1979-02-22

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. David MacDonald (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the recently published report of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women, entitled "Women in the Public Service- Barriers to Equal Opportunity", and its total indictment of federal policies and programs to achieve equal opportunity for women, indicating in particular that "the federal government has failed to provide equal opportunity for women in the public service", and they are actually lagging behind the private sector and, in particular, that there is a disturbing reversal in the career assignment program with a reduction from the 30 per cent participation rate for women in 1975 to a 14 per cent participation rate in 1977, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That this government immediately report on, (1) the specific goals that have been in effect since 1975 in respect of the achievement of equal opportunity, department by department; (2) those departments or agencies which have failed to meet their particular objective on a year by year basis; and (3) the annual assessment provided to Treasury Board on the implementation of equal opportunity programs for women in the various departments and agencies.


Mr. Speaker:: The introduction of such a motion for debate at this time can only be done with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to move a motion under Standing Order 43.
Considering that the Commissioner of Official Languages has stated that the government should clean its own house before acting as protector of linguistic equality; considering, again according to the commissioner, that the working language in the public service is spoken mainly among lower ranks; and finally, considering that in the commissioner's opinion it is frightening that the government has chosen this moment to reduce by $34 million the budget to promote bilingualism in the provinces, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi (Mr. Grafftey):
That the House unanimously urge the Prime Minister of Canada to refrain from deluding Canadians with his fine speeches and, as the commissioner says, to take action.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. Pursuant to Standing Order 43, such motion can be presented only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the contents of this motion represent views expressed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) and I hope, therefore, that the House will give consent to its being presented at this time.
I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom):
That this House notes that the building of a proposed Sherbrook-McGregor overpass in Winnipeg would seriously disturb residents both north and south of the Canadian Pacific Railway yards, and therefore urges the federal government not to support the building of the said overpass at this time, but to delay any decision thereon until there has been a full and thorough study of railway relocation at Winnipeg, and this House urges the government to commit the necessary funds for such a study so that it can proceed forthwith.


Mr. Speaker:: Such a motion can be introduced at this time only with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

February 22, 1979


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Rene Matte (Champlain):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 and seek the unanimous consent of the House to discuss a motion relating to a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In light of the pessimistic remarks the Commissioner of Official Languages made when he presented his annual report; given the clear contradiction which exists between his remarks and the government's pretension about finding solutions to our national problems; given the fact that, without admitting it, the government realizes the failure of its policies by ordering, for instance, a cut of more than one-third in the staff of the Linguistic Training Branch; and given the fact that this government misleads all Canadians in general and all Quebeckers in particular by trying to monopolize all attempts to safeguard Canadian unity while denying the very existence of the Quebec nation, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Rimouski (Mr. Allard):
That the House instruct the government to take into account the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages by putting it up for consideration and resolution in parliament.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The House has heard the hon. member's motion. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, presentation of this motion for debate requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CALL FOR CASH INCENTIVES TO PROMOTE DEVELOPMENT OF ALTERNATE SOURCES OF ENERGY-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. A. D. Alkenbrack (Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to request the unanimous consent of the House to introduce a motion dealing with an important matter of pressing necessity to our national transportation problems.
The establishment of a government in Iran that is unfriendly to the western world has increased the threat of an oil shortage in North America in the not-too-distant future, and places a burden on all of us to encourage our scientists to come up with alternate sources of energy and better applications of fossil fuels. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Fraser Valley East (Mr. Patterson):

That the House unanimously approve a motion to have the federal government devise some form of cash incentive program and national prizes from lottery funds to encourage our inventors and scientists to develop more efficient uses of fossil fuels, especially as motive power, and also to develop alternate sources of energy for motive power.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TIME TAKEN TO RECORD DIVISION-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mrs. Simma Holt (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under Standing Order 43, on a motion of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the loss of 110 minutes yesterday, at a conservatively calculated cost of $145.29 a minute, or $15,982.23 for the entire time lost yesterday-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Simma Holt: -as a result of a mischievous Tory motion for adjournment, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Milne):
That this House repay the citizens of Canada for the lost time and money by sitting an extra day.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


Mr. Alexander:: Iona said no.


FISHERIES
Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, to raise a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that the Minister of Fisheries recently awarded a contract for the catching of 12,000 tons of codfish to two communist countries, namely, East Germany and Poland, which will require the licensing of 12 East German freezer trawlers and six Polish factory ships within Canada's 200-mile limit, I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie):
That the Minister of Fisheries, once the needs of our inshore fishermen are met, encourage the development of a Canadian catching capability in northern areas in order to provide much needed employment, ashore and afloat, through the expansion of our Canadian fishing fleet.
February 22, 1979


Mr. Speaker:: The introduction of such a motion for debate at this time can only be done with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



EMPLOYMENT


Mr. Andy Hogan (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, although this resolution, on the surface, would seem to be a regional issue, I am sure you will agree that it has national implications and is of urgent and pressing necessity.
For the past two weeks or so, pulpwood cutters from the East Richmond section of my constituency have been receiving notices from the Canada Employment office located in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, telling them to immediately return to work regardless of weather conditions, transportation difficulties or the rates of pay which they will receive.
All this has occurred in view of the fact that the windchill factor in that area recently dropped to 48 degrees below zero for some days and in view of the fact that in the past these poorly paid woodcutters did not even have qualified scalers and were not required by UIC and Manpower officials to return to work until late spring. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Symes):
That the Minister of Employment and Immigration immediately notify these and other officials acting in such an arbitrary and coercive way to cease and desist from such action.


Mr. Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for the introduction of such a motion for debate at this time?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to direct to the Deputy Prime Minister regarding the inviolability and the confidentiality of statistical information which Canadians supply to their government.
Oral Questions
In view of the voluble assurances given last week by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce about the confidentiality and integrity of Statistics Canada, could the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House and the country that Statistics Canada does take care of and protect the very personal information that is supplied by the people of Canada to their government?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the hon. member's question, I have not made any personal investigation into the matter. I cannot provide the assurance based upon my own knowledge or research, but I will check into the matter and provide the hon. member with whatever assurance can be made at a later time.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I respect the Deputy Prime Minister's attitude. As a parliamentarian of long experience, would he agree with me that the condition under which income tax returns are made available to the chief statistician, pursuant to section 23 of the Statistics Act, are very specific and imply cabinet responsibility? Section 23 (1) (a) of the Statistics Act reads in part as follows:
-in such manner and at such times as the governor in council may prescribe upon the recommendation of the minister and the Minister of National Revenue.
Would my hon. friend agree that there is a certain amount of cabinet responsibility involved in protecting this very important income tax and other statistical information that the government requires from the people of this country?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, of course I agree there is a responsibility to protect the confidentiality of information provided to the government, particularly the confidentiality that is prescribed by law. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that the law will be carried out.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: A further supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I want to bring a very serious matter to the attention of the Deputy Prime Minister and ask what he will do to remedy the fact that thousands of confidential forms, including income tax returns, are lying unattended in cardboard boxes in circumstances where people can walk in off the street and have access to them. This situation has existed for months; it is still occurring. Will the minister, once he has satisfied himself that this information is correct, consider an inquiry into Statistics Canada of the type I requested two years ago?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I will take the hon. member's representations seriously. I have absolutely no personal knowledge about the existence of all these cardboard boxes. I have not made any personal tour of the buildings, as the hon. member may have done, but I shall take his representations seriously and make inquiries.

February 22, 1979
Oral Questions


REASON NAMES, ADDRESSES AND SOCIAL INSURANCE NUMBERS GIVEN TO STATISTICS CANADA
Mr. Bill Jarvis (Perth-Wilmot):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Deputy Prime Minister. Given the situation that within a few blocks of this chamber 50 to 60 boxes are lying unattended which contain this confidential information, including tax information, where anyone can walk off the street and inspect it, and given the responsibility of the cabinet under section 23 of the Statistics Act wherein the cabinet sets conditions under which documents are given to Statistics Canada, can the Deputy Prime Minister explain why tax information would be delivered that would include names, addresses and social insurance numbers, when that information can be of absolutely no interest or assistance whatsoever to Statistics Canada in terms of its mandate?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I have already given assurances to the hon. member's colleague that I shall look into this matter.


William Herbert Jarvis: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The Deputy Prime Minister will recall that it was revealed not long ago that a previous minister of national revenue, now the Minister of Employment and Immigration wrote-out of concern, I am sure-to the then solicitor general, now the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, expressing concern about access to that type of confidential information by law enforcement officers.
Can the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House whether he is aware of any comparable concern by the present Minister of National Revenue in terms of delivery of confidential information to Statistics Canada and the methods of protecting that confidentiality which Statistics Canada supposedly exercises?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asks me if I am aware of any concern held by the Minister of National Revenue along the lines expressed in a letter about which we are informed and about which lengthy discussions took place in this House. I am not aware of any discussions carried out by the Minister of National Revenue. He may have had them. He may feel this concern, but it certainly has not been conveyed to me in any way so that I can respond to the hon. member's question.


Mr. Baldwin:: Look at the Official Secrets Act.


CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa-Whitby):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Considering that Statistics Canada figures released

yesterday show that profit increases for the last quarter of 1978 went up 39 per cent, coming after earlier quarterly increases of 32 per cent, 18 per cent and 12 per cent, and considering that the minister said outside the House yesterday that the government would be prepared to use its purchasing policy and its powers in the marketplace to force companies to come into line in terms of having reasonable prices for Canadian consumers, I ask the minister to explain to the House precisely what he means by this.
Another question of equal importance is this: does the government intend to take immediate action to implement such a policy?


Hon. Warren Ailmand (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, we cannot conclude that increased profits have been caused by price gouging, profiteering or anything like that. Increased profits may very well be due to increased efficiency, more sales, and so on.


Mr. Gillies:: What about the falling dollar?


William Warren Allmand: Let me state, Mr. Speaker, that profit increases have historically heralded a general economic recovery and the hon. member should welcome that. Furthermore, our preliminary studies show that profit levels are not out of line with historical patterns for profits. Finally, there was a report released, I think today, that stated over the last four years wages and salaries have increased much more than profits.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I rather suspected the minister would add that last statistic. If he does a little further research, he will find out that during the last ten years wages have gone up 141 per cent but profits-please note this, Mr. Minister-during the same decade increased by 240.8 per cent, almost twice the rate of wage increases over the past decade. It depends where you start the trend. It depends who your friends are, as well.


Mr. Stevens:: Is that the four-fifths and the one-fifth?


John Edward Broadbent: Having regard to what the minister said about profit increases perhaps being due to increased sales, and considering the AIB report that came out yesterday on food industry profits at the retail level indicated that profit increases in fact were up 37.9 per cent, almost double the rate of increase in sales which was only 17.4 per cent, I ask the minister, is he fully satisfied that the very high prices paid by Canadian consumers in food stores are not in good measure due to the fact that companies are making more profits perhaps than they should be?


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, there is no evidence that the high profits are due to extraordinarily high prices. As a matter of fact, the AIB report referred to by the hon. member concluded that profit margins last year were quite in line with historical patterns and in some cases there were declines in the third quarter of the year.
February 22, 1979

We are concerned about increasing food prices and the increase in inflation. I have said before that if the hon. member or anyone else has evidence that some increased prices are due to price-fixing or rigging the marketplace, I would be very pleased to put our team of people from the competition bureau to work on that.


Mr. Paproski:: That is your job.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, it is the minister's department that is supposed to be investigating this matter.


Steve Eugene Paproski: That is why he is there.


John Edward Broadbent: This is why he has to pay civil servants to do it and not members on the opposition side. The minister just indicated that the profit figures in retailing were not out of line. I point out to him that the report put out by the AIB indicates retail profit increases were indeed higher than the period 1971 to 1977, so these profits were abnormally high. I wish the minister would check his own data on that.


REQUEST THAT STEEL PRICE INCREASES BE ROLLED BACK
John Edward Broadbent: 
William Warren Allmand: First, Mr. Speaker, with regard to food, the hon. member should read once more the AIB report which was published yesterday. While there are reports of increased profits in some areas, they also report some lower profits, especially in the third quarter of last year.
With regard to steel, a week or so ago I asked officials in my department to analyse steel price increases in their analysis of the situation in the steel industry. I have not yet received that report from them.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Protests are coming to members from across the country
Oral Questions
against the objectionable television advertising that is sponsored by the minister promoting the child tax credit bill. This advertising is presented in a lifestyle form and is creating pressure on parents, especially low income parents. Apart altogether from the political, partisan overtones of the ad-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: -and I think it is shameful, it is in fact misleading. Does the minister intend to withdraw it from television and, if not, why not?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, if the government had the money, I would ask for $1 million to have the ad shown three times as often.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Monique Bégin: I challenge the hon. member to read the text of the ad to this House, a copy of which has been given to his party, and to read the description of the video part as well and give us an example, direct or indirect, of partisanship, because there is none in the ad. The ad tells Canadian parents, mothers in particular that there is a new credit from which 75 per cent of Canadian mothers will benefit partly or fully, and that they have to apply for it. That is what the ad does. I wish we could have more money.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the minister does not realize the visual impact of this ad, showing a family in a lifestyle with a middle income background which will create undue pressures on low income families, many of whom already have a difficult time managing what the ad presents as a windfall gain. Even though the object is to explain how to obtain the child tax credit, which is commendable, the way the minister is going about it will create social hardships on families.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: I suggest if hon. members opposite saw this ad, they would know exactly what I am talking about and perhaps might even share my concern. Members are getting protests from across the country about this objectionable advertising. Will the minister withdraw it from television?


Monique Bégin: The answer is no, Mr. Speaker, and each free time slot I am able to get, I will use. I would like the hon. member and everyone else to know that we have more copies of the ad which can be used on cable TV and other types of community television. I would say that the members of the Conservative party have a problem with their emotions and sensitivities; they are always in the wrong place. They are all mixed up in their ideology when it comes to women, by the way.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!

February 22, 1979
Oral Questions


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, our problems are nothing like the problems of the government, one of which is this Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: I would like to ask the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, who is responsible for the Combines Investigation Act, if he will refer this misleading ad to the combines investigation branch which has responsibility for dealing with misleading advertising. If he does that, he will find that it will be withdrawn from television.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the director of investigations will take note of the hon. member's comment.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Leonel Beaudoin (Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. His department having refused to participate in the financing of Les chaussures des Cantons de l'Est project in Richmond, can the minister give the exact reasons for his refusal and tell us whether he expects a new study to be made of that file in the near future?


Hon. Marcel Lessard (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, as I explained to the hon. member personally, the company and the applicants themselves are familiar with the exact reasons for which we turned down the request they made to our department with a view to helping that business to start operating again. As I have said repeatedly, if new considerations entered the picture, and if the project as submitted were to be financed differently, I could certainly justify looking at the application again.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, on a supplementary. As the Quebec government has authorized a subsidy of some $ 150,000 through the OSE program, Operation solidarite econo-mique, phase 4, as well as a loan of $350,000 from the Quebec Industrial Development Corporation-it would seem that the Quebec government is even looking into the possibility of making good the subsidy that was refused by the federal government-and as the Quebec government has said of the project that it will be of tremendous value to the area, while the federal government claimed that would be absolutely useless to the economic expansion of that area, can the minister explain why there should be so much difference between the appreciations of the Quebec and the federal governments on such a big project?


Marcel Lessard: According to the information I have obtained, Mr. Speaker, the financial support which the Quebec government is willing to provide to carry out this project does not seem to meet the normal criteria established for the operation of current provincial programs. If the Quebec government should decide to provide financial assistance to this project, even if provincial officials claim that it is not economically viable, I think therefore that they are the ones who are making the decision. I suggest I should not have to wait until the Quebec government makes up its mind about a project before we decide ourselves whether or not to support it. Our decision has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the Quebec government supports it.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, I have a last supplementary question. Would the minister tell the House-I am afraid I have been misunderstood-that provincial officials must cooperate with federal officials? How is it that this project, which should create 95 new jobs, is differently assessed? Is it for political reasons or what?


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, their criteria probably differ from ours. But according to the information available to me, they apparently feel that, based on their criteria, this project is not deemed viable.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Right Hon. J. G. Diefenbaker (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. It has to do with the treaty rights of Indians. These rights are sacred to the Indians. Recently, the Indians won a case in connection with migratory birds being hunted outside the season applicable to other Canadians. The Government of Canada then entered into a protocol with the United States of America, a country which has never been very considerate of Indian rights all through the years. The judgment was, in effect, set aside and this aroused a deep sense of understandable antagonism among Indians in general. You cannot take treaty rights and destroy them without the consent of the treaty nation concerned.
Will the minister reconsider this question and assure, as a result of further consideration and discussion with the Indians, that their treaty rights will not be subject to interference by the government, however convenient it may be for the government to act in co-operation with the United States?


Hon. Janies Hugh Faulkner (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: I share the right hon. gentleman's view of the importance of the treaties to the Indian and to the people of Canada. They were sacred undertakings entered into by the Crown and by the Indians. I think this government has always recognized that. But I am puzzled by his reference to the Migratory Birds Convention, because in fact what my colleague, the minister of the environment, did in signing the
February 22, 1979

amendment to the convention with the Secretary of the Interior of the United States was to open up the possibility of finding a remedy for a grievance which has been felt since 1917, a limitation which confined Indian and Inuit hunting to the seasons applicable to all the others.
My colleague has opened up that situation now to allow negotiations with the provinces and the Indian people so that Indians and Inuit might hunt outside that season. So the move we made had the effect of expanding Indian rights, which I think was consistent with the treaty.


John George Diefenbaker: No matter what the benevolent explanation may be, the Indians are being deprived of their rights and I want an assurance from the minister to protect the Indians' treaty rights, not the generalization he made at the inception of his remarks when dealing with my question. Are you going to give them their rights, or will you deprive them of these sacred rights to which they are unquestionably entitled?


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear!


James Hugh Faulkner: I am not sure you know what a treaty right is all about.
Mr. Speaker, I tried to respond directly to the right hon. gentleman's question. It was he who raised the question of the Migratory Birds Convention and he pointed out that it restricted Indian rights. I agreed with him and said that a few weeks ago my colleague and I arranged with the other parties to the treaty to expand it. So what we have done, in fact, is to allow for the expansion of Indian hunting rights.
The right hon. member talks about a range of other rights. I would point out that there are presently discussions going on with the Indian people within the framework of amendments to the Indian Act which specifically deal with hunting, trapping and fishing rights. Furthermore, an agreement in principal has been concluded with the Inuvialuit of the Mackenzie delta which enshrines not only hunting, trapping and fishing rights but specialized rights, exclusive rights to harvesting. I do not want to be gratuitous, but I have to say that this government has probably done more than any previous government to ensure the rights of the Indian and Inuit people.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John George Diefenbaker: It was my government which gave them the vote that Liberal party governments denied them all through the years.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions


SHIPBUILDING
Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. As the minister is surely aware, a fire has destroyed the Gaspe shipbuilding facilities, thereby depriving 60 people of work and causing losses of about $4 million. Can the minister tell us if these people can count on his department's good offices so that these shipbuilding facilities can be rebuilt in the near future?


Marcel Lessard: Mr. Speaker, I have just been informed, when returning to Ottawa, of this terrible fire which destroyed the Gaspe shipbuilding facilities. We will ensure that department officials in Rimouski immediately contact the owners of the firm concerned to find out if it intends to rebuild these facilities, as we are given to believe. I want to give the hon. member my word that we will do all we can and as much as the existing programs will allow us to help the people involved.


STATUS OF WOMEN
David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the minister responsible for the status of women. It refers to the latest report of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women having to do with women in the public service and entitled "Barriers to Equal Opportunity."
The report is a veritable indictment of the policies and programs of the federal government and concludes that the federal government has failed to provide equal opportunities to women in the public service and that it is lagging behind the private sector. In light of cabinet directive No. 44 issued in 1972, and the cabinet document on equal opportunities issued in November of 1975, can the minister explain why the government has totally ignored its responsibilities with respect to women employed in the public service?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, first I must say that the hon. member has given a very biased reading of that report. That report contains several other aspects which the hon. member seems to ignore. I would like to remind him that a series of measures have been taken by Treasury Board with the Public Service Commission to try and improve the situation in terms of equal opportunities for women in the public service.
As the hon. member knows, departments are now required to bring forward five-year plans and to be up to date every

February 22, 1979
Oral Questions
year as to their plans for improving opportunities for women in the public service. We believe that through the monitoring of these plans, which is conducted by Treasury Board, it will be possible to speed up progress.


David Samuel Horne MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, as the minister well knows, more than a year ago he promised that annual reports would be submitted to Treasury Board as well as projections of the goals of these five-year plans of action. They have not yet been produced.
Since the principle of equal opportunity was announced more than three years ago, I wonder if the minister can tell us why only 20 departments have full-time equal opportunities co-ordinators while 31 have part-time co-ordinators. With respect to Treasury Board obligations, there are only two staff people, with no budget, while the official languages program has 45 staff people and a budget of $1,340,000. Why this disparity if the government is committed to equal opportunities for women as well as the official languages program?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, never at any time was there a decision to the effect that there should be full-time co-ordinators in every department. Some departments are very small and do not require full-time co-ordinators. All departments were asked to assign to a senior official a specific responsibility concerning the promotion of equal opportunities for women in the public service and we have made sure that in the larger departments full-time people would be assigned for that purpose.
As far as smaller departments are concerned, this function can be fulfilled by senior officers who have other responsibilities. It is a question of using in the best possible way the human resources available to perform the job.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs whether he has received any reaction or formal response from the British government arising out of the representations made to the British government by the Canadian High Commissioner with respect to the proposition of forcing Air Canada to move from Heathrow airport to Gatwick airport.


Hon. Donald C. Jamieson (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, we have received what might properly be described as an interim reply from the Foreign Secretary, Dr. Owen, to High Commissioner Martin. The contents of it are obviously confidential, but I think the gist of it is that the British government has not made a final decision. Dr. Owen has undertaken personally to look into the matter.
On a less formal basis, I also received communications from Dr. Owen indicating that he is personally seized of this

problem and will be discussing it with me at, I hope, some fairly early date.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, what other action, if any, is being contemplated by the Government of Canada? Could the Secretary of State for External Affairs also indicate the status of the bilaterals which are to take place some time in the course of the next six to 12 months?


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the question, I took note of the proposal by the right hon. member for Prince Albert when he asked me and was good enough to defer consideration of whether a Standing Order 43 motion unanimously supported would be advisable. Given his long association with the High Commissioner in London, I think he will appreciate that I got in touch with him directly. I telephoned him and asked him about it, and he said at this time he did not feel this would be appropriate, although the mere fact that it had been raised in the House would in itself be useful.


Mr. Woolliams:: Sounds like Paul Martin.


Donald Campbell Jamieson: Not only does it sound like Paul, but I think it makes as much good sense as most of the things Paul used to say.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Fraser:: Usefully inappropriate.



PUBLIC SERVICE


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, my question is in the same area touched on by the hon. member for Egmont, except that I would like to put my question to the President of the Treasury Board. My question is based on the report of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women entitled "Women in the Public Service- Barriers to Equal Opportunity", the key line of which is to the effect that the government's efforts to achieve positive results since 1971 have been a consistent failure.
In view of the fact that there are so few departments which are carrying out the intent, despite what was said a moment ago by the minister responsible for the status of women, will the President of the Treasury Board use his authority to demand that all departments hire full-time equal opportunities officers immediately, and discipline managers who fail to achieve positive results in this area?


Hon. Judd Buchanan (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, as my colleague indicated, we are not sure that in all departments-because some are relatively small-it is necessary to have such officers. On the other hand, I share the concern which is at the base of the hon. member's question, that we have not made the good progress we would have liked
February 22, 1979

and should have made in this area. As the hon. member knows, we received the Final report just yesterday. We are looking at it very seriously and I will be happy to take whatever steps are necessary to do what we can to make certain that during the coming year we make better headway.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, as a supplementary question I would like to ask the President of the Treasury Board if he will look very closely at the sections in the report which deal with the First hired, First Fired development and also with superannuation. The report says, for example, that the policy of equality which was established in the Public Service Superannuation Act is completely violated by the employment structures because women do not get steady employment as men do, and thus do not get the pensions to which they are entitled. It also says that these same structures of employment result in Firings hitting women more than they do men.
Will the President of the Treasury Board look at these specific problems and do his best to get them corrected?


J. Judd Buchanan: Yes, Mr. Speaker.



PUBLIC WORKS


Mr. Lloyd Francis (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Public Works or, in his absence, his parliamentary secretary. Could the parliamentary secretary tell this House whether the United States Embassy intends to construct a new building for its operations in Cartier Square on a site made available by the Department of Public Works, and whether the province of Ontario intends to convert the Old Ottawa Teachers' College building, adjacent to the U.S. Embassy site, to a new courthouse?


Mr. Hal Herbert (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Urban Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the U.S. embassy has concluded an agreement with the Department of Public Works and will be constructing a new embassy in the near future on the site mentioned by the hon. member for Ottawa West.
The province of Ontario has made proposals concerning the development of a new courthouse, and discussions are under way. The Government of Canada has offered an alternative site and this is being considered.



ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I have given notice of my intention to ask a question of the
Oral Questions
Solicitor General. My question relates to a document I have passed to him, on which hopefully he can make a comment. The document is entitled "The police function in Canada as a control and enforcement agency in regards to amendments to the firearms section of the Criminal Code". One of the paragraphs in the document reads as follows:
-as far as an armed and organized public was concerned and it was felt in the interests of the function that it was desirous to ensure that the public be discreetly but effectively disarmed over a period of the forthcoming five years.
Having had an opportunity to study this document, I wonder if the Solicitor General can tell the House today whether it is authentic, and its source of information.


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: Mr. Speaker, I have received a large number of letters from members of parliament who are concerned about that document. I want to indicate at the outset that the document is a phony. One Finds, on reading it, that the forced officialese which is used can only indicate that whoever is the creator or the author of the document consciously attempted to concoct a document in order to create an inflammatory situation. In my view, it is the only blemish in an otherwise very positive reception that has been granted to the gun control program in the country.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Blais:: I would point out to the hon. gentleman that this document is false. I am addressing that question tomorrow at the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters in London, where I will be dealing with that document and its contents. There is no need for any member of the House, or indeed any member of the Canadian public, to be concerned.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, of course, I look at it as a source of comfort that the Solicitor General has told us now that we need not be concerned. This document has been widely circulated, has been published in magazines and has incited the antagonism of thousands of legitimate gun owners in the country, as well as creating all kinds of difficulties for members of parliament.
My question to the minister is, then: knowing that this document has been forged and is phony, knowing of its content and knowing how widely the document has been circulated, have the police or has the minister made any effort to find the source of the distribution of this kind of poison throughout the country, and what is the result of such an investigation?


