1978-05-19

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[English)

Mr. Cecil Smith (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing importance. VIA Rail have now confirmed they will not be prepared to take over passenger runs until the end of June. Car-Go-Rail service was to terminate on May 1 but was extended to June 1. Because of this further delay in takeover by VIA Rail, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie):
That Car-Go-Rail service remain in effect until such time as the VIA takeover is completed, and that rates remain the same for passenger cars from Churchill and Gillam, $60 and $69 respectively, one way, to Thompson.


Mr. Speaker:: Presentation of such a motion for discussion, pursuant to Standing Order 43, requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Some hors. Members: No.


IMMIGRATION
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster;: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 1 wish to raise a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. It concerns the case of Mr. Galindo Madrid who is seeking refuge in Canada from the Pinochet regime of Chile.
In view of the fact that Mr. Madrid has been advised by the Minister of Employment and Immigration that he will be deported to Chile at the end of June, in view of the fact that he has not yet exhausted his legal remedies in Canada, there still being an appeal to the Federal Court, and in view of the real risk that he will again be tortured and imprisoned in Chile as he was shortly after the coup d'etat, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That the minister provide sufficient time for Mr. Madrid to complete any legal proceedings and, further, that the minister exercise his discretion and permit Mr. Madrid to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds.
Mr. Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 43, such a motion can be presented for debate only with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mrs. Jean E. Pigott (Ottawa-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Urban Affairs, but in his absence I will direct it to the Prime Minister. The minister of housing of the province of Ontario is on record as rejecting the federal minister's practice of consultation by telex and telegram, as are most of his colleagues. In response to the minister's first telex, the Ontario minister sent a request for immediate consultation.
Would the Prime Minister tell the House why the Minister of State for Urban Affairs has not even bothered to arrange a meeting with the Ontario minister to go over his new program, the municipal grants program 9


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I will gladly look into the matter, 1 am not aware of what telexes have been exchanged. I can only tell the hon. lady that frequently the premiers and myself have consultation through telexes and I am not surprised that the minister responsible for housing did the same thing.
In so far as meetings are concerned there have been very frequent meetings among the federal and provincial ministers of housing. I am sure the minister will be prepared to have another one, if the hon. lady wants to ask him the question.


Jean Elizabeth Pigott: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the Prime Minister does not realize that there have not been frequent consultations with the ministers. There have been at the official level, but not with the ministers

May 19, 1978
Oral Questions
My supplementary question is directed to the minister of housing. One would think that after the mauling which the Minister of Finance has taken over the sales tax fiasco, the minister responsible for housing would tread a little more carefully. He has been meeting with the provinces individually, but is he afraid to meet them collectively around the same table?
Will the minister tell the House why he is afraid to meet the provinces at a federal-provincial meeting of ministers? Will he also tell the House when he will call such a meeting?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: do not think I have been afraid of meeting my provincial counterparts. I did it in Edmonton-


Mr. Paproski:: You bombed out there.


André Ouellet: -and it was a very successful and fruitful meeting. I will be quite glad to have another meeting with my counterparts at any time that suits all of them. The hon. member at one time indicated a meeting had been cancelled. I want to assure the House that I have never cancelled a meeting. In fact, the previous minister of housing for Alberta intended to host a meeting of provincial ministers of housing and invited the federal minister to it. The minister of housing for Alberta received a reply from many of his counterparts, indicating they would not be ready at the date he suggested. Since then, I understand this person is no longer the minister of housing for Alberta.


Steve Eugene Paproski: He is running against your government.


André Ouellet: Therefore, he could not pursue his efforts along this line. I want to assure the hon. member that I have had discussions with many provincial ministers responsible for housing and municipal affairs. Meetings are taking place with each province in order to sign an agreement on both the housing package and the community services package. These meetings are very successful, maybe not in the mind of the hon. member but surely in the minds of those who take part in these meetings. They are advantageous for the people who need affordable housing in Canada.


Jean Elizabeth Pigott: Mr. Speaker, the minister says there was not a cancellation of that meeting. But telexes really are not a great idea when one is trying to bring forth new proposals for housing and, under municipal grants, put a whole new direction into municipal affairs.
My question is: The minister's latest excursion under the municipal grants program has already been criticized by the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In view of the concern expressed by those two provinces that the government's Liberal patronage machine will completely ignore their provincial jurisdiction, will the minister assure the House that there will be no consultations among federal officials and municipal authorities or, more particularly, among pork-barrelling Liberal politicians and local officials, before the grants under this program are awarded?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why the hon. member is so afraid of a good program that has been put forward by this government.


An hon. Member:: Because of your record of patronage.


André Ouellet: It seems quite clear that the hon. member recognizes the value and the merits of such programs, but she is trying to do her utmost to discredit them.


MUNICIPAL GRANTS PROGRAM-COMMUNICATION WITH QUEBEC
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, the program is being discredited by the minister's high-handed attitude in dealing with the provinces of this country. That is the problem we are facing.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: I ask the minister if he is in a position to tell the House how he is proposing to get around the Quebec intergovernmental affairs act which prohibits municipalities in the province of Quebec from dealing directly with the Government of Canada.
Perhaps while he is on his feet the minister might explain to the House and the country why, on a question that violates the constitution of this country and infringes on provincial jurisdiction, he would take a 15-page telegram to explain this program to the province of Quebec? Why would he not meet with his counterpart in the province of Quebec, or are communications completely blocked off between Ottawa and Quebec?


Hon. Andr6 Ouellet (Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to say that there is no infringement of provincial rights. Second, the federal government does not intend to deal directly with the municipalities: the hon. member is totally wrong in assuming that. If he is afraid that the intergovernmental act that he referred to would be infringed, I say he has no reason to fear this because the federal government does not intend to deal directly with the municipalities.
In concluding my remarks I would like to say there has already been a series of meetings with provincial ministers. There will be others. The program will be put in place according to the priorities of the provinces, as they asked me to do when in Edmonton. The program that has been released is as a result of consultation among the ten ministers of housing of the provinces and myself in Edmonton a few months ago.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the program that is now in place is in difficulty because it was anticipated that we would be in a federal election campaign. The minister anticipated this program would strengthen the government in dealing directly with the municipalities and bypassing the provinces- another method of pork-barrelling.
May 19, 1978

Can the minister explain to the House how it is possible for the government to proceed with this program, which clearly infringes upon provincial jurisdiction, at a time when the Government of Canada has already done so in the area of provincial sales taxes? Can the minister, further, explain how he can proceed with this program when two of the largest provinces in this country, Ontario and Quebec, are clearly unhappy about it? Indeed, the province of Quebec is not prepared to go along with it.
In light of that, is the minister now prepared to announce that he will call his provincial counterparts together to discuss the proposals that he outlined to them by telex? Is he, at least now, prepared to sit down with them because it is obvious the program does infringe upon provincial jurisdiction?


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, my answer is that I have not outlined the federal proposal in a telex: it was outlined to them at the time of the federal-provincial conference. After that federal-provincial conference it was discussed by officials of both the federal and provincial authorities. It was also discussed at the first ministers' conference. It was confirmed in a telex that was sent. Therefore, there was a series of activities which took into account a series of consultations with the provinces in arriving at a program that would allow the local authority to create jobs at the local level and have programs that are urgent in various parts of Canada.
What we want to do-and I do not know how the hon. member can find this unconstitutional-is put $150 million at the disposal of the provinces to approve municipal projects that will create jobs in Canada now, for the best advantage of Canadians.


James Aloysius McGrath: Perhaps the minister will explain to the House and the country what constitutional authority he, as a minister of the government, has for funding hockey rinks, libraries and daycare centres which are clearly within provincial jurisdiction.
In light of the very delicate fabric of the confederation that holds this nation together, because of this kind of confrontation antic, is the minister now prepared to go to Quebec City and meet with Mr. Tardif, who yesterday expressed grave concern in the Quebec National Assembly over this penchant for dealing in provincial jurisdiction? Also, will he meet with his provincial counterpart in Toronto? Failing that, is the minister now prepared to withdraw that program?


André Ouellet: My answer is yes, Mr. Speaker; in fact, I spoke with Mr. Tardif over the telephone yesterday. He will decide when we will meet. I indicated to him that I am ready to meet him. He is supposed to call me back to tell me when and where we will meet, possibly next week.
In answering the second part of the hon. member's question, the program proposed to the provinces for municipal projects is a continuation of sectorial programs in which the federal government is active. It has received the support of members from both sides of the House. I am referring in particular to the sewage treatment program, to the Neighbourhood
Oral Questions
Improvement Program and to the municipal incentive grants where the federal government is paying for municipal projects.
We have said we shall continue these programs. We shall not only allow these three types of programs to continue, but we shall allow the municipalities and the provinces more flexibility in choosing schemes under these three types of projects or seven other categories of projects which could be considered priorities by the municipalities. This is a very flexible program we have put forward for good projects which are creating jobs in Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: Flexible sewers.


FISHERIES
Mr. Stuart Leggatt (New Westminster):: 
Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Can the minister confirm that under the terms of that interim agreement, Canadian fishermen were to be allowed to fish off the state of Washington commencing May 1 and that, in fact, a decision has still not been made by the United States authorities? Canadian fishermen still do not have the right to fish off the coast of Washington, and they have already lost almost a month's fishing. In other words, the United States has failed to live up to any of the terms of the agreement to date, while we have and we have been prejudiced as a result.
5586

May 19, 1978
Oral Questions


Mr. LeBlanc (Westmorland-Kent):: It is not as dramatic as the hon. member makes it sound. The fact is, however, that we have given the United States authorities a period of time in which to consult following the discussions which took place here last week. We have indicated that we cannot see a situation which would drag on all summer, because our fishermen would then be paying the price of the delay.
I might add that the significant fishery off the U.S. coast is not in early May but begins slightly later than that, and that our fishermen are still fishing off the coast of Alaska under the terms of the 1978 agreement.


Stuart Malcolm Leggatt: Given the fact that most U.S. salmon have to travel off the coast of Vancouver Island to reach Puget Sound, and that a good many Canadian salmon must also travel through the same waters to reach the Georgia Strait, has the minister advised his United States counterpart that if no agreement is forthcoming with regard to this matter, Canada might have to resort to the alternative which one of his predecessors, Jimmy Sinclair, used, which was to move Canadian gillnetters off the coast of Vancouver Island and make a major fishing effort to catch all salmon?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, we have made it very clear that if we cannot come to an agreement and there is no 1978 interim agreement, the fishermen of each country will then be confined to waters of their own country, in which case what the hon. member is suggesting would take place automatically.


MANPOWER
Mr. C. A. Gauthier (Roberval):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
In my riding of Roberval, a group of four students got together to prepare and present a project. They have worked for weeks every night to make sure their project met the criteria and it was accepted. I have just been told that only one student out of four will not work at that project. Could the minister tell me if that is normal or if this is a new regulation governing acceptance of manpower in these projects?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his representations. I do not know whether or not it is a regulation. I will have to examine this situation and report to the hon. member.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question. If it is a regulation and if the question is exact, would it not be discouraging for any group of students who have worked at preparing future projects?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: No, Mr. Speaker, my experience has been that young people in Canada are not turned off by one rejection or one particular regulation. The fact is that they work even harder the next time to see that they come within the criteria.


FINANCE
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance who wants to have it both ways. He told this House on Wednesday that Alberta was offered the same deal under his sales tax rebate program as the other provinces because of Alberta's oil and the incentives of the federal government to aid in the development of heavy oil projects. However, in the minister's budget address he stated that he did not include Alberta because Alberta did not have a sales tax, not because of incentives to the oil industry which, incidentally, benefits all Canadians.
Now that the rules have been changed and Quebec is getting $186 million with no strings attached, will the minister offer Alberta taxpayers the same rebate that is being offered to Quebec taxpayers?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I have stated, and I repeat, that at the time of the budget I said to the government of Alberta that I wanted to help the provinces which had sales taxes. Of course, Alberta is privileged enough not to need any sales tax and the scheme does not apply to Alberta.


Mr. Clark:: Now you have changed the rules.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: At the same time, I said to the Alberta minister of finance that there would be in the budget other things which could aid in the development of Alberta. I did not mention what it was to be because I had to keep that information for budget night.
On budget night I declared that the federal government was willing to make it easier for the development of heavy oil reserves and tar sands in Alberta in order to bring about more development there. The maritimes, for example, have a special deal, so to speak, because we have paid the maritimes three points and they have not contributed a single point because they are in a financial situation completely different from that of the central and western provinces.


Thomas Gordon Towers: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has stated from time to time that it would be good to have a voice from Alberta in the cabinet. He now has that voice. I would like to ask the Minister of Finance whether Alberta's representative in the cabinet, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, had an opportunity to veto, or did he agree with the proposal to pay $85 directly to Quebec taxpayers, at the same time not paying anything to Alberta taxpayers, thereby selling Albertans down the river?
May 19, 1978


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Vancouver South.


Charles Joseph Clark: Silence tells the story.


Mr. Fraser:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for-


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, may I reply?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I have done something that I do often. When a question is clearly out of order, I have gone to another questioner. In a sense, that does not thwart justice because there are occasions when there may be an indication of a desire to reply but I will not permit the reply because the question is out of order. But I should at least state the reason. Obviously, the question that was just put was out of order because it was clearly argumentative.


INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS
John Allen Fraser: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. It concerns the long overdue report on Canadian government policy on international economic boycotts, the second semi-annual report which, according to the first report, was to be due in March of this year.
My question to the minister is, was the delay in presenting this report in any way related to a change in the policy of the government or a reassessment of government policy?


Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, in answering that question I would like to state that certainly Alberta was not sold down the river in the budget.


An hon. Member:: But you were.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. That question was out of order, so the answer will have to be confined to the question that is in order.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: Alberta benefited a great deal from the tax measures in the budget. May I say, in reply to the hon. member's question with regard to the Arab boycott clauses, that I will be reporting very soon. The delay, if there is any, is due to an attempt by the cabinet to clarify the position for all Canadian businesses in Canada.


John Allen Fraser: May I say to the minister through you, Mr. Speaker, that there is some indication from departmental officials that this report could be delayed for as much as two months. I ask the minister to assure this House that we will
Oral Questions
not have a delay of anything like that long, and to give us some idea when we will have the report and a statement, if one is coming, as to a change in policy.


John (Jack) Henry Horner: I feel very confident, Mr. Speaker, that I will be able to table that report next week.


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Howard Johnston (Okanagan-Kootenay):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport and it arises out of the renewed interest in the air crash at Cranbrook, British Columbia. Is the minister satisfied with the statement from a Department of Transport official that another month will be necessary to complete the transcript of the tapes from the Pacific Western Airlines jet which crashed at Cranbrook and, if so, how does the minister intend to meet the May 23 deadline ordered by the coroner for presentation of those tapes?


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the department has no problem about meeting the request for the tapes. Indeed, it was our position that that was the kind of evidence the coroner might want to have if the content of the tapes was important to him. The department's problem is that the actual analysing of the tapes is a very difficult matter indeed, having to do with the problem of the identification of particular voices and of many messages which may be on the same piece of tape. That job, which is a highly technical, expert job, will indeed take some time to complete.
In other words, our position, basically, is that what we have, we can make available to the coroner; but what we do not have, because experts have not completed their work, obviously we cannot make available.


Howard Earl Johnston: I wonder, then, if the minister and the department have had the same facility in bringing rescue, firefighting equipment and personnel up to the strength prescribed by existing departmental regulations at airports such as Cranbrook and others in that category in the country?


Otto Emil Lang: There has been a great deal of confusion in the press reports about many of the things related to the Cranbrook incident. But in this case also, there has been confusion between the standards which are applied by the department as a matter of condition for the use of an airport-and, generally speaking, those standards are being met-and, on the other hand, some standards which are much higher than those recommended by ICAO for adoption but which have not yet been adopted as standards in Canada or in many other countries.
80038-63)4

May 19, 1978
Oral Questions NATIONAL REVENUE


POLITICAL ACTIVITIES OF CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS
Miss Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister: it follows on the questions placed by my colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East, yesterday with regard to the status of Revenue Canada's circular 78-3.1 should like to ask the Prime Minister if he can now clarify the status of that circular, which the Minister of National Revenue has said is withdrawn but the intent of which he indicated is not withdrawn.
Will the Prime Minister, therefore, give us a guarantee that, contrary to what the Minister of National Revenue has said, no action will be taken against any charitable organization with regard to their tax exempt status until such time as these guidelines have been revised in consultation with the charitable organizations of this country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am not quite sure in what context the minister spoke about intent, but certainly I can support him if he says that the intent of the circular is to explain to people, as best the department can, what the law is. That intent is not withdrawn. We always want to be helpful to the taxpayer in explaining what the law is. The law itself is not withdrawn. The circular was withdrawn, but not the intent to help people interpret the law.
If we can, this is the intention of the minister, come up with a more helpful circular-and that is why the previous circular was withdrawn-we will do so. But we will not withdraw the intent to apply the law; we will continue applying the law. In the last resort, the courts will be the judge of what the law says, not the minister, his department or the hon. lady.


Charles Joseph Clark: The "hon. member."


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, that is not what the Minister of National Revenue said. What I want clarified is his statement which was as follows:
-we have to draw the line somewhere and that it has been drawn at highly organized attempts to influence a government for a purpose "particular to the organization".
What I want to know is, what kind of intimidation does this mean, for example, for the Canadian Association in Support of Native People if it continues to try to influence the government to settle aboriginal rights; or what kind of threat does this mean, for instance, to the Positive Action organization in the province of Quebec if it tries to influence the provincial government of that province in the interests of national unity?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. lady-


Charles Joseph Clark: The "hon. member".


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -is asking me for a legal opinion on the status of a particular association.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: No, I am not.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am saying that the courts, in the last resort, will judge whether an organization is charitable as defined by the law. The hon. lady-


Charles Joseph Clark: The "hon. member".


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -is asking me about a particular organization: she wants to know if a citizen who contributes to the organization can deduct the amount from his income tax. Surely it is the purpose of the minister to try to help people to answer this question. That is the purpose of this circular and of previous such circulars. The law remains, and surely the hon. lady supports the intention of the law, which is not to give tax exemption to people who are not giving to charitable organizations. This is a simple situation that the law puts before us.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister still has not got the point that his Minister of National Revenue is making. The point is that the Minister of National Revenue said that if charitable organizations-not individuals-involve themselves in any kind of political activity designed to influence a government, they could lose their tax exempt status. I ask the Prime Minister, what is going to happen to organizations which have been carrying on that kind of activity over the years, until such time as the guidelines have been revised? That is what we are asking the Prime Minister.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They do not have to listen to the minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: No one else does.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. lady-


Charles Joseph Clark: The "hon. member".


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -is rejoicing at the fact that I say the law is superior to any minister's guidance. It is the judge who, in the last resort, decides what the law is.


Charles Joseph Clark: This is a new concept of ministerial responsibility.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Now the Leader of the Opposition wants to butt in. I suggest that you recognize him, Mr. Speaker, because it is 20 minutes to twelve o'clock and I am sure he will wait until 2 minutes to twelve o'clock before butting in.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If the hon. lady-


Charles Joseph Clark: "Hon. member".


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -needs assistance, she needs it now, not at 2 minutes to 12, so perhaps the Leader of the Opposition can join in the debate.
May 19, 1978


AIRPORTS
Mr. Albert Bechard (Bonaventure-tles-de-la-Madeleine):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to the Minister of Transport.
In view of what is known so far about the studies of Department of Transport experts on the construction of an airport in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine, whether jets or Dash-7 type of aircraft use it eventually, and with the advent of the MLS, and in view of the cramped quarters and therefore the total lack of comfort of what is now known as the Iles-de-la-Madeleine terminal building, can the minister tell the House whether he intends to order the construction of a decent terminal building in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine this year in order to calm the justified impatience of that island population and, must I add, their MP?


