1978-11-02

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent necessity concerning volunteer fire departments in Canada, and the existing legislation under the Income Tax Act allowing volunteer firemen a maximum deduction of $300 for honorariums received-a very low figure in light of existing facts, and of grave concern to many areas of Canada including my own in Leeds and Grenville from which I have received numerous representations.
I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie):
In view of the fact that countless volunteer firemen buy their own uniforms, pay for much of their own personally-used fire equipment, and lose numerous days' pay from regular jobs by being called away to fight fires at any hour of the night or day, the House requests the government to bring in immediately an amendment to the Income Tax Act raising the meagre allowance of $300 to a higher and equitable figure more in keeping with reality and, finally, that the House condemns the government for this continued deplorable treatment and lack of respect for the indispensable efforts of volunteer firemen who comprise the greatest percentage of firemen in Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Wally Firth (Northwest Territories):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House calls on the government to take swift and decisive action to guarantee that the aborted sea lift in Frobisher Bay, Northwest Territories, does
not cause hardship in that community, and that the government take immediate steps to ensure that the unloaded freight be flown to Frobisher Bay without delay and without cost to the people living in that area.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Maurice A. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the high degree of interest among Canadians in the three-day conference of first ministers which has just concluded in Ottawa, and in view of the sharp contrast between the gloomy coverage of the constitutional conference given by the CBC compared to the far more cheerful coverage offered by CTV news and other media outlets, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Goodale):
That this House request the Secretary of State to determine from the CBC whether the conference on which it has been reporting and commenting for the past three days was, in fact, the same conference as that being covered by CTV news and others.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of pressing necessity and ever-increasing urgency. Now that the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) has successfully negotiated the free, one-man one-vote UN-supervised election in South West Africa, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock (Mr. Friesen):
That he take his five western nation show on the road and arrange similar elections in Angola, Afghanistan, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Dahomey, West Irian, Zaire and Zambia and any nation in between that lacks a recognizable parliamentary democracy.


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

November 2, 1978


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PENSIONS
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I rise on a matter the urgency of which will continue until this House does something about it. Therefore, seconded by the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas), I move:
That this House calls on the government to recognize the contribution that women in their homes make to our economy, and as a minimum to recognize this contribution by establishing pension equality, including the equivalent of the Canada Pension Plan, for women whose work is in their homes, equal pension rights for all women between the ages of 60 and 65 regardless of marital status, increasing the pensions paid to widows under various government plans to at least 75 per cent, and the continuing payment of pensions granted to widows regardless of any subsequent change in marital status.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax-East Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the report of the U.S. labour department, just released, showing Canada leading all other western industrialized nations in terms of the unemployment rate, and having regard to the fact that the order paper is devoid of any significant or effective economic legislation, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn):
That this House direct the Minister of Finance to bring forward his budget at the earliest possible date in order that any measures proposed to combat unemployment may be effected in time to meet an anticipated record level of unemployment this winter.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for the presentation of such a motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a question for the Prime Minister. The throne speech indicated that the government had the intention of introducing in this session of parliament a revised constitutional bill. I wonder if the Prime Minister can tell us when it is the intention of the government to introduce a new constitutional proposal to parliament, and whether it is the government's intention to introduce that before, or after, the next conference relating to the constitution in early February.


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: After the next conference, Mr. Speaker.


Charles Joseph Clark: Can the Prime Minister tell the House whether he and his government have dropped the July 1, 1979, deadline for all or any aspects of what the former Bill C-60 referred to as phase one?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That was not asked of me by any of the premiers either publicly or privately. I myself announced that we would not want to proceed with the provisions of Bill C-60 which cover the Senate unless we had the unanimous consent of the provinces.


Charles Joseph Clark: My question was a little more explicit than that. It was whether the July 1 deadline applies to any aspects at all of what was called phase one in the former Bill C-60. To which aspects of that bill does the deadline apply, if any?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No premier asked me to change that deadline and therefore there is no reason why I should change it.


Charles Joseph Clark: 1 take it, then, that the Prime Minister is sticking to that deadline with respect to every matter except the Senate.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Leader of the Opposition is quite incorrect.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to lose the opportunity to ask my final supplementary. It has to do with a document introduced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, entitled "Agenda for Change", which I must say has a very familiar ring to it. 1 raise this point because there is some question about preconditions the government is attaching-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Charles Joseph Clark: I am surprised at the nervousness members opposite are showing. If supporters of the government party will try to be quiet for a moment, I will put my question.
November 2, 1978


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Come on.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Leader of the Opposition.


Charles Joseph Clark: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is this: does the government insist on establishing the criteria of rapid progress toward an amending formula as a precondition to serious consideration of any or all of the seven items in the so-called "Agenda for Change" introduced on Tuesday?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker.


RECONSTITUTION OF COMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Would he consider the immediate reconstitution of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Constitution which, as he knows, provided him with very valuable advice on the former Bill C-60? Would he consider reconstituting that joint committee, and would he refer to it those proposals which were presented by himself and by other first ministers to the recent first ministers' conference, so that it could study them and provide the right hon. gentleman with an all-party federal input prior to the February conference?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I would certainly be prepared to consider that suggestion. I am not sure the premiers consider the committee's advice to be as valuable as I do myself. For instance, there was a unanimous report from the committee that we should entrench the Bill of Rights in the constitution. I regret to say that this advice was not accepted by some of the Tory premiers.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: What I am asking the Prime Minister is whether he is really interested in getting all-party input from the federal House of Commons and the Senate of Canada to the first ministers' conference in February, so that it may provide a much broader framework in which he can go to the conference. I wonder if he can give us that assurance.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is what I answered: I said I am prepared to consider doing that.


FINANCE
Mr. Max Saltsman (Waterloo-Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Prime Minister arises from the news that the discount rate in the United States has been raised from 8.5 per cent to 9.5 per cent. It is now at an all-time high. In light of the fact that it is the stated policy of the Bank of Canada to keep Canadian interest rates higher than American interest
Oral Questions
rates, we must assume that there will be further pressure on the bank rate and on interest rates in general.
Recent economic estimates suggest that the result of the recent rise in mortgage rates to levels as high as 8.5 per cent has resulted in the loss of some 25,000 jobs in the construction industry and that a further rise in interest rates of 1 per cent to follow the American lead will result in further unemployment in the range of 25,000 jobs. Can the Prime Minister confirm that this is the advice he has been given by the Department of Finance and, if so, will he provide this House with background information on the consequences of interest rate increases?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Mr. Speaker, I have not been provided with any such advice. As the hon. member knows, I have been busy at the first ministers' conference for the past three days. The Minister of Finance did reach me on an urgent basis yesterday morning or the night before to inform me that Secretary Blumenthal had informed him that this was going to happen and that the minister would be considering what steps, if any, it would be necessary for us to take.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, in view of the very obvious conclusion to which all economists have come, that any increase in the interest rate could very well put us into a recession and prolong the unemployment problem we now have, can the Prime Minister indicate whether he is prepared to follow any other course which would be less damaging to employment than the raising of the interest rate, as has been the pattern in the past?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, any other course which is reasonable would be considered. I do not think the hon. member has suggested any other course. If he has no interest in keeping the dollar at any particular level, I suppose the advice he refers to could be followed.


Max Saltsman: Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister seems to be inviting suggestions as to what might be done, that is one suggestion which could be pursued. This is not the time to give the Prime Minister advice, so I will ask another question. Has the government considered exchange controls as an alternative to raising interest rates continuously? Exchange controls would be less damaging to employment.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I have often discussed economics with the hon. member. I think he has some very wise ideas on the subject. I am glad that when he talked about exchange controls, he was not giving advice because I assure him that I would not accept that kind of advice.

November 2, 1978
Oral Questions


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Agriculture.
Considering that the price of beef has shown an upward tendency for the past year and that in certain cases the increase has been over 100 per cent over the price of last year, considering also the requests made by many grocery chains to increase quotas in 1979, can the minister tell the House whether he intends to follow the suggestions of those undertakings and allow beef imports from the United States in 1979?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, much has been said about this. I think that the record should be put straight. The amount of meat in storage in Canada at the present time is only slightly less that it was last year. Last year there were about 83.3 million pounds of meat in storage. At the present time there are about 83.1 million pounds of meat in storage. Many live cattle which are being exported to the United States could be brought here by local buyers, rather than exported to the United States, if local buyers wanted to compete for that market. There have been extreme suggestions that the price of hamburger might rise to $2 a pound. There should be no reason for that.
So far as imports of meats from any country are concerned, the United States are not filling our quota of meat coming into Canada. Australia and New Zealand are filling their quotas. The permits are issued under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, I do not issue them, but we have a system of consultation before any permits are issued. So 1 do not think that at this time there is any intention of increasing that quota.


INQUIRY WHETHER GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO TAKE
Eudore Allard: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a supplementary question.
The minister is no doubt aware that beef consumption has declined by 40 per cent last year and this factor has naturally encouraged higher consumption of pork and poultry. I would therefore like to ask him whether he intends to introduce legislation to raise beef production in Canada so that we will not have to increase our import quotas to stabilize the price of beef?
Canada; it is up to the producers to make that decision. They can either increase it, if they so desire, or they can decide to go out of the business of producing beef.
I think the hon. member should remember the past 3'h years when beef producers saw the price of beef go down to below the cost of production and there was not that much sympathy expressed for them or on their behalf, or any suggestion put forward that we increase imports to Canada so that they may reduce the price. History shows that this may not reduce the price to consumers but may show that the people handling that type of beef are increasing their profits, not necessarily that consumers will get any benefit from it.


FINANCE
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could put my question to the Prime Minister. A review of the statement of the financial operations of the government by the Receiver General of Canada for the six months ended September 30 of this year indicates that expenditures at the governmental level are up by a startling 15 per cent compared to last year.
Would the Prime Minister indicate if he anticipates that expenditure rate of increase, namely, 15 per cent, will be maintained for the whole year and, if so, how does he reconcile that with the April prediction that expenditures would rise by only 9 per cent?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member has heard the Minister of Finance say many times before-and the hon. member should realize it himself-that you cannot conclude from a four or six-month period what will be the figure for the whole year, because of the cyclical character of the economy over the year. There are seasonal and statutory factors which tend to bunch together certain types of expenditures and certain types of receipts. It is patently misleading to try to extrapolate figures for the whole year from one quarter.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, my question is again directed to the prime Minister, who I hope realized that in my question 1 related six months of this year to the same six months of last year. Let me put this further question to him. As a result of the near-static increases in revenue which are up by about 2 per cent only, whereas expenditures have been going up by 15 per cent, we find that the six months' deficit is $7 billion, 58 per cent higher than in the same six-month period last year. Would the Prime Minister indicate if he thinks that the deficit prediction of $10.9 billion for the entire year will, in fact, be realized?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, there is no control whatsoever on the production of beef in


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the premise on which the hon. member admits he based his question seems to indicate that his conclusions are indeed unfounded. He is telling me that he
November 2, 1978

is comparing six months of this year with six months of last year. I have answered that, due to statutory and seasonal factors, these figures are not representative of this year and, consequently, they are probably not representative of last year.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, let me try one final supplementary question directed either to the Prime Minister or to his seatmate: it deals with expenditures in the Privy Council office, and I emphasize the office itself. In the six-month period, those expenditures have jumped $7.4 million, an 86 per cent jump. For this year's six months compared to last year's six months, would the Prime Minister or his seatmate indicate why there has been such a sharp jump in Privy Council operating expenses?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wanted to have an answer to this, he could have given us notice.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Mazankowski:: Seasonally adjusted.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member opposite, I believe sitting next to the hon. member for-is it Prince Albert-said something about seasonal adjustment. Yes, it so happens that this year there are expenditures, I believe relating to the McDonald commission and other royal commissions, which were not incurred in other years. It was under the Privy Council estimates that a lot of these new operations, for instance, the operation of setting up an institute for research into inflation and productivity-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This institute was set up at the request of the ten premiers meeting here in Ottawa last February.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I do not know to what extent the expenditures are linked to this particular institute. I know it was set up at the request of the premiers and that the estimates come under the Privy Council office. If the hon. member really wants an answer to the question, and if his leader is interested in knowing facts, rather than fantasy, he can give me notice of such a question and I will provide the answer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Minister of
Oral Questions
Justice. On October 16 I asked the minister a question concerning the Boeing revelations, payments to an agent in Canada which seem improper or illegal in nature under a so-called system of dual contracts.
Now that the minister has had two weeks to brief himself fully on this matter, can he tell the House whether Canada has requested assistance from the United States Department of Justice? When can we expect charges to be laid in connection with these incidents?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport and Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that we have not only requested, but have received, information and assistance from the United States. However, the investigation in relation to the information received is continuing and I cannot comment further on the question of what the results may be.


AUTHORITY FOR RCMP INVESTIGATION
Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Solicitor General. Will he tell the House who initiated the Royal Canadian Mounted Police probe into the Boeing revelations in Canada? Was it the Solicitor General himself, some other minister, or did the RCMP initiate it of its own volition? Can he tell us when he expects the RCMP report to be handed in?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member ought to know that any investigation relating to matters which may be questionable come strictly within the purview of the RCMP. If the RCMP decides that sufficient facts or allegations have been brought to its attention to conduct an investigation, they proceed with that investigation. I am pleased to advise the hon. member that an investigation is ongoing relating to the matter which he brought to the attention of the House.


THE CANADIAN CONSTITUTION
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, I want to direct a question to the Prime Minister: I do so with diffidence in view of the fact that he is so truculent and peevish today.
Arising out of the question asked by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, and to determine whether or not I heard correctly, is the government intending to bring in any legislation in connection with the so-called plan which was evolved and placed before the Canadian people in general last July? Is it intended to bring any legislation before parliament covering Her Majesty the Queen or the Senate in advance of the next meeting of a dominion-provincial nature?

November 2, 1978
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I answered that question by the negative, Mr. Speaker.


MANPOWER
Mr. Gaston Isabelle (Hull):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister. As Ontario is about to give itself an act similar to that of Quebec to prevent real construction workers of other provinces from working in its own, as that will lead to several thousand lay-offs among real construction workers, especially in the national capital region; as those steps by Quebec and Ontario mark the start of the balkanization of Canada and a break in the association of the provinces, does the right hon. Prime Minister intend to submit to the Supreme Court of Canada both the Quebec law and the Ontario bill, when it has been passed, in order to settle once and for all all those unnecessary interprovincial complications which interfere with the sacred right to work of all Canadians, as well as the possibility for the labour force to move from one province to another?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the House knows that in its Bill C-60 the government provides specifically for the incorporation into the Human Bill of Rights of a provision guaranteeing all workers freedom of movement from one province to another. If that provision were passed, naturally it would be the ideal solution. Another solution is also possible, Mr. Speaker, that is, that the provinces of Ontario and Quebec agree between them to find a solution to that imbroglio. Unfortunately, they do not seem to have managed that. When they meet, they discuss a thousand and one things, generally pertaining to the federal government, but never seem to solve the problems that exist between them. I have repeatdly offered my services to intervene. If the two provinces were willing to lend me their authority, I could guarantee a solution to that specific problem. Otherwise, Mr. Speaker, if they insist in passing laws as they have indicated, and of which the hon. member has reminded us, and if they agree to having them referred to the Supreme Court of Canada, we should willingly make that referral. But they should agree at least on the referral, Mr. Speaker.


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, my questions is to the Minister of Science and Technology. In view of the proposed across-the-board cuts in expenditures for research and development, particularly in forestry, fishing and agriculture-areas where Canada has a comparable natural trading advantage-does the minister still hold to his objective announced last June of research and development spending equivalent to 1.5 per cent of the gross domestic product by 1983?


Hon. Judd Buchanan (Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, that commitment still remains firm. As I indicated at the time the commitment was made, we are looking primarily to an increase in the industrial sector where Canada has by far its greatest shortfall. We are endeavouring, through means such as tax incentives-and they were announced in the earlier budget by the Minister of Finance-to stimulate and encourage the private sector. Indeed, that commitment remains firm.


J. Robert Howie: Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear that despite the fact we are going to spend less, we will spend more. Since the exciting June 1 research and development announcements by the minister, can he indicate to the House if a start has yet been made on any new regional centres of excellence or the innovation centres he announced? Where are they, and when can we expect the regulations constituting the new government procurement policy which is supposed to enhance research and development in Canada?


J. Judd Buchanan: Mr. Speaker, with regard to the hon. member's suggestion that you spend less to get more, in fact when you add the forgone taxes plus the expenditures it is substantially more than any cuts that have in fact taken place.
I will be meeting next week with my counterparts from the provinces to discuss this question of procurement and how we can more effectively use federal government procurement and provincial government procurement to promote and to effectively increase the R and D activities in Canada.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, my question arises from the problem which has been affecting the potato industry of eastern Canada as a result of near doubledigit inflation over the last few years. During this period, punitive increments in transportation costs have been imposed on that industry. The climax of all this has been proposals by
November 2, 1978

the railroad to withdraw from the transportation of this product.
I would like to ask the Minister of Transport: does the Department of Transport or the Canadian Transport Commission allow the Canadian railroad system or any of its members to withdraw service from a customer or group of customers who have been historically dependent on the railroad for transportation of a particular commodity, and does the Department of Transport or the Canadian Transport Commission have authority to order continued service when railroads arbitrarily withdraw such a service?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I think that the hon. member not only seeks a legal opinion but a fairly complex one, as it is a complex question. I will be glad to take note of the question in written form and attempt to obtain an answer for the hon. member.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, when railroad service is withdrawn from a captive industry such as the New Brunswick potato industry, can the industry concerned appeal to the Canadian Transport Commission, the Department of Transport or any other agency of government on the basis of economic hardship to the industry and region concerned?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I think that I will apply my first answer to the second question as well.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Andrew Brewin (Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question was originally to be directed to the Minister of National Defence, but in his absence it is appropriately addressed to the Prime Minister.
The group of experts reviewing the choice of suppliers for the proposed new fighter planes to be substituted for the Voodoos in the defence of North America and to be used in support of ground troops in Europe under NATO were to report to the cabinet in September. Has this group reported to the cabinet, and when will the cabinet make a decision on the matter, bearing in mind the urgent necessity for cutting back on the more than $2 billion involved in the purchase?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, that matter was discussed in cabinet last June and 1 do not believe it has returned to cabinet since. It may have been discussed in a committee of ministers: I do not think that it has, but I am not certain. I could inquire of the Minister of National Defence, who is in Toronto meeting with the minister of defence from Norway.


Francis Andrew Brewin: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Prime Minister will also want to refer this question to the Minister of National Defence. My question is: can it be stated in general terms what
Oral Questions
proportion of the proposed new fighter planes would be used in Europe and what proportion would be used in North America?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, this is part of the problem. We were looking at a plane which would be multipurpose and could be used in Europe and Canada. This is part of the problem we are looking at. I cannot answer the question, because I do not know, as I just indicated, what the present submissions are, if any, that have been made to the minister.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of National Health and Welfare: it is the same question that I asked her last Friday when she became rather agitated. I think the hon. member misunderstood the question.
I would like to know, in view of the fact the government has obviously broken its word with respect to the expansion of social insurance numbers over and above social security programs, what steps it is taking to restrict its ever-expanding use of those numbers and, equally important, what the government is doing to prevent information obtained by the social insurance programs from going to other departments not under the aegis of social security programs.


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the adjectives that I saw used in some press reports described my actions from agitated, to shaky and pale, to spirited. I will not be the judge of my actions. 1 do know that the answer I gave was addressing the point raised in a most responsible manner.
I would reiterate today that I would be playing the part of the ostrich which puts its head in the sand to pretend that the use of the social insurance number will not grow, because our population is growing and our social programs have expanded greatly in the past ten years.
The hon. member is probably also referring to the fact that the child tax credit bill presently being studied by the House requires the use of the taxation machinery and will require that people have a social insurance number. I do not understand why this procedure is so wrong. I would like the hon. member to stop making innuendoes about a breach of policy, because it does not exist. Would he please state exactly what his objection is and why he objects?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the minister understands the problem. I am not talking about social security programs.


Monique Bégin: Then why do you direct your question to me?


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Because social insurance numbers are under the minister's responsibility.

November 2, 1978
Oral Questions


Monique Bégin: No.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: They are under somebody's responsibility. Having regard to what the minister has said-and 1 am not going to get involved in a debate here-is the minister aware of the study on privacy and computers, a task force of her own government, that stated in its recommendations as follows:
-it is important to ensure that a single identifying number-
Or a social insurance number.
__should not be adopted in Canada, directly or indirectly, without a full
examination and public debate of its merits and consequences.
Does the minister accept the recommendation that before there is an expansion beyond social security programs, parliament should be consulted?


Mr. MacEachen:: It has been.


