addressing his remarks to the Chair just now.


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, I am not about to accuse you of becoming lazy or indifferent.
Just as the oil in the ground and the resources belong to the provinces, the resources of the Atlantic area belong to the Atlantic provinces. As long as we continue with ad hoc solutions to the problems and ignore the development of the opportunity that lies before us, the question of the provinces again assuming authority over the fisheries will be debated.
The minister would be the first to admit that there are many areas in which he wishes he could do more. Most fishermen that I know have a fair amount of respect for the minister. In some instances they have come to rely on his judgment, to respect his caution and to accept his word about methods of resolving their problems. I am not going to refer to the minister seeking the leadership of a party somewhere else although he might be an adornment to his province if he did so; but, Mr. Speaker, we must face the fact that the minister might not always be here and in that light his assurances cannot be taken for more than that-just assurances.
The minister will do those things he believes to be important but that is not good enough for the fishery. It is not good enough to say that the schedule of fees will not be usurious but will be applied with care and concern. The people want something more specific and in the absence of an explanation the minister is treading on very dangerous ground. He is assuming a responsibility and authority that the people affected will not accept.

The only provisions in the bill that are new are the schedule of fees and minor changes in three or four areas. For the most part the bill consolidates and brings under one umbrella a lot of practices that are common and acceptable. What cannot be accepted is the assurance that these things will not hurt the fishery. Unless the minister can demonstrate to the fishermen that some of these charges will not be usurious, they will not trust him. Our own view flows from a desire to be open and frank and to tell the fishermen what we would do and how we would do it.
The minister has given himself wide authority and far-reaching powers in this bill. Many people in the fishery are outraged when they see pork barrelling, and an increase in the numbers of wharfingers. They do not like the continuing conflict between the minister and his provincial colleagues. We in this party want a better relationship between the fishery and the search and rescue capability. We also want improved repair and maintenance of wharves and breakwaters. We are told that because we catch only about 2 per cent of the fishery we are only entitled to 2 per cent of the money. Mr. Speaker, how does the minister expect us to do any better unless we are given wharves and harbours so that our young people may be encouraged to go into the fishery?
I asked the minister about dredging the Musquodoboit harbour and he said it could not be done. Mr. Speaker, it has the potential to become one of the finest private small craft harbours on the Atlantic seaboard. The Department of Public Works said they could not do it, but a local firm claimed they could do it in half a day. They said the job was too small for them, however. The Department of Public Works, on the other hand, thought the job was too big for them to tackle. There was only a handful of fishermen there, Mr. Speaker. It was not only the fishermen 1 asked about, but also the capacity of Musquodoboit harbour to handle boats and become a location for a series of marinas which would encourage private sailing and private use by Americans and people from other parts of Atlantic Canada as they traversed the south and east coasts of Nova Scotia.
We need the co-operation and the understanding of the treasury benches and the government that the fisheries require substantially higher funding. We need to end the disparate attitude which accompanies so much of the decision-making process within government in areas such as the fishery. We need to develop both our inshore and offshore fisheries. We do not need the hocus-pocus that the minister must sometimes go through in order to hide from our Atlantic fishermen the difficulty he has in convincing his colleagues in government that there is anything worth while in the fishing industry.
As a matter of fact, the only other member of the entire cabinet whom 1 have heard refer to the fishery in the last two or three years has been the Secretary of State of External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson). No other minister, including the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald), who comes from a great fishing riding, has bothered to mention it at all.



February 6, 1978

We need a better spirit amongst the people and the generation of enthusiasm. We need more than FLIP and LIP programs to develop our fishery.
The licence fees should be increased and the money used to improve the Loran and Decca systems. I do not mind soaking the foreigners who are off our coasts. For 10 or 15 years they have had a free ride on the backs of those navigational systems. Take the money from them. Do not put it into general revenue unless it is absolutely certain that every nickel is returned to the fishermen by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras). Every cent that is raised belongs to the fishermen of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. That money should be poured back into the development of their own resource.
That is the reason for my suggestion of the return of authority and control over the fishery to the provinces. I say return because this parliament, not this chamber precisely, took it away from the provinces in the beginning. The provinces can get it back. We must demonstrate a willingness to help the fishermen develop their own resources and their own livelihood to levels that are acceptable and most important, to bring it to levels that will encourage young people to return to the fishery. I do not blame the provinces for saying they wished they had more control.
If the principle of equalization is to have any meaning over the next 20 to 30 years, it will have to find justification, rationalization and a changed attitude on the part of this government toward the fishermen. But I think the minister has been abandoned. There has been such a preoccupation in the last ten years with matters other than those which are basic to our way of life that our basic primary resources have suffered. I repeat, we do not need ad hoc programs; we need programs that flow from reality. We need more money. We need to open up our ports. We need to create jobs in the shipyards. These things have to be done. Trust must be re-established between the minister and the fishermen with respect to the scheduling of fees. What will be the amount of the fees and how great will the impact be on the fishermen? These are the essentials. We must seize the opportunity, but with caution, and ensure that this economic generator is developed in the best way possible for the advancement of people on the east and west coasts as well as the advancement of our very rich nation.
[ Translation]


Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to say a few words about Bill C-2. I am not given to praising people too highly because I am always afraid it might go to their heads. But the fact remains that in all sincerity I must say to the minister that 1 am under the impression that in the present circumstances he put in a lot of heart and time to try and bring a little help and relief first to fishermen and then to vacationers, those who have pleasure boats.
Personally, I am not jealous that others have marinas and fishing harbours. I think, and the minister is certainly aware of this, that Quebec is clearly underprivileged when it comes to recreational and fishing harbours for small and medium size boats when you consider that certain provinces have over 2,000
Fishing and Recreational Harbours recreational harbours and there are only some 30 of them in Quebec at most, I believe.
This brings me naturally to talk about the Lower St. Lawrence area that I represent, namely Rimouski. I do not know whether the minister knows the Rimouski area but 1 think he knows it quite well. He is no doubt aware that Rimouski is a rather strategic area for pleasure boats. Indeed, judging from last year's business figures, the port of Rimouski is the second most important after, I think, Sept-Iles.
There are also many social clubs, sporting clubs and many owners of pleasure crafts in Rimouski. There are also a dozen fishermen living mostly off fishing there. Unfortunately they have no place to moor or tie up their craft. Of course there is the port of Rimouski but it is exposed in bad weather and there is difficulty in keeping the boats secure. Those fishermen fishing for cod, red fish or other species of fish in the gulf estuary would be quite happy naturally, even if they had to pay reasonable mooring fees to have a place to tie up their boats, land their catches and occasionally be able to make a few minor repairs.
Mr. Speaker, nor should we forget either pleasure craft owners who would be quite willing to pay mooring fees inasmuch as these fees are reasonable and that adequate services are available. As the minister knows, the city of Rimouski is some 350 miles downstream from Montreal and close to 200 miles from Quebec city in the quadrangle formed by Riviere-du-Loup, Saguenay, Matane and Baie-Comeau. The river width in these places can reach 50 miles. Sometimes the sea can be rather rough especially when there are strong winds which are called "nordet" in that area, or northeast winds if you want. I think it is more or less comparable with prevailing conditions in the Chaleur Bay so there is a lot of danger when we do not have any safe place to moor our boats.
The city of Rimouski has some 30 to 40 small boat owners. The city also boasts a marine school and a research centre sponsored by the University of Quebec. In addition, Rimouski has a university which can provide any courses related to fisheries and navigation.
Mr. Speaker, it is for all these reasons that I am asking the minister to provide us with adequate services because Rimouski and the areas of Bic, Sainte-Flavie and Sainte-Luce have been deprived of such services for too long. As I said earlier, we are not very well known, but I think that it would be high time now, in the spring of 1978, to build a marina suited to and worthy of the largest city in the lower St. Lawrence region. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to delay this debate any longer and I am urging the minister in the name of the people of Rimouski to put an end to the delays which the whole population of the lower St. Lawrence has been enduring regarding the building of a marina in Rimouski and at the same time provide improvements to the existing services for the dozens of fishermen in that area. I am also asking the minister if the Canada-Quebec agreements have now been

February 6, 1978
Fishing and Recreational Harbours
signed and if he will indicate to me in his answer if he can really grant my request.


Mr. Alex Patterson (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, this is the first occasion I have had to speak on either Bill C-2 or its predecessor which was introduced for second reading and debate on December 10, 1976. I reread the speech made by the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) on that occasion. I listened with real interest to the debate that took place on Bill C-2.
1 do not want to delay the House for too long; however, there are a few matters on which I would like to comment as well as a few points with regard to the measure as it affects the province of British Columbia. The legislative provisions deal with two particular interests of our society in general. Both of these are of great importance to British Columbia. I refer to the fishing industry and also the recreation and tourist industry.
In introducing this bill, the minister stated, as recorded at page 2413 of Hansard:
This act will provide the necessary legislative authority to develop and administer commercial fishing and recreational harbours in Canada in order to meet the changing requirements of the fisheries and the growing needs of sports fishing and recreational boating.
It is well known that the fishing industry is of paramount interest to the province of British Columbia. Because of the extent of that industry, it is vital to the maintenance of a healthy economy as well.
With regard to the commercial fishery, direct employment in the British Columbia fishing industry is about 100,000 persons. The direct export value of the product is about $250 million per year. The level of investment in the fishing fleet, equipment, plant and machinery is approximately $1 billion. Therefore, we see that this is not a small sector of the British Columbia economic picture or just a small part of the national picture. It is of substantial concern and interest.
The question may be asked why I, living somewhat more distant from the coast than some of my colleagues, would have an interest in the fisheries. I would point out that consideration must be given to the fact that the Fraser fishery is the mainstay of the British Columbia fishing industry. I have the honour to represent part of the Fraser river area. It is questionable whether the industry could remain viable without the fishery of the Fraser river.
The British Columbia fishing industry is one of a very few industries in Canada which is entirely vertically integrated, responsible for harvesting, processing and marketing of renewable natural resources in the finished form. The Pacific Trailers' Association points out it is also labour intensive and highly export oriented. What makes the industry unique is its relative independence from any direct support or subsidy by public funds. It does not require elaborate tariff and non-tariff protection for its existence. The association presentation also points out that the industry accounts for some $250 million
[Mr. Allard.)
annual in direct exports. Therefore, we can see that fisheries is an important industry in the province of British Columbia.
In our consideration of this industry, we ought to give a little more attention to the west coast fishery. Many times we find that we are left out of the discussion and debate. Since coming here some years ago, I have found that in many areas of activity British Columbia seems just a little bit too far away to be brought into the usual area of concern, discussion and debate.
Reference was made to the sports fishery. Statistics show that the sports fishery in Canada employs over 100,000 individuals and generates about $1 billion for the economy. The present value of sports fishing boats in Canada is approximately $2 billion. At one point in the minister's presentation he mentioned that a great proportion of this activity would be in the province of British Columbia. In participating in this debate, I want again to emphasize the importance of the fishing industry. The bill before us certainly does concern itself with this industry.
British Columbia's extensive coastline and relatively small number of wharves and facilities presents the possibility of a greater, healthier, and more economic industry if proper steps are taken, not only to catch up with present requirements, but to provide future growth opportunities.
Sometimes we are content just to look at the situation as it exists at present. We try to adapt our proposals, legislation and programs to meet the situation as it is at the moment. There must be vision in the matter of providing facilities. We have to look far beyond the present. If we are to have the growth that we desire, we must plan for the future.
I wish to make a few comments with regard to recreation. It is equally well known that our tourist and recreational aspects make British Columbia the land of recreation for Canadians. In spite of what the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling) said, we still believe that British Columbia is Canada's evergreen playground. It is true there are times when the green is covered by a white substance, but that only adds to the beauty and attractiveness of the area.
Recreation is not only a local effort. It is tied in with tourism which has become one of our principal industries. Some people might suggest that in the face of the tremendous problems confronting Canada the government should concentrate only on areas which are a major source of concern and that in the field of recreation the people directly concerned should provide whatever is required.
The recreational aspect of the bill has a wider application than just meeting the needs and desires of local people in the community. It has a bearing upon the tourist industry. If facilities are not available we shall not be able to attract tourists to our country, and to British Columbia in particular. This is a matter of major concern. There has been a great deal of debate about the imbalance of the tourist account and it seems to me this is an area which requires a good deal of attention.


