1978-02-02

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Cecil Smith (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the diametrically opposed views of the Prime Minister and General Hill, the Chief of Staff of NORAD, as to the role of NORAD in relation to satellite activity, and in view of the often repeated statements of the Prime Minister that he had been briefed fully as to NORAD activities during his visit to Colorado Springs over the Christmas recess, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn):
That this House direct the Prime Minister to make a statement on motions as to the briefing received by him at NORAD, other than a viewing of the movie "Star Wars" at the Bijou in Aspen.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to move a motion under Standing Order 43 regarding an urgent and pressing matter. In view of the fact that Bell Canada since the beginning of 1970 has requested from the federal government six increases worth $477 million in annual income to the company, and has received approval for 87 per cent, or a total of $416 million, and considering that Bell Canada now wants to increase the basic residential telephone rate by 20 per cent, from $8.15 a month to $9.80 a month, and the basic business telephone rate by 28 per cent, from $24.85 a month to $31.80 a month, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House of Commons unanimously send the following communication to Bell Canada officials: "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take this any more".


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a clear case of pressing and urgent necessity caused by what appear to be abuses in the use of phony and specious affidavits made under section 41(2) of the Federal Court Act in order to conceal facts embarrassing to the government and, in particular, not to be compelled to disclose its early knowledge of the extraordinary activities of the security branch, the exposure of which would have lost New Democratic Party support in the 19721973 and 1974 minority parliament. Therefore, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn):
That this House urges that the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs be empowered, under appropriate terms of reference, to examine the manner in which this law has been used and to propose suitable changes in the public interest.


Mr. Speaker:: The presentation of this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


MCDONALD INQUIRY-REQUEST FOR EARLY REPORT ON MAIL OPENING-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Therefore, I move:
That there being widespread concern in this nation because the McDonald commission, which was set up in July, did not commence sitting until early winter and has made little progress since, this House feels that it should end its lagging rate of progress, which gives us all an idea of the meaning of eternity, and make its final report within two months. Furthermore, as the House will be asked to legalize the opening of mail by police officers, it should have before it

February 2, 1978
an early interim report from the commission as to whether or not such a step should be followed before the House deals with the bill. Furthermore, there being three members of this House all former solicitors general, the Hon. Warren Allmand, P.C., the Hon. J. P. Goyer, P.C., and the Hon. Francis Fox, P.C., who are now immune from being questioned in this House as they no longer occupy the portfolio, as such they should be forthwith summoned before the said commission, as they must be most anxious to have the facts known and so that the truth will not be hedged-in and the secrecy imposed on them by parliamentary rules can be lifted.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


OLYMPIC GAMES
Mr. Lionel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I ask for the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion dealing with an important matter of pressing necessity.
Considering that Fred Samuels Ltd., 614 St. James Street West in Montreal, a brokerage firm chosen by the Post Office Department to distribute and sell Olympic coins, is bankrupt or is on the verge of bankruptcy; considering that 300 or 400 persons who paid some $250,000 have yet to receive any of the coins they ordered, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Abitibi (Mr. La prise):
That this House discuss the means to be taken to investigate this situation and instruct the government to proceed so that those who dealt with that firm are reimbursed as they should be for the Olympic coins which they ordered or paid for.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION
Mr. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to move a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In the ten years since this
[Mr. Diefenbaker.J
government first came to power there has been a constant stream of cabinet appointments, resignations and retirements-the whirling dervish syndrome. In view of the wear and tear this causes to the furniture and fixtures of Rideau Hall, the time that must be taken by various government assistants to arrange the swearing in of new ministers, and the degree of difficulty caused in co-ordinating these frequent ceremonies with the busy travel schedule of the Prime Minister, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona (Mr. Roche):
That this government consider including in the main estimates sufficient moneys to pay for a revolving door at Rideau Hall; and, furthermore, that the Prime Minister instruct one of his many assistants to include each week in his personal schedule a standing appointment to the Governor General to be used solely for swearing in of new or reconstituted ministers.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


OIL PORTS INQUIRY TO DEFER DECISION UNTIL NEB DECISION ON KITIMAT PIPELINE-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity having to do with the west coast ports inquiry. In view of the fact that a Kitimat consortium has been revived and has recently reactivated its submission to the National Energy Board for the carriage of Alaska, and possibly offshore crude from Kitimat, B.C., to Alberta, for forwarding to U.S. markets in the east, and in view of the fact that the west coast oil ports inquiry suspended its hearings almost two months ago, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling):
That this House requests the government to cause the west coast oil ports inquiry to resume its hearings and instruct the National Energy Board to defer its pronouncement on the Kitimat submission until those hearings have been completed and the report of the inquiry tabled in the House and referred to the appropriate committee.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
February 2, 1978



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I was going to direct a question to the Minister of Communications, who I understood would be in the House, but in her absence I will direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister and ask him whether he, speaking for the government, the Minister of Communications or any other minister, is aware of Bell's application before it was filed before the CRTC yesterday.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer for the Minister of Communications on this question.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Obviously, there are difficulties, Mr. Speaker, but I would ask the Deputy Prime Minister the following question. In view of the application, which is obviously one of the most historic, involving the greatest rate application before any regulatory body in Canadian history, does he intend, as today's spokesman for the government, to discuss this matter with the Minister of Communications, considering especially the potential inflationary implications of this large rate application increase, so that there can be some semblance of restraint not only in government programs but also among major companies outside the government umbrella? Is it intended that action will be taken, and will the Deputy Prime Minister instruct the Minister of Communications to use some of her powers under the communications bill?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Communications is unavoidably absent today. Obviously, the matter will be discussed with her. But the application which goes before the regulatory agency for a hearing-it is a request for a hearing-does not come before the government. It is not, therefore, a matter which can be dealt with by the government at the present time.


BELL CANADA-EFFECT OF RATE INCREASE ON USERS OF SERVICE
Mr. Janies A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate affairs, who has statutory responsibility for protecting consumer interests in areas of federal jurisdiction. Did the minister have discussions with Bell Canada prior to the announcement of its application for what appears to be an excessive rate increase, given the impact this would have on Canadian consumers, especially low income earners and pensioners during this current wave of inflation?


Hon. Warren Allmand (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: No, Mr. Speaker, I had no discussions with Bell Canada before it filed its application, and I was not aware of
Oral Questions
it. However, we are extremely concerned and the department will be looking into the matter.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, does the minister intend to intervene, and is it now his intention to restore the grant to the Consumers' Association of Canada which his department cut by 50 per cent, which seriously undermined the association's role respecting consumer advocacy? Would the minister restore that grant to its original $186,000, or will a special grant be provided so the association can prepare an adequate presentation to the CRTC on behalf of Canadian consumers in Quebec, Ontario, Labrador and the Yukon who will be adversely affected by this rate increase?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, we have already given an additional grant to the Consumers' Association of Canada for its regulated industries program, and we have arranged long-term funding so that the association can look forward to a number of years in this type of activity. In addition, we will be looking at the possibility of making the views of the department known on the subject.


James Aloysius McGrath: In pursuit of his consumer-interest responsibilities, will the minister intervene with the CRTC, through his cabinet colleague, the Minister of Communications, to ensure that hearings are held in places such as Sherbrooke, Quebec, St. Catharines, Ontario, Goose Bay, Labrador, and Whitehorse, Yukon, in order to ensure that the consumers affected in those areas will have a chance to appear before the commission at hearings which are important to them?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly take that question into consideration.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. This morning the minister was quoted on the CBC as saying yesterday: "We've got to stop momma and poppa saying every kid has got to be a doctor or an engineer or a lawyer. We've got to have them look at some of the trades, the blue-collar trades". In this incredible statement, was the minister telling parents of young Canadians that they should stop aspiring to be trained professionals, but instead should be content with blue-collar training, in which category unemployment is actually much higher?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: No, Mr. Speaker. I indicated that there is a role for education in maintaining employment, be it at the secondary or the post-secondary school level. I indicated that it seemed to me unconscionable that, rather than training individuals for the better blue-collar jobs in their factories, corporations are content to rely on immigration and the very effective apprenticeship programs abroad. I thought that was the kind of thing

February 2, 1978
Oral Questions
we should require departments of education and corporations to change. I used as one example an individual who would have been the best motor mechanic in Canada, but ended up as Canada's worst lawyer. I think we have to undertake a little more vocational guidance.


John Edward Broadbent: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister says we have to do more in Canada regarding vocational training. Is he aware that the federal government has spent $2 billion on manpower retraining programs during the past seven years? If so, is he now telling Canadians they have received the wrong kind of training, or is he saying they have received the right kind of training but no jobs are available for them? In either case, would he admit that his government has been a colossal failure in this respect?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: I will answer the last part of the question first and say "absolutely not", Mr. Speaker. I have indicated that in the field of education, which is a jurisdiction jealously guarded by the provinces-as well it should be-we have a role to play as far as creating employment for those seeking it who do not have adequate training. That is why we have made money available under the Adult Occupational Training Act, Canada Manpower industrial training programs and apprenticeship programs to see that people get the kind of training they need for the kind of jobs that are available in Canada. I think it is reprehensible that 600 jobs at a world-scale plant in Canada-very well paid jobs-went to Americans, when Canadians could have done those jobs had they had adequate training.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the minister is missing the point. If the federal government is putting up all the financing, or a good part of it, and is involved in a major consultative role with the provinces in determining the nature of the training programs, the minister has no excuse for not taking action that would have trained Canadians to fill the 600 jobs he speaks of. The clear implication of his speech, as reported this morning, was to tell young Canadians that they should not aspire to go to university, but should be content with blue-collar jobs. Is the minister aware that unemployment in the blue-collar sector is much higher and, specifically, is he aware of a statement made from his department last month that in December 4,300 Canadians in blue-collar jobs were laid off?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party is again drawing a wrong conclusion from sketchy facts, but that is the sort of thing I have become accustomed to in his criticism. I did indicate that it was not necessary for every young person in Canada to go to university in order to get a job which gave him a splendid quality of life and an opportunity to participate in the economy. I cited the example of 600 people working at a world-scale plant who were all Americans and were drawing great salaries that should have gone to Canadians. That is why, for example, I am reorienting the adult occupational training program, in order to ensure that funds in that particular region are direct-

ed to providing the kind of training necessary for the jobs that will be available in the future.

[ Translation]


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Gilles Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works.
In answer to a letter from the former hon. member for Temiscamingue, the Minister of Public Works replied on May 11, 1972 that the government intended to build a post office at Rouyn and that an amount of $200,000 had been earmarked for the project in 1972-73, that another amount of $300,000 had been provided for it in 1973-74, and finally, an amount of $250,000 in 1974-75. On July 13, 1973, the architects were asked to start-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member for Temiscamingue has a question to put, he should do so now.


Gilles Caouette: Mr. Speaker, it seems important to me to indicate to the minister what his department does.
In 1973, it was indicated that the architects had obtained the contract. On September 7, 1977 we were advised that the-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. If the hon. member has a question to put, he must put it immediately.


Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse):: The other hon. member took five minutes to put his question, and yet, he was allowed to do
so.


Gilles Caouette: -we were advised, Mr. Speaker, that construction of the building would start in the spring. I would therefore ask the Minister of Public Works, since we received a letter today advising us that construction will not begin before 1979, whether he can say what those $750,000 were used for which were approved between 1972 and 1975, and when construction will really start?


Hon. Judd Buchanan (Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I will have to verify the previous estimates and find out where these funds were allocated. I would also be happy to check on the current situation and advise the hon. member.


Gilles Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question.
Would the minister undertake to do whatever is necessary to accelerate the decision-making process since the programs are
February 2, 1978

ready? Since it had been decided that construction would start in early 1978, would the minister be prepared to reconsider the statement made by his representative, Mr. Havor, and change this decision so that construction could get under way without undue delay?


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, my question and my congratulations are to our new Solicitor General.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Frederick Lawrence: We have had the opportunity of sending similar congratulations to five different cabinet ministers in the last couple of years. I know the minister's new officials and advisers have already brought to his attention the testimony yesterday of ex-Commissioner Higgitt before a judicial inquiry in Montreal. Of course, Mr. Higgitt's testimony is completely incompatible with the words spoken in this House by a former minister, the present Minister of Supply and Services. My question to the minister is simply this: Has he had the opportunity of finding out who is telling the truth in this matter? Is it Commissioner Higgitt, or the Minister of Supply and Services?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to thank the hon. gentleman for his congratulations. I would also like to thank all hon. members on this side of the House who met with approval that particular sentiment of congratulation. I hope as well, Mr. Speaker, that it is a sentiment which will have a long-standing effect. With reference to the question posed, undoubtedly the hon. member recognizes the complexity of all the issues with which I have to make myself familiar, and I would hope he would grant me at least this day in which to familiarize myself with the background of the question he has posed, in order that I may give him a more complete answer tomorrow.


An hon. Member:: Where is the letter-opener?


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, there will, obviously, be further difficulty in getting to the truth of the matter in this House. My supplementary question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Because of the implications of contradictory testimony respecting the actions of past and present cabinet ministers, I wonder if the government has given, or will now give, immediate consideration to urging those who have control over at least one of these judicial inquiries to see if it is possible for people in the political realm to immediately appear before one or other of those judicial inquiries or royal commissions so there is no further stigma or implication respecting the integrity of those of us who are in the political field in respect of the
Oral Questions
very obvious contradictions that are now coming to the fore. When can we have a cabinet minister appear before one or other of these royal commissions?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, without accepting fully the allegations that the hon. member has made about contradictions-


John Edward Broadbent: Are you partly accepting them?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -or even partly accepting them, I would tell him that the former solicitor general has already expressed his willingness to appear before the commission at any time he is called. It seems to me it is now up to the commission to call the witnesses in the order in which it alone determines, and to determine also the credibility of the evidence that is brought before the commission. It is certainly not the job of the government or the House of Commons to take over and replace the work of the commission.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: For two nights running, on the national media there has been an undenied report that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had the information respecting the circumstances that caused the resignation of the former solicitor general prior to that information reaching the hands of the Prime Minister of Canada. Can the Acting Prime Minister confirm or deny that report? If he is not in that position, can he undertake to report to the House at a very early date as to whether that information was in the hands of our national police force before it was in the hands of our Prime Minister?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: As I recollect, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did indicate the source of the information which he had received. There is no evidence whatsoever, that I have, to indicate that the RCMP had information prior to that information being received by the Prime Minister. That is my understanding of the situation.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: That was not my question.


INDUSTRY
[Stage Direction]
MEASURES TO PROVIDE FOR REOPENING OF DUPUIS ET FRfiRES PLANTS
Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance has certainly heard with regret, as I and thousands of Montrealers have, of the closing of Dupuis et Freres last weekend, which will throw 700 employees out on to the street. Since a group of businessmen have decided to take over this firm, has the Minister of Finance been consulted on that matter? If not, does he intend to offer every possible financial assistance to this group of businessmen, considering the mechanisms now in place, to help reopen this firm in the east of Montreal?

February 2, 1978
Oral Questions


Hon. Jean Chrfetien (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I did not receive any representation whatever from anyone on that matter and I cannot say anything about it because i have not had any request of any kind.


Roch La Salle: May 1 ask a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
I suppose all hon. members on the government side take a special interest in this firm. Would the minister attach the same importance to this case as he did for other businesses which expressed their intention of leaving Montreal and, if so, would he tell the House whether, if it turns out that this group of businessmen take over, the reopening would be considered as a creation of new jobs? In that case, would this firm get the advantages of the subsidy program for the creation of new jobs which has been recently announced?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, we did not receive any request of that kind. There are federal agencies such as the Federal Business Development Bank and other institutions which deal with private interests and this group of businessmen can apply to such organizations. As for the tax credit program that has just been set up, I do not think, in view of the circumstances, these jobs can be considered as new jobs in that business.


Roch La Salle: The minister did not catch the point of my question. 1 was talking of the 700 people laid off-


COMMUNICATIONS
Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Finance. It is supplementary to questions asked earlier about the application of Bell Canada for a rate increase. Given the implications this application has for higher inflation, given that the decision will be made by a federally-appointed agency on which there are no provincial representatives-even though this is in an area in which there is a great deal of provincial responsibility-and given that the federal government is continually importuning the provinces to assist it in trying to impose these restraints on inflation, will the minister advise whether the implications of this highly inflationary move have been discussed with the provincial governments?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, this application has been made to the appropriate board. It is not for me to make any comment at this time. There was no such discussion with the provincial finance ministers when I met them last week.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Seeing that the pending application of Bell Canada for this increase, in terms of dollars, is probably the most profound and most historic to come before any regulatory body, particularly in

terms of inflation, will the minister undertake to add this as an agenda item to the upcoming federal-provincial conference?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, this is an application that has been made before a federal agency which has to deliver decisions. On numerous occasions the applications filed by that company have not been accepted or at least have been reduced by the agency, and it would not be appropriate for the government to intervene at this point.


BELL CANADA-APPLICATION FOR RATE INCREASE-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Communications. I will ask only one question because I do not want to trespass too far. I do not think the Minister of Communications heard the answer of the Deputy Prime Minister, but I think she heard the answer of the Minister of Finance.
As hon. members know, there is a regulatory body, and the usual course of action in a rate application is to go through a regulatory process. If the minister did not have prior communication with Bell Canada officials with regard to their pending rate application, in view of the size of this application-coming after five others in the past six years-does she not feel she has a responsibility above the mechanics of the regulatory process to discuss the implications of this question, because after the rate hearing in May or June, depending on the political climate, this matter bounces back to cabinet for retroactive review. This government has a very bad history of retroactive review of some of the deliberations of the CRTC. Let us do something now, rather than go through all the regulatory process and then perhaps have the cabinet do something.


Hon. Jeanne Sauv6 (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, any application which comes before the regulatory body is carefully scrutinized. There were more than 800 interrogatories with respect to the last application. It took 27 days to completely review the matter. I am sure hon. members know that any demand for a rate increase is based on providing new service to different communities, and the amount of money which Bell can ask for in that increase is related to the principle of rate of return. It is for the CRTC to make these decisions: it has the proper mechanism to examine them. The hon. member is correct, once that decision is taken by the CRTC, there is a right of appeal.


FINANCE
Mr. Cyril Symes (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In view of the minister's assurance that corporate tax concessions of $1.2 billion
February 2, 1978

would stimulate expansion and job-creation, and since these concessions are worth $3 million to Northern Telecom which laid off 1,000 employees last year and has just announced further lay-offs of 280 workers in Montreal, will the minister now admit these tax concessions are not having the effect he promised, and will he cancel them for companies such as Northern Telecom?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, we do not plan to change the law in this regard. All companies that are making investments obtain income tax credit rights, and this point has no relation to the problem raised by the hon. member, because the benefits earned by Northern Telecom last year have nothing to do with those it will earn in 1978.


Reginald Cyril Symes: 1 find the minister's answer incredible, in light of the fact that over the past 18 months 2,000 people have been laid off at Northern Telecom-and this is a continuing process. Since I am unable to get a satisfactory answer from the Minister of Finance, I should like to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Communications. It arises from the fact that Bell Canada is a major purchaser from Northern Telecom. If Bell lived up to its commitment to improve rural service, there would be more employment at Northern Telecom due to increased purchases of equipment. Will the minister urge the cabinet to instruct the CRTC to obtain assurances that Bell will accelerate its rural improvement program before considering the company's most recent request for a 20 per cent increase in rates?


Jeanne Sauvé: The
hon. member will have noted, I am sure, that the legislation which I brought before the House a couple of days ago does allow for the inclusion of social objectives when considering the development of Bell. This means that in future the CRTC will have the authority to encourage Bell to extend service to certain rural communities and to give better service in rural communities. However, the hon. member will understand that you only get what you can get for your money. Of course, the service in certain rural communities could be improved, and this is precisely what most of the applications are about. In fact, they say, "We are extending the service, but we need so much money in order to do so. We need an increase in rates." Whether that is fair or not is for the CRTC to decide.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Joe Flynn (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Having regard to the widening balance of payments deficit in the automobile parts trade, one which amounted to $1.05 billion in
Oral Questions
1977, can the hon. gentleman tell us what his department is doing to redress the current imbalance?


Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: We have had the automobile industry and the imbalance in the parts trade under intensive study. We have talked to the three large automobile manufacturers. I think one new plant has already been announced for Windsor, and very shortly a couple of additional parts manufacturing plants will be built in Canada.


TOURISM
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. The hon. gentleman has taken credit for provincial tourist agency and chamber of commerce tourism promotion, and now he talks about a package deal. Bearing in mind that about two million people go through the gates of Banff and Jasper national parks, what package deal would be available to tourists who come from the United States, the majority of them by car? Will they be able to get price reductions at hotels and restaurants? Will there be any reduction of the gasoline tax, to attract tourists and bring about a better balance of trade with the United States?
Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and
Commerce): At the tourist ministers meeting on Tuesday there was a general agreement that present costs impede our country when it comes to the successful balancing of tourist accounts. The provinces and the federal government impose taxes on gasoline. The purpose of the tax imposed by the federal government was pointed out. We are addressing ourselves to that question and to the question of wages. I was particularly pleased to announce, at the time, a whole host of package tours to make it easier for Canadians to travel all over the country and to get to know one another better.


Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, that was a pretty colourful rancher's speech. I should like to ask the minister this question: Since he appears to have taken an affirmative approach to the multimillion dollar project at Lake Louise which was vetoed some years ago, is he likely to be in a position to make a judgment in this regard, or has he just horned in on the responsibility of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Mr. Speaker, I have always been an enthusiastic booster of Canadian tourism, and I believe we need additional capacity to handle the needs of tourists coming to this country. Banff and Lake Louise play a major part in attracting tourists to Canada, and as a minister from Alberta I think I should take an interest in developments there.

February 2, 1978
Oral Questions INDUSTRY


TEXTILES- REQUEST FOR EXCLUSION FROM TARIFF NEGOTIATIONS
Hon. George Hees (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. It arises from a recent statement by the Canadian Textile Institute that "most Canadian textile plants would be wiped out by 1985 if tariffs were cut along the lines of the Swiss formula which has become the basis for negotiations at Geneva." Does the government intend to accede to the urgent request of the Canadian textile industry that Canadian textiles be excluded from the tariff negotiations presently going on at Geneva?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: In Geneva at the present time countries are putting forward their offer lists. Nothing is firm yet, and nothing will be firm for some time. With regard to the 40 per cent tariff offer, the so-called Swiss formula, I should like to point out that it is a hypothesis: there may be a greater reduction on some commodities and not on others. It is a weighted average, one which we may or may not arrive at when the negotiations are complete.


George Harris Hees: In view of that vague and unsatisfactory answer, is it not the case that the hon. gentleman was correctly described by Patrick Watson in a television interview last night as a minister who can only say, "I think"; "I am not sure", and "I can't say"?


AGRICULTURE
Mr. John Wise (Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Agriculture. It relates to the National Food Policy Conference to be held in Ottawa next month. Has the delegate list, or membership list, been finalized and, if so, when will it be made available?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: I believe the list is still open, but if the hon. member has in mind any persons he thinks should be there, we would be glad to send them invitations to attend, at least as observers. Agricultural producers in Canada will represent about 15 per cent of the delegates; they will be the largest single unit there. As far as I know, virtually every agricultural organization in Canada has been invited to be present, and I feel that agriculture will be well represented.


John Wise: Can the minister give me an assurance that all sectors of the food chain will be adequately represented?


Eugene Whelan: I think I can. Other ministers who are interested in this meeting on food strategy are making sure that the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs do not forget anyone who is connected with the food chain. I believe the list is a public one; anybody who

wishes to do so can find out who has been invited. If there has been an oversight, we are certainly prepared to add to the list.


Mr. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Waterloo):: Is it correct that the Ontario Federation of Agriculture has been asked to send only one delegate to the conference? Is the minister aware, also, that the president of the federation, Mr. Peter Hannam, has described the conference as a farce?


Eugene Whelan: I used to be associated with that organization. That is where I got my political training.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eugene Whelan: To be a successful farm leader, one has to be a pretty good politician. It may be correct that the Ontario federation will have one delegate, but let us not forget that this organization is affiliated with practically every commodity group in Ontario, as well as with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture which will send several delegates.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Arnold Malone (Battle River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. When will the prairie rail authority be intact? When is it the minister's intention to announce that program?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in the course of meetings in Saskatchewan this fall or during the winter, it would be our intention to introduce legislation which would be required to bring about a prairie rail authority in accordance with the wishes of most of the farm and prairie organizations, not with railway management but essentially for some of the other functions which the Hall commission recommended. It was my intention to see that legislation in place in 1978. There is a good deal more work to be done on it with prairie organizations and with others in producing the legislation. Therefore, I cannot tell the hon. member whether it will happen while he is in this House or after he has been defeated.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, will the minister assure the House at this time that no action will be taken until there is full and complete concert with all the provincial ministers of transport and the prairie premiers? Also, will he give the assurance that action is not taking place which is not in concert with the prairie ministers of transport and provincial premiers in that regard?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it would be wise to say that we would not act in this House without the full concurrence and approval of any group of premiers or trans-
February 2, 1978

port ministers of the provinces. Of course we intend to have the fullest discussion. But, as in the case of the ownership of the roadbeds in relation to abandoned railways, I think it is much better if we have the full agreement, support and consent of the farm groups, farm organizations and the farmers themselves in connection with what is happening here. Generally speaking, I would say we have that support. It will be on that support that we will proceed.


FERRY SERVICE IN SOUTH WESTERN NOVA
Miss Coline Campbell (South Western Nova):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. As the minister has been made fully aware of the concerns of the people of South Western Nova concerning improved ferry services, is he now prepared to tell the House what steps he is prepared to take to improve the service between Yarmouth and New England?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy indeed to tell the hon. member-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, opposition members may sound somewhat skeptical, but I am delighted by the manner in which the hon. member has pressed this matter. We now have a firm decision in favour of the acquiring of a ferry to provide a year-round truck service between Yarmouth and New England. The charter will be signed within approximately a week. The ferry will be brought to Canada and probably will be ready by about mid-March.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AGRICULTURE
Mr. S. J. Korchinski (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Recently he announced a $1 million payment, or the equivalent of $1 per gallon, for pregnant mares' urine for laboratory production. Since Ayerst Laboratories are ceasing the purchase of this urine at the end of April, was that payment the final payment, or is all production of PMU to cease in Canada as of that date?


Eugene Whelan: No, Mr. Speaker, that is a payment to assist farmers who are being forced out of that business, a production entity which they have been in for many years. There will still be a production entity for that company where they have new laboratories, I believe, in the province of Manitoba.
Oral Questions HEALTH


PRODUCTION OF CONJUGATED ESTROGEN-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Stanley James Korchinski: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Were both the Frosst Laboratories and the Ayerst Laboratories under the direction of the minister's department to cease production of conjugated estrogen because of the possible link with cancer, or are these laboratories ceasing production because they are aware of the possibility themselves, without instructions from the minister's department? Can the minister assure the public that this hormone is relatively safe and there is no connection between its use and cancer?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I will inquire and report to the hon. member as soon as possible.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the minister in charge of the Wheat Board. As the chief commissioner of the Wheat Board has indicated, there will almost certainly be deficits in the pool accounts for this crop year. Can the minister tell the House if these deficits are indicated now to be large and may apply to all four grain pools?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, it is too early to say anything definite about such things as size and the exact number of pools which will be involved. The selling period, which is in issue, extends as far as into the end of September, 1978. Therefore, it would not be very wise to speculate very extensively. I agree, though, with the chief commissioner's statement in regard to the main pool at least.


William Gordon Ritchie: Mr. Speaker, will surpluses from one pool be transferred to deficient pools, or will the federal treasury be called upon to absorb any losses in the pools?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, under the law the federal treasury is required to absorb any losses in the pools.


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. J. R. Ellis (Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. It follows a question which I asked him on December 6, 1977. It concerns lithium batteries, or ELTs. Could the minister, who promised me an answer before the end of January, tell me now whether there has been any progress in the development of safe lithium batteries or ELTs? Is there any attempt by the department to subsidize the reinstallation of effective ELTs in private aircraft?
80031-is

February 2, 1978
Oral Questions


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I do not anticipate any financial involvement by the department.
I can tell the hon. member there has been some success in developing batteries which will operate. They should be available very soon, so that those who want to may reinstall ELTs in the aircraft. It is not anticipated that we are yet in a position to return to a compulsory installation of the ELTs because the number of batteries and the extensiveness of their availability has not yet been assured.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, 1 direct my question to the Minister of National Revenue before he goes to the other place, thus allowing consummation of the deal between the Manitoba New Democratic Party and the federal Liberal party. In view of the fact that 80 per cent of all visitors to Canada arrive by car, and therefore must pass through highway ports of entry, and in view of the fact that duty-free stores are being built in the United States along the United States-Canada border, can the minister indicate whether the government will follow the advice of the Canadian Automobile Association in its 1977 submission to the government and approve regulations permitting land border, duty-free shops for Canadian and United States motorists crossing into the United States?


Hon. Joseph-Philippe Guay (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to assure the hon. member that I am not doing any wishful thinking.


Mr. Clark:: Take out the adjective.


Joseph-Phillippe Guay: In regard to the question, this matter is under review and study by the officials of my department. Representations have been made by many members of this House, particularly on this side. Rest assured, we will let the hon. member know as soon as we come out with a certain policy pertaining to this matter or in an area which will be most effective for the time being.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a couple of questions to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of his remarks last evening on television, which were to the effect of guaranteeing jobs in the construction of the pipeline, may I ask if he can assure the House that guarantees will be provided for those in the construction industry, and why can the same kind of

guarantees not be given for steelworkers so that plants in Welland, Regina and Sault Ste. Marie can be manufacturing pipe for the pipeline?
Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and
Commerce): I have said several times in the House that the steel industry in Canada is very competitive with the United States-in the last number of years at a rate of 6.4 per cent in relation to 1.9 per cent. In my conversations with people in the steel industry, I have found they are not worried at all, they believe they can compete on bids with the United States in the long run. The American consumer will have to pay for this; therefore, it has to be built on competitive principles.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, can the minister assure the House that in his discussions with the Americans in technical committees specifications will not be agreed upon by the Canadian government which eliminate most, if not all, of the Canadian steel industry, in spite of our capacity to produce low pressure large diameter pipe? Can he assure the House that we will not be outmanoeuvred by the Americans on the specifications for the pipe, and Canadian plants will be able to bid on it successfully?


John (Jack) Henry Horner: The specifications of the pipe will be laid down by the National Energy Board. I am told that the National Energy Board hopes to have a decision on that matter about the middle of February. The factors involved will always put safety of the pipeline over its economics. I want to stress that point because to me it is very important.


AGRICULTURE
Charles Joseph Clark: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture relative to the national food policy conference. Will the minister explain the logic behind a situation where, with a national conference designed to develop a food strategy for the country, only 15 per cent of the participants will be the people who actually grow the food?


Eugene Whelan: All in all, Mr. Speaker, I do not think we are doing too badly when we represent only about 6 per cent of the population.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Eugene Whelan: This is a total concept. "All Canadians" involved in this matter means everyone who has anything to do with food, including the consumer; that is, everybody in Canada.


Charles Joseph Clark: Given the minister's marginal influence in cabinet-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
February 2, 1978


An hon. Member:: How do you know that?


Charles Joseph Clark: -can he tell us if his colleagues are going to let him go to the conference?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Eugene Whelan: -I would only refer the Leader of the Opposition to a statement made by E. P. Taylor when he spoke about offtrack betting. He said, "I had too much power in the cabinet. I threw too much weight and I was considered the heavyweight." I do not think there is much more I can say. My concern is that there be proper representation at that meeting of people who are really concerned about developing and improving the food policy with any new strategy possible. We would even consider anything the Leader of the Official Opposition might suggest.


PRIVILEGE
Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Pursuant to our standing orders, Mr. Speaker, I wish to rise on a question of privilege. Since the beginning of the 3rd session of the 30th legislature, members of the Social Credit Party of Canada have been very rarely recognized by the Chair for more than one question during any single oral question period. On the other hand, hon. members of the party of the majority, contrary to practice, have now been granted the privilege of directing questions to the ministry, which was not customary in the parliaments which had adopted the British procedure. This new way of doing things has deprived our party of the right to ask more than one question. On January 25, 1978, the Chair asked for shorter questions and replies, something with which 1 fully agree. Unfortunately, these recommendations seem difficult to apply. I appreciate, however, the difficult position of the Chair in this respect. Since January 25, the preamble to some questions and to some ministerial replies has been somewhat lengthy.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I must draw the attention of the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) to the fact that, this afternoon, the oral question period started by questions from an hon. member of the official opposition, followed by the leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent), and finally by the leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada (Mr. Caouette).
First, the question asked by the leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada was too long. Second, it dealt with a matter dating back to 1972 which continued in 1973, 1974 and 1975. It was therefore a very acceptable matter as a question on the order paper, which could also have been dealt with by writing to a minister, but as the hon. member is leader of a party in the House, I allowed him the question. The second question was a representation, and I also allowed it. As for the number
Privilege
of members by party now in the House, I gave the floor for some questions from the Social Credit Party of Canada and from the New Democratic Party. If the hon. member is seeking to establish proportions as to the number of members who are present, I am indeed under the impression that today and on all other days of sitting of the House I have been fair to the Social Credit Party of Canada. As for the matter of privilege, it could be unfair to other parties, because of the proportion of members in the House today and on other days. That is something I calculate very carefully every day, and I am convinced that this arrangement is quite fair to the Social Credit Party of Canada, and all other parties in the House. However, if the hon. member is looking for an opportunity to discuss this in private, it can be done, but today is an opposition day. I therefore believe that the hon. member should briefly conclude his remarks.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I accept your very judicious remarks, but I was about to conclude my question of privilege anyway. I did not have the opportunity to put it completely, but I will do so now with your permission.
Here is my conclusion, Mr. Speaker. Today the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette) wanted to ask a very important question to the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Buchanan). The current Minister of Public Works was not in this portfolio on the dates referred to by the hon. member for Temiscamingue and so, in order to make it easier for the minister to give him a satisfactory answer, the hon. member simply had to provide the minister with some references. It is my view that the hon. member for Temiscamingue was totally justified in giving the Minister of Public Works the opportunity to know about the facts that have preceded the event which was the object of the hon. member's question in order to make it possible for the minister to give an answer which would have been really satisfactory not only to the hon. member, but to the minister as well. So, Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to criticize or question your decisions. Your responsibility is much greater than mine and it obliges you to make very quick decisions, which sometimes makes them questionable. In any event, you are the authority in this House and I submit to it.
With your permission, Your Honour, and at the request of my colleague from Temiscamingue, I ask that his question be discussed at ten o'clock.



ROYAL ASSENT

['Agreed.']
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received which is as follows:
February 2, 1978 Sir,
I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Bora Laskin, P.C., Chief Justice of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will
80031 - 1 5'/2

February 2, 1978
Business of the House
proceed to the Senate Chamber to-day, the 2nd day of February, at 5.45 p.m. for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain bills.
I have the honour to be.
Sir.
Your obedient servant EDMOND JOLY DE LOTBINlERE
Administrative Secretary to the Governor General


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is most unusual that Her Majesty's representative should appear on an allotted day. I hope that the government House leader will convey to Government House, or perhaps to others who arrange this, the fact that we are somewhat disturbed that it should be proceeded with on this day. There may be an explanation, but I think it is something which-


Charles Joseph Clark: Violates tradition.


Walter David Baker: -violates tradition, as the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) says, but it also is something which could perhaps be avoided in the future. I raise this matter and leave it with the government House leader.



Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the government House leader can tell me the sequence of forthcoming government business. I am particularly interested in whether it will be acceptable to designate next Friday, February 10, as an allotted day, as indicated in the schedule. When is the government House leader intending to establish the special pipeline committee? When does he intend to introduce the pipeline legislation?
Finally, has he consulted the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) with respect to the regulations the minister promised sometime ago would be given to the committee to be studied? Would the minister deal with all those matters while he is on his feet?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the last question first, I have not consulted the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen). The date suggested for the next allotted day, February 10, is quite acceptable to us, and I accordingly designate that day as an allotted day. Tomorrow I would like to call the motion establishing the special committee. I hope it will be passed without debate. Then 1 hope we will continue with bills dealing with fishing and recreational harbours, CNR recapitalization, and the extension of the Bank Act. I have given notice of the northern pipeline bill. I expect it will be given first reading tomorrow, and I hope we will deal with it at second reading at a mutually agreeable time next week.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question with respect to the business of the House which is a repetition of a question I put to the minister earlier. As a matter of fact, since the start of the session I have been asking him if he would give us a list of the legislation the government plans for this session. He has not yet done so. I impress upon him the point that when one looks at the order paper one has to agree that it is pretty thin. I think Parkinson's Law is having its effect around here. If we knew there were major pieces of legislation to be put before us before Easter, or before this session ends, whether by prorogation or dissolution, it would be helpful to us.
May I also ask if there is any firm word yet about the date for the presentation of a budget? The Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) once said it would be in March. Then on another occasion he said it might not be until April.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I know no firm date for the presentation of a budget. I disagree with the hon. member as to the thinness of the order paper. There are a number of substantial items there.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Like the national anthem?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Like ports policy, like the bills we are dealing with at the moment, the bill dealing with the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act, the Financial Administration Act, and so on down the list. However, perhaps the hon. member can be induced to accelerate the business of the House. On the understanding that I add one bill perhaps the hon. member will guarantee that we will move at a double rate of progress.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Give us something important and it will move a lot faster than all this unimportant stuff.


Mr. Douglas (Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, arising out of the statement of the minister that the pipeline bill will be read the first time tomorrow and that debate will probably start next week, I wonder if he has taken into consideration the fact that much of the discussion on that bill will be dependent on a decision having been made with reference to the specifications for the pipe. It seems to me that the debate at second reading ought to be delayed, or that the government should have the National Energy Board speed up a decision with reference to that matter because otherwise we will be discussing a situation about which we do not have knowledge of a germane factor.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I recognize the relevancy of the hon. member's point. It has been very much on my mind that we should at least have a firm date from the National Energy Board regarding the timing of the decision. As the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) stated today, it is expected that that will come by mid-February. I agree that a decision of a certain kind would undoubtedly create a good deal of consternation.
February 2, 1978


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: The minister is almost inviting the House and the committee to delay that legislation until we get that information. Surely that is not the best way to hasten the passage of legislation through the House and the committee.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, Mr. Speaker. I think the question raised by the hon. member is quite germane to the over-all project. However, there are a number of stages. There is second reading, there will be very detailed study in the committee, and it seems to me that these stages could easily proceed in the absence of the decision to which the hon. member refers.


Some hon. Members:: Come on!


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, the President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) should at least recognize that since parliament has resumed its sittings after the Christmas and New Year recess, work has progressed in a rather efficient way. Several bills have been adopted rather rapidly, and I might even say that the government has been in one instance caught by surprise when debate on a certain bill had ended, and that the bell has stolen two hours of our time that could have been spent on something else.
I would like to ask the President of Privy Council if he has provided for the number of the so-called opposition days up until the Easter recess, and also if he could tell us when those opposition days would be held; this would make it easier for us to co-operate with the government for the adoption of other bills the government regards as having priority, for as far as we are concerned, I have always said and I repeat that we are always ready to make it easier for the government to get its bills adopted first, while other private members' bills or motions should come in second. I am, for my part, prepared to accept that provided we know the government's proposed timetable until the Easter recess.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I do have a list of suggested dates for the remaining opposition days. I do not have it with me, but I will be glad to circulate the suggested dates as a planning aid for all of us. It will probably be followed, but occasionally dates have to be changed for one reason or another.


Mr. Brewin:: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that 1 understood the Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) correctly. It had certainly been my understanding, prior to the previous session, that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) had indicated that the regulations in the Immigration Act were of such importance that they would be reviewed by the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration. I think it is important that this be borne in mind, and I would ask the minister whether that is still the intention of the government.
Order Paper Questions
I think the Minister of Employment and Immigration indicated in the House today that it was the intention of the government to have the statutory regulations reviewed, but I think he put in a condition about this matter going through with some degree of promptness. I may say that our party has discussed the regulations and the act in great detail, and would certainly not be disposed to ignore a proper study of the regulations, but to make the discussion of them reasonably brief, and certainly not act in a delaying manner. We are anxious to see the bill passed. I think the date set was April 1.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his assurance that if this matter is to be reviewed it will be done quickly. I shall discuss the matter with the Minister of Employment and Immigration and attempt to get back to the hon. member quickly on what can be done.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 742, 816, 912 and 938.
[ Text]


Mr. Howie: Are any plans underway to invite U.S. President Carter to visit Canada?


Mr. Maurice Dupras (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: During his visit to Washington in February, the Prime Minister personally invited President Carter to visit Canada. The President accepted in principle but the dates for such a visit have not been set.
1977 GREY CUP


Mr. Howie: What amount was spent by the Ministry of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport on the 1977 Grey Cup pre-game and half-time shows?


Hon. Iona Campagnolo (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: In so far as the Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport is concerned: $60,000.


Mr. Howie: Did DREE grant, loan or guarantee any loans in respect of the Bricklin car development at Saint John, New Brunswick and, if so, in what amount?


Mr. Donald Wood (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: The reply for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is as follows: The Depart-

February 2, 1978
Order Paper Questions
ment of Regional Economic Expansion guaranteed 90 per cent ($2,700,000) of a loan of $3,000,000 made to Bricklin Canada Ltd. by the Bank of Montreal. The offer of loan guarantee was made April 1, 1974 and was accepted by the company April 25, 1974.