Jean-Jacques Blais: Let me hasten to agree with the hon. gentleman that the document approximates poison. I wish to indicate, as well, my great disappointment at the fact that the National Firearms' Association, which I always assumed was a responsible gun owners' association, has seen Fit, notwithstanding the patent falsehood of this document, to include it in one of its newsletters.

February 22, 1979
Oral Questions
In terms of what measures can be taken, I will take the hon. gentleman's representation seriously.


Mr. Whiteway:: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Postmaster General, who was in his seat a minute ago. Perhaps I can be recognized a little later when he comes back.



SOCIAL INSURANCE


Mr. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The Prime Minister has written to the de facto leader of the New Democratic Party, Mr. Dennis McDermott, stating categorically that the government has no intention at all of limiting the use of social insurance numbers.
The minister will recall that he gave an undertaking in the House to create an advisory council, one of whose purposes would be to investigate the restriction of social insurance numbers. The fact is that there has been no action in the department in this connection and no action on the part of the advisory council. The minister has either misled the House or has been shot out of the air by the Prime Minister. Would the minister indicate whether he has any intention at all of studying the limitation of social insurance numbers?


Hon. Bud Cullen (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I have not read the letter and I am somewhat suspicious of the interpretation being given to it by the hon. member. I did indicate that under the human rights legislation, my colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, had the responsibility of monitoring in so far as the data banks are concerned, and I gave an undertaking that it would be examined by the advisory council-not only the concern which the hon. member has and which I share, but also the negative aspects if we simply pass legislation outlawing the use of social insurance numbers except in the four instances I have indicated.
This is something that warrants study because it will have a severe impact in many areas which will work to the detriment of people who are quite prepared to use their social insurance numbers in the interests of gaining several benefits across the country.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that the letter written by the Prime Minister to Mr. McDermott has been widely publicized in the press. The Prime Minister speaks in it approvingly of the extension of the use of social insurance numbers in private industry.
In view of the fact, also, that the Prime Minister, during the 1972 election campaign, said that he foresaw the day in the near future when national identification cards would be used in Canada, I want to know whether we can get a categorical statement from the Minister of Employment and Immigration

to the effect that social insurance numbers will not become, in Canada, a single identifying number. There was a commitment from him that he would look into it. He has done nothing. I should like to get that undertaking from him right now, in plain English.


An hon. Member:: Or French.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: As I indicated, I am somewhat dubious of the interpretation given by the hon. member. He says I did nothing. In fact, I have prepared a brief that I want to present to the advisory council asking them for their view on this subject, and I have indicated that under the human rights legislation there is an ongoing monitoring process being carried out by the Treasury Board, as their responsibility. So something is being done. I did not indicate that I was going to go further than that at this time. I am indicating that there are down-sides as well as up-sides to the use of social insurance numbers.



POST OFFICE


Dean Waldon Whiteway: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Postmaster General: it has to do with a paid advertisement in the Winnipeg Free Press. On the same day, on the front page of that paper there was a small article entitled "Registered mail! What's that?". In part, the article reads that in the Federal Court of Canada, Judge Louis Marceau ruled that the Post Office was not liable for registered objects that were lost. The ad reads in part:
Proof of mailing and proof of delivery are my security when mailing contracts worth thousands of dollars to the U.S. and Europe. That's why I use registered mail.
In light of that contradiction, would the Postmaster General direct the Post Office to withdraw this obviously dishonest and misleading ad?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Postmaster General):: I do not
think, Mr. Speaker, that the allegation of the hon. member about the misleading ad is true. I think the ad was done purposely to inform the public about our registered and certified mail. People should know, if they get the information, that there is a limit on the responsibility for a parcel which is registered or certified. So I think the advertising is not misleading; it is straight to the point and we will probably make it appear again.


Dean Waldon Whiteway: My question is directed to the same minister. Would the minister look into the judgment brought down by Judge Marceau in that case and compare it, with regard to the liability of the Post Office in respect of registered mail, with the advertisements put out by the Post Office, to see whether or not these ads are misleading, which on the surface they appear to be?
February 22, 1979


Mr. Lamontagne:: From what I know of the judgment of the judge in this case, I do not think he blames the Post Office; he just questions whether perhaps better information could be given on the limits of insured mail and the responsibility we have in these cases, that is all.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. John Wise (Elgin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. It is prompted by the recent decision of the Alberta turkey producers to withdraw from the national plan. The decision was taken not particularly by choice but, rather, by necessity.
The minister has been warned about this problem over the last 12 months and he knows that a similar problem exists in the other national agencies. I want to ask what action he intends to take in the near future to overcome this difficulty and similar difficulties which exist in three or four of the national marketing plans.


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member speaks as if it were my fault that the Alberta turkey producers have decided to withdraw from the national plan. It is written right into the agreement which they have signed that if they give one year's notice, they can withdraw. They want to be self-sufficient in turkeys in Alberta. They want a larger share of the national market for turkeys in Alberta.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eugene Whelan: According to the plan, they shall share, in a true Canadian attitude, in the total national production of turkeys. They say that because the population in Alberta has increased, they should have more of the turkey production. That is not in accordance with the terms of the agreement which they signed.


John Wise: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is addressed to the same minister. He should recognize that the continued success of these national marketing plans depends upon the ability of the producers within each province to take advantage of some of the changing and increasing marketing conditions within the provinces. Under the present regulation, which is within the minister's responsibility, this is simply impossible. I simply ask the minister if he will accept his responsibility and call a meeting in the very near future of his provincial counterparts and other people within the agricultural industry in an attempt to resolve these difficulties before all the national plans in this country go down the drain.


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, none of the national plans will go down the drain unless the producers themselves make the
Business of the House
decision, because they are the ones who agree among themselves how the quotas shall be shared. I do not tell them what they should do with what parts of the quotas; they decide among themselves how they shall be shared. If one province cannot convince the other nine provinces how they shall be shared, it has that alternative of withdrawing from the plan. If they want to discard a plan they will be on the road to self-destruction. It will not be the result of what I do, but of what they do unto themselves.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Mr. Baker (Grenville-Carleton):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might ask the government House leader whether he can designate the business we will be covering in the next little while? I draw his attention to the answer to the question about House business yesterday in which he indicated he might be able to go further than perhaps a day or so. If in the course of his answer he could perhaps designate next Tuesday as an allotted day, I would be grateful.
May I thank him for the draft of the motion in respect of the reference of the various estimates to several standing committees of the House. If he can assure me that it is in the usual form I would be quite prepared to indicate that it would be appropriate for him to call that tomorrow.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to designate next Tuesday as an allotted day. My understanding is that the reference of the estimates to the several standing committees is the traditional reference that is familiar to the House.
With regard to the business tomorrow, we will be continuing our debate on the amendment to the National Housing Act, followed by the resumed debate on second reading of the energy bill. I would like then, of course, for members to keep in mind the possibility of dealing with the bill amending the Judges Act. It is not an item that should provoke prolonged discussion. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lalonde) is also interested in the possibility of dealing with a particular amendment to the Criminal Code that might be broken out of the larger bill and presented to the House.
I would also at some point like to call Bill S-6 which has come from the Senate. Of course, hon. members may keep in mind that we still have the budget bill and the excise tax bill which are very much in my mind.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend and I have talked periodically about the commodity tax review and the reference of that to the appropriate standing committee. Given the representations in the document that he and I discussed yesterday in the House, is he prepared to indicate today that he will put down the appropriate reference so it can be dealt with, on the assurance that he would be prepared to refer it to the committee without debate?

February 22, 1979
Business of the House


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I have taken note of the items of business indicated, and where discussions are necessary we shall be glad to take part in them. I regret that the government House leader has still given no indication in respect of a bill to amend legislation affecting veterans. I hope that he and his fellow maritimer, the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald), can soon get together on this important issue.
In respect of the motion to refer the estimates to various committees, I am happy to take the minister's word that it is in the usual form, but I wonder why I did not get a copy of it. I hope the minister did not put it in the mail.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that I did not withhold a copy of that reference because of his irresponsible behaviour yesterday. I overlooked that. I will make sure he gets a copy of that reference at an early date.
With reference to the observation of the hon. member for Grenville-Carleton (Mr. Baker) about the commodity tax review, I must say I am in somewhat of a quandary about making that reference. I understand the committee is dealing with the Bank Act and it has its hands full, so to speak. I will confer with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien) as to whether there would be any purpose in sending this item to the committee in light of the heavy workload presently before that particular committee.


Léonel Beaudoin: Mr. Speaker, if I understood correctly, the government House leader has indicated his intention of presenting a bill amending the Criminal Code, without debate, and I want to emphasize to the government House leader that we do not intend to let any amendment to the Criminal Code be passed without reserving our right to discuss it when it is presented to us.


Mr. Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: My question concerns the business of the House and the tabling of the report of the Commissioner of Official Languages the day before yesterday. I would like to ask the government House leader if he intends to refer this report to a special House or joint committee for consideration, and to urge him to do so immediately as this is an urgent matter.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the suggestion has been made that it might be useful to send the report of the Official Languages Commissioner to a joint committee of the House and the Senate for study. That seems to me to be a worthwhile suggestion and, as I indicated yesterday, that possibility is under very active consideration.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It may be possible to take that step when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) returns from Toronto. I want to thank the hon. member for mentioning it. If we had a

motion making such a reference it might give the House an opportunity to debate questions relating to the official languages, and would give the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) an opportunity perhaps to clear up the ambiguities that exist in respect of his policy.


Mr. Roche:: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council (Mr. MacEachen) what his intentions are in respect of a notice of motion in his name that has been on the order paper for a week to provide a reference to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence for the consideration of Canada's foreign and defence policies?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, my intentions in respect of that motion are honourable.


An hon. Member:: Your others were not?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I will call it when I get an assurance from members opposite that it will be passed without debate. I will not call it if there is a propensity to make notable, I am sure, speeches on the reference, as in my view it would be better to have the committee get on with the job immediately.



PRIVILEGE


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege, and I will be brief as I know this is an allotted day.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jack Burnett Murta: On Thursday, February 15, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), in response to a question by the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Lambert) with regard to the question of the salmonella epidemic in Quebec as it related to feed purchased for the feeding of cattle, said, as reported on page 3254 of Hansard:
-that it comes from the province of Manitoba. It is not just coming from the province of Quebec: it is associated with a wide, wide area in Canada-
That statement is wrong. The contaminated feed that was mentioned by the hon. member for Bellechasse did not come from the province of Manitoba.
My question of privilege is that I would like at this time to give the Minister of Agriculture a chance to set the record straight and to clear up this incorrect information that he put on Hansard at that time.


Mr. Speaker:: I must stress to begin with that the question raised by the hon. member is not on good procedural ground. I have had no notice of his intention to raise the question; therefore, I cannot entertain it as such. However, if the
February 22, 1979

minister wishes to take the opportunity to make a brief intervention, he may do so.


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member sent me notice that he would raise the matter as a point of order, but it seems to have changed to a point of privilege. As the hon. member just quoted, I mentioned a wide, wide area of Canada. We know that the salmonella came from some place in Canada. It was suggested to me that it possibly could have come from some place in Manitoba or the plant in Quebec which was producing the feed.
We have done research in different plants, and we have done research as to the boxcars that carried the product. We have found a certain kind of salmonella that does not have exactly the same description as the kind which was in the feed that caused the problem with the dairy cattle which consumed it. We are still checking the plant and we are still checking on all the sources of this protein.
We did not name any plant at all; I said a wide, wide area of Canada. We know that it came from some place in Canada, and it was suspected that it came from some place in Manitoba. Manitoba is a very big province.



POINTS OF ORDER


Mr. Bob Brisco (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, my point of order is very brief. On February 20, 1979, I addressed a question to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang). Without being disputatious, I am certain that the Minister of Transport genuinely misunderstood my question or may not have heard it correctly and, in that sense, provided an incorrect answer. I wonder if the Minister of Transport would like to have the opportunity, at some later date, to review my question and respond to it in the fashion of a point of order?



MR. PAPROSKI-S O. 43 MOTION-REFLECTION ON HOUSE VOTE

Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, my point of order is with regard to the motion under Standing Order 43 moved by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt) today. I think there was contained therein a reflection on the vote which was taken yesterday. There had been agreement when the division bells were called that the government whip and the opposition whip would come in in 15 minutes, but the government whip decided that it would be at five thirty, six thirty or seven thirty.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I did not put the question on the motion of the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mrs. Holt). I have indicated that matters which relate to the procedures of the House are not proper subjects of motions pursuant to Standing Order 43. As soon as I heard the beginning of the content of the motion, I stopped the hon.
Order Paper Questions
member from further putting it. That is the only control I can have over such matters. I do not think there is anything with regard to that motion which could give rise to a point of order that we could debate on that subject now.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Marc Lalonde: for leave to introduce Bill C-43, to amend the Judges Act, to amend an Act to amend the Judges Act and to amend certain other acts in respect of the reconstitution of the courts in New Brunswick, Alberta and Saskatchewan.


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

Mr. Yvon Pinard (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 391,401,694 and 944.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Herbert: What is the income of the government, by province, from taxes on (a) renewable (b) non-renewable resources?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Finance):: The latest data on federal corporate income tax by industrial sector is for the 1975 taxation year. Federal corporate income tax collected from the agriculture, forestry, fishing and trapping sectors, was S29.5 million; federal income tax from the mining sector (which includes non-integrated petroleum producers) was $694.3 million. Federal income tax from integrated petroleum and coal companies (that is, companies with refining and marketing activities in addition to resource production) was $390.4 million in 1975. Federal income taxes by sector for the individual provinces are not reported on income tax forms.
An impression of how federal taxes arise from each province can be gained by analysing the amount of taxable income allocated to each province for purposes of assessing the provincial income tax. This allocation is generally based on each

February 22, 1979
Order Paper Questions
corporation's distribution of wages and sales by province. The following list provides this information.
Provincial Allocation of Taxable Income by Major Industry Group 1975
(thousands of dollars)
Agriculture,	Total Mining	Petroleum andforestry, fishing	including	Coal ProductsProvince	and trapping	Mineral Fuels	ManufacturingNewfoundland	X	880	10,610Prince Edward Island	561	271	2,777Nova Scotia	3,165	11,259	XNew Brunswick	3,039	2,894	11,179Quebec	7,144	91,049	166,203Ontario	33,301	351,301	371,986Manitoba	6,265	45,405	40,392Saskatchewan	25,936	104,356	53,670Alberta	36,243	1,664,427	537,611British Columbia	33,602	179,944	152,103Northwest Territories	X	38,703	5,006Yukon	24	29,644	979Other jurisdictions	0	9,246	XTotal Taxable Income	149,675	2,529,379	1,388,232
X-Confidential because of the requirements of the Statistics Act.
Conceptually it is not possible to determine precisely in which province corporate income is earned. For example, it can be argued that income is earned where a sale occurs or alternately where production occurs. Moreover, the location of the earning of income is not, of course, any indication of the location of those who in fact bear the tax. Such an analysis would have to consider the degree to which corporate taxes are shifted forward to purchasers of the industry's product, backward to, for example, suppliers of materials and labour and financial resources in the form of lower payments for their goods and services, or is borne by shareholders in the form of lower return on their investment.
The federal government does not charge royalties or levy mining income taxes on minerals under the jurisdiction of provincial governments. Excise and sales taxes are not imposed on primary products such as logs, fish, natural gas, etc. A charge on each barrel of crude petroleum or petroleum product exported from Canada has been levied since October 1973. In the 1977-78 fiscal year this charge amounted to $431,630,274.64. Although not specifically earmarked, revenues from the export charge assist in providing subsidies for oil imported into eastern Canada, thus enabling uniform oil prices in Canada, which are lower than international prices.


Mr. Lambert (Bellechasse): What are the names, addresses, duties and salaries of Statistics Canada employees in the Constituency of Bellechasse?
Hon. Jack H. Horner (Minister of Industry, Trade and
Commerce): Statistics Canada employs only part-time interviewers in the constituency of Bellechasse.

Name	Address	SalaryClarisse Dion	Berthier sur mer	$ 5.30Claire Levesque	Berthier sur mer	$ 5.55Germaine Caron	Montmagny	$ 4.65Pauline T. Journeault	L'lslet sur mer	$ 4.65Beatrice Bourgault	St. Adalbert	$ 5.30


Mr. Forrestall: Are atmospheric environment service contracts with individuals providing weather data to be terminated as a result of the $200,000 cutback announced by the government in September 1978 and, if so, which ones?


Hon. Len Marchand (Minister of State (Environment)):: Yes, the ones at Blue River, British Columbia, Brooks, Alberta, Rockglen, Saskatchewan, Grand Rapids, Manitoba, Harrington Harbour, Quebec, Parent, Quebec.


Mr. Patterson: 1.	For the Fiscal year (a) 1976-77 (b) 1977-78, what amount of overtime was paid to employees of the Canadian Penitentiary Service and how many hours does the amount represent?
2.	Is there a currently full complement of employees in the Canadian Penitentiary Service in the class of (a) Security Officer (b) Living Unit Officer?
3.	Are any of the supervisory positions in the Canadian Penitentiary Service currently being filled by correction officers on a temporary basis?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Solicitor General: By the Ministry of the Solicitor General: (Canadian Penitentiary Service and National Parole Service)
1.	Fiscal Year	Amount	Hours1976/77	13,264,427	1,126,1961977/78	12,247,096	952,7172.	(a) No.
(b) No.
3.	Yes.



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Grey-Dufferin-Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yet another day has gone by and none of my questions, of which there are well over 20 in number and which have been on the order paper in many instances for several months and in some cases for over a year, have been answered. It is clear that the parliamentary secretary apparently has no intention of discharging his reponsibili-ty to get answers to those questions. I have received information to the effect that this information is available but that it is being withheld from the House.
I think that the parliamentary secretary ought at least to indicate to the House some sort of timetable, if he does in fact intend to answer any of my questions, as to when these
February 22, 1979

questions will be answered. If it is not the parliamentary secretary's intention to act in good faith and to give answers to questions which are put on the order paper, then surely he has the responsibility to parliament and the people of Canada to indicate in a straightforward fashion that his intention is to withhold the information.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. member to have the courage to accuse me of bad faith or of withholding information from the House.
I wish that he would have the courage to accuse me formally, rather than making innuendoes. I have always told the House that we do our best to provide full and complete information to all members.
I would refer the hon. member to the answer which I gave him on January 30, 1979. This answer still stands. 1 will not accept this kind of innuendo from an hon. member who complains not at all about questions which cost the people of Canada thousands of dollars to answer. We are still working on those questions to provide him with full and complete answers. He will get the answers as soon as we have all the details.
1 ask him to have the courage to make clear accusations, and then we will see what happens.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, on a question of privilege, the parliamentary secretary has indicated that the reason why he is refusing to answer my questions is that they cost too much. I specifically-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The parliamentary secretary did not say that he was refusing to answer the hon. member's questions. He said that the hon. member was raising complaints about the failure to answer questions which cost a lot of money to answer, but he did not say that he was refusing to answer them.


Henry Perrin Beatty: The parliamentary secretary definitely indicated that it was very costly to answer those questions. I have specifically, on a number of instances in this House, requested the parliamentary secretary to indicate to me any instance where he felt that the question was too costly to provide the information, and I would be prepared to withdraw any question for which he could substantiate such a claim. To date he has not done that. Surely he has the responsibility, if he is going to make that sort of charge in the House, to at least cough up the information and justify the charge which he has made.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would listen I just told him that even if 1 personally found his questions stupid and even if it does cost a lot of money to the people of Canada, we are working to try to obtain all of the information required to give the hon. member full and complete answers as soon as possible.


An hon. Member:: When?
Transportation


Mr. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, I take exception to the excuse which we keep hearing on this matter of the expense to produce answers to order paper questions. I have a first hand example of a reply from the parliamentary secretary who said that an answer to one of my questions would cost $6,500. I phoned the CPR research section in Montreal, and ten minutes later they phoned me back with the answer. That did not cost $6,500. 1 think that there is an abuse in the use of this excuse.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That this House condemns the failure of the Minister of Transport to deal adequately with transportation matters in this country and, specifically, his failure:
(1)	to provide an adequate marine transportation policy;
(2)	to maintain acceptable standards of air safety;
(3)	to deal adequately with grain movement, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to producers and to the Canadian economy;
(4)	to consider hardships imposed upon communities and producers arising from the implementation of the Prairie Rail Action Committee report;
(5)	to provide consistent leadership in urban transportation; and
(6)	to preside effectively and objectively over the granting of tenders and the administration of car rental concessions at Canada's international airports.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. Members will recall that proceedings on this motion will expire in accordance with Standing Order 58(11) at the ordinary hour of adjournment this day.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the substance of this motion which I have presented today on behalf of my party can probably be summed up in one word, and that word is "failure"-failure of this minister to deal adequately with problems relating to transportation and failure of this government to outline a comprehensive national transportation policy within which these problems could be resolved.
We have taken the opportunity to highlight six specific areas of concern and, in our view, gross deficiency. In singling out these six areas we hope to demonstrate during the course of debate today that this minister and government are ladened with incompetence, guilty of indecision, lacking in leadership and wracked with fatigue.
There are six examples, Mr. Speaker, but there could have been more-perhaps 101 more. For example, we could have

February 22, 1979
Transportation
referred in this motion to the actions of the minister in needlessly causing tension at the Cornwall training centre where, through his inappropriate choice of words, he cast reflection upon and unjustly defamed some of the instructors who are doing a very difficult job at the institute.
We could have referred to the government's failure to enunciate a fair and comprehensive regional third level air carrier policy in this country. We have had inconsistent and ad hoc measures and policies which were clearly demonstrated in the Nordair fiasco, which company is nationalized, or privatized, and we do not know what will be the eventual outcome. Surely in an area as important as regional air carriers in this country, a policy must be enunciated so that the industry may develop and grow in an orderly fashion. Surely we need a definitive policy in order to establish the necessary infrastructures such as airports, navigational aids and other related items. There has been no policy, however, and there has been no planning.
In this motion we could have singled out any one of a dozen examples of waste, incompetence and mismanagement, as cited in the recent Auditor General's report, such as cost overruns at the Calgary airport, cost overruns at the transport training centre, cost overruns on R class icebreakers, Mirabel and Pickering; and, of course, we could have selected that new little scheme which was produced in the estimates this year, the new airport revolving fund scheme which will have the effect of hiding the white elephants. The department is clearly a mess, Mr. Speaker. Anyone reading the Auditor General's report would not be mistaken in coming to that conclusion.
We could have put the legislative record of this minister before the House. Since he assumed the portfolio of transport he has only piloted two substantive legislative measures through this institution, the Air Canada reorganizational bill and the CN bill. There were some amendments to the maritime code but most of the work was done before he assumed the portfolio.
Just the other day in the House the minister complained that he could not get any legislation through. I want to say to you, Mr. Speaker, that if the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) learned the meaning of the words co-operation and consultation, I am sure it would be a different story.
We offered to refer the subject matter of Bill C-20 concerning amendments to the National Transportation Act to the committee for study, but we have to ask ourselves why that committee has not been working. It has not considered any major business since last June. Indeed, it is probably the most underworked and underutilized committee of this House. The minister suggested the other day that the Tories will not allow any legislation through because they want to travel. That is absolutely untrue. I suggest to you, sir, when he says that, that he is treading on the borerline of perpetrating a deliberate falsehood.


Mr. Railton:: Be careful there.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am always careful. We detect a certain amount of friction between the minister and the chairman of

that committee, the hon. member for LaSalle-Emard-Cote Saint Paul (Mr. Campbell). We know that the minister wanted the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Goodale) to be chairman.


An hon. Member:: Who is he?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: He is the pampered pet. The minister thinks he needs a little higher profile because he is in trouble out there.
An hop. Member: They are both in trouble.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The hon. member for Assiniboia came to the organizational meeting but he saw the troops were solidly lined up against him. He did not get his lollypop and had to resort to sitting on the sidelines. The committee came out solidly for the present chairman. We think he has been doing a good job. He has been performing his duties in an objective way, he has been independent and, above all, he has been fair.
I was speaking about the inaction of the committee, Mr. Speaker. This goes back to the relationship between the minister and the chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications with whom the minister seems to have some sort of axe to grind. I see the parliamentary secretary shaking his head in the negative. He knows there was a certain amount of campaigning before this election took place.
What we have here, Mr. Speaker, is a clear demonstration of the failure of the minister to use the resources of the committee. He has failed to use the resources of this House and the members of this House. He has failed to co-operate and use the expertise that exists in the various sectors of transportation in this country.
I am glad that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) is in the House, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure he will agree with what I have to say. When it comes to the provinces, as far as co-operation is concerned, the minister's duty to provide leadership in the area of co-ordinating national policy and in the area of defining national goals and objectives has been totally abrogated.
The minister of transport for the province of Alberta has been attempting to work with the federal government to seek redress in the area of freight groupings and better rates on processed goods, but he absolutely gave up on the federal minister. He dealt directly with the railways and he got an agreement. They signed a railway pact which would achieve those objectives. The leadership did not come from this minister or this government; they had to go it alone.
Another example is the attitude of the minister with regard to the emergency grain summit which he fought tooth and nail. He went to the first ministers' conference and was embarrassed when the premier of Manitoba called for an emergency summit. He was immediately supported by the other western premiers and was shamed into attending. It was a very good meeting. I know the minister was really surprised. When I asked a question in the House in this regard, he
February 22, 1979

suggested to me that there would be nothing going on more than organized finger pointing. This minister refuses to consult and co-operate. A tremendous amount of good will was generated as a result of that grain summit.
And so we have this kind of scenario. Instead of admitting there is a problem, this minister goes around the country and stands up in this House and tells Canadians that all is well. He has even taken on a mission for the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien). When speaking in a debate last week, the Minister of Transport said at page 3177 of Hansard:
This country is by and large in excellent economic shape.
It is in as good shape as his own department.


