1978-12-04

Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, 1 rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Developments in several country elevator points reveal a complete breakdown in car allocation and co-ordination within the grain handling and transportation system. Last week in Alberta, the points of St. Paul, Fort Saskatchewan and Bonny-ville were allocated several cars for which there were no orders. These cars remained on sidings for a week and subsequently were returned empty, in spite of the fact that the elevators were full of grain. Today this has been repeated again at the delivery point of St. Paul that received more cars for which there are no orders. Whether these developments are occurring by design or through sheer incompetence is not known. What is known is that this disorder and chaos must be resolved without further delay. Therefore, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Hamilton):
That the Minister of Transport act immediately to convene an "emergency grain summit" which would draw together representatives of all components of the grain handling, marketing and transportation system to deal with this crisis and to arrive at solutions in the presence of all parties concerned.


Mr. Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion for debate can be done only with unanimous consent, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, to move a
motion of urgent and pressing necessity. I move, seconded, by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House expresses its regret that Premier Lougheed of Alberta does not reflect the generosity of the people of his own province who want to do as much for refugees as people in other poorer provinces, and urges him to withdraw the unfortunate requirements which he has stipulated to be preconditions for accepting Vietnamese refugees to the province of Alberta.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: In accordance with the terms of Standing Order 43, such a motion can be introduced only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mr. J. P. Nowlan (Annapolis Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
In view of the announcement of the Minister of Communications (Mrs. Sauve) of a consultative committee on the implications of telecommunications for Canadian sovereignty, which is supposed to produce specific recommendations on the restructuring of the Canadian telecommunications system by the first week of February, 1979, and that this monumental task involving the public domain is to be performed behind closed doors without public participation, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski):
That the terms of reference of this committee be expanded to at least have representative public briefs from interested parties to give some validity to the exercise, otherwise the government acknowledge that this complex and fundamental issue should be the subject matter of a proper royal commission, so that the public will not have the impression that the just society of years ago has now become the closed society.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
December 4, 1978

Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a question of urgent and pressing necessity, one for which I know I will have the full support of colleagues to my left in the New Democratic Party. It arises out of the growing loss of life amongst refugees fleeing Vietnam by any means possible and, from that, the recurring crises in placing substantial numbers of these people in the few countries willing to receive them.
I move, seconded by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro):
That parliament urges the government to send, as it frequently did in earlier troubled times, an emissary to Hanoi to determine first-hand exactly what appalling conditions of discrimination and persecution exist within the United Socialist Vietnam which force so many people to flee at great risk to their lives.


Mr. Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion requires unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. J. R. Holmes (Lambton-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker):
That the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Faulkner) take immediate action to reassure the House and the Indian community that the successful educational program of introducing Indian students to urban life, the ANA program, such as that at the Rideau High School in Ottawa, will be continued; and, further, that the minister immediately transmit this decision to the parties involved, in particular the Indian students who are concerned they will be forced to return to their homes in remote communities lacking the facilities to carry out adaptation, not assimilation, programs.


Mr. Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion requires unanimous consent. Is there such consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the new President of the Board of Economic Development Ministers. I see he has just arrived. There is a good deal of public confusion about the role and the responsibilities of this new minister. The original press release indicated that he had responsibility for reviewing and approving-and, therefore, presumably, disapproving-policies and legislation emanating from the constituent ministries.
On the CTV program Question Period, the minister said he had a co-ordinating role, which is something quite different. Perhaps this confusion could be cleared up if the minister would indicate to the House just what functions he will be performing in his new ministry which heretofore have not been performed. After all, there is a cabinet committee; there are responsibilities in the Privy Council office and the Prime Minister's office for co-ordinating. What is this minister going to be doing which the government has not been doing up until now?


Hon. Robert K. Andras (President of the Board of Economic Development Ministers):: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that I did not hear the beginning of the question but I think I know the gist of it. There will be a full opportunity for the House to involve itself in the functions of this new ministry in a formal way very shortly. It is just a matter of finding House time so that we can place before the House a proclamation emanating from the ministries and Ministers of State Act, which I think provides for two days' debate. That should be before the House without much further delay. At that time, all these questions can be dealt with in more detail.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that, but yesterday the minister indicated that this would be coming forward today. Now we learn it will be within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I think the House and the public would like to know just what the minister is doing and what he is going to do.
I would appreciate getting some answers now. In particular, I wonder if the minister can tell the House whether this new board over which he presides will have responsibility for approving all policy, spending programs and legislation emanating from the lesser ministries which make up his board, and will he be reviewing existing policies and legislative programs of these lesser ministries, or just new ones which will be coming forward? What, precisely, will the minister be doing?


Robert Knight Andras: Again, I think this would be dealt with better and in more detail by an examination of the order in council from which the mandate of the new ministry and the board develops; and I believe notice of that will be given today. This
December 4, 1978

will be available to all hon. members within the next few hours.


Harvie Andre: During the CTV program Question Period, the minister stated that the government should, "get the devil out of the way and provide a stable set of ground rules for industry for a period of time". I will ask a simple and straightforward question which the minister can answer. Does this mean that this minister will no longer approve the nationalization of private sector companies, at least for a period of time?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, my comment about getting out of the way indicated that in some cases there are at the federal jurisdictional level, as there are at provincial jurisdictional levels, some duplications. There are even some among some departments of the federal government. We want to identify and rationalize those duplications. I did not go on to indicate precise project approaches or disapprovals to which the hon. member is now referring.


Mr. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the president of the "eco-dev" board. The minister said, on November 25 in the Globe and Mail, that what is needed is an action board, not a talkfest. He went on to say there is just one hell of a lot to be done. Both those comments indicated that the government has not been taking action in the economic development field.
Is it a fact that this board was set up because the government felt there had been lack of action in the last few months and years in the economic development field, and that it is the job of the board to overcome this lack of action and talkfest and give the country some action? Is that what the minister meant?


Robert Knight Andras: Very much to the contrary, Mr. Speaker. This is intended to be an improvement of the already beneficial programs and policies of the federal government in support of industrial and economic growth. The suggestion that we should never make changes toward improvement is something with which 1 cannot agree.
One of the issues that came out of this, particularly in response to the very many positive recommendations of the sectoral studies and the two-tier report, is that they have asked us on many occasions to implement policies which are already in existence. This begs the question of a better understanding of just what this government has done over the last several years, and the indication that across the length and breadth of this country there can be a better information system from this government, to say nothing of the co-ordination of policies between us and the provincial governments.


John Carnell Crosbie: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister has set himself an impossible task, if he thinks he is going to convince people that this government has done any economic development. The Prime Minister has said that the difference between this board and the ministry of finance is that the ministry of finance will retain macro-economic re-
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sponsibility, while the president of the "eco-der" board takes on the micro-economic sphere. The Minister of Finance did not know what micro and macro meant: he said he had not studied that in school.
Could the president of the economic development board inform the House whether this is the body-line of jurisdiction, and could he tell us what is in this macro-and 1 do not mean a mackerel-in the macro area, and what is in the micro area, so that the public will understand the difference in jurisdiction between the ministers?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, 1 think it is interesting that the hon. member himself does not understand, having been around these systems for some time.
The responsibility for setting global economic policy, monetary and fiscal policies and taxation clearly remains, and should remain, with the Minister of Finance and the ministry of finance. The economic development board will be coordinating the more direct programs of assistance to industries through DREE, through Manpower and Immigration, through Trade and Commerce, Labour and a series of other direct programs of assistance to economic growth. There is a very clear association between them, and I think they are very compatible.


John Carnell Crosbie: A final supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
I do not believe that the Minister of Finance knows any better now than he did before what the difference is, Mr. Speaker. How can the ministry of finance have a global responsibility? Is the UN to be displaced by the ministry of finance?
The minister said on Thursday, November 25, that the board will help industry cut through red tape in dealing with the federal government. This implies that there was too much red tape before. How is the board going to help industry cut through red tape, when setting up the board puts in another level in the decision-making process before anything goes to cabinet? How is this going to help cut the red tape? Would he please elucidate, so that the red tape cutters of the world will be able to applaud him? How is he going to do this?


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, I find this extremely interesting. The other day I saw a newspaper quotation of the hon. Leader of the Opposition complaining that this was another idea we had stolen from the Conservative party.


Mr. Fraser:: The trouble is, you do not understand it.


Robert Knight Andras: If that be the case, the hon. member is indicating that they have not studied their suggestion at all.


Mr. Clark:: We know what we would do.


Robert Knight Andras: Mr. Speaker, 1 think this will be an improvement. There is a wide range of policies and programs in the federal government which are designed to assist industries, not only through the departments to which I have referred but others. I think it lends itself to improvement by a one-stop information provision, a one-stop delivery system so that people do not have to go from one department to another to

December 4, 1978
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get a co-ordinated answer. I see great opportunities ahead to improve the operation of this government and this parliament by the success which I hope hon. members opposite would wish me in this new function.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I say to the President of the Treasury Board that just because the Conservatives come up with a bad idea does not mean the government has to steal it.
1 should like to put a question to the Prime Minister on another matter entirely, the change in food prices. Last June, the cabinet on at least two occasions discussed the possibility of the re-emergence of inflation during the summer and fall. Considering that the AIB report which came out on Friday revealed that food prices are up 15.2 per cent over prices a year ago, could the Prime Minister tell the House what the government has done to implement certain ideas discussed at those cabinet meetings last June specifically to bring down the price of food, not to deal with the cushioning effect but to bring down prices?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, this matter has been dealt with several times by the Minister of Finance, again in his budget and, again, by the various ministers in dealing with the subject of inflation.


John Edward Broadbent: A supplementary question, Mr, Speaker. This is precisely why I asked the question. The statements that have emanated from the Minister of Finance and others in recent weeks and months have produced no new ideas and no new policy directives to bring down the price of food. More specifically, since at the June 20 meeting of the cabinet it was decided, and I quote, that "ministers review by the end of September, 1978, the performance of food prices", and also at that meeting it was decided that certain specific measures which could be implemented to bring down the price of food might be acted upon, I ask the Prime Minister, did this review take place in September and, related to that question, what specific measures have been taken to bring down the price of food, or what measures will be taken?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I do not know what document the hon. member is quoting from, but if it is a cabinet document you would understand that I do not wish to answer the question.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been in the House longer than I have, and I would have thought he would know, quite apart from the source of the quotation- which is from his cabinet meetings-that the relevant question is, what has the government done about the escalation of food prices? Did the cabinet discuss it last June and, if so, does he

now take it to be important that food prices are escalating at 15.2 per cent and what does this government intend to do about it?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, in so far as the statistic is concerned, the hon. member can verify it as easily as I can. But I repeat, I have always refused to comment on questions based on cabinet documents or purported to be based on discussions in cabinet.

[ Translation]


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Armand Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Manpower and Immigration. Following an interview which I had in his office last September and the refusal by his department to grant political asylum to three Yugoslavian immigrants who are now living in the Val d'Or area I feel that the decision of his department is not only unfair but also very serious, because those three individuals who have been in Canada for six months have invested with other immigrants almost $400,000 in the forest industry. In addition they intend to invest $675,000 within 12 months and we know that those investments would create several jobs the first year and at least 43 other jobs the following year. Would the minister explain to us why his department denies political asylum to those refugees?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat loth to go into the specifics dealing with the three individuals in this case. I did the hon. member the courtesy of meeting with him to go over the cases in some detail. I indicated, where these individuals had not been in compliance with the law, that it was hardly the basis on which to establish an immigration policy for someone who came into the country, came here illegally, overstayed illegally, worked illegally and then had to throw himself on the mercy of either the department, the media or the hon. member. I am quite prepared to give him a full explanation of the details of the case, but I thought I had done that with my interview and subsequent report.
[ Translation]


Armand Caouette: Mr. Speaker, on a supplementary. I am very happy with the answer of the minister, and would like to ask him if he would be willing to speed up the meeting he is willing to grant me before those three immigrants are expelled from the country.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows, if he talks to any member of his party or of this House, that 1 have
December 4, 1978

never failed to meet with an hon. member who had a legitimate cause to plead, and he will be no exception.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance who I am pleased to hear has at least been left with what the president of the new economic board calls global economic policy. My question happens to touch on global economic policy, namely, the state of our sagging dollar.
As another $600 million was lost in the month of November, causing the dollar to fall another half cent today, would the Minister of Finance, who presumably can still speak on this subject, tell us how he explains this sad phenomenon?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the month of November was an extraordinary month because of the move made by the American government in relation to their own dollar. In spite of that, we have maintained the Canadian dollar at a reasonable level. Of course, in the figure published this morning there was a large number inscribed. However, one has to deduct from that the fact that if the American dollar has improved substantially during the course of the month, what the Canadian government holds in reserves in the form of SDRs has been reduced by that much. In spite of the big movement in the money market last month, the change in the reserve of the Canadian government has been less than $500 million.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: The Minister of Finance, in simple terms, has said that the Americans are doing much better in defending their dollar than we in Canada in defending our dollar. Even if you allow for the figure the Minister of Finance has referred to, we have still lost half a billion dollars in that one month. Will the minister indicate if he continues to feel that the management of our dollar remains in capable hands?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I believe the fact that the Canadian dollar is fluctuating on international markets at this time is the consequence of a long established government policy whereby the level of the Canadian dollar, like most currencies of the western hemisphere, is determined by the market. I want to tell the hon. member that the fact that the Canadian dollar is much more competitive at this time gave many sectors of our economy the necessary stimulus to become competitive and increase our trade balance. In fact, the Canadian trade balance for 1978 will reach a record level.
Oral Questions


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: My final question to the Minister of Finance touches on his last answer in which he tried to glorify the cheap dollar as something of great benefit to Canada. Will the minister confirm the report, released by him to the first ministers, from the Economic Council of Canada which indicated that the cheap, 85-cent dollar is having disastrous effects on inflation in Canada, with certain corporate profits, for example, being as high as 97 per cent up, compared to last year, largely due to the minister's new, cheap 85-cent dollar?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult for me to comprehend why the hon. member is complaining, because we have a more competitive currency in Canada, with the result that some Canadian sectors are in a good position to compete abroad. It should be welcome. Of course, a devalued currency does create some problems on the inflation front. However, I must tell the hon. member that most of the effect of this problem with a reduction in the value of the Canadian dollar was absorbed in the last year and a half in the market. We can now see some stabilization in the rate of inflation. In fact, for the last three-month period we have had the lowest rate of inflation in years.


COMMUNICATIONS
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Communications: it has to do with her press statement last week creating the Clyne committee or commission, depending on what you want to call it.
Is the press statement of November 30, with the appendix, the only terms of reference of this committee? If so, will she arrange with the government House leader to table it or have it appended to Hansard in order to generate the constructive public debate mentioned in the press release? Also, since the rules of the committee state that this will be done behind closed doors, will she arrange to have the work of the Delta project and the report of the Communications Research Advisory Board made public so that in fact there can be that public debate?


Hon. Jeanne Sauv6 (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, the terms of reference are as stated in the press communique. I can accommodate the hon. member by tabling those terms of reference if he wishes.
As for the two reports the hon. member has mentioned, they were prepared for internal use. As the hon. member knows, the objective of that committee is to consolidate and summarize all of these reports and studies which I have received for internal use. When the final report made by that committee is given to me at the end of February, that report will be made public; the

December 4, 1978
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hon. member will be able to have it and public debate will then ensue.


Mr. Speaker:: One supplementary, the hon. member for Annapolis Valley.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: With one supplementary it is going to be difficult. I find it increasingly incomprehensible that in the minister's press release she talks about the desire to stimulate public debate, while in the appendix that she agreed to file she refers specifically to two reports which are the focus of attention on the issue. She tells this Elouse that they are internal documents.
My supplementary is this: is the minister telling us in her answer that the House of Commons and/or any of its committees should have nothing whatsoever to do with the formulation or resolution of any of the policy issues surrounding this large question which affects broadcasting and telecommunications?
In particular, since Bill C-16 is on the order paper-it has already been given first reading-will she at least go so far as to refer the subject matter of this press release to the appropriate committee, so that discussion might take place there as to whether publication of these internal documents would help stimulate the public debate about which she talks in the press release but which she pre-empts and forecloses here in the House of Commons?


Jeanne Sauvé: Mr. Speaker, on Thursday I explained at length to the hon. member the objective of that committee. The hon. member wishes me to give out, now, for public debate, studies which have not been sufficiently perused by those who are interested, namely, myself and people on my staff. The purpose of that committee, taking into account the fact that evolution in this area has been so rapid, is precisely to ask competent people in the field to consider all these studies and reports and then sort out the questions which could be brought forward for public debate.


CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
Mr. Douglas Roche (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs. Last week, the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence was informed that $100 million would be cut by the government from the funds available to the Canadian International Development Agency this year, in addition to the $133 million cut from next year's budget, all this being contrary to the Bonn declaration to which Canada subscribed last July.
Can the minister inform the House whether two Cl DA cuts in a row amount to a deep freeze, and reverse the government's policy of reaching .7 per cent of the GNP in official development assistance?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council):: No, Mr. Speaker, the cuts to which the hon. member refers and about which evidence has been given do not represent a deep freeze on the part of the government with respect to its foreign commitments. To my recollection, the decisions which have been taken still provide for a very substantial rate of expansion of aid abroad but because of the current financial restraint, funding does not provide for the growth which we had expected might have been possible earlier.


Douglas Roche: My supplementary is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. Has the minister, since assuming his new responsibilities, reviewed CIDA's spending program for this year, and has he reached the conclusion that the financial condition of the federal government is so serious that appropriated CIDA money must be recalled from the poor people of the world whom the government said it would help?


Hon. Judd Buchanan (President of the Treasury Board):: would have to examine the allegation made by the hon. member in the latter part of his question. My understanding is the same as that of the Deputy Prime Minister, that what we are doing is slowing down the rate of growth and that we are not, in fact, drawing back from the existing level of commitments.


FORESTRY
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for the Environment. 1 understand he had an opportunity this morning to discuss the privatization scheme and the bridging formula with the Canadian Forestry Advisory Council.
Is the minister prepared to tell us, now, whether he still adheres to the April 1, 1979, deadline he made public when he first announced this scheme, and whether the other changes- the consolidations within the forestry service-are also geared to that April 1 deadline?


Hon. Len Marchand (Minister of State (Environment)):: met this morning with Mr. Bob Rogers, who is the chairman of the Canadian Forestry Advisory Council, and we discussed a number of matters relative to the privatization of the two forestry laboratories. However, I am afraid I cannot give the hon. member many details until we have finalized them. They are still very much in the discussion stage.


Donald W. Munro: Is the minister able to put a dollar figure on the privatization scheme he is now consider-
[Mrs. N;m\ e. J
December 4, 1978

ing in conjunction with the advisory council, the taking over of the laboratories and the equipment by the private sector?
Can he also tell us what will be done about the codes and standards' functions of the forestry laboratories, which have carried out this work so effectively and amid much international recognition, once they cease to be wholly under federal control?


Len Marchand: As soon as 1 have had an opportunity to finalize all the important points which the hon. member has raised, 1 will make an appropriate announcement.


IMMIGRATION
Mrs. Simma Holt (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Can he tell the House whether the insensitive doctrine of selective compassion espoused by the Tory government of Alberta in relation to the Vietnamese refugees has been adopted by any other Canadian province? If that government lacks the competence to fit 50 boat people into their rich 255,000 square miles with a ratio of about one person-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The first part of the question appears to be in order.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, as indicated to the media this morning, this is a tiff, not a dispute. The generosity of the people of Alberta is great. The response from the people has been magnificent. There are some 18 jobs available and some 14 homes are prepared to take in the Vietnamese. While discussions were going on with officials from the province of Alberta, we were even then in the process of sending refugees to that province because we knew they would receive them with their usual generosity-just as we let them have the Grey Cup this year.


VIETNAMESE REFUGEES-REUNIFICATION OF FAMILIES PROGRAM
Mr. Jake Epp (Provencher):: My question is for the same minister. In view of the increasing number of refugees from Vietnam who are risking their lives in fleeing from that country in search of freedom, would the minister inform this House if the government of Vietnam is co-operating in concluding the agreement on reunification of families, or is it the minister's view that the government of Vietnam is not interested in that agreement at all but, rather, is more interested in expelling its own citizens, citizens who will not be re-educated or conform to their new political masters?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: I do not wish to climb on the heads of the Vietnamese governmental officials. I will simply say they are aware of our concern that there should be reunification of families. I did
Oral Questions
meet one of their officials here some time ago to explain why 1 thought this was a positive thrust, something which needed to be done. I told the official we had issued exit visas just prior to the cessation of hostilities. Maybe the program is not moving as quickly as we would like, but that is a judgment call. I think it could be moving along a little faster and I expressed that view to the Vietnamese officials.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I think I speak for a lot of people when I say to the minister that many of us are gratified by the manner in which Canadians have opened their hearts and homes in accepting refugees from Vietnam. In recent days-during the last week especially-we have again been saddened by the fact that many Vietnamese have lost their lives. Approximately 200 lives have been lost in the past week during attempts to escape.
In view of the ever-increasing problem in Southeast Asia relative to the people, is the Government of Canada considering increasing the number of refugees it will accept above the number of 600 already accepted? Will Canada be taking that type of proposal to the UN meeting which is to convene in Geneva on this matter?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, as indications are at present, we will not be accepting more than the 600 from the ship, the Hai Hong. That has been pretty well underwritten by the Americans who, in addition, have undertaken to accept about 6,000 refugees from Malaysia, the country of first refuge. We have an ongoing program in process. We have taken some 7,000 people in and, in addition to that, we will be taking 50 boat refugee families per month and 20 overland.
We have representatives at the Geneva meetings at the present time to determine how best to deal with the massive numbers of people who are refugees; whether other countries, for example, should be considered countries of first refuge and would be prepared to take people, or maybe countries of second refuge but not necessarily one and the same country. It is a massive problem and it will have to be resolved on a world scale rather than a piecemeal basis, but unfortunately we have to deal with it at present.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Bob Rae (Broadview):: My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister, in the absence of the Secretary of State: it concerns the radio broadcast of the CBC show Sunday Morning on Sunday, December 3, on the preliminary hearing of the British politician, Mr. Jeremy Thorpe.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm or deny that one of the witnesses at the hearing, Mr. Andrew Newton, was paid a substantial sum of money by the CBC for his part in the program, and can he also inform the House whether any other

December 4, 1978
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payments were made by the CBC in connection with this program?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I thank the hon. member for giving me notice of this question on behalf of the Secretary of State. I would like to provide to the House the information that apparently the interviewees, both Mr. Scott and Mr. Newton, were paid for the performance which was aired yesterday on the CBC. I have not had an opportunity to examine this program, but I understand from the comment that has been made by a number of persons who did examine it that there is cause for concern at some of the devices that were used on the program.


Bob Rae: I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for answering the question so quickly, and would like to state simply that the entire program-which the Deputy Prime Minister might not have heard-was based on the premise that three prosecution witnesses were telling the entire truth and that Mr. Thorpe was guilty as charged.
Would the Deputy Prime Minister not agree that a combination of cheque-book journalism and trial by radio on one side only is hardly a fulfilment of the CBC's mandate?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NATIONAL REVENUE
John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Can the minister advise, through you, Mr. Speaker, now that he is in his new post, whether any decision has been made to clarify the position of Indian bands, especially those in British Columbia which for nearly three years have been requesting a ruling on whether or not revenue by Indian band corporations will continue to be treated under the tax laws as revenue from Canadian corporations?


Hon. A. C. Abbott (Minister of National Revenue and Minister of State (Small Business)):: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I will have to take notice of that question and give an answer as soon as I can.


John Allen Fraser: May 1 ask the minister why, in view of the fact that this question has been raised with at least two of his predecessors and was raised as recently as a few months ago with his immediate predecessor by a full delegation of Indian chiefs from the province of British Columbia, the minister has not been briefed? This problem must be resolved, and I would ask the minister to come back to the House or to approach me at his earliest convenience to let us know what the answer will be.


Anthony Chisholm Abbott: I cannot advise the hon. member why I have not been briefed, but I will follow his last request.


MEASURES TO IMPROVE GRAIN MOVEMENT
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of Transport.
Having regard to the fact that each passing day reveals more chaos and confusion in the grain handling and transportation system of Canada, particularly with reference to the boxcar allocation and co-ordination, with cars frequently being dispatched to country elevator points where no orders exist, and having regard to the fact that the president of UGG stated he was convinced that the major answer to the car shortage problem lies in the management of cars, may I ask the minister if he could outline to the House what specific action he is taking to putting an end to this disorder and, specifically, what action he is taking to ensure that in future much needed rolling stock will be dispatched to the points where orders are required to be filled, rather than to points where no orders exist?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: The hon. member knows well that we have consultants in the field analysing, together with the participants in the grain handling and transportation system, exactly what needs to be done to make the system work more effectively with the equipment available, and to face the challenges of the future.
What is not very helpful is for him to recite one or two specific alleged instances-as he did under Standing Order 43 earlier today-ignoring the fact that a great number of cars are arriving being loaded and working well. If the hon. member has been willing to avoid confusion instead of adding to it, he would have at least given me notice so that I would have had the chance of looking into the specific allegation before he brought the matter to the attention of the House.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Studies go on and damage continues as well, Mr. Speaker. Last Wednesday, I asked the minister whether he would consider the convening of an emergency grain summit, a request which he rejected categorically out of hand, suggesting it would be tantamount to organized fingerpointing. He went across the street and agreed to give it consideration, that is, to the three western premiers. His colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, indicated it would be a good idea.
In view of the continuing chaos and confusion, would he now reconsider the proposition which was advanced by this side of the House and convene an emergency grain summit so that all the facts might be laid on the table and we might be able to arrive at some co-operative solution?


