1980-10-09

OFFICIAL REPORT


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29 Elizabeth II

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Published under authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada
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Thursday, October 9, 1980


Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In light of the statement yesterday by the government's own Advisory Council on the Status of Women that the proposed human rights charter does not adequately protect women from discrimination, and in light of the apparent muzzling of discussion on the constitution and women by the government's refusal of funds for the National Action Committee's special October 18 meeting of leaders of women's groups scheduled for Winnipeg, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney):
That this House instructs the government to immediately assure all Canadian women that any proposed charter of rights will reflect recognition by the government of the need for protection of their rights.


Madam Speaker:: This motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PARLIAMENTARY RESTAURANT
Mr. Vince Dantzer (Okanagan North):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 regarding a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas there are 28 members of Parliament from the province of British Columbia in this House, whereas these members often welcome and entertain constituents on Parliament Hill, in view of the resolution now before this House which purports to guarantee that everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment, and since the Parliamentary Restaurant does not offer wine produced in British Columbia, members from that province are subject to the cruel and unusual treatment or punishment of having to serve their
guests wine not produced in British Columbia, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen (Mr. King):
That this House strongly urge those responsible to put an end to this cruel and unusual treatment and allow superb British Columbia wines to be served under the auspices of the Parliamentary Restaurant.


Madam Speaker:: I doubt that this is a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.


GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam
Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Given the government's apparent obsession with the protection of human rights for Canadian citizens, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn):
That the government cease the practice of illegally raising postal rates without reference to Parliament, that it stop governing by orders in council, and that it implement the recommendations of the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments tabled in July, 1980, which would protect the rights of Canadians and strengthen the parliamentary system.


Madam Speaker:: The motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CALL FOR PROGRAMS TO MEET THRONE SPEECH COMMITMENTS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the government's commitment in the Speech from the Throne to bring before Parliament a program of action designed to promote a national development policy, to provide jobs, stimulate growth and increase Canadian ownership and control of our economy, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell):
That this House calls on the government to immediately bring before Parliament the programs that it promised in the Speech from the Throne and that meaningful job-creation programs be implemented to alleviate the totally unacceptable levels of unemployment in our country.


Madam Speaker:: This motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?

October 9, 1980


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the tremendous courage, determination and will to escape from a life of oppression and lack of freedom demonstrated by Vladas Sak-alys, a Lithuanian dissident, in his daring escape from the Soviet Union, travelling some 400 kilometres in 20 days by walking, swimming and sometimes crawling, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson):
That this Flouse, in congratulating Mr. Sakalys, requests that the Secretary of State for External Affairs make every effort to assist in the reunification of Mr. Sakalys with his wife and two young children.


Madam Speaker:: Such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the Elouse. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: 
SMALL BUSINESS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Since it has become abundantly clear as of late that the present government is doing very little to assist the small business community, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae):
That the federal government introduce immediately a "Buy Canada" policy with teeth in it that would enable the federal government to purchase goods and services from Canadian companies wherever economically feasible.


Madam Speaker:: Such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Andre Bachand (Missisquoi):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 43 to ask for unanimous consent of the House to introduce a motion dealing with a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that CP Rail has given notice that it will discontinue its Montreal-Farnham and Montreal-Sainte-Therese passenger service on October 26, 1980, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Veillette):
That the Canadian government along with the Canadian Transport Commission take immediate steps to prevent the discontinuation of passenger service between Montreal-Farnham and Montreal-Sainte-Therese.


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the motion of the hon. member. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PENITENTIARIES
Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The reoccurrence of another hostage-taking incident at Dorchester penitentiary follows a series of disturbances and escapes and establishes the need of affirmative government action to avoid further risk of life to penal officers. Accordingly, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hastings-Frontenac (Mr. Vankoughnet):
That this House instruct the Solicitor General to implement the recommendation of the hon. member for Cumberland-Colchester by holding a public inquiry into the operation of Dorchester penitentiary.


Madam Speaker:: Presentation of this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
October 9, 1980


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the continued harassment and persecution of Kim Dae-Jung, former presidential candidate and leader of the non-communist opposition in South Korea, which has culminated in the military court handing down the death sentence, and in view of the limited possibilities of appeal procedures and the extreme possibility of an early execution, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta):
Thai this House protest the deplorable action of the military court in South Korea in sentencing to death Kim Dae-Jung, and that this House urge Korean President Chun to secure the release of Mr. Kim.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL GAS EXPORTS-GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT TO BE HONOURED-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the authority of Standing Order 43. In light of the Liberal government's dismal track record in ignoring its campaign promises, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser):
That the House direct the Liberal government to honour their commitments made on an open line show in Vancouver by the present government House leader in the other place, that there will be no federal tax on the export of natural gas.


Mr. MacEachen:: Who said that?


Madam Speaker:: Such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, I have some questions for the Prime Minister that relate to a practice which we believe constitutes a grave abuse of both Parliament and of public funds. The Minister of State for Multiculturalism was asked on television this morning whether the government's policy was, and I quote as follows:
Before any of our taxpayers' money is spent we want to know that Parliament has approved of the concept that you are advertising.
The answer of the minister was:
In principle, that is right.
I wonder if the Prime Minister would tell us whether the minister was speaking for the government?


Mr. Andre:: The government has no principles.


Hon. Jim Fleming (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Madam Speaker, of course I was speaking in my role as chairman of the cabinet committee on communications. If I may, to correct-among the hee-haws from the opposition- what was said this morning, I said that I believed-and this is the policy we have followed-that advertising carried out and paid for out of public funds by the federal government should widely reflect Parliament, as our phase one ads on the constitution run in August did. I believe they reflected the opinions on all sides of the House of Commons to call for constitutional reform during the referendum debate. I said that I also felt that it was either support from all sides of the House or a policy that had at least been passed in principle in the House.


PARLIAMENTARY APPROVAL OF PROGRAMS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the strange reluctance of the Prime Minister to answer that question, which had to do with the statement of government policy and the qualification by the Minister of State for Multiculturalism that he had made that statement in his capacity as chairman of the cabinet committee, leaves unanswered whether or not the minister was speaking for the government, and whether the policy that was stated and quoted exactly from a transcript of a program on CTV this morning, and which differs slightly from what the minister had just said in the House, that in principle the Government of Canada can justify spending taxpayers' money only when Parliament has approved of the concept that has teen advertised, is the position of the Government of Canada.
I would ask the Prime Minister not to fob that off on to someone else, but to speak for his government himself and tell us whether that is the policy of his government.

October 9, 1980
Oral Questions


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, I certainly approve the principle as just stated by the minister in his previous answer. In so far as what was stated this morning, I will inquire and find out what was stated. I can see in the quotation there that it obviously cannot be the policy of the government that every advertisement would have to be approved by Parliament, if that is the meaning of the words that I read. Because the Government of Canada is involved in many forms of advertising, such as recruiting for the armed services and so on, and this does not come before Parliament.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister will know that in the leaked document that outlined the various policies the government would follow to try to manipulate public opinion as we went into the question of constitutional reform, specific reference was made to, and I quote:
-once the government has decided what action it intends to take, and Parliament has been reconvened to debate that proposed action, the role of advertising changes. At that point, public funds are being used to sell the governing party's position-
The memorandum to cabinet then went on to say:
Under these circumstances, ministers need to decide if advertising is politically legitimate.
1 wonder if the Prime Minister will tell the House of Commons what was the decision of the Government of Canada on that question of political legitimacy, which was put to ministers by this document?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I would imagine that most ministers, like myself, have not read that document.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1 received it and I can say in all sincerity that it was much too long a document for me to read.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, given the difficulty of the public service, then, in communicating with the Prime Minister, might I suggest that the Prime Minister have this full document sent to whichever advertising agency is working for the Minister of State for Multiculturalism so that he might have prepared a small advertisement to communicate the contents of the government's advice to the government?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Madam Speaker, if that is seriously recommended by the opposition I will take that into consideration.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


REPORTED STATEMENT BY MINISTER ON CBC TELEVISION
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, I would like to direct a supplementary question to the minister of state for government propaganda.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: I could not think of a more inappropriate Dr. Goebbels, Madam Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: I said inappropriate.


An hon. Member:: You or him?


James Aloysius McGrath: Last night on the CBC national news, according to this transcript, the minister had this to say:
The content of ads should reflect either a policy that has been approved at least in principle in Parliament or widely reflect the views of all sides of the House of Commons. It is my view that it is inappropriate to go and spend the public's money on a view, if it is isolated to one party, albeit that that party is the government party.
If that is the minister's view, if he was accurately reported in that transcript, how then can the minister justify a continuation of this scandalous, outrageous advertising program which is undermining the role of Parliament?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: Better listen, Jim.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, obviously the hon. member does not watch television. I would deny vehemently that there is anything scandalous about communicating to Canadians information on a very important issue, constitutional reform, which leaders of all parties in this House supported strongly during the referendum campaign but seem to have changed their commitment a little since that time.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition seems to want to answer for me.


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: He could probably do a better job.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: The fact of the matter is that no constitutional ads have been run since September 8.


An hon. Member:: What about the billboards?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: The billboards will cease. They are under contract. When you purchase billboard space, you have to do it under a time contract and they will end on the fifteenth-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I am glad hon. members are listening, but I wish they would regain their sense of courtesy. I am trying to answer. They have asked me a question and I would like to answer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
October 9, 1980


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Someone shouted "What about the billboard ads?" Those ads-which again reflect very much what I thought was the view of this House of Commons-


Charles Joseph Clark: You thought?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: -that we needed constitutional reform-will expire on October 15.


James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, 1 am sorry to see the minister having to swallow himself whole without condiments.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: My question, very simply based on the reply which I have just received from the minister, is this: is he now giving this House an assurance, in keeping with the comments that he made last night on television, that there will be no more money spent on government advertising to promote the government's position on the bill that is now before the House? Is he giving the House that assurance?


An hon. Member:: No.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I will never assure the hon. member opposite that I will not attempt, as a member of the government, to communicate with the Canadian public something as important as the Canadian constitution.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I too have a question which pertains to information. I hope 1 have a little better response from the government than that which we just heard. Yesterday the Minister of Justice said that he would release publicly funded polls pertaining to federal-provincial relations only "when I don't need them any more", obviously expressing what seems to some of us a partisan concern.


Mr. Crosbie:: Never!


John Edward Broadbent: Will the minister indicate if he feels that this statement, which he is quoted as having made yesterday, squares with the basic principle of having freedom of information legislation in the first place?
[ Translation]


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, I said that polls had always been taken for the development of government policies. We asked some questions during the referendum campaign, just like the former government did in December, to
Oral Questions
ascertain public opinion and we used the same procedure during the referendum campaign. Other polls taken since then have been used to develop our policies. We intend to make them public when their usefulness for the development of government policies has been exhausted.


PUBLICLY FINANCED POLLS-INQUIRY AS TO HOW RESULTS COULD BE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, 1 will direct my supplementary to the Prime Minister since I asked him a question on the same subject yesterday. He indicated that he would be willing in principle to make information available, but suggested that sometimes such information, for example in the federal-provincial field, could be counterproductive. I wish to ask the Prime Minister how information gathered about the opinions of Canadians in the federal-provincial field, paid for by Canadians, would in any way be counter-productive to the public interest as opposed to the Liberal party interest if it were made public.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, it is well known, or at least suspected, that many democratic governments engage in polling systems to be informed of the opinions of their electorate. For example, I read a statement this morning to the effect that it happens in the province of Saskatchewan as well. Governments are interested in knowing and assessing between elections the opinions of those who constitute the basic sovereignty of the people. It is the government's job to govern. To govern, it uses this knowledge. If these polls were made public the moment they were gathered together, and if this were done on a universal basis by the NDP government in Saskatchewan and by all other governments in Canada, I think those governments would probably object to this kind of procedure because they are getting polls in order to determine the kind of action which is acceptable to the Canadian people. This is the basis on which they make their decisions.


Harvie Andre: Are you listening to what you are saying?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, I am not sure if the hon. member is listening,


Walter David Baker: Yes, we are, and we are
shocked.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If the hon. member is shocked, I would point out to him that when he was sitting on the government benches, the government of which he was a member was also taking polls of public opinion. We inherited several of these polls.


Walter David Baker: Publish them.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They were not made public by his government.


Walter David Baker: Publish them.
3522

October 9, 1980
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: You did not publish them.


Walter David Baker: You publish them.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We intend to publish them. That was the thrust of my answer yesterday.


Charles Joseph Clark: When? In ten years?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Leader of the Opposition did not publish them when he had the results.


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister forgets that in the proposed legislation dealing with freedom of information, the option is clearly there that poll data collected pertaining to federal-provincial relations may not be made available to the public. The further implication, therefore, is that the government of the day may be asking questions and keeping the information ad infinitum. We have to rely on its judgment if it is not obligated by law, which sounds a little peculiar coming from a man who is at this time advocating a charter of rights to protect the interests of Canadian citizens.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: I should like to ask the Prime Minister this. In this particular field of federal-provincial relations, what conceivable kind of information should be kept from the people of Canada and not released to them once it is gathered? How would that jeopardize the public interest? Surely it can be used for partisan reasons exclusively. If the answer the Prime Minister is going to give us is the same as the one he has just given, his whole approach to the freedom of information legislation surely is a grotesque fantasy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, when the Leader of the New Democratic Party says these polls are used for partisan purposes, he seems to forget that in this instance the government is formed by the Liberal party, as it was formed last year by the Conservative party; and it is the government which is doing the polling and it is the government which is using the result of the poll to inform itself as to what policies-


An hon. Member:: Why shouldn't we see it?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: What about Parliament?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: For the same reason that when the provinces poll on a subject having to do with federal-provincial relations-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1 understand that the New Democratic Party is embarrassed; when getting power in Saskatchewan they followed practices which they condemn in opposition. This has been a constant pattern.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: But, Madam Speaker, I would like to be on record as saying, quite frankly I do not give a damn about polls and I do not take polls.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I would be perfectly happy-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I would be perfectly happy to support any move or any legislation making polling at the federal and provincial levels completely illegal.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: I recognize the hon. member for
Provencher.


An hon. Member:: This is incredible.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member for Provencher.


An hon. Member:: Publish and be damned.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Could we have some order, please. This is the third time I have given the floor to the hon. member for Provencher; he was not able to hear me.


GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Madam Speaker, I should like to direct a question to the minister responsible for government advertising, following up on questions of yesterday. The game plan of the Liberal party as it appears in a leaked memo-and I call it a game plan because they have been following it exactly-says that now is the time for the hard sell. Today in an interview the minister was asked about reports that the government was planning to expand its advertising budget to the tune of some $30 million in 1980 to sell the patriation plan, to which the minister replied "at the moment it isn't so". Would the minister now tell the House when the hard sell program is being planned and what is its budget?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, there has been no decision on a further constitutional campaign.
October 9, 1980


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Madam Speaker, the minister is again not giving an answer as to whether he will take the advice of many, including those who have written the memo, in regard to advertising in a period of time when Parliament is looking at the draft resolution. The government has to look very seriously at the legitimacy of advertising at that time. What can escalate, of course, is a propaganda war. In fact, a CP story quoting Premier Blakeney had that premier stating, for example, "Yes, we have ads prepared on behalf of Saskatchewan", but he fears "an advertising war".
I believe Canadians who want to look rationally at what is the best approach for our future in constitutional terms may find this could divide the country in its approach to constitutional renewal, rather than having a calm, rational debate here in the House where it should now take place. When will the government give clear assurance that it will stop its advertising campaign in view of the fact that Parliament now has the constitution resolution before it?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I have had mail from at least one member of the official opposition calling the constitutional ads excellent. We have the Premier of British Columbia delivering door-to-door information, we have Mr. Blakeney, who has never appeared to me to be someone full of fear of the federal government, talking about a campaign, and we have had Quebec doing it.
I think we have a serious problem in Canada in that Canadians in recent years have not had an opportunity to well understand the programs before Parliament. I would sit down and stand by those statements. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition left our part of what I said this morning in his statement, but the statement by the hon. member for St. John's East was basically accurate in respect of what I said. I stand by that. If and when we make a decision to run further ads then that answer will be available.


An hon. Member:: We are being goosed.


INQUIRY AS TO RATIONALE FOR $6 MILLION EXPENDITURE
Mr. John Bosley (Don Valley West):: Madam Speaker, I have a further question for the minister of government propaganda who chooses-


Some hon. Members:: Order, order.


John William Bosley: It is amazing, Madam Speaker, how members opposite do not like the truth. The minister who fully knows-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member resume his seat. I think the hon. member would benefit from calling the minister by his proper title; otherwise he might not get an answer.


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


John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, I stand corrected. I have a question for the minister for multiculturalism and government propaganda.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, the minister knows full well-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, I now know where the whole cast for the beaver ad was.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I will again give the hon. member the floor but I would ask him not to be argumentative and to go to his question immediately.


John William Bosley: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I have a question for the minister. I know what he stands for if he does not. The question is this. Since he chooses to ignore the staff report to himself which indicates that his ads are clearly partisan propaganda, I would ask him this question about the reasoning behind spending $6 million on the advertising. He maintains that the need is to tell Canadians about a matter, either, I presume-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


John William Bosley: There is a question.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the minister this question. Do you justify the $6 million-


An hon. Member:: Who are you asking?


John William Bosley: I am asking the minister, Madam Speaker, and he knows who is being asked. It is the minister for multiculturalism and-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. There has been a question. I heard a question. I do not know whether or not there is an answer, but I heard a question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I heard a question. If there is no answer then the hon. member can ask another question.


An hon. Member:: Go ahead, Jim.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. We have had a first question.


An hon. Member:: And no answer.

October 9, 1980
3524_______________________________
Oral Questions


Madam Speaker:: We heard the question. We waited to see if there was an answer and I saw a minister rise.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I believe in the midst of all of that the question was about the spending of $6 million and why. If that is the question, let me say that the amount in fact spent on what I call phase one is about $4.9 million; and I have no apology to make for an attempt to inform the Canadian public of a major issue now before Parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is to the same minister. Since the justification used in public this morning was to keep the public thinking about the fact that constitutional reform should take place, does the minister believe that the public does not think that constitutional reform should take place, and do we now have a new policy that government and public money will be used to tell people what they ought to think? Or does the minister believe that the public already supports constitutional reform, in which case what is the justification for spending the money in the first place?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, as a member of Parliament as well as a member of the cabinet-and I think this is in the hearts and minds of hon. members on all sides of this House- certainly in private conversations I have had I have found that there is a genuine concern, which is shared by a number of members of the media, that the Canadian public has a very difficult time being made aware of the various complex issues we consider on the floor of this House. I believe that the Prime Minister gave me a mandate to try to improve communications between the Government of Canada and the Canadian public, and I am trying to do that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


HEALTH CARE
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that many women are suffering and that some have died from the illness called toxic shock syndrome, caused by tampon use, can the minister tell the House what specific measures the government is taking in terms of research standards and labelling requirements in order to stop and prevent serious harm to Canadian women?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, we have had working meetings
with various companies marketing the product. They have begun improving the labelling and advertising used for these products. Unfortunately, I am unable to make a final answer today on this, but my department is studying right now what other form of public education would be best to use to make people aware of the weaknesses and problems so that they can make choices accordingly.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, public education will not be enough. It seems that the faith of this government in advertising stretches to all issues.
In view of the fact that Dr. Ajit DasGupta, head of the medical devices bureau of the health protection branch of the minister's own department, has said that they do not do research on tampons and contraceptive devices for women but that they do rigorous tests on condoms because, as Dr. DasGupta says, they respond to priorities, will the minister give an unequivocal assurance that she will change the priorities of her department in order to have effective research, regulations and health protection for Canadian women?


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, one of the very first matters which I addressed when I became Minister of National Health and Welfare was precisely that of alerting the pharmaceutical industry and the others who initiate the vast majority of research resulting in concrete findings in matters of contraceptives, because I too felt that the point of view of women had been overlooked. I also asked the Medical Research Council to make it a special priority, despite the fact that the council is not involved to any extent in operational research, in order to make sure that women, who are the first ones concerned in the matter, are never disregarded. That is the answer I can give the hon. member.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. Is the minister still pursuing his negotiations with his Quebec counterpart with a view to revising the federal-provincial agreement for the modernization of pulp and paper factories, and does the minister expect to sign that new agreement in the relatively near future?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Yes. Following the requests made by several provinces, including Quebec, the cabinet decided to increase the envelope by 20 per cent in the case of Ontario, 33 per cent in that of the maritimes, and 50 per cent for Quebec. Because of that sizeable increase, negotiations are now under way and I hope to be in a position very soon to tell the hon. member that an agreement will be signed with the Quebec government.
October 9, 1980


GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Madam Speaker, I would like to address my question to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism, following the questions addressed to him with respect to the advertising campaign of the government or of the Liberal party.
The minister has said in his statements in the House and in interviews that unless there is some consensus among the parties with respect to the subject of the advertising campaign, it would not be appropriate. In view of the fact that there are very substantial differences in this House with respect to the way in which constitutional reform should take place, does the minister consider that it is appropriate for the government at this time to enter into a very expensive advertising campaign? Does he not stand by his principle that there must be consensus as to what is to be achieved before there is an advertising campaign?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member's question is hypothetical because I have made it clear that at this time the cabinet has not approved a further campaign. However, I also tried to make it clear that if this House has approved in principle, then I think it is quite appropriate to go ahead and explain government policy-


Charles Joseph Clark: Formal approval?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: -in the same way that the ads which ran in the summer on what I call phase one broadly reflected Parliament and did not go into any specific issues where there was, in my view, wide controversy.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Madam Speaker, the point is exactly that, that there has not yet been a consensus with respect to the question of constitutional reform. There has not been approval in this House to this point in time. Therefore, in view of the government memorandum, which I am sure the minister has read carefully, with respect to advice on advertising campaigns, will the minister now make a categorical statement in the House that he is not going to subscribe to the advice he has received in this memorandum with respect to additional funds, so that we will be assured that there will be no further funds made available for the Liberal party advertising campaign?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, we have over several years done advertising through an office called the Canadian Unity Information Office about Canada and the national government. The last government, of which the hon. member was a member, did that as well.


Mr. Nielsen:: That is not true.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: It is part of an ongoing campaign to inform the Canadian public. I have made myself clear on several
Oral Questions
occasions today about the principles 1 stand by on Government of Canada advertising. I said this morning, however-and I continue to be concerned and I say it quite openly-that that may have to be reviewed if indeed the provinces take an aggressive stand without the approval of their own legislatures, such as that taken by Premier Bennett of British Columbia.


APPROVAL OF UNILINGUAL ADVERTISEMENTS
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the same minister. The minister has just finished saying that it is the Canadian Unity Information Office which is the vehicle for expressing government policy, yet an official of that office has said this in relation to this campaign: "Final approval is really at the cabinet level. We did not make the decision to go with one language. We approved the ads in both languages."
Since the minister says it is the Canadian Unity Information Office that is the vehicle of government policy, how is it that it is the cabinet which gave approval for unilingual ads?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is confused and he confuses me with what he quotes. When I spoke of constitutional ads, 1 spoke of the Canadian Unity Information Office, which comes under the minister responsible for federal-provincial relations. I do not understand the hon. member's question. I thought the hon. member would understand it is basic policy that when we go to spend taxpayers' money, the cabinet has to approve the spending of it. Therefore, we approved the spending of that $6 million. Not all of that money has been spent. There is no further constitutional ad campaign approved at this time.


Benno Friesen: Madam Speaker, the fact is that the cabinet has been in such a hurry to get these ads out that it violated the Official Languages Act in doing so.


An hon. Member:: Question.


