1978-12-21

Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact the present government has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to plan House business in an orderly fashion, with the result that its belief in Santa Claus has been put into serious doubt and the family plans for all those connected with the Parliament of Canada have been disrupted, giving evidence to the government's lack of concern with women, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Ottawa-Carleton (Mrs. Pigott):
That this House urge the government House leader, regardless of what party he may belong to at the pertinent moment, to adopt a fixed range of dates for the Christmas recess, with such recesses commencing on a day no later than two weeks before Christmas and ending on a day not later than two weeks after Christmas.


Mr. Speaker:: The introduction of such a motion for debate at this time would require unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Paproski:: Allan MacEachen said "No". Ebenezer!



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, and seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow), I move:
That this House notes that the amount of the 100 per cent war disability pension, even with the indexation now applied thereto, has already slipped below the composite level of public service salaries to which it was attached by legislation passed in June of this year, and this House calls on the Minister of Veterans Affairs to review this situation, and that he bring in legislation, early in
1979, to tie the rate of the 100 per cent disability pension to the composite level designated in the Pension Act so that this level will be maintained on a continuing basis.


Mr. Speaker:: Introduction of such a motion for debate at this time would require unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



AIR TRANSPORT


Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion dealing with a very important matter of pressing necessity.
For some areas in Canada air transport is essential, especially when several regional airports such as that of Val-d'Or are not given the necessary investments by the Department of Transport to ensure adequate services to passengers, since there is no real development policy for air transport in Canada and that the lack of such policy especially affects regional airports, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Janelle):
That the House set up a special committee made up of two representatives from each party to launch an inquiry on the present condition of regional airports in Canada, to hear all necessary evidence and to report to the House which will consider the recommendations and means to develop a comprehensive policy of regional air transport.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The House has heard the motion of the hon. member. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, such a motion can be presented for debate only with unanimous consent. Is there such consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

December 21, 1978



AIRPORTS


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 the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) threatens to close the control tower at St. John's airport from 12 midnight to 8 a.m., despite many thousands of landings and departures during those hours in the course of the year and despite the danger of fog and deteriorating visibility at St. John's airport at certain periods of the year, in order to save the department two man-years, or about $40,000 to $50,000 each year, and in view of the fact that this will mean loss of the only landing aid on an east runway, the GCA unit, plus the downgrading of the ILS on the main runway from category 2 to category 1, plus a decrease of the safety standards of the airport, I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That this decision be reversed, with a saving of $40,000 to $50,000 per year by the department to be achieved by the involuntary retirement of the two most senior of the advisers of the Minister of Transport who made this cost-cutting suggestion, and that the minister treat this decision in the same manner as he treated the planned lay-off of 30 security personnel at Gander, recently cancelled even though the security personnel are described as non-essential, while essential air traffic controllers are to be removed from service at St. John's.


Mr. Speaker:: This motion can be introduced only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Such a motion can be introduced only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



RESEARCH


Mr. Thomas Siddon (Burnaby-Richmond-Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing importance.
In view of the uncertain future faced by several hundred government employees at the federal fisheries and forestry research laboratories across Canada arising from prolonged indecision on the part of the Liberal cabinet, and recognizing the numerous multimillion dollar boondoggles which have resulted from past cases of on-again, off-again decisions by this government, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling):
That the Minister of the Environment, in an overwhelming sense of Christmas compassion, make a definitive statement concerning the future of these important laboratories, thus letting the employees at these institutions make career choices of importance to themselves and their families, so that they, too, might enjoy a happy new year.


Mr. Speaker:: The introduction of such a motion for debate at this time, pursuant to Standing Order 43, can be done only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION


Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent necessity pertaining to the international service of the CBC and, in particular, Mr. M. Mogilansky, formerly head of the Russian section of Radio-Canada International who was ignominiously and unwarrantedly demoted, along with certain others, following revelations I made in this House a year or so ago that there was political interference by external affairs in programs broadcast to the Soviet Union.
I move, seconded by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Mus-koka (Mr. Darling):
That the Secretary of State responsible for the CBC make a full statement as soon as possible on the release from service to be effective April 1, 1979, of Mr. Mogilansky and of 30 members of Radio-Canada International's research branch; that he specifically guarantee an end to internal persecution of Radio-Canada personnel by the government because of refusal to tolerate political manipulation of the broadcast media.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: In the absence of the Prime Minister, I will address my question to the Minister of Finance. My questioning centres on a newly-disclosed missile from our friend, John Turner, entitled "The Road Ahead".
In his September 22 epistle, Mr. Turner describes his attitude with regard to what transpired following the Bonn conference. In the letter, Mr. Turner points out that he feels that upon the Prime Minister's return to Canada, his insistence is going ahead unilaterally with his August 1 statement undermined cabinet ministers and got rumours running about who is in charge. Does the Minister of Finance feel he has been
December 21, 1978

undermined due to the Prime Minister's unilateral action since his return from meeting Helmut Schmidt in Bonn?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I do not feel like a man who has been undermined. The way in which the budget was received by the business community is proof that the management of the economy is all right. These documents written by Bill McDonald and subscribed to by Mr. Turner, are just a gossip column that you can get from any newsstand in Toronto for 15 cents.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Granted, the dollar is falling quickly, but the price is actually $15,000, Canadian, not 15 cents. The Minister of Finance says he has not been undermined, although he appears to be undermined. In view of the fact that when questioned by Global TV today, the Minister of Finance said he was expecting a second apology from Mr. Turner, will the minister indicate whether he has received that second apology with regard to yesterday's revelations and, if not, when does he expect it?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member is so anxious to ask questions about it. I can understand his frustration, though, if he paid $15,000 to get the information.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Again to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. I can assure the hon. gentleman that I have not had to pay the $ 15,000, and if he would like to share in my good fortune I will pass the various letters across to him as I receive them.
My final supplementary question to the minister is: when does he intend to take concrete steps to renew the morale of the public service which has been somehow affected, according to Mr. Turner, as a result of recent actions taken on the economic scene? What, specifically, will the minister do to start shoring up the dollar which is now literally at an historical low? If you go back to 1858, you will find the dollar has never been as low, on average, as it is this year.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: It took a long time for the hon. gentleman to get around to asking a question which is pertinent to my area of responsibility. Our policy of allowing the Canadian dollar to float is well known. This morning the dollar was strengthening. When you have a currency which is free-floating, you have to rely on the market to determine its level.


FORECAST OF RATE OF GROWTH
Mr. James Gillies (Don Valley):: My question also is directed to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Speaker. I am sure the hon. gentleman knows that historically Canada has always enjoyed a strong position and reputation in international circles for the role it plays in the development of economic policy, particularly Bretton Woods and the International Monetary Fund.
Oral Questions
Would the minister tell us if it was his department which advised the Prime Minister of Canada to make the commitment, not only for the government but for all Canadians, at Bonn for a 5 per cent rate of growth in Canada during the course of the next year to help theThird World countries, when it was clearly evident to almost everyone in Canada that we had no opportunity whatsoever of fulfilling that commitment?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, when we were at Bonn it was in the context of a decision by many countries to try to stimulate western world economies. Of course we wanted to do our part and we wanted to stimulate our own economy as much as we could. That is why we have proposed measures to place the Canadian economy on a good footing. In fact, we are doing well in comparison with others. This year we will have a record trade surplus. There is a big increase in our consumer spending and our job creation program. If all the other countries could contribute as much as we are at this time, I am sure we would all be better off.


James McPhail Gillies: 1 think the hon. gentleman misunderstood the import of my question. Very simply, it is that at Bonn-and the Prime Minister made this statement-we were not observers; we made commitments. The commitment which was given to the nations of the world was that we would benefit by a 5 per cent rate of real growth during the course of the next year. We now know that it will be around 3.3 per cent.
I ask the minister two questions. First, why would the Prime Minister of Canada, on the advice of his ministers, put Canada in the invidious position of making a commitment which could not, and cannot, be fulfilled and which it was known at the time could not be fulfilled, thereby lowering the credibility of Canada in the eyes of all the other economic ministers in the world?
Second, what does the Minister of Finance intend to tell the Prime Minister to say to Mr. Schmidt at the conference after Christmas? How will he explain why, having made a commitment in August, we have to renege on it in December because the growth rate has been only 3.3 per cent?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, last July, when we were in Bonn, we merely told our colleagues who attended that meeting that we expected the rate of growth to be 5 per cent at the time when I brought down my budget barely two months before. Since then, the world economy has suffered many setbacks, such as the fall of the American dollar, the increase in interest rates as a result of the devaluation of the American dollar, and other factors such as those which have slowed down our own economy. I feel that we cannot isolate Canada from current world problems.

December 21, 1978
Oral Questions


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Labour, if I can get his attention. I would like to ask the minister if it is a fact that his department is ending the contract arrangements which it had with the provincial departments of labour under which those departments inspected premises of companies such as railway companies, airline companies and grain elevator companies whose employees come under federal jurisdiction with regard to health and safety standards.


Hon. Martin O'Connell (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that is the case, but I would like to take the question as notice and brief myself further on it.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, when the minister is looking into the question, would he look into what we have been told by reliable sources, that is, that under the contract arrangements which have been in effect with the provinces, funds were provided for the payment of salaries to about 40 people, a number which many workers and their unions felt was inadequate to do a proper job of inspection and supervision; and would the minister inquire whether the proposal now being discussed-and, I presume, implemented in his department- will mean that those 40 people will be replaced by only about six or seven people, a number which, if one thinks of the hundreds of thousands of workers and the number of work places involved, is clearly inadequate?


Mr. O'Connell:: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to do that.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, would the minister-


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


ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Richard Janelle (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister. Following the statement made by the President of the Board of Economic Development Ministers announcing the participation of the federal government in the reactivating of a backing board plant in Newfoundland and its conversion to newsprint production, and because the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion used to select the programs allotting credits to industries in the so-called designated areas and also announced publicly what they would consist of, I should like to ask the right hon. Prime Minister whether the President of the Board of Eco-

nomic Development Ministers is trying to steal the limelight for his department by making the announcements that used to be made by the ministers who now work with him?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: My God, that question is not really very serious, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member should know that the government acts as a government: all the ministers contribute to its decisions.


ROLE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MINISTERS
Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a question for the Prime Minister. In appointing the new President of the Board of Economic Development Ministers, is it the Prime Minister's objective that the new president shall direct the operations of those economic development ministers in a way which will overcome their clearly demonstrated lack of knowledge and experience in manufacturing, processing, merchandising and distribution, and in that way require those economic development ministers in future to give to the Canadian business community the kind of service they are entitled to expect but are not receiving today?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, does the Prime Minister not realize that the lack of performance on the part of these economic development ministers is the principal cause for the Prime Minister's recent slippery slide down the Gallup "pole"?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, again the answer is no. I point out that the premise is even more inaccurate than the question, because if the hon. member watches statistics he will see that in November, over November of last year, the Canadian economy created some 384,000 jobs, an all-time record.


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the right hon. Prime Minister. Is it government policy to use public funds or to make promises that public funds would be made available for advertising in ethnic publications if editors of those publications bought tickets for the Liberal fund-raising dinner which was held in Toronto on Monday?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the question is entirely hypothetical and has no foundation in fact.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Your credibility is shot even more.
December 21, 1978


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, which I should like to direct to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. It concerns a letter to publishers and editors of ethnic newspapers and magazines in Ontario, written by Stan Martyn, president of New Canadian Publications, an advertising agency which has been used by the government to place ads in the ethnic press, an agency which takes approximately 30 per cent as its fee for the service.
I should like to ask the minister whether he knew of the procedure which was being used for the fund-raising dinner, whereby editors of the ethnic press were contacted by Mr. Martyn, and asked to attend the fund-raising dinner and, if they could not pay the $150, New Canadian Publications would deduct $50 a month per ticket from pending government advertising to be placed in that publication.


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


Hon. Norman A. Cafik (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, the premise of that question is equally false. New Canadian Publications is not an agency of the Government of Canada for any advertisements whatsoever. The directorate of multiculturalism places about half a million dollars worth of advertising in the ethnic press in Canada, but does not use the services of New Canadian Publications in any way, shape or form.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Norman Augustine Cafik: We have an agency ourselves, which is not that agency. They themselves happen to be media representatives on behalf of the ethnic press, not the Government of Canada. I would have thought that the hon. member and his party would have supported the free enterprise function which he happens to represent. The second point that I would make-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Supplementary, to the same minister. I should like to ask the minister the following question. In view of the fact that this action did take place through New Canadian Publications and that a letter from Maurice Strong was attached to the memorandum from Mr. Martyn to the ethnic press, would the minister now review his policy on how ads are placed in the ethnic press by his department-he has already identified how much-and say whether that review will take place; and, further, will those editors who chose not to attend that dinner receive the same consideration in the placing of ads in their papers as editors who did attend?


Norman Augustine Cafik: I have already pointed out that there is no relationship whatsoever between the Government of Canada and Mr. Stan Martyn of New Canadian Publications. Our advertisements are placed, without discrimination, on the basis of criteria which all press have to meet to qualify as ethnic press and they will continue to receive advertisements so long as they meet those criteria. It is true that I am reviewing the criteria-
Oral Questions


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Norman Augustine Cafik: I announced a year ago that we were reviewing the criteria. In fact, I invited the Ethnic Press Association to advise me as to the recommendations they thought we should accept in terms of determining the advertisements and the criteria for them. You can be assured, Mr. Speaker, as can all members of the House, that there is no relationship between that agency and this government, and that we will advertise in the ethnic media, provided they are legitimate advertisers, to the people of this country.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. Heward Grafftey (Brome-Missisquoi):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Last week, in response to a question by the leader of the New Democratic Party, the right hon. Prime Minister declared that the federal government had simply reduced some program budgets but that no program had been entirely abolished. In view of the fact that the minister is supposed to represent here in Ottawa the low income earners, has she informed the right hon. Prime Minister that the block funding programs for social services, national health resources funds, many housing programs and wheat subsidies, all things which affect mainly low wage earners, have been cancelled? Has she informed the Prime Minister of the present situation?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: I wish to give the hon. member the following information, which he could transmit to several provinces, approximately eight if not more, that all welfare ministers in the country have worked shoulder to shoulder and have fought for their budgets. The provincial ministers told me that they failed to get support from the finance ministers of their own governments and that those finance ministers had identified the social services bill as a target for budget restrictions.


INQUIRY AS TO WHEN MEASURES WILL BE TAKEN TO CONTROL EXPENDITURES AND WASTE
William Heward Grafftey: Considering that last week, the Prime Minister stated that no program had been completely cancelled and since the federal government has unilaterally cancelled the home construction program and the subsidies for block funding, when is the Prime Minister going to take seriously the various recommendations of the Auditor General pertaining to the control of federal spending

December 21, 1978
Oral Questions
and wasting of money and quit implementing this restriction policy which hurts primarily low income people?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member is asking a question which is a contradiction in itself because that program has not been abolished. It has been discussed, but it has not been adopted as yet.


BILINGUALISM
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board.
The information media have reported that following inquiries in various federal departments, it could be concluded cynically that French-speaking civil servants hinder the progress of bilingualism in the public service, because they are rather reluctant to use French at work. Considering that newspaper headings and other media imply that Francophones are responsible for the difficulty experienced by English-speaking employees in learning the second language, can the minister tell the House whether his department issued guidelines to encourage French-speaking employees to use French at work, or whether this matter stems from the reports which the various departments now have to submit to the President of the Treasury Board, as far as bilingualism is concerned?


Hon. Judd Buchanan (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, obviously it is not the responsibility of Francophones in the public service to teach French to their Englishspeaking colleagues. Furthermore, I should say that in the ten years I spent here in Ottawa, the use of French has increased considerably in government circles. Finally, I must say that even if it is government policy in the province of Quebec, with Bill 101, to direct their civil servants and their residents to use a particular language, it is not our policy here. Both languages are accepted in the public service.


PENITENTIARIES
Mr. John Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General in his roles as Solicitor General and as minister responsible for northern Ontario.
In view of the promise made approximately a year ago that the federal government was to construct or renovate the Camp Bison site in Ontario as a federal penitentiary, at the time when the Inco lay-offs were announced, that that was announced in the local media and through political sources as

something the government would do in the Sudbury basin, and that now rumours are circulating that suddenly the project has been shelved, put off or whatever, will the minister inform the House exactly what is the status of this project at the moment?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite accurate. At the time I made the announcement relating to the cutbacks last Tuesday, I announced the revised construction program. Also, I advised the Canadian public, as a result of budgetary restraints and because of readjustments in terms of the prognostication of the prison population, that there was a drastic cutback in the number of institutions. Unfortunately, one of the programs which has been suspended is the Burwash program.
Mr. Speaker, you can rest assured that the decision was taken by me with a great deal of regret and hesitation. However, under the circumstances there was no alternative for me but to cancel that particular institution. I hope that as we proceed there may be some chance we might be able to reconsider the construction of that institution. Because it was a specialized institution dealing with protective custody inmates, unfortunately it was one of the casualties of the cutbacks.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the renovating of the Camp Bison site as a federal penitentiary institution is in line and in concert with the recommendations of the subcommittee on penitentiary services, and that last Thursday or Friday when the Minister of Public Works was in Sudbury to unveil a plaque at the taxation data centre he said, "What the member for Sudbury wants, Sudbury gets", can the Solicitor General live up to that commitment made by the Minister of Public Works and ensure the project is not put off but receives high priority?


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that representations have been received from a large number of members in northern Ontario who would like to have a facility of that nature in the area. As the hon. member well recognizes, this is an area very close to my own riding. I would have appreciated having that institution in my area as well, in terms of employment prospects for people within my area. Unfortunately, I have an obligation to administer not only a system, a penitentiary service, but also the budget allocated to me by the Government of Canada. I am doing this in accordance with that responsibility and, although the decision was regrettable, it was impossible to avoid.


URBAN AFFAIRS
Mrs. Jean E. Pigott (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Urban Affairs.
December 21, 1978

Will he give us the number of AHOP units in a default position in Canada?


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I can certainly answer this question. It can take quite some time. With your permission, however, I shall table the document in question.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question itself seeks an answer which probably should be sought in another way, but that is not primarily for the Chair to decide. There are cases in which a minister may have the answer ready, notice may have been given, but in fact the answer is of such a nature that probably it should be sought in writing.


Jean Elizabeth Pigott: Mr. Speaker, one of the problems with this minister is that he does not give anything.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean Elizabeth Pigott: Before foreclosure notices are sent out by Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, will the minister confirm that it will involve 8,000 units in Ontario alone?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I shall start reading and I hope you will let me know when you feel I have replied enough.
As of September 1978, the files of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation and those of the lenders of the private sector indicated 144,000 loans have been granted since the inception of the program. There have been 1,287 foreclosures over the same period, which represents a rate of failure of less than 1 per cent. Since 1978, some 1,000 claims have been submitted. Even if we had to discharge all these claims, the number of foreclosures would then increase from 1,287 to 2,287, which represents a proportion far below the 10 per cent figures indicated by the hon. member. In this case, the rate of foreclosures would amount to 2 per cent approximately.


An hon. Member:: Mr. Speaker, we know he can read.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I could go on and give a much longer explanation.


An hon. Member:: Just answer the question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. minister would be glad to supply that information in another way.
Oral Questions


Mr. Dean Whiteway (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Urban Affairs. As you know, Mr. Speaker, over the last several weeks we have been raising questions regarding the AHOP program in Canada. Could the minister at least confirm to the House that it is the opinion of CMHC that there is a serious trend in AHOP housing to walk-aways in default, and could he confirm to the House that CMHC's new predictions are in excess of 20,000 defaults or walk-aways in the first couple of months of next year?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, these figures are projections of the hon. member but are surely not projections of the government. Indeed, what I want to say is that whatever may be the number of defaults, it is regrettable to see any defaults at all. The intent of the program is to give a break, in the first place, to people of modest and low income, in providing them with a chance to become owners of homes. In the vast majority of cases-I submit, 98 per cent-this turns out well and these people take advantage of the program and become, and remain for a long period of time, owners of homes in Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


André Ouellet: Unfortunately, there are a few cases where there are defaults. We regret this, but we think this is a good program which benefits 98 per cent of those who take advantage of it and we intend to continue it.


Dean Waldon Whiteway: Mr. Speaker, will the minister assure the House that he will allow CMHC to give us its figures, rather than the minister giving us his? If AHOP is so good, or as good as the minister claims it to be, why is he ending AHOP and going into a credit payment mortgage program?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I am not ending the program. The advantages of the program are to continue. We are adding another tool, or another option, for people who want to buy homes but do not want to take advantage of the normal mortgage programs. They will be able to benefit from the graduate payment mortgages, a technique that allows someone with a modest income and a bright future to build on that future by paying less interest in the first few years while enjoying the home and paying a greater amount in latter years. This is a good way of giving the opportunity to people of modest income to buy homes earlier in their lives rather than having to wait five, six or ten years until their income increases.


ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND-FAULTY CONSTRUCTION AND INSPECTION OF AHOP HOMES
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Urban Affairs. He talks about giving low income earners a break. I want to ask him if he is prepared to give a break to the 106 AHOP home owners in St. John's, Newfoundland, whose homes have deteriorated as a result of faulty materials and inadequate inspections, in respect of
2344

December 21, 1978
Oral Questions
which serious allegations have arisen regarding pay-offs? Will he undertake to have CMHC underwrite the cost of repairing these homes which have deteriorated as a consequence?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, in response to this question, the responsibility of CMHC under the National Housing Act is to inspect the housing projects to ensure that the construction work is carried out in reasonable conformity with approved plans and specifications. The question of liability for repairing the houses about which the hon. member is talking, specifically with reference to the failure of exterior bricks, is an important one indeed, and I appreciate that.
I want to say to the hon. member that there are contractual obligations between the prime contractor, the subcontractors and the suppliers and, of course, between the prime contractor and the suppliers themselves. Therefore, I think that the responsibility in law lies more directly between the purchaser and the contractor, and not with CMHC.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, these people will find precious little satisfaction in what the minister has said, because the contractor was in fact set up as a dummy company and it no longer exists. In view of the serious allegations that have been raised on national television in respect of pay-offs by the contractor to CMHC inspectors, has any disciplinary action been taken against the inspectors to whom the allegations have been directed? In view of the allegations, will the minister review the position vis-a-vis the liability of CMHC? Is he prepared, in light of these charges, to make restitution to those low income earners whose homes are deteriorating and whose dreams are being destroyed by his callous attitude toward them?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I know there have been some allegations made against two inspectors. Since these allegations have been made, the two inspectors have been reassigned to non-inspection duties.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to see the official opposition denying the fundamental right in Canada of everyone to be considered innocent until proven guilty.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


André Ouellet: These two inspectors have been assigned to non-inspection duties pending the completion of investigations. We have asked the RCMP to help the corporation in these investigations. When the investigations are completed, we will know exactly whether the type of allegation which has been made can be sustained or not.


FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. One result of the collapse of the proposed merger of Simpsons and Simpsons-Sears appears to be that Sears-Roebuck of the United States now has effective control of Simpsons-Sears and there has been what amounts, in my view, to a takeover of Simpsons-Sears by Sears-Roebuck.
Will the minister have this development reviewed by the Foreign Investment Review Agency, if it has not started a review already, and if it turns out that the particular circumstances of the matter do not come within the present provisions of the act, will the government present an appropriate amendment so that this kind of situation can be fully reviewed by the government in future?


Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, this whole question regarding Simpsons-Sears and whether or not it is going to be the final owner of Robert Simpsons, or whether or not the Bay is going to be the final owner of Robert Simpsons, still has to sort itself out in the marketplace. At that time, if there is a question that needs to be looked at either by the Foreign Investment Review Agency or under the Combines Investigation Act, we will do so.


LOTTERIES
Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) in her capacity as the minister responsible for lotteries.
I have learned from reliable sources that some $17,000 was spent for a large supply of foil-wrapped chocolate coins specially made by Laura Secord to promote the ill-fated Loto Select scheme, and that those chocolates have now been absorbed by the staff, so to speak.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Edward Siddon: Will the minister confirm that some $17,000 was spent to purchase a supply of foil-wrapped chocolate coins and that these surplus candies have now been given to Loto Canada staff?


Hon. Iona Campagnolo (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: Mr. Speaker, I shall be pleased to look into the matter, in the interests of Christmas good cheer. I am sure, however, that the staff could not absorb all those chocolates even if they tried, because there are too few of them.
[Mr. McGrath.)

December 21, 1978


Thomas Edward Siddon: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, to the minister responsible for Loto Canada. An American college professor has stated that he has been commissioned by Loto Canada to write a promotional book about Canadian lottery winners which would describe the changes wrought in the lives of Canadians who were big winners.
Is it true that Mr. H. Roy Kaplan of Buffalo, New York, has been commissioned to write such a book? If so, what are the financial arrangements with Mr. Kaplan, and why has the job not gone to one of our many thousand talented Canadian writers?


Iona Campagnolo: Mr. Speaker, the Kaplan report was covered in very large measure in the last issue of Maclean's magazine. I would suggest that the hon. member read it. It has some very interesting statistics, such as that the average winner in French Canada-


An hon. Member:: Answer the question.


Iona Campagnolo: -makes $17,000 per year, and the average winner in English Canada makes $22,000 per year-


An hon. Member:: Answer the question.


Iona Campagnolo: -and Canadian winners are extremely intelligent in their investment in Loto Canada because they are able to maintain most of the dollars in their bank accounts.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question which I intended to address to the Minister of Employment and Immigration, but because of its urgency I will address it to his parliamentary secretary.
One, Arviles, a paraplegic from Ecuador, has just been given a departure notice requiring him to leave Canada, despite an offer of employment and the fact that he can get treatment in Canada that is not available to him in Ecuador. Would the minister exercise the discretion he has under the act to grant a permit on compassionate grounds to allow this man to stay in Canada?


Mr. Frank Maine (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, this is indeed a very important case which the hon. member for Niagara Falls has already brought to our attention. We have been working on it at some length. The father of Herman Arviles has an auto parts business in Ecuador and has requested his son's return so that he could be assisted in finding a job in Ecuador.


Francis Andrew Brewin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Despite what his father may say, this man needs treatment in Canada. I should like to ask whether the parliamentary secretary believes that this refusal of a permit is consistent with the
Oral Questions
humanitarian purposes pronounced in our Immigration Act and frequently boasted of by the minister?


Francis William (Frank) Maine: Mr. Speaker, we have looked into this case in some detail and with great concern because it is such an important one. We feel that the Government of Canada is doing what it should be doing, taking into account the interests of all parties concerned.


URBAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Urban Affairs. I have made a number of representations to him about the people who have been taken for a ride in Bear Creek Estates.
Now that the minister has introduced compulsory insurance for those home owners going into the AHOP program, he is admitting that some of these low income people have been ripped off by unscrupulous contractors. Will the minister now admit that some of these low income home owners who trusted the government and government programs deserve to have the funds they expended reimbursed because their AHOP homes have lost their value since they invested in them? These homes have now depreciated in value.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I think there is a fundamental mistake in the hon. member's question which must be clarified.
Of course the government has subvention programs to help individuals buy their own house. This is one of the most important aspects of the roles of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Its other role, which is its first and most important one, is to guarantee or grant loans for the construction of houses in Canada. As far as that role of banker is concerned, the responsibility of the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation cannot be greater than that of a regular bank. So, it is the responsibility of anyone who borrows money to buy a house to make sure that he is buying a good quality product. If he gets a bad quality product, it becomes his responsibility to take action against those who sold him such bad product.


Benno Friesen: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I think the minister missed the point, which is that it is not only the responsibility of the home buyer to look at the bank loan, but it is the responsibility of the government to honour the trust that citizens put in it. When the government sends inspectors who do not do a proper job of inspection, the home owners again become the victims. Will the minister honour
80047-7'/,

December 21, 1978
Oral Questions
that commitment and honour the trust which people put in this government when they buy a home under a government-sponsored program?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, as I have already indicated, the inspection duties of CMHC officers is to ensure that the loan, or the security of the loan is given for the reasons it was granted. That has nothing to do with municipal building standards, according to a certain zoning or according to certain plans and specifications approved by municipal authorities.
Consequently, when the hon. member says that the inspections made by CMHC officers were supposed to ensure building quality, he is giving these officers a responsibility which they never had in the first place.

In view of the minister's avowed intention to promote foreign trade for Canada, can he tell the House whether the government has accepted the case put by the British Columbia trade delegation and whether his department will co-operate with the provincial and civic governments to ensure the creation of the proposed trade and convention centre in downtown Vancouver?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I have met on two different occasions with the mayor of Vancouver and representatives of the British Columbia government to discuss their proposal to build a trade centre in Vancouver. It is a very interesting proposal, and when we can work out all the details we will consider it again.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Is the minister aware of the urgency of the situation, in view of the plan that Seattle has for a similar centre which would detract from the benefits of the Vancouver centre to Canada?


AIRPORTS
Mr. Bob Brisco (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Transport may I address my question to the parliamentary secretary?
In the light of a report carried in the Calgary Herald that victims of the plane crash at Cranbrook may well have survived-indeed, did survive-the crash but died subsequently of toxic fumes, and the fact that they would have survived if there had been adequate fire-fighting measures at the Cranbrook airport, is it the intention of the ministry to upgrade fire-fighting facilities at Cranbrook, Castlegar, Kelowna and similar airports?


Mr. Charles Lapointe (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I do not have all the details which would allow me to reply adequately to the member's question. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, if you and the hon. member will allow me, I would like to come back to it and discuss this personally with him by tomorrow.


TRADE AND CONVENTION CENTRE IN VANCOUVER, B.C.
William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In one of his visits to the House last week, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre called the attention of the minister to Canada's status as a Pacific rim country and to Vancouver as Canada's gateway to the Orient.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I think the problem was that neither the city of Vancouver nor the government of British Columbia wanted to assume the operating costs, whether there would be a profit or a deficit and, if there was a deficit, who would be picking up the operating costs. I think once the city or the province agreed on something like that, certainly the project might go ahead.
* *
*



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Second report of Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs-Mr. MacGuigan.

Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-452, to amend the Statistics Act.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Miss MacDonald:: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to remove from the Statistics Act the penalty provisions contained in section 29 which are directed against those individuals who refuse to answer questions on Statistics Canada surveys. The two exceptions to that bill would be questions contained in any census of population or agriculture. This bill is especially relevant at this time in view of a court case in British Columbia in which a citizen was charged with refusing to provide census information about what she considered personal matters. The decision in that case is pending.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Stewart Leggatt (New Westminster) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-453, to amend the Bank Act (standard forms).


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to ensure that the forms used by banks in their dealings with the public are standardized as far as possible and kept up to date with provincial law. The basic problem is that under search and seizure legislation in the provinces the banks have failed to amend their own forms to comply with provincial law, and the public, in dealing with the banks, are being misled by the forms. As a result they have to pay for deficiencies after seizures. This bill would correct that.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Business of the House

Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-454, to provide for an economic impact statement to accompany certain Bills and regulations.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, this bill provides that when any bill or statutory instrument is introduced dealing with the appropriation of public funds, it shall be accompanied by an economic impact statement giving the initial and ongoing cost, a cost-benefit analysis, and other related information.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Gerald William Baldwin: for leave to introduce Bill C-455, to provide for the inclusion of certain information in the annual reports of government departments and agencies.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Gerald William Baldwin: Mr. Speaker, this bill provides that when by law any government minister or agency is compelled to file an annual report, in addition to the usual exculpatory, self-serving and glossy material which finds its way into the report, there shall be as well a proper financial statement with any comments made by the Auditor General or any committee, along with other related information, so the public will know what is going on in that department or agency.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Before we leave this part of the proceedings, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the government House leader would let me know whether he is in a position to indicate to us what business, its priority and the order if he can, the House will be dealing with when it returns on January 23. We have discussed that subject and the government House leader indicated that he would do his best to comply. If it is impossible to do so today, I will be very pleased to stand down and ask the question tomorrow.


Mr. MacEachen:: Mr. Speaker, 1 think I can provide much of the answer today. When we return in January I propose to

Business of the House
call Bill C-9, the referendum bill; Bill C-13, the Electricity Inspection Act and the Gas Inspection Act; Bill C-2, the Health Resources Fund Act; Bill C-24 a bill relating to the Two-Price Wheat Act; Bill C-29, a bill relating to the National Housing Act; and Bill C-27, respecting the Post Office Act. Certainly I would call Bill C-9, the referendum bill, first and the order of the others might be varied. However, that is the block of bills I would want to deal with when we get back.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, this is a business question but it is not directed to the leader of the government. My question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. During the question period the minister was reading from a document in answer to a question. This answer became rather lengthy during the course of his dissertation to us, and he indicated that he would be prepared to table the document from which he was speaking, or alternatively the information that was contained therein. Is the minister in a position to do so now and, if not, will he arrange to do that tomorrow?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I understand the hon. member could put a written question on the subject. I will make sure a reply is given very quickly under the normal procedure.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, with reference to the statement made by the government House leader that we would take up Bill C-9 on January 23, can he say whether that is just for that day or is it intended to stay with that bill until second reading has been completed?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I would expect to stay with that bill. I would hope that it would clear the House rather quickly, but it is my intention to get second reading.


Mr. Beaudoin:: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Could the government House leader tell us, after having just enumerated all the bills, whether he forgot Bill C-12? Did he shelve Bill C-12, which has to do with pensions?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I have not forgotten about that bill. I will be discussing it later with the President of the Treasury Board who is urging me to bring it forward as quickly as possible. I have not yet finally decided when to bring it forward, but that decision will be made very shortly.


Mr. Benjamin:: Mr. Speaker, since the government House leader has not forgotten about that particular bill, may I ask whether he would be good enough to forget about Bill C-24?


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Foster:: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the House leader whether a reference will be given to the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works of the Hare report concerning the management of Canada's nuclear waste. A great number of public hearings were held last year and a

December 21, 1978
great deal of work has been done by the staff. In view of the importance of this question and the work that has already been carried out, it is very important that this reference be given to the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works in the new sitting. I am interested in knowing if the minister will do that.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I discussed that with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and I understand he proposes to place a motion on the order paper providing for a reference to that committee.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 76, 196, 200, 260, 267, 372, 476, 543, 595, 609, 616, 699 and 724.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Jones: 1.	Why was the Canadian Coat of Arms which was originally adorning the Post Office in Springhill, Nova Scotia replaced? Upon whose instructions and by what authority? At what cost?
2.	How many other Post Offices in Canada will have the same type of bilingual sign placed in fi'ont? Give total costs across Canada. Is this an example of service or restraint?


André Ouellet: In so far as Public Works Canada is concerned: 1. The Canadian Coat of Arms originally adorning the post office in Springhill, N.S. was removed in error by the contractor engaged to instal the bilingual sign. It was replaced by him at no cost to the Government of Canada.
2.	Bilingual signs have been ordered for the 2,718 post offices administered by Public Works Canada. It is impossible to say exactly what the total cost of all bilingual signage in front of post offices across Canada will be as there is no single cost. The expenditures will all be different as all projects must take into account such variables as the size of the sign, the cost of construction, the cost of installation and shipping charges. However, a ballpark manufacturing cost has been estimated at $1,685,160 exclusive of installation and shipping charges. The bilingual signage program is carried out as required by the Official Languages Act and the Federal Identity Program.
December 21, 1978


Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1977, were studies made regarding the possible establishment of a UIC office at Oromocto, New Brunswick and, if so, has such an office been established and, if not, for what reason?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Yes, as part of a review of the locations of all manpower and unemployment insurance offices in New Brunswick. No action has yet been taken due to budgetary constraints.


Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1977, were studies made regarding the possible establishment of an employment office at Oromocto, New Brunswick and, if so, has such an office been established and, if not, for what reason?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: See reply to written question 196 answered this day.


Mr. Friesen: 1.	How many farm labour offices were set up in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia in 1978?
2.	Approximately how many requests did the offices fill for farm labour?
3.	How many farm labour contractors used farm labour offices to supply their requests or as contacts?
4.	How many farmers used farm labour contractors, using farm labour offices and referral agencies?
5.	How many of the farmers using the facilities of the farm labour offices indicated that they would pay in excess of the minimum wage?
6.	How many farmers using the facilities of the farm labour offices indicated that they would pay the minimum wage?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: 1. Three seasonal offices were established in 1978 at Chilliwack, Cloverdale and Richmond. In addition, farm labour services are provided on a year-round continuing basis by the Canada farm labour pool at Abbotsford and the Canada Employment Centre at Surrey.
2.	This year, to October 31, the offices made a total of about 10,042 placements.
3.	Approximately ten contractors used them to recruit workers and another ten, as contracts for labour market information.
4.	Some 75-100 farmers.
5.	and 6. There are no minimum wage requirements for agricultural employment in British Columbia.


Mr. Epp: From June 1, 1974 to date, what lawyers in the Constituency of Provencher were given work by the Post Office Department and what amount was each paid per year?


Mr. Claude-Andre Lachance (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice):: In so far as the legal agents of the Minister of Justice are concerned: None.
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Epp: From June 1, 1974 to date, what lawyers in the Constituency of Provencher were given work by the Department of Employment and Immigration and what amount was each paid per year?


Claude-André Lachance: In so far as the legal agents of the Minister of Justice are concerned: None.


Mr. McKenzie: 1.	What was the total cost of the booklet Ojibway Language Course Outline published by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development?
2.	How many were (a) printed (b) distributed?


Hon. James Hugh Faulkner (Minister Northern Development):: 1.	Design Typesetting Printing Total
2.	(a) 5,000 copies were printed.
(b) The booklet was prepared for distribution to federal schools in regions where the Ojibway language is spoken. A small number of copies are being distributed to IAND classroom consultants across the country, and copies will be provided on request to provincial schools or other interested organizations. As the booklet was published only three weeks ago, distribution is only now underway.


Mr. Hnatyshyn: 1.	Were farm labour offices set up in Saskatchewan in 1978 and, if so, how many?
2.	How many farm labour contractors used the offices to contact or supply farm personnel?
3.	How many requests for farm labour were filled from the offices?
4.	How many farmers using the facilities paid (a) the minimum wage (b) more than the minimum wage?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: 1. Six Canada farm labour pools, established prior to 1978, continued operations this year on a full-time, year-round basis. These offices are situated at Moose Jaw, North Batt-leford, Prince Albert, Saskatoon, Weyburn and Yorkton. No additional offices were opened.
2.	None.
3.	This year, to October 31, they filled 1,509 requests.
4.	There are no minimum wage requirements for agricultural workers in Saskatchewan.
of Indian Affairs and


[Stage Direction]
December 21, 1978
Order Paper Questions NATIONAL DEFENCE-BUDGET
Mr. McKinnon: Did the Minister of National Defence make a speech to the Men's Canadian Club of Winnipeg on October 5, 1978 in which he stated that DND's budget for next year was $4.5 billion and, if so (a) is this an accurate figure (b) what part of this increase of $372 million over the 1978-79 budget is accounted for by (i) inflation (ii) real increase in the capital budget (iii) real increase in the overall budget in accordance with NATO commitments?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of National Defence):: (a)
and (b)(i), (ii), (iii) Yes. The Minister of National Defence did refer to a $4.5 billion budget for next year. However, the 1979-80 Estimates-Budget is currently the subject of discussion-negotiation with Treasury Board, and neither the precise total nor details of content have been finalized.


Mr. Holmes: 1.	How many inter-departmental and intra-departmental committees are there in the various departments, agencies and Crown corporations and, in each case (a) how frequent does it meet within a fiscal year (b) what is the name of the committee and for what purpose was it constituted (c) how many man-days are used at each meeting?
2.	In the case of each committee, were any meetings held outside the City of Ottawa and, if so (a) in what locations (b) at what cost (c) how many persons attended the meeting from (i) Ottawa (ii) other areas of the country?


Yvon Pinard: No registry of inter-departmental or intra-departmental committees is maintained, either centrally or within each department. The information requested, therefore, could only be provided by a major expenditure of resources, which is not warranted in relation to the subject matter in question.


Mr. Malone: 1.	Does a client have to pay storage charges on items (a) that are being cleared (b) prior to their being cleared by Canada Customs and, if so, for what reason?
2.	What was the largest payment made for storage at the Edmonton Customs and Excise Office for the period January 1 to November 1, 1978?
3.	Is there a maximum length of time an item can be stored and, if so, what is the time period?
4.	Is there a shortage of staff to clear items through customs and, if so, for what reason?
5.	Do customs officers in Ottawa refuse to answer their telephones when catted by brokers in Edmonton in an attempt to obtain clearance on items and, if so, for what reason?
6.	Are some shipments cleared in two days and at a later time clearance may require more than a month for a similar shipment and, if so, for what reason is there a variation?
7.	Does a client have any recourse to a customs office that unduly holds items and then, in turn, unduly charges the costs to the client and, if so, what is it?


Hon. A. C. Abbott (Minister of National Revenue):: 1.
Goods imported into Canada, other than parcel post shipments, must be stored before entry is made in a sufferance

warehouse for safe-keeping. Sufferance warehouses are not operated by the department and any storage charges assessed are payable to the warehousekeeper in accordance with his scheduled warehouse storage rates.
2.	For the period of January 1 to November 1, 1978, the Edmonton Customs and Excise office has not assessed or received any payment for storage charges.
3.	Goods may be stored in a sufferance warehouse for 30 days, and in a bonded warehouse for a period of two years. Parcel post shipments may remain in customs custody for 30 days.
4.	Staff allocated to goods clearance is considered adequate to facilitate processing and release of shipments directed to Edmonton.
5.	Officers in Ottawa are always at the disposal of importers or brokers to discuss customs matters. The clearance of items at local customs is contingent upon the presentation of quality entry documents and the payment of duty and taxes. The clearance function is the responsibility of local customs staff and not of Ottawa personnel.
6.	Customs is responsible for the protection of Canadians and the Canadian economy with respect to certain imported goods, and release may be declined until the requirements of other departments or agencies are fulfilled. Unless precluded from granting release by external requirements such as mentioned in the previous sentence, customs shipments are generally cleared within hours of presentation of properly completed entry documents.
7.	Subject to the requirements mentioned in part 6 above, goods are not held by customs after formal entry has been made. Once clearance has been granted, the goods are released to the post office, to the importer or to the carrier for delivery to the consignee.


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton): Does the Canadian Council of Resource and Environmental Ministers have committees meeting to examine national forestry policy and, if so, will the government suspend implementation of cutbacks in the operating programme of the Canadian Forestry Service until their report is received in June?


Hon. Len Marchand (Minister of State (Environment)):: The Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers is sponsoring a study of some aspects of national forest policy, specifically the current status of the forest resource and measures dealing with its protection and enhancement. Several working groups involved in the study have met, but no report is expected until June 1979. This report will not constitute a national forest policy. The government is not planning to suspend implementation of cutbacks in the Canadian Forestry Service until the report is received.
December 21, 1978

Unemployment Insurance Act
FISHERIES AND MARITIME PROGRAM	UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT


Mr. Forrestall: Will any activities or projects be curtailed or terminated as a result of the $7,500,000 general reduction to the Fisheries and Marine Programme and, if so, which ones?


Mr. Jack Pearsall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and the Environment):: The $7,500,000 general reduction to the Fisheries and Marine Program will result in some curtailment and termination of certain activities and projects. Specific programs to be curtailed or terminated will be identified by early January and are currently under review in order to minimize any negative impact.


Mr. Howie: How many war veterans in Canada have been waiting for more than six months for a decision to determine their (a) entitlement to a disability pension (b) right to an increase in their disability pension?


Daniel Joseph MacDonald: (a)	As of November 30, 1978, 888 applications for pension entitlement at the first decision level were awaiting decision for seven months or more. (Statistics are not available for the six month period).
(b)	At any given time fewer than 100 pensioners are waiting more than six months from the time of requesting a medical examination until a decision is reached with respect to a possible increase in the assessment of their pensionable disabilities.