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's impatience with developments in that particular airport area. We have now well advanced examination of the question of the use of the Dash-7 for several airports there. That will help us to decide what is needed in the way of further facilities. In the last few days a member from my office, as well as my officials, have been visiting the island airport. I will have from them a first-hand report on the nature of the quality of the terminal facilities and also recommendations upon which I expect to be able to act very quickly for their improvement.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In 1976, his department and the government of Manitoba signed the Northland agreement under which the federal and provincial governments, on a shared cost basis, would spend $138 million for development and the employment of people in northern Manitoba.
The present government of Manitoba has cut back those programs very, very drastically and hundreds of people have been laid off by the provincial department of northern affairs. Over 1,000 people involved in projects on an hourly basis have been laid off. Was the minister's department consulted about these decisions? Was agreement arrived at with the province to proceed with these very severe cutbacks in employment?
Oral Questions


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, indeed there have been consultations and exchanges between the officials of my department and those of the Manitoba government. As we know, the government having changed there, the new government decided to reduce considerably some of its programs and expenditures. Recently, we were advised that they wanted to reduce expenditures under the agreement on the development of lands in northern Manitoba, but I must say to the hon. member that we did not accept that those reductions be allotted to other purposes within the agreement. We will accept transfers of funds provided the main purposes of the agreement are respected. But if there is any intention of redirecting those amounts to new programs, new projects and new objectives, I think we will oppose our contributing to them.


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, under certain programs, such as the New Careers program, in which I think some 500 people were involved, the provincial government was required to find employment in its various departments when the people involved had finished their training. In the view of the federal government, is the provincial government required under the agreement it signed, to which program the federal government has contributed a great deal of money, to find employment for the people who are now in the training program?
Is the minister's department continuing to pass on 60 per cent of the $138 million which the federal government has to pay under this agreement? Is it continuing to pay its share when it now knows that substantial parts of that program have been either reduced or eliminated?


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, referring to the last part of the hon. member's question, I should say that if they have reduced the program we are not going to pay our 60 per cent of the cost. That money will be spent on and applied to other projects which are not under the agreement.
As to the first part of the question, the commitment that people trained under the program would be given a job within the Manitoba civil service was made in an attempt to achieve that end. We understand it is always difficult when there is no need for jobs. When a government decides to cut off a program and reduce the number of its public servants, it is always difficult to fing jobs for newcomers. Obviously, there will be a need for comprehension of that difficulty. Nevertheless, we will be pushing the provincial government to help find jobs for these people. We will try to help find jobs for them as soon as they come out of the training program.

May 19, 1978
Oral Questions URBAN AFFAIRS


PURIFICATION BY OUTAOUAIS SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT
Mr. Paul Yewchuk (Athabasca):: 
Paul Yewchuk: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that experts in the field of sewage treatment have declared that this plant will not do these things and is outdated before it begins, can the minister indicate whether he is willing to re-examine the possibility of redesigning the plant? If not, what logic is there in building a plant which will not do the job and is outdated before it gets off the ground?


André Ouellet: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to study this matter.


COMBINES
Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the right hon. Prime Minister: it centres around the unfortunate uranium cartel incident. On August 5, 1977, the Prime Minister told the House the following:
We will put every fact we have before parliament so it can debate this matter properly.
Will the Prime Minister tell the House, now, when he proposes to put the facts before us in respect of the uranium cartel, in view of the fact that a motion asking for certain documents to be produced was talked out by his Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources last night?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member will send me a copy of the context in which I said that, perhaps I will be able to enlighten him further. My recollection is that the House was debating the policy itself and denying our claim that it had helped the uranium industry, helped to preserve jobs in Canada and, indeed, was a farsighted act which permitted the Canadian uranium industry to be in a good posture.


Charles Joseph Clark: It broke the law.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I said that at any time we would be prepared to debate this policy. I think there are several opposition days left before the end of June. Why does the opposition not take a day to quarrel with our uranium policy?


Charles Joseph Clark: Table the documents.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We will put all the answers and facts before the House at that time.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. In view of the fact that the United States department of justice, following an 18-month grand jury inquiry, has indicted certain officials in the Gulf Oil corporation in respect of their participation in an illegal cartel, would the Prime Minister tell the House if the government has contacted in one way or another the White House, the American state department or the American department of justice regarding the grand jury findings and requested, on a government to government basis, that the American government should in no way move against certain Canadian corporations, including Crown corporations, as a result of the grand jury deliberations?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks if we contacted some agency or department of the American government. Of course we did, and we are very pleased that there is no indictment or any charge of misdemeanour against any Canadian corporation.


Charles Joseph Clark: What was the nature of the contact?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If the Leader of the Opposition has a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, I suggest you recognize him.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for York-Simcoe.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I will assist the Prime Minister once again. Would he elaborate, for the benefit of the House, on the nature of the government's contact and, specifically, why did they request that no action be taken with respect to the Canadian companies?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, we did not make that specific request. What we indicated was that we would take a very dim view if American law were to be interpreted in some way as to apply to Canada, and we objected to the extraterritorial application of American law.


Charles Joseph Clark: Just as you object to the application of Canadian law.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Again, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition wants to get in on this. I wish you would recognize him, because it is getting closer and closer to twelve o'clock.


An hon. Member:: It is 2 minutes to 12.


ELECTIONS
Mr. Walter Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, now that the leader of the government has indicated his great
May 19, 1978

respect for the law, I wonder if I might ask his seatmate, the President of the Privy Council, a question with respect to the decision made by the Chief Electoral Officer that only electoral expenses incurred after May 11, 1978, the day the Prime Minister decided that a triumphant march to an election might turn into a rout, would be counted toward the spending limits for the eight by-elections.
1 ask the government House leader whether the government sanctions the Chief Electoral Officer's actions which ignore the force and effect of the order in council that set March 1, 1978, as the date for the issuance of the by-election writs.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the Chief Electoral Officer is an officer of parliament. He is not in any way the subject of direction of the government as such, and the government in this case has not indicated in any way any particular view as to how the Chief Electoral Officer ought to carry out his operations. That would be quite unacceptable because of the special status which he occupies, and we have not in any way indicated to the Chief Electoral Officer a view as to any consultations he may have had with political parties.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I am not concerned with what consultations he may have had with respect to the matter; I am concerned that this officer of parliament, perhaps in good faith-I would suggest that until it is proven to the contrary, that is the case-has set himself above parliament and has really set himself above the courts with respect to what the law is.
The minister has indicated that there was no approach made to him by the government to influence this decision. In that event, is the government intending to review the decision, because the President of the Privy Council happens to be a member of parliament too? Is he intending to review the decision, as a member of parliament, to ascertain its correctness with respect to the law and, if so, is he intending to join in an approach by parliamentarians to this officer of parliament with respect to the appropriate interpretation of the law? If the minister has not had time to consider that matter, would he consider it and advise me as to what the decision of the government might be?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Chief Electoral Officer has been an outstanding officer of the House of Commons. He has in this particular case attempted, in consultation with representatives of the political parties, as I understand it, to reach a modus operandi with respect to the occurrence of the by-elections. I want to put his efforts in context, which were intended to be helpful in the current situation. I repeat, in so far as I am concerned as President of Privy Council and as the conduit for the Chief Electoral Officer to the House of Commons, I will not interfere in any way with his operations. In so far as this party is concerned, we intend to fulfil all the requirements of the law with respect to the Election Expenses Act. After all, it was this government that brought in the Election Expenses Act and we intend to observe it to the limit.
Oral Questions


Mr. Gillies:: How about to the letter?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: To the letter, to the limit and to the spirit, in all its aspects.


James McPhail Gillies: Good.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: We all want to support the Chief Electoral Officer in the work that he is doing, and it might be a very useful project to have the Chief Electoral Officer appear before a committee of the House. If general suggestions were made there, or if a consensus was developed to meet a particular situation, then of course the proper procedure would be for the House itself to take steps to change the law and the situation. It is not my intention, in the absence of all-party consensus, to move to change the law in this particular respect.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, the government House leader has given an undertaking that he is prepared to consider the question of bringing the matter before a standing committee of the House of Commons. Would he undertake, as the government House leader, to discuss this matter with the chairman of the appropriate committee as a first step to removing what is a misunderstanding, notwithstanding the good quality of the Chief Electoral Officer with which we all agree, to ensure that in fact the law which was brought in by this government and supported by all members of the House can be observed. If the law is not satisfactory, then it can be changed in an appropriate way, rather than by administrative action which this appears to be. Will he give me that undertaking?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I will undertake to consult the party representatives with a view to having the Chief Electoral Officer appear before the appropriate committee to discuss this matter with members. It is vitally important at this stage for all of us to restate our confidence in the integrity of the Chief Electoral Officer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The electoral process will not carry the confidence of the Canadian public unless he has that support. Certainly, the government extends to him the confidence that is required in this situation, but unfortunately some recent press reports are not calculated to maintain proper confidence in the Chief Electoral Officer.
The second point is that if members of the committee, in consideration of the problem, want to move in a particular way, then I will certainly facilitate an amendment that will change the law.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: It is twelve o'clock.

May 19, 1978
Point of Order-Mr. Stevens IMMIGRATION


REQUESTED REVIEW OF CASE OF JOAN CREARY
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Will the minister immediately review the case of Joan Creary who, even though only nine years old, has been ordered deported to Jamaica by an adjudicator of his department, and will he use his authority to the extent that it exists to allow her to remain in Canada with her father, a Canadian citizen, her mother having apparently agreed to this since she is unable to look after her daughter? Also, will he, where necessary, change the regulations or propose amendments to the Immigration Act to the extent that they are shown to cause inhumane and unfeeling results of the kind indicated by this Creary case?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, my concern here, and I must say the concern of the province of Ontario as well, is with the welfare of the child. The province of Ontario has to make a determination whether this is a fit and proper father for the child. The official guardian is making his own investigations in this connection.
Incidentally, it is not a deportation order. Under the more humanitarian act, the child is subject to an exclusion order which would mean that the child could come back into the country within a year. I have indicated that I am prepared to hold off executing that exclusion order until I am satisfied that the rights of the child are protected and have decided whether it is better for her to be with this particular father or to go home to her mother and two sisters.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF ISRAELI MINISTER
Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. May I take a moment to call attention to the presence in our gallery of a distinguished visitor in the person of the Minister of Education and Culture from Israel, Mr. Hammer.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Speaker:: Yesterday I indicated I would endeavour to bring forward a decision on a point of order raised on May 17 by the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens). The point of order arose on the motion for second reading of Bill C-56, an act to amend the statute law relating to income tax and to authorize payments related to provincial sales tax reductions.
[Mr. MacEachen.)
The hon. member for York-Simcoe, having raised this point of order, submitted that Bill C-56 did not comply, or does not in its present form comply, with Standing Order 60(11), which reads as follows:
The adoption of any Ways and Means motion shall be an order to bring in a bill or bills based on the provisions of any such motion.
It is admitted in the argument, and surely on the precedents, that while the words "based on" certainly do not mean identical with, nevertheless the hon. member is concerned, and the House is always concerned, that there must be such a relationship between the bill and ways and means motion that a substantial difference between the motion and the bill would make it run contrary on a procedural basis to two earlier rulings of the Chair, namely, that of December 18, 1974, and July 14-15, 1975. In the 1974 ruling I was prepared to accept a discrepancy between the ways and means motion and the bill concerning the definition of a boat. However, I did say that the terms of the ways and means motion are a carefully prepared expression of the financial initiative of the Crown, and frequent departures from them can only invite deterioration of that most important power.
I think we must understand clearly that the importance of the ways and means motion in this whole process is as an expression of the financial prerogative of the Crown. Indeed, if one were able to introduce legislation into the House of Commons in respect of tax matters without a ways and means motion, that would indicate that the financial prerogative of the Crown had lost that element of its singularity.
I repeated this warning on July 14, 1975, when I ruled on a discrepancy between a ways and means motion and the bill based thereon with respect to the power of the minister to describe by regulation the class of exempt persons. In that case, without arresting the progress of the bill, I suggested that the minister either amend the ways and means motion or prepare amendments to the bill to bring it into conformity with the existing motion. In the event, the Chair found it necessary the next day to delete certain words from the bill in order to have it conform to the ways and means motion upon which it was supposed to have been based, and an amendment was subsequently moved in committee of the whole which conformed to the ways and means motion.
In the present case the specific objection, which was also referred to by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is that paragraph (13) of the ways and means motion provides:
That for the 1978 taxation year the tax otherwise payable by an individual resident in a prescribed province on December 31, 1978 be reduced by $100.
This is found in the bill in clause 30 and particularly in section 122.1(1).
However, clause 30 in the bill goes on to deal with matters not contained, in my opinion, in paragraph (13) or elsewhere in the ways and means motion, to deal with those taxpayers not in a prescribed province and perhaps even not in the same taxation year, that is, it appears that section 122.1(2) to be enacted by clause 30 represents a substantial departure from paragraph (13) of the ways and means motion or from any
May 19, 1978

other part of the ways and means motion, besides paragraph (13), in endeavouring to deal, not with the residents of a prescribed province, not for the taxation year 1978, but with the residents of a province which is not a prescribed province and for the taxation year 1977, depending on the ultimate interpretation to be placed on the language which I, of course, do not now decide.
On the other hand, it has been argued that section 122.1(2) is an amendment to the Income Tax Act and represents a deduction from income tax for 1977, the time for filing of which has expired, and the section therefore provides in essence for an expenditure of public money and thus is safeguarded procedurally by the recommendation of His Excellency the Governor General. No matter what the administrative arrangements might be for the implementation of this section, I am confined to the wording of the ways and means motion and of the bill. It seems to me that section 122.1(1) to be enacted by clause 30 lies completely within the four corners of paragraph 13 of the ways and means motion, while on the other hand there is no provision in the ways and means motion to cover section 122.1(2).
Whether section 122.1(2) is seen either as a reduction of tax for the 1977 taxation year, or as a pay-out of funds in the fiscal year 1978-79, is immaterial on the procedural basis. We must begin from the premise that a ways and means motion, as the basis of a tax bill, is the procedural device used to protect the financial initiative of the Crown.
Paragraph 13 of the motion and section 122.1(1) to be enacted by clause 30 of the bill, offer a certain relief from taxation to a particular group of taxpayers in a given taxation year. If the government thought it was necessary to initiate this relief by a ways and means motion, it seems to me that consistency alone demands similar relief to be provided for some other taxpayers in section 122.1(2) to be enacted by clause 30, which also provides relief from taxation, albeit for an earlier fiscal year and for a different segment of the population, be similarly founded on a ways and means motion.
It may very well be that I would be disposed to be more stringent in terms of procedural correction if we were dealing with an imposition rather than an exemption from tax, but in the circumstances I see no reason to arrest the progress of the bill at this stage. The cure is simple. It requires a ways and means motion to cover the provisions of section 122.1(2) to be enacted by clause 30 of the bill. Meanwhile the bill may proceed, certainly through second reading and, if necessary, into committee up to and including clause 29 of the bill.
We have examined carefully the precedents which would support this point. They are clearly recited in Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, nineteenth edition, page 790, which reads as follows:
If any provisions of a bill are found to go beyond the resolutions on which the bill is founded, further resolutions must be passed before those provisions are considered in committee on the bill, or the bill must be amended to conform to the resolutions to which the House has agreed.
That citation seems to me clearly to give the Chair some discretion in determining the manner in which the curative
Point of Order-Mr. Stevens
provision should be entered into. In these circumstances I would think that the proper course would be for an amended resolution to be brought in by the government to conform with the language of the bill, and that that be done before clause 30 of the bill is considered in committee of the whole.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: On a point of clarification, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your ruling, but I was wondering if you could comment on the second part of what I referred to in my original point of order, and that was clause 59 of the bill. This is a complementary clause that is required, as set out in the footnote, as a result of the passage of clause 30.
Clause 59 deals with what they call compensating payments. This clause reads as follows:
The Minister of Finance may pay out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to a province the amount, if any, as determined by the Minister, by which the aggregate of
That is, if the provincial sales tax in the province concerned exceeds the income tax rebates as provided for in clause 30, and to the extent there is an excess amount then, as the concluding paragraph states:
and may make advance payments to the province out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund on account of any amount that may become payable to the province pursuant to this section.
I feel that this clause very clearly contemplates the expenditure of funds on the part of the government and, if anything, is very obviously not included in the original income tax motion to which Your Honour has already referred. Could you clarify to what extent the government will be required to rectify the motion to cover clause 59 as it now appears in the bill?


Mr. Speaker:: With respect, the hon. member is confusing two different procedural problems. The position that I have endeavoured to set out to implement a taxation measure is that the government must, of course, proceed by a ways and means motion. The bill to implement taxation measures must be based upon that ways and means motion. To make a pay-out of the public funds, no such ways and means motion is required. However, a royal recommendation is required for the pay-out of funds. As the hon. President of Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) carefully argued the other day, there is a royal recommendation which directs itself to all provisions of the bill. Therefore I did not enter into that particular area.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, if I understand your ruling correctly, we are in a position now in a procedural sense where we can proceed with discussion and consideration of this bill, but we have to recognize the fact that government policy has changed between the presentation of the budget and the introduction of the bill. So that we can be sure where we are proceeding, I ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) is it the intention of the government to bring in a modified resolution, to which the Speaker has referred, and when might we have that?
5594

May 19, 1978
Business of the House


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, as you have said, to be consistent we should proceed with an amended ways and means motion. We will proceed in that manner before we reach clause 30 at the committee stage.


Charles Joseph Clark: I have a further matter for clarification, sir. So that we can be sure of precisely what we are dealing with, could the Minister of Finance tell us whether the government is now actively considering or contemplating any significant other amendments in this bill at second reading stage, or whether it is now presently contemplating any amendments to this bill during the committee of the whole stage, particularly as they might relate to the sales tax provision which has caused so much consternation in his own caucus?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) did not choose to ask a question on policy at all during question period. Of course, when we have amendments to a bill we will propose them in due course in the House of Commons.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question arising out of your ruling. I do appreciate the nature of your ruling. However, there is a question in my mind that follows upon that. Until the amended ways and means motion comes in, it seems to me that the Chair having indicated that the ways and means motion is deficient, there is a breach of the rule with regard to this particular provision. So the government must immediately, before we proceed with further debate, take some action. Otherwise 1 submit to you the debate on that portion which you have ruled to be outside the rules is totally irrelevant.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. We are in a situation here where there is no appeal from the rulings of the Chair. I find it difficult to cast the hon. member's opening in any other light except that of a reconsideration of the judgment that I have already made. I recognized the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) who wanted some clarification of a portion of my ruling that I did not deal with directly. I recognized the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) who wished to determine what the next step would be of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) as a result of the ruling. I do not think I can entertain any hon. member now to say, with respect, the ruling that I have made is not in conformity with any hon. member's opinion. I have already indicated in very clear and explicit language on the basis of the precedent in Erskine-May that the bill can proceed while the amended resolution is being brought before the House. I cannot make that any clearer, and I do not think I should entertain any further discussion on that subject.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I rise on another point of order. The government House leader and I have had some discussions in the House with respect to estimates and the period of time within which we might

consider estimates extending beyond May 31. There were some consultations to be undertaken by my hon. friend. As a result of those consultations has a decision been made, and what is it? Could he also tell us whether we would be amending the standing orders for that purpose for the balance of this part of the session?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I have had consultations but I have not yet completed them. I hope that by Wednesday of next week 1 will be in a position to indicate to my hon. friend just exactly what I propose to do. There is a case that has to be considered. I want to do that and consult further.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to President of Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: 1,163, 1,183, 1,242, 1,284, 1,448, 1,509, 1,512, 1,532 and 1,594.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Was Mr. P. Zollmann employed by the Department of the Secretary of State and, if so (a) was his title Chief of Post Secondary Education Support Branch (b) on what date did his employment with the Department terminate and for what reason (c) what was his annual salary?
2.	Did the Department or the Department of Supply and Services give a contract in the amount of $40,000 to Federal Systems of Canada, 971 Richmond Road, Ottawa to provide consulting services and programme designing for the Canada Student Loans Programme and, if so (a) on what date (b) what is the name and job designation of all public employees involved in allotting the contract (c) what are the names of all persons with Federal Systems of Canada, dealt with by the government in arranging the contract?
3.	Were tenders or alternate submissions received and (a) if so (i) from whom (ii) on what dates (b) if not, for what reason?
4.	To the knowledge of the Department of the Secretary of State, is Mr. Zollmann associated with or employed by Federal Systems of Canada as Marketing Director and did he take such employment immediately upon leaving the Department?