Benno Friesen: I would like to ask the minister who authorized him to spend money in contravention of the act, and if this is such a non-partisan ad campaign, why was the national unity office not used?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, with all respect to the hon. member, that is a silly question. I am sure he would not, and I would not, authorize the approval of any ad campaign which made that mistake. I believe there were articles in the newspaper. That was drawn to my attention several days ago. Clearly an error was made. It is being cleared up, and replacement ads were put up some time ago. I really find it very humorous, after its experience over six months, for the opposition to laugh at a mistake being made.

October 9, 1980
Oral Questions


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR UNDERTAKING ADVERTISEMENTS WILL NOT CONTRAVENE ADVICE TO MINISTER
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I have a question to direct to the Minister of State for Multicul-turalism. This morning on CTV he said this:
I don't think that public funds should be spent by any government unless that campaign reflects a policy approved by Parliament or widely reflecting Parliament.
In view of the processes that we have yet to go through here in this Parliament-that is, the reference itself and ultimately a joint parliamentary committee which, if it means anything at all, means it will be considering possible changes, hardly a situation either approved by Parliament or widely reflected in Parliament-will the minister undertake to the House that while the process is in place before Parliament, whether at this stage, the committee stage or any subsequent stage, there will be no ads that might contravene the principles set forth in the advice that the minister himself received from his own officials?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has heard me throughout this question period, and I have tried to make myself very clear. I did not say "approved by Parliament"; I said "approved in principle", and that is clearly what I said.


Some hon. Members:: No, no.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: If the hon. member looks at the full transcript, he will see it there. If he wants to pick one or two lines, he can do that, but that is what I said yesterday and I was clear on that. If I left out those two words at one point, clearly if the hon. member listened over a period of time or checked any set of transcripts he would find that that was the intention, no matter how much the hon. member shakes his head.
I think it would be irresponsible for me to give any assurance-I am surprised the hon. member would ask for it-but I will do my very best in my role in the cabinet to communicate with the Canadian people on the policies of the Government of Canada, and I have set down the terms under which I will attempt to do that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, one of the problems in this country is the communication of the policies of this government. What I am asking the minister is whether he will undertake to the House not to complicate even further by possible misinformation the problems of the country. Will he undertake that?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: First, Madam Speaker, this apparent piousness about something as fundamental as informing the Canadian public, which I think is the responsibility of any government, coming from the opposition House leader after that ridiculous ad run by the Progressive Conservatives a week
ago claiming action we did not take, is fine, and certainly they paid for it and I am glad they did. Because when they talk about being responsible, which is the point I am trying to make, that particular advertising campaign accused the government of a policy that has not been taken by the government.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: We are trying to inform the Canadian public about policies that either widely reflect Parliament or indeed have been approved in principle. My hon. friends are either thick skulled or obstinate, because I made it clear throughout this question period that at this time there is no campaign. Yes, there may be a campaign and we will have to determine the circumstances. I know they are the voices of the provinces rather than the voices of the nation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


THE CANADIAN ECONOMY
Mr. Bob Rae (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. In one of his few forays into the public realm the minister said, and I quote from a recent speech:
In the next few years, a great deal of purchasing power will be withdrawn from the Canadian economy as energy prices rise.
I should like to ask the minister whether he can give us a firm and solemn commitment that any increase in energy prices will be accompanied by a simultaneous imposition of a cost of living tax credit which will provide compensation for Canadians at the lower end of the scale who can least afford-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: You are a year late; you have already voted against that.


An hon. Member:: You moved a motion against that.


Bob Rae: I stress the word "simultaneous" cost of living tax credit to protect those Canadians who can least afford the energy price rises which appear now to be the deliberate policy of this government.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Well, Madam Speaker, the hon. member has asked me to provide a solemn and firm undertaking. Solemnity is not part of my approach to public life and I could not possibly emulate the NDP in the field of solemnity on all occasions. But I will answer the question simply: I
October 9, 1980

cannot give an undertaking at this point, simultaneous or unphased.


Bob Rae: Well, the minister is lugubrious if he is not solemn, Madam Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Bob Rae: I should like to ask the minister a supplementary question. Elsewhere in the same speech he said, with modesty worthy of his predecessor, the hon. member for St. John's West:
-let me assure you that it was to create jobs, improve living standards and promote greater equity that I took on the position of Minister of Finance.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bob Rae: What did he plan to do on the fourth day?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Bob Rae: 1 see him laughing now. I would like to ask the minister how that commitment, which appeared to be pretty solemn in the context of the speech, gibes with the fact that we have had since this government took power 1,000 lay-offs per working day, according to the government's own composite industrial wage, workers across Canada have fallen behind in the cost of living, and therefore their living standard has declined. Finally, so far as equity is concerned, nowhere in all of Canada have wages fallen further behind the cost of living than in Atlantic Canada. I would like to know how the record of this government compares with the rather high and solemn standard which the minister has set for himself.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I guess the hon. member has proven the danger of making speeches and the even greater danger of circulating, so the hon. member will have an opportunity to quote from them. In any event I do not find any contradiction between the declaration of objectives and the current situation.
I believe that as time goes on the hon. member will, I hope, be convinced that the government is making a very serious effort to live up to the objectives which were laid out in that speech.


HEALTH CARE
Erik Nielsen: I have a question for the Minister of Justice in his capacity as Minister of State for Social Development. The minister, of course, is aware that his government has often stated its concern for the native people, and indeed he has himself on many occasions. He must be aware that for less than $4 million the federal government could establish a program to reduce infant mortality rates. This program would reduce native infant mortality rates by almost half, which would mean a reduction from 28 to 15
Oral Questions
deaths per 1,000 and in the national rate from 16 to 10 per 1,000 live births.
1 ask the Minister of Justice in his capacity as Minister of State for Social Development to explain to the House, and indeed to all Canadians, how he can permit this government to give priority to the Liberal advertising program over a reduction of infant deaths in this country.
[Translation}


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, since 1 am responsible for population data, which form the base, and for social policies, and since my colleague the Minister of State for Social Development is responsible for broad directions, may I ask the hon. member whether he would be so kind as to repeat his question?


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I put the question to the Minister of Justice who has been minister of Indian affairs in a previous administration and who is now responsible on behalf of his government for social development in this country. If he is not interested enough to answer the question I put to him- he is the one from whom I wanted an answer-then I will forgo putting it to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: My supplementary question is again directed to the Minister of Justice in his capacity as minister responsible for both constitutional and social development in the country. Would he please explain why a non-essential constitutional advertising campaign was initiated, rather than an immunization program for small children which would have enhanced the co-operative spirit in this country? Obviously the minister puts a higher priority on showing Canada geese on television rather than on the health of our young children.


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, I would like to answer two parts of the question which are clearly within the Department of National Health and Welfare. I do not know why the member tries to ask a minister who does not have that information.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: He is responsible.


Monique Bégin: I would like to tell him-


An hon. Member:: He does not want the answer.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I think even at this stage, although the question period is practically ending, we do need some silence, and I would thank members for that.


Monique Bégin: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The member is trying to link alleged cuts in very key programs to other

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
spending of the government. He is misleading the House right now.


An hon. Member:: Withdraw.


Monique Bégin: The $6 million or something-


An hon. Member:: It is $6.2 million.


Monique Bégin: The $6.2 million, as my colleague in the opposition pretends to know, for a so-called children's immunization program is not within federal jurisdiction. That has never been cut because it has never existed in the first place. It falls clearly within provincial jurisdiction. That is the first accusation.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Monique Bégin: As to the second one, I suppose the member is aware of the health problems of Indians; I hope he visits them in his own riding. He should know that the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and myself are moving at a pace which pleases us to have Indians take over health administration at the pace for which each community is prepared and make new requests according to the requests they are making to us.


PRIVILEGE
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, yesterday arising out of questions directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), I reserved, on a point of order, my right to raise a question of privilege. Since that time we have heard, by way of the public media, from the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming), who is responsible for government propaganda or communications. Also we have had replies in the House today.
I raise this as a question of privilege because I believe the practice the government has begun is an affront to the notion of open and free debate, which is basic to the theory of privilege in a parliamentary system. The inside front cover of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice has a thematic quote which reads:
When you have convinced thinking men that it is right, and humane men that it is just, you will gain your cause. Men lose half of what is gained by violence. What is gained by argument is gained forever.
In the formative years of Parliament the threat of violence was the most obvious impediment to parliamentary debate. The privilege sections of Erskine May are full of references to acts of intimidation which were specifically forbidden so that rational debate, free of physical fear, free of issues of personality, could proceed. Privilege does not exist to prohibit violence. It exists to guarantee the conditions necessary for productive debate. We would be misreading privilege if we applied the specific precedents and forgot their purpose.
Just as our constitution did not foresee all the jurisdictional disputes of today, the law of privilege could not foresee all the conditions under which debate could be throttled. If we recall the purpose of parliamentary privilege I do not think we can ignore what is now taking place. In essence, the public has been compelled to pay for advertising which supports the partisan position of one political party, albeit the government political party. The purpose of such advertising can only be to inhibit the opposition in its attempt to debate government policy or the assumptions on which it is based.
This Parliament has passed a law about partisan advertising and the public purse. Under the Election Expenses Act parties are able to collect money and contributors receive refunds. The Liberal party has used its executive position unilaterally to help itself to additional funds. Unfortunately there are no refunds for the taxpayers here. As has been pointed out in the House, we as a party have advertised against the proposal to de-index personal income taxes. We use money properly collected and accounted for as political contributions under the Election Expenses Act. In the referendum campaign in Quebec, both sides had public funds placed at their disposal.
The Minister of State for Multiculturalism seems to understand perfectly the division between acceptable and unacceptable advertising. Last night he said to a CBC reporter:
The content of the ads should reflect either a policy that has been approved at least in principle in Parliament or widely reflect the views of all sides of the House of Commons.
The proposal before the House has not been approved in any way as yet, either in principle or in any other way. There are sharp differences emerging in the debate between the parties.
A continuation or escalation of this practice would seriously challenge our democratic system of open, unprejudiced debate. Ads paid for by the executive are merely the modern equivalent of the corruption and intimidation which contaminated the House of Commons at an earlier stage of its development.
I believe this view was supported by the opinion of Madam Speaker's distinguished and illustrious predecessor, Mr. Speaker Jerome. As reported in Hansard at page 2180 of the last session, when government task forces were challenged by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom), Mr. Speaker said:
The support of public funds, where applied to parliamentary activities, ought,
1 think, to apply across the floor of Parliament-
That principle equally applies here. If the public is to be informed at public expense, it should be informed on both sides of the question.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: The practice now gaining in use is a dangerous one to the cause of fair debate. 1 think the present ad campaigns and the problem generally should be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.
My argument was supported today by statements made in the House by the Minister of State for Multiculturalism, the minister in charge of government communications, when he
October 9, 1980

talked about views having to reflect Parliament widely or approval in principle of Parliament. He went on to say that he had no hesitation in spending money to tell the Canadian people about a matter that is before Parliament. He has refused to give us an undertaking in keeping with what he said last night on television, that he would not permit any further public money to be spent on government advertising campaigns until this measure has been disposed of by the House. He refused categorically today to give us that assurance. If I needed any further arguments to support my question of privilege, I would merely have to refer to the Hansard of today and the replies of the hon. Minister of State for Multiculturalism.
Therefore, if Madam Speaker agrees in her wisdom that I have a prima facie question of privilege, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker):
That the matter of the financing of public advertising campaigns at taxpayers' expense on behalf of a partisan policy or opinion, before such policy or opinion has been approved by the House of Commons, be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, 1 rise on behalf of all my colleagues to lend our complete support to the question of privilege that has just been raised in the House of Commons.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: I think it is incontestably the case, or ought to be the case, if the rules of this House were properly enforced in the best traditions of this House, that money spent for advertising should be specifically linked with programs that Parliament as a whole has approved, not ones that are under debate or discussion. In supporting this question of privilege I want to underline the connection that exists between the advertising that could be used and, in our view, has been used from time to time by the present government for partisan purposes and the related question of polling. Everyone knows that before you spend thousands, indeed millions of dollars, on advertising, you do the polling first. We heard earlier in the day, in answers from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), not an apology for keeping for government purposes information that was to be used by them until, in the words of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) spoken in Toronto yesterday, it was no longer of use, presumably to the government of the day. I can see no other meaning to that.
We have a government which has been preaching the importance of freedom of information and has drafted a farce of a bill, which is full of loopholes, and the Prime Minister today said they are going to keep information on federal-provincial relations away from members on this side of the House. I think that information should be available. 1 do not want my argument misunderstood. 1 do not think anyone on either side of the House would deny the legitimacy of polling. There is absolutely nothing wrong with polling, as such, to obtain
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
information. The question is: should that information be made available to the people who pay for it? The answer from this side of the House is, yes, it should be.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: A question of considerable importance is at stake here. On the one hand, the government is polling, and no one objects to that-the Prime Minister tried in his usual way to confuse the issue today-and on the other the real issue is withholding information obtained in the polling and then, specifically related to the question of privilege which was raised today, putting ads in the papers, on television and on radio networks right across Canada, that have as their prime purpose the partisan interests of the Liberal government of the day, to further their particular views On a controversial issue. Surely, Madam Speaker, that is wrong.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Madam Speaker, I want to make a brief intervention in support of my colleague on his eloquent, articulate, and well-motivated question of privilege as a member of Parliament. 1 address myself particularly to the members on the government side of the House because I think each of us as members of Parliament must consider the function of raising questions of privilege before the Speaker and the purpose for which we do that.
The purpose of questions of privilege is to raise matters which arise where the individual member of Parliament is somehow interfered with in the performance of his functions and duties as a member. I can think of nothing in this particular instance that has been raised in this House over the course of this Parliament which has been of the same consequence, because of the enormity of the expenditure that is taking place as a result of the government involvement in a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, which I submit is contrary to every fundamental principle upon which Parliament has been developed and fought for over the years.
The normal tradition in our country has been that the issues have been decided upon in free and unfettered debate in the House of Commons, on the floor of this House, as reported by an independent press, as viewed in an unrestricted way by the people of this country. We now have an additional dimension to our situation in Parliament-we have television. For the government spokesman, the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming), to stand up and say that the point of view of the government has not been adequately expressed and he must recommend to his colleagues that they devote enormous sums of money to an advertising campaign is ludicrous in the extreme. We are now being broadcast live across this country, in every corner, with the exception of remote northern areas.
If this were the only instance-the one we are talking about now with respect to the whole question of advertising on the constitution-well, that would be fine. The minister may give his excuse, but there has been a pattern developing with respect to government advertising since the minister has taken

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
over this responsibility. This shows to me, and should show to all of us as members of Parliament, that there is a plan afoot to enter into and cross that line of appropriate advertising which should be used only for educational or informative purposes, that is to say, when legislation has been approved and passed by Parliament.
Madam Speaker, there is a pattern being developed by this government, and in the instances that I put before you I hope to convince you there is a valid question of privilege here. We had initially a quarter of a million dollars spent on a decision that had already been made by the government with respect to the acquisition of fighter aircraft in Canada-a quarter of a million dollars congratulating the government on a good decision. They did that before the test plane crashed. The fact is it was a self-congratulatory and self-serving kind of advertisement which had nothing whatever to do with a question of education or information but, rather, was politically motivated.
My colleague now has raised the question of advertising with respect to energy matters-misleading in the extreme.
An hon. Mfember: False!


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: False and wrong. These particular advertising campaigns are telling Canadians they have nothing to worry about with respect to their energy future, when we know there is an energy crisis. Now, with respect to the matter that is before the House, we have a debate taking place on the very rudiments, the very fundamental principles upon which our country is based, our constitution. Political cynicism has been observed in this country before. But I doubt whether or not it has cost us in the vicinity of $6 million every time the Minister of State for Multiculturalism addresses the cabinet. That is the ultimate in political cynicism with respect to the very important matter which I and every member of this House feel very strongly about.
My final submission to Your Honour is this: there has been a memorandum which has been under consideration by cabinet, which has been leaked and which has been acknowledged by the minister as well as by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). Just so we do not lose sight of the gravity of what the government is entering into with this advertising campaign, I want to quote from this memorandum. It may involve $6 million with respect to the constitution at the present time, but there is every possibility of substantially more money being spent and, indeed, with respect to all its advertising, the estimate is now upward of $50 million.
I believe that a committee should be seized with looking at the advice which the government is now receiving, to consider and recommend to the House guidelines with respect to government advertising. If we look at what has been recommended by the minister through his advisers to cabinet, there is additional reason for having this matter sent to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.
I would like to quote from this memorandum which outlines the scenario with regard to advertising on the constitutional debate:
But once the government has decided what action it intends to take and Parliament has been reconvened to debate that proposed action, the role of advertising changes. At that point, public funds are being used to sell the governing party's position, yet such funds are not available to opposition parties. Thus, the opposition has no effective way to respond, in contrast to the provinces which can, and did during the summer, respond by running their own advertising programs. Under these circumstances, ministers need to decide if advertising is politically legitimate.
That quotation. Madam Speaker, speaks volumes with respect to the intrusion into the House of Commons and the effect that this kind of advertising campaign has on my ability and yours to represent the people whom we have been elected to represent adequately. What is happening is that we are turning this whole question of constitutional reform, indeed, every major issue which comes up in our country, into an advertising war between different levels of government, and between the government with the power of the purse in its hand and the opposition, the role and function of which is to criticize constructively the programs of the government.
Never in this Parliament has there been an issue of this consequence with respect to the invasion of the rights of members of Parliament. I strongly support the motion put forth by my colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath).


Madam Speaker:: I can see that there are several members who want to speak on this particular question. I want to thank the hon. member who just spoke for having at least during part of his speech attempted to focus on the reasons for which he thinks there is a question of privilege. I want to remind hon. members who intend to speak that at this particular stage of the proceedings I am trying to be enlightened as to where the privilege stands. 1 would be grateful if hon. members would focus their remarks on elaborating where they feel the question of privilege lies.
I have not yet found a prima facie case of privilege, nor have I found to the contrary, but I am trying to inform myself of the reasons for which there might be a question of privilege. I would be grateful if, rather than debating the question itself, hon. members would concentrate their remarks in that area.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Madam Speaker, in rising to support the question of privilege by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), I agree with your ruling that the issue before us is whether or not the privileges of myself and my colleagues to participate and come up with a decision on the proposed resolution have in any way been thwarted. We must put the matter into context in view of the fact that throughout the summer there was a campaign by the government to put before the Canadian people their position on constitutional renewal. Some members of this House stated, before we rose for the summer recess, that Parliament was the place where this matter should be first debated.
That debate is now in the House. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), in his address to the nation last Thursday, said that
October 9, 1980

Parliament had the responsibility to debate this issue. He also said in his address:
Every member of Parliament from every corner of this land is asked to participate in this historic act.
The question before us then is whether or not participation is only the right to rise and speak, or whether it does not also include the right to change the proposal that in its present form is only tentative in nature. The Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming) put the matter into context when he spoke this morning on the CTV program "Canada AM." He said in part:
And then when that program has at least been approved in principle you have the right to tell the public about the program and spend some money on explaining it, otherwise how is the public ever going to know.
I am sure that the minister would agree that this House has not yet approved the resolution. Indeed, the government has not put a resolution before the House, but a proposed resolution. There is a notice of motion to strike a joint committee. 1 believe, at this point in time when Parliament is debating a possible course of action, that what the government is attempting to do is, possibly not to throttle every member here, but to make the point, now, to everyone outside the House, that no matter what argument is raised, legitimately or otherwise, that argument is not valid and that the plan of action has been completed. I think that point was illustrated by the government in the charade at the first ministers' conference through the manner in which it conducted its affairs. That charade is now being transferred into this House.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, on the question of privilege and in answer to the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent) who talked about polls, I would simply say that I think it bears no relation to the question of privilege. We were able to answer during oral question period.
Now I should like to speak about the matter of advertising as mentioned by hon. members of the opposition. First of all, I should like to inform the House that the advertising which is referred to was terminated on radio and television on September 8 and that, in addition, as everybody knows, the advertising through billboards will be over this month. It is because of the very nature of that kind of advertising that it will be finished later. As a matter of fact, billboards must be leased for a certain period of time.
But in the very substance of the advertising which was made during the summer, Madam Speaker, absolutely no government position was proposed. If hon. members look objectively at the advertising, they will see that it began after the referendum in Quebec. I recall clearly that on May 21, the day after the referendum, all members present in the House said that the time had come to undertake constitutional changes. All members offered me their best wishes for the work I was undertaking that day, when 1 was about to leave to visit the
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
premiers, and for the summer during which I met with all my colleagues to try and make some progress in constitutional matters and have the consensus of the provinces.
I do not think that anybody here could now accuse us of not doing everything possible during the summer to try to achieve a consensus. During that time we ran some ads. I will not apologize for it. This publicity tried to raise the consciousness of the Canadian people by telling them how important it was to make the constitution a truly Canadian document, how important it was to do this in the wake of the referendum so as to achieve some progress. I do not think that this publicity, at any time, was aimed at selling a point of view. For instance, during the debate in the House, we said that it was extremely important to patriate the constitution. Every member of this House, including the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), agrees that we must patriate the constitution. All parties agree that if we patriate the Canadian constitution we need an amending formula, without which we could not amend the constitution. To say that is important at this time to have-


An hon. Member:: We listened to you.


Charles Joseph Clark: We spoke the truth.


An hon. Member:: You tripped over it.


Walter David Baker: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I understood that you had directed members of the House to deal with the question of privilege. I thought that you narrowed that down quite nicely, just before the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) spoke, and requested members to speak about the merits, the motivation, and what have you. I thought that the hon. member for Provencher respected your ruling, and I would respectfully request that the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) address his remarks to the question of privilege raised and put in a draft motion by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath).


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. It is always the hope of the Chair that at some point some arguments will elucidate the real question of privilege. The Chair often has to be patient with certain speakers in order to ascertain whether that is going to be the case. I would expect that the hon. minister has heard the remarks of his colleague, and that in order to help the Chair he will try to restrict himself to the reasons for which he feels there is or is not privilege.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, that is exactly what I was doing. I was explaining the nature of the publicity, and telling hon. members and the Chair that there was nothing in that publicity that was partisan. It was the goal that the House of Commons was pursuing at that time, in order to have constitutional reform come quickly and effectively to Canada. I do not think that the privileges of members have been affected. We told Canadians there was a problem and that the problem should be solved quickly.

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
I just want to say, Madam Speaker, that there is absolutely no question of privilege in that matter. It was just a matter of informing the public of a problem that existed in Canada, a problem that the House of Commons on May 21 asked me to do my best to resolve. At that moment, one of the policies was to make sure that the public understood the nature of the problem we were having. At no time was there any publicity that was partisan. The publicity stopped on September 8, the day before the opening of the constitutional conference in Ottawa.
Of course, Madam Speaker, I will not deny that there are still some billboards out there. On the billboards it says that Canada is a great country and asks Canadians to think about it. There is no question about that. If they think that because we are proud of being Canadians that that would affect their privilege, I will never apologize for that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: 1 just say, Madam Speaker, that there is no substance to that. In terms of the privileges of the House, I should like to quote the Premier of Quebec. On March 31, in reply to a provincial member of the National Assembly, one who is more or less the Conservative or Union Nationale member, Monsieur Fontaine of the riding of Nicolet, who was complaining that the Quebec government was having a lot of publicity like-

-"Become attached to Quebec", or "dare", or something like that, between equals!-

-and what not, Premier Levesque said that, it is the duty of any government to inform its constituents of what is going on.
I think there is some publicity at the present time on the radio in Quebec. 1 heard it when coming to Ottawa not long ago.
The publicity we had was to inform those in the public who did not realize that we had a major problem in Canada. We were not offering Canadians one or the other solution, but the one solution that we all believe in, that this Canada should remain one, united, and strong.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am very sorry to hear a member of the opposition complain because we have a preoccupation that when you have the best country in the world you do not take any chance about it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I shall attempt to address myself to the substance of the question of privilege. I believe there are probably two elements here that commend themselves to your attention. One has to do with the statement of the minister that advertising would be legitimate only if it had been approved in principle in Parliament. That language, "approved in principle" in Parliament-and I am quoting exactly from transcripts-


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Or widely reflected.