****HnmHraimi
February 6, 1978

Urbanization has resulted in an effort on the part of a growing number of people to find relaxation and renew their physical and mental health in less populated areas. In British Columbia, roads have reached the point of such congestion- and this is true of other regions-that people hesitate to go out on them on holiday weekends. Nevertheless, more people than ever are finding their way to the waterways, lakes and camping areas and it is essential to provide wharves, marinas and ramps to meet their needs. Accordingly, I believe the inclusion of recreational facilities as one of the benefits of this bill is understandable. My own province would benefit not only directly but indirectly through the tourist industry. We should be looking not only at the present but to the requirements of future development.
There are several features in the bill which are causing apprehension and I should like to refer to some of them. They have already been dealt with to some extent, perhaps to a considerable extent, by my hon. friends, but I should like to associate myself with what they have said because they have been expressing the concern of a great many people across the country.
Reference has been made to the fee structure. The uncertainty with respect to this feature of the bill is a major problem. I realize that in the debate in which the minister took part he pointed out, as recorded at page 2414, that he did not intend to take any precipitate action, that nothing was contemplated at the present time but that at some time in the future consideration would have to be given to the imposition of a fee schedule so as to provide income for the various programs contemplated by the department.
This is not a sufficient assurance. It has been pointed out on many occasions that no matter how well intentioned the minister of the day might be no one knows when the situation will change. Some new minister might come along and say: "This is a matter which should have been taken care of during the debates on Bill C-2; we shall impose a fee structure without further delay." This is what is bothering those in the industry. I believe the minister should be more specific in outlining his intentions for the future as far as a fee structure is concerned.
He has indicated there will be a varying set of fees; in other words, that fees will not be the same across the country. This type of thinking is all too prevalent in the government's planning. We see it in tariffs, in transportation and in other directions. It is a source of real resentment among the people of British Columbia who feel they are treated differently from people in other parts of the nation. It is irksome. People are wondering when the government will come to the conclusion that British Columbia is an integral part of the nation. If national unity is to be maintained the government will have to look upon British Columbia as being an essential part of Canada and act accordingly.
I notice that as reported on page 2414 the minister said:
The nucleus of the proposal we will bring to the fishermen is how we can best devise a fee system which will not only recognize market demand and relate to the level and quality of services provided but which will recognize regional
Fishing and Recreational Harbours differences. Obviously this means we are not going to be illogical enough, particularly in the case of east coast fishermen, to subsidize on the one hand and take it back through an unreasonable fee structure on the other.
We have no objection to consideration being given to the problems facing the fisheries on the east coast, but I believe if we are going to consider fees on that basis we must also take into account the needs of fishermen on the west coast. Speaking in another debate some time ago I pointed out that the industry in British Columbia was facing almost insuperable obstacles in its fight to maintain markets in the centre of the nation because of subsidy programs, lower wage rates and lower transportation costs in the east. I suggested that, as a measure of justice and equity, some form of compensation ought to be provided. When we come to the imposition of a fee structure, this aspect has to be taken into account as well.
I should like to refer now to a letter, a copy of which was sent to me, having to do with a statement made by the federal Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) to the Vancouver Province. The minister said that while details of the licensing arrangements still have to be worked out he is committed to the principle of a tax to cover some of the cost of salmon enhancement programs. The problem, the minister said, was making sure the cost of an enforcement of the program did not eat up the benefits. There would be some enforcement but it was not desirable to let the administrative produce so much ill will that it had to be changed.
Replying to this statement, the minister of energy, transportation and communications of British Columbia wrote to the minister under date of January 25. 1 wish to quote one or two passages from that letter. He said:
We looked into this matter carefully when 1 was Fisheries Minister and the cost of the scheme was comparable to the revenue produced. And the research or statistical value was just about nil. You don't get a complete record of the number of fishermen involved and you don't get any data on the number of fish caught. So it won't help us to manage the fishery either.
This is the opinion of one who was minister of fisheries here in Ottawa and who is now minister of energy, transportation and communications in British Columbia. He pointed out that these matters were considered, but that it was not worth the work, the time nor the animosity which would be stirred up because the revenue produced would be spent on operating the program. Also he pointed out the problem in regard to the fee structure. The closing paragraph of his letter reads as follows:
So 1 again urge you to treat us the same way that sports fishermen are treated in other saltwater areas of Canada. Keep the federal bureaucracy to a minimum and we'll all be better off as a result.
The minister should take cognizance of this particular reference which was made by one of his former colleagues. Perhaps there is some question as to the application of fees, but the real thrust of this letter is the unequal application of the program on the west coast as compared to elsewhere.
The degree of consultation was a matter brought to the attention of the minister. The government is not noted for its willingness to engage in productive consultation. Rather, confrontation has been the order of the day. It is not necessary for

February 6, 1978
Fishing and Recreational Harbours me to refer to the various measures brought before the House, nor is it necessary to refer to government attitudes which have been discussed before. Rather than engaging in consultation, the government partakes in a brief discussion and then proceeds. It says, "Take it or leave it. This is the way it will be, regardless of what you think". The minister should enter into real consultation with the provinces and those concerned in order to arrive at something which is acceptable and equitable, that will apply in an equitable fashion to those engaged in similar industries.
The matter of ministerial power has been mentioned by a number of hon. members. I will not refer to this at any length, except to say that this particular measure provides the minister with the authority to move out and lease facilities to any person. He can designate those who will be the enforcement officers. It does not stipulate their qualifications or anything else about them. It provides the minister with the ability to make decisions unilaterally without respect to any other considerations, which is unacceptable and could cause a great deal of harm to the minister because of the possibility of patronage.
I want to associate myself with the concerns which have been expressed by my colleagues in the hope that perhaps our combined efforts will move the minister to respond in a positive way to the reservations and views which have been expressed. If he responds in a positive manner, this bill could be made much more acceptable than it is at the present time.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-2, an act respecting the administration and development of certain fishing and recreational harbours in Canada. While that language is perhaps typical of the title necessary for the drafting of a bill, it is broad and indefinite enough to make me nervous of the contents of the bill. As soon as the title refers to "certain fishing and recreational harbours in Canada", 1 become somewhat twitchy.
Some years ago I questioned the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) about the size of the bureaucracy in his department, and I found out that approximately half of the public servants in the fisheries department work in Ottawa.