An hon. Member:: And that is terrible!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It is amazing that a man of his intelligence and knowledge would subject himself to being discredited by being party to those kinds of statements. As a result, fewer and fewer people believe the minister and this government. More and more they are finding that this government cannot be trusted any longer.
The tragedy resulting from their failure and from their broken promises, particularly in this very important and critical area of transport, is simply that many Canadians have lost opportunities. These are opportunities that could have provided jobs and could have aided in our economic recovery. These were opportunities which could have assisted many Canadians from coast to coast to achieve a sense of purpose and fulfilment. This is something which has declined more and more during the office of this administration.
I speak about lost opportunities. I want to refer to an opportunity which has enormous potential for this country. I have in mind the marine sector. Probably there has not been another segment of transportation which has been studied more than the marine sector, with the possible exception of the grain handling system. And yet in spite of that, and in spite of all the studies and all the platitudes, nothing substantive has been done for Canadians over the last 15 years to retrieve some of the benefits of the $25 billion deep sea trade that is generated in this country.
What a lost opportunity that is. How sad. It is shameful for a country like Canada to have lost such an opportunity. The drain of some $3 billion annually to foreign shipping interests should be cause for concern if not outright alarm. Surely steps should be taken immediately to at least curtail or contain that escalation, if not reverse it. This government's attitude toward the shipping industry can best be described as mere tokenism and as being shortsighted. It has failed to give the shipping sector the prominence it deserves. It has failed to foster a climate that is conducive to this very important industry's achieving its potential. It is best summed up by a statement made on behalf of the Dominion Marine Association as follows:
Transportation
Unhappily for the Canadian shipping industry and, we believe, for the economy of Canada, dealings between the federal government and the industry have, over the past 15 years or so, come to take the form of an "adversary" relationship. We of the industry see little sign that the government has our interests in mind when transportation policies are devised and implemented. Instead, our principal contacts with the government and officials in recent years have become a matter of resisting measures devised by them, which will do nothing to improve and often a good deal to impair the efficiency and welfare of the industry.
Running resistance to the industry rather than working with the industry has been the result of the actions of this government.
I turn to another lost opportunity, namely the grains industry. Here we have failed to capture our potential in world markets because of deficient grain handling and our transportation system. This certainly demonstrates another graphic example of a lost opportunity to the economy of Canada and to Canadians.
Over the last eight months deferrals, lost sales, not to mention demurrage, have cost this country a loss in grain sales of 6 million metric tonnes. That, translated into dollars and cents, is worth $1 billion in the hands of the producer. If you multiply that through the economy-there is a multiplier effect of about 5.5-the total is worth $5.5 billion. This is a financial blow, to say the least, as far as producers are concerned, but it is a tragedy as far as the Canadian economy is concerned. The fact is that we have not increased our capacity to deliver grain since 1972-73. There has been some additional terminal capacity which has come on stream during the last few months. But while world demand increases, Canada's exports remain static.
In the meantime, since the early 1970s the United States has doubled its exports of grain. Canada is clearly on trial over the next year as far as its major customers are concerned, and particularly with respect to the Chinese and Japanese markets. We must get our house in order. We must demonstrate to them that we have the capacity to improve our system and to enlarge it; otherwise our sales will be further jeopardized.
In this connection I have two suggestions. First, I would suggest that the minister seriously consider the appointment of a grain transport co-ordinator, at least on a temporary basis, until such time as there can be some structural changes in the system, and until such time as our capacity increases. There is still poor co-ordination and poor utilization. There is still a need for a referee.
Second, I hope that the minister will stop running interference with the orderly development of the terminal facility at Prince Rupert. Grandiose schemes of a superport at Ridley Island, I suggest, will only serve to defer the project and to escalate the cost. It is the producer who must bear the cost.
What is needed is to get on with the job and with constructing a grain terminal immediately. This could be done at Casey Point and it could be started this year. The Ridley Island project will be deferred for perhaps three years or more. The Alberta government and the consortia have taken the initiative in this regard. Unless this minister is prepared to co-operate

February 22, 1979
Transportation
with them he should mind his own business and let them get on with the job.
I turn now to the question of air safety. In spite of the minister's assurance, it is clear that events of the recent past, and specifically over the last 12 months, have given Canadians clear evidence that there is serious erosion taking place in public air safety in Canada. We have referred on numerous occasions to the investigation in northern Ontario. The minister promised to hire more inspectors. Today we should have about 400 inspectors; we have 308. This is a shortfall of some 80 or so. Morale is low and the numbers and declining. In the meantime, Canada's safety record has dropped from eight to thirteenth as far as international standards are concerned. The ministry's investigations revealed enforcement is generally unco-ordinated and often haphazard. There are suggestions that are even more disturbing. According to some informed sources both inside and outside the department, it is highly probable that inadequate regulations may have contributed to some degree to the Cranbrook tragedy.
Rather than acting responsibly, this minister chooses to gloss over the issue and play the old reassuring game that all is well. I suggest that constitutes a clear dereliction of duty on his part. We again call for a full public inquiry into the whole area of air safety so that all the facts may be known and corrective measures put in place. That is a minimum.
I wish to deal briefly with the question of urban transportation. This government has consistently failed to provide honest leadership. We remember the $290 million urban transportation scheme announced by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) at a noon luncheon on June 18, 1974. It was withdrawn, but not before a number of municipalities and provincial governments made plans based upon that promise.
In 1977 the plan was reorganized. It amounted to nothing more than a reorganization of the existing $230 million five-year program. That program has been largely ineffective because of delays, red tape and bureaucracy. Right now in the city of Toronto there are three very dangerous railroad crossings that should have been provided for under the rail grade crossing program but have not been because of delays, red tape and bureaucracy.
The railway relocation bill was heralded as a major piece of legislation in 1974. I am told there has not been one application approved under the provisions of that legislation. So much for the grandiose schemes of the urban transportation program enunciated by the Liberal government in 1974. This program can best be described as nothing more than a big burp.
I return to the question of the government's failure. It has failed to consult with its counterparts that are involved in transportation. It has failed to co-operate. It has shown contempt and disdain for parliament and has not allowed parliament to deal with the issues regarding transportation.
This government has failed to admit that there are problems in certain areas. Rather it tends to gloss over the issue. It has been stated many times in this House that the government has

failed to develop a comprehensive transportation plan. In a nation as diverse and widespread as Canada, transportation is vital. It is vital to the achievement of a balanced regional economic development, to the establishment of a sound industrial base and to the unity of this country. A comprehensive national transportation policy is one of the major keys to the attainments of these goals.
There are some basic and fundamental principles on which an effective transportation policy should be based. First, provincial and municipal governments, and indeed the users of transportation services, should be more directly involved in the formulation and implementation of policies and objectives. We need realistic consultation. There must be prime objectives in the formulation of government policy. As well, parliament must once again become the primary forum in which transportation policies and issues are resolved.
Second, the transportation policy should be an instrument for the attainment of national and regional goals. We on this side reject, as I am sure does the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, the user-pay concept of the Minister of Transport. The minister has said that before in this House and I am sure he will not change his mind. Transportation policies should be used to enhance the competitive position of Canadian producers and processors. Our transportation policy should encourage the development, further processing and manufacturing of our renewal and non-renewable resources in those areas where they are produced.
Third, a new transportation policy should include the reduction and simplification of the regulatory process. The present complex and bureaucratic system of regulations and red tape should be simplified through an orderly process of deregulation. The sunset law principle and a genuine commitment to privatization should be applied.
Fourth, a transportation policy should encourage increased competition. Where effective competition does not and cannot exist, an effective and workable mechanism must be put in place to ensure protection to the captive and near captive shipper.
Fifth, the Department of Transport should be reorganized to provide for improved ministerial control and accountability. At the present time the Department of Transport has over 21,000 employees and consists of three administrations. These are subdivided into 2,000 responsibility and cost centres which are responsible for the administration of 100 separate and distinct programs and activities. In addition, the department oversees the operations of the airport revolving fund and the operations of some 13 Crown corporations. This structure should be reorganized to make the department more responsive to the different modes of transportation, to allow for more effective ministerial control and to improve accountability to parliament.
In order to be effective, these principles must not just be nebulous statements by the minister but put into the context of a new national transportation plan or act. Our present National Transportation Act is out of date and is inadequate for providing that kind of framework. One of the first priorities is
February 22, 1979

to get on with the job of bringing in a new national transportation act. Canada must not be allowed to enter the next decade with a transportation system based on the last one.


Hon. Otto E. Lang (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, 1 am always amazed when the Tories rise to talk about problems in transportation. They resort to so many obvious falsehoods and distortions in approaching the question that their credibility surely must fail altogether.
In his preliminary remarks, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) talked about our having passed only two substantive measures through the House, although he admitted there was a third to which he wasn't paying attention because he thought it had some pre-history. In that case, I guess we should get some credit for the nine or so measures on the order paper which have not been proceeded with because of the amount of time members of the Tory party insist on spending on whatever subject comes up, making speech after speech. And then, yesterday, they resorted to the childish tactic of adjourning the House, stopping the business of the House altogether. That is the kind of conduct which has gone on in delaying legislation time after time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Otto Emil Lang: The hon. member was stating a complete untruth in referring to any intention of mine in relation to the committee and the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Goodale) as chairman of it. I guess he resorted to that tactic for his own reasons. He was completely wrong in implying there was any lack of consultation between me and my officials, my staff, the users and the transportation industry. Indeed, I would venture to say that almost every organization involved with transportation wishing to have direct access to me or wishing to contact officials in Transport Canada has found that they can do so. Over the last three and a half years almost every one of them would tell you, Mr. Speaker, that they have had more consultation than ever before and are satisfied with the degree to which we try to take account of their views before moving on a particular transportation issue.
The hon. member was also completely wrong-it was absolute distortion-in saying I fought tooth and nail against a grain summit with the western premiers. Indeed, when the suggestion appeared at the first ministers' conference I replied immediately that I thought it was a good idea. When Premier Lyon wired and suggested a date in January which was not possible for me, I replied suggesting a date in December for that conference and I attended it with delight. I was delighted at the results because at that conference the premiers, in the presence of the leading members of the grain handling and transportation system, saw that essentially all the things that needed to be done in connection with our transport and handling of grain could be done, including the selling of it, and that we could realistically set a target for export of 30 million tons for 1985, a target at which the hon. member for Vegreville had long scoffed when I suggested we should build for a
Transportation
billion bushels of export. Well, we are now talking about a higher target than that.
At that conference one of the things we all recognized was that if we were to achieve these new levels of exports-50 per cent higher than current record or near-record levels-one of the key things was to continue the encouragement of production of wheat, barley and particularly rapeseed in the prairies, and that all of us had to talk together about the possibility and prospect for this in order that farmers would agree to use the fertilizers and chemical sprays which can allow such production to occur.
One of the reasons, we do not have more capacity for exporting grain today is that it took so long to persuade even the elevator companies involved in terminal construction to go ahead with expansion in Vancouver where it was seen to be most needed, although I immediately emphasize for those interested in the movement of grain through the Thunder Bay area that we foresee increases there as well. It is simply that the increases out of Vancouver and out of Prince Rupert are of an order of magnitude so much greater.
Hon. members might note that the actual construction of additional facilities by the elevator companies, including even the farmer-owned companies, did not come about until we had put in place, through the Canadian Wheat Board, incentives to encourage them to go ahead. That was because they were concerned as to whether production would keep up with exports. What hon. members who are not from the prairies may fail to recognize is that we are exporting record volumes and only have the extra grain on hand because we have had absolutely record crops over the last three years, and that in many previous years we exported more grain than we were actually producing. That is a fact that is very important in our over-all approach to the problem of transportation.
I suppose where the hon. member is most amazing is in his ability to stand as a transportation critic and say that he thinks we did not do right in not developing a comprehensive policy on transportation. I was amazed the other day to find that he and his colleague from Winnipeg South Centre (Mr. McKenzie) failed to know how open our department was with thousands and thousands of documents available for inspection. He, as critic for transportation, missed this very important fact which should have been fundamental to his work, and now I find he does not know there stands a full statement of policy on transportation from 1975, a statement which is comprehensive and which meets the needs of today as well as it did at that time. And our actions reflect the practical application of that policy.
He ended up with some pious principles, many of which reflect ideas which are contained in far more elaborate form in our own statement of policy. And there is another thing he has failed to understand. He appears to say we should have amended the National Transportation Act. Mr. Speaker, we have before this House, as we did earlier, a bill to amend the National Transportation Act, and let it be understood that in a previous parliament when that act was before us the Conserva-
3490

February 22, 1979
Transportation
tive opposition made it clear they were going to filibuster it and extend the days of debate of that bill virtually endlessly.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Talk to your colleague!


Otto Emil Lang: These amendments to the National Transportation Act stated in clause 3 proposals and principles affecting transportation which were carefully agreed upon and negotiated as being perfectly satisfactory with the premiers of the Atlantic provinces. They contained provisions in regard to freight rates and controlling maximum rates which directly reflect western interests. One of the reasons this bill did not carry on to its conclusion despite the filibuster was that my colleagues were amazed at the fact that though it was a bill in direct answer to western demands to deal with short haul-long haul rate discrepancies, western demands to put in place control over freight rates which are too high in some cases, that very bill was filibustered by western Tories one after the other.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Otto Emil Lang: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vegreville said he did not like our marine policy. We have elaborated a specific policy with regard to shipping which in many of its aspects is designed in detail to meet the needs of today. The fact is that shipping conferences, arrangements between nations and potential United Nations arrangements put us in a position where we may need an ability to respond, and we have indicated our intention to come forward with legislation in that regard.
Of course, there are specific interests which would like us to take additional measures. We have indicated our special preference for Canadian shipping in the Arctic, and this can be a very important matter in the development of Arctic technology and Canadian shipping. But we have repeated our view that as a matter of policy low-cost shipping is extremely important to Canada, to its importers and to its exporters. If the Tories do not yet know it, this country lives on its exports, its imports, its trade, and we do not want protectionist policies in regard to shipping any more than we want them anywhere else in trade.
We are creating an environment for shipping where we can protect ourselves while still gaining the advantage of the economy of lower-cost shipping in the world. We drew the line, and will draw the line, at the protection of ocean-going shipping which will cause higher prices to the shippers of Canadian goods.
The hon. member for Vegreville is laying the groundwork for his colleague from Dartmouth when he announces support for this kind of higher-cost shipping, but I am a little surprised that the hon. member for Vegreville would support that policy. Of course, it is a fact that we find one Conservative policy today cancelled tomorrow and a new one the following day, as we saw with regard to deficits and with regard to negotiating sovereignty-association. We also find the Conservative party enunciating on the same day two different policies for different
(Mr. Lang.)
parts of the country so that it can appear to have the best of both. That is perfectly suitable to a party in the opposition so long as it remains in the opposition, because that kind of lack of responsibility can be exercised only when a decision does not have to be made. The Conservative party can have it both ways in all parts of the country.
I suppose the hon. member for Vegreville would make it sound as though we had done little with regard to transport in Canada, but I remind him of the operations of Canadian National Railways and Air Canada, both of which any nonpartisan observer and perhaps even partisan ones-perhaps even some Tories-would admit are being operated more effectively and more sensibly and with more productivity today than ever before. In both cases-and I hope this does not offend my friends in the New Democratic Party-they are now being operated at a profit. Profit is, after all, a payment for capital invested, and I hope even a New Democrat would admit that you need a return on investment if you expect investment to continue.
It is true that with regard to Air Canada and Canadian National we could, as presumably we did in days gone by, say that they are government-owned and that the government will go on investing even if it does not get a return. Of course, where that was so unfair and wrong was that it discouraged proper management attitudes and effectiveness within those Crown corporations. It also was completely unfair to the competitors of the airline and the railway, whether competitors in trucking, on other railroads, other airlines and the like. Therefore, we are moving toward principles under which effective operations will be a test, and reasonable return on investment will be expected.
We have begun to see this happen. The hon. member for Vegreville did not mention VIA Rail, with which we have taken a completely new approach to rail passenger policy. We now have a management dedicated to trying to make good sense out of our rail passenger service and to offering it again to attract people back to rail as a way of moving about this country. We already find 15 per cent or so increases in the number of people riding, and this is while we have made only a beginning. We have made only a beginning because we have some new equipment, but the important new equipment, the ten new, light, rapid, comfortable and Canadian-made trains which are on order will be available for the track only in 1980. At that time we will see a whole new chance at offering service through VIA Rail. Surely we have made sense out of what had been a deteriorating rail passenger service, and we will continue to try to provide better and more effective service.
Incidentally, in the delicate and difficult negotiations in bringing VIA Rail together out of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific, and in having to deal with employees who were in both these railways and in part moving to the new railway, VIA Rail, we had some of the best working relationships with union leaders one could ever want to have in arriving at arrangements and agreements which they have said were an example for others to follow.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
February 22, 1979


Otto Emil Lang: From one part of this country to the other we have been dealing with specific transportation problems within the broad framework of attempting to have an effective and efficient system but one which is always conscious of social needs and of the need for economic development. After all, this government and this Liberal party have long been in the forefront with policies to encourage the economic development of those areas where growth would otherwise be a good deal slower. Regions like the Atlantic region, from which the hon. membei for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall) comes, have long recognized the importance to this country of the Liberal policy of regional economic expansion, moving the country forward and attempting to promote development. This policy emerges in our willingness to improve air facilities where the actual demands of traffic would not appear, on a dollars and cents basis alone, to justify those improvements. 1 think of the improvements currently going on at the Wabush, Charlo, Gander and St. Leonard airports. I think of some of the airports in the maritimes and the investment for regional development.
This clearly emphasizes our belief that areas where we want development to be encouraged require significant transportation expenditures, and we are prepared to make them. When we have little problems or problems of a specific kind, we attack them in a specific way. The farmers of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick were extremely concerned two years ago about the situation with regard to shipping their potatoes. They were concerned that old reefer cars were coming to the end of their lives, and they wondered where they were going to go. We created a working group composed of government representatives, railway representatives, representatives of potato marketing boards and producers and representatives of the provinces to tackle the problem on all fronts and to see what needed to be done. We learned the number of cars which were required. We found a way to ensure that when trucks were not available, insulated boxes got into the movement. Port improvements were made so that the receiving of that product could take place to the satisfaction of the people involved in its shipment. We acted directly to deal with their problems. We were required to ensure that the railways would have adequate cars, adequate in the view of the producers themselves and adequate for their marketing operations. We made arrangements to provide cars by taking on certain financial obligations against the risk of those cars not being used.
The hon. member for Vegreville comes from an area where grain is produced. He is a prairie member, yet in talking about transportation he did not seem to think it worthy to mention $1 billion of expenditures already committed to the improvement of our grain handling and transportation system. Pursuant to government policy 8,000 hopper cars were purchased to ensure that there was more capacity for the movement of grain. I think of the $700 million to $800 million program for rebuilding branch lines on the prairies. For years, including years when there was a Tory government with a prairie prime minister and when most members of parliament from the
Transportation
prairies were in that government or on government backbenches, nothing was done to create certainty or a future for the whole branch line and grain handling system on the prairies. Not a thing was done because they were afraid, in typical Tory fashion, to act.
The hon. member for Vegreville started out by talking about lack of decision and leadership. Those are not things usually laid at my doorstep. The hon. member is usually more apt to say I display too much of that, but I have always known of the political warning that if you stay away from problems, you are likely to be able to escape a lot of heartache because even solutions to problems have their own problems, as seen by the people they are meant to serve. I have never been a believer in that. I believe in looking at the problems facing the grain farmer and the grain handling and transportation sysem. This is true of others areas of transport. I believe in tackling problems, even at the significant risk of adverse reaction or worry about change.
I am used to hon. members opposite thinking up slogans. When we created a new quota system in 1970, they said it was going to damage the family farm and that Lang was out to hurt the family farm. That was their great cry in those days. Today farmers would not go back to the quota system we had before, which was disorganized. Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what the prairie Tories, having been in government for six years, left behind in terms of the management of the grain system? When quotas were open, there was no way of predicting what kind of grain was going to be put into elevators, whether or not it was grain that was wanted. There was no way of knowing whether the grain that was going to be shipped was the grain that was wanted at the terminals. It was only because in those days they were shipping so little grain that they could afford this haphazard system of letting the wrong grain go on the wrong day without much regard for it. The Wheat Board told me, when I became responsible for grain matters, that it used to have to order two bushels of grain for every one they wanted because 50 per cent of the grain that arrived was unwanted grain in terms of their shipping program.
In those Tory days we were exporting 300 million or 400 million bushels of grain a year. Since 1969, when I became responsible for grain transportation, the figure has been almost invariably 700 million bushels of grain or more, and of course in the last four years, including this year, over 800 million bushels of grain were exported.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Otto Emil Lang: But, Mr. Speaker, we do not talk about that as if it were a plateau on which we should rest, even though last year and this year we were setting records. Now we are talking about going 50 per cent higher six years from now, up to 30 million tons, 1,300 million bushels, for export, figures that dwarf anything the hon. member ever dreamed of.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

February 22, 1979
Transportation


Otto Emil Lang: The hon. member ignores the billions of dollars in the grain handling and transportation system. He says 1 should butt out of the Prince Rupert situation. I am really amazed at the hon. member, who I think is the only living Albertan left who thinks that Casey Point is the place to put a terminal. It is true that a spokesman for BCDC still says so, although the British Columbia government has agreed with us that the right place for the terminal is Ridley Island. But they do not agree with their own development corporation. The governments of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan agree with us that Ridley Point is the place to put our grain terminal, such as we are suggesting be put in Prince Rupert. Do you know why, Mr. Speaker? Because the moment we started talking about a new grain terminal at Prince Rupert of ten million bushel capacity plus 20 million bushel surge, there was no possibility of building that kind of terminal at Casey Point; but the hon. member wants us to go back and build it there.
Of course, if the people in the elevator consortium wanted to go ahead with that kind of construction, it would be perfectly open for them to do so and nothing would stand in their way. But in fact what they want are certain arrangements with regard to Prince Rupert which we are pursuing and which do in fact involve our active participation. The hon. member praises the government of Alberta. It is true that they offered to lend them $100 million if that were needed. It is made to sound as if it was great largesse, but, after all, with the heritage fund around, they are looking for people to whom to lend anyway. I am not sure how great an act that was, but let that lie and let the hon. member understand that it was not as great an act and that the really important act is still to come.
What I want the hon. member to know is that I believe firmly that we will be moving forward with the Prince Rupert terminal, and I want him to know as well that, as in the past, we will be ensuring that the grain system for handling that grain, the whole rail system, and the rail system for handling all the other thousands and thousands of tonnes of products, will be put in place. The hon. member ignores the fact that the two major railways in this country have been continuing to expand significantly their capacity to handle potash, coal and sulphur as well as grain, and that they have been doing it as a result of the encouragement to ensure that the necessary capacity was there. For instance, the necessary cash flow for the Canadian Pacific to go ahead with major improvements in the Rocky Mountains, to virtually double track certain stretches and to eliminate the last of the steep grades, results from two specific measures for improved tax arrangements for the corporation in the two recent budgets which have allowed them to have the cash flow to go ahead with these improvements.
That is an example of the kind of foresight we have had in ensuring that transportation would benefit in all parts of this country. In the Atlantic provinces we can take a look at the ferry services and at the improvements there in terms of new vessels put on stream and new management put in place as we move toward more sensible transportation and action.
[Mr. Lang.)
Our air policy has produced strong airlines and will produce stronger ones. The hon. member is not able to understand all of the complexities of strengthening regional airlines, but I want him to know that I do not think the people most directly involved in the management of those regionals have the kind of doubts and worries he has. I want him to know that they have no such worries, in part because of our regular meetings together on airline matters and on what needs to be done to make the airline service in this country more effective.
When it comes to Canadian travel, we encourage the development of every possible lower fare that the airlines can put forward. We asked the Canadian Transport Commission to review its charter regulations and to relax them in order to allow for more charters. They did so to some extent, and when they did not do as much as we thought they should, we altered their decision and allowed for more charters. We encouraged the main airlines to offer charter competitive fares. The delightful thing about those is that they are available between all kinds of different points in the country, not just between the major cities which the key charter operations alone would serve, and that is important. But we are not satisfied to rest there; we are going ahead working and waiting for the additional changes in the regulations which will allow that to happen. We do not treat it either as though it were a simple thing.
The hon. member for Vegreville has expressed the Tories' approval for deregulation. It is interesting that again here Tories in opposition agree with the current American wave of deregulation, but Tories in government, in Ontario, for instance, or in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland or Manitoba-


Some hon. Members:: Go on.


Otto Emil Lang: -have not moved to deregulate their trucking industry. The trucking industry is one of the most regulated industries. Do the Tories in power take action to deregulate the industry? No. But of course, Tories do not necessarily need consistency from one part of the country to the other, from one day to the next. They do not need consistency because they are trained for the opposition. They know how to do the opposition job in one way in one part of the country and in another way in another part of the country, and that is where they should stay. However, they have not quite kept up to their traditions by allowing what they say to be heard. They have had to reverse themselves, as is their new tack these days. Today it is this, tomorrow that. They will negotiate sovereignty-association, and then they will not negotiate sovereignty-association.


Some hon. Members:: Four-fifths.


