1978-03-20

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to ask for the unanimous consent of the House on a motion relating to a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the resolution passed yesterday by the Security Council of the United Nations proposing a UN force to confirm an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and supervise a ceasefire, thus leading to the demilitarized character of the area, I move, seconded by the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker):
That this House advise the Canadian government of its support for the UN resolution; and calls upon the government to indicate to the United Nations its readiness to send an appropriate number of Canadian troops to a mission that would be clearly defined as peacekeeping between the Palestinians and the Israelis in an effort to build the conditions for permanent peace in the Middle East.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Diefenbaker:: The Prime Minister said no.


Mr. Trudeau:: I said no, yes.


John George Diefenbaker: I wanted to identify him.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 43 on a matter of pressing and urgent necessity relating to the discriminatory tax laws against the increasing number of married women who work full time on
unincorporated family farms, fishing operations and small businesses.
In view of the fact that a proposal to redress this inequity was included in a series of amendments on women's rights put forward recently by this party, which members of the government rejected in total while showing some sympathy for this particular proposal, and in order to give the House an opportunity to address itself to that specific proposal, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That the government immediately act to end such discrimination by developing policies to encourage women's participation in unincorporated family farms and business by allowing the deduction of salaries paid to spouses.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INCREASE IN UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FOR WOMEN-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the fact that labour force statistics released a few days ago reflected a further increase in the unemployment rate for women reaching an official level of 10.1 per cent, or 412,000, and considering the unofficial rate of unemployment for women has now reached 16.8 per cent, or 740,000, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House urges the government to bring in, as part of an over-all new package to deal with our unemployment crisis, specific measures to change this discriminatory situation for Canadian women.


Mr. Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion for discussion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
80033-3S

March 20, 1978
5.0.	43


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Adrien Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Speaker, I consider this day, March 20, 1978, an historic day for Canada.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I request the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion on an important and urgent matter.
Since, for the future of Canada, it is essential that parliament recognize that all Canadians, whether from the east or from the west, have equal rights and obligations as well as their own particular responsibilities, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette):
That every single Canadian, regardless of the ethnic group to which he belongs, be recognized as having the same rights and privileges as all Canadian citizens, as of the day a new constitution is passed by the Canadian parliament after being duly recommended by the provinces and the Canadian people, following a referendum held on that new constitution and approved by the majority of Canadians, which constitution will in fact be a truly Canadian constitution for our country, Canada, as well as the creed of all Canadians, regardless of their ethnic origin.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: 
INQUIRY OF THE MINISTRY
[Stage Direction]
5.0.	43
Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the discovery of a substance called choline which is supposed to perform miraculous cures for senility and loss of memory, as noted in recent publications describing the work of Douglas Hospital's geriatric division, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Halton-Wentworth (Mr. Kempling):
That this House form a select committee of qualified medical practitioners, of whom there are several in this august chamber, to administer choline pills to the Prime Minister and those of his cabinet who have demonstrated great difficulty and, in some cases, a complete inability in recalling matters relating to so-called national security matters, income tax, immigration, dredging, nuclear exports, finance-indeed, those matters which in lieu of a meaningful freedom of information act they would ordinarily be expected to recall for the edification of the House and the people of Canada.
[Mr. Speaker-1


CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION COMMISSION PROTEST AGAINST WITHDRAWAL OF SERVICES FROM CHURCHILL, MAN.-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Cecil Smith (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the fact the CRTC found adequate grounds and funds for establishing CBC French television services in the community of Flin Flon, which has only 275 French speaking persons out of a total population of 9,345, and in The Pas, which has a French speaking population of 310 out of a total population of 6,095, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta):
That this government urge the CRTC to revoke their decision allowing CBC English radio to withdraw station services from Churchill, Manitoba, a community of some 1,600 people.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. At the beginning, I must express my regret that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs denied, once again, the right of the Parliament of Canada to become involved in a very important matter relating to external affairs when they uttered "no" to the resolution introduced under Standing Order 43.
I now ask the Prime Minister, as head of the Government of Canada, whether the government will support in a practical way the Security Council resolution of yesterday by making Canadian troops available to serve on the proposed United Nations' interim force in Lebanon.


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, if I may answer that question by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, in the first instance, I should emphasize to him that had there been consultation in advance on the particular motion which he put, I would have been more than pleased, and the government would have been more than pleased, to devise mutually acceptable wording after we had had an opportunity to brief the hon. Leader of the Opposition on the circumstances that exist at the present time.
March 20, 1978

The position at the moment is that we have repeated our agreement in principle to participate in the peace-keeping force agreed to by the Security Council on Saturday. The problem at the moment without going beyond that is; first of all, we have not been asked; second, there are a number of questions with regard to the details of the mandate.
As I told the right hon. member for Prince Albert on Friday, we wish to be very sure that if Canadians are going to be used in this operation, they are going to be in as secure a position as possible under the circumstances and, also, that they will have the capability of carrying out that mandate. This is now being discussed in the Security Council at the United Nations. The next 24 hours or so should see the situation clarified. We will then be in a better position to decide whether we have the capability to carry out any task that may be asked of us.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the Prime Minister. I must preface it by expressing regret that the government cannot learn to work within the rules of parliament and to discuss and respond to public business in the House of Commons. Can the Prime Minister advise whether the Government of Canada has received reasonable assurance that Israel is prepared to accept all of the provisions of the Security Council resolution?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: At the moment, Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. This is one of the reasons we are not prepared at this time to make a positive and specific commitment even if asked, which I again emphasize we have not been. We have only heard from Prime Minister Begin in his statement upon arrival in the United States and from general assurances by various spokesmen within Israel that they are prepared to co-operate, although they have expressed very strong reservations about the efficacy of such a force.
Under these circumstances, therefore, we are waiting, as indeed are other members of the Security Council, for a categorical declaration by Israel that it is prepared to accept the ceasefire, and also that it is prepared to answer the United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate withdrawal from Lebanon.


Charles Joseph Clark: My supplementary is to the Prime Minister, as the head of the Government of Canada. In the event that Canada does receive, and decides to accept, an invitation to be part of that peacekeeping force, would it be the intention of the Government of Canada to use Canadian troops which are presently with the United Nations disengagement observer force? Can the Prime Minister, as the head of the Government of Canada, advise whether that can be done without jeopardizing the strength of the mission on the Golan Heights?


Hon. Barney Danson (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, that is one of the forces we have in place there at the present time. The task has not been defined. We are looking at our capability, depending on what the request is from the United Nations.
Oral Questions


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary question is to the Prime Minister, as the head of the government. In considering its response to this Security Council resolution, is the Government of Canada considering proposing any time limit upon the commitment of Canada's contribution and, if so, what would that time limit be?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Campbell Jamieson: May I say in answer to this particular ploy on the part of the Leader of the Opposition that if he would allow some of his colleagues to participate, we might get better questions.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Campbell Jamieson: The time limit as proposed for the Lebanon force has been a matter of six months. That is the time that is stated in the resolution. There is, however, a prior suggestion, namely, for a two-week involvement by existing forces in the area, particularly those of Sweden and Austria, and possibly others, which would move in on a preliminary basis to more or less pave the way for the larger and more permanent force. It is anticipated that this would involve a period of two weeks. It is in that connection that a tentative proposal has been put forward for Canadian logistical support, from forces now on the ground in the Middle East, for that particular movement.
It is this complex of proposals which, I emphasize once again, is taking some time to clarify and that is the reason why it is not possible at this time to state with precision what the involvement of Canada is going to be.


POSSIBLE HARASSMENT OF PEACEKEEPING FORCES BY PLO
Mr. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. If Israel disengages, what assurances would be forthcoming from the forces to the north of the disengagement area? The PLO is not recognized, and Lebanon seems unable to guarantee the situation in that area, so the peacekeeping forces might well find themselves harassed and engaged by the PLO or their friends. What assurance is there that they will be controllable by the peacekeeping forces?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, that is the most sensible question asked this afternoon. It makes, by the way, a total mockery of the motion originally introduced by the Leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Campbell Jamieson: It is precisely because such questions have not been answered that we are reluctant to commit Canadian forces to what could be a very precarious situation. That is why the resolution was not acceptable to this side of the House. It ought not to have been put in the way it was by the
80033-35%

March 20, 1978
Oral Questions
Leader of the Opposition and supported by the right hon. member for Prince Albert.
To answer the hon. member's question, this is one of the matters we are now seeking to have clarified, that is, what acceptance will there be by the PLO of the legitimacy and the rights of whatever peacekeeping force is put in place, so that there will not be attempted incursions by the PLO who might disregard the peacekeeping forces. There is also the question of what is described as the so-called Arab peacekeeping force, the Syrians to the north of the red line on the Litani River. Once these matters are resolved, it will be easier to reach a final decision.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: It takes a considerable length of time to get these questions through when the minister sees fit to indulge in political argument in the middle of his answers.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Can the minister tell the House whether we are offering logistic troops, administrative troops and combat troops-the whole lot-if they want them, or whether we have restricted our offer to logistic troops only? At the same time, would the hon. gentleman undertake to come before parliament for approval of the Canadian contribution before troops are finally committed in this area?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, to be precise, we are not offering anything at the moment. All we have said is that we are prepared to make a contribution if it is deemed we have the capability to do so. Again, it is for the reasons the hon. gentleman outlined that we have adopted this stance. If, for example, our role is to be largely logistical, we would have to examine that request in light of the responsibilities we now have in Ismailia and on the Golan Heights. We could not substantially expand our logistical support beyond that at the present time.
One of the suggestions I have made, with the concurrence of my colleague, the Minister of National Defence-and one which the United Nations has accepted-is that the whole program be examined in light of an over-all theatre approach. In other words, there would be some co-ordination between the new force and those already in place on the Golan and in the Sinai. If that were to be done, it is quite possible the Canadian logistical capability might be of some value in that kind of context. Once again, I think it important to re-emphasize that the decision was made only yesterday. This is an enormously complex and precarious kind of situation, and we want to be very sure before making any long-term or permanent commitment.


EMPLOYMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, whatever one might say about the questions which are being asked, the answers are certainly getting longer, if not better. I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. He will recall that two weeks ago my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, asked whether he had received the report of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women which, among other things, indicated that women in Canada Manpower training programs are underrepresented in apprenticeship and skill training programs. At the same time, the report pointed out that sex stereotyping is still practised by Manpower centres in many parts of the country, so that women are underrepresented in courses for managerial and administrative positions. In light of that, has the minister in the last couple of weeks had a chance to read this important report and, if so, has he acted upon it, particularly with reference to these central concerns which are expressed?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, first I should like to welcome back the leader of the New Democratic Party.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: I am pleased to see him looking so well. 1 might indicate, with tongue in cheek, that he might have got his hernia from carrying around the inflated statistics he throws at me every once in a while.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: In more serious vein, I did in fact read the report referred to by the hon. member. The statistics are not quite in line with those we have in our department. In language and upgrading courses, the percentages of women were 54.6 per cent and 54.8 per cent. In basic training and skill development, we spent about $123 million: about $68 million of that was spent on women. In language courses, $15 million of $28 million was spent on women. In skill training, the figure was $85 million of $213 million. I agree with the statistics in the report with regard to the apprenticeship program, where we spent close to $80 million but only about $2.5 million on women.
I am not certain whether that is because women were not applying, or because they were taking the wrong attitude toward the apprenticeship program; but that area does warrant looking into.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, if the minister reads the report, he will find it was not because women were not applying for courses in these areas; it was because of the attitudes being taken by officials in terms of not encouraging

March 20, 1978

women to go into these kinds of training programs. Perhaps he will check that out.
I would like to ask the minister a second question which is directly related to women and the Canadian economy. The minister will recall that in a recent statement he prepared for members of the Liberal caucus, he implied that unemployment among Canadian women does not really matter because, to use his phrase, they are, in the main, secondary members of the labour force. Since that incorrect statement was made some time ago in a report to the Liberal caucus and it was brought to the attention of the House in debate just a short time ago, has the minister had time to consider the fact that about 40 per cent of the Canadian labour force is made up of women?
Has the minister considered that almost half of that 40 per cent are the heads of single-parent families and are working as a matter of necessity? If so, will he take this opportunity to correct the incorrect information he passed on to the Liberal caucus and to make it clear to the people of Canada, particularly Canadian women, that they have the same rights in the economy as men?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, the only error is the interpretation the hon. member has placed on that particular statement. The statement indicated that we were comparing unemployment statistics in the present situation and in the 1960s with the situation in the depression years. We indicated that because of unemployment insurance and other programs, and the fact that many of the people who were laid off were actually secondary and tertiary earners, that did not have the same impact as it did in the thirties.
However, we were not suggesting that many secondary and, for that matter, tertiary wage earners do not have to work for room and board and a decent standard of living. We were not suggesting that it was not important, but simply that the impact today is not the same as it was in the thirties.
[DOT] (U32)


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, considering the fact that the families of almost half the married women who are working would be at the poverty level in Canada without those incomes, and considering that this is an important part of the Canadian economy, does the minister not realize the type of statement he made before the Liberal caucus, which implies something to the contrary, really constitutes a discriminatory statement in its implications about Canadian women and the important roles they play for their families in the economy?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, no one, least of all this particular minister, would underestimate the importance of a secondary wage earner. In 40, 50, 60 or, for that matter, 100 per cent of the cases they are out working because they want to work. In many instances they are out working because they have to. I have never downgraded that. Simply, I point out in that statement, in comparing it to the thirties, that there were wage earners in families plus the other assistances which were available: it did not have as dramatic an effect as it had in the thirties. That was the sole point. To suggest that it is improper,
Oral Questions
not right, or is not damaging for women not to be in the work force is just a misinterpretation of what is in that report. I gather the hon. member has a copy; 1 did not know he came that close to the Liberal caucus.

[ Translation]


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister and deals with the young people of Canada.
As I said recently in a motion, there is deep unrest between Francophones and Anglophones and since there is hardly any communication between both groups, it is easy to understand the differences of opinion between them. Given Canada's large deficit due to money spent abroad by Canadians, which ran to something like SI.7 billion in 1977-78, and also given that Canadians would find it highly profitable to know better their fellow citizens of different language and various parts of the country, which would eliminate the unrest which causes the gap between French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians who obviously do not know enough about each other, would the right hon. Prime Minister tell the House whether his government intends to bring in a new policy or new youth exchange programs, especially as far as university students are concerned, in order to increase the number of exchanges between young Canadians from coast to coast?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the federal government believes in these exchanges since we already have a very large number of programs to that effect; however, we do not have any new measures or programs to announce at the present time.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, could the right hon. Prime Minister tell the House whether, given the present circumstances and the discomfort felt, everyone, including older people, he intends to bring in new policies or ideas to express at last the wishes of the federal government towards a better understanding in the country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, 1 think the hon. member will remember that several months ago we had a debate on this subject. We also established a commission to report on this, and the Robarts-Pepin inquiry commision went all over the country. They heard many representations on this subject. So we are waiting for an interim report and a possible report which we shall be able to discuss in parliament.

March 20, 1978
Oral Questions
[English\


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I ask him whether recently-I mean, within the last three or four weeks-the Government of Canada has been in touch with the Soviet Union asking the permission of that country to give unhampered immigration to all who have committed no crime to the state but foresee in the Soviet Union a life of intolerable discrimination.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure of the precise wording of the right hon. member's question. For example, my colleague, the Minister of State for Multiculturalism, met with the Soviet ambassador at Belgrade about two weeks ago, at which time it sounds to me that the representations made to the ambassador were essentially along the lines referred to by the right hon. member.
In any event, I know the burden of his representations was that the Soviets ought to be more forthcoming and prepared to allow the exit from the Soviet Union of persons such as those to whom the right hon. member has referred.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, would the minister indicate what the reaction was? Was it the same attitude of indifference to such representations that the Soviet Union has followed continually over the last seven or eight years?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, the right hon. member might wish to ask a specific question of the Minister of State for Multiculturalism as to what the response was. Upon his return, he advised me that there had been some receptivity, although I gathered from the minister's report to me that it was not something which caused him great jubilation.


John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. Minister of State for Multiculturalism whether the reply on the part of the U.S.S.R. gave him no cause for jubilation but, rather, one of continued humiliation at the refusal of the U.S.S.R. to act?


Hon. Norman A. Cafik (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, I had no reason in my trip to Belgrade to be humiliated in any respect whatsoever.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Norman Augustine Cafik: I made representations to Mr. Vorontsov, who is head of the Soviet delegation to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. During that straightforward meeting, I suggested to the ambassador that they give consideration to establishing a more effective mechanism whereby we could deal with human right's violations in that country which were of particular concern to this government. Mr. Vorontsov indicated that he was prepared to make representations to his superiors in Moscow in the hope they would accept

a lower level of activity in terms of dealing with it on not so much a government to government relationship, but official to official, in order to cut through the red tape and, hopefully, be able to arrive at a more expeditious treatment of access to travelling from one country to the other. I felt quite pleased at the response he made and hoped that in our discussions later on we would establish such a mechanism which would be beneficial to Canadians and to the human rights issue in the Soviet Union.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the minister responsible for the Status of Women. It relates to the obvious difficulties in the Career Assignment Program of the public service. Between 1968 and 1976, only 71 women have participated-which is roughly 10.3 per cent-even though they make up 33 per cent of the labour force in the public service.
In view of the fact that the co-ordinator for the Status of Women, who serves directly under the minister, has indicated to me that the Public Service Commission has found it difficult to obtain even 10 per cent female participation in CAP, and that part of this problem lies with the managers who have the responsibility of recommending women for this program, will the minister describe and indicate, in view of the answer given to me by the chairman of the Public Service Commission, what special measures are being taken to inform women of CAP and what steps are being taken to encourage managers to make use of this program and overcome the very serious discrimination which obviously exists in this important area?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for raising this question again. I have also discussed this matter with senior officials of the Public Service Commission. They pointed out substantially the same problem which has been indicated by the hon. member. I have urged them to take additional and special steps to bring this matter to the attention of the management of the various departments. I have been advised that such steps have already been taken. All the deputy ministers have been advised that the Public Service Commission and the government attach great importance to recruiting and attracting more women to that particular program.
I do not remember if the figure quoted by the hon. member is the exact percentage. The percentage I was given was higher than the one he gave. Nonetheless, the problem remains, whatever the percentage is. During the course of last week, Treasury Board reviewed the various proposals made by the various departments as to the opportunities for women in the public service. It has taken certain decisions which I believe will be of great interest and importance in terms of stimulating even further the opportunities for women in the public service.
March 20, 1978

The various departments will be informed about those decisions as soon as Treasury Board has processed them.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, first of all, in view of the statement with respect to special measures, I hope the minister can give us a more detailed indication of what these steps by deputy ministers might be, so there can be some real assurance in this area.
Having regard to the further initiatives being taken by Treasury Board covering the employment of women generally in the public service, and the fact that more than 100,000 women are in fact directly concerned or affected by these possible measures, and the annual accounting that has taken place for Treasury Board regarding the equal opportunity program since 1975, on March 8 the minister indicated to me he would give serious consideration to making public those plans presently in effect, plus these additional ones now being implemented by Treasury Board, would the minister now give some clear indication when he will be able to make a public statement on this matter, giving some public indication so we will know that effective steps are, in fact, being taken?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the President of the Treasury Board will want to expand on this. The only thing I can tell the hon. member is that we have, indeed, decided to make these figures available. I understand the President of the Treasury Board is reviewing the appropriate time and method of making them available. This is a matter of compiling and getting the information translated. As far as the availability of the information and the content of the plans of the various departments is concerned, the government has agreed to make the information available on a regular basis as soon as it is available.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact there are new plans which will now be made public, as I understand from the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, and in view of the fact it is not yet clear whether the accounting that has taken place on an annual basis-which has basically been internal up to now, and that is important information in terms of where progress has and has not been made and for what reasons-will also be made public in order that we will have a full picture of what has been happening since we instituted programs in 1975, would the President of the Treasury Board indicate what further measures will obviously be necessary in order to achieve effective opportunities for women in the public service?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, that is under consideration. I will be completing my examination of it in the near future and will advise the hon. member.
Oral Questions


CANADA WORKS PROGRAM
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. In view of the importance of the Canada Works Program to many communities across the country in the creation of employment and the carrying out of projects, would the minister tell us whether there is going to be a cycle of the program later this summer, what the deadline for applications will be, and how much funding will be provided for this program?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, I have written to each member of parliament on the Young Canada Works Program and the date involved. In so far as the Canada Works Program is concerned, applications will be available in April of 1978, and June 24, 1978, is the application deadline. Projects will commence in September.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. In view of the fact that the federal government has committed funds to the Indian Rights for Indian Women's Association to research their present status under the Indian Act, especially as it applies to section 10 and section 12(1 )(B), I should like to ask what steps the minister is taking to reverse the statements made over the weekend by an employee of the department, Dr. Katie Cooke, to the effect that native women's groups will not be allowed or able to obtain documents on the history of the Indian Act. And will the minister assure the House that the information will be forthcoming to Indian women's groups?


Hon. James Hugh Faulkner (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, that appears to me to be a perfectly reasonable request. I will be pleased to look into it. I was not aware of the statement by Dr. Cooke.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, given the recent statement by the president of the National Indian Brotherhood that the joint cabinet-NIB committee revising the Indian Act is, as he says, "a farce, a process that is simply not working", and given the continuing discriminatory aspects of the present Indian Act-which is a matter of great concern both to the native people and many other Canadians-will the minister say whether this joint committee has yet set a deadline for its reporting procedures, or will it be setting a deadline on when its work shall be completed? Has it considered any kind of mechanism or any interim measures which might be taken until it reports, in order to relieve discriminatory aspects against Indian women?

March 20, 1978
Oral Questions


James Hugh Faulkner: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised by the alleged comments of the president of the Indian Brotherhood. He and I have met on several occasions regarding the work of the NIB-cabinet committee. I indicated to him that I want some results from that process by the next full meetings in June. He indicated to me that was his intention as well. We both agreed that progress to date had not been substantial. My intention is to work with him and he, in turn, with the executive council, in an attempt to establish reasonable targets that might emerge at the meetings in June. That is my intention now.
We also indicated to the NIB and members of the executive committee-I say "we" because members of the cabinet participated in that meeting-that we thought, whatever we addressed in respect of amending the Indian Act, the one item that certainly would be part of it even if we did not want it to be part-and we do-is the question affecting the rights of Indian women. They know that. It is on the agenda of the NIB-cabinet committee and I hope to be able to deal with it in June.


CANADIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACT
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. In view of the fact that even though part I of the Canadian Human Rights Act was proclaimed as at March 1, the provisions of section 11, having to do with equal pay for work of equal value, will not come into effect until the guidelines have been established, can the Minister of Justice undertake that those guidelines will be established not later than June 1 ?