Monique Bégin: As far as I know, Mr. Speaker, and I thought the hon. member would have checked that, my office told him the SIN number is under the Minister of Employment and Immigration. I am the minister responsible for social policy and programs in the name of the Canadian taxpayer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Monique Bégin: I am accountable for a budget of $14 billion. I am not shocked by the use of a number that permits control of funds, that are the funds of the Canadian taxpayer going to those in need. I will continue this policy of control.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


POST OFFICE
Mr. Otto Jelinek (High Park-Humber Valley):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Postmaster General. In view of the fact that reports indicate, including personal phone calls to me by a number of serious and dedicated members of Toronto's CUPW union, that an intensive and expensive sabotage program at Toronto's main postal terminal is under way, initiated by a few radical union leaders, causing not only extensive damage to the post office but to the mails, and the jamming of machines directing mail to other cities, could the minister advise this House whether he is aware of the sabotage tactics and what he intends to do to rectify this very serious and damaging problem now being experienced in Toronto?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of the facts mentioned by the hon. member. According to the reports I have to date, postal work is going normally. If there is an intention of sabotage, we are not aware of it. If it happens, we will take the proper measures to correct it.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, 1 will convey to the Postmaster General the messages I have received.
On a related matter, I would like to put my supplementary question to the Acting Minister of Labour. In view of the fact that the fragmentation of union power within each essential public service sector contributes dramatically not only to postal strikes but to other essential service strikes, air lines being a good example, could the minister advise this House whether or not the government is now prepared to reduce the number of bargaining points within these sectors and introduce what is known as sector bargaining, which I know would receive widespread support including support from a number of unions?


Hon. Andr6 Ouellet (Acting Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious question that is under consideration. I think it is too early to give any indication of this.


FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS FEDERAL MANDATE TO NEGOTIATE SOVEREIGNTY ASSOCIATION WITH PROVINCES
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the right hon. Prime Minister.
The media reported recently a shocking statement of the Leader of the Opposition that if he were Prime Minister of the country he would negotiate sovereignty association with the PQ government if 60 per cent of the Quebec population supported their government in the referendum.

I would like to ask the Prime Minister if he would inform this House whether, given the present constitutional arrangements which he is presently trying to renew and the fact that we must base these renewed constitutional arrangements on the fact that Canada remains a federation, the Prime Minister considers that any federal government or its leader would, or could, have a mandate to negotiate sovereignty association with Quebec or any other province on a bilateral basis.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not know that any leader has been given the mandate to negotiate sovereignty association with any government in the country. Certainly, I have not been given such a mandate, nor would I intend to ask one. If the Leader of the Opposition intends asking for such a mandate, I hope he will make it clear during the election campaign.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
November 2, 1978


AGRICULTURE
Mr. John Wise (Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. For the last two years, members on this side of the House have asked for the establishment of an agricultural products export division within the Department of Agriculture, to work with the provinces and to work with commodity organizations to seek out and develop export markets for agricultural commodities.
Earlier this week-in fact, on Monday to be exact-I understand that a meeting was held between the minister and interested people within the agricultural industry to seek out ways and means to develop export markets. I must indicate that I welcome the minister's eleventh-hour interest in this very important subject. I ask the minister what progress was made and, secondly, did the provinces participate?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I think I should first put the record straight. I would have serious doubt about the originality of this suggestion-the claim that the hon. member has made that it came from the other side of the House. Many other people have put this forward. For instance, I would think it has come from farm organizations, etc. At the last Liberal conference it was passed, fully endorsed, and then some other people picked it up afterwards and tried to carry it.
This was an exploratory meeting that we held on Monday. The response was good. It was with agricultural officials and officials from the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. They seem to be in full support of the suggestion of this kind of an organization being worked out between the departments here in Canada, for the good of agriculture.


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, if a new system or structure is established, can the minister give me the assurance that those assigned to this particular responsibility will be aggressive sales and market-oriented people?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the whole intent is just that. You would have an aggressive sales type of program. As it is stated in the presentation which we made to them at that time, we would want to see the provinces participating in this program and we want to see the federal departments concerned with the same issue participating in it, and probably a broader spectrum of the agricultural producers in Canada being brought into it, which we hope to do early in the new year.


REASON FOR CANCELLATION OF COMMITTEE MEETING
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker my supplementary question is to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the fact that the export of barley has been dropping in western Canada and the elevators are plugged, with the result there are fire-sale prices of feed barley accumulating in western Canada, and the Canadian Wheat Board cannot be held to account until such time as the Standing Committee on Agriculture is
Oral Questions
organized-and such a meeting was scheduled for this afternoon-could the minister tell the House why this meeting was cancelled, along with several other organizational meetings?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge of the meeting being cancelled at all. I understood it was going to go ahead. However, some of the preamble that the hon. member put to his question I do not accept.


SOCIAL INSURANCE
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a supplementary question to that posed by my colleague, the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar, to the Minister of Employment and Immigration who we are told is the minister responsible for SIN.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: I ask the minister this question in view of the finding in the report on privacy and computers, commissioned by the Department of Communications, as follows:
-a single identifying number should not be adopted in Canada, directly or indirectly, without a full examination and public debate of its merits and consequences.
In view of the potential invasion of privacy that is represented by the extensive use of the social insurance number, could the minister tell the House what controls he has adopted to ensure that the social insurance number is not abused and does not, in fact, represent a massive invasion of privacy in this country without parliament having a chance to debate it?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of preparing guidelines to ensure that information which we secure through the social insurance number will not violate the human rights legislation. The privacy provisions have not, in fact, been violated.
Under the old act, the commission had authority to release information, but that was always generally within the parameters of the act. Last year, when we moved amendments to the bill, the hon. member's colleague from Hamilton West suggested that the discretion should rest with the minister. We changed section 114 of the act to put that discretion in my hands.
However, we do not encourage outside use of the social insurance number as an identifier. I think in three particular regions the federal government has legislative authority to use the social insurance number: I think of the Canada Pension Plan, income tax and, of course, unemployment insurance.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the minister, like his colleague the Minister of National Health and Welfare, does not really

November 2, 1978
Oral Questions
understand the question. What we are concerned with is the fact that the SIN will be used as a single identifying number and will thereby represent a massive invasion of privacy of the people of this country, without parliament first having had an opportunity to fully debate it.
For example, does the minister consider the use of the SIN in the gun control legislation to be proper use of the social insurance number? There are other areas as well where it is being used.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, invariably, with people using names and numbers, a program can be better administered as a result of using numbers, whether it is for income tax, bank accounts, or whatever. 1 indicated in my answer that as far as the use of SIN numbers is concerned, we do not encourage their use outside the federal government. We indicate that individuals are not required to give that particular information. If you are asked that, I would say go and "sin" no more.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. P. B. Rynard (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, 1 wish to address a question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. What progress is being made in the field of behavioural medicine, the dream child of the previous minister, who believed that this would cut the galloping costs of health care by not only cutting down the accident rate but in preventing disease in its incipiency and by full-scale innoculations, environmental changes, good hygiene and exercise?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I have adopted the child left by my predecessor. We are continuing to put the emphasis on promotion of health, which the hon. member has referred to as the prevention of ill health. He has always supported the efforts of all governments and every Canadian in that respect. He knows it has more to do with a change in attitude than legislative change.
I am pleased to inform the House that the rate of hospitalization, one of the criteria that can be used to measure progress in the promotion of good health in Canada, decreased by 8 per cent between 1971 and 1975, the time when we put forward this new proposal to Canadians. Also, the proportion of death of Canadians by the two leading causes has decreased, motor vehicle accidents by 24 per cent between 1973 and 1976, and heart disease by 3 per cent during the same period. These are indicators, and no more; but I want to put on record that progress is being made. I thank the hon. member for having given me notice of this question.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Maurice Adrian Dionne: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister ask the Secretary of State to inquire of the CBC why it persists in trying to portray to Canadians an impression that this country faces insurmountable problems for which no solutions can, or will, be found, and have the Secretary of State report back to the House so that we can determine whether the CBC is trying to fulfil or thwart its mandate as a force for unity in this country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member knows that the Secretary of State can, and will, convey the representation to the CBC. However, he has no control over what they do. He cannot give them direct instructions unless the House wishes him to do so.
I am sometimes amused when the CBC talks about the terrible state of the country, considering the terrible state of the CBC.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


TRANSPORT
Walter (Wally) Firth: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, I will direct my question to the Minister of Transport.
In view of the fact that the sea lift operation in Frobisher Bay has been aborted due to severe weather conditions and late scheduling, will the minister indicate what steps the government is taking to guarantee that food and other essential supplies will be transported to Frobisher Bay at the earliest possible date, and will he also tell this House if any emergency operations will be conducted without cost to the people affected by the sea lift termination?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, at least part of that question is not within the area of my responsibility. I can say that Transport was willing to give whatever assistance it could and, indeed, attempted to help by improvising helicopter pads and the like during the time of the unsuccessful loading.
I am sure the parties involved will be looking at the manner in which they can move this food and other supplies to their destination and will be consulting with various departments of government at different levels.

November 2, 1978


AIRPORTS
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Transport: it arises out of the rather extraordinary arrangement involving a 20-year monopoly to a food and liquor concessionaire at Montreal's Dorval airport. I understand this contract will be up for renewal. Can the minister assure this House that tenders will be called for this concession? Also, will he ensure that the details with regard to sales, rent and other pertinent data will be made available to all other interested parties who may be wanting to bid on this concession?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure to which specific concession the hon. member is referring. However, I can tell him it is our standing practice to go to tender in connection with concessions. There are sometimes special reasons for deviating from that practice; those are always plain and available. 1 do not contemplate that at this particular time.
The question of what information is available has concerned me for some time. A couple of years ago we began to make it clear in our contracts with concessionaires that information required for future tendering would be made available publicly. We had not done it prior to that time. There are some contractual and other questions which arise about how far we can go with information in those circumstances.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I will bring the minister up to date. The firm involved is known as AFC. In view of the fact this seems to be a rather extraordinary case, will the minister take the House into his confidence and make a statement on motions outlining the facts with regard to this concession? Also, will he determine, during the course of his investigation, whether there are any other monopoly franchise-type arrangements with the MOT? Since the whole tendering process within the Ministry of Transport has been drawn into question, will the minister consider reviewing the whole tendering process and clearly enunciate a policy in that regard?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I am indeed reviewing the whole tendering process, particularly in terms of the kinds of conditions and limits that sometimes have been imposed in the bidding proposals. I have wanted to maximize the amount of competition in bidding and have already taken many steps in that regard. For example, in connection with catering concessions, we have ensured that the information about proposals is made available to as many local people as possible who might have an interest. The result has been a very greatly increased number of bids received in connection with the tenders being sought. I think this is a very good and satisfactory solution and that continued effort in that regard is warranted. We shall continue the effort.
Privilege-Mrs. Holt


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. It has to do with a petition circulated recently by the town of Trenton regarding vandalism: it was circulated to all municipalities in Ontario.
In the light of this petition, which requests that the federal-provincial authorities meet with municipal officials to discuss a change in the law, imposing heavier penalties and restitution in vandalism cases, would the minister tell us whether he plans any such action?


Otto Emil Lang: I would ordinarily be very happy to raise this question with provincial attorneys general, but I would expect the initiative to come from them if they are dissatisfied with enforcement provisions which apply to any section of the Criminal Code.


William C. Scott: Acts of wanton destruction and senseless vandalism are increasing at a frightening rate. Since it appears that the present laws are an ineffective deterrent to these crimes, can the minister explain his reluctance to take positive action in this area?


Otto Emil Lang: There is no reluctance on my part. I indicated I would be very happy to consult with the attorneys general on this question, but if their feeling agrees with that expressed by the hon. member, obviously they would have brought the matter to my attention before this.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Two days ago the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) raised, by way of a question of privilege, an occurrence which had taken place before a hearing of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission in the province of British Columbia.
The hon. member related to us an experience which, in her opinion, interfered with her right as a member of parliament to appear and adequately discharge before that commission- which is a federal commission-her responsibilities to her constituents, some of whom were present at the hearing to which she made reference. I have no doubt that the hon. lady was acting in a capacity which she considered to be an essential part of her function as a member of the House of Commons.
As I indicated at the time the question was raised, the difficulty we face is not whether a member is acting in a

November 2, 1978
Privilege-Mrs. Holt
capacity as a member of parliament. Indeed, there are many such occasions today which were not envisaged a few years ago, and increasingly members of this House are called upon to perform functions which, although very much related to their duties-and in the eyes of their constituents may constitute a fulfilment of their obligations to their voters-but do not necessarily bear a direct relationship to the privilege which has traditionally surrounded and protected members of this House in a very special way.
I want to stress that privilege is accorded to members of the House of Commons over and above the rights enjoyed by any ordinary citizen. For that reason it has always been interpreted very strictly by this House, because there is no reason why a general privilege or right to some kind of special treatment should surround a member of the House of Commons or any other citizen before our boards or commission or in the everyday work we perform as citizens in this country, except in so far as it relates to the basic or essential function of carrying out our obligations as elected members in assisting in or participating in the proceedings of the House of Commons itself.
After listening to the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway I will attempt to summarize the issue before the House as follows: Does the treatment received by the hon. member at the hands of a member of a public commission constitute a contempt of the House? Can the privileges which undoubtedly protect members in the performance of their duties in the House and in the committees be extended to include their duties in their constituencies and, specifically, in this case, an appearance before a hearing of a federal commission? Is there a distinction in the application of the law of privilege beyond the precincts of parliament when it is claimed on behalf of a member appearing before a federally appointed board or commission on the one hand, or any other non-parliamentary body on the other? I must express, of course, as I am sure all hon. members do, my shock and concern that a member of parliament would be treated in the way described by the hon. member by any public body appearing anywhere in this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: Indeed, I would be equally shocked, as I am sure would all other hon. members, were such treatment accorded to any citizen by any federally appointed board or commission in this country. However, in itself that is a statement of the dilemma. As I indicated earlier, parliamentary privilege is that which surrounds us here and ensures that we are able to carry out the basic function of participating in the proceedings of this House.
Since it is a right of a member of parliament, in common with all other citizens, to appear before these boards and commissions it would seem to me to be an unwarranted extension of the privilege of this House to extend it not only to meetings of the committees of this House which may take place from time to time around the country, but to go even a step further than that and extend it to the point at which it

would somehow protect a member of parliament making an appearance before a public body anywhere throughout the country.
It seems to me that despite the fact that society demands more of members of parliament than it did even a few years ago, not all of these demands impose a strict parliamentary duty in the course of the service of the House of Commons. Every one of us has duties as representatives of the electorate to our constituents, and these duties are increasing. But the duties for which a member of parliament can claim the protection of privilege are his parliamentary duties, particularly in his primary duty or service to this House of Commons here. At times the line distinguishing these duties as a representative on one side and parliamentary duties on the other is very fine. There may be cases in which the line can become blurred, but in present circumstances unless I am absolutely convinced that a member's ability to serve in the proceedings of this House have been affected, I cannot find a case of privilege.
As I undertook to do, I have similarly to examine the law of contempt of the House to see whether or not there was a separate remedy available to the hon. member in this way, to ascertain whether, if a strict question of privilege was not involved here, there may not have been, in the treatment accorded the hon. member, a contempt to her person which could be translated further to be a contempt of the House. However, I face the same difficulty in this approach. Since the member was not in the circumstances acting in the official capacities which are surrounded by privilege-that very narrow category-it would, I think, be unwarranted extension of the precedents to extend privilege with respect to an act which was directed to her person in the circumstances. I have examined the precedents in order to assist the hon. member as far as possible but I regret I cannot be of more help to her in this respect.
To add another observation-and I put it as a third observation in the circumstance as I would not term it a primary defeat of her argument on procedural grounds-her complaint was not accompanied by a motion. As I say, that is not a procedural difficulty which would cause me to stop her on that ground alone, but it becomes substantive in these circumstances because it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the hon. member to have framed a motion which would have asked for anything more than an investigation or a verification of the circumstances. That kind of motion has often been set aside in the past on the grounds of it being too general. Therefore, while I reiterate that the hon. member has described circumstances which I find to be shocking, which ought to be considered as most grave not only to her as a member of parliament but as a citizen appearing before a federally appointed board, there may be remedies which she may and perhaps will pursue as they relate to a grievance in respect to that administration specifically.
I have to decide whether or not any motion which would be put to this House by the member would enjoy priority over any other piece of business by virtue of it being a case of privilege or of contempt. On the basis of that strict procedure, one
November 2, 1978

which has been guarded so carefully and, I believe, properly so in the past, I have to say that I cannot find it comes within the parameters of privilege or contempt. The hon. member will therefore have to pursue whatever other remedies may be available to her in the circumstances.


MR. LAWRENCE-ANSWERS GIVEN BY A MINISTER OF THE CROWN
Mr. Allan Lawrence (Northumberland-Durham):: Mr. Speaker, just before the one o'clock deadline I gave Your Honour what 1 hope was valid notice that 1 wished to raise a question of privilege this afternoon relating to answers and correspondence given to me by a minister of the Crown which were very clearly misleading, which were misleading to a constituent of mine, and which very vitally affected later oral questions in this House to a minister of the Crown. Because I am still having research done for me and I intend to document matters a little better than I have already-some of this information just reached me this morning-I wonder if I could reserve my right to raise this as a question of privilege at a later date.


MR. DIEFENBAKER-BUREAUCRATIC USE OF SOCIAL INSURANCE NUMBERS
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Speaker, what I have in mind arises out of the discussions which have taken place here today in connection with social security numbers. I have been one who, through the years, has refused to accept the old age pension, and I have consistently followed that course. If I had taken the old age pension I would have had to accept a social security number. That was not the reason I did not accept the old age pension but, nonetheless, it is a fact.
Now we find in connection with investments by Canadians that social security numbers are being demanded. I have investments in bonds and the like, and I received notice the other day that my social security number must be produced and that, if it is not produced, the amount of interest accruing to me would be reduced by 25 per cent.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


John George Diefenbaker: If that is not an interference with the privileges not only of members of parliament but of people in Canada generally, I do not know what is. The Canadian people want to invest. They want to join with the government in its request and crusade for increased assistance through bonds, and I would like Your Honour to look into this question.
If ever there was a form of intimidation being practised in order to achieve acceptance of the social security number, which for some reason has become almost a pilgrimage for some departments, this is one. 1 have a right to determine whether I want to have a social security number. No government institution has the right to tell me that, if I do not do what a bureaucrat says, I am going to lose 25 per cent of my
Business of the House
interest. I hope Your Honour will look into that whole question.


Mr. Speaker:: The right hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Diefenbaker) raises this matter by way of a question of privilege arising out of some answers which were given in the House today. I do not undertake at the moment to set the matter aside on procedural grounds in a definite way, although I am sure the right hon. member recognizes that there would be severe difficulty in bringing this in as a procedural question. However, I am sure the minister responsible for this program will want to take into account the intervention of the right hon. member, and perhaps make a response. That minister will likely want to do that at the earliest possible occasion, and I will wait for that before I make a final determination on procedural grounds.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. MacEachen) with respect to the legislative program for the week. While he is dealing with that I wonder if he would designate Wednesday, November 8, as an allotted day. Perhaps he could advise me whether the schedule 1 have sent him as a proposal is satisfactory for a set of allotted days, given the problems the government may have with respect to the budget and a number of other things.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the hon. member, the business for the House today, as is well known, will be the continuation of the second reading debate on the bill increasing benefits to the children of families in Canada, followed by the health resources fund measure, and then followed by amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act which will, I hope, be given first reading today. I have already had some discussions with hon. members of all parties with respect to how we might deal with several other bills, including the CALURA bill, the Canada-France trade agreement bill and the independence of parliament bill, and when the discussions are completed it will be possible to say when we will deal with these bills.
In the meantime, I am happy to confirm that the dates suggested by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) with respect to allotted days are generally satisfactory. Perhaps we will have to change some of them, but certainly the first day, Wednesday, is satisfactory, and I designate next Wednesday as the first allotted day.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Deputy Prime Minister can tell the House when he expects to bring in the supplementary estimates, which are expected fairly soon, and whether there has been any conclusion reached by the government as to the appropriate day for a budget.