Roméo LeBlanc: No way.


Benno Friesen: No way? Have they been scattered? Have they been reduced?


Roméo LeBlanc: They are all over the place.


Benno Friesen: Certainly they are not up the river streams and along the river beds of British Columbia. During the Christmas break I spoke to the fishermen. They indicated that they have been looking for those officials and they cannot seem to find them. When there are more people working in the offices than up the streams, then the entire department is in trouble.


Mr. Ellis:: They are out poaching.


Benno Friesen: I doubt that. The people who are out working in those areas are honest and dedicated. If it were not for those beleaguered few, the fishing industry would be in real trouble.
As some of my colleagues have already pointed out, several clauses in this bill tend to make us apprehensive. I should like to refer to clause 5(1) which reads as follows:
The minister may undertake projects for the acquisition, development, construction, improvement or repair of any scheduled harbour or any fishing or recreational harbour to which this act applies.
Perhaps that language is normal, assuming the people out in the fishing areas are extensions of the minister. Too often that is not the case. The decision-making power still rests in Ottawa. While there may be a decentralization, it is a decentralization of administration and not of the decision-making process of the government. Thus, fishermen in the extremities of our country are faced with decisions made in Ottawa which do not properly apply to the regions.
For example, some time ago the minister and his officials decided to upgrade, rebuild or construct a new facility in Steveston Harbour. I am sure the minister is well aware of that project because it is sizeable. In fact, it is a $12 million project. The harbour was designed to accommodate ultimately 1,000 boats. Is that correct? I see the minister is nodding his head. The first phase of that project is designed for 350 boats. No one can argue about that. If it is to be expanded to accommodate 1,000 boats, one must assume the boats will come from far up the Fraser river to use the facilities at Steveston Harbour, unless the majority of the boats are recreational. It would be expecting an awful lot of fishermen to come from far up the Fraser river to use Steveston Harbour. This is an example of the minister deciding which harbour should be developed and developing it to the size he feels is necessary. That is not what the fishermen want. I was talking to them during the Christmas recess. I spent time with them in my office. I went to the harbours that we are talking about. They need facilities on site where their boats and homes are. Rather than one large complex at Steveston, the fishermen require a smaller one there, plus one at Ladner, one at Gunderson and one at New Westminster. I understand there will be a development at Ladner. I will elaborate on that later. Rather than one development for 1,000 boats, why not have four developments for 300 boats each?


Roméo LeBlanc: Basically Steveston Harbour is a winter tie-up.


Benno Friesen: As much as I hate to admit it, even in December it is winter in British Columbia. I was at the Gunderson slew. There are boats tied up five deep at Gunderson, 15 or 20 miles away from Steveston. They are on land and in dry dock. They are all over the place along the Fraser river. The minister refers to Steveston as mainly a winter tie-up, but does he expect the fishermen to go 15 or 20 miles downstream, into open water and around to Steveston harbour to tie up? To me, that is another example of an Ottawa decision.
February 6, 1978

I am happy to hear that the Ladner harbour is to be the recipient of something in the neighbourhood of $300,000 under FLIP. This really is no skin off the nose of the small harbours department because this is a winter works program, but it is a good thing for the fishermen and I am glad to hear of it.
The minister was in Vancouver on January 26 and spoke to the fishermen there. They in turn brought a number of things to his attention, one, for example, in respect of licensing fees. 1 know some of my colleagues have already brought this to the minister's attention, but there is a great deal of concern out there relative to the expected cost of licence fees. Is the fee to be $2, or $2 a foot? First of all, it is passing strange that we would adopt a fee schedule that has been used for pleasure craft and apply it to fishing operations. Is the fee to be $2 on the west coast and $1 on the east coast? We do not know, but again the feeling is that the very sweeping powers contained in the bill are too great.
I refer particularly to that part of the bill which states that the governor in council may make regulations prescribing schedules naming and delimiting or describing fishing or recreational harbours under the control and administration of the minister, the granting of licences to persons, and so on. Some of these things are logical but the fishermen have a right to know what they are going to have to pay. They certainly have the right to equity in that the fees ought to be the same on the west and east coasts. This is one concern they brought to the minister's attention.
The fishermen feel very strongly that the licence fees they are already paying for fishing ought to be sufficient. They are paying anywhere from $100 or $400 and feel perhaps that ought to be enough to cover the cost of mooring at docks. I know the minister says that the money goes into general revenue and then into the salmon enhancement program. I do not know that the fishermen are convinced this always happens. The fishermen see the amount of money paid into the licensing program and the amount being spent on the salmon enhancement program for British Columbia, but I think they would like to have some concrete evidence that the amount of money going into general revenue does end up for salmon enhancement. The minister shakes his head and I will not suggest what he is thinking because this is a polite society. No doubt he will have something to say about this a little later on, but I am telling the minister this is what the fishermen are concerned about. They are not convinced that the minister is playing ball with them. They wonder if some of that money going into general revenue is not being used in some other way.
There is another clause of this bill that was brought to the attention of the minister, and it is of great concern to me. This is the provision in clause 11 regarding search and seizure. Let me refer to that for a moment. It states in part:
Where an enforcement officer believes on reasonable grounds that a provision of this Act or the regulations is not being complied with, he may
(a) board any vessel or enter any vehicle or premises where or in respect of which he reasonably believes there may be evidence of such non-compliance and make any inspection he deems necessary;-
Fishing and Recreational Harbours
On the surface that seems to be reasonable. I am sure there could well be hanky-panky along the coast. Obviously when you are out in the "boonies" you might be tempted to play hanky-panky with the law, but this seems to be a very broad provision. Perhaps the minister will correct me, but it seems that the search and seizure described is without warrant. Am I right in that regard? There seems to be no need for a warrant on the part of an enforcement officer. Who are the enforcement officers? Are they to be fisheries officials, harbours officials or police officers, or will they be anybody deputized by the minister who will be allowed on any kind of suspicion to go on board a vessel and search, seize and hold properties, as I read the bill, for a specified length of time?
Perhaps the minister will clear these matters up when he responds, but at the present time I am concerned about the kind of powers contained in this bill. When the minister was in Vancouver he said to the fishermen that nothing was final. Those are words quoted to me by the fishermen. He said nothing was final.