Mr. Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Are the remaining questions allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: That a ways and means motion to amend the Excise Tax Act, of which notice has been tabled in the House on Thursday, November 16, 1978, be agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Tuesday, December 19, consideration of Bill C-14, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, and motion No. 1 (Mr. Leggatt).
Richard Janelle: Mr. Speaker, I must say that many things have happened since I began my speech on Tuesday evening. The government has introduced closure on Bill C-14 and has then decided to restrict the time allowed to
us and perhaps even to prevent some members from making representations on behalf of their constituency.
First I would like to recall a statement which the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) made on September 1, 1978. At that time, the minister explained one of the major objectives of the new amendments to the unemployment insurance legislation. He said: I want to make sure that the unemployment insurance system fully encourages Canadians to look for a job and accept one. I must admit that I agree with those fine ideas but I must also point out that in practice, the minister seems to have forgotten his statement.
It has been said that the money the government will save through these cuts in unemployment insurance benefits will be used for job creation. In my riding the budget for Canada Works has been cut in half this year. Is that job creation? Is that using the money you save to create jobs? Over two years, the reduction will be about $1.5 billion, I think. That reduction represents about 60 per cent of the budget for the so-called economic boost of Canada.
The minister had announced a budget reduction of some $2.5 billion, but because of that federal budget cut, because of that 60 per cent reduction in unemployment benefits, a reduction which is detrimental to low income earners, to those who have less than all others, the federal government passes its responsibility over to the provincial governments which will have to pay these sums through their own social welfare or social assistance programs. People do not live without money, like apples in the trees. The minister says he wants to encourage people to find jobs. I agree with him on that, but at the present time there are about 900,000 people unemployment and only 50,000 jobs available. What can people do? Are they going to divide the jobs by 20 so that everybody can work? Are they going to create enough jobs to find work for everybody on the labour market? I do not think so, especially with a government such as this. The government will say that the provinces are responsible for the present situation. The provinces will have to increase further their taxes to cover the increase in their social assistance and social welfare expenses. These measures will again pit the provinces against the federal government.
2352

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
Moreover, they have decided to reduce unemployment insurance benefits from 66% per cent to 60 per cent. Once again the people who have the smaller incomes will have to pay more. They will get 6% less in benefits and have to cope with an 8.6 per cent rate of inflation, so that their purchasing power will be reduced by 15 per cent. Are they going to keep on penalizing the meek who need help most?
Ever since I was elected to the House, most of the bills which have been introduced have been detrimental to the poor. This bill is a fine example of this. The unions have denounced this bill. I feel the CSD has clearly expressed my point of view when it said that through this bill and specifically clause 1, the government was penalizing everybody. It was assumed that Quebec workers would rather work than be unemployed and I do believe so too. Second, the federal government must create conditions that will help to create jobs. That is not what it is doing today. Third, the federal government ought to make an all-out attempt to see that workers do not suffer from the closing down of businesses. I think an effort has to be done in that area too. Fourth, the federal government must stop making cuts in its social programs.
That is the opinion of the CSD, a union from where I come from. But the CSD is not the only one that made representations. People in my riding, in cities like Saint-Flavien, Dos-quet, Victoriaville and Warwick did send me letters, did make representations so I would rise against this bill which penalizes people. We certainly are not against the fact that cheaters ought to be penalized, we are not against turning down those who abuse the system. But like the Economic Council of Canada, we recognize that four out of five persons who draw unemployment insurance do so because they have no choice. Only a minority of people abuse the system and not the majority of them.
And now they have decided to penalize the majority because of a particular small group. In the administration of all our social legislation, if not all our legislation, we see people who try to cheat. But are we going to change all this legislation? Are we going to make it still more restrictive and penalize the good? I say this on the basis that the good should not pay for the bad inside the system. We should have guidelines, we should have all kinds of possibilities to make our legislation applicable, to prevent cheating as much as possible, but to give all those who are really eligible the social advantages we have.
Furthermore, we are going to penalize our seasonal workers because it will be necessary to have 20 weeks of insurable employment to be able to receive unemployment insurance benefits. In my area there are construction workers who are going to find it difficult to accumulate 20 weeks of employment because of bad weather in winter and of a decline in the construction industry. There are also in my area clothing industries, a very disturbed, and even menaced sector, which does not give employment 12 months a year, unfortunately. The majority of the workers in that industry are women. It will

be difficult for those women to meet the requirement of 20 weeks of insurable employment.
We are told that exceptions will be made in areas which will show an unemployment rate lower than 11.5 per cent according to Statistics Canada. There, one will be eligible for unemployment benefits after having worked a lesser number of weeks. But because of these new provisions, a lot of these unemployed people who collect benefits will be dropped off the rolls. There will be no more areas where the unemployment rate will be 11.5 per cent; it will be impossible. They will disappear from the statistics. We know that as of now the statistics are misleading. They say: in your area you have approximately a 12 per cent to 13 per cent rate of unemployment. But that does not mean 12 per cent to 13 per cent unemployed. It does not take into account people on welfare people who have basic needs. Are we just going to say: As for you, you may starve to death. Our social laws no longer apply to you. You are no longer entitled to unemployment benefits. They will have to turn to welfare where there will be hassles, where one will have to kneel in order to try and get something. We have now reached that stage.
Here we are faced with a callous government which does not remember what it is to have a heart, to think of the underprivileged, to think of all the people of Canada who have to be able to live. To me these cuts are not the answer. Women are penalized and we know that in every piece of social legislation they are always the ones hardest hit. Women are penalized as well as young people who are out of school and looking for a job without finding one. Why? Because there are none. The labour market seems to have reached the saturation point, and no new jobs are being created.
In my own riding of Lotbiniere in the last year alone it would be easy to count on the fingers of one hand how many new industries did settle in the area. This is not due to a lack of manpower but to a lack of purchasing power on the part of the people. And now a little more of their purchasing power is being whittled down. The sale of our products will be made a little more difficult.


An hon. Member:: Go and see them!


Richard Janelle: An hon. member from the other side tells me to go and see them. I do not think that the Montreal area is in a much better position, not that there is no unemployment there.
I think that unemployment is now a national problem. I think that when we are close to the million mark, when there are almost one million unemployed, a responsible government must of necessity confront the problem and take some action in order to help the people.
This piece of legislation seeks to eliminate swindlers. I agree with that and, as I said a moment ago, I am prepared to help the government get rid of swindlers, but some people in my
December 21, 1978

riding come to see me every week because they have problems with the unemployment insurance, because of the deliberate attempt of some officers to get them out of the system and blame it on the computer, telling them their file has been "set aside" and their cheque might come in four weeks.
People are sick of the present system. Therefore, what will it be like with the new legislation? I regularly defend people with job problems before the arbitration board. Very often, we have to go before the board while the people are perfectly right and the officials could give them their benefits immediately. But they would rather say: Go and see your member of parliament, he will take care of it. In your case, you are lucky, your member of parliament is a Social Crediter. Those people like cases of unemployment. They can deal with them.
In the constituency of Lotbiniere, I replaced a man who had done a great job for the entire population and who was thoroughly devoted to the interests of his constituents. I represent the same people and I want to do the same job and always defend the weak, those who need it, the clothing or furniture plant employees, the unemployed, the welfare recipients, those who most need someone humane from their own constituency to serve them and to defend them from this type of bureaucracy.
As for the legislation under consideration, that we shall be forced to pass because of closure, and I am thinking about the bill on unemployment, certain members could have stood up and said something. Last Tuesday, certain government members rose in the House and said that the bill was not very good and would cause problems in their area because of the unemployment figures. I cannot wait to see what these people will do when it is time to vote. Will they truly represent their constituents or will they decide that they must first support their government? I believe that since we are elected by the people, whatever the legislation before us, we should vote according to our conscience and according to what the people whom we represent want us to do.
I know that we do not have much time and I would like as many members as possible to speak about the amendments. There are about 16 amendments to be discussed from now until 9.45, and we certainly do not have enough time to make the necessary representations.
I believe that each member should have the opportunity to say at least a few words about this bill. I shall therefore close my comments by saying that it is essential to change our present systems concerning unemployment and all other social legislation and to implement a universal guaranteed annual income, which would avoid the need for the ministers to rise in the House to say that we must put an end to abuse.
No abuse would be possible as everybody would get it. We would just have to get it back in some other way from those who already have an adequate income. I think we should give everyone a minimum income, an adequate income, so that they
Unemployment Insurance Act
will not have to go down on their hands and knees before some civil servant that will crush them a little further down and say: I have a good job, I am paid every week, I do not need you and you will get your cheque when I please.
So I hope, Mr. Speaker, that my remarks will be heard by the Minister of Employment and Immigration and that he will at least make up his mind to withdraw this bill and to improve the unemployment insurance legislation for the sake of all Canadian citizens.


Mr. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate; I only regret that I am taking part in it in the circumstances in which parliament is forced to deal with this bill, one which has very serious faults in it. What is worse, we are forced to deal with it in a way which prevents improvements, which prevents the House of Commons doing the very work it is here to do.
We know we are in a situation of closure and we are in this situation for unusual reasons. For one thing, there are very deep divisions among supporters of the Liberal party with regard to this measure.

There is a good deal of disagreement, probably more than on any other issue now before this House.

That is the reason we are facing closure. Usually when closure is introduced, it is to prevent the opposition from talking. In this case closure has been introduced by this government to stop its own backbenchers.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Francis William (Frank) Maine: How can you be so stupid? Hypocrite.


Charles Joseph Clark: The proof of that came on Monday night when four Liberals took part in the debate. One was the minister, who was obliged to defend what he introduced, but the other three, the hon. member for Hochelaga (Mr. Lavoie), l'honora-ble depute de Charlevoix (Mr. Lapointe) and the hon. member for South Western Nova (Miss Campbell), all Liberal members, got up one after another, criticized this bill and indicated-and we will be able to test their word later tonight or tomorrow-that they were not able to support the bill which was before the House in the form it was in. The minister knew that if he gave more latitude to more Liberal members so that they could get up and make more speeches, there would be more criticism of his own bill from his own party.


Francis William (Frank) Maine: Untrue.


Charles Joseph Clark: The reason we have closure is not to silence the opposition, which is usually the case. The reason we have closure is to silence the unquiet, divided and decaying Liberal party.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
2354

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act


Charles Joseph Clark: This bill comes to us at this late stage in what really has been a parade of incompetence by this government. First, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) announced last August that he had suddenly discovered restraint. A month after that this minister got up-

Someone asked why I was not here for the vote yesterday evening. I had a good reason. I was away in the interest of national unity, since I was taking part in a program recorded in French designed to inform Quebeckers of the policies of the Conservative party, as it is obvious that only our party is able to keep our country united. We need the support of French Canadians. This is what I was doing yesterday evening. That is why I was not here to vote, but I will be here often for votes and I doubt very much that the members opposite will often be in the House after the next election.

We have had a veritable parade of incompetence. First, the Prime Minister discovered restraint in August. Then the minister discovered the need for this bill in September, but he was not able to bring it before this House for two full months. What is clear about that delay is that although the government should have been preparing this legislation and putting it together carefully over the summer, it was not because members of the government did not know that they had discovered restraint until they heard the announcement on August 1. That came as a total surprise to them. Consequently, they did not undertake the preparation they should have if they were going to put last summer to good use. If they had put last summer to good use and if they had been serious about introducing amendments which would have saved money and reduced inequity, they would have brought in a very different bill from the bill with which we are dealing in the House now.
This bill is designed to pretend restraint. It is not at all designed to achieve restraint. The bill is badly drafted. The Economic Council of Canada warned against this approach to this problem before the bill was introduced.
The ten provinces of Canada, including the one Liberal province-by one seat-the province of Prince Edward Island, and all the other provinces unanimously warned against this approach. Even the one NDP province warned against this approach during committee stage.


Mr.   La Salle@: Quebec too.


Charles Joseph Clark: And the province of Quebec-

-the province of Quebec where they have reservations with respect to this bill along with all other provinces because this is not an effective bill which can meet the objectives contemplated by the ministers, on the one part, or by other Liberal members, on the other part.

I must give particular credit to my colleagues the new member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McCrossan), the hon.

member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke), and others who have proposed very serious improvements and reforms with which unfortunately the House of Commons will not be able to deal because this government is so concerned about support among its own members that it has introduced closure to cut off debate and stop parliament from carrying out the work of reform which parliament is here to carry out.
What is worse than this parade of incompetence is that the minister refuses to accept improvements, and for one reason: He did not propose those improvements. He would rather take credit for a bad bill than share credit for a good bill.


Francis William (Frank) Maine: Absolute nonsense.


Charles Joseph Clark: That contempt for parliament which is evident in the minister's rejection of amendments which would improve this legislation was also made absolutely clear when he deliberately and knowingly went ahead with the publication in the Canada Gazette of provisions in this legislation before this parliament had an opportunity to pass upon those provisions.


James Aloysius McGrath: The minister will be hearing more about that.


Charles Joseph Clark: As my colleague the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) says, the minister will be hearing more about that, as will his colleagues, particularly from Atlantic Canada and les regions de l'Est du Quebec. They will also be hearing a great deal more about the minister's comment when he deliberately went out of his way to attack a generation of people in Canada, to attack a region of this country and to attack those who live in areas of high unemployment and who are not able to move. He attributed to them the basest of motives for being in a situation which is largely the creation of this government because of its failure in economic policy.
There is no question at all that the unemployment insurance program of this country very much needs reform. It costs much more that it should. It builds in a disincentive to work. It encourages too many Canadians in this land not to seek to develop their own potential. It includes serious invitations to abuse. The question I have to raise-and indeed the question will be raised across this country whenever an election comes-is why will the Government of Canada not take the time which parliament is here to give to improve this bill? Why does the government force this matter through, simply to save itself from embarrassment because its own members disagree? Why does the government force this bill through and not allow us an opportunity to consider and debate specific, positive reforms which would save more money and which would have other beneficial effects? Why docs the government not want to consider the reforms proposed by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra and others in this House.
We know that this is the sixth or seventh bill in eight years dealing with the unemployment insurance question. It will not be the last one because the bill will create new injustices and it will require further changes later on. What is absolutely unacceptable to us on this side of the House is that the Government of Canada is forcing a bad bill through parlia-
December 21, 1978

ment. The bill is not bad by accident or because the government does not know better. The government is proceeding deliberately, and it is refusing to consider reforms which, first, would save the people of Canada more money; second, would be much more just to Canadians across the country; third, would create much more incentive to work among Canadians; and finally, would be much less complicated than this bill.
There are two essential differences between the two serious parties in this House on questions relating to unemployment insurance legislation. The first is that the government pretends that every unemployed Canadian is the same. By contrast, we recognize that hardship is much greater for those unemployed Canadians who have dependants for whom they have to care, and we recognize also that abuse has been much greater among those Canadians who do not have dependants for whom they have to care. The other difference is that the government's proposal is very complicated. It establishes different standards based upon different regions of the country. [Translation]
We heard the other night the hon. member for Charlevoix (Mr. Lapointe) who referred to the problems caused in his own riding by an artificial line drawn by this government. There are now in the riding of Charlevoix and many other ridings in the province of Quebec small villages on one side of the Saguenay river with a standard and other small villages on the other side of the river with a different standard. So this is a double-standard government.
It is absolutely unacceptable to us to have this kind of situation brought in by this government, creating confusion and complexity where none needs to be. We would base the distinction which must be brought into this bill on whether or not an unemployed Canadian has to support other persons. The government, in contrast, bases its distinction on whether the unemployed live in Canada, on what side of the Saguenay they are. If they are on one side of the Saguenay river, they are treated one way; if, by sheer chance, they happen to be on the other side, they are treated another way.
That is absolutely absurd. It is bureaucratic nonsense imposed in a way that is guaranteed to create injustice in this country, and yet that is precisely what this government is proposing. They are proposing it despite the fact there is a better way, because they know there is before the House of Commons right now amendment No. 14 proposed by my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, which is a much better approach which will not create the problems which are being created by the government's own proposal.
The government's stubbornness is costing hundreds and probably thousands of Canadians simple equality and justice of treatment. It does not care about the people who suffer from the double standard, the people who, because they happen to live on one side of the Saguenay and not on the other, will be treated differently from their cousins or neighbours. It prefers to persist in its stubbornness and push through a bad bill rather than accept amendments which would make it better.
Unemployment Insurance Act
Our proposal, which has been outlined effectively by other members of the House, establishes that persons with dependants would continue to be covered for two-thirds of earnings for which they are now insured. We do that for a reason- because these are the Canadians who most need help in our system. It stands to reason that they need help most because they have more other Canadians to care for. Also, they are the Canadians who are least mobile. If you have dependants, it is not as easy to move to other places where you might find work as it is if you do not have dependants. These are people who have special cause for the attention and concern of their government, but their special requirements are absolutely ignored by this government.
Instead of dealing with people who have particular problems, this government has set up a little artificial group of districts in the country. It imposes a geographical complexity which ensures vested injustice being dealt to a large number of Canadians. We are proposing in the amendment introduced by my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, a two-tier system. It would introduce a second category of benefits based upon the principle that those Canadians who do not have dependants under the Income Tax Act will be covered for only 50 per cent of their earnings.
It has been made very clear by members on this side that we are also proposing, as part of the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, that we will vest in a married couple the right to decide and establish themselves which one of the couple will be the one to whom dependants are attached. Because the law as it now stands involves a serious discrimination against women, and we propose a means by which that can be mitigated. That too this government have turned down. They would prefer to live with discrimination against women than to remove it as it exists in this bill.
The proposal for the two-tier system which we introduced would save, by the government's own reckoning, in the neighbourhood of $850 million. Their proposal, by their reckoning, would save in the neighbourhood of $935 million. But-and the buts are pretty important-it would add at least $43 million to the welfare costs of the provinces and Lord knows how much to the welfare costs of the municipalities across this country. It is unfortunately far too typical of the restraint that pretends to be practised by this government. They are not reducing over-all expenditure; they are simply making some paper cuts and passing the real burden on to other levels of government which cannot afford to bear them as well as the Government of Canada can.
I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Maine), who represents an Ontario constituency, shaking his head negatively.


Francis William (Frank) Maine: Your facts are all wrong.


Charles Joseph Clark: Unfortunately, he reflects the same kind of attitude of indifference toward Atlantic Canada that was reflected by his colleague who is here in the House, the

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), who, when he heard about the most recent election result in Nova Scotia, the collapse of the Liberal regime, said: "What does it matter; it is only another municipality down there".

And I must add that I am really surprised by what the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lessard) had to say-


Mr. Whelan:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) would not want to mislead the House. I said I considered it as another municipal election. He has in his caucus now the mayor of the city of Toronto. I am sure he would not want to downgrade him as just another municipal official. As one who has spent many years in municipal politics, I have the highest respect for municipal elections.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: I am not only delighted to have the minister confirm what he said but also delighted to hear him draw attention to the fact that the former mayor of Toronto was one of the five new Conservative members of parliament who won seats from former colleagues of his in the Liberal cabinet.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I was also delighted to have heard the interjection from his colleague behind, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen), who referred to me as the temporary Leader of the Opposition. That is right, I am.


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


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, this is a real surprise for me that we should have here the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lessard), a minister coming from eastern Quebec, a minister coming from an area with a really excessive rate of unemployment, who is prepared because I believe he did not speak in this debate-his colleagues in the corner did; they spoke against the bill-but he might be prepared to accept the bill that might force on the unemployed in eastern Quebec and underprivileged areas a greater prejudice, another impediment that might cause them problems in their development as a people and as an area.

It is a real surprise to me that a minister responsible for economic expansion would allow this government to impose these kinds of obstacles upon the development of underdeveloped regions in this country, particularly when they have before them the opportunity to adopt an amendment which would do away with the kinds of problems they are imposing on Atlantic Canada, on the east of Quebec and on lower income Canadians right across the country.

[ Translation]


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lessard) on a point of order.


Mr. Lessard:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) that indeed I support this bill because I believe it is an excellent way of helping, by using those funds for other purposes, to create permanent jobs.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The hon. minister will be able to make his contribution later on if he wishes to but at this time the Leader of Opposition has the floor.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the minister probably anticipated something I want to say later on about the yet unspecified costs to Canada of this bill introduced by the government. [English]
Because I am sure that one of the uncalculated costs to the people of Canada is that there will be a need for this government to pour more money into regions which have been treated by this bill. When we look at the over-all cost of this bill, when we try to calculate the effective restraint in this legislation, it will be important for us to look at the new expenditures of departments other than that of the minister who is proposing this bill which will be necessary to deal with the problems that have been caused by this bill. I am pleased to see the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lessard) nodding his head in agreement with my proposition that there will be extra new expenditure, expenditure not in the budget and not anticipated before the bill was brought in, to take account of the very serious problems of poverty which will be caused and aggravated by this piece of legislation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The two-tier proposal we have put forward is a much better way of approaching the problem we face for a number of reasons. First, there will be a direct saving which is significantly more than the aggregate saving of the measures being forced down the throat of parliament by the government. Second, the proposal put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra will not create the number of problems which will have to be dealt with later, the problems that the government is ensuring will occur by the nature of its legislation. Those problems will turn out to be very expensive to the country, expensive not only in terms of the obstacles to hope and development which will be put in the path of individual Canadians, but also expensive in terms of new programs. Perhaps there will be additions to winter works, LIP and a number of programs which will come forward to deal with the problems the government is creating deliberately today in the House of Commons.
Our proposal has the advantage of being acceptable to all of the provinces and, I would judge, the municipalities of this country. The mere fact that a matter is acceptable to the provinces is cause enough for the government to oppose it.