November 2, 1978
Business of the House
Can he also tell the House when it is the intention of the government to give notice of the bill with respect to the Post Office becoming a Crown corporation? I ask that question because there was some discussion that the notice might have been given last Friday.
I have had some discussions, and it would be in order if the Deputy Prime Minister wished to make a reference of the commodity tax review to the appropriate committee. I understand that there are a large number of briefs and that that reference could be made without debate.
I notice that the Bank Act legislation is on the order paper. I assume that that will be called quickly, and if it is the intention of the government to refer the subject matter of that bill-and I emphasize the words "subject matter"-to the appropriate standing committee, as far as our party is concerned that reference could be made without debate.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the supplementary estimates have been approved, and it is my expectation that it will be possible to bring them into the House next week.
The date of the budget is not settled. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) has indicated that it will be sometime in the middle of November, and I cannot add any precision to that.
I should tell the hon. member that it is not likely that 1 will be able to introduce the bill establishing a Crown corporation with respect to the Post Office at the time I indicated earlier. The reason for that is that the postal unions have requested consultations with respect to the bill. Just as soon as those consultations have been completed it will be possible for me to introduce that bill for first reading.
With respect to the revisions to the Bank Act, I hope that bill will be given first reading today and that we can send the subject matter to committee without debate. I will give further consideration to the question of sending the commodity tax matter to the appropriate standing committee. That committee is quite busy, and we will have to decide which takes priority, the Bank Act or the commodity tax matter. However, we can work that out.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I assume that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) will be available for the Committee of the Whole discussions later this afternoon. He was not in the House earlier today, but I presume he will be available to discuss tax matters relating to Bill C-10 which deals with family allowances.
The Deputy Prime Minister mentioned the Post Office legislation. It occurred to me that there was a representation made by the government that it would bring in legislation of an omnibus nature with respect to Crown corporations. Is it the intention of the government to bring in that kind of legislation with the Post Office legislation at the same time, so that they can be compared? There may be special considerations in the Post Office legislation which might not apply generally. On the other hand, is it the intention to bring in the Post Office bill in isolation? Has the government considered

that? Perhaps my friend can answer the question today because it is quite important, I think.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, we seem to be reviewing the matters which we discussed earlier today at a meeting of the House leaders, so I can say that in so far as an agreement to certain points has been expressed, we join in that agreement. Specifically, if there is a desire to refer the subject matter of the bill to amend the Bank Act to committee without prior debate, we would be prepared to go along with that. I emphasize, as did my friend, the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker), that that motion, to be treated that way, must be a motion to refer the subject matter, not the bill.
I may say also that if there is a desire, as expressed some time ago by the government House leader, to move on the bill respecting the independence of parliament, we would be prepared to agree to a one-speaker per party debate at the second reading of that bill so that it too could get to committee at an early date.
I have just one other request to make, and again it is something that we discussed at the meeting earlier today. In view of the gross misrepresentation by the press with respect to Bill C-12, the one affecting the indexing of certain pensions, particularly those of retired public servants, I wonder if the government House leader would consider bringing that bill forward reasonably soon so that in public debate here on the floor of the House we could make its provisions clear.


Eudore Allard: Mr. Speaker, my question follows the same line. I would like to ask the leader of the government whether he intends, during this session, to bring back before the House the bill which was introduced last April 5 and which deals with the creation of the office of ombudsman in Canada.


Mr. Symes:: Following the same point of order raised by the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) on future House business, may I say, Mr. Speaker, that I notice as the first item of government business there is a motion which I moved under Standing Order 43 last Thursday, which unfortunately was not disposed of by the House. I realize, of course, that the motion asked the House to declare October 26 as Arts Day. We are now after the fact, nevertheless the debate on that motion had begun and we did not have time to complete it. In view of what I know is the long-standing desire of the House leader that fairness should prevail in this place, and that all parties should be able to express an opinion on the motion I moved, I wonder if he could inform us when he will call that motion for final debate and resolution.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I will consider the representations made by the hon. member with respect to his motion and, if we can make good progress on other government business, I might bring it forward.
November 2, 1978

With respect to the bill relating to the pensions of public servants, I think it would be a good idea to have it debated at the earliest possible date in order to remove much of the misunderstanding and concern, which I regard as unjustified, and to which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has alluded.
It is the intention of the government to bring forward the ombudsman bill. It is now before us for study, and it will be brought forward.
It is not the intention, at least I do not intend in the near future, to put a general bill before the House dealing with Crown corporations. It is a very complex subject, and I believe it would be better for us to deal with the issues involved in the Post Office Crown corporation as it is proposed.
It is the intention, if we get second reading of the child benefit bill, to go into committee of the whole. I should advise the House that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) is meeting with his colleagues, the other finance ministers, but I am sure the House will be pleased to hear that the very capable Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) will assist the rapid passage of the bill through committee of the whole, aided, if necessary, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Martin).



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Alan Martin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, in accordance with section 17(2) of the Anti-Inflation Act, I should like to table a copy of the reference from the Anti-Inflation Board to the Administrator, dated October 23, 1978.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: for leave to introduce Bill C-14, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971.


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

Allan Joseph MacEachen: for leave to introduce Bill C- 15, to revise the Bank Act, to amend the Quebec Savings Banks Act and the Bank of Canada Act, to establish the Canadian Payments Association and to amend other acts in consequence thereof.


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

[ Translation]

Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, November 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. Chretien that Bill C-10, to amend the Income Tax Act to provide for a child tax credit and to amend the Family Allowances Act, be read the second time and referred to committee of the whole.
Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, I had begun my speech yesterday and I was talking about the publicity accompanying every government action and I was saying this publicity was misleading. As an example of this misleading literature, here is how they can have people accept a smaller cheque. I am quoting another part of the famous folder I mentioned:
In order to ensure funds for this child tax credit, we will have to lower the monthly family allowances from the current $25.68 to $20 for each child. However, they will continue to be paid to eligible families-
This $20, not the $25, is therefore taxable.
-and, of course, to be indexed to the cost of living. The majority of Canadian families will benefit from this change because in addition to receiving the new tax credit, they will continue withdrawing their family allowances.
734


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: In other words the government will take advantage of the millions in $200 tax credits to finance itself during a year-


Mr. Breau:: That's not true.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: -whereas the needy families will have only their meagre $20 per child to provide for them.
Mr. Speaker, someone said it was false-


Herb Breau: That is false.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, someone says that's false. But that is what is in the bill. Maybe if we ask long enough we will get amendments, as the minister promised, as well as payments every three months. That is exactly what we want in the first place, those $200, and we are calling that to the minister's attention.
What is really happening? First, let us go back to the facts. At the end of December, 1978, that is this year, the family allowances will no longer be $25.68 but, due to cost of living adjustments, they will be brought up to $28.80 a month for every child. It means that every child will lose $8.80 a month instead of $6 as the minister pretends. Thus $105 a year will be lost, which brings the $200 down to $94.40 at the end of the year. With this loss of $105.60 and the allowances now granted, a family of four children, for example, will not be able to subsist with $20 a month for each child, a total of $80 for the four of them. They will have to rely on the $800 to make ends meet at the end of the year, that is in April of every year-


Herb Breau: But it is next April!


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: -yes, I know, but it will happen every year. To make ends meet at the end of the year, the $800 will have to be borrowed.


Some hon. Members:: No, no.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: -it seems to me what I witnessed yesterday is true. Yesterday, I was amazed to hear statements

to the effect that the minister tolerates interest rates of 15 per cent for a three-month period. In the case of a family which would like to negotiate those allowances, there will be only $400 out of $800 left at the end of the year since usurious interests will have taken $400.
Since it will be compulsory to fill in the forms, even if the family has not sufficient income to send an income tax return, this gives an idea of the delays which will occur in those payments. Those who like us have experienced the slowness of the whole bureaucracy, which has become impersonal, know what I am talking about. Even as an hon. member one cannot obtain the names of the people who are responsible for all the sectors of our riding offices, as I could experience recently. I asked the department but received no answer, which confirms my statement, Mr. Speaker.
Let us not forget that a family living on social welfare or below the poverty level waits every month for the family allowances cheque to make ends meet. It certainly would not tolerate that its own money be so withheld by the government a whole year before being entitled to receive an annual guaranteed income under a law. Those are always the same difficulties that we have when we pass too selective and too often politicized laws. It would be much better now to give $35 to every child without the tax credit provided in Bill C-10. We would rather pay $35 to everyone, we would rather see it universal, without that famous tax credit which would be delayed all year. That would be to the satisfaction of all families, the rich as well as the poor. And that would be fair.
In fact, poor families would receive the full allowances, which would amount to $420 a year for each child, whereas the family allowances to the families with an average income would be reduced according to the family income. Thus the poor would get more and the average family would get a little bit less, whereas the rich would then receive nothing, since everything he would receive would be given back in the form of income tax. Mr. Speaker, I can see that as a way to eliminate all the discrimination which existed so far, and which we still have in such selective legislation, because when making the payments, all children would receive the same cheque, since the difference would show only in the family income tax return. The family will get its allowances in full every month, so there will be no need to go see the shylocks to borrow.
That $200 will, as I said earlier, be easily taken off. Now, what will they do with the accumulated revenues-they will be accumulated revenues, they said so-after that cut in family allowances? The Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) himself said that lowering family allowances to $20 per month per child, would bring the treasury $170 million for the rest of fiscal 1978-79 and $690 million for fiscal 1979-80, $800 million a year on average. So reducing allowances from $25.60 to $20 does represent a sizeable amount. But if the calculation
November 2, 1978

is made at $28 as it should be at the end of December, 1978, at $28.80, that would still increase the Minister of Finance's forecast revenues. So, at least $900 million in additional revenues, and all that taken out of child family allowances.
Today, I would like to congratulate the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) for being frank with the people. Indeed, in her statement of September 14, 1978, she said:
Our approach to the implementation of those changes is simple. Above all, we must be sure that we are really going to redistribute the money and not increase spending; so cuts are necessary to finance the new benefits. Then the money must be reallocated to people who need it most: old people and small wage earners with children, those who suffer most from poverty, those who need help right away. Finally, we must define the new measures taking into account our sick economy; the formula must be an incentive to work and stimulate our productivity.
After reading that first part, Mr. Speaker, I imagine the minister must not always feel at ease within her party. We admit that old people should be receiving more and that low income people should be guaranteed a minimum income. We recognize that because, for 15 years we have been calling on successive governments in this House to set up a universal guaranteed income system to do away with those millions of inspectors, investigators, auditors bureaucrats of all kinds who relentlessly harass the disabled, the sick, the poor, the unemployed and people on welfare whom they often consider as rejects because they could not benefit from political favours as many bureaucrats had a chance to do today.
People laughed at us for years. Today, the government must open its eyes and say we are right. We recognize that our sick economy must be stimulated, but we recommend that we need a formula to provide an incentive to work and strengthen our economy; we are aware of that formula we need. Our economy must absolutely be stimulated, we are aware of all that, Mr. Speaker.
But how, by which means, through what procedure? This is where our opinions differ because we will certainly not tolerate that the government stimulate the economy at the expense of our children by reducing the amount of family allowances now that it has finished robbing senior citizens by taking back their right to unemployment insurance on retirement, now that it has eroded the income of pensioners as much as possible to make them even more dependent on the state. Do you want examples? In the case of senior citizens who had purchased Quebec annuities for their old age, the federal government takes back 50 per cent by reducing by that amount their income supplement. The federal government therefore robs provincial insurance benefits. What if the senior citizen was covered by private or group insurance? Once again, the federal government takes back 50 per cent or 60 per cent, to such a point that, according to most pensioners, it is better to be broke when you retire than to have saved all your life only to be robbed by the state.
Family Allowances
Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat concerned about another comment made by the minister to the effect that the new formula should be a work incentive and a stimulant for our productivity. I find it difficult to reconcile this concept with the one concerning senior citizens, poor children, and so on. We have to wonder if the funds created by these cut-backs will be used only for social services since we are talking about the welfare department and I was under the impression that the cutbacks would be used only within the framework of our social services. We must now wonder, Mr. Speaker, if they will be used for other purposes, as this last statement seems to indicate.
When we talk about stimulating our productivity and creating work incentives, this is a more direct concern of the employment department and I wonder whether the minister's department wants to use the sums made available under the bill to create employment for senior citizens. This would surprise me enormously. This is where I find the statement of the minister a bit vague because I cannot imagine that even if our economy is in bad shape, the minister finds the situation critical enough to eliminate essential services for our children. Even though we recognize the ills that have been denounced, we cannot accept the means suggested as a solution to all our problems. Mr. Speaker, there is so much potential in Canada to recover easily certain revenues to stimulate our economy that it is not necessary to do so at the expense of the weakest and the more defenceless among us while protecting the strongest, if that is the aim of this measure. The government is looking for funds? I believe the time has come for the government to stop looking for funds in the social sector to make up its incredible deficits and set afloat its shaky administration.
If the government needs more revenues let it first reduce its irresponsible expenses for trips throughout the world-planetary travels as would say a certain hon. member. And if it needs $2.5 billion, for instance, as we heard recently in this House, it should defer for five years the purchase of military aircraft it has already ordered. We do not need military aircraft to live in peace in Canada. By this suggestion the government will find more money than needed and I might make dozens of other suggestions, all perfectly realistic. Let the government go after the big monopolies it is always protecting. It should order a reduction of the interest rates it pays to chartered banks because it did not have the guts to make the monetary reforms needed to create the credits required by our country.
To conclude, I ask the government to undertake an in-depth study of this bill at the committee stage to make the amendments required on third reading as, in its present form, we consider this bill, like many others, to be anti-social, antifamilial as it gives to money capital priority over human capital on the backs of our children.
sooes^?1/*

November 2, 1978
Family Allowances
Mr. Speaker, if I have a few minutes left I wish to read to this House a very interesting article I saw in Le Devoir entitled: "The New Social Policy of the Federal Government" written by Michel Pelletier, an economist and jurist. This writer is involved in research on social policy. I quote:
D'Alembert described politics as the art of cheating people. Valery considered it was the art of preventing people from minding their own business. If we consider all the actions and moves of the Trudeau government since last August I, that is since the Prime Minister announced in a surprise television broadcast the new economic policy which his government was bent on implementing in the aftermath of the economic summit of Bonn, we could find here numerous elements to support either one of these two points of view.
It is not that Mr. Trudeau or any of his ministers have lied to us. It would be too obvious and consequently not very fruitful. It is rather by means of a careful dosage of staging and dramatization, by an increase in press conferences and apparently sudden and improvised statements, by uncovering bits by bits without obvious logic the elements of that new policy, by the time lapses between these partial disclosings, it is by all these indirect means that the Trudeau cabinet has been able to create a state of confusion in our minds while creating the impression it was accomplishing a lot in a very short time.
Now listen carefully because he is saying great truths. I am now quoting again:
It was obvious then that in order to reach simultaneously objectives which were at least in competition with one another if not contradictory, that is to say do more in order to spur the economy and do more for the most vulnerable people while at the same time reducing government spending by some $2!d billion-the government would have to show a great talent for magic. And if we can agree to the fact that the state can take social benefits away from some people in order to give them to others, we could also fear that it would take advantage of this opportunity to reassign the amounts saved from social programs for the purpose of boosting the economy.
This is precisely the point when one talks about stimulating the economy which has me a bit upset because I can see through all those statements and through all these amounts taken away from the family allowances that the government can use it and this is why I mention it because at least when it happens people will say that we expected it, that it could use them to other purposes than filling the needs of social services. I think that the proposals and the critical remarks which I have made are inspired by the greatest sincerity and it is to give to this bill a more social and human aspect and to make it less impersonal and above all less centralizational so that it will exert less control over our population, because we are heading towards an absolute form of control, as absolute I think, if not worse than what exists in the Communist countries.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, let me begin my speech by making it crystal clear, as it seems to have been misunderstood by some members of this House and by some members of the media, that members of the New Democratic Party support the principle of this bill.
We support the bill, as my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), who led off the debate for our party said, because for the first time a federal government is amending the Income Tax Act to give greater benefits to people in the lower income brackets than to people

in the higher income brackets. For the first time in Canadian history people who pay no income tax at all, because their income is so low that they are not taxable, will get benefits. We hope that is the first step toward a negative income tax, a theory we have supported for many years and which provincial New Democratic governments in British Columbia and in Manitoba began to implement years ago.
In the province of Manitoba the NDP government, while it was in office, changed the property tax credit to provide that every family, whether renting or owning a dwelling in that province, would get a tax credit. It included those people whose income was so low that they paid no income tax, and provided that the greatest tax credit would go to people in the lowest income brackets, with the smallest tax credit going to people in the highest tax bracket. It is not surprising, given our approval of this principle, that we support this bill.
The reasons why we support this bill were very well enunciated in a paper put out in August of this year by the National Council on Welfare entitled "The Refundable Child Tax Credit, what it is .. . how it works" and I quote:
On August 24 the federal government announced what may well be the most far-reaching restructuring of its programs of financial support for families with children since the introduction of family allowances. For the first time the federal income tax system will be used to deliver benefits to low and middle-income families, including all of those with incomes below the poverty line. Unlike the usual tax cuts of the past which automatically excluded those so poor that they already paid no income tax, a new mechanism-a $200 refundable child tax credit-has been designed that will provide full benefits to these poorest of families who are most in need. The same benefits will be provided as well to virtually all other families with incomes below the national average. As incomes rise above the average and the need for financial support diminishes, the benefits will be gradually reduced and finally phased out.
We endorse that statement of principle completely, and it is for that reason that we support this bill.
Our support for the bill was not made easy by listening to some of the speeches we have heard from the government side. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Anderson) suggested the pension paid to all residents of Canada who reach age 65, that is, the old age security pension, should be de-indexed. We look on that kind of a suggestion as the first suggestion to eliminate universal programs. We support universal programs, and we will fight relentlessly against that kind of a suggestion. I certainly hope that the member was not floating a balloon for the government when he made that suggestion.
Neither was our support for the bill made easy when we listened to the speech made yesterday by the Parliamenary Secretary to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lachance). He took it upon himself to lecture the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Rae), suggesting that never having been poor he had no right to talk about poverty. He went on to suggest there was little if any poverty in Canada. He stated that this government had worked at reducing the gap between the rich and the poor and had been successful.
As reported at page 708 of Hansard, the parliamentary secretary suggested the hon. member for Broadview should

"support the efforts made by this government or any future government to better meet the needs of those Canadians who experience hardship, and try to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor." This government has done many things. One thing it has not done is narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. It is a Liberal myth which they have preached assiduously, that they have narrowed the gap between the rich and the poor.
When the minister spoke the other night, she tried to create that same impression. I am not as enthused about the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) as my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. However, I look upon her as being probably the only liberal in the so-called Liberal cabinet.
The minister has made a number of good speeches dealing with the question of poverty. I want to quote a couple of sentences from a speech she made last May to the YMCA. I quote:
-nearly 2 million children who live in families with incomes inadequate for their needs and for the 600,000 working families who spend two thirds or more of their incomes to provide the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter.. .. In 1977, the poorest 20 per cent of Canadian families received less than 6 per cent of total Canadian family income while the richest 20 per cent of Canadian families received 40 per cent of all the income. These figures are, unfortunately, very stable. The share of income going to our poor families has scarcely changed since the end of the second world war.
That was a statement of fact which the minister made last May. What happened the other day? I suppose she was responding to the attacks and criticism of her and the government by the lead spokesman for the official opposition, the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath). I ask the minister to think about the difference between her May speech and what she said the other night about the hon. member for St. John's East. She said, and 1 quote:
He did not tell Canadians that it is not fashionable to talk about poverty today because there is no longer visible, flagrant poverty in Canada. People no longer really suffer from malnutrition as they did when I was a teacher 20 year ago. People no longer suffer from the effects of unacceptable housing conditions. Poverty is far more difficult to fight. It is far more difficult to sell to Canadians the fact that poverty should be put on the map of urgent problems to tackle because it has gone underground and has become less apparent.
She went on to suggest that because the standard of living in Canada had increased by 25 per cent in the last ten years, we do not have to worry about it. The minister knows better. The facts disprove everything she said the other night.
According to Statistics Canada, in 1968 a very substantial number of people were living in poverty. In its fifth annual review in 1968, the Economic Council of Canada stated, that based on figures from the 1961 and 1965 census, 20 per cent of all Canadians were living below the poverty line.
The most recent figures we have are for 1976. According to Statistics Canada figures for 1975-76, 11.8 per cent of all families and 38.1 per cent of unattached individuals in Canada were living below the poverty line. In other words, 19 per cent of all Canadians were living below the poverty line in 1975-76.
If anyone doubts the figures of Statistics Canada, I want to put on record figures published by the OECD. They show that in the early 1970s, using a standardized definition, 8 per cent
Family Allowances
of the population in Australia were living in poverty, 16 per cent in France, 3 per cent in Germany, 5 per cent in Norway, 3'A per cent in Sweden, IVi per cent in the United Kingdom, 13 per cent in the United States and 11 per cent in Canada.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare represents a constituency in the metropolitan Montreal area, as does the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lachance) who suggested yesterday there is little if any poverty in Canada. I was interested in an article which appeared in Canadian Magazine, in June, 1975, dealing with some of the problems that exist in the city of Montreal.
Before putting any facts or figures on the record, I want to make it clear that I do not suggest that Montreal is any different from or any worse than other cities in Canada. In my own city of Winnipeg the situation of the native people, who are increasing in number every year end now make up an appreciable percentage of the population of metropolitan Winnipeg, is a disgrace. A large majority of them live in real poverty.
I want to put on record for the information of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, the problems which exist in her city of Montreal. The minister was somewhat glib, uncaring, and unnoticing of the situation in her speech the other night. I quote from the article which appeared in the Canadian Magazine in 1975:
In Canada it's estimated that 25 per cent of all children live in poverty. In the city of Montreal, the figure is 46 per cent, almost double the national average. ... 15,000 dwelling units don't have hot water. In 10,625 homes, people live without a bathtub or shower. Inadequate heating or faulty wiring cause at least ten fires a week.... The types of lives people lead show in the health statistics. The death rate in the slums of St. Jacques, in central Montreal, is fully twice that of the city as a whole.
I wish the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice were here to hear the statistics. Maybe he could explain how, under a Liberal government, that kind of situation could exist in the city of Montreal, part of which he represents.
The article goes on to say that in greater Montreal just under one quarter of the children under 15 can be classed as poor. In the actual centre of Montreal the figure rises to 46 per cent, almost double.
Then, in a report published by the National Council of Welfare in 1975, entitled "Poor Kids" I came across the following description of poverty:
We find the greatest number and higher proportion of poor kids live in rural areas of less than 1,000 population.
The report states that there are more than 500,000 children living in poverty in the province of Quebec and that the percentage of the total number in the province living in poverty is 28.1. The report goes on to speak about the St. Catharines school in a low income neighbourhood in Montreal's east end, where it found the following situation: 21.3 per cent of the children were inadequately nourished, 22 per cent were retarded in height and weight development, 30 per cent had a history of diabetes, and 20 per cent had a family history