Roméo LeBlanc: Read my two speeches.


Benno Friesen: Your two speeches?


Roméo LeBlanc: Yes.


Benno Friesen: Did you say to the fishermen that nothing was final?


Roméo LeBlanc: My words are in Hansard.


Benno Friesen: The fishermen understood the minister to say that we were approaching report stage on this bill and nothing was final, implying obviously that things could be changed. Yet I have not seen any changes forthcoming. Even if the thing is final we are supposed to trust the minister. 1 think he has been doing a pretty good job as Minister of Fisheries. I do not always agree with him but on the whole I think he is doing a good job. I do not mind trusting him as I do not think he would abuse his powers, nor would he like it if his officials did.
This minister holds this portfolio now, but what are we going to do if, for example, the present Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) were to become the minister of fisheries? Then we would be in trouble. What would be even worse is if the present Minister of State (Environment), the hon. member for Kamloops-Cariboo (Mr. Marchand), were to become the minister of fisheries. Then we would really be in trouble. As I say, I do not mind trusting this minister, but there are 33 other ministers and if any one of them were to become the next minister of fisheries what new climate would exist?
There is one final matter I should like to introduce to this debate, and this at least transcendentally relates to search and seizure powers. There are a number of recreational craft in my riding and in the neighbouring riding of Burnaby-Richmond-Delta. Since my riding impinges on the 49th parallel and crosses waters of the Pacific Ocean, this means that people

February 6, 1978
Fishing and Recreational Harbours
using their pleasure craft occasionally travel into United States waters. This is bound to happen.
Last week I received a distress call from a party whose father had just moved to White Rock from Winnipeg, bought himself a pleasure craft and gone sailing out in the bay. He drifted into U.S. waters and landed there. He did not even know he had landed on United States soil. A customs officer met him, found out he was a Canadian, and after a little tete-a-tete the father returned to Canada thinking everything was fine. Three months later, after the United States customs office sent their records to the Canadian customs office, this man had a visit from a customs officer and received a fine of $400 for not reporting to Canadian customs. On going into the United States he reported to the customs.
When I got back to my constituency office in Surrey I found a letter from a party from Delta to whom a similar thing had happened. The party was in a boat and another boat carrying some friends had motor trouble. Out in the open water the natural law of the sea is that you help somebody in distress. They drifted into United States waters. When they returned, because of the distress they had experienced they forgot to report to Canadian customs. A few months later when the records came to Canada from United States customs another $400 fine was assessed. I have a Xerox copy of the report made by a man from the mobile inspection section on leaving Canada.
Let me first of all say I agree with the customs and excise people that they ought to enforce this law in a very stringent way. When there are many miles of open water, as is the case along the British Columbia coast, one can imagine what could happen if we did not enforce the law very stringently.
There could be smuggling of dope or liquor, illegal immigration, or any kind of smuggling going on on those open waters if we did not enforce the law stringently. But two things should happen. First, the small harbours branch of the minister's department should be co-operating with the U.S. authorities. There should be a liaison between the Canadian and the U.S. authorities so that when Canadians go to U.S. harbours and dock there and report to the U.S. customs officials, U.S. customs officials are encouraged to tell those Canadian boaters that when they land in Canada they should report to the Canadian authorities. All of the boaters who come back do so in good faith, otherwise they would not even have reported to the U.S. authorities. They are not law breakers. They land there, report and then come back. But if for some reason or another they forget to report, zap, they get a $400 fine. They receive no warning whatsoever, just a $400 fine.
Second, many times they drift into U.S. waters without even knowing it. There are almost no market buoys in U.S. waters in that area. If they land somewhere in the U.S. where there is no customs official, who is to say that they will not be apprehended when they come back to Canadian waters? Although the minister wants to assess licence fees for these people, we are getting scant service when it comes to the

particular area along the forty-ninth parallel in the open waters along the B.C. coast. As I said, while I subscribe to the stringent enforcement of the law, it seems to me that something should be done with regard to other kinds of traffic violations. Many a time if there is a traffic violation on the highways, some kind of warning is given by police officers. So it seems entirely reasonable for the same kind of system to be applied with respect to customs and excise.
I bring these matters to the attention of the minister in the hope that he will get in touch with his colleagues in the cabinet and will do something about these unfortunate people who, in spite of wishing to be law-abiding citizens, unwittingly run afoul of the law and are fined $400 without any kind of warning. I encourage the minister to take this matter in hand and do something for the people who use their pleasure craft and get caught in this way.
I am concerned about these areas in the legislation before us and I hope the minister will answer some of the questions I have raised. If I am wrong, I would be glad to hear him tell me so and have him explain to me what is wrong with the perspective I have of this legislation.


Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry it is so late in the evening, but I feel the minister would not mind if I made some comments, or even if I call it ten o'clock.
Before I make any comments directly on the bill I think it is up to me or to one of my colleagues to pay tribute to the national director of the small craft harbours branch who will be leaving the department to take up a position with DREE in Prince Edward Island. Aside from the fact that many of us are not fully satisfied with the provisions in the act regarding small craft harbours for fishermen in our districts, we owe him a word of commendation. I say that to him through the minister and I hope that the person who will replace him will do as good a job.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jack Marshall: I would also like to commend the minister on the fact that in my district now there is a mini-department of environment with an area manager who represents small craft harbours and a staff to deal with problems of fishermen on the spot.
I should like to make a few comments on the bill before us. It started out as Bill C-7 and was introduced on October 21, 1976. Anyone who would criticize the opposition for not giving it speedy passage should remember that the bill was only referred to the committee on June 6, 1977. Apart from the clauses in the bill dealing with its purpose, I believe we should concentrate our attention on priorities and on what fishermen need in view of the newly proclaimed 200-mile limit and the prospects which this presents to the fishing industry in Canada, particularly in eastern Canada.
I have just completed a tour of my district, which I started during the Christmas recess and continued in the past two weeks, because I know, having been here for ten years, that at
February 6, 1978

about this time every year damage to fishing gear and to small craft harbours needs to be assessed and I can bring the matter the attention of both the provincial and federal governments. I should like to say, without passing out too many bouquets, that I have had the complete co-operation of the area manager and the provincial government in my investigations and assessment of the situation. My conclusion is that we are forgetting our priorities. We will never reach our objectives if we do not first ensure that there is a sufficient number of small craft harbours before charging our fishermen the licencee fee to use them.
What has struck me in particular is the effort being made under the Canada Works program to provide many small craft harbours. Recently I came across members of a community employment strategy association who are trying to create employment. They seem to have the money, and yet the small craft harbours branch of the Department of Fisheries does not appear to have sufficient funding to provide those harbours which are so essential to fishermen. Perhaps the minister could check with his officials because this problem has been causing a great deal of frustration. Fortunately we are providing some small craft harbours under the Canadian Works program, thus ensuring better service to fishermen in the future. But more funding is needed to provide appropriate harbours with a good engineering design to which the minister's officials could dedicate their efforts.


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


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I would like to ask the minister whether he plans to carry on with this bill tomorrow before we go on to Bill C-17.


Roméo LeBlanc: 1 am so informed, Mr. Speaker.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been adopted.

Mr. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, last year Canada's deficit in manufactured goods amounted to more than $10 billion; this year we are looking at a $12 billion deficit. A story in the Financial Post of December 17 last entitled "Think Industry or Forget Jobs" indicates that as a
Adjournment Debate
provider of jobs the manufacturing industry has eroded to the point where today it accounts for only 19 per cent of the nation's work force, as against 25 per cent in 1950. Canadian industry does not have a strong technological base. Without the auto pact, defence production sharing and similar bilateral arrangements with the United States, Canada would have few exports of manufactured goods.
Our lack of technological innovation and the problems of transferring technology from government laboratories to meaningful functions in our manufacturing industries are major problems, but not the only ones. Businessmen also point to excessive controls, high taxes, uncertainty about nationalist sentiment, high costs of production and more advantageous wage rates in other nations with lower living standards.
Examples of Canadian industrial success exist, but they must be built upon and multiplied. To do this, a favourable milieu must be established through the development of coherent national policies aimed at enhancing our industrial base.
In a January 25, 1978 news release Hugh Morris, chairman of the Committee for an Independent Canada, cited the 30 per cent decline in research and development since 1970 as a major contributor both to last year's $12 billion deficit in end-product trade and to the capture of almost one-third of all domestic sales by imported goods. Mr. Morris pointed out that our trade deficit in manufactured goods has grown by almost $9 billion since 1970, of which $7 billion is an imbalance with the United States. Mr. Morris suggests that the latter figure represents a loss of more than 350,000 Canadian jobs over a seven year period.
John Bullock, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, has underlined the drain of Canadian industry and has pointed to our stale, second-hand technology, and the need for research which can make us world leaders in selected manufacturing areas.
Let us take a look at some of the examples of the emerging problems in our manufacturing sector. The answer to order paper question No. 528 shows that in 1970 imports served 26.2 per cent of the total Canadian market for manufactured goods. In 1973 this percentage had risen to 29.2 per cent, and in 1976 it stood at 29.8 per cent.
The answer to order paper question No. 529 shows that in 1970 84.1 per cent of the Canadian market for computer and office equipment was served by imports, and this figure was 85.9 per cent in 1973 and 87.8 per cent in 1976.
The answer to order paper question No. 531 tells the tragic story of the Canadian market for consumer electronic products served by imports. The figure in 1970 was 33.1 per cent; in 1973 it was 42.2 per cent; and in 1976 it was 59.1 per cent.
The answer to order paper question No. 536 cites one area where we should perhaps enjoy a natural advantage, the field of agricultural machinery. But here again imports have been rising and now control a major portion of our market. In 1969
2598

February 6, 1978
Adjournment Debate
the figure was 76.2 per cent; in 1972 it was 83 per cent; and in 1976 it was 82.6 per cent.
The answer to order paper question No. 522 shows us the estimated gap between the domestic market for secondary manufacturers and domestic production of secondary manufacturers in millions of dollars. In 1977 the production gap was $111 million; in 1973 it was $2,665 million; and in 1976 it rose to $5,009 million.
Order paper question No. 690 shows us that as of March 1977, the latest date for which information is available, only 284 out of 712 companies in the electronics sector were known to be conducting research and development programs. This would account for 78 per cent of all companies in the sector with annual sales over $300,000.
Clearly, research and development is the great multiplier that enables Canadians to maintain and improve their high standard of living by producing goods in our industrial sector for sale in Canada and abroad at competitive prices. There is a clear need for a strategy to stimulate significantly our innovative research and development potential in those industries in which we have the potential for a comparative trade advantage. Our performance to date is not good and is getting worse. I urge the ministry of science and technology to roll up its sleeves and, in concert with the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, launch an industrial strategy to get this nation moving forward again.