Yvon Pinard: 4. Immediately upon leaving the Secretary of State, Mr. Zollmann went to work for a private consulting firm.


Mr. Andre: 1.	What is the Crown's precise financial interest in Books Canada Limited as administered by the Department of the Secretary of State through the Association for the Export of Canadian Books and on what date was such interest acquired, at what cost and for what reason?
2.	What was the book value of the Crown's equity on the date of acquisition and what is its latest estimated book value?
3.	To date, what is the Crown's total investment, including equity costs, contributions to operating funds, debt forgiveness and what is the Crown's total realized profit from such investment?
4.	In what manner is the Crown's interest represented (a) on the Board of Directors (b) in its senior management?
5.	Did the government make a policy decision in regard to the future disposition of its interest?


Hon. John Roberts (Secretary of State):: 1. The Crown does not have any financial interest (i.e. shares) in Books Canada Limited. It has been making contributions to the Association for the Export of Canadian Books/1'Association pour Importation du livre canadien, a non-governmental organization, since 1972. The AECB/AELC has recently acquired shares of Books Canada Limited. Prior to that acquisition, Books Canada Limited was wholly owned by a number of Canadian book publishers. The Crown has never owned any shares of Books Canada Limited (BCL).
2.	The Crown has no equity in Books Canada Limited. See 1 above.
3.	The Crown has never made a direct gift or contribution to Books Canada Limited. Because the Crown has no investment, it has made no profit. See 1 above.
4.	The Crown has no financial interest in Books Canada Limited nor is the Crown represented on the board of directors or in its senior management.
5.	Not applicable. See 1 above.


Mr. Towers: Did the government make grants to the grain terminal at Windsor and, if so, in what amounts and on what dates?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: The government has not made any grant to the grain terminal at Windsor. Specifically, the government has entered into a contractual agreement with United Cooperatives of Ontario, to make a repayable contribution towards the costs of constructing a grain terminal complex at Windsor, Ontario. Under the terms of the agreement, amounts of $500,000 and $8,000,000 were deposited into a trust account on April 29, 1977 and May 27, 1977 respectively, to be disbursed to U.C.O. upon certified presentation of documentation as to costs incurred during the design and construction phase. A repayment schedule has been prepared whereby U.C.O. will repay the contribution over a period of 15 years. In addition, all interest accruing on the
Order Paper Questions
trust account and any amounts in the trust account remaining after completion of the project, will be returned to the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE STORAGE Question No. 1,284 -Mr. Marshall:
By province, what amount was allocated under the Fresh Fruit Vegetable Storage Construction Financial Assistance Programme since its inception?


Eugene Whelan: The following payments have been made since the inception of the program in 1973.
Province	Total Payment
British Columbia	$2,798,043.81
Alberta	261,615.57
Saskatchewan	-
Manitoba	324,789.11
Ontario	1,060,794.46
Quebec	611,198.55
New Brunswick	35,592.04
Nova Scotia	70,000.00
Newfoundland	-
Prince Edward Island	$5,162,033.54
A total of three applications were received from Newfoundland for financial assistance under this program. Two, which have been considered in the past, met the eligibility criteria for producer groups, however the producer groups did not proceed to have the agreements signed. One is, at present, under review. No applications have been received from either Prince Edward Island or Saskatchewan.


Mr. Mitges: 1.	How does the Department of National Health and Welfare define "ethnic newspaper"?
2.	In which ethnic newspapers did the Department advertise (a) in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1977 (b) since March 31, 1977 and, in each case, what was the total amount of advertisement placed?
3.	What criteria does the Department use to determine which ethnic newspapers will receive government advertising?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. This department is guided by the Multicultural-ism Directorate of the Department of the Secretary of State, which defines an "ethnic newspaper" as one that serves an ethnocultural group.
2. (a)	Ethnic Newspapers-Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 1977
Arc Arabic Journal	$ 300.00	11 Cittadino Canadese	$ 120.00Canadian Arab World Review	300.00	Corriere Canadese	306.00Canadian Middle East Journal	1300.00	Corriere Illustrato	330.00Chinese Express	132.00	Corriere Italiano	240.00Chinese Times	132.00	L'Eco D'ltalia	150.00Chinese Voice	132.00	La Gazzetta	132.00New Republic	132.00	11 Giornale Di Toronto	240.00Shing Wah Daily News	132.00	Insieme	240.00Chinese Star Weekly	120.00	L'Ora Di Ottawa	90.00Bielaruski Holas	81.00	11 Samaritano	312.00Glas Kanadskih Srba	150.00	La Settimana	240.00Kanadski Srbobran	120.00	11 Settimanale Di Montreal	240.00Bratsvo	52.00	11 Tevere	240.00
8003 8-64 y2

May 19, 1978
Order Paper Questions
Slovenska Drzava	$ 120.00	Vita Italiana	$ 132.00	Vaba Eastlane	640.00	Ciao	1800.00Hrvatski Glas	144.00	La Voce D'ltalia	210.00	Canadian Uutiset	560.00	Liscio E. Busso	540.00Serbia	120.00	Communita Viva	392.62	Vapaa Sana	640.00	11 Mormoratore	320.00V rijeme	200.00	The Newsletter	360.00	Courier (Toronto)	1500.00	11 Rincontro	480.00Nase Hlasy	96.00	Ciao	1460.00	Courier Nordwesten	2268.00	La Tribuna Italiana	576.00Novy Domov	120.00	Liscio E. Busso	270.00	Hamilton Journal	784.00	The Continental Press	672.00Modersmaalet	180.00	11 Mormoratore	90.00	Kitchener Journal	840.00	The New Canadian	640.00Calvinist Contact	180.00	11 Rincontro	240.00	Mennonitische Rundschau	980.00	Canadian Jewish News	1120.00Hollandia News	150.00	La Tribuna Italiana	288.00	Montrealer Zeitung	784.00	Canadian Jewish Weekly	1400.00De Nederlandse Courant	144.00	The Continental Times	144.00	Toronto Zeitung	952.00	The Hebrew Journal	840.00Windmill Herald	198.00	The New Canadian	120.00	Die Zeit	504.00	The Jewish Eagle	1340.00Duca Post	118.80	Canadian Jewish Weekly	180.00	Pacifische Rundschau	360.00	The Jewish Post	840.00De Hollandase Krant	180.00	The Hebrew Journal	180.00	Anagennesis	840.00	The Jewish Standard	1328.00Pioneer	90.00	The Jewish Eagle	120.00	Evdomada	952.00	Jewish Times	800.00Meie Elu	132.00	The Jewish Post	120.00	Greek Canadian Reportage	700.00	Jewish Western Bulletin	1400.00Vaba Eestlane	120.00	Jewish Western Bulletin	300.00	North York Downsview	Canadian Uutiset	108.00	Toronto Jewish Press	300.00	Greek Canadian Tribune	840.00	Reporter	1204.00Vapaa Sana	120.00	The Yiddish Press	132.00	Hellenic Free Press	736.00	Toronto Jewish Press	1400.00Courier (Toronto)	414.00	The Canada News	120.00	Hellenic Postman	700.00	The Yiddish Press	616.00Courier Nordwesten	486.00	The Korean Journal	108.00	Hellenic Tribune	288.00	Western Jewish News	840.00Hamilton Journal	168.00	New Korea Times	126.00	Hellenic View	980.00	The Canada News	840.00Kitchener Journal	180.00	Latvija-Amerika	120.00	Greek Canadian Action	384.00	The Korean Journal	504.00Mennonitische Rundschau	120.00	Nepriklausoma Lietuva	120.00	Parikiaka Nea	684.00	The Korean na	480.00Montrealer Zeitung	168.00	Teviskes Ziburiai	174.00	New Korea Times	588.00	Batkivshchyna	392.00Toronto Zeitung	204.00	Norrona	153.00	Latvija-Amerika	560.00	The Canadian Farmer	896.00Die Zeit	108.00	Fortnightly Crescent	153.00	Nepriklausoma Lietuva	560.00	Homin Ukrainy	1356.00Pacifische Rundschau	180.00	Czas	153.00	Teviskes Ziburiai	812.00	Nasha Meta	896.00Greek Canadian Reportage	75.00	Glos Polski-Gazeta Polska	144.00	Malayalee	1120.00	Novy Shliakn	748.00Greek Canadian Tribune	180.00	Polish Canadian Courier	120.00	Norrona	700.00	Postup	860.00Hellenic Free Press	144.00	Zwiazkowiec	180.00	Akdaja Gulrang	640.00	Ukrainski Visti	780.00Hellenic View	210.00	Dzis (formerly Krzyk)	120.00	Fortnightly Crescent	700.00	Ukrainsky Holos	896.00Greek Canadian Action	96.00	O Mensageiro	138.00	Pakistan Times	640.00	Vilne Slovo	952.00Parikiaka Nea	342.00	Voz De Portugal	60.00	Czas	840.00	Lemko News	240.00Kanadai Magyarsag	204.00	Correio Portugues	150.00	Glos Polski-Gazeta Polska	784.00	Moloda Ukraina	180.00Menorah-Egyenloseg	204.00	Sentinela	99.00	Polish Canadian Courier	560.00	Nowi Dni	150.00Sporthirado	144.00	Tribuna Portuguesa	150.00	Zwiazkowiec	840.00	Promin	360.00Magyar Hirlap	204.00	Asia Times	234.00	Dzis (formerly Krzyk)	480.00	Zhinochy Svit	280.00Logberg-Heimskringla	132.00	Ecouri Romanesti	60.00	O Mensageiro	644.00	My I Svit	300.00Scandinavian Businessman	264.00	Postup	75.00	Voz De Portugal	700.00	Svitlo	300.00Kanadsky Slovak	120.00	Ukrainski Visti	150.00	Journal Acoreano	400.00	Yunak	420.00Slovensky Hlas	54.00	Ukrainsky Holos	192.00	Correio Portugues	300.00	Jung Montreal	1052.00Coreo Hispano-Americano	162.00	Vilne Slovo	204.00	Sentinela	396.00	Jung Toronto	1148.00El Popular	168.00	Lemko News	60.00	Tribuna Portuguesa	200.00	Panjab	460.00Mundo Ilustrado	72.00	Moloda Ukraina	39.00	Asia Times	520.00	Toronto Contrast	960.00Nya Svenska Pressen	120.00	Nowi Dni	65.00	Ecouri Romanesti	360.00	Toronto Talking Drums	1500.00Canada Svensken	132.00	Promin	82.80	Scandinavian Businessman	528.00	Bharati	460.00Batkivshchyna	42.00	Zhinochy Svit	67.60	Kanadsky Slovak	560.00	Mundo Illustrado	288.00Canadian Farmer	192.00	Jung Montreal	198.00	Slovensky Hlas	216.00	Quincenario Hispano	240.00Homin Ukrainy	150.00	Panjab	117.00	Coreo Hispano-Americano	784.00	Nya Svenska Pressen	560.00Nasha Meta	150.00	Bharati	96.00	El Popular	868.00	Canada Svensken	264.00Novy Shliakh	75.00	Critica	368.00	
(b)
Ethnic Newspapers-Since March 31, 1977
A1 Ra'Id A1 Arabi	$ 480.00	Kanadai Magyarsag	$1048.00The Source	1040.00	Magyard Elet	1064.00Arc Arabic Journal	600.00	Menorah-Egyenloseg	952.00Canadian Arab World Review	600.00	Sporthirado	812.00Chinatown News	1170.00	Magyar Hirlap	408.00Chinese Express	616.00	Logherg-Heimskringla	616.00Chinese Times	616.00	Canadian India Star	1040.00Chinese Voice	616.00	Canadian India Times	480.00New Republic	616.00	The Link	840.00Chinese Wide Angle	320.00	India Digest	720.00Shing Wah Daily News	616.00	India Calling	300.00Chinese Canadian Bulletin	800.00	11 Cittadino Canadese	1120.00Bielaruski Holas	396.00	Corrieve Canadese	1540.00Glas Kanadskin Srba	700.00	Corriere Illustrato	1604.00Hrvatski Put	624.00	Corriere Italiano	1260.00Kanadski Srbobran	560.00	L'Eco D'ltalia	780.00Bratsvo	240.00	La Gazzetta	840.00Slovenska Drzava	240.00	11 Giornale Di Toronto	1120.00Hrvatski Glas	288.00	Insieme	1120.00Serbia	220.00	L'Ora Di Ottawa	420.00Nase Hlasy	448.00	11 Samaritano	1540.00Novy Domov	560.00	La Settimana	1120.00Modersmaalet	840.00	11 Settimanale	2100.00Calvinist Contact	840.00	11 Settimanale di Montreal	1120.00Hollandia News	784.00	11 Tevere	1248.00De Nederlandse Courant	720.00	Vita Italiana	1232.00Windmill Herald	924.00	La Voce D'ltalia	1060.00Duca Post	528.00	Communita Viva	720.00De Hollandase Krant	360.00	The Newsletter	250.00Pioneer	180.00	Occidente	360.00Meie Elu	592.00	11 Marco Polo	300.00

(Amounts shown are estimates only-final 1977-78 billings have not yet been received.)
3. The criteria for determining which ethnic newspapers will receive government advertising are dependent on the communications objectives of each advertising campaign and, therefore, could vary widely from one campaign to another. In the selection of media, consideration is given to the specific public reached, geographic location of that public, the frequency and timing of publication. Advertising campaigns of a national nature would normally employ all ethnic newspapers whose publication dates were appropriate.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	What is Mr. K. R. Bunce's employment history in the government?
2.	(a) Did Mr. M. J. Cardinal, Director of Personnel Administration, write a memo to Mr. S. Rubinoff, Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Finance, dated November 14, 1977, marked confidential and, if so, did it state in part: "As you are aware, the transfer of functions of the Guaranteed Loans Administration section has an effective date of December 1, 1977. In view of the fact
May 19, 1978

that we have no work for Mr. Bunce for which he is qualified or would likely accept, it would appear to us that laying-off action and therefore notice of lay-off might be required." (b) Did Mr. Cardinal write a memorandum marked confidential dated December 2, 1977 to Mr. Claude Passey, Head of the Guaranteed Loans Administration, with a carbon copy to Mr. S. A. Rubinoff stating in part: "Mr. Bunce was hired by you to work for you and he is your responsibility. Under no circumstance will the Department of Finance be placed in a situation that will require bringing Mr. Bunce on lay-off status because the functions of G.L.A. were transferred elsewhere. Mr. Rubinoff has assured me that if necessary he will take this matter up with appropriate officials in the Secretary of State." (c) Did Mr. Rubinoff write a letter dated January 20, 1978 to Mr. Bunce stating in part: "This letter therefore serves to notify you that you have been declared surplus ... you will be laid-off with effect from May 1, 1978 in accordance with Section 29 of the Public Service Employment Act." (d) Did Mr. Rubinoff write a further letter to Mr. Bunce on March 9, 1978 repeating much the same information contained in his letter of January 20, 1978?
3.	What are all the reasons for the contradictions contained in these various items of correspondence and specifically was Mr. Bunce given assurance of transfer rather than lay-off under date of December 2, 1977 by Mr. M. J. Cardinal and, if so, for what reason has this assurance not been followed?


Mr. Ed Lumley (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: 1. Appointed to the Public Service-September 18, 1967 to the bureau of management consulting services, Public Service Commission. Level, computer administration level 4. Salary range: $12,753 to $14,493. The bureau of management consulting services transferred to the Department of Supply and Services, October 1, 1968. Appointed to the Department of Finance, guaranteed loans administration, April 1, 1976 at the computer system level 4. Present salary range: $26,092 to $29,400. Lay-off due to lack of work effective May 1, 1978.
2.	(a) Yes. (b) Yes. (c) Yes. (d) Yes.
3.	The functions of the guaranteed loans administration, student loans program were transferred to the Department of Secretary of State, which has no requirement for Mr. Bunce's services. Mr. Bunce was at no time given a transfer guarantee.


Mr. Forrestall: 1.	Has CNR considered developing an integrated railhead at or near Windsor Junction for handling piggyback, domestic containers, express and pool car business and (a) if so, will CNR proceed with this development (b) if not, for what reason?
2.	Could such a facility be used as a base to develop a gateway or free-trade zone?


Otto Emil Lang: The management of Canadian National Railways advises as follows: 1. Yes. (a) Not at present, (b) Such a facility is not needed at this time.
2. No.


Mr. Tessier: Did the Canadian Dairy Commission note any unfairness in relation to quotas in 1976-77 and, if so (a) what were they (b) what were the reasons?


Eugene Whelan: Yes. (a) The reduction of market sharing quotas in 1976-77 favoured those
Point of Order-Mr. Cossitt
provinces in which the fluid milk sector was more important than the industrial milk sector and also those fluid milk producers with a market sharing quota. The reduction of the quotas was therefore to the detriment of Canada's industrial milk producers, (b) The Canadian Milk Supply Management Committee, which represents the dairy producers of each province, the provincial governments and the Canadian Dairy Commission, enforced rules that were established during a period of underproduction. Enforcement of these rules during a period of overproduction proved unfair. Since the Committee operates by consensus, and the needed consensus was lacking, the rules were enforced unaltered. The allocation of the 4 million hundredweights of milk in November 1976, according to the criteria established, was to correct those injustices as much as possible.


Mr. Beaudoin: Does the Security Branch of the Department of Supply and Services have employees, namely detectives, in the Province of Quebec and, if so, how many?


Hon. Jean-Pierre Goyer (Minister of Supply and Services):: No.


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

Is it the pleasure of the House that the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds):: Mr. Speaker, it gets tiresome to rise on the same point of order and I am sure it gets tiresome for the parliamentary secretary for me to do so. I refer to the same series of questions. They begin with starred question No. 30 and go on quite a few numbers after that. Some of these questions have been on various order papers for as much as two years and still remain unanswered.
A few weeks ago when it appeared that the dissolution of the House was imminent, one could assume that the government was simply going to let these questions die on the order paper. There is no excuse whatsoever now, because the House has not been dissolved. I would like to draw particular attention to four questions, two of which I have mentioned before. First of all question No. 54 asks for the amount of government money which was paid to the brother-in-law of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), namely, Mr. Tony Merchant, who is a candidate in the forthcoming election for the Liberal party and

May 19, 1978
Point of Order-Mr. Cossitt
a member of the provincial legislature in his province. This concerns legal services, and particularly concerns work involving a radio station in that area. That is a simple thing and it could have been calculated very quickly and the question answered.