Mr. Epp: 1.	What procedure does the government follow when choosing and hiring moving companies to relocate employees?
2.	(a) What amount was spent last year in relocating government employees (b) how many relocations took place (c) how many inter-provincial and inter-territorial moves took place?
3.	(a) How many moves took place from one respective province or territory to another (b) what were the provinces or territories and the numbers involved?
(b).
To	British	Saskat-	From	Columbia	Alberta	chewan	ManitobaBritish Columbia	-	404	52	43Alberta	86	-	38	36Saskatchewan	16	72	-	49Manitoba	24	121	92	-Ontario	162	214	71	190Quebec	29	34	10	32New Brunswick	5	18	5	19Nova Scotia	5	56	7	38Prince Edward Island	-	5	-	1Newfoundland	6	27	3	32Total	333	951	278	440


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, if question No. 148 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: 1.	The Central Removal Service of the Department of Supply and Services arranges moves with carriers on behalf of all civilian government departments and agencies. Carriers are approved for source listing by an inter-departmental committee, following examination of their capability to meet government conditions for moving household goods. The selection of the approved carriers for individual moves is on a rotational basis by dollar value using an equalization system.
2.	(a) $12,883,661 on removals; (b) 10,360 removals; (c) 4,830 interprovincial, 32 inter-territorial.
3.	(a) (See 2 c);
Ontario	Quebec	New Brunswick	Nova Scotia	Prince Edward Island	Newfound- land196	21	10	6	2	5103	7	5	8	-	268	6	3	4	1	-161	15	4	7	2	5250	67	133	10	31655	-	37	38	6	77108	60	-	73	13	34146	26	85	-	27	6411	3	6	16	-	292	8	56	43	10	-1,540	396	273	328	71	220


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich): 1.	What travel costs were incurred by personnel of the Marine and Ferry Branch of the Department of Transport for each fiscal year since 1970-71 on visits (a) to Europe (b) to the Far East (c) in Canada and, in each case, what countries or provinces were visited?
2.	(a) Which members of the Branch were involved in each visit (b) how much did each claim for each trip?
3.	For the same years, what expenses were incurred, and by what foreign firms, that were asked by the Department to visit Canada?
Return tabled.


Mr. Speaker:: The questions listed by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Is it the pleasure of the House that question No. 148 be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Charles Joseph Clark: That in the opinion of this House it is essential to the economic well-being and good government of Canada that action be taken to reduce the scope and rationalize the role of government activity in Canadian society by reducing the share of the national wealth currently consumed by government, and to this end that a special committee be struck before February 28, 1978 to consider:
(1)	the enactment of "Sunset Laws" to provide for the termination of programs or agencies which have outlived their usefulness;
(2)	methods to limit the growing and undemocratic use of regulations;
(3)	the criteria by which the government would divest itself of those Crown corporations which play no useful role in the public sector;
(4)	the adaptation of new flexible budget planning techniques to discourage unnecessary growth in departmental budgets.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I think when all of us came back to parliament at the start of this year, we hoped that the govern-
February 2, 1978

ment would take the problems of the country seriously and introduce some measures that go to the heart of some of the basic problems the country faces. The government, unfortunately, refuses to do that, so we accept the responsibility.
In this first allotted day of 1978 we intend to propose a number of means to deal with the cost and size and effectiveness of government. We have framed our motion in the most non-partisan way possible, not to require government members to embrace specific proposals, but only to ask that they accept their responsibilities as parliamentarians, and have a select committee of this House established to consider specific means by which we can reduce waste and improve efficiency in the Government of Canada.
I do not intend to detain or bore this House of Commons with the details of waste that have become all too well known in this country, but I think there are two items worth recalling. One is an excerpt from the report of the Auditor General of Canada for the year ended March 31, 1976, in which he said:
Based on the study of the systems of departments, agencies and crown corporations audited by the Auditor General, financial management and control in the Government of Canada is grossly inadequate. Furthermore, it is likely to remain so until the government takes strong, appropriate and effective measures to rectify this critically serious situation.
That was the judgment of the Auditor General of Canada.
The other matter worth recalling is the really quite amazing and symbolic event that occurred before Christmas when, in the standing committee, the deputy secretary of the Treasury Board and his officials had to admit to members of parliament that they did not know the total number of Crown corporations in which the Government of Canada had an ownership position. First they said there were 366. Then they found seven more. By last month the list had grown to 387. We do not know what it is today, but quite literally this demonstrates that the government itself does not know what it is doing.
The statistics of government growth over the last decade are shocking. In 1968 when this government was elected, government at all levels in Canada consumed 34 per cent of Canada's gross national product. After ten years of this wasteful and uncontrollable government, that figure is up to 41 per cent of Canada's gross national product. According to the estimates for 1968, the year this government came to office, the federal budget was $10.9 billion. The estimates for this year are for a federal budget at $41.1 billion. That means that the dollar spending of the Government of Canada has increased almost fourfold in the ten years of the Trudeau government. We can argue about the causes of that excessive increase and the cost and waste of government, but let us not occupy ourselves in talking about politics. We in this House of Commons have to deal with the consequences of that record. Those consequences are acute and various and simply can no longer be ignored by this House of Commons and the Government of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: One consequence is that investment money, which this nation needs, is leaving this country, or else it is failing to come here because mobile investors, who have a
The Economy
whole world to turn to, are putting their money in places where government costs less, interferes less, or is more certain. I shall not detain the House with a long list of quotations from independent experts who have made this point. I see an hon. member from Toronto indicating disagreement, which is rather strange. He should be concerned about the capacity of construction workers in the city of Toronto to find jobs. The hon. member for Davenport (Mr. Caccia) does not care about those construction workers, but if he did he would be worried about the tremendous amount of investment money that is leaving that city to go to countries where investors trust the government more than they do here.
Some time ago one of the chief economists of the Bank of Canada gave the following warning:
-we have to get our house in order and make it more attractive for private capital or else Canada will become a sleeping backwater.
I also refer to a study that came out just the other day from the Florida legislature which shows that Canadians are the largest foreign investors in the state of Florida. That is happening in part because people who have money to invest do not trust this government and they are concerned about the waste of this government and the size of spending here.
The consequence of that, Sir, is that it very seriously limits our ability to grow, and causes our failure to grow. I emphasize this point, our failure to grow, which puts at risk our ability to stay together as a people.
[ Translation]
Another consequence is that the performance of our economy is dangerously low. Closing plants have large stocks-one million unemployed prove this-and the government tells us that it is not stimulating the economy because our deficit is already too high. In other words, Mr. Speaker, we cannot spend money on things we need because we have already spent too much on things we do not need. We cannot do what we should for the unemployed for instance, because we have already spent too much for Petro-Can, for consultants and for opposing the other levels of government.

There is another consequence, Sir, that goes well beyond the economic, and that is the effect upon the enterprise and the attitude of the Canadian people. That is much harder to quantify, but it is essential for us to face. We have to ask ourselves, as parliamentarians who are responsible for the future of this country, how many small Canadian businessmen have given up because of the weight of frivolous regulations? And what is the cost to local communities when those small businesses are replaced by companies or by managers who are strangers in the neighbourhood?
What is the social cost of having government move into areas where volunteers have worked, as this government did in the last decade? This government moved in on voluntary activities, ranging from youth hostel associations all the way through to amateur sport.

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Like other members of parliament in the early days of the Local Initiatives Program I established a constituency advisory group in my constituency. Mr. Speaker, in response from one of the people I had asked to serve on that group 1 received a very interesting, and true story. It related to a community unknown to most members of this House, a little swelling in the road in western Alberta called Niton Junction. The people in Niton Junction wanted a community hall and they got together and applied for a LIP grant, and they failed. The man who served on the constituency advisory group from that area wrote to me afterwards and he said, "You know, 10 years ago the people of Niton Junction, if they wanted a community hall, would get together and build a community hall. Now they get together and apply for a LIP grant, and they are turned down." That means they have, failed on two counts. First of all they are left without the community hall they need, secondly they have worked together on something that failed and their sense of working together and co-operating together has become soured.
I think we must have much more attention paid to the social consequences of this kind of extensive government intervention into areas where volunteers previously made local communities work and strive for something they wanted.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: We have to ask ourselves, Sir, what is the cost to our sense of national community-our sense of working together as partners? There is a new and growing hostility between the public sector and the private sector. What Sir, is the cost to Canada of the continuing competition for power between different levels of government?
Another one of those immeasurable costs, and one which should be of particular concern to all of us in this House, is the damage which has been done to the credibility of our political system. For a decade Canadians have been told by their politicians that more and bigger government would solve their problems, whatever their problems were. Governments have become larger, and they have become more expensive, but the problems remain, and more and more Canadians have come to question, not simply the wisdom of the so-called solution, but they have come to question the integrity and the credibility of those in this institution and elsewhere who have been proposing those solutions.
We have come through a decade, Sir, in which people have put too much faith in government, which meant that they were putting too little faith in individual citizens or in private or voluntary groups. The response to virtually every problem was to create government programs. Those programs then grew beyond control. Examples abound; the growth of the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs, from its original purpose as a co-ordinator into a little empire of its owe that competes with the people it was supposed to co-ordinate; Petro-Can which was established to make the government itself a competitor in the oil industry, and which has been used to bend and twist and distort regulations to give an unfair advantage to the creature of the government.
Indeed, the very principle of decentralization has been-and I use the word deliberately-perverted into a program of patronage for ministers. I understand the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) is entertaining invitations from New Brunswick to go back and lead the Liberal party in that province. The understanding which I have is that he has agreed to accept that position on the condition that they will move the capital of that province to Shediac, New Brunswick.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: In Canada that tendency of putting too much faith in government has been aggravated by this particular government to concentrate power in their own hands. Some people sometime impute sinster motives to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his close colleagues in this regard. Frankly, I see nothing in this pattern more sinister that arrogance. They really do believe that they can run everything better than anyone else despite abundant evidence to the contrary.
Their pattern, the clear pattern of these ten years, has been to centralize power. Economic power is gathered to Canada by investment review agencies, by competition boards, by literally more Crown corporations that the government can count, and the growth, literally by volumes, of regulations.
[ Translation]
Constitutional powers have been centralized in Ottawa through the creation of federal departments which are supposed to deal with matters of provincial jurisdiction, such as urban affairs, through financial blackmail, in the case of health insurance for instance, and through interference in traditional provincial jurisdictions such as natural resources, communications and culture. The Minister of State for Amateur Sport (Mrs. Campagnolo) is still trying to take away the powers of managing organizations in the area of sports and to concentrate government control. This trend toward centralization of power is one of the main causes of our problems in Canada and contributes to the increase in costs that we can no longer afford.

Years ago, Sir, if we look back on the history of political development, it required an act of imagination to recognize that government did too little, and the consequences of governments doing too little were poverty, injustice, and social turmoil. So government became active doing things that needed to be done, doing things that would not have been done without government intervention. We have an honourable history of that kind of intervention in Canada, and I am personally proud to lead a party which had the imagination to create the CBC, the Canadian Wheat Board, the Agricultural and Rural Development Act, and other necessary agencies.
However, I trust that the hon. member for Davenport, who has no concern for his constituents who are looking for work in the construction industry, will take the opportunity, now that he has been excluded again from the cabinet, to take part in this debate rather than sitting and shouting from his seat.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[Mr. Clark.)
February 2, 1978


Charles Joseph Clark: Just as it once required, in this country and elsewhere, an act of imagination to recognize that government did too little, so is a new act of imagination required today to break conventional thinkings and recognize that government can try to do too much. Now, as then, the standard is not the size of government of even the cost of government; the standard has to be the effectiveness of government.


Some hon. Members:: Elear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The Government of Canada today, while it is unquestionably costly and unquestionably big, is just not effective in doing the jobs that Canadians expect it to do.
What we need is a fundamental change in our approach to the role and accountability of government. We will be kidding ourselves and the country if we pretend that another so-called "restraint program" will do. Every President of the Treasury Board during the past decade has risen at least once in this House to announce a new era of austerity in the government. And yet the size and cost of government grow and grow without effective control.
The problem runs much deeper than any tinkering with the federal books. The system itself is out of control, and what we must change are the attitudes upon which the government operates. For example, we must end the prevailing view that advancement in the public service depends on growth and spending. We must reverse a system where it is considered some kind of a disgrace for public servants to allow funds to lapse at the end of the fiscal year. The public service must know that advancement and recognition can come from saving money and ending unnecessary programs.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: That new direction, that new spirit, has to come from the political level. Public servants did not create the present atmosphere; they are only working within the rules of the game laid down by their political masters. Indeed, it is a matter of encouragement to me that nowhere does concern about the present system run higher than among public servants themselves, who see the waste first hand and have to carry the can for political decisions that they did not make.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The government is bringing in a Comptroller General, bringing him in reluctantly, and in a way that invites the question as to whether this will be an office with real powers, or just paper powers. But even if the Comptroller General has the means and the will to be effective, that appointment is simply spitting in the wind unless it is backed up by a fundamental change in attitude, not just about control of government, but about the size and effectiveness of government.
This parliament cannot wash its hands of its responsibilities simply by appointing a new official who will not even report to
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us. We are here to control government. That is one of the basic things that parliament is about.
We will betray our responsibility to the people of Canada unless we have the courage and the determination to act ourselves to make government less expensive and more effective.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I want, today, to spell out some of the ways we can do that, and my colleagues will elaborate on these proposals later in this debate. First, we need to introduce the idea of the "sunset law" into Canadian practice.
In the natural world, the sun rises and the sun sets. If you come, as I do, from the foothills of Alberta, you know that the setting of the sun is often more dramatic and inspiring than its rising. But governments violate nature. Virtually every month the sun rises on new government activities or agencies- governments get into things far more easily than they get out of them-and we need a system that will allow the sun to set on government activities after their day is done.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Why should FIRA go on forever? Why should the Halifax Disaster Relief Agency have endured so long after the disaster? Why should other agencies escape the kind of life and death scrutiny which would allow MP's to discuss not just their funding but their future?
We will be describing a mechanism which will require certain Crown agencies and activities to come back to parliament at regular intervals and justify their need to continue to exist. If they can justify that need, they will carry on, perhaps in amended form. If they cannot, they will end, and that money will be available for the individuals and governments to do things that do need to be done. That is the kind of decision that parliament is supposed to make.
Because of a perversion of the rules that take power away from parliament, we can only ask questions, not stop programs. Canadians send us here for more than that, and we owe it to our country to let the people's representatives stop the waste of the people's money.
In another field we must stop the practice of government creating more and more regulations, which parliament cannot control, and with which private Canadians cannot cope. [Translation]
The government is now compiling all existing regulations. These regulations cover 12,000 computer print-out sheets, and when they are printed and bound, they make up 15 volumes of 800 pages each, which is much more that the Revised Statutes of Canada. A few years ago, a survey by the Financial Post concluded that, in Canada, businessmen spend 35 per cent of their time conforming to government regulations. In the United States, it is estimated that government regulations cost the American economy from $50 to $60 billion a year. If we suppose that there are on the average as many regulations in Canada, which is a reasonable assumption, Mr. Speaker, the
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cost for the Canadian economy is at least $5 or $6 billion a year.

We need to review the need for nearly 400 federal Crown corporations, and review that calmly, sanely and without ideology. The idea of the Crown corporation is an essential and valuable part of Canadian life and history. We have needed Crown corporations in the past. We need some of them now. I think it is safe to predict we may well need to create new Crown corporations in the future. But the fact that some Crown corporations are necessary does not mean that all are, and the fact that a specific Crown corporation was necessary at one point in time does not mean that Crown corporation is necessary forever.
To my mind, the simple standard is that government intervention should come as a last resort, when other ways will not work, and not as a first resort, as it was with Petro-Can, where the motive is only to get the government into something where it should not be.
It is absurb to have more Crown corporations than you can count. It is often wasteful to spend public money on things where private money is available. It is possible, as other jurisdictions have shown, to divest of unnecessary Crown corporations in ways that will let more Canadian citizens develop an equity interest in our country.
Finally, we need new, more flexible budget planning techniques to discourage unnecessary growth in the budgets of government departments.
There is no question that we can control government spending, no question that we can reduce waste, improve effectiveness, and put government in a position again where it is capable of taking the initiatives that government must take. It is absurd, in a country like Canada with more than one million people out of work, that the government cannot take the economic initiatives that are necessary because it has wasted so much money in the past that it has a deficit that strangles its ability to act. That is unforgiveable.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: There is nothing revolutionary about what has been proposed today. Sunset Laws are in effect in several states in the United States. That country already has underway a major review of the impact of regulations. The state of Israel has put at least 90 of its state-owned agencies up for sale. Tomorrow is the final day for the submission of tenders to the Progressive Conservative government of Manitoba for the purchase of Cybershare Limited, a data processing company purchased by the former government of that province. These things can be done if there is a government prepared to do them.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: They must be done because Canadians are not going to accept leadership from a government or from a parliament that is unable to control its own excesses. That is

not just a question of investment, important as investment is, and unlikely as it is that investment will come to a country that continues to build deficits and refuses to eliminate waste. The deeper question concerns the confidence ordinary Canadians have in a government which they see is costing more and more and doing less and less that makes sense to them.
Our union is under assault from several sources. One of them is the idea of separatism. Another is the reality of cynicism. People do not believe governments. People do not take parliament seriously. That we have brought upon ourselves.
In the months and years to come we must demonstrate to the people of Canada that our institutions can work, that our governments can serve real needs, that there is leadership here that is tough enough to recognize and reform our own weaknesses before prescribing for others.
Today, I have brought before the House of Commons a resolution which will allow us as a parliament to do the work that parliament was created to do, to get control of government and to make government effective again in Canada. The operative part of this motion is the request that we immediately establish a select committee to cut away at waste in government. I earnestly hope that other parties in this House will follow our example and agree to this proposal in the interest of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) closed his speech by asking all members in other parties to support his motion. He did so having argued that there are innumerable Crown corporations which ought to be eliminated, and having given us just two illustrations of what he had in mind. I suggest he did not give more examples because he has not done the work which is called for, and cannot prove the case he has tried to make. The proposal put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, if put into effect, would mean a return to the depressed economy of the thirties.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Orlikow: The motion states:
That in the opinion of this House it is essential to the economic well-being and good government of Canada that action be taken to reduce the scope and rationalize the role of government activity in Canadian society by reducing the share of the national wealth currently consumed by government...
The Leader of the Offical Opposition wants the people of Canada to forget the depression years of the thirties when the private sector of our society collapsed and when governments were completely immobilized. It was not until the Second World War, when we realized we had to produce the necessities of war, that we put people back to work. The earlier depression was the result of government inaction, especially at a time when the private sector was not functioning.
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Of course all Canadians want government to operate as efficiently as possible. Of course we want the Government of Canada to be accountable to people and to justify its programs. Of course we want to get rid of Crown corporations and agencies which no longer serve a useful purpose. But on the basis of the examples given by the Leader of the Opposition we certainly cannot support his proposal.
Canadians who have studied the level of government activity and believe governments should reduce the scope of their involvement and the share of the national wealth they consume, know that in order to achieve anything substantial it would be necessary not just to cut back on Crown corporations and agencies but to cut back on programs presently provided for the people. If one thing was obvious in the speech we have just heard it was that the hon. gentleman did not deal with programs which would have to be eliminated if there were a real intention to achieve the end proposed, that is, a significant reduction in the size of government spending and government's share of the national income.
I challenge speakers from the Conservative party who will follow to tell us which programs they would eliminate or restrict. Do they wish to cut back on health insurance or health care? Do they want to cut back on hospital insurance? Do they want to cut back the program of old age pensions? Do they want to eliminate or reduce family allowances or Canada Pensions? These are among the most expensive programs which the government, alone or in conjunction with the provinces, provides. If the Conservative party is serious about cutting back government expenditures, it is programs of this kind it will have to consider.
We have heard a great deal about Crown corporations. I join with the Leader of the Opposition in expressing amazement at the figure he produced-he told us we have some 340 of them. But Crown corporations have not been created by socialist governments-we have never had a socialist government in Canada.


An hon. Member:: What is that over there?