Otto Emil Lang: Then they attack the deficit. They say that deficits are bad for this country. We have heard that time and time again. Except I must admit that at every budget it seems to me they have one spokesman saying that another $ 1 billion would be exactly right and another spokesman saying that another $1 billion less would be exactly right. The hon. member for Don Valley (Mr. Gillies) and the hon. member for
February 22, 1979

York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) have this tweedle-dee and twee-dle-dum act going on between them. But then their leader revealed all to us when he said that Tories think that big deficits are bad, but in the immediate period we will have a bigger deficit because the way to have a smaller deficit is by having a bigger one. His words were still echoing in the television chamber when the hon. member for York-Simcoe found that to be too much for his Toronto friends. He said that surely the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) only meant this would last one month, two months or three months, that it would be a short-term deficit which would then disappear.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the minister but the time allotted to him has expired. He may continue with unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank and congratulate my good friend, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski), for presenting his motion today on behalf of his party and giving the House a chance to discuss transportation. The hon. member for Vegreville and I have done this on numerous occasions in the almost ten years that he and I have been here, and we still have to put up pretty well the same arguments to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) that we did ten years ago.
I think we can support the motion, but later on toward the end of my speech I intend to move an amendment in the following words:
(7)	to implement the Hall royal commission report recommendations with regard to statutory rates;
(8)	to ensure that transportation be used as an instrument of national policy rather than an instrument to make profits.
In 1974 the Liberals made glowing promises to improve the transportation system, and judging from the election results the program they promised received support from a majority of Canadians. Since then the commitments have been abandoned. There is a list of broken promises as long as your arm. The hon. member for Vegreville listed some and I will list more later.
Before I speak to what is in the motion I should like to speak to what is not in it. For a century Canadian transportation policy has been plagued by the myth that competition, profits and free enterprise would solve our problems in transportation. When are we going to stop being made fools of by this giant con job? We have a small population scattered over a great deal of geography, with extremes of climate and markets that are fragmented. It seems to me that that calls for co-operation and sharing of the cost of transportation by the nation as a whole.
Transportation companies have been taking large profits out of the consumer's and taxpayer's pockets, and now that the government has made the CN more commercial and businesslike the CN has increased its profits from $28 million to $136
Transportation
million. That figures out to about a 383 per cent increase in one year.
CP Limited increased its profits 31 per cent, from $247 million to $325 million. Air Canada's profits are up 135 per cent. CP Air increased its profits by 506 per cent, but it still provides inadequate service. It still does not provide enough rolling stock or adequate facilities of a reasonable standard.
These companies have been siphoning off profits and putting them into the pockets of shareholders instead of reinvesting a larger portion in rebuilding, enlarging and improving our rail and air systems. The taxpayers are headed for more stormy weather, and the Canadian traveller will be facing higher fares if either the Liberals or the Conservatives succeed in turning our transportation system over to the tender mercies of private enterprise.
The Minister of Transport wants to privatize Air Canada and the CNR. So does the Conservative financial critic, the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens). In May 1977 he said:
I suggest it is time to stop counting and start subtracting. It is time to begin divesting ourselves of some of these Crown corporations rather than creating new ones.
In that context he was referring to Air Canada. It was the people of Canada through their government who built a national airline when private enterprise would not touch it with a ten-foot poie because it could not make a fast buck. Now that there is some profit, private enterprise wants the gravy. Where was private enterprise when we needed it?
On March 3 of last year the hon. member for York-Simcoe said:
If this government was serious in trying to orient the CN to a more businesslike approach, why will they not let the private sector buy into the CN?
As if we have not had enough grief with CP, that hon. member now wants to let the same breed of cats into the CN. Just so there is no confusion about Tory transportation policy, I remind the House that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) wants to give the CPR more airline business. When will the official opposition learn that you cannot depend on the CNR to provide fair, equitable service at a price that consumers can afford?
While the Leader of the Opposition was busy attacking Petro-Can, the only major oil company in Canada that is not foreign owned, he was walking across this country defending the CPR. Imagine defending an outfit that owes the people of Canada $500 million in deferred taxes, has received hundreds of millions of dollars in government handouts, that sabotages grain movement and then will not even tell us how much the chairman is paid. We had to find that out from a U.S. authority.
It was the official opposition that persuaded the government to amend Air Canada legislation to require Air Canada to operate in contemplation of profit. That can only mean one thing-reduced service to Atlantic Canada, the prairies and outlying regions where there is not the volume of traffic to sustain profits.

February 22, 1979
Transportation
It is time for us in this country to make our transportation companies serve the people rather than profits, and while I would be the first to admit that the Liberal government has been a failure at improving the facilities for moving freight, it has been a disaster at improving facilities for moving people.
During the last election campaign the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) promised $290 million over five years to improve urban transit with the government contributing to capital improvements. That promise has never been kept. The actual program announced last year involves little or no new funding, and now we see the CPR increasing its commuter fares in Montreal by 35 per cent and the CNR increasing its fares by 50 per cent.
During the last election campaign the Prime Minister promised io establish transcontinental excursion trains to supplement existing transcontinental services. Instead, the Liberals want to cut back transcontinental service across Canada. The government had a report prepared by IBI consultants recommending abandonment of two of the three long distance services between Montreal and the maritimes.
During the 1974 election campaign the Prime Minister promised to bring into service high speed trains to serve the Quebec City to Windsor corridor, Atlantic Canada to Quebec, Edmonton to Calgary, and Vancouver to Chilliwack. That was five years ago and not one new train has been put into service since then. In fact, we have lost trains. The government has only ten train sets on order for the whole of Canada. That will not even replace old equipment that is and will have to be scrapped. We will end up even further behind than we are now.
The train from Ottawa to Toronto takes five and three-quarter hours at an average speed of 48 miles per hour. The train from Edmonton to Calgary averages only 55 miles per hour, and the government's agency, VIA Rail, plans to abandon that service. No wonder no one will get on the train when a jackrabbit could make the trip quicker. Until we get high speed inter-city trains that average 125 miles per hour to 150 miles per hour, we will not have an incentive for people to leave their automobiles at home and take the train instead of the bus or the plane.
I note that in Alberta the NDP has promised to spend $500 million to improve the Edmonton to Calgary rail corridor. That is the kind of program needed across Canada, in the maritimes, in central Canada and in the west. Massive investment is required to improve our railways, the most efficient energy mode of travel following water carriage. By improving our railway system's capability to carry people we will improve its capability to move freight. That would mean more jobs and more industrial development.
The Liberals promised to revamp the entire grain handling system in 1974, from the farmer's granary to the ships in the harbour. They promised a national freight car leasing corporation and to purchase a reserve freight car fleet. That has not happened.

I want to remind the Minister of Transport that if he were to enforce section 262 of the Railway Act, which provides that the railway shall provide suitable accommodation to load, transport and unload all traffic offered, and if he implemented the major recommendation of the Hall commission on statutory rates, the railroads would have the funds to rebuild and rehabilitate the railway lines and to purchase cars and locomotives. They would have the majority of the funds needed. The Government of Canada could advance any additional funds at low interest that the railways may need.
It is not just the lack of grain cars that is causing a problem. Since the end of the Second World War we have been short of rolling stock. If you talk to the potato growers in P.E.I. and New Brunswick, they will tell you the problem has existed for 50 years, that they have never had sufficient cars to move their crops. If you talk to the fruit and vegetable growers in southern Ontario, they will tell you there is never enough equipment. Talk to the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Hargrave). He and thousands of others in the cattle business will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that there has always been a shortage of stock cars when the time comes to move their livestock.
Talk to the people in the lumber industry, Mr. Speaker. When a major shipment of lumber is to be moved for export and to the domestic market, there is a chronic shortage of railway rolling stock, and that is the case with commodity after commodity. The railways have never lived up to their legal liability under the Railway Act of Canada.
The minister talked about 700 million to 800 million bushel years, and that is great. The tragedy is that in the past year we could have had another three million tonnes of sales to China, a country which prefers to deal with us. The Chinese are grateful for the good and fair treatment which we have given them over the years. The Wheat Board could not tender because they knew they could not deliver an additional three million tonnes and that there was insufficient rail capacity to move that additional grain to the west coast. The Canadian Wheat Board commissioner said that the prairie farmers had lost $450 million, or $3,000 each, during the calendar year 1978 because of Canada's inability to deliver more grain for export.
The board has identified the number one problem in grain transportation as lack of grain cars. The railways continue to take an average of 1,800 boxcars out of grain service each year and, as a result, the farmers have been blackmailed into paying for 2,000 new hopper cars, which is the responsibility of the railways and of the government. I do not condemn the Canadian Wheat Board. I do not like the fact that they had to order hopper cars, but it was a desperate, last resort move which it felt it had to make to protect our export markets and to provide us with the capacity to move the volume of grain we are moving now.
We welcomed and supported the purchase of 8,000 cars by the government. But the Minister of Transport has been
February 22, 1979

double-crossed, the government has been double-crossed and the people of Canada have been double-crossed because we have a lesser capacity to move grain by rail now than we had at the end of 1972. The railroads have removed more cars from grain movement than the taxpayers have put into it since 1972. We are worse off now in our capability than we were at the end of 1972.
The Canadian Wheat Board has called for the purchase of another 10,000 cars, and they must be put on stream at the rate of 2,000 or 3,000 cars a year starting now. They must be purchased by the railways or by a combination of the railways and the government. But beyond that, hundreds of millions of dollars should be invested in other kinds of railway rolling stock and locomotive power. Over the next ten years we should invest a minimum of $1 billion a year for ten years just in our railway systems and urban transit systems alone.
The minister talks about $1 billion, but he forgets to tell the House and the people of Canada that in his books that money is spread out over a period of about eight years. That time frame should be cut in half to get rail lines rebuilt and rehabilitated. The minister should also act immediately to reject the branch line recommendations by the Prairie Rail Action Committee, and not make those communities, grain producers and all the people concerned in the areas affected go through this exercise for the third time around. They have gone through this exercise with the Hall commission, with PRAC, and now they have to go through it again with the Canadian Transport Commission.
The chairman of the Prairie Rail Action Committee has said that it is always cheaper to truck grain on light density lines than it is on high density lines. I do not grant that that statement is true because there are even exceptions on light density lines. 1 wish that the minister and the Prairie Rail Action Committee would explain their recommendation to abandon hundreds of miles of high density track, which amounts to as much movement as 110,000 to 120,000 bushels per mile of track.
The Minister of Transport tells us that this is getting rid of the uncertainty and that it will rationalize and make more efficient our rail system in the prairies, but the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board says that we are going to have to increase production-and he is right because the Canadian Wheat Board has said it-by another ten million tonnes by 1985. That means that the rail lines which the Prairie Rail Action Committee recommends should be abandoned will be high density lines, and all of them need to be retained. Not one of those abandonments should be proceeded with.
I am confident, Mr. Speaker, that our grain producers can reach that level of increased production and that our farmer-owned elevator companies can handle it. The expansion at the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert will be able to handle it, but our rail system cannot handle it. Taking up track is no way to improve our handling capacity.
The Prairie Rail Action Committee exceeded its terms of reference in two instances. It recommended the abandonment
Transportation
of the Lewvan subdivision, about 107 miles of track, which the Hall commission recommended should be put in the basic network and which the minister did put in the basic network. The Lewvan subdivision is none of PRAC's business. They have no business whatsoever recommending the abandonment of a line in the basic network. Their terms of reference ask them to look at the role of lines in the basic network and that is all. The minister had better reject that abandonment recommendation out of hand.
PRAC also exceeded its terms of reference when in its reports it repeatedly referred to competition. There is nothing in its terms of reference which allows them to use the criteria of competition in arriving at their recommendations. The Prairie Rail Action Committee had no business butting in. If the competition is needed it will be the grain producers who will decide and the grain companies. We do not need this outrageous attempt by the Prairie Rail Action Committee to manipulate grain companies.
I find it strange that most of their abandonment recommendations are on lines where the large majority of elevators are owned by the farmers themselves. The minister had better reject all those applications. The minister says that the CTC can make a final decision on a line. That is not so. The federal government can put any line it wants into the basic network. The minister could do it tomorrow by order in council. If the CTC rejects an abandonment application by the railroads, they must review that line within every five years and uncertainty remains. I have had no guarantee or commitment from the minister that where the CTC rejects an abandonment recommendation by PRAC he will put it into the basic network.


Otto Emil Lang: You missed it.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: If he said that, Mr. Speaker, then I am happy. But why will he not put those PRAC lines into the basic network without having to go through the CTC hearings?
I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom):
That the motion be amended by adding at the end thereof the following words:
(7)	to implement the Hall royal commission report recommendations with regard to statutory rates;
(8)	to ensure that transportation be used as an instrument of national policy rather than an instrument to make profits.
The minister still has time to put into gear the funding and the policies necessary to implement what is needed for transportation in Canada.
In closing, I would like to make a brief reference to my own constituency and ask the minister to please get something done about the situation in Regina with regard to a number of areas. We are sick and tired of being treated like a backwoods village. The airport was congested enough with two airlines in and out plus the private aircraft, but now the minister has put a third airline in there. There was not room for two. Now there is congestion every day and the nonsense of forcing passengers on charter flights to land in Regina, fly on to Calgary to clear

February 22, 1979
Transportation
customs and come back to Regina the next day. It is incredible.
Even if the minister has to instal a temporary building immediately in front of the airport building to house customs, a place which will handle at least 100 people, then it should be done. This whole restraint and cutback nonsense, this mindless proposition 13 syndrome of cutback and restraint is showing its results. We are losing our weather office, there is the customs problem, the excise facilities are being cut down and RCMP training is being cut down. The Minister of Transport can see that Regina and a host of other small and medium-size cities in this country are in the same situation. Several more billions of dollars should be invested in transportation to serve them.
Our transportation systems must be set up so that they can cross-subsidize and provide a reasonable equality of service to remote areas in the north as well as to the Atlantic and prairie provinces to ensure that people are not discriminated against because of where they live or produce their goods. That is the only way a transportation system in a country like Canada can operate properly.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Turner):: Order, please. 1 regret to interrupt the hon. member but his allotted time has expired. He may continue with unanimous consent. Does the hon. member have unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate this afternoon. I must say that the minister has risen above himself in attaining a level of obfuscation in his interpretation of the facts. It is a little difficult even to accuse him of intellectual dishonesty. I think he has attained a level of complete selfdelusion if he believes that the only factual comment on transportation in this country must flow from his lips.
His charges that the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) resorted to falsehoods is sheer balderdash and the minister knows it. I am quite prepared to accept that there are difficulties in dealing with the subject in depth in thirty minutes, but the casual selection of data made by the minister to suit his political purposes is not acceptable. I will be surprised if it buys him a vote in Saskatoon, and I am sure that it will not hurt the hon. member for Vegreville at all. On balance, I think the hon. member put a lot more thoughtful preparation into his comments than did the minister.
As the hon. member for Vegreville indicated, the motion only gives a partial list of the minister's failings. As a sort of academic exercise a few months ago we listed 1,001 failings, any one of which would have been sufficient grounds for his resignation. We have only put forward half a dozen failings today, and our colleagues to the left have added two more very reasonable ones.
Over the years the minister has rejected suggestions for reorganization of the department which would make it more responsive to the consultative process. He has rejected the reorganization that would permit good ideas to be sifted, considered and find their way into legislation or regulations. That is regrettable. Transportation is in a mess in this country, for the simple reason that no man, not even the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang), can properly and adequately cope with the myriad of details and the complexity involved in national transportation.
We have not delayed legislation, as the minister suggested, Mr. Speaker. He has brought forward several pieces of very specific legislation but he does not have in place his amended National Transportation Act although the present one is 10 or 12 years old. It is reasonable to suggest that the minister should bring in the amendments to the National Transportation Act so that we would have a background against which to consider the various pieces of ad hoc legislation he has brought in to meet specific situations.
It is interesting to note that the minister acceded to that. He did bring it on but he did not move to debate the matter in the House. He rejected out of hand our suggestion that if he wanted to move the legislation forward in this parliament, all he had to do was permit a day or two of debate on the amending bill and implement referral of the subject matter to the Standing Committee on Transportation and Communications.
My colleague's charge that this committee has not met is serious and factual. It is a matter of some regret that it has not been at work on matters of importance to the Canadian people. I would remind the minister that the offer to refer the subject matter of the bill to the committee where it could be discussed and witnesses called is still open. The bill could be strengthened in this way; then we could go on with consideration of the legislation that is so badly needed to assist transportation in this country.
I should like to deal with one aspect of transportation, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure that even the minister believes that we have a national marine policy. I give him credit, however, for having tried for the better part of a year to convince his cabinet colleagues of the necessity of moving very gradually toward control over our seaborne imports and exports.
To hear him say that we do not need this when, in fact, he is pressing hard for it, is a little difficult to take. All the indications pointed to a positive attitude on the part of the government. A shipping policy for Canada was produced. Interestingly enough, it looks as if four or five chapters were written by the minister and that somebody then shot him down in the final chapter. In my own mind I am sure that he did not agree with it. Newspaper headlines such as "Industry Blasts Ottawa Shipping Policy" or "Deep Sea Policy Opposed by Unions" would seem to endorse this.
We are dealing with a $25 billion industry, Mr. Speaker. Surely a sector of our economy of that magnitude deserves a little bit more attention than this government is apparently prepared to give it. We should be pursuing a marine transport

February 22, 1979

policy which reflects the belief that the marine mode is a viable transportation industry sector on its own and should be viewed with the same amount of respect as other modes of transportation in this country. Its importance is not to be trifled with or left to the vagaries of the distant future, as the minister would suggest.
Marine transport must be co-ordinated with and made complementary to other marine related industries, such as shipbuilding and repair, the fisheries, and our fledgling but potentially vast ocean resource industry. We must have a marine policy which is freed from present obstacles, disincentives and restrictions. This will permit and encourage the pursuit of targets of opportunity which could be generating billions of dollars for Canada and hundreds of thousand of jobs for Canadians.
Much more specifically, if the minister is concerned about options that are available to us-and he is forever accusing this side of the House of not knowing what it is doing or where it is going-I will suggest a few. These are a few areas the minister could and perhaps should pursue. We should be encouraging the gradual development of a Canadian deep sea fleet by providing tax incentives and deferrals, as well as allowing for flexibility in the timing and claiming of capital cost allowances for new construction. I am not talking about direct subsidies or the pouring of any new money into this venture at all; I am talking about money which is simply not in motion at this time. Tax policies permitting pre-tax dollars to be spent on vessel replacement and low interest loans, similar to the type given by the Export Development Corporation, should be made available now to Canadian shipowners. This will enable them to take advantage of targets of opportunity as they foresee them.
There is another area, that of the far northern waters. The minister has been generous enough in a wishy-washy way to respond to urgings over many years with respect to these waters north of 60 degrees. There is no need to be wishy-washy about that. There is no need for Canadians not to have their full presence in the Arctic with respect to our own extraction of resources and its allied industry. No ships should be in these northern waters other than Canadian ships. These ships should be designed and built in Canada and their crews should be Canadian. They should be subject to Canadian law. There is no need for the present wishy-washy policy at all. The government should clearly say that it will lend assistance to the design and construction of special ships. In this instance we could be talking about the LNG or cargo ships, it does not matter. There is one there already.
As well, we are examining other principles. If we are to attract the support of financial communities interested in investing in marine matters, we should not be wishy-washy. We must clearly indicate to them that their investment will be protected by both regulation and by law. But we have not done that. The minister was not prepared to go even that far. There was some vague suggestion in reaction to our urgings that he
Transportation
would go a little way down the road, but he has not gone far enough.
A realistic and equitable share of Canadian water-borne trade carried by Canadian bottoms should be encouraged through the negotiation of bilateral trade agreements and with regard to UNCTAD's new code of conduct for liner conferences. These areas should be pursued. The fears of the early 1970s cannot be related to the realities of today. Decisions cannot be made based on those apprehensions. We must make decisions based on the reality of today, not six or seven years ago.
Consistent with the policy of removing obstacles and road blocks to the development of Canada's capability for re-entering deep sea trade, some particular emphasis should be put on the role which Canada should be playing in the development of international maritime codes, perhaps through an organization such as International Maritime Co-ordinating Organization. We should be doing this because standards are now being devised and put into place which do not have the fullest reflection of Canadian needs with respect to our northern waters, our coastal waters and our inland Great Lakes systems.
In furthering the case for Canada's re-entry into deep sea trade, around the world there are a large number of recently built ships which are lying idle. We should encourage Canadian entrepeneurs and ship owners to re-enter the foreign market by permitting them access to this idle ship tonnage and extending to them the benefits that I have just outlined. We should not give them the world. If these people go offshore and acquire a ship and we waive the usual import arrangements, the money and profits earned could and should be set aside on the basis that a Canadian built ship should be the next acquisition. In other words, for every ship bought offshore with government assistance any profits should be turned over to create activity in our Canadian shipyards for the construction of new vessels. This will be a stimulating factor for the shipbuilding industry.
Any marine policy should be better co-ordinated with construction activity in our yards than is the case at the present time. A requirement should be that all ships operating in government service, including ferries, be designed and built in Canadian yards, manned by Canadians and subject to Canadian laws. In my opinion, this can be achieved quite simply. But we do not do that. We have not brought an end to offshore leasing. I see no clear intent on the part of CN Marine and the Department of Transport to do anything meaningful about it. It never surprises me when I pick up a paper to read of a group, perhaps in Norway, Sweden, Germany or the U.K., looking for vessels to charter for our east coast ferry services.
One of the most disgraceful situations which is within the minister's area of competency must continue to be the anomalies in our national ports. In the main estimates tabled the other day I notice that the minister had seen fit to drop the National Harbours Board virtually completely from the itemized statements. I think the phrase "National Harbours Board" shows up somewhere in one of the statements of
3498

February 22, 1979
Adjournment Motion
objectives, but for all intents and purposes it has been dropped. It no longer exists. And yet that is the only statutory authority that is maintaining ports of significance in Canada.
I find it very difficult to understand why the minister did not take steps earlier to correct these anomalies in spite of repeated urgings from this side of the House to do so. We have half in place at the Ports Council and half in place at the National Harbours Board. I suggest that the employees of the National Harbours Board have been in anything other than a high state of morale over the last two or three years. And yet the minister has seen fit to do little or virtually nothing about it. In my opinion, that is a damn shame.
I turn now to the pilotage authorities in this country. Five or six years ago when the royal commission on pilotage presented its report, one of its principal thoughts and recommendations was that the matter should be reviewed in five years. But that has not taken place. Traditional trading patterns with masters of ships sailing in waters in which they are familiar continue to require pilots. This is a further encumbrance to ship movement that reflects lack of concern, and I suppose in some sense reflects also the lack of awareness the minister has with respect to the difficulties facing the shipping industry in Canada. Tolls on the St. Lawrence seaway is another area needing attention. It can be clearly seen from the last annual report of the seaway authority, incidentally about a year late in its presentation, that it is now breaking even.


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



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Woolliams)-Post Office-Door to door mail delivery in urban areas; the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis)-Finance-Ottawa- Grants in lieu of taxes; the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock (Mr. Friesen)-Industry-Rebuilding of airports in Trinidad-Government involvement.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski:
That this House condemns the failure of the Minister of Transport to deal adequately with transportation matters in this country and, specifically, his failure:
(1)	to provide an adequate marine transportation policy;
(2)	to maintain acceptable standards of air safety;
(3)	to deal adequately with grain movement, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to producers and to the Canadian economy;
(4)	to consider hardships imposed upon communities and producers arising from the implementation of the Prairie Rail Action Committee report;
(5)	to provide consistent leadership in urban transportation; and
(6)	to preside effectively and objectively over the granting of tenders and the administration of car rental concessions at Canada's international airports.
And the amendment thereto of Mr. Benjamin:
That the motion be amended by adding at the end thereof the following words:
(7)	to implement the Hall royal commission report recommendations with regard to statutory rates;
(8)	to ensure that transportation be used as an instrument of national policy rather than an instrument to make profits.
Mr. Nystrom:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe if you ask you will find there is all party agreement to limit the speeches from here on in to 15 minutes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Hon. members have heard the representation of the hon. member for Yorkton-Mel-ville (Mr. Nystrom). Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It is so ordered.