An hon. Member:: Hanky-panky.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: The parliamentary secretary promised that he would look into this particular question and give me a reply on when we could expect an answer. This was approximately two weeks ago.
Second is question No. 40 which has been on the order paper for almost three years. This deals with the fact that $86,000 was spent on behalf of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to buy things for his office on the third floor of the centre block. I asked what was bought and what did these items cost. For some reason or another the government is finding it hard to tell parliament what is contained in that list and what each item on that list cost. I can only assume there are some things on that list that the government would rather parliament did not know about.
Third is question No. 52 concerning Goldfarb and Associates. That question asked simply how much have these people received in the way of government contracts for various services performed in a certain period of time. In view of the fact that Martin Goldfarb controls when elections are held in this country, as we saw a few weeks ago, I would think it is more necessary that this question be answered at this time, and yet we have not had an answer to it.
Finally I come to question No. 1,088 which has been on the order paper for a long time. It concerns the misuse of the Unemployment Insurance Commission computer in Montreal by a firm known as Key Data Canada, used after hours whereby employees were brought back to work and used the machine or machines on an apparent non-permission basis. I have asked who authorized this and how much money was spent, who paid the wages of these employees, and particularly did the senior employee involved receive the gift of a swimming pool for his backyard for allowing this to happen. I do not know why this question has gone unanswered for months and months.
I do know that subsequent to my questioning the RCMP were called in to investigate. I have co-operated with the Mounted Police. I furnished them, as they asked me to, with the names of the employees who were called back to work and offered $20 bills in plain envelopes in an attempt to involve them in the process in the first place, most of whom, I am glad to report, refused.
The point is, why are the results of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation, which I understand is long completed, being withheld? These are the questions to which 1 want to draw attention. Surely it is not too much to ask the parliamentary secretary to rise now and say a little more than "I will look into it again". We answered two of your questions

today," which they did, questions which were nothing of this significance, or the usual excuse that 86 per cent have been answered in this session and so on. Can we get something absolutely relevant and concrete from the parliamentary secretary?
[ Translation]


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's number is a real verbal order paper. If each member of the House who does not have his questions answered as fast he would like took upon himself to rise and reread questions from the order paper to try and score a few political points for himself, we would never see the end of it and all it would amount to is a show of partisanship.
By reading over some of his questions remaining on the order paper, the hon. member has wasted some of the Social Credit's precious minutes on its allotted day. I do not intend to waste as much time has he did, so I will merely set right some facts that need to be straightened.
The hon. member implied that we do not answer questions and that is unfair, Mr. Speaker. I have here some relatively recent statistics dated May 9 which show that we answered 1,040 questions out of the 1,609 appearing on the order paper and that 559 questions were still outstanding on that date, but they are now being examined and have been referred to the various departments for research. That, Mr. Speaker, means that 64.6 per cent of the questions were answered.
I am in a position to tell the House that this percentage now has risen to well over two-thirds because we have answered many questions since last May 9. Furthermore, we answered 42 out of 44 orders for the production of papers, an almost perfect average. And Mr. Speaker, we also answered half of the questions indicated by an asterisk. That is another excellent average and it shows the good faith of the officials of the department of which I am the parliamentary secretary. Mr. Speaker, it is only fair to point out in reply to the question and insinuations of the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Cossitt) that we answered 94 per cent of the order paper questions during the last session.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. I will make this very brief. The parliamentary secretary, presumably speaking for the government, breached my privileges a few moments ago when he in effect said, and I do not have his exact words until I see them in Hansard, that I have no right to do what I was asking, that I was holding up the business of the House. I would say this. It is my right as a member-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: I have the right to ask questions, and I will.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.
May 19, 1978


Thomas Charles Cossitt: I have a question of privilege-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Surely the hon. member cannot ask the Chair to accept that every time an hon. member accuses another hon. member of wasting time or holding up the business of the House, that that is a question of privilege. I listened to the language of both hon. members. It was perfectly orderly and does not constitute privilege in any respect.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: That, this House strongly condemns the government:
(1)	for having failed at the task in the fight against inflation and unemployment which are affecting mostly the workers between 18 and 30 years of age;
(2)	for failing to present to parliament new and effective measures such as granting at age 60 the right to the voluntary benefits of the old age security pension;
(3)	for not having paid a national dividend as a means to increase the buying power of Canadians in order for them to benefit by the surplus of production deriving from progress and technology; and
(4)	for not having agreed to present new legislation that would have stimulated the consumption of Canadian products, such as, a discount on retail prices of Canadian-made products of which the percentage would be determined by the volume of the gross national product, and that the financing not be done by means of income tax, but by creating new credits emanating from the Bank of Canada and loaned to the government at an interest rate relating to the cost of administration.


Mr. Speaker:: Hon. members will want to note that proceedings on this motion will expire in accordance with Standing Order 58(11) at the ordinary hour of adjournment later this day.


Charles-Arthur Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on an opposition day, when each party is allotted a certain time to criticize or to submit proposals to the government propositions to improve its administration. Without dealing with the four points of the motion introduced by our party, I intend to speak to the two problems that have caused the most concern among the Canadian people these last few years. In other words, I intend to point out the government's shortcomings as far as unemployment and inflation are concerned, and especially to suggest solutions. I hope that all members will keep in mind that I do not criticize just for the sake of criticizing the government, but to give them a chance to better understand the remedial measures we are proposing.
The Economy
We maintain that the government has generally failed in its fight against inflation because it has never wanted to believe that inflation was first and foremost the result of pyramidal interest rates, taxes and levies which eat up 50 per cent of our purchasing power. The government has been looking for the causes everywhere except where they really are. Therefore we are wondering today whether it is through ignorance or to conceal the real reasons which they know as well as we do, while their financial masters made them find a scapegoat.
This is why the Anti-Inflation Board was set up, a suggestion which they had aggressively rejected outright during the 1974 election, but which they were forced to endorse one year after the financiers' victory-pardon me, after they were returned to power. Throughout 1975 they warned financial and industrial monopolies as well as all multinationals that the government was going to establish wage and price controls. During that year, Mr. Speaker, we witnessed tremendous price increases before the legislation came into effect. The government even warned the suppliers, as reported in Le Quotidien of December 19, 1975 where the following can be read: Suppliers will not be allowed to increase the price of their products more than once every three months.
That was a beautiful warning, Mr. Speaker, more than was needed to attract the attention of all monopolies, bankers and manufacturers with the result that by September 1975 prices had gone up by 14.4 per cent, the most significant increase ever. So when the act was passed, the question of prices had already been settled because the maximum had been reached. Mr. Jean-Luc Pepin was appointed head of the board with an annual salary of only $54,000 to control prices and wages, but in fact there was no need for controls over prices; he could only control wages which had not increased at the same rate as prices during the months preceding enactment of the legislation.
As for the issue of taxes and interests, it seems that it was not subject to the controls of the Anti-Inflation Board. That is why we claim today that the government has failed with regard to inflation and that it did not do any better with regard to unemployment. When I hear the tenors of the Liberal party, the party which runs the country, say that they will eliminate unemployment and replace it with full employment, when everybody knows that the main cause of unemployment is the advent of the machine which replaces man and technology which increases productivity immeasurably. To create full employment, we would have to destroy all machines, suppress all technology in order to go back 100 years and get everybody back to manual labour.
Such regressions can be seen in non-industrialized or marxist-communist countries, such as Cambodia, where the entire urban population was expelled from the cities and forced to work in rural areas with the most primitive tools. At that rate, they will soon be using soup spoons as shovels. But as long as

May 19, 1978
The Economy
we live in an advanced democracy, it is impossible to consider going back to such practices in Canada. Nothing short of a marxist regime could force Canada to destroy the work of past generations. However, the government cannot be commended for one million unemployed, not to mention all those on welfare. When you realize that almost half of the unemployed are young people between 18 and 30, this is quite demoralizing. It is urgent to take strong action to get these young people on the labour market. They were led to believe in a great future, provided they completed their schooling and graduated, only to find doors closing on them, now that they are trying to enter the labour market.
The problem facing young people is a crucial one, Mr. Speaker, because not only are they rejected but they were fooled. About a hundred of them must have filed through my office recently not knowing where to turn. At the Quebec Construction Federation, which is controlled by union leaders, they were told that there was no work for them because there are plenty of workers in all fields. These young people had job offers in their pockets, Mr. Speaker, yet they could not get the working permit issued by the Quebec Construction Federation. On the one hand, you have these hundreds of young people who want nothing better than to work, yet they are being refused this right because they cannot get the working permit required by the unions.
On the other hand, the employers want to hire these young people but they cannot because the authorities refuse to grant this famous working permit. Yet, this generation has diplomas that the older generation, today's workers, never had. What kind of society do we live in, Mr. Speaker? Do you think that young people will tolerate such rejection much longer? Never! They will not accept being turned down when employers are running after them with job offers.
So, Mr. Speaker, I believe the best reform to open the door to the labour market for young people aged between 18 and 30 is to allow all workers from 60 and over who want to retire voluntarily to take old age security pension if they so wish. I have already stated in the House that the government would spend far less paying retirement benefits to that group of elderly than to support thousands of young people through unemployment or welfare benefits, for there is nothing they would like better than taking over from their elders. We find that citizens having reached retirement age do not cease to be active for our economy; on the contrary, they take a different orientation and develop other activities in areas still unexplored and likely to give a new impetus to communities those pensioners live in.
As for the young people who are to take over, they will carry on the work of their predecessors and spend their energies developing their country by introducing their own techniques for ever greater modernization. All these young people, instead of spending their days searching for work which will never

materialize and staying idle, which is something unbearable at that age, would be able to set up a household, an institution which is the basis of our democratic society and they could then carry on a normal social life. Again I say this will of course depend on the lowering of the old age pension for all Canadian citizens who have reached the age of 60.
During the last elections, Mr. Speaker, the present government received a majority mandate after having promised the population that if it were elected it would grant the right to a pension at age 60 to anyone reaching that age. We were quite convinced that the government would not break its promises. Yet once again the voters have been deceived and are very disappointed to notice that only a few spouses who are 60 years old will get that pittance because I call it a pittance, Mr. Speaker, or if you prefer alms for the poor since it is based on the income of the other spouse. I suggest that by acting this way the government has grossly and intentionally deceived the population and I can assure you that the people over 60 will not forget it. They are only waiting for an opportunity to make known their discontent and the fate they have in store for those who betray their promises.
For several years we have been asking for a true old age security pension, that is a pension which would not be based on the degree of poverty or the marital status of Canadian citizens. Let me explain; that 50 per cent pension and 50 per cent supplement based on the income of the spouses is the most unfair and sneaky formula ever devised to discriminate against those who have toiled all their life to save a few dollars or collect a little annuity. If we were to grant full pension to all citizens who are 60 and over, we would thereby make substantial savings by eliminating thousands of civil servants. If we give these senior citizen a full pension there would be no need for inquiries. It would be just like a family allowance, and it would be the birth date which would determine when the cheques are to start being sent out.
And this way we would get rid of the thousands of civil servants whose job it is to go and search in the old folks homes like police investigators to check whether or not a pensioner has a few hundred dollars hidden in a wool sock or under his mattress. Imagine the millions of dollars that would be saved if tomorrow all auditing offices were to disappear with their hundreds of thousands of over-paid civil servants simply because in the future only a birth certificate would be required to issue cheques to everyone 60 years of age. No more searches, no more discrimination, no more possible injustices and even less favouritism.
Pensioners who end up with no income at 60 would get their full share of the cake and would suffer no injustice, as they would receive their full pension without even an investigation. As I said, retiring at 60, on full pension, would not be mandatory. Those who managed to put together a few hundred dollars for their old days would then have an additional income on top of their pension. They would have to file their income
May 19, 1978

tax return and pay back the government every year, as they are now doing for that matter.
However, there would be this very important difference: they would pay taxes on their supplementary income only once whereas today in addition to being checked every month or every three months, and getting a cut-back in their pension cheques every month, because they made sacrifices and put a little money aside for their old age, they still have to file their income tax returns. By allowing this situation to continue, we not only make the lives of 50 per cent of our senior citizens miserable, we actually give them the Tantalus treatment day after day as we put them through the water drop torture.
To ensure equal justice for all pensioners I have asked the government on many occasions to issue pension cheques on the basis of citizenship rather than marital status, as is the case today. At present, a married couple receives $22 less every month than a registered non-married couple or two persons living under the same roof. Yet each has contributed in the same way as all Canadian citizens, so why not pay them back on that basis?
That is just another discrimination that must be corrected for people 60 years of age and over in addition to reducing the purchasing power of the legally married couple who deserve their rightful participation in the Canadian economy, just like anyone else.
If we blame the government today for having failed in its fight against inflation and unemployment, we can blame it even more for having introduced bills whose social impact are clearly antisocial. 1 have mentioned that several times in this House: almost 80 per cent of our so-called social laws are in fact antisocial. Take them one by one and you will realize it; besides, all the examples I have mentioned are proof of it.
Mr. Speaker, in closing my remarks, I urge once more the government to consider the two points I made earlier in my motion, namely, workers 18 to 30 years of age, and a pension for all persons aged 60 or over who want one.
I am convinced that if the government would heed my suggestions it would then have a most efficient weapon to launch a real attack on inflation and unemployment.


Mr. Paul Dick (Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, on an opposition day the normal practice is for the mover of an opposition motion to speak first and then for a government spokesman to rise, but today it appears that the government does not want to speak too early.
I would like to start by pointing out that the first three lines of the motion put down by the Social Credit party are very interesting, as is the second part of the motion. I think I shall have to restrict my comments today to the first three lines, or the first part of the motion which states:
The Economy
That this House strongly condemns the government:
(1)	for having failed at the task in the fight against inflation and unemployment which are affecting mostly the workers between 18 and 30 years of age.
In the time allocated to me I should like to speak on that topic for a few moments. It can be said of the situation in which we find ourselves in 1978 that the young people of this country can be referred to as the Canadians forgotten by this Liberal government. The present government has paid lip service to their cause. It has put out flyers, printed posters, and prepared a number of advertising programs on what it is doing for the young people, but in effect it has not even scratched the surface. I can remember the 1972 election campaign when the Liberal candidates and the Liberal government were telling the young people that at that time there was a high rate of unemployment, especially among the youth of this country, but that by 1975 demography showed there would be a shortage of young people ready to contribute to the work force of this country. That propaganda did not turn out to be true because by 1975 there was a higher rate of unemployment among the young people, which continues today in 1978, three years later than predicted in 1972.
The second matter that concerns me is the fact that the government has frequently said that this is a temporary problem which will be overcome by 1980, implying that the baby boom will have passed and that there will be fewer people seeking work. The true fact is that we have had at least ten years of problems with unemployment among the youth of this country, and that we have at least ten years of them ahead of us. I hope that the government will start to recognize this fact and will start planning on this basis.
The first part of the Social Credit motion refers to how inflation has hurt the young people today. First of all, unless a young person is from a wealthy family, that person is not established and does not have a bank roll enabling him to live through inflation. When a young person gets out into the work-a-day world and lives as an adult member of society, he wishes to buy a house. But the cost of a house has gone up from, perhaps, $21,000 in 1971, to $46,000 or $47,000 today. That is the price of the smallest type of housing unit you could find in any urban area where most young people are. It is harder for them to get that money because they cannot get the jobs, and also because in the last few years salaries have not increased as fast as inflation as regards basic commodities such as housing.
Another basic commodity required by a young family starting out is an automobile. Whereas an automobile would have cost $3,400 in 1970, today it costs $6,200. Again the price has doubled in eight years, whereas salaries of young people have not doubled, that is, if they can find a job. So those young people do not have a bank roll, and inflation is hitting them really hard.
The other problem is that inflation is probably what is most devastating, whether it be in Germany in the 1930s, in Brazil, or in Canada, because in the long run inflation causes more unemployment. I think the government must be taken to task for not solving a number of problems.

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First, the federal government has not co-ordinated its youth programs. There is not one department to which one can write asking what are the youth programs available to the young people of Canada. I know, because we ended up going to all the departments asking for all the programs. We have found through our research that there are 58 federal programs dealing with young people, which are spread through 16 different departments. We were asked by one department to give them the compilation which we had made of the various programs so that they might know what programs were available. I think this is rather sad. There should be some bureau or some official organization at the federal level to which the young people can write, asking what programs the federal government is providing for them. I have here a 91-page list with a description of every type of program available for young people, what program was phased in and what program was phased out in the last three years, how much money the government has spent, how many people have been employed, and at what cost.
The second problem is that although there is a rather large section in the Department of the Secretary of State which deals with young Canadians, the Secretary of State (Mr. Roberts) has no idea of what the department is dealing with. When I was first invited to become the youth critic for our party, I wrote to the Secretary of State asking him to give me a list of all the post-secondary institutions in Canada. His officials could not do so, and yet we spend through that department tens of millions of dollars a year financing postsecondary instruction. But they could not give me a list. They asked me if I could give them a list, if I had one. We then wrote to the ten provinces and territories to find out what post-secondary institutions they had.
Prior to concluding at one o'clock, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that nowhere at the federal level is there a list of the volunteer organizations in this country dealing with young people, whether it be the Red Cross, the St. John's Ambulance, or Boy Scouts. We have now compiled a list of well over 250 of these organizations.
I should like to continue my comments at two o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until 2 p.m.
At one o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. Prior to the luncheon adjournment the hon. member for Lanark-Ren-frew-Carleton (Mr. Dick) had the floor. He has ten minutes remaining.
(Mr. Dick.]