Hon. Ron Basford (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, section 11 is in effect. That is to say, there is no further action required by the government to proclaim section 11; it has been proclaimed. The Human Rights commission has informed me that it is working an the preparation of guidelines and has a number of committees which have been meeting for some months, as a matter of fact, on the development of guidelines, so that on June 1 it will be able, as a Human Rights commission, to deal with complaints made to it about equal pay for work of equal value.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, may 1 direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Justice, although this one may involve the President of the Treasury Board as well? In view of the fact that there seems to be some conflict between clause 6 of Bill C-28, the amendments to the Public Service Staff Relations Act, and the Canadian Human Rights Act, in that the latter act lays down provisions for equal pay for women, will the two ministers look at clause 6 of Bill C-28 to see whether it qualifies under the provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act and, in fact, whether it qualifies under the Canadian Bill of Rights?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I suspect we will not have any difficulty in being able to arrange to talk about it.


NATURAL RESOURCES
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Following the Mining Association's suggestion last week that it would like to see a level of taxation for the industry in Canada that is lowered perhaps to 50 per cent initially and, hopefully, to 45 per cent eventually, will the government take the lead in following the suggestion of the association to hold joint meetings among the provincial and federal governments with a view to seeing if there could not be a more equitable tax treatment of our mining companies?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I was not at that particular brief presentation, although afterwards I did meet some of the members of the Mining Association. I reminded them, as I believe the ministers did, that in fact when the first ministers and myself met in the middle of February we agreed that further meetings and work should be done on the tax question regarding the mining industry.
Our point of view-and the House knows it-is that the federal government has not substantially increased its participation in the tax returns, but the provinces have considerably. However, we are prepared to seek some form of accommodation. I assured representatives of the mining industry that we would be following up on decisions taken in February to have further meetings with the provinces. They may have begun, but I would have to have a report from the Minister of Finance.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: A supplementary question, again to the Prime Minister. As the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, following the suggestion made by the Mining Association, commented that there may be room for the establishment of still further international mineral cartels, would the Prime Minister indicate if it is government policy to have more international mineral cartels and, if so, have any meetings been held in secret with industry or with other countries with a view to establishing this type of cartel arrangement?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, on the part of the government a position has been taken in the case of the uranium cartel. The hon. member knows something about that. It was that, when we are faced with restrictive competitive positions on the part of other countries, and when these positions of other countries of a cartel-like nature endanger Canadian jobs, we will not, as a matter of principle, hesitate to use our own cartel arrangement. That is the principle of it.
March 20, 1978

I have no knowledge of any preparation within government to seek any other such cartels, but if we do, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources could certainly point them out.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, for the Prime Minister. If he learns of any plans to set up another international cartel in any mineral field, would he assure the House that this time they will protect the consumer in Canada against whatever price is dictated by the cartel? In particular, would he indicate how they will protect the Canadian consumer, bearing in mind how the consumer has now been ravaged-certainly in the province of Ontario-as a result of the uranium cartel conspired in by his own government?


Hon. Alastair Gillespie (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I should like to deal with this question. The hon. member has put words into my mouth. I never said anything about creating new international cartels; the hon. member knows that perfectly well. That is a particular technique which he has become famous for, to invent a phrase or take one that someone else uses, and put it in a minister's mouth.
Let me make quite clear what I did say, because I think it is important for the Canadian people. I said that the mining industry-this is what the mining industry has been telling me-has been facing some very serious international questions such as deterioration of international markets. I put it to the mining industry that it would be in the interest of Canada if we were to start some new initiatives with respect to other countries so affected.
It seemed to me that the international negotiations with respect to the copper industry might be something which we could consider in other areas as well. The hon. member is concerned about the industry, and I know that he is also concerned about consumers, but he should recognize that consumers are also workers. Unless there is a market for Canadian products, consumers will suffer.


TRANSPORT
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport which arises out of the latest report of the Snavely commission. 1 am sure that by now the minister has had an opportunity to examine the report, particularly those areas which deal with the implementation of the recommendations of the Hall report. Could the minister tell the House if the government agrees with the Snavely conclusions and if it is contemplating any action based on those conclusions? If so, in what areas?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, while I have had a chance to begin to look at the report, I could not say that the government has arrived at any conclusions about it. Of course, we have had more time to look at the
Oral Questions
main recommendations of the Hall commission report, and some of the Snavely commission work is directly related to that.
At a meeting today with representatives of the railway labour unions, I indicated that it was completely consistent with standing government policy to suggest that because grain is carried at a rate below cost, there follows a governmental obligation to make up the difference rather than have it borne by the system. I also indicated that facing up to that additional payment to the railways was beyond our capabilities in these days of fiscal restraint. What we had done, instead, was the most important job of beginning the work of rehabilitating the rail lines. We had earlier committed $100 million to that program but, of course, only ten days ago had committed to a continuation of that program so that when the work is complete every line transfer to the basic rail network, every one of those grain-dependent lines remaining on the prairies-and there will be many of them-will be in first-class shape.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Am I to take it from the minister's answer that, while he agrees with the recommendations of Mr. Justice Hall that the railways should be paid the actual cost of delivering the grain, he does not agree that the federal government should pick up the difference? I presume, therefore, that he agrees with the conclusions of Mr. Snavely. May I ask the minister when we can expect a clear, categorical statement, with respect to this very central recommendation of the Hall report, on whether the government is going to accept that total package and, if not, why not?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vegreville has got it exactly wrong. I indicated it was very clearly government policy even before Mr. Hall spoke, that when a lower charge or lower revenue is imposed upon a transportation system as a matter of government policy, then the government agrees that it should take up the difference. That, of course, is a situation which has existed for some time with the Crow rate at a low rate. The Hall recommendation is clearly being carried out as that rate continues. The question arises, then, when will the government agree to pay the difference between the Crow rate and cost?
I indicated earlier that it was our policy, basically, to move in that direction, as our broad policy statements have made it clear, but that as a matter of fiscal restraint it was not possible to do that now. I would hope hon. members would appreciate that what we have done is put the money into the hands of the railways when, dollar for dollar, they then spend it on programs for upgrading and rebuilding the rail line. We have not put into their hands the extra money to make up losses or lack of profit in handling grain. That, frankly, has to wait for another day when the treasury is not under such fiscal restraint as it is today.

March 20, 1978
3924________________________________________
Oral Questions


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Justice as Attorney General for Canada. I should like to ask him about his apparent lack of consistency in singling out the Toronto Sun for prosecution under the Official Secrets Act-a very regressive step, in my opinion-and not taking a similar step with CTV, which essentially publicized the same data.
Is it because the Toronto Sun, like the hon. member for Leeds, is a critic of the government and only one of several independent news agencies or papers, while the CTV is the only national, independent television network? Would the minister indicate why he chose the Toronto Sun only?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, if I may say so, the question is somewhat beneath the hon. member.


An hon. Member:: No, it is not.


Stanley Ronald Basford: Without going into the details-which would be improper on my part-the cases are quite different.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister not agree that the data used by the Toronto Sun and CTV was essentially the same? Would he also not agree that the situation is really disclosing an indictment of the government's failure in acting to protect Canada's national interests rather than anything that could possibly be interpreted as against Canada's interests? Would the minister not agree that this is a very, very questionable prosecution in view of the wide distribution of this so-called official material?


Stanley Ronald Basford: Mr. Speaker, I have not seen the CTV program to which the hon. member refers.


An hon. Member:: How do you know it is different?


Stanley Ronald Basford: The reports from my officials and others are of a different nature. On the last part of the hon. member's question, obviously I am not going to start commenting on the case that is now before the courts, with regard to the Toronto Sun. I am not commenting on it either in this House or outside. There is a trial to be held and the prospect of a jury to be empanelled. I would ask hon. members to be restrained in the comments they make about it, so that the accused and the issues of law that are in question can be heard properly by a court. As I said on Friday, these are issues to be determined by a court.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Jack Pearsall (Coast Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Last week, at a hearing of the special pipeline committee, a document prepared in the office of native claims was produced which made reference to a withdrawal on the part of the B.C. government from its commitment to the negotiation of Indian land claims, and which has since been published in the Vancouver papers. Would the minister inform the House whether there is substance to this report?


James Hugh Faulkner: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the question. There is no substance to the report. There was some uncertainty, in November, as to what the province's intentions were in respect of the settlement of outstanding claims in British Columbia. I subsequently had a meeting in January with the minister, Mr. Allan Williams. Since that meeting, I think there is an understanding between the two governments and an earnest attempt to try to deal with the Nishga claims and, hopefully others.
There have been two or three meetings involving the three parties to the claims, the provincial government, the federal government and representatives of the Nishga people. There is no substance in that document, Mr. Speaker. Negotiations are proceeding well in British Columbia.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Treasury Board. It is the third time that I have asked the President of the Treasury Board when he will be tabling in this House the report of the Public Service Commission from the secretariat of his department dealing with the problems of handicapped people entering into and performing within the Public Service of Canada. It is the third time I have asked him to table the report. When is he going to table the report?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member, on the third occasion, will be lucky. I intend to table this report either tomorrow or on April 4. It will probably be tomorrow, but if not it will be April 4 because there is a recess in between.

March 20, 1978


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. On Friday the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes) raised, by way of a question of privilege, an apparent alteration to Hansard during the course of the preparation of the "blues" as they have been commonly referred to in our practice, by the hon. Secretary of State (Mr. Roberts).
The matter, as I indicated then, is rather fundamental to our procedures here, and our practices in recording the proceedings. I undertook to examine the circumstances to determine what in fact had occurred. On Friday the Secretary of State contributed his own intervention and indicated that indeed he had added the words, which were allegedly added, as stated by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie. He explained to the House his reasons for doing so.
The privilege of members in making alterations of this sort to Hansard, or the editors in making alterations of any sort to Hansard, is a long established practice of the House. To put upon members the stricture that the words would be recorded exactly as they were spoken sometimes would produce a printed text which would require punctuation and other assistances of a grammatical nature to make it intelligible.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I say that very seriously. All of us in making speeches in the House, of course, speak faster and faster and have in our minds ideas which we want to express. Sometimes the actual words used are not as clear as the ideas. It has been a long established practice that there are often cases where words spoken when reported do not at all convey their meaning. Therefore, there has been some liberty in attempting to punctuate and add grammatical changes.
On the one hand I think it is well understood by all hon. members that it would be too difficult a stricture to produce the text without any of that kind of assistance. On the other hand, it has always been understood that the purpose of this procedure is not in any way to change the substance of the words which have been used by any member in debate. It has always been exercised in such a way, both on behalf of members of the House and on behalf of the Debates reporting staff, that it is accepted to clarify the expression that was intended, but not in any way to change the substance of the phrases spoken.
There is an obligation on members not to extend that exercise beyond its original intention. There is an even greater obligation upon the reporting staff and the editorial staff in Debates not to permit that kind of change to go beyond the original intention.
In the particular case raised by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie I cannot come to any other conclusion except that the addition of the words was more than simply grammatical. It changed the very substance of the answer which was given by the minister in the circumstances.
Point of Order-Mr. Daudlin
Perhaps our practice has become relaxed over time. Because this privilege does exist in the hands of members they may expect that, if they have reached too far, the editorial staff will correct them and reject that kind of change. This has some merit. I do understand that to a very great extent members do rely on the judgment of the editorial staff in that respect. They expect that if they have over-reached a matter, that it will be rejected by the editorial staff. I look upon that as a fundamental obligation, as part of the duties of the editorial staff. However, it is part of the duty which in this case I do not think was properly exercised.
In examining the events which have taken place I have an initial indication that it was not accidental on the part of the editorial staff, and I have isolated the cause. It is an administrative matter, under my jurisdiction, which needs more attention. I simply wanted to report to hon. members that I have taken the matter that far, and I will need some time to give it further consideration as to what action might have to take place.
I do not think under any circumstances I would have anything more to say in terms of the minister's actions than I have already said. Respecting the person on the editorial staff who was involved, I will be having more to say and do about that, and I will report it to the House in due course.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Kent-Essex (Mr. Daudlin) raised the problem on Friday afternoon concerning the angle of a television camera that was used. We try to be very careful about the use of cameras.
We have not issued explicit written instructions in any way, because I think all hon. members would agree that it would be extremely difficult to codify the instructions to the camera operators. We have asked them, and we have received co-operation all the way through this experience, that they would use only the guiding principle that we were doing this as an electronic Hansard and that the operation ought to be of a high quality. 1 believe that all hon. members would agree with me that the camera operators and everybody associated with television in the House of Commons have kept that principle very much in the forefront of their minds and they have done an excellent job.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: In this particular instance I have explored the problem as the hon. member requested. There was, indeed, some justification for the use of the camera in that particular position and some technical reason for attempting to tee on the notes, not in an effort to bring the notes to the camera so as to expose them to the viewer, but simply to avoid having to change cameras rapidly, in the middle of a sentence, on a
3926

March 20, 1978
Privilege-Mr. A. Lambert
particular member. It was not done as a gimmick or as a new exploration of a technique; it was done in good faith.
I am satisfied that the camera and production crews were attempting to do the proper thing. It did set a dangerous precedent though, and all of us are grateful that it was brought to our attention by the hon. member. It will keep us alert on a continuing basis to see that we are careful and faithful to the fundamental principle of electronic Hansard as we have been so far successfully.	.


PRIVILEGE
Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Speaker, again today we have witnessed something which has become a regular occurrence in the House, and the public watching the televised debates is wondering and asking us questions. I do wish we could give an adequate answer to the questions on the various standing orders governing our debates. Also, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the people of this country are voicing their opinion. That is extremely important, since we are spending millions to broadcast our debates so that Canadians may have a better understanding of the orders of the House, the reasons for a specific ruling or for the attitude of an hon. member regarding motions or orders or bills put before the House.
Mr. Speaker, I think that since the inception of parliamentary broadcasting, we as members of the House gladly put up with the physical inconvenience of glaring floodlights which considerably raise the temperature inside this chamber. As for me, Mr. Speaker, I accept that because I want Canadians to be more closely associated with the governing body in order to improve the efficiency of the government.
Mr. Speaker, you have been making tremendous efforts and I am very pleased to say so today, because you have a very difficult part to play. Through my question of privilege, I want to show all Canadians how difficult it is to perform this duty in an impartial way in order to give all representatives of this country, those I refer to as the delegates of the general assembly representing the whole country, the opportunity to be seen and heard. I hope all Canadians who will be listening to what I am saying will understand how difficult it is to deliberate in a democratic way under rules which do not provide us with the means of making ourselves understood. In this respect, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words about Standing Order 43. This very day, I rose under the provisions of Standing Order 43, duly seconded as required by these provisions, to deal with a matter of urgent and pressing

necessity, because we are precisely in a situation I would describe as panic over our national constitution, a constitution which should be the political creed of every Canadian, whatever his language and extraction. As Canadians, we should all have exactly the same political creed.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member is discussing the motion he has proposed himself this afternoon under Standing Order 43. Surely this is not the moment to discuss the merits of the motion. It is simply a matter of raising the question of privilege. This raises a difficulty for all members of the House when a motion is moved under Standing Order 43. According to the rules of the House, every member has the right to deny unaninous consent. If the hon. member has another question of privilege to raise, I will listen to him carefully.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is your duty to address these remarks to me, but as members of the House we must live daily with the application of Standing Order 43. This very day, Mr. Speaker, I moved a motion pursuant to Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity which concerns not only all parliamentarians, but all Canadians as well. If I rise on a question of privilege, it is because I deplore the fact that the opposition of only one member is enough to prevent the discussion of a motion under Standing Order 43. 1 remember that not so long ago, the right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefen-baker) raised this matter. A few months ago, I had the opportunity myself to suggest that Standing Order 43 be reviewed. In conclusion, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Caouette):
That this House refer to the Committee on Procedure and Organization for review the implementation of Standing Order 43, in order to ensure that the rules of democracy are strictly adhered to and that no single member is empowered under these provisions to go against the will of all the others.
I feel, Mr. Speaker, that ours is a democratic institution and that we should indeed give all its members the opportunity to deal objectively and positively with the motions put before the House. That is why I suggest that the motion I am now moving seconded by the hon. member for Temiscamingue, should be referred to the Committee on Procedure and Organization for a full study of the implementation of Standing Order 43.


Mr. Gilles Caouette (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, I support the request made by my colleague for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert). In fact, the Chair has pointed out several times that there was abuse on the part of hon. members moving motions under Standing Order 43. If there is abuse in the presentation of motions under Standing Order 43, it is precisely because there is also abuse in the process of rejecting such motions.
Generally speaking, motions moved under Standing Order 43 are accepted, especially when they concern innocuous matters, for instance congratulations to the Montreal Canadiens when they win the Stanley Cup, to the Alouettes when they
March 20, 1978

win the Grey Cup and so on. We know that motions moved under Standing Order 43 must concern urgent and essential matters, but since government members take pleasure in always saying no without even identifying themselves, this prevents opposition members and even government members from moving motions under Standing Order 43 which could be debated in the case of an emergency on a given day or during a given period.
We therefore request that application of motions moved under Standing Order 43 be referred to the Committee on Procedure and Organization so that it may study the right to move such motions, and especially the right to refuse them, subject to identification of the one who refuses the request of the hon. member to hold a special debate. The one who refuses this request should identify himself. This is why we ask that the principle of motions moved under Standing Order 43 be referred to the Committee on Procedure and Organization for a serious study so that this motion may be used intelligently in the future.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The question raised by the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) and supported by the hon. member for Temiscamingue is very important and it has been raised as a question of privilege, which requires examination on the part of the Chair. I shall give this motion careful consideration and reserve my judgment until later. I would first like to say that many suggestions aimed at improving our Standing Orders have been made in this regard. I therefore accept this excellent suggestion concerning the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization, but I note that this does not really constitute a question of privilege. However, I shall study the matter.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 26(3) of the Bank of Canada Act I should like, as Acting Minister of Finance, to table copies in both official languages of the Annual Report of the Governor of the Bank of Canada to the Minister of Finance and the Statement of Accounts for the year 1977.
Order Paper Questions


CANADIAN CENTRE FOR OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY ACT
Norman Augustine Cafik: for leave to introduce Bill C-35, to establish the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.


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

Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: for leave to introduce Bill C-36, to amend the Export Development Act.


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

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate have passed Bill S-2, to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, to which the concurrence of the House is desired.
I have the honour, also, to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate that the Senate have passed Bill C-30, to grant Her Majesty certain sums of money for the year ending March 31, 1978.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Roger Young (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 441, 681, 682, 736 to 741 inclusive, 757, 758, 947, 1,010 to 1,019 inclusive, 1,110, 1,228, and 1,289.
I would ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Leggatt: For each Fiscal year since 1970, what amount was spent in the constituency of New Westminster by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and those agencies that report to it?

March 20, 1978
Order Paper Questions


Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: In so far as the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned:
Fiscal Year	Amount
1977/78*
1976/77
1975/76
1974/75
1973/74
1972/73
1971/72
1970/71
$	606,832
448,759 342,150 1,107,031 2,024,732 2,276,099 1,828,327 1,494,214
re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were receiving unemployment insurance from the UIC office in Moncton, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Nine thousand one hundred fourty one. Beneficiary statistics are gathered the third week of each month. The above figure therefore represents data gathered during the third week of October 1977.
*Period 1 April 77 to 22 February 78.


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were receiving unemployment insurance from the Fredericton, New Brunswick office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Three thousand two hundred seven. Beneficiary statistics are gathered the third week of each month. The above figure therefore represents data gathered during the third week of October 1977.


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for employment at the Employment and Immigration office in Bathurst, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: At the end of October 1977, 9,539 persons were registered for employment at the Bathurst office. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On November 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for employment at each employment office in (a) Woodstock (b) Fredericton (c) Minto, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Number of clients registered for employment at the end of October 1977: (a) Woodstock 2,783; (b) Fredericton 5,535; (c) Minto 7,532. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for employment at the Employment and Immigration offices in Moncton, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: At the end of October 1977, 15,157 persons were registered for employment at the Moncton office. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were receiving unemployment insurance from the UIC office in Bathurst, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Eight thousand five hundred fifty eight. Beneficiary statistics are gathered the third week of each month. The above figure therefore represents data gathered during the third week of October 1977.


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for employment at the Employment and Immigration offices in (a) Newcastle (b) Chatham, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Clients registered for employment at the end of October 1977: (a) Newcastle 3,124; (b) Chatham 3,965. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.
March 20, 1978


Mr. Howie: As of November 1, 1977, how many persons were receiving unemployment insurance from the UIC office in Newcastle, New Brunswick?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Four thousand five hundred and twenty four. Beneficiary statistics are gathered the third week of each month. The above figure therefore represents data gathered during the third week of October 1977.
Note: "Client registration for Canada Manpower Centre files are kept in Newcastle and Chatham while Unemployment Insurance Claim files are only kept in Newcastle but also include claims from Chatham".


Mr. Howie: On November 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for employment with the local employment office at Sherbrooke, Quebec?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: At the end of October 1977, 12,297 persons were registered for employment at the Sherbrooke office. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On November 1, 1977, how many persons at Sherbrooke, Quebec were receiving unemployment insurance?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Eleven thousand four hundred ninety seven. Beneficiary statistics are gathered the third week of each month. The above figure therefore represents data gathered during the third week of October 1977.


Mr. Howie: On January 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Manpower Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Statistics are only available for the last day of each month. There were 6,610 persons registered on December 31, 1976. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons
Order Paper Questions
entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On September 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Unemployment Insurance Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Five hundred twelve. This figure represents the number of regular claims allowed, which excludes those claimants in the categories of maternity, sickness or retirement who are not presently available for work.


Mr. Howie: On July 1, 1977 how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Unemployment Insurance Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Five hundred four. This figure represents the number of regular claims allowed, which excludes those claimants in the categories of maternity, sickness or retirement who are not presently available for work.


Mr. Howie: On May 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Unemployment Insurance Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Six hundred four. This figure represents the number of regular claims allowed, which excludes those claimants in the categories of maternity, sickness or retirement who are not presently available for work.


Mr. Howie: On March 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Unemployment Insurance Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Six hundred fourty six. This figure represents the number of regular claims allowed, which excludes those claimants in the categories of maternity, sickness or retirement who are not presently available for work.

March 20, 1978
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Howie: On January 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Unemployment Insurance Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: One thousand seventy three. This figure represents the number of regular claims allowed, which excludes those claimants in the categories of maternity, sickness or retirement who are not presently available for work.


Mr. Howie: On December 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Manpower Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Statistics are only available for the last day of each month. There were 6,664 persons registered on November 30, 1977. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On September 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Manpower Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Statistics are only available for the last day of each month. There were 5,114 persons registered on August 31, 1977. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On July 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Manpower Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Statistics are only available for the last day of each month. There were 8,206 persons registered on June 30, 1977. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-

time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On May 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Manpower Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Statistics are only available for the last day of each month. There were 8,891 persons registered on April 30, 1977. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking parttime, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Howie: On March 1, 1977, how many persons were registered for work at the Fredericton, New Brunswick Manpower Office?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Statistics are only available for the last day of each month. There were 7,777 persons registered on February 28, 1977. The numbers registered for employment include persons who are employed but seeking other work, persons seeking part-time, temporary, or continuing full-time work, persons entering or re-entering the labour force, and persons who are unemployed and seeking work.


Mr. Rodriguez: For each fiscal year since 1970, what amount was spent in the constituency of Nickel Belt by the Ministry of State (Multiculturalism) and those agencies that report to it?