That has been well established. That is why we have not achieved such a healthy state of unity during the ten years in which the government has been responsible for the direction of national affairs. The government goes out of its way to disagree with the provinces. The amendment we are putting forward is an amendment supported in its general thrust by the provinces, and would be far preferable to the provinces of Canada than the matter forced by closure down the throats of members of the House of Commons by the government today.
The proposal we are making would not create the bureaucratic nightmare which will be imposed upon the citizens of this country by the establishment of districts based upon geography where average levels of unemployment happen to be different. It would not create this nonsense where citizens, as a Liberal member said the other night, on one side of the Saguenay have a different set of standards from citizens on the other side of the Saguenay. It would not write in the law the kind of absurdity which is central to the bill before us now.
One of the very, very important reasons the proposal put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra is superior to the bill before the House is that it builds in a clear incentive for Canadians to go to work. It would reduce the percentage of benefits available to people in the second tier, people without dependants under the Income Tax Act. As I have indicated, these are the people who are more mobile. Perhaps the minister is disagreeing with his own statistics, but before doing so he had better see if he has published them in the Canada Gazette. Statistically these people have been indicated as being more likely to abuse the system.


Mr. Muir:: The minister is sucking his finger.


Charles Joseph Clark: Yes, I notice the minister is sucking his finger. That fact is pointed out by the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys (Mr. Muir) who has suffered a double insult from the government. First of all, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) went to Cape Breton with his rather eccentric views on unemployment and the attitudes toward work of the citizens of Cape Breton. Now those people are maligned as simple thumbsuckers instead of working Canadians by the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
In the proposal we are putting forward there is a very real incentive to Canadians who do not have dependants to go out and work, those people who make up the mobile part of the Canadian work force.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: What about married women?


Charles Joseph Clark: The minister is talking about married women. Will the minister go so far, in his rush to closure and his rush to silence his own members, as to accept even that portion of our amendment that allows a family unit to determine which of their number will be categorized as the one to whom dependants attach? Or will he persist in the bill he introduced which continues discrimination against women?
The proposal of the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra is a much better manner in which to deal with the problems posed
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for Canada by the present unemployment insurance scheme. The government refuses to let parliament consider that better way. It wants to force through the House of Commons a bad, bad bill. It is a terrible abuse of parliament. We are here not just to talk; we are here to improve pieces of legislation. I admit that there have been occasions in the House when opposition has been sometimes negative and there have not been things to propose. This is not one of those times. This is a time when party has come forward with a very acceptable, clearly preferable means of solving this problem.
I cannot speak for members of the New Democratic Party. They speak often for themselves. They have not been proposing anything positive. Their amendments are consistently destructive ones.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: Our amendments point out a much better way in which Canada can deal with the problems posed by the unemployment insurance system. It is a much better way, but the government refuses to allow the Parliament of Canada to consider amendments which would improve the bill. The government refuses to allow the Parliament of Canada to consider amendments which would save Canadians more money, which would build in more incentive to work, and which would have a number of other advantages to the people of the country.
The legislation before us is a terrible abuse of the unemployed, a terrible disservice to Canadians out of work. The particular bitterness of that is so many Canadians who are out of work are out of work because we have had a government which for a decade has failed to give priority to economic growth in the country. Consequently, we have a government that created the problem of unemployment, which is at the base of the costs of the unemployment insurance program.
This proposal which is being forced down the throat of parliament and the throats of Liberal backbenchers involves a terrible waste of taxpayers' money. The government is forgoing savings which would be available. Our proposals would save more money than the proposals the Government of Canada is putting forward now.


John R. Rodriguez: How many will go on welfare?


Charles Joseph Clark: I hear the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez). It is not a surprise in this House for us to hear from the hon. member for Nickel Belt. What he has just said confirms the suspicion many of us have had, that he talks so often and so loudly that he never listens to anyone else.
Frequently it has been made clear, and most recently by the hon. member for St. John's East, that my party intends to vote against the bill because we have a much better bill. In the national interest, we would like the government to accept-


John R. Rodriguez: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Charles Joseph Clark: Is there another point of order, Mr. Speaker? Surely not.

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act


John R. Rodriguez: I wonder if the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) would entertain a question either now or at the end of his remarks?


Charles Joseph Clark: If the hon. member for Nickel Belt thinks he can keep his question under ten minutes and allow me to finish my speech before my time has expired, I would be interested in entertaining it.


John R. Rodriguez: The hon. Leader of the Opposition said that the proposals of his party would save more money than the proposals of the government. Should they lose their amendments, are they prepared to vote against a bill which will save, as the hon. leader said, the government some money but not as much as their amendments would save?


Some hon. Members:: Listen, listen!


An hon. Member:: Obviously the hon. member has been asleep.


Charles Joseph Clark: The mere fact the hon. member for Nickel Belt has made a career of repeating himself in the House does not mean I have to.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: This proposal wastes money for the Canadian taxpayers, not simply because it forgoes the savings, but because, as I mentioned earlier, it creates significant new likelihoods of spending by this government. We know the government has problems with the hon. member for Charlevoix; and we have heard hon. members over there talk about this. We know the government has problems with the hon. member for South Western Nova, and we have heard members speak about that. We know that the government is having problems with the hon. member for Hochelaga, and we can sympathize in that regard.
The fact is that even if members over there are able to cause those people to be absent from the votes, or even if they are able to cause them to put party before principle, which, of course, is part of the reason that presumably they joined that party, they are still going to have to face the demands of those members and of countless other members whose interests in their constituents and in their provinces are being very seriously damaged by this bill.
What we are going to see-and no doubt this will be smuggled through in the estimates-are millions of dollars pumped into those areas where problems are being caused by this government with this bill. That money will be pumped in in an attempt to rescue the Liberal party, and pumped in perhaps ultimately to deal with new real problems that are being created by this bill; but which should have been dealt with in anticipation, and never have been caused by this government. No doubt we will see this government try to smuggle through this House in a new session millions of dollars-I cannot say hundreds of millions as I do not know how much, but certainly it will be millions of dollars-in new
expenditures to deal with the new problems that are being created. These are problems that do not now exist but which will come into being when this bill comes into law. That is the other way in which this bill is a terrible waste of the taxpayers' money in this country.
What we are seeing here today in this closure and in the reason for its introduction amounts to terrible treatment of the government's own principle. Because it is part of the tradition of this place, part of the history of parliament and part of what makes it work, that members of parliament, at least within their own parties, and preferably within this House of Commons, have the right to defend the interest of their constituents and their regions against legislation that is going to be harmful to those constituents and regions. They should at least have the right to put on record their defence. They should at least be given the right to get up and speak and to say: "Look what you are doing to the people of northern New Brunswick; look what you are doing to the people of Newfoundland; look what you are doing to the people of Prince Edward Island; look what you are doing to the people of Nova Scotia; look what you are doing to the people of eastern Quebec".
They should at least be given that right, but they are not being given that right. This government is denying the right of dozens of members to represent the interests of those who in their constituencies will be damaged by the imposition of closure. This imposition of closure is not to stop the opposition from speaking, but to stop the government's own members from talking.


Some hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


Charles Joseph Clark: The government can stop them from talking, but presumably some of them will want to vote. Let me give them a warning now. If by some accident they do not happen to be here, we will make it a point on the hustings to go into their constituencies and make clear that they were absent and did not stand up and be counted in the interests of their constituents when this government forced through a bad bill. We will be very interested in seeing how the hon. member for Charlevoix votes, how the hon. member for South Western Nova votes, how the hon. member for Hochelaga votes, how members from the north shore of New Brunswick vote, and how members from Newfoundland vote. We will be very interested in seeing whether they are going to put their party ahead of the interests of their regions, whether they are going to support this attempt to ram a bill down the throat of parliament when a better bill exists and when acceptable proposals for reform have been put forward by members on this side of the House. We will be interested to see how they vote, sir.
There is no question as to how we will vote. We will vote against this bill, and we will look forward to the earliest possible opportunity as a new government to bring in a better bill.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, it is very hard to take the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) serious-

December 21, 1978

ly after the speech the hon. member has just made, and let me explain why I say that. I say that on the basis of the record of Hansard itself, which evidently he failed to read when he prepared his speech.
The Leader of the Opposition opened his speech this afternoon, and I made notes just for the fun of it-for the very fun of it, yes, indeed. He said that the bill had very serious faults and that the reason for introducing closure is deep division on this side of the House. Let me remind the Leader of the Opposition of what he can find for himself on page 2222 of Hansard for December 18, just Monday of this week. The official critic for the Tory party, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke), quotes himself from second reading and again at the report stage. He stated:
-I said that this bill was a step in the right direction-
Having said that he goes on to say-


An hon. Member:: Which Clarke is that?


Mr. Caccia:: This is the Vancouver Quadra Clarke, the official critic of the Tory party. That member only three days ago went on to say:
Restraint and reform are sorely needed. We will see what happens to the amendments we put forth.
Then he concluded with this great statement of Tory policy:
We will see what happens to the amendments we put forth. Then we will make up our minds on the bill itself.
After 34 meetings of the committee, having heard all the witnesses and the amendments they have put forward, and there being, contrary to what the Leader of the Opposition said, ample opportunity in committee for this bill to be discussed, that hon. member on Monday in this House said:
Then we will make up our minds on the bill itself.
How can we take them seriously? At least there is one honest member in the Conservative benches who was straightforward when speaking after the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, that hon. member who said they will make up their minds on the bill itself.
On Tuesday the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) was straightforward and explicit when he said:
This bill is iniquitous. It is a bad bill, an unjust bill and an unfair bill. It is a bad bill, Mr. Speaker, and it is bad legislation.
This conclusion he arrived at after having urged the government to amend the bill. I have certainly never heard of people wanting to amend a bill that was so bad and iniquitous.


An hon. Member:: To make it a better bill.


Charles L. Caccia: To make it a better bill, exactly. Let us see some cohesion and consistency over there. Until the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra changes his job he is the official spokesman for the official opposition on unemployment insurance, and he is the one who said that the bill is a step in the right direction. That is what he said on Monday of this week.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: A small step, you fool.
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An hon. Member:: Capice?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles L. Caccia: The Leader of the Opposition went on to ask why we are forcing this bill through, as if there had not been ample opportunity for discussion in the committee. We did have ample opportunity. Members of the official opposition had ample opportunity to express their views in committee. Some, such as the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McCrossan) and the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), made a distinct effort to put forward an alternative view. We did not agree with it but we looked at it. To claim that the bill is being forced through after 34 committee meetings is stretching things too far. Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition would benefit from staying around here a little bit longer to find out what his colleagues are doing in committee. In making statements like that he is saying, in essence, that his colleagues have done nothing. That is not true. We have seen them work as hard as we did every day for five weeks.
The Leader of the Opposition also was very sarcastic about the geographic districts. Several times in his speech he made reference to one side of the Saguenay or the other side. I realize that he does not want to hear a critique of his speech because that is no fun and it is easier to criticize others. I do not blame him for engaging in conversations with another member at the present moment.
Let me remind the all-knowing Leader of the Opposition that it was the Tory party that introduced the idea of geographic districts in the discussion on Bill C-27. I believe the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Alexander) proposed it, but apparently it is no longer convenient so it is being attacked.
The Leader of the Opposition also put forward the grand scheme of the Tory party for a two-tier system, namely, that the unemployment insurance payments should differentiate between the head of a family and the secondary wage earner. There were extensive debates on this proposal in committee which are reported in the proceedings. The Tory party seems to ignore a number of facts. One is that heads of families or people alone without dependants have certain basic costs such as rent and heat which are virtually the same in both cases. Further, differentiating between the two groups would adversely affect women and young people.
Extensive studies carried out by the Unemployment Insurance Commission explained to members of the opposition- perhaps this was not reported to the Leader of the Opposition-that women without dependants make up 95 per cent of all women claimants of UIC benefits. Not only does the Tory party seem to ignore that fact, but they have engaged in a rather unusual policy approach whereby in one committee room certain members of their party defend women's rights and oppose anything that seems to be discrimination, while in another room other members of their party propose a differential in the benefits which would affect the very same women.

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
Another weakness of the two-tier proposal and a strong reason why we rejected it is that it introduced the idea of welfare or income transfer payments-in effect, an assessment of need. That is a poor basis on which to assess need since it would not take family income into consideration.


Mr. McCrossan:: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just want to point out to the hon. member that it was not this party that introduced the concept of differentiating benefits on the basis of need. The government introduced it in amendments to this bill with respect to the charge back to high income families.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, we should not mix one with the other. The two-tier system proposed by the Conservative party has exactly this effect. Let us not mix this with the effect on high income groups because we are talking about what the net effect of the two-tier system would be.
The Leader of the Opposition refused to answer what I thought was a legitimate question by the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez). He wanted to know if the Leader of the Opposition would support the government if his amendment were defeated, which would still mean at least supporting a measure which would cut costs considerably. Of course, it was beneath the dignity of the Leader of the Opposition to reply, yet it went to the very heart of this bill.
As to the final, grandiose, theatrical challenge by the Leader of the Opposition to members on our side regarding whether they will show up for the vote on this bill, I should remind him of the dismal record of his party regarding other bills in this parliament when some members of the Tory party did not show up for the vote.


Steve Eugene Paproski: That is not true.


Charles L. Caccia: I remember occasions very clearly when members of the Progressive Conservative party-who may no longer be members-did not show up to vote on a bill similar to this. Instead of sounding so pure and righteous the Leader of the Opposition should perhaps examine the record of his party.
In the debate on Bill C-14 it seems to me that something has to be said about its impact and what will be done in 1979 to offset the changes it will bring about. It is important to record that in 1979, $710 million will be invested in our economy in different ways in order to create jobs. Of this, a cash expenditure of $570 million will go to direct job creation. Forgone tax revenue will account for $100 million and $40 million in unemployment insurance funds will be used for job creation. This strategy is supposed to create some 113,000 jobs for one year which will mean, as I understand it, a 70 per cent increase in job-creation funds over the current year.
Some elements of this program that will be put in place are, first, the employment tax credit program to assist businessmen in expanding employment and job seekers in getting work which will be improved. There will be $70 million provided exclusively for skill training. Twenty million dollars will be used for the development of measures to help industry overcome critical shortages of skilled people. This will be done in conjunction with the provinces, industry and labour. Twenty million dollars will be added to skill training in and by industry. Thirty million dollars will be used to cover the institutional costs of increased skill training for industry
A portable wage subsidy will be introduced to spur the re-employment of people laid off as a result of economic shifts and support. The youth employment program will be carried out at a cost of $225 million in the next year. Its major component is job experience training, commonly known as the JET program. This will provide employment and work experience for over 63,000 young Canadians. We will be utilizing unemployment insurance benefits, in the case of those who are eligible for them, to cover the $1.50 an hour wage subsidy involved in this program. In the case of those who are not eligible for unemployment insurance, the government will provide the subsidy in total.
The summer youth employment program funds and the year-round youth employment and the employability program funds will be increased from $14.5 million in fiscal 1978-79 to nearly $110 million in fiscal 1979-80.
It will also be desirable to have a look at what areas the government might wish to monitor as possible areas where amendments to this bill might be required to see that certain distortions might not take place in our general social and economic pattern. For instance, I would be interested in seeing the effect of the bill monitored and the effect it will have on entry and re-entry qualification for benefits. If this should cause a movement of people from rural to urban areas because people would be better able to re-enter the labour force when running out of benefits, then, of course, we would want to monitor this movement very closely. Trends of this kind which could lead to further centralization, urbanization or abandonment of rural areas are not desirable in any nation and we do not want to see that develop under any circumstance.
I would also be interested, as would many members of this House, in monitoring the effect of the reduction of the allowance for manpower training from the $45 which is being paid to the proposed $10 a week per person payable to the person who is not the primary wage earner. If it were to be established that this would have an adverse effect, then we should see to it that the allowance is brought back to the original level.
I would also like to say a few words about a widespread practice in urban Canada where more and more employers are requesting their employees to put in overtime. In the city where I come from we see this pattern, and I suspect this is not an isolated occurrence. The practice of demanding more and more time in my opinion is a bad one. It is a bad practice for health and safety reasons. This has been proven on a number of occasions by studies carried out by various jurisdictions. It is bad practice because it keeps unemployed people waiting for jobs for longer periods of time. It is a bad practice because it affects the job growth rate negatively. I would urge the

December 21, 1978

Unemployment Insurance Commission to do whatever it can to discourage this practice of overtime work and to exert every possible pressure on employers to see that it comes to an end. However, I realize that there are difficulties associated with that.
In his closing remarks the Leader of the Opposition made reference to the fact that the government has failed to give priority to economic growth in its policy. Let me remind the Leader of the Opposition that this government has been able to produce 250,000 to 380,000 jobs every year over the past seven or eight years because of its economic policies. This surely demonstrates that the government has done whatever it could to stimulate economic growth according to very sound principles.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I will leave the Leader of the Opposition to meditate on his own statements.


Mr. Yuri Shymko (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, in my first speech in the House, I had referred to the political and economic crisis in our country, the solution of which will have a deep influence on the future of Canada. That is why the members of this House are dealing at this time in our history with a bill which will have a major impact for all Canadians.
For this reason, I am quite pleased, Mr. Speaker, to take part in this debate which the government has tried to restrict. A motion for closure was introduced in the House of Commons as well as in committee. The members of our committee, the representatives of the people, were not even allowed to take part in the debate on the bill in committee. There are very few instances, Mr. Speaker, of such tactics being used by a party whose leader has advocated the popular policy of participatory democracy. It is a real human comedy, a plot which is still better than those of Moliere, a real masterpiece contrived by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau).
Any bill, Mr. Speaker, and any amendment is designed for a political purpose, that is to win the support of the majority of Canadians. They are all designed to make a good impression on Canadians in all regions, people of all social or economic classes, no matter what arguments, for or against, are presented during the debate, and that is done more particularly because we are getting closer every day to a general election. Mr. Speaker, there is no question about the fact that it is a controversial bill, not only so because members on both sides of the House do not agree on it, but also because members of the Liberal party do not agree among themselves, even though this does not show that much has or has not been said officially in the speeches we have heard in the House. But we all know very well that even the party in power is divided. It is quite natural, Mr. Speaker, that the actions taken by the Liberal party in this bill are political in nature and come as a reaction
Unemployment Insurance Act
to pressures from Canadians who ask for cuts in spending and that they are in the line of a philosophy of economic restrictions which prevails not only in Canada, but in the whole world.
But, Mr. Speaker, since the government is said to have the responsibility of answering the needs of the majority of the population, this bill should be devised in a humanitarian way and from the point of view of social morality and we do not see that in the bill. Yes, we are in favour of economic restrictions because of ten years of wastage under this government led by a "Trudeaucratic" party which is ill advised, as far as priorities are concerned, by an army of bureaucrats trying to overcome the economic crisis by increasing the army of unemployed and there was 1.308 billion unemployed, Mr. Speaker, according to the statistics for March of this year, including official and unofficial figures, thus a struggle which increases the army of people on welfare by adding 250 million unemployed deprived of benefits. That is a struggle of justice, a struggle called responsible in the restraint philosophy.
If you are looking for logic, Mr. Speaker, you will have much difficulty finding it. That is called a responsible restraint policy, as I indicated, which will reduce by 10 per cent the rate of benefits for all the unemployed who will remain qualified. That is called responsible measures. Their effect will be to make people tighten their belt, Mr. Speaker, those who are least able to compress their budget in times of inflation which will reach a level of 9 per cent, something which is admitted even by the right hon. Prime Minister.
The official opposition party, with the amendment put forward by my colleague from Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke), is suggesting a responsible economic restraints policy. Whatever the views of the New Democratic Party, our proposal would mean a policy of responsible restrictions, more equitable and more efficient which would make it possible to save an additional $150 million with less suffering for those who are going to be hurt by that measure. Our proposal, which was described as a two-tier system, is supported by most provinces, and I want to emphasize for the benefit of members of the New Democratic Party that even the governments of Saskatchewan and British Columbia are supporting it. Mr. Speaker, it becomes obvious that there will be a judgment in a few months, a public judgment through general elections. That judgment will come, it is unavoidable. Next week and in the weeks and months to come, we will see the reactions to that legislation if it is passed as it is now.
And I would like all hon. members from the government side to listen to this carefully. I am going to quote the newspaper Le Droit of Ottawa, December 14, 1978, in order to show how that reaction has started already. Well, members from the other side are asked to explain their position by answering ten questions on that bill. I will only give an idea of the Ottawa area response by listing the protesting organizations. They are the following, and I quote:

December 21, 1978
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The four urban CLSC of the region, le Bureau regional de l'aide sociale, la Ligue des droits et libertes, l'Association cooperative d'economie familiale, le Conseil diocesain de pastorale, CNTU, QFL, le Centre des services sociaux, le Centre de defense des consommateurs, la Clinique juridique populaire de Hull, le Mouvement des travailleurs chretiens and Developpement et paix.
And, Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on enumerating the agencies which have already made their views known, even before the adoption of the bill. Imagine what the reaction will be in a few weeks. I say it once again with all the sincere compassion that I feel for you. Hear! It is beginning, people are responding, their judgment is before you. I do not want to speak like a prophet, but the facts are there. And you will suffer the consequences, that is for sure. I sympathize with the Minister of Unemployment, sorry, I mean the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen). That was a freudian slip. He is the first victim, the sacrificial lamb of Christmas, because I am sure he did all he could, but as you know, he did not have a choice, he was told he had to cut back $1.5 billion, he did all he could, but he was frustrated, and he reacted rather sensationally and his explanations were picked up by the media and caused quite a turmoil on this side of the House.
So I pity and sympathize with the minister, Mr. Speaker. This government is putting all the burden of change on the backs of working men and women. These problems are related to the economic crisis we are going through in Canada. First of all, we do not know what social and economic effects these measures will have, which are called the Cullen measures in Quebec, if we do not know, Mr. Speaker, how this money, taken and I would even say stolen from the unemployed, will be used for new job-creation programs.
We know nothing about that, Mr. Speaker. Here we are, being asked to pass a bill, without knowing in which industrial sectors the government intends to invest the $1.5 billion it will save. I say it again, this is being done on the backs of the workers, men and women, Mr. Speaker. A month ago, the minister indicated that he would meet his provincial counterparts to put proposals to them on 12 topics.
Mr. Speaker, may I continue my remarks. I am having problems even with the microphone. Do I have the permission of the hon. members opposite to continue?