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had 12 minutes remaining, but in any event I appreciate Your Honour's notice. As I was indicating before lunch, it is unfortunate the federal government does not have an organization within its entire bureaucracy which can inform young Canadians of the range of programs that are offered. The government does not have a list of its own programs in any one location. It is necessary for people to go to various government departments when seeking such information.
The government does not have a list of the Canadian post-secondary institutions which it funds. We were anxious to receive such a list, but were unable to get it. It does not have a list of the voluntary organizations which help young people and the youth groups in Canada, although lip service is paid to those organizations and they are under government direction. This is unfortunate and the federal government should do something to remedy the problem as soon as possible.
One thing the government has done is to blame its problems on youth unemployment and everybody else, without taking any responsibility for itself. A few years ago the government blamed it on a world recession, then it was on world inflation, and now it blames it on a world-wide phenomenon, but of course it is not as problematical in Austria, Germany or England as it is in this country. Our problem is magnified over that of the other countries.
Recently, of course, the government blamed it on the baby boom. If ministers had been looking at the statistics they could have seen how many children were born some years ago, and predicted that they were going to have a large influx of people into the work force at this stage. They were also blaming it on the young people, saying that they have too high an expectation and they are not prepared to take any job, but only a select type of job.
It is not fair to blame the problem on people who happen to have an education and who aspire to a certain type of job, by saying that they are afraid to take any job. People are entitled to these aspirations. Last year we heard the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), when he was at the University of Toronto, telling the young people there that if they did not like it they could leave Canada and fly to another country in which they could find work. That is great advice for a government which has done so little, considering such a large job has to be done.
I hear the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen) is going to speak later this afternoon. He is doing a lot of chattering right now. Perhaps he can give some advice on new plans because the existing ones are not doing anything. Hopefully the minister in charge of youth unemployment will have some new ideas. Maybe they will announce them during the election campaign.
One thing this government has not recognized is its own federal statistics. If we take five-year groupings of young people in this country or of people of any age group-the 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14, 15 to 19, 20 to 24, and the 25 to 29-we find that the five largest are those which are 5 to 9, 10 to 14,
May 19, 1978

15 to 19, 20 to 24, and 25 to 29. Indeed, those in the 15 to 19 bracket who in 1986 will be 25 to 29 years of age, number over 2,300,000. Those who are 10 to 14 years of age, who will be 20 to 24 years of age in 1986, number 2,276,000 of them. And of the ones who are 5 to 9 and who will be 15 to 19 years of age in 1986, there will be almost two million. In rounded figures, we have almost six million people who, in eight years from now, in the middle 1980s, when we are told by the government we are going to have a shortage of people to do work, will be eligible for work. There will be six million young Canadians who will be able to work, between the ages of 15 and 30 years of age.
I am not suggesting that they are all going to work, but if there is a participation rate of anything approaching what we have today when it is becoming the trend for two members in the family to work we can expect at least 60 per cent of them to be looking for jobs. This will amount to something in the neighbourhood of 3,500,000 new jobs that we will have to find for these people, and I am not talking about the people unemployed today who are over 24 years of age and number approximately 500,000. So we have almost four million jobs that we have to find in this country in the next ten years if we want to get down to full employment. The government should bear that in mind.
The government has spent a lot of money on short-term job measures, and I have gone through them in detail. Some of them are modestly effective and some of them are completely ineffective, but the problem is they are all short-term jobs. For example, Canada Works is going to spend $48 million on Young Canada Works this summer for a maximum hopeful employment of 30,000 young Canadians under 25 years of age. They are not going to have any skills after working 18 weeks. They will have cleared a plot of land in some municipality for a park, made a boat ramp, raked brush at the side of a road, taken over a day care centre, or tried to run a summer camp, but they are not going to have life skills which they could use in other jobs in the future.
There is the same problem with Canada Works where you can work up to 52 weeks. There are a number of people in those jobs, but they are not ongoing jobs. They are merely band-aids. The problem is that at the end of the 18 weeks for Young Canada Works, or 52 weeks for Canada Works, these people will be dumped back into the unemployment force again, and they will not have learned a skill or trade.
Another problem I would like to point out, although I know I will not be able to expand on it today, is that the federal government has been very lax in dealing with teaching skills, and teaching skills through apprenticeship programs. I realize that this would have to be done in co-operation with the provinces. It would be much more beneficial if the government were to take a long-term view of what it is teaching the young people in order to give them skills which will last them throughout their lives.
I would like to summarize a few things before sitting down. Youth unemployment has been a problem in Canada for several years. The long-term dangers to Canada's newest
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entrants into the labour force-still forming their initial attitude to work, being frustrated and turned off by bleak employment prospects-are obvious, but the young unemployment crisis in this country has been all but ignored by the present Liberal government.
When the present government has referred to youth unemployment its ministers have characterized it as "unusually high", or "temporary". The government's own statistics prove that the unemployment rate has risen consistently and predictably. When the present government says that these rates are temporary or recent, it is misleading the Canadian people.
If we look at Statistics Canada we find that in December, 1973, the unemployment rate among the 14 to 24 age group was 9.7 per cent. By December, 1974-


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will try to wrap up as quickly as possible. In December, 1974, the figure had risen to 10.6 per cent, and continued to rise to 12.5 per cent in December, 1975. It went to 13.4 per cent in December, 1976, and hit 15.2 per cent in December, 1977. As of March, 1978, the adjusted unemployment figure for this age group was 15.1 per cent, but the actual figures indicate over 16 per cent.
If the government would only read its own figures it would realize that the problem has been steadily growing over the past five years. The present situation was predictable, yet the government has ignored this and tried to pretend that the problem will solve itself in the very near future.
Also, according to Statistics Canada, the government's own direct youth job creation response, including summer student employment, has been going down over the years. In 1973 the government spent $85.4 million to create 67,000 jobs for young Canadians. In 1974 the federal government spent $85.4 million to create 67,000 jobs. In 1975 the federal government spent $67 million to create only 37,000 jobs for young Canadians. In 1976 the federal government spent $24 million to create 12,000 summer jobs. In 1977 the federal government spent $106.2 million to create 81,400 jobs. In 1978 it reduced the amount to $96.2 million to create some 60,000 jobs. I point out that is 60,000 summer jobs, which is 3,000 more than was in its comparable figures for last year. I think it is inconsistent with trying to upgrade the youth employment problem.
I should point out that even the minister has indicated that the statistics they have often quoted in reference to how many jobs they create in the summertime are deceptive. Just the other day I asked a question about this in the House and the minister said that they did not like to play with figures, that they are more interested in jobs. Yet as he goes around the country he says that last summer Canada Manpower found

May 19, 1978
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190,000 jobs for students and young people. In actual fact 65,718 of those jobs were casual placements. That means a job for the duration of one week or less, but the minister does not say that. He talks about placements, not about full-time jobs. When you are dealing with placements, a person could have a job in one place for two or three days, then in another place for three or four days, and in still another place for a few days- the same person would be placed six or seven times during the summer. The department counts that as six or seven jobs, and so the figures are deceiving. That is why I asked the minister last week if they would consider dealing in man-days or man-weeks of work, rather than placements.
Members will have noticed press reports on this subject in the past. A headline in the Toronto Star just a year ago in May, 1977, read "Grads Job Outlook Grim". A headline in the Ottawa Citizen about the same time read "Job Garden not Rosy for University Graduates". In the Montreal Gazette of Thursday, May 18, under the heading "Students' Summer Jobs Outlook Bleak" there appears this statement:
But government statistics indicate that no more than 75,000 or about 20 per cent will find jobs through federal and provincial government employment agencies.
Last summer 53,000 students found work through Canada Manpower Centres, and Manpower counsellors predict that this summer they will place no more and perhaps less, than last year.
This prediction by Manpower counsellors in Montreal indicates they are expecting less this year than last year.
Perhaps I can close by reciting a poem by Kipling. The blame for the very gloomy prospects for young people at the present time lies with the government which has been in office for the last 15 years. It has known about these statistics for that length of time. Why did it allow this to happen? Why will our grandchildren say? They will probably curse the current group of politicians. Perhaps they will have some right to curse them and feel cynical.
I think that a suitable epitaph for the graves of some of the people in cabinet who have known of the problems but have not come up with a solution could read as follows:
I could not dig; I dared not rob;
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
I could not face the land I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?


Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just taken his seat concentrated his remarks on one of the several paragraphs of the motion before us today. It will come as no surprise to my colleagues if I state that it is my intention to concentrate my remarks on another of the many sections of this motion.
I congratulate the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) and his friends in the Social Credit party for including in today's motion the important issue of making pensions available on a voluntary basis at age 60. Perhaps I might be permitted to read the preamble of the motion, together with paragraph (2):
That this House strongly condemns the government:
(2)	for failing to present to parliament new and effective measures such as granting at age 60 the right to the voluntary benefits of the old age security pension;
I want to assert once again that this issue of lowering the pensionable age will not go away. I know that the government strives to blur the issue by telling us that we are in a time of restraint. I heard that message when I first came to parliament a long time ago. I know, too, that the government likes to talk about the desire of many people now to work beyond age 65 or 70. I join in that sentiment, I may say. I know also that the government emphasizes its concern to do something not only for those between ages 60 and 65, but for those who are having a tough time between ages 50 and 60 or, indeed, at any age. Those points are all valid, but they do not wipe out the urgent need in our society for giving more consideration to people between the ages of 60 and 65.
When I think of this issue I think of two main groups. If I indicate that one of them consists mainly of men and the other consists mainly of women, I shall probably be told there are no others, but in any case I have two main groups in mind.
My constituency of Winnipeg North Centre is one in which very large numbers of workers are employed in heavy industry. They work day by day, month by month, year by year in the railway shops, the steel mills, the rolling mills, the packing plants, the clothing establishments, and so on, where the work is heavy and sometimes not the most interesting. These workers find that when they reach age 55 or 58 the rat race gets pretty hard for them. If there is one request that is made to me by my constituents, particularly when I meet them at their places of work, it is to get that pension age down to 60.
I plead that it is just as urgent an issue in this day and age as it was a number of years ago to get the pension age down from 70 to 65. As I say, I join in the various views that have been expressed about doing something for other groups as well. I just say that instead of talking about any of these issues, something should be done. This issue is one that sooner or later this parliament must grapple with and, in my book, it should be done sooner rather than later.
In urging that there be pension available at age 60,1 want to make it clear, as I have done so often, that I am not advocating that there be a universal pension at age 60 as there is at age 65, but rather-in line with the words of the motion-that it be available on a voluntary basis. My suggestion is that the rule that should be applied is simply the rule of whether one is in or out of the work force. My contention is that if a person is out of the labour market, whether by withdrawing from it or never having been in it, that at age 60 that person should be entitled to the full amount of the pension under the Old Age Security Act, and also that that person, if he has been a contributor thereto, should be entitled to the full amount that he has earned under the Canada Pension Plan.
I like the fact that the suggestion about reducing the pension age to age 60 in this motion is placed in the context of our economic problems, including the problem of unemployment,

May 19, 1978

and there can be no doubt but that it would be a significant contribution to the solution of the unemployment problem faced by our younger people if more of our older people were given the opportunity to retire. The opportunity to retire, of course, means nothing unless there is with it sufficient income on which to live. It can be argued that if persons could enjoy their old age security and their Canada Pension Plan benefits, together with any other savings or pension rights that they might have, then retirement at 60 would be possible.
Every time I raise the subject with people I meet at shop gates or whom I meet in my constituency they impress upon me their point of view, namely, that the reform they would like to see most is the reduction of the pension age to 60 on a voluntary basis.
The other group I have in mind when I am pressed for pensions at age 60 is the other half of the human race, the women.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: As I have said in other debates, for all that we have tried to do in modern times to establish equality between men and women in our society, we are still a long way from that goal in terms of pensions. We do not have pension equality between men and women. The proposal I make for pensions to be available at age 60 to all of those who are out of the labour market redresses that wrong to an extent, because it would provide pensions to those women who have chosen to remain at home. They are out of the labour market, and pensions at 60 would thus be available to them. As I say, that would correct one of the elements of discrimination suffered by women in our society. But they have suffered in other ways. I will however, come back to the main point about pensions for women at age 60.
Hon. members will say they have heard me say this before. I tell them they will hear me say it many more times until something is done about it. It is not fair and it does not square with a society that believes in equality between men and women for us to have so many pension plans under which, if the woman dies first, the man's pension is 100 per cent, but if the man dies first, the woman's pension is only 50 per cent.


An hon. Member:: Right on.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Do not give me the line that he was out working, and that he made the contributions. If marriage is anything, it is an equal partnership. Both partners contribute to whatever they save or earn. That concept of partial pensions for widows and full pensions for men, whether they have a wife or are widowers, is completely wrong.
There are many other ways in which there are pension inequalities. I think of the kinds of actuarial tables that are used which are pursued in such a way as to discriminate against women; the different rates that have to be paid under certain pension plans whether one is a man or a woman. All of this is completely for the birds, certainly in a society in which we say that we believe in equality between the sexes.
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I suppose the most glaring example of unfairness to women in terms of pensions has to do with the spouse's allowance. This was something that was brought in after it had been promised by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in the 1974 election campaign. I well remember the day that he made that promise. I remember hearing and seeing it that night on the national television news when he was quoted as saying that, while it would solve certain problems, it had to be a transitional measure because it would create other problems as well. If ever the Prime Minister said anything that was right, that was so on that occasion. The spouse's allowance may have helped, and indeed it has helped in many instances. It has helped out where there was a man and wife one who was over the age of 65 and the other was between 60 and 65 trying to live on one pension. They now get two pensions.
In the process we have divided the people between the ages of 60 and 65, and most of the persons affected by the spouse's allowance are women. Do not give me the line that this is an equal thing-it could be his or hers-it could be a younger husband with an older wife. The fact is that most of the persons who draw the spouse's allowance are women. We have divided the women of Canada between the ages of 60 and 65 into two groups, those who have a man and those who do not have a man. The idea of determining one's rights to a pension on that basis is so foreign to all the concepts of fairness and equality that I really do not understand why the government, even after the Prime Minister made the promise in 1974, went ahead with it-


Walter David Baker: It is a shameful position for them.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Some of us said so in 1974 when the legislation was brought in and did our best to get it corrected at that time. Some of us in our platforms in the 1974 election campaign did not say, as some others did, that they wanted the pension only for women at a younger age. We said we wanted to lower the pension age to 60 for all who were out of the labour market.
Under the spouse's allowance arrangement, a woman who is between age 60 and 65 can get the spouse's allowance, which in amount is the old age security rate plus the guaranteed income supplement, if she is married to and living with a husband who is over the age of 65. But if she is already a widow at age 60, or if she is a spinster, in other words if she is a woman who does not have a man or never had one, there is nothing for her. What kind of a society is that?


An hon. Member:: That is the just society.


Stanley Howard Knowles: On top of all that we have this gross and inhuman injustice under which the government says, that if a woman is 62 years of age and she is married to a husband who is 67, she gets the spouse's allowance all right. But then, if next year he, at age 68 dies, and she is now 63, she is no longer a spouse; she is a widow and so her

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spouse's allowance is cut off at age 63 and she must wait until she is 65 to qualify for old age security and a guaranteed income supplement. I do not know which is worse, the widow or the spinster who never receives the allowance, or the spouse who becomes a widow and then loses it. Either way it is an act of complete unfairness and I insist, Mr. Speaker, that this cannot go on.
One of these days-I do not know when-we might have another election in this country-


An hon. Member:: It may go like the spouse's allowance.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is an interesting remark that perhaps the hon. member might expand. But if we do not get something solved about this issue before the election, I hope that in the election campaign the Prime Minister may complete the promise he made in 1974. Election campaigns do have that advantage. All sorts of promises get made. It is quite a study afterwards to line up the promises that were made and notice how many of them go unfulfilled. There is not time today to list the 1974 promises that were not fulfilled. In this case the fulfilling of the spouse's allowance promise left the very problems which the Prime Minister had in mind at that time. If they are not solved before the 1978, 1979 or the 1980 election, I hope that during that campaign, if it is for no other reason that to try to get votes, the Prime Minister will say, "We are going to correct this situation."
It is completely false and unfair to say to women between the ages of 60 and 65 that their entitlement to a pension is not based on their need or on what they have done in terms of work to raise a family or work in the community. Their entitlement to a pension between the ages of 60 and 65 is based on their being able to give the correct answer to one question: have you got a man? That is a blot on parliament and, in particular, a blot on the government which brought in this legislation.
I suggest that a solution to it is very simple. It is the solution in paragraph (2) of the motion we are debating this afternoon, namely, that pensions should be available at age 60 on a voluntary basis for all those who are in that bracket.
There are other things as well that can be done to correct the unfairness in the Canada Pension Plan and the public service plan. Also, something should be done about plans in the private sector. We should look at this in the concept of providing jobs for persons who can be employed at younger years if we move these people out, but we must not let this issue of the right of women to pensions in that age bracket sit around any longer.
I congratulate my friends in the Social Credit party on placing this issue before us this afternoon. Again, it is a motion that does not come to a vote. As a Liberal said the other day, on another issue, he was glad that issue did not come to a vote. What he meant was that he could speak in favour of it without having to risk voting opposite to the way he spoke.

This motion does not call for a vote. I hope some of the Liberals who speak today will recognize that the Prime Minister was right in 1974 about the spouse's allowance, that it would create problems. I hope they will express their views to their government to the effect that this ought to be changed. It is not good enough just to continue the allowance to the spouse who has become a widow. That ought to be done, but it does not solve the problem. It is not good enough to keep that tied in any way to the marital status of the woman.
The best answer is to make pensions available at age 60 on a voluntary basis. That should be done with regard to old age security and the Canada Pension Plan. Private plans should be encouraged to do the same. That would start to improve the lot of those hard working men to whom I have referred who have spent 30 to 35 years in the rat race and have looked forward to a few years' retirement. Do that and you will correct the situation for the women in the same age bracket. But for God's sake, let's not just talk about it year in and year out. Let's do something about it right away.


Albert Béchard: Mr. Speaker, never in my short life have I seen so accurately stated the ideology of the Social Credit Party of Canada than in the motion it brought forward through its visible leader, the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier), and interim credi-tist House leader. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, upon close scrutiny of the motion moved by the interim leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada, it can easily be seen that this masterpiece, reflects exactly the Social Credit philosophy. With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will read the motion:
That this House strongly condemns the government: (1) for having failed at the task in the fight against inflation and unemployment which are affecting mostly the workers between 18 and 30 years of age;
Secondly, and this is where it begins:
(2)	for failing to present to parliament new and effective measures such as granting at age 60 the right to the voluntary benefits of the old age security pension;
(3)	for not having paid a national dividend ...
.. . and this is where things get worse:
... as a means to increase the buying power of Canadians in order for them to benefit by the surplus of production deriving from progress and technology; and
(4)	for not having agreed to present new legislation that would have stimulated the consumption of Canadian products, such as a discount on retail prices of Canadian-made products of which the percentage would be determined by the volume of the gross national product, and that the financing not be done by means of income tax, but by creating new credits emanating ...
... and here is the cure-all:
... from the Bank of Canada and loaned to the government at an interest rate relating to the cost of administration.
And at the end of that disturbing paragraph Social Credit sympathizers can see that mention is made of an interest rate, and until now there was never any talk of interest. But now the Social Credit Party of Canada has recognized that when one
May 19, 1978

has money to invest, from time to time something must be expected in return if only to pay administration costs.
Mr. Speaker, after listening to the arguments of the mover of this motion, who in fact shows very little interest in it-he has disappeared-I wonder why, after having complained through his motion that the government has done nothing, he did not stay in the House to listen to the learned speeches of the opposition as well as the government. In support of his motion, it is easy, Mr. Speaker, and I think my colleagues understood and understand easily how our colleague for Roberval came to his conclusion; with all the respect I have for him as interim leader of his party, I say he has not changed at all and, worse still, he has failed to understand the policy of the Canadian government.
I say he has not changed at all when he blames the lack of jobs, for the young and part of the Canadian population, on the unions. I am not prepared to say that all is rosy and that everything union leaders do in Canada is fine; to approve the pressures they put upon their members, and to overlook all that is bad or reprehensible in what some union leaders do, but I must say to the leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada that unions were a necessary institution and still are for the protection of the workers.
It is true that at times, unions go to the other extreme, but I submit that we cannot deny workers the right to become members of a trade union. Moreover, the hon. member blames technology. He says the government should blame technology, the mechanization of work. He even said that we should go back to manual work in order to give everyone a job. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member for Roberval is serious, he should remember that society has evolved and that technology creates jobs.
Why have we changed the whole education system in Canada and more particularly in Quebec? The evolution of society and of technology has made it necessary to retrain our fellow citizens who had not had a chance to further their education in order to enable them to adapt to the development of technology. Of course, I have seen technology on the farms of Roberval where they do not use horses only and do not sow as our grandfathers did in the early days. Today with tractors and expensive machinery, and not more in Roberval than elsewhere, who wants to return to the old ways?
But all this machinery, all this advanced technology, Mr. Speaker, gives work to specialized workers, and that is why this government has provided large amounts of money to retrain workers, to ensure their mobility and show them how to work with modern technology. Millions of dollars, if not more, have been made available to Canadians for that purpose. Technology and machinery cannot be blamed entirely for the present unemployment.
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Unemployment exists, it is a fact and it is a source of concern to everyone but the government is doing all it can to create jobs in order to alleviate the situation. When we say that the unemployment rate in Canada is 8.4 or 8.6 per cent that in this country a million people are unemployed, we forget to mention how many do work. An unemployment rate of 8,4 per cent, if my figures are correct so far, means that 91.6 per cent of the working population are employed. In March 1978, just two months ago, how many people were employed in Canada? 9,884,000 as compared to 7,767,000 in 1968. Therefore, an employment rate of 91.6 per cent means that 9,085,440 people out of 9,984,000 have a job. It is all very well to say that we have a high rate of unemployment, but we should not forget to mention those who contribute to the economy of our country.
As I said before, we would certainly like everybody to have a job. When the hon. member for Roberval says for example-I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I was looking for another paragraph of his motion. I would like to go over the figures for the last decade. In 1968, we had 7,500,000 workers. Today we have 9,984,000, almost 10,000,000. On the average 250,000 jobs were created each year for the past ten years. In percentage points, the number of people over 15 years of age who have a job, is a now higher than ever. In 1968, it was 54.5 per cent and in March 1978, it was 57 per cent. The rate of participation in the economy is higher than ever: in March 1968, it was 57.1 per cent, today it is 62.4 per cent.
The youth participation rate was also higher in 1968, when it was 57.1 per cent, and in 1978, when it reached 64.1 per cent. Our gross national product has also increased, even though our economy is said to be in a bad way, by 45 per cent in real terms between 1968 and 1977; there was a real increase of 32 per cent in the gross national product per capita during the period 1968-77; the average family income increased by 35 per cent in real terms during the period 1969-76; the average income of Canadians increased by 25 per cent in real terms during the period 1969-76; and the per capita personal available income increased by 118 per cent from 1968 to 1977. Mr. Speaker, these figures show that even though our economy has not been in top shape, it is certainly not the worst among industrial nations.
Today, most Canadians have a much higher standard of living than a few years ago, and to those who are unfortunately unemployed because of the slowdown in the world economy, this government has provided generous assistance so that they can at least enjoy a minimum basic income. Pessimists like those on the other side, not only in the Social Credit party, but also other opposition members, including those of the official opposition, who compare our living conditions with those of the 30s during the depression show that they do not have firsthand knowledge of that period.