David Orlikow: Crown corporations were created in the past by Conservative and Liberal governments to meet needs which were not being met by the private sector. Consider the CNR. The rail lines were laid down by private investors with the help of huge grants of land and money from governments both federal and provincial. The companies' bonds were guaranteed by the Government of Canada. When the private companies went bankrupt the government created the CNR. Again, the Wheat Board was created by a Conservative government, as was ARDA. Are these the kinds of Crown corporations the Conservative party proposes we should get rid of? If they are, the case must be explained in much more detail.
The only two Crown corporations to which the Leader of the Opposition referred in the examples he gave were FIRA and Petro-Can. We can easily understand why the Conservative party opposes the operation of Petro-Can. That party is quite happy to leave the oil industry in the hands of the U.S. multinational corporations which control about 97 per cent of
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it. We do not believe the multinational oil corporations have been working in the interest of the Canadian people. We are aware of the fantastic increases in company profits. We have been fed stories which change from month to month and from year to year about the extent of the reserves available in Canada.
It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition should talk about cutting back on government expenditure at the same time as Conservative provinces are calling on the federal government to increase its activities in various fields such as the provision of employment, the provision of forestry services, and the funding of health care services. This would imply the expenditure by the federal government of more money and the employment of more staff to monitor that expenditure.
Conservative provincial governments are among the highest employers of public servants. According to Statistics Canada, in September, 1977, the province of Newfoundland, which has a Conservative government, had 23 provincial public servants per thousand population; the province of New Brunswick, which has a Conservative government, had 37.1 provincial public servants per thousand population; the province of Alberta, which has a Conservative government, had 26.2 provincial public servants per thousand population; and the province of Manitoba, which had a New Democratic government until recently, had only 14.9 provincial public servants per thousand population.
The Conservative party is saying, "Do as we say and not as our fellow Conservatives do." The New Democratic Party wants better government, and not bigger government.
When one looks at the federal public service, it is interesting to note the increase in the number of federal public servants. There has been an approximate 3 per cent to 4 per cent increase per year. At the same time as this increase is taking place, the increase in the number of senior public servants has been tremendous.
I should like to refer to the SX employee category, which is an executive classification for federal government employees. From 1968 to 1975 there was an increase in it from 381 to 1,260, an increase of over 20 per cent a year. Next, I should like to deal with professional employees, which is the category below the executive class. This category includes economists, lawyers, engineers and other specialists in senior federal government positions. During the period from 1974 to 1976, when supposedly the government had accepted the fact that a slowdown was necessary, their numbers increased from 5,938 to 7,521, which is an increase of almost 27 per cent, or over 13 per cent a year.
Did this tremendous increase in the senior level of federal public servants provide a better government? Did it provide a better service for the ordinary citizen? On the basis of my observations, I have to indicate that it did not. This is not the time to discuss why that took place, but it was a mistake of major proportion which is costing Canadians tens of millions of dollars.
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At the same time as those tremendous increases at the top have occurred, there has been a steady, continuous increase in the hiring of temporary employees for relatively unskilled jobs.
I am referring to secretarial help, filing clerks and so on. Also at the same time there was an explosion in the number of contracts which have been let for studies by various departments into present and future governmental policies, and examination of administration or internal operations.
The amount of money allocated for contracts has increased continuously. I should like to compare 1973 with 1974. During those two years in the Department of Agriculture there was a 131 per cent increase in the amount of money allocated for contracts; in the Department of Fisheries and the Environment there was a 104 per cent increase; and in the Department of National Health and Welfare there was a 179 per cent increase. Those examples indicate that the increases amounted to over 100 per cent in those years.
Also I have figures for term, casual and other temporary employees for the years 1971 to 1975. It is not a complete list, because it is difficult to get one. Over those four years there has been an increase of 133 per cent.
Government has permitted senior level bureaucrats to grow at an unprecedented and unwarranted rate. We have been told that has stopped, which is the case every year, and usually we find the government has found a way around the so-called freeze, and is spending more money and hiring more people. My party is suspicious of what has happened.
I should like to return to the motion we are debating today. The principles of the motion cannot be accepted. The concept that the percentage of the gross national product, which is now devoted to providing services by the three levels of government, can be sharply cut back cannot be accepted, particularly at a time when the private sector is not operating at full capacity. It would be a disaster for the three levels of government to cut back sharply. That would not be productive. In fact, it would simply increase the percentage of unemployed Canadians, which is much greater than it ought to be at the present time. Because that is the situation, the New Democratic Party cannot support the motion proposed by the hon. Leader of the Official Opposition. We propose to vote against it.


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


Gilles Caouette: Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat surprised when I read the motion introduced by the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark).
At last the Progressive Conservatives realize that the government administration has complicated matters but as the spokesman for the New Democratic Party stated a while ago, they have yet to see that when they were in power they operated exactly as the Liberals do right now.
Generally speaking, the motion advocates setting up a committee to consider the possibility of putting an end to government intervention in certain areas, a curb on the excessive use of regulations under legislation introduced in the House and
[Mr. Orlikow.)
the removal of some government agencies to improve the planning of the budget. On the whole, those are wise suggestions. However one must realize that the government administration is inefficient.
Not long ago we were discussing the problem in the Post Office and the increase in the cost of postal services in Canada. Recently the Prime Minister said that Canadians might very well have to get used to not having their mail delivered at home. In other areas, in growing municipalities, they say they can no longer afford home delivery of mail. We have come to the point where we can see multiple mail boxes installed on the street corners downtown. The Post Office gives half the services it used to give three or four years ago and we have to pay three times as much as we used to. Things have gone down to the point where it is impossible to know when a letter will be received. The service stinks and that is due to a large extent to the increase in the number of public servants, to the increase in the handling process. That is what makes the costs double or triple. And then we are told that we are going to keep on paying without getting our money's worth in service and even that the services we were used to will be cut down.
The Post Office is just one area. For instance they mentioned Air Canada, the so-called unity crisis, the east-west confrontation, and we realize that this government agency cannot provide adequate service to the Canadian public. I have just returned from a trip to western Canada and Quebec. When I fly to Vancouver I pay as much as I would to go and bask in the sun down south or in the Caribbeans, where a company systematically refuses to give Canada any publicity, exaggerates costs and provides to its customers a deplorable service which is not in line with the price of the ticket. Bureaucracy is on the rise again.
Remedies exist. I could mention the fact that we had to fight to obtain at least two official languages spoken on board Air Canada planes. I could even fly from Vancouver to Edmonton where people were served in two languages, either English or German, but not French. That is the approach taken by Air Canada, a corporation which is unable to provide the service we are paying for, which ought to be able, with the assistance of the government, to provide a service superior to that of any other airline, but which just simply cannot. I was dealing this afternoon with a matter which again demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the government, and on two occasions the Chair had to urge me to put my question, for there are cases which date back to 1970-72 when agreements were signed by the government.
The matter I raised this afternoon during the question period was related to the post office in Rouyn where it had been agreed in 1972 to start the construction of a new federal building in the riding of Temiscamingue, and indeed funds of . $200,000, $250,000 and $300,000 had been allocated for three consecutive years; but after those funds have been spent, we hear in 1978 that they are not going ahead with that building, that it has to be delayed for a year supposedly, as they say in
February 2, 1978

the letter, because of adjustments in the department's budget, there will be no funds available for that project before fiscal year 1979-80. What a weird administration! Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on the preparation of a project and when the time comes to see it through the whole thing flops and you have to start from scratch again. That is the very type of administration we now have.
1 was talking about Air Canada and the fact that it costs $100 to fly to Florida whereas for the same distance within Canada you have to pay $200 or $300.
In public works, for example in the case of the CBC, another governmental agency, the same thing has happened. Fabulous amounts of money have been spent and the public does not even know what is going on in Canada where, day after day, we ask questions in the House, we deliver speeches and the CBC systematically refuses to report what happens in the House. They are playing a political game. They systematically refuse to present the point of view of a fourth party in the House of Commons. And we pay for administrations like those! As for paying, as for raising the subventions to those corporations, no problem! Bills and budgets are submitted to us every year, and every year we have to raise the budgets of those corporations while at the same time downgrading the services they give us.
I was talking about regulations a moment ago. The government is adding too many regulations to the laws after they are passed. We had this situation in unemployment insurance where it was agreed that people over 65, for example, could draw unemployment insurance benefits and where, under the law, some bureaucrats decide by themselves to enact a regulation cancelling the law and they put this regulation into force. We see that constantly in most of the acts in which, through the play of regulations, the government tries to circumvent the law, tries to fiddle with it, and even after three cases were won before the courts for those people of 65, the government comes again with another bill to justify regulations previously passed by the Unemployment Insurance Commission.
Present government measures will require fortunes to be spent and will not solve the problem. Today we know that we have an unemployment problem across the country. The only solution the government has found so far was to introduce band-aid programs, investing money in an attempt, was it said, to reduce unemployment. Year after year it became obvious that unemployment was still growing and in many cases, instead of reducing unemployment, the government was increasing it. That is the case with the Canada Works Program, for instance, where in a riding like mine, the rate of unemployment has reached 21.8 per cent, where only 57.6 per cent of the people work; and we ask the minister to invest money, not to spend it to give short term jobs of eight, ten or 12 weeks, but to invest money to build plants, to create companies that could finance themselves later on, to launch and help small businesses.
Instead they prefer to give $1,658,000 for Canada Works projects as they did in my riding. That in fact enables us to create 314 jobs for a certain period of time, but after, what do
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you get? Nothing at all! The government did not try to help those who are now filling applications for employment. Small businesses have been providing permanent employment for several decades but with the proliferation of taxation forms nowadays they must spend 30 to 35 per cent of their revenues and their time only to fill those forms which increase their production costs. So they have to reduce their staff to make ends meet and operate efficiently. The government does not help those small businesses. In big businesses it is the same situation.
A few days ago I made a suggestion to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) about mining in northwestern Quebec where Noranda Mines might be in serious trouble next year, if not this year, because of an unsufficient supply of ore. Mining production in northern Ontario has been reduced and we know that in many cases, because of transportation costs, it is cheaper to process western copper in Japan than in Canada not because of production costs as such but because it is more expensive to ship copper to the east of the country than to Japan. Recently I urged the department to set special rates to promote employment for Canadians and I asked for special freight rates for the transportation of western ore to eastern Canada where our processing costs are competitive with those of any other country but where the problem is one of transportation cost.
I received a letter from the minister telling me that my proposition was good but that they were not about to make special concessions in the transportation field. In the meantime, imports are allowed in across the country, the doors are wide open, jobs are destroyed. We had that problem in the shoe industry. Every day we get letters from producers who would be quite ready to increase production if only the government would leave them alone, if it ceased overtaxing them, if it reduced the ever growing pile of forms to be supplied.
Everyday we get some. I received one not later than today. Washing machine manufacturers were facing in 1966 a 37.6 per cent competition from imports, and produced 31,203 units. In 1976, the last year for which data are available, 43,293 were made in Canada, while imports accounted for 78.6 per cent of sales. The government on the one hand reduces our production, it reduces producer efficiency through government intervention, and on the other it allows massive imports. With such an approach, understandably unemployment has reached astronomical levels, as in my area for instance. We have reached 21.8 per cent, and this is no joke.
And it is still less funny that 57.6 per cent of the people only are at work. So, 57.6 deducted from 100 per cent leaves 42.4 per cent of the people not working, not producing for the country. Of that number, 21 per cent get unemployment insurance benefits, but where are the others? Yet the government does not find a way to invest or help existing corporations reduce their costs. Instead we have social measures, band-aids. That is the attitude of this government now.
What are the solutions? First, to help those small businesses, lower interest rates on the money they borrow. They are no longer able to operate with their own money, they have to

February 2, 1978
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borrow to finance production, inventories, sales, sales advertising. Our governments are doing exactly the same thing by going into debt, they pay interest on it and fuel inflation. The further we move ahead, the more they spend, the more taxes you pay, the fewer services you get in return. We have been calling for a reduction in interest rates on loans to an acceptable level of 5 or 6 per cent as it was in 1967 before this Liberal government blew the lid off interest rates and sent inflation on its way up. We also ask that governments be financed by interest free loans from the Bank of Canada. Those are solutions that would reduce administrative costs, production costs for businesses and enable us to start over again, put production and the economy back on a positive track and enable us at the same time to create jobs that are now being destroyed by the attitude of this government of applying a band-aid on a wooden leg.
Mr. Speaker, those are the few remarks I wanted to make, and I sincerely think that the creation of a committee to study those solutions would certainly not be the best way of solving this problem. But I think that if we really want to take major steps the population as a whole must make government understand that it is time for it to stop its interventions in all areas. As I often noticed in my tours, people are telling us: We are prepared to work, we are prepared to produce but ask government to stop scratching our backs and continuously taking away what we can produce. I think the government will understand through this motion that time has long since come for it to get off the backs of industrialists and businessmen, to allow them to live because they are the ones who can create productive jobs, not government, as it is now.


Hon. Robert K. Andras (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, when some of my colleagues read the motion of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), they were somewhat critical of its content. When I was given the motion to read last night, I looked forward to this debate. I thought it could be potentially constructive. Some of the wording in the motion is current and topical, and the House should address itself to it. Having said that, I must say now, after listening to three speeches, particularly that of the Leader of the Opposition, that we have not advanced the theory or the practicality of the intent of this motion very far. We have heard some motherhood-or perhaps fatherhood-statements, but a very distinct lack of specific recommendations.
The Leader of the Opposition started off by hitting the high plane. He caught my ear and my fancy by saying that he would not be partisan, but then he proceeded to be very personal and very partisan. That was a slight disappointment.
In any event, the motion proposes that another parliamentary committee be struck to examine an area which is fundamental to parliament. It proposes another committee to do the job of the Public Accounts Committee. I think the Public Accounts Committee is doing very well and with increasing

competence, and generally speaking-with some relapses from time to time-in a fairly non-partisan and constructive fashion. The motion denigrates the whole process of examination of estimates, which is made up of procedures which were endorsed and approved by this parliament.


Charles Joseph Clark: Railroaded through.


Robert Knight Andras: The Leader of the Opposition criticized very selectively. He made reference to the 1976 report of the Auditor General, which nobody on this side of the House would parade before anybody with great joy. Admittedly, it was certainly a blast at the government in terms of Financial control. However, that was very selective because the hon. member did not even make passing reference to the 1977 report of the Auditor General. If the hon. member had done that, he would have been a great deal more credible. Some opposition members in different parties have been straightforward enough to admit that the 1977 report pointed out that there was a vast improvement. As a matter of fact I heard one of them say-in the House, and it is recorded in Hansard- that it was one of the best he had seen in the many years he had been in parliament. It would have given the Leader of the Opposition a little more credibility if he had at least nodded toward the evidence the Auditor General offered of the beginnings of improvement and the good start which has been made. However, that is the way it goes.
The Leader of the Opposition made reference to the office of Comptroller General. I want to assure the hon. member that we will be debating this in more detail in the not too distant future. The appointment to this office is taken very seriously. The delay in finding and appointing a comptroller general is an indication of our agreement with the other half of the Auditor General's recommendation that, equally as important as the creation of the office, is the obtaining of the services of a fairly competent person whose competence is recognized. Our search for the right person is almost complete and I am hopeful that we can attract a very competent person from the outside.
The House might like to know that one of the interesting problems, which I shall not dwell upon, is that when you seek a competent person with the necessary credentials and experience in the outside world, then you are searching for someone with experience and earnings considerably above the very top level of salary offered in the federal public service. I say that in light of the often quoted criticisms of the level of pay offered public servants in this country. Six candidates were considered to have the qualifications, but we were faced with salary ranges $30,000 to $75,000 above the maximum range of top level senior public servants.


Mr. Paproski:: Is that what Juneau is making now?


Robert Knight Andras: It has nothing to do with Juneau. That is utterly ridiculous. Mr. Speaker, there is no senior deputy minister in the federal government who is at the top range of the allowable maximum for senior deputy ministers.
February 2, 1978


Steve Eugene Paproski: Did you say $60,000 or $65,000?


Robert Knight Andras: I was using those figures when I was referring to the competition we face in attracting qualified people. I simply say that, before we talk about those salaries being completely out of line, we must recognize what the competition is paying. However, I do not want to be diverted.
The Leader of the Opposition referred to the growth of government spending in this country. Since I am on public record as suggesting it is time we looked at a general curtailment of the spending of governments, I am not going to attack that general theme. This is where I would also probably differ with the comments of the hon. member of Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow). As is sometimes the case, I find myself in the middle, but I hope my position is based on more facts than he has offered.
The Leader of the Opposition spoke about growth. I shall use a slightly different time period because the statistics in my mind relate to probably a ten-year period and may not coincide, except for the final year. The growth over ten or eleven years went from about 30 per cent of GNP to about 41 per cent at the end of 1976. Those final figures have been shaded slightly downward because of the adjustment of GNP figures. That is simply a statistical change, but nevertheless the trend is there. In examining where that growth took place I should like to place the following comments on the record.
At the beginning of that ten-year period the federal percentage of GNP was in fact 15 per cent, and this has grown to a little over 16 per cent, at the same time as the provincial and municipal share to make up that 30 to 41 per cent has grown from 16 per cent to 25 per cent.
The Leader of the Opposition mentioned his fears about constitutional attacks. In this context I want to place on the record an interesting fact that I have observed. In terms of taxing and spending, this country is the most decentralized in the world, other than Switzerland. The proportion of revenue raised by taxation-federal, provincial and municipal-and the spending in the same ratio compared to any country except Switzerland, indicates that more is raised and more is spent by other levels of government than at the federal level. I grant that the total of all spending may be too high, but it would probably be more constructive to look more closely where the growth in spending occurs. We have recognized this fact and tried to do something about it in the last few years. There is no doubt that during the minority government period of 1972 to 1974-which I have described as being a very responsive and expensive one-we saw year on year increases that were unsustainable for any length of time.
In 1975 we articulated a policy to constrain the growth of federal government spending, all budgetary, non-budgetary, capital, non-capital spending and during the full fiscal year, to not more than the growth in the gross national product, that is, real and inflationary. We have met those commitments ever since.
In 1975 or 1976, the first full year in which this would have been effective, we indicated we were aiming for a spending
The Economy
ceiling of $42,150 billion, which would have represented a 13 per cent increase over the previous year. We cut that shortly thereafter and came in $1 billion under our reduced and publicly stated objective, and held it to around 10 per cent. With any luck in the six or seven weeks that remain of the present fiscal year to March 31, I am quite confident that we can bring in the final expenditures for this fiscal year at or below the committed public total of $44,450 billion. That will represent about an 8 per cent increase over the previous year, which adjustment from the 7 per cent as we had announced is purely because we came in $1 billion under the previous year. I think 8 per cent is not a bad performance, and when inflation is discounted it really represents no real growth.
The Leader of the Opposition spread gloom and doom saying that investment is leaving the country because of mismanagement by this government and so on. He had the temerity to quote a Royal Bank of Canada economist. That gives me the opportunity to quote that person's boss-the Chairman of the Board of the Royal Bank of Canada, Mr. Earle McLaughlin. I do not think that by any stretch of the imagination he could be called a closet liberal or even a person lacking in realism. Mr. McLaughlin said:
... the most calamitous thing for business and Canada would be to be swept away by the waves of pessimism often displayed by too many.
Although he acknowledged that over the past two or three years Canadian economic performance has not matched that of the United States, he chided the business community for its short memories of Canadian successes. He was talking about the past seven years and he said that selection of years was "a purely arbitrary medium term yardstick", because he said almost any other similar reference period would do. He also said that Canadians have outperformed the United States by almost any economic yardstick you might propose. That is the boss of the economist that the Leader of the Opposition quoted in absolutely different terms.
Mr. McLaughlin said also that in that period real personal incomes in Canada had increased 38 per cent, even taking into account the weakening Canadian dollar, compared with a U.S. increase of 17 per cent.
He said that the Canadian material standard of living had increased more than in the United States and, despite our unemployment, we had been creating jobs, new jobs, 50 per cent faster than the U.S.
He commented on another vital indicator when he said the total investment in Canada, investment spending in Canada, rose by 168 per cent compared to a growth of only 107 per cent in the United States and, he added, the past 12 or 24 months notwithstanding. He said that Canadian corporate after tax profits grew by 186 per cent, 7 per cent more than the United States.
He had more to say, but I will not bore the House with the rest of it. I just wanted to indicate to the Leader of the Opposition and members of the House that there are differences of opinion. I think the most important thing I can comment upon is Mr. McLaughlin's statement that it would be calamitous for business and Canada to be swept away by the

February 2, 1978
The Economy
waves of pessimism that are inherent in some of the comments we hear.
To return to the more specific subclauses of the motion before us, I quote:
(1)	the enactment of "Sunset Laws" to provide for the termination of programs or agencies which have outlived their usefulness;
I do not find too much argument with the selective application of "sunset laws" of a very special type and for very special situations. Indeed I think this government has done that on occasion, and I can think of certain programs. I remember that when I had the responsibility for housing and urban affairs we had the sewage treatment loan program which had an expiry date, which is a "sunset law" application. We have the Neighbourhood Improvement Program right now, and I think we have to take a close look at this one. It is due to expire at the end of March. There is the anti-inflation program which is operating under the date of a "sunset law" and requires a review by parliament if it is to be continued.
If that is the kind of application, and one could think of others, that the opposition is suggesting be wisely used over a period of time, I can agree with that. If the hon. Leader of the Opposition is suggesting that we go the route that is being touted in the new American fad that all departments and agencies be placed under "sunset laws", then there are certain theoretical advantages to the review or evaluation that that triggers. But let us face the practical fact of life that this parliament could not, nor could the American Congress, deal with the legislative burden that kind of a blanket across-the-board "sunset law" application would require.


Charles Joseph Clark: You could do it one at a time.


Robert Knight Andras: If the hon. Leader of the Opposition is talking about a selective, periodic review, zero based budgeting and that kind of thing, I do not think he made it clear, nor is it clear in the motion that may be different.


Charles Joseph Clark: "Sunset laws" applied one at a time.


Robert Knight Andras: That is exactly what I said, Mr. Speaker-


Charles Joseph Clark: No, Sir.


Robert Knight Andras: -when I said I had some sympathy with it on a selective basis and on a very carefully planned basis.


An hon. Member:: Let us have a committee look into it.


Robert Knight Andras: Before you have a committee deal with that particular subject, there is another committee that perhaps should meet and look into the total revision of the rules and procedures of this House.


Walter David Baker: Right on.


Robert Knight Andras: Because the legislative procedures under which we are operating now are about 19th century, and we would

have to bring this House into the 20th century in order to provide for many improvements of that nature. That is where you would have to begin, because the theoretical suggestions of these kinds of improvements would absolutely bog down if you did not have that accomplished.


Charles Joseph Clark: Talk to Allan MacEachen.