Otto Emil Lang: about what they think is wrong with the system, and that is what I said would lead to organized finger-pointing.
A meeting of the people involved is something which I always contemplate and, indeed, agree to assist; but particularly now, with consultants available to analyse in an expert way what should be done and what can be done, instead of guessing. That is the kind of meeting which would be useful. Of course, the kind of meeting to which 1 agreed when speaking with the premiers was a meeting where at least one of the prairie premiers suggested that the three prairie premiers might like to meet with me, with the railways and with the Wheat Board to learn more about the system. I think that would be valuable, because the more knowledge they have about its complexities and about how well it is performing in all the challenges it is facing, the more it would be useful in the long run.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Gordon Ritchie (Dauphin):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the right hon. Prime Minister. Can he inform the House whether the new Russian Mig fighters in Cuba represent an escalation of international tensions at this time?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I do not know, Mr. Speaker.


William Gordon Ritchie: Can the Prime Minister say whether they represent a threat to the security of this continent and, if they do, as they are reported to have the most advanced design with nuclear capabilities, has the government any information as to whether or not there are nuclear weapons in Cuba?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I will be glad to refer the question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs and will try to provide the House with his opinion on it, Mr. Speaker.


ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. I should like to ask him about the possibility of membership on the new Board of Economic Development Ministers being extended to include the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, which it does not at present. I ask this since the government has often said in recent months that it expects Canadians to achieve their economic objectives primarily through the private sector, which means the market system, and that department's mandate is to help ensure a properly operating market system in the interest of consumers, producers, manufacturers and all who come together in the marketplace.
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The way in
which the board is set up will permit the president of the board and myself to invite from time to time various ministers to attend board meetings when subjects relevant to their portfolios are being discussed. Certainly, this would apply to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs from time to time, or to the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment, and so on.


DEBATE ON ESTABLISHMENT OF BOARD OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MINISTERS
Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a supplementary question for the government House leader. In view of the fact that, as it stands at the moment, the President of the Board of Economic Development Ministers may well have been sworn to a ministry of state that does not exist, and in view of the fact it is the government's intention to proceed under the act and to table the order in council in order to remedy this, could the government House leader tell us when he would be doing that-will it be later today-and can he tell us what he has in mind for scheduling the seven hours of debate, on the assumption it would be the wish of the government to get on with this ministry, for whatever it is worth, as quickly as possible?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, it is the intention of the government to give notice of the proclamation or resolution which will form the basis of the order in council and to seek the approval of the House for that step. I should like to move as quickly as possible with the debate on this particular measure, but I must take into account the fact that presently we are dealing with a very important piece of legislation, namely, the measure to establish the child tax credit.
If the hon. member can give me the assurance that his colleague, the hon. member for York-Simcoe, will co-operate in the passage of that bill, then 1 would be able to give him a stronger assurance that the resolution establishing the Board of Economic Development Ministers would be brought on possibly this week. Until I have some indication as to what the House will do with the important measure for low income families in Canada, I cannot deal with his question accurately.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, as the minister knows, we will be dealing with that matter expeditiously.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Walter David Baker: I am sorry, but I am having some difficulty with the noise from the other side. Can the minister confirm that it is his objective to deal with that matter before Christmas, bearing in mind that under the Government Organization Act of 1970 there is provision for that minister of state to report to the House at the end of

December 4, 1978
Oral Questions
January, 1979? Is it his intention to deal with that matter, so the House can be favoured with a report on the progress of that department by the end of January, 1979?


Miss Begin:: What about Canadian children?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his assurance that the child tax credit measure will be dealt with expeditiously.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: As it has been. We just do not receive answers.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: That leads me to give the hon. member the assurance that if it is passed early this week, I will attempt to bring on the measure dealing with the Board of Economic Development Ministers later this week. We must bear in mind that there are two allotted days which are not available for government business. Certainly, it is my intention to bring on this measure well before the Christmas break.


Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Is the minister being paid?


RAILWAYS
Mr. Robert Muir (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. It relates to the meeting which occurred some days ago with the Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, and a committee of concerned residents from North Sydney and Port aux Basques regarding the transportation of freight to Newfoundland, the lack of employment opportunities, expeditious transportation, etc. 1 considered it to be a very good meeting.
I gave the minister's office notice of my question, albeit very short. It has been alleged that there are 23 cars of coastal freight on a siding at North Sydney. Of those cars, four contain perishables for coastal areas in Newfoundland. Some of them have been there since November 10 and November 18.


An hon. Member:: This year?


Robert Muir: Yes, this year. Would the minister be good enough to approach Canadian National Railways in an attempt to get the idea across to them that this is not the way to encourage shippers to ship goods to Newfoundland, with cars remaining on sidings and never reaching their destinations?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, as soon as notice of that question was received in my office, I am sure my officials pursued the matter. As soon as I have any information 1 will report back to the hon. member.


REQUEST FARMER'S IRRIGATION LINE BE LAID UNDER CPR
Mr. G. H. Whittaker (Okanagan Boundary):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. It relates to a constituent of mine who finds that his access to irrigation water has been stopped by the CPR although he has grown enough grape plants in his nursery to plant 63 acres. Will the minister, through the Canadian Transport Commission, order CPR to allow this farmer to put his irrigation line under its tracks?


An hon. Member:: Let us have a yes or no answer.


Otto Emil Lang: Mr Speaker, to my knowledge, I have not been given any notice of that particular incident. I would have to reflect upon whether I have any power, as distinct from the CTC and its powers, before I could answer the question.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mrs. Jean E. Pigott (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Public Works, and now that 1 see his parliamentary secretary has left, I should like to direct my question to the Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council.
Would the minister confirm that the offer from Grado Development Ltd. to purchase the Cloverdale housing complex in Pierrefonds has expired, and that the principals have lost $180,000? I am certain the Minister of Finance will be delighted that his treasury has now been increased by $180,-
000.	Will the minister confirm that Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation will now consult with the tenants on future plans for this housing complex?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member would be as surprised as 1 would be if I knew the answer to that question. I will take it as notice for the minister.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Can he inform the House what changes can be expected to the Farm Credit Corporation in the immediate future? For example, will the changes be in the area of private institutions being encouraged to play a larger lending role in terms of farm lending, or are changes being considered in terms of a mortgage insurance program for the Farm Credit Corporation?
December 4, 1978


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, many different propositions are being considered at the present time. 1 think it is too early to say. In the first of the year 1 hope to be able to announce what the program will be for refinancing and for restructuring the lending organization, that is, the raising of the money partly from the private sector for the Farm Credit Corporation rather than depending solely on financing from the Department of Finance or the Bank of Canada.


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, if there are to be new changes, legislation will be brought before the House at that time. The minister said that he will bring in a program some time in the new year. There are approximately three weeks left before the new year. Can he give the House an indication of the areas in the Farm Credit Corporation which his officials are considering in terms of changes to the corporation? Surely he can tell us that.


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, it seems the hon. member knows some of the things we are looking at because he already mentioned them. 1 am sure he knows that the fiscal year-end for the Farm Credit Corporation is March 31. So it is necessary to have a new program by that time. We are guiding ourselves toward that time. Legislation must be presented to the House which can be passed by that time.


FINANCE
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance I should like to direct my question to his parliamentary secretary. It appears that Canadian chartered banks, including the so-called Big Five banks, made loans of $700 million between 1972 and 1976 to South Africa and, in particular, to some of the important elements in the South African military industrial complex, such as the Pretoria government's iron and steel corporation.
In view of the fact these loans strengthen the apartheid regime and systematic racial discrimination, frequently condemned by Canada and the United Nations, will the minister refer to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, which now is considering the terms of the new Bank Act, an amendment which will prohibit such loans?


Mr. Alan Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I shall draw this matter to the attention of the minister. However, in the normal course of business relations with countries such as South Africa, perhaps it makes better sense to permit some loan business than completely shutting it out.
Privilege-Mr. W. Baker TRANSPORT


SIGNING OF MASTER AGREEMENT WITH B.C. ON URBAN TRANSPORTATION ASSISTANCE
Howard Earl Johnston: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport: it is one of which I gave him notice some time ago. Is he in a position to announce to the House the signing of the master agreement with British Columbia on the urban transportation assistance program?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, after long delays in getting the necessary agreement from British Columbia as to the final form of the agreement, that has now been achieved. I have personally signed it and I will be forwarding it immediately to B.C. for signature.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. On Friday, just after the oral question period, the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) raised by way of a point of order a complaint or two about the quality of the responses given by the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) during the question period. As I indicated at that time, the matter was not well founded procedurally and, as often happens, that led to a response by the Prime Minister, which in turn implicated the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams) who, in rushing to his own defence, said something which made a further contribution to the procedural complexity of the moment. That caused the Prime Minister to take exception to an accusation by the hon. member for Calgary North that the Prime Minister had been "hiding the facts".
I indicated at the time that I would research that matter, which I did over the weekend, and I can tell the House, as it probably already knows, as will those who have examined the phrase "hiding the facts", that it falls in the same category as misleading the House, and that therefore in order to be unparliamentary it cannot just simply be a suggestion on its own. It would have to carry with it an element of deliberate concealing of the facts, a deliberate misleading or something of a falsification. In the context in which it was used by the hon. member at the time I did not find that in the language, and therefore I find myself not in a position to compel the hon. member to withdraw the remark on the basis of its being unparliamentary.
However, I think this does point out the difficulties we get into in situations of this kind. Furthermore, I think it points out that, while a disagreement does exist between the parties in these particular circumstances, I must again remind the House that although debate and disagreement are very much a part of the every day life of the House, the word of an hon.

December 4, 1978
Order Paper Questions
member at all times, in this case the word of the right hon. Prime Minister, must be accepted as part of our ordinary practice, and therefore when the Prime Minister objects to the accusation that he was hiding the facts, that seems to me to amount to a statement that he was not in fact hiding the facts, and his word must be accepted on that account.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Maurice Harquail (Restigouche) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-445, to recognize hockey as a national sport.


Some hon. Members:: Explain.


Maurice James Harquail: Mr. Speaker, as all hon. members in the House realize, this topic has involved raging debates from time to time as to whether indeed hockey is the national sport in this country. All too often we hear conflicting reports about the WHA, the NHL, and other organizations, relating to the question of hockey being Canada's national sport. I think the question has been outstanding long enough. It should be settled once and for all.
1 want to be clear that this bill is not intended to fly in the face of any other sport or to be in conflict with any other sport. I want only to have the House consider, through a private member's bill, adopting hockey as Canada's national sport.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Roger Young (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 221, 321, 341 and 342.


Mr. Jones: 1.	What are the regulations, duties and responsibilities of the cable television operators with respect to political programming on the community channel?
2.	Are these regulations, duties and responsibilities applied equally to all candidates, regardless of party or non-party affiliation?
3.	What measures are available to regulate the political programming? What means are available to apprehend offenders of these regulations?


Mr. C. Douglas (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: In so far as the Department of Communications is concerned, the answer to the above question is as follows:
1.	The CRTC Cable Television Regulations (1976) state:
13.	(1) Where a licensee provides time on its community channel for the distribution of programming of a partisan political character, it shall allocate such time on an equitable basis to all political parties and rival candidates.
(2) Where a licensee and the political parties and candidates are unable to reach agreement as to what, in any particular circumstances, constitutes an equitable allocation of time by the licensee, the licensee may refer the dispute to the commission and the commission shall allocate the time as it considers appropriate in the circumstances.
14.	Where a licensee provides opportunity on its community channel for the expression of views on matters of public concern, it shall provide reasonable, balanced opportunity for the expression of differing views on such matters.
2.	As regulation 13. (1) states, the licensee shall allocate time "on an equitable basis to all political parties and rival candidates".
3.	Under the same regulations (section 12) each licensee is required for a period of four weeks after distribution to keep a written program log and to maintain the audio reproduction of all programming distributed on its community channel. This permits the commission the means to apprehend offenders of these regulations. These regulations constitute the basic minimum standards to which cable television licensees must adhere. Every licensee who violates the provisions of any applicable regulation is guilty of an offence and is liable on summary conviction of a fine not exceeding twenty-five thousand dollars for a first offence and not exceeding fifty thousand dollars for each subsequent offence.


Mr. Jones: 1.	Who has been appointed Ambassador to Zaire? What are his qualifications for this posting?
2.	What previous appointments has this individual had and in what other departments?
3.	By whom was this current and all previous appointments made?
4.	Was he recommended by a member of the Cabinet? If so, by whom?


Mr. Louis Duclos (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State for External Affairs):: 1. Mr. Raymond Chretien was appointed Ambassador to the Republic of Zaire. Mr. Chretien joined the Department of External Affairs in 1966 after having participated in the foreign service officer competition and has served in the department both in Ottawa and abroad.
2. Mr. Chretien was in 1967 first assigned to the department's legal division, then to the United Nations' General Assembly. He was then seconded to the Privy Council office, and subsequently obtained a period of leave without pay during which he worked first in the secretariat of the Treasury
December 4, 1978

Board, and then with the Canadian International Development Agency. Following this Mr. Chretien served at the Canadian Embassy in Beirut as first secretary, in Paris as first secretary and consul and then as economic counsellor, and was subsequently posted to his present post in Kinshasa.
3 and 4. As are all ambassadorial appointments, Mr. Chretien's nomination as Ambassador to the Republic of Zaire was made by the Secretary of State for External Affairs and was approved by the prime minister and cabinet. Mr. Chretien's previous assignments had been made by the personnel bureau of the Department of External Affairs.


Mr. Cossitt: Has the government at any time since April 20, 1968, refused to admit to Canada Soviet Diplomats and, if so, in each case (a) what was the name of the individual (b) what was the function that he/she would have performed (c) what were all the reasons for refusal?


Louis Duclos: Although the government has refused to admit certain Soviet diplomats to Canada since April 20, 1968 it is not the government's practice to make either the names or reasons public.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Since the expulsion of a number of Soviet Diplomats from Canada earlier this year, have any new Diplomats been accredited to the Soviet Embassy by agreement with the Department of External Affairs and, if so (a) how many (b) what are their names and job designations (c) on what date did he/she enter Canada (d) what were the details of security checks made on each individual by the Department of External Affairs before agreeing to admission?
2.	Who performs security checks on Soviet or other foreign Diplomats posted to Canada?
3.	Are there pending applications, requests etc. from the Soviet Union for the accreditation of Diplomats to Canada and, if so, what are their (a) names (b) job designations?


Louis Duclos: 1. (a) Eight.
Insert table
(b)	Name
Designation (c) Date entered
Sergei V. Kruglov (Temporary Duty) Valentin M. Fomitchev Vladimir G. Mukharkin Vladimir P. Nazarov (Temporary Duty) Alexander I. Kobets Igor A. Savliev Vladimir I.
Vakhruschev Iouri M. Demkine
First Secretary
First Secretary Third Secretary Attache
Third Secretary First Secretary Assistant Military Attache Attache
March 9, 1978
June 5, 1978 June 12, 1978 July 3, 1978
July 17, 1978 September 4, 1978
September 28, 1978 October 9, 1978
(d) The Royal Canadian Mounted Police provided the department with security checks for each individual.
2.	The Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
3.	No.
Family Allowances
[ Translation]


Mr. Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the hon. parliamentary secretary have been answered.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, if question No. 191 could be made an order for return, this would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that question No. 191 be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Howie: For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1978, what firms were employed at CFB Gagetown in connection with construction, renovations, painting and repairs and, in each case (a) what amount did it receive (b) was a tender called and was it advertised in the press?
Return tabled.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Thursday, November 30, consideration in committee of Bill C-10, to amend the Income Tax Act to provide for a child tax credit and to amend the Family Allowances Act-Mr. Chretien-Mr. Turner in the chair.
The Deputy Chairman:: When the committee rose on Thursday, November 30, 1978, clause 4 of the bill was under consideration.
On clause 4-


Bob Rae: Mr. Chairman, when we left off last time I gave the minister notice that 1 would be presenting an amendment to clause 4. I have several copies of my amendment, and I will seek to get it over to the parliamentary secretary. The purpose of the amendment is quite simple.

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
In our view the proposed section 122.2(l)(a) on page 4 of the bill is discriminatory. It does not take into account changing living patterns and what may be the real incomes of the families involved. My amendment proposes:
That section 122.2(l)(a) be deleted and that the following words be inserted in its place:
"(a) jointly by the individual and his or her spouse, or his or her common-law
partner where the individual was married or living in a common-law relationship and resided with his or her spouse or common-law partner at the end of
December of the year, and"
I do not think 1 need to go on at any length concerning this amendment. It relates to the example which I gave last week. Under the wording of the bill as it now stands, and unless the minister can give me another interpretation, it would be quite possible for there to be a situation in which two couples living in the same economic circumstances would stand to gain quite differently, depending upon whether they were married. The intention of my amendment is simply to ensure that people who live in common-law relationships and who are jointly responsible for the upbringing of their children are covered just the same as people who are married. I have already put forward my arguments in favour of this amendment on other occasions. I do not see any need to repeat them. I simply ask for the minister's comments.


Mr. MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Chairman, we have referred to this matter a number of times. It was referred to at the second reading stage. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, the hon. member for St. John's East and 1 have raised this matter repeatedly. The proposed amendment would remove the anomaly which exists between those who are legally married and those who have entered into common-law relationships. It would do one thing in addition to that, which should have been picked up much earlier than at the committee stage. It would remove the offensive, and sexist references which are in this clause of the bill.
I do not see how the minister can keep telling us day after day that this bill was closely studied. We were given the weak explanation last Thursday that the only reason this language exists is that there was a translation problem. That is an unacceptable excuse, considering the number of officials in the minister's department.
I hope the minister would have the good sense to accept this recommendation. It removes the sexist designation in the English version of the bill which I and some other members find offensive, and it removes the anomaly which exists and which would, in effect, encourage people, for the purposes of this particular credit, to have common-law rather than legal relationships. I do not think there is any need to speak further on this matter, but when the occasion permits I want to speak generally on this particular provision.


Charles Robert Turner: Order, please. The Chair will reserve judgment on the acceptability of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Broadview.


Alan Gray Martin: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Broadview has raised an important issue regarding the child tax credit bill that is now before us, and clause 4 specifically. The point he is raising is that, under the proposed legislation, married couples with children may be penalized in comparison to common-law couples who are in otherwise identical circumstances. I might say that this general issue did receive a fair degree of discussion at the time we were considering clause 1 and clause 2, and I know that the Minister of National Health and Welfare has spoken to it specifically as well. Both spouses in a legal marriage would have to report their incomes to apply for a credit, but in a common-law union only the income of one spouse would have to be reported.
At the outset, let me say that I am sympathetic to the view that, in principle, the tax treatment of persons in a common-law marriage should be no different from that of legally married persons. While the Income Tax Act does not now recognize common-law spouses, this does not reflect any moral judgment on the part of the government. Rather, it is a consequence of the difficulties of identifying and verifying who is a common-law spouse, for the purposes of many provisions of the Income Tax Act for which this is relevant.
The issue of tax treatment of common-law spouses is not something new that has just been created by our proposed child tax credit program. The proposed legislation is only following existing provisions elsewhere in the Income Tax Act. These provisions do raise complex issues in the case of common-law spouses and there are issues with which we have been grappling for some time. For example, in several provinces significant reforms in family law have been adopted or are under study. These family law reforms clearly have implications for the income tax system, and are continuing to be discussed by federal and provincial officials. The main point here is that the issues surrounding the tax treatment of common-law spouses are much broader that those raised by the proposed child tax credit.
On grounds of equity and fairness, it seems clear that common-law spouses should not be allowed to derive any special advantage from the child tax credit. However, from the broader perspective of the entire income tax system, it is not possible to say whether or not in general common-law spouses are better or worse off than legally married couples. Any such calculation would depend on many specific details of the couple's circumstances. For example, common-law spouses can use the equivalent to married exemption. On the other hand, the marital exemption cannot be claimed in respect of a common-law spouse, nor can the unused portions of the age exemption or the interest and pension deductions be transferred between common-law spouses.
While some of the family law reform legislation provides for support payments on marriage breakdown for both legally married and common-law spouses, periodic support payments are only tax deductible in the case of legal marriages. The impact of these kinds of provisions is a very complex set of financial advantages and disadvantages to being common law. In any case, I am quite sure that the net financial effect of

December 4, 1978

these provisions does not have any significant impact on the institution of marriage in this country.
It is true that a number of federal statutes do make some provisions for common-law spouses, for example, the Canada Pension Plan and the War Veterans Allowance Act. But let me point out that these two statutes have different definitions of who it is that qualifies as a common-law spouse. Furthermore, in these other federal statutes it is typically in the couple's interest to establish that they are common-law spouses. As we are all aware, it is the opposite situation with the proposed child tax credit. Thus, common-law couples will not want to come forward to prove that they are in fact living as if they were legally married.
Let us suppose, however, that we did want to treat common-law and legally married taxpayers identically for purposes of the child tax credit. How could this be done? First, some definition of common law would have to be chosen. This definition could require one year of cohabitation, though it may be preferable to require three or seven years, particularly if the children are from a previous marriage. We would then have to determine the precise date when cohabitation began. In many situations some degree of ministerial discretion would be necessary. But then how are we to determine when couples are actually cohabiting, if they spend at least three nights a week together? Finally, since common-law couples will, in most cases, not want to come forward with the required information, we face the question of enforcement. While there are no firm data on the number of common-law couples in Canada today, there are about one-half million single mothers, most of whom would be eligible to claim the credit. The government would clearly be in a difficult position if it had to verify that none of these women were actually living common-law. Thus, any definition based on a period of cohabitation would involve certain difficult and unpopular administrative procedures.
These problems, I hope and expect, will not be insurmountable; but they are difficult. Work is already under way on the issues raised by common-law marriages, particularly in the context of provincial family law reform. Federal finance officials are meeting their provincial counterparts next week to discuss precisely this issue. I think we would be well advised to proceed in a reasoned and cautious manner to deal with these complex issues. The new child tax credit, which will be of immediate benefit to millions of families, should not have to await their resolution.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, would it be permissible for me to add information on other government programs which I think is relevant?
Under the Canada Pension Plan the survivor's benefit is awarded to the surviving common-law spouse and we use documentary evidence proving residence and public representation. As to the split of pension credits, we recognize legal marriages only because of the practical problems of defining the beginning and the end of the relationship, and numerous possible subsequent relationships.
Family Allowances
Under the Old Age Pension Act, more precisely under the Guaranteed Income Supplement, we do recognize common-law marriages on the simple basis of a statutory declaration of the relationship.
Under the Canada Assistance Plan other than under provincial welfare programs, common-law relationships are recognized.
Basically what I heard the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance say is that marriage brings a lot of fiscal privileges, and Canadians living in a common-law situation do not benefit from them. For the first time it is the reverse situation that confronts us whereby what the Department of Finance estimates to be an insignificant number of women living in a common-law situation would benefit from the child tax credit, while the "husband", in terms of a common-law relationship, would be making too large a salary for the program. The Department of Finance estimates this number of Canadian mothers to be insignificant.
I guess the ideal is to study the common-law situations which we can recognize in order to find an operational definition. I understand a study is taking place at the present with the Department of Finance.