Charles Joseph Clark: Now he also adds, "or widely reflected". Earlier, in question period today, he indicated to the House of Commons what standard would be adduced to determine a wide reflection of opinion. He said that if he thought there was a wide reflection of opinion, then there would be a wide reflection of opinion. I would like to suggest to you, Madam Speaker, that it is at least an innovation, and certainly unacceptable, to suggest that a minister of the Crown is empowered by his own judgment to adduce the position of Parliament.
When we use the words "approved in principle" in this House, we use those words in a quite specific and quite legal context. They have to do with formal, legal approval of a matter that has come before, been debated and approved by, a majority of members of the House of Commons. It is not a question of opinion; it is a question of decision. That is what approval means in the lexicon of Parliament. That is the only basis upon which government advertising of the kind that this minister is attempting to justify, could be justified. It is not a matter, simply, of sentiments being expressed; it is a matter of decisions having been made on a wide range of questions. Contrary to the view of my good friend, the Minister of Justice, (Mr. Chretien), section 42 would not advance the federal state but holds the prospect of ending the federal state and establishing a unitary state.
I have excerpts here of certain of the advertising programs that have been used. The advertising program is designed to express support for federalism. The bill that is being debated contains a provision which could mean the end of federalism and its replacement not by separatism but its replacement by a unitary state.


Mr. Harquail:: That is in your mind.


Charles Joseph Clark: I am told that that is simply my opinion, but it is the opinion that 1 have expressed as the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of my party on a question that has not yet been decided here in the House of Commons. What the government is trying to do is to suggest that its advertisements reflect a decision that has been taken. That is false; that decision has not been taken. Those advertisements cannot be justified as being in any way a reflection of a decision taken here. That is one point, Madam Speaker-that approval in principle has a specific legal meaning here, and that we have not reached approval in principle of those points that are the subject of advertising.
The other matter, Madam Speaker, will perhaps require a little more consideration by the Chair and the law officers at the Table because it has to do with the application to Parliament of new techniques of communication-new techniques in public pursuasion. Reference has been made to the use of public opinion polls.
If I may impose upon the House for just a moment, I had intended to raise a question of privilege later simply to set the record straight. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) had indicated that during our period in office we had conducted
October 9, 1980

public opinion polls and held them secret. The facts are that during that period we conducted three public opinion polls: one on energy, one on federal-provincial relations, and one on multiculturalism. The poll on the energy matter was released because there was a request, and instructions were given to officials of the departments of the Government of Canada, when we were the government, that all polls should be released in keeping with the freedom of information legislation that our government had introduced. That was our position, and I recommend it to the government today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The Minister of Justice asks when they will be made public. He is now their custodian, Madam Speaker, and I would urge him to make them public today.
Let me go back to the point about the new and subtle means of pursuading public opinion and influencing public opinion. We all know that these days extensive use is made of public opinion polls, not simply to determine what the public is thinking on a particular question but to determine what kind of appeals the public might be vulnerable to, what kind of fears or apprehensions might exist in the public mind or in the public psyche, that would allow a particular kind of presentation made by a government, made by a political party, to have some effect. We have had very recent testimony about the extent to which members of this government used that kind of technique.
Three or four weeks ago, before the Advertising and Sales Club of the city of New York, representatives of Goldfarb and other advertising agencies used by the Liberal Party of Canada, indicated to that club that in preparation for the 1980 election campaign the purpose of their polling was not to find what Canadians believed about issues, but what Canadians feared about the political opponents of the Liberal party. Indeed, they were not seeking information as to opinion, they were seeking information as to the vulnerability of the public of Canada, those fears they might have, those aspirations they might have, to which an appeal could be made that might cause people to be manipulated into a decision to which they might not normally have come to themselves.
That is not news which I bring to this House. That is simply a report of the admission made by the people who did the advertising, prepared the campaign, and ran the polls of the Liberal Party of Canada during the 1980 election campaign. They were clearly designed to poll opinion, not to find opinion, but to find fertile ground for sowing fear, fertile ground for trying to build support for particular proposals-


An hon. Member:: On a point of order, Madam Speaker-


Charles Joseph Clark: You are not in your seat.


Walter David Baker: Sit down.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
Privilege-Mr. McGrath


Charles Joseph Clark: The point here is that the same people who conducted public opinion polls to try to identify fears which they could subsequently exploit-


Mr. Kelly:: A point of order-


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Kelly) on a point of order.


Norman Kelly: Madam Speaker, my apologies for not observing earlier the rules of this forum.


Walter David Baker: Try it now.


Norman Kelly: I would point out that members on this side have as much to be offended by in the performance of members of the opposition as they think they have with us.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Norman Kelly: And I would point out to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) that the public of Canada lost faith in the government of his day long before anything was done by this party-


An hon. Member:: What is the point of order?


Norman Kelly: -or long before anything was done in the election.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: You did better in the other seat.


Madam Speaker:: Order. I fail to see that the hon. member is raising a point of order. I believe he is participating in the debate. He can do that at another time, but at this juncture we were listening to the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark). The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Charles Joseph Clark: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.


Norman Kelly: Madam Speaker-


An hon. Member:: Sit down!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Norman Kelly: Madam Speaker-


Walter David Baker: Don't make an ass of yourself. Sit down.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member was participating in the debate; he was not raising a point of order. I will now recognize again the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. If the hon. member at some point wants to raise a point of order, he can do it, but at this particular time I did not feel he was doing that. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Norman Kelly: Madam Speaker-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I thought I told the hon. member that I did not feel he had a point of order. He cannot

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
be getting up again on a point of order because the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition has not yet uttered a word since he raised the first point. He cannot have found a point of order in anything which the Leader of the Opposition might have said.
I would ask the hon. member for Scarborough Centre to resume his seat so as to allow the Leader of the Opposition to express himself. If the hon. member wants to participate in the debate, he can do it later on.


Charles Joseph Clark: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I regret this matter is taking so much time of the House. But the point I was making is that we are now in an age where there are sophisticated and very powerful new methods of influencing opinion. What they involve is a marriage of public opinion polls with high-powered advertising campaigns. We have seen that work in election campaigns. We know who the pollsters were for the Liberal party. We know they are the same pollsters for the Government of Canada now. We know who the advertising agents were for the Liberal party. We know they are the same advertising agents as are used for many of the advertisements to which objection is being taken here. There is a purpose to this new sophisticated kind of marriage of public opinion polls to try to determine where the public is vulnerable and advertising campaigns designed to effect a message which will hit the public where it is vulnerable.
How does that affect the rights of the House of Commons of Canada? Naturally, this House is sensitive and conducts its debates with some sensitivity to public opinion in the country. We are here to serve a public. It is the grave fear of members on this side that these sophisticated new techniques are being used in an organized way by a minister charged specifically with that responsibility, to try to condition public opinion prior to a matter of substance and of importance being discussed and being decided here on the floor of the House of Commons. That, as my colleague, the hon. member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn), attempted to indicate, imposes an entirely different environment and circumstance upon this House.
It may be to some degree that those changes that occur in public opinion are beyond the control of Parliament. What we are pointing to here is that there is a deliberate attempt being made by the Government of Canada to use these modern techniques of persuasion to create a public opinion that will be friendly to their positions, and hostile to the positions of their critics on the floor of the House of Commons. In other words, they are using public money to try to reach beyond Parliament to limit the freedom and the capacity of Parliament to come to decisions on basic and fundamental questions here.
In many cases, the advertising used is designed not to inform the public of Canada but to misinform the public of Canada. As I look at some of the advertising here, which talks about making the constitution right, making the constitution work and making the constitution ours, there is no question that that is an appeal to patriotism, an appeal to the pride which Canadians have in their country, and an attempt, a subtle, not very well disguised attempt, to suggest the legislation that will follow from that advertising campaign will be limited simply to
the question of bringing the constitution home. That, Madam Speaker, is misinformation. That is false information.
The legislation which the public was conditioned by this advertising to expect was simply patriation of the constitution. But instead of receiving what they were conditioned to expect, the public of Canada has been presented here with a resolution which goes well beyond the laudable goal of patriation, which would, among other things, affect, in a way the Supreme Court declared illegal, the powers of the other place and establish a double standard of amendment: one standard for the Liberal government's amendments, and subsequent standards for all other amendments of interest to other Canadians. This will build into the law of Canada a capacity for any majority government to ignore the provincial governments and the legislatures of the land. In other words, there has been an attempt made to create among Canadians the impression that we were dealing with a limited question here, a question which struck at the heart and spoke only of the location of the Canadian constitution. Instead, after the softening up by the Government of Canada, there was a very different piece of legislation brought in.
As I say, it is very difficult for the Chair or for any members of this House to know exactly how we should respond to new developments in technology. It took our predecessor Houses some time and some discussion to determine what we would do about the so-called fourth estate; whether we would allow journalists in the gallery; whether we would allow that presence to change the traditional proceedings. There was extensive debate and extensive consultation among all parties before it was decided to allow television to take its place and to have cameras here on the floor of the House of Commons.
What I am suggesting is that there is now a new medium, a new instrument of persuasion of which use is being made by the government to try to create a climate, to try to manipulate public opinion which will set the context in which Parliament must decide. I suggest very briefly that that affects the fundamental and traditional freedoms of the Parliament of Canada to make decisions. I think that that attempt to spend public money, to manipulate public opinion on public questions that have not yet been decided, is an improper practice that offends the rights of this House of Commons.
That, in my view, is one of the questions of substance which your Honour will have to decide, along with the question of substance having to do with the quite precise definition of approval in principle as it applies to decisions taken by the House of Commons of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, I shall do my best to meet the suggestion which you made some time ago, namely, that we address ourselves to the question of privilege itself. In other words, it is not yours to take part in the matters of substance that are being debated back and forth. However, in order for Your Honour to allow
October 9, 1980

the motion of the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), you have to be convinced that there is before you a prima facie case of privilege. I contend that there is, and I shall try to make that point.
May I say initially that I, personally, am not as offended by the advertising as are my friends in the Progressive Conservative Party. I think some of them are a waste of money. I believe that commercials for some products are funnier and more interesting to watch. I disagree with many of the things my friends in the official opposition are saying about the possible effect of these advertisements, but somebody has to come to the defence of the official opposition. Whether I agree with them or not, I do so.
I point out to Your Honour that you are not being asked to decide that there has been an act of wrongdoing. You are not even being asked to decide that the matter is to go to a committee. All you are being asked is to decide that there is sufficient prima facie evidence about the question of privilege to permit the motion to be put so that the House can decide whether the matter is to go to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.
I suggest to Your Honour that the very debate that is taking place here this afternoon, no matter which side one takes, demonstrates the fact that those on the government side have available taxpayers' money to present their case to the people of Canada, whereas those on the opposition side do not have that facility. They do not have available to them taxpayers' money to make their point. I may not agree with the point of view of my friends to the right, but they have the right to make it.
We have some other views about the constitution, but no taxpayers' money is made available to us. We have to pay for these things out of our party funds if we wish to do so, or we have to content ourselves with argument on the floor of the House of Commons or at other public gatherings. However, the government of the day, and because it is the government does not get away from the fact that it is the Liberal party, takes a certain position in the House, has given to it or has taken to itself, a privilege, the right to spend public money which is not available to those taking other positions. At the very least, there are enough precedents regarding this that the House ought to have the chance to send the matter to a committee for investigation.
That is the only question to which you have to address yourself. You do not have to say there has been a wrongdoing or there has not been a wrongdoing. You do not have to say that money has been wrongly spent. All you have to convince yourself is that there is enough question about what has happened that the House should have the right to decide whether the matter is to be sent to a committee for investigation.
As Your Honour knows from past experience, at least from the experience of former Speakers, you might decide that there is a sufficient prima facie case of privilege that the motion might be put and the government could well use its majority to vote it down. However, at this point 1 think we are on sound
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
ground for insisting that there is a question that ought to be looked into.
1 know that the precedent I want to quote is one that I have quoted quite a few times. By now, everybody else in the House must know it as well as I do, but I think it is valid. Back in 1964 and 1965 when the Liberal government brought before Parliament the Canada Pension Plan, which was sponsored by the Hon. Judy LaMarsh, there developed a tremendous advertising campaign against that legislation sponsored by the insurance industry in this country.
I was greatly annoyed. In due course I spoke to Judy LaMarsh about it. I said to her, "Is it not possible for some government advertising to be put in the press to counter these unfair attacks being made by the insurance industry?" As I have said many times, the reply was, "Stanley, I have wanted to do that. I have tried to do it but they tell me"-I don't know who "they" were, Treasury Board or somebody-"it cannot be done. We cannot spend public money on a measure that has not been passed by Parliament."
She went on to say that once the legislation was passed, her department would be free to advertise its benefits and so on. At any rate, her position was that she had tried but the rule was there. What bothers me is that the present Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming) is changing the rule.
Before I come to what 1 want to say that flows from that case, may 1 say that the other precedent which applies in this instance has already been quoted by the hon. member for St. John's East, namely, the ruling by Mr. Speaker Jerome regarding funds being used by the Clark government for committees or task forces which were made up of Conservative members only. Mr. Speaker Jerome in a reasoned, thoughtful and careful judgment, said it was his view that parliamentary funds have to be made available in such a way that Parliament as a whole is getting the advantage of them.
You may say there is a slight difference, that Mr. Speaker Jerome was talking about parliamentary funds, House of Commons funds if you will, for which the Speaker was responsible. You may say that the funds that are now being used are not coming out of your budget, that they are coming out of the federal government budget. However, the ultimate source is the same in both cases, the taxpayers of Canada.
If Mr. Speaker Jerome thought it was unfair for taxpayers' money to be used to get certain information and do certain things in which only the government side was involved, I suggest it is at least an open question as to whether the present government has the right to use taxpayers' funds to advertise on behalf of its position. I think the whole question of advocacy advertising, subliminal efforts, and all of these things raise many moral questions and questions that relate to our future. It is a good time for us to look at this whole practice. However, as I said earlier, I am not asking you to make a judgment on that. I am saying you have to judge whether there is a sufficient amount of evidence that the question is one that ought to be looked into.

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
In the course of his remarks the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien), and I think others have said the same thing, emphasized that the advertising ended on September 8. The implication of that is that we should not worry any more about it. However, Madam Speaker, the Minister of State for Multicul-turalism has said several times in the past two or three days that he has decided that it is all right to spend federal funds gathered from the taxpayers on advertising under two conditions one, on something that has been passed by Parliament and, two, on something on which there is agreement in principle in Parliament, or a wide consensus or what have you. Therefore it is not a case that closed on September 8. We are now having an announcement by a minister which is completely contrary to the rule that the Hon. Judy LaMarsh told me was the rule in 1965.


Walter David Baker: Whether it is over or not is not the question.


Stanley Howard Knowles: As the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) says, whether the advertising is over or not, it should be investigated even if it is over. But I find it disturbing and alarming that the Minister of State for Multiculturalism says that this will be the policy from here on. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was asked whether what the minister said was government policy, the Prime Minister fobbed the question off on the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. He said that he had spoken in his capacity as chairman of the cabinet committee on communications.
Really, we have the right to know what policy is. Judy LaMarsh did not tell me, because I did not press that point, who had made the rule then. We do not know who has made the rule now, but it sets up a situation in which there is gross inequality between the two sides of this House.
As I say, I disagree with many of the things my friends are saying. My friend, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), a moment ago characterized this advertising as leading to the breakup of Canada and all of that. Whether I agree with the position of the Conservatives or not, they have the right to take the position, they have the right to argue for it, and they have the right to the same facilities available to the government, particularly if federal funds are involved.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: Though I have said it before, I am being reminded by my colleague, the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae), so do we; we have views about the constitution and about that other place a few yards to the east of here. We have views that we have tried to make public in the best ways we can, but no public money is available to us for billboard advertising, radio advertising or television advertising. There is an element of unfairness about this which runs counter to the whole principle that here on the floor of Parliament we are equal in terms of our right to present our
case. I believe that equality has been vitiated and damaged by the position the government is taking.
Let me say again, I am not terribly upset about the advertising, but I am upset by the authority with which the Minister of State for Multiculturalism says this is the rule now-that it is his duty to make known to the public of Canada all the information he can give them. The Prime Minister says the public is not as disturbed about information as are members of the Tory party. That is fudging the issue, if anything I ever heard was fudging an issue. The point is: do they have the right by calling it information to use public funds to advertise their side of an issue which has not yet been settled in Parliament? Where I stand on the issue of the constitution does not matter. Indeed, even though I do not agree with the position being taken by the Conservatives on the main issue, 1 defend their right to equality in the whole picture on the floor of Parliament.
I contend, Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, that you do not have to decide that anyone has done anything wrong. You do not have to take sides on the issue of whether the money has been properly spent or not, but 1 do think it is clear to you, clear to members of this House, and clear to those who will be following this debate, that there is enough question about what the government has done that the House ought to have the right to decide whether it wants the whole question referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. I hope you will grant the hon. member for St. John's East the right to put his motion. If you do, we shall certainly support it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Obviously I will not be able to listen to all those who want to take part in this discussion. Therefore the number of speakers I will recognize in the future will depend very much on how briefly those who are recognized speak. I would suggest it would be reasonable that speakers who are to follow do not take more than five minutes, and it would be even better if they took less. As a media person I was always told there is nothing that could not be said or explained in five minutes. I know this House allows much more freedom in expressing oneself than in a tightly knit radio or television program, but perhaps we could apply that rule to ourselves for the remainder of this discussion.


Mr. Thomas Siddon (Richmond-South Delta):: Madam Speaker, I know this debate is taking up some time and I will try to confine myself to five minutes. I have not been here long enough to become quite as verbose as many. I do feel I have a point to make which bears directly on this matter and which has not yet been advanced.
The Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming) has professed that governmemnt advertising on the constitution or, for that matter, on any other question, would not be contemplated without the approval or the implied approval of Parliament. He said that on television, and he said it in the House today.
October 9, 1980

The dimension I would like to develop is merely this. My privilege, my reputation, and my honour as a member of this House have been degraded because members of the government are proclaiming around the country, in my name and in the name of all members of this Parliament, slogans and viewpoints that 1 believe not merely to be misleading but in many respects to be downright dishonest.
The point about dishonesty has already been made, Madam Speaker, and it would not be proper to make that allegation if I could not be given-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Edward Siddon: It would not be proper to make the allegation that such advertisements are misleading or dishonest if I was not permitted a few moments to expand on that by giving some examples.
The Minister of State for Multiculturalism told us earlier today about the education content of these advertisements which depict geese flying, beavers, and the rest. For my part I am most offended by the billboards I see around Canada. For example, let me quote from a television advertisement, and I am sure it must be on a billboard somewhere in the country, and this is part of the government's advertising campaign:
It's over a hundred years since our constitution was written for us.
It is, indeed, over 100 years since the British North America Act was proclaimed, but it was prepared by Canadians and they did that for us. Sure, they are dead, but that did not stop the process of revising and updating the BNA Act which is in fact our constitution.
The foregoing quotation is obviously directed at citizens in this country who have virtually no knowledge of our history or of how the British North America Act was drafted, and it would lead them to believe that the text of the BNA Act was prepared somewhere else than in Canada by people other than Canadians. The truth of the matter is that the Fathers of Confederation were Canadians who worked together in a spirit of good will to create this nation, once a proud nation.
The second quotation, and I am only going to use two or three more if I may, appeared on big billboards across the country and read as follows:
Practically the only thing that hasn't changed is the constitution.
Is that or is that not true, Madam Speaker? I suggest it is downright incorrect. First ministers' conferences represent a distinctively Canadian innovation. Over the years these conferences between provincial and federal ministers have contributed to the amendment and, yes, the reconstitution of the BNA Act in a gradual and orderly manner. For example, Madam Speaker, regional equalization was unheard of in 1867, yet it now forms an integral part of the federal existence. The "have" provinces share generously with those less fortunate. And whoever heard of the women's franchise to vote in 1867? These and many other changes to our constitution have evolved with time, and I submit the slogan is incorrect.
A third and most important example of a slogan which many people in my part of Canada, at least, are very deeply
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
offended by, reads as follows, and this appears on big billboards:
A new constitution: Make it right, make it work, make it ours.
It does not take an intricate mind to conclude that this slogan suggests that the BNA Act is wrong. This implies that the present BNA Act does not work and that it is not ours. It has always been ours, because Canadians wrote it. What was wrong with a former group of colonies going together to the British Parliament with the request that they be given authority to form a federal state within the family of British parliamentary governments, and to make it work? The implication is that it does not work.
It takes trust and confidence between partners in a confederation to make the partnership work, and regrettably that trust and confidence have been eroded and virtually destroyed from one end of this country to another by a government which goes around picking fights with the provinces and their premiers.
I would like now, if I might, to lead to a final quotation which is prominently displayed in the subways of Toronto and on the streets of Vancouver and Charlottetown. This quotation-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. May I ask the co-operation of the hon. member to please focus on the reasons for which he thinks there is a prima facie case of privilege? Hon. members are not serving their cause well if they do not address themselves to that particular point because, if they do not, I will not have their arguments in order to judge the case. They are obviously intervening in this debate in order to enlighten me. I would very much like to be enlightened, and I ask the hon. member to focus on those reasons.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think I tried to express my point at the opening of my remarks, and I will repeat it. I am a member of this House equal to every other member of this House, and when the Minister of State for Multiculturalism proclaims to the country that his advertising campaign speaks for me and has the consent of this House, and at least the implied support of all members of this House, then my reputation and my integrity are questioned. I go home to my constituency and it is said, "But one sign says 'Let's work together to build a better Canada now'." That is a slogan across the land, and who is working together? Who is working together to build a better country?
I believe in judging the merits of the motion put by my colleague, the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), that your Honour has to recognize that the integrity of every member of this House is in question if the slogans the government is proclaiming across the land are misleading and untrue and cast a pall of doubt over my reputation and the reputation of everyone else in this country.