November 2, 1978
Family Allowances
of tuberculosis. So I hope we shall not hear again the kind of speech we heard the other night from the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I hope she will go back to being the one person in that so-called Liberal cabinet who really understands that a large percentage of the people of Canada are in need, and that their conditions have not been improved by the policies which the federal and provincial governments have applied.
I said at the beginning of my speech that we would support this bill. It is a move in the right direction, but it is only a small step in the right direction. I suggest to the minister and to the government that if they were really interested in improving the condition of the people or in redistributing the wealth and benefits which could be achieved, they would set themselves the objective, the goal, of full employment. What we have seen under the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) for the last ten years is precisely the opposite result.
When the Prime Minister took office in September, 1968, there were just under 300,000 people unemployed. That was 3.7 per cent of the labour force. What we find ten years later is 946,000 unemployed-7.7 per cent of the labour force. The number of the unemployed has almost tripled and the percentage has more than doubled. That is the government's record. The most serious effect of this tremendous increase in unemployment is, of course, felt by the unemployed themselves. But every Canadian suffers as a result of that unemployment.
Don McGillivray, who writes a column several times a week appearing in the Southam Press, wrote an article which appeared in the Montreal Gazette on October 11 of this year, in which he analyzed the effects of unemployment. I quote from his article because Mr. McGillivray is by no means a wild-eyed radical, and the Southam Press cannot be called anything but an establishment organization. Here is what Mr. McGillivray said:
Unemployment can never be reduced to zero, of course. But surely it is reasonable to aim at getting it back to 5.6 per cent, the level of 1974 before the rate started to climb as a result of recession.
If unemployment could be cut to the 1974 level, 360,000 Canadians who are now unemployed would be working instead. They would be producing, at a guess, about $8 billion worth of goods and services in addition to the $230 billion worth of output expected this year. They would also be off welfare and unemployment insurance, a saving of perhaps $2 billion a year.
The writer goes on:
Let's stay with hard cash. What would $8 billion of extra production and $2 billion of lowered government cost mean to the average Canadian family?
It means that unemployment cost the average Canadian family about $140 last month in lost output and extra welfare payments. That adds up to about $1,700 a year.
The result of the government's economic policies is being felt by every Canadian whether employed or unemployed.
If the government is interested in the redistribution of wealth, as members opposite have on occasion said they were, it would do something about the working poor of whom there are so many. In the Financial Times of August 1, 1977, George Radwanski, who writes a column every week, summarized the findings of the report made by the National Council of Welfare entitled "Jobs and Poverty", as follows:

The report makes clear that neither laziness nor inability to work can be the decisive factor in the majority of cases. Fully 60 per cent of low income families headed by persons aged under 65 are the working poor, people who depend on labour rather than upon government assistance for most of their incomes.
Thirty per cent of the working poor are under the age of 25, most of them single persons without family responsibilities. But the overwhelming majority are over 25, and two out of three in this category are the heads of families with dependent children.
The writer goes on to show who these poor people are:
They range from junior clerks and cleaning women in the office buildings of our largest cities to wood lot operators and fish processing workers in our rural areas. They are the laundrymen in our dry cleaning establishments, the textile knitters and small appliance packers in our factories, the baby sitters and housekeepers in our homes.
The article shows how poverty is prevalent in all parts of the country, in all provinces. Figures are given for the median income of these workers. Yet we find governments, federal and provincial, people who are living well, people who have "made it" in our society, people in business and in universities, saying that the minimum wage set by some of the provinces is too high. People who have to live on the minimum wage do not say that wages are too high. It is always those who are doing quite well, thank you, who lecture others about wages being too high.
I say to the government, and particularly to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, that if they are really concerned about poverty and inequity, they should move to raise the minimum wage, because it is a disgrace that there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who are doing an honest day's work and whose wages are so low that they live in poverty. We have to do something about that. The time for that is long overdue.
Let me speak about one more group which is in trouble. I am thinking about probably hundreds of thousands of single parents, mostly women, who want to work, who are trained and educated for work, whose work is needed, who are not working, and who are living, many of them, on welfare or social assistance, because in this country we have not developed a system of nursery schools, day care centres and kindergartens so that the children of these single parent families can be taken care of during the daytime when their parents are at work.
In this respect this country and its governments, federal and provincial, have failed miserably, and we ought to look at the experiences of some countries in western Europe, such as Sweden and Norway. We ought to look at how they have established systems so that children whose parents want them to be in day care centres, nursery schools and kindergartens, can be there for a substantial part of the day so that their parents who want to work and are able to work can do so.
There was one other part of the minister's speech which disturbed me, and I thought it to be very surprising coming from this minister. Hon. members can find this part of her speech on page 672 of Hansard. In reference to the part of this bill which reduces the amount of the monthly cheque which is paid to the mother of each child in this country, from the
November 2, 1978

present $26-or $28, which it would have been in December- to $20, and which provides a yearly cash payment for each child of $200 to mothers in families earning less than $18,000, the minister tried to justify the necessity for cutting this $26 to $20 by saying, and I quote:
-we knew Canadians would not agree to pay more taxes and that there was no other source of funds than shifting benefits within the existing system, making it more fair and equitable.
The minister knows better. Indeed, in a speech from which I have already quoted, a speech she made to the YMCA in May of 1978, with regard to the tax system the minister said, and I quote:
The average taxpayer in the $5-10,000 category benefited from various special personal income tax exemptions in 1975 to the tune of about $237 per year. The average taxpayer in the over $50,000 category benefited to the tune of $5,592. And of course if you were too poor to pay taxes you would not have benefited at all. That may well be good fiscal policy and in some respects it is good social policy too-but still, it does seem odd that those who need the benefits most are least likely to get them.
When the minister was speaking two nights ago, I wished she had remembered the speech she made in May, because in May she was saying that the tax system as it is and as it has been-and as it will be after this bill is passed-has not been working properly nor in the interests of the poor. The other night she was saying that there was no other way to get the money needed to pay for the increase to those people whose incomes are less than $18,000 except by reducing the $26 per month payment to $20. We in our party completely reject that kind of thinking because the facts do not bear out the argument made by the minister.
Let me refer the minister to a report-I presume she has forgotten it, if she ever saw it-made in November of 1976 by the National Council of Welfare. The report is entitled "The Hidden Welfare System". The council did an excellent job of showing how the tax system under Liberal and Conservative governments, and in the last 15 or more years under a Liberal government, operates. Let me quote a few paragraphs from the council's report. I think the following is a profound observation:
There are two welfare systems in Canada-one for the poor, the other for everyone else.
Most of us know about the welfare system for the poor. We are told about that ad nauseam by many well paid lawyers, accountants, university professors and other spokesmen who frequently speak on behalf of those who have, but we do not hear a great deal about how the tax system works as a welfare system for the wealthy. This is what the National Council of Welfare says:
While all of this is going on-
This refers to the welfare system for the poor.
-however, another massive spending program continues virtually unnoticed. Like the highly visible welfare system for the poor, this program transfers money from government to individuals. In fact it transfers far more money than the poor ever receive from their welfare system, and its benefits go to millions of persons. By any reasonable definition of the term it is a welfare program.
Only it is not called a welfare program. And its principal beneficiaries are most assuredly not the poor. It is called the Income Tax Act.
Family Allowances
I want to digress for a moment and say to the Minister of National Health and Welfare that this minuscule change which is being proposed in the Income Tax Act, while a step in the right direction, will not change the essential fact that, on the whole, our income tax system benefits those who need benefits the least, the wealthy. Then the National Council of Welfare went on to say in its report, which I commend to the minister, the following:
The mechanism which governments have used to make the ability-to-pay principle operational is a system of progressive rates of taxation. These rates work in a straightforward manner: The first few dollars of an individual's income are not taxed at all; the next are taxed at a very low rate; the following are taxed at a greater rate; those after that at an even greater rate, and so on.
That is how the system supposedly works. As originally developed that is how it did work, but that is not how the system works at the present time, and I think the minister knows it. In its report the council gives examples.
Under the existing income tax provisions... a taxpayer is allowed to deduct up to $1,000 in interest to arrive at his taxable income. Therefore, although this person's real income is $20,000, he only has to pay taxes on $19,000 (his $1,000 of interest income is tax free). Tax on $19,000 is $4,640-$380 less than the tax on $20,000.
That is just one example. In other words, a person with a taxable income of $20,000, of which $1,000 comes from interest on investments, gets a bigger benefit than a low income family with one child will get as a result of this bill.
It goes on and on. They summarize by saying the following about the tax system as it operated then, and it has not changed, except for the worse:
In 1974 the tax subsidies generated by the exemptions and deductions in the personal income tax system (excluding the basic personal exemption and the deductions for expenses directly related to earning an income) plus the tax subsidy contained in the temporary tax reduction provision cost Canadians $6.4 billion. And this was, by no means, the total cost of the hidden welfare system in that year.
Mr. Speaker, $6.4 billion is what the tax system gave to people, most of them in the upper income brackets. As a matter of fact, they go on to show in the report that the tax benefits for a person with an income of over $50,000 average out of just under $4,000 a year, to be exact, at $3,989.78, while the tax exemptions, the various loopholes in the income tax system for a person with an income of under $5,000, give him a benefit of only $243.75.
I put those figures on the record because I want to reject completely the suggestion made by the Minister of National Health and Welfare the other night that there was no other way to get the money but to reduce the amount paid in family allowance to each child, from $26 to $20.
Let me conclude by putting on the record what we find has been done for the corporations of this country, mainly for the 1,000 largest corporations, in the way of tax concessions as a result of the recent benefits. We have calculated them to be $1.25 billion, made up as follows: $300 million in tax relief in respect of business inventories; $485 million in federal investment tax credit; $20 million in enhanced depletion for high cost oil and gas wells; $120 million in increased dividend tax

November 2, 1978
Family Allowances
credit; $45 million in the increase in limit for capital loss; $10 million in the inclusion of capital gains on Canadian securities; $100 million in other corporate and investor tax concessions; and $165 million in loss in provincial revenues related to the above, for a total, as I have indicated, of $1,245 million.
Therefore we do not accept the arguments of the government as expressed by the Minister of National Health and Welfare that it was necessary or useful to reduce the monthly payments per child from the $26 now paid, or from the $28 which would have been paid as of December 1 as a result of the increase in the cost of living, to the $20 which is proposed in this bill. We do not believe it is necessary. We think that the amount should have remained as at present, and that we should give, as well, $200 per child in tax credit to people in the lower income brackets. However, we are not the government and we have not drafted the legislation. We propose to vote for this bill despite what we consider to be the very grave defects in it.
Having said that, I conclude as I began, by saying that we will vote for the bill but we will do so with grave reservations. We will do so in spite of the speeches made by members of the government side-including the Minister of National Health and Welfare-rather than because of the speeches which they made.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Laniel in the chair.
Gérald Laniel: Order, please. House in committee of the whole on Bill C-10, to amend the Income Tax Act. Shall clause 1 carry?
On clause 1.
[ Translation]


Mr. Caouette (Villeneuve):: Mr. Chairman, having thoroughly considered the bill now before the House, I think it is fair and reasonable that hon. members should try to understand its contents more deeply. I think that the time allowed to us in committee of the whole is the best time to put questions to the minister and give him the chance to make us understand the amendments brought to the bill.
Hon. members will have the opportunity, as I will in a moment, to propose an amendment which, hopefully, will be carried by the House. Mr. Chairman, first of all I would like to thank you for recognizing me. Several aspects of this bill are very positive, while others are very negative. I will deal, Mr. [Mr. Orlikow.J
Chairman with a very negative aspect. I had the honour of congratulating the minister during her stopover in my riding last summer, about the $200 tax credit. According to the minister, it will be granted not to those living on the poverty line but rather to the middle income families of this country. Despite the government's desire to lighten the tax burden of the disadvantaged, the practical application of the legislation poses problems and results in serious administrative complexities.
Mr. Chairman, to quote an expression used by my colleague, the hon. member for Bellechasse during a debate in the last session, I would say that we have in front of us a government of fence riders. Why fence riders? At a certain moment, the government juggles with a bill which it says is not yet good enough, then it amends the bill as it probably will amend, in the coming weeks, the bill amending the Unemployment Insurance Act which was passed about two years ago, if I am not mistaken. Instead of wasting the time and energy of the House, why does the government not take the time to consider thoroughly the needs of Canadians?
Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out a statement of the Minister of National Health and Welfare for which, as I said earlier, I congratulated her. As the minister explained it, the new measures are judicious and will have good effects from an economic point of view. They will enable the children of poor families to contribute, to a certain extent, in the prosperity and welfare of the country. Let there be no misunderstanding. These payments are for the people who are in urgent need of help. They will increase the purchasing power of millions of Canadians. These people will not save that money, they will spend it and, by so doing, they will stimulate the economy.
Mr. Chairman, as my colleague, the hon. member for Roberval pointed out earlier, the minister says, on the one hand, that she wants to help the economy as well as low and average income groups with this bill, and on the other hand, she reduces the rate of family allowance because, as she says, there will be a tax refund. We are told, on the one hand, that it is necessary to give the economy a new impetus while allowing those people to meet their needs and, on the other hand, family allowances are being reduced.
Therefore, I am tempted to put a question to the minister. If the economy needs a new impetus, why decrease allowances that are payable and, by the same token, increase the tax credit by $200? Now, let us keep in mind that, according to the minister, the refund is immediate, while people will have, as pointed out by the hon. member for Roberval, to wait until the end of the year. But some say he was wrong; so let us take their word for it: he is wrong and payments will be made every four months. Thus, those people will have to wait four months before receiving their share which will be approximately $270 for a family of four children after a period of four months. On the other hand, those poor families-as the minister said-
November 2, 1978

must stimulate the economy by spending the income they are being given.
Following a question raised by the hon. member for Broadview, the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville replied and I quote:
We are concerned about the discounters, the usurers, the rip-off artists who may go to a mother and say, "You have four children. That amounts to $800 that you will be getting in terms of a tax credit. We will lend you the money, but we will charge you an excessively high interest rate." If that happens it nullifies-
And the minister interjected:
It is limited to 15 per cent now.
Imagine, Mr. Chairman, if these people want to follow the suggestions of the minister, they will have to use these means to be entitled to live decently in this country.
Going over, once again, the main principles of the bill now before the House, we note the following: Allowances are reduced from an average $24.68 to $20 a month. The government proposes to end the higher income tax exemptions for children of 16 and 17, and substitute instead a uniform exemption of $460 for each child. Clause 3 of the bill proposes the withdrawal of the non-reimbursable tax credit of $50 a year for each child. The bill institutes a reimbursable tax credit system of $200 for each child in families whose income is $18,000 or less, and of 5 per cent of the amount by which the family income for the year exceeds $18,000 in the other cases.
As my hon. colleague for Roberval said a while ago: Why take away from one and give to the other? Why deprive of that right those who earn a salary of $30,000; why not have a system entitling those whose income is higher to receive the same amount as everyone else? As the hon. member said, we should have a universal allowance, or in other words, all Canadians should get one regardless of their salary. In his income tax return, the person who earns $30,000 a year will have to declare the family allowances and pay income tax accordingly. To my mind, the system suggested by the hon. member for Roberval would be far more fair to all mothers, regardless of their income. We have reached the point where we are asking the average mother not to have any more children, while we are telling the low-income mother: We will give you more money, so go ahead and have more children! We ask unbelievable things of the Canadian people; yet, motherhood is one of the vital rights of every mother.
Mr. Chairman, too quick an examination of this bill could lead one to say it is excellent. But on closer perusal, one will realize that it holds many a hidden problem. I know the minister wants to increase the tax credit. But did she think that many poor families depend on those family allowances to make both ends meet? When reducing family allowances, by $5 a month, the government does not help families which must live from day to day. Why give the tax credits and take off $5, as I said earlier? We should not forget that Canadians who
Family Allowances
live below poverty level do not pay taxes; so most of them do not file income tax returns. With the new system proposed by the minister, those families will have to file an income tax return to obtain this refundable tax credit.
I agree when the government wants to give more support to poor families but by requiring them to ask for their money, they force them to ask for their due, namely family allowances. Like my colleague the hon. member for Rimouski, I think this measure will unnecessarily make the bureaucracy heavier and make income tax returns more complex for Canadian citizens. I know that the Minister of National Health and Welfare wanted to help the poor by introducing this reform through the Minister of Finance. Unfortunately, I am afraid this reform increases the tax burden of middle income families. Poor families will be able to use the credit in full but middle income families will need an income of over $18,000 or they will not be entitled to the whole deduction. The government has the bad tendency to overtax middle income families. Well, those families represent the greater part of families in Canada.
Mr. Chairman I think, Bill C-10 will be an additional burden for middle income families with two to four children. By reducing family allowances to $20 a month the government immediately reduces the purchasing power of those families. Mr. Chairman, there might be a very interesting suggestion to be made at this point to the Minister of National Health and Welfare who I hope will forcefully ask cabinet and more particularly the Minister of National Revenue as in a question put on the order paper by the hon. member for Bellechasse in January, 1976, and I quote:
1.	As of March 31, 1975, what was the amount of income tax arrears owed by national and multinational corporations?
2.	Do those arrears carry interest and, if so, at what rate?
3.	How far back to they date?
To our great surprise, Mr. Chairman-and I think that would be something to bring to the attention of the Minister of National Health and Welfare, rather than taking from one hand to give to the other the government should take its responsibilities immediately. We learned that for the years 1973 and before, 2,470 national and multinational corporations owed the Department of National Revenue $80,662,661. In 1974, those companies were given a break. We have 9,269 companies owing a total of $91,381,797. In 1975, we have the utterly ridiculous situation where 12,881 national and multinational corporations owed the Department of National Revenue an amount of $50,998,490 for a grand total of $223,042,948.
Mr. Chairman, it stops in 1975. I believe this government should in the first place, as suggested by the hon. member for Roberval, desist from picking the pockets of middle-income and poverty line taxpayers, and turn to those corporations owing enormous amounts of money. Questioned earlier I quoted the minister who said a person borrowing the amount of family allowance she would be getting four months later
742

November 2, 1978
Message front the Senate
would pay interest at 15 per cent. Mr. Chairman, what could be more ridiculous? The 27,000 companies owing us $223 million are charged interest at an annual rate of 6 per cent. We are telling the people: Pay, give your lenders an opportunity to charge you 15 per cent interest, and we will allow millionaire multinational corporations to keep the public's money at 6 per cent interest. If that is not ridiculous, Mr. Chairman, what is it? Scheming, maybe? Mr. Chairman, what is urgently needed today is trying to give Canadians an opportunity to live decently. Concerning taxes and those companies I was referring to, since I have come to age, since age 17 when I started working, never did the government allow me, nor will it ever allow a Canadian citizen to tell Revenue Canada: I will keep your money and give me 6 per cent of what you owe me. No, we are charged 15 per cent.


The Deputy Chairman:: Order. I regret to inform the hon. member that his allotted time has expired.


Alan Gray Martin: Mr. Chairman, I would simply like to answer a few points raised by the hon. member for Villeneuve in his speech.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. There are just a few minutes left before we begin private members' hour. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could wait until we reassemble at eight o'clock. I just wanted to make the point that the official opposition has not surrendered its traditional right to lead off on clause 1 of the debate. I trust that Mr. Chairman will keep that in mind as we reassemble at eight o'clock.


Alan Gray Martin: I am quite prepared to close off now until eight o'clock, Mr. Chairman. I would like to respond to some of the points raised by the hon. member for Villeneuve, at that time.