Bob Rae: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the imaginative reply of the parliamentary secretary in describing the importance of policing this kind of measure. I can assure the House, the parliamentary secretary and the minister, that it is not with the enforcing aspect I was primarily concerned. I appreciate this might cause some administrative difficulties, but on this side of the House we want to be sure the redistributive effect of the proposal takes cognizance of the reality of the child's circumstances rather than the fiction of the child's circumstances.
I appreciate there are Fiscal and physical advantages and disadvantages to common law and legal marriages. I would have thought it might have been possible for the government, rather than waiting for a wholesale reform of the Income Tax Act-which we are not prepared to do on this side of the House-to start with this particular measure. It affects so many families across Canada. There is now a growing recognition by provincial governments that common-law relationships do exist and do create certain rights and certain obligations on the part of parents in a common-law marriage. Taking into account these changes in family law reform which are taking place right across the country from Newfoundland to British Columbia, I would have thought that it might have been possible to incorporate this amendment, or if you like, to have a definition of a common-law marriage for the purposes of this clause only. I would think that cohabitation for one year is all that is required.
We are not interested in proving whether it is a relationship of one night, three nights or seven nights. That is not the concern. The concern is to see whether or not there is an economic unit which is not being recognized by this law. It is
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not a question of sexual cohabitation; that is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether there is an economic unit. Any definition will be arbitrary, but perhaps if we said there was cohabitation for a year that would be sufficient to establish that there was an element of support.
Personally I do not see any problem. Perhaps I could be enlightened further. I do not see any problem in saying that "for the purposes of this section and this act, a common-law relationship is as follows." Frankly, I do not know whether the redistributive problem is a minuscule or a serious problem. On this side we want to make sure that the redistributive effects of the act are held as an integrity. Maybe the law should continue to keep pace with the times by taking cognizance of the fact that there are relationships which perhaps are not suitably defined by the legislation as has been put forward by the government.
Mliss Begin: Mr. Chairman, perhaps 1 could answer my colleague from Broadview so as to convince him to withdraw his amendment. I will explain why. Such an amendment has to be tied in with a reform of the complete income tax system, otherwise it will not work. The idea of the New Democratic Party, rightly so, it seems to me, is to ensure that redistribution ends up in the right place. They say a few cases of common-law situations will permit mothers, in good economic circumstances to receive moneys which do not belong to them, because they are not recognized by the income tax system, to the detriment of other Canadian mothers. We think there is a case in that regard, but for only a very few mothers.
If we were to correct this bill right away, and through this bill recognize common-law situations, but without a change in the general Income Tax Act, it will result in trying to implement something that will not work. How would common-law couples establish the two sources of income, or the husband's source of income, when it plays against their own interest? All people are greedy, and function around money and economic advantages. While the whole income tax system does not give the fiscal privileges to common-law couples that it does to legal marriages, suddenly we would be asking a few mothers, most likely single mothers, to be more catholic than the Pope! One would be asking them to declare either the husband's income, or the two sources of income, and yet they would not get the tax privileges of the income tax system that are applicable to a legal marriage. These people will not do that, and we have no policing mechanism. That is the reason why the amendment will not work.
I have never understood why the Income Tax Act does not recognize common-law situations, and while I was minister of national revenue I asked that particular question many times. I was always told that it was a question of potential abuse. When I became Minister of National Health and Welfare I discovered almost all social programs do recognize the common-law situations. I wondered why we did not have abuses in the case of older people. I wondered if that was the mentality of Canadians, that we trust older people not to cheat the system through the GIS, and yet we do not trust young couples, for example, those students who enter into a trial

marriage for whatever reasons. I do know that consistency should be introduced into all of our programs. It is probable that the amount of abuse would be a small percentage of the total government programs, but I am not sure of that. That is an assumption.
I firmly believe a correction to this bill, C-10, that we are studying right now, will never be enforceable because the rest of the income tax system does not give couples in common-law relationships the same privileges that married people get. If they received the privileges of the whole of the income tax system then they must be ready to acknowledge the common-law situations when it comes to the child tax credit. This is the reason why 1 think this amendment suggested by the hon. member for Broadview is unenforceable. Because of that I think we should wait for an amendment to the whole Income Tax Act. I do not mean wait to pass Bill C-10. It should be put on the record that this is a problem we want to see dealt with and looked into quite seriously. It should not be tied to this particular bill because it will not work.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, 1 listened with interest to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and particularly to the last part of her remarks which I thought were the most worth-while, lucid comments that she has made in this whole matter, that is to say, that we should wait for some amendments to the whole of the Income Tax Act before we start tinkering with what is a very basic proposal.
I am quite fascinated by the twists and turns of the minister's response in this whole issue. She said at one point that almost ail programs of National Health and Welfare recognize the common-law situation. Then she backed off and said that we cannot do it in this instance because it is not known yet how it could be administered. The first person to respond was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. Quite rightly he realizes the implications of what we are about-would affect the Income Tax Act. That is what we are dealing with in this particular bill.
The minister told the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on Thursday night that the administration of this program does not affect the principle of how the Income Tax Act presently operates with regard to family income. Of course the argument we are getting this afternoon from the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the parliamentary secretary is that we cannot do the very thing the hon. member for Broadview suggests because we are not ready to make those kinds of changes to the Income Tax Act. It is quite interesting that the minister wants to have it both ways in this instance.
The hon. member for Broadview is proposing, supported by members on this side, the notion that if you make this change at least it should deal with people equally, whether they are married on a legal basis or have entered into some common-law relationship. On the other hand the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the parliamentary secretary say this cannot be done because it would have a serious impact on the Income Tax Act which they are not quite ready to amend.
December 4, 1978

I find the minister's logic highly inconsistent. She is trying to explain away a bad provision, one that is becoming more and more unacceptable to groups. I want the minister to know, if she has not already learned from her office, that the National Action Committee, a large umbrella organization representing some 140 various women's organizations across the country, wired the minister's office and others who are concerned with this. I want to put this on record so that the minister is not under any further illusions with regard to where the National Action Committee stands on this bill. I quote from their telegram of December 3:
Hansard November 30 cites NAC support for Bill C-10, but we have serious reservations as expressed in our letter of October 16.
We support the principle of redistribution through refundable tax credits but do not support it in family allowance because of the consequences for low income families. An annual lump sum refund is of doubtful help.
We oppose joint taxation and share the reservations of Gordon Fairweather re the possible discrimination against women.
The minister might want to amend her remarks of last Thursday when she has an opportunity to deal with this. The minister has introduced a concept of family income that would operate under the Income Tax Act which has not been clearly thought through. As the parliamentary secretary stated very clearly today, it does not relate to the other provisions of the Income Tax Act. He put that on the record.
The parliamentary secretary supported the opinion stated last Thursday by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. He made the case more effectively than anybody could make it, that the problem of making this kind of change, and setting into law a principle which can now be extended indefinitely across a host of income tax policies, would have very serious repercussions for women.
If anything needed to be stated more clearly, I do not know what it would be than the language of a bill which simply assumes that forever and a day the dependent spouse in this situation would be a woman. Her income is going to be lumped in with that of the man for purposes of deciding what amount of tax credit will be available.
What we have here and what the minister is now recommending is that even though this is a provision which has not been very clearly thought through, we are going to make it worse. We are going to discriminate for those who have entered into a common-law relationship and against those who are married under the normal legal requirements. The minister has put herself and the parliamentary secretary in a very difficult situation in arguing today entirely opposite to what they argued last Thursday evening when defending the very principle at stake in this clause.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, since the hon. member has been given responsibility for the status of women and cultural affairs in the Tory shadow cabinet, he has practised demagoguery more every day. That does not help the interests of women which he is supposed to represent. He either does not understand or deliberately misled the House this afternoon by putting together two completely separate problems. One is the common-law marriage.
Family Allowances


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a question of privilege. I am not overly sensitive, but the minister should not be allowed to get away with suggesting that I or any other member has deliberately misled the House. I do not think she will want that to stand on the record. She was getting carried away. Perhaps she will withdraw that remark so that we may get on with the debate in some orderly fashion.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, it is misleading to whoever is listening to put together two completely separate problems. I would like to finish my sentence. The hon. member may recognize what he is doing. He is totally mixed up.
On Thursday night the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands spoke of one thing only, eventual discrimination due to joint filing, which I say does not exist in this bill. The hon. member should learn what joint taxation is. It means one income tax form for a family unit. The two parents are that family unit.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I know what this bill says. You do not.


Monique Bégin: I am talking of the Carter commission report of 1970. The hon. member just does not know his stuff. I am very proud of the support of the National Action Committee. I did say that all women's groups oppose the reduction in family allowances, which I myself regret.
As to their reservation with regard to joint taxation, since there is no joint taxation, therefore that reservation was dropped. I explained that. There is no joint taxation. I wish the hon. member would informa the Canadian public accurately. It is very important that he not feed cliches and erroneous statements to the public.
I repeat, although the hon. member can read Hansard for last Thursday night, there is still no joint taxation for past, present or future years. There are separate individual tax forms which each partner must file. That is extremely clear. The common-law situation and its status in the Income Tax Act are a totally different question.
The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands read the letter of Mr. Gordon Fairweather as meaning that there is joint taxation and, therefore, there is a terrible evil in the making against women. That was a mistake. The hon. member for Egmont read that same letter thinking that it is absolutely terrible to be against the common-law marriage. I wonder when the church will recognize that. It would help all of us. The hon. member should realize that.
That being said, we are today talking of an issue called common-law marriage and its relationship to the Income Tax Act. The Income Tax Act does not recognize it. Of course, we are not going to wait for that act to be changed. We are going to pass Bill C-10 which will help a lot of children in Canada. What it will do is probably help a few more mothers than should be helped. That is what it means.
Is the hon. member in favour of helping women, or against that? He is supposed to look after their interests. The worst thing this bill could possibly do is give the child tax credit to a
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few mothers who in their common-law relationship live with someone who makes good money and, therefore, they should not receive it. That is the worst it could do.
Let us pass this bill. It is urgent. Let us study separately what a common-law relationship means in terms of the Income Tax Act, with a view to having it defined and recognized.
I do not find the demagoguery of the hon. member helpful when he states that I say "on the one hand" and "on the other hand." We have been very consistent. I do not think he realizes what this House has voted over the years. In all the programs that we voted on for older people, we decided to recognize the common-law situation. This time we are talking of another group involving the younger segment of the population.
The Income Tax Act does not recognize these potential abuses. The sociological reality is what is of importance and interest. Anyone with common sense would not reject the possibility of abuses. I admit that. How would you verify what goes on? Would you just accept a declaration? Trial marriages are a way of life in Canada today like in all western society and, to me, a good way of life. So this is an area which calls for study and exploration.
The hon. member laughs and talks, instead of listening. He will stand up again soon, I imagine, and give us another grand speech. That won't help. He has not contributed to this debate on any point whatsoever. If he wants to change the common-law relationship, he should say so. We have a study going on in conjunction with the provinces to change it in the fiscal system as a whole. By recognizing the common-law situation in all areas of the fiscal system we grant to those couples the fiscal privileges married people enjoy-and then they will comply under the child tax credit arrangements where it works against them, not in favour of them. Joint taxation does not exist in this bill at all and common-law relationships are not recognized under the Income Tax Act.


Charles Robert Turner: Order. The Chair is in some doubt whether the amendment is acceptable since it creates a new group of people who would be eligible for certain tax reductions, and seems to go beyond the scope of the ways and means motion on which the bill is based. The ways and means motion refers to "spouse". The explanatory notes, part A, say that where an individual is married, his spouse is liable for overpayment of tax credit. Specifically, on page 4, in 122.2( 1 )(a) we read:
Jointly by the individual and his spouse where the individual was married-
The reference is to "spouse" and not to common-law partnerships and I cannot, therefore, accept the amendment.
Shall clause 4 carry?


Stanley Howard Knowles: With reference to what you have just said, Mr. Chairman, should you not have entertained argument on this point before you ruled so abruptly?


Mr. Boulanger:: The ruling is made now. The Chair has listened while a number of speakers have dealt with this matter.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I shall not press the matter but I want to state, Mr. Chairman, that you heard no argument at all on the procedural acceptability of the motion.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I rise on the same point of order. I shall not bother to deal with the rather foolish remarks the minister was making earlier. I want to deal with the amendment in the context of the bill before us. It does seem to me that the argument put forward by the minister was to the effect that if this amendment were allowed, the payment by the public treasury would be reduced. 1 believe the minister said clearly that there would not be an increase but rather that there would be a reduction in expenditures, and on that basis I find it difficult to understand Your Honour's ruling that the amendment is inadmissible. I hope there will be an opportunity for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, and others who are better versed in these matters than I am, to examine this aspect more closely. My understanding of the rules is that members are allowed to put forward amendments as long as they do not increase public expenditure and, if that is the case, I would think the amendment should be allowed and should be voted upon.


Prosper Boulanger: I understand, Mr. Chairman, that you have ruled the amendment out of order. The hon. member for Egmont is raising a familiar argument. He thinks you might be wrong, or that the grounds for it are not clear. The way I heard hon. members speaking, many explanations were put forward on this question, and I believe it was easy for you to rule as you did. 1 do not understand why hon. members should rise on points of order and say they do not agree with your ruling.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We have had a good deal of debate on the substance of the matter and I do not propose that there should be a procedural discussion now, but I do feel I should register my objection against the Chair getting into a debate on substance and telling us an amendment is out of order without permitting a word of discussion with regard to its acceptability.
I want to say, also, that you may have created some trouble for the minister by your reference to "his spouse" as though you take the same line as the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands took. As 1 read the phrase "his spouse", I read it as "his or her". Under the Interpretation Act it is clear that a word which is masculine includes the feminine. I think it is unfortunate that Your Honour has made a ruling against the kind of amendment proposed by the hon. member for Broadview on the ground that there is talk about a spouse. 1 do not intend to ask that the matter be reviewed, but I feel this protest should be on the record.


Charles Robert Turner: The Chair still believes the amendment goes beyond the ways and means motion. 1 have made my ruling and I am not prepared to change it.
December 4, 1978


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I shall not take much longer, but I want to mention one or two further points with respect to this matter. The minister has certainly put her foot in cement with respect to this provision. She has again argued that this in no way constitutes any amendment with respect to the Income Tax Act and the computation of family income. She is doing that on very narrow grounds. Obviously, these are amendments to the Income Tax Act. Clause 122.2 does refer specifically to the joint income of spouses and to the amount by which an individual's family income exceeds $18,000. There is no question about that. The minister can argue that black is white if she likes, but this is clearly a measure to amend the Income Tax Act.


Prosper Boulanger: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, did the hon. member use an English expression-I did not quite catch the French translation-along the lines "she has put her feet in cement"?


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Yes.


Prosper Boulanger: Well, you had better check the translation because it sounded very funny to me.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: The minister has a very concrete position, all mixed up and permanently embedded in cement. That is all I will say. Apart from this little difference with the hon. lady, let me say I am really sorry she has moved so far away from what I believe to be her basic concern, that is, equality and equal rights for all people. It is fair enough for the minister to argue, as she has done in her demagogic way, if I may say so, about the advantage of this measure to low income people in terms of tax credits, but it is quite another thing for her to try to gloss over what is obviously a major precedent.
Maybe the minister was beguiled into thinking this was not, after all, a big issue. Maybe she thought it would not have very much impact if a few people were to argue with her about pressure being placed on women to earn a little less or to move into the job market less frequently. After all, as some people have been asking, is it not really fair, in the final analysis, that we put the whole family income together, particularly if we are going to enter into this quite startling departure of the tax credit which has been argued for many years by a host of organizations, by many organizations concerned with social welfare benefits, and particularly by those who were primarily concerned with the situation of women and their family responsibilities? But even taking that into account, i* has been very clear-and this has been said long before the minister came forward with her proposal-that anything that would begin to recognize, for purposes of the Income Tax Act, family income, based, as it is on the situation that women are secondary wage earners or in some way economic appendages of their husbands, would be a great disservice to the growing recognition that women have as much right to be economically responsible and active in our society today as do men.
Family Allowances


Mr. McGrath:: The minister is not listening to you.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: That is all right. The minister may not want to listen to me, she may want to carry on her own conversation.


James Aloysius McGrath: She insists that you listen to her, but she will not listen to you.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: If there are other members on the opposite side who wish to speak, I hope we will have a chance to hear them.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Robert Turner: Order, please. The hon. member for Egmont has the floor.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: I hope that all hon. members, as well as some of them on the other side who are cat-calling, will have a chance to give this some serious thought. Perhaps some people think it is funny. I do not think it is funny. It is quite serious, because it is a question that is setting into law a principle, as has been admitted clearly in this afternoon's debate, of changing the way in which the Income Tax Act will operate in terms of family income. Nothing can be clearer than that. Nothing can be clearer than the fact that we will have a situation where women will be dependent upon their husbands making provision for them through their own income, which we have no assurance-1 am sure the minister would agree with this-will take place.
It does not only involve those in the higher income bracket-the minister has used this as a red herring-but, in many instances, people in the lower income bracket about whom we hear all too many tragic tales, such as the the woman who has no opportunities and no assurance that the income which her spouse is receiving is in any way commensurate with the responsibilities she has in that family's situation.
To make the kind of assumption on which the minister has made her proposals here, and still be defending the argument that they cannot even make it equitable in the case of common-law marriages because it has not been seriously examined under the Income Tax Act, seems to me to skate perilously close to irresponsibility, particularly because of the fact-I will not repeat my arguments again because the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands put it on the record last Thursday- that the Minister of Finance himself put forward papers, when he introduced the budget a few weeks ago, which pointed out the real problems in moving into the family income concept.
It is well and good for the Minister of National Health and Welfare to take a very legalistic position, as she has tried to do in this matter, and say that they are dealing with the filing of income tax returns, they are using a separate form, a separate slip, as if somehow or other that justified the approach she has taken. She may be fooling some of the people, and I believe she has had some success in fooling some of the people on this earlier on, but I think that as people begin to look at the

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
implications of this particular proposal and wonder about that principle being extended to unemployment insurance, they will ask themselves, "is that what we are going to see next?" Will the Minister of National Elealth and Welfare argue that this business of family income should be introduced as one of the next provisions for amending the Unemployment Insurance Act? I would like to know that, because it is very clear that she has given her colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, an effective handle in making that argument.
If that is not her intention, if she is stating very clearly that this is to be some kind of aberration from the norm, I hope she will put on the record in this debate that this is not to be used as a precedent by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Perhaps she would want to put it on the record as well that the Minister of Finance should not jump to bring in his next budget including this provision, because obviously we do not know the full implications of it. But we do know, given the great and continuing imbalance which exists between the incomes of men and women today, both married and single, given the jobs structure which exists in our economy today, and given the serious reverses that have taken place for women in recent years, many of them at the behest of this government, that to introduce this kind of amendment without giving it forethought is to be quite irresponsible.
The minister can defend, if she likes, with her own particularly circuitous arguments, this particular measure, but many of us want to say to the minister that she has entered into a precedent here and she has dealt with the substance of the income tax in a way which is not helpful to women in our society today. If she does not realize that, then 1 think she should give serious reflection to it, by herself, and with those who perhaps can put her on the straight path.
I will not add any more to the length of this debate on this issue because I do not think it is really required. I think that most people who have followed this discussion closely, understand what it is all about. Too bad the minister is not able to recognize this now, maybe for her own particular purposes, but I hope that at some point in the future she will make a very clear statement distinguishing between this measure, which she says is not an amendment to the Income Tax Act for family income purposes, and the measures that some of her colleagues might like to introduce. They might not even be as understanding as this minister with respect to the problems that will be created for women when family income begins to be computed for other amendments to the Income Tax Act, to the Unemployment Insurance Act, or to another act. That is the issue, and I would appreciate it if the minister would recognize that.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 5-
Bob Rae: Mr. Chairman, I can assure the minister and the parliamentary secretary that I am not putting forward amendments in order to slow down the passage of the bill but rather to try to produce some substantive improvements. With respect to clause 5, the concern which has been expressed not only by

myself-if I recollect reading through the debates and listening in the House-but also by the hon. member for St. John's East, as well as the hon. member for Egmont, and certainly by members on this side, including my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, arises from the fact that the lump sum payment does not provide for what we think is the most just form of distribution. I have expressed concern with respect to income tax discounters, and I am sure the minister would not want to hear from me again in that regard.
My essential concern has to do with the fact that if we are moving into a new era with respect to the concept of the tax credit, the government must think through very carefully now how it wants to distribute this credit. From the point of view of the financial planning of the individual family, we are dealing here principally and first of all with people who are in need. They are not people who have a lot of money; they are people who are looking forward to the payment of moneys from the government even more, because of the fact that the family allowance has been dropped from $26 to $20.


Monique Bégin: 1 would like to submit, Mr. Chairman, that this may be better dealt with under clause 8, unless I did not understand the hon. member's representation. Clause 5 deals only with defining the amount, whatever way it will be refunded.


Bob Rae: Clause 8 refers to overpayment.


Monique Bégin: That is it. Our officials tell me that the credit itself is defined as an overpayment. The hon. member's point is with regard to several instalments versus one payment. I am told that that should be dealt with under clause 8.


Bob Rae: I was not clear from reading the bill. Along with my colleagues, I thought clause 5 required amendment. If that is not the case, I will wait until clause 8 is being considered.


James Aloysius McGrath: Has the minister had any further communications with the provinces, especially the five which have yet to indicate whether they will permit the payment of child tax credit in addition to the amount of welfare a particular family may be receiving at the time of receipt?


Monique Bégin: Is that related to clause 5?


James Aloysius McGrath: Yes, it is. It concerns the assessment and the payment of tax, as well as the business of provinces taxing back the provisions of the child tax credit. Has the minister received assurance from the five provinces which have yet to indicate their positions on this matter? If so, will she relay it to the committee?


Monique Bégin: My biggest problem would be to relate it to clause 5. The hon. member, who is quite concerned about the behaviour of the provinces, is using clause 5 like any other clause. I accept that because Mr. Chairman did not rule it out of order.
December 4, 1978

As of today, I have not received any further information from the provinces. At lunch time I was on an open line program on CFRA. A member of the Ottawa Citizens on Welfare Council informed us that Mr. Norton, the Ontario minister, told him Wednesday that definitely it will be passed on fully to welfare mothers. But I have not received official word from the provinces.


James Aloysius McGrath: Can the minister bring the committee up to date on what we consider to be some of the administrative problems respecting people who do not now file income tax returns? By and large, those people would not necessarily have social insurance numbers. In addition to dealing with a totally new and foreign procedure, they will have to apply for and receive social insurance numbers. Does the minister have the support of the provinces in administering this? The provinces administer welfare and will have to counsel welfare recipients on filling out income tax forms and applying for social insurance numbers. My concern stems largely from the fact that many of these people are semi-literate, or in many cases illiterate, which compounds the problem. How does she intend to deal with that?


Monique Bégin: Clause 5 deals with the examination of a taxpayer's return of income. Legitimately it raises the question of forms and procedures. As I have indicated before, it was my hope that the program would request mothers to fill out only one short and simple form. The program was to be introduced toward the end of the year, and the tax system was in place. Recently we learned that the computer system, the program, the training manuals and training seminars, have started in Revenue Canada. These were built around a master file which exists for each mother who will benefit from the child tax credit.
Therefore, for the first year of operation, all mothers qualifying for the child tax credit must fill out a one-page special form. That form will be sent to them along with their family allowance cheques for January and basic income tax forms. They must fill out the top part of the form, which is the identification portion where the social insurance number is requested. They must report on the main tax form the amount of the child tax credit which they arrived at by completing Schedule 10. This will be reported on the last page of the tax form, and signed. This is the proof that individual taxation is the basis of Canadian taxation. Perhaps the hon. member can pass the word on to his colleague from Edmonton.
Unfortunately it is a paper burden. We anticipate a single, simple, shorter tax form for next year, but not this year. To make it less difficult for mothers, we will mail to them basic tax forms. In other words, we have identified the 1.5 million mothers who are non-filers at the present time. They will receive a mailing in early February. It will consist of income tax forms and papers explaining the portions which should be filled out.
Social insurance numbers will be requested. Approximately 600,000 mothers do not use their SIN numbers at the present time. Most of them have such numbers, but they use the social
Family Allowances
insurance numbers of their husbands. The exact number of mothers, therefore, who do not have social insurance numbers of their own is limited. All mothers will be invited to go to post offices in order to get the necessary form to apply for social insurance numbers. I do not know if this satisfies the hon. member.
Perhaps I should rapidly describe schedule 10, which will accompany the family allowance cheques in January. It is a one-page document, composed of three parts. The first part deals with the identification of the person. It is identical to the identification portion of the basic income tax form which Canadians complete. The second part is the arithmetic portion. It deals with the number of children in the family, the benefit the mother is entitled to, and the take home pay of both parents. The third part is a certification which must be signed by both parents, or by a single parent if that is the case. It certifies that the information provided by them on the document is the truth.


Mr. Isabelle:: Mr. Chairman, I am not sure my question is relevant at this point in the debate. Since the Department of National Revenue is involved, I want to ask a question which perhaps I should have raised when we were discussing clause 1, but the situation has changed since then. If my memory serves me right, according to newspaper articles I read over the weekend the Quebec minister of social affairs has decided to proceed with what 1 would describe as a substantial cut in family allowances. I fear-and this is where my question relates to income tax and to the Department of National Revenue-that the sums to be paid to mothers might well be used to pay accounting fees, because it will become so difficult to fill in income tax returns that the operation will require the services of experts. Given the fact that the proposed purpose of helping mothers will be completely forgotten, I have a funny feeling that what will be left of these $200 will be used to pay for the services of accountants because filling in income tax forms will become a very complicated operation. Am I being irrelevant or would the minister like to say something about this?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, since you accepted the hon. member's question, I will try to answer it. Without being cynical, I will tell him that nothing is free these days and anybody applying for the new tax credit will have to fill a form. I too am sorry that the form uses taxation terms which we all find difficult to understand, but we are going to have an information campaign for all those mothers who are eligible for that new allowance for their children in order to help them apply and complete the form as it should be. It will be a simple form including only one page which will be sent with all family allowance cheques for January 1979.
The hon. member for Hull referred to the bill that the Quebec government has just tabled in the National Assembly,

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
Bill 117 which establishes the family allowances rates that Quebec is going to ask us to send children in the province. In other words, starting next January we are going to lower family allowances to $20 a month per child. Quebec opted for a formula whereby the fourth, fifth and other children in a family receive an enormous amount, while the first children of a family receive a smaller amount than in the rest of Canada. The total amount in Quebec must be the equivalent of $20 per child, and they are indicating which amounts they want us to send. So that will not complicate things for mothers. On January 20 and 21, mothers in Quebec will receive a cheque slightly smaller than what it was before, which will be as follows: $12 for the first child, that is the federal cheque. The big cheque comes from Ottawa and the small cheque from Quebec city, so we are talking about the big one: $12 a month for the first child, $15 for the second, $36.95 for the third and $46.05 for the fourth child and for each subsequent child. As soon as the legislation is passed by the National Assembly, Mr. Lazure will present me with this official request from Quebec, which will be contained in a legislation passed by their parliament; then we, in the federal government will immediately apply that legislation and send the cheques as requested by Quebec. It will be the only province, with Alberta, not to follow the $20 per child rale.
So this will not complicate the mechanism, we will merely have to reduce the amount of our own federal cheques to the level Quebec wants to allocate. However it is true that every mother entitled to the new cheque will have to file a basic income tax return even if she has never paid any income tax in her life and does not have to pay any. Mothers will fill in the top part of the form: name, address, social insurance number-it does not cost anything to get one and 1 urge those who do not already have a SIN to apply for it at the nearest post office-and then they will go directly to page four and simply indicate the amount of the income tax credit they claim for their children, the amount they are entitled to. Then they will sign and attest the accuracy of their income tax return. They will mail this return or give it to their husband who will send it along with his own, as they prefer, along with the single page which will be sent with the family allowance cheque for January. Then beginning at the end of March the tax department will send them a cheque in the name of the mother.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Chairman, I want to refer briefly to a matter which has been pursued by my colleague, the hon. member for Churchill, regarding Indians and, specifically, status Indians. I do not intend to review all the detailed information, but with respect to the problem of forms I want to read into the record an article which appeared in the Walpole Island News. Walpole Island happens to be a reserve in my riding. The article states the following:
Attention: Family Allowance Recipients.