Mr. Hugh A. Anderson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate today because of the importance of transportation to the west coast and my long standing interest in transportation, particularly with regard to water-borne cargo.
In his remarks the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) alluded to the National Transportation Act. That act, which was passed by this House and enacted in 1967, called for a transportation system which was economic, adequate and efficient, in which the natural advantages of technology and the competitive forces of the market were left free to determine the rates, conditions of service and other aspects of the relationship between the suppliers and users of transportation services.
When the transportation policy was reviewed in 1975, many of the concepts and principles of the 1967 act were retained. These included intermodality, competition and regulation,
February 22, 1979

commercial viability, subsidy programs and, of course, the elements of equity and accessibility.
One major shift in emphasis in the 1975 policy was the concept of using transportation to support national and regional economic and social development objectives. Transportation has always been viewed, to a greater or lesser extent, as an instrument of public purpose. This dates practically from confederation, and I am sure that every one of the hon. members here present is aware that the building of the first major transcontinental railway in Canada was to link the new province of British Columbia with the eastern provinces. But until 1975 the idea of using transportation to support other government objectives has been generally implicit and external to the traditional role of ensuring that Canada had an efficient and functioning transportation system. Now government policy makes it clear that regional development is an explicit objective of transportation and of Transport Canada as an operating department of the federal government.
Transport Canada is only one element in our country's complex and constantly changing transportation system. The role must, therefore, be assessed according to its interrelationships with the other components of the system, as well as with the non-transportation objectives of the government. Transport Canada is faced with many conflicting pressures as a result, not the least of which at this point in time is the fiscal restraints imposed on all federal agencies. We have been successful in keeping our expenditures as low as possible and increasing our revenues.
On the matter of marine transportation, Transport Canada recently released a shipping policy that identified a number of trends and developments that affect Canada's sea trade. The concerns arising from these trends and developments can be grouped into three categories: government involvement in shipping; reduced competition; and the changing economies of the shipping industry. Government involvement has increased greatly over the past two decades, to the point that in some trades, not the laws of supply and demand but the decisions of government determine what shipping services are to be made available and at what prices.
The financial and economic health of world shipping is not good. Extensive oversupply of shipping capacity, escalating operating costs, declining profits and the uncertain future of the shipping industry have begun to take their toll. What these changes suggest is that Canada's long-standing, and I believe successful, policy of reliance upon foreign flag shipping may have to be re-examined to see if it is the appropriate route to follow for the 1980s.
An examination of the key issues at play in the shipping world has led to the outlining of four principal shipping options. They are: total reliance on foreign flag shipping; Canadian owned and managed enterprises, using ships registered elsewhere and manned by foreign crews; foreign built, Canadian flag vessels crewed by Canadians; and, Canadian flag vessels built in Canada and manned by Canadians. The primary objective of a Canadian marine policy should be to ensure the continuing availability of adequate and economic
Transportation
shipping services as part of an over-all transportation system serving Canada, with a secondary objective of being able to capitalize on significant opportunities. With this objective in mind, I do not believe there are sufficient grounds for a radical shift in our shipping policy. However, some reorientation is necessary to better prepare us to meet changing circumstances.
In discussing the appropriate marine policy for Canada, I believe we must avoid the pitfalls evident elsewhere in international shipping where lavish assistance measures have led to the creation of merchant marine fleets that are inefficient and uneconomic.
Timing remains a fundamental issue in the direction of Canada's marine policy. If world conditions continue in the direction they have been going, it will merely be a matter of time as to when we will be launching the necessary package of government policies to encourage the creation of a Canadian shipping fleet in which we have a greater voice in regard to future development.
On February 1, 1979, the Board of Economic Development Ministers announced a national development policy for the shipbuilding industry. Members on all sides of the House applauded the government which was responding to sectoral studies of the shipbuilding industry. I would like to summarize the decisions made as of that date.
An extension was announced to the present 20 per cent shipbuilding subsidy to the end of 1979 and acceleration of government ship procurement orders was announced on that day by the President of the Board of Economic Development Ministers (Mr. Andras). The announcement reflected a reorientation of the government's policy of support for the shipbuilding industry in the face of a worldwide slump in demand.
The minister said the government will open discussions with industry, labour and the provinces to work out details of new measures designed to assist the industry. What was announced that day was a policy to maintain a shipbuilding and repair capacity in Canada during the present period of worldwide difficulty; to assist the industry to specialize the various areas and to reinforce its technical and innovative capacity; and to provide assistance to workers who, despite the efforts of government and industry, may no longer be able to find employment in the shipyards.
Details of that announcement contained other information, including expansion of the dry dock facilities for Burrard Yarrows Corporation, formerly Burrard Dry Dock Co. Ltd., at Vancouver; lengthening the existing dry dock at Saint John, New Brunswick; and construction of a 4,000 ton synchrolift at the CN dockyard in St. John's, Newfoundland.
The minister also announced at that time that the advance ship procurement will involve construction of an "R" class Arctic icebreaker to replace the 25-year-old D'Iberville; replacement of the ferry Abegweit on the Prince Edward Island-Cape Tormentine run by a new ice-breaking vessel with about three times the capacity; construction of a 205-foot fisheries patrol vessel to replace the Halifax based Cygnus; refit the HMC Preserver, an operational naval support vessel

February 22, 1979
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now operating in the Atlantic to allow it to operate in the Arctic; and construction of seven search and rescue vessels for the Canadian coast guard service on both coasts. As I have said, I believe members on both sides will applaud the action taken by the government in the search and rescue field in which a number of us have an interest.
I should like to comment on the statement made by the Minister of Transport on January 24. Dealing with Canadian deep sea shipping policy he said:
1.	There will be a continued reliance on the international shipping market to supply most Canadian deep-sea requirements.
2.	While no new financial or tax incentives for a Canadian-registered fleet are proposed at this time, the government will require that Canadian flag vessels, where available at reasonable cost, are to be used as a condition of export of processed or partially processed resources from the Arctic.
3.	The government is prepared, in addition, to consider requests for assistance in the use of Canadian-built and registered vessels related to Arctic development.
4.	The federal government will introduce legislation to enable it to act where national interests are threatened by foreign governments or carriers, to permit the designation of "Canadian" shipping lines, and to provide for agreements enabling Canadian companies to trade in areas where they might otherwise be precluded.
Most of us are aware of repeated statements made by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) and others with respect to the deficit on Canada's tourism account of approximately $1.6 billion a year. I suggest there is a situation in international shipping which is costing Canada approximately $2 billion a year. I refer to outflows of Canadian dollars used to procure the services of foreign bottoms. Many of us on either side of the political spectrum would agree that it ought to be the policy of the government to reduce deficits encountered in the exporting and importing of goods, if for no other reason than improvement in the balance of trade. No one suggests the situation can be changed overnight but we should be taking steps to encourage the movement of our goods by Canadian ships as a matter of primary concern.
In relation to many countries we are a very young nation and we have concerned ourselves more particularly throughout the years with connecting the various regions of this wide-flung nation through rail lines, roads and air transport. We sought to do this rather than strengthen our links with other countries by way of water-borne trade. However, we have reached the point at which most of our people are well served by the existing transport system and perhaps we could now begin to look outward more frequently and deal with the import and export of goods as one of the world's principal traders. I am concerned about our dependence on foreign bottoms, partly because I believe the situation is parallel to that which we face in the field of energy where a portion of our oil supplies is dependent on fuel sources outside Canada.
In the last few years we have seen a very interesting situation develop. Through its state-owned shipping company the U.S.S.R. has cut shipping rates and become extremely competitive. Indeed, much of the world's trade now depends on U.S.S.R. bottoms. I wonder if many members in this chamber

will consider this to be a secure method of shipping goods and supplies which are vital to Canada. Is this situation not one which is similar to that which we have experienced in energy-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. I must inform the hon. member that his time has expired.


Mr. Eudore Allard (Rimouski):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words, first of all on the motion moved by my hon. colleague, the member for Vegre-ville (Mr. Mazankowski). I would like more particularly to refer to the debates of last January 29 when I moved in the House a motion asking for a national navigation policy, and I quote:
-a national navigation policy, the prime objective of which would be to lay a favourable groundwork for the setting up of a true Canadian merchant marine.
Mr. Speaker, while this is only one of the aspects of the transportation policy, it is important. As a matter of fact, we cannot constantly defer our action in that area. It is the responsibility of the present government, and not of future generations, to solve that problem. We made some progress as far as the moving of resources in the Arctic is concerned. The government did take some measures to ensure that the beneficiaries are Canadian people. But what is more important is the international transportation of goods. When we speak of international transportation of goods, we mean their transportation on the high seas, on the deep seas that surround us. When I discussed the matter of a merchant marine for our trade, I said that the report on shipping tabled last month represented the status quo for those who advocate a merchant marine.
Indeed, one of the conclusions of the report was that we could not afford a merchant marine, and especially that it was not justified. Costs did not justify it, according to the report.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lapointe) replied to me saying it was not the status quo since we are doing everything possible to make sure that our Arctic resources are transported by Canadians. The islands in the Arctic are in Canadian territory; and therefore, this is not a question of trade.
Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely convinced that many hon. members in this House are eager to see Canada develop a merchant marine. My colleague from Levis (Mr. Guay) has brought up the matter repeatedly over the years.
Indeed, when I introduced my motion on January 29 last he said that he had been debating that issue for nearly 15 years. My colleague from Esquimalt-Saanich is also interested in the issue. For them, the conclusion of the report is quite clear, and I quote:
After full consideration of all of the factors involved, the government has concluded that, in the present circumstances achievement of these objectives does not warrant the provision of new tax or financial measures to support the development of a Canadian deep-sea merchant marine.
February 22, 1979

I do not know what government members base themselves on to say that it is not the status quo. Canada, a rich, industrialized and respected country among the major countries of this world has the merchant marine it deserves-four ships proudly flying the red maple leaf. Following the government report, we will soon be able to sing about our merchant marine: "// etait un petit navire qui n'avait jamais jamais navigue." Indeed, Mr. Speaker, one of the owners of one of those four boats is a Rimouski shipowner, Mr. Jules Jourdain. He was telling me that last year, when he was in one of the third world countries on a pier he saw something that just staggered him. He saw large quantities of goods and sacks of wheat or other things clearly marked CANADA being hauled by a Liberian ship. He told me: I was really confused, ashamed and particularly shocked by the fact that our generosity was being transported by a foreign merchant marine. And he added: The contracts the federal government awards for the transportation of outside machinery and goods are awarded to individuals who do not even have a boat.
Indeed, there are agencies somewhere around Montreal or Ottawa taking contracts from the government and then chartering foreign boats with cheap labour crews. And he added: That goes on right under our noses, and I with a crew of 20 have all the difficulty in the world at my own risk operating a 2,500 ton boat. That is the present situation in this country, Mr. Speaker. So, the government policy is unequivocal, we do not need a merchant marine. There will always be foreign shipowners to take advantage of it.
Let us now deal with other areas of transportation. I have risen on several occasions, despite what my colleague and friend from Bonaventure-iles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bechard) might think, to criticize the CN passenger service as well as air transport. I am particularly gratified that passenger service has been given a new impetus by the creation of VIA Rail. Canadians have long ceased relying on railways as a means of transportation, because service was abominable and cars outdated. That explains why bus companies have flourished since the early 60s. We are 20 years or more behind Europe when it comes to passenger rail service. VIA Rail has instilled high hopes, but it takes years to restructure an entire railway system. By that time, people may be so used to the bus and the plane that VIA Rail will never be economically viable. All this is due to a lack of leadership in transportation. That is why we must now do something about shipping and suburban transportation, which is also giving way to the bus.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to June 1975 when the former minister of transport, who is now in the Senate, announced the principles which would guide the transport policy of this government, that is availability, profitability and active control by the government in the development of a national transportation network. I would like to repeat this last principle: active control by the government in the development of a national transportation network.
Transportation
Mr. Speaker, in view of the great distances between our various areas it is quite obvious that adequate and effective means of transport are essential. Economically disadvantaged areas cannot develop, often because they do not have the necessary transportation infrastructures. I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about eastern Quebec. On several occasions, I have requested improvements in the air service provided to the Gaspe peninsula and the Magdalen Islands. The government recently announced certain improvements, about which I am quite pleased. Let us take the VIA Rail service. Never try telling the people in our area about the train. The service is very bad, winter and summer. The train is always late. The troubles at the Voyageur bus line continue. Part of the Gaspe peninsula is serviced only by this company, all the way from Gaspe to Mont-Joli and including Sainte-Anne-Des-Monts and Matane. The situation is quite intolerable. My colleague from Vegreville is doing a great service to Canada today by giving us an opportunity to speak about a matter of such importance for the future of our country.
Mr. Speaker, we should respond as soon as possible by developing a transportation policy based on the needs of the population and present realities. If our oil supplies decrease as years go by and fuel prices increase, Canadians will rely much more on public transport, which includes trains, buses and airplanes. We shall therefore have to show some initiatives and not be afraid to take up the challenge, as has unfortunately happened in the case of our merchant navy. Following the budgetary cutbacks, I wonder whether we can expect any major transportation project to be implemented. However, I believe that we must underline that it is the so-called economically underdeveloped areas which suffer most from the weaknesses in our transportation policy. Obviously, industries are not going to settle where there is no adequate freight or passenger services. Then, the only industries our rural regions are going to get are primary industries, that is natural resources industries and small local industries.
This means that all our economic problems are related to a certain extent to the transportation situation. I shall add that we might have advantage in following the example of some European countries or even the United States that made substantial progress in recent years. The United States have decided to protect and expand their shipping industry. We might be well advised to create an inquiry commission to study the transportation needs of the various areas and to establish, in co-operation with the provinces, joint plans for the development of our transportation systems. The transportation issue is of such magnitude that we might discuss it forever. So, to conclude my remarks, I thank my colleague from Vegreville for the interest he demonstrated for that subject and for having given us the opportunity to express our views on the performance of the government in this field.

February 22, 1979
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[DOT]	(1720)


Jack Burnett Murta: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take part in this debate today. The opposition motion deals with a condemnation of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) for not dealing adequately with transport matters and specifically grain movement, which has resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to producers and to the Canadian economy. To be more specific, the amount lost last year was about $450 million in deferred or lost sales because of inaction by this government. Every time this government has to make a decision, it commissions another study on western grain. That $450 million represents a loss of about $3,000 for every permit holder in western Canada, and I know of no other group in this country which would put up with that kind of loss. On top of that, Mr. Speaker, they have incurred some $25 million in demurrage charges for ships that have been waiting, mainly in the Vancouver area. Of course, the demurrage charges will once again be very high in the coming year.
[DOT]	(1730)
What is very important in this whole debate on grain transportation is the lack of confidence in Canada, among our customers in other parts of the world. At present Chinese officials are travelling across Canada-today they are in Winnipeg. They are very cautious about the size of their purchase for the coming years because they are aware of the difficulties we have in moving our grain to export. Also, we have lost sales to Japan, not only last year but this year. It is interesting to note that the Canadian Wheat Board tenders for grain sales to Japan, which are done on a weekly basis and are considered to be bread and butter sales. In recent months the Wheat Board has had to cancel these tenders because of our inadequate transportation system.
My point is that Canada's international reputation is being severely damaged at present. I am concerned about the fact that we are in danger of losing further grain sales in the coming months. That is becoming more and more evident all the time. The problem is that Canadians do not seem to realize the seriousness of the situation. There are indications at present that there have been additional deferrals of grain sales in the present crop year, and certainly the Wheat Board is not talking about them.
In terms of the industry itself, it is a sad story of a long series of studies that the Minister of Transport has perpetrated on the western farmer. A number of studies have been carried out, but in 1975 the first major study was undertaken by Justice Emmett Hall. That is history now, and we remember it as the Hall commission. The over-all system was reviewed then. Then we had the Snavely report, on the costing study. Then we had a study by the Prairie Rail Action committee which the government instituted because it did not feel that the Hall commission study was sufficiently thorough. At present we have an ongoing study called the Booz-Allen study in which they are trying to pinpoint the problems in areas which have already been studied.
[Mr. Allard.)
We also have the quota review committee which has studied the problem of quotas, and the grain summit which was brought into being by the premier of Manitoba, which involves the province, the industry and the federal government. This study was conducted because no positive action has been taken by the federal government. Also, we have at present a study of producer cars. The feeling in the west is that whenever a hard decision must be made, the government comes up with another study. Problems are never really solved by action, they are studied to death, in the hope, I suppose, that at some point in time they will go away.
As an indication of the kind of problem we are facing, let me point to the whole question of the rail hopper cars. The Canadian grain fleet consists, to quite an extent, of old, small boxcars that cannot move grain as efficiently and quickly as necessary. Some time ago the federal government purchased some 8,000 hopper cars to move grain. The Wheat Board, because it felt frustrated due to its inability to acquire more hopper cars from the federal government, purchased its own hopper cars, or rather is in the process of doing so, but the matter is still before the courts. The Wheat Board is talking in terms of purchasing some 2,000 cars. Recently the board made a statement that it would like to see the provincial government and the federal government purchase an additional 10,000 cars in the next few years.
Because of the inaction of the government, because of endless studies and foot-dragging, and because the Minister of Transport and the Liberal government refuse to make a decision, we could end up with rail grain cars owned, some by the federal government, some by the producers, and some by the provincial governments. Ultimately there would be a terrible mix-up and nobody would know what the other group was doing, least of all the railways operating those cars.
At present the province of Manitoba is probably the worst of any of the prairie provinces in terms of grain movement. In Manitoba most of the grain goes to Thunder Bay, which freezes up in the winter so that there is very little movement out of Thunder Bay in that season. In fact it is almost non-existent then. Because of the bottlenecks in the transportation system, feed grains, rapeseed and flax, the traditional crops produced in some quantities in Manitoba, are not moving out of the province. Only a little of high protein wheat, the 13.5 per cent protein wheat, is moving out of some parts of the province, but for the most part grain movement is non-existent.
In the past winter, cash flow for the Manitoba grain farmer has been low, to say the least. Presumably quotas will open up in the province when road restrictions are on, restricting the ability of farmers to move grain. But the basic problem is that grain which should be moving to Thunder Bay at present because there is room in the elevators is not being moved. We need, in this country, better co-ordination in our grain movement to Thunder Bay, we need a build-up of supplies at Thunder Bay during the winter months, and the Canadian Wheat Board export program needs to be upgraded. In other
February 22, 1979

words, what we should have is incentives built in throughout the whole grain handling system.
Another area to which we should address ourselves in terms of grain transportation is increasing the capacity of our ports to handle grain. We need better co-ordination of railways, a build-up of supply at the ports, and the upgrading of the Wheat Board export program. There are other ports in the country which can handle a sizeable amount of grain if we do our handling properly. There is the Port of Churchill in the province of Manitoba. We should aim at exporting a minimum of 50 millions bushels of grain through that port every year. I believe our highest exports at the present time are in the neighbourhood of some 30 million to 32 million bushels. The Prince Rupert port must be upgraded so that the surge capacity so desperately needed at Vancouver will be there. It is not there at the present time, and that is where most of our problems exist.
In order to alleviate some of the problems I have talked about, we on this side of the House feel there is a definite need for a grain transportation co-ordinator. Some people might call that particular person a grain czar, but what is needed is someone with the legislative power to deal with the railways, the unions, the grain companies, and the elevator companies in order to get them working together. We have put this point before the House of Commons on previous occasions, but once again it has not been acted upon. We will probably have a study after all this to see whether that would be a good workable idea. Certainly in the next two or three years, until some of the present basic problems in the whole transportation and grain handling systems are solved, such a position is required.
The staff of the co-ordinator could be small and, in my opinion, the office should be located in Winnipeg. It would not cost very much. Obviously the reason the office should be in Winnipeg is that that is where the head offices of grain companies are, and that is where the head office of the western region of the railways is located. That individual, with a reasonably small staff, could work with the industry to co-ordinate functions which are not being carried out at the present time. He should co-ordinate the movement of our grain to markets so that we do not end up with a loss in sales in the neighbourhood of some $450 million, and presumably these figures will come very close to repeating themselves this year.
The way grain transportation, grain handling and collecting systems are operating at the present time, the job will not be done properly. The operation is too fragmented, and leadership is not coming from the Minister of Transport. This whole question is certainly important to western farmers and westen-ers in general. It should also be considered important to all the people of Canada considering the amount of money being generated and brought into Canada by this industry. In my opinion, the government, in the area of grain handling, has been viewed by the people of Canada as sorely lacking, for the past number of years.
Transportation


Mr. Ralph E. Goodale (Assiniboia):: Mr. Speaker, we have before the House of Commons today another of those motions directed against the Wheat Board and Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang). If you were to read the motion itself, or just listen to the speech by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazan-kowski), you could very easily conclude that this was a motion steeped in some rather vitriolic and irrational hyperbole, calculated not to achieve anything very worth-while or constructive, but rather to offend and be offensive. I suppose if you stopped the process just after reading the motion, or just after listening to the hon. member for Vegreville, you might conclude that this whole process is totally partisan and largely irrelevant from the point of view of accomplishing anything worth-while.
I think, in the course of the discussion that took place after that initial speaker this afternoon, the tone took a turn for the better. In the course of the discussion that has taken place since the speech by that hon. member for Vegreville, we have perhaps heard something worth-while. I for one certainly do not intend to deal with his political attacks or partisan comments because they are irrelevant and totally unfounded.
I can understand his sensitivity when I consider that the polls and the trend of momentum in Canada are not in his favour. If he checks the numbers he will find that is true. I do not intend to get into that argument which he opened up. Instead, I will deal with what is substantive in the motion, and with what has been said by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta) and the hon. member for Regina-Lake Centre (Mr. Benjamin) who spoke earlier in the debate. I will try to deal with some of the substantive points they raised, because I think, in spite of the introduction we got from the hon. member for Vegreville, the subject is a serious one that we in the House of Commons should treat seriously. I do not intend to get into that rather petty debate which the hon. member for Vegreville launched this afternoon.
In the time that is available it is impossible to deal with all the points listed in the motion, in any kind of detail. The motion does raise some important questions and one could not really dispose of all of them in the course of only 15 minutes. I should like to deal particularly with point No. 4 in the motion which relates particularly to the report of the Prairie Rail Action Committee. The opposition's reaction to that particular report has, almost without exception, tended to be entirely negative. It would appear that the members of the opposition parties, with one or two notable exceptions, have rejected the report of the Prairie Rail Action Committee, and have rejected the very concept of that committee out of hand.
I think it is important to keep that report and the work of PRAC in context. In 1974 we began a process in western Canada of categorizing rail lines, moving toward a rail system that will have the capacity to meet the challenges we all know are coming in the future. When we started that process in 1974 we began with a network consisting of something just over 19,000 miles. The Prairie Rail Action Committee was asked to look at 2,400 miles of that total network of 19,000

February 22, 1979
Transportation
miles. Obviously the work of PRAC related to a relatively small proportion of the rail network in the west.
Of the 2,400 miles that PRAC was examining, the committee made a positive recommendation for the retention of 1,000 miles, and a negative recommendation suggesting the abandonment of about 1,400 miles. The total study obviously involved a small proportion of the total picture in respect of grain transportation in western Canada, and even if the negative recommendations were all to be implemented as they were proposed in the PRAC report, and even if they were applied to the very letter, less than 10 per cent of the trackage in western Canada would be involved, and less than 10 per cent of the total number of delivery points in western Canada would be affected.
The motion talks about the implementation of the PRAC report and recommendations. Wherever that committee made a positive recommendation, recommending that a rail line should be retained, the Government of Canada has acted quickly to retain that line and to move it from the doubtful category, where it was left by the Hall commission, into the permanent category, where it is guaranteed for the future and can go on the schedule for upgrading. In every instance where PRAC made a positive recommendation, that recommendation has in fact been implemented.
As for the negative suggestions in the report, those recommendations are not within the government's hands to implement. They will now be referred to the Canadian Transport Commission for consideration, and I have every confidence in the world that the CTC will allow the communities, the farmers, and those who are interested in these lines, and vitally interested in them, to present their arguments, and will give them every possible consideration in the most favourable light.
Again if we remember the context in which the Prairie Rail Action Committee began we will know that the statistics I mentioned indicate that the study was in respect of a relatively small portion of the rail network in western Canada. In 1974 we had that initial categorization of rail lines, followed by the Hall Commission report, which was followed by PRAC. At this stage after the work of PRAC, but before the final work done by the Canadian Transport Commission, already a full 80 per cent of the total prairie network we began with in 1974 is in the permanent category, is guaranteed, and is on the schedule for upgrading for the future. I think that it is important to keep those numbers in mind to understand the context within which the Prairie Rail Action Committee was working. Furthermore, with respect to the negative recommendations in the PRAC report, I think that it is important also to approach that next step, and that is the work of the Canadian Transport Commission with a positive and determined attitude.
In this regard I think it is important to take a look at what is happening in some cases across western Canada, and as an example I will refer to my own constituency of Assiniboia. I have had the opportunity already to get together with many of

the groups in communities that are working vigorously for rail line retention in my constituency, and to date these discussions have included get togethers in Francis and Gray about the Lewvan subdivision which was mentioned earlier this afternoon, in Bengough with regard to the Bengough and Avonlea subdivisions and the line to Big Beaver, in Big Beaver itself, in Lake Alma and Minton regarding the Bromhead subdivision to Minton, and in Ceylon regarding the Bengough subdivision. Further sessions of this kind are planned for this weekend in Lewvan, Benson, Bengough and Dummer, and undoubtedly meetings of this kind will continue into the future as well.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity of participating in these discussions and to work with the individuals and the local organizations which are involved, and as all this work goes forward I want to be sure that the strongest and most favourable arguments are advanced before the CTC on behalf of the communities in my area where rail lines may be affected by PRAC recommendations. Many local people are doing research work now and are preparing their briefs. They can count upon me and upon my office for every assistance, as I have told them directly on many occasions. I think that the recommendations they want to make are good ones, and I am optimistic about what we will be able to accomplish in this regard.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: If you need any help, Ralph, you can call on me.


Ralph Goodale: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn) offers his assistance. I can assure him that we will win these cases without his assistance and, indeed, he is not going to be in any position to offer anybody very much assistance.
In describing the situation in Assiniboia and what is being done there in co-operation with groups and organizations, I would like to deal for just a moment with where the opposition parties stand in relation to the PRAC report. Both of them have confirmed here today that their official positions are basically to oppose entirely the recommendations of the Prairie Rail Action Committee in its report. They apparently would revert to the 1977 report of the Hall commission. That sounds innocent enough and it sounds like motherhood, but what does it really mean, and how would that sort of action affect Assiniboia constituents?
If the Tories and the NDP got their way and if the Hall report were to be implemented as they suggest, many rail miles in my part of Saskatchewan which are now fully protected and which are now a part of the permanent system and are guaranteed for the future, would either be abandoned or left in an uncertain, unprotected position for perhaps another 12 years.
It is important to remember that the lines assigned to the Prairie Rail Action Committee for study, the 2,400 miles I mentioned a moment ago, were lines where the Hall commission had failed to make a definitive recommendation, either for retention or abandonment. Instead, the Hall commission had suggested that these lines should go into some sort of limbo
February 22, 1979

category. They were to be run temporarily by a new government agency called the Prairie Rail Authority, but they were not to be in the permanent network, they were not scheduled for upgrading, and they could be abandoned at any time by the PRA between 1977 and 1990. That is hardly a desirable situation. Farmers and farm organizations made it clear that such languishing uncertainty would be intolerable.
Accordingly, the federal government asked the Prairie Rail Action Committee to review these 2,400 miles of rail line left in that limbo state by the Hall report. The objective was to see if a higher degree of certainty about these lines could be achieved without waiting for Hall's doubtful period to expire in 1990. The PRAC report called for retention of about 1,000 of the rail miles studied. As I mentioned before, we have already acted to move each and every one of these rail lines into the permanent, basic, guaranteed network.
In the constituency of Assiniboia, the PRAC and the subsequent action of the federal government have saved and protected lines like the Wood Mountain subdivision from Maxstone to Mankota, the Avonlea subdivision from Moose Jaw to Avonlea and Claybank, the Tyvan subdivision from Regina to Stoughton, the Bromhead subdivision from Southall to Tribune, the Weyburn subdivision from Weyburn to Radville, the Amulet subdivision from Ormiston to Crane Valley, and the Gravelbourg subdivision from Mossbank to Hodgeville.
In the first six of these cases-I have just mentioned seven-we have taken doubtful lines left in limbo by the Hall commission and we have guaranteed them for the future as a result of the report of the Prairie Rail Action Committee. The significant part in assessing the opposition position is that the opposition parties in this House have exactly the opposite policy, and by totally rejecting the PRAC concept and by clinging as they do instinctively to the the Hall report, the Tories and the NDP are arguing for the doubt and uncertainty on these lines to continue for up to another 12 years.
In the case of the Gravelbourg subdivision, which was the seventh of the lines which I just mentioned, the opposition parties are arguing for continuing the limbo status of the portion from Mossbank to Gravelbourg through Bateman to Hodgeville-because that is what Hall recommended. The PRAC report helped to save the Gravelbourg line, but the Tories and the NDP have rejected the PRAC report in its entirety.
I believe that the evidence which I have cited this afternoon shows that the Prairie Rail Action Committee did a substantial amount of good and useful work and that it should not be rejected out of hand. We can each disagree with certain conclusions, and the conclusions are there, spelled out in detail, so one can see where it is possible to disagree because the arguments are there. If the PRAC has made mistakes, they are obvious on the face of the record and can be pointed out and questioned. Where the PRAC has proposed abandonment, the cases will be reviewed, as I said before, in due course by the CTC so we will have another opportunity to argue stre-nously for retention. As I have indicated, I am working closely with many of the local groups involved in this effort in my
Transportation
area. The cases which we have to present are good ones, and I am optimistic about the prospects that we have for a positive and favourable conclusion.
In the final analysis, I am confident, as I have said, that we are now building effectively in western Canada toward a capacity where we will be able to move a billion bushels of grain, and beyond, each year with speed and efficiency. We have the marketing opportunities to move that grain, our farmers have the productive capacity, and I am sure that the grain industry, assisted by the Government of Canada, will be able to meet the challenge.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to raise a brief question of privilege in view of remarks by the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Goodale). It has been my observation in listening to the radio in Saskatchewan that someone is imitating the voice of the hon. member and saying that the PRAC has exceeded its jurisdiction. I just wanted him to know that.