Some hon. Members:: You do not need it!


Yuri Roman Shymko: Mr. Speaker, the minister indicated a month ago that he would present 12 questions on one-


Mr. Olivier:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: The hon. member for Longueuil on a point of order.


Joseph Mario Jacques Olivier: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry but, though I recognize the eloquence of the hon. member opposite, he might as well be quoting excerpts from Stendhal's "Le Rouge et le

Noir," and though it is true he has just recently come to the House, I should like to remind him that he should always address the Chair and not an hon. member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. The hon. member for Parkdale.


Yuri Roman Shymko: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his remarks, but I should like to know why there was no public statement. If indeed the minister spoke with the representatives of the provinces, if indeed he consulted the provinces before introducing Bill C-14-

Or is this just another promise which I would qualify as much ado about nothing? The irony is that this is a few days before Christmas when we hear the words of peace to all men re-echoed in a myriad of languages throughout the world. We understand peace as peace with justice, at a time when the family becomes the centre of that spirit of Christmas. At this very time, ironically, Mr. Speaker, the government is bearing its Christmas gift with this bill, paying for its own mismanagement since 1971 when it made the first change which eliminated the two-tier system, which the Liberals had themselves introduced, I believe, in the 1940s and eliminated in 1971.
The logic would be that it is now time to reintroduce a two-tier system which was more just, more egalitarian and more humane. I urge hon. members opposite to read the speeches in Hansard of that time when the two-tier system was introduced. I think they would be interested if they re-read those speeches. The minister is victimizing the disadvantaged. They are the sacrificial lambs on the altar of Liberal mismanagement. The bill before us is one which I would describe as the first existentialist bill in the history of this country.


An hon. Member:: Oh, I like that.


Yuri Roman Shymko: I say existentialist because the only sense it is making is its nonsense. That is the philosophy of absurdity in existentialism. The only "sense" we find in these changes is that they do not make any sense whatsoever. It is a bill of total absurdity. It is contrary to all the announcements, all the cliches about the just society, that the Prime Minister has talked about all these years. Let us repeat those cliches of a just society to the working mothers, to the youth of our country, to our seasonal workers, to the single parents.
I would like at this time to present a few figures, not in Ukrainian, not in French, but in one of the official languages. Perhaps I will restrain myself and use one of the unofficial languages to the minister responsible for multiculturalism, but at some other time. I would like the members of the NDP in particular to listen to this because the NDP members in committee supported many of our amendments-


Some hon. Members:: Come on!


Yuri Roman Shymko: -at least in spirit.
December 21, 1978


Mr. Bechard:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The hon. member, on a point of order.


Albert Béchard: Mr. Speaker, I have just heard the hon. member say that he is not speaking either Ukrainian or French, but the English official language. Mr. Speaker, I should like to remind the hon. member that French is an official language too.


Yuri Roman Shymko: Mr. Speaker, I always try to speak French and I made, let us say, a blunder in one of the official languages.

In 1976 there were 559,335 lone parents in Canada of which 94,990 were male and 464,340 were female. We are talking about working mothers, females with dependants. The statistics I quote were for the year 1976 and I am sure that in the two years since then, with the changes in the social fabric in Canada, that figure is now much higher.
In November, 1978, there were 230,000 unemployed married women in Canada. As we know, there have been great declarations in defence of women by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt) and I would like that hon. member to pay attention to the figure I put forward. There are 230,000 unemployed married women in Canada representing 8.7 per cent of the married women in the work force. Also in November, 1978 there were 155,000 families with one or more children in which the head of the family was unemployed. In addition there were 360,000 families with one or more children in which one person other than the family head was unemployed. The source of my information is Statistics Canada- "The Labour Force, November, 1978". In other words there are today 515,000 families with one or more dependants where at least one person, including the head of the family, is unemployed.
This is why our amendment calling for a two-tier system makes sense. It is why a judgment will be passed in the spring of 1979 by those who are not-


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


Mr. Raymond Savard (Verdun):: Mr. Speaker, I hold the hon. member, Mr. Shymko, in high esteem, but when he tells some falsehood, I must set the record straight.


@Acting Speaker: Order. A member must address another member by his riding rather than by his name.


Pierre Raymond Savard: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I must remind the hon. member for Parkdale (Mr. Shymko) that while he was at a committee meeting, we passed in his absence Standing Order 65(9) which reads as follows:
Unemployment Insurance Act
Any member of the House who is not a member of a standing or special committee, may, unless the House or the committee concerned otherwise orders, take part in the public proceedings of the committee, but he may not vote or move any motion, nor shall he be part of any quorum.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I should like to say that the hon. member Leonard Jones, who was not a member of that committee, also had unanimous consent to speak. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, but there was also Arnold Peters, the member for-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The hon. member will please address members by their riding, not by their name.


Pierre Raymond Savard: He too had asked for unanimous consent in committee, Mr. Speaker, and unfortunately he did not obtain it. The same applies to my colleague the hon. member for Hochelaga (Mr. Lavoie) to whom the committee refused consent. I sincerely believe, Mr. Speaker, that as chairman of the committee I had to be neutral to maintain democracy in committee and that is what I did. And I think opposition members can vouch for that.
Mr. Speaker, during these meetings, the committee had the opportunity to hear several briefs presented by various corporations, associations and unions. After several debates, members of the committee agreed that the changes to the Unemployment Insurance Act contained in Bill C-14 were ready to be introduced in the House. After spending all this time studying, listening and discussing these amendments to this act, I have difficulty understanding why some hom. members are now challenging these changes.
Mr. Speaker, I was not here yesterday. I had to see my doctor because I was upset and the doctor told me after the examination that my problem was that I had listened to the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) in his flights of oratory and his fine words which did not propose anything positive. I chaired that committee for 55 hours, and we had 29 meetings where we heard a good number of witnesses. Almost all of them stated that Bill C-14 was a step towards progress. When the Auditor General of Canada tabled his annual report, we saw that it contained many remarks concerning the unemployment insurance system.
I read with interest the offensive remarks of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae) about my colleague the hon. member for LaSalle-Emard-Cote Saint-Paul (Mr. Campbell). He said the latter was not very bright because he ventured to say that those who receive benefits abused the unemployment insurance system. I would like to advise the same hon. member to inquire further because I represent the constituency next to his, and we see quite a lot of people and receive many complaints. I would like to advise the hon. member not to

December 21, 1978
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consider simply what he wants to see and hear, but rather to explain to me why the auditor informs us that in 1977 the overpayments which were not noticed by the commission could total $142 million, to be added to the overpayments of $67 million which were found out by the commission during the same year.
Even if they say that one is proven and the other is a statistic, the fact still remains that the estimate of $142 million for 1977 is higher than the estimate of $96 million announced in 1976.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand those people who take pleasure in misleading the people of this country by always suggesting figures but who I think do not understand or do not want to understand-I think I should tell them the exact meaning of the French initials NPD which mean those 'defeated politicians'.
Mr. Speaker, we received several letters-I have one here from the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, and I quote:
The Edmonton Chamber of Commerce read with interest the press release concerning the proposed amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
We support them and note with interest the explanation and the reasons given in the background papers we received where it appears that those amendments
'would reduce the disincentives to work'
'are designed to reduce the effects-I
* * 7
exclude 'people who return to the labour market for short periods only to be
entitled to unemployment insurance'
Ad hon. Member: Does that come from the west?


Pierre Raymond Savard: Edmonton. The chamber of commerce. 1 will go further. That is why I quoted that because all those people raised those questions in committee.


Mr. Nystrom:: You are a real Tory!


Pierre Raymond Savard: It goes on to say:
-some members of the labour force who "have to a certain extent taken the habit of depending on unemployment insurance benefits"-
I believe all hon. members in this House should join and
congratulate the Minister of Employment and Immigration,
the hon. Bud Cullen, for recognizing those problems. That is
what I call a real minister who takes his responsibilities.
The Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association
also examined the amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act contained in Bill C-14, and those people tell us: Go ahead, Mr. Minister, we of the association are happy to support the amendments contained in Bill C-14. Half a million Canadians are employed in this kind of industry. They are not all crazy and they are sure those amendments will give good results because they will allow to reduce employer and employee costs and the rate of unemployment. I sincerely believe that all should get together. Tonight we should vote and I hope all will vote in block-the Liberals, the Progressive Conservatives and the Social Crediters-they have a duty to

do so because they will all have to account for it during the election.


Mr. Rae:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member who just resumed his seat if he would be kind enough to answer a question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. If the hon. member for Broadview wants to be recognized he needs the unanimous consent of the House because he had the floor earlier. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: As there is no unanimous consent, I recognize the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette).


Armand Caouette: Mr. Speaker, this being private members' hour I would ask the Chair to call it five o'clock. I will begin my speech at eight o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. It being five o'clock the House will now proceed with private members' business in the following order according to today's order paper: private bills, notices of motions (papers) and public bills.


PRIVATE BILLS
[Stage Direction]
J.H. POITRAS & SON LTD.
Jean-Robert Gauthier: that Bill S-8, to revive J.H. Poitras & Son Ltd., as reported (without amendments) by the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Private Bills and Standing Orders, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: When shall this bill be read the third time?


Some hon. Members:: Now!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: that Bill S-8, to revive J.H. Poitras & Son Ltd., be read the third time and do pass.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief because the bill went through second reading, committee stage and is now back before us with the support of all parties.
Hon. members will recall the legislation aims at reviving a company which, due to an error for which they were not
December 21, 1978

responsible, lost their incorporation. This bill was put forward quite simply to revive J.H. Poitras & Son Ltd.
Mr. Speaker, I shall not take any more time except to thank my colleagues from the official opposition, the New Democratic Party and the Social Credit party for supporting so wholeheartedly in this pre-Christmas period a bill that will cause much pleasure to Mr. and Mrs. St. James, who by the way came from the eastern townships?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Notice of motion No. 10, standing in the name of the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert).


Mr. Young:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if it might be the unanimous disposition of the House to deal with Bill C-34, which is legislation to amend the Criminal Code with relation to gun control. I think we could deal with it very expeditiously. I wonder if the House would grant its unanimous consent. We might be able to deal with second reading and third reading of the bill very expeditiously at this time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: We are now in the
private members' hour and we would need unanimous consent of the House to revert to government business. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Unanimous consent is given.




[Stage Direction]
AMENDMENT RESPECTING DELIVERY OF FIREARMS On the Order: Government Orders.
December 19, 1978-Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs of Bill C-34, an act to amend the Criminal Code- The Solicitor General of Canada.
Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. When parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1977 it intended that the acquisition of guns would be controlled by the firearms acquisition certificate system. Clearly parliament intended at that time that people should not need certificates in order to keep the guns they already own, but only when they undertake to acquire a gun. Indeed, paragraph 95(2)(b) of the Criminal Code exempts an individual from the requirement to
Criminal Code
produce a certificate when his gun is being returned to him by an individual to whom it has been lent. Unfortunately, the law does not specifically exempt an individual from the requirement to produce a certificate-
[ Translation]


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but perhaps it would be more in order that he put his motion forward before we hear him.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make one point clear. I hope there is unanimous consent to dealing with all stages of this matter prior to six o'clock; that is, second reading, committee stage and third reading. Since we have had some prior discussions, I think that is agreeable to most hon. members here.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the consent asked by my colleague is given, of course, provided all stages of the bill concerned are disposed of before six o'clock this evening at the latest. If so, there is unanimous consent, needless to say, at least on this side of the House.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I should like to know what will happen to the private member's bill if we are going to revert to government orders. Will the member sponsoring the bill agree to having it stood?


Mr. Herbert:: Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that we will proceed with motion No. 10 in whatever time is left.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I do not agree to that, Mr. Speaker.


Yvon Pinard: Have you changed your mind?


Steve Eugene Paproski: We should call it six o'clock after the government order has been dealt with.


Harold Thomas Herbert: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. If consent is required to stand motion No. 10 until another time, that is okay by me.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Then I do agree, sir.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I just wanted to say, Mr. Speaker, that there have been proper consultations and there has been unanimous agreement.


Mr. Peters:: Mr. Speaker, if that agreement is to be effective, we will have to include in the motion words to the effect that, instead of sending the bill to a standing committee, we will consider it in committee of the whole House. Otherwise we could not deal with the bill today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: That was the point the Chair was going to make. Is it agreed by unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

December 21, 1978
Criminal Code


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: that Bill C-34, to amend the Criminal Code, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Ethier in the chair.
Clause 1 agreed to.
On clause 2-
William Arnold Peters: Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a few words on this clause. There were many of us on all sides of the House who supported the bill when it came in and who pointed out that there was a number of factors which were going to work a hardship on those who are interested in having gun collections, those who are bona fide hunters, sportsmen interested in target ranges, and so on. Two difficulties that have developed are of interest here. One involves the major change that has taken place through this amendment which will allow those who have something wrong with their gun to take it down to the gun shop to get it fixed. It is logical that if you do not need a licence to have the gun in the first place and you take it down to the gun shop to have it fixed, you should not need a licence to get it back again because nothing has changed except the fact that a bona fide gunsmith has repaired it.
I suppose that the mover of these amendments has taken into consideration the fact, and it is a fact, that most guns in this country which were used in the Vietnam war-I think they are M-l rifles, or whatever they are-had in them a part which turned them into fully automatic weapons. They did not require an additional part or the modification of any part of the gun. It was a simple operation whereby one or two pieces were reversed, pieces which were already part of the gun, to make it into an automatic weapon. This means, of course, that we will have to pay attention to those whom we classify as bona fide gunsmiths.
We now have some difficulty in northern Ontario which has resulted from some hysteria in the department, and that department has a tendency to hysteria with regard to gun-running. To them all these guns can become dangerous weapons. As everyone knows, there are thousands of pseudo-machine guns around the country which were not considered to be fully automatic weapons because they were not used in that way, but some parts in most of them would allow them, with some modification, or in one case just the turning of one piece, to become fully automatic guns, and if you had a 30 to 60-shell clip, you had a viable machine gun.
Those guns were not necessarily imported for the purpose of creating the gun-running scandal about which we hear. Some of the people who were involved-and there are certainly lots of other people in the country who have other kinds of weapons and are collectors-who ran machine guns and the like were within the law, but since changes were made to the act, those weapons became prohibited. Now, with a simple modification,
some of the weapons which were not considered to be prohibited are prohibited.
For that reason I wonder if we have given enough consideration to the definition of those whom we consider bona fide gunsmiths. Because we will have to depend more and more on them to enforce the law by not accepting unregistered handguns and other guns. That is where the difficulty may arise. It is similar to the difficulty which arises when the gunsmiths of one or two towns also are safesmiths. These people could open safes in banks if they put their minds to it. It was necessary to keep them bona fide citizens. When it was necesary to open a bank vault or safe, the officials required someone who was capable of doing so. If that person was not available, in some cases he was flown in, but in most areas someone was qualified to open them. Such people were required to learn the latest combinations, codes and methods of operating bank vaults. They had to be highly trained, skilled and updated on various methods. Also, they had to be people who were well respected in the community. The officials were required to give them some consideration and leeway because of the difference between opening bank vaults with the authority of the bank and doing it on Saturday night for themselves. There are gunsmiths who handle only illegal guns. Also there are the bona fide citizens in communities who are afforded some leeway and not harassed all the time.
I was surprised by the department providing an amnesty for only one month. The amnesty involved two matters. First, people were able to carry their guns to the police station, and second, the guns could be registered if there was no reason preventing it. Guns could be registered even if their sources were fairly dubious. It was a good idea, but the amnesty was not long enough.
My son informed me that at one time he went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in order to register a gun. They gave him a hard time. He said, "If you give me a hard time, keep the gun. I do not know where it came from. I do not know its history. I do not know much about it. I am a collector, I have it, and I am willing to register it. If you do not want it registered, then you keep it; but that is the last one you will ever see". Also he pointed out that the Saturday Night Special is worth $200 more if it is unregistered than if it is registered. Thus, it is to the advantage of the police and law enforcement agencies to have as many guns registered as possible. The amnesty and the permit should be stretched in order to achieve the maximum possible registration of guns.
The officials concerned with this piece of legislation were surprised by the number of guns which turned up in various communities. They did not realize the guns existed because they were unregistered. If they were surprised about the number of guns turned in, one can imagine their surprise if they were able to find out the number of guns not turned in. The amnesty should be continued in order to provide more people with opportunities to register their guns at various
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier).]
December 21, 1978

police stations. Any restrictions hindering that process are somewhat silly.
There is a necessity to carry on investigations, but sometimes the police become carried away with their investigations. They will have a great time with the trials which are to take place in the town of Haileybury and Timiskaming. It will be difficult to prove that these people were running an international gun ring and that they were closely connected in subversive activities. Perhaps the officials will find out that the people involved were entrepreneurs who were out to make a few bucks, that they operated individually as pseudo-collectors in areas as distant as New Brunswick and northern Ontario. Whether some of those guns went out of the country or not, I do not know. If the officials are really concerned with that aspect, they would be wise to go to Bleury Street in order to check some companies such as International Firearms. I think they would find that boatloads of guns are traded: automatics, machine guns, bazookas, the whole works. Boatloads of guns which do not even land in the country are traded.
We must not overdo it. The change being recommended is an excellent one. The department should give consideration to supervising and establishing bona fide repair gunshops throughout the country to which people may take their guns for repair, and gunshops should be allowed some leeway in collecting and assisting in the registration of guns.
The gun legislation has not imposed a great hardship on the average gun collector or on the bona fide hunter. For this reason, I believe the legislation has been reasonable. The proposed amendment is a sensible one. If a collector with a broken gun requires repair, he should be able to obtain repairs whether the gun is registered or not. He should not be placed in a different position than he was before seeking the repair. I agree with the minister. This is a sensible amendment.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I will make the remarks now which I attempted to make at second reading stage. The explanatory note states the following:
These amendments would ensure that the delivery of a firearm by the operator of a business that includes the manufacturing, buying or selling at wholesale or retail, importing, repairing, altering or modifying or taking in pawn of firearms to a person from whom he received it in the course of such business, and the receipt of the firearm by that person from the operator of the business, does not constitute an offence.
To summarize very briefly, when parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1977, it intended that the acquisition of guns would be controled by the firearms acquisition certificate system. Parliament clearly intended that people do not need certificates in order to keep the guns they already own, but only when they undertake to acquire a gun. Indeed, paragraph 95(2)(b) of the Criminal Code exempts an individual from the requirement to produdce a certificate when his gun is being returned to him by an individual to whom it has been lent. Unfortunately, the law does not specifically exempt an individual from the requirement to produce a certificate when his gun is being returned to him by a licensed business dealer who has taken the gun into his possession for the purpose of repairing or storing it. An amendment to the legislation is
Criminal Code
urgently required before January 1, 1979, to provide such an exemption for several reasons.
Those reasons are brief, and they are three in number. Provinces have adopted different interpretations of the present law with the result that some jurisdictions will enforce the law and others will not. That is to say, at the present time I understand that some provinces under the present legislation will require the owner of a gun to have a firearms acquisition certificate before his gun can be returned to him, while other provinces will not enforce it.
There is a certain degree of business anxiety because even in jurisdictions where the law may not be enforced, businesses are concerned either that they may be prosecuted or that they will lose their business permits. Remington Ltd. is currently recalling more than 2,000 guns across the country for repair. In view of the inconsistent application of the law which might occur, Remington very probably will insist that individuals produce a certificate before the guns are returned to them.
Thirdly, having to do with safety considerations, some individuals, particularly in the case of the Remington recall, may not bother to have their guns repaired if they must produce a certificate in order to have them back. This could undermine their own or others safety, which is entirely in conflict with the intent of gun control.
In short, what I am saying is that there is a possibility of having different interpretations of the present law in different areas of the country, something we do not want to see occur. There is a certain amount of anxiety on the part of present owners of guns, including businessmen who may be in the business of repairing those guns, not knowing whether to request a firearms acquisition certificate for the return of a gun. As I say, for simple safety considerations we would not want to have any inconsistency or any doubt in anyone's mind; it should be clear that they are able to turn guns over to a manufacturer for restoration or repair and have them returned. We would not want them to feel that they should not put guns in for repair simply because they may be hassled, if you like, for a firearms acquisition certificate.


Walter David Baker: May I say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that I have never heard an explanatory note for a bill presented with such eloquence as that just exhibited by the parliamentary secretary.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: If I may say so, I would like to indicate that we are grateful for the consultation we had with the parliamentary secretary and the Solicitor General, within whose jurisdiction this bill falls. It is an extremely sensitive and sensible amendment to the law which clears up an anomaly. We support it, and I want to say for our party that it is important to everyone in the House that we clear up these anomalies in the law. I thank the hon. member for

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
Vaudreuil for permitting this to happen during his period of time in the House.
Clause 2 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: When shall the bill be read the third time?