Charles Robert Turner: Is it agreed that we call it five o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Progress reported.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: I have the honour to inform hon. members that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate have passed Bill S-3, an act to implement the international convention for safe containers, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order. 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 Ottawa West (Mr. Francis)- Public Service-Relocation and retraining of employees whose jobs are declared redundant; the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie)-Transport-Rail service in Newfoundland; the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro)- Fisheries-Rights of Indian bands.
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, public bills, private bills. There being no items under the headings notices of motions and private bills on the order paper, the House will proceed to public bills.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS


Mr. Mark MacGuigan (Windsor-Walkerville) moved: that Bill C-201, to amend the National Transportation Act (review and re-hearing), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.
He said: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-201 arises out of problems caused by the construction of the Powell sidings by the Canadian Pacific Railway in Windsor, but is not limited in its effect to that case.
Since the Powell sidings issue is still before the Canadian Transport Commission for decision, I have to be somewhat restrained in my references to it, though I must develop enough of the facts in relation to it to explain the problem. The Powell sidings were built in the summer of 1974 to facilitate a new co-operative rail-freight service between the Canadian Pacific Railway in Canada and the Chessie system in the United States. To quote from an article in the Detroit Sunday News on November 3, 1974, at page 10-G:
A new siding in Windsor was built to provide a landing stage for the exchange of Chessie and CP equipment... An eastbound train, manned by a U.S. crew, is turned over to a Canadian crew. Simultaneously, a westbound train manned by the Canadians, is turned over to the Americans... Prior to this arrangement Canadian trains halted in Windsor and cars were transferred to various U.S. carriers in the Detroit area.
The problem is not with the co-operative arrangement between the railways-which is an admirable effort at rationali-

zation-but with the location of the new sidings in Windsor. Although the sidings were built on land already owned by the railway and served by railway tracks, the land had not previously been used as a holding and transfer area. Since there are residential areas contiguous to the tracks on both sides, the neighbourhood residents were understandably disturbed by the substantial change in the railway activities in the area, and they succeeded in obtaining a hearing before the Railway Transport Committee of the Canadian Transport Commission on the application by the CPR to change the usage of the sidings.
In my submission to the committee on behalf of the citizens on June 17, 1975,1 described the situation as follows:
There are really two kinds of problems raised by the Powell siding. The simpler problem relates to the traditional pedestrian crossing. The lack of such a crossing has proved an inconvenience to residents especially of the Remington Park area to the south of the tracks because it hampers their access to Memorial Park immediately to the north of the tracks.
What I regard as the more serious problem concerns the environmental effects from noise and air pollution caused by the use of the Powell siding by trains for long periods of time. When there are no delays, the occupancy of the tracks is for a very short period of time, but on the 25 per cent or so of occasions on which the trains are not on time, the use of the new tracks constitutes a genuine and serious annoyance for the residents. Even if the diesel engines are disconnected and taken to the CPR railway station, the continued presence of refrigeration cars and cabooses causes a noise and pollution problem. On days when the schedule is awry this nuisance may be present for 6 to 12 hours or longer.
Many residents described the railway usage in much stronger language than I did. I might also add that many people were ready to substantiate that the delays were much higher than the 25 per cent figure I used in my submission. With the additional observation possible during the lapse of time since then, 1 am inclined to agree with them.
After lengthy hearings the Railway Transport Committee held on April 17, 1977, that the application of the CPR to construct and use the sidings should be rejected. The committee said in part, and I would like to quote from the decision of the Railway Transport Committee:
In our opinion, the difficulty was created by the fact that, contrary to the Railway Act, Canadian Pacific constructed Powell sidings without first applying for and obtaining the requisite approvals from the committee-
It is one thing for the committee to consider the opening of what is proposed to be a lightly travelled branch line through farm land or uninhabited open country (or a siding on a main line through the same kind of territory), and quite another for the committee to consider two sidings along the main line to be used for international traffic through the Detroit River Tunnel as is the case here, and as is also the case here, that traffic will not merely pass over the sidings without stopping, but trains containing, among other things, cars with dangerous commodities will, according to the evidence before us, be left standing sometimes for hours. By no stretch of the imagination could it be suggested that Powell sidings are in open country or even in a lightly populated area. They are located in the middle of a city with residential districts, a park and a school in close proximity on one side and a residential area and substantial open space on the other. It is the Powell sidings in that character that we must consider, not Powell sidings as two isolated pieces of track.
For these reasons, the Application of Canadian Pacific under section 216 of the Railway Act fails."
The committee could not reach agreement at that time on the disposition of the motion for costs by the citizens, and that question remains undecided to this day.
National Transportation Hearings
The problem which this bill addresses arises from the application by CP Rail in July, 1977, not for a review by the CTC of the decision, but for a new hearing. The public argument began in November of 1977 and continued through April, 1978. The neighbourhood citizens were once again put in the position of having to engage legal counsel to defend their rights to undisturbed possesion of their property. In fact, representation for the citizens was made possible by a decision of the Windsor city council to pay a lawyer to act on their behalf before the CTC. Without this generous decision by the city of Windsor, the residents would have been in a most unfortunate plight.
The second set of hearings before the CTC has been conducted on the premise that the doctrine of res judicata has no application to the proceedings, and I am informed that counsel for the CTC contended on an application before a federal court that res judicata does not apply.
The doctrine of res judicata is described by Halsbury's "Laws of England" (4th ed., 1976, vol. 16, para. 1527) as a "fundamental doctrine of all courts that there must be an end of litigation." It applies where the subject matter in dispute in a later case is the same as in a previous case, i.e., where everything that was in controversy in the second case as the foundation of the claim for relief was also in controversy or open to controversy in the first case. Where a plea of res judicata cannot be established because the causes of action are not identical, issue estoppel may preclude a party from contending the contrary of any point which has been determined against him. This is sometimes also referred to as res judicata.
The doctrine of res judicata does not apply to administrative tribunals, but it does apply to quasi-judicial tribunals exercising judicial functions. The citation for this is the "Canadian Encyclopedic Digest," (Ontario) 3rd edition, 1973, paragraph 104.
In fact, the CTC has held that on a review it is, in effect, bound by the doctrine of res judicata. Witness the statement by a review committee in the Comsol case:
The power to review, now to be found in section 63 of the National Transportation Act, has been given to the commission and to its predecessors for pragmatic reasons. It is an expeditious manner to correct an error or to meet changed circumstances. In themselves these two factors encompass all motives for review. The nature and the degree of the error may vary almost ad infinitum. The changed circumstances may have developed after the decision had been rendered or for sufficient reason some circumstances may not have been placed before the commission at the time of the original hearing. With respect to the correction of an error, the remedial process may exist concurrently with the appeal jurisdiction of the Federal Court. With respect to a change of circumstances, the remedial process is left to the commission. It amounts, when changed circumstances are invoked, to a reopening of the original hearing in order to receive further evidence.
The jurisdiction of the commission is administrative, legislative and quasi-judicial. For instance, the commission is called upon to make an administrative decision when it sets a specific speed limit pursuant to the Railway Act. In adopting regulations, the commission legislates by delegation. When making a decision on a matter in dispute between parties in adverse interest, the commission performs its quasi-judicial role . .. The finality of a decision rendered in the quasi-judicial context must be seen in that very context which is not the context of an administrative decision even if the procedure followed to reach a conclusion in either instance may have been the same under the general rules of the commission-
80065-48^

November 2, 1978
National Transportation Hearings
This panel would agree that it would be remiss to refuse to determine the matter before it is reviewable if the applicants and the intervenors had demonstrated that new facts had arisen or that the decision contained an error in law or in fact or that a matter of principle that had been proposed before the original committee had not been considered, or that a new matter of principle arose as a result of the decision... This committee cannot see that it would be to the public advantage to again consider the questions that have already been dealth with by the modal committee and to re-examine the body of facts from which in their wisdom earnestly and in accordance with the rules, the members of the original panel have drawn opposite conclusion.
The official citation for that case is Amoco Canada Petroleum Ltd. et al and Canadian Pacific Ltd. [1974] CTC 300, at 321, 322, 326.
Although this decision was criticized by a 1978 study for the Law Reform Commission by Professor H. N. Janisch, it nevertheless remains the Committee's final word. I should also make it clear that this was not a report of the Law Reform Commission itself but a study which was done for it.
But if a party is able to avoid the CTC's stated limitations on reconsideration of a matter merely by the device of making a new application rather than by asking for a re-hearing of an earlier application, then obviously there is an enormous loophole which the law must move to close if the CTC does not. It is this loophole which Bill C-201 attempts to cover by providing that the CTC may alter orders or decisions already made only where there has been a material change in the circumstances upon which the order or decision was based.
I would have no objection to an amendment at committee stage to broaden the grounds on which reconsideration can take place beyond the single one I propose in Bill C-201 of a material change in circumstances. The five grounds adopted by the CTC itself in the Comsol case would be acceptable. What is not acceptable is the continuation of the status quo under which there are no limitations on the CTC's powers of rehearing and there is therefore no end to litigation. Such a situation puts a premium on the financial resources of the contending parties and obviously places citizens' groups in an inherently unfavourable position, especially when confronted on the other side with the resources of a gigantic corporation.
It is my hope hon. members will agree that the status quo cannot be allowed to continue and will agree to refer Bill C-201 to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications for full consideration of the problems that I have raised.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to take much time of the House. I listened to the comments made by the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGuigan). His remarks underlined a particular problem with regard to transportation policy, which is operated to a large extent in this country under a quasi-judicial tribunal, the Canadian Transport Commission.
The hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville pointed out that while he deals ostensibly with an example in his locale, it opens up a much broader question for debate. I support the hon. member in asking that this bill be referred to the committee for the fullest possible examination. From that point of view, I support the bill going forward.

This gives us an opportunity to present the bill to the committee for the fullest examination of the circumstances regarding a loophole whereby transportation companies, often large corporations, may circumvent the principle of reasonable justice by making a re-application or new application under a particular set of circumstances. This could cause citizens in a particular locale who are affected by these decisions, some inconvenience and substantial expense. I understand and sympathize with the motives which caused the hon. member to bring forward this private member's bill.
There is a growing feeling of concern in many regions in Canada about the effectiveness of the operations of the CTC. I see the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) is here. I do not say this in any partisan sense, but people in western Canada often feel that the resource or sensitivity of that administrative tribunal is not all that could be desired with regard to particular problems relating to transportation in various regions, specifically in western Canada.
Hon. members know that my party has suggested a reorganization of the CTC to provide for a western branch of that administrative tribunal. It would be responsible for considering matters relating to transportation in western Canada. We look forward to the CTC performing a more sensitive role with regard to transportation policy, using transportation as a tool for regional development in western Canada.
The bill brought forward by the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville gives us an opportunity to consider the more technical loopholes to which he referred. This is an admirable opportunity for members of parliament to examine the rules under which the CTC operates and whether the CTC is adequately equipped to deal with local or regional problems. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, we could look at the operation of transportation policy where an application is required for a service, extension of service, or permission needs to be granted by the CTC.
I support sending this bill to committee, as do the members of this party I am sure, because it will serve a very useful function. I believe even the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom), who usually opposes things, will agree to having this bill go to committee. With those few words in support of the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville, I will resume my seat.


Mr. Hugh A. Anderson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise that whenever the name Canadian Transport Commission comes up in this House, whether in a private member's bill or any other context, I cannot sit back and say nothing. I am surprised that other members from Vancouver Island, the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan-The Islands (Mr. Douglas), the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon) and the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) are not here. I assumed they would be equally interested. As I progress, I will show why it is of interest to those on the island.
November 2, 1978

I may not agree with the hon. member's proposed bill because, as I understand it, the bill before us proposes to amend Section 63 of the National Transportation Act to make it read as follows:
Where there has been a material change in the circumstances upon which an order or decision of the commission was based or out of which an application arose, the commission may review, rescind, change, alter or vary the order or decision, or may re-hear the application before deciding it.
As hon. members will recognize, the bill would limit the powers of the commission to review its own orders and decisions. Under its terms the commission could only carry out reviews "where there has been a material change in the circumstances upon which an order or decision of the commission was based or out of which an application arose."
At present the rules under which reviews are conducted are set out in the general rules of the commission. The general rules provide that:
-an application for review shall be filed with the commission within 30 days of the issuance of the commission's order or decision, unless the commission enlarges the time.
There are other areas which give the review committee a determination as to whether to re-open hearings. At present the review committee comprises the vice-president, five chairmen of the modal and two ad hoc commissioners. I understand in 1974 the committee considered the Comsol case, Commercial Solids Pipe Line Company Ltd. and examined the place of reviews with regard to appeals to the CTC. It came up with a decision, and I quote:
The decisions of the Transport Commission are appealable under the National Transportation Act, as under earlier legislation, to the courts-at present to the Federal Court-upon a question of law or of jurisdiction. Further, our decisions may at any time be varied or rescinded by the Governor in Council either on petition or on his own motion. Finally, section 55(1) of the National Transportation Act provides that on a question of law or jurisdiction a case may be stated to the Federal Court.
This is particularly significant to the residents of Vancouver Island, because in 1976 a decision was reached by the Transport Commission to allow the abandonment of passenger service on Vancouver Island. Almost immediately the province of British Columbia took to the federal courts a case in which it challenged the right of the E and N Railway to abandon its passenger service. This action was taken on the grounds that under the original agreement certain sums of money or land had been granted to the company by the federal government and by the government of British Columbia in return for an undertaking to carry on a rail passenger service in perpetuity. It was on this ground that the B.C. government decided to challenge the decision of the commission.
As I said earlier, the bill before us would restrict the powers of the CTC with respect to a re-hearing or re-examination of a decision.
As I have noted, it is also possible for the Privy Council to overturn a decision of the CTC. In December of 1977 I petitioned the Privy Council to take such action. If I may, I
National Transportation Hearings
will read the letter I wrote to the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. P. M. Pitfield:
I, the undersigned, most respectfully wish to submit, through you, a petition to the governor in council under provision 64(1) of the National Transportation Act requesting that a decision taken on December 14, 1977, by the Railway Transport Committee of the Canadian Transport Commission Under order No. R-25960 be rescinded.
I received a reply almost immediately from Mr. James R. Midwinter, Senior Assistant Secretary to the cabinet, in which he states that the matter would be referred to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) as the minister responsible for the act, for his consideration and advice to the governor in council. I bring this up because we are dealing with a very complicated area. The CTC is not only being questioned on legal grounds in the courts of British Columbia, but steps have been taken by a member of this House to have it rescind an order which would cause the abandonment of passenger service on Vancouver Island.
Hon. members may recall that last year I spoke extensively on this subject of rail line abandonment. There is only one railroad line on the island and only one road, so when rail passenger service is cut out you end with one road which is totally inadequate to meet the needs of the people who visit our beautiful island every year, especially in the summer months by the hundreds of thousands. I can give one figure which may be of interest. Over a four-month period more than 600,000 people visited the Pacific Rim National Park near Comox-Alberni.
With these things in mind I find myself uneasy hearing an hon. member put forward legislation whose effect would be to restrict the re-examination of decisions made by the CTC. There are some of us who want these decisions to be reviewed, especially decisions which affect what we consider to be essential transport services. For this reason I am bound to speak against this bill and trust we shall continue a wide open approach to the review of the commission's decisions. In many cases, as I say, we are dealing with matters which are of great importance to the areas affected.
Since the decision was made by the CTC some startling developments have taken place. In 1977 there were approximately 11,000 passengers using the E and N Railroad. With the rescheduling of dayliner services, a reduction of fares, and the introduction of a three-day excursion fare in 1978, the total number using the service to date this year is 40,000. This is the sort of information we would wish to see brought before the CTC, and it is for this reason I hope we shall allow the greatest latitude for the re-opening of these matters so that we may save transportation systems where there is a need for them.
I would hope that the CTC, if faced with an unfavourable result of the court action, would be willing to re-open its hearings so that new evidence could be produced to demonstrate the economic feasibility of this line due to the much greater passenger participation in the last year. Alternatively, Mr. Speaker, I hope the Privy Council, on the basis of the information provided for 1978, will overturn the CTC ruling. But these corridors must be kept open for the sake of the

November 2, 1978
National Transportation Hearings people of Vancouver Island who do not wish their passenger service discontinued.


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, I would have to agree with the views expressed by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn). The number of opportunities for the House to consider the activities of the Canadian Transport Commission or even of the Department of Transport in depth are few and far between, and it looks as though they will be unusually limited this session.
There are a number of items which should be considered, both by the department and by the commission. Applications such as those referred to by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Anderson) come before the Canadian Transport Commission without any onus upon the applicant for abandonment of service to prove that there is in fact no business. There is no onus upon the applicant to prove that he or she has made a proper effort to obtain the business which might be available in the area to be abandoned. There is no onus upon the Canadian Transport Commission to consider seriously the human, industrial or social needs for a particular service and to say in an unqualified way that the carrier must continue the service which he has suggested he should abandon.
I am particularly concerned about the aspect of the situation in which the carrier is not requested to indicate how much business is in the area and what effort the carrier has made to obtain that business. It appears to the public that the carrier very often may deliberately reduce service to a level which makes it totally unacceptable to the shipper or passenger. Having become totally unacceptable, it is of course not properly patronized, and the application for abandonment of the particular service automatically follows.
I think the questions which I raised in the House today put an exclamation mark after this procedure, over which the government apparently has no control or, if the government and the CTC do have control, the minister of many years is not prepared at this moment to state what element of control they do have. A carrier may be permitted to abandon a service, the transportation of a product, without application to the CTC, and this is a very dangerous situation.
I understand the reasons for the presentation of this bill, but I must say that because it deals with an isolated instance it cannot be used as an instrument to justify the limitation of the power of the CTC to change its position. Nor can it justify itself on a national basis because it cites a specific instance. My sympathies are with the applicant and with the residents of Windsor-Walkerville who are concerned about this problem, but I would not like to see this matter considered in the committee as an individual case with relation to the CTC, its decisions and what rights of appeal there are. I would like to see this bill go to the committee so that there can be an opportunity to consider the general transportation problems of Canada and the decisions which are being made by the CTC.

I would like this subject matter to go to the committee so that we might get a proper delineation of the opportunity to appeal to the CTC when service is not officially suspended but in practice is, as is the case with the CPR and the potato industry in the province of New Brunswick, and as is that case with respect to perishable food products and processed products in the Dominion of Canada. There has been a virtual withdrawal by the railroad systems from their responsibility to transport these products.
If this bill were to go to committee and if the government permitted a broad study of the responsibilities of the railroads, the authority of the minister and the authority of the CTC so that these things might be spelled out, the bill might then be amended, not just as it refers to the CTC and a specific case but, rather, as it refers to transportation problems in Canada generally. I strongly recommend that this bill go to a committee on that basis. It would be unfortunate if it went to committee and was considered only with respect to a specific instance because the subject matter is much broader than that. I do not offer any prejudice to the specific instance outlined in this bill, but I do want to use it as an example of a broad transportation problem in all of Canada.
If the bill could go to the committee in that context, I think we could have a very proper discussion on how the government, the CTC and the railroad structure of Canada could combine to give better service on a broad basis and assure all Canadians that where service is essential the railroads shall be obligated to continue that service.


Alan Gray Martin: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to add a few words in this debate and to commend the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGuigan) for once again putting before this House the whole question of the interaction between the railways and the Canadian Transport Commission and, more particularly, the railway transport committee of the CTC.
As one who is somewhat familiar with the problem faced by the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville by virtue of a similar problem in my own riding some years ago which cropped up again within the last year, for which I was, thanks to the co-operation of the House, able to get through a private member's bill which amended the Railway Act in this connection, it seems to me that there is a real need to examine closely the jurisprudence which the CTC, through its railway transport committee, is going to use to assist people. I am thinking particularly of people in urban areas which perhaps were not so heavily built up years ago when the railways first went through but have since become very heavily urbanized. In some cases homes were built closer to railway facilities than they should have been.
I think what the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville is touching on is what position the CTC should be taking in relation to the railways. In the past I think there has been concern amongst ordinary residents who run into problems with the railways that they are in the position of fighting city hall. Even though there is a federal authority in place, there is
November 2, 1978

a feeling that it should be there to take care of their interests as well as the interests of the customers of the railways and the railways themselves. There has been concern that perhaps the CTC has not been doing that effectively.
I believe that perception has not been without some degree of validity, but I think that is changing. As a result of a private member's bill which I managed to get through the House recently, I find that the CTC is now prepared to come out to the public, as it were, and hold public meetings in areas where there are problems. I want to commend the railway transport committee for initiating that kind of action last year. When a subsequent problem arose in my area the railway transport committee came to the borough of Scarborough and held a public meeting. When the local residents were not satisfied with the notices they were given concerning that meeting, another meeting was held. The second meeting was widely advertised. At the meeting the committee listened carefully and attentively to all the comments made by local residents. It was a formal meeting, and subsequent to it the Railway Transport committee issued its findings and insisted that the railways do certain things. What was involved was a temporary relocation of track. The committee insisted that the railways conform to certain requirements, and I know that tended to placate the concerns of the residents.
I think the CTC and the railway transport committee, which is a segment of the CTC, are endeavouring more and more to listen to people. Through submissions made by members of this House, including the excellent submission put forward through this private member's bill in the name of the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville, I think they will do more listening. I think it is up to us as members of this House to continue to bring these problems forward.
The railways are a tremendously important part of our economy. In years gone by they were considered to be so important that perhaps the ordinary citizen should not have involved himself too much in what was going on, even if there were problems in local areas.
This is a thing which has to be turned around. The railways must realize that not only are they responsible to their customers and for keeping the economy of this country functioning, but they also have a responsibility to communities where their railway facilities enter and pass.
I know the problem which the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville is facing. I think it is a little unfortunate. I believe that because the CTC has rules in this matter in favour of the local people and against the railways, if I am correct, the railways were anxious to bring the matter up again and the CTC held another hearing. I believe the appeal process should provide for either side to do that. I really think the CTC should be as responsive to the local groups in urban areas as it is to the railways.
The other point I would like to make-and now I will move away from the concerns of citizens relating to the reopening of facilities that have been dormant for years-relates to the
National Transportation Hearings
whole matter of grade separations. I see the hon. member for Scarborough East (Mr. O'Connell) in the House now and I know he shares my concern in that regard because there are many crossings in our two ridings on the main Canadian National line which runs between Toronto and Montreal. I do not know whether there is a more heavily traversed line in Canada than that line. There are crossings in the borough of Scarborough, which has a population of 375,000 people, which as yet do not have grade separations. This is a really dangerous situation. Every day there are hundreds of thousands of motorists crossing these level crossings and in each instance the exposure factor is very serious. I hope that the Canadian Transport Commission will continue to put more pressure on the railways to initiate the installation of grade separations as well as better signalling equipment.
I have noticed that as a result of actions taken by the hon. member for Scarborough East and myself of recent years, there has been an improvement in our borough in the quality of safety measures at those level crossings over the last few years, and it is noticeable. I do not know whether this is strictly a coincidence or because the railways and the CTC are starting to feel some pressure. If that is the case, it is all to the good because what we want is what is best for the communities involved; and in the long term what is in their best interest is also in the best interest of the railways themselves.