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
[ Translation]


Mr. Pierre Deniger (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) has defined quite well the context within which you must soon make a decision. Yes or no, in view of the evidence given by hon. members opposite, is there a prima facie case of privilege? Madam Speaker, after listening with a lot of attention- which is very difficult I pray you to believe-to all the arguments of the opposition members, 1 must respectfully conclude that there is not.
First of all, the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath), who introduced the motion and who is no longer in the House, raised two points. He implied, and so did other members opposite, that the advertising campaign purchased and broadcast by the Canadian government was simply a propaganda instrument for the Liberal party. Madam Speaker, I have never in all my life heard so many inaccuracies and lies spoken by one party. In view of the climate which accompanied the referendum campaign, when all members of this House gave their support to what the Canadian government had done and congratulated the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) for the commitment that he made a few days before the referendum, that is, to renew the constitution, how can we have strayed so far from this spirit which sustained the House and all its members during the referendum? This is my first point, Madam Speaker.
As for the principle itself, Madam Speaker, only one precedent has been mentioned. Unfortunately, I am not aware of the situation which occurred in 1964 between the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre and the then minister of national health and welfare, but as for the hon. member for St. John's East, he referred to the ruling made by your predecessor about the task forces established by the then minister of transport, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski).
Madam Speaker, when you look at this ruling and especially at the discussions that came before it, you will note that I had myself taken part in the debate and expressed the opinion that there was indeed a question of privilege in that case because my rights as a parliamentarian had been infringed upon. So what distinguishes in this case what you have to decide from what your predecessor decided is precisely this: the task forces set up by the government of the time were made up of only one member, a government member, of course, who held a mandate and was paid out of public funds to go and investigate all over the place and report. I believe, Madam Speaker, that this has precisely nothing to do with the case we are dealing with because we all agree in the House that the constitution should be amended. So, Madam Speaker, if we agree on the principle, what is wrong with our advertising campaign? Because that is exactly what it says.
Madam Speaker, there is not a single member in this House who can say his constituents are fully aware of all federal
programs in his riding. If one thing shocks me and aggrieves me as a member, it is when I go back in my riding and say, "Do you know that we, the federal government, are involved in that school, that road, and nobody knows about it?" That must change, Madam Speaker. And that is indeed the scope of the advertising campaign of the federal government under the auspices of the Minister of State responsible for Multicultural-ism (Mr. Fleming), to indicate to Canadians what the federal government is doing for them, to indicate to the Government of Canada the policies we want Canadians to understand and in which we want them to participate. And if, Madam Speaker, members across are now telling us they did not accept the principle of constitutional renewal, unfortunately I must say we are very far from the spirit of May 22.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I listened to the parliamentary secretary a few moments ago, and I had a little difficulty containing myself. I do not think there is any doubt in this House of Commons that members of this House in all parties are prepared to accept the proposition, and have accepted the proposition, of constitutional renewal. In other words, what I am saying to my friend is that there are no second-class members. There is no member who is better for his country because he has one point of view, or a detriment to his country because he has another point of view.
The essence of what we have talked about, the charter of rights and everything else, is that I have the right to have a view. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has the right to have a view, so does the Minister of State for Multicultural-ism (Mr. Fleming), and so do you, Madam Speaker, and I am offended by what the parliamentary secretary said. I am also offended that he should be allowed to go, the way he was allowed to go, outside your suggestion to hon. members.


Some hon. Members:: Come on!


Walter David Baker: I listen to rhetoric and I sometimes engage in it, but I listen to it, and I have the right to be offended as well by what I have heard.
The issue is a simple one. It is absolutely simple, and it was put simply and clearly by the most experienced member of this House. It is whether or not it is appropriate for the government to spend public funds to promote a decision by Parliament- I think the government can spend public funds for advertising. I have never argued that it could not. All governments have done that.
The issue here is the question of timing, and it is particularly acute because this is a very important issue. We are not just talking about the Canada Pension Plan, capital punishment, gun control or abortion. What we are talking about is the foundation stone of our country, and if there is any question at all in a document-secret, leaked or otherwise-that it might be inappropriate, then it is absolutely inappropriate for the minister not to have considered it, and if he did not consider it-and he may have; I do not know-he ought to be on his feet, not arguing-and he is not arguing; I note that he is
October 9, 1980

sitting listening-but saying, "I welcome this opportunity to have this matter cleared so as a minister of the Crown I will know that the programs 1 bring forward are appropriate and have the backing of the House of Commons." Surely that is something which ought to appeal to hon. members on all sides of the House because it is a deep question.
Many people do not agree with what the Leader of the Opposition said and says, but he made a point that we are into something new. If we had stumbled into television in the House of Commons the way we are stumbling into the powerful marriage of polls, television and media, then the grand experiment which was carried out in a non-partisan way would have been a failure. It was not a failure.
I do not say that the minister has no mandate to advertise, but I say that he has no mandate to advertise in a way which will undermine this institution, and if there is any question at all, as a responsible minister he should want to have that question resolved. I invite him now to consent to this motion being put so that he will be sure, in an area which is sensitive, that he not only has the backing of his parliamentary secretary, which is taken for granted, but also that he has the backing of the opposition and all members of this House, which he cannot always take for granted, but which is important that he have in terms of the kinds of promotional programs he is about to undertake.
Finally, it is no defence, as raised by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) and by some others in the course of the question period, to say that an ad has terminated. That does not end the question of privilege. The question is still here, the advertising program having been begun. I do not think I have much more to say, but I do invite the minister to rise to his feet and do what his colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy), did, that is to go to a committee of the House so that his program can be cleared. I think that will end the issue. Parliament will be a lot better if the issue is ended in that way.


Bob Rae: Madam Speaker, I think the government has failed to make a very important distinction. I have listened with a great deal of interest to what the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) had to say and to what the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming) and his parliamentary secretary had to say. I think we have to recognize that there really is a difference between the government advertising information on government programs which are in existence and advocacy advertising.
The parliamentary secretary said that he can go to a school or elsewhere and find he cannot tell people that the government is involved. No one is objecting to that and, for goodness sake, we have certainly seen a plethora of advertisements, both federal and provincial. Every time you go by a bridge you find a plaque saying the federal government gave $28,000 and the provincial government gave so-and-so, under the authorization of the hon. Joe and the hon. so-and-so, and everybody gets their name on it. This is part of the game, because that money
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
has been authorized and approved. No one disapproves when the Government of Canada takes out an advertisement telling people what their rights are under the Canada Pension Plan, or when the government of Ontario takes out advertisements telling people what their rights are under the workmen's compensation act. The Tories do it in Ontario, the Liberals do it in Ottawa, and the NDP does it in Saskatchewan, and we cannot object to that because that is the dissemination of information. Of course it has a subliminal effect, and of course it has a political effect, but still it is information on a program which has been approved by Parliament.
However, there is a very different pattern going on and I want to refer to it. The pattern is that polls are being taken the questions in which are never revealed, nor the answers or results ever revealed. Perhaps I have a personal interest in this. My father wrote a book in 1939, together with Dr. Gallup, called "The Pulse of Democracy". We expect and encourage the government to take the pulse of democracy from time to time. I disagree with the absurd statement made today by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that "we'll stop all polling," putting our heads in the sand so as not to know what the state of public opinion is. This is not going to help things. Coming from an autocrat, this is not a surprising position, but speaking as someone who is a democrat, I think the taking of the pulse of democracy is a very important and healthy development.
Imagine, Madam Speaker, the contrast between two pictures which I am going to paint for you, between what the government has done and continues to do and what it would do, I think, in a parliamentary democracy where the privileges of all members of the House are treated equally. On one hand they are taking secret polls, refusing to release the results, and carrying out advocacy advertising. There is no other name for it, it is the advocacy of a particular position. It is not, as the parliamentary secretary says, merely stating that there is a general position which we all favour. The parliamentary secretary knows perfectly well that, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said, many of those ads are a sheer waste of money. But those kinds of ads can develop momentum of their own and are definitely identified with the attitudes, policies and particular constitutional proposals of the Liberal Party of Canada.


An hon. Member:: No, not our particular ones.


Bob Rae: Yes. The parliamentary secretary is shaking his head, but this is absolutely the case. I can assure you, Madam Speaker, that I will never look at a beaver or a Canada goose the same again. They look like Liberals in disguise.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bob Rae: And the maple leaves, the clipper ships and the farmhouses. I watched all the ads. The principle is a key principle. Imagine the contrast between the taking of secret polls, refusing to publish the information, then carrying out advocacy advertising in all the media in Canada, and what the leader of my party and the hon. member for Winnipeg North

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
Centre have suggested as a course of action which would protect the privileges of the House.
I will come to the question of privilege in summary. We do not object to the taking of polls. We want to know the questions and we want to know the answers, because knowing the question very often tells you what the answer will be. It will certainly help the government in knowing which questions they are going to be putting in future. We have to know those things. The government should allow this House an opportunity to debate the results of public opinion as we feel it ourselves and as we feel we can represent it.
The government of the day should establish a committee, as it has done and, with all flexibility, it should establish a consensus of the House on the position of the Government of Canada and of the Parliament of Canada with respect to constitutional renewal. No party has a monopoly on constitutional renewal, no party has a monopoly on patriotism, and no party has a monopoly on loyalty to its country or to its future. That is something which is shared by all members of the House.
The question of privilege is really quite simple. It is this. Imagine the implications if we do not consider what to do about the advocacy of the government's positions, for the future of opposition parties in any democracy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bob Rae: The government can control the media because they are taking taxpayers' dollars and they can advertise right across the country on the basis of positions which they have and on the basis of polling which they have taken. Compare the resources which the Government of Canada, with its control over the purse strings and over government expenditures, with the budget of the NDP, or even of the Conservative party. There is no comparison at all.
We are faced with a new and very hard question: when does parliamentary democracy become a mockery and when do we replace it with a kind of televised autocracy where the illusion of participation is given by the taking of polls. People come to the door and say, "What do you think the government wants to know?", they take a decision and press a button. The other side of it is the reality where you have a government party which has a monopoly on information and is manipulating that information with a cynicism which we have come to expect of that party, and which we have seen in the memos from civil servants to the Prime Minister and all around. That is the question of privilege.
The question of privilege is: is there a qualitative distinction between the advocacy of a particular position prior to approval by Parliament and the advertising of government programs which have been approved by Parliament? That is not a privilege only of the individual member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath). It is a privilege of the House itself, to decide whether Parliament will be able to control the expenditure of government and whether it will be able to express itself freely without the government lobbying against Parliament's position, or whether we will move to a new kind of political system.
That political system is not parliamentary democracy as I recognize it but some kind of electronic autocracy, which may be favoured by those on the opposite side, but I do not think it is favoured by the people of Canada, and certainly it is not favoured by the members of my party.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: It is becoming harder and harder for me to choose which hon. member 1 should hear next. I will hear two more on the opposition side and one on the government side, and then I will conclude the debate.


Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Madam Speaker, my intervention will be very brief. I want to associate myself with the point made very clearly by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) which he directs to you, in the very narrow context in which we hope you will find the question of privilege, the subject matter of the question of privilege being of such magnitude and new design that perhaps it should be considered by a committee. That might very well be a logical way to proceed in this matter.
I gave the Chair notice at three o'clock of the point I wanted to make, that is, to remind Madam Speaker that the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming) and other government members, in arriving at a decision and in rationalizing programs like this, should be very, very aware that they do not speak for me.


John Carnell Crosbie: In connection with this matter, I gather from listening that there is a lamentable lack of precedents on the issue Madam Speaker now has to decide. The question that must strike one is why there is such a lack of precedents. There is such a lack of precedents because never before in the history of Canada has a government had the arrogance to attempt to do what this government is attempting to do. To bully and pressure members of Parliament in this way has never been conceived before.
There were some people who thought that the administration which preceded the Clark administration tended to show some arrogance toward the last ten years of its life. But what has happened since February 18 puts that right into shade. That is why, when Madam Speaker looks for precedents, you will not find any on this issue. I hope you, Madam Speaker, will take your time before deciding this issue. I suggest perhaps that it should be taken under advisement and not decided today.
It may be that Madam Speaker cannot do anything about this tyranny of the majority. This is tyranny of the majority. It may be under parliamentary rules and customs that Madam Speaker cannot do anything about it. If that is the case, then we will have to depend on the people of Canada when we can go to them to defend us from this tyranny of the majority, which will be four or five long years away. It may be that this kind of technique will be used by the government, and hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent in the next four years.
October 9, 1980

If this kind of technique of going to the public with advertising and polling, as the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae) outlined a few moments ago, cannot be stopped by Madam Speaker or the members of this House, then in four or five years it will not matter if there is an election or not.
We all know that hon. gentlemen and ladies opposite are the governing party of Canada, but the fact still remains that we on this side of the House should have a fair chance of trying to become the Government of Canada, either the NDP or the Progressive Conservative Party. If Madam Speaker cannot protect us, we will have to appeal to the better judgment of hon. members opposite who have engaged in a very dangerous practice. The parliamentary secretary said that he wanted the people of Canada to be fully informed on the issues. How can they be fully informed on the issues in an advertising campaign? The whole purpose of an advertising campaign is to obscure the issues and to put across one simple point of view. That is the whole point. That is why Premier Blakeney talks about an advertising war for which they may have to get ready in Saskatchewan. It is not to put across the truth.
How could this campaign put across the truth if our views are not given to the public also? We may agree that there is some need for constitutional change in Canada, but we have a different view of what kind of constitutional change is needed and how it should be done. We certainly do not think that it should be done by this Parliament changing, by itself, the rights and responsibilities and jurisdiction of the provinces, which is what the resolution we are debating now will do. In fact we believe it will seriously threaten the unity of this country. Is our view being put across in these advertisements, or the view of the NDP? They are not. It is only the view of the majority that is being put across. They are not putting across a view. They are trying to give the impression that all they are doing is floating through the air like geese while they are trying to bring the Constitution of Canada from Westminster to Canada. That is not what they are trying to do at all. They are not trying to explain the complexities of this proposal, in their ads, what the amending formula is, what will be done and why, what the charter of human rights is, and what the exceptions to it are. When I get my chance to speak on it, I will point out its inadequacies. It is totally inadequate. It is a Liberal piece of hypocrisy. None of that has been explained in these polls.
I am not sure whether this has been referred to before, but it is something else for Madam Speaker to consider. The government's own advisers have raised a serious question with the government as to whether or not this is proper. Everybody in Canada has taken notice of what is known as the Kirby memorandum that put out the blueprint for the first ministers' conference in September. It is headed "Continuing Information Program-Constitutional Renewal" and reads in part as follows:
The fundamental question to be addressed concerns the legitimacy of spending taxpayers' dollars to promote what will be deemed by many to be a politically partisan position. Ministers may want to note that selling federal constitutional proposals is quite different from the Quebec referendum campaign, when all
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
federal parties basically supported the government's position and hence did not object strongly to federal advertising.
That put the question squarely to cabinet from its own public service. Normally we do not see this, but we can send Madam Speaker a copy of the whole 62-page document. You should have a look at it before making a decision. It continues:
Moreover, ministers should recognize the important distinction between the use of advertising as a negotiating tactic and its use as a tool to sell the government's programs or policies over the head of the opposition.
This is what the memorandum brought out. Then it goes on to describe the role of government advertising as follows:
During the summer, government advertising played a significant tactical role in two ways. First, it helped to keep the issue ... before the public... Second, it helped to persuade the provinces that the federal government was not bluffing ...
But once the government has decided what action it intends to take, and Parliament has been reconvened to debate that proposed action, the role of advertising changes. At that point, public funds are being used to sell the governing party's position, yet such funds are not made available to opposition parties. Thus, the opposition has no effective way to respond, in contrast to the provinces which can and did during the summer respond by running their own advertising programs. Under these circumstances, ministers need to decide if advertising is politically legitimate.
My advice to you, Madam Speaker, is that if there is any way you can hold in favour of this question of privilege, then you should hold in favour of this question of privilege, and that the burden of proof is on the government. Madam Speaker must be interested in the rights of this House and in this House being anything but just a punching bag for the government. If not, we in the opposition will become a punching bag for gentlemen opposite who will take their polls and get their responses from the public, learn how to couch their campaigns in all simplicity without explaining the complications of their proposals, and not show us the results.
We are paying for it. It is taxpayers' money that is paying for it, the taxpayers of Canada. All these polls are supposed to do is find out what they think. That is not to be shared with us. Then the government will bring in legislation, have a referendum and so on. The hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) the other day pointed out what the government could do with the referendum, using these same techniques. If Madam Speaker has any way at all of finding for us on this question of privilege, I hope you will do so and 1 hope you will reserve your judgment. If Madam Speaker cannot hold for us, then believe me it will be tough for the government ever to change in the country or for this body ever to regain any of the importance or influence it once had.
Mir. Collenette: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order because I have become somewhat disturbed as the debate has gone on. Perhaps it is a reflection of Your Honour's continual attempt to be fair to all members, but there are members on this side of the House who wish to participate in the debate. A few minutes ago you said that you would entertain one more. At least eight speakers from the opposition have made their case, and I think fairness would demand an equal right of reply. I hope Madam Speaker would entertain further interventions from this side.

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. McGrath


Madam Speaker:: I think the debate has gone on long enough. I have invited members to speak on the question of privilege itself, but as I said before I will listen to one more speaker on the government side. We have heard many, many speeches, perhaps not an equal number, but we have heard expressions of opinion on both sides of the House. I will now hear one more speaker.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I will try to be brief and will try to cover, in the light of your admonition to all of us in this House, your point that we should indeed speak to the question of whether or not there is a question of privilege on this issue.
I would argue of course that there is not a question of privilege. There may be an issue for debate, and I think there has been quite an airing of that issue today; certainly in question period yesterday and today it was discussed extensively. I want to touch on a few points made by various members. At the outset we had the member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae), with what-I hate to get into crazy and wild rhetoric-seemed to me to be pretty hysterical puffery in making his case. He seems to forget the intellectual leader of the New Democratic Party, the Premier of Saskatchewan, is the one who seems to have heightened this, according to some of the questions of the official opposition today, saying that he is prepared to advertise. And he has not indicated he is prepared to get the approval of his legislature or the other nine legislatures in Canada before any of the premiers do that. Clearly, Mr. Bennett has not done that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: I have listened, I think, with some courtesy to the interjections of all the various members and I hope I will have the chance to make my contribution.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) said-and I have three points of his, I think, with which I have a difference-that we, the government, have a privilege that others do not have to present our case. I believe I am quoting him correctly, in sense at least. I gather he means by that that before parliamentary approval we can present a case that would be the case simply of our party rather than the case of something approved by Parliament or, as I have argued earlier, reflecting all sides of the House, and 1 argued that that has not taken place.


Mr. Orlikow:: At the taxpayers' expense.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: At taxpayers' expense. I argue that that has not taken place. I argue that the constitutional ads which ran in August, indeed, were quite legitimate because they called for constitutional reform. They expressed the view that it was important to update our constitution. I believe that reflects the public statements by leaders on all sides of this House and ail
the members I know of-I cannot remember anyone saying that there should not be constitutional reform.
I repeat the point made by one or two members on this side who have been able to speak, that the hon. member for Edmonton East (Mr. Yurko) had unanimous support for a motion that called for constitutional reform. So I cannot see how this debate today on a question of privilege makes any sense whatsoever.


Charles Joseph Clark: You had better correct that, Jim.


An hon. Member:: It's in the record.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I would plead with the members to let the minister make his speech without interruptions. We have had a long debate on this question. I have restricted the speeches and I think hon. members will agree that they have had a fair chance to express themselves. Therefore, in order that we may continue with the proceedings of the House, I plead with hon. members to allow the minister to make his point.


Charles Joseph Clark: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, I know that it would be the furthest thing from the minister's mind to mislead the House deliberately. He made a reference to the content of the motion moved by the hon. member for Edmonton East (Mr. Yurko) and is suggesting it had a broad content. That motion, as he will recall, dealt specifically and in a limited way with the question of patriation. I am sure the minister would want to correct the record.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I do not think there is anything to be corrected because I put it in a dual context, of that motion, the speeches given, and the position of the various leaders in this House throughout the referendum.


Erik Nielsen: That was patriation only, not reform.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, I will try to continue, despite the rude interruptions of hon. members opposite. I did not interrupt them and I listened to them carefully during their offerings this afternoon.
I might say again that in the airing of the issue during the time the campaign took place, principally in August,-and there was a considerable airing-there were statements made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), by the hon. member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty), the former minister of state for treasury board, and I might say because I take some responsibility in my job and I was concerned that we act fairly in this policy,-something I have tried to exemplify in my statements last night, and again today-through the summer period we did do a test of the ten major dailies across the country to find out how the Canadian public were reacting to the criticism put forward by the opposition, which is their legitimate right, and I found it interesting that 33 out of 950 contributions from Canadians were about half and half on this issue. So I say again, it has had an airing and I do not think the judgment of the Canadian people is that those ads were unfair.
October 9, 1980


An hon. Member:: What are you talking about?


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Allow me to go on. I tried very hard in my position as the chairman of the cabinet committee on communications to be sure that those advertisements were not unfair and did not take undue advantage. It would have been simple enough to say in an ad "Liberalize the Constitution", like "Conserve Ontario." We did not do that although the government of Ontario, I think, is under attack for questionable practices.
We have not put out a position of this government in any form using the taxpayers' money, in the sense of advertising, such as the Premier of British Columbia has done. I was pleased to hear the former government House leader say a few moments ago that his own government, in power last year, spent a considerable amount of money on information and advertising-perhaps it was the Leader of the Opposition that said that-some $30 million to $40 million. Again I argue: how can you have a question of privilege about advertising when-and again I argue this strenuously-it gave no unfair advantage to or presented any particular case of this side of the House?
When I deal with the comments of the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon) and from several other members, such as the former minister of finance, this righteous indignation that we have gone off sloganeering and have this great advantage, I again argue this certainly has not been the view of all members opposite because it was in the midst of the August campaign that the president of the treasury board of the last government, known as "The Slasher" to some, who cut down on spending-and we had questions today from the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) about spending this money versus immunizing your children, the kind of mixing of two different things which I thought was not fair treatment-we had the call from the office of the former president of the treasury board asking how they could get some of those nice constitutional ads on their local radio stations. I have a letter from the member for Northumberland (Mr. Hees) who wrote: Dear Jim,
I am enclosing a copy of a federal government advertisement which appeared in various newspapers including the Stirling News-Argus and the Brighton Independent, which are both in my riding. I think this is an excellent advertisement.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: That was the hon. member for Northumberland! So, they are certainly not all of one mind on the usefulness or lack of usefulness or worth of this kind of advertising. I am delighted that at least the hon. member for Northumberland in the opposition feels that it is important that we inform the Canadian public and keep their interest and minds aware of this very important discussion, and not let it fade away to the point at which the view of all sides of this House that there should be reform does not come to a focus and action is taken.
I mentioned earlier the case of Mr. Blakeney. 1 believe it was the Leader of the Opposition who asked me to make the
Privilege-Mr. McGrath
pledge that I would muzzle any further ads and would not let it happen; I would not take unfair advantage. Well, I give the pledge that I will not be a part of taking any unfair advantage. But I will not muzzle the ability of the federal government to talk to Canadians and inform them when we have a threat from the New Democratic Party Premier of Saskatchewan that he will do that, and we have Premier Bennett already doing it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh!


An hon. Member:: Come on!


James Sydney Clark Fleming: I believe I have a responsibility to assist in the informing of the Canadian public. That should be done within a context, and I have tried to describe that context. It is fair to express concern, and hon. members opposite have done that today. But I say: you are not all of one mind. Some members say it is worthwhile, and from the reactions of the Canadian people it can be seen that they did not buy your arguments all through August.
I think the Canadian public wants to be kept aware and informed of what is happening in Parliament, and within that context I can agree with a set of principles. But 1 also believe that with such an important debate before the House, to take up the time which has been used today, I suggest-and I have a right in this House of Commons to give my views-that what we are getting is a big blue balloon floated to cover up red faces who do not want to look forward to a vote because the Canadian public will be very unhappy when they understand the position of the official opposition.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is one of the weakest performances this House has ever seen, Jim.


Walter David Baker: You have no case so you pound the table.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. As I said previously, this will be the last speaker whom I will hear on this question. As many arguments were put forward and feelings were very strong on this particular question, and as I would like to go over all the different arguments which have been brought forward to ascertain whether there is a prima facie case of privilege, I shall take this matter under advisement.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, when the Minister of State for Multiculturalism was speaking, he made reference to a survey which he said his department had conducted of various newspapers across the country. I gather that there was some contact on behalf of the government with editors or editorial writers to take their survey.


An hon. Member:: That is not a point of order.