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Do you?

May 19, 1978
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Albert Béchard: Yes, I do, and perhaps even more than the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro). Instead of a moderate economic growth like we have now, Canada witnessed in the 30's massive job losses and an economic downturn. On the other hand, this year in March, there were 330,000 workers more than at the same time period last year. Canadians only have to look around them to see the tremendous progress made in the last ten years. As I said earlier, not only has the real income of Canadians increased significantly, but the quality of health services, for instance, of transportation, the number of community centres, schools, universities, national and provincial parks as well as recreational centres have considerably increased.
For example, by striking off low income earners from the tax rolls, and by implementing an enlightened social policy, we managed to make poverty regress in the last ten years. According to reliable criteria, the percentage of Canadians below the poverty level dropped from 20 per cent in 1967 to 10 per cent today in 1978. This is a 50 per cent improvement and I think it is rather significant for an unsound economy, for an administration which is said to be inefficient. I think that the present administration is to be commended for increasing the standard of living of the Canadian people by 50 per cent.
The Canadian people who took advantage of the social justice measures implemented by the present government may ask themselves, and rightly so, what the Progressive Conservatives are thinking about when they propose to reduce the federal budget by $2 billion. This morning, the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier), and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) stressed the fact that old age pensions should now be universal, which means they should be paid to all persons of 60. Well, meanwhile, the opposition, not the New Democratic Party, but the official opposition, criticizes the government for spending too much money and asks us to extend the old age pensions universally at the age of 60.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: We never asked for that.


Albert Béchard: Not you, the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert), but others. And the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) even said that pensions-and if I understood proprely, he meant pensions plus guaranteed income supplements-should be paid to every one at the age of 60 without a means test. This is the Social Credit theory. So, Mr. Speaker, while we are asked to lower the eligible age, I do not know if you have figured out what would represent paying pensions at 60. Here on this side of the House, we would like every 60-year old to get it, and within ten years the eligible age will probably be lowered to 50, including us state pensioners at 50-


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Who will work to pay for
it?


Albert Béchard: Yes, who is going to work to pay for those pensions? So, Mr. Speaker, I consider that those proposals cannot be serious particularly when we are asked to cut expenses and taxes. As the sponsor of this motion suggested earlier, even if we would like everybody to receive that pension at the age of 60, we should not forget the taxpayers, and as my colleague from Edmonton West so ably put it, we should not forget those who are still working.
I also heard the two previous speakers, I refer to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) say that the government party had promised the pension at 60 during the last election campaign. We have never promised such a thing. It may be possible that the pension at 60 for everyone has been promised in the heat of an election campaign, but this is not the platform I had to defend and put forward. And those who did it were probably not elected and are not in this House.
Mr. Speaker, before moving on, another thing that was said for the umpteenth time by the hon. member for Roberval is that the government party, and it will surprise also those of the official opposition, was opposed to the wage and price freeze during the last election campaign. Well, as in the case of those who promised the pension at 60 for everybody, we never objected to price controls, but we objected to a price freeze. We objected to the Canadian people being sent to freeze in the cold lands where the official opposition party, namely the Progressive Conservative party, wanted to lead us. We could not have objected to controls because we already had some in some areas. So I think it is not too honest for the opposition to play petty politics and show partisanship in this matter.
The progress made in this regard in the past ten years has allowed senior citizens, large families and the unemployed to keep their dignity despite the high rate of inflation and economic problems at the world level. In 1967, for example, the old age security pension was $75 a month, and I would not be surprised to hear the official opposition say-in fact, they already said it-that the pension should be paid at the age of 60. However, bearing in mind that since the advent of social security measures, all the official opposition party has managed to offer Canadians is a meagre $16 compared to the total amount of $156.66 paid today. I wonder whether the Canadian people can take them seriously. Today-


An hon. Member:: I heard a while ago the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) refer to the spouses' allowance. He never mentioned the spouse. If you noticed, as the member for Roberval did, he mentioned the wife. The allowance is not only meant for the wife between 60 and 65, but for the spouse, either husband or wife. Then, the husband remains without a pension if he is 62 years old when his wife dies at 68.


Stanley Howard Knowles: How many are there?


Albert Béchard: I will count them and let you know next week. The member for Winnipeg North Centre added that the spouse was left with nothing when the Department of National Health and Welfare pays welfare allowances in every province to all needy individuals. The federal share of those allowances is 50 per cent, thanks to a policy implemented by this government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired. But he could go on if there is unanimous consent.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: The hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine.


Albert Béchard: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I thank you for that generosity as well as my colleagues. As I was saying, those who are in need, whether they be widows or widowers, whether they live alone or not, are entitled, whether they are spouses-because today you don't call those people widowers or widows, you call them spouses-but the spouse has the right to apply to the provincial department and he or she will have his or her pension or allowance set by the Quebec department of social affairs, and I repeat that this social allowance that senior citizens in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, all across Canada will be receiving is shared on a 50 per cent basis by the Government of Canada. And that is made possible once again, as the guaranteed income supplement, thanks to the measures passed by this bad government, according to the opposition.
So tomorrow I would like those who want to cut the budget by $2 billion to tell us exactly what they are going to do to cut it. What they are going to do, well, those who receive social security pensions or allowances will find out because it is already rumoured, and we can see the reaction, that certain things are going to be cut in those social security measures. You cannot go and get it elsewhere. So, that is the program that is not being talked about openly but which will be implemented if by misfortune the official opposition were to be called upon to form the government of this country.
The Economy
Spouses over 65 and the others between 60 and 65 get a maximum allowance of $249 a month. Family allowances are other social security measures passed, it must be acknowledged by a Liberal government and increased by a Liberal government, by Parliament, but at the instigation of a Liberal government, a good government. Family allowances are a very important source of revenue for Canadians. In 1967, they amounted to $6 a month per child under nine. Nowadays the average is $25.68 per child.
I would like to see the opposition try and advocate the reduction of these allowances in their constituencies. Now let us talk about the much criticized unemployment insurance. It went from $26 a week in 1967 to the present maximum of $160 a week for the unemployed with dependants. Allowances for veterans and the handicapped have also increased considerably. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank the Minister of Veteran Affairs (Mr. MacDonald) for his active support of veterans.
As did my colleague from Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), I would also like to beg him to improve the lot of veterans' widows who are not entitled to anything when their husbands die unless they are getting a pension of at least 48 per cent. So this afternoon, since to ask is to receive, I am asking the Minister of Veterans Affairs to consider that matter, to think of it even more seriously so that the lot of veterans' widows can be improved considerably.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, when some are tempted to yield to pressures and reduce those programs, we must give credit where credit is due, that is to the government, to various departments, because they took those measures. The other side can laugh but when they praise what a Progressive Conservative government has done in some provinces, they hold it up as a model.
We are trying to say what this government has done and I know that it has made mistakes: Errare humanum est, to err is human, and since the government is made up of human beings, just like the opposition, nothing is perfect on this earth. We are only trying to say that this government took those measures to make sure that the less advantaged people in our society will not suffer an unfair setback. Here again, I believe our society is much more just than it was ten years ago with all those measures that ensure the well-being of all citizens even though they are not all well off yet. Those who say that Canada is less prosperous today than it was ten years ago are closing their eyes to the facts as the members of the official opposition and others are doing. The hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard) is shaking his head. He says it is clear to him. We will see later when he takes the floor.
While as I said, the real per capita income rose nearly 52 per cent in Canada over the 1968-1977 period, the increase

May 19, 1978
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was 24 per cent only, in the case of our neighbours down South, the United States.
Recent budgets improved the Canadian workers' position. I would have liked to insist on this during the debate, but time is not available because I would like to give a chance to other members. Because members from Quebec allegedly do not wish to express their views on the sales tax matter, I would have welcomed the opportunity to do so, but I shall, on some other occasion.
The automatic escalation of income tax exemptions amounts for this year to some $900 million in income tax reductions. This certainly is a significant help to Canadians. In addition to the $100 income tax reduction announced earlier, consumers will benefit from a provincial sales tax cut. I would have liked to elaborate on this, but I will have to wait for some other time.
I must also refer to measures like the amendment extending to capital gains the $1,000 exemption for interest and dividends, the amendments to the registered retirement savings plan to give it more flexibility in the use of revenues, and the tax exemption on transfers of incorporated farms between family members.
This, Mr. Speaker, concludes this very brief outline of the current situation, as developed by this government for the well-being of Canadians. As I said, I realize this is not paradise on earth, but apparently we cannot expect it in this world.
I believe that under this government, headed by a Prime Minister who entered politics to help his fellow Canadians, and give them a greater share of our great Canadian economy so that they could benefit more, such a goal has been achieved with flying colours, as all available figures and statistics prove this government will endure, and I hope for a long time to come, for the greater benefit of all Canadians.


Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I support the motion put forward by the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier). It is always regrettable to have to correct a colleague, but I should like to point out to the hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bechard) that if the hon. member who has presented the motion today is absent, it is because he was called away on serious business. And I would also point out to him that we are only eight members in this House and that without boasting about it we take an active part in all the proceedings of this House. I think that we are one of the most diligent parties along with the New Democratic party, because the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is always here to follow the proceedings and try to see to it that this country gets a fair and honest administration.
Mr. Speaker, the speech of the hon. member for Bonaven-ture-Iles-de-la-Madeleine reminds me a little of one of my friends who one day went to confession. He started telling the

priest all about his numerous conquests, and the priest finally said to him: My good friend, this is no place to boast, just tell your sins. So, Mr. Speaker, I think this is no place to boast of oneself but rather a place to realize the numerous problems of our country, to realize the enormous unemployment situation and to realize that inflation has been eroding the fabric of our society for several years. I therefore intend, Mr. Speaker, to deal with inflation this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker, we, from the Social Credit party, are naturally the target of a lot of attacks and our philosophy is being criticized on all sides. Unfortunately, I must say that the enemies of the Social Credit party are precisely those who know nothing about the whole doctrine of Major Douglas, and they are often the first, like my colleague the hon. member for Bonaventurc-lles-de-la-Madeleine, to intervene and try to ridicule the philosophy of the Social Credit party. I would therefore urge him to read about it and to realize like many others that the present system is not that great and that there is certainly good reason to look for something better and see to it that men live as they should on this earth, and not in a system which does not meet all the needs of our modern society.
So, Mr. Speaker, the phenomenon of inflation which we have tended to neglect for several years is still with us. Inflation continues to thwart the realization of our individual and collective objectives. We in Canada have to face rising prices caused by shortages and soaring prices in foreign countries. To overcome this situation, the best thing we can do is to substitute home-made products for imported products. We could easily produce here a great number of the products we import.
On the other hand, a large percentage of the price increase is due to international factors that can be blamed mainly on the chartered banks and the Bank of Canada. The chairman of the Royal Bank, Mr. McLaughlin, said last March, and I quote: "The fact still remains that the money supply is growing too rapidly if we are to check inflation." Thus, the managers of the chartered banks themselves confirm what I have always said in the past, namely that the chartered banks have expanded the credit volume inconsiderately, without taking into account the economic situation, without governmental controls and at rates of interest far too high. Consequently, these credits have not benefited the whole population, as we have created poverty in the midst of plenty. Let us not forget, Mr. Speaker, that the price mechanism is directly related to the monetary system. Theoretically the chartered banks can issue up to 16 times more money in the form of credit than they have in actual reserves. The high interest rates on bank loans are responsible for the ever growing rate of the cost of living.
The producers who have to repay the capital and interest will reflect those costs in the price of their products. Consum-
May 19, 1978

ers buying goods and services with borrowed money must therefore pay their own interest and that of the producer as well since it is already included in the price of those goods and services. Mr. Speaker, when the government members tell us that inflation cannot be controlled because it is due to a number of external causes, they show how little they know about the problem. I do not pretend that there are no external factors involved, but I think we should first consider domestic factors such as our money supply, and in that respect bankers recognize that I am right. Since the reasons for inflation have been identified by economists, why is the government unable to come up with an aggressive policy to control spiralling prices and do for prices what they have been doing for salaries for over two years? Must we believe that the government has abdicated in front of the financial power of chartered banks and big concerns?
It seems that the Canadian government has adopted the American president's declaration that any hope to control inflation is a myth. And yet Germany and Switzerland have done just that. Why do we not lead the way for once? I would like to quote here the projections for 1978 of the Friedbert and Co. Ltd. group in Toronto: "In 1978 and 1979, more than $10 billion in net financial requirements will be needed by the private sector, a fact which will push interest rates to record levels". And since the government itself goes to the private sector to finance its debt, it will be victim as well of these higher interest rates. The end result will be unprecedented profits for chartered banks and lending institutions. These last few years inflation has been the most controversial economic problem, but there has been no real action to control it. We must not let inflation become part and parcel of our system, already bad enough as it is. History tells us that the surge of prices gives way to economic instability and threaten the personal financial security of social groups such as people living on pensions and the unemployed.
We can easily see how important it is to revamp our system. Unfortunately the longer we allow inflation to stay with us the more problems we must expect to have, in number and complexity. All government policies so far have proved useless. Indeed I had the opportunity to discuss this question at length during the debate on Bill C-18 about anti-inflation controls. Perhaps government policies were not entirely useless but they did not go to the heart of the problem. As I said earlier, inflation is related to prices and prices are a monetary measure. Money is created by chartered banks, their reserves being controlled by the Bank of Canada. No one here can deny that these institutions have a decisive influence on the conditions determining our purchasing power. One of the determining factors in extending credit to the people is that borrowed money has to be paid back with interest. For the mere fact that he is paying interest on his credit, an individual sometimes happens to pay three times the value of the products he buys. A typical example would be the case of a house bought with a
The Economy
mortgage loan. We are faced with much the same situation as regards the national debt.
Not later than this morning, Mr. Speaker, we could read the following headline in the economic pages of Le Devoir:
Hydro-Quebec invested $2 billion in 1977, half of the hydro bill goes to pay the interest on the debt.
Just think of it, Mr. Speaker, half of the bill goes to pay the interest on the debt.
A little further, we can read this and I quote:
The interest on the long term debt amounted to $620.8 million against revenue of $1.2 billion. The decrease in the value of the dollar cost Hydro-Quebec $10 million in 1977.
We also see in the annual report that the average interest rate for this public company was 8.32 per cent in 1977, and that it got a $55 million loan from ten chartered banks in the country at a rate of 9.25 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, such indebtedness is unacceptable when we have all the tools required to make these funds available to the quasi-public sector at administrative interest rates. Interest rates are no longer related to administrative costs. High interest rates are therefore a direct cause of high prices. If the interest rates were lowered to reflect the administrative cost of a loan, the current trend towards rising prices would obviously be greatly reduced. This is what I have suggested on many occasions by explaining that the issue of new credit by the Bank of Canada to finance the public debt as well the financial requirements of the public and quasi-public sectors would not have an inflationary effect and would at the same time contribute to lighten the financial burden of our present high unemployment rate.
The major legal responsibility of the Bank of Canada is to administer the money supply in the best interest of the Canadian community, and the increase in the cost of living is directly opposed to this interest. The Bank of Canada therefore has a duty to control these high interest rates which are a major cause of the ever higher cost of living. Our present monetary system is clearly at the source of the inflationary trend of interest rates. I therefore suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the centre of gravity of financial control, which is now solely in the hands of the bankers as concerns the population as a whole, be transferred so as to create an economy which would truly serve the consumer. I also suggest the distribution of a basic income to all citizens to enable them to obtain the necessities of life. Finally, I would like the obvious defects of the present price system to be eliminated since these defects lead our economy from inflation cycles to recession cycles. To this end, the Bank of Canada, the last resort institution of money and credit, must steer its monetary policy to achieve a harmonious development of our economy. Such a philosophy of credit will greatly contribute to stabilizing the purchasing power of the consumer.
I also wanted to talk about a national guaranteed income. Mr. Speaker, we now have a tendency in this country to want

May 19, 1978
The Economy
to divide a national dividend, but we must consider that the monetary capital is now the only one to obtain national dividends each fiscal year while the labour capital and the intellectual capital are penalized for having contributed to the development of our country and for having increased production as required to serve the consumer. People are penalized because they have paid taxes on these products while someone else controls the economic life blood of our country. In fact, Canada receives a national dividend in the form of a reward. I thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, before dealing with the substance of the motion, I hasten to congratulate and thank the hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) and his party for their cunning in drawing up the orders of the day. At the same time, I also want to thank him for having given me the chance, considering the terms of his motion, of pointing out once again the shortcomings and even the failure of this government in the area of general economic policy.
Notwithstanding the comments we heard from the hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bechard) in trying to whitewash the government, it is obvious and there is every indication that the economy of this country which possesses almost endless wealth and opportunities, has never ceased to deteriorate since the coming into power of this government under the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau).
Our country has experienced incredible economic ups and downs since 1968. Unfortunately, time does not allow me today to mention the constitutional ups and downs we have also experienced, but I want to submit evidence that proves my case. The Consumer Price Index which was pegged at 100 for the year 1971, amounted to 89.4 per cent in 1968, while today, it reaches the 171.8 per cent level as of the month of April. That is almost twice the 1968 figure, Mr. Speaker.
Besides, in another area, the inflation rate was 4.5 per cent in 1968 and, for the current year, it is up to 8.8 per cent, which is almost twice. Our national debt is yet another example. We had an indebtedness of $32,900 million in 1968 and this has increased to $67 billion today; that means $32 billion against $67 billion today. Once again, it has increased almost twofold.
Each Canadian has seen his personal indebtedness, as reflected by the national debt go up from $1,600 to $2,861. In order to finance this debt, the increase in interest went from $2.3 billion in 1968 to $5.4 billion today, which is close to twice as much. To pay the interest to finance the national debt, to face this terrible cost, each taxpayer in Canada had to pay $162 in 1968, whereas today the government takes $744.50 from him, which is close to four times as much. The government levies four times as much income tax as it did in 1968 in order to be able to meet this interest on the national debt.
While I talked about inflation in general terms, we have just heard the hon. member for Bonaventure-Iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bechard) praise the efforts made by the government to check unemployment, but the record is also depressing. In
April 1968, the month when the Prime Minister took office, there were only 375,000 jobless in Canada. Today we have more than one million unemployed. We have seen a three-fold increase in the number of unemployed, of people seeking a job. The unemployment rate is also an indication of the failure of this government: it went up from 4.5 per cent in 1968 to 8.6 per cent in 1978.
I could give a good many more figures, but I want to concentrate, having set that scene, on section (2) of the resolution which is before us. If time permits I would like to say a word on section (4) as well.
Section (2) condemns the government for failing to present to parliament new and effective measures in connection with the elderly. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) expanded on this to some extent. There is another aspect on this that has captured my attention. I have spoken about it before in the House, but I find sometimes one has to come back again, again, and again to the same matter because only by going over it does the government gradually get the idea. They eventually find there is some value in what they are hearing from the other side of the House and they adopt pieces of it and, of course, present it as their own to derive full political advantage from it.
The matter I would like to speak about this afternoon arises out of the consumer price index which is used for the adjustment of pensions. It is a misleading index when applied to all sectors of the population, and I will explain why. The consumer price index is made up of a basket of things. The basket consists of food items, housing, clothing, transportation, health and personal care, recreation and finally, an interesting category that I shall come to in due course, tobacco and alcohol. These items in turn are broken down into individual portions. It is through these portions and their allotment that I hope to show that it is an unrealistic basket as far as those who are on pensions are concerned. The government has not been sufficiently imaginative and thoughtful in its presentation of policies, programs and procedures to deal with the problems facing these people.
On the food side 24.8 per cent of the whole basket goes into the consumer price index. Out of that, 3.3 per cent is for dairy products, 7.2 per cent for meat and 3.2 per cent for fruits and vegetables. It stands fairly well when you compare one with the other, 3.2 per cent for dairy products, 7.2 per cent for meat, poultry and fish and then 3.2 per cent, about the same as dairy products, for fruits and vegetables.
However, if you look at it in relation to the larger picture, food in relation to housing and so on, the distortion in the consumer price index becomes a little more evident. I will read the breakdown that makes up 100 per cent of the basket: 24.8 per cent for food, 31.4 per cent for housing-one quarter for food and about one third for housing-11 per cent for clothing, 15 per cent for transportation, 4.5 per cent for personal