Mr. Charles Lapointe (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the bill introduced by my colleague from Windsor-Walkerville (Mr. MacGuigan) is essentially quite important, in the sense that it gives rise to a problem faced by his constituents and also raises a much broader issue, that is the place of a citizen as an individual and the place of a citizen as a member of a pressure group and, the means available to him to challenge a decision made by federal boards endowed with quasi-judicial powers. This is a very important problem and I would like to thank and congratulate the hon. member for having introduced a bill which allows us to discuss however, briefly the much broader issue of the citizen's representativity before quasi-judicial boards as mentioned earlier.
A very important problem evidently arises if such commissions, as in the case of the CTC, can constantly reconsider their own decisions and if a transport company can put forward any reason, which may be more or less different from those invoked before, if a commission can and must reconsider or reexamine the issue or the decision it made. Of course, Mr. Speaker, this subjects pressure groups, whether citizens' committees or individuals, to financial and administrative burdens, and is quite time consuming, and I think it is the same for the CRTC and other federal commissions, who must implement certain policies of the federal government.

November 2, 1978
National Transportation Hearings
I know that the CTC is now stydying this aspect which can become quite costly for the citizen, and that it is looking for ways of reducing this burden which an individuals, a citizens' group must bear, to allow them to resort with more fairness to the procedures established by these commissions, either the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission or the Canadian Transport Commission.
Mr. Speaker, we have heard valid arguments for both sides of this issue, one being that the commission must have the right to review, rescind, change, alter or vary its orders and decisions, the other being that the power of the Canadian Transport Commission to do so should be restricted, so that justice is not constantly doing and undoing itself. My colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Anderson) argued that the CTC's mandate, its power of review, should be as widespread as possible in order to avoid that citizens, groups, or areas be wronged when a decision that is issued is detrimental to them.
Moreover, my colleague the hon. member for Windsor-Walkerville, seconded by the hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Martin) and the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn), argued that the power now enjoyed by the commission to change its decisions and modify its orders is too wide, as I said earlier, and that any transport company can, for more or less serious reasons, try to convince the commission to change a decision it has made and which might not be advantageous for the company.
These are the two arguments we must consider and I think they can be applied to both sides of the fence. The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar said it is unjust to allow large transport companies to refer constantly to the commission's decisions, but on the other hand the magnitude of the Canadian Transport Commission's power to change or review its own decisions makes it possible for simple citizens, citizen groups, local chambers of commerce or any other pressure group, in other words for people who do not have the financial means and are not as well organized as large companies, to refer to the commission's decisions. Arguments are used on both sides with equal force, and this is the dilemma I am facing now.
I would like to come back a little later on the foundation of the question, but may 1 digress a little, Mr. Speaker, to comment on what the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar said when he stressed a real problem in the western provinces, namely the fact that provincial authorities or the citizens or local groups feel somewhat uncomfortable when it comes to appeal to the Canadian Transport Commission, and they consider that the commission does not always do justice to their regional aspirations.
This is an important matter which the hon. member raised, but I would like to remind him that last year, on December 3, if my memory serves me right, in a speech he made in Saskatchewan, the Minister of Transport undertook, on behalf

of the government, to establish as far as possible a western arm of the CTC, as he said to look after and satisfy more adequately the legitimate regional expectations of the western provinces. So I am happy the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar raised that aspect of the problem but I would remind him, Mr. Speaker, that such a commitment was made by the Minister of Transport nearly a year ago now.
The hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) wanted to support the principle of the bill we are considering now on the ground that it would be a good opportunity to discuss the whole policy and problem of transport at a meeting of the transport committee. I have some sympathy for the point he has made because everybody in this House had at some time or other problems somehow related to transport in Canada. And that is all the more true, I believe, for the Atlantic provinces and for the riding of Carleton-Charlotte which is represented by the hon. member. Of course, as individual members in this House we all had to criticize decisions made by representatives of our national railways but naturally it is always important, I think, to raise those matters before the House of Commons or in committee to try bringing those large companies to play a social role which should be more important. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to illustrate my point with a personal experience I had some two years ago when the Canadian National decided to suspend its passenger service between Quebec and La Malbaie in the heart of my riding.
Of course, you could argue that there had been a sharp decline in the volume of passengers in recent years, but as was mentioned by the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte, there was no way to assess or determine to what extent the company was responsible for that traffic loss. So it is very easy, Mr. Speaker, to come up after a few years and say: Look, the number of passengers has been going down for five years, we are losing millions of dollars each year on that branch; that's why we are asking the Canadian Transport Commission permission to suppress that service. That is very easy to do: you only have to make trains leave at 5.15 a.m., or use self-propelling railway coaches without any heating; there are all kinds of means which may be used to scare the passengers away.
That is what they said in the riding of Charlevoix when the commission was under the able and noble chairmanship of the vice president, Mr. Roberge, who came in La Malbaie to preside over the public hearings. Mr. Roberge was very sympathetic to our local representations but, of course, he was faced with questions of dollars, statistics that could not be denied because if the company said, we had so many passengers such and such a week, this could not be denied, it was right. And the commission or the commissioner did not have any means at their disposal to assess, as I was saying, the factors for which the company itself might have been responsible, the factors which brought about that deficit situation, so finally, not
November 2, 1978

having those instruments, the service was unfortunately abandoned.
In other instances-this was the case of the little Northern train that goes to the Laurentians north of Montreal-we saw the commission refuse to let the CPR abandon a service and as a result of the sustained efforts of local chambers of commerce in the municipalities, that service had 100 per cent more passengers last winter. If I make those digressions, Mr. Speaker, it is to show how important is the basic question of allowing the Canadian Transport Commission to review its own decisions and I think that the hon. member for Windsor-Walker-ville was right in raising it but unfortunately I think we still have not had enough time to scrutinize all the aspects of that question because, as I said earlier, we are faced with a dilemma, there are arguments both for an as extensive as possible revision authority and a restrictive revision authority for the Canadian Transport Commission.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that we still have not had enough time to scrutinize that whole question which is extremely important to refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications, but I hope that this important matter which we have just examined briefly will allow the government and the federal administration to try in the coming months to do what needs to be done with respect to all those quasi-judicial commissions or boards so that appeal procedures will not become a financial burden for the average citizen or pressure groups because the game is too one-sided between a big company and a group of citizens, a chamber of commerce or an individual to pursue for months, even years, appeal or revision procedures, or changes in decisions and orders, and so on.
I hope the government and its administration understood the message clearly and will try as soon as possible to develop mechanisms to ensure that Canadians receive all the justice they are entitled to in dealing with large corporations in this country.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it six o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. With the consent of the House, perhaps we could go back into committee of the whole before the Chair calls it six o'clock. Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Family Allowances



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration in committee of the whole 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.
Charles Robert Turner: Order, please. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair until 8 p.m.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The committee resumed at 8 p.m.
Gérald Laniel: Order, please. When the committee rose at six o'clock clause 1 of Bill C-10, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, was under consideration and the hon. parliamentary secretary had the floor.


Alan Gray Martin: Mr. Chairman, I was answering some of the points the hon. member for Villeneuve brought up during his speech when we broke up for dinner. The first point he made, I believe, was that next year there will be a decrease in federal allowances to the citizens of Canada as a result of the bill now before us; I should like to explain that this will definitely not be the case. In 1979, more money will go from the government to the citizens' pockets. For instance, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) told me $60 million more will go to the province of Quebec, to name only one. I feel that point deserved to be explained.

The second point I should like to refer to, which I picked up from the hon. member's comments, is the concern over the need for people to go to tax discounters in order to obtain their funds. This should not be necessary at all as we are hopeful that the filing system will be simple and speedy enough that, indeed, they will be able to make their filings in good time and receive their $200 credit for each child on a fairly prompt basis. There should be no need to resort to the tax discounting business.
I suppose one might add in passing that, as a result of the legislation we passed in this House last year, the tax discounters are at least now limited to being able to collect no more than 15 per cent. However, the point should be made that there should be no need now for people who want to claim this particular credit to make use of the tax discounting group.

November 2, 1978
Family Allowances
The third point the hon. member for Villeneuve referred to was the fact that there is a progressive decrease in the $200 benefit once a family income is over $18,000 per year. I understood from his comments that he felt this was rather unfair. There has to be a threshold somewhere in order for this particular legislation to make any sense at all, and it seemed logical to fix that threshold at some point around the area of what the average family income is today. That is how the figure was picked. As has been pointed out in speeches by both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Health and Welfare, the threshold is $18,000 but, indeed, people with net incomes higher than that will continue to receive credits, though on a diminishing scale.
Again, I think along the same line, the hon. member was generally making the point that it seemed unfair to hit the wealthier families in that they would have a decrease now in family allowance payments. Perhaps that is very true, but the whole thrust of the legislation, from the time of the first announcement by my own minister on August 24 and subsequently by the Minister of National Health and Welfare, has been that we are taking a look at some of these social programs, and here is an opportunity, without increasing over-all government expenditures, to take the expenditures now being made, reallocate them in a manner that really seems to make more sense, and really help those people in areas where there is a real need.
Those are the only four points which I wanted to comment on at this time. I am sure there will be opportunity during the course of the debate to speak on other matters.


James Aloysius McGrath: I welcome the opportunity on clause 1, Mr. Chairman, to place a few questions on the record in the hope that they will draw the attention of the minister. I am glad to see her sitting opposite me tonight, and I am particularly happy to see that the officials of the tax department are between us, because the last time I addressed the House on this bill the minister transgressed one of the ancient privileges of the House and crossed the invisible barrier between us, which is the equivalent of four sword lengths separating the opposition from the government, and presented me with a copy of the report by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women right in the middle of my speech.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Two sword lengths.


James Aloysius McGrath: I stand corrected; it is two sword lengths. In any event, I have the protection of the department tonight as well as the two sword lengths.
I would like to place on the record a quote from the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, to which the minister was the distinguished secretary, in support of the position that 1 put forward during my remarks on second reading. One of the points my party put forward as part of our social program was that the homemaking spouse should be included in the Canada Pension Plan. I would like to read recommendation 103 of the royal commis-

sion report; I am grateful to the minister for sending it across the floor to me:
Therefore, we recommend that (a) both the Canada and the Quebec Pension Plans be amended so that the spouse who remains at home can participate in the plan, and (b) the feasibility be explored of
(i)	crediting to the spouse remaining at home a portion of the contributions
made by the employer on the employed spouse's behalf, and
(ii)	on an optional basis, permitting the spouse at home to contribute as a
self-employed worker.
I would like the minister to tell us exactly what the position is of these recommendations by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women which were made some time ago. I put it to the committee, in support of the position which 1 placed before the House during second reading of the bill, that the government has continued to ignore most of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women and particularly this recommendation, which is so important to the whole social welfare program which the government is addressing in part by the bill which is now before committee.
I would like to refer also to the remarks of my colleague the hon. member for Egmont on the effect of this bill on women in the home and the status in the bill of the married woman in the home. I would also like to comment briefly on the outstanding maiden speech of my colleague the hon. member for Rosedale. Most hon. members will agree with me that it was one of the greatest maiden speeches of the House.
In support of the position put forward by my colleague from Egmont, there was presented today to the Minister of Finance a letter-copies of which were made available to all parties in the House-from the chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I would like to read that letter into the record. It is addressed to the Minister of Finance and is dated November 2, 1978:
The Canadian Human Rights Commission has certain reservations concerning the provisions of Bill C-10, the enabling legislation for the refundable child tax credit program, which I would like to communicate to you before the bill moves into committee of the whole this afternoon.
We are concerned that the bill makes distinctions based on marital status. The result of these distinctions is that mothers who are married are treated differently (and adversely) under the bill. The identification for special treatment of individuals whose living arrangements are based on legal marriage has a discriminatory impact.
Implicit in this provision of the bill is the intention to take family income into consideration in the determination of refundable child tax credits. We would like to be assured that the government does not intend to base its future taxation and social policies on the joint income of two spouses, which is not an adequate definition of family income.
That is precisely the argument that was put forward by my colleague the hon. member for Egmont.
The basic principle of using the income of the total family or living group will require extensive examination before its implications are fully appreciated; the Canadian Human Rights Commission urges the government not to move precipitously into this policy area.
The provisions of Bill C-10 which isolate the income of legally married women for special consideration are not consistent with the recent social phenomenon of the emerging economic independence of women. The Canadian Human Rights Commission felt it important that parliament be alerted of these concerns at this stage of policy development.
He goes on to say that he has sent copies to the Leader of the Opposition, leader of the New Democratic Party and the
November 2, 1978

leader of the Social Credit party and the letter is signed by R. G. L. Fairweather.
The committee and the House have a right to hear a response from the government as to just how it intends to meet the very serious implications set out by the commissioner with respect to the direction this bill is taking in determining family income and the impact it will have on the rights of women and, especially, women as outlined in the bill-those women who are in the home and who are not covered by the bill.
There were a number of questions raised during the course of the debate which should be put into focus at this point in the committee stage of the bill, since we are now dealing with clause 1. It is well to remember that the welfare ministers of the provinces, when they met in Nova Scotia last September, expressed concern that there had not been consultation with them regarding this bill. Has there been consultation since that time, considering there are two provinces which have their own child allowance programs, and what impact will this bill have on those two provinces?
We would also like to know if there has been consultation with the provinces with respect to the impact this bill will have on provincial social assistance programs. Does the government have the assurance that people who qualify for the special tax allowance under this bill will not be penalized in terms of social welfare programs under provincial jurisdiction? That is an important point and one which the committee is entitled to be satisfied on.
The question has already been raised regarding the rebaters, who will have a field day unless there is special provision made to protect the recipients of the benefits of this bill from those people. There are a number of things in this bill which are causing us trouble. We support the bill naturally, but while we question the way the government is going, we do feel nevertheless it is a bill that tends to address a problem in this country, namely, the disparities of income with respect to the present social welfare program of the government. For expample, we are dealing here with a negative income tax principle and in my estimation a number of people will be filing tax returns for the first time. These people will be unfamiliar with the forms and we can anticipate that there will be a number of errors. We would expect, under normal circumstances, that there would be a substantial educational program involved because we are dealing here with the 1978 tax year. We are talking about this bill becoming operative in this tax year, and the returns will be based on the 1978 taxation year. So we can expect all kinds of administrative problems in this area. We are wondering, therefore, what steps the government proposes to take with respect to meeting these problems.
Then there was the question which was raised in the House today dealing with the social insurance number. Many of these people do not have a social insurance number. They will be required to have one, and we know the administrative process in applying for and receiving a social insurance number is often slow. A lot of people are not familiar with this number
Family Allowances
and do not know how to go about applying for it. To a large extent we are dealing with low income earners, people who are not familiar with the tax bureaucracy of the government, with income tax returns, with the social insurance number and all that it entails. There is no information presently available in the 1978 guide that accompanies tax returns. Consequently, some kind of an advertising or educational program will be needed in order to familiarize people with their entitlement under the bill, how they can qualify and meet the requirements of the act. In this respect we are wondering how the government intends to meet that problem.
We will have other questions with respect to the technical aspects of the bill, Mr. Chairman. My colleague the hon. member for York-Simcoe will have questions with respect to those aspects of the bill, and I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is well able to satisfy the committee in this regard. Officials of the Department of Finance are with him, and these are questions we will anticipate as we get into the bill.
To conclude my opening remarks on clause 1 of the bill, I believe the committee is entitled to some response from the government with respect to the legitimate concerns expressed to the Minister of Finance today in a letter from the chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. I hope that either the Minister of National Health and Welfare or the parliamentary secretary will address herself or himself to this letter at the outset.

November 2, 1978
Family Allowances
Canada Pension Plan, for which nobody has yet come up with the right answer, is related to the following question: Who will pay the employee and employer contribution? It seems to us that what is proposed to date by the hon. member would only benefit high income families as the husband might give to his wife the money required to pay both contributions.
On the second point, the hon. member referred to his colleague from Egmont (Mr. MacDonald) and asked if the tax credit is high enough to be a deterrent for some mothers who would want to take a job outside. I believe that $200 per child would not be a deterrent for mothers who would choose to work outside unless in some very hypothetical cases a mother, because of her profession, would have a very high income and her husband would be a low income earner. Her decision to work or not to work would mean that family would no longer be in the $18,000, $20,000 or $22,000 a year group.
Also, I would like to say that we have in our income tax system other provisions allowing deductions for day care expenses. There are already many fiscal privileges so that a mother can decide to go or not to go on the labour market. Certainly, the tax credit will vary according to the parents' income and the number of children and will be reduced gradually by 5 per cent for each additional dollar and that is very marginal. Honestly, I believe there is nothing in that new tax credit likely to prevent a woman from working outside. Low income earners or mothers who would want to leave welfare and go on the labour market will be able to do so because the family income will probably be below the maximum where the tax credit is cut off. I can reassure the House on that point.
The third point is extremely important. I think it is fundamental and that everyone will agree on this. That is the issue raised by our former colleague, Gordon Fairweather, now chief commissioner of the Human Rights Commission. I believe that point is fundamental and it is the first time it is under study in this House when dealing with a legislation, and it is well known in some women circles.
It is the first time we have seriously considered the eventual problem of discrimination based on the use of marital status as a criterion. It is important to study it seriously. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands cannot disagree with that.

The whole Canadian welfare plan, whether it is from federal or provincial origin, is based on the parental income of the family unit, for instance the welfare benefits paid under the Canadian public assistance program, the guaranteed income supplement, the GIS, which is paid to old age people, and other programs we have, for example in the field of housing for the underprivileged. The whole social policy in Canada and the

programs derived from it are based on the concept of parental income of the family unit; the same is true in the G.S. Moreover, the Canadian tax system is based on the individual except when a spouse takes charge of the other and, because of marriage, benefits from fiscal exemptions. That already exists. I have never heard the opposition object to this point. The bill before us does not make any change to this.
In Bill C-10 we are not concerned with marital status. We are concerned only with motherhood or legal custody of children, since it determines who will be the beneficiary, that is the mother in most cases since the refundable tax credit follows the family allowances pattern. Now, to determine the needs of the children we aim to help with this bill, it is essential that we know the parental income of the family, whatever the source of the income may be. One parent or two, the father and or the mother; the marital status is not important in this matter. I must establish clearly that in my opinion the concern expressed by the commissioner of the Human Rights Commission is absolutely without foundation in this case. It is true that the personal income tax return first asks for identification data which include the taxpayer marital status. The same data will probably be asked in the new and very simple form that is being developed for mothers, and it proceeds from the need to know the total income of the parents of the child whose needs we are trying to evaluate. I think I have covered all the aspects of this question. The fourth point was the impact on Quebec and Ontario. I am not sure if- [English]
On the fourth point, I am not sure if I understood the hon. member. He may wish to repeat his point. It had to do with the impact on Quebec or Ontario and the other provinces. He may have meant the financial impact.
I would simply say that the poorer a province is relative to the rest of Canada, the more it will benefit. Quebec will be a beneficiary. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance gave the figure concerning new investments in terms of transfer payments to individuals by way of a new tax credit. This will be approximately $60 million for 1979. In Ontario, if my memory serves me well, the payment will be made to 714,000 families. However, because of the reduction in the monthly family allowance, the net result will be a very small gain. It will be a gain of approximately $26 million. This is speaking in terms of the impact on the provinces not from an economic viewpoint, but from a federal relations viewpoint.
The fifth point raised by the hon. member was consultation with the provinces. This is indeed very important if we want the money to represent an increase in the hands of the families. I have written to all my provincial colleagues. None have yet made a firm commitment. I have invited them to pass on this total amount, in other words, without using any indirect way of getting all or part of the money back into the provincial treasury, via increases in rents for housing or day care centre, or through welfare payments, such as the mothers' allowance in Ontario or any other such payment. 1 am very
November 2, 1978

confident that the provinces will pass it on even though I have not yet received their formal commitment.
I have already met with five of my provincial colleagues. I will be meeting with all of them this month when this topic will be on the agenda. Under the act from a federal point of view, I confirm to my provincial colleagues that I will not consider this new child tax credit as income, thereby clarifying for them that they too should not consider it as income.
The sixth point concerned the appearance of the form and the complexities of using a tax form for 1.5 million mothers who receive family allowance but who are non-filers. The form has not yet been finalized. Our objective is to design the simplest possible form for mothers. We want them to apply and to receive the money set aside for them. Most will be non-filers because they are either on welfare or do not earn enough to pay tax. We are conscious of that and, if possible, will try to design a simple one-page form. However, we repeat, the final decision has not yet been made.
The last point raised by the hon. member was, strangely enough, with regard to SIN.