Charles Joseph Clark: The reason I raise the matter is that if the practice of having government advertising prior to taking a

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. Robinson (Burnaby) decision has been joined by the practice of the government getting in touch, for whatever reason, with editorial writers-


Mr. Collenette:: You are debating. Obey the rules.


Charles Joseph Clark: -or perhaps with the publishers to try to gauge the response to these advertisements, the purpose of that policy and the extent of that policy may very well be germane to your considerations, Madam Speaker. I simply wanted to know what the minister meant he alluded to these contacts which have been made to determine the effect of the advertising undertaken by the Government of Canada.


James Sydney Clark Fleming: Madam Speaker, several of my staff went to the parliamentary library and checked out the editorial pages of those ten major dailies over a four-week period.


MR. NIELSEN-STATEMENT MADE BY MINISTER OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE
Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, 1 am rising on a question of personal privilege. It involves the reference by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) to me when she accused me of misleading the House. Since it is a personal question of privilege it must be raised at the first possible moment, and I inform you of it now, Madam Speaker. I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to pursue it now since the minister is not in the House. I will do so tomorrow.


MR. ROBINSON (BURNABY)-STATEMENTS MADE BY PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY DURING ADJOURNMENT DEBATE
Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: Madam Speaker, my point of order arises out of an exchange yesterday with the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) concerning a statement given last May 8 on my behalf by the then parliamentary secretary to the minister of state for mines, the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys (Mr. MacLellan). I wish to make clear to the House that in his statement the parliamentary secretary based his remarks on what was my understanding at that time of the McDonald commission's general attitude toward the provision of confidential information to the attorney general with a view to possible proceedings prior to the completion of the commission's hearings and the submission of the commission's report. That understanding which I had was reinforced by an exchange during commission hearings on April 17, 1980, between Mr. Justice McDonald and Mr. Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
I referred to that transcript yesterday, but I could not quote it accurately because I did not have it with me. I have it now. At that time the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry responded to Borovoy's submission that the commission ought to, "encourage the normal law enforcement processes to go forward" by noting that such action, "would have required a report by us" based on "representations by counsel as to
whether there was conduct not authorized or provided for by law".
As you can see, Madam Speaker, it would be those words which I felt justified the statement which I asked my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, to make. Subsequent to that statement being made by the parliamentary secretary, the chairman of the commission wrote to the parliamentary secretary on May 14 and stated that his response to Mr. Borovoy- which I have just quoted-was to be read solely in the context of the procedures required by law for the commission to make findings recommending further action. The commissioner's later interpretation was not obvious to me from reading the exchange in the transcript to which I have referred.
Mr. Justice McDonald went on to define the commission's position regarding action by the attorneys general prior to the submission of his report by making clear that he and his colleagues, and I quote from the letter, "express no preference one way or another" with respect to such action. It is for the attorneys general of the provinces to decide whether to proceed now or to wait for the commission's report.
For the government's part, my colleague, the Attorney General of Canada (Mr. Chretien), has decided that he will not take action within his jurisdiction until the relevant report or reports are received, which, speaking as the minister responsible for the RCMP and including those members whose conduct has been under investigation during this very lengthy period of inquiry, now in excess of three years, I hope that report will be forthcoming in the very near future.
Today in the Ottawa Citizen the hon. member for Burnaby is quoted as making reference also to the letter of Mr. Justice McDonald:
Robinson said McDonald goes on in his letter to ask the government to correct this "inaccuracy"-
I want to correct that reference because I have the letter here before me. Nowhere in that letter does Mr. Justice McDonald ask the government to correct this inaccuracy. I would also like to add that I was not certain yesterday, but I have checked and I did see the letter, and I also acknowledged it to Mr. Justice McDonald.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, I must respond to the statement made by the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) on the question of privilege which was originally raised on this matter. I regret that the Solicitor General appears to have misled the House in his final remarks with respect to the request by Mr. Justice McDonald. The statement was made that Mr. Justice McDonald had requested that the government, through its representatives, who had originally misled the House, correct the false statement which had been given.
The Solicitor General has stated to the House today that no such request was made by Mr. Justice McDonald. I would refer to the letter which the Solicitor General has now admitted having in his possession after having denied yesterday that he possessed it, which was written on May 14 by Mr. Justice McDonald to the then parliamentary secretary to the minister
October 9, 1980

of state for mines, whom the Solicitor General has acknowledged was speaking on his behalf on May 8:
I trust that you will bring this correction to the attention of those who may have understood that the position of my fellow commissioners and myself was as indicated-i.e. that we "would prefer any such action to await his report". In fact, we express no preference one way or another.
Unquestionably, Madam Speaker, Mr. Justice McDonald asked the government, through the parliamentary secretary, to correct the erroneous information which had been conveyed to Parliament through the parliamentary secretary. I call upon the Solicitor General, now that he has read this letter and has admitted to having read it, to correct the statement which he has just made in this Elouse.
I also call upon the Solicitor General to explain to this House why it was that when the head of the McDonald Commission, Mr. Justice McDonald, requested on May 14, 1980, that this erroneous information be corrected by Parliament and through Parliament to the people of Canada, no action was taken, and why Parliament was not informed that incorrect information had been transmitted to it?
It was only yesterday that I finally received a copy of this letter, after pressing for some considerable length of time the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of State for Mines for it. I suggest that the Solicitor General has misled this House and I call upon him now to correct his statement, which was wrong.


Madam Speaker:: This seems to be re-opening what was discussed yesterday. Some facts had been put on the record on both sides of the question and I think we should close the discussion there. I will have to ask the indulgence of the House as to whether the House wants me to proceed with the proceedings preliminary to the orders of the day and not see the clock.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 172, 596, 936 and 1,229.
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Friesen: 1.	How many persons are employed as clerks, secretaries, counsellors, security personnel and others at the (a) B.C. Penitentiary Regional Reception Centre (b) Matsqui Institution (c) Mission Medium Security Institution (d) Kent Maximum Institution (e) Correctional Staff College (0 Elbow Lake Institution (g) Ferndale Forestry Camp (h) Mountain Institution (i) Regional Consultation Centre (j) Regional Psychiatric Centre (k) William Head Institution?
2.	How many persons are incarcerated in each institution listed in part I?
3.	What is the total annual payroll and operating cost for each institution listed in part I?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: 1.	As of March 31, 1980.
(a) B.C. Penitentiary*	(b) Matsqui Institution
Clerks:	4	Clerks:	15Secretaries:	1	Secretaries:	2Counsellors:	1	Counsellors:	11Security personnel:	39	Security personnel:	158Others:	31	Others:	78
* The correct name for the B.C. Penitentiary Regional Reception Centre B.C. Penitentiary.
Mission Institution		(d) Kent Institution	
Clerks:	14	Clerks:	12Secretaries:	1	Secretaries:	2Counsellors:	7	Counsellors:	4Security personnel:	111	Security personnel:	139Others:	60	Others:	53Correctional Staff Col-	(0 Elbow Lake Institution	lege	Clerks:	1	Clerks:	1Secretaries:	1	Secretaries:	NilCounsellors:	Nil	Counsellors:	1Security personnel:	Nil	Security personnel:	1Others:	9	Others:	8Ferndale Institution	(h) Mountain Institution	Clerks:	3	Clerks:	8Secretaries:	Nil	Secretaries:	1Counsellors:	2	Counsellors:	5Security personnel:	11	Security personnel:	65Others:	7	Others:	39Regional Consultation	(j) Regional Psychiatric	Centre	Centre	Regional Consultant:	1	Clerks:	12Clerk:	1	Secretaries:	4Counsellors:	3Security Personnel:	73Others:	1081 William Head Institu-	tion	Clerks:	7	Secretaries:	1	Counsellors:	3	Security personnel:	71	Others:	39	
3546

October 9, 1980
Order Paper Questions
2.	As of March 31,1980
Institution
(a) B.C. Penitentiary
(b)	Matsqui Institution
(c)	Mission Institution
(d)	Kent Institution
(e)	Correctional Staff College (0 Elbow Lake
(g)	Ferndale Forestry Camp
(h)	Mountain Institution
(i)	Regional Consultation Centre
(j)	Regional Psychiatric Centre
(k)	William Head Institution
3.	Fiscal year 1979-80 Institution
(a)	B.C. Penitentiary
(b)	Matsqui Institution
(c)	Mission Institution
(d)	Kent Institution
(e)	Correctional Staff College
(f)	Elbow Lake
(g)	Ferndale Forestry Camp
(h)	Mountain Institution
(i)	Regional Consultation Centre
(j)	Regional Psychiatric Centre
(k)	William Head Institution
Number of inmates on register
The last inmates were transferred out on February 15, 1980.
191
Nil
60
Nil
146
1,222
Payroll and Operating Cost $
6,260,714.37
7,041,984.83
4,593,698.41
4,761,344.21
412,379.70
693,231.57
622,887.85
2,955,460.63
78,688.00
4,684,259.23
3,429,821.55


Mr. Mitges: Has there been a reassessment of antibiotics used in disease and/or growth promotants in animals and, if so, which of the antibiotics cleared will remain on the market?


Monique Bégin: There is at present a program for reassessment of antibiotics used for growth promotion in animals. Manufacturers of the 10 antibiotics involved in this program have been requested to submit supportive data from well controlled recent trials under field conditions in Canada to show that these drugs are effective for this purpose. The sale of only those antibiotics which are proven to be effective will be permitted. Present indications are that only three antibiotics are being retested as requested. The three antibiotics involved are therefore the only candidates for retention as growth promotants in this country. Submissions of this type from a manufacturer to a regulatory agency are normally considered confidential until such time as the regulatory decision is taken in response to the submission. The department cannot anticipate the results of these studies and the commitment to the company to pursue this work to completion. This might, as well, provide information to other drug manufacturers about the probable status of drugs, when in fact this type of information of possible economic significance is not usually supplied until submission evaluation is completed. Following assessment of all pertinent data, a final decision on which antibiotics may be sold as growth promotants is expected early in 1981. A similar program for retesting specific disease preventive antibiotics also is under way and will be completed in 1982.


Mr. MacKay: Does Statistics Canada, as empowered by the Statistics Act (a) require individuals to provide their social insurance number (SIN) as part of any questionnaire or survey (b) use SIN numbers to File, collate or otherwise as a link to records from a previous reporting cycle of Statistics Canada or some other department (c) use SIN numbers to facilitate the linking of information from surveys and questionnaires with data accessed from income tax records?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Statistics Canada reports:
(a)	Statistics Canada does request that individuals operating unincorporated businesses provide their SI number on a few survey questionnaires with the specific objective of reducing reporting burden on small businesses.
(b)	In the production of certain social statistics, Statistics Canada uses the SI number as a means of linking taxation data year over year in order to generate certain longitudinal characteristics, principally geographical mobility. Also in the social statistics area, Statistics Canada uses the SI number as an initial to certain records from a previous reporting cycle or as a link to other administrative records, through co-operative arrangements with provincial agencies.
(c)	Statistics Canada uses the SI number to facilitate the location of relevant tax returns for a small number of individuals operating unincorporated businesses, to eliminate the need for duplicate requests for the same data on a Statistics Canada form. In some cases this involves bringing together data derived from surveys and questionnaires with those from tax records.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Was an information task force planned in the services branch of the Department of Supply and Services, under the former government, for the purpose of studying how the public could be served in a manner which would give better access to information on government programs, joint federal and provincial ventures, etc. and, if so, did this proceed to a point where an additional amount of funds for expansion was either set aside or about to be set aside to provide for same?
2.	Has the government proceeded in this regard and (a) if so, what are all the details (b) if not, for what reason?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: 1. Yes.
2.	There is a task force on service to the public actively working under the deputy minister-services. Its mandate is to improve access to government for Canadians and to stimulate changes in the actual delivery of service and information. The government has both endorsed the goals of the task force and its work program. The work program includes new measures to make access to government by telephone easier, to improve department client practices and to examine ways and means of better providing over-the-counter service. The task force was responsible for the improved listings and blue pages in public telephone directories for example, and in September I signed an agreement with Manitoba marking the first link in a national federal-provincial telephone inquiry service.
October 9, 1980


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call starred question No. 869?


Mr. Gass: 1.	Does the Department of Fisheries and Oceans employ community service officers in the Atlantic provinces and, if so (a) how many (b) where are they located (c) what are the terms and conditions of their employment?
2.	Was Mr. Harry Shorten's contract renewed and, if so (a) under what terms and conditions (b) for what amount (c) what is the term of the contract (d) what are his responsibilities (e) is he involved in any way with over-the-side sales and, if so, in what capacity?


Mr. George Henderson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: 1. Yes.
(a)	21
(b)	Louisbourg, N.S.
Petit Etang, N.S.
Bickerton, N.S.
Canso, N.S.
Pictou, N.S.
Meteghan, N.S.
Tiverton, N.S.
West Head, Shelburne County, N.S.
Lower Wedgeport, Yarmouth County, N.S.
Lockeport, N.S.
Leonardville, Dear Island, N.B.
Seal Cove, Grand Manan, N.B.
Lepreu, Chance Harbour, N.B.
Baie Ste-Anne, N.B.
Robichaud, N.B.
Bayfield, N.B.
Pokemouche, N.B.
Richibucto Village, N.B.
Caraquet, N.B.
Petit Rocher, N.B.
Tignish, P.E.I.
(c)	The community service officers were hired on a term basis initially to be from April 1, 1976, to March 31, 1981.
2. Yes.
(a)	To continue the program, co-ordinate planning and implementation of activities and submit a program evaluation report for the first quarter of the 1980-81 fiscal year.
Privilege-Mr. Kaplan
(b)	$23,880-covers salary, office and travel expenses, secretary and employee benefits.
(c)	April 1, 1980, to June 20, 1980.
(d)	(i) co-ordinate program activities;
(ii)	develop awareness of the program among government personnel, fishermen's associations, communities and fishermen;
(iii)	prepare and submit monthly progress reports covering all aspects of the program and quarterly evaluation reports.
(e)	Yes, in 1980 he has been involved in an advisory capacity.


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


PRIVILEGE
Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. The hon. member opposite accused me of misrepresenting the facts. I should like the opportunity to clarify what I said, because I was not misrepresenting the facts and I think the hon. member has abused my privileges as a member of this House.
There was a letter referred to written by Mr. Justice McDonald to the parliamentary secretary. That letter concludes by saying:
I trust that you will bring this correction to the attention of those who may have understood that the position of my fellow commissioners and myself-
The parliamentary secretary did that. He brought this letter to my attention. I did not deny yesterday receiving the letter. I said, and I quote what I said yesterday: "I do not believe I have seen the letter-". I was wrong. I had seen the letter and I had answered it. My belief was wrong, but I did not deny that I had received it; I simply said that I did not believe I had received it.
The hon. member opposite said yesterday, which was not the fact, that I had denied receiving the letter. I did receive the letter. I went back to my office yesterday afternoon, saw that I had received it, read it, and wrote to Mr. Justice McDonald acknowledging that I had received it.
That letter from Mr. Justice McDonald did not, as the hon. member opposite says, ask the government to correct this inaccuracy. It simply said "-bring this correction-"


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) on a point of order.


Some hon. Members:: You can't.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, now that Your Honour has re-opened this subject for debate, I

October 9, 1980
Privilege-Mr. Kaplan
merely wish to ascertain that 1 will have an opportunity to correct what once again is a complete inaccuracy on the part of the Solicitor General. Your Honour had indicated that the subject was closed and that the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) had been given this opportunity. I indicated my view on the matter. Your Honour has now re-opened it and once again we have a completely erroneous statement. The government was asked to correct it, not merely with the Solicitor General, but all those persons who had been misled, including myself and the people of Canada. It was not merely to correct the misunderstanding of the Solicitor General.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I want to remind the hon. member that the hon. minister rose on a question of privilege. I am obligated to listen to him to see whether he has a question of privilege. 1 might ask him to be brief in trying to expose it to me, but I just have to listen to see whether he has a question of privilege.
If the hon. member wants to answer to that once the question of privilege has been stated, he might seek the floor.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, it is obviously a matter of interpretation between us. I am interpreting the letter one way and the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) has said that when Mr. Justice McDonald referred to "those" he meant "all those". He interjected the word "all". In his view, Mr. Justice McDonald wanted the parliamentary secretary to set the record straight for the country. Obviously, that is not the way the parliamentary secretary read the letter and that is not the way I read it. The letter has now been made public and the public can make up their own minds about it. It certainly does not say to bring this correction to the attention of "all those", as the hon. member opposite interprets it; he said simply "those who may have understood". The parliamentary secretary interpreted that to mean me, so he brought it to my attention.
On the question of privilege that was raised today I made it clear why I took the interpretation that I did. I feel that my interpretation is justified by what Mr. McDonald said last April in proceedings before him. It is a matter of public record and the public can look at that and draw its own conclusion about which interpretation of the transcript of the parliamentary secretary's statement and Mr. Justice McDonald's letter is accurate.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, in preface to my remarks may I say that I trust the Solicitor General will have no objection to this particular letter being made an appendix and being tabled in the House, if he is genuinely concerned that the public be informed of the facts. At the conclusion of my remarks I would request that it be appended to the Hansard of today.
The Solicitor General has indicated the remarks of Mr. Justice McDonald as follows:
I trust that you will bring this correction to the attention of those who may have understood that the position of my fellow commissioners and myself was as indicated-
He then went on to indicate the position. The Solicitor General indicates that if the parliamentary secretary brought it to the attention of the Solicitor General, then he was satisfying the requirements of Mr. Justice McDonald.
Madam Speaker, it is a ludicrous proposition to state that when the parliamentary secretary replies to a question in this House suggesting that the government is taking a certain position because a certain statement was made by Mr. Justice McDonald-when that statement to the House of Commons, to the members of Parliament and through them the people of Canada is made, it is erroneous for the Solicitor General to stand up and say that that statement can be corrected by a quiet conversation or perhaps by a letter to himself, when the parliamentary secretary was allegedly speaking on his behalf in the first place. It is completely and utterly without foundation.
Clearly, the record must state that the House was misled. It is not good enough just to say that the Solicitor-General might not have understood and now he understands, even though no one else was informed of the inaccuracy. I would ask that the House grant consent for this letter to be appended to Hansard so that the people of Canada and members of Parliament may make their own judgment as to exactly what Mr. Justice McDonald was referring to.


Madam Speaker:: Obviously there is disagreement as to whether the facts were the right ones or not. The hon. member did not say the minister had deliberately misled the House. His interpretation of what went on is that he misled it. The hon. minister put the facts to the House in the belief he did not mislead the House. I think we will let the facts stand on their merits. I do not see a question of privilege in this particular case.
If the minister wants to table certain documents, he may do so in due course, but we have now passed the time when documents can be tabled. He may choose to table same at another time and perhaps accommodate the member, as he has so asked.
The hon. member is rising on what may I ask?


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, I would ask for leave of the House to have a copy of this letter appended to the Hansard debates of today.


Madam Speaker:: We do not have the document on the Table yet. I would say that we should continue the proceedings of the House. The minister might table the document at some other time if he so desires and at that time it will be appended.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I would ask for leave to table a copy of the document, and that a copy of this document be appended to the Hansard of today's proceedings.
October 9, 1980


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I put myself in your hands for the appropriate procedure. I am perfectly prepared, for my part and for the government, to have that document made public, tabled, and appended to the proceedings.


Mr. Dick:: Table it now then.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent of the House to allow the minister to table the document?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: Is it agreed that the document be attached to Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: For text of document above referred to, see Appendix.]



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration from Wednesday, October 8, 1980, of the motion of the Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development (Mr. Chretien):
That a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons be appointed to consider and report upon the document entitled "Proposed Resolution for a Joint Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada" published by the government on October 2, 1980, and to recommend in their report whether or not such an address, with such amendments as the committee considers necessary, should be presented by both Houses of Parliament to Her Majesty the Queen;
That 15 members of the House of Commons to be designated no later than three sitting days after the adoption of this motion be members on the part of this House of the Special Joint Committee;
That the committee have power to appoint from among its members such subcommittees as may be deemed advisable and necessary and to delegate to such subcommittees all or any of their powers except the power to report directly to the House;
That the committee have power to sit during sitting and adjournments of the House of Commons;
That the committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to examine witnesses and to print such papers and evidence from day to day as may be ordered by the committee;
That the committee submit their report no later than December 9, 1980;
That the quorum of the committee be 12 members, whenever a vote, resolution or other decision is taken, so long as both Houses are represented and that the joint chairmen be authorized to hold meetings, to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof, when six members are present so long as both Houses are represented; and
Automotive Agreement
That a message be sent to the Senate requesting that House to unite with this House for the above purpose, and to select, if the Senate deems it to be advisable, members to act on the proposed Special Joint Committee.

[Stage Direction]
SUBJECT MATTER OF QUESTIONS TO BE DEBATED Madam Speaker: 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 Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight)-Canadian Wheat Board-Grain-Investigation into upgrading-Value received by western farmers; the hon. member for York North (Mr. Gamble)-Labour	conditions-Newfoundland-Reported
decision of province to reserve oil rig jobs for Newfoundlanders; the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish)-Public Service-Cost of living increase less than rise in inflation.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, private bills, notices of motions (papers), public bills. There being no public bills under that item on the order paper, the House will proceed to the consideration of notices of motions (papers).