Ralph Goodale: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn) will know that the remarks that I have made in that respect refer very specifically to one instance in the report of the PRAC having to do with the Lewvan subdivision running southeast from Regina. If the hon. member will wait for about 48 hours, I think that he will have some pleasant news in that regard.


Mr. Neil:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I may call it six o'clock.


Mr. Malone:: A point of order, Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Six o'clock has been called by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil). I will recognize the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Malone) at eight o'clock when the House resumes.
It being six o'clock p.m., 1 do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Douglas Charles Neil: Mr. Speaker, in my opinion the debate this evening is a very important one and concerns a subject that really cannot be adequately dealt with in the time allotted to each speaker. This government, and the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) in particular, have failed disastrously in the field of transportation. Because of the short time available to me, my remarks will be restricted to items Nos. (3) and (4) in the motion, which read as follows:
(3) to deal adequately with grain movement, resulting in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars to producers and to the Canadian economy;

February 22, 1979
Transportation
(4) to consider hardships imposed upon communities and producers arising from the implementation of the Prairie Rail Action Committee report.
The Minister of Transport may brag about the grain that has been sold, and he does so on every occasion that he rises to speak. However, he never mentions the millions of dollars lost by producers, which according to the Wheat Board in a recent letter sent to producers, amounted to something like $450 million in the last crop year. If this is related to the farmer or producer, it means something in the order of $3,000 each, and if we use the multiplier effect of 5.2, we find the loss to the economy is in the nature of $2.5 billion.
When the minister is on his feet he never talks about lost sales in any detail. He never talks about lost markets or the loss of Canada's credibility as a supplier and, of course, he never talks about the millions of dollars in demurrage charges that pile up every year and which are charged to the farmers' accounts by the Wheat Board.
Since the minister assumed that portfolio his solution has been to set up a series of commissions and studies. The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta) who spoke earlier today listed them. What he does with those commissions and studies, with the exception of PRAC, is put them on the shelf and forget about them. In April, 1977, he set up the Hall commission which carried out the most comprehensive study of grain handling and transportation ever conducted in the history of western Canada. The commission held many meetings throughout the prairie provinces, both on a local and regional basis, and heard some 1,180 submissions. The report was submitted to the minister. It was almost one year to the day before the minister met with Mr. Justice Hall to discuss the recommendations in that report.
I suggest the minister would not have met with Mr. Justice Hall at that time had it not been for the fact that the Standing Committee on Agriculture passed a motion requesting Mr. Justice Hall and his officials to appear before the committee. Such a motion would never have passed except that one member of the Liberal party who attended the committee meeting had the guts to vote with the opposition in asking for Mr. Justice Hall's attendance. It was only then that the minister decided to meet with Mr. Justice Hall.
The official opposition gave general approval to the recommendations of the Hall commission, including the recommendation for the setting up of a Prairie Rail Authority. We believed the implementation of the many recommendations would be one step toward the solution of the grain handling and transportation system and the rationalization of the system. But the minister's response to the Hall commission report was to set up another committee. This was not the Prairie Rail Authority, but what he called the Prairie Rail Action Committee. That committee was chaired by Dr. Fred Anderson of Regina, a man who apparently had a preconceived idea of any individual or community he considered were branch line retentionists. He had this to say at page 7 of his report:
[Mr. Neil.)
The retentionist picture of prairie society seems to be one of static decay, a picture of an indigent prairie grain industry served by dying towns, locked into a fixed and obsolete technology of production and transport. That such is portrayed by some of those who are the political and industrial leaders of prairie agriculture is a tragic disservice to an important industry dependent on efficiency for success in world markets.
He is a man who apparently does not understand the importance and the viability of small towns. He sounds like a man who would endorse the philosophy contained in that famous report given to the government entitled "Agriculture in the Seventies" which envisaged the elimination of the family farm. He would cut down the number of farms by two-thirds and cut back production by one half. I almost said four-fifths and one fifth, thinking back to what the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lalonde) said the other day, and thinking of remarks made by the minister when he spoke in this debate and mentioned the flip-flopping of this party and its leader. It reminded me of the remarks made by the Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations (Mr. Reid) and the remarks made by the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. De Bane) on Quebec separatism. If the minister had turned an ear and listened to members in his party and cabinet colleagues he would not have talked about a flip-flop on this side. This government is the biggest flip and the biggest flop in the history of this country.
Dr. Anderson sounded like a man who envisaged, as the Minister of Transport did, an elevator system made up of only 22 inland terminals located in larger centres, with 356 satellite elevators, with trucks being the major system of transportation in effect saying "to hell with the smaller towns and communities." The PRAC committee in reaching its conclusions regarding branch lines totally ignored the undertakings made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in the 1974 election. In that campaign, in June 1974, the Prime Minister promised the western farmer that the Government of Canada would not abandon branch lines as long as elevator companies considered that elevator service was warranted.
There are a number of lines that fall into that category throughout the prairie system. I could cite a number, but I will only refer to two, both of which are located in my constituency. One is the Colonsay line where the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and the United Grain Growers, before the Hall commission, before community hearings and before the PRAC committee hearings, undertook in some cases to build and to upgrade the facilities. The other one is the Central Butte- Riverhurst line where the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Cargill undertook to enlarge or build new facilities. In both cases the PRAC committee said that the lines must go. This was despite the fact that a substantial portion of the lines that were indicated should be abandoned were accepted by the community. But the key portion of the lines where the elevator companies said they would give service were from Central Butte to Riverhurst and from Dilke to Liberty. As I mentioned, PRAC had said these portions must also go. Despite the undertaking given by the Prime Minister in 1974, the minister has not been prepared to lift a finger to say that these portions of the line should be retained.
February 22, 1979

We are suspicious that the minister and this government may be playing political games and will wait until an election campaign, and at that time the liberal candidates who will be in the various constituencies will say, "We have saved your line for you. The minister has decided that these lines which PRAC said should be abandoned will be saved." If this is what the minister is going to do, let him take a firm stand now and tell us what his intentions are. Let us not play politics. Let us not use branch line abandonment as an election gimmick. The policy of this party, and I will say it loud and clear so there is no misunderstanding, is that when we form the government, and we will form the government after the next election, will be that those branch lines where, during the hearings, the elevator companies said they would undertake to build new facilities and/or upgrade present facilities and continue to give service, will be retained. This is an undertaking that I am giving on behalf of our party, the official opposition, the party that will form the government after the next election.
In early December other western members of the official opposition and myself travelled west and met with members of the three wheat pools, the United Grain Growers, various other grain companies, as well as the Canadian Wheat Board, the grain commission, agricultural organizations and officials of the railways in the three prairie provinces. It was interesting to hear their views. We came away with one conclusion, that every facet of the system was blaming the other for the problems that exist and have existed for a number of years. It boiled down to the fact that this minister never at any time convened a meeting of representatives of all the various components of the system, including producer representatives, to determine the reasons for and possible solutions to the problems that exist in the grain handling and transportation system.
As the hon. member for Vegreville said, it was left to the premier of Manitoba, Sterling Lyon, to call a summit meeting. It was with considerable reluctance that the Minister of Transport attended. The meeting was an embarrassment to the minister because it took the initiative away from him. Of course he really has not ever had any initiative. The minister has failed in his mandate. He can boast all he likes about his success in grain handling and transportation, but come the next election I am sure that the electorate will overwhelmingly let him and his government know what they think of his record.


Mr. Paul E. McRae (Fort William):: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that the speeches in this debate have been cut to 15 minutes. It indicates the importance of this subject to all parties. Transportation can never be a marginal subject for Canadians, for two basic reasons. As this is a massive country it is often necessary to move our goods over long distances. A high percentage of our gross national product, 15 per cent or more, is spent in so doing. We are, if not in the real sense, at least on a per capita basis the world's largest trading nation.
Transportation
The movement of goods in and out of our ports of entry is a vital fact.
At the end of his trip, and I do not intend to use the subject of transportation to dwell on that, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) made a very interesting statement, considering that we are in effect the largest trading nation in the world on a per capita basis. He said, and I quote:
There will be a marginal increase in attention to world issues, but I expect to be preoccupied with the agenda of parliament and an election campaign, in which foreign policy questions likely won't play a major role. I foresee, now, the priorities of our early years in office as having their origins domestically.
I do not understand how someone preparing himself for the office of prime minister, and a party preparing itself to rule, can say that foreign affairs will not be of consequence to us, especially during this time of massive global problems such as those in China, moving oil from Iran, and so on.
We have to look at transportation not as a marginal aspect but as a very important aspect of life in Canada. We have to look at transportation as it affects our foreign trade. Certainly discussions concerning the grain industry have been in that direction.
I might be blamed for being somewhat parochial in introducing the topic of foreign trade. However, I defend myself against that charge on the ground that the city of Thunder Bay is a very major port in this country, the third largest in Canada. Through it is shipped two thirds of all the grain that is moved out of Canada. When I speak of activities in my community, I speak of activities that are very pertinent to Canada's trade, and foreign trade in general. This country exports between 80 and 90 per cent of its forest products. Taking both of these together, we see that foreign trade becomes extremely important in the life of our community as well as the life of this country.
In addition to being the largest grain port, it is rapidly becoming if not the largest then one of the largest coal ports. Within the next five years it will be the largest coal port in this country. Therefore transportation is a very important issue to the people of Thunder Bay and to the rest of Canada. Sometimes I take to task the people in my community who do not see this in such an important role although most of their livelihood is, in one way or another, related to this topic.
There has been a great deal of discussion in this chamber about moving grain to alternate points such as Churchill, Vancouver, and Prince Rupert. I do not say that that is not necessary. There is a tendency to forget the fact that two thirds of western grain moves through the port of Thunder Bay.
Senior railroad officials have suggested that were it not for the Crowsnest arrangement, and I am not suggesting that that should disappear, and the true costs of moving grain were understood, most of the grain in this country would be moved through Thunder Bay and not west coast ports because of the extreme costs in moving commodities across the Rockies. I would like to see that suggestion proved or disproved. Be that as it may, our role is significant.

February 22, 1979
Transportation
I have one criticism which has been made over a long period of years, namely, that we have not made the kind of impression upon people in the western provinces that we should have made. In terms of our economy we are much more closely associated with Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, than with Ontario. It was only an accident of history, certainly not of geography, that we were included in the province of Ontario.
I have suggested in discussions with officials in the Ministry of Transport that we should consider moving much closer in our associations with people in the western provinces. There is a great need for people in Thunder Bay to associate themselves with people in the transportation business in the three prairie provinces. At some point in the fairly near future our harbour commission should be enlarged in some form or another to include a representative from each of the three provinces. An alternate suggestion would be to set up an advisory board with the three provinces. We could then begin to understand in the western provinces and in my community that this is a relationship which is very important. I hope these studies will be acted upon by the ministry and supported by the harbours commission.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You had 15 years and you blew it.


Paul Edmund McRae: It has been suggested that some criticism has been directed against our harbour and I was concerned recently when it was reported to me that a group of farmers in Manitoba had met at the premier's office to make a number of complaints about it. I checked with the premier's office and was informed there had been no such criticism; neither was there any criticism arising from the meeting to which the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil) referred. I agree there are some things which need to be done, but in general we are moving in the right direction.
Work on removing sludge from the bottom of the harbour is going ahead fairly rapidly; because of pollution problems it is necessary to land the sludge. The first phase will be finished in a couple of months at a cost of about $5 million, provided by the federal government, and another SI3.5 million has been set aside to provide for dredging over the next 20 years or so. I think we will have a first class harbour which will meet the needs of Canadians for a long time to come in the grain industry and in the coal industry, as well as in the general movement of materials.
Perhaps one thing which Canadians should appreciate more is the fact that here we have a major harbour some 2,000 miles from the Atlantic ocean yet perfectly able to accommodate the movement of large ships 2,000 miles inland to the open sea. It is one of the things which makes Canada unique. The St. Lawrence Seaway is of great interest to people in my constituency, and we were concerned recently when the Seaway rates were raised so rapidly. There was to be a doubling of the rates but I am pleased to see that it has been decided to spread this increase over three years. It is our hope that over the next few years we will become more useful as a port, especially if we

can extend the shipping year to 11 or perhaps 12 months. Positive studies have been undertaken which show that such an extension would be of great importance to this country as well as to the United States.
I would like to turn to two or three other points, Mr. Speaker, and to deal with them quite rapidly. I would mention VIA Rail, which I feel is a fundamental development in our transportation system. For the last 15 or 20 years we have seen two railways providing passenger services with very little interest in doing so. I refer particularly to the CPR. I think the CN did try to make the service workable to some extent but there hasn't been a great deal of zeal applied. There are some reasons why things are turning around in terms of energy use and so on, but it seems to me it was important for us to set up VIA Rail, a system dedicated solely to making passenger services available in this country. Already the rates have been reduced, certainly as compared to those on the old CP line, new equipment has been ordered, and 1 believe we will make progress.
One point of criticism I should like to make has to do with transcontinental service. One concern shared by those of us on the north line and the south line is the bottleneck which exists at Capreol or Sudbury. Two trains starting out two or three days earlier at Vancouver are expected to arrive at the same instant in order that one group can proceed to Montreal while the other group goes to Toronto. It is just not realistic to expect this to work out and I think something has to be done about the situation. I would like to spend more time on this question, but unfortunately I must move along to the other points I wish to make.
The hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) made a couple of statements about air safety which rather bothered me. He mentioned that Canada had moved from eighth to thirteenth place in the world in terms of air safety. But that is a meaningless kind of figure. One cannot really define safety unless one does so on the basis of miles travelled. In terms of air travel and the passenger miles travelled, Canadians rank with the United States and Britain as the top three in terms of safety. That is the fundamental factor, not the fact that we may be tenth, twelfth or thirteenth. In terms of passenger miles travelled we are in the top three. There has been some concern, which I have shared, with respect to safety in Northern Ontario, but I would-


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


Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to enter this debate. It has become quite a wide-ranging debate-we have covered many subjects today. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) spoke about the deficit this afternoon, but what the deficit has to do with this debate I really don't know. However, there is one thing I would point out to him. He said we were going to increase the deficit. I doubt whether we will have to increase the deficit, Mr. Speaker, because after reading the Auditor General's report this week in which he noted that only half the $50
February 22, 1979

billion budget can be accounted for, I can assure the minister that when we form the government we will account for every dollar that is spent.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


A. Daniel McKenzie: And we will implement every recommendation in the Auditor General's report, something which we have been calling for over the last ten years. We will get our expenditures into line and we will find out where the money is going. Incidentally, the Auditor General's reports each year get worse. They do not get better under the Liberal administration, which has been refusing to implement the recommendations in them. We are not afraid to be accountable. Also, we will strengthen the terms of reference under which the Auditor General operates, and we will get spending in line and work toward a balanced budget.
The minister said this afternoon that the Conservative provincial government was not co-operating with the trucking industry. That is not entirely correct. I cannot speak for all the provinces, but I can speak for Manitoba with respect to trucking regulations. As a matter of fact they worked with the federal government to improve some of the regulations recently when they increased the gross vehicle weight from 74,000 pounds to 110,000 pounds. That made the trucking industry in Manitoba very happy. The Manitoba government has also increased the length of trailer combinations, permitting larger combinations on the highways, something which was very welcome to the trucking industry in Manitoba. I know a lot of people engaged in the trucking industry in Manitoba and I can assure the Minister of Transport that none of them will be voting in the next election for the Liberal party. They are all going to be voting for us, they are all going to be supporting the Conservative party. The trucking industry in Manitoba has been very pleased since the NDP government there was defeated. That industry had a difficult job trying to survive under that socialist government.
In the rambling debate we have had today the Minister of Transport dealt with sovereignty-association, but he forgot to mention that in a recent speech in Scarborough the Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations (Mr. Reid) stated that if the separation referendum were to carry by a majority, he would let Quebec go. In a radio interview on December 10 the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. De Bane) said the same thing. He said that if the vote were to carry, he would let Quebec go.


An hon. Member:: No.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Yes, "We will let them go."


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


A. Daniel McKenzie: On what terms will the Minister of State for Federal-Provincial Relations let Quebec go? Is Quebec going to keep Air Canada, CNR, or the St. Lawrence Seaway?
Transportation
What kinds of deals will this government cook up? Is this part of the four-fifths, one-fifth proposal?
Our position has been made very clear. We have clarified it. There will not be any sovereignty-association, any under the counter deals, or any of the seven or eight positions adopted by the government. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has said, "When they separate, I will go and live in Quebec." It would be very interesting to know what kinds of deals this government is cooking up with the province of Quebec right now.
I have listened to some of the infantile remarks by government members about our leader's losing his luggage. They have tried to create an impression that an individual is responsible for his luggage when he gets on an aeroplane. We all know that is not true, and our leader did not lose his luggage. It came on the following aeroplane. That is common; it has happened to me. On one occasion I flew from Montreal to Toronto and was informed that my luggage would be on the next plane. That is common, but the infantile remarks of members of this so-called government do not indicate that.
Here is a recent interview with the Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) (Mrs. Campagnolo), "A day in the life of Iona Campagnolo". She said:
Nowadays April Holland, my assistant, buys more clothes for me than I do for myself. The airlines often lose my bag so that wherever I am I have to send April out to buy me a dress-
When this minister arrives, she does not even have a dress. She loses her luggage all the time, but why does this great government not mention that? Not only does the minister lose her luggage but she also loses taxpayers' money, to the tune of about $13 million in her latest deal.
I would like to get back to the motion.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


A. Daniel McKenzie: I would also like to congratulate the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) for his excellent contribution this afternoon. I want to confine most of my remarks to air safety and to impress upon the House the importance of debating Bill C-40, which is legislation respecting the establishment of the office of the commissioner of transportation accident investigation. The minister says we cannot debate this bill because we will block it. That is just nonsense. We have been calling for this type of investigative body for many years. My colleague, the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall), has raised this matter many times, and this bill should be sent to a committee for debate.
I have some concerns, however, about this bill. Clause 19 at page 12 says:
The commissioner may, on a confidential basis, provide an interim report containing information on the progress and findings of an investigation into an accident-
The word "may" should be removed and replaced by "shall". With regard to the words "on a confidential basis" I do not know how this commissioner, when looking into an air crash, could give confidential information to a coroner con-

February 22, 1979
Transportation
ducting an inquest. Once information is given to a coroner at an inquest, that information is on the public record, and it is in the coroner's report. It is made public, so how can the commissioner give confidential information? There are some flaws in the bill, but I must emphasize that it is imperative that this bill be dealt with before an election is called.
I will give some examples of why we should be getting on to Bill C-40. I want to refer to a fatal crash of a Beech D95A in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in March, 1978. I asked the Minister of Transport to give me full documentation regarding that crash. He gave me one little page. There are approximately 20 pages missing, and this causes further suspicion because the minister stood up in this House and said that he has an open department and a big library. He said that one need only telephone in order to get anything one wants.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Four-fifths, one-fifth.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Yes, you get a fraction of what you ask for. I suppose that is the same four-fifths, one-Fifth formula the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lalonde) uses for dealing with Quebec.
On this one-page report it states, and I quote:
The manufacturer of this aircraft had issued a safety directive two years prior to the accident warning about the dangers of attempting single engine flight at what had theretofore been considered a safe minimum speed.
In this tragedy an instructor and a student were practising cutting out one engine and manoeuvering the plane but, unfortunately, the plane crashed and both occupants were killed. This one-page report goes on to say:
This information was distributed by the manufacturer in the U.S.A. but not to all operators in Canada.
This is something which should be thoroughly investigated. I am sure there must be a number of Beech D95A's around, and I certainly hope their owners have been notified about this warning from the manufacturer.
The coroner's inquest into this fatal crash of March, 1978, began in June, but it had to be adjourned because the Ministry of Transport refused to give full documentation to the coroner. However, this coroner kept after MOT, and finally the department had to provide him with full documentation so that he could complete his inquiry into this fatal crash. As reported in the transcript of the inquest the coroner said:
Gentlemen of the jury, you will remember that at our last meeting here we adjourned the inquest because we lacked certain evidence which was in the form of a report which has been forwarded by the investigator who investigated this accident on behalf of the Department of Transport, and during the subsequent weeks we've been busy with negotiations with the department in an attempt to obtain this report. We only recently received it and now we're going to continue with this inquest.
It is very costly and time-consuming when coroners have to adjourn inquiries because MOT will not co-operate.
The coroner also said:
Now the witness from the Department of Transport was in a difficult position because, as a witness, he was obliged to testify and give evidence-all the evidence available to him. At the same time he was under an obligation in his department not to disclose matters which they considered to be confidential-

How can there be a proper inquiry into a fatal crash if MOT officials cannot give all the evidence at the inquiry? That is why we have to proceed with Bill C-40. We must overcome these obstacles which are placed before coroners or anyone else who is trying to investigate.
The coroner went on to say the following:
I am sure that no member of the Department of Transport or the government wants to use this sort of secrecy to impose dictatorial measures, but we do know that in countries such as Russia the legal proceedings are conducted in secrecy, people are accused and tried in secrecy and sentenced in secrecy and the public is denied access to information about what's going on in these courts.
I do not think it is very flattering for Canada to be compared with a country like Russia because we will not give coroners complete information regarding air crashes.
S0)
The coroner went on to say:
Thirdly, when a government department insists on conducting its own investigation into fatal accidents involving members of its staff, it leaves itself open to the question of whether a conflict of interest exists.
So the sooner we get the investigation into air safety and investigations into other transportation accidents out of the hands of MOT and into the hands of this private investigation group, the sooner Canada will take a step in the right direction.
The coroner went on to say:
-when lives are at stake it is in the interest of the public that confidentiality give way to public investigation.
So this is a condemnation of the Minister of Transport and of how accidents are investigated.
A couple of years ago Dr. John Butt, Alberta's chief medical examiner, at a medical symposium in Calgary accused MOT of putting bureaucracy ahead of safety in investigations. Dr. Butt said this attitude prevented him from immediately getting to the scene of the Calgary plane crash of December, 1974, in which three persons were killed, and "snow plow fatties", who apparently were acting on Transport Canada orders, had been stationed to block his way. Mr. Speaker, you can see the seriousness of the situation and the obstacles that the Minister of Transport and his department are putting in the way of proper inquiries into air fatalities.
A couple of years ago a directive was put out by MOT that MOT safety inspectors were not to implement their duties fully with regard to air safety infractions because, as the telex said, they must not fully consider the possibility of-


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


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the motion that is before the House today moved by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) allows us an opportunity to talk about the many problems in transportation. It also gives us the opportunity to zero in on one or two of those problems. I want to look at a couple of them this evening. First, I want to look at the problems faced by the prairie
February 22, 1979

farmer and at the state of farming and agriculture in this country, and I want to try to relate to the House the importance of a transportation system that is efficient and well planned for the farmers of our country. I want to give the House a couple of statistics to show that this is a very important debate and that farmers are important in our country.
First of all, total farm income in 1978 was around $12 billion, and the food and agricultural sector of our economy amounts to roughly 40 per cent of the GNP. So when we talk about farming we look at an area which is extremely important for all of Canada. I am very concerned about what is happening to the income of prairie farmers today. I was startled, as, I am sure the hon. member for Battleford-Kin-dersley (Mr. Mclsaac) will be, to see what is happening to the income of farmers in my home province. I want to put a few statistics on the record. I do this because one of the reasons farmers are in difficulty is that we do not have an efficient transportation system. As officials of the Wheat Board said last week, because of the lack of grain handling facilities alone, we lost some $450 million worth of sales of wheat to the world market.
Let us take a look to see what is happening to the grain farm income in the province of Saskatchewan. I will take the total cash receipts for the year 1975 to begin with and I will round off the figures. The total cash receipts in 1975 were $2.5 billion. The projected cash receipts in 1979 are $2.4 billion, less than they were some four years previously.