Norman Augustine Cafik: The Multiculturalism Directorate provides grants and services to voluntary organizations whose membership and activities are usually spread over an area greater than any one electoral district, and records are not maintained on the basis of these districts. Similarly, expenditures by the federal cultural agencies on multicultural subjects are not recorded with reference to electoral districts. Accordingly, it would be extremely costly and time consuming to calculate the information requested.
March 20, 1978


Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1977, what amount was paid by the Bank of Canada for interior landscaping and, in each case, to whom was it paid?


Mr. Ed Lumley (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Of the amount referred to in the answer to question 752 (answered December 14, 1977) a little more than four-fifths was paid to Fine's Flowers Ltd., Ottawa, and the remainder to Van der Meulen and Associates Ltd., Toronto.


Mr. Jones: 1.	Are there any plans on behalf of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, to open an office in the constituency of Moncton?
2.	If so, when will this occur?
3.	If not, where are these other offices to be situated and how many employees will be employed and what amount of space will be occupied?


Mr. Alan Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: 1. At present, officials of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre have no plans to open an office in the constituency of Moncton.
2.	Not applicable.
3.	The officials of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre have indicated that the establishment of provincial and regional offices is dependent upon the receipt of funding from private sources and provincial governments. The size of the offices and the number of employees are similarly affected.
[ Translation]


Mr. Speaker:: The questions listed by the hon. parliamentary secretary have been answered. Shall the other questions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Friday, March 17, consideration of the motion of Mr. Blais that Bill C-26, to amend the Criminal Code, the Crown Liability Act and the Post Office Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
Mr. Eldon M. Woolliams (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday I addressed myself to the House on the subject of Bill C-26, and when the debate was interrupted I had just about concluded my remarks. Today I wish to say one or two things in summary.
Criminal Code
The bill before us is twofold in its thrust. I stated on Friday that we in this party would not object to the opening of mail as envisaged in the first part, provided it is done upon the authorization of a judge in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Privacy Act. I do not think reasonable people would object to the opening of mail under these circumstances when the intention is to restrict trafficking in hard drugs. Indeed, I believe this would be a step in the right direction. Nevertheless, I do oppose very strenuously the granting of authority to the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais), under the second aspect of the bill, enabling him to issue warrants without authorization from a judge, with regard to matters coming under the Official Secrets Act and involving questions of national security. I would refer to the section of that act, section 3 which sets out that:
Every person is guilty of an offence under this Act who, for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State,
(a)	approaches, inspects, passes over, or is in the neighbourhood of, or enters any prohibited place;
(b)	makes any sketch, plan, model or note-
And so on. Then it goes on to say in subsection (2):
On a prosecution under this section, it is not necessary to show that the accused person was guilty of any particular act tending to show a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interest of the State-
In other words, this is really a matter of executive discretion rather than being a judicial matter.
Section 4(1) states that every person is guilty of an offence under the act who, having in his possession or control any secret official code word or password or any sketch, plan, model, document, and so on, communicates that information to any unauthorized person, uses the information for the benefit of a foreign power or in a manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the state, or retains it in his possession or control when he has no right to retain it, or fails to take reasonable care of such information, or so conducts himself so as to endanger its safety. Again, the words used here are subject to wide interpretation by the courts. Take, for example, the phrase "retains a sketch". Some person, perhaps a member of parliament, might find himself involuntarily in possession of one of those 58 copies of a document which are floating around, a document which is said to be highly classified. The act might well be read as though such a person could be convicted.
The executive discretion here is twofold. Consent to lay a charge lies with the Attorney General of Canada (Mr. Bas-ford), as we saw the other day. In the second place, it is the Solicitor General who has the authority to issue a warrant to open mail on what he considers to be reasonable grounds. Mr. Speaker, I believe that even when questions of national security are involved, authority to open mail should lay with the judiciary. I say this, having absolute confidence in the judiciary of this nation. Application should be made to the judges in camera, an ex parte application, as we call it. Judges take an oath to the Queen, thank God; they do not take an oath to the government. They are quite capable of keeping these matters confidential. Should a judge grant an order in respect to an

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
application of this kind made to him, the person whose mail is being opened, be it the sender or the receiver, should be notified within 90 days.
Section 3(4) of the Official Secrets Act says:
Every person is guilty of an offence under this Act who
(a) retains for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State-
On Friday I asked what term "purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state" means on any official document. Is this to be subject to executive discretion?
-any official document, whether or not completed or issued for use-
The danger is that a person could receive a document, if the government was negligent enough. It is alleged that there are 58 copies of a classified document floating around. Any number of government departments and agencies could have copies of this document. A copy could land on someone's desk. It could land on my desk, and someone could say that the hon. member for Calgary North has a secret official document which is classified, and therefore he is guilty under the Official Secrets Act.
The Official Secrets Act has not been amended for years. I think it was drawn up in 1919. It has not been changed, and I say it is too dangerous to allow the Solicitor General the power to issue warrants against the media, members of parliament, and the citizens of this country. The minister is absent today, but when the bill gets to the committee I hope he will see his way clear to accept, for once, a reasonable, positive amendment which would provide that mail may be opened under the Official Secrets Act only with authorization from a judge, and only if the person who is the object of the mail opening is notified within 90 days, and that period could be extended by a judge.
We have heard a lot of hullabaloo recently with regard to security. A poem was sent to me by one of my constituents. Much of it does not apply to this matter, so I will read just one verse of it, as follows:
We have the S.S.-
Meaning the security service.
-roaming over the land,
Our mail might as well be on the newsstand,
In the name of security M.P.'s are confronted As well as the media on matters unfounded,
To secure our fair land is not their promotion,
As much as to keep the Grit Party in motion.
Here is another verse:
Tom Cossitt got hold of some documents rare And caught the P.M. unaware,
Whose anger was such, but his reason not much.
When he called on General Dare.
This woman caught the significance of what has been going on, and in a few poetic lines put it in its proper perspective. Intimidation of the worst kind has been inflicted upon the media. Members of parliament have been intimidated for getting information, and there will be intimidation against

Canadians generally because of the power provided by the Official Secrets Act. I am not prepared to give holus-bolus to the Solicitor General the power to issue warrants, the expiration of which we do not know, to open the mail of Canadian citizens. As the woman said in her poem, the mail might as well be on the newsstands.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-26 has two objectives. The first objective is to permit more effective investigation and prosecution of organized crime in one of its most dangerous and lucrative activities, narcotics smuggling. Second, it will give us an important tool to deal with espionage and international terrorism. While the latter objective is extremely important for the security of Canada, it is the former, the control of drugs, where we can expect the interception of postal communication to be most frequently applied.
In the past three years this government has introduced a number of measures designed to enhance the protection of Canadians against crime and violence. They included stricter sentencing, prohibition of certain firearms favoured by professional criminals, tightening of bail law, tougher measures regarding electronic surveillance, and a new bill regarding fugitive offenders and extradition.
These measures are important and will have their effect, but more is needed. Bill C-26 is, of course, a temporary measure which will expire one year after the McDonald inquiry makes its report. In the interim we cannot risk increasing the vulnerability of Canada to abuse of the postal system for purposes of endangering national security or trafficking in drugs.
Let me begin my remarks by noting that at present Canada is the only major western country which does not provide for the authorized interception of mail by post. In Britain the secretary of state has had this power since 1663. In 1957 a committee of privy councillors was established to look at the interception of communications as it existed in Britain, with a view to seeing whether the practice should cease. The committee found that such interception was vital both in terms of national security and crime detection. In its report to parliament the committee stated, and I quote:
The Security Service is part of the defence system of the country, and its supreme task is the defence of the Realm, and this necessarily involves protection from espionage, from sabotage, and indeed, from every kind of action that threatens the security of the State. It is upon the security of the State that the citizens rely for the enjoyment of their freedom . . .
That report went on somewhat later to say, and I quote again:
If it could be shown that this method of intercepting communications, either by letter or by telegram or by telephone conversation affected the law-abiding citizen to his detriment, even though the power was being exercised to prevent and detect crime, we would have hesitated to recommend that the power of interception should continue to be exercised for this purpose. But so far from the citizen being injured by the exercise of the power in the circumstances we have set, we think the citizen benefits therefrom. The adjustment between the rights of the individual and the rights of the community must depend upon the needs and conditions which exist at any given moment and we do not think there is any real conflict between the rights of the individual citizen and the exercise of the power to intercept by the Secretary of State ...
March 20, 1978

The committee was adamant about the need for proper safeguards in making interceptions, of course, and I believe that our bill provides better protection than any similar legislation anywhere. In the United States, for example, a peace officer who feels there are reasonable grounds to believe that mail contains contraband simply applies for a regular warrant from a federal magistrate or justice of the peace, which entitles him to intercept and seize postal communications.
Indeed, American customs officials may legally open any first class international mail without a warrant if they have reason to believe it may contain contraband. In the case of the United States versus Ramsay the court upheld the right of a postal inspector to open an airmail letter from Thailand solely because Thailand was a known source of narcotics, and the envelope appeared bulky. It was subsequently found to contain heroin. I should note that while opening mail and seizing the contents is permissible under American law without a warrant, reading of the contents of the correspondence is not.
While we do not wish to hamper unduly the difficult task of Canadian law enforcement officials to combat narcotics smuggling, we do feel it necessary to provide strict controls over the authorization of mail interception in Canada. Generally, the safeguards provided in this bill as it relates to narcotics control are similar to those passed by parliament when it enacted legislation with regard to electronic surveillance.
A warrant is valid for a maximum of only 60 days, for example. Any application for a renewal of the warrant must be accompanied by full particulars as to why the renewal is needed, including times and dates when interceptions or seizures were made under the warrant as well as the information which was obtained.
In addition, if a previous application for a renewal was made and refused or withdrawn, the date and names of judges involved must be provided. This would prevent the possibility of the police or prosecutor shopping around for a lenient judge in seeking renewals.
Within 90 days of the end of the period for which the warrant was issued, the person who was the object of a mail interception must be notified of the fact. If a lengthy, ongoing investigation is anticipated and a longer notification period is required, the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) must personally sign the application to defer notification, but the deferment may be for no longer than three years. Furthermore, the judge to whom the application is made must be satisfied that such an extension will serve the best interests of justice.
Strict rules are provided to govern the admissibility in court of information gleaned from mail interceptions. For example, an illegally intercepted postal communication would be inadmissible in a court, and any evidence derived from such an interception could also be deemed to be inadmissible if, in the view of the judge, admitting such evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
Also safeguards are provided to protect the solicitor-client relationship. No warrant may be issued to intercept postal
Criminal Code
communication addressed to or originating from a solicitor's office or residence, unless the judge is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe the solicitor, one of his partners, employees, or member of his household, has been or is about to become a party to an offence. If under these circumstances a warrant is issued, the issuing judge must include such terms governing the interception as he feels are advisable to protect privileged communication between solicitors and clients. This is very similar to the provisions in the Criminal Code relating to electronic surveillance.
Bill C-26 provides serious criminal penalties for persons who disclose the contents of legally intercepted communications under any but the specific circumstances outlined in the legislation. These include giving testimony at a trial where the communication is considered to be admissible evidence, in the course of a criminal investigation, or where the disclosure is made to a peace officer in the interests of the administration of justice. Should peace officers make an illegal postal interception, or illegally disclose the contents of intercepted communications, we are proposing to amend the Crown Liability Act to permit the citizen who was the object of that interception to launch a civil suit for damages, not only against the public servants involved but against the government itself. This provision to permit suits against the government was included in the electronic surveillance legislation. It is a radical departure from common law which has indicated always that citizens may not sue the Crown. However, we feel it important to give Canadians this resource, and to reinforce the principle that these powers will be used honestly and judiciously.
One very important provision which I feel sure hon. members will applaud is that which requires the Solicitor General to make an annual report to parliament on all warrants for postal interceptions issued each year, including those relating to national security. The report must detail not only the number of applications for warrants, renewals and extensions of notifications, but also the number of persons apprehended as a result of information obtained through interceptions, their offences, and a variety of other information which will allow one to judge the effectiveness of the legislation and the restraint with which it is being employed.
As far as interceptions authorized in the interests of protecting national security are concerned, the same conditions which parliament required when it enacted electronic surveillance laws apply. These include the requirement for the minister to report to parliament on all such authorizations.
I consider the new legislation to be most important. It provides our law enforcement officials with a legitimate investigative tool which other western nations have possessed for some time. We have had disquieting evidence of late of the dangers which threaten the security of Canadians. Espionage, international terrorism, and the violent activities of the underworld in Canada have all been in the news. While we must use every possible method to protect Canadians from these dangers, those methods must be consistent with our free and democratic way of life.
Thus, all the steps we take in the area of peace and security must be balanced by measures to safeguard our civil liberties.

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
Striking that balance is most difficult. In the case of mail interception, we have chosen the route of judicial scrutiny, authorization, and reporting to the people through parliament to protect basic rights and freedoms. I firmly believe that protection to be the most effective Canadians can have.
In summation, and for the purposes of the record, I should like to refer to a small article which appeared in a publication by the Council on Drug Abuse. I am not sure of the exact date, but the heading is: "Heroin In Our mail To Continue Or Not?" The article reads as follows:
The current controversy raging in the federal House, among civil liberty groups, in the media and among individuals, regarding the right of the RCMP to open first class mail clouds somewhat the almost worry-free use of the mail for the importation of heroin.
It was reported at a meeting of the International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association held in Toronto in August that the use of first class mail for the importation of heroin into Canada was prevalent.
One gram of heroin worth $5 at source can easily be mailed in a regular envelope. By the time this has been cut and adulterated with other substances and passed down the distrbution chain, the resulting portions sell for $16,000 on the streets.
The Golden Triangle, Burma, Thailand and Laos, is the main source for heroin in Canada, being routed through Western Europe and Hong Kong.
The use of the mail is an insidious means of importing with little risk of detection. This is a somewhat different proposition from what is presently being fought over.
If our narcotic enforcement offices are denied the right to open suspected heroin-carrying envelopes, we safeguard our civil rights but provide safe passage and high profits for our criminal element. And then it's public health vs. civil rights!
Very pointedly that last sentence sums up the essence of this debate. If our narcotic enforcement officers are denied the right to open suspected heroin-carrying envelopes, we safeguard our civil rights but provide safe passage and high profits for our criminal element. It is public health versus human rights.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Will the hon. parliamentary secretary accept a question by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay)?


Roger Carl Young: Yes, Mr. Speaker.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the hon. member now that he has finished his speech. Can he briefly indicate how it will be possible to protect the solicitor-client privilege, when it is communications originating from or addressed to the office or residence of a solicitor? As far as I am aware, the term "solicitor" is not even defined. Is it a practising solicitor or a non-practising solicitor? Could the hon. member put my mind at ease on this?


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, I thought I made clear in my remarks that there were some very stringent safeguards in the bill. There are rights to bring a case against an officer acting outside the terms of the act, to sue the Crown itself. If it is a question of whether the word "solicitor" has been defined or not, perhaps that can be looked at in committee. I think the hon. member and I know what solicitors are in this country. They are pretty well described as accepted members of the bar and practising members of the profession.


Mr. G. W. Baldwin (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was away on Friday, but I read with interest the contributions made to this debate.
I was interested in a statement made by the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGuigan) who indicated that he had distributed a questionnaire. Approximately 74 per cent of the people who responded said that they approved of the principle of the legislation, but with adequate safeguards. Those are the magic words. I do not know the extent to which the people who responded to the questionnaire are familiar with what is in this bill. If they are familiar with it and are solid, intelligent people, I am sure they know it does not contain adequate safeguards. That is the issue that faces us.
I am not going to vote against the bill on second reading. I think the way things are going in parliamentary debate the matter of second reading has become almost irrelevant, but I do say that if this bill comes back from the committee without the necessary repairs having being made so that it contains adequate safeguards, I will vote against it on third reading. There is no question about that.
Some of my colleagues on this side of the House have dealt with precision and knowledge with some of the weaknesses and frailties of this measure. It is not necessary for me to retrace that ground.
Having regard to procedures taken in respect of drug trafficking, providing there are adequate safeguards, I suppose it can be said there is some reasonable ground for passing the measure. I am not aware of any information the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) has given regarding the number of convictions that have been obtained through the opening of mail. I do not know how many case there have been initiated by the RCMP or other authorities under the narcotics act as a result of this practice. There have been cases where mail has been opened and perhaps the mail contained a drug or narcotic. Perhaps we could put it this way. Once the bill is passed, if it is passed with adequate safeguards, from then on in if anyone has been sending drugs by mail that practice will probably cease. That might be of some benefit.
The same question applies to the matter of subversion. We are talking about the enemy without, but what about the dangers from within? What about the likelihood of this country moving slowly and inexorably toward either a police state or totalitarianism? We watch the leaves floating on a stream and we know which way the current is going. If we examine what is happening in this country it should put us on guard so that we do not place in the hands of any government, not just those hon. gentlemen in the treasury benches opposite, those kinds of powers contained in this bill which, added to the other authorities they have, make me apprehensive.
If we couple these powers with those contained in the War Measures Act, the Official Secrets Act, and the Federal Courts Act, we have some idea of the power this government holds. If we consider these provisions along with the govern-
March 20,1978

merit's refusal to provide adequate knowledge and information about what is going on in government, and to provide the people of this country with an adequate law which establishes their right to know what is going on, this becomes very apprehensive.
Liberties do not disappear with a bang, they usually rot away. That is what is happening in this country right today. If one looks at what is happening in Italy, for example the kidnapping there of a former Prime Minister, and compares that with the situation here, one will see that we are heading down the road in the same direction. I am sure somewhere in the streets and sidewalks of Italy there is probably a future dictator waiting for the chaos which is developing there to provide the impetus for the establishment of a fiihrer or II Duce. We went through this a number of years ago in this world and there is no reason to believe we have any immunity from it in this country.
I quite accept the fact that the public is entitled to adequate protection and a guarantee of a measure of stability and law which will allow the people of Canada the opportunity to continue to exercise the democratic process, and walk the streets in peace and security. However, when, in the name of securing that, we give the government and its bureaucrats the kinds of rights which are contained in this measure, then I think we are going much too far.
Relevant to the issue I was dealing with a little while ago, I have been handed a document by the learned hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay), which contains a provision of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, Section 11, which says in part that any game officer or peace officer may enter any place or premise where he has reason to believe migratory game exists. That kind of provision is followed in almost every statute which is passed today and I refer to that right to search and seize; and it is not just given to police or peace officers.
The proposed competition act contains the widest possible powers. Practically every piece of legislation this government brings to this House contains the demand that we give to it the kind of authority contained in this measure. I worry about that. I am worried and concerned about the mood of resentment that exists on the part of the public of Canada today, brought on largely by the actions of this government, by what I consider to be the corruption, tainted with incompetence, stupidity and arrogance of this government.
We have no assurance that the safeguards which now exist, and they are very limited, will continue. The checks and balances upon which any democratic system must flourish have long since degenerated in this parliament. The powers which the government has taken and the limitation placed upon the right of the House to challenge and scrutinize the government, together with the limitations on our opportunities to find out exactly what is going on, have brought to the minds of the public of Canada a mood of cynicism, distress, and lack of co-operation which, in my opinion, will at some time provide a climate for a complete change.
As bad as our system of government is, it is still the best system of government known to society. I want to keep it that
Criminal Code
way. When the government takes the responsibility of bringing in legislation of this kind, allowing it to do legally what it has been doing illegally in the past, I think it should hedge that legislation with the best possible safeguards obtainable. I am going to suggest a few now which I think may appeal to some members of the House, although perhaps not to the government.
Too often government ministers come in here to read departmental briefs. We often talk about ministerial responsibility. The only information the ministers come in here with is the information that their officials think they are safely capable of handling. All too often the decisions they make are the decisions made by their departments.
I hope the Solicitor General may be persuaded to take a very hard look at some of the reasonable criticism that has been made of this bill and some of its provisions. I hope the Minister will take a serious look at some of the difficulties in the bill as well as some of its dangerous clauses, and then return to the House at the committee stage in a spirit of co-operation and flexibility. I do not know whether the hon. gentleman is really aware of that word "flexibility", because he has not shown much yet. It may well be that if he survives long enough he will understand flexibility.
We should look at some of the provisions which provide for this matter of Crown liability. It is all very well for the parliamentary secretary to suggest that this constitutes a safeguard. When you look at the Crown Liability Act you will find there are very wide loopholes, yet the parliamentary secretary and the Solicitor General are attempting to convey to this House and the public that it constitutes adequate safeguards. There may be circumstances in which the provisions of this act have been abused because there are very wide discretions and exemptions. There is one section which says that if a peace officer discloses information he has for what he believes is in the best interests of the administration of justice, he is exempt. Now, I do not think that is very adequate in terms of providing a means by which the government can be held in restraint in the way it exercises the provisions and powers which are given to it under this bill.
I do not think that a peace officer or a servant of the government should have the right to pass on information to another person which he has received as a result of an interception made under this legislation under the guise he is advancing the interests of justice. That is giving him a discretion, almost a judicial discretion, which enables him and the government to escape the consequences of their bad judgment and their breach of the law, which would be the case but for that exemption. Mr. Speaker, 1 suggest that is not sound. I suggest this evidence, obtained improperly and illegally, may well be used both in civil and criminal cases. This is a very dangerous precedent, and I would hope the committee will have a good hard look at it.
The word wilfully which appears in proposed section 178.32 is a very dangerous word. I think that word should be taken