Mr. Hal Herbert (Vaudreuil) moved:: That an humble address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all orders in council since 1965 relative to the remission of duties under the Automotive Agreement.
He said: This motion gives us a brief opportunity to examine the agreement concerning automotive products between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America which was signed in January, 1965, and more specifically, the subsequent use of orders in council relating to remission of duties under the agreement.
A remission of duties, being a tariff item, is not spelled out in dollar terms. By its very nature, and however beneficial it may be to the company which profits from this action, it is not a highly visible item for parliamentary review, such as is the case with the spending estimates and public accounts. This lack of visibility at the political level is of even more concern at the industry level.
Before discussing the orders in council referred to in the motion, may I cite a specific item of concern? The orders in council are, of course, a government decision to confer a benefit. It is suggested that the Minister of Industry, Trade

October 9, 1980
Automotive Agreement
and Commerce (Mr. Gray) has before him at the present time a proposed order in council that would grant to the Ford Motor Company an unconditional remission of duties for the next five years. Whether or not this is true, and whether or not it would be a justifiable measure, is not as important as the fact that such an order in council is a possibility. One can readily understand the industry concern based on lack of knowledge of the full reason behind past actions.
Let me explain what led to the putting of this motion on the order paper. About a year ago I was invited to a meeting of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, along with several other members. I had no particular constituency interest in automotive parts manufacture, but I went along because I had no great knowledge of the agreement that had been signed in 1965 concerning automotive products, and I thought I would learn something. At that meeting one of the members of the association expressed his concern that there was no publication of the orders in council which dealt with the remission of duties under this agreement, and I questioned him at the time. I felt that, after all, these orders in council are published in The Canada Gazette and therefore in the public domain. He pointed out that because of the volume of material which goes through, and that obviously these are not starred for any particular industry they are, by their very nature, very well concealed.
The complaint at that time was that they were not able to get from the officials of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce the details which they wanted, which they felt they needed, in order to judge whether or not the actions of the government in issuing these orders in council were rational.
I must admit that I felt the subject should be aired. So upon returning to the House, I put this motion on the order paper. It was short-lived in the last Parliament and it never reached the point where the papers could be produced by the government. Therefore, in this particular Parliament when the item was brought up, the government indicated that the orders in council were too voluminous and accordingly it was not a particularly practical matter to table them. In fact the reply, as I recall, and I will read it is: "The documents are very voluminous and would require a lot of time and a lot of public funds to prepare." I called for the item to be transferred for debate at that time because, once again, if we had said that "we understand", and I do understand, we would still be in the same position of not really being aware of what had been done in the intervening years since 1965.
As a result of the calling of this motion today, I have had meetings with the officials of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and have reviewed with them the 115 orders in council which have been passed in the intervening 15 years. They made interesting reading. I have several copies with me. Of those 115 orders in council, 67 were passed to take care of companies that were not in existence in 1965 and, therefore, could not benefit from the agreement. Of those 67, 35 companies are still operational.
There were many other reasons, which I do not intend to review here, for the other orders in council. All of them were perfectly logical and, from my point of view as a member of Parliament, perfectly acceptable. What was abundantly apparent was that the information which I was receiving was obviously not in the hands of the members of the Automobile Parts Manufacturers' Association of Canada with whom I had met about a year ago. Hence, they have anxiety about what has been done and what could be done.
Canada's automotive trade deficit with the United States escalated sharply last year, 1979, to over $3 billion from a 1978 deficit of around $600 million. There was a substantial increase in the deficit on parts trade. The Science Council report is critical of the less than adequate support from the Canadian government for increases in parts production and engineering in Canada by U.S. automobile subsidiaries. However, the report supported the federal duty remission scheme whereby overseas automobile producers can obtain lower duties by placing more parts orders in Canada. In Canada we have an annual market of about one million automobiles and about one-third of a million commercial vehicles. However, the Canadian industry performs virtually no design research or development work.
I want to refer to the inquiry into the automotive industry which was published in October, 1978. The commissioner was Simon Reisman. I want to refer to some of the comments which pertain to the matter under discussion today, specifically that almost all the actual or perceived problems for Canada in the automotive industry flow from the absence from Canada of any decision making or other head office functions, the lack of significant design, research or development activities, a weak machinery and equipment support industry, and constant danger of inadequate investment.
The inquiry also stated that apart from the addition of snowmobiles and off-highway vehicles where inadvertence rather than policy dictated change, the agreement to which I referred to stands as original negotiated. Incidentally, among the 115 orders in council to which I have referred are those orders in council dealing specifically with snowmobiles and off-highway vehicles.
From the recommendations of this inquiry of Simon Reisman, I want to make reference to five items. I quote:
The commission does not believe that this is a good time to attempt to re-negotiate the Auto Pact with the U.S. Government. The commission recommends, therefore, that the safeguards under the agreement, namely the assembly ratio, the CVA requirement and the "bogey", as well as the prohibition on imports of used cars and the restriction of duty-free imports to designated manufacturers, not be modified at the present time-
The commission recommends that a tariff provision be introduced for dutyfree import of materials to be used in the production of Canadian automotive parts and accessories. This would take the form of a special end-use item along the lines of similar tariff items now available for the agricultural implements industry and certain other industries. This will enable auto parts producers to obtain their requirements at world competitive prices.
A recommendation of the commission proposed that an advisory body be established to conduct an annual review of developments pertaining to the automotive industry. The commission recommended that this body also be charged with the
October 9, 1980

task of reviewing the operations of the Enterprise Development Program as it relates to the automotive industry.
Another recommendation dealt with the order to increase automotive research and development in Canada. Mr. Simon Reisman said the government may wish to consider limiting the amount of R and D payments to foreign affiliates which may be deducted for tax purposes.
The federal government's response to these recommendations was published in March, 1979. I will refer to only one of the responses. The government stated in part that the termination of existing duty remission programs and their replacement by another program required further study. It was acknowledged there were certain possible advantages to the designated vehicle importer proposal which could result in more production and a better regional distribution of automotive activity in Canada. As far as I am aware, this proposal is still being examined.
It seems from the inquiry and the comments of the industry that there is no basic desire that there be a renegotiation of the agreement as it was signed some 15 years ago. However, the members of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association of Canada are suggesting, and I support their suggestion, that some means be found by which the actions which the government takes through the issuance of orders in council be either communicated directly to interested parties, or that notification should be sent to the interested parties when the order in council has been published in The Canada Gazette so that there can be full knowledge of each and every case. For example, among the listing of the 115 orders in council to which I have already referred, there were a limited few which dealt with the remission of duties in cases of small companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy. This is a judgment call, and certainly at the moment I do not have any knowledge which would suggest that the judgment call of the government in these cases was not good. Nevertheless, it is a judgment call and it should be open to scrutiny by the public. Granted, as I said earlier, the orders in council are printed in The Canada Gazette. Nevertheless, it was abundantly apparent just one year ago after 15 years of issuing these orders in council the interested parties did not have knowledge of changes which had been made by the government, possibly worthwhile, and of direct interest to them.
I would make reference to five of these orders in council which are of some significance. They all deal with relatively large companies-Chrysler, International Harvester, American Motors; two dealt with the Soma-Renault effort in the province of Quebec which subsequently failed.
Certainly inasmuch as the Chrysler action was concerned, no one disputes that it did result in the construction of a $40-million facility in Canada which would not have been built except for the agreement whereby Chrysler benefited from the remission of duties which obligated it in subsequent years to conform to the ratio under the agreement in total. As a result, the plant was built in Canada.
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In the well-known case where, due to a strike, it was impossible for the company concerned to comply with the ratio requirements, once again the agreement on remission of duties ensured that in subsequent years this particular company had to conform to the required ratio performance. There is a point here, of course, that in our rather antiquated system under which we operate on a yearly basis there is no carry-over. I have no idea whether any thought has been given to averaging, but it certainly seems to me that in the two cases I have just mentioned some provision for averaging over a period of say five years would have done away with the problem. In fact, that is what the order in council effectively did.
The point of bringing this motion to the floor of the House is to indicate that the government does use orders in council for what certainly on the face of it to me at the present time are good reasons, but nevertheless by their very nature they are not abundantly evident to the public. Certainly if they are not apparent to those who have the greatest interest in them then they are not evident to the public at large.
Last week I discussed with the chairman of the Public Service Commission my belief that the public servant was there to serve the public, and that this meant giving a little more than a limited answer to the question asked. It means, in effect, ensuring that the person posing a question should receive all the information which the public servant realizes is necessary, in this particular case the explanation of the reasons for the multitude of orders in council that have been approved by the government.
1 plead that some means be found whereby in future whenever there is an order in council to be approved of a nature that affects this particular association, an immediate communication of the reasons for the order in council be sent to the interested parties. I further suggest that if there is any suggestion that the order in council procedure be used as a means to relieve some of the problems of the Ford Motor Company, such an idea be communicated first to the public so there can be a reaction to this means of giving a tax benefit to a company, a benefit which, after all, will have some effect on the pocket of the taxpayer in Canada.
I hope I have explained my reason for bringing this motion to the floor of the House. I appreciate the co-operation I have received from officials of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce since the item was called for debate at the end of last week. I hope in the future that kind of co-operation will be extended voluntarily to the members of the industry who are vitally interested in this question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Otto Jelinek (Halton):: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say it is rather strange to be debating a motion of this nature which calls for the publication of orders in council, in this case regarding the remission of duties in the auto industry. The hon. member should know, and he alluded to this fact briefly, that orders in council of this nature are available from the PCO. As the hon. member is a member of the government he should have no trouble in getting that information from the PCO. In addition, The Canada Gazette has a list of duty remissions as well, and therefore if they are

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published in The Canada Gazette they are available to the public and certainly to the industry which is interested in duty remissions.
During his comments the hon. member referred basically to recommendations of the Simon-Reisman inquiry into"the auto industry, the report of which was tabled in 1978. The information gathered by that commission for that report would have been gathered over a period of perhaps two or three years. Therefore, we are talking about the auto industry as it was in 1975 or 1976. 1 do not know where the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) has been in the last four or five years, but I can tell him that the auto industry has totally changed in those years. In fact, it has changed for the worse in the last year or two, and that is why there is so much interest in Canada, North America and around the world in improving the auto industry in different areas.
The auto industry in North America has changed in many ways, probably the most important resulting from foreign, offshore imports taking a large slice of the industry in North America. In fact, Japanese imports have accounted for something like 27 per cent of the industry in North America.
There has been a change toward smaller and more fuel-efficient cars. This year American manufacturers have gone to new models, the ones we have been reading about in the last few weeks, including the Ford Escort, the Mercury Lynx, the Chrysler K cars, the Dodge Aries and the General Motors J cars. In other words, there has been a trend toward a world car. I really cannot believe the hon. member would base his comments on an obsolete report which, in essence, has no bearing on the situation today.
It is a totally different world. I do not know where he has been during that time. The changes in the auto industry have been major, therefore the potential solutions are different from what they would have been three or four years ago, and I suggest that the potential solution which should be considered, and considered by this Parliament, in the very near future is to make certain that we, with the United States, will be able to revamp the obsolete and inadequate auto pact which has been in existence since 1965.
The auto pact permits automobiles and automobile parts to cross the Canada-U.S. border duty-free provided certain requirements such as sales-to-production ratios, North American content and so forth are met. Canada traditionally has a moderate surplus in finished vehicles. In fact, in 1979 there was a surplus of some $800 million in finished autos. However, we in Canada have a very large deficit in parts, over $4 billion in 1979 alone, so last year's over-all deficit in the auto pact within the auto industry in Canada with the United States, which includes tires, was a record $3.12 billion.
The cumulative deficit since 1965 is over $11 billion, and it is growing. If we are to try to assist the industry, we cannot look back to 1978, 1977 and 1976. We must look to the present and to the future and to what can and should be done.
I say the auto pact must be revamped, and I will get to that in
a few moments because that is a long-range plan. It cannot happen overnight.
What should happen overnight, however, are some specific programs which can be put in place immediately if this government would get off its behind and start concentrating on some of the things which can be done to assist the auto industry in Canada. Tens of thousands of Canadians are unemployed because there has been no action by this government. Hundreds of plants across Canada are losing sales and productivity. Dozens of plants across Canada are going bankrupt as a result of the lack of action in the auto industry by this government, yet the hon. member comes up with duty remissions and quotes statements made in an inquiry in 1978. I just cannot comprehend his thinking in this regard.
I do not have time today to go in detail into the specific items with which the government could deal. I hope to do so in the very near future. I hope to express not only my views but those of the Progressive Conservative Party. The first step the government could take is a minor one but, nevertheless, it is one which would alleviate the problems of the industry. That step would be to remove the 9 per cent federal excise tax. This would at least assist in the stimulation of sales of North American-built cars. I suggest the removal of the 9 per cent federal excise tax from North American-built cars only.
The second step is far more important but should be taken only with the short-term in mind until the auto pact can be revamped. That step would be to impose quotas on offshore imports at least at the level of the year 1975 or 1976 when the number of imported cars was far lower and not as damaging to our industry here in Canada as it is today. I travelled to Washington and Detroit to see what the Americans were doing in their industry when it was in trouble, as it has been in the last two years, and I am convinced that with their new world car concept the American auto makers will pull out of the problems they have been encountering, the result not only of the recession which is plaguing both our countries but also of competition from foreign imports which has damaged sales in North America.
We must make sure that Canada gets its fair share of the renewed enthusiasm of the United States auto makers about their world car concept, but I do not think it will. In fact, I am convinced that Canada will not receive its fair share until and unless we change and revamp the obsolete auto pact about which I am talking.
The Liberal government, whether the present government or the one previous to the few short months we spent in office, has effectively relinquished control of Canada's motor car industry and is now making the industry dependent on whatever concessions it can wring from the U.S. auto makers within the constraints of the auto pact. The weakness of the Canadian bargaining position is demonstrated time after time by the involvement of governments in what is known as subsidy auctions. Those are to induce auto manufacturers to locate new plants in Canada rather than in the United States. That is a good point, but if the auto pact was truly effective, Canada would automatically receive its fair share of new
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investment and it would be quite unnecessary to engage in such costly bribery, which is what it is.
It seems clear that the Canadian industry's most critical problem lies in the parts sector which accounts for the excessive and continually growing over-all trade deficit figures I mentioned earlier. This sector offers rquch higher benefits than vehicle assembly in terms of value-added and job creation. It is a field in which independent Canadian firms would appear to have good prospects of success, given fair access to the monopoly market operated by the vehicle producers.
Since parts and accessories constitute over three-quarters of the value of the finished vehicle, it is apparent that they must be fully included in any meaningful calculation of benefits accruing to the perspective countries and industrial participants.
I therefore suggest that when we are talking about the remission of duties the principle of fair share should be applied to the parts sector as a separate entity distinct from the vehicle assembly sector with which the present agreement, the auto pact, is primarily concerned. Such segregation would permit the more effective application of essential safeguards and help to ensure compliance with the basic intent of the auto pact.
Since some 60 per cent of total parts consumption is either produced in-house by the vehicle assemblers or comes from captive suppliers, it should be entirely feasible to incorporate the requirement for an appropriate share of Canadian parts in the commitment package for each of the major automotive producers.
Now is the right time-in fact, 1 think the time is long overdue-for Canada to encourage our parts manufacturers to compete worldwide in this new day and era of the world car, and unless the government takes the initiative to create incentives allowing Canadian manufacturers to get their fair share, this will not happen. We can no longer afford to sit idly by, as the Liberal administration has done time and time again, not dealing with the facts of today but rather looking back to yesterday, content with studies upon studies upon more studies.
The reduction in size and weight and increased fuel efficiency which are taking place in the United States and around the world have put a premium on the use of three materials. They are aluminum, plastics and stainless steel.
These are Canadian strengths with which we can become competitive not just in Canada but in the wider world. Canadian parts manufacturers must be encouraged to go after the automotive parts business anywhere in the world. They can do so. Canada might aid this development through the use of duty remission schemes. I believe we should bid for world productions of components and allow vehicles manufacturers in other countries to deduct from their Canadian duty the value of their parts purchased from Canada. We should consider broadening the application of duty remission to allow foreign producers to apply against Canadian duty on the basis of the total value of Canadian parts used worldwide. This would create an opportunity for Canadian parts manufacturers to
Automotive Agreement
trade not only in the United States but also in Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and France as well as South America and Africa. With the world car concept, the only way we will stay competitive is to go to the world and trade our advantages-and those are our auto parts and our natural resources-with the rest of the world. We cannot depend on the present auto pact to be able to go forward in that regard.
Such a concept would build on Canadian strengths and would encourage Canadian entrepreneurs to go to world markets to sell. Duty remissions can provide the framework for this export drive. Within the development potential of the remission program, joint ventures with foreign vehicle manufacturers to produce such items as plastic and aluminium components must be encouraged. As part of the same strategy 1 suggest that Canadian producers of auto parts be encouraged to form export consortia so that they might be more competitive in the world markets.
As I said, we could continue debating this for a long time and come up with the many options that are available. That is precisely my point. Options are available to this government and to this Parliament-1 have mentioned a view of them. What is needed is action by the government to work out those options. Unless the government takes action, our auto industry will not get its fair share in the United States where most movement is taking place and our assembly plants and, more important, the smaller and medium-sized parts manufacturers will go down the drain.
So I urge the hon. member not to go back to some reports of three or four years ago and wonder where he can get orders in council when he knows full well-he has been here long enough-that The Canada Gazette prints those orders-in-council and that anybody in the country can find out from that source what they are. If he is indeed concerned about the auto industry, he should put pressure on the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray), on the cabinet and on the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to start acting on some of these important issues. Only then will we be able to make the best of the strength we have.


Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to support the resolution put forward by the hon. member opposite. I think there is a very clear need to make a record of these orders in council from some readily available source, which would entitle the Canadian auto industry and the auto industry in general to a remission on import duties. The only thing I really regret is that the resolution is not broader because it appears there is much more information which the public should have, considering the present state of the auto industry and its future options.
I also agree with what the hon. member who has just preceded me said in the sense that I think the government is basically looking at an issue that is dead. The whole North American auto industry has been restructured but we are looking back at what happened almost a decade ago and trying
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to live with a particular concept which is now dead. If we are not ready to respond to the new trends, we will be left behind and we will find ourselves in a worse situation than the one in which we find ourselves today.
The basic reason for making information in orders in council readily available is that the industry is in very serious difficulty. If there is to be a public debate and public input, that information must be made available. It appears to me that if those orders in council, along with much other documentation, are not made readily available in this country, it will become evident that the Canadian government has continuously given up production quotas and allowed U.S. auto workers and their subsidiaries in Canada to avoid meeting those production quotas and that, in other words, it has given away Canadian jobs. Secondly, the government has not enforced duty payments in penalty for failing to meet particular job guarantees to Canadians. That duty amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars in public revenue which have been given up by orders in council. Those countries have agreed to create jobs in this country in exchange for duty-free marketing and they have agreed to pay penalties in terms of income to Canadians for taking advantage of the market in this country.
I congratulate the hon. member on the motion because I think Canadians have the right to see that information and to have it provided in a readily accessible and consolidated form so that they can participate meaningfully in the debate. What concerns me is that there appears to be much more information needed than is available, and there is some indication that all the information needed will never become available in Canada. Canadians wanting to participate will have to go to the United States where laws on information are far more lenient.
Let us take some examples from the International Trade Commission hearings in the United States and let us consider the questions which were put to the Ford Motor Company. The company has suggested that its failure to meet production quotas in Canada resulted at one time in their owing Canadians duty amounting roughly to $165 million. The procedure which the Canadian government used to allow them not to pay it was to approve a consignment system which allowed the Ford Motor Company to readjust its production quotas. So even though they sold numerous cars in the country in one particular year they were able to break up that allocation over several years.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Canadian government literally gave away Canadian jobs and gave away the compensating revenue which should have accrued to the people of Canada, revenue which amounted to $165 million. I can give you another example, which comes out of the International Trade Commission hearings, or information which is not readily available to Canadians but which they should have. I am referring to the fact that the General Motors Company has failed to meet its production quotas in Canada. The company readily acknowledged at those International Trade Commission hearings that it owes Canadians roughly $6.5 million in duty and that by a variety of schemes it had managed to avoid
paying that duty. This demonstrates to me a lack of willingness to ensure that Canadians have their rightful share in the auto industry. Second, there is a serious attempt by the Government of Canada to hide information from Canadians. It is a sad state of affairs when Canadians have to go to the United States to obtain needed documentation. Some of the techniques which allow companies to escape production quotas and duty requirements are questionable. It appears that, rather than elected members of cabinet, officials of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and of the Department of Finance are making certain rulings by agreement which have allowed companies to escape the requirements of the act. It appears from the evidence before the International Trade Commission that those officials have interpreted the law in such a way as to cause Canadians to give up their claim to revenue and to jobs through guaranteed production quotas. Frankly I think that a legal inquiry should be instituted to determine whether the interpretation of those officials was correct and whether those decisions should not have come from elected members rather than from officialdom.
In the few moments remaining I should like to endorse what the hon. member who preceded me said. The automobile industry in north America has been totally restructured, as he stated. What has happened is that the recession in the United States has caused the market to shrink. The U.S. is left with all the technology relating to small, fuel-efficient cars and with all the production capability. Effectively, there is none available in Canada. The auto industry in Canada is disappointed with the auto pact; they say it is not working. I believe that in the United States, with all their technology, they do not care whether it works or not. We may be sitting here arguing about a document whose time has come and gone, about an industry which has changed while we were worrying about grants for plants and putting the industry on welfare and trying to bargain away a subsidized approach. The industry in the United States has restructured itself, admittedly in a shrunken market, but nevertheless it has responded to the situation and now it has all the technology, all the production capability. I think eventually they will tell us we can have our auto pact and whistle for it. There will be nothing left for us, but their benefits will continue to accrue.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business having expired, I do now leave the chair until 8 p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
October 9, 1980


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of the Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development (Mr. Chretien):
That a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons be appointed to consider and report upon the document entitled "Proposed Resolution for a Joint Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada" published by the government on October 2, 1980, and to recommend in their report whether or not such an address, with such amendments as the committee considers necessary, should be presented by both Houses of Parliament to Her Majesty the Queen.
That 15 members of the House of Commons to be designated no later than three sitting days after the adoption of this motion by members on the part of this House of the Special Joint Committee;
That the committee have power to appoint from among its members such subcommittees as may be deemed advisable and necessary and to delegate to such subcommittees all or any of their powers except the power to report directly to the House;
That the committee have power to sit during sittings and adjournments of the House of Commons;
That the committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to examine witnesses and to print such papers and evidence from day to day as may be ordered by the committee;
That the committee submit their report no later than December 9, 1980;
That the quorum of the committee be 12 members, whenever a vote, resolution or other decision is taken, so long as both Houses are represented and that the joint chairmen be authorized to hold meetings, to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof, when six members are present so long as both Houses are represented; and
That a message be sent to the Senate requesting that House to unite with this House for the above purpose, and to select, if the Senate deems it to be advisable, members to act on the proposed Special Joint Committee.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order. 1 believe the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve was to have the floor but I think the Secretary of State has some information to convey to the House first.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Fox:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I should like to avail myself of this opportunity to inform members of the House that Tuesday, October 14, will be an allotted day.
The Constitution


THE CONSTITUTION
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of the Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development (Mr. Chretien):
That a Special Joint Committee of the Senate and of the House of Commons be appointed to consider and report upon the document entitled "Proposed Resolution for a Joint Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada" published by the government on October 2, 1980, and to recommend in their report whether or not such an address, with such amendments as the committee considers necessary, should be presented by both Houses of Parliament to Her Majesty the Queen;
That 15 members of the House of Commons to be designated no later than three sitting days after the adoption of this motion be members on the part of this House of the Special Joint Committee;
That the committee have power to appoint from among its members such subcommittees as may be deemed advisable and necessary and to delegate to such subcommittees all or any of their powers except the power to report directly to the House;
That the committee have power to sit during sittings and adjournments of the House of Commons;
That the committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to examine witnesses and to print such papers and evidence from day to day as may be ordered by the committee;
That the committee submit their report no later than December 9, 1980;
That the quorum of the committee be 12 members, whenever a vote, resolution or other decision is taken, so long as both Houses are represented and that the joint chairmen be authorized to hold meetings, to receive evidence and authorize the printing thereof, when six members are present so long as both Houses are represented; and
That a message be sent to the Senate requesting that House to unite with this House for the above purpose, and to select, if the Senate deems it to be advisable, members to act on the proposed Special Joint Committee.
Mr. Serge Joyal (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve):: Mr. Speaker, with your leave I will resume the debate where we had left it last night at the time of adjournment. I will try to assess the effects of the proposed resolution before us over the whole issue of immigration. This debate is all the more important that in yesterday's issue of Le Soleil appeared a headline on first page stating, and I quote, "Ottawa opening up English schools to immigrants."
Mr. Speaker, I strongly protest; the proposed resolution and especially section 23 does not deal at all with the immigration issue and there is absolutely no intention whatsoever of giving back freedom of choice to immigrants in Quebec whatever the country they may come from. Therefore, under the proposed resolution an American, Polish, Italian, Australian, Greek, Portuguese, British, French-Haitian immigrant is still required to send his child to the majority school, the French one.
So it is wrong to keep alive in the public's minds the idea that with this proposed resolution we are creating two classes of immigrants in Quebec. There is only one class of immigrants in Quebec, they all send their children to French school. I want to repeat and emphasize this, because for the last 48

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hours in particular, media are reporting that the proposed resolution before the Elouse will in effect reopen the matter of freedom of choice for immigrants to Quebec. Let it then be clearly understood, there is no question of re-establishing freedom of choice for immigrants to Quebec.
The second matter on which I would like to call the attention of the House is the access to English schools for Canadian citizens whose first language is English. When we looked for a way to guarantee Francophones outside Quebec the right to send their children to French school, we had to ask ourselves how we were going to allow the English minority coming to Quebec or living in Quebec to send their children to the school of their choice, or English school. We had no choice, Mr. Speaker, we could not establish two classes of citizens in Canada, one class of citizens born in Canada and another class to whom citizenship is granted. We wanted to avoid the trap of creating two types of citizens-new citizens and Canadian-born ones. What we have in Canada is two official languages, what we have in Quebec is two types of schools, French schools and English schools. Therefore, in determining what groups of citizens must send their children to French school, we had no other choice than to use the criteria of first language. This means that a Canadian citizen coming to Quebec and whose mother tongue is Italian or Polish or Chilean or Spanish must send his children to French school. There is no question of freedom of choice for any other citizen whose first language is not English. They have the same status exactly as Frenchspeaking citizens. Therefore, the only citizens with access to English school under this proposal are those whose first language is English.
[Editor's Note: At this point, a child started crying in the gallery.]