Mr. Ross Milne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, first, let me assure the hon. member that I am as concerned as he that the Canadian manufacturing sector should be strong; and it is a matter of First priority with me that the research and development component of that sector should be a vital catalytic force. I say that representing the minister, as a fairly strong nationalist personally, and as a member of the engineering community which is associated with the research effort in Canada.
The government has three distinct sets of measures to stimulate industrial R and D in Canada. In the first place, there are tax measures. Beginning on April 1, 1977, the government extended the investment tax credit to scientific research and development. This means that both current and capital expenditures on research and development will enjoy a credit ranging from 5 per cent to 10 per cent of qualified expenditures depending on the region in Canada where the research is undertaken.
We estimate that the benefits received by industry from this measure in 1977 is estimated to be in the order of $30 million to $35 million. They will accrue mainly to large and medium size Firms carrying out research in Canada. In addition, it is important to note that, as well as the investment tax credit, an immediate deduction for both capital and current expenditures on scientific research related to the business of the taxpayer is

permitted. This treatment is quite generous since these costs are often not directly related to the earning of current income.
A second measure taken by the government to stimulate research and development in the manufacturing sector is the contracting out policy. For several years, Canadian business has been invited to provide on a competitive basis certain scientific and technological services required in support of new R and D programs. Last year, this policy was extended to ongoing R and D programs as well as related scientiFic activities. Research contracts have increased from $18 million in 1972-73 to approximately $100 million in the last fiscal year.
A third avenue of stimulation for research and development exists in the enterprise development program, established by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce on April 1, 1977. This program provides direct government assistance to industry in the form of loans or grants. The objective of this program is to enhance growth in the manufacturing and processing sectors of the Canadian economy by providing assistance to selected firms in either the area of structural adjustment or innovation, in order to make them viable and internationally competitive. Ministry officials are particularly active in contributing to the decisions of the innovation panel within the enterprise development program.
There are numerous other activities, which 1 have not detailed in this short response, but which are equally as important as some of the above.
The three major thrusts which I have described, namely, tax incentives, the purchase of R and D by the government and direct grants, offer a diversified program of assistance to R and D in Canada, one on which firms, whether they be small, large or medium size, can draw. These programs will be the subject of constant assessment and the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Buchanan) will put forward, as needed, proposals for their extension or modification.


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


MANPOWER-CANADA WORKS PROGRAM-DATE OF ANNOUNCEMENT OF THIRD PHASE-USE OF SLIPPAGE FUNDS
Jack Marshall: Mr. Speaker, it is not too often that I get a chance to speak twice within a few minutes! On December 17 I sought information from the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) about the ongoing Canada Works program. I was surprised to learn another change was going to take place. I cannot understand why a good program has to be changed so often. As a result these objectives tend to be forgotten. These objectives were to provide financial aid or assistance to communities, groups or organizations to enable them to use their initiative in providing an economic base or employment opportunities in their area.
The LIP program, Mr. Speaker, started out back in 1971 or 1972. I commended the program for its objectives. After three
February 6, 1978

or four years the monitors, co-ordinators and the people working within the program knew their districts. They knew the people who were sponsoring projects and they knew of the needs of the area. But there was one failing in that it did not provide a program on a five year basis which would allow communities to plan five years ahead. The five year plan would result in an economic base which would provide jobs on a long term basis. I was pleased with the change and I commended the program, as I still do. It can provide what we are seeking.
On December 12, in reply to a question which I posed, the minister indicated that there was to be a further change. This was after I had appealed to people serving on ministerial advisory boards to put the plan on a five-year basis. The program would be in two phases per year, enabling better planning of projects suited to the spring and summer followed by those projects suited for the wintertime. The minister now says that they are going to change the program once more. It will be a one phase program as of next September. Not only did the department change the program, they changed the whole set-up.
After four or five years of the LIP program, I indicated that we had experienced people. When the government implemented the Canada Works program those people experienced on the LIP program were no longer required. They hired new people to learn all over again. We have built up such a bureaucracy in the Canada Works program that it has become confusing to sponsors and to the people who are supposed to help. All those people flying around the country connected with these Canada Works programs have a different interpretation of how it should be run. The employment centres have a different interpretation of the hiring practices, with the result that they are splitting up communities and creating animosity. The member of parliament is caught in the middle.
Perhaps the government would listen to the advice that we are trying to give them. We are always being asked by the other side to tell them about our ideas. I say that the objective of this program is sound. But let us remember what the objectives and aims are. They are to allow every community to define their priorities, and to give themselves an economic base so that not only can they provide short term jobs for the people who need the work but also provide long term jobs, whether it is fisheries, farming or whatever. If the government will only look down the road at this program over the next five to seven years, they will find that every small community in Canada will be able to provide the economic base to give them long term employment. I hope the minister will consider that proposal and review the program as it exists.
I wish I had the time to go into many of the other failings of the program. However, I hope that all members, whether on the government side or on the opposition side of the House, will be able to develop a program which will enable them to obtain the best value for the dollar, to the betterment of this country.
Adjournment Debate