Some hon. Members:: Now.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: As agreed earlier, is it the pleasure of the House to call it six o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
At 5.33 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
[ Translation]

Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before I recognize the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette) I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate have passed Bill S-9, an act respecting fugitive offenders in Canada to which the concurrence of this House is desired.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-14, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, and motion No. 1 (Mr. Leggatt).
Armand Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure at this stage of the debate to speak on Bill C-14 which for me and for the Canadian people in general is very important, first because it is a very good piece of legislation for some people and especially for the government, since they are trying
to crack down on abusers. This bill will cause hardship to people who have the right to ensure temporarily their security, either because of the scarcity of jobs or for any other reason. It is a very important measure for this government and that is why I am saying that it is a very positive legislation. For years the Canadian people have decided to participate in this insurance scheme through a law that we have given to these people. We gave Canadians a guarantee they would be able to live decently if for some reason they had to leave their job or if they had been laid off by their employers.
Mr. Speaker, according to the speech made this afternoon by the hon. member for Verdun (Mr. Savard), by presenting this bill the government wanted to eliminate the cases of abuse by unemployment insurance recipients. Like the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Janelle), I agree with the government that we should put a stop to these abuses, which are very few compared with the number of people who need these benefits to survive.
I also recall that a few days ago, more specifically last Tuesday, the government made a gift to someone by introducing Bill C-33, I believe, which we agreed to and which offered a salary ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 a year to a certain person. This person was given a Christmas gift because the government did not want him to be penalized by having to change his occupation. The House of Commons made this gift to Mr. Justice Morand so as not to penalize him by reducing his pension since he was accepting the position of ombudsman for the province of Ontario. Moreover, with its usual generosity, the government offered something very specific to the Canadian people who have been paying premiums for years so that they would be insured.
It will soon be Christmas. The unemployed also want to have a good Christmas and to make their family happy thanks to this insurance, thanks to the small amount that we provide them through unemployment insurance.
What is the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) now doing with Bill C-14? These people will have a happy Christmas because of the pressures made by members of this House, both on the government side and on the side of the opposition. But what will happen to them on January 2, 1979? They will find themselves, as the hon. member for Charlevoix (Mr. Lapointe) said so eloquently last Tuesday, in regions like mine or like his as well as in regions like those of the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert), the hon. member for Richmond (Mr. Beaudoin) and the hon. member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Janelle), they will find themselves not penalized by the legislation we will have passed, but by the rules we will allow civil servants to apply.
Mr. Speaker, since I was first elected to the House of Commons I had a chance in my constituency to represent certain people who, with the laws we are passing here in this

December 21, 1978

House and given the privilege they have to come and see us, can tell us: Your laws disregard our rights.
Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that it is quite true. We have worked hard to try to solten up this act which is very restrictive toward those who for many years as I mentioned earlier have been entitled to unemployment insurance precisely because they contributed to it.
We are also giving to civil servants the power to do whatever they see fit, to look for all possible means to disqualify people who are still entitled to collect unemployment insurance benefits. Because of the laws enacted by this government, these very people are today coming to see us in our regional offices to seek explanations or obtain some assistance before the arbitration boards originally instituted a few years ago by the Department of Employment and Immigration to defend these same people. Today, because of an act which is unjust for these people, not only the members of the opposition but the members on the government side, now have to undertake to take up the cause of these same persons to make them eligible again precisely because of the difference which exists between each region, especially in regions such as ours and mine in particular. It is very difficult to tell these people that they have to go out and look for work.
Some years ago looking for a job was a fairly easy thing to do. There were great possibilities for persons collecting unemployment insurance to get themselves a job. However, today in 1978, these possibilities no longer exist. Why so? Precisely because of laws which are supposed to provide a certain degree of help to businesses so they will hire the unemployed. With the laws which we are now passing it is becoming a very difficult endeavour. Mr. Speaker, I could provide you with typical cases in my area of businesses or persons who want to help our people to make themselves available for work and sell the production of the companies to this very population which is simply asking to be given the means to buy the manufactured goods of these same companies.
Because the government with its legislation refuses to help those people, we now have close to one million unemployed in Canada; I shall not say like the New Democratic Party that there are more than one million unemployed. We deny to those same people the right to go into business or we refuse to try to make them work.
A few days ago I heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) say that 341,000 jobs were created in the year 1978 or in the budget for 1977-1978. Congratulations! I lift my hat to the Prime Minister when he says that. But where I think the minister misleads the population is when he omits to say how many people or how many companies had to close down because of our policies.


Mr. Roy (Laval):: Ask Mr. Levesque!
Unemployment Insurance Act


Armand Caouette: The hon. member for Laval (Mr. Roy) says: Ask Mr. Levesque. It is not true. He is like all the others, and I should go further, and say that he and the Prime Minister always make the premier of Quebec responsible for those numerous lay-offs.
My belief is we should give that premier an opportunity to prove himself, but right now let us ask this government why they are denying investments that are needed. If someone knows the reason, it is the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Right now civil servants pretending they know every area in the country but are based in Montreal, Quebec city or Ottawa suggest they know my area, northwest Quebec, while they refuse that those companies locate an industry that could create jobs.
This government however put forward a very important piece of legislation, expecting that we rush it through today. I would be most anxious to go home to my family rather than being here tonight, and I am certain other members also would be most happy to go home. The government, however, put forward a bill at the last moment in order, not that we give the present we gave Mr. Justice-


An hon. Member:: Are we not comfortable here?


Armand Caouette: Of course we are comfortable, but we are comfortable because we have the courage to try and defend the people. And concerning the hon. member for Longueuil (Mr. Olivier) who feels so comfortable, I am sure he would be just as happy as we would if he could go home to his family and celebrate Christmas.
However, Mr. Speaker, we should not stop at that thought, and the proof is here tonight, on both sides of this House, we are responsible. We are here tonight to try and defend the people that need us to have the same opportunity to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. A few days ago we hurried to give Mr. Justice Morand an opportunity to celebrate Christmas without penalizing others. Unfortunately, I feel that with Bill C-14 the government does not extend the same opportunity to the unemployed.
Mr. Speaker, my contribution shall not be completely negative, because I want to make concrete proposals to the government, and take a positive stand as well. When introducing his bill the minister stated that he wanted to prevent abuse, as I said earlier, in connection with unemployment insurance benefits. Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out one thing to hon. members and particularly to government members about the problems we want to solve and which the minister would try to solve with his bill. Members of my party can say that this bill will never solve the problem we now have.
There are reasons which explain the present economic recession, and there are also reasons which explain the present unemployment rate. The government knows them, but it lacks

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
courage to attack them head on. This bill will do nothing but perpetuate the vicious circle of the economic crisis we see now. I understand the government would like to do away with all the unemployment insurance cheaters. The Minister of Employment and Immigration stated last November 9 that the costs for the program were more than $4 billion in the last financial year.
The minister says he wants to correct that trend. That is all very nice, Mr. Speaker, but on whose back? First by reducing the benefits by 6% per cent. If you take into account the present rate of inflation those future claimants will have to look elsewhere, and if they do not find anything, it means they will have to go on social welfare. How sad it can be for those same people to kneel once again before Unemployment Insurance Commission officials who, as the hon. member for Lot-biniere (Mr. Janelle) said this afternoon, get their pay cheques every week and say: Trust us, do what we ask and you will get your pay cheques every two weeks. In other words, Mr. Speaker, they will have to depend on social welfare with the new legislation introduced by the Minister of Employment and Immigration, considering the federal government pays 50 per cent of social welfare programs.
Mr. Speaker, I think we are justified in asking how the Canadian economy will definitively be cured with measures like those the Minister of Employment and Immigration introduced today. The minister talked about $4 billion for the unemployment insurance program. Of course, that is a substantial amount. And there were abuses by some individuals which cost society a lot of money.
In that respect, Mr. Speaker, Bill C-14 will correct certain injustices. The insurable remuneration will make the system fairer for workers with part-time jobs. As it stands now, the program introduced in 1971 excludes from insurable jobs any job of a duration of 20 hours or more a week for which the remuneration is less than the insurable minimum salary. In that respect, Mr. Speaker, the bill is fair and reasonable. We should not forget either that the essence of this bill is to make cuts. The minister talks about reallocating funds but, as I suggested recently, when John Q. Public sees his unemployment insurance benefits reduced by 6% per cent there will be no reallocation for him.
The conditions set by the minister are not helping much our fellow Canadians who must, for whatever reason, apply for the unemployment insurance benefits for which they have been contributing for several months and sometimes years and collect what they are entitled to.
This is in line with the $2 billion cuts which the right hon. Prime Minister announced in August, and it is again the small earner who will lose. As members of the Social Credit Party of Canada, we want to bring about an economic and monetary reform, so that the small earners, the have-nots, may find their places in the sun. I say that the government is trying to demonstrate restraint on the backs of small earners, and the

cuts in the unemployment insurance program are evidence of this. The government wants to save $2.5 billion within the next two years. Over this same period, the government intends to cut its unemployment insurance program by $1.5 billion. These cuts will therefore account for 60 per cent of all the cuts the government intends to make. I suggest therefore, Mr. Speaker, that the poor will foot the bill for this restraint program.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I must regretfully advise the hon. member that the time allotted to him has now expired.


Mr. David Crombie (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to make some remarks with regard to the bill before the House. This is one bill I have had the opportunity to follow through in my brief time here. I have been able to observe the procedures in the House and in committee, and indeed how parliament functions in relation to the presentation by the government of a bill it chooses to call its own.
This is a very significant bill. It is possible it will have an impact on some 2.5 million people in this country. The essence of the bill is to cut $580 million from the unemployment insurance allocation. If the bill passes in its present form, it will chop away the opportunities for unemployment insurance for 264,000 Canadians. Whether you say it fast or slow, it is still 264,000, a lot of people.
For those who remain on the rolls, if you take inflation into account, over the next three years they will have 17 per cent to 18 per cent less money to spend than they had this year. Therefore this is an important bill. This bill had the opportunity to engage the interests of this House and perhaps to engage some teaching and learning, not only for those in this House but for those in the country who will be affected.
It is fair to say that in the last four or five years, certainly the last three or four, public confidence in the operation and administration of the unemployment insurance program has suffered badly, for a variety of reasons. People have been upset by those who abuse the program. There are some who feel that no one is abusing the program. If that is what they think, I welcome them to come and ride with me on a Queen Street car in Toronto. We will go from one end to the other. Just about everyone you see will know a cousin, uncle, neighbour or somebody who is beating the system. People by and large have been hurt by the proposition that there are abusers and slackers who are ripping off the unemployment insurance scheme. As well, public confidence has been offended by the maladministration of the program by those who are responsible for its administration, whether it comes from computer programming mistakes or millions of dollars in overpayments. By and large there is a perception in the public mind that it is not well administered.
Third, since 1971 it has been very difficult for people to understand the fundamental philosophy behind the program,
December 21, 1978

what it is supposed to do and whether it should, in fact, be insurance or whether it should be social assistance. If it is one, it has a certain path to tread and, if it is the other, then perhaps it should be travelling a different path. It is in this context, I think, that a number of people in this House, and others who are affected, were looking forward to a process in committee and in the House to see what could be done with the bill which was presented.
It was an interesting process in committee-one which I might say I was not used to-and one which clearly showed that the longer it went on the worse it got. I believe I am being fair in saying that. It began with an understanding that clause 2 of the bill would not affect a great number of people. But it really did not matter whether we agreed to it or not. It had already been passed by regulation and published in the Canada Gazette. This meant to the people I know and whom I represent that this was the way their life would be dealt with. To these people it meant that whatever the House decided did not matter, that whatever the people who administer the fund decided, that was the way it would be. It was, in my opinion, one of the most interesting comments on the responsibility and power of the people who are elected to government as opposed to those who serve in opposition.
Parenthetically I would say, of course, that the minister was personally embarrassed about the matter and did apologize. I might add also, in particular relationship to the longshoremen in Toronto, that he saw fit gracefully to allow his staff to assist in that regard when I raised the matter in the House.
During the committee hearings one thing became clear, especially to those who wished to observe it, that is, that the bill as presented is a bad bill because it has three specific effects which should not be countenanced either by the government or by any member of this House. First, the effect of the bill is to hurt those people who can least afford to be hurt. That is not a very good principle for a government to follow. It hurts, first of all, those who are most likely to be jobless. They are caught in a Catch 22 situation and have no choice. Second, it hurts those who have dependants-that's another word for children; they get less and their responsibility is greater. That, too, is also a bad principle for a government to defend. Third, it affects women, particularly working women with dependants.
Fourth, it affects seasonal workers. Fifth, it affects young people.
To do all these things in one bill might be considered quite an accomplishment, and one might ask how it can be done. Well, the way you do it, the way you chop 10 per cent out of benefits that may have been depended upon, the way in which you hurt 264,000 people is not by saying, "You are not going to get it because you abused the system;" it is by saying, "Here is 10 per cent by categories."
For us to accept that-because most of us are sensitive human beings-you would have to relate it to perhaps the oldest political move in the world. You would have to set up a scapegoat. You would need to paint people with a label in order that you can do things to them you would not otherwise
Unemployment Insurance Act
do. That is called "scapegoating". So, you have to say that those people are going to get hurt because they are abusers and slackers. There is no other justification. After all, there is no one in this country who wishes to hurt those who are not abusers or those who are not slackers. Nobody would want to do that. So you would have to adopt the assumption that all of those people who will be hurt are abusers and slackers. Of course that is not true. In short, to justify hurting 264,000 Canadians the government had to combine an affliction on the guilty and on the innocent. They had, to borrow a word used by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae), to be indiscriminate. Not to lose because you have abused-that is fair- but, rather, to lose because you fit into a statistical category. And that is not fair. That is the first reason why the bill ought not to be supported. It hurts all those categories of people who can least afford it and, more important, it does so by fixing a statistical category and determining that they ought not to receive the benefits they have so far enjoyed.
The second reason why the bill ought not to be supported is that it affects those regions of Canada which are already suffering. I need not remind the government or other hon. members of that because we have already heard very good speeches from the member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) and, of course, we heard the most excellent speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) today. What is interesting about this is that one has the feeling that six or eight months from now, or two years down the road if they were still the government, as they are sucking money out of the Atlantic provinces and Quebec now, what ministers over there will be doing is putting the money back and claiming to be helping out. It is not only hurting those regions which are already suffering, but, indeed, it is cynical-


An hon. Member:: What about the two-tier system?


David Edward Crombie: The hon. member asks me about the two-tier system. Don't worry, I will get to that.
Mr. Speaker, the third reason, and one which I find to be closest to my heart since I know well the effect it will have, is that not only will it hurt people who can least afford it, not only will it hurt those regions and bear most heavily on those regions which are already hurting in this country, but that it will hurt provincial and municipal governments. With respect to this aspect I would like to make a couple of points.
Much has been said in respect of many bills about the importance of consultation between the central federal government and the provincial and hence the municipal governments. We often excoriate one another because we do not do it well enough. But usually such proposals are those which will be coming forward some time in the future. The effect of the bill before us will hurt them the day it goes into force in terms of money which has not been budgeted for, and I think we have to bear in mind what that means.
If you consider the statistics in terms of three categories- welfare, social services, and loss of revenue-you will find that British Columbia sees the impact of the measure as likely to

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
cost S35 million. Ontario sees the impact in welfare costs alone, not social services and loss of revenue, as $15 million. New Brunswick sees it in terms of $27 million. Amounts borne by municipalities-and these account for 20 per cent of the bill-go on property taxes, the already burdened property tax. The people you think you may be pleasing are going to find out that at the end of the line there is another cash register you didn't tell them about. They will have to pay it with their property tax.
Let me deal with Toronto since this is the place on which I have the statistics. In that city it will mean 2,500 more per month-hon. members may laugh about it but I am going to tell them what it means. In Toronto 2,500 more people per month will be on welfare rolls. That will cost $6.6 million plus $900,000 for two new offices and re-administration. I did not think those figures up. They are from the report to the commissioner of social services of metro Toronto. That report was also dealt with by the minister of social services of the province of Ontario. Throughout any recitation of these kinds of statistics the government simply says, "Not true, not true, not true." Well, the fact is that every province is saying the same thing. Every municipality is saying the same thing. They cannot all be wrong and only the federal government right.
The government cannot deny-and this bill shows it-that it is placing a burden in terms of welfare costs, social services and loss of income on every region, province, city and municipality in this country. The government might look good when its ministers talk about cost savings, but people are not that stupid, and the people will find the government out very shortly.
Behind much of this is the sense that there is no direction. What is the philosophy of the government with respect to unemployment insurance? Is it insurance? Is it social assistance? The government says it is both. Should there be a two-tier system which would allow people in the greatest need to get what they require in terms of the fund as it was, which is the essence of a two-tier system? People who have dependants will be asking Liberal candidates in the next election campaign why they did not adopt a two-tier system.


Mr. Anderson:: Do you agree with it?


David Edward Crombie: People will be asking why people with dependants must get less. They will not understand. When it comes to a two-tier system the government says it cannot go along with that because it is a needs based program. It is a program which is related to need, and therefore the government cannot go along because it is an insurance program. The government will say it would love to go along but that it cannot because unemployment insurance is insurance and cannot be related to need. But then we look at clause 14, and in clause 14 it says "tax back". Son of a gun!
Why is the government doing that? People do not need that. Talk about working both sides of the street; this is unbelievable! However, it is not just sleight of hand. This reflects something which goes far deeper and is far more worrisome.
[Mr. Crombie.)
This continues to contribute to the cynicism of people who will be affected by this bill because if you are one of the 264,000, or someone who does not have a job and is looking for one, what happens is that after a while you do not care what line-up you get into. You just want to know which is the insurance line-up or which is the welfare line-up. You want to know where to go. Hon. members can ask anyone who has been in municipal government-and I know some hon. members opposite have been-and anyone who has will say that that is the truth. After a while people simply want to know how to maintain their incomes, particularly if they have dependants.
The government had a real opportunity to do a really good job. Public confidence in this program has been waning for four years. The governement had an opportunity to come forward and engage in public discussion. The consequence would have been public education about such things as whether and to what extent there is induced unemployment as a consequence of the unemployment insurance program itself.
The Fraser Institute produced a very good study about which some hon. members know and which some have read. That study would have been useful because there may be induced unemployment, and if there is, we ought to know. There was a terrific opportunity to look at what happens in other parts of the world. Sitting in the committee one might have got the feeling that the only way to go is the government's way, but we should look at what happens in other countries.
I would not advocate the system of any one country, but it is worth looking at the variations which exist in the world. Let us consider, for example, benefits as a per centage of gross earnings. This bill would make them 60 per cent. In West Germany they are 60 per cent. In Spain they are 75 per cent. In Japan they are 80 per cent. In Sweden they are 51 per cent.
The number of weeks' work required to get unemployment insurance in Canada is 40 out of 104. It is interesting that the number is 13 out of 52 in the United States. The number is 52 out of 104 in Italy. In West Germany the maximum number of weeks of benefit is 52. The number here will be 50. In Denmark it is two and a half years. The variation is immense.
I can assure hon. members that people in Toronto would have appreciated an understanding that there is to be a new direction. We have high unemployment, and as a consequence people need money. How can we relate the program to the various income maintenance programs which allow people to carry out their obligations as husbands, mothers, fathers, and so forth? We did not have that kind of discussion, and I wonder why not. I think it is because the government was blinded by a new word, "restraint". This government has not known this word for very long. It was discovered sometime in the late spring or early summer. It is a word which hon. members opposite do not understand as being the exercise of government. They understand it as being the exercise of politics, not government, and that is why they did not deal with unemployment insurance in relation to the needs of people in Canada and, indeed, in relation to the needs of the various regions, provinces and municipalities of Canada. They dealt with it in panic. They felt it was necessary to show that
December 21, 1978

they were responding to a new scapegoat and that that would somehow take the heat off. They were going to be a government of restraint. I do not think that will happen because this bill reflects the government, and what this bill will say to the people on the streets of this city-[DOT]


Mr. Lamontagne:: This city?


David Edward Crombie: I was thinking of Quebec city, actually. People will say that this bill and this government are unjust and unfair to people because they hit both the guilty and the innocent. This bill is unfair and unjust to the regions because it hurts those which are already hurting. It is unjust and unfair to two levels of government which will be overcome by millions of dollars of welfare costs, social service costs and lost income for which they could not and did not budget because there was no consultation. People will say that the government is confused and incompetent, and that it has kept them in the same muddle they were in before the government brought in this bill. Finally, they will say that this government has become so old in office that it has become cynical, even though it does not know it is cynical. That is why, Mr. Speaker-


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


Some hon. Members:: Let him continue.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: He may continue with the unanimous consent of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


Walter David Baker: He hurt you, did he?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: No. 1 was trying to be a gentleman here tonight. We have been dealing with motion No. 1, and many hon. members have spoken. There has been wide latitude allowed by the Chjir. I appreciate that, and I think all members of the House do. However, the fact is that members on both sides have spoken once on this motion and, of course, do not have the opportunity to speak again. I wonder if we could move to the second motion and perhaps give other hon. members an opportunity to speak.


James Aloysius McGrath: You brought in closure, Bud, not us.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: From our standpoint, we have not heard anything new today except the con in Conservative has been proven once again. Members opposite have something to say about the two-tier system and voluntary quits, but the Conservative party does not seem to want to give them the opportunity.
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Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) will carry the message to the government House leader, so that he will not be so free with allocating time the next time around. I just want to say to my friend, if he cannot stand there and take the heat, he should not stand up and make excuses.