Robert Knight Andras: While I listened with great interest for the specific nature of the dramatic chops that the opposition was going to make with respect to Crown corporations, I only heard FIRA and Petro-Can mentioned. I thought Petro-Can would come up; it is one of their favourite flogging horses. FIRA, that is another matter.
There is a suggestion of the development of criteria. I have not heard a suggestion of what the criteria would be for the elimination of Crown corporations. Again, I am simply saying that in my disappointment at not hearing specific suggestions here, just the grand generalizations, this does not mean that we do not have a great deal of sympathy or that we are not looking very closely at the idea of what we can effectively get rid of and put into the private sector. 1 will look forward to constructive suggestions respecting tharaspect.
Because of the pressure of time. Mr. Speaker, I would like now to come more to the final subclause in the motion, the adaptation of budget planning techniques, etc. I think this is an area to which, on a non-partisan basis, that we, at some time, have to address ourselves in this House. But let us please understand what we are really getting at here. As the President of the Treasury Board I doubt that there are many people more conscious of the rigidity and lack of flexibility that our present expenditure process involves.
Under any acceptable ceiling of expenditure I can tell you that you start off with about 57 per cent of your budget precommitted in about 11 or 12 statutory programs. Let us not argue about the quality of those programs, I am simply telling you the facts. Much of this is in a book which was published about a year ago explaining how your tax dollar is spent, and I commend it to you for reading. This is a mutual problem for all of us if we are going to be serious about whether it is bigger government or better government, or whatever the cliches might end up saying.
Some 57 per cent of our expenditures are committed at the beginning. They are basically the social programs, of which most of us in this House are proud, even if a lot of us think they are probably things which have to be looked at, for example adjustments. An extra 10 or 12 per cent, I cannot recall the exact figure, is also precommitted in the nature of contractual obligations to the provinces, such as manpower training contracts etc. You could argue about their value, but they are commitments. There are longer term commitments, established program financing, and a dozen other things, with the result that 23 per cent of the budget of expenditures of the federal government today are transfer payments to the provinces. The federal government collects the revenue in the main, obviously through taxation, and then transfers this to the provinces. Equalization payments and many others of that
February 2, 1978

nature, establish program financing, for instance. Again, I am not arguing with the merits of the particular programs. I am talking about the totality and buildup of this situation.
Certainly the federal government, and to a degree parliamentarians on all sides of this Elouse receive criticism of the federal government expenditures. But the fact is that the 23 per cent right off the top, which we just pass through to the provinces, which they spend, and which we have collected for them. That is not recognized generally, Mr. Speaker.
In recent years I have often wondered if it is not at least better for the Canadian people to have a much clearer picture of that distribution of transfers. Of course another sizeable portion of our expenditures is transfers to persons. So when you add transfers to persons and transfers to provinces, you have absorbed approximately 50 per cent of the federal government's expenditures. What is left is what we call operations of government. I will show you the figures at any time, or I can elaborate on them in more detail in committee. They have not really grown that much.
An interesting fact I observed in analysing certain facts the other day is that we are all conscious of the growth of the size of the public service. Indeed, during the last two or three years we have been taking very definite measures to restrain and control that. The first year, and I think the hon. member for Winnipeg South-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Winnipeg North.


Robert Knight Andras: North, thank you. He talked about this exponential growth particularly in the senior management category. He did quote some figures that were close to being accurate anyway. He mentioned that for some years the totality of our man year growth was around 3 or 4 percent. But starting in 1976 we committed ourselves to constrain it to V/2 per cent, and we came in at just above one per cent. Last year, and I can assure you, and I will be tabling estimates later this month, for next year we will be continuing that restraint to about one half of one per cent growth. We will be taking quite drastic measures with the senior management complement.
The contract bit is a myth which the opposition members have been running through the rhetorical mill for four or five years, some of them knowing very well how fallacious it is, and I will be very glad to deal with that when I table the estimates later this month.
Flexible budgeting-who can argue? The priorities of any party in government will have to change from time to time. If you have the rigidity of precommitment to the degree which I have tried to describe to you, 57 per cent on established programs, indexed in the main, and another long term sizeable portion of any expenditure ceiling committed to contractual obligations, then I agree we need more flexibility. It means we need to have the guts in all parts of this House to look at some of those established programs. There is no other way to get flexibility than by looking at those kinds of decisions. I have not heard from the opposition the selective programs which they would be prepared to cut.
The Economy
It is a strange pattern to listen to all this talk from the Leader of the Opposition about over-expenditures, waste, where we should cut back and all the rest. As reported at page 2251 of Hansard, he took exactly the opposite line. The implication of what he said to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) was that because there had been a brutal tightening up of unemployment insurance benefits, we should in turn send that money to the municipalities for welfare. In that narrow context, I cannot see his argument. The end point was that unemployment insurance benefits should not be cut back or welfare payments should be increased. Either one of those would involve more expenditure.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure the minister is not deliberately distorting either the language or the purport of what I said. I do not have the question in front of me as he does. He will recall that the questions to his colleague had to do with discussions that that colleague might enter into with the provinces and municipalities which were being victimized by the failure of this government to generate jobs, in part because this government over the past ten years of which the minister has been speaking entrapped itself into such heavy expenditures that it does not have the fiscal flexibility to do those things which ought to be done. I am sure he will want the record set straight.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, before this becomes a debate on what the Leader of the Opposition may have intended or an interpretation of what he said, I will leave it to him to examine it. It is page 2251 of Hansard. I say, with all sincerity, that clearly the intent comes to me that he was implying that you should not tighten up unemployment insurance or you should give the money to municipalities in terms of welfare. Let me get away from the partisan comment on it.
I am illustrating the difficulty of talking about general control, adjustment, more flexibility, and changing of priorities. That can mean only one thing. You have to cut back in some areas. It certainly is not as easy as members opposite try to make out. You do not follow the totally impractical suggestion of the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) of firing 60,000 public servants in one fell swoop.


Walter David Baker: He did not say that.


Robert Knight Andras: He was quoted as saying it.


Walter David Baker: He did not say it.


Robert Knight Andras: We often suffer from that kind of thing.


Walter David Baker: You should not do it in the House.


Robert Knight Andras: To be accused of that by the opposition is most interesting indeed.
I regret that I probably will not be able to hear every comment of every member speaking in this debate. I assure hon. members that the general theme and thrust of it is very

February 2, 1978
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close to my portfolio and responsibility, and is of great interest to me. I will read Hansard for any comments by members that I may miss as a result of a few minutes' absence from the House.
So far, I am a little bit disappointed in the lack of specific suggestions by the Leader of the Opposition, the New Democratic Party and, indeed, the Social Credit party. Perhaps I should have a little patience. Maybe in the course of debate there will be something we can get our teeth into.


Mr. Crouse:: Mr. Speaker, before the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) resumes his seat, I wonder if he would accept a question.


Robert Knight Andras: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: When the President of the Treasury Board referred to the speech made by W. Earle McLaughlin, chairman and chief executive officer of the Royal Bank of Canada, it was fortuitous that I was reading the same speech. The title of the speech is "There is a Bright Side". The minister quoted from page 1. I flip over to page 2, and there I read as follows:
Now I must admit that 1978 is not shaping up as the greatest year in economic terms. We will be fortunate to achieve real growth of more than 3lA or 4 per cent. However, inflation-that corrosive cancer on the market system- will continue at an unacceptable level. That is simply intolerable. Nothing will destroy investment, growth prospects, or rising living standards faster than continuing inflation.
Does the President of the Treasury Board agree with those remarks by Mr. McLaughlin?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree that inflation is insidious and has to be fought.


Walter David Baker: Like the government.


Robert Knight Andras: By every government, and all institutions in the private sectors, unions and so on. I have no disagreement fundamentally, but those two or three comments really do not indicate what the Leader of the Opposition was saying about gloom and doom, that investment is leaving the country and everything has gone to hell. That does not relate to the more optimistic observation of the Chairman of the Royal Bank.


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, there are only one or two observations that can be made with regard to the intervention of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras). One thing was obvious to anyone here this afternoon, or to anyone who has been following the activities of this government in recent years. The minister spend 20 minutes, more or less, making his comments, but like his tired and weary colleagues, he failed to say anything concrete.
The minister's intervention was tired, almost apologetic. It is not acceptable to the people of this country. The sooner they wake up and realize that, the better they will be.
Following the return of those on this great cross country tour to promote policy sessions of the government and the Liberal party, I hope the President of the Treasury Board will

heed the advice of the hon. member for Scarborough East (Mr. O'Connell) and the president of his party, the distinguished Senator from Nova Scotia. They have suggested that one current theme is that this government is too big, that it must be reduced in size.
With regard to my colleagues to the left, their interest and concern in the subject matter of the motion are such that they did not even bother to deal with it this afternoon.
I intend to follow very closely on the suggestion put forward by my leader with regard to "sunset laws". One particular aspect of it requires our wholehearted concern.
It has been indicated that this government has grown at an alarming rate in recent years. Governments, agencies and departments grow. They do not have a natural life. They do not come to an end. We have no mechanism or capacity to determine whether their programs continue to be justified, or whether they should be amended to bring them more into line with the purposes and requirements of the present time. In fact most of them seem to acquire a life of their own. They grow on themselves.
My leader has suggested a unique and promising approach, an approach by way of "sunset laws" which is currently being used in the United States-the Congress is actively considering it along with about 24 of the states. The concept involves the setting of fixed dates for the termination of programs in order to bring about a full-scale review and oblige a decision to be made one way or another. If the agencies and programs concerned are serving the purpose for which they were created, their operations could be extended by a positive resolution. If they were deemed to be no longer useful or necessary they could be modified or allowed to lapse.
"Sunset legislation" is only one method by which legislatures can assess the effectiveness of their past endeavours and eliminate programs which are ineffective or unnecessary, while undertaking new initiatives suited to the times and circumstances. It is only one way of revising priorities and allocating scarce dollars and human resources in a manner more consistent with the need.
There appear to be three measures central to the concept. First, there is provision for a mandatory review. Legislation would contain a termination provision under which the House would be obliged to reconsider and reorganize programs, in default of which they would terminate. This places the onus on supporters of programs to justify their continued existence rather than requiring opponents of programs to put forward reasons for their discontinuance.
The second approach is through a budgetary process. The legislation tends to focus on the funding of a program or agency rather than on the act establishing it. The "sunset" provision terminates the funding authority, leaving the laws and regulations unaffected. Thus a program can be re-established or continued without the need to create new legislation.
February 2, 1978

The third principle involves broadbased evaluation. The mandatory evaluation of a program or agency should take place, we suggest, in the broadest possible context, that is, in context with all other programs or agencies of a similar function. This would ensure that overlapping programs or duplication of services are identified and eliminated. It should be pointed out that the termination clause inherent in any "sunset" legislation is only the mechanism which obliges a review or re-evaluation process to take place. In no way does it imply that agencies or programs listed should be terminated; only that they will be terminated if the statutory review does not take place.
The major ingredients which would make for effective legislation include time-limited budgetary authority, classification of programs and agencies, a program review schedule, definition of review process and responsibilities, evaluation criteria, and a termination process. These elements should be clearly defined within the legislation to ensure that the legislating body understands its responsibilities.
It is not my custom to refer to the specific details of proposals we are putting forward, but on this occasion I believe I should go into somewhat greater detail than usual with respect to the positive steps which we believe could be taken by the government, and which would be taken by us when we form the government, to curtail and bring into line some of the programs and agencies which have been in operation for years and years without review. With this in mind, I turn to a draft bill which I have before me. It will not be necessary for me to read the preamble because my leader has placed its purpose clearly on record. As a short title, the legislation may be cited as the "Canada Sunset Act, 1978." I shall not read the definition clause because it follows the usual pattern. Thereafter, the act would read: [DOT]
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(7) Notwithstanding anything in this Section, every Federal Body that exists at the time this Act comes into force is deemed to terminate not later than eight years after this Act comes into force.
Continuance of Federal Bodies
5. (1) A Federal Body shall not terminate pursuant to this Act where the House of Commons, after considering a committee's report upon such a Federal Body, resolves that it is in the best interests of the public to continue such Federal Body.
(2)	For the purposes of this Section, a motion to continue a Federal Body under review shall be debated for no longer than five hours at the end of which time such motion shall be decided forthwith without debate or amendment. Where a Federal Body terminates, the House of Commons may resolve after considering committee report to re-establish such body.
Re-examination 6. Subject to Section 5, where the House of Commons has resolved to continue a Federal Body, that Body shall terminate eight years after that resolution.
Review Process
Purpose of Committee Report
Committee's
report
7.	A committee shall assess the public need for the continuation of a Federal Body under review, and shall table its report thereon in the House of Commons before the termination date of that Federal Body has been reached.
8.	When a committee reviews a Federal Body it shall:
(a)	Examine the reasons why the Federal Body under review was established and identify that Body's objectives and mandate:
(b)	Assess the degree to which the Federal Body has
(i)	achieved its objectives and fulfilled its mandate;
(ii)	established or been subject to policies, such as but not limited to regulations and standards that are consistent with its objectives and mandate; and
(iii)	promote public participation in its decision-making process;
(c)	assess any alternative methods of achieving the objectives and fulfilling the mandate of the Federal Body that may be more effective or more economical;
Part II
Termination
New	3. (1) Subject to Section 5 of this Act, every Federal Body
Federal	established after this Act comes into force shall terminate eight
Bodies	years after such Federal Body is established.
(2)	Notwithstanding subsection one, the Governor in Council may, by regulation subject to affirmative resolution of the House of Commons, designate a termination date to occur before eight years after such Federal Body is established.
Existing	4. (1) Subject to Section 5, every Federal Body enumerated in
Federal	Schedule 1 of this Act shall terminate on October 31, 1980.
Bodies	(2) Subject to Section 5, every Federal Body enumerated in
Schedule II of this Act shall terminate on October 31, 1982.
(3)	Subject to Section 5, every Federal Body enumerated in Schedule III of this Act shall terminate on October 31 1984.
(4)	Subject to Section 5, every Federal Body enumerated in Schedule IV of this act shall terminate on October 31, 1986.
(5)	Where a Federal Body that exists at the time this Act comes into force is not referred to in any of the Schedules of this Act, subject to affirmative resolution of the House of Commons, the Governor in Council may, by regulation, provide for a termination date for such Federal Body.
(6)	For the purposes of Subsections (1) and (5), subject to affirmative resolution of the House of Commons, the Governor in Council may, by regulation, change the termination date of a Federal Body.
(d)	analyse the impact of
(i)	terminating the Federal Body;
(ii)	continuing the Federal Body at its current level of
activity;
(iii)	reducing the Federal Body's level of activity;
(iv)	increasing the Federal body's level of activity; and
(e)	provide a statement including the number of and classifications of beneficiaries served by the Federal Body.
I am quoting from the draft bill in order to indicate the process of review which is necessary, and to reassure hon. members opposite, as well as the minister, that we have given some thought to this. In fact we are concerned enough to bring the matter before the House this afternoon. Again I should like to quote from the draft bill we hope to introduce very soon. It continues:
9.	The Auditor General of Canada shall make such examinations of a Federal Body that would enable him to fulfil his duties as provided for in the Auditor General Act, and shall submit his report to the Speaker of the House of Commons within a reasonable time before the Federal Body's termination date and the Speaker of the House of Commons shall lay each such report

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before the House of Commons forthwith after receipt thereof by him or, if that House is not then sitting, on the first day next thereafter that the House of Commons is sitting.
10.	In reviewing a Federal Body a committee may
(a)	consider the Auditor General's report referred to in Section 9;
(b)	receive and consider written representations from the public;
(c)	conduct public hearings; or
(d)	receive reports and recommendations from officials of the Federal Body under review.
Part IV
Effect of 11. Where a Federal Body is terminated pursuant to this Act no Termination payment shall be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of operating such a body, and the Governor General shall not sign a warrant prepared on the order of the Governor in Council pursuant to Section 21 of the Financial Administration Act.
12.	When a Federal Body terminates pursuant to this Act it shall be afforded a reasonable period of time to conclude its operations and to wind up its affairs.
13.	(1) The termination of a Federal Body pursuant to this Act shall not in any way abrogate, abridge or diminish the right of a person to any legal remedy to which he may be entitled.
(2) This Act is binding on Her Majesty in the right of Canada.
Commence- 14. This Act shall come into force on a day to be fixed by ment	proclamation.
The course which I have followed today is somewhat unusual. Since coming to the Chamber, I cannot remember an occasion where a private member, backbencher or opposition member, read the contents of a proposed bill which his party hoped to put forward in a very positive and real fashion so that it would be considered before the House.
The review process must take place in the House of Commons, rather than in an existing or yet to be established agency. The main purpose is to force parliament to re-examine its past decision-making and reaffirm its priorities. This is the job of politicians, not public servants. It has been suggested that the review process take place within standing committees, and that the decision to extend the life of an agency be made by a positive resolution of the House.
There may be some confusion as to exactly what "sunset" legislation is all about. The fact that 20 or 40 government agencies may be scheduled for termination over the next eight years in no way implies that these agencies will be terminated' or that they are not useful. It is only the mechanism to ensure that the goals and activities of these agencies are in fact re-evaluated by politicians in light of the needs, ambitions, hopes and priorities of Canadians. Pressure groups need to be made aware that "sunset" legislation probably will help them in their function and will in fact act in their best interests, as it will give them an opportunity on a regular basis to review and update the departments and agencies they support.
Government complexity and unaccountability has become an increasingly critical problem. Basic questions about the relationship between people and their government need to be asked, and "sunset" legislation provides a practical step which could result in one promising answer. 1 commend it to hon. members in the hope, at the end of the debate later this evening, the government might see fit to support this matter as

a practical measure, or at least refer it to the appropriate standing committee in order for it to receive the type of in-House examination such a proposal demands. As well, I commend it to individual groups outside of parliament, and I commend it to the House.
I congratulate my leader for the foresight and concern he displayed in proposing this motion not only to the House but, more important, to the people of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Thomas H. Lefebvre (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the speeches made by the hon. members who have preceded me. The motion put forward by the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) is far-reaching. I will confine my remarks to the section which deals with Crown corporations.
The Crown corporations which are in existence were established to satisfy needs in our society, things which are highly desirable but would not be undertaken by the private sector at all or to the extent required by Canadians. I expect it would be difficult to interest someone in the private sector in acquiring some of these corporations which, because of special requirements, such as the provision of broadcasting services in isolated areas by the CBC, require financing by the government. Likewise, the Canadian public may not be prepared to see the profitable ones turned over to the private sector, especially if this affected the level or universality of service provided.
Surely the opposition is not suggesting that we should be discontinuing such Crown corporations as the Export Development Corporation, which is a vital component in the development of our economy; the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which was referred to by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) and which is in the business of providing accommodation to our lower income population, the aged and others; or the Farm Credit Corporation, which is assisting our agricultural community to produce the necessary food and other items so vital to our well-being.
Surely the proper perspective on Crown corporations would be to continue to create, modify, or dispose of them in relation to the needs of the Canadian people. They are not and have not been created for their own sake, nor should they be altered or eliminated capriciously. An example of sound reasoning for the creation of corporations was the acquisition of several aircraft companies, notably Canadair and de Havilland, for the purpose of rationalizing the Canadian aircraft industry. I am sure the opposition would not quarrel with this type of action which was required for the economy and to protect the Canadian aircraft industry. It is still the intention that these revert to the private sector once they have been completely rationalized.
The government is always reviewing these operations, and in this connection may I point out that during the past few years it has reviewed the need for corporations, their direction and control, as well as their accountability. When completed, this
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will result in the updating of the Financial Administration Act to provide a much clearer mandate.
The establishment of a committee, as proposed, would either duplicate the work already done or set aside the well established roles of committees already in place. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts-which is, by the way, ably chaired by a member of the official opposition, the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington)- has just completed five meetings in a row on management and control practices of Crown corporations, following a study on Crown corporations entitled, "Direction, Control and Accountability", made public by the government last summer, which was under the direction of the Privy Council. The Auditor General brought people from his own staff to these meetings and also people from private firms who had been involved in the study that he had carried out, independently of this government's own study.
The deliberations of the Public Accounts Committee are to be found in the committee's reports, issues Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, beginning on December 8 last. I would commend them to any member interested in the ongoing study by government and committees of this House of the affairs of Canada's Crown corporations.
I believe it became obvious at these hearings-and I took part in them-that the government shares the concern of the Auditor General and other members of this House that there must be controls on Crown corporations with regard to the direction they are taking. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board announced, on December 16 last, guidelines for Crown corporations. I would like to cite some passages from this document. I believe they are worth repeating.

It is expressly forbidden for crown corporations to render or accept any bribe or other improper benefit or apply improper influence in the conduct of their business. The guidelines released by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) also imposed on Crown corporations certain obligations when retaining sales and procurement agents.
They must adopt an established selection process to ensure that the agent's qualifications for the work are clearly established and evaluated; negotiate formally written agency agreements including specific undertakings by the agents to act in accordance with the laws of the place where the transaction occurs; establish a procedure for approval of agency agreements; ensure that remuneration under the agreements is based on justifiable and sound business practice, and that payments are strictly in accordance with the formal written agreement; disclose in their annual reports the names of their agents, as well as the aggregate of all remuneration paid to such agents, and any approved administrative exception for the policy and the reasons therefor.
Mr. Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board also wanted to emphasize that rigorous ethical standards and dedication to propriety can sometimes be expensive. What I am really saying today, the minister said on December 16, is that,
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while we Canadians need and want to expand our foreign trade, we are not prepared to sell our goods and services on any terms or under any conditions. Principles, just as commodities, can be expensive. We Canadians must be fully aware of the price we must pay to live by our principles, to be the kind of people we want to be and to maintain the kind of society we want to have.
It is clear enough, Mr. Speaker, that the government is aware that Crown corporations must be made accountable for their actions to the government and parliament. The guidelines released by the President of the Treasury Board and the new steps that were announced to ensure that all officials within those corporations are well aware that the new measures that were announced are going to be of great help in giving the people of Canada confidence that Crown corporations not only represent the government of Canada well but also properly carry out the terms of reference they were given by this Parliament.