This would have gone out to the majority of Indians on that island. Indeed, it would have gone beyond the confines of the reserve.
A bonus of up to $200 per child will be provided to all Canadian families.
All families with annual incomes of less than $18,000 will receive a cheque of $200 for each child up to 18 years of age.
The $200 per child will be gradually reduced as family earnings rise above $18,000.
How to Apply
A one page form will be included with your January's family allowance cheque. Complete this and attach it to your 1978 income tax return.
I will come back to that in a moment.

Please note that all persons qualifying for this bonus must have a social insurance number for each child.
If you do not have a number, please pick up applications or bring in-
1.	Birth certificate or Indian status card (primary document).
2.	Any other piece of identification such as baptism card, hospital card,
school report card, etc. (secondary document)
-to your local Canada Manpower Centre in Wallaceburg and they will help you complete the form.
It takes two to three weeks to receive your number back in the mail so the sooner your application is completed and mailed off the better.
If you have any questions, please contact:
Canada Manpower Centre
602 Wellington Street,
Wallaceburg.
As I indicated, I do not intend to go into detail regarding the arguments which have been raised by the hon. member for Churchill. However, I think it was evident from his argument-and I am sure the minister is aware of this-that there is a substantial number of status Indians across this country who will not have access to this type of information and will not be able to take advantage of it. I think it was the hon. member for Churchill who read from a document which indicated that, even with regard to the guaranteed income supplement, a substantial number of individuals are really not aware of the program and will not take advantage of it.
Several other arguments were raised. The National Indian Brotherhood suggested, for the reasons which I have indicated, as well as for others which have been covered, that perhaps a special form not related to the Income Tax Act could be devised for the use of status Indian mothers and that that form could be considered complete if band numbers were used rather than social insurance numbers. The article I read was distributed to only one band, and I am deeply concerned that the minister might not have at her disposal a method by which she can reach status Indians in Canada regarding the Income Tax Act proposals.
Has the minister considered the proposal put forward by the National Indian Brotherhood regarding a special form which would be more identifiable by status Indians? What method does the minister have at her disposal by which she can reach this significant segment of the population? I suspect that a substantial number of status Indians, particularly in remote areas, will have no knowledge of this bill and no knowledge of the applications and forms which will be involved. Would the
December 4, 1978

minister comment on that and bring the House up to date as to what she and her department plan with regard to this very important issue?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, before the Minister of State (Environment) leaves the House I would like to quote his words for hon. members opposite. I wish they had heard my colleague the other day. He was becoming quite impatient as he listened to remarks about the supposed limitations of Indian mothers. He said, "Gee, Monique, do they not know that Indian women on reserves almost completely handle the affairs of their families?" We should not have bleeding hearts when there are no problems.


James Aloysius McGrath: This is an absolutely shameful intervention. He is talking about the National Indian Brotherhood.


Monique Bégin: We should address ourselves to improving the situation. I think this newsletter is very well done, and I appreciate the work of those who presented it. There is one small mistake, however. The social insurance number is not requested for the children but only for the mother who will receive the cheque.
The newsletter is well done and it is what I anticipate receiving from many other quarters. We are implementing a new social program and, because the economic situation is tight right now, and the mentality in Canada is toward control of potential abusers, we have to ask people to fill in forms. I regret that it is a complicated form, although they just have to fill in the top part, which is identification.
I am positive that the more than 560 chiefs of the band councils will be helpful. I am writing to them about this. The hon. member represents a riding that has Indian communities so he knows how tightly knit is the fabric of those communities, and how well organized they are. We do not anticipate major problems, because we will surely have the help of many of the councillors and administrators of the various communities. I already have information about the help of all the nurses and staff of my own department posted in various Indian communities in the country. The 150 offices of my department, including the health offices, have all developed a sort of training course for the officers in order that they may help women of the communities fill in the forms. I am preparing an information strategy that will also make use of voluntary associations.
The problem of using the tax form is very real for the first year of operation, but the taxation computer program is so far advanced that there was no way we could have the master computer program use data from a source other than the basic income tax form. The suggestion made in the House by the hon. member for Churchill the other day is what I recommended to the National Indian Brotherhood not for the first year of operation but for the year after that.
I regret that in the first year of operation mothers who are not used to doing it will have to fill in an income tax form. The system for the first year must make use of that form, however,
Family Allowances
as the only source of data suitable for entry onto the master form by mothers now qualifying for the program. That will mean filling out the top of the first page, and the last part of the fourth page, but none of the rest of the first page or pages 2 and 3. It does not mean paying taxes. It means being registered in the tax system with a file in the name of the mother, in order to make sure that she gets a cheque.
I am asking the co-operation of all concerned. I have the assurance that for the 1980 year of operation a single, shorter, and simpler form will be devised for the 1.5 million mothers who are not regular filers.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the hon. minister's comments. I was hoping they would be constructive but, unfortunately, the minister has not seen fit to allay my fears and apprehensions about two very serious matters.
In the last four years I have had the opportunity to travel extensively into Indian and native communities. I may have been skeptical, but I still suspect that a large number of status mothers in my area will not have knowledge of this form. The minister has not allayed my suspicions that the problem has not been recognized and that there will be proper assistance available to them to fill out the form.
In the more remote areas, whether the northern part of Saskatchewan, Churchill, or northern Ontario, I can tell the minister, from my experience, that forms which seem simple to us are very alien to significant numbers of status Indians. From what the minister has related to the House I do not think a significant number of Indian mothers will be reached.
When we were examining the supplementary estimates in the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development, it became obvious that when this legislation was being prepared there had been no consultation between the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. That testimony is on the record. We are here to assist the minister, but it seems that what both departments are trying to do is find a solution to a problem they should have recognized before the bill was introduced. It should have been solved when the bill was being drafted. The minister has not convinced me that a solution has been found.
The minister talks about the income tax return, and I am sure she is well aware of the continuing dialogue in this matter between status Indians, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Department of National Revenue, and others. Because of the probable consequences in this particular area, I should like to ask the minister why she insists on proceeding with the income tax form. Why does she not accept the very simple suggestion put forward by the National Indian Brotherhood for a separate form until the problem is resolved? Surely discussions with the departments I have mentioned would show how sensitive, how complex and difficult is the problem. I just cannot comprehend why she proceeds with this, knowing the hornet's nest that will be created if status mothers have to use the income tax form at the beginning of the year.
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December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
I must emphasize that 1 am not convinced from what the minister indicated that we are going to reach the status Indian, particularly those in remote areas.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member forgets one element in his presentation. This may be a new program but it is tied into the family allowance program. All Indian mothers with children under the age of 18 receive the family allowance and are familiar with it. It is true that an explanation of the form is being sent to mothers with the monthly cheque, taking them by the hand, if I may use that expression, into the new program for which they may qualify.
There is already an attachment to a particular program which we are using and exploiting to implement the thirteenth cheque. I am familiar with the hon. member's good work so I will take his words as sincere representation in favour of less paper burden.
I can assure the hon. member that 1 am not pleased at all that we have to use an income tax form for the 1.5 million mothers who are non-filers of tax claims and who will now have to fill in the beginning and the end of the form. The only explanation 1 can provide to the House is the realities of the tax system. The program was adopted toward the end of August. We started working immediately on both the legislative drafting and the technical implementation of the program.
By nature the program is that of a tax credit instead of tax exemptions. That in itself is a major fiscal reform. Many of us hoped for a single, unified, short form.
At the same time the tax machinery was already in motion, as it always is at that period of the year, the computer program had been drafted which handles the usual tax forms of individuals as well as the new child tax credit system. We asked the tax specialists whether it was possible to use schedule 10; that is a new one page form and will accompany all family allowance cheques. We asked them if that form could not be used instead and to have the staff fill in a mock form for each mother and feed it into the tax system. The answer was negative. The manuals and the trainees, who will become employees, have already learned to do the specific job of taking information from line 78 and line 62 and so on of the main tax form and feeding it into the computer. I accept that, and I understand their technical problem.
It is too late now to change completely the computer program as well as the manuals for this year, or to retrain future employees. If we did so it would delay the process of reimbursing Canadians by several months. The best we can do for this year is to mail a copy of the basic tax form, with explanations, to all mothers. Along with that we intend to have the best possible information strategy. This will include requesting the help of members of parliament who could have one or two clinics or sessions in their riding offices on Saturday mornings to explain to mothers how to complete these forms.
In addition to that, the staff in all my own 150 or so branch offices across Canada are learning the new program so as to be

able to offer additional help. All provincial departments of social services will be referring mothers to these offices. I regret that we must have recourse to the main tax form. It is the first year, and we are implementing a new program. Because of this each mother is requested to have a file in her own name similar to individual taxation. That is the basis of the problem.
I suggested to the National Indian Brotherhood, who, I see, passed it on to the hon. member for Churchill last week, that for the next year, that is, the year after, we will have a single form solely for the child tax credit. I think it is easy to understand that for this particular year it is too late for Revenue Canada to readjust completely to a new tax form especially for this measure.


Charles Robert Turner: I regret to inform the hon. member for Lambton-Kent that his time has expired. Is there any other member who wishes to speak on this particular clause?


Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Chairman, I have one brief question for the minister. In her remarks the minister indicated that 1.5 million mothers who are not now filing income tax forms would receive, early in February, a copy of the income tax return, together with schedule 10, and an invitation to apply for a social insurance number, if they do not already have one. My question is this: why not include the application for the social insurance number with the other papers sent to these people? In many places, especially isolated communities, it will be difficult for people to get those forms and this would increase the length of time they will have to wait for the tax rebate. I would suggest, therefore, that the form be included and that an invitation go along with it to suggest, if they do not already have a social insurance number, to use that form to apply for a social insurance number for one of their children.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, the House will burst out laughing when I give the answer to this question. The size of the envelope may not be big enough to permit even one more sheet of paper inside it. We have studied that suggestion, which I think is an excellent one.
I could undertake to check with Revenue Canada to see if, in their mailing of the basic tax form to the 1.5 million non-filing mothers, they could add an application form for a social insurance number. However, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that the majority of mothers do have a social insurance number. Six hundred thousand out of 3.6 million mothers who receive family allowance do not use their social insurance number, and the majority of these 600,000 mothers do have one but use their husbands' numbers instead. I could provide members with copies of the application form. We will investigate that request with Revenue Canada, but I am not sure we will be able to accommodate the hon. member. It will be impossible to add this form in my mailing for the month of January; every millimetre of space is already used.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: Mr. Chairman, I was not suggesting that the form should accompany cheques
December 4, 1978

sent out in January for the family allowance. Rather, 1 was suggesting it should go with the tax return form and schedule 10 that is being sent. I am sure that an envelope which will include those forms could also include an application form for a social insurance number.
] would hope, even though there may be only a small proportion of women without a social insurance number, that that could be done, and these mothers could be urged to apply for a social insurance number for one of their children, if they themselves already have such a number. This would at least be a start toward having their children receive social insurance numbers.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief, but there is one other important matter that I would like to bring to the attention of the minister. 1 want to be as sympathetic as I can with the minister in terms of the computerized system and the difficulty it will create for her department. But I must again emphasize to the minister the importance of the form that is going out. The minister knows perfectly well that if an income tax form reaches virtually every reserve across Canada, she is violating what is considered to be a most important issue in terms of status Indians. In light of that knowledge, the knowledge that the minister and the government have in terms of how status Indians, the National Indian Brotherhood, and virtually all organizations across the country feel relative to this particular issue, why does she have to come forward with an income tax form at this particular time?
If we can put a man on the moon and split the atom, I have no doubt that, with a little bit of imagination, initiative, and incentive on the part of the government, a separate form could be utilized for the year 1979. The government must sense that this issue is fundamental to status Indians across this country.
I take no assurance from the minister that we might see another form in the distant future. I have no confidence in that. If the minister were conscious of and sensitive to the problem, she could find a very easy way to avoid this, by having a very simple form, as suggested by the National Indian Brotherhood.
I do not want to take any more of the minister's time. However, having had experience with other social programs, I am still not satisfied that the minister has provided information to show that the overwhelming proportion of status Indians are going to receive the benefits which we hope they will receive in terms of the method she has suggested.
Specifically, will the minister consider withdrawing the suggestion of the income tax form for the coming year and have a separate form for status Indians? That is the crux of the problem. Will the minister assure us that it will not be the income tax form but a separate form, as suggested by the National Indian Brotherhood and other organizations? That would go a long way toward relieving some of the suspicions, skepticisms, and apprehensions as to the direction this government is going in this regard.
Family Allowances


Monique Bégin: Mr. Chairman, I will not be very long, as I have answered this question very often. I have satisfied myself that we are not prejudicing any claims settlements. When the program was first designed, the only mistake that could have been made by myself and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development was to make sure that Indian mothers would not be involved in the program. By definition we are talking of a tax credit instead of a tax exemption.
What the hon. member is saying is very simple. The essence of the program is that it is a tax credit instead of a tax exemption. Either the Indian mothers are included in the program or they are not. We decided to include them.
You cannot have it both ways. If the hon. member wants a special tax form, then we are not talking of a tax credit. I do not think the hon. member understands the nature of the program. It is through the tax system that it is processed.
The choice was whether we would include Indians mothers in the program or leave them out. I asked my officials to provide me with an estimate of what the program would mean to Indian mothers. It would mean an additional $19 million net for Indian mothers, $14 million for Indian mothers living on reserves. I thought that was very important.
In the development of a new program, none of us knew exactly what form would be required by the system. The ideal was a simple, unified form. I have often explained to the hon. member there is no way that can be designed in time for this year.
The hon. member does not understand that this bill, by its very nature, is a tax bill. There is no precedent being created in any way, asking Indians living on reserves to file taxation forms.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Chairman, I hesitate to prolong this, but I want to emphasize to the minister that I understand perfectly well the intent of the bill. The issue she attempted to interpret for the House is not whether Indians and their children should be in or out of the program. Everyone in this House agrees that they should be in the program. The issue is a very fundamental one. However, the minister has refused to address herself to it. I therefore come back to it. The minister knows perfectly well that status Indians have rejected the notion of an income tax form being utilized as the vehicle they must use.
It is not beyond my imagination or comprehension that there must be some way by which these people can receive these benefits other than through the use of the income tax form. The minister knows that is the issue. It is not a question of whether these people should be in or out of the program. They should be in the program.
Utilizing the income tax form is not the end-all and be-all for all problems. Why not utilize another form for at least this coming fiscal year? Parliament could resolve it in a manner that would seem more equitable to the Indians of this country.
The minister has not really identified the problem. We recognize that status Indians should be involved in this program, that they will benefit from it. However, I would like the
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December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
minister to address herself to this specific issue of the income tax form. As I indicated before, if we can put a man on the moon, split the atom and do many other things, surely we can devise another method for the interim period and use something other than the income tax form so that status Indian mothers and children can receive the funds without having to use the income tax form. It is that simple. I do not believe it is an impossible task.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 6 and 7 agreed to.
On clause 8-
Bob Rae: Mr. Chairman, having boobed on my first attempt to get this point across, I now have an amendment to clause 8 which deals with the question of quarterly instalments. I just had a discussion with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. He pointed out that clause 8 does not in fact provide for any form of payment as opposed to another. It states that the minister may or may not, and I quote:
-on or after mailing the notice of assessment for the year, refund, without application therefor, any overpayment made on account of the tax;
The amendment I propose would add after the word "tax" the following words;
"the amount of such overpayment to be paid in quarterly instalments".
The approach of the government has been made clear. It has been indicated to us that for this year, at any rate, it is the intention of the government to pay the credit in one lump sum. We are sufficiently concerned about it that I would like to get this on the record, because the method of payment for this year, and indeed for all time, should be governed by law rather than left to the administrative discretion of the minister.
The arguments in favour of it have been put not only by members of my party and my colleagues in the Conservative party, but by such outside organizations as the National Anti-Poverty Organization and other groups which are concerned about the fact that if it is made in a lump sum payment to people who have previously not been in receipt of such benefits, it leaves people prey to income tax discounters with regard to the amount of money they will be receiving, and is liable to other forms of abuse.
We are looking at a situation where the need has been increased by the fact that the government has decided to reduce the amount of payment as per clause 10. I would like the amendment to be considered and responded to by the government in order that we can have on record that we are sufficiently concerned with the method of payment that we want to have this issue debated.


Monique Bégin: I will vote against the amendment and I will explain why. I may convince the hon member; I am not sure. Right now, clause 8 does not prescribe the manner in which payment must be made to mothers. It does not say there is to

be an annual payment, as against several instalments, for example. This leaves the decision to the minister-to cabinet, basically. Right now, it is an annual payment because the tax system has to go through a number of readjustments and we did not want to take the risk that the system would collapse or fail to work. We did not want to introduce too many new elements into the tax system this year. The tax machinery has never been used in Canada for the delivery of benefits other than tax refunds, and that is once a year only. We wanted a brand new program to be implemented and then monitored for a period during which we could determine what mothers would prefer.
The annual payment does offer certain advantages; it would make possible savings which a family might not normally be able to make, or it could be used to buy a large item of equipment for the home, or for paying off debts. On the other hand, a family receiving several instalments a year would find it easier to integrate them into the family budget. Then there is the problem of tax discounters.
As I have said, we shall monitor the situation and eventually recommend to cabinet that payments be made in several instalments. Nevertheless, 1 do not want to put a commitment into law for, say, quarterly instalments; mothers may tell us that they prefer some different arrangements, monthly payments, for instance. I prefer the neutral tone of the bill before the House which allows complete flexibility to the ministry when it comes to fixing the number of payments per year. It is inappropriate that in the case of a simple technical decision of that nature one should have to introduce an amendment to the bill. Next year, if we decide to make the payment in several instalments, as we think will be the case, I would prefer that the act provide the necessary flexibility.
There are a number of ways in which members can call attention to the desirability of making several payments instead of one, if they wish. There is the question period, there are opportunities to raise the matter in the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs and there are, of course, opportunities when the estimates and supplementary estimates are before us. The government would then be free to proceed immediately without having to bring forward a legislative amendment. For these reasons, I would oppose the amendment.


Charles Robert Turner: The hon. member for St. John's East.


Alan Gray Martin: Before the hon. member for St. John's East addresses the committee perhaps we might consider another matter. The House leader for the official opposition-he is not here for the moment-did indicate earlier this afternoon that he wished to see this bill dealt with expeditiously, and I was wondering whether there might not be a disposition at this point to reach some agreement in that regard, bearing in mind that we have already spent eight days in committee of the whole on this measure. Is there a disposition that we shall conclude our proceedings this evening?
December 4, 1978


James Aloysius McGrath: I am surprised to hear the parliamentary secretary make that intervention, having regard to the tremendous headway we have made today. It is obvious we are making progress. Why try to get that kind of assurance now? There may be members who will wish to participate in discussion on clauses 8 and 9. There will certainly be questions raised on clause 10, and I have no doubt we shall continue to make considerable progress. We should make even better progress if the minister would mellow a little. The minister is always very accommodating outside this chamber, but once inside it she becomes inflexible. It is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. The hon. lady never fails to amaze me.
Progress reported.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: 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 Vegreville (Mr. Mazan-kowski)-Grain-Movement to export positions; the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis)-National Revenue-Reorganization of department-Delay in solving taxpayers' problems; the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp)- Immigration-Asylum in Canada for Southeast Asian refugees.
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. Ethier):: Is motion No. 2 standing in the name of the hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) stood by unanimous agreement?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: We will now proceed to notice of motion No. 4 standing in the name of the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones).
The Monarchy THE MONARCHY POSSIBLE CHANGE IN STATUS


Mr. Leonard C. Jones (Moncton) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should not proceed with proposed changes in respect of the status of Her Majesty the Queen as Queen of Canada or in respect of the status of the position of Governor General of Canada as set out in Bill C-60 of the third session, or otherwise.
He said: I realize that many hon. members will feel that this motion is entirely unnecessary and maybe unwanted. However, in meeting and speaking with a number of persons across Canada this summer, I was made aware of the fact that Canadians for the most part want the Queen retained as Queen of Canada.
There has been considerable alarm in this country as a result of Bill C-60 over whether or not the government really intends to keep the Queen and her successors as monarchs of Canada. The government has replied, by stating in so many words, that it has no intention of getting rid of the Queen of Canada. However under this famous bill, Bill C-60 of the last session, most of the powers of the Queen were given to the Governor General. The Governor General was in fact to become an all powerful head of state. Surely this can mean nothing else but that the true intention was to phase out the Queen as Queen of Canada. The fact that there is an election in the offing should be no reason for an instantaneous but not necessarily lasting, change of intent.
It is my belief that, if we are to prove to all Canadians that they have responsible representation in Ottawa, we must not be afraid to allow this motion to come to a vote and to show publicly our individual feelings on the monarchy. Canadians have a right to know.
If this motion is talked out or defeated, like so many private members' motions, it will be clear evidence to all Canadians that members of parliament strongly oppose the Queen of Canada.
Let me point out to you the major reasons why Canadians feel the Queen of Canada should be retained as an integral part of our federal democratic system. First, the Queen as an hereditary figure provides Canada with a continuous, constant, stable head of state. No matter what kind of confusion takes place at the political level, in a constitutional monarchy, which we now have, we are assured of the continuous presence of a most able ruler. In an electoral system there is always a chance that the system will be stalemated. The presence of a constitutional monarch rules out the threat of a possible lack of government. Citizens in a democracy must be able to criticize and remove their leaders without fear that there will be no one to take over.
Second, the presence of a constitutional monarch takes away the struggle for power which occurs in so many countries and often leads to dictatorship. The Queen ensures freedom in Canada. After all, the system of a constitutional monarchy is certainly better than absolute leadership.
Third, elevation of rulers and the formation of courts and cliques is inevitable in governments of all kinds. A constitu-

December 4, 1978
The Monarchy
tional monarchy is not only less dangerous and less costly than most of them, it also limits, although it does not prevent, this tendency to form potentates and courts which neither democratic theory nor electoral practice have been able to diminish. The presence of the Queen of Canada ensures that first ministers are in second place and are not the sole authority.
Fourth, the Queen presents to Canadians an aura of humanity amidst the vast realms of governmental bureaucracy. She is above partisan politics in government. When a Canadian sees Her Majesty in our country, he or she does not have to wonder if she is visiting that certain portion of the country to get votes. The Canadian cannot lend political overtones to her phrases. The Queen is truly a head of state to be respected.
Fifth, since we in Canada are at present blessed with a constitutional monarchy, we are safeguarded by the fact that the Queen is head of the armed forces. Since the relationship with the Queen also gives us the privilege of belonging to the Commonwealth, we are assisted in many aspects of world affairs.
Sixth, the Queen is a symbol of unity in most parts of our country. Some Canadians from certain portions of the country are upset at the fact that the Queen is indeed a symbol. These persons are not impressed by the fact that we should have a head of state whom we share with other countries. However, there are many persons in our country who owe allegiance in some form to various outside heads of state. I am thinking here specifically of those who owe allegiance to churches with heads outside this country, or to businesses. May I also say that whether it is a Queen or not, heads of government, or the elected leaders, they will take to themselves, if they can, the prestige and power that is involved in a symbol. Elected leaders can just as easily assume the role of monarchs, but often in a less democratic manner. Part of the reason for Confederation and the union of this country was the common allegiance to the Queen and the common ties to the mother country. It is amazing, at this time of disunity in Canada, that certain persons would wish to be rid of a force which first united this country.
So you see, Mr. Speaker, there are indeed many reasons for retaining the present status of Her Majesty, the Queen of Canada. The Crown is like an iceberg-it displays only the tip of its size and importance to those in Canada. However, the Crown is a necessary factor in the preservation of our freedom. 1 maintain that the status of the Governor General should also be maintained as representative of the Queen, not acting as her right hand, though.
This is indeed a necessary and important motion in order that the present questioning attitude about the retention of the Queen of Canada-an uprising caused by the wording of Bill C-60-be answered. Yes, Mr. Speaker, there is indeed a quandary over the fate of our monarchy in Canada, whether or not members of parliament prefer to recognize it. We as members of parliament owe it to the people of Canada to settle this controversy once and for all.
[Mr. Jones.)
Again I repeat that if this motion is defeated or talked out, it will be clear evidence to the people of this country that members of parliament strongly oppose the Queen of Canada. I hope sincerely that that is not the case.