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, on December 19 the hon. member posed a question to the minister dealing with several of the points he raised tonight. At that time he also asked the minister a question dealing with the slippage funds.
To recap, on December 22, 1977, members were sent a letter informing them how the slippage funds were being distributed. The amount available for distribution was $4,630,000. It was decided that this small amount should be applied to those constituencies which received an allocation lower in phase two than the allocation they received for phase one. The basis for this distribution was that each of these constituencies receive an amount equal to the difference between the constituency allocations for the first and second phases providing that the amount did not exceed either $100,000 or the amount for which there remained acceptable unfunded applications.
To respond more appropriately to the point the hon. member has made this evening, on December 20, 1977, the minister sent a letter informing members of his intention to reorient a significant portion of Canada Works funds for the 1978-79 fiscal year, in order to put more emphasis on the creation of permanent jobs in the private sector. This reorientation involves some $50 million for the economic growth component of Canada Works and the operation of the Canada Works community projects in one year-round phase, rather than two overlapping phases as occurred in 1977-78. Applications for the community projects will be available to the public on April 3, 1978; the application deadline will be June 24, 1978, and projects will commence in September, 1978.
Canada Works is one element of the employment strategy which is to operate over a five-year period ending 1981-82. Each year the government decides the funding distribution to each element in light of the performance of, and changes in, the economy in order that distribution may be directed toward specific situations. So, as the reorientation of the 1978-79 Canada Works program demonstrates, although the employment strategy encompasses a five-year period, it and its elements are nevertheless flexible and subject to yearly assessment and planning.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS-CIDA GRANTS TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES- REQUEST FOR GOVERNMENT RECONSIDERATION
Mr. Bob Brisco (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to have the opportunity to address so many members of the House. This evening I would like to speak on the issue I raised with the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) with regard to CIDA funding to Ethiopia. On January 31 I asked about the $7.9 million in funding to Ethiopia to develop rural water supplies. The acting minister's response to my question was surely the most ridiculous and unacceptable statement on Canada's foreign aid program. He said and I quote:
80031-23'A

February 6, 1978
Adjournment Debate
We had not taken the view the programs of international economic development should be terminated or interrupted because of the political activities of the government of the day.
If that is the case, why is CIDA winding down all their aid programs to Uganda? Is this not being done because Idi Amin is a bloody murderer, bent on tribal genocide, ruling by brutality and the fear that it engenders? Is the minister not saying that? Is the aid program winding down for some inexplicable, strange, fanciful reason of the Department of External Affairs, some decision made within their inner sanctum?
Why did we cease aid and funding to Cuba during the period of its confrontation with the United States? Agreed, as conditions warranted later, that situation changed. However, the simple fact remains that aid was stopped at that time.
Why should we be funding Mozambique, a communist-dominated country which in 1976 received $2.8 million from Canada and in 1978 will be receiving 11 million tons of wheat worth some $2 million? I was always under the impression that Russia grew some of the finest wheat in the world. What is wrong with Russian wheat?
Angola, another communist-dominated country with Russian and Cuban troops in place, will receive about $2 million for medicine, clothing and roofing materials. I see nothing wrong with the humanitarian aspect of that, but it cuts both ways. If Russia or Cuba are in a position to provide military aid, if they are prepared to move in with troops, arms and guns, surely they can also provide the aid which is essential for reasons of humanity.
Take Ethiopia. CIDA has been sitting on the fence for two or three years trying to decide whether $7.9 million should be spent on a scheme to provide for a water supply in the rural areas. Yet what do we find? We see Ethiopia receiving arms shipments sufficient to overthrow Somalia. We see a heavy Russian presence. We hear warnings from President Sadat that the west should be paying attention to the Russian intrusion in Ethiopia. Yet this government is sending $7.9 million to that country.
A community in my riding, the city of Castlegar, needs $3 million to develop a water supply and I have been trying to get that amount out of the minister for DREE for two years. The stability of the economy of that area, as well as hundreds of jobs, hinges on that $3 million. Besides, I was under the impression that we had an unemployment problem in this country. Surely we should be thinking in terms of Canada first at least in preference to countries which are communist-dominated, communist-oriented, communist-supplied, communist in direction and communist in political persuasion as well as brutal in terms of fellow human beings, countries where humanity is the least consideration.
I say the government is wrong, wrong, wrong in supporting countries of that type and that the money which is wastefully spent in this direction could better be applied to economic programs in this country. If we count up the millions we are

throwing down the tube by making grants to those countries, we would probably find we had enough to provide a small Canada Winter Works program for municipalities. I am not selfish enough to advocate that the money should be channelled into my own riding, but I do submit that much could be accomplished by using the money so wastefully directed to some of these nations to which I have referred.
Finally, I am sure that if I were able to take a poll today of Canadians across this country, members would find they would agree with the position I have taken this evening.


Mr. Charles Lapointe (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be with the hon. member in this large assembly that we have today. Before making specific comments on the project signed by the government with Ethiopia, I would like to tell the House that after listening to the hon. member saying that this government was wrong, wrong, wrong and that it gave too much assistance to those communist countries, communist in essence, Mr. Speaker, I believe that even though I was a bit young during the McCarthy era in the United States, the speech made by the hon. member could easily be compared with a speech made by McCarthy at that time.
Mr. Speaker, whatever the economic problems of our country and certain communities such as those mentioned by the hon. member or certain villages of the riding I represent, whatever these problems, I believe that a country like Canada cannot forget so easily its duties towards the international community. It is in this spirit that last December the governments of Canada and Ethiopia ratified a protocol of agreement concerning this water resource development project for southern Ethiopia. The hon. member quoted a figure of $7 million, but I must inform him that the figure is not $7 million, but $9 million, and I know he will be even more shocked. It is up to $9 million that Canada has promised to donate to Ethiopia for the professional services and the various types of equipment required for this project. For its part, Ethiopia is willing to contribute a sum equivalent to $3 million in local currency in the form of staff, offices, accommodation, equipment and building materials and other types of required services which are available locally.
Essentially, the long term objective consists in improving the capacity of the Ethiopian government to develop and put to use the water resources of the southern part of the country. As you know, this area is in the Sahel zone which in the last few years has been very seriously affected by droughts which are very difficult to control. In particular, many lives have been lost in this area. I think that everyone saw television programs which showed the tragedy that has afflicted this part of the African continent. There have been many deaths in Sahel, as well as important losses of cattle, and economic goods.
That disaster has shown how urgent it is to develop systematically water resources to prevent repetition of such a disaster. However, the lack of technical resources and expertise in that area has considerably affected the efforts of the Ethiopian government to lower the level of suffering and
February 6, 1978

privation in the population. It is to alleviate that situation that Canada favourably answered a request by the Ethiopian government for the development of that project. Other giving countries have also answered favourably requests asking first of all for the reduction-
Adjournment Debate


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but his allotted time has expired. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Therefore this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.30 p.m.

Tuesday, February 7, 1978