I feel confident that these guidelines, coupled with the findings of the government study and the Public Accounts Committee's work with the Auditor General and representatives of the Treasury Board and Privy Council, will result in the changes in accountability that the Canadian people and parliament expect, require, and deserve.
The Privy Council study mentions in its introduction on page 7 the following concerns:
To what extent should crown corporations be used as instruments of public policy when the pursuit of policy objectives may detract from the financial performance of such corporations? How can increased responsiveness to public policy be reconciled with the arm's-length relationship which the theory of public enterprise requires government, ministers and parliament to maintain with crown corporations?
There has always been concern in this country when crown corporations are set up. Right from the beginning, it was quite apparent that parliament wanted to make sure that there would be no political finagling in the day-to-day operations of Crown corporations. This is a concern which must be reconciled with the concern that the taxpayers' money be well spent and that there be adequate controls on the administrators of these Crown corporations so that they are in effect responsible to parliament, on behalf of the Canadian people.
The arm's length relationship is very important in the minds of many, and indeed will require a great deal of thought and review before changes are made so that there is a consistency and clarity in the relationship between the corporation, the ministry, and parliament. There is no doubt that the present government has shown great interest and concern in the wide field of public spending and accountability. The Auditor General's office has been strengthened both by the new legislation and by the increase in budget that allows him a greater freedom, and also very important, more personnel to enable him to carry out his work on behalf of the taxpayers of Canada. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General has stated in committee that he is completely satisfied with the co-operation he has received from this government and the various departments. It is also worth mentioning that the Lambert

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Commission is another proof of this government's ongoing concern with this subject. I am certain that this Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability will bring forth many proposals of interest and importance in its report.
No, Mr. Speaker, this motion cannot be supported. It is too vague and does not take into account the changes and proposals already put into motion by this responsible government.
I hope hon. members who missed the remarks of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) will read them in Hansard. He pointed out that over 50 per cent of the budget of this government is made up of moneys which are transferred either to people directly or to provincial governments. In other words, the day the minister lays down the estimates 50 per cent of the funds are already committed to ongoing programs. I am sure no one in this parliament would want the government to renege on agreements which have been duly signed and officially made part of the agreement between the federal government and the provinces.
I and many others are looking forward to the time when the government appoints a person who is willing and able to accept the position of comptroller general. That office will provide safeguards for the taxpayers of Canada. The person must be a highly placed and capable individual whose integrity deserves respect. If he is a person like the present Auditor General, the secretary deputies of the Treasury Board or others who are in this work now, I am sure we will indeed be assured that money paid into public coffers is properly spent.
I am sure that this government will continue its work and will see that it is done with honesty, integrity and with a view to making sure that Canadian taxpayers get all that is due them in return for their hard earned tax dollars.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Halton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add to the comments already made. I am sorry that the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) is not here; I understand that he has some urgent matters to attend to. I want to reflect for a moment on his remarks today. Many of us on this side appreciate the difficulty he has in trying to get a handle on government expenditures. At one time in my business career I had the task of changing the loss position of certain companies into a profit position. I can appreciate that department heads as well as employees do not have all the solutions. If they had, certain departments and companies would not be in the position they are now. A tough line really has to be taken. Surgery is required. I think the current view of those charged with these responsibilities in other jurisdictions is that 1 per cent or 2 per cent per year is really not effective control at all.
I want to address myself specifically to deregulation. If I tend to be a little partisan in my remarks, I apologize. I think, however, that that is very normal in the atmosphere in which we work. We are partisan. I mean no offence to any individual. I will speak in generalities in this regard. There is a great deal
of interest in the concept of deregulation of government statutes. The interest in Canada arises for several reasons. One is the style of government we have had for the past decade. We have a neighbour to the south which speaks the same language as about 80 per cent of the people of Canada, and in many instances we tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to much of its legislation. We know that the United States is well down the road to the deregulation of some of its statutes.
A further reason for interest in deregulation is the fact that we have had one-party rule in this country for 40 of the past 52 years, and many of the programs and much of the process of legislation have become entrenched and accepted as if written in stone, never to be challenged. Rather than the government's responding to the requirements of the economy and of the people of Canada, we find the people of Canada reacting to programs put in place by a bureaucracy which we feel is out of touch with reality.
I want to examine each of these points and put some examples beside them. However, let me say at the outset that we have in the public service of Canada many thousands of dedicated public servants who know this country is in desperate straits. They know it, and they are concerned. When I make reference to bureaucratic bungling and game-playing, I am not referring to the thousands of dedicated public servants who truly want to serve Canada, who are concerned about our national plight and who want to see the country put back on course.
When I refer to the style and structure of the present government I refer to the way the rules of this House and the committee system of this House have been perverted to serve the ends of the Liberal party. I say with the deepest respect that we are not really performing the function we were elected to perform when we are in this House. We have an appointed Senate which is stacked politically. It is in fact a rubber stamp for the government.
The House of Commons is stripped of its power to control government spending because of rule changes put in place by the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in 1967 and 1968. Indeed, the House of Commons is so sterile that in one of his emotional fits the Prime Minister was moved to say, 50 yards from Parliament Hill, that members of this House are nobodies. We all remember that remark. This loose structure carries through to the committees of the House where, with the exception, perhaps, of the public accounts committee, by and large a charade is played with the legislation placed before them.
Most substantive legislation brought before this House has a structure which pushes it beyond the reach of parliament forever once it has passed all stages. The structure can be recognized by the following observations. A typical bill states that the governor in council shall make regulations as required, that regulations will be attached thereto upon proclamation and that regulations may be changed by the governor in council from time to time as required. Once that process is completed the governor in council moves in with staff require-

February 2, 1978

merits. Senior appointments are made, salaries and expenses are set and tenure of office is determined-all by the governor in council.
I feel that that process has become a way of life for this government. There is a proliferation of boards, commissions and tribunals, staffed mainly by political hacks rewarded for past political favours. The power of the boards, commissions and tribunals originates with the governor in council. It flows from the cabinet and back to the cabinet. The existence of a board is at the pleasure of the governor in council. Its funding and appointments are at the pleasure of the governor in council.
There must be a relationship between the number of consultants employed by the government and lack of experience on boards and commissions. It seems that if you have a problem or a tough decision or if you are in conflict with career public servants over a matter you are considering, the solution is to put the matter out to a consultant for study.
The citizens of Canada through their elected representatives have lost control of the spending of this government, as the Auditor General said in several of his reports; citizens increasingly find themselves controlled by the government. In its drive to legislate a controlled society and remove the uncertainty from life this government has fettered the average Canadian with rules, regulations and compulsory programs to such a degree that his individual freedom has been substantially reduced and is under perpetual threat. An example of the heavy hand of regulations is the current undertaking to compile existing regulations. In raw form these regulations cover over 12,000 sheets of computer printout, and when printed they will consist of 15 volumes of 800 pages each. In other words, these regulations are considerably more weighty than the consolidated Statutes of Canada. I think it is a fair comment that the existing regulations are estimated to cost the people of Canada about $6 billion annually.
I believe the fact that we have spent 40 of the last 52 years under one political party has led to entrenchment of a level of bureaucratic regulation that is moving us away from the rule of law and deeper into administrative law.
Through the process I have described where parliament passes legislation that has regulations attached to it by the bureaucracy through the governor in council upon proclamation, we place in operation regulations that have the force of statutes designed by nameless, faceless bureaucrats who are not elected and who answer only to the governor in council. They are not responsible to the people or to parliament through this imperfect process we knowingly deal with every day. We knowingly pass unconstitutional law and attach to that law equally unconstitutional regulations. It is only when some citizen has sufficient financial resources to hire legal counsel to challenge such law that we change the regulations.
But aside from the legislative approach to regulations, I am concerned about the human side. I am concerned when business people tell me that because of the heavy hand of regulations they are not going to expand their factory. Many people
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have made representations to me and expressed fear of reprisals from bureaucrats in the Departments of Finance, Industry, Trade and Commerce, Consumer and Corporate Affairs and National Revenue if they rock the boat or make too much noise about certain regulations that are rumoured to go in place or are in place. They fear an appearance before a board or commission. A corporation which appeared before one of our standing committees last year told us that each appearance before a particular board of this government cost them $1 million. They claimed that the fastest growing department of their business was the legal department and that government regulations cost the corporation $21 million per year.
I have also noticed the timid approach some national associations take to proposed legislation. The views they express privately differ vastly, in many instances, from those expressed in a brief. Why is this? When you question them closely they seem to fear the heavy hand of government which may change taxation or tariffs or put in place some new reporting procedure that will cause difficulties and be an added burden for their members, so they modify their remarks.
The process of deregulation is as complicated as the process of putting regulations in place in the first instance. It must be an ongoing function and the Parliament of Canada must be involved.
As a start, let me suggest that, starting now, all legislation put to this parliament should have the regulations attached at the time the bill is given first reading. The regulations should be debated with the bill. At committee the regulations should be dealt with along with the legislation itself. When we pass the legislation, we pass the regulations at the same time.
There should be established immediately a committee of the House of Commons similar to the public accounts committee to look into and recommend changes in regulations already in place. I know that a great deal of work has been done in this area but I think if we had a committee of that type we would begin to grapple with the regulations we have now. This committee should have a staff of legal, economic and accounting advisers. The committee should report on the economic impact of regulations on our society and on the economy and recommend changes. It should be a permanent committee that reports to the House of Commons and the government should be required to act on the recommendations put before the House within a specified number of days.
I want to deal now, Mr. Speaker, with some examples of regulations that I have encountered. All western governments recognize that governments have grown too large and that in many instances regulations are inhibiting economic activity. In my business experience, both with companies I have been involved with personally and those that I have endeavoured to assist, I have run up against regulations that are just deplorable. It is a difficult thing for a businessman struggling with our economy to have an employee of Statistics Canada, for example, telephone him and demand that a certain form be completed or a fine of $250 per day will be levied if this is not done forthwith.

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Many years ago in my own business we had to decide whether to deal with government forms or do business and try to make a profit. I devised a very simple system, Mr. Speaker. All the government forms that came in were sorted into two piles, one for Statistics Canada and the other for the tax department. Recognizing that if I did not pay my taxes I would have some difficulties, I had my accountant look after the tax forms. For the other forms, however, I bought a large rubber stamp which said "not applicable". I bought a red stamp pad and stamped all the Statistics Canada forms "not applicable", put them in the envelopes and sent them back. I received a form letter from Statistics Canada referring to form No. such and such which was "not applicable" according to the words written in the relevant part. There was a squiggly signature which looked like something out of the Arabic alphabet. The next time a form came in we just stamped it "not applicable" and sent it back. A strange thing happened Mr. Speaker-government forms were cut by 40 per cent. That allowed me to earn a profit that year and to pay some taxes.
Another example I should like to give is the income tax form. I can remember when that form was about the size of a No. 10 envelope and was very simple. Today it is in four or five colours and comes with a manual. The television carries cartoons telling us how easy the form is to fill in, seminars are held on the subject and there is a proliferation of companies in the income tax business which make a profit out of filling out a government form. Surely that is an indication that the growth of regulations and forms is out of control. I am sure that if we asked the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Guay) if the tax form could be simplified he would reply that the government are studying it. Every minister studies it, Mr. Speaker. This is a serious matter and we must deal with it.
I am also concerned about definitions. The language of regulations is weird and wonderful. For instance, the auto pact carries a definition of a motor vehicle. It is described as a vehicle having an engine, wheels, tires and so on that can travel on the highway. Then the body that fits on to a motor vehicle is described and "for the purposes of the act" that body, which has no motor or wheels, is a "motor vehicle". This language is twisted around for the purposes of the act and oranges and apples and grapes become bananas. This is the sort of thing we have to deal with in regulations. I have travelled this country from coast to coast on business and regulations that are applied in Vancouver have a different interpretation in Montreal.
As we look into this process, we find this is one of the great things inhibiting the economy of Canada at this time, and we will have to deal with it sooner or later. I believe there is no better way to deal with this matter than for the parliament of this country to do so through a committee or through a standing committee structure, along the lines of the public accounts committee. We have the competence to deal with it, and I certainly know we have the interest to deal with it

because of the serious plight our economy is in and the high level of unemployment that we face at this time.
I would mention one other thing, Mr. Speaker. When you run a business you gather up a lot of letters, forms and records. If you ask someone in the federal government how long you should keep your business records and which business records you should keep, you cannot get an answer. I sometimes wonder whether somebody in the government, maybe some member, has some shares or stock in a company which manufactures filing cabinets. There is hardly a business in operation which is not overloaded with filing cabinets full of dead records. We have spawned a whole industry microfilming these records just to try to comply with government regulations.
The customs forms that we use for importing goods into Canada state "Subject to review". Every customs entry is subject to review. Look at the difficulty that creates from a businessman's point of view when he is required to certify the profit that he has made and he knows that perhaps $1 million of it is subject to review. There is no limitation to it. There is no statute of limitations. As we go through this whole process of regulating, which I hope we will review in the near future, I hope that we will follow this suggestion that we have made and look very carefully into these things. We should involve the members of parliament in this process so that they can respond to their constituents who come to them with very real problems concerning government regulations and the interpretation of those regulations. We should try to get rid of some of the tyranny that is placed on the business community by some of the bureaucrats that we must deal with.
1 can say no more at this time other than to ask the President of the Treasury Board to consider again the remarks made by my colleagues and those that will follow. We are very sincere in the motion that we have put forward and we do want to see things turned about in this country. We do not like to see the economy travelling in the direction it is. We do not take any pleasure in the negative attitude that we see in some parts of Canada.
Indeed, in my own business I was so struck by the negative attitude of my own directors that I caused them to approve an addition to my little factory because I came to the conclusion that there was no better time to build than right now when construction prices could be had at such a reasonable level.
We are genuinely concerned about where this country is going, to the extent that we put our motion forward and we ask you to consider it seriously.



ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable House in the Chamber of the honourable the Senate.
February 2, 1978
[Stage Direction]
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate Chamber.
And being returned:
Mr. Speaker informed the House that the Deputy Governor General had been pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:
Bill C-23, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and to establish the Employment Tax Credit Program-Chapter No. 4.
Bill C-3, An Act respecting the reorganization of Air Canada-Chapter No. 5.
Mr. Speaker:: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6.07 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Clark:
That in the opinion of this House it is essential to the economic well-being and good government of Canada that action be taken to reduce the scope and rationalize the role of government activity in Canadian society by reducing the share of the national wealth currently consumed by government, and to this end that a special committee be struck before February 28, 1978 to consider:
(1)	the enactment of "sunset laws" to provide for the termination of programs or agencies which have outlived their usefulness;
(2)	methods to limit the growing and undemocratic use of regulations;
(3)	the criteria by which the government would divest itself of those crown corporations which play no useful role in the public sector;
(4)	the adaptation of new flexible budget planning techniques to discourage unnecessary growth in departmental budgets.
Mr. Lloyd Francis (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, the motion we are debating this evening has four main thrusts. It has reference to the need to reduce the scope of government activity in Canadian society and to rationalize its role by reducing the share of the national wealth currently consumed by government. It refers to "sunset laws" to terminate programs and agencies which have outlived their usefulness. It refers to ways of eliminating the growing and undemocratic use of regulations and, presumably, other statutory instruments. Finally, it refers to Crown corporations and ways of
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getting rid of those which are of no further use and whose activities might better be carried on by the private sector and to more flexible budget planning.
No one can object to any of these objectives. But the motion would create a special committee to study all these matters and the question in my mind is whether a reference to a committee would really be the most effective way of achieving these objectives.
This afternoon the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) dealt with the general issue of government expenditures. He pointed out that provincial and municipal governments have increased their expenditures at an even greater rate than the federal government has; the sector we are considering, the federal government, now spends a diminishing portion of the national income from year to year. Nevertheless, all of us, regardless of the party to which we belong, are concerned about the objective advanced here, because it is basic.
There is a great deal of current mythology implicit in the motion. Hon. members advocate "sunset laws" to get rid of agencies or programs which have outlived their usefulness. Mr. Speaker, there is not a day of the week on which I do not interview people in my office whose services are redundant because the programs upon which they were working have been terminated. A determined effort is currently under way to review all government expenditures and bring about a measure of economy in the public interest.
When hon. gentlemen opposite were in power-it does not seem so long ago-they named a body to look into government organization, the Glassco Commission, whose terms of reference followed generally along the lines of the motion before us. The commission made a series of recommendations. The sum total of their philosophy was this: government was too big, too bureaucratic, too cumbersome; expenditures were controlled by Treasury Board with too heavy a hand under a Comptroller of the Treasury and all applications for employment were carefully funneled through the bureaucratic institution called the Public Service Commission. The Glassco commission said: let the deputy ministers manage things; let them be responsible; get rid of the heavy-handed apparatus of control and in this way we shall achieve efficiency.
Well, Mr. Speaker, we know what happened. The Glassco recommendations were accepted in many instances and the result was not an improvement in government efficiency. Indeed, the upshot was the situation which the Auditor General called to our attention in his 1976 report. When the office of comptroller general was abolished the mechanisms designed to check government expenditure were removed; the financial control officers and the financial control manuals were not in place. Now the wheel has turned again. Under pressure from the Auditor General the government is restoring the office of comptroller general. The terms of reference have been changed and his functions are somewhat different, but from where I sit as a layman it all has a familiar ring. After all these years we are coming back closer to the machinery with which we started.

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On the employment side the deputy ministers were given authority to do their own hiring. They did their own spending and their own hiring. We are presently conducting an investigation to ascertain the effect. How many violations of the Public Service Employment Act were revealed in the audit by the Public Service Commission of some 6,000 appointments in 1974? Something like one-third of them were in violation of the act. I am not citing these examples to suggest that the process of constantly seeking new ways of doing things is without purpose. It does have a purpose. What I am suggesting is that there is no need to create another special committee to study these things because, in my opinion, it would not make a significant contribution. Turning to the second paragraph of the motion, it reads as follows:
methods to limit the growing and undemocratic use of regulations;
I do not like the use of regulations where it should be possible to legislate, but I do not know how we can escape it. The House cannot deal with the legislative priorities which are placed before it now. The measures the government places before the House in any particular session do not receive orderly and prompt consideration in the management of House business because of the archaic rules under which we operate. The more the presentation of legislation is thwarted, the more there will be pressure to do things by regulation and under statutory instruments which might perhaps be better done in other ways.
There is a joint Standing Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments of the House and the Senate. It has done some very good work. The members of that committee have acted in a non-partisan fashion trying to come to grips with this problem of what is happening in the multiplication of these instruments. Do hon. members opposite want to create another omnibus special committee to look at these and duplicate the work of the Standing Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments? Is that a solution to the problem? Hon. members should become involved in that committee, participate in its affairs, and allow that committee to come to grips with the problem. It is a very real problem; I do not wish to minimize it.
Turning to the third paragraph, it reads as follows:
the criteria by which the government would divest itself of those Crown corporations which play no useful role in the public sector;


Mr. Friesen:: Just like the NCC.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: I suggest that is a simplistic view of the problem. As a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, I participated, along with many other hon. members, in the review of two Crown corporations which gave us cause for concern: Polysar and Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd. If I may be so bold as to say, the problem is not that they should never have been Crown corporations. The problem is caused by evolution, growth, change in function and responsibility of these Crown corporations, without the corresponding surveillance that they should have received. Atomic Energy of