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
out, but these are aspects which relate to the bill itself. I think we should go beyond that. The Solicitor General is asking for powers for an indefinite period. We do not know how long the McDonald royal commission will sit. It may be two years, plus a year after that, plus such time as the government of the day may want in order to prepare the kind of legislation necessary to replace this. Mr. Speaker, we are looking at three to four years before the legislation will be on the statute books.
What else is the government prepared to do to give us some assurance of its good intentions? What about the War Measures Act? It is related. You cannot look at this particular bill without looking at what happened in 1970 and subsequently. The right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) assured this House and the nation that legislation would be introduced to replace the War Measures Act, legislation of a more moderate nature. Certainly, the name War Measures Act would be supplanted. Is the Solicitor General prepared to carry that assurance on and tell us, on behalf of the government, that that will be done, that the public of this country will have some guarantee that the provisions of the War Measures Act will not be imposed upon us as they were in 1970?
Is the hon. gentleman prepared to tell us that the government will look at reasonable amendents to the Official Secrets Act? The Official Secrets Act today is an obscene statute. It was originally conceived to cover the issues of espionage and subversion, but has now been extended to cover all aspects of the disclosure of information, unless done by an authorized person. The Solicitor General and apologists for the government said, "Of course, we know that we have that power but we do not exercise it." That is a pretty shabby excuse for keeping on the statute books an act as explosive as the Official Secrets Act.
The act was originally passed in the United Kingdom to deal exclusively with questions of espionage, but was later extended to cover domestic matters because somebody in a very high position in the United Kingdom found that information which had been intended for him had been given to other members of the public and to the press. Thus, the bill was amended to cover these domestic aspects of the disclosure of information. It was debated in the House of Commons at Westminster for about ten minutes.
In 1938 the same bill, almost verbatim but with some changes in the positions of the sections, was bought to Canada and was passed in a mood of alarm and hysteria which prevailed at that time. It was passed with about ten minutes' debate. Surely the Solicitor General must agree with the reasonable proposition that if that legislation were cut down to cover only cases of espionage, subversion and true security, he would have a great deal more capacity. He would have a great deal more co-operation from this House and from the public because the bill would then be a reasonable bill.
To have the amendments go forth in their present form, Mr. Speaker, in a bill of that kind, is far more than I am prepared to allow this government or any government. I particularly would not allow such a thing in the control of this government, with its characteristic arrogance and secrecy and its tendency

to ignore the public and equate the interests of the state with the interests of the Liberal party. I suggest, under those circumstances, this bill would pass a lot more smoothly and be received throughout the country with far more assurance if the government would give us an undertaking that it is prepared to make that recommendation. I do not expect the government to bring the bill in right away. After all it has taken 40 years of illegally opening mail before we brought in a bill legalizing it and retroactively sanctifying it.
Is the hon. gentleman prepared to give us an assurance that Section 41 of the Federal Courts Act will be reviewed, and that the right of the people of this country to be informed will be restored? With assurance of that kind, we in this House and the public will feel a little more satisfied because the slow, subtle, insidious derogation of the rights and privileges of the people of this country will have been stopped. When we have a government whose legislative proposals contain provisions of this kind-where a bill brought in contains the right of the government without warrant to seize and take, where a government which has said it was going to provide for the discontinuance of the practice of writs of assistance, has gone back on that promise-what assurance do we have that its ministers will administer with safety and reason the powers which they are asking us to give them?
In my hands have been placed the provisions of Section 41(2) of the Federal Courts Act. I know it by heart. It has been embedded in my heart. It is a very bad piece of legislation. It is legislation passed by this government in haste after it had found out that provisions of the Conway and Rimmer trial in England would have made this government compellable to produce documents at the discretion of the courts. The government does not trust the courts. The government is not prepared to give to the courts the right to make that decision.
I suggest to my hon. friends-not with too much hope-and directing my question to the hon. gentleman opposite, that while I agree with him that without adequate safeguards the right may well be given to the authorities to open mail for the two reasons set out in the bill; surely better safeguards could be provided. I suggest that a parliamentary committee be set up to look at the whole question of security. 1 am not suggesting for one moment that such a committee should have the right to examine the day-to-day detailed operations of the policy or security. That is not a job for this parliament.
There is at the present time an arrangement proposed by law and by practice whereby the RCMP and security forces report to the Solicitor General and the Prime Minister. Those security forces have control over the disposal of several hundreds of million of dollars a year. Nobody knows how much or for what purposes it is used. The money, to a large extent, is probably well spent. Mr. Speaker, those kinds of rights must not be left without some form of challenge in this House. If we were made aware of those powers we should have some right to ask the Prime Minister or the Solicitor General in committee about the existing relationship between the government, the RCMP, and the security forces. If the security forces know they have to answer to the Prime Minister and the Solicitor
March 20, 1978

General, and know that those officials will have to go before a parliamentary committee, in my opinion that would constitute a very salutary and wholesome restraint. Police forces would not then engage in the kind of tactics which, in my opinion, derogate from the safety of the state.
I practised law for many years in a small community, Mr. Speaker. The RCMP had the respect of the people in such small communities. They covered great territories, patrolled large areas, and there was reciprocal good will and understanding between the police force and the public. That does not exist to the same extent today because of the size and the powers of the force, but perhaps it could if society were stable and the public were assured of their safety. That condition has to be restored.
The public has a great deal of respect, and properly so, for the RCMP as an institution, but something has to be done to bring back a spirit of co-operation, understanding, and reason. That can only be achieved through a parliamentary committee with the right to call witnesses. I dislike sittings in camera, but from time to time on issues of this kind it might be necessary to hold in camera sittings in order to examine the Solicitor General and/or the Prime Minister.
Many people 1 have spoken to agree with me that parliament should have some final opportunity to challenge what the security forces are doing and what the RCMP forces are doing, not by direct examination but by using the mechanism of cabinet officials to whom they report. Perhaps the Solicitor General would be prepared to give assurances along those lines at the conclusion of this debate or even in committee, at report stage or on third reading. If so, I would be prepared to support the bill. I think this bill, with the proper assurances, needs to be supported, but it has to be changed. Some radical changes should be made to it.


Mr. Blais:: Do you agree with the principle?


Gerald William Baldwin: I agree with the principle, given adequate safeguards. It is the lack of adequate safeguards given by any government-but particularly the government of which the minister is such a shining ornament-that bothers me. To give those powers without any opportunity to challenge, without some of the safeguards I have mentioned, I believe goes far beyond the principle of the bill.
I say to the Solicitor General: think something of this country. Think of the problems we have had in the past, and that other countries have had. Think of the future. This bill, by itself, will bring us more trouble than it will solve problems.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, I hope the Chair will permit me, at the second reading of Bill C-26, to make a few remarks about mail opening and seizure of narcotics by the RCMP. For the definition of narcotics, controlled drugs or restricted drugs, let us refer to the Food and Drugs
Criminal Code
Act. What is more surprising, however, is that at a time when we are studying a bill aiming at tightening control over drug traffic the right hon. prime minister (Mr. Trudeau) himself is talking about legalizing the use of marijuana. Certainly, the people of Canada have reasons for concern.
It has been said that this measure will provide adequate safeguards, and I think it is very important. The point which I want to emphasize this afternoon is clause 178, dealing with search and mail interception warrants. I think it is the most important aspect of Bill C-26. In its present form, the clause is unacceptable because it condones the actions of such people who are responsible for the disaster over the last years and the resulting consequences. In fact, if we remove all the needless literature and retain only the essential elements of Bill C-26 we come to the conclusion that this piece of legislation does nothing more than sanction all the illegal acts committed by the RCMP over 40 years, and that was revealed to us before the McDonald commission when the RCMP admitted that it had been opening mail without authorization.
That is indeed the way of proceeding in British common law-repeated illegalities can often become legislation. That could lead us quite far! Hence, the Solicitor General of Canada uses that old principle to exonerate the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who openly recognized having committed crimes in Quebec against our Criminal Code for which they have not been convicted, with the exception of course of Mr. Samson because he had the misfortune of almost losing his life in executing orders from his superiors. In short, the Solicitor General tells us: Those criminal illegalities are over, we are asking you to make them legal by approving this legislation. That is how you can make an orange out of a mushroom! Do Canadians and Quebeckers particularly not have the right to question seriously such doubful procedure from the federal government? Many times members of the RCMP have recognized their being guilty of criminal arson, dynamite theft and illegal raids into the premises of L'Agence de Presse Libre du Quebec, and into those of recognized political opposition parties. They have even gone as far as writing communiques which were supposedly signed by the FLQ. And all that, on Quebec territory!
Since the fall of 1970, all Quebeckers have been at a loss to find out who is mainly responsible for everything that happened in Quebec. The Quebec government itself, aware of the dangers faced by the province and intent on discharging its responsibility to administer justice has been making tremendous efforts to shed light on all those events. This work has been extremely complicated by the federal government's hidden presence, its devious efforts to hinder progress. Indeed, every time Quebec takes an initiative Ottawa resorts to every trick in the bag to block the way. This has become plain cat-and-mouse play.

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
As one illustration among hundreds I have been accumulating since that feud started between the provincial premier and the federal Prime Minister, 1 shall refer to the Keable inquiry. After everything that was revealed by RCMP members themselves who pleaded guilty to crimes committed in the province of Quebec, the Quebec government as was its duty established the Keable inquiry to make light on those somber events. But the federal government was irked by Quebec using its right, creating its own enquiry on facts that happened in the province. With the unavowed aim of making the issue still more confused, of jamming the message to draw the people's attention away from the real issues, the government spared no effort to prevent the Keable inquiry from doing its work. It even declared it unconstitutional, even though it had said in this House that justice was a purely provincial matter. The aim probably was to take out of the way some annoying witnesses, or at least delay that inquiry's report until after the coming elections. Even though the Solicitor General was rebuked on a number of occasions, he still continued to hassle the inquiry. And there is something more preposterous still. The government did not even wait for its own inquiry, the McDonald inquiry, tabling its report. It put forward Bill C-26, that normally should have evolved from that report. How is it possible to inform our citizens?
Not even in this House, Mr. Speaker, could we know the truth about the RCMP, because as soon as we tried to know more about the relationship between the Solicitor General and the force, as soon as we tried to get into some detail, the Solicitor General would withdraw from the map as we say in Quebec. He would resign, and everyone kept wondering how come so many solicitors general had resigned in succession. Of course the people do not know that, once out of office after resigning, the Solicitor General is no longer accountable for his administration to opposition members. He does not have to give answers in this House anymore. Those are the facts. This is where this one-way kind of policy has led the RCMP. Is the RCMP the only one to blame for this, Mr. Speaker?
Maybe some members of the RCMP should have complied with the principle that an inferior is not required to obey an immoral order and maybe also his superiors should not have given in to certain political pressures? All this still has to be spelled out, so long as the mute will not speak out, but in the future, the RCMP must not be used as a political tool of a party in power.
Mr. Speaker, this leads me to say why I cannot support this bill in its present wording. On page 2, paragraph 178.25 (1) which deals with the issuance of warrants for the opening of mail provides, and I quote:
On ex parte application made in writing signed by the Solicitor General of Canada or an agent specially designated by him in writing for the purposes of this section, a judge of a superior court of criminal jurisdiction or a judge as defined in section 482 may issue a warrant in relation to the investigation of an
offence authorizing the incerception of any communication and the seizure of any controlled drug, restricted drug or narcotic that is in the course of post if he is satisfied by evidence on oath
(a)	that it would be in the best interests of the administration of justice to do so; and
(b)	that other investigative procedures have been tried and have failed,
In short, it is again a political authority, namely the Solicitor General, a highly political figure, or someone else specifically designated by him, who will sign the application to have a warrant issued by a judge. Now, everybody knows quite well that judges are appointed by the party in power. It therefore seems normal in politics to expect that the party in power will get the co-operation of those it was kind enough to appoint to high positions. But beware. The danger is always present.Yesterday it was the Royal Canadian Mounted Police whose image was tarnished in Quebec, but tomorrow if we do not remove the roots of that evil, it will be some other authority.
If the people in Quebec has lost confidence in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, it is not only due to that police force, Mr. Speaker. This government must make up its mind and stop burying its head in the sand, even putting away those who interfere. The RCMP authorities have enough character to take up the challenge and regain the reputation that police corps has always had with Quebeckers. Obviously there will always be a great temptation when confronted with a government enjoying an absolute majority. This is why it is necessary to pass legislation to free the RCMP from any political intervention. Whatever may be the amendment considered, it should allow the RCMP to be immune from politics.
That is the reason why I urge this House to add a clause to Bill C-26 to guarantee the absolute independence of the RCMP, particularly in Quebec. The role of the RCMP must definitely be redefined. Indeed, that is a recommendation of the Saulnier task force in its report on police organization and duties in Quebec.
I would like to quote from an article by Bertrand Descoteaux, in Le Devoir of January 27. It reads in part:
The role of the RCMP in Quebec must be redefined so that police department will only have to deal with the enforcement of federal legislation of a fiscal nature and such parts of the Criminal Code with international ramifications.
The Quebec Provincial Police and municipal police departments should enforce all other legislations in effect in Quebec, including federal laws.
The Saulnier report notes that although criminal law and procedure are under federal jurisdiction, the administration of justice, general police responsibilities, the enforcement of the Criminal Code and the elimination of crime are under provincial jurisdiction.
It also points out that the duties of the RCMP and the QPP often overlap in Quebec as both police departments may be called upon to perform the same duties. There seems to be no reason for not clearly setting apart the role and responsibilities of each, according to this report which concludes that the RCMP should only deal with the implementation of federal legislations of a fiscal nature such as the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Excise Act-

March 20, 1978

In concluding, I would have another proposal to make to the House, Mr. Speaker. This proposal should be considered. This is a suggestion that I want to make to the standing committee of the House of Commons. In the future, the new legislation should include an amendment to the effect that the RCMP is authorized to open the mail only in the presence of the addressee. It is not good enough that the addressee be warned within 90 days after the opening, as the hon. member who spoke before me suggested, the RCMP should be allowed to seize that mail, keep the parcel, call in the addressee and have him open his parcel in front of the RCMP. I think that would be a very democratic way to act, our police would be protected and we would have a legislation which would protect our police and the people in general.
So we hope that our suggestions will be considered seriously at the committee stage, otherwise, Mr. Speaker, we will not be able to support this bill.


Mr. Louis Duclos (Montmorency):: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak in this debate because it gives me the opportunity to deal briefly with matters which are of the essence of the democratic life in Canada which is so valuable that its citizens must be alert at all times in order to protect it against those who only pay lip service to the genuine democratic values. Mr. Speaker, after the disclosures of the past months about the irresponsible and undemocratic conduct of some elements of the RCMP security service, and after the ensuing discussions on the nature of the authority which should be granted to our police forces, Bill C-26 plunges us into the thick of a debate which is as old as democracy itself, a debate which, I think, never resolved.
The fundamental question to which no satisfactory answer could be given up to now could be enunciated as follows: To what extent may a democratic society, in certain circumstances, set aside some fundamental liberties in order to protect itself against those who would like precisely to avail themselves of the freedom of action it allows to build a society in which everyone would be completely deprived of freedom?
Mr. Speaker, of course, it would be a mistake not to give our police forces the authority they need to fight crime, subversion and terrorism effectively, although legally. That is why they must have the right to intercept and open the mail, provided they comply with a number of conditions provided under the legislation. On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, it should be kept in mind that Canada must participate in the worldwide fight against drug trafficking and international terrorism. Canada must live up to its reputation on the international scene, and it should not be allowed to become the weakest link in the chain of the nations engaged in this fight and its territory to become the preferred theater of operations for drug traffickers and terrorists. It must be realized also that every liberal democracy in the western world allows some sort of mail interception and opening.
Criminal Code
Having said this, Mr. Speaker, we must nevertheless ask ourselves whether Bill C-26 will succeed in striking the delicate balance, which is such an essential part of democracy, between the need to protect our national security and the need to protect civil rights and freedoms, more specifically the right of every individual to privacy. In other words, Mr. Speaker, such a piece of legislation must leave the hands of our law enforcers free to perform their duties, but it must also contain provisions to counterbalance the arbitrariness of their decisions.
In that respect, Mr. Speaker, this legislation is disconcerting to the extent that it helps perpetuate and give credit to this despicable habit of systematically excluding the judiciary whenever national security is concerned. I cannot help but endorse before the House, Mr. Speaker, the very pertinent comments of Jean-Claude Leclerc, in his editorial in Le Devoir of February 10 last, and I quote:
The government persists in supporting the notion that democracy and judicial authority cease to be of any value when counter-espionage and anti-subversive activities start casting their dark shadows.
By amending section 43 of the Post Office Act, clause 4 of Bill C-26 allows interception and opening of mails under a warrant issued pursuant to section 16 of the Official Secrets Act, which allows the Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. Blais) to issue, and I quote from section 16(2):
... a warrant authorizing the interception or seizure of any communication if he is satisfied by evidence on oath that such interception or seizure is necessary for the prevention or detection of subversive activity directed against Canada or detrimental to the security of Canada.
Moreover, Mr. Speaker, clause 1 of the bill would add to the Criminal Code a provision dispensing the Solicitor General with the obligation to advise within 90 days following the period for which the warrant was issued every person whose communications were intercepted under a warrant issued under the same section 16(2) of the Official Secrets Act. It would undoubtedly be very difficult to argue that such provisions are in line with the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted exactly 30 years ago and of which section 12 reads as follows:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Mr. Speaker, what protection does the proposed legislation offer the citizen who is suspected-I am not saying the citizen who is guilty but who is suspected-of having broken the Official Secrets Act? None whatsoever because not only are the courts totally excluded as far as the issuance of warrants allowing the police to intercept mail is concerned, but the Solicitor General is not even required to inform the person named in the warrant that his or her mail has been intercepted and opened, whether or not there were grounds to lay charges against that person.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot agree with those who claim that the control exercised by the Solicitor General over the issuance of

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
warrants provides all the safeguards required and adequately protects the people against the misuse of authority to which all security services are prone. I think that what we have learned in recent months in this regard is quite eloquent and that I need not dwell on the illegal acts committed by some irresponsible elements of the RCMP. Although I do not doubt that the present Solicitor General is deeply committed to the civil liberties, I can hardly imagine that he or any of his successors could stand in the way of a police force that will resort to every means to embarrass a politician, and 1 would be surprised if he often dared refuse to issue the warrants that are asked for. That is why it seems essential to me that intercepting and opening the mail of anyone suspected of having broken the Official Secrets Act should be authorized by a warrant issued by a judge of the superior court of criminal jurisdiction. Besides, offences under the Narcotics Control Act and the Food and Drugs Act are dealt with in that way.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot accept that one should hide behind the notion of national security to escape the judgment of the judicial authority whose objectivity, competence and equity are almost unanimously recognized throughout the country. I am still waiting for a clear demonstration that the security of the state would be endangered if our courts were entrusted with the responsibility of issuing warrants when the Official Secrets Act has been violated. Had it been able to, the RCMP-which has been opening the mail of Canadians illegally for 40 years-would doubtless have already shown us why applying to judges would have prevented them from getting their man.
I also hope this bill will be amended so that any citizen whose mail has been intercepted or seized under the authority of a warrant issued under the Official Secrets Act is eventually advised of it if no formal charge was laid against him. If the past is any guarantee for the future, it strikes me that the time is ill-chosen to extend the authority of the RCMP without, at the same time, subjecting them in every case, including those in which national security is involved, to the control of the judiciary.


Mr. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I am frightened of the bill before us. I am frightened because checks and balances should be present in it but are not. It seems to me that while the power to open mail in certain circumstances is a legitimate, investigatory tool for our law enforcement agencies to have, it is one whose use should be kept under rigid control and strict safeguards.
Similar legislation exists in the United States, but the reporting requirements in that country are far more stringent than they are here. There is no real requirement in this bill to report other than bare statistics to the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais). We have an example of the extent of the reporting process in the annual report which is required under Section

16(5) of the Official Secrets Act. This report, under date of February 1, 1978, is entirely contained on one page. I might indicate in passing that pursuant to this section, 471 warrants were issued-this is in a country of 23 million people. In the same annual report in relation to the provisions of the privacy act we find that in 1974, 140 authorizations were granted; in 1975, 563; in 1976, 613; and in 1977, 615.
Compare those statistics with the figures from England where this kind of power, based upon the prerogative of the Crown rather than upon statute, has been in existence since the earliest times. In 1956, for example, there were 159 telephone interceptions, and in 1955, 231. And this is in a country of 55 million people. The whole question of interceptions in Britain, whether of telephone conversations or interceptions of mail, was reviewed by a special committee of the Privy Council. The figures speak for themselves. Here, in a country of 22 million people we are intruding upon the privacy of the lives of our citizens three or four times as much as is the case in England.
I have here a recent report from the United States. It was made by the judiciary committee of the Senate and House down there. In 1974 there were 216 mail openings for reasons of national security. So we carry out three times as many telephone intrusions as they do in the United States, a country of 280 million people. In 1973 and 1974, there were 323 mail openings carried out directly at the request of the postal inspection service during those two years. Of those openings, 72 were related to illegal lotteries, and the largest number, 240, involved the illegal mailing of narcotics. Fraud, firearms and burglaries were included in the total figure, but the two big ones were narcotics cases and lotteries.
What kind of control mechanism exists in the United States to see that that kind of authority is not abused? I am referring now to an amendment to the legislation which permits mail opening in the United States. With regard to reporting requirements in the case of warrants issued authorizing the opening of mail, hon. members will note that this kind of procedure goes beyond the bare reporting of statistics to the Solicitor General. First, within 30 days after the date of issuance of a warrant to open any mail or the denial of such a warrant, the person seeking such warrant shall report to the administrative offices of the United States courts and to the committee on the judiciary of the Senate and House of Representatives. This was a point which was made by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin).
The first thing that must be reported is the fact that the warrant was applied for; second, the fact that the warrant was issued as applied for, was modified or was denied; third, the offence specified in the warrant; fourth, the identity of the investigative or law enforcement officer and the agency making the application, and the person authorizing the application to be made.
The fifth thing which must be reported is the names of the sender and the addressee of all mail opened pursuant to such
March 20, 1978

warrant; sixth, a copy of the approved warrant; seventh, the nature of the facilities from which or the place where any such mail was opened; and eighth, the disposition of all such records including any log, copy or summary, of any such mail or the contents of such mail and the identity of and action taken by all individuals who had access to any such mail. This must be done in addition to the following: Within 60 days after the date of any warrant authorizing the opening of any mail, or the denial of any such warrant, the judge hearing the application for such warrant shall transmit to the committee on the judiciary of the Senate and House of Representatives a complete transcript of the proceedings.
That seems to me to be the kind of free and open society we should be attempting to achieve here. The government takes the position that if it goes this far with the whole process of interception, whether it be by electronic means or by opening mail, and if it takes the route of full disclosure, that will somehow imperil the ability of law enforcement agencies to do a proper job, and imperil the security of the country. The answer to that is that a similar control process has been set up in England where the practice has been extant since, I believe, 1561 and based, as I have pointed out, on a prerogative.
I commend to hon. members the report of the committee of privy councillors not only for their interest with respect to the manner in which the people of England deal with this question of mail opening and electronic surveillance but also with respect to the history mail opening. A committee of privy councillors was appointed to inquire into the interception of communications. The report was presented to parliament by the prime minister of that day, Mr. MacMillan, by command of Her Majesty, in October of 1957. The report is fairly lengthy, but I think it would be useful to read some portions of it into the record. The committee came to the conclusion that the state of the law in England at the time might fairly be expressed in the following fashion:
(a)	The power to intercept letters has been exercised from the earliest times, and has been recognized in successive Acts of Parliament.
(b)	This power extends to telegrams.
(c)	It is difficult to resist the view that if there is a lawful power to intercept communications in the form of letters and telegrams, then it is wide enough to cover telephone communications
That is from page 139 of the report. The next stage of the report of that committee of privy councillors deals with the purpose for these intrusions into what would normally be the privacy of citizens. It deals with the use and extent of the power of interception. The committee found that the warrant of the secretary of state set out the name and address or telephone number of the persons whose communications were to be intercepted and, on occasion, a single warrant had been issued containing a number of names. That practice was discontinued after the submission of this report, so that each warrant now specifies only one name.
The report went on to say that the secretary of state-here it would be the Solicitor General-had to satisfy himself on the facts of each particular case that it was proper to issue his warrant. In practice the principle upon which the secretary of state acted was that the purposes for which communications
Adjournment Motion
may be intercepted must be either for the detection of serious crimes or for the safeguarding of the security of the state. Since this House passed legislation authorizing electronic eavesdropping, the government has made much of the fact that there have been a number of convictions either under the Narcotic Control Act or the Criminal Code which would not have been possible had it not been for the use of electronic surveillance methods.
In England they regard it as such a deep invasion into the privacy of the rights of the individual that they go to great lengths to spell out that it is only in serious criminal activities that this power of surveillance or of mail opening is used. I note that the legislation before us is limited, I believe, to criminal matters which would bring sentences of up to five years. I am not certain of that. It certainly is in the surveillance legislation.