May 19, 1978

hygiene, 6.8 per cent for recreation and 5.9 per cent for tobacco and alcohol. I do not know why they did not go into recreation, but it is cited separately.
If you had these figures in front of you, Mr. Speaker, you would agree that those who are on pensions and have limited funds to spend would not be spending, for example, 6 per cent on tobacco and alcohol and only 31 per cent, five times as much, on housing. Even the housing is subject to certain corrections because a person on pension either gets special concessions, as they do in my province where they get a special rate on rent, or they are fortunate enough to have bought their house by the time they reach pensionable age. Therefore, 31 per cent of their expenditure is not going to housing. I suggest that 4.5 per cent for hygiene is away out of line. Even where most medical expenses are taken care of, it is not enough when you relate it to the 24.8 per cent for food.
Then there is recreation. How many elderly people can spend 7 per cent of their income on recreation, travel and movies? Included in recreation is admission to events, movies, sports, entertainment, stereo combinations. How many of our elderly people are buying stereo combinations when they are on pension? They either have them already or manage to do without them. They also are likely to have their television sets. Then there is TV repair and recordings. Under sports equipment comes boats, motors, bicycles, camera film and processing, cameras, camping equipment, toys, games, pet expenses. I think many people on pensions have pets and are fortunate to have their dogs and cats. Vacation lodging is listed. How many are able to have that? Education fees, tuition fees, driving licence; if they have not learned to drive by the time they go on pension, I suggest it is a little late. Reading includes newspapers and magazines.
Those are the various components of this 7 per cent set aside for recreation. I say this is out of line, just as the personal hygiene cost of 4.5 per cent is out of line.
One of the things the government ought to have been doing is directing Statistics Canada to draw up a more realistic consumer price index for those on pensions, relating it to their needs and style of life. How many of them buy children's clothing? How many can afford a sirloin steak?
Another interesting things about this index is that it was devised in 1967. At that time gas cost about 30 cents per gallon, and home heating fuels something the same. Our electricity bills were in line. The bits and pieces contained in the consumer price index have swollen between 1967 and today. It is time the consumer price index was updated for the general public, let alone the elderly.
I said that the CPI is completely improper as a basis for pensions for the elderly. I am going to say quite clearly, so that there will be no mistake, that there has to be an adjustment in pensions for the elderly if inflation is going to continue.
The prime purpose of this party when it assumes government will be to conquer inflation. Meanwhile, there can be no
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question that a realistic index will have to be applied to those who are on pension. They do not have the organized power to apply pressure to governments that other organizations in our community have and, therefore, they must be taken care of. They are our parents and the parents of our friends; let us not forget that. Those of us who are sitting here will one day feel that perhaps we would like somebody to look after us. Let us not forget that these elderly are ourselves ten or 15 years down the road.
I have said that what is needed is a more realistic consumer price index for the elderly. I want to deal with one other element in the resolution, the last paragraph which says that we strongly condemn the government for having failed to present new legislation which would stimulate consumption of Canadian products.
That is one of the things that I suggest this government might have done and did not do. Instead, it did something for political advantage, namely, it worked out by some devious means a confrontation with the provinces and invaded provincial jurisdiction on the matter of sales tax.
As soon as I heard this sales tax gimmick in the budget I said, "Why in the world did this government not just decide to reduce the federal sales tax?" Within its own jurisdiction it could have done this to the advantage of all of Canada. But not this government. This government wanted a confrontation. It wanted to invade a provincial domain and so proposed this exchange: "We will leave a couple of points on the sales tax and reduce income tax by $100; you come in and increase provincial income tax and get back that $100." They conned a lot of Canadian people into believing that the individual taxpayer was to gain something. That is not so. They are not being taxed by the federal government but by the provincial governments.
The other thing that I think is so reprehensible about the manner in which the federal government approached this is that in October there will be some tough decisions to make and it will be the provincial governments that have to make them. October sounds to me like an election month. The federal government will say, "Fine, you got that adjustment for six months so you are in clover. Now you are either going to have to continue with the tax abatement-we are not going to go any further than we did-or you are going to have to re-apply it."
If that is not the sneakiest way of dealing with the provinces that I have ever heard, then I have a lot to hear. It absolutely baffles me that a respectable federal government would try to put all provincial governments in this corner six months down the road, but that is exactly what they did. They fell for it but the day of reckoning will soon come.
On top of that they put forward this extraordinary method of deciding to return to one particular sector of the population in the province of Quebec, the federal taxpayers, something up to but not more than $85. Again, that is a method of creating a confrontation situation with the provinces.
I think whatever else is said, this motion has a great deal in it. I think this House should strongly condemn the govern-

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ment, first of all for having failed to bring effective measures forward to deal with those who have reached age 60, and also for having failed to present legislation that would stimulate the consumption of Canadian products. If the federal government had reduced its own federal sales tax, that would have been of universal application.
We worked on the sales tax and dropped the building tax from 12 per cent to 5 per cent. We managed to persuade the government to reduce sales tax on children's clothing, even eliminating it completely. Why did they not reduce the sales tax and make it universal for all people, whether those people were buying gasoline or building houses? If they had removed the tax entirely on building materials, this would have been the greatest stimulus to the house building industry of this country. Not only the consumption of Canadian products, but the whole Canadian economy would have received a great shot in the arm. Therefore, I want to thank the proposer of this motion and the Social Credit party for having brought this motion to the floor.


Mr. Claude Tessier (Compton):: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in this debate, but also very unhappy because I must object to a motion which, although it may appear acceptable at first sight, must be rejected out of hand because it is overly simplistic, because it is irresponsible, in short because it is not rational, that is neither logical nor serious.
Mr. Speaker, one cannot try to sell anything under the pretence of sincerity and good-heartedness, but I think what we should heed from that motion is the sincerity and the philosophy of its movers. However, Mr. Speaker, when someone makes up half-truths and incomplete statements and then believes in them, which is more serious, he ends up making up falsehoods and, if it were not unparliamentary, I would even say becoming a liar. It is first and foremost unworthy of the unquestionable credibility and efficiency of a representative at the government level. As far as I am concerned, it is a sign of dishonesty to try to subtly deceive right-minded people- perhaps demagogically would be more accurate. It is about time to be serious, that is logical and realistic. The problems stated or described in the motion, I might rather say denounced, such as unemployment among youths aged between 18 and 30, I would have liked the motion to tell us what those young people could do. What can they do, at what cost, and of course who will be able to buy the goods thus produced?
As for the old age security pension at 60, then again the question is how much, and who will decide? Does the decision lie only with the federal government or does it involve consultations that some hon. members consider necessary at times while on other occasions they advocate lavish spending to finance programs such as the old age pension at 60? As for a national dividend to increase buying power, the federal govern-
[Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich).l
ment and particularly the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) in his last budget tried to introduce a measure which would actually increase the purchasing power of the Canadian taxpayer, and there again for reasons that some would call constitutional and others nothing but political, objections were raised in this House to the government's proposal aiming at putting more money into the Canadian consumer's pockets. We did provide for that, but the opposition parties seem to enjoy thwarting our efforts.
This motion suggests stimulating consumption by discounting retail prices or doing away with interests. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, when I hear motions like the one before us today, whether the Creditistes are not simply turning communists. One of these days they will have to tell us whether they do in fact advocate private enterprise, and what role, what place and what rules they want for it. As far as the government of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, is concerned, I feel that the Minister of Finance, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Andras), the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Cullen), have introduced many solutions to the various problems we have today.
Nonetheless, the problems that exist in the areas of unemployment, old people, rates of interest, are actual problems, but it remains to be seen whether the government proposals can be considered as beneficial and until we have evidence to the contrary, I consider them such. We must recognize, Mr. Speaker, that when it comes to implementing solutions, we have partners who have their own viewpoints and their own compulsions. I think it might be well for us in this House to realize that we are not here to establish heaven on earth; but we should at least be convinced that we can render hardships more acceptable; I think that some day we shall have to accept living with problems without blinding people to the facts in a totally irresponsible way and trying to have them believe there are miracle solutions that can be applied. I wish the opposition would at least account for its proposals. It definitely would have helped the House today if the opposition had really accounted for its proposals since, with a budgetary deficit of some $11.5 billion, it is quite easy to add or subtract. And I believe this is as much the responsibility of the opposition as that of the government. I am sure that the day when the opposition agrees to account for its proposals, we will be able to spend more time working effectively to meet the needs of our constituents, as they will become more realistic and responsible instead of constantly trying to win votes and campaign on strictly demagogic issues.
The hon. member for Roberval (Mr. Gauthier) seems to think that interest rates, income tax and taxes in general are the cause of inflation. Obviously, interest rates and income tax have always been considered too high, but, Mr. Speaker, I think one should realize it is the income tax and the taxes we pay which allow the federal government to give taxpayers the
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quality of services which they can judge for themselves. And in that sense, we do not have any choice or alternative even if we object to or condemn income tax and taxes in general. Therefore, we should find the courage to propose reduced services as a logical result of income tax and tax cuts.
The hon. member raised an issue which is also an image, almost a Creditiste ghost, that is master financiers, monopolies and the triumph of the financiers, forgetting that our government established an Anti-Inflation Board. Obviously, he noted, as we did, a stupendous price increase before the setting up of the Anti-Inflation Board. It was set up as an effective measure against inflation, but of course, some believe it to have been completely inefficient, but one must admit that it has at least succeeded in restraining the inflation rate. They raised the issue of one million unemployed and welfare cases, but the Social Credit has failed with all its logic to convince us that our rate of inflation in 1978 is responsible for one million unemployed, and not realizing that the real reason is a series of problems we do not want to face but with which we should try not only to live but also improve our situation. And I think that is the government's philosophy.
The hon. member for Roberval said that it was time to resort to radical means. That is all very good, but I was hoping to find out what those means are. I did not. He told us about the young people. He said they had been lied to and even rejected. He mentioned work permits and what the government could achieve with them, but does he not know that this is a matter of provincial jurisdiction? He tells us that employers should hire young people but it is impossible because they do not have working permits. Here again would he want the federal government to interfere in provincial responsibilities.
The hon. member went as far as saying that young people will no longer tolerate closed doors. I wonder if that is an incitement to violence. I suggest we do not have the right to lie to young people, we do not have the right to engage in demagogy to try and incite them. Indeed, I think young people are much too intelligent to fall for that political game. This is the kind of game which makes young people completely distrust public figures precisely because too many of those young people or too many of those public figures are trying to mislead them with old stories that are definitely outmoded and which to say the least do not reflect reality. Yes, of course, the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard) talks of the just society, a more humane society, but that more just and more humane society was not and will not in future be based on lies or stories.
Mr. Speaker, it is certain that the solution for 60-year-old workers might be to offer them the possibility of retiring early, we agree on that, but once again how do you find the money for such a proposal? Another example. We on this side have been talking for a long time about guaranteed minimum income schemes. I understand that the proposals are drafted, that they are ready. On the other hand, we do not have the
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means right now to implement them and it is precisely the reality with which we must deal on a daily basis, meaning that it is all very nice to have social projects but one day and more than ever it is high time we looked at the cost of proposals such as those which are being made. I consider that most of today's motion is a heap of old cliches on which everyone agrees. There is no possible objection, except for the fact that we must obviously learn to set a price on our proposals.
I would also like to slip in a few comments concerning an area which the members opposite have once more said that the government was wrong, and I mean the area of dairy policy. In a week or two they will again be blaming the government for cutting down the quotas. Is the government to be blamed if at the present moment, in Quebec especially, there has been a distribution that exceeded the quotas? The federations that are at fault must then adjust these quotas to the Canadian demand. I think that in this case again the government will be blamed, and some people will try to mislead the public by saying: See that lousy government again; they told the farmers that they had to produce. They do and now they are affected by reductions. I think we should be honest enough to recognize that some day it will be necessary in all areas of economic activity to adjust our supply to the demand. It is about time we acted consistently but this does not seem to mean that it is time to accept the Creditiste theories. I think these two things are completely different. It is time to be consistent, to show some courage, and it is time we tried to stop harping on the same string and even fall for demands we might consider as legitimate.
I repeat, Mr. Speaker, about the subject matter of the motion before us, we would certainly agree to rid the country of unemployment this very day once and for all. Likewise, if it had been possible to grant pensions at age 60, perhaps tomorrow at 55 and then who knows, perhaps at 50. We agree in theory but not in practice; the government cannot be the be-all and end-all of everything. This is a fact which should be recognized and understood because it is a fallacy to say that the government should provide a solution to all ills.
Today's motion is a complete statement of what is left of the Social Credit party which, far from coming, is going, because it is no longer relevant, because it has no original and responsible, that is realistic, views, to offer. It is not enough to be sincere you have to find the appropriate means. That calls for courage and imagination as well as a new democratic consciousness which through long and complete consultations would make it possible for the government to act with a sense of responsibility in the best interest of the people and for the House of Commons to be really responsible and aware of the needs of the people.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, on our side too we have people in our ridings who are unemployed. We have senior citizens,

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people paying interest rates, and young people. And we must provide social services. We have built houses but there are more to build. And we agree that the needs of all those people are real. But we must stop creating new needs because we do not have the means to pay for those already created. So we must either stop creating needs or we must establish new priorities and I think that the government is quite prepared to discuss and readjust its priorities in co-operation with the Opposition and the people, to make them more efficient, more sensible and more realistic.
There is something strange in this debate, Mr. Speaker, which goes to prove that there is still some hope. In its motion, the Social Credit party did not mention our deficit. I wish they had because in our party the election campaign had already begun and mention was made of the government deficit.
I think that if the opposition, the press and anyone else want to denounce the government deficit, they should have the honesty to tell what government services they are prepared to cut off.
There should be co-operation among governments and I think that here we have a lesson to learn. We tried to act with the province of Quebec as we did with the other provinces but we have failed up to now with regard to the sales tax. However, it is very important the various governments, provincial and municipal, work together toward job creation as I consider it to be an essential prerequisite.


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


Some hon. Members:: Carry on!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Does the House give its unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to continue.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Claude Tessier: Thank you Mr. Speaker and I also want to thank my colleagues for their kindness. I think that my colleague from Rimouski (Mr. Allard) would want me no doubt to change the tone of my comments. I would like to do so but on the other hand, I would feel that I am betraying those who elected me here.
I will therefore try to conclude my remarks as rapidly as possible, Mr. Speaker, by telling you that my primary objective is to give work to all those who can and must work. However, the question I wish to share with all the members of this House is at what price could we give work to everybody and naturally what type of work could we find to give back to our workers their right to work? It is all very well to talk about employment but if tomorrow morning for instance and that is a fact which we have experienced in my area, we decided to build campers and there were no buyers I wonder if that is

what is really meant by creating employment and it is precisely at this stage that we must be realistic enough to know in advance what will have to be produced tomorrow and to whom those products may be sold. If our consumer goods cannot be sold, how do you expect the system to survive, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker, asking each other questions will obviously lead us nowhere and today's motion proves it once again blatantly. How can serious and responsible public administrators have any faith in politicians who keep advocating demagogical and unrealistic solutions? What credibility, Mr. Speaker, can an institution such as this parliament retain when it tolerates such demagogical endeavours which have become synonymous with inefficiency and dishonesty? It is high time to put an end to farcical situations such as we have experienced today if we want to restore the necessary credibility of this House and ourselves as members of parliament, which seems to me to be one of our major problems at the present time.
I think that the opposition must go a lot further regarding the proposals it made and I have to denounce today the absence of the Socred members who on a day set aside for the opposition have been noted for their absence during the study of a motion which should particularly interest them and which should have given them an opportunity to present us with solutions. I am even wondering today if we did the right thing when we accepted to allow them to retain the status of a recognized party when this same party presents us with solutions such as those we have heard today, yet is absent for all practical purposes when it comes to making this House work efficiently.