Canada, Ltd. began its life as a research organization created by order in council in wartime. It was very necessary. For many years its function continued in that capacity. It expanded into the use of radioactive isotopes and radioactive cobalt for the treatment of cancer. It developed a health division.
Then this Crown corporation came into an entirely new age: the development of atomic energy and nuclear reactors. This transformed a small research-oriented Crown corporation into a multibillion dollar, multinational corporation almost overnight. It was in the business of selling atomic reactors abroad at a price of $400 million each and up.
A technology was developed in Canada of which we were justly proud. It was one of the outstanding achievements of Canadian science and engineering. I am referring to our heavy-water cooled, natural uranium without enrichment CANDU reactor. As part of the development of that reactor, the responsible Crown corporation had to envisage a program. The acceptance by Ontario Hydro and domestic consumers was readily obtained in the beginning. In order to produce reactors of the necessary size and scale, there had to be a regular production schedule established. There were gaps in that schedule for the marketing of those reactors. The corporation undertook a program of aggressive sales abroad. Because of its insufficient resources, marketing skills, management skills, experience in sales and contract negotiations, the corporation was not equipped for the task it was called upon to do. Competitors abroad were very well equipped. In the United States Westinghouse knew the business backwards and forwards. When AECL was reaching a point of going into sales in some parts of the world, there was a question of what was necessary to gain acceptance of the product. There was a strong suspicion, in the case of one or two sales, that irregular payments may have been made to influence the governments of the purchasing countries.
Having broken through by the use of agents and the payment of large commissions, which were not substantiated by accurate documentation, the Crown corporation did something which was absolutely unforgiveable according to our scales: it lost a lot of money in its Argentine sale. The process of growth and development of a Crown corporation attracted public attention when it lost money. That is when the matter became serious, and that is when it brought headlines.
The problem of Crown corporations is not whether we should have them or not. That is what the third item of the motion suggests: ". . . Crown corporations which play no useful role in the public sector." If a committee restricted itself to these terms of reference for a long period of time, it would come up with exactly nothing in the way of findings. One could find a reason for every Crown corporation. If a person restricted himself to these terms of reference, he would miss the real problems which the Crown corporations had to face as a result of a change in their nature, function, status and the scale of which they were doing business.
In his 1976 report the Auditor General made some very blunt points, and the government has reacted. A very interesting document was prepared by the Privy Council and made
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public last year. It indicated the policy the government is considering and what it is going to do in order to tighten up this whole field. That is long overdue, Mr. Speaker.
What are hon. members opposite going to achieve by creating a special committee which will look at Crown corporations, among other things? The Auditor General, the special Lambert Royal commission and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts are doing that. The hon. members who participated in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts would agree that it was generally a non-partisan committee whose members, regardless of political party, were anxious to do the right thing in terms of coming to grips with the areas where it was necessary to bring about a greater economy in the use of public resources.
It was a bit of a joke in that committee that we never knew how many Crown corporations there were. The number kept expanding. When the representative of the Treasury Board came in, the first question asked of him day after day was: "Have you found any more Crown corporations since the last time?" Well, there is now a comprehensive list. It is a good joke, but the problem lay in the fact that many Crown corporations had incorporated subsidiaries and the incorporated subsidiaries may or may not have been active. In many cases they were dormant, and were added to the list, and properly so. The most significant and active Crown corporations, I am happy to report, were discovered some time ago and were documented.
The process of review, I submit, has to be done by this parliament through its committees. We will have an occasion to do so when the Financial Administration Act is revised, which the government intends doing in the very near future. The revision of that act will establish a framework for reexamining government policy with regard to Crown corporations. It is a far greater problem than deciding whether or not we should have a Crown corporation. The problem is to make sure the proper resources are at the disposal of the Crown corporation; that there is a periodic review in response to some instrument of the democratic government of Canada; that guidelines are issued and followed concerning the ethics which will guide that public corporation in its expenditure of what are, after all, public funds; and last but not least, to make sure that at every point the basic question is asked: Are we getting value for our money? Are we getting good use of our resources? Are we in effect doing those things which government should be doing? We must admit quite frankly that from time to time the function may well change and that we should get out of the business. When that time comes, it should be possible to make a rational decision.
Mr. Speaker, the last of the arms of this multiple resolution-it has at least these four sides to it-is the adaptation of new flexible budget planning techniques to discourage unnecessary growth in departmental budgets. We are also trying to do this. Treasury Board is doing this, searching from day to day. This is the task for all of us who participate in parliament. The current approach, of course, is to set limits on the
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manpower side. Within the entire public service of Canada, six tenths of one per cent is the total permitted increase of manpower within the current budget year.
Hon. members on the other side are smiling about this, but there is reason to believe that these limits will be observed. If there is any reason to show they are not being observed, it is our task to find out and demonstrate it, not just make a general allegation. I know as an Ottawa member that it is very hard for any young graduate to get a job in the public service today because job opportunities are not there. The restrictions on hiring are there. The restrictions on the budget are there. I know the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) will agree with me because he must be getting as many letters as I am. Positions are being declared redundant. Fathers and mothers come in to me and say that there are just no job opportunities for their children in the public service because of the restrictions that are now in place, the decentralization moves now in effect, and also the adoption of new flexible budget planning techniques to discourage unnecessary growth. The old-fashioned way to limit growth is to say: There is the line; this is the sum that must not be exceeded. This is the established number you can have for personnel; you cannot exceed it.
Within the national capital region today, growth is negative. The growth taking place in the public service is largely outside the national capital region.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: There is no unanimous consent.


Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre):: I have to open my remarks by saying how surprised I am at the negative and unconstructive posture of the speakers opposite. I find this especially surprising in view of the report in yesterday's Ottawa Journal in which the hon. member for Scarborough East (Mr. O'Connell), the chairman of the forthcoming Liberal policy convention and the president of the Liberal party, the senator from Nova Scotia, were reported as saying that, as they returned from their tour across Canada, having talked to the Liberal rank and file, they found that the predominant concern of the Liberal rank and file was the growth and size of government and the necessity to bring this under control.
The motion put forward by my leader today outlines four very responsible initiatives which we believe, if implemented, would accomplish the goal which obviously concerns not just us in the House but, in fact, the rank and file of the Liberal party.
The negative posture taken by spokesmen on the other side is a little hard to understand and reconcile. It shows a lack of

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sensitivity and concern among the rank and file of their own party. The NDP, on the other hand, have reaffirmed what has been a notion of mine for many years, namely that they are without doubt the most reactionary party in the House of Commons and on the national scene.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: Their position is very clear. It is that everything is fine. We should not touch anything. Everything that happened before was absolutely perfect. We should not entertain any radical ideas that are going to affect the status quo.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Your smile is showing on television!


Harvie Andre: The Canadian economy simply cannot sustain the burden of this size of government and still provide jobs and the material well being that Canadians desire and have the right to expect. The fact of the matter is that every responsible economist or economic institution, in putting forward a prescription for the long term economic wellbeing of Canada, has as part of that prescription a reduction in the percentage of national wealth consumed by government. That is one of the reasons that we feel this subject matter is worthy of careful consideration in this House.
The second reason is that our democratic system just cannot cope with the complexity of modern government. I refer members opposite to a speech given by my former leader, the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Stanfield), to the University of Acadia last year as part of the lecture series in which he very skilfully put forth the thesis that in fact, with our complex government of today, the cabinet cannot even control its activities, let alone the House of Commons. So we have a choice. The choice is between parliamentary democracy and more government. If we want to maintain parliamentary democracy in the system that we now have, the system that Canadians want and I am sure Canadians want to maintain parliamentary democracy-then we have no alternative but to look at ways in which we can reduce the scope and nature of government activity.
The third reason is that individual freedom and all-encompassing government are simply of opposite polarity. There is no question that governments have a vital responsibility to protect the individual from some of the nearer potentialities of life; but when governments attempt to remove all uncertainty from life, then individuality-individual freedom-must suffer.
We think a better balance can be drawn. We are not suggesting great cuts in government spending, such as great reductions in spending on social benefits. Indeed, we are not even proposing today any cuts. What we are proposing is to put in place procedures and techniques which will result in selective, refined, proper reductions in the roles and activities of the government, thereby saving the government money, reducing the size of government and, over the long haul, resulting in a more efficient, more effective and more appropriate Government of Canada.
Indeed, in the weeks and months ahead we will undoubtedly be proposing more spending in certain areas, but we recognize that the taxpayers of Canada just cannot be burdened further with additional taxes for these new proposals, which we think are important, and we feel that the place to look for those funds is within current government spending activities. We are absolutely convinced that there is ample room to generate these funds through employment of the techniques we are talking about.
I wonder how many members of the House saw the cartoon in yesterday's Ottawa Journal. It depicted a number of bird watchers with binoculars. They were on a bird counting expedition. The leader of the expedition explained to one of the participants that the reason they were engaging in this seemingly meaningless task was to pre-empt the government from doing it at a cost of million and millions of dollars.
There is more than a modicum of truth in that because three years ago I encountered an old colleague from university days who, working for the Department of the Secretary of State, was in Calgary as part of a national tour. He was visiting all the major centres in Canada, and the purpose of his visit to Calgary, as to all the other major centres in Canada, was to count playgrounds. He had been given the task of touring the country and counting all playgrounds. Over the last decade, started by the Pearson administration and carried on enthusiastically by the Trudeau administration, the federal government has involved itself in a great number of new areas of responsibility which, considered individually, probably were relatively minor and perhaps not significant, but when looked at in totality, the picture is one of a government involved in almost every aspect of human life.
As I indicated earlier, we do not think wholesale across-the-board slashes are the responsible way to approach this problem, but we do believe there are many activities in which the government is currently involved but should not be involved. There are other activities which could be performed better and which could and should be put into the private sector. One of the popular vehicles which has been used by the government to involve itself more and more in the private sector has been that of the Crown corporation.
As was indicated earlier, the government does not even know how many Crown corporations there are. Last May the number was perhaps 366. There were a few others discovered. As of January of this year the number had risen to 387, 21 in seven months or about three a month. Since that report came out a couple of weeks ago, the number now is probably up to 388. How can any rational human being tell me or anyone else that these Crown corporations are performing some vital role in fulfilling public policy when it is not known how many there are? Not knowing how many there are, the government cannot be managing them properly. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that in his 1976 report the Auditor General stated, and I quote:
In the majority of crown corporations audited by the Auditor General, financial management and control is weak and ineffective. Moreover, co-ordination and

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guidance by central government agencies of financial management and control practices in these Crown corporations are virtually non-existent.
This afternoon the President of Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) said we did not look at the 1977 Auditor General's report. Well, I did, and with regard to the control of financial management of Crown corporations the report said: "Progress has not been spectacular". Either through dereliction or through its inability to cope, the government has failed to exercise proper financial control over those Crown corporations which are wholly-owned and are, by and large, direct operating arms of the government.
I do not have time in this speech to get into detail, but I refer the President of Treasury Board and the House to the reports of the Auditor General for 1976 and 1977 and to the proceedings of the public accounts committee dealing with those reports. The government does not know how many Crown corporations there are, and those it knows about it is not managing properly. The response of the government to this criticism of its management of Crown corporations was to commission a Privy Council study which led to a white paper published last year dealing with the direction, control and accountability of Crown corporations.
However, it is worth reminding the President of Treasury Board that prior to his being in that portfolio, in 1973 and 1974, a fairly thorough review of the Financial Administration Act was undertaken to see if it should be revised in order to be more functional and to cater more closely to Crown corporation peculiarities and requirements. The conclusion was that no such revision was either necessary or particularly desirable unless or until the role of and expectations for Crown corporations were first reviewed, revised and updated, with clarification and refinement of all associated mandates.
Those observations are equally valid today. To attempt to improve the direction, control and accountability of Crown corporations, which this Privy Council study very unsuccessfully tried to do, is simply premature. There must be a reassessment. Until the government is prepared to go back to square one and confirm or revise basic corporations' mandates in light of existing and expected national needs, tempered by political objectives, nothing of consequence can be anticipated from trivial adjustments to the Financial Administration Act, which in themselves lack direction or purpose.
The proposal of my party is to establish a select committee of this House to look at mechanisms for reviewing Crown corporations. However, we would not leave it at that. We have some specific suggestions which should be looked at by this committee. We think a review process should be undertaken, including a strategic audit of existing Crown corporations, which would have the following guidelines: What is each Crown corporation contributing to our national welfare or policy goals; what is it costing us; is the Crown corporation vehicle the most appropriate one with which to continue; what mandate particulars will be appropriate for each ongoing Crown corporation to guide its board and management?
The result of such a review would undoubtedly lead to fewer Crown corporations and more clear and more essential man-
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dates. Once it is known which Crown corporations remain after that review, it would be practical, possible and desirable to introduce a program for improved direction, control and accountability of Crown corporations. Only then can we really succeed, and 1 refer hon. members to proceedings of the public accounts committee to show the difficulty of trying to do that before there is a rationalization in this regard.
In November of 1975 the Progressive Conservative party undertook an extensive analysis or special audit of just 11 Crown corporations. The conclusions of that limited study- limited in terms of the number of corporations but fairly in depth with regard to them-was that seven, or more than half, of the 11 Crown corporations had in fact lost any sense of public purpose; five could be disbanded without any damage or loss to the public interest; two should probably be privatized and the remaining four needed changes in their mandates.
There was a request for specifics. I am prepared to give specifics. The five which could and should be dismantled without any loss or damage to the public interest are Canadian Arsenals Limited, Canadian Defence Construction (1951) Limited, Canadian Commercial Corporation Limited, Canadian National (West Indies) Steamship Lines and Canadian Patent Development Limited. Each of those corporations do perform minor functions which could be brought back in. The two which should be privatized are Northern Transportation Limited and Eldorado Nuclear.
There are a number of Crown corporations which operate as day to day operating arms of the government. These are the so-called schedule C, or agency, corporations. They are a misuse and abuse of the Crown corporation concept, with its arm's length feature. Many of these require public funds. They require appropriations from parliament for their functioning, and as such an arm's length relationship is absolutely inappropriate because normal economics and balances simply do not apply. Again, I refer the minister to the discussions with regard to the Canadian Dairy Commission in the public accounts committee. To apply the term "Crown corporation" to these agencies is a misnomer. These agencies should be brought back under the control of government where the normal checks and balances of ministerial responsibility could apply.
If it is necessary to have a corporate framework in order to deal with clients, so that separate bank accounts can be maintained, cheques written, funds received and so on, then I would suggest a new type of corporation. It could be called something like a "federal government corporation"-FGC- which would give the necessary flexibility without the implications of arm's length that goes with a Crown corporation. There should not be any arm's length relationship with a corporation that requires annual appropriations from the people of Canada in order that it may function. It is, in fact, a part of government and should not be considered arm's length. I am prepared to discuss with the minister those agency corporations on

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the schedule C list that could most appropriately be treated in this way.


Charles Joseph Clark: That would be ideally suited for a committee.


Harvie Andre: That is right, Mr. Speaker. It would be an ideal matter for a select committee of this House to look at, and that is one of the reasons why I think an affirmative vote on our motion would be most appropriate. There are a significant number of Crown corporations which operate in the commercial sphere and compete against other privately owned corporations. These corporations are by and large beyond any control or influence either from parliament or from the government.
For example, Air Canada and Canadian National Railways operate in the transportation field. I submit that it is unnecessary that the federal government own these corporations. The government can influence any company in any industry just by its size. Moreover, it has the direct ability to regulate those companies through the Canadian Transport Commission. It almost creates continuous conflict of interest situations.
A number of Crown corporations fit into this category and I submit to the House that the following very simple test should be applied: if they were privately owned today, would there be compelling public reasons to nationalize them? If the answer is in the negative, then they should become candidates for privatization. Some Crown corporations which fall into this category are Petro-Canada, obviously; Eldorado Nuclear Limited, obviously; Northern Transportation Company, obviously; Air Canada; Canadian National Railways; the Canadian Development Corporation and its many subsidiaries, and so on.
I will go further for the benefit of the House and the minister, Mr. Speaker and suggest ways in which that privatization could occur. In some cases it might be appropriate to sell the corporations as whole entities to private purchasers. Where the corporation is less than successful, as is the case with Northern Transportation Company Limited, the more appropriate thing might be to break it up and sell the assets. With annual losses of $50 million this company is not a great investment. There are other private suppliers of the service available so no one would be deprived of an essential service.
A more interesting procedure for privatization is the method used by the government of Alberta in the mid-1950's. That government decided it was necessary to create a monopoly in the province to gather gas from producing gas fields and effect delivery to border points for sale to other companies so that there would not be a lot of separate gas lines running all over the province. This sounded like a candidate for a Crown corporation, and had the government been Liberal or NDP, that is what would have happened. It was a Social Credit government, however, and it chose instead to create a private corporation and offer shares to people of Alberta above the age of majority; the offer was something like 20 shares at $10.00 each and more could be subscribed if the first issue was not all taken up.


Robert Knight Andras: Were there any guarantees?


Harvie Andre: No guarantees. The company was Alberta Gas Trunk Line Limited. Instead of a sleepy Crown corporation gathering up a little gas, this is now one of the most dynamic, active, contributing corporations in Canada today. What a tragedy it would have been if the traditional, lack-lustre, reactionary method of creating Crown corporations had been used in that case. This is a corporation that took on the multinationals and won.


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


Mr. Alan G. Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate for a few minutes in debate on this opposition motion which asks members of parliament to establish yet another special committee of this House. The apparent purpose of that committee would be to look into the economic well-being of the country and to see if we can somehow or other arrive at a better form of budgeting and running our government than we seem to have at present.
Before we undertake the establishment of any special committee, Mr. Speaker, I think all of us should look at the numerous standing committees of the House that exist and the mechanics that are available to us for examining estimates that come before those committees, and focus on matters of serious concern in relation to government expenditures in each department or agency. Should we brush all that aside for this new idea of a special committee to try to come to grips with some of the horrendous problems associated with the apportionment of some $45 billion, which is basically the level of government expenditure we are talking about? I do not know of many committee meetings where the full complement of members present-and I speak of members from this side as well as members of the opposition show their real concern at those committees. Before we even consider establishing another special committee 1 think we should look at ourselves very closely and ask if we are doing all we can to make the system work. That is my first point, Mr. Speaker.
It is suggested that this special committee could in some way or other make proposals to rationalize the role of government activity in Canadian society by "reducing the share of the national wealth currently consumed by government". As federal members we must realize that close to half the 44 per cent of the gross national product which is devoted to government in this country today is actually spent at provincial and municipal levels. Try as we may, as a federal government there is no way we can control expenditures at the municipal or provincial level. I suppose the argument could be advanced that if we have a special committee then perhaps the ten provinces will also have special committees, thus following our leadership. That is wishful thinking, Mr. Speaker.
Having put that in context I should like now to speak to one of the proposals put forward by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark). He proposes that the special committee should consider the enactment of what has come to be known in the

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United States as "sunset laws" to provide for the termination of programs or agencies which have outlived their usefulness.
It is very difficult to argue against the concept of cancelling programs which have outlived their usefulness. Rather let us consider what would be the best way to resolve that problem. Is it more objective to do it by establishing a special committee of the House of Commons which can bring forth proposals? Or is it more efficient to examine the workings of government and to ensure that through mechanisms such as Treasury Board management concepts are put in place appointing the deputy minister and his assistants to fulfil that function each year when they propose the budget for the following year. They will then look at a program, realize it has been carried out for 10 years, and then contemplate whether it is needed for another 10 years or five years. They will then likely come to the same conclusion as those made by a major corporation in the private sector, namely that it is not.
I believe this is already happening directly as a result of the kind of leadership that is being shown by the President of Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) and his immediate predecessor, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien), when he was in that post. They insisted each year that, before departments brought their budgets to Treasury Board for approval and ultimate passage into the legislative process, they scrutinized and removed from their budgets whatever redundant programs there were.
I endorse the comment made by the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis), the current very able vice-chairman of the public accounts committee, that perhaps that is not being done adequately. In fact, we know that it is not being done adequately.
I might say from my experience in the private sector, one of the concerns of chief executive officers in many large corporations is that this process is still not being carried out adequately in those corporations. We all have to improve. I believe the establishment of the position of comptroller general within the government service is going to be a step in the right direction. It will be one of his responsibilties to ensure that financial control procedures are indeed in place within departments and agencies of government which will require an annual examination and an explanation from them of how they have spent their money and how they propose to spend future moneys, just as we might anticipate would occur in a major organization in the private sector.
This concept of "sunset laws" which is running into difficulties in the legislative process in the United States and is far from being enacted at this time, is really an attempt to accomplish by the legislative process what first must be done at the management level.
Directors of a corporation, Mr. Speaker, cannot be expected to perform the day by day and week by week chores of a corporation, which includes the checking of detailed budget planning for Five years or so. They must insist that professional people in their organization take on that responsibility and produce budgets and programs for their scrutiny.
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Many members of parliament on both sides of this House must wonder at times how carefully this process has been followed before we are presented with the blue book in committee and are expected to ask logical and sensible questions on figures which are put before us. 1 suggest that this is the type of procedure that the President of Treasury Board is trying to implement. The appointment of a comptroller general will indeed assist members of parliament and give us an increasing assurance that, when we are considering programs for the coming year and the amount of money to be allocated to them, we can be confident the figures are accurate.
If we can achieve this-and I presume that this is what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has in mind with a special committee-it will be much more meaningful than 20 members of this House using valuable time which could be used for other important legislation. This job should be done by the capable executives who are hired to do it. From my point of view it is not our job; I think it is their job. It is our task to ensure that the job is being done adequately.
I suggest this is the problem that the United States government has encountered in its senate with the Muskie bill. If this is added to other legislative work, it is going to require far more time than the senate committees and subcommittees can spare. The same situation will arise in this House, although we have a somewhat different system. This is why this idea is bogging down in the United States, even though it originally had the support of 55 sponsors in the senate. It was part of President Carter's program and, was one item he mentioned in his initial fireside chat. The theory sounds great. Under the "sunset law" legislation it would be possible to halt all programs found to be redundant, which would mean that no money for them would be required the following year. Mr. Speaker, that is an over-simplified way of explaining it. You do not simply shut down the post office if you have a problem with the post office.
Mir. Fraser: Try starting the post office up.