Mr. Gus MacFarlane (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations):: Mr. Speaker, first and foremost I would like to thank the hon. member for giving me the opportunity to speak to this motion. 1 would like to say initially that I hope some of the things I will say will dispel any concern he has about the intentions of this government, or of members on this side of the House, or of parliament, for that matter. 1 would also like to dispel the thought he might have that this motion would have to come to a vote to prove anything like the oath of loyalty to the Queen which I myself have taken when 1 was one of her officers. I do not think any vote in the House would supersede that in any way, and I see no necessity for the motion to come to a vote.
Without getting into any detail or contradicting the hon. member, I would like to remind him that when he mentioned the Governor General being commander in chief as something new, it was in the early 1900s that the monarch, by letters patent, indicated to him that he was commander in chief. So we would not be doing anything new there.
The motion before us states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should not proceed with the proposed changes in respect of the status of Her Majesty the Queen of Canada or in respect of the status of the position of the Governor General of Canada as set out in Bill C-60 of the third session, or otherwise.
I presume that the hon. member, in using the word "status", refers to the Oxford dictionary definition of that term, namely, social position or rank or a person's relation to others as fixed by law. His motion appears to be redundant since the bill neither interferes with the status of the Queen nor with that of the Governor General, but rather confirms the continuation of the monarchy, with the Queen occupying Canada's highest office as head of state, and it makes clear the stature, importance, and singularity of the office of Governor General.
When Bill C-60 was presented to the House we were told that it would die on the order paper. This technique was used to permit wide-ranging discussions, we were told, so that when the bill is presented again all Canadians will have the opportunity to make comment and effect changes in the bill. I can guarantee to the hon. member, as has the Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Trudeau), that the government has not proposed, nor does it intend, any change or diminution of the role of the monarchy in our system of government. In the proposed constitutional amendment bill, we have attempted to set out for all Canadians to see and know, the present roles of the sovereign and her representative.
As "A Time for Action" indicated, we believe that a new constitution of Canada should be a mordern document which would define the form of government and political structures chosen freely by all Canadians. Wherever possible, the written constituiion should reflect current rather than past constitu-
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tional practice. Therefore, in the constitutional amendment bill the government has attempted to write into the constitution the present theory and practices regarding the monarchy. Because of the complexity and subtlety of this subject, this has not been an easy thing to do, and it was not possible or practical to attempt to cover all aspects of the subject. However, the constitutional amendment bill would confirm the continuation of the monarchy with the Queen occupying Canada's highest office as head of state, and would codify the reality of the Governor General's present powers as they have actually evolved, and make clear the stature, importance and singularity of his office.
All the essentials of our system of constitutional monarchy would remain. Indeed they would be clarified, and as a result, strengthened. As sovereign and head of state, the Queen would continue to appoint the Governor General. Also as constitutional monarch she could assume when visiting Canada any of the functions of the Governor General under the bill. The Government of Canada would continue to be carried on in the Queen's name.
The sovereign's representative, the Governor General, virtually would exercise all royal powers except the appointment of the holder of his office. He would exercise them on the basis of statutory constitutional provisions which have been derived from a variety of present sources of constitutional authority.
By consolidating and clarifying both the office of Governor General and the position of the sovereign, in accordance with existing practices, the bill would confirm the respective roles of the sovereign and the Governor General. Existing conventions protecting the Crown from political interference would not be weakened. On the contrary, the bill would secure in our constitution all the protection which now exists by convention for the maintenance and functioning of Canada's system of constitutional monarchy and responsible parliamentary democracy.
Surely the hon. member is aware that the Speech from the Throne delivered on October 11, 1978, indicated the following:
The government's view was and remains that the new constitution should describe the situation as it exists today in Canada, and the government is pleased that the provincial premiers expressed the same view during their meeting in Regina. Discussions are already in progress with provincial governments to ensure that the legal drafting conforms to that intention. There is no intention to change or to reduce in any way the role Her Majesty plays.
The present Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations (Mr. Reid), from Kenora-Rainy River, is involved in those negotiations. He is very, very interested in and an advocate of the monarchy. Therefore, at this very moment he is dealing with the provinces in discussing how the wording can achieve the intention of the government.
In his speech in the House on October 12, 1978, the Prime Minister said the following:
We have indicated many times that our intention was not to change the role of the monarchy. We indicated that as far back as 1968 when we published the white paper on the constitution. We have repeated it constantly since then that that was our intention.
The former minister of state for federal-provincial relations, the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Lalonde), said that what-
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ever may be the difficulties in giving legal expression to the government's intention, that intention was and still is that there should be no change or diminution of the role of the monarchy in our system of government.
When the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Bas-ford) was minister of justice, the intention was explained to Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace, and she saw it that way too. A letter from the Queen's private secretary indicates that Her Majesty was satisfied the proposals would not alter the essential relationship of the Crown to Canada. That letter was unsolicited.
On September 6, 1978, the then minister of transport and minister of justice, the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), speaking in London, England, gave a group of senior British businessmen the assurance that changes in the Canadian constitution would in no way change the sovereign role of the monarch in Canada.


An hon. Member:: In Canada?


Angus (Gus) MacFarlane: Well, we would not want to change it in England. That is not our job.
There is an overwhelming weight of evidence to the effect that the Prime Minister, the government, ministers of the Crown and individual members of parliament, have spoken out in a laudatory fashion as to the role of Her Majesty the Queen as head of state of Canada. Her Majesty the Queen plays an active role in Canada today, as she has done in the past and will continue to do in the future. In fact during the 1970s, royal visits have been more frequent than ever before. It is clear that she has widespread respect and love among Canadians.
The Crown, in the persons of Her Majesty and her representative, the Governor General, serve as a living link with our history and traditions. Our constitutional proposals would ensure that this continues. For instance, section 30 guarantees the role of Her Majesty in the Canadian federation. It reads as follows:
The sovereign head of Canada is Her Majesty the Queen, who shall be styled the Queen of Canada and whose sovereignty as such shall pass to her heirs and successors in accordance with law.
It cannot be clearer than that. In fact I could spend hours in rebuttal of criticism of the wording and clauses of the bill presented by certain self-styled and self-proclaimed constitutional experts. Since we are assured all efforts will be made by the government to have recourse to the best legal experts in order that the bill will present the intentions of Canadian people correctly, I will not indulge in that kind of polemic argument.
Members of parliament of all political parties legally recognize the bilingual nature of the country. Long before we did, as head of state the Queen spoke in two languages in her messages to Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

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Angus (Gus) MacFarlane: She spoke in both English and French, perfect English and perfect French, which came from her heart. Above all others, she has contributed to the unity of the country. The royal house of Windsor has roots in the ethnic peoples of Europe. She herself chose a man to share her throne who traces his family to Greece. She is well qualified to recognize the diversity of our country. By inheritance, by word and by deed, our Queen stands as an example of understanding to all Canadians, her loyal subjects.
When I was 14 years old and in public school in Quebec, 1 was proud to receive the Jubilee Medal of King George V and his Queen. I was proud to receive my commission as an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force under the seal of George VI. Just last year, as a member of a parliament for Flamilton Mountain, I was proud to receive the Jubilee Medal of Queen Elizabeth II. The royal family always has been a part of my life. Gertrude Stein once said, "A rose is a rose is a rose." On Hamilton Mountain we say, "The Queen is the Queen is the Queen."


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Stan Schumacher (Palliser):: Mr. Speaker, as seconder of this important motion moved by my friend and colleague, the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones), I want to start out by saying that I personally know a great many Canadians, not only in the west but right across the country, who want the Queen to remain recognized as the Queen of Canada and the rightful head of the state of this nation.
1 found the comments of the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. MacFarlane) very interesting. They were stirring, and I appreciated them. But I wonder whether hon. members opposite will have the ability to restrain their comments in favour of the monarchy in order that we might have a recorded vote on the subject. I rather doubt they will.
I cannot understand the thinking of anyone who would entertain the idea of removing the Queen as head of our state, or in any way downgrading her position as leader of our people. As a matter of fact Bill C-60 did that, as has been recognized by certain authorities. The hon. member cast aspersions on the hon. Senator Forsey and the right hon. Roland Michener, a former Speaker of this House, who gave testimony before the Senate committee to the effect that Bill C-60 had an effect of downgrading the role of the monarchy and increasing the purpose of the Governor General at the Queen's expense, i do not think Senator Forsey and Mr. Michener should be classified as self-styled experts. I think they are recognized experts in the field of constitutional law. Certainly the former governor general has a good background for stating what the practical effects of Bill C-60 would have been.
The reaction of people across the country is not merely a sentimental reaction to an honoured and long standing tradition. Nor is it simply a love of symbolism or a standing in awe of all the pomp and ceremony which accompany any crowned head. There is a fear and a suspicion on the part of the people

that the government is doing something it should not be doing in this area. Some people in this country are actually afraid that if the Queen is shoved aside the way will be open for dictatorship or, at the least, republicanism of the kind we have seen fail time and time again in other countries. Since this government has already reflected dictatorial tendencies on occasion, that fear is very real in the minds of Canadians who have been observing this government for the past ten years.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Canada are rightfully suspicious of this government for ever suggesting any degree of tampering with the monarch's Canadian connection, and there has been an effort to tamper with it. I cannot believe that the drafters of Bill C-60 could be so inept and incompetent as to attempt to do what they did if that was the basis of what they were doing. I think there was more than ineptness and incompetence in the drafting of that bill.
The monarchy today is much more than a symbol of authority. As my hon. friend across the way and the mover of this motion have stated, it represents unity among peoples, brotherhood among nations and, therefore, it is a form of leadership. The monarchy stands as a form of popular leadership and the Queen is the physical personification of that leadership. She shows the kind of leadership everyone in Canada can look up to, regardless of political ideology. In other words, she unifies us. If ever this country needed that kind of leadership, it is now, because at this time there is certainly no leadership being provided by the present government. Canadians today need and want strong, popular leadership untainted by political ambitions toward dictatorship, and immune to the chance results of election campaigns based on promises which may never be kept.
Canada needs the kind of leadership that serves as a strong unifying force, and as the years roll by and as elections come and go, it is becoming more and more apparent that we are not getting that kind of leadership from currently practising politicians.
The monarchy provides us with continuous popular leadership and the continuous presence of an able and understanding leader. The monarch is always there, no matter how often our zealous politicians talk themselves out of office. We cannot be totally without government as long as the Queen remains the Queen of Canada. Nor are we left at the mercy of poorly managed government as long as she is there. She is our final appeal for true leadership.
As my hon. colleague has mentioned, the Queen ensures freedom in Canada: freedom to think, speak and act as we please within the letter of the law; freedom to worship as we see fit; freedom to live our lives usefully and with some hope of reward and satisfaction; and freedom to move about as we wish in our own country and to seek out greater opportunities for ourselves and for our families. Without the long shadow of the monarchy standing over it, no Canadian government can be held for very long to the responsibility for and the protection of all these freedoms which our people now enjoy.
December 4, 1978

Without the monarchy, sooner or later some ambitious oaf will show up and grind us under his dictatorial heel. It has happened in other countries, and it can happen here.
Indeed, the presence of the Queen in Canada serves as a very real reminder that first ministers are in second place, as my colleague has pointed out, and not in sole authority. We all know that some first ministers need to be reminded of that fact.
There is today an uprising in Canada, a surge of both emotional and rational reaction to this government's efforts at unseating the Queen of Canada. If we do not listen to the people now and heed their wishes in this respect, the day when we will wish we had will not be far off.
We must maintain the Queen's Canadian connection because she represents the only true leadership and the only unifying force available to us at this time. I again urge hon. members not to let their enthusiasm for the monarchy use up the remainder of our time. Let there be a real indication of where members of this House stand on this issue, because it is an important issue. 1 think the people of Canada are entitled to know where we stand. We should not cop out by letting our time expire as a means of denying the people of Canada the right to know where their members of parliament stand on this issue.


Prosper Boulanger: Mr. Speaker, may I be allowed to quote part of motion No. 4, as follows:
-should not proceed with proposed changes in respect of the status of Her Majesty the Queen as Queen of Canada or in respect of the status of the position of Governor General of Canada as set out in Bill C-60-
Mr. Speaker, after hearing the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones) speak to us on his motion, when a French-Canadi-an hon. member from Quebec rises, one must surely wonder what he will say about motion like that one, especially as a French-Canadian from Quebec.
I might be well advised to say first of all why an hon. member from Quebec should want to participate in the debate on such a motion. First he does so to point out to the hon. member for Moncton that we Quebeckers are first of all French-speaking Canadians and, like Her Majesty the Queen, we have the advantage of being perfectly bilingual. My colleague across the way, the mover of this motion, has not had it seems, I shall not say the courage but the advantage of learning the two languages; we all know why he sits as an independent.
But we also know full well that his motion is but an excuse to hold a debate, for he is aware that we have a bill and white papers on the subject, and that the subject of his motion is already the topic of discussions across Canada. So he comes to us with some form of threat, saying that if we talk out the bill by discussing it until six o'clock, or if the vote is not taken
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before six, it will mean that we are against not only the motion, not to speak of the Queen, but also against the office of Governor General. Mr. Speaker, that in the vernacular is known as blackmail, and I will have none of it. About that motion proposed by the hon. member for Moncton known for his limping courage and supported by another independent member who unfortunately is one of my good friends, I do not know if he only intended to provide moral support so as to make it possible to debate the motion. The hon. member for Moncton knows very well that we share his belief although we come from Quebec or from other parts of the country. I would tell him what my grandfather said: Stop standing in front of the Queen, Mr. hon. member for Moncton, so that she might see us too, other Canadians. Some people out-Herod-Herod. The hon. member for Moncton reminds me of those.
If the hon. member for Moncton had taken time to read the statements by the Prime Minister-although I do not question his good faith-I begin to wonder if the hon. member has actually read the statement the Prime Minister made on the occasion of his visit to the Queen, he would know that the Prime Minister had had personal discussions with her when she came to Canada in October 1977. He then told her that he contemplated a study-I am using his own words-on the whole constitutional matter in 1978-79. It was not an obligation but a comprehensive study. We must never forget the difference between the consideration of a plan and compelling someone to take a decision which is beyond his judgment, his belief or his competence.
He also pointed out the importance of a renewed federal system. He did not say that is was essential to abolish a system or change the status of the Queen or that of the Governor General, but he merely emphasized the importance of a renewed federal system to counterbalance the campaign. I agree with the comments of the Prime Minister to counterbalance the campaign of the Quebec government trying to convince the people of that province to vote in favour of separation from Canada. Mr. Trudeau said to the Queen that in his opinion within a few years it would be essential to consider the constitution as a whole. It seems to me reasonable to ask such a thing, that is to consider the constitution as a whole with the provinces, to review some parts of it and to redraft an entirely Canadian document. Would it be a sin today to be Canadian? One can be Canadian today while clinging to some traditions, for example, the House of Commons, the democratic system, the English parliamentary system, which is the greatest democratic system in the world.
One may remain attached to the system, one may remain attached to the Queen of Canada without for that be deemed anti this or that. I have never read anywhere in the statements that anyone wanted to deprive the Queen of any powers, on the contrary if the process keeps on everyone will see- The hon. member stated that inevitably in the course of that debate certain questions would be asked about the relationship be-

December 4, 1978
The Monarchy
tween the Crown and Canada and about the functions of the Governor General. But that is what is being done tonight with the motion moved by the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones). Moreover, the Prime Minister added that he and his government would do their utmost to make very sure that any debate or discussion not be a source of division in Canada. He does not prompt the participants in that debate to ask themselves whether it would be advisable to modify in depth the present status of the Crown in Canada.
We could go on like this for long but ultimately we will have to come back to the white paper called "A Time for Action" which mentioned various propositions contained in this motion. The Prime Minister also said at the time that he would table a letter addressed to the Queen and which she answered. Later the Prime Minister received from the Queen's private secretary a letter dated June 20-precisely the one my hon. colleague and the author of the motion was talking about a moment ago-which indicated that Her Majesty approved of the proposed changes in the royal titles and that she was convinced that these propositions would not change the basic nature of the relations between the Crown and Canada. Moreover, the Queen reiterated these remarks to the Prime Minister during audiences she granted him in Moncton last August 5.
But it seems to me that if we compare Bill C-60, which has been presented, and the study made in collaboration with the joint committee of the Senate and the House, the white paper "A Time for Action", as well as all the discussions and debates that have been going on since then between the premiers, there is no cause for alarm, even if we do not vote on this motion before six o'clock. It seems to me that we can rely on the sense of responsibility of the Prime Minister and the premiers as well as on the committee that was established to study the constitution.
I think that regardless of their political allegiance, the premiers are men elected by the Canadian people in each province. They are responsible men and, I repeat, despite their political allegiance, they are as Canadian and as responsible as the hon. member for Moncton can be. We ought to have confidence in these people, in the provincial premiers and the Prime Minister of Canada, who are studying and discussing the constitutional system to arrive at some kind of approach which will be more modern and more responsive to the needs of 1978-1979 and future years. But I do not see any scandal or concern about the hon. member's motion if the vote should be made after six o'clock.
Mr. Speaker, I do not see at all what the hon. member for Moncton wants, and this is why he irritated me at the beginning of his speech when he threatened us immediately, saying that if we talked until six it would mean-I do not want to repeat his words because they make me a little too angry. 1 shall let him repeat his own words on other occasions. But this is not how the government acts, it does not talk out bills for the sake of it. However, with this kind of meaningless motion,

when you know what is presently happening, I will not be disturbed if we reach six o'clock without having voted, I will not feel guilty and concerned about the result of his remarks after six o'clock either on television or on radio or whatever.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to read again a quote from the right hon. Prime Minister on the adaptation, the renewal or the changes which will have to be made. He said, and I quote:
It is time to respond to this wish for renewal of the Canadian people.
Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Moncton does not want to say or does not seem to be willing to say what the Prime Minister said at that time, at least he will believe a little what the people of Canada seem to be willing to say or what they have been saying up to now. The Prime Minister said: It is time to respond to this wish for renewal of the Canadian people. It is therefore up to parliament, the federal government, the provincial governments, as I said earlier, and all those in authority in our society to proceed so that this renewal will come about promptly, without mishap and in complete accordance with our democratic traditions. This could not be any clearer. There is no threat implied.
It is not a matter of passing legislation with a majority of votes to prevent the opposition-I do not even know if a Progressive Conservative member will rise later on to speak about this issue. 1 can see that two or three are here. In any case, there is no threat involved; the only thing that is involved is the action that we want to take because we believe that the Canadian population is ready to accept changes to our constitution. I believe that the Canadian people are not only ready for this, but that they have already waited too long. I believe that the people in this country are ready now to receive the changes that a courageous government will soon bring about. We are about to do so, and I hope that this problem will be solved long before the next election so that someone like me, who will probably not be in politics at that time, will be able to say: We have finally done something that the Canadian people have wanted for a long time.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Moncton cannot shame me into thinking that if there is no vote at six o'clock, everyone will regret it, not to repeat the words that he used. Certain formulas and the white paper were mentioned. People have often said that Canada cannot tolerate another decade of uncertainty. As I said earlier, in my opinion the Canadian people-and I say this as a French-speaking Canadian from Quebec-all the Canadian people, whether they are Englishspeaking or from another cultural background, are ready to accept the changes that we want to make. I do not have the impression that these changes will offend anyone as we want to maintain the authority of the monarch. Indeed, the bill never said that there was any desire to remove her powers. I do not know where the experts found this idea of a so-called change in power. Names were mentioned earlier. But I am starting to have some doubts as to whether these people were really well
December 4, 1978

known experts or whether they misread or read too rapidly the paper or the bill.
The government is adding to the legislation, which serves as a working document in the public, parliament and intergovernment debates. The coming months will improve the tone of the debate and accelerate the reaching of a consensus. It is apparent the Prime Minister at that time was far from desiring to remove any status from the Queen or the Governor General.
If we go back further, if we refer to the white paper in which were put forward the four main proposals for a renewed federation, and you probably know them better than myself, we find a re-statement of Canadian identity. There is nothing we could be more proud of. We want a re-statement of Canadian identity. I want to be called a French Canadian, a bilingual one. Call me anything, but call me a "Canadian". 1 will take pride in that. At the same time I am a Canadian citizen from the province of Quebec, and I feel I am as much a Canadian as my western colleagues who do not speak both languages, who at least did not have an opportunity to learn them, but who do not have the privilege to speak them, or who do not even make the effort to learn them.
Anyway this does not bother me at all. It does not shock me because there is as act on bilingualism, which affords us rather good protection as far as the public service and other services connected with justice and Canadian government are concerned. Therefore, those who are not bilingual do not shock me. But at least let them not act as though with their unilingual English language gave them a monopoly, not on "Canadianity" but almost, a monopoly on illustrations and famous Canadians, for the sole reason they are from the west or the east or the maritimes and they speak but one language. A Canadian is a fellow like myself who stands up and says what he thinks in the language he wants to use.
If they do not think I am saying it the right way, I can say it in English as well. To be a Canadian is not to be an Englishspeaking Canadian; it is to be a guy like me who learned the language during the war, not with the aid of books because I did not have that chance, but I made an effort and learned my English during the war. Maybe my English is not the best, but of course those English Canadians who taught me are to blame for that. However, I learned, I tried and 1 am very proud of that. It is not always from the grammar that you learn a language; it comes from the heart.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Prosper Boulanger: When you want to speak and you have it in your heart to do so, you succeed. Do not worry, Mr. Speaker, I do not care if the English I speak is broken or not, but there is one thing that is not broken inside me and that is my pride in being a Canadian. And that I shall remain.
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Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of being able to speak on this motion presented this afternoon by the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones). This is private members' hour and I wish to advise hon. members that I do speak as a private member for Fundy-Roy-al, although I have no problem in my identification of the party that I represent in this House because, like myself, they agree there should be no dilution of the role of the monarchy or the Queen as head of state of this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Alfred Corbett: Nevertheless I did become somewhat concerned when I heard the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. MacFarlane) protest in a rather loud and inordinate way about the proposals introduced in Bill C-60. My feeling is that he is protesting too much. For what reason? I am concerned when members opposite and the government of this country begin to dabble in what we refer to as constitutional tinkering.
I am concerned that if there is no intention on the part of the government to dilute the authority of the monarchy in this country, why is it necessary to include any reference to this in Bill C-60? Bill C-60 very definitely states that the powers of the Queen are not to be diminished or diluted-words to that effect-while she is in Canada. That is absolutely contrary to my understanding of the constitution and the role of the monarchy in this country.
I intend to move along with my remarks and I will not take up the entire time allotted to me.
Canada has recently entered a period of reappraisal. Canadians feel that the time has come to reconsider what we are and to determine what we want to become. From the Atlantic to the Pacific we have been discussing our history and our future. We made a country out of a continent. It has been a great adventure. We built with our own hands a country stretching from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, from Point Pelee to the northernmost reaches of the Arctic Islands. It took scarcely longer than a span of a man's life to do it. Many Canadians still remember the era of new settlements, the clearing of the lands, the great beginnings, the time when there were only five million of us, when our major cities- there were a dozen or so-had populations of barely more than 20,000, and when the railway and a handful of newspapers were the only means of linking region with region.
In order to adapt to the new continent, discover its spirit and learn to survive in its environment, our ancestors had to borrow the ways and customs of many peoples. But no custom and tradition has had more influence on the peaceful and orderly development of our great nation than the Crown. The Crown and the concept of constitutional monarchy have never been easy matters to explain. And because there is a tendency among all people to dismiss what they cannot easily explain, the monarchy in Canada has frequently been tossed off as either an historical anachronism that should long ago have gone the way of knights and round tables, or a stale leftover of colonialism, the fact being that we are a sovereign, independent nation with a foreign-that is, British-head of state.