Mr. Rob Parker (Eglinton):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on clause 1 of this bill, once again we have before the House a band-aid bill, another set of amendments on amendments on amendments. Over the days the bill has been debated in the House there has been considerable discussions concerning the closure motion which the government brought in and passed. We have had some detailed discussions on some areas of the proposed amendments but not all. That will not be possible because of the short time.
It would be worth while to examine exactly what the government purports to do with the bill, exactly what our responsibilities are as legislators in reviewing it and voting on it. The first thing which seems irrefutably clear is that Canadians want reform in the area of unemployment insurance. That has been demonstrated by the government's opinion polls. The government has released papers on it, and has been taking polls for over a year. It has been demonstrated by polls published in the popular press, by media reports, and by the reaction which every member of the House receives from his constituents.
When Canadians say they want reform, I do not think they are necessarily saying that they want the House or the government to penalize the needy. They are not saying they want government to begin to be cruel or heartless. They are not saying that they want to put the wounded in the front lines. But, they want cutbacks in the outrageous costs of this program. The neediest people in Canada among working Canadians are those wage earners who have dependants. They may be single parent families or families where the wife does not work and is at home with the children. Those are the neediest families in terms of deserving protection. While Canadians want reform, there is no sign at all that they want the government to stop protecting people against misfortune.
Over the past few years there has been a clear pattern of encouragement to abuse within the rules and regulations of unemployment insurance. My colleague and seatmate, the hon. member for York-Scarborough (Mr. McCrossan), spoke about it. Other members have spoken on it. There has been a pattern of that kind of encouragement. That would be bad enough, but the encouragement has gone beyond that. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) of this country has gone on record on numerous occasions saying that he will not tell anyone they must work; if people want to collect unemployment insurance and not work, that is their perfect right. When the highest political officer in the land tells Canadians that, particularly young Canadians, surely they take him seriously. Surely they get the idea that it is all right to rip off the system.
We have not had government leaders, cabinet ministers and politicians on the government side talking about the value of

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
working for a living, about the virtue of hard work, and I doubt we will. They have made their record and they have made their bed on giveaways. Now they must lie on it.
We are a legislative body gathered together to consider the bill. In considering it, we should start with the needs of our constituents. Our constituents, as a house, as opposed to individuals, are clearly working Canadians, the working people of this country. They are the traditional office worker with one wife, two mortgages, and three children. They are farm labourers, oil field roughnecks, working mothers, single parents, newly graduated stenographers, bank clerks and laboratory technicians. The range in geography and profession is enormous. It stretches from high technology workers in the highrise towers of urban Canada to the fishermen of eastern Canada. To quote a former colleague of some members of the House in the legislature of Newfoundland, "from those high technology workers to the last forgotten fishermen in the rill of Cape St. George in Newfoundland."
Most of the people in the country are working Canadians who come under the provisions of the bill. The question is: what do they want from us when we consider this bill? I think they want four things. The first one is leadership. The second one is some clear thinking and common sense. The third one is that they want some economy measures. They want an end to the outrageous drunken sailor spending which has been ongoing in Canada for most of the last ten years. The fourth one is that they want the country put back to work. Of those four points, two are not appropriate to this debate.
Leadership, by definition, is a mandate of the government. It is not appropriate to a debate on this bill. Hopefully that is something which will be decided by the people of Canada in the spring of next year. The electorate will make its decision as to whether that mandate has been exercised responsibly. The fourth point concerning job creation has nothing to do with this bill. That is not appropriate to this debate. But the middle two points, clear thinking and common sense, as well as economy measures, are appropriate for debate at this time.
When Canadians talk about clear thinking they do not mean merely that the government will take one plus two and arrive at three. They do not mean merely that the government will protect everyone in need, and that it will say, "No one in Canada should ever lose their job for any circumstances, or ever lose any wages or salary because they lost their job." Neither do they mean that no one should ever be protected in any way. They mean that those who are in need should be protected. We should protect those whose needs are the greatest. We should not design disincentives to work, or incentives to cheat in the plan. In effect, they mean exactly what the Auditor General said in his report this year, that Canadians deserve and should receive value for their money. When Canadians demand economy measures, they mean we should cut back outrageous over-spending, and eliminate waste, but they do not mean we should stop spending money entirely.
Given those definitions, as we approach this bill, we should attempt to save as much as we humanely can, and protect

working Canadians as much as we economically can. That brings me to the specific proposals in the bill before the House, because it does both poorly. It does not save as much as it should or could, and it does not protect as much as it should or could.
Our party has proposed a two-tier plan which would, on the one hand, protect those who need it most and, on the other hand, would economize most with those who can most easily bear the effects of those economies. All our amendments taken together would save more money than the government's proposals. They would have less adverse effects on the broad range of working Canadians, less adverse effects on the provinces, and less adverse effects on city governments.
The amendments that we have proposed have been supported most. They have been supported by the provinces, they have been supported by independent groups outside government in Canada, and they have been supported by the party sector. They are supported by actuarial studies, and they are supported by actuarial experience in other countries. Germany, to name only one country, has a two-tier system. Canada, in fact, had a two-tier system for some 30 years which, ironically, came to an end with the introduction in 1971 of precisely the amendments that marked the beginning of outrageous overspending into which this measure has led the country since that time.
We are proposing a two-tier system. There is nothing unusual about that. We have suggested specific figures, but unlike the government we are not insisting that our proposals be accepted and that nothing else should be considered. We think it is important for this government to save money. We pointed it out long before they admitted the necessity of it. We think it is important at the same time to provide reasonable protection to Canadians who need it, and unemployment insurance is vitally important to Canadians, not only in the rich provinces like Ontario, not only in ridings like my own in urban Toronto, but in ridings in poor areas of eastern Canada or Quebec, in disadvantaged areas in the west, and the west is not entirely a fabric of wealth, swimming pools and Cadillacs, there are poor areas there and the people who live there need protection.
We propose a two-tier plan. We proposed it in committee and we propose it here now. But the government consistently refuses to consider it. The only defence which they seem to be able to offer is that the minister would lose face. We know of amendments that had been suggested which do not seem to get acceptance at the cabinet level or within the Liberal party. My leader spoke today of the difficulties they are having in controlling their own members. I do not know whether the reason so few of them are speaking in the debate today indicates that they have to get their speeches cleared and that not many have managed it, but that is a likely supposition. Surely members on that side are interested in this bill, surely they are as interested as we are in protecting Canadians on the one hand and in saving money for the government on the other, but why are they not speaking?
December 21, 1978

Why do we have member after member on this side speaking, but no one on the other side? I can only assume that they have not managed to clear the hurdles and get their speeches approved. Yes, there were one or two over there who did manage to slip through, which only means that they have had their opinions vetted.


An hon. Member:: That is only done on the Tory side.


Rob Parker: No, it does not happen here-we have caucus meetings.
The amendments which our party has proposed-and I do not mean in detail but in broad outline-include the idea of extra penalties for those who bring their own misfortunes on themselves, those who quit. Surely there is something wrong with an insurance plan which pays someone to burn down his own house, and that is what we have with someone who quits his job and collects benefits on the same basis as someone who loses it for some other reason. Surely there is something wrong with a system which provides that kind of protection. Our proposal is to remove it.
There are other ways of penalizing those who quit, and we do not insist on our plan; we simply suggest that that idea should be included in the bill and that the idea of a two-tier system should be included. But the government consistently refuses to consider it. There is no logic to that. They do not want to be confused with the facts, they do not want to examine, not only what this party says, but what every province of Canada says, what the experience of the private sector says, what economic studies say, what the Economic Council of Canada has suggested, what, in private conversations, members in their own department will say. The weight of opinion is clearly against them. They are going madly into the sunset saying, "our way or no way at all."
If I were to take purely partisan advantage of that, I suppose I should stand here and be delighted because six months from now when we have an election campaign and we are on the hustings talking about what this government has done over the last session of parliament and we say that here was a chance not only to save more money than the government plan proposed but also to protect Canadians in a better and more effective way, and that we proposed that way, we would be elected on that basis. We are not insisting on the details and that it must be done in our way. If the government wishes to change the benefit periods or change the per cent-ages in benefits, that is fine. We are merely saying to it that our amendments, taken as a whole, save more money and protect more humanely. Yet ministers refuse to consider them. On a purely partisan basis, I think that will be an advantage to members on this side six months from now because it shows this government to be pigheaded, obstinate, cruel, and incompetent in terms of management.
I can stand here tonight-and of course I am not a partisan man, Mr. Speaker-and suggest that I do not want them to give us that opportunity. I would like them to take this opportunity away from us and admit that they are not the only ones who have ideas, that there may be a better way of doing it, and that we have done everything short of ramming it down
Unemployment Insurance Act
their throats to demonstrate that there are better ideas in this case.
Our amendments are on paper. The government has an opportunity to add amendments of its own and to withdraw the closure motion. If it does not do so in the next couple of days, we will do it after the next election. The government's obstinacy on this bill is leading this party and, more important than that, is showing the entire country a much clearer picture of what this government stands for, Mr. Speaker. For the last six months the government has been floundering around for ways in which it can skip its way through the obstacles and manage to cling on to power in the next election. If ministers want to do it, I think the best way to do it is to indicate that there is some responsiveness over there to fulfil the real needs of Canadians, and if, on the other hand, they are interested in sitting on this House, then they are taking exactly the right course, and while I cannot applaud on behalf of the people of Canada, if I were a partisan individual I would certainly applaud on behalf of the Conservative party.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, 1 want to say a few words on this motion in response to some of the arguments that have been made. I was very interested in hearing the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) talk earlier about the fact that this bill is going to put a lot of extra burden on the municipalities and the provinces. Of course he is absolutely right because of the fact that we are cutting back in this legislation on unemployment insurance by 10 per cent, which means that a lot of people will have to go on welfare and draw social security who have not drawn it before.
The only thing that puzzles me is that, even though he made a tremendous speech, other people in his party for the last couple of years have been advocating to the government across the way more restraints and cutbacks. Even the hon. member who is the critic and spokesman for the Conservative party, and I assume he would be sitting as a minister if they happened to win, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke), said, if I remember correctly, that the bill does not go far enough in terms of cutbacks, but was a step in the right direction. I have to assume that member is a credible member and was speaking for his party. I think the hon. member for Rosedale ought to take him out behind the barn and teach him a lesson or two about what a bill like this does to the municipalities and provinces in our country.
The other thing I find passing strange when I look to my right and see the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) and the hon. member for Egmont (Mr. MacDonald), the so-called progressives of that party-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I say "so-called" because the more I see them the more I am convinced that they stand there with the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Cossitt), the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens), the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra and others. I recall, when the family allowance meas-
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ure was debated, the many arguments that we should not consider family income whatsoever. I wonder how they can now sit in their seats and hear other Conservative members talking about the two-tier system under which families have to be considered. I wonder how they can do that without getting up and objecting. I saw the hon. member for Egmont trying to get the floor so I assume that he is going to get up and argue in favour of the two-tier system, in order to continue being the hypocrite he has been in this House for the last few years.
I should like to take a look at the Tory party's plan for the two-tier system because they say they are going to help the ordinary people of this country. I am very fond of the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) and St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), partly because I am very fond of Newfoundland and consider these two as members of an endangered species. I saw what happened to the Tory support in Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe where the Tory party dropped from winning a seat just a few years ago to running a dismal third.
Let me take a look at what that two-tier system really means, and there is no better place to see what will happen than in the province of Newfoundland, because in Newfoundland we have high unemployment and the highest cost of living in the country. We have more poor people in that province than in any other part of our country, and we should look at what would happen there under the Tory plan.
When we talk about that Tory two-tier system what really is it going to mean? We all know presently that unemployment insurance payments are 66% per cent of average insurable weekly earnings. The government proposes to reduce that to 60 per cent. What the Tory party wants to do is leave this at 66% per cent, but only for those people with dependants, not for the poor person who is single and does not have dependants. Let me remind the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands that 90 per cent of women who draw unemployment insurance do not have dependants. She wants to make sure that they draw only 50 per cent of the average insurable weekly earnings.
Let us look at an example of the Conservative party plan in order to see what that party really wants in Canada. Today a fish plant worker in the province of Newfoundland who is working for the minimum wage in that province of $2.50 an hour, works an average of 40 hours a week, earning $100. What does the Conservative party propose for Christmas? What does that Santa Claus clown Crosbie and the other people in the Conservative party propose? A fish plant worker receiving $2.50 an hour works for some 40 hours a week and receives $100. If that worker is laid off, under the Conservative plan she or he will receive $50 a week. I do not know who in the devil in this country could buy their food, pay for their shelter, and pay their taxes, on $50 a week. I do not know how the devil they could do it.
The Conservative party is suggesting that someone in this country can live on $2,600 a year. That is what $50 a week times 52 weeks works out to, and that is what the Conservative party is suggesting, those so-called friends of the ordinary
man. I suggest that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) is the $50 Santa Claus of the poor people of this country.
We should call their plan what it is, and that is precisely what the Conservative party is advocating, 50 bucks a week for the people of this country who are drawing unemployment insurance benefits. The so-called red Tories, like the hon. member for Egmont and the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, get up and chastise the government, and so they should, for cutting back on unemployment insurance benefits, yet the plan they are advocating for their constituents is a hell of a lot worse than the plan of hon. members across the way.
Let us consider the part-time worker, the waitress in Newfoundland. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands pretends to defend the women in the work force of this country. The waitress who is working 20 hours a week for the minimum $2.50 an hour receives some $50 a week. Her unemployment insurance under the Conservative plan would be $25 a week. That is what the Conservative plan is for the part-time workers of this country. That is what is offered by that Santa Claus from Rocky Mountain. That Santa Claus must be stopped dead in his tracks, as I am sure he would be if the people of this country were aware of what he really stands for.
I got a real education in what the Conservative party meant during our campaign in Saskatchewan just a few months ago when I saw a guy named Dick Collver trying to get elected. When we told the people of Saskatchewan the facts, the Conservative party in that province was smashed and turned back decisively for the first time in the last number of years.
It is about time we told the people of this country the facts about those people who sit to our right. They suggest that the people of this country can live on $2,600 a year. That is what they are saying: 50 bucks a week. That's what the Leader of the Opposition is saying, that great big Santa Claus, that hypocrite who comes into this House and says 50 bucks a week is what the people of this country can live on. I sure as hell can't do it and I am damned sure the Leader of the Opposition can't do it either. If he thinks otherwise, I would like to see him get up in this House and tell us how the ordinary person in this country can live on some 50 bucks a week.
Let us look at the two-tier system.


An hon. Member:: Let's debate the motion.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Let us debate the Tory motion. We are not getting to that motion because they are afraid to get to it. This motion hits women, and 95 per cent of the women drawing unemployment insurance do not have dependants. They will be getting only 50 per cent of the weekly insurance earnings. The Tories want to hit women, and they want to hit them hard. As I said, they are hitting the waitress in Newfoundland who is getting some 50 bucks a week. That is what is proposed by this Santa Clause from Rocky Mountain. That is what the Conservative party is offering the people of this country. We know that the women in this country are the last people to be hired and the first to be fired. They are one of the targets of the

December 21, 1978

Conservative party when its members talk about a two-tier system.
Hon. members in that party get up and talk about the great contribution the young people of this country could make if they had the opportunity. Of course they could make a contribution. The government deserves a lot of criticism and, for God's sake, the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez) has criticized the government day in and day out in the committee, but what is the Conservative party doing for the young people? First of all, most young people do not have jobs, and most of the ones who are working are at the lower end of the wage scale in this country. When these young people are laid off they too will be receiving some 50 per cent of insurable weekly earnings, so the motion of that Santa Clause from Rocky Mountain is going to hit the young people and the women of this country, and that is not right.
The other people that the Santa Clause from Rocky Mountain wants to hit are those who live in the Atlantic provinces. We know that is where the unemployment is. We also know that in a place like Newfoundland the cost of living is higher than in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Ontario. I should like to know where some of the members from the Atlantic provinces are tonight. The members of our caucus from that area spoke out in committee and in this House about why people in the Atlantic provinces are unhappy with Premier Moores and the proposals of the Conservative party-and the Liberals, of course. That is obvous. Those are the people that the Conservatives want to hit under the two-tier system-the women, the young, and the people from the Atlantic provinces and poor parts of the country. That is not fair at all, Mr. Speaker.
I just wanted to make those non-partisan remarks about: the Tory motion-that we will not reach-about the two-tier system. The Tories have been holding us up on clause 1 because they are embarrassed to get to their motion regarding the two-tier system.
I am not going on longer, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: -because I want to hear what the so-called red Tory, the great leftist, the Tory we always see out at all the progressive movements, the hon. member for Egmont, is going to say about that two-tier system. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra and other members have been talking about more cutbacks and more restraint. I know the hon. member for Egmont very well, and 1 know how concerned he is about the cutbacks hurting the ordinary people who cannot defend themselves, but his party has been advocating restraint for the last two years. Of course when things are restrained, as they have been in Manitoba, the people who suffer most are those least able to fight back-the unemployed, the women, the young, and in Manitoba, the Indians and Metis have been affected. Those people could tell lots of stories about what has happened in Manitoba.
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We have all seen the statistics for Manitoba, Mr. Speaker. In the last year unemployment has shown the greatest increase in Manitoba of any province-it has increased by over 30 per cent. Did someone call out that that was a lie? If so, I should like him to state that publicly. The facts show that unemployment has increased in Manitoba by about 30 per cent in the last year. That is a higher rate of increase than in any other province and it has happened because of the meat-axe that Premier Lyon has taken to that province. There are many stories about the programs that are being chopped.
Let me return to discuss what is happening in this House, Mr. Speaker. The Conservative party is advocating that when a worker in Newfoundland, for instance is laid off, he should receive $50 per week. The Leader of the Opposition is the $50 Santa Claus. That is what the Conservative party is advocating, and that is what the people of this country must understand about the party to my right. The leader is the $50 Santa Claus from Rocky Mountain. Part-time workers would receive as little as $25 per week, and if anyone can live on that, I will be very surprised.
This is an insurance plan, Mr. Speaker, and everybody should contribute equally according to the same formula. The workers of the country are supposed to contribute equally, but under the Conservative two-tier system they would receive benefits in a different way. The single worker would make the same contribution as the worker with dependants, but if the worker with dependants were laid off, he would receive more than the single worker without dependants. Is that equity? I again direct my remarks to the so-called red Tories, the two MacDonalds, and ask them if it is?
A member of the Conservative party interjects to say that universality is tearing the country apart. Are old age pensions tearing this country apart? Is medicare tearing this country apart? Is hospitalization tearing this country apart? Is that where the Leader of the Opposition stands-that medicare and hospitalization are tearing this country apart? Is that the position of the Conservative party? I want to know, Mr. Speaker, because I have seen Tories in this House speak out of both sides of their mouths.
If I want a Tory to support a progressive cause, I know where to go. I can get the hon. member for Egmont, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, or one or two other members of that party. They will shed their crocodile tears, and weep and moan. That is why I have immense respect for the hon. member for York-Simcoe; that is why I have immense respect for the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies), and for the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, who are the true Conservatives, the people who control the Conservative party and who defend Conservative principles in this House.
The hon. member for Egmont is waiting to speak. He will moan and groan that this plan hurts the ordinary people, but I should like him to address some of the matters I have addressed. What about equity in paying for the unemployment insurance plan? If the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski), for example, was an ordinary worker with a
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December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
family, he would be making the same contribution to this plan as the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Faour) who is single and has no family, but if they were laid off, he would only get 50 per cent while the hon. member for Vegreville would get 66% per cent, yet both would pay the same price for a gallon of gas and the same taxes to the Newfoundland government.
I do not see how the so-called progressive Tories on the front bench can claim that this is equity. I wanted to hear them defend the Santa Claus leader of the opposition. In summary, what he is saying to the Canadian people is that someone who makes the minimum wage can live on $50 a week, or $2,600 a year. This has been said loud and clear, Mr. Speaker. He is the $50 Santa Claus. That is damned pathetic in a country as wealthy as Canada, Mr. Speaker. It is damned, damned pathetic, indeed.
Some hon. IMembers: Hear, hear!


Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, I cannot say that I always enjoy speaking in this place or listening to hon. members speak, but I did enjoy the performance of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom). I do not think I have ever seen him speak with such vehemence. But vehemence relates to many things and I can understand his frustration. I suppose anyone would be frustrated who was playing second banana to the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez).


An hon. Member:: That is an interesting comment in the House of Commons.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Will you tell those Liberals to be quiet?


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: 1 know the government is embarrassed and exercised with this, but if hon. members could suppress their frustrations a little longer we will get to the unpleasant aspect of facing the guillotine in all these report stage amendments.
The hon. member for Yorkton-Melville was obviously performing as a double duty man tonight, speaking in part for his party, although one felt he was speaking primarily for the government side. I do not think the government enjoyed any speech as much as the one made by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville. Quite frankly, I kept pinching myself to find out if I had fallen asleep and then awakened in a new parliament where we were the government, and the member for Yorkton-Melville was assuming his normal role in the opposition. He is intelligent enough to know he will never carry the responsibility of being on the government side in this House. Therefore, he must ventilate his frustrations from time to time, and this he has done very well, so much so that the hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin), who has just interrupted, had to remind him at one point to include also the Liberals in his criticism as he fired off salvo after salvo in our direction.
I find it passing strange that the party this member represents which was so anxious to move and to discuss two dozen of the report stage amendments spent no time at all dealing with any of these supposedly important amendments but focused entirely on one of ours-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Sit down. Let's go to one of yours.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I will, if you give me time. If my hon. friends to the left could restrain themselves, I simply say that the one amendment the member talked about is not perfect.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: It is not perfect, but it is a darn sight better than what the minister is trying to ram through this parliament tonight.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I suppose, in the nature of the speech that was given, the member wanted to ignore altogether that this particular amendment happened to be supported by his premier, Mr. Blakeney of Saskatchewan, as well as all the other premiers. The government members are great for heckling from the benches but they sort of laid off having their own speakers and are deputizing some of my friends to the left in the NDP.
My time is limited, Mr. Speaker, and I want to deal with the more serious aspects of the speech-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: -having passed off from the fun and games and the kind of light diversion supplied by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville.
The minister knows, and I see some of my Atlantic friends, at least one or two of them on the other side, who know as well that there is no particular item or government initiative which has greater potential for damage at the present time for the economy of the Atlantic region than the measure we are considering tonight.