Alan Gray Martin: Perhaps you look at other alternatives, but you certainly do not shut down the post office. You do not stop AECL from producing nuclear reactors because there have been some problems in that corporation in relation to their international dealings. You do not close down an organization such as Polysar because they became involved in what the report from the public accounts committee termed some wrongdoings in their international negotiations. Instead you must try to correct what is wrong and go on from there.
I suggest we should be supporting and occasionally pushing the government to implement additional procedures in order that the allocations of budgets are very closely scrutinized. After all, it is the electorate who are footing the bill for these things. There is a great deal of room for improvement. However, changes cannot happen overnight. The budget of this country and the budgets of our provinces, governed by various political parties, have grown tremendously over the past 10 years. All levels of government have made greater inroads into society than was the case 15 years ago. All of this is costing

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more money. It is therefore essential that financial controls and procedures which protect the taxpayer in a meaningful way are implemented. I do not think a special committee of parliament is a solution. I do not believe the establishment of "sunset laws" is a solution either.
We must ensure that when a deputy minister places a budget before his minister requiring so many millions of dollars to run the department for the coming year, that minister knows the budget has received the utmost scrutiny. I personally hope that the comptroller general, as one of his functions, will be making absolutely sure of that point. This is not in the realm of the Auditor General's duties. He looks at expenditures after they have been made. This job, then, is parallel to that of a chief executive officer in the private sector, who must insist upon double checking all figures in order to keep his corporation healthy and competitive.
The concept of instituting better control over government expenditures cannot be argued with. We must be realistic. First, we must understand that the federal government consumes only roughly 50 per cent of the gross national product of this country. As the President of the Treasury Board mentioned this afternoon, only about 50 per cent of those expenditures, or 25 per cent of the gross national product, is really controllable. The other 50 per cent is taken up by ongoing programs to which a "sunset law" could not apply. For instance, the government cannot arbitrarily cease to make payments to the provinces. There are other kinds of statutory payments, such as interest and so on, which are impossible to control.
The way we control the other half of our budget is through the kinds of personnel and dollar controls that are being instituted by this government more and more through effective measures advocated by Treasury Board. It is our job as members of parliament to continue to push for those. That is our idea of the way in which we can ultimately get a much better grip on the public purse.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat mystified by a couple of things that occurred in the speech of the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis) and the last speaker, the hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Martin), regarding their view of what this motion means. Either they have read the motion and not understood it, particularly the last speaker, or if they do understand it, they do not want to admit its validity. It concerns me that two parliamentarians have taken the view that parliament as such has no place in the boardrooms of the public service.


Alan Gray Martin: I did not say that.


Walter David Baker: The hon. member says he did not say that. He said he thought it would be best if the control of government expenditures was left to Treasury Board. There is nothing in the motion put by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) which says that Treasury Board ought
not to have the kind of control about which the hon. member spoke. We say the facts speak for themselves.
Over the course of time the federal government has been a contributor to the eating up of the gross national product. The question in the minds of many members is whether Treasury Board control by itself has proved to be adequate. It is time parliament began examining the accounts from the point of view of the percentage of the gross national product being eaten up by government. When we consider the situation, there is only one group of people in Canada ultimately accountable to the people, and that is the members in this chamber who also occupy the committees.
There is nothing sacrosanct about the standing committees of the House of Commons. Of course, there ought to be a study with regard to their relevancy, and I intend to say something about that later from the point of view of control.
Let us not fool ourselves. Let us not try to get the public to believe that the present system of control has been satisfactory. Perhaps it is time that we got into the business of examining the expenditures of government and the operations of agencies of government to see whether the people of Canada are obtaining the best value for their tax dollar. That is the purpose of this motion.
I commend the Leader of the Opposition on the speech he made and the new approach he has taken. It is perhaps an indication that the old rules which have been tested on the old boys are not sufficient today for the control of government. For the sake of being able to supply the social necessities to the public of Canada, we must look at new ways of controlling the cost of government.
The speech by the Leader of the Opposition indicated a new approach. It is unique because he said that parliament has a part to play in it. What disturbed me about the approach taken by the first NDP member who spoke was not only that they were prepared to have the old ways prevail, but that they are going to vote against this concept because it is new. It is a crass kind of conservatism that shakes me. Perhaps it is an indication of where that party stands in the scheme of things. More than that, it probably indicates the trauma from which they have yet to recover resulting from the election of the government of Sterling Lyon in Manitoba and what that government has done.
The government of Manitoba has established a force to look into the expenditures of government. They have involved the public service in a participatory way. My friends in that government tell me that the response they have had from the public service has been tremendous. There may be possibilities that that kind of approach can be operated with the involvement of the parliament of Canada. The government ought not to take the view that parliament has no place in deciding the fate of crown corporations and agencies. Parliament should have a place in deciding whether programs have become useless or whether their objectives should be changed.
I was interested in the approach to this whole matter by the President of Treasury Board (Mr. Andras). He agreed with us.

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Robert Knight Andras: In a very limited way.


Walter David Baker: I look forward to him and his colleagues supporting this motion because it is needed. The minister tried to tell us that the government is interested in the process of a comptroller general. Well, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to it. I do not know whether the President of Treasury Board has noted it, but in the long list of priorities of this government for this session. Bill C-10 of last session which created the office, of Comptroller General does not appear. While the minister may give lip service to the idea, I would rather see the bill on the government's list of priorities.
The hon. member for Pontiac (Mr. Lefebvre) spoke about crown corporations. He said it will be difficult to decide whether to eliminate this Crown corporation, retain that one or change an objective. He is absolutely right. That is very important from the point of view of the operation of the government in a credible way. It is important from the point of view of the expenditure of public money. That kind of decision ought not to be made by a royal commission, commission of inquiry or task force. This country is overflowing with those.
As we see with the McDonald commission, once it is established, the people's representatives, the Parliament of Canada, and I guess even the Government of Canada, have no conrol over its function, speed or approach. It may become an excuse for government inaction. We have had enough of that.
This place, which is accountable in some way, given the expertise and advice that is available, is equipped to decide priorities and which programs should go ahead. After all, the people sent us here for that purpose. They sent all of us, no matter on which side we sit, to superintend and act as watchdogs over government expenditures.
The hon. member for Pontiac quite properly asked which agencies would be dealt with. There are some that are obvious, and the hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) set them forth. Also he set forth criteria for dealing with cases which may not be so obvious. Crown corporations are not accountable in any real sense. There is even difficulty in having their annual reports before committees. I believe such criteria should be in place. The government has stolen a number of suggestions in the past and I think they would do well to steal this one, too. Decisions should be made in public.
If parliament really was able to exercise any control over the establishment or operation of programs, would it have consented to embark upon the relocation program and have carried it out at the same time as the government was decentralizing? I do not think the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis) would have been so silly as to consent to running those two programs in parallel. Parliament would have rebelled. The hon. member for Ottawa West has spoken out against the decentralization program. But he supports a government which has operated this program, one based upon the crassets political motives, one which involves ministers of the Crown in the
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shabbiest patronage. Those are the kinds of decisions which, as he and I know, were made behind closed doors in the absence of studies and foisted-not by parliament, because parliament was never consulted-on the people of Canada.
Of course, a case can be made for decentralization, but certainly not for the way in which it was carried out in this instance. The hon. member for Ottawa West knows this. He has talked to people who have been affected by this policy; he has talked to administrators whose programs have been mucked up and whose lines of communication have been stretched beyond recognition. Can you imagine this parliament, Mr. Speaker, tolerating the way in which the status of women program has been handled, if it truly had a voice in it? I cannot imagine it being tolerated by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) if that were the case, or by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald). It has been a sham. But there is no channel through which the program can be effectively examined by parliament and all members know it.
A proposal for an ombudsman is before us; a white paper has been prepared by senior public servants. No input has been made by parliament, yet the people we represent are much affected by these proposals and legislation will be drawn up on the basis of the white paper. I think parliament is the place where these programs should be examined. Take the bilingual bonus program which is discriminatory, wasteful and wrong in principle. I do not think any parliament would have started that nonsense, let alone persisted in it as the government has done after making the decision behind closed doors.
What has been the effect of that program upon public servants? They have become demoralized. They feel put upon and discriminated against. The merit principle has been destroyed. Talk about regulations! Three thousand public servants, it turns out, have been placed improperly, recruited without any competition. If anything ought to be supervised by parliament it is this program.
There are some of us-and I am one-who think this place is not perfect. The government wants its legislation passed quickly and members of parliament want to be able to look at some of these programs. We have never been able to resolve these divergent points of view. But the committee proposed by the Leader of the Opposition would give us for the first time a parliamentary opportunity to consider these matters, as opposed to their being considered by a royal commission of inquiry. After all, they are of importance to each one of us as well as to the people we represent.
Parliament has to take one further step. There is not a member who can honestly say that our system of standing committees is adequate to the task of examining the estimates. That is why two years ago I made a proposal to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization on behalf of the Conservative party aimed at establishing an ongoing committee in which the programs and ongoing policies of government, as provided for in the estimates, could be examined. We could then take specific programs out of the estimates and consider them in depth, not against the guillotine at the end of the fiscal
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period but in depth. We could call public servants as well as ministers before us and assess which programs were relevant, the direction they were taking and whether there might not be a better way in which their purpose could be achieved.
If we pass our most important problems to bureaucrats and task forces we are simply going to drift along. For example, there is no one in the country who believes that the road show of Pepin and Robarts will save confederation. It is a bureaucracy. A nation, I have always thought, is a matter of spirit. No one believes there is likely to be any fundamental change in the way government carries out its business unless parliament gets to the root of it. As things are, there is no way in which we can help the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) with his costly programs. We cannot help him unless parliament has an opportunity to examine these programs.
I do not speak in a partisan way when I suggest the reason a lot of these programs have gone off the rails is because we have reached the point in Canada at which the only body examining the operations of government is the Treasury Board; it is not an independent body, it is the government examining itself. It is time things changed, and the appointment of a select committee as we suggest is one of the ways in which this process can begin. We all know a general election is coming soon and that we are unlikely to see any procedural reform in those circumstances. But we should not lose sight of the part parliament can play in changing our approach, in changing our way of governing, in making government accountable, in-


An hon. Member:: Filibustering.


Walter David Baker: The hon. member over there no doubt suggests that the way this Flouse operates is by the government proposing and the opposition filibustering. What both he and I must consider is the relevancy of this institution to the needs and problems of the country. The unfortunate thing is that too much is done behind closed doors in Canada and not enough is done on the floor of the House of Commons with respect to matters which affect the Canadian people.
[ Translation]


Mr. Claude-Andre Lachance (Lafontaine-Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief to allow my colleague from the NDP to take part in the debate. When I read the motion introduced today by the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark), I was particularly surprised-although the motion deals with four different matters-by the second paragraph. And for the benefit of the discussion, I take the liberty of reading again that second paragraph. I quote:
... that a special committee be struck before February 28, 1978 to consider:
(2) methods to limit the growing and undemocratic use of regulations;
Mr. Speaker, I was amazed at the word undemocratic because it shows the lack of ethics in the opposition. Mr. (Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton).]
Speaker, the opposition should know, especially their leader, that regulations in Canada are not an undemocratic exercise. This exercise originates from the power which is given by the House and by legislation to the executive so that it can set up the details of its implementation.
Mr. Speaker, it is one thing to talk about an excessive number of regulations and that is debatable, I agree. But when they say that regulations are undemocratic, I do not quite see the point. I do not intend to enter into an academic argument to show that regulations are part of our institutions to the same extent as laws or other areas of concern of the institutional activity in Canada, but still I wanted to stress some principles. One cannot include in a motion which otherwise has some merit a word such as undemocratic about a government function which has endured through time. Mr. Speaker, regulations are the privilege of the executive, but again they stem only from the powers which are conferred by legislation passed by the House in the first place.
And I remind the opposition that this power can be used only if the House has first of all conferred its powers; as long as it has not done so, this power cannot be used.
Mr. Speaker, my second point concerning regulations consists in the analysis of its function. Is the opposition saying that the legislative power in Canada, that is this House, and accessorily the Senate, should deal itself with all the regulations? This would mean that all members of this House would have to be experts in all endeavours of daily life, and we all know that this is impossible. I would like to give a few examples of cases where I believe that it would not be a good thing for the House itself to discuss the details of regulations.
Let us take for instance the Fisheries Act. Is the opposition suggesting that each year the House of Commons should discuss quotas, the general control of fisheries, catches and permits? Mr. Speaker, we would talk about fisheries for the whole year. The Fisheries Act provides a structure within which the executive is responsible for issuing regulations for its application. Mr. Speaker, I believe that this is normal and that no one would question the validity of this function.
Here is another example, Mr. Speaker: the radioactive products and materials legislation. Is the opposition implying that the House should study all the cases of materials or products giving out dangerous radiation and that the House should study every one of the products which will eventually be prohibited? We are not experts in nuclear energy; we are not experts or scientists in radioactive materials. This is another example, Mr. Speaker, of a situation where the experts, through regulations, can do a much better job than we can within the context of legislation which provides general guidelines.
Mr. Speaker, here is one last example: the navigation legislation which makes the government responsible for regulating navigation safety, shipbuilding specifications and ship equipment. Mr. Speaker, is the opposition trying to make us believe that it is anxious to study every detail concerning navigation? Mr. Speaker, how can we-264 members in this House-go into every detail of the navigation legislation?
February 2, 1978

Mr. Speaker, those are mere examples demonstrating that regulation authority is justified and is not undemocratic. On the contrary it is part of our institutions. Now, if we are told that the executive makes an overly generous or laxist use of that authority, we might discuss that; there are arguments for and against. But I shall remind the House that there is a principle as concerns authority, the principle that any gap tends to be filled. And why is this gap often filled through regulation? Because the House is often inadequate, inefficient and operates with such archaic rules that we cannot be really efficient and really professional in our capacity.


An hon. Member:: Right on!


Claude-André Lachance: Mr. Speaker, if hon. members really believe that the legislative has progressively relinquished its powers and if they are serious when they denounce it in such a motion-because a no confidence motion is a very serious matter-I urge them to get together in committee or otherwise to redefine this House as a modern institution with up-to-date rules so that it can really play its legislative function and spell out for the government the limits within which it must act. And that, Mr. Speaker, is the real issue. It is not saying: You have undemocratic regulations. It is not true. They are democratic since they emanate from a decision of this House but it is rather a matter of properly defining the framework within which they must operate.
But besides that, Mr. Speaker, and I will be finished in a few moments, I would like to remind the House that the exercise of the right to regulate operates within very specific criteria. It will be remembered that in 1971 the House passed the Statutory Instruments Act which defines in very specific terms the framework within which the process of regulation must operate, the criteria a regulation must meet to be legal and the obligation for any regulation to be in accordance with the Human Rights Act.
Mr. Speaker, a section of the Treasury Board studies all regulations on a daily basis to ensure that none of them violate the provisions of the Human Rights Act. I must say that it is more than our courts were willing to do since they did not accept the power they were being given to exercise some discretion in the interpretation of our laws under the Human Rights Act. And without going further into this, Mr. Speaker, the government deserves to be commended for setting up this review mechanism within the Privy Council. And that is not all, Mr. Speaker. For some time already in certain statutes- and I am referring in particular to new legislation such as the regulations relating to the Motor Vehicles Act, for example, or the Clean Air Act, or the Anti-Pollution Act-all those recently enacted statutes contain a mechanism providing for the publication of the regulations to allow the public to make its views known to the government on the effects such regulations might have.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, last December the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras) announced that from now on a new system involving the socio-economic analysis and impact of any regulation would be implemented under which
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any regulation involving expenditures or a major social or economic impact would be reviewed. The results of that examination would then be published in the Canada Gazette giving interested organizations a period of 60 days in which to make their opinions known to the agency involved, to make representations and thus ensure more enlightened regulations.
Mr. Speaker, I am not here to stick up for the regulations put out by the government. I am merely attempting to define the framework within which clause 2 of the motion of the official opposition must be considered. Once again, the big question, as the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) said so well, the question is not so much to complain about the number of regulations promulgated by the government, as that of ensuring that they respect the spirit of the law which confers upon the executive the authority to issue them and of working towards the future, as the President of the Treasury Board said this afternoon, by reforming the standing orders of the House and making the legislative body more efficient, more critical and more pertinent, thus better circumscribing the authority and the scope of the executive. That is the big question, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, the motion of the opposition does not touch upon that aspect of the situation which really is of prime importance for both our institutions and our country.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, this has been a very interesting debate. A good many sensible things have been said, and they have been said from both sides of the House. I like, in particular, the appeal that has been made by some of the members of the official opposition for means whereby we can scrutinize more carefully the expenditures of government and have an opportunity to review programs. I also like the same sentiment as we have heard it from the other side of the House by members of the government, who have suggested that when things are not right the course to follow is not to throw out a program but to see what can be done to correct it. So, sir, I think it has been a useful day that we have spent on this motion.
In a few moments, however, we shall be called upon to cast a vote. We are not being asked to vote on the sensible things that may have been said from either side of the House; we are being asked to vote on a specific motion. The motion is a lengthy one. No matter what one picks out, somebody is likely to say, "Didn't you notice line so and so?"
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the essence of this motion is found in the words, " .. . that action be taken to reduce the scope ... of government activity in Canadian society .. ." My hon. friends to the right are trying to say that this is a motion of new ideas. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has been congratulated for putting forward something that is new. There is nothing in the whole motion that is new; no forward steps are proposed. Everything in this motion calls for cutting back, cutting out, or discontinuing something that government is doing. It is all summed up in those words that I have already
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underlined, " ... that action be taken to reduce the scope . .. of government activity in Canadian society ..


Charles Joseph Clark: How reactionary, Stanley!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Just a moment, my young friend-


An hon. Member:: Whipper snapper.


Charles Joseph Clark: CCF philosophy.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Like quite a few members of this House, but not all of them, I remember the days when the scope of government in Canadian society was a lot less than it is today. I remember those days well.


Steve Eugene Paproski: One hundred years ago.


An hon. Member:: Show some respect.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Yes, years ago. I experienced what we had in those days in terms of poverty, lack of health care, insecurity. I could tell the story of it in my own family. I could tell countless stories of what it was like to live in that kind of society by recounting what happened to families in the churches in which I had the privilege of being the minister. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to go back to those days.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do not want a society-


Charles Joseph Clark: That is known as a red herring.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Never mind that language, I am talking about reality. I am talking about the perspective of history. I know what it was like when there was less government concern. I know that today things are better for the people of this country in terms of health, housing, security, minimum wage and other labour laws, farm marketing, culture, highways and travel, and all the rest of it. It has all come about because the Canadian people have taken action in these areas through the medium of government activity. To turn all of that back is unthinkable.
I have to say, as I stand here tonight, that I have no confidence in the government across the way.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: You hypocrite!


Stanley Howard Knowles: But, Mr. Speaker, 1 would be denying everything that I have fought for throughout my life if I supported the philosophy that is contained in this motion-


An hon. Member:: Read the motion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -which says take the government out of Canadian society, spend less money, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Show some respect.


An hon. Member:: Socialist misrepresentation.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Seldom have I been honoured by as much heckling as I am getting now. It tells me just one thing. It tells me that what I am saying is true. It tells me I have got to the heart of this motion. It tells me that the Tories do not like to be told that what they want is as reactionary and old fashioned as it could be.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member is happy with the attention he is receiving, but the Chair has very much difficulty in hearing what he is saying.


William James Kempling: He isn't saying anything anyway.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I agree with the emphasis put on the point which has been made from time to time today that governments should not be allowed to get out of hand, that we should do something about waste, that we should be concerned about a government which has all kinds of money for a lot of nonsensical projects and does not have money for veterans, pensioners and so on. But as for the fundamental philosophy of whether we are going to go back to the greed, the caprice and the cruelty of a free market economy or whether the people are going to act through their government to create the kind of society they want, I take my stand for the latter.
I said something about having a recollection of what it was like in the days before there was the scope of government activity which exists today, and I reassert my contention that we solved many of those problems because government got into the battle. Difficult as those problems some of us faced when we were late teenagers or in our twenties were, and difficult as it seemed in the 1930's to counter that situation, far greater problems face us today, such as the whole problem of what we are going to do about energy, the whole problem of a world with finite resources and the whole problem of what we are going to do about an industrial strategy. If these things are left to a political philosophy which says that governments should stay out of the picture, those problems will not be solved at all. We need a much more sensible, vigorous and aggressive government than we have today; but to suggest that we do not need government at all or that the government should cut back is a grossly irresponsible position to take, and as far as this motion is concerned, we cannot support it.
I welcome the sensible things which have been said, but I cannot understand why this House is being asked to vote for such a reactionary motion which does nothing but turn the clock back. Why do the Tories want to become the next government if they do not want to govern and if they do not want to give some leadership?
February 2, 1978

Again I say I welcome the heckling and interruptions. It means that at least I have not been putting hon. members to sleep.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am glad to have this opportunity to say that we have no confidence in the government opposite, but we are not going to vote for a motion which would turn the clock back.


Mr. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, one member I have enjoyed knowing and from whom I have learned much over the years is the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles).


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arthur Ronald Huntington: This man has served this country well in his capacity as a member of parliament. Much social advance has come about under his urging, but in my opinion tonight he distorts and wishes to destroy all the gains which have been made in this country by supporting the degree of waste and abuse of power which is going on under the government opposite.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being 9.45 p.m., it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 58(9), to interrupt the proceedings and forthwith put every question necessary to dispose of the proceeding now before the House.
The question is upon the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark). Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


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


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


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


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: 
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.	At 10.16 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.


Friday, February 3, 1978