James Aloysius McGrath: 
Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that, when the minister spoke during the debate on second reading, she dealt with some of the points I raised. Indeed, she dealt with two very important points. However, there are one or two others which I should like to invite her to speak about at this stage.
The two extremely important points that I raised in my speech on second reading and on which the minister commented were the matter of universality and the principle of indexation. I want to say again how much we welcome the fact that, even though a change is being made in the system of family allowances, we are maintaining the system of universality inasmuch as there will be a family allowance payment for every child in Canada up to the age set out in the legislation.
There was brought to my attention recently a statement which appeared in the "18th Annual Review" of the Economic Council of Canada. A new member of that council, Mr. Kalmen Kaplansky, commented on universality in a sentence or two that I think put it very well:
Family Allowances
The universal social security schemes now in place have been evolved painstakingly over a long time. That they are now as universal as they have become derives from the belief, well tested in experience, that universality is the way best to minimize arbitrariness of any kind in the delivery of these programs, and, accordingly, the way best to safeguard the dignity of each and every individual who comes into contact with them.
I have said a good many times with respect to old age pensions that it made all the difference in the world when the plan became universal. And it made all the difference in the world to family allowances when they were made universal. I am glad the principle has been continued and I appreciate the strong words the minister used in that connection when she spoke on second reading.
I am also pleased that as far as the continuing operation of this legislation is concerned, indexation is being maintained. It is true the government took away the indexing of family allowances for a year a while ago and that the government is taking away for 1979 all the indexing that has been accumulating since the basic rate was set at $20. Nevertheless, it is clear that in January, 1980, the $20 rate will be escalated in accordance with the rise in the consumer price index. It is also true that the $200 refundable tax credit will be escalated in 1980 and so will the $18,000 cut-off point. These are important aspects of our social security program and I am glad that, despite the voices which have been heard against continuing these principles, they still hold in this important piece of legislation.
These are two of the points 1 made on second reading. I am glad the minister agreed with me and perhaps expressed her views in even stronger terms than I did. There were also other questions I asked hoping that they would be dealt with at this stage. She has already touched on one of them. I indicated that in our view it was extremely important to get commitments from the provinces that they would not take advantage of the refundable tax credit and take away from needy families that amount of money or any portion of it. I was glad to hear she has made this representation to the provinces but I am sorry that she has not received any commitment from them. I do feel she should stay with the issue until she does. We cannot deny her this legislation if the provinces do not play ball, but to my mind it is important they should recognize the nature of this legislation and agree not to make any reductions in any other programs because of this refundable tax credit. As the minister has said, this credit is not to be treated as income as far as this government is concerned. That is good. I hope the provinces will be Canadian and follow suit.
Another issue I raised when speaking on second reading is one in which the minister showed some interest. I do not think she has yet commented on it. I refer to the changes which are being made in the way the consumer price index is computed. We have been told that the importance of food in the basket of goods and services which is used to make up the index is being downgraded. If there is any sector of our society to which the food component is important it is our children. If the change in the consumer price index results in a lesser indexation in 1980 or 1981, then a great disservice will have been done to the poor families of this country. The minister has just said, and I

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Family Allowances
thoroughly agree with her, that for the provinces to take away any of the money which is being directed under the legislation to families in this country would be to defeat its purposes. I say to the minister that if her colleague the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce permits a change in the computation of the consumer price index such that Canadian families do not get the indexation they ought to get in 1980 or 1981, it will be just as great a disservice.
I recognize that for the population as a whole changes have to be made in the consumer price index, maybe for statistical purposes, but surely for families with growing children to which food and clothing are so important, and also for older people, there is room for a special index. I do not know whether the minister has become familiar with this issue in the time she has been with the department; I know I placed the matter before her predecessor and I hope she will have something to say about it.
I move on to the question raised by the hon. member for St. John's East on the basis of the letter written to the Minister of Finance by Mr. Fairweather. I want to express the hope that the hon. lady will make the position clearer as time goes on. I have been reading the bill and reading Mr. Fairweather's letter, and I must say I am still trying to figure it out. If all that is happening in the bill is that a woman who is legally married is required to file a return jointly with her husband, whereas a woman who is living common law does not need to do so, then I do not see that as serious. But if there is a difference in the total income they report, if, for example, a legally married woman has to report the total income coming into a house whereas a woman who is not legally married does not have to do so, and therefore gets more, it seems to me that Mr. Fairweather's point is a good one. I shall not make a judgment until there has been more discussion of the matter, maybe when we get to the other clauses where the references to couples and marriage so on appear.
I move now to another issue to which oblique references have been made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and by the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance answered the hon. member for Villeneuve with respect to his remarks about discounters-and the same remarks were made by my friend, the hon. member for Broadview, the other day-by saying that the intention was to get these payments out fast, and in his view that meant that there really was not enough time to worry about discounters getting into the picture. I am not sure that that is a very good answer. If a mother knows she is going to get a $600 or $800 cheque in April and she is in need in February or March, the temptation to go to a discounter can be quite real. I think that should be looked at more deeply than was reflected in the remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.
This leads me to a concern about something to which the Minister of National Health and Welfare referred just a few moments ago. The minister made the point in her speech at

second reading that a simple form would be sent out with the January family allowance cheque and that that form would be the kind which people who have never filed income tax returns could complete. The whole idea was that by getting that form out in January and getting it back very quickly, the work could be done and the refundable tax credit cheques sent out.
What concerns me is some language which I see in clause 5 of the bill where it says, in a proposed section 152(1) of the Income Tax Act, the following:
The minister shall, with all due dispatch, examine a taxpayer's return of income for a taxation year, assess the tax for the year, the interest and penalties, if any, payable and determine-
Then it goes on to say that the Minister of Finance, having done that, may send out the refundable tax credit cheques. What I should like to know is very simple. Does this one-page, simple form which the Minister of National Health and Welfare says her department is going to send out in January qualify as the taxpayer's return of income for a taxation year, as referred to in clause 5? In other words, can we be sure that the clearly stated and completely approved position taken by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Health and Welfare is going to be implemented? Can we be sure that that will be done? Will that simple, one-page form about which the Minister of National Health and Welfare talks qualify as a taxpayer's return for the purpose of getting this refundable tax credit into her hands?
I think the minister said that 1.5 million mothers are non-filers. These will be women who are not in the habit of filing income tax returns and who are buffaloed by almost any legal document or questionnaire they have to fill out. I appreciate that what the minister wants to do is to get for those people a simple form so that the money will come back in two or three months. Is that going to happen, or are these people going to be told, "Well, you have not yet filed a taxpayer's return of income for a taxation year"?
Some of the things I have said have been part of the speechmaking we do around here. I want to emphasize again the importance of universality, indexation and so forth, but I would like to have the minister's comments as to her determination to get commitments from the provinces, as to what she is going to do about the consumer price index, and anything further she wants to say about Mr. Fairweather's comments. In particular I should like to know if we can be sure that there will be speedy delivery of these cheques to the 1.5 million mothers to whom I referred as well as to all the rest.


Monique Bégin: May I take a few minutes to answer, Mr. Chairman?


Gérald Laniel: Agreed.


Monique Bégin: The first three points were probably comments made by the hon. member. I have listened closely to his explanation about the universality of indexation. I have already stated my commitment to those two fundamental
November 2, 1978

features of our social programs. His third point concerned my reiterating the importance for the provinces to redistribute the money to needy mothers or families. Of course, the House can be sure that I will do everything I can to achieve that and I have sufficient confidence in the fact that my provincial colleagues are good politicians and could do it at no cost at all. That will give them good publicity and it will not cost them anything since the federal treasury will pay for this program on behalf of all Canadians. I am not prepared to ask all members to start submitting petitions to provincial ministers!
The fourth point was about the consumer price index. [English]
I will not go into too many details regarding the consumer price index, but I want to make it quite clear that as far as I am concerned the new consumer price index will serve the clients of my department better. That is the attitude I would take if proposals like this came before cabinet. The new index is made up of an updated basket of goods. It includes the 1974 basket instead of the old 1967 basket to bring us closer to reality. It covers all family sizes rather than just two to six person families, as does the current one. It covers all income groups rather than just the $7,000 to $21,000 group referred to by the current consumer price index. In other words, all families earning less than $7,000 are now included. That will give a much better reflection of the needs of low income families. The new consumer price index covers more cities and more expenditure items.
All that being said, the net result is a relative decrease in the importance of the food index. It has declined from 24.8 per cent to 21.5 per cent of the consumer price index. By the same token, the importance of other items such as housing has increased. The housing factor has increased from 31.4 per cent to 34.5 per cent of the consumer price index. That part of the index will be important in the budgets of the families we are trying to help with this program.
With regard to the letter from the chairman of the Human Rights Commission, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre referred in his question to the treatment of married mothers compared with the treatment of common law situations in the income tax system. At the outset I would like to say that I do not think this bill will correct everything that is wrong in the system.
Having said that and protected myself from financial specialists, I want to say as Minister of National Health and Welfare and not as the former minister of national revenue that as far as I know common law situations have not been recognized by the income tax system. People living in common law situations usually have not enjoyed all the tax privileges offered to dependent spouses.
This time the common law situation is not viewed as it was before, and this legislation will permit in some cases mothers who are living in a common law situation to benefit from the credit, in contrast to families where the partners make good
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money. That is pretty theoretical, but if that is what the hon. member meant, it is theoretically possible.
Let me go back now to marital status as the criterion of eventual discrimination. I want to reiterate that the point raised by the chairman of the Human Rights Commission is not at all valid, so far as I can see. The married mother declares both incomes, or whatever income exists. The separated mother who has a legal separation declares her income, if any, from whatever source, as defined under net income in the income tax form, and will also declare the alimony, if there is any, or child payments. The situation is the same for divorced mothers. In the case of a de facto separation which is not legal-

-in the case of separations which are not legally recognized but which are actual separations, the mother is considered as sole parent and reports her sources of income. In the case of unmarried mothers, the woman of course reports her income once again whatever may be the source. Finally I do not see any case of discrimination based on marital status. The parents, when both are there, must report their income because the needs of the children must be determined and whether the woman is married or receives an alimony or is unmarried, as long as the family unit not within the fiscal meaning of the term, but as far as family allowances are concerned as long as the family unit does not have necessary earnings, the mother will receive a cheque. One might say that it is discrimination against men, but I am sure that was not the point which the commissioner wanted to make. 1 think that the commissioner was referring-and his letter is not quite clear in that respect to problems more especially identified by several feminist organizations a few years ago when the Carter commission was widely discussed. A point income tax or point returns were then mentioned. The Canadian system is not based on joint income tax reports. The mother, the woman, whatever her marital status, still files her own income tax report, if necessary. This I want to make quite clear. I do not really think that we should be concerned about it.

The sixth point had to do with tax discounters. There is a problem there. I would invite everyone to advise mothers to wait two months until they receive the full amount. Of course, cases might exist where mothers might wish to cash the anticipated benefits ahead of time. What was said last night in the House concerning the rate of 60 per cent which could be claimed by the tax discounters on the mother's anticipated return is quite incorrect. They cannot claim more than 15 per cent, all charges included. Hon. members will have to read the Tax Rebate Discounting Act.


An hon. Member:: Read the form.


Monique Bégin: Officials from al! the departments concerned have studied the matter. Perhaps 15 per cent is too much, but at least the amount is limited to a maximum of 15 per cent,

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Family Allowances
interest and all charges included, which was not the case before. The complete system is geared toward sending out the cheques as soon as possible, and we hope to be able to start sending them out perhaps as early as the third week of March to the most needy mothers who do not file income tax returns.
The last point concerns tax forms. The hon. member referred to clause 5 which amends the old section 152 of the act. We are still working on the form. As I understand the situation, under the Income Tax Act the wording of the taxation form is prescribed by the Minister of National Revenue. We are working on a new form which we want to be as simple as possible. I hope it can be a one-page form which would follow the requirements of the Income Tax Act and at the same time provide us with whatever information is required.
Let me just go back to what I was saying under the heading of status of women. In the case of a family with two parents, the mother will fill out the form and ask the husband for his signature because both signatures will be required. Either parent will be able to fill out the form, but in all cases where there are two parents the two signatures will be necessary. I think this answers the questions put by the hon. member.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, I notice that the minister said earlier that she would avoid answering questions based on moral grounds. I want to say to her that I consider the principle embodied in this bill to be totally immoral. I am talking about the rebate being based on family income. That principle, as the minister should very well know, she of all people in the House, is discriminatory against women. This is something which the minister has not really faced in her detailed answers to the various points that were raised. This principle is highly discriminatory against women.
She must recognize that in the legislation before us women are penalized. That is not new to the minister. She has heard me speak on this before in connection with other pieces of legislation which have been brought in by the government and which in fact she herself put forward. Not long ago I raised that question in the debate on the spouse's allowance. The kind of discrimination I am talking about here is the kind which takes away the sense of self-worth that a woman has as an individual in our society every time she must seek the approval of the older spouse-which, as the minister knows, in most cases is the man-to get the spouse's allowance. That is discrimination against women. This legislation discriminates against women also and it is contrary to the Human Rights Act.
The minister made reference to the letter which my colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East, read into the record, the letter from Mr. Fairweather, the head of the Human Rights Commission. The minister indicated that this was the first time the subject had been brought up. Also she indicated that his presentation was not valid. That is not the first time it has been brought up. This point was raised with Mr. Fairweather, the whole approach of rebating or taking into consideration the concept of family income as some kind of a basis. It has been raised repeatedly with the Human

Rights Commissioner by women's groups, individual women and individual members of parliament.
I should like to refer to one occasion when it was raised with the Human Rights Commissioner not long ago. The distinguished former chairman of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Senator Florence Bird, raised this issue with the Human Rights Commissioner before the special joint committee on the constitution. In reply he said the following:
I would be unhappy about a formula based on marriage. You know, we are over the days whether women have a right to work or not. 3.5 million women in this country work, and a quick answer would be that if a formula for eligibility is based merely on marital status, I think it is contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act.
He went on to say:
Women have the right to work and marital status in itself should not be used as an excuse for a different formulation.
I have put on record the question raised by the former commissioner of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, as well as the reply of the present commissioner of the Human Rights Commission, because they were both very concerned about this particular aspect. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs said yesterday that she was delighted people here had suddenly found the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. I am sure the minister knows that there were some of us, including herself, who were involved in the writing of that commission report.
One of the things being fought for seven years ago, and again now, was equality for women in this country. This bill begins a regressive step toward that equality. The principle embodied in the bill is discriminatory, but it is also very regressive. It makes me extremely concerned and unhappy that this kind of legislation has to be introduced into the House.
I would think the minister herself must be very uncomfortable with this kind of legislation. I am sure she will appreciate that the entire thrust of the drive for equality of women in the past decade has been based on erasing the assumption that a woman is an extension of her husband. That is what the drive for equality has been all about, that a woman can be considered independent in her own right whether in the marriage unit or outside it.
This proposal puts her back into a dependent situation. It is no longer a question of having erased the assumption that she is dependent on her husband. The fact that her income is seen as an extension of her husband's income makes her a dependant in that category. For that reason I am concerned and upset that the minister, of all people in the House, should be lending her support to this aspect of legislation which is terribly regressive.
The minister will know that the ongoing reform to legislation at both provincial and federal levels, as well as the entire thrust of sections of the Law Reform Commission in the past decade, has been focused on reforming laws which discriminate against women, particularly women in the marriage unit.
November 2, 1978

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Family Allowances
Tonight we are discussing a bill which uses the tax system to create a tax credit associated with children. I want to confirm that we are not creating any discrimination or regressivity in this system, that being the other word the hon. member used. Eligibility is not based on marital status. I will repeat that because the hon. member said I did not explain it. Maybe 1 was not clear enough the first time. Eligibility has nothing to do with marital status. Anyone with children can receive the credit, be they single, divorced, widowed, married, separated or deserted. The credit is attached to the income of the family unit, which means two parents or one parent, whatever the circumstances of a given family, and there is no relation to joint filings of joint tax returns. This relates to parents, one or two, with children in a family unit who do not benefit from having enough money.
The purpose of this bill is to see that the children of the nation are provided for, and the credit is available to the parents, or the parent in the singular, no matter who looks after the children, in order that the parent or parents have enough money for the children.
I want to confirm that the wife's income is not treated differently than the husband's income. Both sign a piece of paper. There is a problem of which I am aware, as are many of my colleagues in this House. We will always fight in order to correct the situation, but this bill involves the redistribution of family allowances to the children of Canada.
There are just a few more points in order to clarify this matter. The federal Advisory Council on the Status of Women approved wholeheartedly of this reform, and made that approval known by a resolution of the complete council, as well as through numerous speeches and meetings. I have met with many women's groups all of which approve of this reform. Some of them regretted, as I do and as I have said often, the reduction in universal family allowances.
That is another question. Women's groups have told me that they approve of this reform, and I am reporting that to this committee. This reform has been requested of us by all provincial and federal advisory councils. They wanted a change in the tax system from tax exemptions to tax credits. This is a step in that direction of which they approve.
Quite rightly from their point of view, as well as from mine, they regret the fact that in order to create that new credit, one of the sources of the new money was found in a reduction of family allowances. We decided to reduce universal family allowance, although slightly, and to redirect the funds to mothers and children in need.
I think that answers the various points made by the hon. member. I want to stress again that the signing of a piece of paper in respect of the incomes of both partners in a family already exists, and I am not talking about a taxation system per se. This exists already in respect of GIS as well as in respect of every Ontario senior citizen program, low rental housing and in all our welfare schemes.


Mr. Friesen:: Mr. Chairman, before I get into the body of my remarks I would simply point out that the minister over-

looked one question put by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, and it relates to the fact that both the husband and wife, or both parents, apparently have to sign the application form. Was that not one of the points that was made?


Monique Bégin: Yes, both parents.


Benno Friesen: Both parents have to sign, and that seems to me to be a point of discrimination. If the mother is an adult in every other way, why is she not considered an adult in this area?
I have been going over with some interest the remarks made by the minister in her speech two days ago. There are three words that keep recurring in her speech. One word is the word "reform". It is a very useful term but it can also be a very intimidating term in a speech like this. The purpose of this forum is to debate, and everybody is interested in reform, but how do you initiate debate when the minister uses that word? If I wanted to object to anything the minister has said, there is an implication that I am not interested in reform. If the minister wants to initiate debate on this bill, it would be better to use a more neutral word. Perhaps a better word would be "progressive". Everybody believes in reform and progressiveness, but if you disagree with a particular aspect of the policies that issue from those terms, then you are being retrogressive and not interested in reform.
The minister has used two other words which disturb me even more. One is the word "universality" which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is so interested in and takes great pride in, but which he is unable to get his caucus to agree with him on. I would like to ask the minister just how she intends to apply this principle of universality. Does she believe that everybody can be treated alike in this matter? She said in her speech, as reported at page 670 of Hansard'.
That is what we are proposing. In other words, we decided to put together the best of selectivity and universality.
I would like to have the minister explain how she can be a proponent of universality on one hand and selectivity on the other. The hon. minister cannot have it both ways, regardless of how good she is at gymnastics.
The third word which causes me concern is "redistribution". I take it the hon. member is referring to redistribution of wealth. How far is the minister willing to work toward the redistribution of wealth in this country? Obviously, if you talk about universality and about redistribution it infers government intervention. In fact, the minister makes a point of it at the bottom of page 672 of Hansard:
This is the first time that the tax system will be used to deliver benefits to people. That is why we give it that funny name-the refundable child tax credit, although it is a cheque sent to mothers. It goes through the tax system and because of that this machinery has been set up only for annual deliveries.
Here is the sentence which really scares me:
In future years it will be important to monitor what is best for, and what is wanted by, mothers.
November 2, 1978

Can the minister tell me to what extent the government is qualified to monitor what is best for mothers? The most fundamental institution we have in this country is the institution of the family and the integrity of the family unit. The thing which I find disturbing in this bill is not only the principle of redistribution which the hon. member refers to, but the intervention of the government into the sanctity of the family unit. I would like to have the minister explain that last sentence to me. To what extent is she willing to carry that out? The minister continues at page 673:
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre asked me that question. In all honesty I think members on the other side could agree with me that family allowances, no matter the economic circumstances of a family, are a right, by which the government shows that the nation is responsible for the well-being of.. . children-
When has it become the government's responsibility to look after children? If the government would like to do its job properly, what it needs to do is unshackle the parents so they can do their job. Perhaps we should restructure the tax system, not according to principles which the minister is introducing in this bill, but in such a way that the burdens are taken away from the parents so that they can spend their time bringing up the children.
SIN numbers have been the topic of questions and answers and repartee in this House, and I would like to ask the minister-and I am not punning on the word this time- whether the growing use of the SIN number is not part of the background, in the government's mind, of setting up the machinery for expediting guaranteed annual income. Would the minister answer those questions?