Jean-Jacques Blais: The Food and Drugs Act.


Erik Nielsen: I am grateful for that intervention by the Solicitor General. I submit that the power to issue a warrant under privacy legislation and under this legislation should not be used for the purposes of obtaining a conviction for mere possession. For traffickers in narcotics, and particularly for traffickers in heroin, I think it is an essential tool for law enforcement officers to have in this country. The issue of warrants in England for the interception of letters in connection with offences under the Dangerous Drugs Acts began as far back as 1922, and after the war the number of warrants sharply declined. No warrants have been issued since early 1956. Perhaps that is partially the result of the fact that heroin addiction is treated somewhat differently in that country than it is here.
The fact that no warrants have been issued since 1956, the latest year for which I have statistics, is undoubtedly associated with the sharp decline in the drug traffic in that country because of what is generally referred to as the legalization of medical treatments of heroin addicts in that country and the medical use of heroin. It is the Home Office in England which has the authority to act in the case of the issuance of warrants. The principles upon which the Home Office acts in deciding whether to grant an application for a warrant to intercept communications-



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Norfolk-Haldimand (Mr. Knowles)-Manpower-Application forms for farmers seeking offshore workers; the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquarrie)-External Affairs-Israel-Possible change of

March 20, 1978
Income Tax Act
position on right to occupied territory; the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin)-Agriculture-Price of potatoes less than cost of production-Action to alleviate.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, notices of motions and public bills.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Notice of motion No. 4, in the name of the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis).


Some hon. Members:: Stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: The motion stands at the request of the government.
Motion No. 11, in the name of the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies).


Some hon. Members:: Stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: The motion stands at the request of the government.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of amending the Income Tax Act in order to exclude from taxable income all indemnities received by a voluntary fireman in the exercise of his duties, as well as to allow such firemen to deduct from their income all expenses incurred in the exercise of their duties.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the motion before the House this afternoon is of great importance to me and I am sure to all the hon. members, and it is of particular significance to a group of people who show a great deal of courage when protecting the Canadian people against fire, one of their worst enemies.
Mr. Speaker, it is not enough to be Canadian, one also has to have a great deal of courage and determination because fire is one of the greatest enemies anyone may be confronted with nowadays. A few years ago, at my house a fire broke out where eleven people lost their lives. Even though it was 5:30 in the morning and the temperature was 30 to 40 degrees below zero, many people rushed to my place to fight the fire. These people, Mr. Speaker, deserve the support of parliament to carry on this kind of work.
I have received many letters and briefs from volunteer firefighters and also from local governments. That is why, Mr. Speaker, I say that this motion is extremely important at this
[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner).]
time. I know that many hon. members will have the opportunity to speak in this debate, but I would like them to refrain from doing what they do in many cases when other motions are before the House of Commons. I know, as the Canadian people do, that some members will rise to support my motion. However in order for my motion to pass and to be referred to a committee, the debate on it would have to be limited because once the one hour period is expired, the motion will be talked out in which case the people I just mentioned, the volunteer firefighters, will be greatly disappointed because, for them, firefighting does not take only courage nowadays, but also a lot of money. They need quite a lot of money to save human lives! As I said earlier, if it were not for them, many people would die in fires. The reason I moved such a motion, Mr. Speaker, is that nowadays many municipalities have enormous difficulty in recruiting volunteer firefighters, as I will prove later by quoting from letters that I have received. It is very difficult for municipalities to recruit volunteer firefighters to help the victims of fires. For instance, I have here a letter from the Amos volunteer firefighters department, which reads as follows:
Following a decision made at our last general assembly-
-on September 22 last-
-it was unanimously decided to send you a request concerning tax exemptions on the wages of volunteer firefighters.
The reason for that request is that we have a total budget of $28,000 for the 30 firefighters who cover fires in our town, whatever the number of fires that we may have to fight and of practices that we may hold, and including preventive measures.
You probably know that the majority of our firefighters are low wage-earners. Moreover, we use our cars to go to the scene of the fire and we often lose personal belongings (watches, glasses, etc.) and damage our shoes and clothing.
They have to send their clothes to the cleaners after just about every fire. The letter goes on:
Another thing is that as concerns our family, each firefighter in turn must be on call during the weekends in the summer.
We must give this service to the people but more than often we do it at the expense of our own families.
Furthermore since you have changed the tax concessions to our members, several of them have resigned.
For all those reasons, we are asking you to give a complete tax exemption to all voluntary Firemen or to allow them a minimum of $1,000 before deductions.
In view of the fact that a Canadian citizen with less than $1,000 bank interest is not taxed, we believe this is a reasonable request.
We hope that our representatives will find a solution to this issue.
Thank you in advance for your co-operation.
Mr. Speaker, this confirms what I said earlier, namely that our municipalities have many problems today, specially municipalities with a small population which cannot afford to hire full-time firemen and for which the only recourse is to hire volunteers. Mr. Speaker, perhaps those associations should be told to ask local authorities for an increase in their budget.
March 20, 1978

Similar associations and particularly volunteer firemen associations are aware of the dilemma now facing already overtaxed municipalities. But those people are benevolent enough to continue going to the scene of fires without always begging their municipality for an increase that would cover part of their expenses, like the cleaning and replacement cost of clothes. We know that when the alarm bell rings the fireman forgets about his clothes and has no time to worry about the expensive suit he is wearing, a suit that might cost up to $200.
I think that when the Income Tax Act was applied to volunteer firemen in 1951, a suit cost about $30. Today it costs $200.
This reason would justify a supplementary exemption as mentioned in the letter from the Amos volunteer firemen asking that the present exemption be raised from $300 to $1,000.
I received a letter from the Fire Department of the city of Val-d'Or dated February 24 last and I quote:
We, the volunteer firemen of the Fire Department of the city of Val-d'Or, are making the following request:
The Department of Revenue allows volunteer firemen a $300 exemption on income received during a year and all revenues in excess of that amount are taxable. We want that amount to be substantially increased or that the revenue not be taxable or that we be entitled to the actual expenses incurred in the performance of our duties.
The legislation providing for the $300 exemption was passed in 1951, 27 years ago. Since then all expenses have doubled or even tripled and indexation provisions have not been extended to us.
The work of the volunteer fireman is a part-time occupation and almost a vocation. We must use our own cars to answer urgent calls and our expenses are not paid. You probably know how much it costs to operate a car, and besides, there is a danger involved when we have to drive where to the fire scene. A fireman involved in an accident while driving to a fire has no priority and is held responsible for minor accidents and legal actions resulting from them. Also, the clothes we wear for our regular job are often torn or burned while fighting a fire and we must pay ourselves for these losses.
Let us be realistic! This $300 exemption was reasonable in the 50's, but today this same amount takes us back to the age of the caveman.
We want the Minister of Revenue to study this question and find a positive solution as soon as possible. The work we do is more or less a service we provide to our fellow citizen momentarily in trouble. We receive a small salary which is trivial compared to the services provided and . . .
-by both the federal government and the provincial government-
-we are being taxed.
Our employers co-operate by allowing the fireman to leave his permanent occupation for fighting a fire.
And the next point, Mr. Speaker, is very important.
We want the minister of Revenue to cooperate in his own way by amending the 1951 act.
Which one of you would be willing to battle a fire for just a few dollars an hour on a bitterly cold night and resume his regular work the following morning?
And at this point he emphasized what I mentioned earlier in my remarks:
Income Tax Act
Let us remember the fire which on January 22nd, 1974 destroyed a house at 5:35 a.m. and took the lives of 13 persons.
-I said 11 but there were actually 13 persons.
There are many other occasions when we endanger our own lives in order to save the lives of others.
Mr. Speaker, many other persons, or associations like the volunteer firefighters association of the city of Noranda made the same recommendations as the two townships which I mentioned.
Mr. Speaker, all these people are giving good services to their communities, is it not only fair that we, as members of this House, reciprocate by complying with their request. Where are more than one or two communities making such a request.
I have received a telegram from the Federation of voluntary fire fighters, Quebec province, which reads, and I quote:
The Quebec Federation of Professional Fire Fighters strongly supports the resolution of the Quebec voluntary Fire Fighters in asking for a tax exemption for the wages earned while engaged in fire fighting. Alfred Morin, president of the Quebec Federation of Professional Fire Fighters.
I have also received from the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Inc. the report of its 67 annual conference which was held from the 24th to the 28th of August 1975 at Mississauga. That report contains a resolution drafted as follows: Presented by the section of the voluntary firefighters of British-Columbia fire chiefs association. Topic: Increase in income tax exemption for all voluntary firefighters. In view of the fact that voluntary firefighters must face an increase in their responsibilities and their functions as a result of the rapid increase in population, number of dwellings, and the cost of this essential service to the community that the income tax act which provides an exemption of $300.00 for expenses incurred in performing the functions of volunteer firefighters, has not been updated since its introduction some 27 years ago, it is thereby resolved that the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs is asking the appropriate ministers of the federal and provincial governments to bring up the exemption to $1,000.00. Recommendations of the committee on resolutions to approve this resolution. Decision of the conference: Approved.
Mr. Speaker, I think that the time has come for this parliament to give some attention to this motion and at least give these people a chance of having their motion referred to the committee.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from a letter I have here, under the letterhead City of Rouyn, Volunteer Firefighters, Fire Department, and I quote:
Dear Sir:
Rouyn's Volunteer Firefighters would like to register their strong support for your representations on income tax exemptions for volunteer firefighters.
As you are aware, the current $300 exemption has been in force for a good many years, and it would be fair that the amount be adjusted to current conditions. Some adequate revision would be a big encouragement to volunteer

March 20, 1978
Income Tax Act
firefighters without whom fire protection could not be made available in a host of communities ...
For all those reasons, Mr. Speaker, it is important that a member of this Elouse make representations to the government for a solution to a double problem, firstly the recruiting and secondly the retaining of volunteers, since communities are faced with a constant flow of resignations. This must be appraised not only in the light of the few illustrations I have just given, but across the crountry. In the province of Quebec alone there are nearly 4,000 people acting as volunteer firefighters. It is easy to imagine how many people across the land would like to see their services adequately recognized. Because, as they themselves suggest, this is a service to the community, and the federal government is imposing a penalty with an astronomically high tax rate.
As I said earlier, I would not like to see that motion talked out, I would very much like that it be referred to committee. I therefore conclude by asking all hon. members to support the motion, and indeed to refer it to committee.


Mr. C. Douglas (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, first of all may I congratulate the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette) for bringing forward this motion for debate at this time. It is with great pleasure that I rise to take part in this private members' hour and give support to the motion put forth dealing with tax concessions for members of our volunteer fire departments.
The motion asks the government to consider the advisability of amending the Income Tax Act in order to exclude from taxable incomes all indemnities received by volunteer firemen in the exercise of their duties as well as to allow such firemen deduct from their income all expenses incurred in the exercise of their duties.
I have had recent and considerable conversation and correspondence with volunteer firefighters in my particular area. The hon. member for Villeneuve mentioned that many of the fire departments and firefighting associations in his area express a desire that $1,000 be the deductible amount from income tax. While I agree in principle with the resolution, I have to differ with the motion in substance and to this end, at the conclusion of my remarks, I will propose an amendment to the resolution which I hope will find favour not only with the members of this House but with the government as well. I hope it will be accepted for sincere and serious consideration by the government prior to the completion of this debate.
This subject, Mr. Speaker, was recently driven home to me in a serious way when volunteer firefighters in my area began contacting me about a reassessment problem that they were having with Revenue Canada following an audit of municipal books by the tax department. It appears that certain sums of money were unaccounted for, and it was realized that these sums had been given in the form of honorariums to volunteer fire departments. As you can guess, Mr. Speaker, the individu-

al firefighters shortly thereafter began receiving reassessment notices from Revenue Canada. This caused a considerable stir in my section of the country and in many of the small communities served by volunteer firefighting groups.
As a whole I would like to express my sincere thanks to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Guay) and his officials for the consideration they have given to the reassessments and the commitment given to me in writing to limit their reassessments of the tax to the one year period of 1976 from a previous assessment of up to four and five years back in income tax returns. The minister's action was certainly appreciated by myself and by the volunteer firefighters of the county. I do not know how many other hon. members had the same thing happen to them in the last year or so, but I can guarantee to each and every one of them that if and when it occurs they are going to be confronted by a deluge of angry volunteer firefighters at their doors wanting to know what is going to happen about that reassessment.
The firefighters realize, of course, that in many instances they were at fault in not reporting the revenue they had received as volunteer firefighters. They realize, as do the hon. members in this chamber, that all income must be and should be reported as income in their income tax returns. I must add that they honestly and sincerely looked upon those payments, not as an income but as a true honorarium for the services that they unselfishly bestowed upon their communities.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the basic principle of our income tax law is that generally no deductions are allowed in respect to personal and living expenses. However, exceptions are made where the expense incurred personally by a taxpayer or a group of taxpayers resulted in a social or economic benefit to the community or to taxpayers at large. I must say that no other segment of our population fits into that example as do our volunteer or part time firefighters. They fitted into that example when it was introduced in 1951. They continue to do so today, and will do so with ever-increasing importance in the years to come.
The Royal Commission on Taxation, which undertook an extensive study of the Canadian income tax system some years ago, strongly recommended at that time that this principle be maintained. Therefore, the tax exemption in respect to volunteer firemen was granted as an exception to the rule. The rule was that all income must be taken into account. I strongly believe that our volunteer firefighters across the nation continue to contribute personally to their community with respect to social and economic benefits now more than ever before.
I was surprised and appalled to receive in some of my correspondance with Revenue Canada and the finance department, in answer to one of my letters, this statement which reads as follows:
The tax exemption was introduced at a time when the services of volunteer firemen were very necessary to communities and, in some area, were the only such services provided. Today, these services are generally provided by provincial, municipal or other local governments and the services of volunteer firemen are not as widespread throughout Canada as before.
March 20, 1978

Now, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and I ask this House, have you ever heard such utter nonsense? Never before has the volunteer fire service been more important to this country than it is today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Crawford Douglas: Take for example, my own county. There is not one full time fire department available to the residents of that county. However, there are some 314 volunteer firemen or part-time firemen, and 1 must say that they prefer being called part-time firemen rather than volunteer firemen. They have expressed that to me at meetings and individually, and I agree with them. They are part-time firemen as well as being volunteer firemen. They do not see themselves as volunteers. They are part-time professionally trained and professionally competent firefighters. I agree with them in that respect 100 per cent.
These 314 firefighters are divided among 18 departments. They have 30 modern and up-to-date pumpers, and two full time chiefs. Now, in the hands of these 314 men, whether you want to call them volunteers or part-time firemen, rests the protection from fire of property worth $617 million. That is what these 314 part-ime firemen are protecting in my area. They also protect the lives of some 56,000 people. If this is diminishing in importance, I fail to see it.
The county of Bruce is no exception. It is the rule throughout rural Ontario, and I am sure that the member from Huron-Middlesex (Mr. McKinley), who is here, will back me up because his county, as well as the county of Grey, are also primarily protected through the services of volunteer or parttime firemen, with the exception perhaps of Owen Sound. They are also protected mainly by volunteer fire brigades.
All across this land of ours volunteer fire fighters protect the majority of communities. For someone in the department to say this is of diminishing importance makes me wonder why he does not get out and get the feel of this nation from coast to coast. The volunteer fire departments are the backbone of this nation's fire protection. Volunteers are becoming more difficult to recruit and to retain after training. The hon. member for Villeneuve brought this fact to our attention.
In many conversations and letters Mr. Irwin Lobsinger, the Bruce county fire co-ordinator, has pointed out to me that the additional recreation time in our daily lives is depleting the ranks of volunteer fire fighters on weekends and holidays. Also, many people find it necessary to travel away from their community to work in other localities and this means they are only available at night or weekends. People are required who are willing to give their time and talent to protect the community during the day. He also points out that continued red tape and tax harassment will lead to the disappearance of this vital and economical service. If this should happen the increased cost to provincial and federal treasuries, as well as to local communities, would be disastrous. Somewhere, somebody has
Income Tax Act
to pay for this service which is being provided now by parttime volunteers.
Recently I received a resolution from the town of Port Elgin regarding this matter, one which has been endorsed unequivocally by every municipality in the county of Bruce and, I understand, by other municipalities in Ontario. I am in total agreement with the resolution and I should like to read it into the record. It begins as follows:
Whereas allowances given to volunteer firemen are, under existing law, liable for Income Tax, subject to an allowable expense deduction of $300.00 per annum; and
Whereas the services performed by volunteer firemen are in smaller municipalities given at a very economical rate for the benefit of the citizens generally; and Whereas such allowances will never be in any considerable amount because municipalities paying the same will create permanent fire forces if the expense of a volunteer force renders the same economically feasible; and Whereas the volunteer firemen are put to considerable expenses and personal sacrifice in the public interest for the following reasons among others:
(a)	they are required to report to fires at a moment's notice in whatever
clothes they may be wearing at the time-
Anyone who has seen a volunteer fire service at work realizes that firemen show up in what they are wearing when the bell rings, no matter what time of day or night. I have seen volunteer firemen leave a wedding in the clothes they were wearing at the church in order to answer the bell. During one church service in our community the church was emptied because everybody there belonged to the volunteer fire service. The resolution continues:
(b)	they are required to use their own vehicles to report to fires
(c)	they are not eligible for fringe benefits available to other public employees.
I think that is important. They work diligently and hard, yet they are not allowed any of the fringe benefits that full-time employees of the municipality enjoy. The resolution continues:
(d)	they are frequently subjected to deductions from their regular pay.
These are volunteers, most of whom work full-time in the community. A fire has no thought for time, Mr. Speaker. These firemen go when the bell rings and may be away from their jobs up to 24 hours. Deductions are made by the employer for the time they have been off work, in some instances. It goes on:
(e)	their usual activities may be interrupted at any time-
Many of the volunteer part-time firemen are small businessmen. In resort areas in the summer they have to close up business if the bell rings and report to the fire station and so lose income at a time when they are liable to get the best returns on their investment. They sometimes lose income for one or two days in order to serve as volunteer firemen. These are the type of people we are talking about-people who give up their own income in order to protect the incomes and lives of others.
The resolution goes on:
(f)	they are required to assume the personal risks attendant upon this high risk
activity;
In the same way as full-time firemen, they risk smoke inhalation, death from falling timbers, everything that a fulltime firemen is asked to risk, including his own life, but they

March 20, 1978
Income Tax Act
are not given the recognition they deserve. The resolution continues:
Whereas the expense allowance of $300.00 above referred to is grossly inadequate in the circumstance;
I believe that, Mr. Speaker; it is grossly inadequate in the circumstances. Then it goes on:
Therefore be it resolved that recommendations be made to the federal minister of revenue:
(1)	that the foregoing expense deduction be increased to $1,000.00
(2)	that income tax assessments already made on volunteer firemen's allowances under $1,000.00 per annum during the last four years be waived
(3)	that this resolution be circulated to the organization of small urban municipalities, the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs, all Bruce county municipalities,-
Some other people are mentioned there. What are these part-time firemen asking for, Mr. Speaker? Here I differ with the motion proposed by the hon. member for Villeneuve. They are not asking for unlimited deductibility but that the present $300 deduction be brought in line with the times and increased to $1,000. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Middlesex-London-Lambton (Mr. Condon):
That the motion be amended by striking out all words after "amending the Income Tax Act" and inserting the following:
"in order to exclude from taxable income indemnities received by part-time Firemen in the exercise of their duties of up to one thousand dollars, where such expenses and incomes are substantiated by proper T-4 slips issued by duly constituted municipal councils for the purpose of the filing of individual income tax returns by each such part-time fireman.
I believe this amendment would bring the deductions allowed to this very special and indispensable segment of our population into line with today's cost of living. It would encourage Canadians to participate in this honourable and unselfish service so necessary to communities and this nation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, having heard the proposer of this motion and the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications (Mr. Douglas) speak with such determination in the interests of this resolution, I want to indicate on behalf of my party that we support the motion and are prepared to support the amendment in order to get it through private members' hour. Let me put this in perspective. It is fine to have speeches in support of this very commendable motion, but I do not want to witness these speeches past six o'clock. On behalf of members of this party I can guarantee that we will not speak to prevent this matter from coming to a vote. We will vote in support of the amended version as proposed by the parliamentary secretary in order to ensure that this matter does receive the sanction of parliament.
The hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette) who proposed this motion indicated during his speech that he wanted to have this matter referred to committee. I think it is in the form of a notice of motion and if we do give our approval in parliament it will be a very strong inducement to the govern-

ment to act upon it, whether it is the government before this election or after the election. I can tell the House that after the next election I can almost guarantee that we will give sympathetic consideration to this matter.
This motion is very narrow in its application. It deals with one segment of the population in communities across Canada who perform valued services. I will not do anything except second the statements by the mover of the motion, the hon. member for Villeneuve, and the statements made by the parliamentary secretary concerning the value of part-time or volunteer firemen. These people perform outstanding service on little notice and it is fair to say at some considerable expense to themselves. It is one of those motions that has its genesis in the fact that we are facing a period of substantial inflation, one in which it is essential for us as parliamentarians to make sure that our taxation law is as sensitive and responsive as it can be to the various segments of our society. There are certain ways in which the Income Tax Act can be adjusted and amended to have a responsiveness to certain realities in our community.
I am in support of this particular motion because it applies to a very large part of our country which sometimes does not get the attention that it ought to in so far as government and taxation policy is concerned. I am referring to that substantial part of our country outside the large urban areas-rural Canada, if you will. In those areas it is still not considered to be heretical to do volunteer work in the community, to feel a sense of community, or to participate in a variety of ways without adequate compensation and very often without any compensation. It seems to me that we as parliamentarians can try to make the Income Tax Act, by way of example, a little more responsive to improve the fabric of living in rural society. In rural Canada there are some unique problems due to lack of population and lack of funds.
I want to give my unqualified support to the principle contained in the motion as well as to the amendment put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications because it refers to a particular segment of the population from communities who give far and above the value of the dollar that they are paid. They provide in parts of our country a service which might not otherwise be available.
I know my colleague, the hon. member for Hastings (Mr. Ellis), has a few remarks he wishes to add so I will conclude. I want to ask members of this House who are present today not to allow this bill to be talked out at six o'clock but to resume their seats so the Speaker may put the motion to us for acceptance.