An hon. Member:: Whose projections are they, yours?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: These are figures from the department of agriculture in the province of Saskatchewan. I assume their statistics are correct. If you want to use 1978 figures, you find that in this case they are $2,480 million. So you see that the farm income in that province in terms of our gross receipts, total cash receipts, has not gone up. But if you look at the real statistics, that is, the net income of the farmer, you find that in 1975 the net income of Saskatchewan farmers was $1,474 million. The projected income of Saskatchewan farmers in 1979 is $909 million. So you can see that it is roughly half a billion dollars less in 1979 than it was in 1975. The same story is true if you go back to the year 1978 where you do not have to use projections but the actual income. You find that the income of the Saskatchewan farmer was $1,060 million. The operating costs of farmers in the province of Saskatchewan in 1975 were $1.1 billion; while in 1979 the projected costs are some $1.7 billion.
I put those figures on the record to show you that while other people in our economy are taking more, often it is not enough. We fight in this House to help veterans, old age pensioners, to increase family allowances, to help the Indian and Metis people, the unemployed and the like. At the same time there are huge corporate profits and the wealthy get wealthier all the time, but you find that the farmers in the prairie provinces-my own province is one, but Alberta and
Transportation
Manitoba are the same-are seeing a real drop in their net income and an escalation in their costs.
One of the reasons for that-of course there are many others but this is a transportation debate, which is why I will stick to transportation topics-is that the railway system in this country is inefficient and the farmers have all kinds of grain that they cannot sell. We all know that China was in the market for a lot of grain this year. We could have sold an extra three million tonnes of grain to China if we had had the handling facilities. But we did not, so they turned to the United States and signed with them their first contract in history, or certainly in a long time. The United States at long last has recognized China. If we do not move quickly, we may lose potential markets there in the future.
Another interesting statistic which the minister in charge of the Canadian Wheat Board (Mr. Lang) put on the record today and which is true, a fact which I want to emphasize once again, is that we can anticipate a tremendous growth in the production of wheat in this country. That is another reason why the motion put before the House by the hon. member for Vegreville is so important. In 1978 the total amount of grain we produced was 21.4 million tonnes, while in 1985 the projections are that we will be producing some 30 million tonnes of grain, an increase of nearly 50 per cent. That will be so in only about five or six years' time. For these reasons we have to improve the railway system in our country.
I want to comment now on one specific item with regard to the transportation of grain, and that is the whole question of rail line abandonment in the prairies and, to be specific, the PRAC report which was released in the first or second week of January of this year. I want to recount some of the history of that report to try to show members why it is so important to us in the prairies. Mr. Justice Hall studied roughly 6,000 miles of rail line a few years ago. He recommended that about 2,000 miles of this rail line were obviously so efficient, needed, and in a place where they would be utilized economically they should be put into the basic network. The minister agreed and put them in the basic network. He considered another 2,000 miles of rail line, roughly, said they were not used very much and the farmers had other points to which they could deliver, that the lines were not efficient and should not be upgraded, and recommended they be abandoned by the year 1981. Of course the minister listened to that recommendation.
Then there was a third category of lines that he really could not make up his mind about and thought there should be further study before deciding what should be done. That consisted of about 2,400 miles of line. He recommended the government set up a prairie rail authority with the power to decide whether they should or should not be upgraded. In other words, he recommended a semi-autonomous body apart and separate from the Minister of Transport.
It did not surprise me greatly that the minister rejected that recommendation of Hall. He said he did not want to lose control of the decision-making process. Instead, he appointed a

February 22, 1979
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buddy of his, Professor Anderson from Regina, to head up the Prairie Rail Action Committee, or PRAC. It was to come in with recommendations by the end of 1978 regarding that 2,400 miles of rail line on the prairies.
That committee recommended that about 60 per cent of that line should just be abandoned and that about 40 per cent should be preserved. In one or two cases the committee did not even study the lines it was supposed to be studying. In one case in particular in the riding of Assiniboia, and I hope the hon. member for Assiniboia (Mr. Goodale) will rise to his feet and say a few words-


An hon. Member:: He did. He made a great speech.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He made a speech. I am very glad to hear that he did.


An hon. Member:: He was very critical of PRAC.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I hope he was very critical of PRAC, because in his riding it recommended that a line that has in the basic network be abandoned, namely, the Lewvan line. That was a very irresponsible thing for that committee to have done and this line was definitely in its terms of reference. I am sure the voters in that constituency, come the month of May, June or July, will remember that decision of PRAC.
The committee made a recommendation to the minister that about 60 per cent of the lines it was studying should be abandoned. Let me refer to two examples in my own constituency, the circumstances of which I think are symbolic of PRAC recommendations right across the prairies.
First of all we have a line that runs from the large town of Sturgis Junction to the even larger town of Kelvington. That line runs for roughly 41 or 42 miles. It is utilized by a lot of farmers. A lot of grain is hauled over that line. There are four other towns on that line. Some of them are quite large towns and they include the town of Preeceville with well over 1,500 people, or closer to 2,000, and the town of Kelvington with over 1,500 people. Almost everybody thought that Hall made a serious mistake, and so did I, when he did not recommend that the line be put into the basic network. All you have to do is pick up a map of Saskatchewan and you will see that this part of the province has a lot of farmers, and that in most cases, if the line goes, those farmers will have a long way to haul their grain.
Hall thought this needed further study. Even so, all of us assumed that PRAC would recommend the line be saved. What did PRAC do? It recommended that the entire line with the exception of 3.5 miles be abandoned. In other words, PRAC only saved that little part between Lilian Junction to the town of Preeceville. That is all that was saved. PRAC recommended abandoning the rest of that line which also serves a town called Lintlaw where the wheat pool wanted to put up a very large new elevator. The town of MacNutt has a very good grain delivery service, and the farmers will have to haul into Kelvington. The committee said that they had the big town of Kelvington, and it recommended that this line be

abandoned, just letting these little communities swim on their own.
The recommendation was that a lake crossing be built from the Rosedale-Tisdale subdivision line to the town of Kelvington. The cost of building that would be almost the same in terms of dollars as it would have been to rehabilitate and reconstruct the whole line in the first place, and thus provide a good service for all the farmers living along that entire rail line.
Let me refer to the second example, also in my constituency. It is called the Rhein subdivision. It runs from a little place called Ross Junction, which is near the large town of Canora, an area that the hon. member for Saskatoon-Biggar (Mr. Hnatyshyn) is familiar with, down to the town of MacNutt, which is right up against the Manitoba boundary and the riding of the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ritchie) and the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Stewart). They are both familiar with this particular rail line. This line as well is fairly long, running for 50-some odd miles. It services a lot of people and a lot of towns. It has a delivery point at a little town called Hamton, one in Rhein, one in Stornoway, one in Wroxton, one in Calder and another in MacNutt. These serve a great number of farmers in an area where a lot of grain is produced.
It is a very important line in terms of grain, and many people live in those small towns and villages along the line. PRAC recommended that roughly half of that rail line be abandoned. It recommended that the line from Ross Junction to Hamton be abandoned and that the line from Hamton running on through to Wroxton be saved. It also recommended abandonment of that part of the line from Wroxton to MacNutt. That section serves a lot of people.
I have had several meetings with the people of both those communities. They are very concerned about keeping this rail line. In the fall of 1977 they established "Save Our Rail Line" committees which met with members of PRAC before they made this recommendation. They had another meeting with the Minister of Transport, and have managed to save about half the rail line there. However, these other communities are now in danger, four of them in particular, of losing their rail line, thus adding to the expense of farmers having to haul their grain much greater distances. There is also an additional expense in terms of wear and tear of municipal roads. Of course the small towns and villages where the line is to be abandoned will soon become ghost towns, because when the farmers haul somewhere else they also do their shopping elsewhere.
I see you rising, Mr. Speaker, so I will conclude by making an appeal to the Minister of Transport to save about 90 per cent or 95 per cent of the lines that PRAC said should go. If I had more time I could give detailed reasons why these lines should be saved, specifically to save those communities and small towns.


Mr. Maurice Harquail (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, I suppose I should commence my remarks by expressing my appreciation to the
February 22, 1979

opposition critic for bringing this motion before the House today as it provides an opportunity to participate in this debate. I welcome the opportunity of saying something about what the minister and the Ministry of Transport have been able to do for Atlantic Canada, in contrast to all the stories we have been hearing about difficulties in the west.
As I looked at the motion I could not help but think it might fit in with some of the things that have been before the House in recent days, using up the time of this place. I would not want to say that these were entirely frivolous things; however, we do have clear evidence of the delaying tactics that have been used in recent days.
We have many members on all sides of this House who are considered to be reasonable and intelligent men, yet we find members of the official opposition, when referring to transportation, using words like "condemn", "terrible", and "awful". There is nothing in that that is of use to Canadians. I have one word for it, and that is "hogwash." The evidence is very clear as to what the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) has been able to do in these modern times, and particularly in recent years in effectively carrying out his responsibilities.
As I was saying just the other evening, the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), I believe, was going on at length in his usual rhetoric, and at the beginning, the middle and the end of his interjection and intervention in the House, repeatedly, the best he could come up with was to call for the Minister of Transport's resignation. We all know how ridiculous this type of intervention is, and that is how it will be interpreted by Canadians because transportation is a very serious topic.
One aspect of this motion before us tonight is air safety. Canada has nothing to be ashamed of whatsoever with respect to air safety. Indeed, because of the very stringent air safety regulations, Canada enjoys one of the best, if not the best, reputations in the world for air safety, and that is something of which each and every one of us can be proud.
Canada's safety record for scheduled air carriers has not deteriorated over the past years. In fact the latest complete figures available on commercial air travel, 1970 to 1977, indicate that our country's air safety record has remained relatively constant over that time period that it is on par with that of the United States and Great Britain, and that it is considerably better than the International Air Traffic Association's average for fatal accidents of all countries.
I am not sure where those who are making the allegations are getting their facts and figures, but the most recent data from Statistics Canada's aviation statistics centre on accident rates for Canadian registered aircraft provide an analysis of the number of accidents per 100,000 hours flown. These data reveal that over a five-year period, 1973 to 1977, there has been a consistent decline, from .63 accidents per 100,000 hours flown during 1973, to .21 accidents per 100,000 hours flown in 1977.
Transportation
The information on accidents and activity of Canadian air carriers presented in the article "World Airline Safety" in Flight magazine, January 20, 1979, suggests that the number of fatal accidents per unit number of flights is the best single safety measure when, in fact, the number of accidents per unit activity is a more comprehensive measure for comparisons among different countries and airlines. Added to this difficulty of comparing accident records among countries fairly and accurately, is that there are different definitions of accidents. Comparisons among countries on the basis of fatal accidents are comparisons among measures of the countries' liability to fatal accidents. This liability to accidents is measured by the average number of fatal accidents per unit time. As time is a measure of the length of exposure to risks, it is measured by the amount of activity over the period, including flights, hours flown, and production.
The definition of accident in the Flight article those occurrences, "involving fatalities to one or more occupants ... of public transport aircraft-including scheduled helicopters- operating scheduled or non-scheduled revenue passenger or revenue cargo flights." In Canada it should be noted that "public air transport" is not a recognized term. Canadian commercial air transportation services are classified as unit toll-scheduled and non-scheduled-and charter. Charter services are grouped into various subclasses according to the weight of the aircraft used.
I do not wish to take up the entire allotment of time permitted me, Mr. Speaker, to speak only of air safety, but I would like to make it very clear that Canada places great importance on air safety, as I think we should, and because of our very stringent air safety regulations Canada enjoys one of the best reputations in the world.
I would like to talk now about the benefits we are enjoying in Atlantic Canada as a result of some of the measures and policies of the Minister of Transport. In the last year or so the minister has deemed it important and necessary to allocate over $100 million for the over-all strengthening of the transportation system in the Atlantic provinces and, indeed, these funds, coupled with DREE programs under special agreements, under highway agreements and subagreements in the four Atlantic provinces, have enabled us to improve our position substantially both in the highway transportation linkages and in air transportation by providing more modern facilities to ensure modern air passenger service.
If hon. members will look at the recent estimates presented in the House by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Buchanan) they will find that in the Atlantic provinces, and particularly in New Brunswick, a substantial number of dollars has been allocated for the improvement, not only of the facilities at Saint John and the landing equipment at Moncton, but as well for the construction of a new modern air terminal at Charlo and for the new air strip and facilities at St. Leonard, New Brunswick.
This is a need that has been expressed and pursued for a considerable period of time, and I know that the citizens of the areas which I have mentioned are very, very pleased with these

February 22, 1979
Transportation
announcements and inclusions in the expenditures for the fiscal year 1979-80. In addition to the improvements to the highways and the air facilities there will also be a detailed analysis arising from the ports policy bill, in the Atlantic area and, in particular, of course, Saint John, which has proven its competence in being able to handle the cargo traffic by surpassing Halifax in tonnage averages. I believe that it has been a long accepted fact that competition exists between the port of Halifax and the port of Saint John because of the dynamic leadership and the administration of those interested and concerned with the port facilities in Saint John. In a short period of time they have been able to bring this port up to and beyond the capacity of what they are able to accomplish at the Halifax port.
I would also like to take this occasion this evening to mention the importance of the ports in northern New Brunswick, not only the port of Belledune but also the port of Dalhousie. These ports are deep-water, year-round, ice-free ports. In the case of the Belledune port, they are able to ship ore from the zinc refinery and fertilizer, and concentrates, and from the tank farm which was just built in recent years by Shell Oil. 1 think this is a very significant development for this deep water port.
1 am delighted to announce tonight that officials of the American Potash Company are also considering the port facilities at Belledune as a route for shipping potash when they go into production within the next 12 to 15 months in Sussex, New Brunswick. This has come about because of lack of capacity at the Saint John port at the moment.
People interested in the development of the Belledune port are encouraged that it will not only be used by Brunswick Mining and Smelting for the shipment of ore, and by Shell Oil as a petroleum port, but that other petroleum companies have expressed interest in locating tank farms at the site. It is a significant breakthrough that a company with the potential of the American Potash Company has, ir, recent weeks, indicated a sincere interest in making an in-depth analysis of the facilities available at Belledune for shipment of their product. I understand that the facilities exist at Belledune, and when the necessary agreements have been made with the Noranda group and with Brunswick Mining and Smelting, there is every possibility that potash could move through that port.
This is not to diminish, of course, the importance of the deep-water, ice-free port at Dalhousie. The International Pulp and Paper company ships some of the finest newsprint in the world to international markets through that port. It is also used for shipping ore. The F.W. Perrie Company and McCain Foods have shown an interest in using it for shipping potatoes to world markets.
This is a very significant development and will have more than a passing impact on the region. It will have a definite impact on the economy, and it encourages all those who have shown an interest in the continuing development of the port.

I think the port of Belledune in Gloucester County which is being developed by the Chaleur Development Corporation and the citizens interested in that area, as well as the Restigouche development, who are all concerned with the Port Commission in developing Dalhousie port, each standing on their own feet as regards their abilities to grow to their maximum potential, will bring additional growth to northern New Brunswick. Funds have recently been approved for the design and engineering of an additional zinc smelter at Belledune. The federal government will contribute $1.5 million to the design and engineering of this plant, in co-operation with the province and Brunswick Mining and Smelting. All these things-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his time has expired.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Frank Hamilton (Swift Current-Maple Creek):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) for introducing this motion. I certainly agree with what he said-that at the moment we have no understandable transportation policy. No one knows where we are going in the area of rail transportation. One thing that western farmers know very well, however, is that wherever this rail transportation mess is going, the grain sector will get there first. The minister said there was no terminal expansion at Vancouver until they offered incentives. He should know that they were offered guarantees of storage paid by farmers, but I am happy to say this was never accepted by the grain companies out there.
The minister praised VIA Rail. If the subsidy paid to VIA Rail were paid to bus transportation, every long distance traveller in Canada could travel free.
The minister made a great fuss about Tory governments and the prairie prime minister who, he said, did nothing for grain or grain transportation because so little grain was shipped, and so on. That is arrogant nonsense. Figures issued by the Canadian Wheat Board, over the signature of the minister, show that for the years 1963-64 the total export of wheat and flour equivalents was 592 million bushels or 23.4 per cent of world trade. This figure has never been exceeded. In the two best years that the minister can brag about, 1976-77, 494 million bushels of wheat and flour equivalents were exported, representing 21 per cent of world trade. Last year was the best year under this minister when 587 million bushels were exported, or 22 per cent of world trade. So far this year exports are 20 per cent below the same time last year. At the present time wheat is selling for $5 per bushel at Vancouver.
The minister will probably argue that more varieties are in the stream now. The answer to that is that the farmers have been forced into the new varieties because this Liberal government could not move their wheat.
The hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta) dealt with the need for co-ordination of the whole system and indicated that no leadership was being shown by the minister. I should like to remind the House that a year and one half ago the Fraser
February 22, 1979

River bridge was washed out. That was a disaster for the port of Vancouver as the main line of the Canadian National uses the bridge. For the three weeks that it was out of use, the port of Vancouver set a record for unloads, so it can be done if proper leadership is given.
The hon. member for Fort William (Mr. McRae) boasted about the great port of Thunder Bay. I should like to remind him that grain moving through Vancouver commands a 50-cent per bushel premium over Thunder Bay. It should be noted that of all ports, the prairie port of Churchill is by far the cheapest route for the movement of western grain to markets in Europe.
I should like to deal with part (3) of the motion, Mr. Speaker, which reads as follows:
That this House condemns the failure of the Minister of Transport to deal adequately with transportation matters in this country and, specifically, his failure:
(3) to deal adequately with grain movement, resulting in losses of hundreds
of millions of dollars to producers and to the Canadian economy.
After a good many years with the minister in charge, it seems that the chickens have come home to roost.
I should like to examine the present system as it stands after the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money for subsidies, equipment and upgrading. During the tenure of the minister the 30,000 grain carrying cars decreased to the present 20,000, including the 8,000 government hoppers. Last year, because of inability to deliver, grain producers lost, in sales and deferred sales, which are the same thing, $500 million. It will be much the same this year. The minister was bragging about unloads at Vancouver this year. The latest figures I was able to get from the Canadian Grain Commission show that on February 14, 293 cars were unloaded. Mr. Speaker, 700 should have been unloaded. On February 15, 123 cars were unloaded, and on February 16, 258 were unloaded. The capability of the port is 700 cars, Mr. Speaker. There is no need to mention, either, that demurrage charges reached record amounts last year.
One of the great tragedies of the situation is that we are delivering on deferred contracts at the old price and are not able to take advantage of the current $5 per bushel price asking at Vancouver. This adds up to some $4,000 for every farmer in western Canada. That is more than was indicated by the hon. member for Lisgar because I have added the old low price at which we are delivering the grain. A good case could be made that this is a deliberate attempt to hold down the grain economy of western Canada.
Today, 12 ships were waiting at Vancouver, and six other ones loading, while there are unused facilities at the port for bulk handling, and unused capacity in the interior of the country with government elevators not working to capacity.
We still have the unresolved Crow rate issue with tax money still pouring into the railroads and no over-all plan or understanding, and certainly no commitment from the railways for satisfactory service. To top it all off we now read in the paper about secret meetings taking place in western Canada to try to resolve this contentious Crow rate issue.
Transportation
The Canadian Wheat Board had been forced into buying, with farmers' money, a good number of hopper cars. I would like to read into the record what a respected grain company, James Richardson and Sons, Limited, say in the February 15, 1979, grain letter. This indicates no leadership at all by the government or by the minister in this area. The second paragraph of this letter reads:
The Wheat Board has again taken the bull by the horns on the subject of hopper cars.
Further on in the paragraph it is mentioned there will be a requirement of:
-an additional 10,000 hopper cars over the next few years. The Board claims that unless these additions are made to the hopper car fleet, exports could decline by about one million tonnes per year resulting in a possible loss to prairie producers and the western economy of 4.2 billion dollars by 1985.
The letter also says:
Whatever the outcome, it is difficult to fault the Board for trying to take some decisive action or a first step in tackling the monumental grain handling problem.
Producer groups are now seeking a court injunction to stop the use of producers' money for these hopper cars. This is not the first time that producers have had to go to court to force this minister to act legally. I think we can all remember the hold up of the temporary Wheat Reserves Act of some years ago. Japan, one of our best customers, has put Canada on trial for the next 12 months because of the unacceptable delays in delivery of wheat through Vancouver.
We now have a Prairie Rail Action Committee report which is described as offensive and insulting by the largest grain handling company we have. This report only adds to the confusion in western Canada. In my area there is a line called the Dun Elm subdivision from Player to Simmie. The line is contingent at the present time upon a trucking subsidy and a road subsidy for its retention. It is so complicated and balled up that it is impossible for anyone in the district to understand it.
As an indication of the desperate situation facing many grain producers, I will mention just one producer car which was loaded on January 31, 1979, at Marquette, Manitoba, the mainline of the CPR. The car was still there yesterday, which was February 24. The number, if anyone is interested, is CPWX600413. This is a heartbreaker for the farmer involved who urgently needs the cash.
There is another problem coming up in the spring of 1979, and that is a labour problem in Vancouver with a work slowdown by the grain handlers union. With no overtime being worked by the grain handlers, it can take up to 18 hours to clean one car of rapeseed. Certainly the minister has not been taking any initiative in this area. It is interesting that the chief commissioner for the Canadian Wheat Board considered this so serious that he went to Vancouver and met with union representatives. We have customers waiting at the seaboard, unused capacity in the system, producers' bins full, and Financial loss to the farmers. All of this just boggles the mind. We have no understanding of where it will all end.

February 22, 1979
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The feed grain issue is still unresolved in spite of dozens of investigations and the setting up of commissions to look into the problem. It follows that the question is asked, "How do we get into this sort of a mess?" Some ten years ago at a time when my constituents were busily going about producing new wealth for themselves and the government, a task force was set up on agriculture. It released its findings in 1970. That task force report called for a reduction by two thirds of the number of farming units in Canada by 1990, and a reduction in the country's farm acreage, some ten million acres. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) was part of the government that accepted those recommendations.
There were statements contained in that report such as that by 1980 more than 90 per cent of all Canadians will live in centres with a population of 10,000 or more; 80 per cent of all Canadians may be living in three metropolitan areas, etc. Along with all this went a general attitude of preparedness for rural to urban migration. The government accepted this task force report and took it for granted that this rural-urban migration was a good thing. The railways, having to plan years ahead, naturally took their cue from this report and from the government's position taken on the task force. They decided, quite rightly, that there was no future in prairie agriculture and they would have to devote their energies elsewhere in the country.
The task force on agriculture was followed by the infamous lift program, and this minister was responsible. This was a program where farmers were paid to take crop land out of production. We all know what happened. Within two years Canada was sold right out of grain. The cost to the farmers in western Canada can be calculated by a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.
This lift program confirmed the railways' suspicions that the future was indeed bleak for prairie agriculture. They acted accordingly and reduced their railway effort in western Canada. In the absence of any commitment by the national government to support a viable western agriculture, there was no other choice for the railways. We just have to look to see how far our competitors in the United States have come in the last year. The U.S. made the commitment to agriculture that, as it ran down its natural resources, great efforts were to be diverted into production of food. Last year the United States increased its exports of grain by more than the Canadian total export figure. Last year 10,000 hopper cars went into the grain handling system. This year 20,000 are scheduled to go into it.
After the disaster of this LIFT program, the howls of the western farmers forced the government to reverse its decision. The first thing the minister did was to panic with a fire sale of feed barley. This was offered at Thunder Bay at 57 cents a bushel. This cost western farmers dearly. The minister then decided, for political reasons I suppose and because of its high visibility, to overhaul and revamp the prairie branch line rail system and the country elevator system. The real bottleneck which had always been at the Pacific seaboard was to remain as it was, with not one cent spent on it. Next we have a branch line study undertaken by Mr. Justice Emmett Hall who turned

in a report very well accepted by the public, but not what the minister wanted. So he headed it off with more studies, the Bryden report, the Prairie Rail Action Committee report, etc., and that is where we stand now.


Mr. Cliff Mclsaac (Battleford-Kindersley):: Mr. Speaker, I believe it was my friend, the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil), who earlier in the evening made the point that there was inadequate time to debate a very comprehensive, large and broad subject. I am sure that he shares my feeling that we would have been much better off using the time yesterday afternoon between four o'clock and 5.30 p.m. as government members sat in their desks waiting for my hon. friends opposite to come into the House.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: You are the one who fouled it up. You said 5.30 p.m.


James McPhail Gillies: You set the time.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: We might have used some of that time to debate this very important issue. I think the motion is an important one.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: You said 5.30 p.m. What are you complaining about?


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: I am not complaining. I am saying to hon. members opposite that we might have found some additional time yesterday that went to no real avail.
I am happy to be able to participate in this debate on the motion put by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazan-kowski). This afternoon I felt that the hon. member for Vegreville did not put his usual vim and vigour into his motion. I am not sure what that tells us. Perhaps my hon. friend is having difficulty speaking without a platform put forward by his party to help him in putting forward a case for transportation for western Canada and other parts of the country.
In listening to the minister and other speakers, but the minister primarily, I think he put the case for many of the major achievements of the government in the field of transportation. However, I think it is well worth reviewing the record of the government over the last five or six years. Compare some of that with the four or five-year period of the Tory government from 1958 to 1962. The latter part will not take too long because there were really only two achievements in that time. One was the establishment of the MacPherson royal commission which was established in 1959. In 1967 some of its recommendations were incorporated into the National Transportation Act. From that eight-year effort we saw some moves which covered their program.
Producers in my part of the country and elsewhere will recall Tory transportation efforts and their lack of any concrete results in terms of remedying the problems which they have become expert about in the last couple of years.
February 22, 1979

While there are still many problems with transportation in this country, whether it be rail, air, or ground transportation, we are better off than we were just a few years ago. There has been another important change in the last number of years. There is a much better understanding of problems. I do not deny that there are many of them. However, whether it is provincial governments, farm organizations, transportation companies, the federal government or other agencies, there is much better co-ordination and co-operation in trying to delineate, sort out, spell out, and deal with, as well as resolve, some of the issues. The approach initiated by the former minister of transport in a massive study which involved industry, the unions and everyne else, was the beginning of that much better understanding. It has helped to solve many of the problems that have plagued us. We still have some distance to go.
I will turn now to the grain movement which has been referred to more often than not in this debate. Along with members opposite, I would like to see more rail capacity, more locomotive power, more twinning of tracks, extended rail service, and more extended facilities in Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Churchill and so on. There is no question that those kinds of facilities are more than desirable. However, they cost many hundreds of millions of dollars. It will be a long time before everyone's shopping list can be fully accommodated.
This brings us back to what can be done to improve car turnaround and our present facilities, and to integrate them to bring about the movement of more prairie grain to the terminals, either east or west. Everyone is aware that the railroads are moving a great deal more other bulk commodities, which has put some pressure on the system as well.
The question of dealing adequately with grain movement which has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to producers and the Canadian economy is in one of the paragraphs of the motion. The hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek (Mr. Hamilton) dealt with that question. I am not sure how valid the claims are with regard to whether it is $3,000 or $4,000 that farmers may have lost. 1 suggest the word lost is being abused because the grain is still there. Instead of being sold at $2.37 or $2.38 as it was a year and a half ago, it is now very close to the $5 mark.
As the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek pointed out, some of the grain now going out was contracted for at prices below the $5. Many farmers are not all that unhappy if they have adequate storage.
Members opposite have short memories. It was only a few years ago that we were looking at four bushel quotas, clogged elevators, grain piled on the ground, and so on. We do not have that on the prairies today. We do not have anything like the backlog and the clogging of the system that was the case not many years ago.