Monique Bégin: The first three points the hon. member has raised are of a philosophical nature. He has referred to three different concepts-reform, universality and redistribution. The hon. member, with whom I sat on the committee on immigration, is a great philosopher and well versed in rhetoric.
With regard to the word "reform", it is reform in the sense that I explained previously, in the sense of the tax system. It is a major reform. Reform is a normal thing on the government side, and we are very proud of the reform in this bill. We feel that it is a good reform and a major one.
The hon. member asked how far I am willing to go with regard to the word "universality". We are talking about family allowances and a universal program for every child in Canada. In terms of the money given out for each individual child, it is a modest amount, but the total expenditure amounts to $2 billion. I would ask the hon. member to read the first chapter of the report by the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, which outlines the historical development of the economy of the family. At one time children of ages 12, 13 or 14 were considered productive assets, but that has changed and, therefore, so has the economics of the family. Perhaps the hon. member forgot that I had mentioned these aspects of family life.
When the government gives a family allowance to the families of the nation, it acknowledges that children are essential to this country. It decides that in dividing up the total pie
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of government expenditures so much will go for national defence, agriculture, wharves and fishing, and that a portion will go to children!
That is what we are saying. This universality has been maintained. It does not help to pretend that it was not questioned in many quarters in Canada and it will be questioned again. This government believes in the universality of family allowances, and when I spoke of the best of selectivity and universality, I very clearly defined the new reform. We want to maintain a relative universality for every child. We are redirecting to those children in need much larger sums of money than to the ordinary children of Canada who are in good economic circumstances. That is what I said.
On the third point, redistribution of wealth, I will go very fast. The hon. members asked how far is the minister ready to go. That is very, very easy to answer. I will go as far as necessary to make sure that no longer will we have in Canada 600,000 families with a total of close to two million children living below the poverty line.
Fourth, the hon. member did not quote me correctly; he forgot part of the sentence. He was referring to that part of my speech where I said we would monitor the program to see if changes were needed in future years. That was said in reference to an annual payment versus several instalments. If I recall correctly, and the hon. member can correct me if I am wrong, I said that it is very important to me that mothers be listened to, and that we hear their voices, not only the voices of all the social workers of the country. I do not mean that social workers do not do their job, they do a good job, but I would like mothers to speak for themselves, if possible. We will create the program first if hon. members pass the bill. We want to hear from mothers who will be living with that program whether they prefer to receive several instalments rather than one large payment.
In any event, for the first year the tax system being used is not a system geared to making several payments a year; the current mechanism provides for only one yearly payment. That was the context.
As for "SIN", which is the favourite topic tonight, I do not know what the hon. member thought first; perhaps he thought there was a monster on the horizon! He asked if the government was planning-I missed some parts of the sentence-to find some hidden way to introduce a guaranteed annual income through the use of a SIN number. I fail to see the connection because then I would have to have the SIN number right away, because it would mean that we would have the guaranteed annual income. The social insurance number, as I said earlier, and maybe the member was not in the House, is required as per section 237 of the Income Tax Act. If we use the tax system, I would invite mothers who do not have one already to get one.
I just want to mention that I do not want to mix different things here, but when an hon. member asked this question the other day, members of the House had just received their pay

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Family Allowances
cheques as members of parliament with their SIN number on them. I would like to know how many members of this House refused to cash their cheques.


Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse):: Mr. Chairman, I should not want to miss this very special opportunity, the study of Bill C-10 which deals very specifically with the income of Canadian families, of saying what I think of this bill. Mr. Chairman, in the speeches made in this House by some of my colleagues, it has happened at times that an outline was given of the background of the act which first authorized the Canadian government to pay family allowances to our Canadian families.
Mr. Chairman, having been directly concerned with, and especially having participated with many others in the matter before that act was introduced in parliament, which authorizes the payment of family allowances, I must point out that we were often accused by opponents of such social legislation of being marxists and of wanting to give families things they had not earned. The young might be interested in this, to better understand the whys and wherefores of that very important social legislation, not only at that time but also in this day and age when amendments are being made to it on the basis of present needs. I should like to tell my colleagues that the legislation passed by parliament many years ago stirred up many a controversy. I remember, with considerable emotion as I remind the House of it, how a movement was organized among people who, at the time, wanted to look seriously into the situation of families with a view to introducing a policy to help the women better fulfil their role as mothers, and give the fathers additional income to enable them to assume their responsibilities.
We were regarded as general disrupters. Some even said that we were communists because we wanted to introduce in our society a social measure, a family measure, to acknowledge family needs and the sacred character of motherhood. But they forgot to say that when dramatic events occur, when the country is in a difficult situation because of war, it is in families that soldiers are sought to defend our liberties. It is in families that our technicians are sought as well as the professionals and the engineers who will, throughout the years, manufacture the weapons and the goods needed by the country to ensure its defence and security. We forgot that when some people really want to give more security to families the whole country, the entire population benefit by it.
As far as I am concerned-and I would not like to pose as an example, far from that, because many of my colleagues in this House had members of their own families who volunteered to fight abroad in order to ensure the level of security and freedom we are now enjoying-in my own family as in those of many of my hon. colleagues, it was the same thing. But should

we go on imposing obligations only to those mothers and fathers, or should we on occasion recognize them certain rights and a degree of economic security?
That is why, in 1945, the Canadian government enacted the statute under which the government could pay family allowances, and at that time such allowances were paid on a universal basis. It was then recognized that mothers, whatever their husband's incomes-because at that time husbands in most cases were the providers-were entitled to some income.
Mr. Chairman, I remember at that time some rather deep minds were saying: If we pass the family allowances legislation, we will be unduly encouraging parents to bring up large families. The suggestion was that mothers and fathers would be increasing the Canadian population because of family allowances. The young people making such suggestions did not know what they were talking about because I for one, as many others, have a large family but never did I do my duty because of any social benefit, even family allowances, nor did other parents. Love is greater than that.
Nonetheless, Mr. Chairman, recognizing the right to allowances for families is a right of association in our society. Let those in our society who have the courage to give children to our country, the human capital that is any country's greatest resource. If this is not the greatest resource, Mr. Chairman, let people rise and tell me what is the greatest resource in the country. I have always considered that the most fabulous wealth is the human resource. Hence, if human resource is the greatest wealth in our country, it is the duty of the state, which is the association of individuals and families, to give special consideration to those persons who have the courage to give this human resource to our native land. This is not achieved without sacrifice; however, it is also the source of great satisfactions. When there is a new-born in the family, all parents are delighted with the birth of this child; however, the parents are still responsible for the child. They must see that the child's needs are satisfied in a normal way. They have to ensure his education until he is self-sufficient. That is the role of parents. I would like this role to be recognized, that it be on a continuing basis the role of all persons who enter into a partnership to lay the foundations of a family.
Mr. Chairman, we deplore today, and with good reasons, the many separations, the numerous divorces, whatever the reason for them, it is not my role to judge them, it is neither my line nor my business. But as legislators, as parliamentarians whose duty it is to administer the public good, to administer the country, we have a responsibility. It is not in our line of duty to go and see in people's bedrooms why they want to have one, five, or ten children. That is not our responsibility. That is not our business. But, Mr. Chairman, when in a household there are one, two, five, ten children, that represents a wealth for our country. And it is our role as parliamentarians to see that the rights of these parents are recognized. It is our responsibility
November 2, 1978

to ensure that these parents have sufficient means to live up to their responsibilities. That is precisely the aim of Bill C-10.
I can see, unfortunately, that my colleague is most anxious to have the floor. I would gladly turn it over to her, but I think that tomorrow, even if it is in God's hands, we must continue our debate to ensure careful consideration of this bill. 1 am sorry.


Mrs. Appolloni:: Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. I want to make something very, very clear. In all modesty, I seem to be the person in this chamber who is most competent to speak for mothers, four times as competent. As a mother, I would like to state that family allowances are primarily for children, not for parents. I would also like-


Charles Robert Turner: Order, please. I am sure the hon. member will have an opportunity to state her views later in the debate. That is certainly not a point of order.


Joseph Adrien Henri Lambert: Mr. Chairman, if there is somebody in this House who holds mothers in high esteem it is certainly me, that is for sure! But a mother cannot be a mother by herself, she needs a father. May I call it ten o'clock?


Charles Robert Turner: Order, please. It being ten o'clock, it is my duty to adjourn the debate, report progress and ask for leave to resume consideration of the bill at the next sitting of the House.
Progress reported.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, I hope the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) will stay because this has to do with a question he was asked on October 17. It has to do with the subject of murder, the murder of the Newfoundland railway by the inattention and lack of caring of this government, particularly the Minister of Transport.
The Newfoundland railway had been in existence since the 1890s, built through much toil and difficulty by the people of Newfoundland. Since 1949 it has been owned by the Government of Canada which has given it to CN to operate.
On July 24 the Sullivan commission made an interim report on Newfoundland transportation problems. One recommenda-
Adjournment Debate
tion of that commission, which the government had received two months earlier, is that the Newfoundland railway be abandoned, be done away with over a period of five to ten years. That recommendation was immediately repudiated by the Newfoundland members of this House. It was repudiated by the Progressive Conservative caucus in Ottawa on August 14. It was repudiated by Premier Moores and the Newfoundland government on August 22.
On August 3 I wrote the Minister of Transport and I have not had any reply yet, Mr. Speaker. On August 211 wrote the Minister of Transport asking him what attitude the government was taking with relation to the railway and the recommendation which had been made, and pointing out to him that business was leaving the railway because of the uncertainty and that certain trains had been discontinued from Bishop's Falls to St. John's. On August 22, as I said, the province repudiated that recommendation.
I wrote the minister again on September 6. None of these letter were ever answered by the three-in-one minister-justice, transport and wheat. He is not doing his job properly in any one of the three. He did not answer my letter of September 6 pointing out that business was leaving the railway because of uncertainty and because government was taking no position. 1 asked what was the position of the Canadian government.
On September 12 the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) spoke in St. John's and said the Canadian government accepted the position taken by the government of Newfoundland that they would not accept the position that our railway should be done away with, and that the onus was now on all concerned to test the validity of the proposition that freight traffic could be increased and the service made more attractive to users. He said there had to be a new sense of commitment on the part of CNR, that it must accept the decision. That is what the minister's colleague said on September 12.
I asked a question in this House on October 17. I said that nothing was being done to see that the system continued or to assist CN in operating it. I asked the minister whether the government would accept its responsibility to meet any losses proven to be properly realized on the Newfoundland railway system so that CN does not have to meet them from its own revenue from elsewhere-which it should not have to do; it is a government railway-and would the government direct CN to manage the railway efficiently and try to attract traffic back and give it a real chance to put in new management? I asked, would they set the uncertainty at rest.
I pointed out to the minister that there were 20 more lay-offs and two more trains cancelled in breach of an undertaking the minister had given that there would be no more lay-offs while the Sullivan commission continued its work. The minister said he would investigate the lay-offs. He has not reported to me since October 17, this indifferent and neglect-

November 2, 1978
Adjournment Debate
ful minister, so I do not know what investigation he carried out.
1 gave up on the minister then, Mr. Speaker. He showed he did not want to meet with the railway unions, he did not want to have a meeting with anybody from Newfoundland. He said he wanted to wait for the final report of the Sullivan commission in 1979 before meeting anyone. He said that if Newfoundland wanted to have a railway the money would have to come out of other moneys for transportation in Newfoundland. That is his attitude.
On October 24 I gave up on him and wrote to the Secretary of State for External Affairs to ask him to convene a meeting. After that letter was delivered I got information indicating to me that CN had instructed their Newfoundland division to cut their next year's budget in half, by over half a million dollars. That is going to cost 200 people their jobs in the next construction season. They will not be improving the CN track. They are cutting their maintenance budget by $500,000, causing more lay-offs in January as well as the laying idle of equipment. As well, they are not to replace some 12 workers, who have left the department, responsible for constructing bridges and buildings. They are not to hire anyone to replace any of them.
I have now called on the minister, in another letter dated October 30, to take some action to convene a meeting with interested Newfoundland MPs-the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) and myself; the Liberal members are showing no interest. 1 asked him to give instructions to CN that they are to stop this attempt to sabotage the Newfoundland railway by cutting away all its funds. I refer to the savage cuts in Newfoundland by comparison with only $173,000 in the budgets of all the other three maritime provinces.
What kind of a record of negligence does this constitute against a minister who has not answered these letters which have been sent to him since August 3? They are dated August 3, August 21, September 6; and on October 24 and October 30 I wrote to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The minister deliberately wants to see the Newfoundland railway go by neglect and inattention. It is a case of a battered railway, not a battered wife. It is a case of letting CN go ahead and finish the Newfoundland railway now or in 1979 so that there will be no business going on the railway; and then the story will be that there is no business on the railway, there is no railway to save and the 3,000 jobs have to go. Two thousand to three thousand Newfoundlanders are being sacrificed by this minister's inattention to his duties and lack of response to these requests.


Hugh Alan Anderson: Mr. Speaker, in March of 1977 a commission of inquiry into transportation in Newfoundland was formed under the chairmanship of Dr. Arthur Sullivan. The commission presented the first volume of its report in July of this year. In that volume the commission recommended, among other things, that the rail-
[Mr. Crosbie.J
way should be phased out in ten years; the railway would have an opportunity to demonstrate its continuing role; and re-evaluation of the decision to abandon would take place after a five-year period.
The minister has made it very clear that action in relation to the Newfoundland railway is expected by us to be a bilateral matter, just as the creation of the Sullivan commission, its personnel and terms of reference were agreed upon by both the federal and provincial governments. To this end a federal-provincial committee on the Sullivan commission has been set up to analyse all the recommendations with respect to implementation costs, decision timing and implementation processes. The committee has met twice and will continue to meet approximately on a monthly basis.
In addition, Transport Canada officials are discussing with Canadian National possible courses of positive action designed to make the railway more attractive to shippers, and the minister has had preliminary discussions with Dr. Bandeen about the railway as well.
There has been communication between the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) and the government of Newfoundland and representatives of labour on a number of issues related to the Sullivan report.
While CN has made an alteration in train schedules, I emphasize that no trains have been cancelled. Basically the change referred to by the hon. member opposite involves holding over one train in Bishop's Falls each Saturday for 24 hours and adding it to the train going through Bishop's Falls the following day. This does not result in a change of service to shippers, and the CN has confirmed that the change was instituted solely in response to changes in the level and flow of business. Twelve men will be laid off as a result of this action. A further seven men will be laid off as a national agreement made between CN and the union with respect to a reduction in yard crew personnel comes into effect in Newfoundland. This agreement has already been implemented in many other parts of Canada. Canadian National has decided to postpone the regional implementation of this agreement affecting the seven men until April of 1979.


FISHERIES-RIGHTS OF INDIAN BANDS
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich);: Mr. Speaker, over the past fortnight I have twice been given the put-down, first on October 19 by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and more recently on October 30 by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Faulkner), for asking very important questions about fisheries management. First the Prime Minister said that I was asking a goofy question. Then the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development said I was asking a silly question.
My questions were quite legitimate, and they deserved straightforward answers. The replies were, in fact, goofy and silly because they were deliberate attempts on the part of the ministers concerned to sidestep the problem about which I was seeking clarification. By making light of my questions the
November 2, 1978

respondents were obviously betraying their embarrassment and were hopeful that I would be put off or that the issue would be clouded by their frivolous replies. I am not to be put off; there is too much at issue.
When the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) displays petulance in this House at failure of a colleague to inform him of a matter which encroaches on his sphere of interest, concern and responsibility, and when he displays that petulance by spitting out that, in his view, somebody goofed-not in his department but in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development-by not informing the Department of Fisheries and the Environment, there is obviously something important at issue. It was clear from the context that the goof was in the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
This is how it all began. In September of 1977 an Indian band in British Columbia passed a bylaw claiming sole jurisdiction over fish passing through the reserve. On the face of it, this is perhaps no great deal, but section 91(12) of the BNA Act assigned to the Parliament of Canada exclusive legislative jurisdiction over sea, coast and inland fisheries. This responsibility for exercising jurisdiction is, by statute, passed on to the Minister of Fisheries. It is clear, therefore, that there was a conflict of jurisdiction in the making betw een that claimed by the Indian band, on the one hand, and that assigned by the BNA Act to the Parliament of Canada.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has certain responsibilities here too. All bylaws passed by the Indian bands are to be sent to his department where he is to vet them, and if he considers any as claiming the exercise of powers beyond those to which the Indian band is entitled, he can disallow them under section 82, but he must do so within 40 days. That was not done. Therefore, by November or December of 1977 the bylaw became law.
Now we have to ask ourselves: was this an administrative slip-up or was it deliberate? Were the ministers' advisers not aware of the provisions of the BNA Act? If they were not, I think I am entitled to ask why they are the ministers' advisers. Did the minister decide on his own to withhold his powers of disallowance? We do not know. We can suspect, but we do not know for sure.
We do know, however, that the Minister of Fisheries was unaware of this development until it was brought to his attention in May or June of this year, six months later. How is the Minister of Fisheries to exercise his responsibilities under the constitution and under the statute if part of his jurisdiction is taken from him? The parliamentary secretary who will reply was parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Fisheries at the time, and he is in a spot. How can the Minister of Fisheries exercise his responsibilities in the international field, let alone the domestic field-that is, how can he exercise his responsibilities internationally with credibility-when he cannot assure his foreign counterparts that the management of the
Adjournment Debate
fisheries in Canada is entirely within his hands? He cannot say that now.
These were not frivolous, silly or goofy questions. These are serious questions going right to the heart of our constitution and the credibility of this government. The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development might very well have had a scheme to extend some measure of jurisdiction, to winkle away from the Minister of Fisheries some jurisdiction which properly belonged to him. Why otherwise did he not alert his colleague that the bylaw would be encroaching on the jurisdiction of the Minister of Fisheries?
What makes me think that the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development deliberately refrained from disallowing this bylaw is that I have another document which was prepared within the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development indicating that revisions of the Indian Act are in the offing and that they contain proposals to extend wide powers to Indian bands over fishing and hunting. If we get into the hunting business, we are into another department, namely, the Department of the Environment, because the minister has certain responsibilities with respect to the Migratory Birds Convention Act. What the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is doing is involving not only the Minister of the Environment but the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Jamieson) in bilateral relations with our neighbour to the south. Is the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development now deciding to take upon itself the rewriting of our bilateral agreements? Should it be proposing legislation which would require Canada to open a treaty with a friendly power?
To come back to the fisheries, let me point out that the main problem, of course, is fisheries management. Management cannot be effective under two sets of managers, and I think the parliamentary secretary would probably agree if he were free to speak his own mind, particularly when each has its own separate objectives. No one is questioning the Indians' claim to a food fishery, or a food hunt for that matter. That is and can always be within their respective rights, but it is not clear how far this claimed jurisdiction would go into commercial fishing. Commercial fishing is legitimate and under licence by the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment. I feel these questions deserve straightforward answers.


Hugh Alan Anderson: Mr. Speaker, first may I say that recent problems in British Columbia concerning Indian fishing are merely symptoms of long-standing issues and uncertainties surrounding Indian fishing rights. As the hon. member is no doubt aware, the allocation of our increasingly pressured fish and game resources among different and competing sectors of society is a complex task. This situation forms the backdrop against which we are trying to find solutions to some of our current problems, solutions which will be compatible with legitimate Indian rights as well as with the exigencies of modern resource management.

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Adjournment Debate
There are two constitutional responsibilities at issue: to manage the fisheries as a whole, and to manage Indian lands in the perspective of a long-standing historical relationship with Indian people.
At the federal government level, an interdepartmental committee on Indian hunting and fishing now is tackling some of the underlying issues to which I have referred. It is developing long-term statutory, policy and administrative solutions. Both the Minister of Fisheries and the Environment (Mr. LeBlanc) and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Faulkner) have found through recent discussions that they are already in broad agreement on certain central principles and objectives. They share a sense of the importance of fishing to the social and economic well-being of Indian people. They recognize, as do the majority of Indian people, the need for wise management and conservation of fishery resources. They share the objective of increased participation by Indian people in the resource management area.
May I turn to the specific issue of the Squamish band bylaw No. 10. This bylaw, entitled: "A By-law for the Preservation, Protection and Management of Fish on the Reserve", draws heavily on fisheries regulations. It was passed by the band pursuant to one of its enumerated powers under
section 81 of the Indian Act which authorizes an Indian band council to pass bylaws on a series of matters applicable within its area of jurisdiction, as the council of a local municipality does.
Although section 82 of the Indian Act empowers the minister to disallow a by-law within 40 days after a copy has been forwarded to his office, he is very reluctant, as is the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, to interfere with the local government powers of a band council. As a result, he seldom disallows a bylaw unless it can be shown clearly to be patently ultra vires, beyond the band's jurisdiction or discriminatory within the context of human rights legislation. This is the crux of the situation. As Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, he must defend the rights and uphold the legitimate powers of a band council as enumerated within the Indian Act. He cannot co-operate with any attempts by a band council to exercise such rights or powers outside its jurisdiction.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.21 p.m., without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, November 3, 1978