Mr. J. Larry Condon (Middlesex-London-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to compliment the member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette) regarding this motion. It certainly shows the concern which he has for the firefighters of that particular area, not just those of Quebec but firefighters all across Canada.
Representation from the fire fighters has been sporadic; it has not been a ten-province type of lobby which I am sure
March 20, 1978

would be much more effective. I have a letter from the chief of the Strathroy fire department, which is the town where I live, which says that at the annual fire chiefs' convention held at Oshawa this year the enclosed resolution was passed by the members. The chief stated that he had in turn had his fire fighters' association endorse it as well as the council of the town of Strathroy in that they accepted and approved the minutes of the fire, light and hall meeting where this resolution was introduced. This is the same resolution that was presented by the member for Bruce-Grey (Mr. Douglas), asking that the money deductible should be increased from $300 to $1,000. That is why I fully support and second his amendment.
People in the bigger cities do not realize what the fire department in a rural area does. I am not just talking about rural areas in the farming community, I am talking about small and medium-sized cities. The same problem exists in the area where the hon. member for Laprairie (Mr. Watson) comes from. All the firefighters there are volunteers. This problem arises not only in small areas but I think can be found all over Canada. These people have certainly been forgotten.
It was mentioned that these men who are volunteers or part-time firemen do lay their lives on the line every time they answer a fire call. I would like to bring to the attention of this House the fact that during a fire in downtown Strathroy less than three months ago two of our firemen came very close to death. As a matter of fact, there were two deaths in that particular fire. These firemen have only dedication in their hearts for the fire department and great concern for people other than themselves. They put themselves in positions of mortal danger every time there is a fire. It is not only the fire that is dangerous to them; with the harsh winters we have experienced recently, getting on a fire truck in icy weather is laying one's life on the line.
I would also like to mention the dedication that is found in the town of Strathroy. In each snowstorm that Strathroy has had in the last two years these firefighters have come to the fire hall and sat all night waiting for a possible fire. They have done this because of the accumulation of snow in the rural area which may make it impossible for them to reach their objective. They are not just waiting for the fire bell but are prepared to put themselves out on weekends, during the week and overnight, when they are working on day shift, to make sure a sufficient number of them are present for the protection of the towns and small villages.
I know that there are two or three more members who wish to speak on this matter but I want to comment briefly on what the member for Bruce-Grey mentioned about correspondence with the revenue department. This was a letter which he received when requesting tax exemption for his own area and I quote:
The tax exemption was introduced at a time when the services of volunteer firemen were very necessary to communities and, in some areas, were the only such services provided. Today, these services are generally provided by provincial, municipal or other local governments and the services of volunteer firemen are not as widespread throughout Canada as before.
Income Tax Act
I would like to reiterate what the hon. member for Bruce-Grey has said. Obviously this bureaucrat has never been outside Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. He has no idea of the situation in rural areas and the smaller towns. This is one of the frustrations we get when we see these bureaucrats sitting in their ivory towers, writing letters like this to people who know better. I was very upset when the hon. member for Bruce-Grey raised that matter.
With regard to the difference between $300 and $1,000, the average amount of fires last year in rural areas and surrounding rural areas was about 60. That includes barn fires and town fires. As was mentioned previously, when the bell rings these people leave work or their houses in any type of weather. They do not take time to change their clothes before they go.
The Strathroy fire department, if I may brag a bit about them, has proven that when the firebell goes, it takes one minute from the time the bell rings to the time they get to the fire. Although it is only a small town of 8,500 that would be an enviable record not just for Strathroy but all of Canada.
In conclusion, I fully support the amendment of the hon. member for Bruce-Grey. I have more comments I could make, but I will close because there are others who wish to speak on this subject.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, we give our support to the hon. member for Villeneuve (Mr. Caouette) and the proposal he has presented to the House today. It is my view that the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Bruce-Grey (Mr. Douglas) is simply a refinement that we can all accept. Spokesmen for three parties have stated they favour the proposition. I make it four. That makes it unanimous. Let us pass it.


Mr. J. R. Ellis (Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I enter this debate very briefly. Volunteer fire departments have been a part of my live since I was a small child in the town of Campbellford. When I was mayor of Belleville, I was privileged to work in the Hastings and Prince Edward Fire Mutual Aid, with the township of Hastings and township of Prince Edward working with the city of Belleville. Unfortunately, after that the city of Belleville discontinued its service to the rural areas. As a consequence, more rural fire departments sprang up.
The townships have been very generous with their time and their funds to the extent they can with the very limited budgets they have. For example, in the township of Thurlow, under the guidance of Bob Pearce, we have the "jaws of life", huge hydraulic jaws which is part of their equipment. This is used when there are accidents on the very busy 401 and in other parts of the township. The work these men do is exemplary. It has been spoken of many times in the House this afternoon.
This subject was first brought to my attention by the president of Fire Mutual Aid who at that time was Cecil Neal of the village of Marmora. He asked that this be brought up. I wrote, as others have done. I was not aware of these other letters. I wrote to the department to see whether we could get
3948

March 20, 1978
Income Tax Act
some relief and received the same answer that others have obviously received. The hon. member suggested that if all fire departments get together, we might get some satisfaction. It might be worth while.
The fire departments in the Hastings and Prince Edward area not only spend their time waiting and servicing fires, but also train and keep their equipment in order. In the totally volunteer fire department in the township of Wollaston, they sometimes have to scrounge for material. The township of Wollaston is very small and has a very small budget. They use a second-hand truck they were able to get from a richer municipality. They use a second-hand generator and a secondhand pump. They have worked on that equipment and they keep it polished and in working order.
As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said, with all parties having shown their support for this motion it should at least go to committee where we can perhaps convince the appropriate minister that this action is necessary. These men are not asking for a great deal. They are asking only that some of their expenses and a portion of their honorarium, which at best amounts to only a few cents for the work they put in, be taken into consideration when they pay their income tax.
With only four minutes remaining on the clock, I hope hon. members will let this come to a vote.


Mr. Yves Demers (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise on such an important matter. As my colleagues have demonstrated, enforcement of the Income Tax Act represents a huge challenge for the government which must collect tax contributions equitably and adapt the fiscal system to this country's changing economic needs. As regards personal income tax, the government tries to establish a fair share of the burden according to each taxpayer's contributive ability and the eligibility of expenses incurred by individuals for deductions geared to earned income. While a deduction lightens the tax burden for individuals directly affected, it increases the burden for taxpayers who will not benefit from it but will have to foot the bill.
I readily understand that some of my colleagues in this House want that $1,000 of the volunteer firemen's income to be deductible. I readily understand their intentions, but I would believe that would be unfair for municipalities which have to pay high salaries to their firemen because municipalities which do pay their firemen have to pay some income tax and the salaries must therefore be very high. I think that if we are to do justice on even basis throughout the country, we might be treating unfairly the taxpayers in larger municipalities who have to pay their firefighters. I have perhaps a suggestion so that both situations would be consistent. The municipalities which have volunteer firemen might increase these indemnities, even if they would become taxable. Then, all Canadian municipalities would be on the same footing.

There is another principle which should be safeguarded, Mr. Speaker. Volunteer firemen are not the only ones who do voluntary work in this country; many Canadians do so either to help senior citizens or hospital patients who need visitors, and there are also all the other Canadians who do some voluntary work in various sectors of our society. I think those people should be granted the same privilege which is now being asked, because they also play a very important part in our society. The reason why I am mentioning these facts is to draw the attention of the House and to suggest that tax measures are extremely complex and we must consider all the other Canadian taxpayers and the impact the proposed measures may have on them. I also want to say that the government has made a sustained effort in that direction, even before the tax reform.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. The hour allotted to private members' business having expired, I do now leave the chair until 8 p.m.
At six o'clock 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. Blais that Bill C-26, to amend the Criminal Code, the Crown Liability Act and the Post Office Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order. At five o'clock the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) had the floor and he has 25 minutes remaining.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, before five o'clock I was elucidating the principles upon which the British issued warrants for the interception of communications. The criteria which they emphasized were, first, that the offence must be a really serious one-a lower limit of three years' imprisonment was set for offences which would warrant the interception of communications. In the second place, normal methods of investigation must have been tried and failed or must, in the nature of things, be unlikely to succeed. Third, there must be
March 20, 1978

good reason to believe that interception would result in conviction.
The arrangements concerning the issuance of warrants to security services are similar to those relating to the criminal end of things but the objectives of the security services are quite different. In England the principles governing the issuing of warrants to the security services can be cited in the following terms: there must be a major subversive or espionage activity which is likely to injure the national interest and, further, the material likely to be obtained by interception must be of direct use in compiling the information necessary to the security services in carrying out the tasks laid upon it by the state.
The committee of the Privy Council to which I have referred made two very important recommendations which should commend themselves to the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) in the absence of any provisions in the bill before us similar to those in the British legislation and apparently to those in the United States legislation as well. The recommendation of the Council is found in paragraph 74 of the report and is as follows:
We feel that the outstanding warrants should be reviewed more frequently. We therefore recommend that there should be a regular review not less than once a month both by the Home Office-
In this case that would be the office of the Solicitor General.
-and by every authority that is granted a warrant to intercept. This review should be not only of the numbers of warrants outstanding, but of each particular warrant.
This is the kind of safeguard which the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Baldwin), myself and other members on this side are very sensitive about. They also recommended in paragraph 75 of their report that warrants should no longer be valid until they are cancelled but that their validity should be for a defined period that appears on their face. Normally this should be for a period of no longer than a month and in no case should it be for a period of longer than two months. If an extension of the validity of a warrant is desired, the reason for this should be sent to the home office for its consideration before any extension is approved.
I draw the attention of the Solicitor General to the fact that this kind of review process is well entrenched in the United States legislation which requires submission of every judicial submission to the joint committee of the Senate and House of Representatives.
The report of the special committee of Privy Councillors dealt with two other rather important features of interception legislation. One concerned itself with the use of intercepted information in the civil courts, and I notice a provision in the bill which is before us, section 178.31, where intercepted communications are admissible as evidence in any criminal proceeding which may be taken against any person. That, as I understand the bulk of United States judicial decisions, is not possible there, and that is specifically provided for in the British legislation. In paragraph 101 of their report the privy
Criminal Code
councillors who formed a special committee decided, and I quote:
We therefore conclude by recommending that there should be no disclosure of the information obtained on public grounds by the exercise of this great power, to private individuals or private bodies or domestic tribunals of any kind whatsoever.
They went on in paragraph 113 to say:
As we have pointed out in paragraphs 105 and 106, the obtaining of arrests and convictions is not necessarily a major objective of the Security Service. It is therefore not possible to measure the effectiveness of interception as used by the Security Service by reference to arrests and convictions.
That has a direct bearing on the report of the Solicitor General to parliament with respect to the Protection of Privacy Act.
It is therefore not possible to measure the effectiveness of interception as used by the Security Service by reference to arrests and convictions.
So statistics do not necessarily shore up the position of the government with respect to the unobstructed facility of interception by any means. The committee went on:
The evidence we heard overwhelmingly established the following facts:-
1.	There are continuous organised and dangerous efforts to spy out secrets of the State.
2.	Similar organized and continuous efforts are made to spread subversion and to penetrate the apparatus of the Government and work of high security.
3.	The weakest link in this highly skilled and trained chain of espionage and subversion is communication between the agents and persons concerned.
4.	Methods of interception are highly effective; they are often the only effective method of countering espionage and subversion and of safeguarding the vital secrets of the State. We received a great deal of direct evidence of the success achieved solely by the interception of communications.
That committee visited a centre where telephone tapping was operated, and the committee members themselves held a telephone conversation which was tapped and recorded by a machine in their presence. There was a very small number of persons supervising that purely mechanical operation, which I do not think is the case here in our system. In paragraph 116 we find the following words:
. . . whether it is relevant to the inquiry in hand or not, whether or not it contains private and personal or even privileged conversations.
This brings us to the whole thrust of the question of the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay) when he inquired as to the difficulties inherent in the provision for the opening of the mail of solicitors. In England, it is at the point when the recording is passed to the authorities concerned with the use of interception that the whole content of the interceptions becomes known to officials, whether or not it is relevant to the inquiry in hand, whether or not it contains private and personal or even privileged communications. I will come back to that in a moment when I speak about a matter which the Chair, I think, should be taking under consideration with respect to the matter of privilege to which I referred concerning the rights and immunities of members, and in particular the effect of this bill in so far as the opening of mails in the post offices on these premises, which are not under the jurisdiction of Mr. Speaker but of the Postmaster General (Mr. Lamontagne).
In England, the number of officials who have access to this information is small, "small" compared with the recent disclo-
80033-371/2

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
sure that some 58 copies of a highly sensitive document are being circulated to God knows whom, including file clerks, secretaries and so forth.
In England, in no particular case of interception is the number in excess of three or four carefully chosen officers. They have the duty to select and transcribe only those parts of the material that are relevant to the inquiry in hand. The quantity of relevant material that is thus transcribed varies from case to case. It can be extensive, but in the great majority of cases it bears a small proportion to the total material recorded by the machines. The material that is not selected and transcribed is destroyed. Of particular importance in a nation of 55 million people, with regard to interceptions with respect to security services there are only two officers who have access to that kind of intercepted material. I commend that as a policy which the Solicitor General should adopt.
The final point I have to make is of great concern to all hon. members, and it has to do with how far the provisions of this bill and, for that matter, the provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada with respect to the Protection of Privacy Act should apply to members of parliament. The committee to which I have referred dealt with that specific question, and in paragraph 124 it reported the following:
Questions have recently been asked in the House of Commons about the propriety of intercepting the communications of members of parliament. We have therefore taken advice upon this matter and considered it. The essential point is whether the interception of a Member of Parliament's letters or telephone would constitute a breach of privilege. This is of course for the House itself to determine.
That is something which is under consideration now by the Special Committee on Rights and Immunities of Members of Parliament under the chairmanship of Mr. Speaker. The report goes on to say the following:
So far as we have been able to discover, a Member of Parliament is not to be distinguished from an ordinary member of the public, so far as the interception of communications is concerned, unless the communications were held to be in connection with a Parliamentary proceeding.
This is an important phrase which should be considered by the special committee.
Dealing with the question of the interception of members' letters, the British House of Commons expressed itself clearly in a resolution in 1735. This was contained in a report of the secret committee of the House of Commons in 1844. 1 will not bore the House with the quotation of those words; simply I commend the quotation from the report of the privy councillors who examined this question in 1957 in England. They concluded that this seemed to be a clear recognition by the House of the right of the secretary of state to intercept members' postal packages by the use of an express warrant. So far as we know, this recognition has never been subsequently rescinded or modified.
Then the committee went on to consider how the power to intercept communications should be used in the future. At page 154 of their report, the objections were laid out with respect to civil liberties questions which have been raised. The

objections can be summarized as follows: First, the powers of interception are in the hands of state officials. They are exercised in secret, and the extent of the exercise and the purposes for which the powers are exercised are not publicly known. Second, there is some apprehension that the powers may be used to invade private rights and to interfere with the liberty of the subject unnecessarily. Third, the circumstances in which the powers may be exercised do not give to the subject any reasonable opportunities for protest or objection. These are all very valid points.
Paragraph 137 of the report of the privy councillors reads as follows:
We have examined the exact circumstances in which the powers of the secretary of state have been exercised, in order to see what is the extent of the interference with the privacy of the individual or his liberty, and whether such interference ought to be prohibited for the future, or whether it is necessary or justifiable in the interests of the citizens as a whole that the procedure in force at the present time should continue. The freedom of the individual is quite valueless if he can be made the victim of the law breaker. Every civilized society must have power to protect itself from wrongdoers. It must have powers to arrest, search and imprison those who break the laws. If these powers are properly and wisely exercised, it may be thought that they are in themselves aids to the maintenance of the true freedom of the individual.
It is therefore most important to observe that from the evidence tendered to us, it is plain that the exercise of the power to intercept communications by the secretary of state has never been regarded as a general power, but as a power, carefully restricted to special and well-defined circumstances and purposes, and hedged about with clearly formulated rules and subject to very special safeguards.
That point was made by the hon. member for Peace River.
I should like to deal with the report of the committee of privy councillors, appointed to inquire into the interception of communications in England, by placing on the record one or two of their summary of conclusions and recommendations. One of the most important was that they recommended that in no circumstances should material obtained by interception be made available to any body or person whatever outside the public service. That safeguard is not in the bill before the House. I urge the Solicitor General to cause the government to introduce that safeguard into the bill.
In its deliberations the committee considered a particular case respecting the interception of communications to a solicitor in England, where the results of that communication were transmitted to the bar council. I am sure the Solicitor General should limit the dissemination of information gathered by the interceptive processes, such as that suggested in this bill, to the public service and the public service only. That is where it should stop.
Another rather important recommendation of this report was that the committee was satisfied that interception should be highly selective and that it should be used only where there is good reason to believe that a serious criminal offence has been or is being committed, or that security interest is involved. Also that committee concluded that only a minimum number of people should have access to intercepted material, either in its original or in its selected form, and that this number is very small. Again I point out to the Solicitor General that the practice in England restricts that kind of information to two officials. I ask him to compare that with
March 20, 1978

the alleged reports indicating that some 58 copies of a security document were disseminated among government services. In a nation of 55 million people, only two officials see the information.
Also I draw the Solicitor General's attention to the diversity of the statistics between a nation that size and one the size of the United States with respect to the number of interceptions as reported by his predecessors in the two previous reports tabled under the Official Secrets Act and the Protection of Privacy Act. The committee in England was satisfied that it was a useful tool for protecting national security. In general principle we agree with that. Also we agree that it is a very useful investigative tool in order to assist law enforcement officers of this country in performing their duties. An hon. member opposite cited the example of a gram of heroin being worth $5 at source and being finally transmitted in this country at a value of approximately $16,000. If the passage of this bill can eliminate that kind of thing, then there cannot possibly be any reasonable resistance to placing that tool in the hands of Canadian law enforcement officers. We feel it will at least curtail that type of thing.
My personal recommendation, which is not made on behalf of my party, is that a review process should be set up along the lines of the recommendations that the privy councillors included in their report. That report indicates there should be a regular review of outstanding warrants, not less than once a month, by the office of the solicitor general and by every authority that is granted a warrant to intercept. That is an essential follow up as a safeguard against abuse.
The committee also recommended that warrants should no longer be valid until they are cancelled, but their validity should be for a defined period that appears on their face. I think this bill covers that, but the period is far too long. They recommended that the cancellation of a warrant by the authority to whom it was issued should be forthwith reported to the home office. In other words, that will be reported to the office of the Solicitor General in Canada. Also it recommended that in future each warrant issued by the secretary of state, which in this case would be the Solicitor General, should specify the particulars set out by the committee of privy councillors.
Another recommendation was that full records showing the details set out by the committee of privy councillors should be kept in the home office in the case of each interception. The reports now filed by the Solicitor General with respect to criminal matters should include far more information than is included now. I understand it may well be against the interests of national security even to publish the numbers which the committee report concluded. Perhaps even the numbers mentioned by the Solicitor General, with respect to security matters in his report under the Protection of Privacy Act or under this bill, should not be mentioned. There is a valid argument for that, but only if the annual monthly reporting goes to him as part of his ministerial responsibility to review the particulars of these warrants issued in respect of national security matters.
Criminal Code
A further recommendation is, as 1 have just stated, that:
It would be against the public interest for the Secretary of State to give figures of the extent of the interception in communications, for the reasons set out.
That has reference to national security cases.
In respect of a member of parliament, the committee concluded that he is in exactly the same position as any private citizen in regard to the interception of his communications unless those communications were held to be connected with a proceeding in parliament. That is a very important phrase, and the subject matter of the question of privilege I raised some time ago, of which the Special Committee on Rights and Immunities of Members is now seized.
I should like to be able to inform members of parliament of my familiarity with this subject. I have discussed the matter with the Solicitor General in an off-hand way and he is aware that my background is such that I am bound by the Official Secrets Act in respect of any such disclosure. In any event, even if I took advantage of the immunities offered by parliament it would be against my better judgment to familiarize members with my knowledge of those matters. However, the Solicitor General knows whereof I speak. He knows what is going on in this country, and he knows also of the need for giving very serious consideration to the suggestions I have made here and which apparently have found favour in the mother of parliaments.
The interception of communications of a private citizen, whether by opening his mail, by intercepting a telephone communication or by electronic surveillance, which is very highly sophisticated these days, is a deep intrusion into the civil liberties and the private affairs of any citizen. The safeguards are absent from the bill is respect of a review of that process. All that is required of the minister is to produce a raft of numerical statistics, but that is not good enough. In my submission, the review should go at least to the extent it goes in England and in the United States. They go even further in the United States.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I regret to inform the hon. member that his allotted time has expired. He may continue with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Erik Nielsen: I have just two sentences, Mr. Speaker. They go even further in the United States. They have provided that these matters be referred on a regular basis to what in effect would amount to our Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. Perhaps that is not necessary and the suggestion of the hon. member for Peace River is more in accord with what our practice should be. However, that kind of practice should be set up, to be held in camera if necessary, so as not to jeopardize the interests of national security.
The other matter is this. At least in England they have gone to the extent of requiring a review beyond a mere statistical

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
report. There must be a periodic, regular review of the exercise of these extraordinary powers; and they are extraordinary, interfering as they do with the rights and liberties of the subject. There is an obligation by the government of the day to look at the details of the issuance of these warrants in a special committee, in order to establish that they have been validly exercised and that no abuses have occurred. There must not only be no abuse of these powers, but by adopting the English principle, and even the United States principle, there must appear to be no abuse of the exercise of these powers.


Mr. Pierre De Bane (Matane):: Mr. Speaker, with this bill that seems rather innocuous, I think we are dealing with one of the most basic questions that we were called upon to consider during this session. Indeed, we are studying a bill concerning one of the most basic rights of the citizen, that is his right to privacy.
Of course, we recognize that community life entails some constraints, but 1 think that before the government introduces a bill designed to infringe upon the basic rights of the citizens, strong and watertight evidence is needed.
Now, what is the situation? The Solicitor General stated, when he opened the debate, as recorded on page 3768 of Hansard:
No one would suggest that the proposed measures themselves are an absolute requirement for the protection of our sovereignty, not any more than those measures relating to drugs are going to solve the whole drug problem in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the best proof that this legislation is not urgent is that no government in the last 40 years has deemed advisable to violate the secrecy of the mail. Why then such a hurry to introduce this bill when a royal commission is precisely looking into this matter and when the government itself is not sure of its position. And on this point I quote the Prime Minister himself who stated at a press conference on February 10 last:

If the commission says it is not necessary then it will no longer be authorized. The law will cease existing.
So I wonder why would the government take the liberty of violating one of the fundamental rights of the citizens before obtaining the recommendations of its own commission? It could have asked the commission to produce an interim report but preferred to disregard altogether the commission which was established by the government itself to study this matter. This is, Mr. Speaker, the first reason why I am not prepared to vote for this bill. I think that when we want to infringe on the fundamental rights of the citizens, we should have an overwhelming proof rather than prejudging the reports of a commission saying that the legislation will be revoked if the

commission thinks the power which is to be given to the police is dangerous.
The second reason, Mr. Speaker, for which I am against this bill is that for several months we have seen a sad sight, namely different ministers who had to admit that they were unaware of the irregularities committed by the RCMP and, worse still, that this illegal practice had been going on for 40 years. Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely serious matter and as long as hon. members and the population are not convinced that mechanisms have been put in place like in other countries to control the operations of the police, to ensure that everyone is subject to the law, I am not prepared to vote for this bill.
Mr. Speaker, this matter of the fundamental rights of citizens outweighs by far all other considerations. The question to be debated in fact is whether the citizen or the individual comes before the state or not. This is in fact the most important question. Once again, 1 think that the right to privacy is one of the fundamental rights which is closely related to the freedom of expression, and as stated by the commission formed by some hon. members in England in 1957:

The report of the committee of privy councillors appointed to inquire into the interception of communications, whether practised by unauthorized individuals or by officials purporting to act under authority, stated that the feeling still persists that such interceptions offend against the usual and proper standards of behaviour as being an invasion of privacy.
[ Translation]
But I should like to quote a few interesting excerpts from the official report of the proceedings of the Select Committee of the American Senate which deals with the same subject. For instance, on page 93, Chairman Frank Church is reported as saying to Mr. Helms, Director General of the CIA:

We are talking about a plan that went on for 20 years that everybody recognized was against the law ... Iam trying to find out why a program like this went on for 20 years, was against the law of the country by every indication we have . . . and all I am trying to find out from you is whether you believe that the CIA does not have to abide by these laws .. .
[ Translation]
And the Chairman added:

In fact, the Inspectors General of your own Agency who looked into the program said that in their estimation it produced very little worth-while intelligence. They were concerned about its illegality, and at one point recommended that it be discontinued.