Serge Joyal: 1 do not know if this new citizen's mother tongue is English or French, but if ever he has to be enrolled in a Quebec school and his parents' first language is not English, they will have to enroll him in a French school.
We were not free to choose a criterion such as that of Bill 101 which says that the school attended by the parents determines accessibility to the French or the English school, because if we had adopted that criterion we would have made it impossible for Francophones living outside Quebec who could not get their primary or secondary education in French to send their children to a French school. I would like to make that clear to Quebeckers, Mr. Speaker. There is no question of restoring free choice under the proposed resolution nor of opening English schools to immigrants. I insist on that point because during the past two days the media have published reports that do not take into account the contents of the resolution now under consideration.
Mr. Speaker, that is the first point I wanted to make. The second deals with an assessment of the demographic fluctuations between Quebec and the remainder of Canada. This is quite important because if we establish that the mother tongue is the criterion of accessibility to English school, we should have some idea of the number of English-speaking Canadians coming within Quebec, as we must have some idea of the number of new English-speaking Canadians who settle down in Quebec. I said yesterday that the percentage of new English-speaking citizens settling in Quebec through immigration over the past two years had a tendency to come into line with their percentage in Quebec; in other words, the number of English-speaking citizens settling down in Quebec through immigration make up 20 per cent as a whole, which is equivalent generally to that part of the population in Quebec.
There is therefore a balance in the immigration process such that the proposed resolution will, without a doubt, change the balance or the numerical importance of Francophones in Quebec. Also, Mr. Speaker, we need only look at the migration of Quebeckers from Quebec. This phenomenon has been going on for 25 years, and I am not the one who came to that conclusion. Mr. Jacques Henripin, one of Quebec's most respected demographers, stated in a study published in January, 1980, that since the present economic situation is not quite in Quebec's favour the trend to leave the province has been stronger over the last 25 years than the trend to come to that province.
For the year 1977-1978, Mr. Henripin noted that there was a loss of 41,000 and 35,000 Quebeckers who left Quebec to establish themselves in other provinces. A breakdown of these migrants by language shows that 29 per cent were Francophones, 62 per cent were Anglophones and 9 per cent were from another language group. This clearly means that there are almost as many French-speaking Quebeckers who leave Quebec to settle elsewhere in Canada as there are new citizens whose mother tongue is English who come into Quebec.
Therefore the provisions of section 23 which grant Frenchspeaking Canadians the right to send their children to French schools when they leave Quebec to live elsewhere in Canada ultimately protect French-speaking Quebeckers more than they bother English-speaking Canadians who would move to Quebec. The people of Quebec must know that because the shift of economic wealth within Canada, which is not an isolated phenomenon, has also been observed in the United States. Therefore the westward shift of wealth is followed by a shift in the population which affects as many Anglophones as Francophones. We must think about the rights of Frenchspeaking Quebeckers to send their children to French schools where they leave Quebec and go live in other provinces.
Nothing in this resolution prevents Quebec from drafting its own policy enabling the government to ensure a fair balance between French-speaking and English-speaking groups as well as groups using other languages. And this is very important, Mr. Speaker, because if I believed that this bill would make it more difficult to maintain this balance without which Quebec
October 9, 1980

cannot be the focal point of Francophones in North America, 1 would be the first to ask for amendments in this regard. But the facts are quite the opposite. Under section 95 of the present constitution jurisdiction over immigration is shared equally by Quebec and the central government, and this is why, on February 20, 1978, the Government of Canada and the government of Quebec signed a three-year agreement which gives Quebec a power of veto concerning immigrants to its territory, which veto Quebec has used, continues to use and will eventually still use when it expires since it could be renewed by common agreement.
Consequently, Mr. Speaker, nothing in this bill goes against the essential provisions of Bill 101 in Quebec. French continues to be the official language of Quebec, it continues to be the working language; French continues to be the language of business and trade, it continues to be the focal point of the efforts of all governments so that Quebec can remain the principal residence of Francophones in North America. 1 want my fellow citizens to be aware of this because it is very easy to confuse everyone, to raise the spectre of immigration and of the invasion of Quebec, and because we must know exactly what we are talking about when we speak of immigration and new citizens and when we try to balance the relationships which must exist between Francophones and Anglophones in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, this is very important because, for our part, we realize that Francophones outside Quebec, who are very conscious of the subject matter of the resolution being debated by Parliament, are well aware that unfortunately this proposal does not go far enough. They tell us: In Victoria, in 1971, seven provinces had agreed to recognize the use of French during the proceedings in the legislatures. There was Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Manitoba. In 1971, three provinces were willing to recognize the use of French before the courts. In 1971, five Canadian provinces were willing to recognize the use of French in their services to their citizens. It may be well to remind the House which provinces those were: Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario. Yes, Mr. Speaker, Ontario.
In 1971, Ontario was willing to recognize the right of Francophones to be served by their government in either of the two official languages in Canada. We forget that too often. Ontario has backtracked in that regard since 1971. The Ontario government is not solely responsible for that. As we know, it has been pointed out repeatedly, the Quebec government was the one that refused the Victoria charter, by demanding what? That it have jurisdiction in the field of social affairs, a topic that has not been heard of again in eight years, which has never been the subject of another constitutional conference. Yet, at that time, at least seven provinces were willing to make significant progress.
The Constitution
When Bill C-60 was put before the House in June of 1978, the federal legislation contained provisions identical to those of the Victoria formula. When the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Trudeau) addressed the provincial premiers on September 10, 1980, less than a month ago, he made identical proposals. Today, Francophones outside Quebec ask us, "Why do you not respect the commitments you made over ten years ago in Victoria, the promises you made two years ago when you introduced legislation?"
We have to recognize that the present proposed resolution does not go far enough in terms of protecting the rights they are entitled to claim in this country. So, Mr. Speaker, in the days and weeks to come when the committee will debate this issue it will have to consider including proposals allowing those provinces which are willing to proceed towards linguistic equality to achieve the basic equality provided in the proposed resolution, to make voluntary commitments and to guarantee through a provision in the charter the possibility of giving Francophone citizens of their province the same rights that are given to Anglophones in Quebec. That is the basis of Canada, Mr. Speaker. The commitment of all citizens to get exactly the same rights in any province, in any region.
Yesterday I heard my colleague from Ontario who was rightly expressing the aspirations of the west and who told us that in that region there are also people who think that the west might separate some day if we are not sensitive enough to their expectations. He was not talking to a brick wall. Francophones and Quebeckers are fighting in Ottawa in an attempt to re-establish that equality and we are ready to fight with our other colleagues in the House so that our fellow citizens in the west feel at home in our country. But when they return in the west we expect them not to attack the federal government- and I make a difference between the federal government and the Liberal party, knowing as I do the rules of politics-they should not attack our institutions, they should not alienate their fellow citizens and they should do like we Quebeckers do when we return to Quebec. We try to make our fellow citizens understand the advantages of staying in this country but also our duty to change it.
Mr. Speaker, this responsibility works both ways. We are ready to give them all the help they need and to listen to what the Leader of the New Democratic Party said the night when the Prime Minister tabled that resolution. We are listening carefully to the west. We are curious about what is to be done in that part of the country, but what we are asking them is to speak on behalf of Canada when they return home. The reason we are here is essentially to make sure that we have exactly the same perception and understanding of the duties we have with respect to our fellow Canadians. The future of Canada will be based on this, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure that when we are called upon to vote on this resolution and to decide, we will choose the extent of freedom the Canada of tomorrow will grant its citizens.

October 9, 1980
The Constitution


Hon. Alvin Hamilton (Qu'Appelle-Moose Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my first words must be, after listening Monday, Tuesday, and the little there was on Wednesday to this debate, that the high quality of most of the speakers has raised this debate far above the level of most debates in this House over the last 25 years. This does not mean that all the speeches were of high quality, but the high quality of most of them should be commented upon. When I use the words high quality, I include such adjectives as sincerity and deep thought, both of which have been put into the speeches in the House. It bears out what has always been the case when we discuss a subject like the constitution, that it requires a tremendous amount of thought trying to think our way through the points which are raised, not for the first time, it is true, but for the first time in the last ten or 12 years.
The constitution was the prevailing subject during the 1930s. It became clear that the weaker provinces under the terms and organization then existing were not able to meet the economic and social costs of a world-wide recession as well as the richer provinces. Then, after tremendous discussion, we moved on and under a royal commission headed by Rowell and then Sirois, the equalization principle came into being.
Now, 40 years later, it has come into the consciousness of the Canadian people that it is time we discuss the matter again. I think we owe a debt to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) for suggesting that all members should speak in this debate. That is going to take some time. With the quality of the speeches which we have been hearing, I think it would be very unwise for him to change his view on that proposal.
I want to mention the speech of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), particularly the last five minutes. I watched the faces of those who were in this House across from him and those behind him, which I could see much better on the television monitor.
All members were watching intently. When my leader came down to his conclusion that even though all parties wanted patriation, because it is a matter of national pride, and even though all parties were willing to take a look at what reforms they could bring to the constitution, we had to be aware of the significance of section 42. The impact which was made showed up, not only in the faces of the members, but in the shock effect across this nation as people got a second dose of what they had seen at the first ministers' conference.
At the first ministers' conference we saw a situation across the country whereby through every technique known to modern communications we were told that the Prime Minister would face a united group of provincial premiers, all of whom opposed him. When we saw the conference on television and heard it over the radio we found instead ten sincere, able men putting forward different views which made a lot of sense. Obviously, there was not agreement between the Prime Minister and the premiers, but there was no massing or ganging up.
The people of Canada were proud that there was a difference because they instinctively understand that this is a very important and complex problem. They were proud that men could put forward different views so sincerely and ably, and they knew that this country was in good hands.
Instead of taking that disagreement among the provinces as a sign of weakness in this country, it should be taken as a sign of strength. People are going to have different viewpoints because there is no human being in the whole world who can say for sure at this time what is the right thing to do on the subject we are discussing.
Let us take the idea of federalism. The word is now used openly and proudly but that has only come about in the last few years. When the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) served notice that he stood for a federal system, for the first time many people in Canada knew what he stood for. They got the idea that they have always known to be true, that this was the same concept as we had in 1867. We as Canadians knew in 1867 that it would be impossible to run a country as diverse, a country with so much geography, as a Unitarian state. The same view prevailed in the United States in 1787 when men like Alexander Hamilton, keen exponents of a strong central government, listened to the discussion of that unique group in Philadelphia and came down for the first time in history on behalf of the unique form of government, the federal system.
This federal system follows something that we know instinctively to be right-wherever possible, keep government close to the people. It gives a better class of government. You have to have a strong central government, but you can only have a strong central government when you do everything you can to make the other levels of government as strong as possible too. That is the concept of federalism.
There is no such thing as a compact in federalism, just as there is no such thing as a compact in the human body. An arm is an arm is an arm; it is part of the body and you cannot ask the arm to go one way and be different. I am simply saying that the concept of federalism was stated, by the Leader of the Opposition in one or two sentences, more powerfully and clearly than I have ever heard it stated before.
The speech impressed many people. Also, I have no choice but to mention the speech of the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom). He certainly surprised me. I have listened to him off and on for ten or 12 years and now, all of a sudden, when I heard him come out and in unequivocal terms support the concept of federalism as expressed by the Leader of the Opposition, I had to pay attention and listen very closely.
The House may not understand the significance of that but from a Saskatchewan point of view where we have witnessed this violent political clash for the last 50 years, to hear a socialist saying he believed in a federal system bringing government close to the people wherever possible, letting them make the decisions was, to my mind, revolutionary.
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I say to the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville, quite straightforward by, that I think he could well consider making the conversion complete. I now extend to him on behalf of the Saskatchewan caucus of the Conservative party, a welcome into our ranks where he can stand up and fight with colleagues unanimously behind him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: The resolution before us is not going to be weakened by anything I am going to say. It is unfortunate, however, that the resolution should be introduced in the middle of what has been going on in Canada in the last few years, particularly the last five or six months.
I was in the state of Washington last weekend. As I was driving to my destination I heard the American radio stations mention "scam". I knew it was a new word so I looked it up in these new dictionaries. As far as I can tell, it means fraud, it means manipulation, it means phony advertising. What made it news that day was the fact that three legislators in the state of Washington had just finished a four or five-month trial for "scamming"-conspiring to fool people. By God, if that is not what we have had in Canada these last four or five months, I wonder what we have been doing!


An hon. Member:: The last 17 years.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: Scam seems to have become part of the political techniques of all political parties but to use it when we are discussing something of common interest to all political parties, the constitution, just goes too far. You do not have to go through the processes as if you were a General Motors or Ford or Chrysler. If you have a lousy car, you put millions of dollars into advertising and claim that it is the best car that was ever built. You con the poor suckers into it. The suckers cannot jump out, unfortunately, but eventually the car companies go broke. Other people come in and provide something better, closer to what the people need but, by God, for 15 or 20 years they really take you to the cleaners.
Scam is such a serious issue in the United States-and I think their politics are just a shade lower in level than ours- that these trials are taking place in state after state. It is so bad down there that I even hear people talking about bringing the presidential candidates who are now running for the three parties-or the two parties and the independent-up on charges of scam. They believe they have a right to charge these people for trying to fool them. The main charge they would level against them is conspiracy to defraud. By God, have we not got conspiracy and fraud going on here?


An hon. Member:: That is Liberalism.


Francis Alvin George Hamilton: I should like to suggest in plain and simple terms tonight that the British
The Constitution
North America Act, drawn up by Canadians in Canada, is a good act and a good constitution. Not only has it served this country for over 100 years but it can serve us for another 100 years. There would be no trouble at all dealing with any of our problems, provided there was good feeling and a will to co-operate between the various elements and the levels of government.
I speak from the knowledge of how I have seen the situation deteriorate. If I have time, I may deal with the co-operative federalism we tried to get going from 1957 to 1963. I should like to bring matters more up to date, however.
What is the real issue we are talking about in Canada today? What is the real basic quarrel that is going on? It is not the French fact. Every province in the country, to my knowledge, is trying its level best to get that situation resolved. What we are fighting over in Canada is the same thing we were fighting for before we were a country.
If we look at the early history of the French colony and the English colonies, we see that the battle was over land. What we now call Quebec had small seigniorial farms of 30 or 50 acres, but people could not make a living on that. In the western colony of Ontario the clergy reserves took up the choice pieces of land. There was a tremendous demand for land and things were the same in the United States. The question was finally resolved by moving people westward. When we brought our government into being in 1867, Cartier, speaking on behalf of his part of the country, saw a great opportunity for the hard-pressed farmers of what is now Quebec to go west and share in the great desert out there. Many in this House know why they did not go. People from many countries, from the Atlantic area, from the eastern townships, and from Ontario did go. Thank God, they did, because the Americans were coming in from the south to take it anyway. We made a dominion from sea to sea. Unfortunately, not enough of the sons and daughters of those who worked on these small farms in Quebec joined us in that great adventure.
Land today is still in short supply, but there is something else beneath the land which attracts us. We have discovered that underneath our land, as a result of the productivity of the last two inches of soil, there is a tremendous wealth to be found in aquifers-water, if you like, underground streams and rivers-which is in far greater quantity than all the Great Lakes. At the bottom of the sedimentary areas, great wealth of thermal heat can be found which is hundreds of times greater than all the wealth in the hydrocarbons. When you realize that this wealth is there, who do you suppose wants to get in on the act? What we have witnessed is a battle this last decade or so between the civil servants at the provincial level who are trying to hang on to what they have got and the civil servants at the federal level

in the finance department-trying like the devil to get a hold of it. They are fighting for land now in the new form, and they fight for the taxes on it. So here we are with a federal government, with a highly efficient tax group of people

October 9, 1980
The Constitution
now matched by equally efficient people at the provincial level, fighting to preserve what they have got.
Guess who is caught in the middle? It is the fellow who is fighting to develop the resources. Certainly the politicians are not in the fight, they surrendered long ago. So here we have our masters, the mandarins who have taken a war lord attitude. And the battle between these war lords pops up in various forms.
Look at the budget of 1974-we had two of them that year. Because the provincial governments in five western provinces had doubled, tripled and quadrupled their taxes in the mining industry as well as the oil and gas industry, the federal civil servants said they would not let them get ahead. In 1974, out of their tariff budgets we got a principle that disallowed all provincial royalties and taxes. So we find two governments double-taxing the resource industries. They were so bad that the well drillers moved out of the west, and B.C. and Alberta had to back off a little.
All of this has been admitted in the House, Mr. Speaker. Two finance ministers said we should resolve this problem, but those budgets in 1974 were the opening round of a battle that we are still carrying on and calling a constitutional debate. In 1979, it was still there. Now, as this battle goes on with the roaring of the big guns, the threats go out. These include a natural gas export tax, an electricity export tax, an energy export tax and refining taxes. All these are part of the artillery drum fire of the civil service at Ottawa which is trying to terrify its opponents by threats of what they have to face, and this is one of the reasons why the provincial governments are watching this debate with great care. They suspect that trying seriously to look at what changes we can make in the constitution, and how we bring it to Canada for the first time, a Canadian law is only a guise. The provinces look at it and they are frightened. When people are frightened you get odd actions from them. The conclusion I reach is that this whole matter of the scam we have been using to push through this unilateral approach has already done great harm. But to solidify it in any form of a constitution means, as the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition said the other night, the beginning of the end of the federal state. When I heard the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent) come out for rapid action on the constitution, I thought how little he has learned of Canadian history. The only way you should deal with the constitution is to surround yourself with people who are not fighting to preserve their little empires, as has to be the case when you deal with heads of governments. Deal with people from all parties who are honestly trying to come up with some sort of way that can meet what we need to change the constitution to make a good constitution even better.
The fight will come down on this question of the charter of rights. There is no argument on patriation. Every party believes in it. We want the constitution back. We want that Canadian constitution to be continued as a Canadian constitution by this Parliament and the other legislatures so we can get
at the serious questions knowing full well we have not had to ask somebody else to do it for us.
Let me speak for a moment on this charter of rights. I was pleased and shocked when the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) in his speech praised John Diefenbaker's bill of rights. I was one of the chaps who was there. My mind is very clear about the opposition we had to face to bring that into the House. For two and a half years I had to listen to about 18 lawyers in that cabinet, all brilliant, sincere and dedicated people who were trying to find some way to write it in the right way, to do what they wanted to do. In no way could they ever come quickly to the right way of saying it. As everyone knows, we discussed the merits of putting the bill of rights into the statutes affecting only matters under federal jurisdiction. Obviously we discussed the value of entrenchment, American style. At that time there were some 60-odd bills of rights around the world. These men were good men. They were sincere men. But how do you define in any language the rights of the people? It is absolutely impossible. Rights keep changing. Sometimes they pull back and sometimes they move forward in freedom. No matter how honest or how sincere a person is, it is very difficult to describe rights. I doubt if there are any more than one or two people in this House who do not want rights.
In our day, the argument was that common law under the British system, gave you the rights with these other bills of rights, and the Magna Carta all added in. And that was the constitution. It worked through most of their history fairly well, improving and evolving all the time, but it was not working in our day 25 years ago. The Scots were very unhappy, the Irish have been unhappy for one hundred years and now even the Welsh are unhappy. 1 am simply saying that even in a small little country like Great Britain, using the evolutionary approach, which the United Kingdom has used, it is still difficult. It is equally obvious why the Americans and Canadians went the way we did instead of trying to go back to the unitary approach-I think we would be very unwise to try and do that in our country with the difficulties we have today, even through they are not as great as they were one hundred years ago.
Our difficulties are clearly economic. Who is going to break up a country for a few bucks? We get dragged into these discussions about language rights, desperately sincere men fight to the death on language rights. Three or four hundred years ago they used to fight desperately about religious rights. God, we do mature as time goes on. As long as boys are boys and girls are girls, there is going to be an end to that problem. Don't expect it to happen overnight. I am simply saying that the only issue that we are fighting over, if you look at it with honesty is not all these side issues. Whether the guys in Calgary wear high boots once a year is not the issue. But this scam, saying that we must have a devil so that people can be fearful. Poor Peter Lougheed. He is not the right type of person to make into a devil. Out in his province he catches "Hail Columbia", because he is too easy. He offered the people's oil at 85 per cent of the world price and then brought
October 9, 1980

it down to 75 per cent. Some people say, "What for? You get no thanks. They are just making you a target." Propaganda is used to destroy people. That is not what we need in Canada at this moment. Our fight is over a silly thing called money. It is not worth while breaking up our country by trying to use the technique of destroying a person and trying to make people think that he is the leader of the opposition.
Before I leave this question of rights, whether you entrench it or leave it as a statute, it cannot be perfect. You try to level best to make it perfect, but it changes. Should you leave it so you can change it easily, or entrench it so it is hard to change? There are good arguments in both cases. All I am saying is I do not care which way it is done, it is not going to be perfect. The minute you get it done, someone will come along and say you have to change it because our ideas have changed.
Above all, I would hesitate to take away rights from a province in which there is a deep cultural feeling. It is very dangerous in the name of bilingualism to take away from Quebec, Manitoba, and I might even say British Columbia the right to control the language. The language is the key to their educational cultural function. In my view, we have no choice of saying that if you do not trust the provinces, you are not a country.
I would hesitate to divide the country on such an extraneous issue. It has been and is being resolved. A lot of credit goes to men like Rene Levesque. Lie scared us into taking a hard look at it. There were others before, but Rene did it well. He really gives a shot. Sure, Rene is a socialist. He admits honestly he does not like English-speaking people, particularly from England and Montreal, but he likes the rest of us. I can understand that.
Let us get rid of these extraneous issues. Let us go forward together to see how we can get these rights put in there. Whether you take John Diefenbaker's bill of rights and entrench it it does not make any difference. This brings me to the point I started to talk about. I am glad the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) is in the chamber. Do you realize, Mr. Speaker, that this is the only member of Parliament on either side of the House who agrees with me that for seven or eight years, through federal legislation and administration, in her department, under several ministers, we in Canada have deliberately discriminated against orphans? All the rest of the members seem to have had no great interest. There are not that many orphans. She has the courage to stand up and agree with me that there is discrimination, but we cannot get it changed. When you want to change the mandarins, there has to be awful pressure put on them. That pressure can only be put when the Prime Minister is behind the ministers. 1 am simply pointing out that not one of us is free from blame.
I could talk about air safety. We discriminate in our administration of government in Ottawa against all those who fly in commercial aircraft. I am talking about dying in a commercial aircraft.
The Constitution
Look at the attacks on the family which have occurred in this House over the past ten years. There have been insidious attacks on the family, the fundamental institution of any race, whether it be yellow, black, red or white. We, in the name of great objectives, have seen the family institution attacked. The family is in John Diefenbaker's bill of rights. It was the only bill of rights in the world to mention the family because all previous bills of rights had been brought in by Liberal governments all over the world. The Liberal doctrine is individualism above all. You naturally expect a Conservative government to mention the family because we add to individualism the right of groups, and the main group is the family.
The family has been attacked in this House and I have sat silent, wondering how I could sit there knowing that the bill of rights was being infringed before my very eyes. I do not excuse myself at all. It is so bad that the two Houses of Parliament, the Senate and the House of Commons, have set up a committee to look into this main technique of taking away our freedoms. It is the committee on instruments. They have a list a mile long where we have infringed the bill of rights. They will sit on that committee for God knows how many years. They will come back and we will put it into another committee to be examined.
Where are the voices of freedom when we lose these rights every day in the House? Now we all stand up on this resolution and sanctimoniously say we stand for freedom and want to entrench the rights, put them into a bill of rights. There is not one of us who would dare look in a mirror and say he is honest on that score.
I want to end my remarks with something positive. I stated earlier that if I had the time, I would mention co-operative federalism. These issues that we are fighting and trying to do something about today are not new. I belonged to a government which, rightly or wrongly, tried to establish a new technique of dealing with the provinces. I think I am the one who started the use of the phrase "co-operative federalism".
At one time I had 60 or 70 agreements with the provinces; roads to resources, forestry agreements, and transmission agreements. You name it, and I had an agreement and all the rest of it. We got along fine.
We set up the Canadian council of resource ministers. The first chairman was Rene Levesque. When he found out that our interest was not politics but what was best for that resource, we decided on the jurisdiction, and asked those people to perform their function. We got along fine. We had co-operation on rivers. That is our record. We worked with municipalities. Even Duplessis worked with us. That co-operative federalism was based on sitting around with everybody as an equal, whether it was Prince Edward Island or Ontario, until we came to paying for it and then we had to share the costs.
We did a lot of work and spent a lot of time, but we had a considerable track record. Today we follow a different technique. It started in the Pearson days. He picked up the co-operative federalism concept. He thought it meant putting the ten premiers on one side of the table and him on the other. With