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I submit that such a description of the Queen of Canada is a highly simplistic explanation of her function which is used to advantage by those who wish to erode the functions and traditions of the parliamentary system of government in Canada. Elizabeth II is the personal expression of the Crown of Canada, not the Crown of England. She is the Queen of Canada as well as the Queen of England and is the constitutional monarch of Canada. It is this combination that explains her role as head of state and as an institution of the Canadian government.
We note immediately that the Queen plays the same role in many other parts of the Commonwealth, and we face the question of a shared Crown and head of state. What is the advantage in modern times of this arrangement? Does it limit or compromise the sovereignty of Canada as an independent nation? This afternoon, Mr. Speaker, I wish to examine these questions with you.
The Commonwealth serves 850 million people and includes huge nations and tiny states. Of its 33 members, all recognize the Queen as head of the Commonwealth. Sixteen new states plus India are republics with their own heads of state distinct from the Queen; 11, including Canada, are monarchies with the Queen as head of state; and five, all new states, are monarchies with monarchs other than the Queen as head of state.
Much has been written and said about the Commonwealth and 1 feel one particular attribute is worthy of mention this evening. That particular attribute is the ability of the Commonwealth to allow its member nations to participate in the orderly transition from colony to nation, the one singular force allowing such peaceful transition being the Crown.
Over the centuries many nations have conquered many other nations and developed lands into colonies. But they have rarely been inclined either to give easily the fruits of their conquests in development, or to admit to accusations of exploitation. The gaining of nationhood by dependencies has usually required a long process of negotiation, perhaps rebellion, and the aftermath may be bitter. As far as Britain's original dependencies were concerned, there were struggles but in the separation of the control of the mother country there was a stage which permitted a gradual, peaceful and face-saving change to independence under the Crown.
The British learned their lesson when the American colonies broke away, and since then they have followed a natural process comparable to the experience of any child who grows beyond dependence upon his parents, becomes able to support himself and handle his own affairs, and maintains an independent family relationship. Other empires disintegrated leaving little friendship either among the parts or between them and the original mother country. Such was not the case with the British Empire.
Canada, being a member of that British Empire, was able to weaken and then sever all governmental connections with Britain until she had complete control of her own affairs. Colonial status changed to dominion status and then to

independent status when conditions in Canada justified the change.
The existence of the Crown permitted face-saving on both sides. The provinces got all the trappings, symbols and ceremonies early to make them appear more grown up, even when there was little else to justify their identities. The government of the mother country saved face every time it gave up some power because the old links appeared at first to remain. But the old links did not remain and when everyone on both sides of the Atlantic realized it the Crown became a symbol, not of colonialism but of nationhood.
The Queen and the Crown therefore represent, among other things, the origin and growth of government. It was the Crown that gave out the original letters patent which gave the colonies their official status and served as a mark of sovereignty when they desperately needed to provide legitimacy, and this remained as a constitutional umbrella under which they grew to maturity. This shared heritage of the Crown was very important for it was in the midst of this tradition, even before colonies were politically stable, that the Crown helped to bring three of them together as four provinces in 1867 when they had little else in common besides their allegiance to a common sovereign. On their own initiative and terms they set up another central system with the same structure they had known for so long.
Then the new structure developed further on a national scale and this system was continued or set up in six new provinces. Meanwhile the constitution remains stable in a century when constitutions elsewhere were created and destroyed in reckless fashion, until now Canada's government is one of the oldest in the world and, as we have noted, her people have enjoyed, by global standards, a remarkable freedom from real political trouble.
All this did not take place because Canadians were superior people. They have a system that transplanted well in their environment and then worked. The question which we must now ask is what attributes of constitutional monarchy have made it work so well once it was transplanted in Canada. 1 suggest that a prime minister in Canada or a provincial premier is made to know from the start of his administration that he is advising on the use of the Queen's power, not wielding power that he actually possesses. There is an enormous practical difference between these two concepts. However much the Prime Minister can do on advising on the use of power, and even though he is among the most powerful, responsible heads of government in the world, he is always in the democratic position of being merely a trustee; and he knows it because of frequent and colourful reminders. He is a trustee to whom much responsibility can be entrusted but also readily taken away. It clearly puts the Prime Minister and his cabinet on the defensive at election time in an era when several heads of government elsewhere possess so much power that they are able to control elections or abolish them altogether.
The Crown has therefore a means of meeting a difficulty- so evident in history and contemporary politics throughout the world-that of preventing officials at the summit of govern-
December 4, 1978

merit from becoming too powerful, irresponsible and perhaps immovable.
This brings us to a definition of what the Canadian constitutional monarchy is all about. After centuries of political evolution we have arrived at the stage where all the powers of the state are vested, not in the state-that is, the formal governing structure-but in the community, with the person chosen to symbolize or personify those powers having no or scant powers to wield at all. That is, we separate the possession of power from the wielding of power. One institution, the monarchy, possesses the power without wielding it; the other institution, government, wields the power without possessing it.
Even though we may associate executive power with certain officials under our present constitution, we do not in law or in fact make it the personal possession of any of them. We put it outside the government structure, not in someone's hands but in an abstraction, and we call that abstraction the Crown.
The Crown, therefore, is not the monarch. The Crown is the people, and the monarch symbolizes the people, with all the dignity, stature, mystique and aura of her office. As the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) once told her at a state dinner, "I always like being seen in public with you; it's the only time 1 never get booed"!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Robert Alfred Corbett: Those are the Prime Minister's words, not mine. If hon. members get complaints, take it up with the Prime Minister. Some of those opposite who are interested in retaining the monarchy have an awful lot to say when someone on this side is interested.


Angus (Gus) MacFarlane: Talk it out.


Robert Alfred Corbett: You will have your chance in three minutes. To begin modifying the system risks destroying it. To begin shifting the focus away from the Queen to some government appointee, of whatever "suitable stature", risks destroying it.
"God save the Queen" really means "God help us to govern ourselves". "God save the Governor General" does not sound so convincing. I urge that this motion not be talked out but that the question be put forthwith.


Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to oppose this motion. There is not an ounce of truth in the sentiments expressed in it. The motion of the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Jones) says that the government should not proceed with proposed changes with respect to the status of Her Majesty the Queen of Canada or with respect to the status of the Governor General as set out in Bill C-60.
I am not aware of where the hon. member for Moncton was for the summer months. He obviously was not in Ottawa attending meetings of the joint Senate and House of Commons committee. If he had been, he would have found out, as reiterated in this House by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau)
The Monarchy
and others on this side, that this government has no intention whatsoever of changing the role of the Queen or Governor General. In Bill C-60 the government was trying to codify the role of the monarchy and Governor General as it now exists.
The hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Corbett) raced through his words as if he was ashamed to have this House ponder them for a moment. He stated that Bill C-60 should not have mentioned the Queen and her role, that it should have been silent. As the Prime Minister told the House, if the government had omitted any reference to the Queen in Bill C-60 it would have been charged with being anti-monarchist.
The role of the monarchy has changed over the years. In 1947 there were letters patent which changed the role of the monarch with regard to the signing of treaties. There have been other changes over the years.
I might point out that the Queen acquiesced to the sentiments of the government in Bill C-60. She was fully in agreement; she was not alarmed like the Tories.
I find it ironic that it is the hon. member for Moncton who has had the intestinal fortitude, otherwise known as guts, to bring this motion before this House of Commons. We know where he stands on the monarchy. I respect his views.
It is the Tory members who should have introduced this motion. They should have been leading the argument. However, the Tories like to have it both ways. They have done this country irreparable harm in the way they have dragged the honourable name of Her Majesty the Queen and the institution of the monarchy through the mud of Canadian politics over the last six months. It is not the government that is mucking around with the monarchy; it is the Conservative party which is trying to make political hay out of this issue.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Michael Collenette: 1 represent a constituency in metropolitan Toronto. I am proud to say that it is perhaps the last bastion of monarchial strength in that area.
I was born in Great Britain under the flag of Great Britain and the shadow of the Queen. Like the hon. member for Mercier (Mr. Boulanger) and the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. MacFarlane), my father fought in the war. He fought for those things in which we believe. He fought for the monarchy, its institution and the parliamentary system of government. I take umbrage at the Conservatives, especially those from metropolitan Toronto, but also the hon. member for Fundy-Royal and members from the west coast, who dare to say the Liberal party is anti-monarchist. That is not true.
It has often been said there is little support for the monarchy in the province of Quebec. The hon. member for Mercier underscored the fact there is great support in that province.


Robert Alfred Corbett: Who said that?


David Michael Collenette: That is what the Tories say. Perhaps the hon. member for Fundy-Royal has not been here long enough to know what his colleagues have been saying day in and day

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
out for the past four years. I object to the Conservative party spreading this across the country. Even though this motion was brought forward by the hon. member for Moncton, it is Tory trickery at its worst.


Leonard C. Jones: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I just want to point out there was no collusion between myself and other parties in this Elouse. I would like the hon. member to correct that.


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


David Michael Collenette: We know what happened to the hon. member for Moncton in 1974. He wanted to join the Tory party but was unable to do so. I suppose that is a bit irrelevant to the debate. I see it is six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. Perhaps the House will permit our going back into committee of the whole before the Chair calls it six o'clock.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration in committee of Bill C-10, to amend the Income Tax Act to provide for a child tax credit and to amend the Family Allowances Act-Mr. Chretien-Mr. Ethier in the chair.
Charles Robert Turner: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Charles Robert Turner: Order. At five o'clock we were discussing the amendment to clause 8.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words in connection with the amendment and in so doing review briefly our attitude toward it. My hon. friend from Lambton-Kent has already referred to the position taken by the National Indian Brotherhood and the concern it has expressed with respect to the lump sum payment. My hon.

friend from Churchill could not be here today because of the weather but he has had a great deal to say about this provision and its sociological impact on native people living on the reserves.
The National Anti-Poverty Organization has already made its feelings known to the minister. I quote from its release of November 7:
The method of paying the refundable tax credit in one lump sum could adversely affect welfare recipients cheques depending how individual provinces view this tax credit.
This is an ongoing concern to us, especially in light of the fact that we have received assurances from only five of the provinces that they will not discount the payment. I continue to quote:
Welfare recipients are also restricted as to the amount of money they may have in the bank so it may prevent them from saving the money. Also, we do not know what effect it will have on provincial programs such as GAIN in B.C., or GIS payments to the elderly. Many senior citizens receive family allowances.
Other groups have expressed concern about this provision and its probable sociological consequences. The Consumers Association of Canada, for example, recommends that payments be spread out, not only because of welfare considerations but because some people will find great difficulty in coping with one large payment. The minister should consider that a great many of those who will be helped by this bill- some 1.5 million are involved-do not file income tax returns.
We have seen marked increases in food prices over the past year. The price of bread is going up. The Anti-Inflation Board has lately produced a report showing that food prices have risen in the past year by 15 per cent. We have seen the effect of the removal of the subsidy on skim milk powder. The government likes to say that all these problems will be addressed by the child tax credit it is introducing. I have no doubt they will, but the fact remains that it would be more orderly and more humane if these payments were spread out.
The minister herself told us today she would be considering this suggestion and monitoring the experience of the first year of the program. What the minister does not take into account sufficiently is the fact that, as a consequence of this bill, there will be a reduction in the universal family allowance program; and if we take into account the effect of indexing, there will be a substantial reduction as of January which will amount to $8. So the low income earners who will be able to reap the benefits of this bill at the end of the tax year will have to cope also with the decrease in the amount of the family allowance payments until that time.
Of course, there is also the question of the discounters, one that is causing us a great deal of concern notwithstanding the fact that a measure has been put through the House putting a ceiling on the rates of tax discounters. There is no question about the fact that in the first year of the operation of this bill, at any rate, there will be a real bonanza for the tax rebaters. They will be swooping down on low income families like
December 4, 1978

vultures in order to reap the 15 per cent that they are now able to claim as a result of the tax rebate.
For all these reasons-and we have expressed our concern throughout the debate on the bill, through second reading and in the very full discussion we had on clause 1-we feel that the amendment should commend itself to the House. Certainly it should commend itself to the minister and to the government because I believe it is a reasonable amendment. We could argue all night on its merits, but 1 think we have gone over it sufficiently and 1 commend it now to the committee.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: 1 just want to say on that that the clause does not necessarily need to be amended in order to achieve what the hon. member for Broadview and hon. member for St. John's East wish to see achieved. We can do that under the present law. If, after one year of experiment with this new program, we find it would be advisable to have three or four payments, or whatever it is, we will be happy to make the administrative change. We do not necessarily need the amendment to achieve the goal proposed by the hon. member for Broadview and supported by the hon. member for St. John's East. Those points have been taken into account by the government and in due course we will take the necessary decision. We have the necessary power to accommodate the view of the House.


James Aloysius McGrath: Perhaps then the minister could tell us why the government will not go ahead with some kind of a quarterly system of payments, commencing with the first quarter of next year and spreading it out over the year. Must we have the first year's experience in light of the concerns already expressed by the various organizations involved and the concerns expressed in the House? Surely the election next year would have nothing to do with it?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am informed that my colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, has taken a long time in the House to explain the reason or the administrative purpose for not changing it. She said it was not possible and advisable to do so this year, and I do not wish to repeat her argument; I think hon. members have been well advised of it. If the system is found not to be working after the first year's experience, a change can be considered, but in terms of administration it is obvious that only one payment is much simpler.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, there are two points to be made with respect to this amendment. First of all, the Minister of Finance has referred to the fact that the Minister of National Health and Welfare has taken a good deal of time to explain to us why it is not necessary or desirable in the first year to make these payments on a quarterly rather than on a one per year lump sum basis.
The impression I have gained from listening to the minister is that she and others know that it will not work. That being the case, why do we have to go through a year's unhappy experience? Why not make the decision now? I see the parliamentary secretary shaking his head as if saying she did not say
Family Allowances
that. She did not say it in so many words, but certainly that is the impression I have gained from what has been said.
The other point I should like to make arises out of what has been said today on the two amendments proposed by my colleague, the hon. member for Broadview. When it was proposed that there be a special treatment for income tax purposes in the case of common-law relationships, the argument from the other side was that there was no provision for that elsewhere in the Income Tax Act. It was said that what we are amending is the Income Tax Act and in this respect we have to run parallel with what is being done under the Income Tax Act generally. Now when we get this proposal to write in a provision for quarterly payments, we are told that is not necessary because it is already permitted under the Income Tax Act.
I point out that these payments are being identified as an overpayment, a tax credit that people get after they have filed their income tax return. So far as I know, the practice under the Income Tax Act is that once a department has decided that you have a payment coming back to you, you get that payment in one cheque, you do not get it spread out monthly or quarterly. If, on the one hand, the government is going to argue that in relation to this we have to stay with the practices under the Income Tax Act, how can it say on the other hand that with respect to this we can do something different from what we would do with respect to overpayments generally?
It seems to me that it is not good enough just to say that the government can do this if it wants to, if it is clear from all the evidence that has been put in, that these payments should be at least on a quarterly basis and that the government should be willing to allow the House to write that provision into the act. That is why I believe we should accept the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Broadview.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief in my intervention. I presented the major arguments this afternoon, but 1 do want to say a few words in support of this amendment, particularly as it relates to status Indians.
My colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East, has advanced arguments in favour of dividing this lump sum payment into quarterly payments, or indeed perhaps into monthly payments. I want to put on the record the concerns expressed by the National Indian Brotherhood. I should like to read from their statement as follows:
A further concern is that the payment of the child tax credit in one lump sum annually will very likely lead to unwise spending of this money by families unused to handling such large amounts at one time. The resultant potential for damaging effects to Indian families from this bill should be fully considered.
I think that is the important element with respect to the lump sum payment. We must remember that we are talking about this segment of our society, status Indians, most of whom are disadvantaged and need this money on a monthly basis, on a day to day basis, because they are concerned about the very essentials that are necessary in terms of food and clothing. I suggest that it would be very awkward for them in some instances to provide for their essential needs with a lump sum payment.

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
With respect to that, they did make a proposal which is consistent with the amendment put forward by the hon. member. 1 wish to read it into the record as follows:
That payment of the child tax credit in quarterly instalments, rather than in a single annual payment, be allowed at the option of the mother and that this option be allowed for the year 1979.
For all those reasons, for those indicated by my good friend the hon. member for St. John's East, and for other reasons put forward throughout this debate, I commend the amendment to the minister in the hope that it will meet with a favourable response.


Alan Gray Martin: Mr. Chairman, the minister will return in a moment to answer the hon. member's question more fully. As has been indicated previously, we feel there is adequate flexibility in clause 8 as it stands for any refinements to be made in subsequent years as to the frequency and the method of paying this credit.
Without going over all the same arguments, the representations by the hon. member for Lambton-Kent, the hon. member for St. John's East, the hon. member for Broadview, and perhaps others certainly will be taken into account. Clause 8 contains the type of flexibility which will enable the government to move away from a one-shot payment basis, if it was felt advisable in subsequent years.


John Robert Holmes: There has been a great deal of comment and discussion regarding the monitoring system. What sort of monitoring system do the government anticipate putting in place? 1 would appreciate the parliamentary secretary commenting or elucidating a little further on that. If that has been done in the past, 1 apologize. What do they envisage in the monitoring system to ensure the lump sum payment is preferable to a quarterly payment, which 1 think quite frankly would be desirable?


Alan Gray Martin: Mr. Chairman, perhaps we need some further elaboration by the hon. member for Lambton-Kent as to what he has heard or has in mind. As regards determining the effectiveness of a lump sum payment as against periodic payments, I am not sure any particular measures are being designed at this time as to how this will be done. I am sure we will hear from various groups and individuals.
The present plan of the government is to wait and hear what representations are made as a result of the lump sum payment method. I am not clear as to any other monitoring schemes. I do not believe the Minister of National Health and Welfare has indicated any specific plans during the course of this debate. Perhaps the hon. member can elaborate either on what he has heard or on what he has in mind.


John Robert Holmes: Mr. Chairman, that is precisely the problem. I have defined in very clear terms what I believe to be a positive alternative to that suggested by the government. It is my understanding the Minister of National Health and Welfare indicated that a monitoring process will be in place. If such a monitoring process will be in place, it would provide us with

some indication, at the end of a fiscal year, as to how positive the response has been. I want some elaboration on that monitoring process as it is perceived by the government.


Alan Gray Martin: Perhaps there will be two methods. One will be to listen to representations which may be made by various groups and individuals. As I have indicated before, it is quite a new program. It is a departure from what has happened in the many years the family allowance system has been in vogue. Perhaps Revenue Canada, through its own experience with refunds, will be able to give some indication as to the reactions it receives through its various offices across Canada. Also we will have the benefit of the reactions received in the offices of the Department of National Health and Welfare and the provincial welfare offices. I am sure there will be no lack of input when the payments actually go out in the spring. As 1 have said, the government will take note of the reactions, in addition to the comments made during the course of this debate.


Bob Rae: Mr. Chairman, 1 should like to raise in summary form the concerns which we have respecting the lump sum payment. I should like to deal with the most recent arguments put forward by the Minister of Finance, his parliamentary secretary, and the Minister of National Health and Welfare. As I understand their comments, it is better to leave the discretion in the hands of the minister to decide how and when the payment will be made.
I am sorry the minister is not here to listen to my words, but one thought which crosses the back of my mind is that we arc looking at a situation where it is possible to abuse the method of payment to individuals who are entitled to the credit. For example, the payment of the credit can be manipulated so that it is given at a politically opportune time. It is no secret that a large sum of money ranging from $200 to $1,200 will be going to recipients right across the country in the spring of 1979. It is of no surprise that the government is reluctant to put into the law a system which would regularize the payment.
According to the evidence given by the National Indian Brotherhood and the national anti-poverty organization, the payment would tie the hands of the Minister of National Revenue and the Minister of Finance and tell them that they cannot manipulate the system in that manner. We on this side of the House are very aware of what we are receiving: a large bundle of goodies which will go out to the people of Canada in April. Perhaps they will not be distributed in the most beneficial manner from the points of view of those people, and perhaps they will not be doing the most good in the long run.
As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre pointed out, there is no provision in the Income Tax Act for an overpayment to be made over time. There is a firmly established practice in the Income Tax Act that when the government owes an overpayment to an individual, that payment is owing in total when it is due. There is no provision in the Income Tax Act for the delay of an overpayment over time. The only way to ensure that this benefit will be paid in a regular quarterly sum and not be subject to administrative or
December 4, 1978

political abuse is that it be written in the law that this payment will be made on a quarterly basis, rather than making a lump sum payment.
If we are looking for a socially responsible tax credit scheme which will allow low income families to budget for an increase in their payments over time, then I suggest very strongly we must move to a quarterly system rather than a lump sum system. Why must we wait for a year or two for the minister to see the political or social repercussions of this matter? Why can we not move to the other system? The answer is very simple: it is because the election is coming up.
My second point relating to the lump sum payment deals with tax discounters. As far as my party is concerned, we see the lump sum payment as a windfall benefit to income tax discounters. It was never anticipated, at the time the income tax discount bill was passed last year, that there would be 1.5 million new low income filers waiting for a large cheque from the government in April. The income tax discount bill was passed at a time when the only moneys to be received were overpayments on one year's wages which would be rebated to individuals. It was never anticipated that the overpayments to be paid out would be in the range of $200, $400, $600, $800 or $1,000. Therefore, the passage of the lump sum payment guarantees a subsidy of a very sizeable nature. We are talking about millions of dollars of benefit to the income tax discounters of Canada. That windfall benefit was never anticipated at the time the income tax discount bill was passed. All of us who represent people in low income districts know this is the case.
As friendly and open as the government has been to our suggestions, the lack of response to this very real problem is a disgrace. Quite honestly, I say to the minister that none of the explanations provided have been satisfactory.
We are looking for a system that provides legal guarantees to people that there will be regular quarterly payments on which they can budget and in respect of which they can see their incomes growing over time. We are talking about people living on welfare, or close to living on welfare, making a minimum wage, and suddenly receiving $1,000 or $1,200 from the government. The government is putting this forward as a socially responsible tax scheme. It is not that; it is an irresponsible scheme because it guarantees that much of this money will be wasted, that much of it will get into the hands of people on the outskirts or the fringes of the financial community in this country who do not deserve it and should not be getting the money. This money should be going to the people who are in need on a regular quarterly basis. This is what is wrong with the scheme, Mr. Chairman.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I think my colleague the Minister of National Health and Welfare and I have explained the situation over a long period of time. We have been advised by the Department of National Revenue and the Department of National Health and Welfare that in introducing this system, because of the nature of refunds under the tax system, for the first year we should go with one payment.
Family Allowances
We have been advised that if we do not adopt the one payment suggestion in this time of restraint we will probably bog down very substantially in the tax system. I am not a financial technician in this regard and I must rely on the advice of these expert people. My colleague the Minister of National Health and Welfare has handled this bill during this debate and has answered many of these points in the House. We want to have this program in place and we think we should follow the advice regarding one payment at one time.
The hon. member has referred to the problem of loan sharks and so on who will try to take advantage of the situation. I think there will be some, and we cannot deny that. This House of Commons was called upon not long ago to pass legislation to make sure that people on low incomes who receive income tax refunds do not fall into the hands of these people. We passed legislation to protect them as well as possible. I am sure the problem will be similar if we adopt a system of three or four payments; perhaps these refunds or payments could be negotiated over a longer period of time so that by the end of the year there would be nothing left and all the money would fall into the hands of these people.
I just say in all honesty that the minister decided on one payment on the basis of the best advice she could receive from those people who have an enormous task in the Department of National Revenue in the context of budgetary restraint. The Minister of National Revenue, like other ministers, has to maintain a lower level of manpower. Of course, the number of civil servants and so on is not a preoccupation of the hon. member for Broadview. He does not give a damm about the size of the deficit.


Bob Rae: That's not true.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: That is a feeling I do not share with him. We have to make sure this program is administered as efficiently and as well as possible, and that is why I must report to this House that we had no choice but to go with the one payment scheme.
Having regard to representations made in respect of the Indian population, this program will be well advertised. All Indian families with children who live on reserves, or who live off the reserves but with Indian background, will receive information at the time the cheques go out. They will have forms mailed to them.
1 do not underestimate the intelligence of the Indians. I know a little bit about them having had the pleasure of being their minister for six years, one month, three days and two hours. I am sure that they can handle their affairs pretty smartly, and I am not too preoccupied about that. I have a different type of Indian sitting in front of me, one who I am sure is capable of looking after his own affairs. I do not see a big problem in this regard. The Indian people are better organized on the reservations. They have good administrations made up of very capable Indian people, many who are quite young and who assist in their endeavours. I am quite sure that the money available to these families will find its way to them.

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
For these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I do not think we require an amendment. I do not think we can do otherwise for the first year. If we find difficulties occurring we can correct the situation, but according to our experts there should be no problem.
If we were following the suggestion of the hon. member for the first year, making payments according to tax returns, the same procedure would have to be followed in respect of payments for family allowances, welfare and other things, on an instalment basis. Some people may not claim the benefits for children and would end up receiving the payments on an instalment basis. That would be very cumbersome and very unfair to those people.
It is my feeling that we should stay with clause 8 as it now is. If the hon. member is back next year he can make another representation and we will listen to him then as attentively as we have listened at this time.


James Aloysius McGrath: No, we will be listening to him. You will make a good financial critic.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am glad that the hon. member attributes qualities to me that I might use on the other side. One problem with that party he represents is that they are too keen and anxious.

Do not count the chickens before they are hatched.

Hon. members opposite give the impression that they know they will be over here on this side. I have seen some members of the opposition measuring the size of the rug in my office. I think that is a bit premature at this time. Some have said they do not like the colour, and I think that too is a bit premature. One of the problems with the loyal opposition is that they win all the elections before the election and by the night of the election they lose. I would not be surprised if the same thing happens again as happened in 1965, 1968, 1972 and 1974. Six months before those elections we were supposed to be in pretty bad shape and it was suggested that we could sit back and lead a more relaxed life. That never materialized, so I want to say to hon. members opposite that 1 do not expect too much in this way. But I should like hon. members opposite to live with their illusions at least until spring.


An hon. Member:: Let's get back to the bill.


Mr. Dawson:: Mr. Chairman, could the minister tell us whether he has carefully considered the possibility of deferring in some way the implementation of the bill in order that we might find a system whereby the $200 would be distributed over a few months because families with six or seven children could receive cheques for $1,200, $1,500 or $1,800?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is repeating what the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae) said a few

minutes ago. Since the debate is seen on television, perhaps I might repeat my explanation in French so that French-speaking viewers can have their own version. Here is the problem: this bill was presented in the fall of 1978 and we want it to be the payments to be made in the spring of 1979. This implies that millions of forms will have to be filled in by ordinary taxpayers who have children and also by those who never had to pay income tax before. The Department of National Revenue has informed us that if we pass now an act under which people would receive cheques every three or four months, this could create very difficult problems in the administration of the program because that program is not only for taxpayers who can benefit from family allowances in the form of a tax credit, but also for a large number of new recipients.