Again the Chairman is speaking, on page 41:

Yesterday, we heard from the members of the Inspector General's office of the CIA, an office that conducted periodic reviews of this program and an office which concluded that it was of marginal value, in terms of the intelligence collecting, so much so that it was recommended to the Agency, finally, that the program either be discontinued or turned over to the FBI.
March 20, 1978

[Translation}
Then, on page 33, Senator Huddleston asked Mr. Osborn, one of the directors general, the following question, quote:

Do you know of any instances that were cited where it had been helpful to them in carrying out their responsibility?
[ Translation]
And Mr. Osborn replied, on page 33:

Not specific instances, Senator, no.

On page 168, Senator Schwartz asked the following question, I quote:

Over the course of the 15 years that you received information from the CIA program, the record shows you received some 50,000 copies of letters. Did it lead to the identification of a single illegal agent?
Mr. Branigan, the chief inspector of the CIA, said:
To my knowledge, no.

And to give you an idea of the extent of this program in the United States, I should like to quote from one of Senator Church's statements. I am referring to page 131:

Beginning in 1953 and ending finally in 1973, the figures show that there was a total volume of letters coming through the New York Post Office that was subject to culling and opening and photographing by the CIA, in this particular program, a total of 28,322,796. Of that number, based as we have heard now on certain watch lists that were established, but in the main, on random selection accounting for two thirds of the inspections, there was a total of 2,705,726 envelopes that were photographed plus 389,324 envelopes that were copied. And the number of those letters that were illegally opened and whose contents were photographed came to 215,820,-

And then he quoted a series of figures.

I think those figures speak for themselves, that it was a program that not only extended for a great number of years but was also very sizeable.
[Translation)
So, Mr. Speaker, besides it is significant that, as far as Canada is concerned, the only case relating to security that has been mentioned is still the one concerning that Japanese terrorist. In the past several months, we have not heard of any other case. Furthermore, according to the testimony given to the McDonald commission, I think that the opening of that letter was not absolutely essential to the arrest of that terrorist. I might be asked why do I take such an interest in civil liberties, in the liberties enjoyed by each of us, but I do think that basically this is the main concern of all the members in this House.
Criminal Code
I will quote a passage from a book published by the government a few year ago, on the type of constitution we would like Canadians to enjoy and which says, and I quote:
The first and foremost objective of the Canadian Federation, according to the government of Canada, is to protect the rights of the individuals. That means first guaranteeing the individual rights of all Canadians. That is a fundamental element of the state: take away those rights and few Canadians will think their country is worth preserving.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, I believe that question to be fundamental and that we do not have the right to say: If the McDonald commission suggests that that power is not necessary, then we will drop the law. I think this is a very ill advised way of doing things.
And in the same vein I must say that it has become obvious that the Keable commission in Quebec that was supposed to look into that question of the protection of individual rights and police compliance with the law, Mr. Speaker, was intended to be used mainly to foster another federal-provincial quarrel. When we consider that 95 per cent of the hearings of that commission dealt with the activities of the federal police and barely 5 per cent with those of police departments coming under the jurisdiction of the Quebec government and when we see how the commissioner was appointed, a young lawyer of 30 who was a member of the party in power. Let us compare with the appointment by the previous government in Quebec of the Cliche commission where a permanent judge was selected to preside over a commission with two other commissioners who were opposed to the government. Now as far as the federal government is concerned, an experienced, independent and permanent judge was selected, a judge who was not afraid to put adds in the newspapers asking the people of this country to inform him of illegalities they could be aware of relating to the federal police. Nothing like that was done with the Keable commission.
So, Mr. Speaker, I am under the impression that when we are dealing with matters of basic rights such as the one which is now before the House and we do not have the right to to use it to foster federal-provincial quarrels. Fundamental rights are essentially rights that no government can touch. And I would like to conclude by quoting the following comment by Ramsey Clark, the former attorney general of the United States:
Privacy is the basis of individuality. To be alone and be let alone, to be with chosen company, to say what you think, or don't think, but to say what you will, is to be yourself. Solitude is imperative, even in a high rise apartment. Personality develops from within. To reflect is to know yourself. Character is formed through years of self examination. Without this opportunity, character will be formed largely by uncontrolled external social stimulations ... Few conversations would be what they are if the speakers thought others were listening. Silly, secret, thoughtless and thoughtful statements would all be affected.
[Translation[
So, Mr. Speaker, I think we would be very ill-advised to put a stop to any new infringement upon that fundamental right

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
pending the report of the McDonald commission, and I think we would be well advised to consider what the United States government recently did through the executive order that was made by the President of the United States in the month of January. Concerning that executive order, let me quote an article published in the newspaper Le Figaro of January 29: What is true is that for the first time in the history of the greatest and oldest trade in the world, members of the United States CIA will come from now on under the jurisdiction of the courts. Even when ordered by the President, any surveillance against an individual suspected of spying shall be authorized first under a warrant signed by seven federal judges.
Mr. Speaker, I think that our system happens to be based on the independence of the judiciary which must control law enforcement by the executive, and 1 think that our tendency to entrust both powers with the government is quite dangerous. Let us not forget what happened last year before the parliamentary committee dealing with the immigration bill, when the deputy minister refused to let cases of rejected applicants be referred to the Supreme Court, under the pretext that Supreme Court judges might be national security risks.
So, Mr. Speaker, for all those reasons, and after due consideration and given the fact that we do not have yet our police forces under proper control, I have decided to oppose this legislation.


Mr. Douglas Roche (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to commend the hon. member for Matane (Mr. De Bane) for the very sincere way in which he has expressed the civil liberties concerns felt by many members in this House with respect to this bill.
At this time it is not necessary to review all the aspects of the bill. I only want to focus in this brief contribution on the one aspect that provides, for me, the most serious problem, and that is the lack of a judicial warrant for mail opening investigations of national security cases. I am going to be asking the government when this bill gets to the committee either to amend it appropriately or to drop the clause that provides for the legality of mail opening in national security cases. Unless they are willing to do for national security cases what they are willing to do for drug cases, namely, to secure an order of a court and ensure that before anyone's civil liberties are interfered with the court is going to be the ultimate protector of that individual, not a politician or minister or government.
I am going to leave aside the politics of the bill. 1 am not even going to discuss the motive or why this bill has come before us now. I have several suspicions. I am not going to bother with the question that we are legalizing ex post facto, or with what has been going on and the prematurity of the bill, or discuss the legislation before the McDonald commission makes its report. I am going to accept without argument the rationale advanced by the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) and seconded by the Postmaster General (Mr. Lamontagne) that we need this legislation to catch drug offenders.

I am rather with the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt) who expressed some doubt that this new law-if it gets that far-will be an important element in catching drug offenders but I am willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt.
I think all of us want to do whatever we can to end the horrifying spectacle of drug abuse, the trafficking, the ultimate violation of one's human rights by making one a drug addict. Let us go along with that. We remember that the bill provides, for one who is suspected of trafficking in drugs and using the mails to further this process, that when a police investigator wants to have access to that person's mail he makes application, gets an affidavit, secures the information, puts it before a court which is concerned about the authenticity, then it goes to the Solicitor General for his approval. Finally, when the Solicitor General approves it, it is presented to a judge or a superior court in the relative area.
That meets the criteria established by my colleague the hon. member for Perth-Wilmot (Mr. Jarvis) in offering support by our party for this bill. He said that it met the criteria of the specific circumstances of mail opening with adequate safeguards. That is to say, it would be put beyond politics. As far as our institutional system allows, a court will take the responsibility upon a recommendation by the Solicitor General. My colleague for Perth-Wilmot said this will give the adequate safeguards we want.
When we turn to the question of national security and the police seeking a warrant for the acquiring of evidence in such cases, we see that the application started by the director general of the security service becomes then a sworn statement. This sworn statement is presented to the Solicitor General who, once satisfied, issues a warrant for the opening of the mail. We know this follows in the case of the Official Secrets Act. We know that it follows the same precedent set by the wiretapping legislation that drew the distinction between wiretapping to obtain evidence for criminal offences in which a court order would have to be acquired; but in wiretapping for national security cases the Solicitor General's warrant by itself is enough.
Here I come to the reason for this brief contribution. I bring to the subject a non-legal mind and 1 would like to speak for the laymen of our country who find it hard to understand why in cases of drugs and the suspicion of one trafficking in drugs, in order to open that person's mail a court order is required. Whereas in the case of a person suspected of undermining the national security of our country, which is a far graver offence, the opening of mail belonging to a person in this category can be done solely on the approval of the Solicitor General. That is something which I do not understand.
The Solicitor General asked us to consider the authority he will be given to examine under Section 16(2) of the Official Secrets Act. I read Section 16(2)(c) of the Official Secrets Act:
March 20, 1978

-activities directed toward accomplishing governmental change within Canada or elsewhere by force or violence or any criminal means;
I want to offer to the House my conviction that that section is a very grave part of the Official Secrets Act. If we are to proceed in our modern society with more and more intrusions of privacy, more and more suspensions of civil rights, then I think it behooves us to amend the Official Secrets Act to take the necessary legislative steps to ensure that it is a court and not a politician who will give the final approval by law for the opening of mail. Unless we do such things, we will not have the adequate safeguards that many members of the House have been calling for.
I come now to the comments made by the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGuigan). He is a distinguished member of parliament and he is also chairman of the justice and legal affairs committee. His contribution to the debate which was made a few days ago I would take quite seriously. He approached this very question as to whether there ought to be a provision in this bill for a court order in cases involving national security as distinct from the approval of the Solicitor General himself. He said that argument could be advanced on both sides. He said it is a narrow decision. We must consider, on the one hand, that the courts are the traditional protectors of our liberty; on the other hand, allowing the Solicitor General to have the final say on mail opening in national security cases would bring us more ministerial responsibility. The hon. member said it is better to put the onus squarely on the government.
In my view, the member for Windsor-Walkerville missed the point when he presented the equation in such terms. He argued that because this is sunset legislation it will expire a year after the McDonald commission report comes in, and we all know that is a long way down the track. It may be 1985 or even much later than that, in any event for a considerable period of time we will have a law allowing the Solicitor General to express final approval concerning national security cases. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, this arrangement is opening the door even wider to political control in individual security cases.
I would not say the member for Windsor-Walkerville was very strong on the side of the bill. He seemed to be ambivalent, but he finally went over to the side of supporting the bill, giving the Solicitor General the final authority. He asked us in so doing to express our confidence in ministerial responsibility. It is that very question that I am unable to answer satisfactorily to my friend the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville. I cannot give my confidence to this government. I think I would be reluctant to give it to any government, but certainly to this government after witnessing the conduct of the various solicitors general, including the present one who has been stonewalling the House on answers to legitimate questions.
The government has been blaming the RCMP for the government's own mistakes. Innumerable copies of documents have been leaked. Now we find the hon. gentleman for Matane (Mr. De Bane) saying he is opposing the bill, offering his conviction tonight that the public is not at all convinced that there are adequate institutional mechanisms for the protection
Criminal Code
of privacy in this country. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member for Matane, in expressing that opinion tonight, is absolutely right.
The very least that should be done is to amend this bill in committee. We should do away with the section on national security entirely. After all, what evidence has been brought before the House that it is absolutely needed now? The weight of the Solicitor General's speech and the entirety of the Postmaster General's speech was on the subject of drugs. Nobody on this side of the House is advancing a counter-argument that we do not need it. We are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The hon. member for New Westminster was not very convinced.
I think most of us are ready to give the government the benefit of the doubt on drug cases, to accept that legislation is needed and will probably do some good. No one has satisfactorily explained why we should need it for national security cases. Therefore, in the absence of a strong argument I think all the more opposition ought to be exerted against giving the Solicitor General this monopoly of power. I say that we ought to go after the drug pushers and we ought to do everything we can do fight crime. But in so doing we must answer what has now become for me the classic parliamentary question that we face in this debate. Genuine steps must be taken against terrorism, against crime, against all those factors of modern society that are making our world a dangerous place.
We want to do the right thing to protect society. At the same time, we want to protect civil liberties. We have to find a way to do both. We want to do this job that we as parliamentarians have the very serious responsibility to do. We want to do it in a way that can secure the safety in society which the citizens of Canada expect us to legislate without opening the door to political control in the violation of privacy. That, then, is the question that is involved as we discuss the principle of this bill.
We want to fight crime and protect civil liberties at the same time. Only a court can ensure that we will do this, not politicans. It is imperative that before this bill comes back for third reading this most objectionable feature of the bill be removed. If it comes back without having been removed, I and many members of this House will have a great deal of difficulty giving it any further approval.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak for just a few minutes to confirm the position of this party which was indicated some days ago by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Leggatt).
It is our feeling that we must vote against this bill at second reading. I can state our position briefly and clearly. Indeed, some of the arguments that I might have liked to have made were presented very effectively tonight by the hon. member for Matane (Mr. De Bane). I congratulate him on that excellent speech.
3956

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code
Almost everyone who has spoken in this debate has declared that, although there are times when the state ought to have the right to intercept or open mail, it should be done only under appropriate safeguards. Those who have taken the trouble to define appropriate safeguards have made it clear that what they meant was a warrant from a judge.
Most of those who have defended this bill have emphasized the fact that, with respect to requests for opening mail, where the senders or the receivers are suspected of being involved in drug traffic, a warrant has to be obtained from a judge. But in the case of security the situation is quite different. The person who issues the warrant in that case is the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais). It can come about in two ways. On the one hand, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police can request of the Solicitor General that he issue a warrant, or the Solicitor General on his own initiative can issue a warrant. That disturbs and concerns us deeply.
I could take time, but I will not, to recount some of the things we have been through in recent weeks and months. Surely the experiences that we have had underline the necessity for the objectivity of a judge rather than for a decision being made by a member of the executive. It is that fatal flaw in the bill that makes us feel we should not vote for it in its present form.
It is true that the bill is going to committee. It is true that it is theoretically possible for the committee to amend the bill. However, a number of those who have spoken, especially members of the Progressive Conservative party, have said that although they are prepared to vote for second reading of the bill, they will oppose it on third reading unless a change is made so that warrants for opening mail in respect of security have to be obtained from a judge.
We think this matter is serious. We are alarmed about what has been happening recently. As I say, it is too serious to give an affirmative vote at this point. Now is the time to take our stand against the element in the bill that to us is not only a denial of civil liberties, but is a case of putting too much power into the hands of the executive.
That is the reason that we in the New Democratic Party have taken our stand against this bill. We are not against the portion of the bill that deals with drug traffic. We are not against totally the idea that there can be instances in which the state should have the right to open mail. However, Mr. Speaker, we insist that in no case should it be done without a warrant obtained from a judge. Because of that flaw, we feel, as we did at the beginning of this debate, that we must vote against the second reading of this bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I must inform hon. members that if the minister speaks now, he will close the debate.


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. It has been my pleasure to have heard the large number of participants in this debate. I feel the debate has been constructive. I look forward to a very serious, fruitful and worthwhile discussion in committee.
There has been a strong expression of approval for the principle of this bill. I appreciate that approval. There has also been some indication of a fear relating to the safeguards. I want to indicate to hon. members that I am reviewing all the suggestions that have been made and I will consider whether there might be some grounds for presenting some amendments.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Jacques Blais: I encourage all members to look at the debates and the arguments that have been presented. We are dealing with a very serious matter. It is one I have not taken lightly and one that I will not take lightly.
I understand, Mr. Speaker, there is agreement that there be a recorded vote at a quarter to ten. That is agreeable to the government. I understand it is also agreeable to the opposition parties. Upon this recorded vote being called, I understand there is an item of business standing in the name of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) that is ready to proceed. That matter will be proceeded with until a quarter to ten, at which time the division bells will ring and the vote will be taken at ten o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Is the House ready for the question?


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I think the Solicitor General (Mr. Blais) meant that we should proceed with the item under the aegis of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) now, to be interrupted at a quarter to ten for the taking of the vote. Therefore, we are not ready for the taking of the question until a quarter to ten.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, I would like the question to be put now. I have concluded the debate. As I understand it, there will be a requirement for a recorded vote and that recorded vote will be put over until a quarter to ten.


Mr. Paproski:: Mr. Speaker, there is not agreement between House leaders that there be a recorded vote at 9:45 unless five members stand to ask for a vote. I want to bring that to the attention of the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.

March 20, 1978


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


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: According to the agreement made a few seconds ago, the vote will be taken at 9:45.


FARM CREDIT ACT
Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture) moved: that Bill C-29, to amend the Farm Credit Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the Farm Credit Corporation has been administering the Farm Credit Act for close to 20 years. In that time, it has approved over 192,000 loans totalling more than $3.1 billion.
A further indication of the importance of this agency is that it extends approximately 60 to 70 per cent of all the long-term farm credit in Canada. In recent years, private lenders, the chartered banks in particular, have become more active in the general field of farm credit, and more particularly in the area of long-term credit.
I noticed the other day that the Royal Bank has announced a new farm mortgage program. This is in line with something which I, in common with other members of the House, have been advocating for a long time-that the private sector enter the mortgage field. They will be making loans to farmers of up to $300,000 over a period of 15 to 20 years. I want to take this opportunity to compliment the Royal Bank on this project. If more of the private lending institutions would do the same, my job and that of the Farm Credit Corporation would be a lot easier.
I sincerely welcome this increased participation. The Farm Credit Corporation is a long way from meeting the total demand, and unless steps are taken to meet it, the gap will continue to widen. Projections are that it will soon take close to $1 billion per year to meet the long-term credit needs of Canadian farmers.
This bill brings forth a number of amendments designed to update the Farm Credit Act so that Canadian farmers can maintain their position of leadership in the world and increase their productivity level through the wise use of credit.
The major amendments are as follows. First, that the F.C.C.'s capital be increased from $100 million to $150 million, thus increasing the corporation's borrowing capacity to $3.75 billion from $2.5 billion. There is real urgency for this amendment because the corporation's capital will be used up
Farm Credit Corporation
by May 1978. Second, that most age restrictions on lending be removed except for loans to persons phasing into farming. This special advantage would continue to be offered to persons under 35 years of age. Third, that the maximum loan for a single farming enterprise be increased to $200,000 for one qualifying applicant and $400,000 for two or more qualifying applicants.
Before going on to discuss the lesser amendments, let me give the reasons for these three proposals. The present authorized capital of $100 million and the corporation's borrowing capacity of 25 times that, or $2.5 billion, will be exhausted early in 1978-79. The corporation's capital was last increased in 1975 by about 50 percent from $66 million. Between 1971 and 1976, the total value of farm capital in Canada increased from $23.7 billion to $57.0 billion representing an increase of close to 140 per cent. The number of farms with annual sales of $5,000 or more has increased by 18 per cent. The number whose sales exceed $10,000 increased by more then 63 per cent. The corporation therefore needs a significant increase in borrowing power to be able to keep pace with the increase in total farm capital. But it should be noted that the F.C.C. will continue to be restrictive in its lending guidelines in order to stay in line with the government's restraint program. This means that applications will continue to be assessed according to the applicant's need for funds from the Farm Credit Corporation.
Thus, we shall be staying within the guidelines and the intent of the farm credit legislation when it was first brought in; that is, to be a lending organisation which would lend money only to farmers who really needed such assistance and who could not find any other organisation which would lend them the money they required. Sometimes I think that farm credit has departed from that policy.
The second amendment removes age as a qualifying factor for lending limits. Hon. members will recall that when I proposed the 1975 amendments to the Farm Credit Act, the main thrust of that bill was to help young people to get started in farming. Since then, the F.C.C.'s total lending to young farmers has steadily increased. This year almost three quarters of all loans went to persons under 35 years of age. This represents some $410 million.
A great number of farmers, farm organizations and the F.C.C. advisory committee as well as members of parliament have written to me and made recommendations in the past few years. One of the points that constantly comes up is that need does not magically stop at 35. The present amendments extend these advantages to all farmers. Nothing is taken away from the young farmers by these amendments. They simply acknowledge that basic credit requirements do not change on a specific birth date. Experience indicates that the imposition of the 35-year age limit encourages borrowers to rearrange business structures to qualify a spouse or child. This amendment will give more flexibility in meeting real credit needs.
The 35-year age limit would remain on what we now call Part IV or beginning farmer loans, which allow the borrower
80033 - 38/4