Mr. Charles-Eugene Dionne (Kamouraska):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be given the opportunity to participate in this debate even though I got here a few minutes late. I had to go to the CBC studios for the recording of a program dealing with social credit. I think it is worth-while talking about it and I even feel it is the only way out of the economic problems we are experiencing now.
When I got in the House, I heard the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Tessier) say that it was kind of a waste of time to discuss this motion today. I naturally respect his opinions. He has a right to voice his feelings about it. But I would like to know if he has a solution to our unpaid and unpayable debts situation. Ever since I was elected to this House-and I have said this before-I have not heard a single minister say that he was aiming at finding ways and means to pay the public debts. I see what they can do and I see that they have great difficulty in doing it. The present situation and what is going on in the House lately are eloquent proofs of it.
All they can do is try to pay the interest on our debts. Finally, this system boils down to a formula of management for the country that no Canadian citizen is allowed to use for
May 19, 1978

his own private affairs. Certainly anyone is compelled by law to pay his debts sooner or later, even if that takes years, and if he does not, sooner or later he is deprived of whatever he has by the law.
But the government of the land goes on piling up debts, and the result is that this year Canadian taxpayers will be paying an excess of $6 billion in interest costs. Of course, no one on the government side, including the speaker who had the floor when I came in, is considering ways of repaying some of the principal. All they can do is try and pay the interest. At times they have to get deeper into debt just to pay the interest. And it was not so long ago that we discussed the transfer of the CN debt. In the final analysis, the Canadian government increases its indebtedness in order to absorb another debt. The same thing happened with the St. Lawrence Seaway. The same thing goes on and on, and this is unacceptable. Sooner or later, citizens with a sense of duty and responsibility will have to try seriously and honestly to find a way out, because this cannot go on forever. We hear of various projects, and I know that most hon. members here in this House, and especially on the government side, would be quite happy to accept many of the worth-while projects prepared and submitted by students, by the people involved in Canada Works programs. But the answer we get from departmental officials and the minister himself is that they do not have enough funds to accept any large number of projects. They themselves publicize this to encourage young people, students, to submit projects.
In my constituency of Kamouraska, projects were submitted for a total of nearly $1 million, while available funds amounted to $192,000. Clearly, those responsible for selecting projects had a difficult task, that of trying to deal with projects totalling $1 million when they only had $192,000. The same thing occurs every year when the program is reactivated. I am not criticizing the program in itself because it is a good program. We were given a chance to see that there is quite a lot of ingenuity among young people and the not-so-young, among those who are interested in the Canada Works program. I was myself involved with the officials of the government in the selection process, and I know, having seen many of those projects, that there were some good ideas, that there were for instance, young people who spent several evenings, and worked very late in the night, drafting projects which seemed acceptable to them. Unfortunately, only 26 out of more than 60 projects were accepted. After first instilling some hope, this program becomes a source of frustration for many students who are now without jobs for the summer season. They will have to travel from one area to another, in the province and in the country, without finding suitable enploy-ment. All that, because ours is a financial system which lessens the possibility of accepting good ideas.
We, from the Social Credit party, maintain the monetary system which can and should be improved, especially as we know this is what is wrong. Almost every day we see headlines in newspapers stating that such and such item could not be
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accepted, for want of money; such project, such organization, they will have to fire workers, because they have not enough money. Therefore, we suggest methods to improve that monetary mechanism which operates backward.
I will not say, and we Creditistes never suggested that, that a Social Credit government will solve all issues overnight, that Social Credit is a cure-all for all human ills, that is not what we say. How many times have I heard politicians of different stripes mention the "Caouette's buck", for instance. I beg your pardon if I mentioned the name of our chief that we loved so much, who did so much for Canada to arouse public opinion to this issue. But anyway those people will say: this one or that one's buck, or the buck machine or the Bank of Canada. Yes, indeed, the Bank of Canada. Why have they created the Bank of Canada? Was it only to change little nickels, to make bigger metal pieces of different value, resulting in confusion between nickels and quarters? Is that the responsibility of the Bank of Canada? The Bank of Canada has been created by a past prime minister who once stated very clearly. As long as a nation does not control money, it is useless to speak of a responsible government.
Why is it then, that we can read many statements made by distinguished people? Presidents of the United States of America. By the way, I could name Abraham Lincoln assassinated in a theatre at ten o'clock in the morning, who was one of those who wanted to improve the monetary system which resulted in so many difficulties. Also, a statesman, a military leader, Napoleon who said that on many occasions he wanted to do something, but was prevented by the monetary system from reaching his goal.
Everywhere we see people ready to sell their conscience in order to get money, people with power holding on to power in any form and who do not dare criticize a financial system which is crushing people. The federal government prefers to keep fighting with provincial governments, in order to decide who will be allowed to tax people more in never ending bickerings.
I remember in 1941, at a federal-provincial conference when the premier from Alberta who was then the Hon. William Lyon Aberhart expounded his theory on Social Credit to the provincial premiers. He mentioned: "We are here in order to try to find ways and means to provide all Canadians with happy living conditions and a formula which would enable everyone to use goods in plenty." But the issue was laid to rest and discussions went on on who could take the most out of the taxpayer's pockets.
This bickering has been carrying on for a month, following the budget speech of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien), which was given here and, of the Quebec minister of finance, a few days later; one sees immediately the same response and it is now threatening what a few people like to call Canadian unity, simply for a question of dollars. Why should this be? I
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would like to know and I regret that the speaker who was addressing himself to the House when I came in did not stay longer-


Some hon. Members:: No, he went because he was frightened.


Charles-Eugène Dionne: -I would like him to tell me how he thinks this money is generated. The angels do not come down to earth every six months or every year to manufacture dollars. Money is made by human hands. It should therefore not be considered as a sign of wealth. Money is not wealth. Wealth is in material things. That should be easy to understand. What is important for a nation is to have enough food, to be able to dress properly, to have the necessary materials to build appropriate and comfortable housing. There is no lack of all that in Canada.
We have had the chance to be born in an extremely wealthy country, as our politicians are always saying. But wealthy in what way? Is it wealthy in natural resources? Yes. But how is it that to obtain the right to develop our natural resources, the national government has to go down on its knees to one group of men, the bankers who control the nation? It is not for nothing that the Pope, in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, wrote very clearly: The manipulators of money and credit hold the economic life in their hands to such an extent that no one can breathe without their consent. This is a fact as anyone who wants to look seriously at the situation as it is and without red or blue glasses can see. Our government is always paralyzed by a corrupt and corrupting financial system.
We have heard about guaranteed income. I have been hearing about this for 10 years. Investigators from the Senate have made a study throughout the country. They found out what everyone knew already, that there were many poor people in Canada. Thousands of families lived under the poverty level. Since then, there have been occasional discussions about a minimum guaranteed income for everyone. That is what the Social Credit party has always recommended. For my part, I have been studying the principles of social credit since 1939 and I did not become a prophet all of a sudden. Of course not! However, I must say that before then, I was a Liberal party organizer and that I tried to tell my supporters that the Grits were a little better than the Tories. However, after a few years, I realized there was not much to choose between them. It is then that I decided to study the social credit doctrine.
In passing, I must add that social credit as such is not a political party but an economic doctrine. Has someone ever thought of the financial system as a political party? No, it is a Financial doctrine. Nobody would say that the Catholic religion or any other religion are political parties. Those are religions which have their own ways of thinking, of observing

and of offering to people the opportunity to assess the value of their beliefs or of their system. It is the same thing with social credit. It is an economic doctrine.
That a political party was formed under that name does not change anything to the social credit doctrine. It was established by a Scottish civil engineer and mathematician. He was always faced with monetary problems, so he tried to find out why. Since then the Douglas doctrine has been discussed in various countries of the world. Some will contend that it has not been implemented anywhere. Indeed, it is the main argument of our opponents. They do not study that doctrine. They say: if it was that good it would have been implemented somewhere. But I can still bring evidence that a Canadian province has applied the social credit doctrine under provincial jurisdiction. It was not the social credit as taught by Mr. Douglas. They could not do it because the monetary reform comes under federal jurisdiction. They even pleaded their case before the London Court.
Lucien Maynard, the Alberta secretary-treasurer, went up to the London court in an attempt to have the judges of that court understand that the legislation he had passed had to be implemented. The federal government, of course, had hastily declared it ultra vires because it affected the monetary system. They were afraid to lose a little of their power. The fact, of course, is that our lords from London who have the same conception of the imperfect monetary system as we have, confirmed the judgment which had been passed, with the result that the Alberta premier could not then implement the social credit system as developed by Major Douglas.
But even though the social credit system was not fully implemented, nobody could deny that the Social Credit party succeeded, when it came into power in Alberta in 1937 during the depression, at a time period when I, as well as thousands of other people, were trying to plan our future properly faced with an economic crisis, and our leaders both in the federal government and in the provincial government, when we talked to them about the possibility of improving our lot, used to answer: It's too bad, we don't have any money. Some answer! but it was at that time that the government took over in the province which was in debt as all the others.
After a few months, the laws were passed with the result that the debt of the province was extinguished, paid off. That government, had a social credit mentality, it believed debts must generally be paid. So they found a way of operating Alberta's oil wells. And people hasten to say: Of course, Alberta is filthy rich, it has the oil. But at the beginning of the Alberta administration, the Aberhart administration, there were no oil wells, there were no oil operations. So he undertook to Find suitable administrative methods. Later on, after a few months, the oil fields were developed but in a special way, so
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as to yield a decent return based on the values of national resources.
The government that replaced it today is a Conservative government in a rich, pretty rich, province, and we often hear it said these days that the province of Alberta is not like the others. It does not pay taxes. The oil is flowing but the development of Alberta's oil wells was set in motion by a Social Credit government which saw to it that it brought revenues to the province. But that is part of social credit, and the doctrine itself on the whole-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has now expired. Nevertheless, he may continue with the unanimous consent of the House.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Charles-Eugène Dionne: I am grateful to hon. members for letting me go on.
As I was saying, that is Social Credit, but that also is practical common sense, no more and no less. Nobody can deny this. There are so many things that can be said. Just an hour ago I was speaking with someone who seemed well-educated. He told me: "We are too deeply involved in the current system, it would be too difficult to get out of it." And this was my answer: "When your car gets stuck in a snow drift, do you leave it there or do you try to get it out?"
I suggest it is still time to make a worth-while effort. But as I said at the outset, if it were that we should have to wait for some divine power to come down from heaven and give us a certain amount of money at various points in our history, we could say: "Let us wait!" But such is not the case. We have but to see how things go. Of course we know that in almost every one of our educational institutions, there was never much talk of how money is created, they are now starting to do so.
I have had the opportunity to meet students in CEGEPs and elsewhere. Clearly those young people get no explanations on the workings of our monetary system. Our crazy system is hard to understand. Why is it that people get so deeply into debt and are never able to get our of it, and this is true first of the government. How is money created and how is it distributed? Not many people understand those things. However, it is a crucial issue as money is behind everything and today, money is more important than man, man will suffer if he has no money, he will be deprived of the basic necessities. Money is absolutely necessary. If we wanted to, it could really be a service as money should be at our service but it is more important than man, than the family, than all the basic necessities. We condemn that adoration of the golden calf resulting from a deficient system and that is why we suggest different methods, a new approach. I am always surprised to see the reluctance in some areas to study the problem. They
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say: it is difficult to understand but we must admit frankly that we do not understand the present system.
This week, explanations have been given, and not by anybody, but the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister of Canada who seemed to understand why they are proposing to give money back to the people of Quebec following the great blunder made in the initial budget, but according to the comments made in the House it seems that they were the only ones to understand how their gimmick would work. This is very complicated as there are only two or three people who can understand it. We know how the income tax legislation works.
I think that Bill C-259 ran to 710 pages and had many loopholes for clever people and all kinds of traps to catch the small wage earners. Ways are found to get their money and such legislation, as I said earlier in this House, is the result of a deficient financial system under which people try to get away with everything they can. What is taking place in this country, is a little bewildering. Some people think it is the same thing in all countries but those people do not seem to have better answers or arguments themselves. You have the case of the taxpayer, the worker who toils to earn his living and who realizes by reading the press that big corporations and big businessmen succeed in using loopholes in their income tax reports and end up paying the least possible amount of tax. He then tries to act the same way but he soon ends up being caught by the civil servants, is subjected to inquires and finds himself in hot water.
Yes indeed we are caught in a perverted system in Canada. One half of Canadians watches the other. This is what you come to realize. You need permission for doing this or that. There are restrictions for doing this or that, there are adjustment formalities for this or that in all laws. I have said it on occasions but I wish to repeat it and I am not afraid to because I can prove it in just about any instance, we have laws and particularly those which should protect the unemployed, that poor fellow who finds himself in the worst possible position. When he loses his job, he still has to try to get an income some way. An act has been passed and modified several times, but it is always with the intent of protecting the treasury because the protection to be given to the unemployed comes second and protecting the treasury is the first priority.
I know it because I often have to go to the Unemployment Insurance Commission every week, almost every Monday, and certainly every two weeks, in order to defend unemployed workers besieged with problems arising from a law which has been badly worked out. I have often said it to the House and I have evidence of that in my office, hundreds of proofs for those who would want to check if what I am saying is true. I have already said in the House of Commons that the defrauders of the Unemployment Insurance Act, and I could include those who defraud the Income Tax Act, or other acts, are to be
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found without as within the commission. There may not be more but there are just as many.
So I am saying that the employees of the Commission because of a badly drafted law are making mistakes and it is obviously not their fault because they have to proceed according to the law and I am not trying to criticize them more than is necessary. There are well-intentioned people among them but they have to abide by a poorly phrased law and to comply with all kinds of administrative nonsense which prevent an unemployed worker from collecting his benefits. I am wondering if they are not actually defrauding people in the sense that they are depriving them from revenues to which they would be entitled.
Why is it that when a decision is taken and an appeal made to the arbitration board, regarding someone and sometimes the case goes as far as the arbitration judge where the individual succeeds in solving his problem and winning his case, why is it then that this individual gets paid some six or seven or eight or even ten months after. Yet he was entitled to that money in the first place. Why should he have to endure that situation for ten months? I am talking about the case of one unemployed worker, you must realize. Yet that example can be multiplied by the hundreds. I am talking about a law in particular, but it is the same thing with others.
We are not suffering from a shortage of laws in our parliament, on the contrary we probably have too many but most of them are poor.
Most are inspired by well-paid jugglers who are not always good advisers. We know that those who advised the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) are surely not the best government advisers; they are responsible for his blunders and for the stalemate situation where he now finds himself. I have much sympathy for the Minister of Finance, but I have noticed that sometimes he turns livid and that he has difficulty defending himself in our defective system. Now if he only tried to understand the social credit theories, he would realize that there are ways to get out of a problem and to distribute assets in a more equitable fashion. This is what we want to achieve through Social Credit methods and nothing else.
We know that we have boundless wealth in Canada and that there are still many untapped natural resources. Thousands of unemployed are waiting for a chance to make a valuable contribution to the development of this country, to make society profit by their technical and other skills, but they are hindered by a monetary system, by a defective financial system. What is the use of sending our children to school if after graduating they can't find a job. It is time for a change because the situation has become impossible.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I think the House unanimously agreed to giving the hon. member extra time, but I think it would be useful to know of which part of the motion he is speaking.


Charles-Eugène Dionne: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for that remark, but I am speaking of the part of the motion-Of course the motion deals with many things. The government is being condemned for having failed in the task of fighting against inflation. Inflation is a product of a defective monetary system and of unemployment. That is what I was talking about. I believe that comes from the motion, and I quote:
(2) for failing to present to parliament new and effective measures such as granting at age 60-
This is because of the monetary system. Ministers have told us that it would cost billions of dollars to grant pensions at age 60. So I am discussing the possibilities of making our monetary system more flexible, and then we might consider lowering the pension age for those who would voluntarily accept that benefit. I quote paragraph 3 of the motion:
for not having paid a national dividend as a means to increase the buying power of Canadians in order for them to benefit by the surplus of production deriving from progress and technology;
We find in the motion what I talked about in my speech. I mentioned the guaranteed income. I mentioned the inquiry on minimum guaranteed income made by our friends in the other place, so dividend or guaranteed income is almost the same thing, only the word is changed. According to the dictionary, a dividend is a surplus, a return to shareholders on the production of some industries. I have always believed that Canadians were shareholders of the Canadian government. What is now unbelievable is that according to many of our politicians-
Then, I shall give someone else a chance. I thank the hon. members for their goodwill, their generosity in allowing me, a while ago, to complete my remarks. I think the hon. member for Compton (Mr. Tessier), when he came into the House, had obviously prepared me well. I wanted to explain to him what people think of the Social Credit party and its erroneous understanding of the system.
According to the concept of politicians of every stripe with whom I have occasion to discuss, not all but unfortunately the majority, according to them, from Champlain and the courageous men who planted the cross, the plough and civilization in the forests of Canada, to their successors who for three centuries have improved agriculture, built cities, developed road systems and all the wealth we see about us, according to them, those people instead of inheriting wealth, have inherited debts. It seems to me we could hear, at times, a voice coming from our forests, our plants, saying in parody: You shall pay your taxes and your debts by the sweat of your brow. That is what we want to change, that infamous system of slavery which has been maintained far too long.


Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: A day such as this, Mr. Speaker, which is officially known as an allotted day but more colloquially is called an opposition day, is very appropriately chosen. I would like to congratulate the Creditiste party
May 19, 1978

because they have done something that is very important. On an opposition day the idea is that the opposition parties attempt to identify the issues in Canada which are of some significance and which are probably being ignored by the government. I want to congratulate the Creditiste party, for having chosen the motion on a subject that is very important to all parties on the opposite side.
The basic clause in the motion we have before us reads:
That this House strongly condemns the government:
The important word there is "condemns", and there is no doubt that all of us on the opposite side are condemning the government. It is not only us on the opposition side, however, because only two weeks ago the government found that the people of Canada were condemning them as well, and consequently they backed off from an election.
In looking at the balance of the motion that is before us, it is obvious what the Creditiste party is aiming at, and that is condemning the government because of their failure to give serious consideration to the economic problems that are facing this country. When you look at the four parts to their motion, each and every one of them deals with the economy in one way or another. The economy is possibly the most important of the issues facing Canada today.
One might ask, what does the government think of the important issues facing Canada today? It was not very long ago when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was interviewed by the press, and as reported in the Ottawa Journal on April 18 in an article by Mr. John Best the Prime Minister was asked what he felt were his greatest accomplishments in the last ten years. The Prime Minister said firstly the "linguistic equality". That is what the Prime Minister thought was his main achievement in the ten years of his reign as Prime Minister.
The second thing was this:
Right next to language came a whole series of supposed accomplishments in the foreign affairs field.
If those are the two areas of priority for this government and the two areas the Prime Minister wants to brag about, having made the greatest accomplishments in linguistic equality and foreign affairs, it is no wonder this country is in a sad way and that the opposition is condemning the government. It is no wonder the people of Canada are finally coming to life and realizing what is going wrong with this country.
I would like to read the important parts of each clause in the motion and comment on each. The first one reads:
-for having failed at the task in the fight against inflation and unemployment-
To get evidence of that we simply have to go back to April 10 and the speech of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) on the budget. I would like to quote from an article in the St. Catharines Standard by Charles Lynch. The heading of the article is "Budget is an admission of failure". It is a quotation from the minister himself.
"This is a time," he says, "for Canada to face our problems critically and realistically."
The Economy
He goes on:
-"we can see that we did not always use our good fortune wisely... We all come to expect too much of the economy. Governments increased their spending too quickly. The money supply was increased too fast."
It is obvious what the problems are when the minister himself indicates the difficulties this government has got the country into.
The second clause in the motion before us reads:
-for failing to present to parliament new and effective measures-
The government has presented some new measures, but the question is whether they are effective. They have presented bills such as the Canada Labour Code, the act to recapitalize CNR, the transfer of offenders, compensation for former prisoners of war, and language in the courts. There is not very much in there dealing with the economy at all.
One bill they presented about the economy had to do with the inauguration of employment tax credits. One of the most leading and active business people in my constituency who has a business which makes springs tells me that it is a complicated mechanism, that the extra tax he has to pay because of the tax credit is in no way meaningful to him and he is not going to bother applying for it.
I will skip the third part of the motion because it is dealing with Creditiste philosophy on economics and I personally do not understand it.
The fourth clause reads:
-for not having agreed to present new legislation that would have stimulated the consumption of Canadian products-
The government has failed to act in this area completely. I would like to read a quotation from the minister of finance of Manitoba. After he heard about this new measure of the government to give the sales tax credit, he said:
"The initiative to give a major sales tax reduction to all taxpayers in Manitoba is one to which all reasonable persons subscribe, provided it is done in a fiscally responsible manner," Craik said. "However, for a federal government whose spending continues to careen out of control to espouse such a major tax reduction-$1.3 billion-without concurrent and matching reductions in federal expenditures, represents fiscal irresponsibility of the highest order."
That is our complaint. We have a sales tax credit abatement but the government is still spending more and more money.
I would like to wind up by saying that if we are going to get at the real issues behind the economic difficulties facing our country, the one area the government must look at seriously, which it has failed to do thus far, is the philosophy of taxation. There are two basic philosophies. The first one is to tax people as we do now on the basis of ability to pay. In other words, you tax profits, you discourage production and so on. The other one is to tax on the basis of services received.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It being five o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to section (11)-


Walter David Baker: There is still half a minute.


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


Walter David Baker: There is still half a minute.

May 19, 1978
The Economy


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. It being five o'clock p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that, pursuant to Standing Order 58, section (11), proceedings on motion have expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 2(3), this
House stands adjourned until Tuesday next at two o'clock p.m.
At five o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Tuesday, May 23, 1978