James Aloysius McGrath: It's all right, Jean, the whip has enough members to carry it.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I want to give the same explanation in French.

Here is one of the most serious problems: All individuals who will file income tax returns early in the year will send them in, even though their wives may not be eligible for a reimbursement, or even though they were eligible for one and received the tax credit every three months, the greatest reimbursement the person would come every three months, whether eligible or not under the act. This would result in a considerable development of bureaucracy to solve all the problems which could not be solved automatically and which would probably necessitate the hiring of a very large number of civil servants, at a time when public opinion is greatly preoccupied with the number of civil servants. I am surprised to see that the official opposition which always complains about the considerable number of civil servants, the huge deficit of the government, is willing to agree with all the proposals which are likely to be even more expensive for taxpayers.
Mr. Chairman, I had a striking example this afternoon at a meeting of the committee, when it was suggested to grant manufacturers reimbursements on the sales tax which we have reduced by 3 per cent. The opposition was already asking me to increase my deficit-would you believe it?-by $300 million for this year alone so as to accommodate this tax cut on inventories which have increased not only in the area of automobile, but also with respect to all the other activities which have been affected by the sales tax reduction, a proposal which was unanimously adopted by the House. This was part of the NDP platform, part of the Progressive Conservative party platform, as it has always been part of the Liberal party platform.
Under the circumstances, Mr. Chairman, I do not think we can find an administrative solution which would meet the
December 4, 1978

requirements of the hon. member for Broadview. We have taken note of his representations as well as those of the hon. member for St. John's East and other members, but only if the system of an annual lump sum payment becomes questionable and ineffective will we be prepared to amend it next year. Clause 8, as described, allows us to do so at will and we will have to find during the year the mechanisms which will enable the Department of National Revenue to set a more elaborate system. However, if indeed we want to proceed through this bill which has received the unanimous support of the House, I think that we can proceed only as described in clause 8, that is with the payment of a lump sum when the income tax forms will be filed. This could be done from March to-some income tax refunds are sometimes paid in July, August and even in September. Now I would have hoped that the hon. member for Broadview, whom I know quite well, would have risen above political considerations. He has already taken the bad habits of his colleagues of the New Democratic Party, but 1 hope that he will improve as he grows older.


Simma Holt: Mr. Chairman, I would like to urge the minister to spread this payment out ultimately, but right now we must recognize the fact that until we have equal opportunity with respect to jobs and with respect to earning a living for women so that they can support their children, children will suffer by default. Everyone here knows that delinquency arises out of poverty. For the next few years it will be good that women will get lump sum payments because most single parents are women who do not have the capacity to earn large amounts of money.
Ultimately I hope these payments can be spread out, and I hope that can be done on the basis of the needs of children. Our society must recognize that children should have equal rights. No child should be penalized because his parents are poor. I hope ultimately there will be a spread and that the amounts will be larger, but this is a time of hardship. We must move toward equal opportunity. The proposed lump sum will help mothers get through this period of hardship. I would appreciate hearing from the minister if he thinks there is a way to bring about equality for children through these tax allowances and if he thinks there is a way to prevent the delinquency which comes with poverty.
Hopefully our human rights legislation will ultimately provide for equal pay for work of equal value, which does not seem to e the case yet. Hopefully that legislation will help solve the problems of children, and hopefully they will get the money they need. I would prefer that for a while women get lump sums to help them solve problems which face them now.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Chairman, when the minister replies, would he tell the committee how much time he and his colleague, the government whip, need on this clause? Because we are ready for the question. How much time do hon. members opposite want to spend on this clause?
Family Allowances


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I share the view of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway. We have much confidence in the mothers of this land. We put confidence in them. We put so much confidence in them that we are ready to vote right away.


Charles Robert Turner: Is the committee ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.
Amendment (Mr. Rae) negatived: Yeas, 19; nays, 25.
Clause 8 agreed to,
On clause 9-


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, there are certain phrases in clause 9 that I think the minister should at least try to explain to us. As members familiar with the bill will realize, this is one of the clauses that, perhaps for the first time as far as the Income Tax Act is concerned, reverses the general secrecy privilege that has always been assumed with regard to filing income tax returns.
The minister is asking for authority in the following words:
"(</) communicate or allow to be communicated to a taxpayer, such information obtained under this act regarding the income of his spouse or of any other person as is necessary for the purposes of an assessment or reassessment of tax, interest, penalty or other amount payable by the taxpayer or of the determination of any refund to which he is entitled for the year."
I have three separate questions concerning this provision and I hope the minister will be more forthcoming than his parliamentary secretary was the other day. First of all, what did the minister have in mind with the words "communicate or allow to be communicated to a taxpayer"? Whom did he have in mind would be given the privilege of communicating with a taxpayer?
[ Translation]


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, National Revenue officials will be allowed, under the authority of the Minister of National Revenue, to consult the spouse's file for the purpose of this program only because it is based on the family income and if an individual does not want to give information to the department-obviously his file will be examined only to establish if the family income is sufficient or insufficient to qualify the spouse for that child tax credit.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I, like the minister, can read the clause. I understand what the thrust of the clause is but my question was very specific. Clause 9 states that information can be communicated concerning the income of any other person. The preceding passage states that not only will it be communicated but it will be allowed to be communicated to a taxpayer. Why are those words used instead of simply the

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
words "communicate it"? What did the minister mean in this clause by saying he would allow it to be communicated to a taxpayer? To me that conveys the impression that a third party is somehow involved here.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, it is the standard clause allowing National Revenue officials to consult a file and get the necessary information about the family income for tax credit purposes. So it is the standard clause as traditionally drafted by the Department of Justice for that purpose.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, when ministers are stuck for an answer they like to say it is a standard clause. Would the minister simply tell us if the words "communicate or allow to be communicated to a taxpayer" indicate that it will be communicated by a civil servant in the Department of National Revenue?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The answer is yes, Mr. Chairman.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: My second question deals with this very odd phrase "regarding the income of his spouse or of any other person". Who did the minister have in mind? Why is it not sufficient simply to get the tax information, if it is necessary, with respect to the spouse as opposed to "any other person"?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The "other person" means they can look into the revenue of a child.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: If that is what the minister is trying to accomplish, why did he not say that? Why cannot it be worded, "the income of a spouse or of any dependant", or whatever wording he wants to use? The proposed wording appears to be wide enough to include income of a spouse or any other person. I cannot understand why the minister would use that wording if he was simply trying to look at the income of a child in addition to that of the spouse.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, this clause was inserted to obtain the information needed to authorize or refuse the payment of a child tax credit. It is its only purpose. I mentioned children. In assessing the income of an individual we might also raise the issue of other dependants to establish if there is a dependent relationship with a child not legally adopted. There is also the child who has no legal relationship with the taxpayer but is his dependant. I think for instance of a child not legally adopted but who is treated as a member of the family. I think that in those circumstances we might consider some children as dependants even if legally they are not children of the taxpayer.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Would the minister agree that the "other person" could be somebody not even living in the household of the recipient of the tax credit?
[Mr. Stevens.)


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, there are also the words "as is necessary", so I do not know exactly what the hon. member has in mind as not being part of the household. If he can describe the situation he has in mind, I will probably be in a position to say that a third person of that nature could be investigated. I think that is the answer I would give; but if he has a case to put to me, I would be in a position to say yes or no.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: What we are dealing with here, Mr. Chairman, under the Income Tax Act is something that has always been looked upon as necessary to the proper working of the income tax system, and that is secrecy. One taxpayer is not supposed to have the right to learn the amount of tax payable by another. The clause the minister is asking us to approve seems to expand that. I can understand his concern somewhat.
When a spouse is entitled to a tax credit, they want to know if the other spouse, presumably the mother, has some income, or vice versa, which would mean that the tax credit might either not be available or at least have some taxed back element. Why does the minister feel it is necessary not only to reveal the income of a spouse, but also the income of any other person? That would presumably give the Department of National Revenue the right to disclose, for whatever reason they thought fit, the income of any other person irrespective of whether it had any relevance to the tax credit program itself.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I tried to give as good an explanation as I could. I explained that if you tried to describe a child or children, then because of the legal situation or relationship between two persons it could be classified as family income, and we have classified income as family income. I can read more elaborate information on to the record.
Hon. members will note that the language in clause 9 is very restrictive. Only information regarding the income of his spouse can be communicated to the taxpayer. This does not necessarily mean that the exact amount of the spouse's income must be communicated. Revenue Canada will provide only the explanations that are absolutely necessary for a taxpayer to understand why the amount of the credit he is allowed does not correspond to the amount he has claimed. I understand that the explanation to be provided by Revenue Canada will be along the following lines:
Your spouse has been reassessed and his net income exceeds the sum of X dollars; hence you may not claim any credit.
I think that is the intention of the Department of National Revenue. It will be very restrictive and just for that purpose. If the hon. member is afraid that the Department of National Revenue will use that provision to look at the books of his wealthy friends, he should not be worried about it. In fact, a woman would not apply for the credit. If she applies for the credit to find out how much her wealthy husband is earning on the side, she will not find out. As soon as the Department of National Revenue is able to determine how much the wealthy
December 4, 1978

husband has made, it will be impossible for her to apply for the credit. We will not say how much; we will say, "Your husband has enough income, and you, madam, do not qualify.'' I can read a long explanation in more technical terms, but the purpose of the law is clear; we would not disclose anything just for the pleasure of doing so.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, in giving his explanation I know hon. members noticed that the minister referred to communicating the income of his spouse. But in his explanation he specifically did not refer to the words, "or of any other person". His explanation has not covered the fundamental point that I am raising. Why do you have to include the income of any other person when in fact it is simply the children or the dependants that you are concerned about? Or it is the so-called "spouse's income" that you are concerned about?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, this provision also allows information to be communicated in cases where a taxpayer is reassessed because the income of his spouse or of a dependant differs from the amount originally reported in his tax return. This measure is also necessary to permit Revenue Canada to explain to a taxpayer the reasons why he has been reassessed. This provision will apply in cases where the taxpayer claims a deduction for personal exemptions in respect of his spouse or in respect of a dependant, or in cases contemplated by section 110.3, that is, involving transfers between spouses of unused deductions. In all these cases the amount that a taxpayer can deduct depends on the income of his spouse or of a dependant. The language used in section 241 created some uncertainty as to whether Revenue Canada had the necessary authority, in the cases listed, to provide a taxpayer with the explanations required to justify the assessment or the reassessment.
In either case this power conferred upon Revenue Canada does not constitute a breach of the principle of the confidentiality of tax returns and is necessary to allow taxpayers to obtain the necessary explanations from Revenue Canada.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, again we have gone one small step ahead. We are now getting an explanation as to why his spouse's income gets shown to use the words of this clause. All of the explanation which the minister has read into the record deals with his spouse's income or that of a dependant. I now come back to the basic question that I am asking. If it is only the dependants you are trying to get at, why do you use the wider phrase "or of any other person"?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, it could be anybody in that context. That is the legislation and I have explained the purpose. I have said that a dependant and the nature of a dependant can vary from one situation to another. We have used a more general term. The power is restricted for a very obvious reason, and that is to make sure the family income is well assessed before the credit is given. I cannot add any more to the explanation than I have given in the last 1 5 minutes.
Family Allowances


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, the minister refers to 15 minutes. He must be including his own time because I have not been talking for more than about seven minutes.
I would like to ask the minister this simple question. If he is not trying to cover anything but a dependant, would he accept an amendment to the clause which says "or of any dependant"?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I think I have given enough explanation. This is the legal terminology which has been developed by the experts to cover all possible situations. I am sure that Revenue Canada will not abuse that. I think we should have a little confidence in the bureaucracy, especially when they have taken care to avoid any abuse. It is in fact just to cope with general situations. This credit will not go to the wealthy people so the hon. member should not be worried on behalf of his friends.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, at least the minister admits I have friends; that is maybe more than he can say.


Mr. Nystrom:: Bay Street Tories.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: If I could come back to the wording, the more I hear the minister's explanation the more puzzled I get. Is it not possible to have a procedure where it will be required, if there is some suspicion, to have all family income disclosed as opposed to taking the other approach where people are apparently going to be entitled to communicate information of a tax nature respecting not just a spouse but any other person concerning a certain income tax return? I am still puzzled as to why, if it is dependants that the minister is after, he has to use this wider wording "of any other person."


The Chairman:: Shall clause 9 carry?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, my old friend from Welland says this is repetition, which means he realizes that the minister has not answered the question. The clause we are on was reached about ten minutes ago, and if questions were answered concerning clause 9 this afternoon, it is rather remarkable that somebody was allowed to put questions regarding clause 9 before we reached that point.
If I cannot get an answer to that point from the minister, my next question is: To what extent does the minister anticipate that the working out of this negative income tax position, if you like, is going to encourage people living in what is generally looked upon as a kind of cash society to try to show as little income as possible in order to qualify for tax credits? One of the greatest downsides to a so-called guaranteed annual income will be that it would encourage people actively to minimize whatever income they eventually disclose to the government. Has the minister considered that, and to what extent does he feel that the provision he is now providing for here is simply a device on the part of the government to counteract that type of evasion?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, traditionally in Canada we have had a system of tax collection that relies on the good will

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
of Canadians who behave, generally speaking, responsibly in relation to the payment of their obligations to the government. I do not think that wording will induce anyone to cheat the government. Perhaps the hon. member knows more cheaters than I do.


Mr. Stanfield:: Come on.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The hon member should be in the chamber for weeks at a time to see what we have to go through. He would be more scandalized than at this moment. 1 do not have to withdraw anything. I just say I do not know. 1 said that probably I know fewer cheaters and I have more confidence in the people of Canada than the hon. member for York-Simcoe. That is my view. The hon. member is entitled to a different opinion. It would not be the first time. I just say we have a system of tax collection in Canada which presumes that Canadians are honest.


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Chairman, I have been sitting here this evening hearing the Minister of Finance repeatedly making innuendos about the hon. member for York-Simcoe instead of answering questions. It gets a bit thick after a while. The Minister of Finance should bear in mind that his responsibility in this connection is to give answers, not to try and insult those asking questions.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to comment on that. I have said what I have to say. The tax system in Canada is based on the presumption that Canadians are honest and want to pay their taxes. The hon. member says that this system whereby we are trying to divert money to the poor people of this country will induce people to cheat. I do not think Canadians tend to cheat. They pay their share like anybody else. If someone was reflecting on Canadians in a cheating way, it was the hon. member for York-Simcoe. It is always like that. The hon. member should stay in the chamber a bit more; he would have a lot of occasions to be scandalized. It is too bad he is not here more often.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lorne Stanfield: Mr. Chairman, I am constantly scandalized by the lack of information this minister gives both in the House and in committee.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I am sorry the minister loses his cool when questions are being put to him. Perhaps I can sum up my question in this way. I agree that the taxpayers in Canada are generally of a very honest breed.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, I will just wait until hon. members quieten down. If that is so, I ask the minister why in this peculiar way does he want this provision inserted. It is obviously designed to communicate tax information that heretofore has never been available with regard to anything in the Income Tax Act. If the minister believes in the honesty of

taxpayers, why is he asking for this special way of communicating tax information such as is contemplated in this clause?
[Translation\


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, 1 explained at great length a few moments ago when answering other questions that in the present system the only communication will be to advise the spouse who has applied for the refundable tax credit that, unfortunately, he or she does not qualify because the spouse has an income which is high enough to prevent him or her from being eligible for this program. It's as simple as that. There will be nothing above the amount of the refundable credit.
If the inspector from Revenue Canada studies a file and finds out, for instance, that the income is $10,000 above the limit, we will not tell the spouse: Your partner earns $10,000 more than necessary. The spouse will simply be told: You cannot quality for this program because your spouse earns more than permitted, without giving any more detail. That will be limited to the total amount of the refundable tax credit. Nothing more.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, do I understand the minister correctly that the communication the department has in mind here is simply the bald statement that they will get in touch with the spouse and say, "Unfortunately your spouse's income is of such a nature that you are disqualified"? There will be no revelation as to the amount of the income or the tax being paid by the spouse, or any such information?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I read for the record some minutes ago what Revenue Canada will inform the other partner. I quote:
Your spouse has been reassessed and his net income exceeds the sum of X dollars; hence, you may not claim any credit.
That is very clear. If there is a lot more income, they will not know. They will simply say "The income of your spouse is more than what is allowed". They will state what is the requirement. If there is one child, it will be so much. If there are two, it will be more, and if there are three, still more. There will be told what they would have qualified for if the spouse had no income. If it is more, they do not qualify; it is as simple as that.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: For greater clarification of the statement which Revenue Canada will be making to the other spouse, included in the spouse's income the minister is referring to will be the income of any dependant or, to use the minister's general wording, "or of any other person".


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, they will look at the revenue of the children. The "other person" could be a divorced wife. In that case, she would no longer be a spouse.


Leonard C. Jones: I would like to ask the minister what provision or regulation there will be when during the taxation year spouses
December 4, 1978

separate or begin to live separately with or without a separation agreement. That is a practical example of what could take place during a taxation year. The spouses could begin to live separate and apart, with or without a separation agreement or with or without an order of the court.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, in that case the mother will file herself. If they are not living together, the family income will not be looked at.


Leonard C. Jones: That is what I want to know. What time is the "D-Day" in such a situation? A year is 365 days. They may separate on December 25.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, I did not catch the hon. member's question. 1 wonder if he would repeat it.


Leonard C. Jones: What happens if during the taxation year-at the beginning, the middle or the end-the parties begin to live separate and apart, with or without a court order or with or without a separation agreement, and during that year the spouse, the husband, made income in excess of the minimum amount? How would Revenue Canada handle such a situation? What regulation would be followed, or have they anticipated this type of difficulty? I anticipate it.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Chairman, if they are not living together on December 31 of the year for which they are filing, they can file separate forms and they can qualify.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask just one question of the Minister of Finance. I do so for the purpose of emphasizing a point I was trying to make earlier today about the ambiguity of the English language, although if I understand the French, I believe the same ambiguity is there as well.
Every time words in the legislation state "his spouse," there seems to be a tendency in this place, especially among my friends to the right, to think that the reference is to a woman or wife since it is "his spouse." It was my contention in an earlier discussion, relying on section 26(6) of the Interpretation Act, that a word that is masculine imports the feminine as well. I think clause 9 helps us to understand this. At the beginning of the paragraph there is a reference to a communication to a taxpayer and, later, a reference to his spouse. If that taxpayer is a woman, "his spouse" is really "her spouse."


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Yes.


Stanley Howard Knowles: So wherever we have the words "his spouse" we can read them as "his or her spouse"?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Yes. In French, the problem does not exist.


Simma Holt: I would just like to continue the argument and statement of the hon. member. I would ask the minister, as other members have done, to eliminate the discriminatory contemptible Interpretation Act. I think it is absolutely unfor-
Family Allowances
givable that we cannot add five more letters to a bill to say "his and her" or "his and/or her" spouse. I think the Interpretation Act, and every bill on the codes today, discriminates against women and certainly most have inscribed inhibitors to equality in our society. I notice that there are a few bills, such as the human rights bill, that say "his or her." I do not see any reason why every time they refer to "his" we have to look up the Interpretation Act to find it refers to "him, her or it." I am tired of being thought of as equal with "it."


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On clause 10-Family Allowance for 1979.
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Chairman, after prolonged questioning on Thursday the parliamentary secretary was finally persuaded to put certain figures on the record concerning the likely increase in the cost of family allowances in aggregate terms from the 1979 base year onward. As we know, the government claims it has, in effect, saved $690 million as a result of the de-indexing of the family allowance payments. That is the thrust of this clause.
My question to the Minister of Finance arises out of his budget of November 16. As we know, this bill was brought in before that budget. Is the $690 million expenditure reduction for fiscal 1980 reflected in the 1980 fiscal figures as shown in the budget of November 16?


Alan Gray Martin: I believe a higher amount is actually shown because of the indexing factor, but as the hon. member is aware the indexing factor will be less expensive under the provisions of Bill C-10 than would have been the case under the provisions of the act prior to the passage of Bill C-10.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I am sorry that the parliamentary secretary did not answer the question I had in mind. He will recall that on Thursday he told us that the whole family allowance expenditure for fiscal 1980 would have been $2.4 billion, and he stated that as a result of the passage of this bill the new expenditure would be $1,710 million. That leaves a smaller expenditure for fiscal 1980 amounting to $690 million. I am asking whether in the budget which was delivered on November 16 that reduction in family allowance expenditures is reflected for the year 1980?


Alan Gray Martin: The answer to that question is yes, it is reflected in those figures. I am assuming the hon. member is referring to the year 1979-80.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: The parliamentary secretary is correct. So that there may be no doubt, then, in the budgetary figures the expenditure shown for fiscal 1980 of $51,100 million would in fact be $51,790 million if the family allowance was not reduced as contemplated by Bill C-10.


Alan Gray Martin: Yes, Mr. Chairman, that is correct.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Again to make sure there is no confusion, in the national accounts presentation the expenditure we see there of $53,400 million would in fact have been $54,090 million if this reduction had not been anticipated?

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances


Alan Gray Martin: That provision has been included in all the figures for 1979-80.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: And again for greater clarification, the figures that were shown by the parliamentary secretary and earlier, I think, by the minister with respect to the financial requirement as a result of the passage of Bill C-10 are also reflected in the budget, I take it. In short, the financial requirement was reduced by $170 million as far as 1979 in concerned, and by $35 million for fiscal 1980?


Alan Gray Martin: The answer is yes.


Mr. Halliday:: I wonder if I could convince the parliamentary secretary to make a slight change in the wording of line six for the sake of clarification. The French text says "'par mois" which, if I understand it correctly, means "per month". But on the English side it merely says "a month". If it said that the payments would be made "each month" or "per month" the meaning would be much clearer.


Alan Gray Martin: I can only say that the wording of this clause has been very carefully considered by the legal advisers and my understanding is that the wording as it stands is quite clear. It relates to the amount of new payment per month, and my understanding is that the wording as it stands is quite sufficient.


Bruce Halliday: It could be interpreted as being for one month only, but if we were to say "per month" or "each month" there would be no doubt about it. 1 know the minister's intent but the wording does not express it.


Alan Gray Martin: All I can say is that the information I have is that the wording presently in the bill conveys the intent adequately-that the payment will be $20 per month.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, on the point just raised by the hon. member for Oxford, perhaps I might point out that since 1976 at any rate, and I suspect for a lot longer, the wording of the section has been as it now is in both languages. In other words, at the present time the act reads:
-the amount of family allowance to be paid for a month in 1976 shall be $22.08.
That was the figure for 1976. That has been the wording in the act for a long time and I believe that family allowances have been paid every year every month, not just in one month of the year.
However, I rise at this point because I want to register our objection to clause 10 being in this bill at all. I feel very strongly that it was a good idea to bring in the tax credit for families where the incomes are not above a certain figure, and even though there have been debates and arguments about some of the provisions in clauses 1 to 9, we support the provisions in those clauses. But the effect of clause 10 is to reduce the amount of family allowance from its present figure of $25 and some cents to $20, and if one looks at what the
[Mi Sk'VcfK.)
family allowance would have been in January, 1979, it is a reduction from about $28 back to $20.
I know that the Minister of National Health and Welfare- and the Prime Minister got into the act the other day as well- makes a lot out of the fact that even though there is this reduction in the amount of the family allowance cheque, there is a net increase when you put together the reduction in the family allowance and the amount gained by the child tax credit. I point out, however, that other changes have been made by this bill, notably with respect to the tax exemptions in certain brackets. These tax exemptions, as was brought out during many hours of discussion between the government and the hon. member for York-Simcoe, do effect savings for the government. In other words, persons who are receiving family allowance, if they are in upper brackets, pay more in income tax than was the case before. I believe that is perfectly proper and a good idea, but I think that idea should be carried forward, that we should continue to pay the family allowance as its present rate and indexed in 1979, as it should have been indexed, leaving it to the income tax, both the present arrangements and the new ones that are brought into effect, to do some of the levelling that is obviously desirable. But I feel very strongly-in this I speak for my party-that we should not be taking away these several dollars a month from the mothers of this country who receive these family allowance cheques. When the point comes that you ask if clause 10 carries, we want a vote to be called, because we wish to vote against clause 10.
May I point out that if there are those who think that their side of the argument is stronger because of the net gain, taking into account the reduction in the family allowance and the child tax credit, may I emphasize the fact that for three months in 1979, January, February and March, all the families of this country will be receiving a lesser amount in their family allowance cheques. There are those in the upper income brackets to whom that will not matter at all, but there are thousands, perhaps millions, of homes in which it will make a difference.
I enjoyed the very forceful speech which the Minister of National Health and Welfare made at the close of the proceedings on Thursday night in which she talked about middle income and low income families in realistic terms. I think she used the phrase "there is never enough money". That was her description of the hundreds of thousands, if not mil'ions, of low income families in this country who never have enough money. Yet these same families will experience in January a reduction in the amount that they receive of $5 or $6 per child. Where there are families with four or five children, that is a pretty sizeable reduction. I say that this House should not be supporting clause 10, which has that effect.
There is something else which I want to say about it, Mr. Chairman, and I know I will not receive the plaudits of all members of the House for mentioning it but I feel it should be said, and that is that members of the House are being asked to vote for a reduction in the family allowance cheques which go out to the mothers of Canada in January. Yet in that same
December 4, 1978

month members of this House will receive a sizeable pay increase.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is nothing that members of the House have to do about it. They do not have to say a word, they can keep quiet, and even though the news media are reporting that some legislatures are taking steps to increase their members' pay, nothing needs to be done here. It will just happen, because it is in the law.