An hon. Member:: Ah!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: The hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Pelletier) or wherever it is, says "ah!" But he better do his homework and look at the figures. I have been expecting for some time to hear the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lessard) speak up in this debate. We know only too well that the economic impact of unemployment insurance in the Atlantic provinces is of major importance.
I am glad to see the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) is here in the House tonight because he occupied, for a period of time, the important responsibility of being Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. If the minister had an opportunity to speak in this debate, I am sure he would confirm that the ratio in the 1970s between the amount

December 21, 1978

of money that was put into the establishment of new industry and the amount of money expended on an annual basis through unemployment insurance is simply astronomical in its difference. In fact, the amount of money that will be claimed as savings this year by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) will be greater than the total amount of money spent over the last ten years on regional development incentives in the Atlantic provinces. The Secretary of State for External Affairs seems to doubt that statement, so I think it would be useful to put the figures on record.
These figures are not coming from any mysterious source, at least no more mysterious than the minister's own figures supplied to the committee. However, it will be useful to have them on the record so that in days to come people will be able to look back and see what kind of action was being taken by this government and the resulting harm it will have on the Atlantic economy. No one should be unaware of the significant measures that are being taken by this government that will cause considerable damage.
I cannot think of an action that is being taken by this government that will do greater economic damage to the Atlantic provinces, indeed to parts of Quebec and to other parts of the country, than this particular measure. The minister has told us, and these are figures which have been supplied from his own records, that in Prince Edward Island, my own province, this bill will eliminate on an annual basis something like 3,500 claimants at a cost of some $13.1 million, which is approximately 28 per cent of the current payments annually to that province. If that is not considered a large amount of money to the over-all economy of Prince Edward Island, then an examination of the situation has simply not been made.
In New Brunswick, and I see some hon. members from New Brunswick here tonight, some 11,600 claimants will be removed, costing the province $62.7 million, or 23 per cent of the annual payments made under unemployment insurance. In Newfoundland there will be some 8,800 claimants eliminated at a cost of $52.2 million, which is 20 per cent of the payments. In Nova Scotia there are 11,000 claimants eliminated, at a cost of $43.8 million or 19 per cent of present payments. In the Gaspe, Quebec, there will be a reduction of some 4,000 claims costing that area $25 million.
The four Atlantic provinces this year will receive in unemployment insurance payments something like $805 million. There will be a loss next year of $175 million, or 21.7 per cent of the total. That is about double what has been spent in the region under RDIA in the more than ten years since its inception, or just under the amount of the DREE budget for Atlantic Canada last year. This is the kind of figure we are dealing with in global terms. I think it has to be kept in that kind of perspective.
Many people have spoken on why the government has taken this action, and the kind of perceptions they have had of what people thought should be done with a program that has rapidly got out of hand. And, as the minister said in his opening press conference around the end of August or the beginning of September, these changes were being made in order to reduce
Unemployment Insurance Act
the incentive to draw unemployment insurance benefits and to encourage people to find employment. But, in the area of Atlantic Canada-and indeed this is a sorry statistic that all of us unhappily recognize-in the ten-year period that the Department of Regional Economic Expansion has been in existence the gap in unemployment between our region and the rest of the country-has grown substantially in Atlantic Canada to the point now where it is increasingly difficult if not impossible to find employment.
For instance in my province the major industries are seasonal in nature. They are agriculture, fisheries, and tourism. These industries can offer employment only for limited periods of time. In particular, two of the major industries, fisheries and tourism, offer employment opportunties for men and women for not much longer than a dozen weeks. If people are lucky, they may get as much as 14 weeks employment, but in many other instances that is not possible. What does that do to an economy? That means in many instances that families who have been able to get by with a period of employment during the year and then some form of insurance payments for the rest of the year, will now not be able to count on what made the difference between living below the poverty level and living just a bit above it. For the government to say that it is bringing in these measures with a view to creating other forms of work employment opportunity will simply mislead everyone.
I was quite surprised when the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion was here this afternoon and agreed with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) in saying that obviously something would have to be done to make up that short-fall income both on a personal and general basis in the Atlantic provinces. He seemed to imply, at least from his seat, that some program and some kind of expenditure would take place under his responsibility and through his department. However, Mr. Speaker, you and I both know there is no plan, policy or program that would even begin to touch the kind of hardship and needs that are rapidly going to be created as this program is implemented.
I know the government has taken this action being chiefly concerned with trying to recover its own reputation. It has done so under what I consider to be a cynical approach. What is perhaps most cynical is that most of the measures being implemented under this legislation will not begin to have any significant impact until some time just after the next election, six to nine months from now.
The minister, and presumably the government, are seeking to have the best of both worlds. He is hoping to convince the Canadian public that he has acted responsibly in restraint, when we know that not to be the case. This becomes clearer day by day. The minister hopes this will not have a negative impact on thousands and thousands of people in the Atlantic area until after the election takes place. That is the height of political cynicism. For this government, that is operating at a very high level indeed.

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act
One of my colleagues who spoke before me suggested in terms of this approach with regard to the Atlantic provinces that we are seeing a "scorched earth" policy in which the government is quite prepared to sacrifice the situation, the future, the hopes and the dreams of the people in the Atlantic provinces. Whether that is true or not, there is one thing that is very clear. The great commitment made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) a decade ago, as one of his two top priorities, to alleviate regional disparity has now been thrown to the wind.
If ever there was a commitment for the alleviation of regional disparity, it has died a total and dramatic death in the introduction of Bill C-14. If any member from the Atlantic provinces, on the other side, or this side of the House, were to support this bill, it would defy the imagination in terms of the obvious impact it will have on the people he or she represents.
I am not surprised that those government members from the Atlantic area who spoke in the debate this week have criticized the government and can in no way join in the support of this measure. I only hope they follow through on that either by their votes this evening on these amendments or when we come to the final and third reading debate tomorrow.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. It being 9.45, pursuant to order made yesterday, Wednesday, December 20, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971.
I might perhaps indicate my intended method of dealing with these questions. I propose to call all of the motions and take a voice vote. I will, of course, indicate the result that I have from the voice vote. Upon each result, the House ought to indicate whether it desires a recorded division in the usual way by the appropriate number of members standing in their places. We can then either record the result or defer the motion for a recorded division and, at the end of all of the motions, call in the members and take all of the recorded divisions.
The question is on motion No. 1 in the name of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt). Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:
[Mr. MacDonald (Egmont).l


Mr. Speaker:: We will record that motion No. 1 will be dealt with by a recorded division.
The question is upon motion No. 2 in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae):
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 2.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division. Motion No. 2 (Mr. Rae) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on motion No. 3 in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae):
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 2 by striking out lines 19 to 28 at page 1 and substituting the following therefor:
"end of paragraph (/) thereof and by adding thereto the following paragraphs: \h) any employment with an employer in which persons are employed for less than twenty hours in a week or in which the earnings of persons are less than thirty per cent of the maximum weekly insurable earnings; and (0 unless otherwise prescribed, paragraph (h) does not apply to an employee where the national unemployment rate that applies to him is greater than four per cent.' "
All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Motion No. 3 will be decided by a recorded division.
The question is upon motion No. 4 in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae):
Motion No. 4
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 2 by striking out lines 24 to 28 at page 1 and substituting the following therefor:
"in which the earnings of persons are less than the lesser of 20 times the provincial hourly minimum wage or one-fith of the maximum insurable earnings."
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.
December 21, 1978


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion defeated on division. Motion No. 4 (Mr. Rae) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on motion No. 5 in the name of the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Faour):
Motion No. 5
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 3 by striking out line 6 at page 2 and substituting the following therefor:
"sections 17(5) and (6), has been".
All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: The motion will be decided by a recorded division.
The question is on motions Nos. 6 and 7. Both motions are to the same effect. Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) moves:
Motion No. 6
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 4.
Mr. Clarke moves:
Motion No. 7
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 4.
Those in favour of motions Nos. 6 and 7 will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Motions Nos. 6 and 7 will be decided by a recorded division.
The next question is upon motion No. 10, which will dispose of Nos. 8 and 9. Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) moves:
Motion No. 10
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 4 by striking out lines 2 to 5 at page 3 and substituting the following therefor:
Unemployment Insurance Act
"tions (2) and (4) do not apply to an insured person where the national rate of unemployment which applies to his occupation, as defined by Statistics Canada, is greater than four per cent."
Motion No. 8
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 4 by striking out line 2 at page 3 and substituting the following therefor:
"tions (2) and (4) do not apply to an insured".
Motion No. 9
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 4 by striking out lines 2 to 5 at page 3 and substituting the following therefor:
"tions (2) and (4) do not apply to an insured person where the regional rate of unemployment that applies to him is greater than four per cent.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: The motion will be decided by a recorded division.
I earlier ruled that on procedural grounds motion No. 11- the minister is rising on a point of order.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, when I introduced motion No. 11 I knew it was not in order on procedural grounds and that I would need the unanimous consent of the House in order that it be adopted. I gave that undertaking at the committee stage.
I believe there is a general disposition to give unanimous consent so that motion No. 11 can be carried.


Walter David Baker: That is correct, Mr. Speaker. Consent is given as far as this party is concerned.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Agreed.


Léonel Beaudoin: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The minister would require the consent of the House to present this motion at this time. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Motion No. 11
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by adding immediately after line 5 at page 4 the following new clause: "4.1 Paragraph 18(2)(a) of the said act is repealed and the following substituted therefor:
'fa) incapable of work by reason of any prescribed illness, injury, quarantine or pregnancy.' "


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Unemployment Insurance Act Motion No. 11 (Mr. Cullen) agreed to.


Mr. Speaker:: The question in on motion No. 13 in the name of the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Faour):
Motion No. 13
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 5.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: This will be decided by a recorded division.
The question is upon motion No. 14 in the name of hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke):
Motion No. 14
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 5 by striking out lines 9 to 14 at page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"24. (1) The rate of weekly benefit payable to a claimant for a week of unemployment that falls in his/her benefit period
(a)	in the case of a claimant without a dependant is an amount equal to fifty per cent of his/her average weekly insurable earnings in his/her qualifying weeks,
(b)	in the case of a claimant with a dependant is an amount equal to sixty-six and two-thirds per cent of his/her average weekly insurable earnings in his/her qualifying weeks,
(c)	for the purposes of paragraph (6) where a husband or wife or a common-law husband or a common-law wife qualifies as a claimant with a dependant, either the husband or wife or either the common-law husband or common-law wife may elect to qualify as a claimant with a dependant, and
(d)	notwithstanding anything in paragraphs (b) and (c), in the case of a claimant who lost his/her employment by reason of his/her own misconduct or who voluntary left his/her employment] without just cause is an amount equal to fifty per cent of his/her average weekly insurable earnings in his/her qualifying weeks."
Those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: This will be decided upon a recorded division. The question is upon motion No. 15 in the name of the hon. member for Nickel Belt (Mr. Rodriguez):
Motion No. 15
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 5 by adding immediately after line 20 at page 4 the following: 
December 21, 1978
"(3) Where subsection (1) would have the effect of reducing any benefits payable to employees by their employer under the terms of a collective agreement in force between them to which the Canada Labour Code or the Public Service Staff Relations Act applies, subsection 24(1) of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971 shall be deemed, for the purposes of those terms of the collective agreement, to read as it did immediately before this section came into force."
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division. Motion No. 15 (Mr. Rodriguez) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The next question is upon motion No. 16 in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Hogan):
Motion No. 16
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 70.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division. Motion No. 16 (Mr. Hogan) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is upon motion No. 17 in the name of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom):
Motion No. 17
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 80.
Those in favour of motion No. 17 will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:

December 21, 1978


Mr. Speaker:: This will be decided by a recorded division.
The question is on Motion 18 in the name of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom):
Motiqn No. 18
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 8 by striking out lines 6 and 7 at page 5 and substituting the following therefor:
"(iv) benefits under section 37 and, provided that the national rate of
unemployment is at or below four per cent, benefits under section 34."
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division.
Motion No. 18 (Mr. Nystrom) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The next question is upon motion No. 19 in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae):
Motion No. 19
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 9.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: This will be decided by a recorded division.
The question is on motion No. 20 in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae):
Motion No. 20
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 9
(a)	by striking out line 13 at page 5 and substituting the following therefor: "and earnings to weeks or to pay periods provided that the regional rate of unemployment which applies to the person is less than four per cent."
(b)	by striking out line 18 at page 5 and substituting the following therefor:
"of premiums payable provided that the regional rate of unemployment which applies to the person is less than four per cent."
Those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.
Unemployment Insurance Act Mr. Speaker: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division. Motion No. 20 (Mr. Rae) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on motion No. 21 in the name of the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn):
Motion No. 21
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 10.
Those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: This will be decided by a recorded division.
The question is now on motion No. 22 in the name of the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn):
Motion No. 22
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 11.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division. Motion No. 22 (Mr. Blackburn) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on motion No. 23 in the name of the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters):
Motion No. 23
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 12.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division.
2384

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act Motion No. 23 (Mr. Peters) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on motion No. 24 in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Hogan):
Motion No. 24
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 13.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: 
Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division.
Motion No. 24 (Mr. Hogan) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The question now is on motion No. 25 in the name of the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Hogan):
Motion No. 25
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended in clause 13 by striking out lines 16 and 17 at page 6 and substituting the following therefor:
"(a) extended benefits under section 35 and subsections 38(8) and 39(3) and,
provided that national unemployment rate is greater than four per cent,
section 34; and"
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division.
Motion No. 25 (Mr. Hogan) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion negatived on division. Motion No. 28 (Mr. Orlikow) negatived.


Mr. Speaker:: The last question is upon motion No. 29 in the name of the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Peters):
Motion No. 29
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 15.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more then five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: This will be decided by a recorded division. Call in the members.


Mr. Speaker:: The question is on motion No. 26 in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow):
Motion No. 26
That Bill C-14, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be amended by deleting clause 14.
Those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: Those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the nays have it.

Order, please. The question is on motion No. 1 in the name of the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt).


Mr. Speaker:: I declare motion No. 1 lost.
The next vote is upon motion No. 3 in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae).
The House divided on motion No. 3 (Mr. Rae) which was negatived on the following division.
Unemployment Insurance Act (Division No. 20)
Beaudoin
Benjamin
Blackburn
Brewin
Caouette
(Villeneuve)
Abbott
Allmand
Anderson
Andre
(Calgary Centre) Andres
(Lincoln)
Appolloni (Mrs.)
Baker
(Grenville-Carleton) Baldwin Beatty B6chard Begin (Miss)
Blais
Blaker
Blouin
Boulanger
Breau
Brisco
Buchanan
Bussidres
Caccia
Cafik
Campagnolo (Mrs.) Campbell (Miss)
(South Western Nova) Campbell
(LaSalle-femard-Cote
Saint-Paul)
Caron
Chr6tien
Clark
(Rocky Mountain) Clarke
(Vancouver Quadra) Clermont Coates Collenette Comtois Condon Corbin Corriveau Cot6 Crombie Crosbie
(St. John's West) Crosby
(Halifax-East Hants) Crouse Cullen Cyr Danson Darling Daudlin Dawson De Bane de Cotret Demers Dick Dionne
(Northumberland-
Miramichi)
Douglas
(Bruce-Grey)
Duclos
Dupont
Dupras
Ellis
++YEAS
Messrs.
Faour Janelle Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) Leggatt
++NAYS
Messrs.
Elzinga Epp Ethier Faulkner Fleming Forres tall Foster Francis Friesen Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier) Gendron Gillespie Gillies Goodale Grafftey Guilbault Halliday Hamilton
(Qu'Appelle-Moose
Mountain)
Hare
Hargrave
Harquail
Hees
Herbert
Hnatyshyn
Holt (Mrs.)
Horner
Howie
Huntington
Jamieson
Jarvis
Johnston
(Westmount)
Joyal
Kaplan
Kempling
Lachance
Lalonde
Lambert
(Edmonton West) Lamontagne Landers Langlois Laniel Lapointe La Salle Lavoie Lawrence Leblanc (Laurier)
LeBlanc
(Westmorland-Kent)
Lee
Lefebvre
Lessard
Loiseile
(Chambly)
Loiseile (Saint-Henri) Lumley MacDonald (Cardigan) MacDonald (Egmont) MacDonald (Miss) (Kingston and the Islands)
MacEachen
Ny strom
Peters
Rae
Rodriguez Symes-14
MacFarlane
MacGuigan
MacKay
Macquarrie
Maine
Malone
Marceau
Marchand
Martin
Masniuk
Mazankowski
McCain
McCrossan
McGrath
Mclsaac
McKinley
McKinnon
McRae
Milne
Muir
Murta
Neil
Nicholson (Miss)
O'Connell
Olivier
Ostiguy
Ouellet
Paproski
Parent
Parker
Patterson
Pearsall
Pelletier
Penner
Pigott (Mrs.)
Pinard
Portelance
Prud'homme
Railton
Ritchie
Roberts
Rompkey
Rooney
Roy
(Timmins)
Roy
(Laval)
Sauvd (Mrs.)
Savard
Schellenberger
Scott
(Hamilton-Wentworth)
Scott
(Victoria-Haliburton)
Siddon
Stanfield
Stevens
Stewart
(Cochrane)
Stollery
Tessier
Trudeau
Trudel
Watson
Whelan
Whiteway
Woolliams
Yanakis
Yewchuk
Young-178
80047-1C/2

December 21, 1978
Unemployment Insurance Act


Mr. Speaker:: I declare motion No. 3 lost.
The question is on motion No. 5 in the name of Mr. Faour.


Mr. Speaker:: Unemployment Insurance Act
Messrs.			Messrs.
LeBlanc	Parent	Faulkner	Lavoie(Westmorland-Kent)	Pearsall	Fleming	LawrenceLee	Pelletier	Forres tall	LeblancLefebvre	Penner	Foster	(Laurier)Lessard	Pinard	Francis	LeBlancLoiselle	Portelance	Friesen	(Westmorland-Kent(Chambly)	Prud'homme	Gauthier	LeeLoiselle	Railton	(Ottawa-Vanier)	Lefebvre(Saint-Henri)	Roberts	Gendron	LessardLumley	Rompkey	Gillespie	LoiselleMacDonald	Rooney	Gillies	(Chambly)(Cardigan)	Roy	Goodale	LoiselleMacEachcn	(Timmins)	Grafftey	(Saint-Henri)MacFarlane	Roy	Guilbault	LumleyMacGuigan	(Laval)	Halliday	MacDonaldMaine	Sauv6 (Mrs.)	Hamilton	(Cardigan)Marceau	Savard	(Qu'Appelle-Moose	MacDonaldMarchand	Stewart	Mountain)	(Egmont)Martin	(Cochrane)	Hare	MacDonald (Miss)Mclsaac	Stollery	Hargrave	(Kingston and theMcRae	Tessier	Harquail	Islands)Milne	Trudeau	Hees	MacEachenNicholson (Miss)	Trudel	Herbert	MacFarlaneO'Connell	Watson	Hnatyshyn	MacGuiganOlivier	Whelan	Holt (Mrs.)	MacKayOstiguy	Yanakis	Horner	MacquarrieOuellet	Young-114	Howie	Maine
Faulkner Fleming Foster Francis Gauthier
(Ottawa-Vanier)
Gendron Gillespie Goodale Guilbault Harquail Herbert Holt (Mrs.)
Horner Jamieson Johnston (Westmount)
Joyal Kaplan Lachance Lalonde Lamontagne Landers Langlois Laniel Lapointe Lavoie Leblanc (Laurier)


Mr. Speaker:: The next question is upon motion No. 10 which will also dispose of motions Nos. 8 and 9 in the name of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles).


Mr. Speaker:: I therefore declare motions Nos. 10, 8 and 9 lost.
The next vote is upon motion No. 13 in the name of the hon. member for Humber-St. George's-St. Barbe (Mr. Faour).


Mr. Speaker:: I declare motion No. 13 lost.
The question is on motion No. 14 in the name of the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra (Mr. Clarke).


Mr. Speaker:: 1	declare motion No.	14 lost.
The next question is on motion No. 17.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare motion No. 19 lost.
The next question is on motion No. 21.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare motion No. 21 lost.
The next question is on motion No. 26.


Mr. Speaker:: I therefore declare motion No. 26 lost.
The next question is on motion No. 29.


Mr. Speaker:: I therefore declare motion No. 29 lost
Messrs.
Malone	Railton
Marceau	Ritchie
Marchand	Roberts
Martin	Rompkey
Masniuk	Rooney
Mazankowski	Roy
McCain	(Timmins)
McCrossan	Roy
McGrath	(Laval)
Mclsaac	Sauve (Mrs.)
McKinley	Savard
McKinnon	Schellenberger
McRae	Scott
Milne	(Hamilton-W
Muir	Scott
Murta	(Victoria-Ha
Neil	Siddon
Nicholson (Miss)	Stanfield
O'Connell	Stevens
Olivier	Stewart
Ostiguy	(Cochrane)
Oueliet	Stollery
Paproski	Tessier
Parent	Trudeau
Parker	Trudel
Patterson	Watson
Pearsall	Whelan
Pelletier	Whiteway
Penner	Woolliams
Pigott (Mrs.)	Yanakis
Pinard	Yewchuk
Portelance	Young-176
Prud'homme	
++YEAS
Messrs.
Andre
(Calgary Centre) Baker
(Grenville-Carleton)
Baldwin
Beatty
Beaudoin
Benjamin
Blackburn
Brisco
Caouette
(Villeneuve)
Clark
(Rocky Mountain) Clarke
(Vancouver Quadra) Coates Crombie Crosbie
(St. John's West) Crosby
(Halifax-East Hants) Crouse Darling de Cotret Dick Ellis Elzinga Epp Faour Forrestall Friesen
Gillies
Grafftey
Halliday
Hamilton
(Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain)
Hare
Hargrave
Hees
Hnatyshyn Howie Huntington Janelle Jarvis Kempling Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) Lambert
(Edmonton West) La Salle Lawrence Leggatt MacDonald (Egmont) MacDonald (Miss) (Kingston and the Islands)
MacKay
Macquarrie
Malone
Masniuk
Mazankowski
McCain
McCrossan
McGrath
McKinley
McKinnon
Muir
Murta
Neil
Nystrom
Paproski
Parker
Patterson
Peters
Pigott (Mrs.)
Rae
Ritchie
Rodriguez
Schellenberger
Scott
(Hamilton-Wentworth) Scott
(Victoria-Haliburton) Siddon Stanfield Stevens Symes Whiteway Woolliams Yewchuk-77


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: that Bill C-14, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, be concurred in.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.
Motion agreed to on division.


Mr. Speaker:: When shall the bill be read a third time? At the next sitting of the House?


Some hon. Members:: Now.


Some hon. Members:: At the next sitting of the House.


Mr. Speaker:: It being after ten o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m.
At 11.30 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, December 22, 1978