March 20, 1978
Farm Credit Corporation
to retain an off-farm job for up to five years before becoming principally engaged in farming.
We must recognize that capitalization under all its forms is increasing in agriculture. With the farm labour problems of the past and the future, increased mechanization will continue. Many of the costs of technological change cannot be paid for immediately out of current incomes. Time is required.
I wish to remind hon. members that in recent years the farmer has very often been faced with the cost-price squeeze. This cost-price squeeze has forced him to pay for most capital requirements over a substantial period of time. The third amendment therefore deals with increases in lending limits. Under its present legislation, the Farm Credit Corporation can lend up to $100,000 for standard farm loans and up to $150,000 for loans for young farmers. The $150,000 limit for young farmers was set in 1975 and the $100,000 limit for the standard loans was set in 1972. According to Statistics Canada, land values have increased 25 per cent since 1975 and 130 per cent since 1972. Furthermore, a farm today is nearly 10 per cent larger than it was in 1975.
The present loan limit applies to farm units as well as to applicants. Thus, the maximum loan for a farm operated by father and child or by partners is presently $100,000, or $150,000 depending on age. If this bill is approved, the Farm Credit Act would provide a new loan limit of $200,000 per qualifying operator up to a maximum of $400,000 for a farm unit where there are two or more qualifying operators. We feel this will facilitate joint operations, encourage greater efficiency and a smoother phasing-in of the young operator into the family farm business.
This increase in lending limits is presently necessary so that the Farm Credit Corporation can meet the credit needs of Canadian farmers. There are a number of sectors which have become increasingly difficult to finance. For example, a grain-livestock operation of some 1,100 acres in Alberta presently costs about $400,000. In Saskatchewan-let us say on the Regina plains-if one wishes to purchase two sections of wheatland, it would likely cost over $500,000. In Ontario, a 75-cow dairy farm would cost more than $300,000. Cash cropping land of about 200 acres in size in southwestern Ontario would probably cost nearly $300,000 today. These are but a few examples of some typical capitalization requirements on family farms in Canada.
In looking at these proposed amendments some critics will say that raising loan limits, removing the age limits and adding capital for the corporation will have an inflationary effect on land values. There may be a small element of truth to this statement, since the provision of more adequate credit will at all times favour the buying and selling of land. However, farmland gets its value because of its capacity to produce income. It is really economic conditions-that is, the level of income produced-which is the main determinant of land prices, not credit. An increase in the lending limits and remov-

al of age limits only mean that the farmer with the greatest need can more easily compete for the land available.
A small number of other amendments are included in this bill which are designed to streamline the administrative operations of the act. One of these is the use of market value to assess all loans. That is a change. The Farm Credit Corporation presently uses two values in assessing the security it takes, market value and appraised value. Generally, market values are used for young borrowers and the appraised value for older borrowers. Market value is based on recent sales of similar properties, while appraised or productive value is based mainly on the capitalized value of net income. Appraised value is calculated and therefore is a theoretical value which is bound to be confusing.
The use of these different values has been confusing to borrowers and to other agencies as well as to the F.C.C. staff. In recommending the use of market values and repayment ability it is understood that loan limits would be based on the lower of the two. This point should be stressed. No matter how high or low the market value, all loans are determined on the repayment ability of the proposed operation.
We are also going to remove the supervision fee. Under the original act passed in 1969 a supervision fee of $25 was set for supervised loans, those which exceed 75 per cent of the appraised value. The fee is now more of a nuisance than anything else and sometimes gets in the way of establishing good relationships between the borrower and staff of F.C.C. Under the proposed legislation advisory services would be provided only where and when needed and when requested.
With regard to the provision for losses on these loans, the present act has established a reserve where actual losses have been charged. This amendment would allow the corporation to make provision for these losses according to accepted accounting principles. We see no difficulty in this at all. We think that the costs for administering these losses will nearly offset just writing them off.
The last amendment proposes that penalty interest be dropped. It is believed that removal of penalty interest would make the Farm Credit Act more compatible with the spirit of the Interest Act, which prohibits penalty interest except in those acts which specifically provide for it.
Even a higher penalty interest would probably not have the desired deterrent effect because farmers traditionally pay off loans as fast as they can, even when the interest rate is well below the market rate. That is history. In some instances, instead of taking capital and investing it in a trust company or in some long term investment at perhaps 9 per cent, they pay their old mortgages off in full. Some of those mortgages have interest rates of 5 per cent and 6 per cent. They just do not want to be in debt.
In 1978 farmers will face further increases in costs of farm inputs, and the present outlook is for slightly decreased net income. When one considers that these farmers represent a mere 6 per cent of our population yet produce most of the food which all 24 million Canadians consume, as well as food for
March 20, 1978

many millions of people in the rest of the world, and earn about $4 billion in foreign exchange from exports, one can understand the importance of these amendments. One of the tools of our modern economy, credit, must be available to the Canadian provider of food, the farmer.
I also want to mention that loans under the Farm Credit Act are not grants or gifts. Borrowers do enjoy a slightly lower than market rate. The F.C.C. interest rate is presently 914 per cent. On a $200,000 loan amortized over 29 years this represents an average of $13,000 in interest payments alone per year. The Farm Credit Act is a tool which gives operators of family farms a chance to make a success of their operations. One need only look at F.C.C. statistics to realize that this opportunity is not taken lightly. Farmers have by far the best repayment record in Canadian society.
I have faith in the ability of Canadian farmers to continue to produce high quality food in an efficient manner. I urge hon. members to show their support for these efforts by giving farmers this needed legislation. I look forward to speedy second reading of this bill and its going to the committee as soon as possible, where we will try to answer all the questions of the members of the committee.


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, because of the limited time we have, I would like to reserve my right to make further comments when the bill is debated at some other time. At the outset, however, I would like to congratulate the new chairman of the Farm Credit Corporation, Rollard Poirier. We are looking foreward to working with him in the days ahead.
From an outsider's point of view, the recent administration of the F.C.C. has been troublesome. It will have to contend with the political move of its head office to Alberta. There has been a very critical internal audit of its operations which has caused some consternation within the corporation and within the farming community. The F.C.C. has gone through some changes in recent months, and the bill we are presently debating will give us a chance to question the minister's officials on these changes. Under the past chairman, Mr. Owen, who was the original chairman of the F.C.C., the corporation ran like clockwork. The corporation has not done so recently, and I contend that that is because there has been political manipulation and meddling which has caused the problems.
In relation to the head office move which 1 mentioned earlier my party would not feel there was anything wrong with the proposed move to Camrose if it were the result of some formula. The reason for the move is a political one, and in the opinion of my party it should not take place without the establishment of guidelines for the move. Above all, politics should not be one of the criteria followed when making a major decision such as this.
The internal management audit which I mentioned earlier has raised many questions. When this bill is before us in committee we will want to question the minister and his officials on some of the matters which were raised by the
Farm Credit Corporation
audit. We will want to know what recommendations have been made.
There were questions raised concerning poor morale and poor corporation leadership. In the eyes of the staff in the corporation, and also in the eyes of farmers, there was a lack of credibility in management. There was a lack of confidence concerning the leadership in the branches and head office. The management audit made approximately 75 recommendations. Certainly the members of my party want to know what recommendations have been implemented, how the recommendations are working, and what recommendations the government intends to discard. Also it would be interesting to know why the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) kept the audit a secret for such a long time, until in effect it was leaked to an opposition member of parliament.
Basically we agree with the increases set out in the Farm Credit Corporation amendments. At the present time credit is needed desperately with respect to farming. Banks have been important lenders to the farming industry. For the most part, the banks have done a credible job. Chartered banks have been the leading institutions in terms of lending money to farmers over the past few years. Approximately 57 per cent of the total agricultural credit in 1975 was being lent by banks, compared to 43 per cent in 1967. Farmers are suffering from a severe cost-price squeeze. As the hon. minister well knows, and as hon. members of the House who represent rural ridings well know, the index of farm product prices rose by 50 percentage points between March, 1973 and March, 1977. The input costs were up approximately 80 percentage points in the same period.
In order to provide the House with an indication of the increase in costs, hired farm labour has increased by 160 percentage points in the past four years; building replacement costs have risen 92 percentage points in the past four years. Cash receipts from January to July of 1976 were $6 billion. For the same period in 1977, these were down to $5.6 billion. Statistics Canada indicated that in the past three years, 1976, 1977 and 1978, farm incomes dropped approximately 42 per cent. I do not know of any other group in our society that would put up with those figures, other than Canadian agricultural producers.
As we all know, farmers are eternal optimists. One of the reasons the recent agricultural strike in western Canada was so very successful was the deep underlying feeling that agricultural prices certainly must increase. In conclusion, I want to point out that my party is in agreement with most of the amendments outlined by the hon. minister and his colleagues.

March 20, 1978
Criminal Code CRIMINAL CODE


AMENDMENTS TO GIVE CERTAIN RIGHTS TO POLICE
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Blais that Bill C-26, to amend the Criminal Code, the Crown Liability Act and the Post Office Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. It being 9.45 o'clock, pursuant to order made earlier this day, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings now before the House. The House will proceed now to the recorded division on second reading and reference of Bill C-26.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, there was an indication given to the House that we would be dealing with report stage of pipeline legislation tomorrow. Is there someone who can confirm that?


Mr. Munro (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, I am advised that is correct.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. William Knowles (Norfolk-Haldimand):: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to expand on a question that I asked the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) on March 15 relating to offshore labour to assist farmers in my area, fruit and vegetable farmers in particular, and later on tobacco farmers. The question I asked the minister was why the Manpower centres and farm labour pools across Ontario require farmers who apply for offshore labour to sign blank application forms which give Manpower the right to write in wages at a later date without consulting the farmer. The minister said, among other things, one sentence that meant something to me at the time, and it is as follows:
I do not think it is appropriate that they should be signing blank application forms. I will check it out. I thank the hon. member for his representation.
Since then the minister has written me a letter at some length trying to explain exactly what the officials in the Manpower centres have been trying to do. To set the record straight, I should like to read the blank form the farmers were asked to sign. It begins as follows:
THIS IS TO CONFIRM that I understand and agree that the workers I have
requested on ORDER NO	
FOR	employment
(crop/occupation)
WILL BE PAID at the prevailing wage levels now being determined by the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission ...
The farmer is asked to sign that without any wage being stated. Surely the farmer has a right to know what wages he is expected to pay before he signs a document such as that.


%

March 20, 1978

Farmers are upset about it. Representations have been made to me on many occasions personally, by telephone and in writing. Surely it is not right.
In addition to the principle of the thing, it puts farmers in a very bad situation because in the case of the fruit and vegetable farmers they have already negotiated the price at which the product will be sold. Now they find they do not know what it will cost to produce because the wages have not been set.
In expanding on the question I asked about the way in which applications for offshore labour are circumscribed by certain conditions that the minister and his officials laid down. This brings up the whole question of offshore workers versus Canadian workers. I realize the minister is on the spot with high unemployment all across Canada, and when we ask for offshore labour it looks bad. Let me put the thing in proper perspective, however. Let us understand that less than 2 per cent of the farm labour force for seasonal farm labour is supplied from offshore. That means 98 per cent of the work is already being done by Canadians.
We would not be asking for any help if we could depend on the type of people provided by Manpower from among Canadians who profess to be interested in working on farms. The farm labour pools in co-operation with Canada Manpower Centres are now supposedly screening Canadians who suggest they want to be transported across Canada to work on farms. The directors of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture sent a resolution to the department saying the screening system was totally inadequate. If it were adequate we would not be getting the type of man who comes to work on a farm, works for a day or two and says "I don't like it", then quits and gets transportation back home. That is the reason the farmer is so interested in getting the type of worker he knows will stay, as is the case with offshore workers from the Caribbean Islands, from Mexico, and foreign students.
One thing that has caused farmers to be completely frustrated over this whole matter is the announcement made by the minister in March, I believe, that offshore labour will be admitted into Canada in the same numbers as last year. Every farmer expected to get the help he had last year. Now, when he goes to put in his order he finds the application circumscribed with so many conditions that he just cannot met them. He is totally frustrated.
I suggested to the minister in my second question the other day that for the present, until he gets things ironed out, the same number of offshore workers be allowed in and be allowed to work on the same farms as they did last year. Then the hon. gentleman might sit down with the farmers, or the organizations which represent them, and find out whether some satisfactory method could be worked out for both the farmer who employs offshore labour and the Manpower centres which administer the program.
The government's attitude toward the offshore supplementary labour I have been talking about is really weighted against the farmer. The government and the ministry are
Adjournment Debate
looking only at the statistics. Since a great number of Canadians are unemployed, they are bringing in only a small number of offshore workers. After all, there is the human side. On one hand we have a Department of Agriculture which is supposed to assist the farmer; on the other we have another department throwing roadblocks in the farmer's way. The farmer is trying to get his crop off in the most efficient manner so that he may reap a return and maintain a decent standard of living. That is perhaps the root of the problem. I am almost certain, that there is not a single person advising the minister on his manpower program who has ever operated a farm or had to meet a payroll for employees working on a farm. If they did that they would have a totally different viewpoint.
I ask the minister again to take another look at the way this offshore labour program is being implemented. Do not get me wrong, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the type of work that is done by 98 per cent of the labour force who are Canadians, and especially by those who come from the locality in which the work is done. They know what it means to do farm work. They do an excellent job for the farmer. It is those people upon whom we cannot depend who cause the problem.


Mr. Raymond Dupont (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to the hon. member for having given me notice of the question as to whether farmers have to sign a blank application form for foreign labourers allowing the salary to be filled in at a later date.
In the first place, with regard to the workers recruited under the programs for seasonal farm labourers from Mexico and the Caribbean, wage criteria are detailed in an agreement signed by the employer, the worker and a representative of the foreign government involved. According to the criteria which apply to the 1978 programs, the employer must pay foreign workers the same salary as that paid Canadian workers for the same work, provided that salary is not less than the minimum wage set for that occupation or less than the average wage paid last year for the crop concerned in the province in question.
Employers sign an offer of employment giving details on the work to be performed, and the salary. Because of the delay in establishing pay rates in effect last year in Ontario, employers are now asked, although temporary, to sign offers of employment specifying, under the salary, clause, that they agree to conform to the salary criteria outlined in the agreement between employer and worker. This temporary provision allows people from the Caribbean Islands and Mexico to come to Canada, if their services are immediately required, and simplifies the review of applications submitted by employers to recruit offshore workers who must come into Canada within a short time.
As the hon. member no doubt knows, in recent years some Ontario employers have expressed concern over the way the

March 20, 1978
Adjournment Debate
commission sets the salary rates in effect. I must mention that these rates are based on the market situation. Elowever, they are an essential element of the program and the agreements with foreign countries, which stipulate that workers are not to receive a salary lower than that of other workers, and more so, not lower that the average salary given for that particular harvest. To make sure that information on salary rates is as precise as possible, the commission is this year conducting a general survey in Ontario, so as to find out the real salary received by workers in 1977.
This survey is organized under the federal labour-intensive program and will make it possible to set up a detailed list of actual salaries paid according to the crop and the kind of employment. The survey is directed to both employers and workers; the latter being disseminated throughout Canada, the survey will be completed a little later than expected. The final results will be known in early April, that is well before most applications from offshore workers will be considered. Of course, the employees who already know what are minimum wages in effect in Ontario should have a good idea of the average wages generally paid last year for each crop.


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


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS-ISRAEL-POSSIBLE CHANGE OF POSITION ON RIGHT TO OCCUPIED TERRITORY
Mr. Heath Macquarrie (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, it is now some time since I asked the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) why Canada found it necessary to vote with the United States, Israel, El Salvador and no one else against a motion condemning continued Israeli occupation of the territory of other sovereign states. The minister's reply, while lucid, was something less than precise. He referred to the English text as referring to "occupied territory", as distinct, I presume, from "territories". Doubtless he had in mind UN resolution No. 242, so often referred to by Canadian secretaries of state for external affairs as the very cornerstone and inner shrine of Canadian policy. But rarely does this minister, nor did his predecessors, refer to an integral part of resolution 242 which begins by emphasizing "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war".
It is all very well for the minister to refer to his growing irritation about "rather senseless UN resolutions." I think he must contain his impatience and remember that the UN is a reflection of a vast and variegated world community and that not all members are great powers or western states. Yet the principle of one-state-one-vote must prevail else we are faithless to the great declarations of equality and brotherhood on which the UN charter is based.
What is much more sad than any interpretations of resolution 242 or evaluation of the UN charter is the grave realization that what I discussed so many weeks ago has done such a

major disservice to efforts to bring about peace in the tragically troubled Middle East. The dramatic, genuine and indeed heroic peace mission of President Sadat may have foundered. It did not fail because Mr. Sadat lost heart. It did not collapse because he forgot the most severely harassed victims of the UN creation of Israel, the Palestinians. It failed long before the regrettable, reprehensible, indeed deplorable destruction of the lives of Israeli bus riders by PLO operatives. The grand design for peace conceived and executed by the President of Egypt foundered on Israeli intransigence respecting the withdrawal from settlements in the Sinai and other areas of land which were never turned over to Israeli sovereignty by the United Nations.
In addition, while President Sadat suffered the slings and arrows of some of his Arab brethren, the government of Israel decided and declared that they would establish new settlements, under their control in the Sinai and other areas which were never placed under their jurisdiction.
In the last few days upon the Ossa of sorrow has been placed the Pelion of anguish. The sovereign state of Lebanon has been invaded and hundreds, possibly thousands, of innocent women and children put to the sword or forced to flee in fear and trembling in the face of the mighty Israeli arsenal of naked power.
I hope Canadian peacekeepers will be able to be helpful. I hope that Israel, so often heedless of the resolutions of the UN which created it, will this time listen to the world community. One notes that there is an apparent willingness on the part of the Canadian government to contribute to a peace-keeping force. I fully agree with the concerns expressed by my hon. friend from Victoria (Mr. McKinnon) and re-echoed by the minister this afternoon. But I think it quite unfair and presumptuous to suggest, before the fact, that only those in the north might be non co-operative with the peace force.
There is something familiar in the minister's statement when he says that we have not been asked to make a contribution. In the post-1973 situation it sometimes seemed we were preaching for a call which did not come through all that quickly. Possibly the Arab states question our objectivity on the Middle East situation. On the evidence of our actions and utterances 1 would not be surprised if they made this reading, despite the fact that the Arabs do not always seem too alert in knowing their friends from their enemies.
I close with an appeal for greater objectivity and a deeper commitment to the real victims in the Middle East. I hope Canada will be able to make a tangible contribution to a Middle East peace. I also hope that neither Israel nor the PLO will refuse co-operation with the UN peace force. They will render both themselves and mankind a disservice if they fail to heed the call for compliance.


Raymond Dupont: Mr. Speaker, as indicat-
March 20, 1978

ed by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) in the answer he gave on Tuesday, November 29 to the question of the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. Macquar-rie), the government has not modified its position regarding the Middle East.
On October 28, 1977, Canada supported a resolution condemning the Israeli policy of colonization of occupied territories. During the general debate of the General Assembly in the fall, the Secretary of State for External Affairs once again restated the concern of Canada over the colonization policy of Israel and its incidence on a resumption of constructive negotiations toward achieving peace. We continue to be opposed to the creation of colonies in the occupied territories for the main reason that in our opinion, it is detrimental to the conclusion of a negotiated solution suited to the framework of resolution 242 of the Security Council.
On November 25, 1977, Canada voted against the resolution regarding the situation in the Middle East because it contained elements which went beyond the negotiation pattern provided under resolutions 242 and 338 of the Security Council and which prejudged the outcome of discussion under way and negotiations which will eventually take place in Geneva. It is therefore illogical to condemn Israel because it is still occupying territories captured in 1967 because the occupation is simply a result of the absence of a peace agreement. Obviously, one cannot sincerely expect Israel to evacuate territories before negotiations are held. It also goes without saying that the subject of its withdrawal will be an important issue during these negotiations. Furthermore, this resolution called for the participation of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Canada does not recognize the PLO even if it believes that Palestinians have the right to defend their point of view and participate in the negotiations dealing with their own future.
It therefore follows that our votes on these two resolutions are quite compatible and in agreement with the principles we had stated regarding the Middle East. In effect, the first one, under certain aspects, went further than the framework of resolution 242 and was not compatible with the negotiation process mentioned in that resolution. As to the second one, it dealt with an element of the Israeli policy in the occupied territories which, in our opinion, diminished the prospects of a quick resumption of the negotiations and the achievement of peace.
Just some time ago, Canada voted in favour of a resolution of the Security Council calling for Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon in order to be replaced by a United Nations force set up for peacekeeping purposes in that very territory.


AGRICULTURE-PRICE OF POTATOES LESS THAN COST OF PRODUCTION-ACTION TO ALLEVIATE
Mr. Eymard Corbin (Madawaska-Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday March 7, I asked the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Adjournment Debate
Whelan) to take some action to alleviate the unfavourable effect of low potato prices in eastern Canada this year. This is the fifth time since December of last year that I have raised this serious problem in the House of Commons. Many family farms risk going under if the producers cannot obtain new financing for their operations or if they cannot pay back to the finance companies the sums borrowed last spring for their sowing operations.
I will only mention in passing the payments due to federal and provincial farm credit corporations which are also asking for their money. This spring will therefore be even more difficult for those who want to stay on the farm, but who must now decide whether or not to plant this year, or else to rent or sell their land, which would be a very extreme and difficult solution. With thousands of barrels of potatoes still in storage, with bankers who want to be repaid and not knowing the precise intentions of the government, how can the farmers make decisions which are so important for their operation and their family? The potato producers do not doubt for one moment that the federal government wants to help them, especially the present Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) who has often shown not only a good understanding of the problems of potato production, but who has also reacted favourably and positively in the past to the needs of farmers.
As I stated during the proceedings on adjournment on February 20, the farmers are more than ever aware of the need to establish an organization truly capable of providing a certain stability for markets, and especially for prices. And whatever we might hear from the defenders of consumer interests who complain of all sorts of abuses, sometimes and even often justifiably, we cannot accuse the primary producers of unduly benefitting from our free enterprise system. The potato producer, and I should say rather some potato producers have admittedly obtained relatively high prices for their product in the past, but this has happened only rarely, and mostly because of exceptional circumstances and for limited if not insignificant quantities. On the contrary, in the last 10 years most producers have generally obtained rather low prices, barely sufficient to cover production costs.
I know very few people in this House, if any, who would invest every year $25,000, $30,000, $35,000 or even more in high-quality planting potatoes, fertilizers, fungicides, insecticides, defoliants. I know very few who would invest $60,000, $80,000 or more, according to acreage, in tractors, cultivating machines, croppers, warehouses, without even knowing what nature and the markets hold in store for them. But there are hundreds of them, in my province of New Brunswick, who take that risk. They did so last spring. The result is they got much less on the domestic market for their products than it cost them to produce.
Of course the benefit went to the consumer, who last summer could buy high quality potatoes at a ridiculous price. It is therefore fair, in a federal system such as ours, that the

March 20, 1978
Adjournment Debate
federal government, through the Agricultural Stabilization Board, come in and soon so that potato growers can take difficult decisions for the next crop year so that these decisions become easier, so that those farmers can decide in a sound and sensible way and not lose their shirts. The government, through the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), made a commitment. They must act now, before it is too late for a large number of family farms. Mr. Speaker, time is of the essence.


Raymond Dupont: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member from Madawaska-Victoria (Mr. Corbin) for his concern for potato growers in his area.
Mr. Speaker, the problems faced this year by the eastern Canada potato industry are shared by the industry throughout North America. Because of a small increase in the acreage planted and favourable weather conditions, the 1977 crop has been bigger than normal. The shortage in Europe resulted in very good exports last year but that situation did not reoccur this year, hence the producers found themselves in a predicament. A few export outlets in the United States were developed but none of these proved to be of valuable interest for New Brunswick producers. Returns to producers remained between $1.60 and $2 a hundredweight. That level at this point of the marketing season was not enough to cover the
producers' production costs. The matter was referred to the Agricultural Stabilization Board and preliminary meetings were held with producers' representatives and provincial government authorities with a view to providing assistance programs.
A few options were considered to offer producers financial assistance in view of the difficult circumstances. Markets in eastern Canada are closely related because of the competitive factors. The volume of potatoes in storage is constantly decreasing. However, the industry will have to make extensive marketing efforts to sell the rest of the crop. The usual method when a crop is being stabilized is to analyze returns to producers after the crop has been marketed. If the provisions of the Agricultural Stabilization Act call for a payment to producers at that time, then the crop is designated under the act and steps are taken for stabilization. The minister has been closely involved with the concerns of the potato industry and indicated in the House that the need for a stabilization program will be considered at the end of the season.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.36 p.m.

Tuesday, March 21, 1978