Simma Holt: How many do you support?


Stanley Howard Knowles: I did not expect this to be a basis for popularity; but the fact is that it is already in the act and every member of the House will have an increase in January amounting to $2,400 a year. Cabinet ministers and the Leader of the Opposition will have an increase of $4,000 a year, and the Prime Minister an increase of almost $5,000. Whether these increases are right or not, it seems to me that this House is in a very awkward position to be voting for a reduction in the family allowance in January when in that very same month all the members of the House will be getting an increase.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Members know where I have stood on this issue for a long time-indeed, every time it has come up. I believe the House has gone too far.


An hon. Member:: And yet you take it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Stanley Howard Knowles: I do not quite hear what the members over there are saying, but if they are concerned about what I do to back up my stand on this issue, I should be glad to tell them at any time. From the beginning when I first started taking a stand against these pay increases, I knew that in my conscience I could not take such a stand unless I was prepared to take the necessary steps to make sure that I did not gain by what I was opposed to. So let there be no argument or worry about that.
At the moment the complaint I am making is that the government is calling upon the House to vote at this time for a reduction in the amount of the family allowance that goes into the homes of this country in January when in that same month, without members having to say a word, they will be receiving these fancy increases to which I have referred.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I want to say a word as well, Mr. Chairman, in support of what the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said about the fact that clause 10 reduces family allowances from some $25 down to $20 in January. I had more questions about this particular clause in the family allowance bill than about anything else in the bill. Many people will resent the fact that the monthly cheque will be going down by a fairly sharp amount starting in January. A lot of low income
Family Allowances
people in my constituency depend on their family allowance cheques to a large degree in order to purchase groceries or clothing for their children. Particularly larger families with five or six children depend on that approximately $25 every month in order to meet expenses, such as light bills or heat bills in the winter time. Those people will miss the few extra bucks.
Some cabinet members and members of the Conservative party have indicated that money does not grow on trees, and that the deficit is already large enough. I believe ordinary Canadians, particularly low income earners, deserve a larger piece of the pie or more money.
As was pointed out by John Gray in an article which appeared in the Ottawa Journal on Saturday, in the last ten years the bottom 20 per cent of the population received less than the national income. Now they receive less of the national income than they received ten years ago.
I know this bill is a progressive one. It is doing the right thing. It will put more money in the hands of low income Canadians via the tax credit. But I cannot see why the basic amount of family allowance has to be reduced at the same time. Canada can afford the tax credit and the current rate of family allowance quite easily. All members are concerned about stimulating the economy and creating more jobs. If money is put in the hands of ordinary people, they will spend it purchasing consumer goods such as food, clothing and the like. Most of these goods are labour intensive in nature. It would provide jobs and assist in stimulating the economy. It would prime the pump at the bottom. It would not be the old trickle down theory where a few big carrots are offered to a company in the hope that a few more jobs will be created. It would provide ordinary people with money. I am referring to the people on the street, in the neighbourhoods, and on the farms.


An hon. Member:: Who is paying?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I hear the question which a Conservative member is asking me. The ordinary people, the taxpayers of the country, are paying. The ordinary people, the taxpayers of the country, will receive the benefits in return.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: The taxpayers are not paying.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Who pays the taxes, if taxpayers are not paying? Who pays the taxes? Who finances the government?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: It can be done only with borrowed money.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The hon. member can argue that it will be borrowed money because of the deficit, but the same argument can be made in terms of any government spending, whether it be the salaries of members of parliament, the expenses of running this place, or tax concessions to oil companies. I realize that we have a deficit. I am sure the hon. member for York-Simcoe realizes that the Conservative party is the greatest one for deficit financing in the country. The deficit in Ontario is over $2,000 per capita, whereas in my province of
1780

December 4, 1978
Family Allowances
Saskatchewan it is approximately $985 per capita. The hon. member for York-Simcoe should think twice when it comes to deficit financing.
Perhaps the hon. member for York-Simcoe will resent what I say, but ordinary Canadians have asked why family allowance payments are being cut from $25 to $20. It is incumbent upon us to voice their concern in the House. There are people who are concerned about it and do not want to see their family allowance cheques reduced. They have asked me to express their concern. Perhaps a few other members of the Liberal and Conservative parties could express the concerns of their constituents, and then this reduction would not take place.


Mr. Daudlin:: I do not want to take the time of the committee, but I must say that I am motivated by reasons of the statements made by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville. A number of us have heard the same comments, but some of us have accepted our responsibilities, returned to those people and said, "Even though we have a reduction from $25 to $20, you will have to agree that when the thirteenth cheque comes along, the end result is that you receive more." Those same simple people said, "You know, that is so," and their fears are quashed. If the hon. member wishes to do the same thing in his constituency, I suggest there will be far less difficulty in the country. We should put it like it is, rather than attempting to feed on fears.
Clause 10 agreed to: Yeas, 47; nays, 3.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, after the days it has taken for us to reach this point, certainly I do not want to detain the House any longer respecting this bill. As far as I am concerned there is enough time for it to be given third reading tonight. However, I feel that as part of third reading proceedings there is something which needs to be said, even if it is a repetition of what I said in committee of the whole on clause 10.
The bill as a whole, sir, is a good one. The institution of the income tax credit is something of which we approve. We tried to win certain changes, and, even though we did not win those changes, the general principle of that part of the bill is good. But we still feel very strongly that there should not be a reduction in the amount of the family allowance itself. We fee! it should go on as it has been, that the indexing which has taken place should continue, and any levelling out that is necessary with regard to that aspect of the bill should be left to the provisions of the Income Tax Act.

I have already said, and I repeat it in a sentence or two, that it is a poor night for the House of Commons to be passing a measure that reduces in January the amount that will go to the families of this country as family allowance, when in that same month members of this House will receive this sizeable increase in pay and allowances to which I referred a few minutes ago.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I move:
That Bill C-10 be not now read a third time, but that it be referred back to the committee of the whole House for the purpose of reconsidering clause 10 thereof.
My amendment is seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom). The purpose of asking for a reconsideration of clause 10 is so that back in the committee of the whole members could delete the clause that reduces the family allowance from a bill which is otherwise good.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Hon. members have heard the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I declare the amendment defeated.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On division.
Amendment (Mr. Knowles, Winnipeg North Centre) negatived.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question in respect of third reading of the bill?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There was some discussion earlier in the day with respect to a government proposal dealing with the order in council concerning the new Ministry of State. Could the government House leader indicate now whether we will be proceeding on Wednesday with Bill C-12, or will we be commencing the seven-hour debate on the motion, as provided for under the statute?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I gave notice today of the motion to which the hon. member refers and it is my intention to call it on Wednesday. I do not think there will be any
December 4, 1978

change in that intention, but if there is 1 will let the hon. member and members of other parties know early tomorrow.


Some hon. Members:: Ten o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it agreed that we call it ten o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the question I should like to deal with tonight arises from questions I posed to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) on November 10 as they appear at page 1007 of Hansard for that date. They related to the movement of grain to export positions. They arose also from the statement of officials of the Canadian Wheat Board that some 2.3 million tonnes in grain sales had been deferred this year, meaning ultimately a loss of income to the farmers of something of the order of $350 million. It was also stated that some four million tonnes of additional export sales could have been realized in the last crop year if sufficient transportation capacity had been made available, and this amounted to a loss of $500 million.
The Minister of Agriculture in his response to me at that time suggested I was engaged in sweeping accusations, that the situation was being watched closely, and he implied that it was easy to make sweeping accusations but difficult to deal with the problem.
At that time I went on and tried to elicit from him whether the government had any action or plan to increase grain-handling capabilities in order to meet the challenges of the 1980s and, specifically, the challenges which will presented on the west coast, resulting in demand for an increased capacity of something of the order of 70 per cent. There was the usual waffling answer from the Minister of Agriculture indicating that new programs were being worked on, etc.
These questions and this kind of answer are not new in this House. What is becoming increasingly disturbing is the fact that conditions are deteriorating day by day. What we on this side find difficult to comprehend is why the minister and the government are so touchy and so much on the defensive when we raise these issues. They attempt to disregard the magnitude and importance of the matter of grain handling and the transportation system, and engage primarily in rhetoric rather than dealing specifically with answers to the questions.
Adjournment Debate
Again today in the House I brought up a situation which clearly demonstrates a failure on the part of someone-and I am not going to point any finger here-engaged in the grain handling and transportation business regarding a total lack of co-ordination in respect of the allocation of railway rolling stock. There has been a complete breakdown. We now have the situation of empty cars being despatched to country elevator points for which there are no orders. Because there are no orders these railway cars eventually end up in the hands of the railways, empty. There is a complete breakdown in utilization. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) was disturbed and irate, and attempted to twist and distort the question I posed to him this afternoon. He attempted furthermore to try to subvert a reasonable solution which we on this side of the House had proposed.
The fact is that Canada continues to lose sales every day; and the fact that the situation deteriorates day by day is why this matter should be raised in the House every day and why we should be demanding action. Last week the Canadian Wheat Board had to withdraw from the monthly market of the Japanese food agency. The fact is that the United States has now captured a good percentage of our traditional Chinese market and is vigorously pursuing other markets.
It is an additional fact that the Alberta Wheat Pool and other grain companies are now engaged in the movement of grain, particularly oilseeds, to the west coast because there is inadequacy of grain transportation, specifically railway cars. This is a very expensive proposition. The fact that these things are taking place would indicate there is a very serious problem. It is a fact that the barley producers are suffering because markets have literally come to an end, not because there are no possibilities of sales but because there is an inadequate transportation system in place to move that grain. As of this date some 2.3 million tonnes of grain sales have been deferred, and more sales are being deferred every day. I am sure that the total must now amount to at least half a billion dollars.
We have demurrage charges. Our reputation as a reliable supplier of grain continues to deteriorate. We are told that the rapeseed industry is threatened by the fact that there is a billion dollars' worth of export sales which cannot be delivered at this time. These are some of the reasons we are demanding action from this government.
I submit that the reason the ministers responsible find our questions offensive is failure on the part of their government to deliver the goods which they promised, specifically the promises of the 1974 election. There is a failure on the part of the government to act even at this late date on what I refer to as an emergency situation. The Minister of Transport talks of more studies. He talks of the necessity for technical analysis. The system has been studied to death. Surely we do not require technical analysts to come here from the United States to try to figure out what is wrong, when railway cars are being despatched to country elevator points where there are no orders. Surely we do not require that kind of expertise.
80067-41'/2

December 4, 1978
Adjournment Debate
As far as we are concerned, there is only one way to resolve this matter today, and that is to bring together representatives of the components which are involved in the grain handling, transportation and marketing systems. Surely the combined expertise of these individuals, with proper leadership and a desire on the part of government, can serve as a catalyst for current planning and for the future. We must stop this political rhetoric and get on with some action, because if the problems are not resolved soon, the tragedy of the 1970s will be the loss of Canada's prominence in the world export grain trade picture.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, this question was thoroughly debated in the House on November 13, but I will repeat the minister's position for the hon. member's benefit.
This government has been concerned for a great number of years about the problems facing the grain transportation and handling system, and we have numerous programs in place to alleviate these problems in the years ahead. These programs are aimed at achieving precisely the same target as that outlined recently by the commissioners of the Canadian Wheat Board. The minister has for several years spoken about "building for a billion" in our programs in support of the grain transportation system. He has more recently spoken about exports in excess of a billion bushels as achieved by the mid-1980s.
But this minister has also done much more than merely talk about the problem. He has instituted solid programs to rescue the transportation system from the rapid deterioration it was subject to following half a century of neglect. Some hard decisions have had to be made, and he has had the courage to make them.
The network of rail lines has been trimmed down to a supportable size, and we are in the process of rehabilitating these lines. Some $100 million has already been spent on this program, and it will have cost in excess of $700 million when it is completed in the mid-1980s. These improvements cannot be made overnight, but we have moved to implement them as quickly as possible.
The fleet of rolling stock for the movement of grain has been gradually aging and taken out of service. This minister recognized this early and started purchasing new, modern hopper cars in 1973. The government has now purchased 8,000 hopper cars at a cost of $256 million.
Canada's grain terminal capacity is also being increased. Under the Canadian Wheat Board's storage incentive scheme, storage capacity at Vancouver is to be increased by 40 per cent. Half of this increased storage, 5.8 million tonnes, is to be completed in time to provide increased capacity in Vancouver this winter. The remainder will come on stream by the end of next year.
There are significant improvements that are being made today to increase our export potential now and in the future. We are also investigating every possible means available to move the maximum amount of grain through the St. Lawrence

system prior to the closing of that system, including increasing the hours of operation wherever possible.
But we are not concerned just about the immediate problems we are facing. We are also concerned about the long-term problems facing the grain handling and transportation systems. We have had the Hall commission inquire into the complex social and economic relationships involved in this system. We are now very near to having in place a complete basic network of prairie branch lines that are guaranteed operation until the year 2000. This provides the grain companies with the necessary certainty of service so that they can confidently proceed with the replacement and upgrading of facilities so necessary to provide farmers with the facilities they require.
The federal government is also proceeding with a program of rehabilitating those branch lines that are designated as part of the basic network. This program has seen the commitment of $170 million for the first three years and will see the expenditure of $700 million before it is completed. Improvements to various rail lines in the pairies are already available for all to see.
Once this program is completed, all the basic network lines will be capable of carrying hopper cars that will travel at speeds far in excess of those permitted today. These improvements will provide the capacity necessary to carry the increased volumes of grain necessary in the future.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, we are moving to provide the necessary capacity. We are building a system capable of moving in excess of a billion bushels by the middle of the 1980s. It is not a process that can be expected to occur overnight but all the necessary programs are in place now.


NATIONAL REVENUE-REORGANIZATION OF DEPARTMENT-DELAY IN SOLVING TAXPAYERS' PROBLEMS
Mr. Lloyd Francis (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, on November 28 I asked the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Abbott) whether it was a correct interpretation of an article that appeared in the Globe and Mail on November 22 that, as a result of the decentralization of operations of the Department of National Revenue, the service to the public in a number of cases would be less efficient and not more efficient.
The report in the business section of the newspaper stated that the director general of the compliance division of the Department of National Revenue, Mr. J. L. Gourlay, had said in a speech to a group of tax accountants in Montreal that the result of decentralization would be to provide a better service for a larger number of accounts than could be handled in the local office; and where there was a problem, reference would have to be made to the centralized records kept at head office in Ottawa and there would be delay in providing the service.
The minister's reply to my question in the House, as reported at page 1565 of Hansard, seemed to admit that in perhaps
December 4, 1978

75 per cent to 80 per cent of cases there would be good service but in the remaining cases there might be further delays.
This raises the whole question of the objectives of the government in the decentralization program that is being implemented and the results of the program. I cannot help but refer to a speech made during the budget debate by my colleague on this side of the House, the hon. member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Pelletier) in which he dwelt at considerable length on the need to go ahead with decentralization. He pointed out that when the policy was announced by the then president of the treasury board, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien), in May 1975, the objectives were, first, to bring the administration of federal programs closer to those directly concerned; second, to help slow growth and high unemployment areas; third, to make the federal administration more conspicuous in communities where it was not much felt and where activities related to the country as a whole can contribute to national unity; and, finally, to reduce the undue concentration of civil servants in the national capital area. In the national capital region there are fewer than 25 per cent of the entire public service of this country. How this figure can be construed as an "undue concentration" in the national capital is something 1 fail to understand.
The hon. member for Sherbrooke went on to say that the total capital expenditures required by government for the decentralization program will amount to some $200 million. He said that this will not require additional expenditures since most are charged against the normal construction budget of the Department of Public Works. I offer that as an interesting example of double talk. Without question the program is more expensive. New buildings have to be built and they are costly. The hon. member for Sherbrooke referred to man-years and said this was a great thing. He pointed out that 24 Canadian cities had been selected to receive the transfer of federal employees. As reported at page 1447 of Hansard, the hon. member said:
For the sake of political decency, we cannot let the hopes of a whole population hang in midair without knowing what will happen.
1 agree, Mr. Speaker. He went on to say as follows:
The federal government is determined to relocate that service in Sherbrooke, in accordance with the commitment given to the public servants and all the provinces in the house in 1974. Let us think about it: it concerns 750 employees, plus their spouses and children, a total of about 2,000 people. It means creation of at least 1,500 direct and indirect jobs, total annual wage of over $15 million, and capital investments in the range of $40 million. In brief, a project with absolutely tremendous economic repercussions.
I cannot help but observe that in days past when an army attacked a city, they circled it, pillaged it and took the booty home. Nowadays some members of a political party think they can pillage and take booty away from the national capital and treat it in about the same way invading armies did centuries ago.
My colleague from Sherbrooke referred to the costs. We now have restraint in government expenditures. Surely these costs to which he refers cannot be justified. I say to my
Adjournment Debate
colleague from Sherbrooke that the decentralization program was conceived at a time when there was an average federal growth of 3 per cent in the public service. Now we do not have zero growth but negative growth. In the national capital region are 65 per cent of those 5,000 positions that are to be declared redundant, and we have one-quarter of the federal public service in the national capital region.
I stress to my colleagues and friends on all sides of the House the impact of decentralization and relocation on the city of Ottawa. In the central business core of the city, 6 million square feet of office space will be vacated by the federal government as a result of this shift in its operations. Two million square feet of temporary structures will be destroyed. Four million square feet of privately-owned accommodation will be vacated. Vacancy rates are approaching 15 per cent to 20 per cent in the central core, and will approach 30 per cent before very long. The national capital itself, as a result of the diminution of the federal grant and the removal of federal activities, will probably suffer the highest real estate taxes of any metropolitan community in Canada.
I simply point out that the policy of decentralization was conceived in other circumstances and cannot be applied in the way the announcement indicated it would in 1975. The policy is costly, it is wasteful and it is inefficient. It has an undue impact on one region, the capital city. I ask that this policy be reconsidered.


Roger Carl Young: Mr. Speaker, the reorganization, or more properly the decentralization, of the operations of the Department of National Revenue, Taxation, was initiated as part of the government's decentralization program. Hon. members will be aware of a number of other instances in which the government has moved or is in the course of moving operations from Ottawa to other locations in Canada to create greater opportunities for employment and to increase the federal presence.
In the particular case of taxation, some decentralization is necessary for operational reasons. Every year during the period in which the mass filing and initial processing of tax returns takes place, the department has had to hire several thousand temporary employees who could be expected to achieve a high degree of efficiency in data conversion and associated clerical work at its single processing centre in Ottawa. With the growth in the volume of tax returns it was becoming very difficult to find enough temporary workers of the kind needed in Ottawa. As an interim measure a second and temporary centre was set up in Winnipeg.
Longer term plans to spread the work more evenly were approved which called for the construction of six permanent centres. They are to be called taxation centres. One is to be located in Surrey, B.C., one in Shawinigan-Sud, Quebec- both of which have recently been opened-and four more to be located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, St. John's, Newfoundland, Jonquiere, Quebec, and Sudbury, Ontario. As a last stage the Ottawa processing centre would be converted to the new mode, making seven taxation centres in all.

December 4, 1978
Adjournment Debate
At the same time, it was seen that to have almost entirely temporary work at these centres would not be a satisfactory answer to employment creation as would a good mixture of temporary and permanent work. Therefore it was decided to move not only the initial processing from Ottawa to the centres but also certain work from the 28 district offices which did not require direct contact with the public. In so doing we would provide more permanent jobs at the taxation centres and have opportunities for efficiency through economies of scale.
The taxpayer should experience no decrease in the level of service. Most taxpayers' contact with the department of taxation is by mail. In general the centres, when spread geographically, should be more responsive than was possible with one centre in Ottawa. The district offices will remain where they are to answer the inquiries of those who seek information by phone or by personal visit.
It is true that the individual taxpayer's files now in the district offices will be held in the centres. However, less than 10 per cent of inquiries require reference to an individual file and measures will be taken for quick transportation of the files from the centres to the district offices when they are needed.


IMMIGRATION-ASYLUM IN CANADA FOR SOUTHEAST ASIAN REFUGEES
Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, on November 14 I asked a question of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) concerning Vietnamese refugees. I asked the minister whether contacts had been made with the United Nations commissioner for refugee matters and what the status was regarding the acceptance by Canada of some of these refugees on the Hai Hong.
I think all Canadians have been concerned about what has been happening in that part of the world to those who have been forced to flee from their country. 1 suggest it is a desperate situation, and not only in Southeast Asia. I do not have time to do this tonight, but one could identify at least five or six areas in the world today where there is conflict and where refugees could be called forward or would want to come to Canada.
While we might say we have peace in the world, we have to keep in mind the fact that there are trouble spots. We have to respond as members of the international community. In fact, the United Nations commissioner for refugees estimates that the world's refugee problem could be in the order of ten million. Whatever the exact figures, the fact remains that at this point in the world's history we have the highest number of refugees and humanitarian cases since the last days of World War II. We all know the tremendous displacement of humanity which was the result of that human conflict, yet somehow today we have not felt the impact of similar numbers who can no longer live in their country.
Statistics and people who have studied this question show that the problem is not likely to decrease, numerically at least,

in the foreseeable future. In Thailand today there are 130,000 to 150,000 persons who are either refugees or are what are sometimes termed displaced persons. The small country of Malaysia has between 30,000 and 40,000 refugees. That is the situation. Daily people are leaving in unseaworthy craft or small fishing vessels. They are embarking on a search for freedom in a country which at that point in time they simply do not know but which might accept them.
Who is a refugee? We must first keep in mind that he or she is a person, a human being who has lost his home and ability to make a living. Very often it is a human being who has lost his or her family, or at least some members of that family.
In 1976 we passed the Immigration Act which was proclaimed this year. For the first time we placed into an Immigration Act in Canada the provision that we would accept refugees. This is part of Canada's immigration policy at the present time. We said we would accept as refugees those who were defined as conventional refugees. We would also accept humanitarian cases, people who might not be classed as conventional refugees but who are displaced by emergency situations of war, social upheaval or natural disaster.
There are those who say that refugees take jobs. They say they are not people such as we are. I want to say that these are people who are doers. They are builders. I had a teacher who often said to me that in life it is a risk to meet people, but a risk well worth taking. No better can we use that argument than with these refugees.
The natural flow for the next year has been defined by the minister as in the order of 100,000, of which 6,000 are to be refugees. Who is taking these refugees? The United States, France, Belgium, Australia and Canada. How about Sweden? According to statistics, they are not taking refugees from Southeast Asia yet that much maligned country, the United States, is taking a minimum of 25,000. Where are those who protested during the war? Where are they today? Is the suffering of humanity at the hands of a government, be it of the right or of the left, no longer important? Where, for instance, are the clips on television of people protesting the war that we saw in the sixties?
If all that was valid, how is it that the carnage in Southeast Asia today is not something we should protest? Where are the Berrigans today, where are the Fondas? Where are those who actively resisted the government? The genocide in Cambodia at the present time defies imagination. What about Vietnam? We do not hear reports of genocide in Vietnam as in Cambodia, but what about the people who are forced to leave Ho Chi Minh city and go into the countryside where they can find nothing to live on? What about the displacement of families? Is Vietnam setting up a gulag such as was described so well by the Russian writer Solzhenitsyn?
I am not protesting to the government, but surely in the name of humanity, as members of the international community we should look seriously at the responsibility we have as Canadians. We have taken 600 refugees from the Hai Hong.
December 4, 1978

That is commendable. 1 recognize we cannot solve the refugee problems of the world. What I am saying, hopefully with the support of a great many Canadians, is: let us be sensitive to the needs of these people and, having analysed the situation, recognize from a humanitarian point of view what our obligations should be in terms of settling people here, not only giving them the benefit of freedom but, as Canadians, ourselves getting the benefit of their drive and loyalty to this country.


Mr. Frank Maine (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, it would be remiss of me if 1 did not, first of all, compliment the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) on his erudite commentary concerning the situation of these refugees in the world today. I agree wholeheartedly with his comments and I, too, look to Canada to show the way by adopting a humanitarian approach to this whole difficult question.
Canada and other concerned countries have for some time been in consultation with representatives of the U.N. high commission for refugees on the plight of the Hai Hong
Adjournment Debate
refugees. As a result of these discussions, the minister announced on November 18, 1978, that Canada was prepared to accept 600 of these people.
At the time of the announcement, the minister called upon church groups, service clubs, other groups and concerned Canadians in general for such as welcoming committees, accommodation, clothing, and other personal assistance in integrating these people into community life. The minister also indicated at that time that Canadian groups of five or more could sponsor Southeast Asian refugees. These would be in addition to the 600 announced, and the monthly commitment of 50 "small-boat escapee" and 20 Thailand "camp" refugee families.
I am confident that, as in the past, the Canadian people will demonstrate their charity in assisting and welcoming these refugees to their new home country.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until two o'clock p.m. tomorrow.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.27 p.m., without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Tuesday, December 5, 1978