Mr. Towers:: Now we have a six-bushel quota.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers) says we have a six-bushel quota. I do not know how many producers in his area have grain stored on the farms. I suppose there are not that many.
Transportation


Thomas Gordon Towers: All of them.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: If that is so, they are very fortunate producers. Last year will certainly have been one of the better crop years if that is the case.
I realize that improvements can be made. In fact improvements are desirable. I agree that the system is overloaded and is not taking out the amount of grain that has been grown in the last three years. However, this year Thunder Bay is running something like 13 per cent better than last year.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: We were behind in both years.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: We moved a lot last year and we moved a great deal the year before. If we can do a bit better this year, that will be three record years in a row. We have never before moved that volume for three years. I know it is more important today to the producers and farmers to get the grain to market, get the cheques in their pockets and pay the machinery companies and municipal offices, because they can no longer operate with one or two slack years. They must have that cash flow.
As I have said before in similar debates, the situation for many producers in rural areas in terms of the economic level of those districts, regions and areas, has never been better. Listening to members opposite, one would think there were dire thoughts of bankruptcy all across the prairies among the grain producers, and in the communities. That is certainly not the case. I see the hon. member for Vegreville smiling. He knows that in some of these communities the businessmen used to be better off than the producers and farmers. Today that is pretty well turned around. It is the producers and the farmers who can now buy out the businessman. That is what has happened over the past number of years.
I have listened to my friends opposite with their continual doom and gloom. However, we have not heard much about what they are going to do. I am waiting for my friend from Vegreville and others to tell us the Tory policies in terms of improving, expanding, and building for the 30 million tonnes we will be moving in a few years.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Is that four-fifths or one-fifth?


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: That is 30 million as opposed to 20 million tonnes currently being moved.


Douglas Charles Neil: Tell us about the lost sales.


Joseph Clifford McIsaac: There is no question that there have been some lost sales. Nobody has denied that. I say in spite of that, we are testing the system. We are moving considerably more grain. Under that pressure, we will come to grips with some of the problems. Hopper cars are only one of the responses of this government. Look at hopper cars, rail rehabilitation, branch line subsidies, and branch line rehabilitation which is going forward. It adds up to close to a billion dollars in the last five or six years. That is a great deal of money and effort to put into a system. It still needs more, but this government, when it

February 22, 1979
Transportation
is re-elected, will be glad to continue that kind of subsidy, that kind of effort.
I have one more point, and it concerns the PRAC committee report. That is the committee which was set up to deal with those rail lines still left in limbo by the Hall Grain Handling and Transportation Commission. It was the definite view of producers, grain companies and others that some agency could deal with this matter and arrive at a conclusion either for retention or abandonment. That report came out in January. Of course it pleased those people whose lines were recommended for inclusion in the permanent network and, needless to say, it very much displeased anyone whose lines were recommended for abandonment. In my opinion, that committee and that commission overlooked a number of options they might well have considered. They might have looked more closely at the off-line elevator system, and they did not give adequate consideration to the costs which would fall on the communities and municipalities. I am sure railroad costs were gone into adequately, but I am not sure the other costs were.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. The hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Malone).


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege this evening of being able to wrap up what started out as an excellent debate-by and large it continued as a tremendous debate as far as contributions from this side of the House were concerned. I commend my hon. friend from Vegreville for raising the subject. We have heard some excellent speeches from the other side of the House, too, in terms of oratory. However, they failed as to content.
Politics has been in evidence in a great many of the speeches tonight, but as the final speaker I believe it is my prerogative to try to package together what has happened. No one here is seeking to deny that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) is intelligent; no one is trying to deny that he is a good speaker, or that he is an academic. But we are saying the bottom line is that he is incompetent and that he is arrogant. Irrespective of his intellectual capacity, the transport system has failed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arnold John Malone: Most of us can recall an interesting list, a host of commissions and studies such as that undertaken by the MacPherson Commission in 1969, the agricultural task force, the Western Economic Opportunities Conference, the Hall report, the Snavely report and so on. These reports come along, and when they do not suit this minister he appoints a new commission so as to get what he wants. This is the crux of the whole problem-all study and no action for 16 years.
Such criticism might be regarded as merely partisan if it were only the Conservative party and the New Democratic Party which were saying the government had failed. But it is not that. It is government members themselves who say the Minister of Transport is simply an incompetent person. I would like to share some interesting information gleaned from
[Mr. Mclsaac.J
the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Lapointe). I put a question to him the other day. I asked him on what date the Minister of Transport gave a direct order that substandard service should be provided on those lines that they wanted PRAC to destroy. His answer was:
Mr. Speaker, I do not know the exact date but I will inquire and inform the hon. member.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Arnold John Malone: To this date I have not received a letter from the department telling me on what date they ordered an inadequate service on these lines.
Not only are there members on the other side who feel the minister is incompetent, we on this side have the good fortune to see over there a minister of the Crown who says that his colleague is absolutely incompetent. I refer not merely to a fellow member of the party but one of the ministers of the Crown. I want to quote what has been said by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner), for example:
The hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt has done everything to destroy western Canada since he became a member of the cabinet.
That can be found in Hansard at page 185 for October 7, 1974.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce does not stop there. He really goes on to say what kind of minister we have in charge of transport. He said:
The Minister of Transport has fouled up almost everything he has touched- the Air Traffic Controllers, the car rental system and allocating $30 million to CPR.
That, too, is in Hansard. That is what the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce thinks of this useless Minister of Transport. I might say, Mr. Speaker, that I am only on page one of a 26-page document. Speaking in the debate on the Speech from the Throne he accused the Minister of Transport of "working with the railways to destroy freight rates which benefit western farmers". He added that the Minister of Transport was "in bed with them". Now we find the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce in the same bed-in pink pyjamas. Attacking the Minister of Transport, he said:
I have often forecast-and I shall be there when it comes about-that I shall see Otto Lang tarred and feathered and driven out of Saskatchewan. I will pay for the oil and I will pluck the chickens.
What we are talking about here is incompetence. I can certainly understand what happens to the feelings of a tall man-
[ Translation]


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: The parliamentary secretary on a point of order.


Mr. Loiselle (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to say to the future former member for Crowfoot that with the incompetence he displays when he speaks about the people of western Canada, as an easterner I can tell him that he would find it beneficial to visit his constituency before making an attack
February 22, 1979

against the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. Hon. members should remember that only a few seconds remain before the end of the debate and I will have to extend a little the time allotted to the hon. member.


Arnold John Malone: I would not want to see such interruptions taken from my time, Mr. Speaker, because I have here 26 pages of this kind of information. It must be lowering to the self-esteem of a tall man who wears a western hat to have to live with these words, words he used as late as March 10, 1977:
Do you really think I would lower myself to be in the same party as Transort Minister Otto Lang who has ruined not only the nation's transport system but its grain industry, too?
He must have found out that the Minister of Transport didn't have the depth he thought he had since he was able to lower himself so easily.
The list goes on and on. I do not know whether to call it ten o'clock tonight or ten o'clock tomorrow morning. If there were sufficient times available I should have liked to deal in detail with the subject of the Prairie Rail Action Committee and what it is doing to the prairies. What we do see is the effect of cloning. The Minister of Transport has cloned his likeness into the shape of Professor Fred Anderson to do as he wanted to do. He wanted to abandon railways without community hearings and without having alternative systems in place. When railways are abandoned that way, disruption is caused in prairie communities. I can cite one example.
Rail service is being removed from towns surrounding Stet-tler, Alberta. Such towns are Rumsey, Rowley, Big Valley, Endiang, Byemoor, Red Willow and Donalda. It is now being assumed that one community can take in all the grain from those communities where rail lines are being abandoned. Without extra services in that one community, the only conclusion we can come to is the conclusion drawn by my party and by the New Democratic Party, that is, in terms of transportation policy this government is incompetent.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are beginning to rise, and if I can conclude with the word incompetent, I could not conclude with a better one.


Maurice James Harquail: That is a good word for you.


Bernard Pierre Loiselle: Why do you lie like that?


An hon. Member:: Withdraw.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I heard the words of the hon. member opposite. I apologize for not remembering the name of his riding. He mentioned a word which I do not think he would want to leave on the record.
Adjournment Debate
Perhaps he might want to take this opportunity to withdraw that word and not to blemish the good nature of this House, which never becomes political. We do not get into harsh political language at all, and I think the hon. member might like to have such an opportunity.


Bernard Pierre Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, as I just indicated, the hon. member should be ashamed of what he says because I know his riding well, and in any event most producers in his riding would not support him.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I would ask the hon. member to return to his seat. I want to indicate to him that I did not hear the remark he made, but if he used a term that was not parliamentary, I think he should withdraw it.


Bernard Pierre Loiselle: If I said "liar"-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I did not hear the remark.


Bernard Pierre Loiselle: If I said "liar", I will correct myself by saying the hon. member did not tell the truth.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I think the explanation given by the hon. member is acceptable.

I hope the hon. member will accept the explanation.
It being 10 p.m., it is my duty to inform the House that, pursuant to Standing Order 58(11), proceedings on the motion have expired.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Eldon Mattison Woolliams: Mr. Speaker, on two occasions I have raised questions in reference to conditions in the Post Office and to the way it is functioning in the city of Calgary. I raised this matter on January 26 and again on February 13. I asked the minister to order an independent investigation into the workings of the Post Office and into the gross inefficiency in a city which is growing by more than 2,000 inhabitants a month.
I want to make it abundantly clear that in my long association here as a member of parliament, and before that in practising as a barrister, mail was the lifeblood of both endeavours. I have found that 99.9 per cent of those involved

February 22, 1979
Adjournment Debate
with post office work are dedicated people who endeavour to be honest. However, sometimes one bad apple in a barrel will turn every apple bad, and let those who deny that the things I will be dealing with tonight are happening come forward and explain these people's serious and real grievances.
What are some of those grievances? Separate from the main post office in Calgary and the distributing centre near the old air depot we have what we call mail depots at Ranchlands, Beddington Heights, Dealcour, Edgemont, Pineridge, Temple, Rundle, and so forth. As these mail depots are only open from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon or, as some of the letters show, from 8.30 in the morning to 3.30 in the afternoon, if both spouses in a family are working it is impossible for them to get their mail. In the rest of the city there is mail delivery, that is, in the old parts of the city. There they pay the same taxes as those people who live in the new areas and who are getting a different service. Therefore there is discrimination, because they all pay the same taxes.
People in my city are pretty reasonable and if they could get their mail and get proper and honest delivery of mail after working hours out of boxes when the depots are open, then I would not be receiving a petition with 240 names on it asking their member of parliament, that is myself, for some action.
Last February 4 two employees came to me on Sunday morning and disclosed certain grievances, other than those I have discussed, concerning certain things that are taking place in the Post Office at present. They dealt in particular with what is happening to fragile parcels which are posted in various parts of Canada, or indeed in Calgary to go to other areas. They asked me not to use their names because they were frightened of what might happen to them if 1 disclosed their names with reference to the information they gave me.
I just want to deal with some of the grievances which were related to me. Here is a letter written on August 25, 1978, and it is rather symbolic of the Post Office. It is written by Mr. Doolittle. He writes:
This past week here in Calgary the "special delivery" service arrived at our establishment at approximately 6.30 p.m. and found the place closed and the door locked as we are on summer hours and are closed between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. for supper.
The mail was the payroll for a large company. There was a kid in his early teens outside. An envelope with many thousands of dollars was handed over to him to hold until the place re-opened. Luckily the kid, with true western character, was honest and the people got their payroll.
Let me read from another letter dated August 24, 1978, written by W. R. Porteous. He writes:
The problem is that a duly stamped first class envelope clearly addressed was posted at Sarnia, Ontario on the 4th day of August containing business documents one of which was an invoice for $198,000. This envelope was lost by your department until today, August 23, 1978.
It is signed W. R. Porteous, Assistant Division Manager and Division Engineer of Halliburton Services Limited.
[Mr. Woolliams.J
I have one more letter of grievance dated April 4, 1978, written by Vernon E. Sills, and the Calgary address is in my riding. He writes:
As you are no doubt aware, it is not uncommon for mail to cross Calgary in roughly five to seven days, however, one item that may have escaped notice is the fact that some of my subscribed hobby magazines always seem to arrive opened.
The Calgary North News finds that its subscriptions are being cancelled by the dozen because people receive this weekly newspaper three weeks after it is posted in the same city.
I have another letter here dated April 4 which again refers to the Post Office situation. The minister says that I exaggerate the situation. Just listen to this letter which reads:
In light of the fact Rev. E. Lindenburger of Fort MacLeod received a parcel of clothes mailed from Sudbury, not only was this parcel inexcusably damaged and mutilated, it was also soaked with what appears to be kerosene and placed in a plastic bag in Winnipeg and stamped "repaired".
I could go on and on. A newspaper clipping deals with what I have said about depots by stating:
With several new developments just opening up, the post office estimates that by 1979 some 20,000 Calgarians living in 6,200 households could be getting their mail from the six depots and three postal stations now handing it out.
It points out the fact that these people are not able to get their mail because these places are locked up when they get off work. I have many letters with evidence that indicates that the people have talked with the postmasters or postmistresses at these depots where parcels are damaged. Some employees have even admitted playing hockey with the parcels, and doing other things.
I am asking for an independent investigation. If there is nothing wrong with the Post Office, and the grievances of these thousands of people are not true, why is the minister refusing us an independent investigation? That is all we are asking.


Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to Postmaster General):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would like to assure the House that virtue is not a characteristic confined only to western Canadians. I am sure the hon. member for Calgary (Mr. Woolliams) did not want to mislead the House in that respect.
The Postmaster General (Mr. Lamontagne) is fully aware of the situation in Calgary, a situation that is also occurring across the country. Calgary, riding the crest of a buoyant economy, has expanded rapidly. This expansion has made it impossible for Canada Post to react as quickly as we would have liked to the needs of new suburbs in Calgary.
It is well known in this House that the government is committed to restraint in its spending. While it is popular to clamour for cuts in government spending, it is inevitable that when cuts are made some people will be adversely affected. We cannot have it both ways. Obviously the hon. member for Calgary North and his colleagues in the Conservative party do not believe that.
February 22, 1979

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), since his election as leader of that party in 1976, has castigated the government for its increased expenditures. When the government does its homework and brings in programs to cut back government spending, there are objections from the hon. member for Calgary North and others on that side. At the same time the Leader of the Opposition is floating around the country making pre-election promises totalling in value something over $6 billion; something which I think is scandalous and intellectually inconsistent, but which is characteristic of the Conservative party. We either spend at an unabated rate and contribute to the inflationary spiral, or we try to restrain expansion of services, even though those services are essential, as are postal services.
We have had to curtail expansion in a number of Canadian centres. Nevertheless, in all cases we have provided local services in the form of group boxes or general delivery. What we have provided has been designed to give the best service possible, at that point in time, while we take steps to make improvements.
Most Canadian centres have not expanded as dramatically as Calgary. I would like to remind the hon. member for Calgary North that we have the same problem in metropolitan Toronto. Many representations have been made by my colleagues, the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Philbrook), the hon. member for Peel-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Milne), and the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Abbott) on this exact subject.
Competent staff must be found and facilities must be built. All of this must be done with great care to ensure that by satisfying the needs of Calgarians we do not impose unwarranted hardships on other Canadian centres, including Toronto and other cities across this country.
The hon. member for Calgary North made some remark about an independent investigation. Members of his party will have an adequate opportunity to talk about postal problems when Bill C-27 comes before the committee. That bill is to establish a Crown corporation, and the hon. member for Calgary North will be able to get all the frustrations out of his system.
Within a very short time the Postmaster General, I assure this House, will have some very heartening news for the citizens of Calgary.


FINANCE-OTTAWA-GRANTS IN LIEU OF TAXES
Cyril Lloyd Francis: Mr. Speaker, on February 9, I asked the Minister of Finance (Mr. Chretien), whether he was in a position to make an announcement about grants in lieu of taxes to the city of Ottawa, and on February 19 the minister, when making a press release, outlined that it was the intention of the government to introduce legislation which would change the Municipal Grants Act and increase federal grants in lieu of taxes by $25.5 million by the end of a four-year phase-in period across Canada.
Adjournment Debate
The effect of this new policy would be to increase grants to the city of Ottawa by $3 million in the year 1980, by $4 million in 1981, by $5 million in 1982, and by $6 million by 1983. The people I represent very much appreciate the fact that the federal government has recognized, not only in the national capital but across the country, that there is an obligation carried by municipal taxpayers for services to government owned property which has not been properly shared up to this point.
There are some aspects of the situation in the national capital to which I would like to call the attention of the government and the members of this House. In the national capital region there has been a special policy developed which is not applicable in the same way in other parts of Canada. The government has decided First on a policy of relocation from Ottawa to Hull of something like six million square feet of office space, and it has further decided to decentralize out of the Ottawa-Hull national capital region approximately 15,000 to 20,000 jobs. The latter policy has run into some difficulties because of the language guarantees to those who were slated to be transferred to the province of Quebec, and to that extent that policy has been stalled.
I think that it is evident to anyone who cares to look about in the centre of the national capital that there is vacant office space and a depressed condition among the merchants on the Mall and in other areas. All this reflects the fact that it is a company town and the policy of the major employer in this area is to change the scale of its major operations.
I recently asked the finance commissioner of the city of Ottawa what he thought the impact of the new policy was in this area, in other words, whether the formula for grants in lieu of taxes will generally reflect the scale of the government's operation. He told me that something between $1 million and $1.5 million per year were lost in grants than would have been the case had this abandonment not taken place. It is not easy to put a figure on it. The policy will be reflected slowly. The privately owned office accommodation which becomes vacant will apply for a reduction in its taxes in periods ahead. The federal government, of course, has destroyed two million square feet of temporary office accommodation, or is about to complete that destruction. That accommodation may have not been the best, but it does mean that the grant is being reduced accordingly. I think that there is a special hardship as a result of the very decided policies of the Government of Canada with regard to the national capital region which should be considered by the department.
There is the broader question which the regional municipality has argued in the past, that the Government of Canada should pay business taxes, something which it does not presently do. This is as a result of the way in which the province of Ontario casts its tax structure on municipal property residential rates and business rates. Not every province follows this method. I am told that Prince Edward Island changed the basis of its taxation to eliminate the separate business tax, which had the effect of increasing the federal grants accord-
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February 22, 1979
Adjournment Debate
ingly. The city of Ottawa has applied to the province on many occasions to change the basis of taxation because it would add something like $30 million a year to its coffers if the federal government paid the full taxes as a normal private employer would do. The government has rejected this contention.
I do not hold out much hope, on the basis of discussions which have taken place, that there will be a change in the position of the federal government. I do hope that the government will consider a change in policy as part of a new phase of federal municipal relations in Canada and that it will carry its full share of the tax load for services to that property which it owns in the municipalities. I hope that it will look at the special claim of an area like the national capital which suffers from the adverse effects of federal government policies. 1 hope also that the province of Ontario will look at its structure of business and residential taxes and make certain modifications that would be more consistent with the way in which property taxes are levied in other parts of Canada. That would have the effect of substantially increasing the grant.


David Michael Collenette: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the hon. member for Ottawa West (Mr. Francis) on behalf of my colleague, the hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Martin), who is away on government business.
In response to the question raised by the hon. member for Ottawa West, the government is preparing legislation concerning grants to municipalities in lieu of taxes. A bill providing for a completely new Municipal Grants Act will be tabled very soon. The details of the government's proposals for enlarging the grants program will be set out in that bill. A statement providing a general outline of the proposals will be issued within the next few days.
A great deal of work has gone into the preparation of a new act. This has included an examination of all of the various restrictions on the grants that are now paid. In particular, a detailed study has been made of each of the categories of property that is presently excluded from grant, and of various irritants with the program that have accumulated in the 22 years since the legislation was last amended.
While the program of grants in lieu of taxes is a national program which applies all across Canada, it does have particular importance for municipalities in the national capital area, including the city of Ottawa, to which the hon. member for Ottawa West has referred. In view of these circumstances the government has looked carefully at the impact of the present grant program on Ottawa in order to ensure that the new program will treat the city in a fair and equitable manner. The new municipal grants act will take account of this study, and the government's proposals will bring important benefits to the city. It will also take account of numerous representations which have been received from the city and, on behalf of the city, from the hon. member for Ottawa West and the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier).

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I should like to acknowledge how the hon. member for Ottawa West and his colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, have spoken out most strongly and forcefully on behalf of the citizens of Ottawa on this particularly difficult subject.


INDUSTRY-REBUILDING OF AIRPORTS IN TRINIDAD- GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Mr. Speaker, some time ago I received a letter from a constituent who is vice-president of a telecommunications engineering firm. He enclosed an article from the Globe and Mail "Report on Business". The heading indicated that Canada will provide $10 million for Trinidad airports and that it is planning to help build new airports and a penitentiary there.
Just a few days ago, February 15, the Ottawa Citizen carried an article which pointed out that Canada will act as the key contractor for the construction work. In part the article reads as follows:
Presumably, when the memorandum was under discussion, Trinidad's officials were not acquainted with Canada's experience in building penitentiaries.
If the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) wants to sell Canada's expertise in building penitentiaries, which one will he use as a model-Archambault, Mill-haven, Laval, the B.C. penitentiary, Dorchester, or Kingston?
When I put a question to the minister in the House about the construction deal his department is negotiating with Trinidad, he answered, as reported at page 1652 of Hansard, as follows:
Our Department of Transport was chosen to act as a key contractor. It will seek out and sublet contracts to Canadian engineering firms in order to complete the work.
We should focus on two points in this matter, Mr. Speaker. First, is the government competent to act as the key contractor in the construction of airports? Mirabel airport cost $600 million and is now running into the red at $1 million per week, something like $52 million per year. It is the forty-fourth busiest airport in Canada, which does not show the government as competent to act as the key contractor for other airports. When I went through Mirabel airport a year ago the roof was leaking and the floors were cracked. A zinc tub placed to catch the leak from the roof had a beautiful red velvet rope around it. The government was the key contractor for that installation.
I turn to what the Auditor General said concerning the government's role as key contractor for the airport at Calgary. I quote from paragraph 19.105:
Although the design and construction of air terminal buildings to meet future requirements is a complex task, we are not satisfied that the Department's procedures were adequate to prevent any unnecessary increases in either the cost or size of the Calgary air terminal building. Specifically:
Extensive authority was delegated to the Western Region without effective
review, challenge and control by Headquarters.
February 22, 1979

There was no clear acknowledgment by individuals within the administration of responsibility or accountability for the financial viability of the new airport complex once in operation.
There were inadequate general area and cost criteria, based on comparable Canadian or foreign facilities, against which to monitor the project.
I recognize that that airport in appearance is palatial, but can we afford to operate it, especially when one looks at the cost overruns?
On the other side of the coin we have airports all across Canada. Think of the airport at Castlegar which the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Brisco) asked about the other day. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Lang) would not provide adequate facilities for that airport. Then the hon. member from Esquimalt continually asks about getting radar for the Victoria airport, to no avail. But the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce wants to act in a grandiose manner and be the key contractor for the airport in Trinidad. I say if the government is the key contractor, can Trinidad afford it?
And so it follows, if the government wants to negotiate trade, and it keeps on saying that it wants to privatize everything-the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said a few days ago how profit is honourable and he believes in the private sector- why did the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce not tell the government of Trinidad that Canada has many consulting engineers and engineering firms who are perfectly competent to do that work that Trinidad needs? The minister could tell representatives of the Trinidad government that he would find out whether our consulting firms would give expertise to the government of Trinidad, and through the Export Development Bank or one of the government agencies make sure that we could finance the $10 million that is being talked about. If the government really believes in private enterprise, why did it not take that route? But rather than do that, this government with its centralist view would prefer to work through the Department of Transport and pretend that the officials of that department can act in an adequate way as key contractors for the project.
I think the people of Canada deserve a straightforward, candid, honest answer on how much this will cost the government of Trinidad if our government is to be the key contractor. How much is the business community in Canada going to lose because the government is acting as the agent rather than providing the liaison so that private enterprise, the engineering firms and consultants in Canada, can do that work? We deserve some straight answers.
How many other commitments do we add that are not recorded in this memorandum? We will never know, as we found out relative to the deals that were made with Cuba. How many years will it take before we learn what the whole picture really is?


Bernard Pierre Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased
Adjournment Debate
to answer the erroneous questions of the hon. member, because the role of the Government of Canada in that agreement we signed with Trinidad-Tobago will not be to act as the key contractor, but rather to provide the government of Trinidad-Tobago with the consultants required for carrying out those projects.


Benno Friesen: That is not what you said.


Bernard Pierre Loiselle: Please, listen. As much for the two proposed airports totalling $150 million as for the proposed penitentiary we will have to build. The only role the Department of the Solicitor General and the Department of Transport will have to play, will be to define with the government of Trinidad-Tobago a schedule for those projects and, then ask Canadian consulting engineers to provide the expertise to carry out the contract.
The other role of the Government of Canada will be through the EDC to provide the financing.
But, Mr. Speaker, it is as simple as that. About that contract with Trinidad-Tobago, I believe last week when I was in Toronto with perhaps the 15 biggest construction and consulting businessmen in Canada, everyone agreed that the attitude of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Horner) in this specific project had been excellent. And I would like to come back to the hon. member who wants to talk about Mirabel. I would like to come back to the hon. member who would like to talk about certain other projects we should be ashamed of in Canada. I would like to say to the hon. member that as someone who travelled across this country, who has friends in the consulting business, Mirabel would be the glory of about any country. And when someone tells me that it is a mistake to have done what we did, I say that the only mistake the government made in that case was perhaps using project managers rather than civil servants to carry out the whole project and if that is the hon. member's defence of private enterprise as he sees it, that is bullshit and he is wrong. As it happens, the hon. member is talking out of context because Mirabel can be held as an example to every other country, as all experts agree.
As concerns our projects for penal institutions, we have consulting engineers in Quebec and in the other provinces whom we can hold as an example to others for the implementation of such projects, precisely because of the wish of the Canadian government to show confidence in our Canadian experts. However, when the hon. member makes erroneous statements, as I said a moment ago when I called another member a "liar," which I amended by saying that he was straying a bit far from the truth, this has really been his trademark in the last few months.

February 22, 1979
Adjournment Debate


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I understand that a point of order cannot be raised during the adjournment motion, but 1 would like the hon. member to note that on page 105 of the fifth edition of Beauchesne, the word he used earlier is said to be unparliamentary, and I hope he will at least try to retract what he said even though the word has already been
used. In any case, I can remind him that he has violated the Standing Orders of this House.
The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.32.

Friday, February 23, 1979