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The Constitution
that guy on one side and with murderer's row on the other, God help the poor federal government. He had to chase his ministers out of Quebec and make peace with Lesage. He chased them out to some other place. I was so embarrassed at that show, I never mentioned co-operative federalism for years after. Let us conclude with some positive things. Let us agree that we want to make these changes to the constitution to make it even better. Let us agree this is going to take time, not just three months. I would suggest it will take something like two or three years. I have a whole list of proposals I intend to offer on a later occasion. Let me start with little steps.
1 heard the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) speak here the other night in this regard. Let us start with the eastern provinces, and let us determine in this debate that while we are debating the matter we are not going to stop action. Let us put the matter to a committee which will bring justice to P.E.I., Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Of all the provinces, those provinces have never received the same treatment as the six western provinces. This Parliament amended the British North America Act and made Quebec bigger, Ontario bigger, Manitoba bigger, B.C. bigger and set up the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan with good size. Why have we not done the same for those four eastern provinces? The resources underneath the sea are just as valuable as those above the sea. Let us make P.E.I. just as big as Manitoba and the others the same. In that way the first ministers will sit down at the table and we will not look at a premier and say he has only 2,000 square miles in his province while we have 350,000. He would then be equal when we are meeting to discuss ideas.
Second, let us start to look at our budgeting. Let us take these greedy hands of the finance people off our backs. When I talk about "our backs" I mean the people's backs. Instead of increasing taxes, with all the quantitative evidence we have that increasing taxes reduces the taxtake, stops growth and so on, let us decrease the taxes on those things people need and want and in that way get more money in to balance the budget. Some of you have heard me on this subject many times before. I have all the evidence in the world to show that it works.
Third, as a central demonstration of good faith to those Arabs out in western Canada let us repeal the Petroleum Administration Act as being unconstitutional and inequitable.
I said it was unconstitutional when we had the debate. The provinces said this primarily. It was suggested there was an energy crisis when there was not. This scared the daylights out of the judges of the supreme courts and they ruled there was a "peace, order and good government" situation. We now have this legislation sitting there like a sword over every resource province, and that means everyone. Before I am finished I want to see P.E.I. just as strong as Ontario.
I will not go through all the things that were done. I am simply saying that in our budget and in our legislation we ought to treat all Canadians as equals.
I want to say a personal word about the tragedy I see unfolding in respect of a man by the name of Claude Ryan. I have known him for a number of years and have disagreed with him most of the time. He went to work and produced a plan designed to maintain a federal system and meet some of the aspirations of Quebec. I could not agree to all those things nor could anyone else, but he did work and try. He got us all in from all across the country supporting him on his views on the referendum. Then this strategy came out and bang, bang, bang, the whole constitution is to be completed in three months in the summer and two weeks in the fall. Why should a man like this be destroyed? What failure has he experienced that he should be subject to this type of unusual cruelty? I think we have done a great injustice to a great Canadian, Mr. Ryan. He has a right to his opinion and so has Levesque. He is a Canadian and I am darn sure he will be until he dies. He is not going to move out.
We would serve our country well if we stopped banging each other around carrying out these scam operations, and instead did as many of the speakers of this House have suggested, the hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. McLean), for example. Hon. members have been telling us something about the making of a constitution with the inclusion of rights. Let us work at giving more freedoms to Canadian people. Let us not try to fool them that this will provide them with everything they want for forever and after. Let us do the best we can and above all make certain there is no evidence of a single government, either at the provincial or at the federal level, trying to ram something down our throats. You do not force Canadians, Mr. Speaker, you lead them. That is my conclusion.


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, during the last fifty years many initiatives were meant to shape this country in the image of its inhabitants. As a nation we have experienced the industrial and technological developments of the post-war period. We have also lived through the social and cultural disruptions of the sixties and we have witnessed the rise of regional nationalisms which emerged at the political and economic levels. All that occurred mainly during the last decade.
Assuredly, it is one of the reasons that explains why it is urgent and necessary to revise the federative agreement. We find this task difficult-and the speeches I just heard confirm this-because of the need to reconcile the various interests of the provinces and those of a national government which represents each of us wherever we live in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, like the Fathers of Confederation, we must be visionaries and perhaps make our own the spirit which sustained them, a certain generosity and above all a sense of audacity before a task they certainly deemed difficult.

The resolution before the House comes at a time when it is incumbent upon the government to act in order to break the political paralysis created by the lack of agreement at federal-
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provincial conferences. Indeed, this resolution will give us our own Canadian constitution with a charter of rights and freedoms and the entrenchment of the equalization principle. In fact, a unanimous vote in this House last May expressed agreement to bring home the constitution,
Last Thursday the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) spoke of the tyranny of unanimity when he declared:
Unanimity gave each first minister a veto: and that veto was increasingly used to seek the particular good of a particular region or province. So we achieved the good of none; least of all did we achieve the good of all, the common good.
We were led by the dictates of unanimity to bargain freedom against fish-
I happen to be a defender of both. The Prime Minister went on to state:
-fundamental rights against oil, the independence of our country against long distance telephone rates. But we were led further still, towards a radically new concept of Canada, one in which the national good was merely the sum total of provincial demands-

Mr. Speaker, this is precisely the deadlock which must be broken. But while taking this first step, and it is only the beginning, we should serve first not the governments, whether federal or provincial, but the citizens in this country by giving them inalienable fundamental rights. Indeed if we draw up the list of those rights, we see that it is impressive: freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression including freedom of press and other media of information, freedom of association, democratic rights, mobility rights anywhere in the country, minority language educational rights, legal rights, non-discrimination rights, language rights in Parliament and too many others to be mentioned.
Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not reflect on one of the rights that the new charter would guarantee, namely, the right to education in the minority language where the number warrants.
You will understand that my view reflects the history of my ancestors, the Acadians, and my experience as a teacher in the schools of New Brunswick around the fifties. One only has to read the history of Francophone or Anglophone minorities in Canada to understand that the history of survival or assimilation is directly linked to the access to schools in one's mother tongue. It is the access to education in one's language and the humble school teachers, who were often nuns, that are responsible for the fire of developing minorities or the embers that still hold hope in spite of everything. Even before the belated expansion of Radio-Canada, even before the grants from the Secretary of State, the French-speaking people of Acadia, Ontario and western Canada showed through their collections and their cents that they wanted to remain themselves. Can you measure the hope this constitutional amendment brings them?
The Constitution
Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with the constitutional proposal, which is very important to those who have shown over the last century not only their loyalty to Canada but also their continuing will to live as full citizens-the French-speaking Canadians outside the province of Quebec. The proposed language of education right would enable citizens of Canada whose first language is either French or English, but who are a minority in a given province, to have their children educated in that minority official language, when numbers warrant.
At this point I would like to address this issue not from a legal point of view, for I am not a lawyer, but, rather, perhaps from the standpoint of a bit of common sense and some practical experience. It is possible to give justice and fairness in the area of education without creating division nor causing financial ruin, and here I call to witness my own province of New Brunswick, a region not rich in money and goods but a region whose history should justify suspicion, mistrust and perhaps hostility. Yet New Brunswick is often given as a model to the rest of the country. This was not always the case.
I would like to share with you what I experienced as a New Brunswick teacher during the early fifties in the rural parish of Drummond, which, incidentally, was totally French speaking.
I had to prepare totally French-speaking high school students for the provincial matriculation examination in history from an English textbook. The lecture was in French, and then we rehearsed the answers that they would give when they wrote the matriculation tests in English, the same test, by the way, which was passed by the students of the cities of Fredericton and Saint John. As hon. members can well imagine, this created some slight handicap, since matriculation for all New Brunswickers was required for entrance to university, to nursing schools, to normal school and to trade schools. I feel no rancour, and I do not assess blame when I say this. I give this example because I believe that from a difficult past New Brunswick has emerged in the last 20 or 30 years as a leader in the accommodation of different language groups.
After the war, men of vision opened rural high schools to all New Brunswick children, and men of vision with names like Chapman, Blakeney, Taylor, Hugh John Flemming, Louis Robichaud and, yes, Richard Hatfield came to the conclusion that access to education had to be access to one's own culture and, in fact, probably to one's own soul.
How did these changes come about? I believe they came about because there was a coalition of human forces anxious to alleviate human conditions which spoke no language. The first steps were taken by a Liberal government under John McNair, then under a government by Hugh John Flemming, as I said, who was a member of this House, and then through successive governments including the one of Louis Robichaud, an Acadian who was three times elected by a province which has a good majority of English-speaking people. The changes have continued under the leadership of a Conservative premier, Richard Hatfield, and I believe we understood why he spoke so eloquently about rights and about access to rights in the

October 9, 1980
The Constitution
conference which took place last September. Today in matters of education New Brunswick has almost achieved a parallel system for French and English-speaking students.
My province is not divided. My province has, of course, a few marginal extremists on both sides, but its citizens are working and living together with a large measure of respect and co-operation.

Louis Robichaud's equal opportunity program said that whether you are English in Queens or Charlotte counties or French in Restigouche or Gloucester, you had equal access to the meagre wealth of the province. In fact, New Brunswick from that moment on has not ceased progressing, and we need only look at the results of its school system, which finally was opened to all the citizens, not just to those who lived in the privileged cities, to see the progress that co-operation achieved. The fact is that the progessive people in New Brunswick were ready to unite and to reform, and that program has not been destroyed by successive governments. There was hope for everyone. There was hope because it did not matter what language you spoke, what religion you practised or where you lived; the citizens would share in the opportunities of that province. This reform was possible in good part because of federal government programs of unconditional transfers to the poorer provinces which provided citizens with a reasonable level of essential public services and which in fact reduced regional disparities.
The very principle of sharing has become part of our way of life and now, after more than 20 years of practice, the principle of equalization is to be entrenched in the constitution.
The proposal to entrench the equalization principle is not foreign to our history as a nation. Does anyone think that the maritimes joined confederation to get help from other partners? The fact is that then New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were "have" provinces, and not only do the old sketches of Cunard lines leaving the Miramichi and Pointe du Chene for the high seas reveal the intense commercial activities of midnineteenth century on the New Brunswick coast, but they also sometimes rekindle the idea of an economically viable province.
Basic to the Canadian experience is that when one province has flourished with the development of a resource, the other
partners benefit, and not to have another's resource does not make one less Canadian.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roméo LeBlanc: M r. Speaker, since last Monday, we have heard several members of the opposition say they endorse such and such a part of the resolution. It seems in fact-and I am thinking of the speech the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-Moose Moutain (Mr. Hamilton) just made-that sometimes our divisions are less in the substance than in the method. I have in mind the words of the poet de Saint-Exupery who once said about a controversy, and I am paraphrasing; We are divided over the means which are the result of our reasoning, but not over the goals which are always the same. I have a feeling that thoses words apply to our debates.
Mr. Speaker, I believe this is an important week in our Parliament. History is being made by all of us, ordinary human beings, yet history is supposed to be made only by giants. When the flag debate took place, ordinary men struggled with an extraordinary problem. There was division and possibly there was rancour.
I remember that as a journalist based in London, my colleagues and I followed the acrimonious debate in the Parliament of Canada with some pretty heavy discussions of our own. Yet, on February 15, 1965, when the new Canadian flag was raised at Canada House on Trafalgar Square, our discussions were forgotten and we were all proud to be Canadians and to be present.
It is my hope that when this resolution is adopted and when our constitution comes home, we will be no less proud.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Lyle S. Kristiansen (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin by asking a question which I know many Canadians are asking, and that is: what are we doing here and why are we spending what some people out there think is an inordinate amount of time discussing what some people think is far removed from their daily lives, that is the constitution? I know that this is what a number of people are saying, and it is evident in the mail we all get and in the phone calls we all receive.
Last week I had the opportunity to spend two full days in Vancouver at a meeting of regional council No. 1 of the 1WA which was and remains my union. Many of the people at that conference from all over western Canada were asking that question. That is not to say they did not recognize we have to deal with the constitution, but they are impatient because they want Parliament and their elected representatives to get on with the job and deal with it thoroughly but with some dispatch. They want Parliament to bring the constitution home and to begin the job of laying the groundwork for a new
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structure within which we can live and work in the years to come. They want this Parliament, while the matter of the constitution is before the committee and, we hope, in a quieter way, back before the federal government and the provincial governments, to get down to dealing with many of the other day to day issues, such as the economy, the budget and, I hesitate to say, the Bank Act, as well as other issues with which this Parliament is vitally concerned.
Having said that, I wish to begin by reading a poem written by Earle Birney some years ago entitled "Canada, a Case History". It reads:
This is the case of a high-school land, deadset in adolescence, loud treble laughs and sudden fists, bright cheeks, the gangling presence.
This boy is wonderful at sports and physically quite healthy; he's taken to church on Sunday still and keeps his prurience stealthy;
He doesn't like books except about bears, collects new coins and model planes and never refuses a dare.
His Uncle spoils him with candy, of course, yet shouts him down when he talks at table.
You will note he's got some of his French mother's looks though he's not so witty and no more stable.
He's really much more like his father and yet if you say so he'll pull a great face.
He wants to be different from everyone else and daydreams of winning the global race.
Parents unmarried and living abroad, relatives keen to bag the estate, schizophrenia not excluded, will he learn to grow up before it's too late?
The question we must ask ourselves is whether he will grow up before it is too late. We hope, Mr. Speaker, that Canada will grow up before it is too late and we believe that now is time for this country to grow up. Quite frankly, we do not need any Canada goose ads or goose Canada ads to tell us so.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: We were able to figure that out all on our own. I only wish some other members, particularly in the party sitting to my right, would recognize that there is a certain degree of urgency in this matter because, quite frankly, I have had enough of the "nattering nabobs of negativism" who refuse to recognize the limitations of the roles within the political process or the limitations of the bargaining process. This party is not the government-I wish it were-and if we were the government, 1 am sure we would be introducing a package which is substantially different from that which the government of the day has introduced.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: We are not the government and therefore our approach to the issue is different and the proposals which we put forward are not what we would consider to be ideal. But we will play our role and, if the government demonstrates good faith over the next few weeks and months, we intend to play our role in a constructive way to ensure that we grow up as a nation and begin the job of settling down to the kind of work that has to be done if Canada is to grow and thrive.
Perhaps my view is somewhat jaundiced but I have my own definition of the democratic process. It is that democratic political action is the process by which you stop worse things
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from happening. It is also hoped that somewhere along the way something of positive value can be accomplished. Perhaps that is too limited a view, but in the current context of our present role as a third party it is perhaps the most we can achieve in the life of any Parliament, and that is the role we intend to pursue now.
What is in the resolution which we are considering and what are the motives for its presentation? The Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien), speaking to the Canadian Club in Toronto yesterday, said that the government was acting for three reasons. He stated that the second reason for acting now was to provide a momentum for some change. I have been around a sufficient number of bargaining tables, I think, to know that when matters of vital interest are at stake, people and major forces seldom move unless a gun is put to their head. I do not find that insulting. Other people seem to be threatened by it, but this is part of the daily process in the business world and certainly in the world of industrial relations. I do not feel the least intimidated by it. Rightly or wrongly, the government finds it necessary, or says it finds it necessary, to do a little sabre rattling and to say to some of the provincial jurisdictions that if some accommodation is not reached soon-and 1 hope the federal government is willing to make some as well-the matter will be decided unilaterally. It is in our interests as a people and as a party, and in the interests of the gentlemen and lady to my right as a party, to realize that the invitation is there to take part in a realistic way. We should do so. To sit there in petulance, as the people to my right have done on other issues, sucking their thumbs and feeling sorry for themselves is not being realistic. They sit there and say, "Why did you not give us a chance to go ahead and do all these wonderful things?" For a government, the first cabinet in history to swear in using the kamikaze oath, to take that kind of position is absolutely incredible. They say we did not give them a chance. They did not give themselves a chance. The first time they had a prime minister during the course of my lifetime, in effect they murdered him. This time they did not have to; he committed suicide. We have had enough of that.
I should like to comment on one major change we feel the government must make if we are to give serious consideration to the many other important proposals before us. My leader said that we support in principle most of the items, if not all, in the current resolution. We agree that patriation is necessary. We agree, historically and now, that a charter of rights is a good thing, though we may have differences as to some of the wording and the possible implications of the government's current wording. We agree in principle to the incorporation of language rights into the constitution. We have some concern over the manner in which that will be interpreted. We hope that is an issue which, along with other items, the government will sit down in good faith and discuss in the weeks to come.
I think all of us in the House agree with the principle of equalization. Certainly we understand that an amending formula of some type is necessary. While we are concerned with certain of the implications of the specifics in the resolution, we hope the government will prove to be open and receptive to suggestions during the course of the negotiations which lie ahead and that the committee will keep an open mind.

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The Constitution
My leader has stated one matter about which we are adamant. In order for there to be be some balance in the government's proposal, a recognition of the right of the provinces to own, control and indirectly tax their resources must be included. To do anything else would be a major disturbance of the status quo. We are talking about bringing the constitution home in a relatively short period of time. It would be a little much to expect that any substantial part of this country would accept a package which does not at least retain the basic rights they have always enjoyed. That demand on the part of my party is absolute. It is non-negotiable, it is a "must-have" demand. Also it is a pre-condition for any further consideration of other items the government wants to see included in this resolution.
I should like to put the resource issue in a somewhat different context by referring to the matter of collective and individual rights. There are those of us in this country who feel that individual rights cannot be enforced and sustained except by real and recognized collective rights and that those rights are a myth. We need the power to deny access to resources, whether that power rests with our communities, with our unions, our band or tribal councils or within our provinces. We need the power and muscle to be able to enforce the individual rights listed in any charter. It is as important a principle applied to resources as it is when applied to individual human rights. Legislation and laws can change, but once people recognize they have certain powers and rights they will not give them up. We do not suggest the government can grant those rights, but it is proper that those basic rights, especially in so far as our provinces are concerned, be recognized. It is one further bulwark against the strength of central government action which we in my part of the country feel we must have if we are to ensure the long-term survival of democratic and open government.
In addition to resources we have many other serious concerns, but I stress again that acceptance of the package rests and is dependent upon the government's acceptance of our prime resource demand. In this regard I would also urge the government to bear in mind the importance to Atlantic Canada and other maritime provinces of offshore resources and some tangible recognition of expanded rights thereto by the provinces concerned. After years of dependency those provinces now see a chance to become masters in their own houses or at least to get a piece of the rock.
We should hope to see very soon some tangible proof that the government recognizes the provincial ownership and right to indirect taxation of resources. The government and government members on the joint committee must show some concrete evidence of bargaining in good faith on other key concerns in the weeks and months to come. We are not stipulating anything, but we insist that there must be some evidence that the committee is not a rubber-stamp for the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) or any cabinet minister. They should listen not only to us but to the official opposition and to the representatives of the provinces. That good faith must be demonstrated in the time that lies immediately ahead.
We are not in a position to judge the receptiveness of the government, but if the package is balanced we intend to support the resolution. Our final decision can only be made on judgment day when the report of the committee is in and the final-final offer of the government is clear. At that time the final answer can be given.
For all provinces, provincial ability to manage and tax resources is a key part of the confederation bargain. For many provinces, particularly those in the west, resources compensate for the lack of a significant manufacturing industry. Resource proceeds allow provinces the financial ability to help stabilize and diversify their provincial economies and provide the services their people need. With wise management, resources are the key enabling most provinces to obtain a reasonable level of economic stability. But the provincial governments' ability to manage their resources so as to create a more stable economy has, in recent years, been seriously impaired. The rights of the provinces to regulate and tax their natural resources have been reinterpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada. Those judgments have called into serious question the ability of provinces to raise revenues from resources and to regulate the rate of production, especially if those resources are sold outside the provinces concerned. Thus it is necessary to reconfirm jurisdiction to the provinces to manage and develop resources, to allow provinces to levy both direct and indirect taxes, as long as they do not discriminate between provincial residents and other Canadians and to permit provinces to legislate with respect to the export of resources from the provinces. Of course, federal paramountcy in trade and commerce would still be maintained.
In summary, the amendment my party would propose would confirm provincial ownership of resources, would incorporate a clause with respect to indirect taxation and, finally, would incorporate a concurrent power with federal paramountcy with respect to trade and commerce as it affects the export of non-renewable natural resources, forestry products and electricity both in interprovincial and international trade.
But resources are more than this to us, especially those of us from British Columbia and western Canada. Control over our resources is more than a matter of cash and carry or "what we have we hold." The British Columbia energy minister perhaps overstated it the other day. I saw in a column by Marjorie Nichols in the Vancouver Sun that:
Mr. McClelland, without blushing, said that resources represent the culture of British Columbia.
That may be a little much-she thought so-and I think it is going a little too far as well. But, if members opposite wish to understand the attachment by the people of the west to their land and resources they should take the opportunity to enjoy some theatre, a play originating in Saskatchewan which toured across the west and which has twice been covered on CBC television. It is a great play entitled "Paper Wheat". That play, people's theatre as it is, outlines not only the growth, complexion and nature of the developing west and the west today, it clearly and dramatically outlines the long and popu-
October 9, 1980

lar struggle of westerners to gain control of their own resources from Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal Exchanges, the growth of the Wheat Pool in particular and their struggle to gain popular control of the marketing of their products. That process, that struggle-and it is a very recent struggle in western Canada-to gain control of our means of livelihood, our resources, is very much a central part of our culture. I hope you will forgive me for being skeptical but we do not feel that this government appreciates this attitude, this gut feeling in Western Canada. Unless we have concrete evidence very soon from the government that jurisdiction over ownership and resource taxation rights, which until recent years and judgments we always believed was ours, is to be recognized by the government by the acceptance of a clear amendment to their patriation resolution, then we simply cannot agree to support the motion or consider the resolution.
I want to also reject the notion-widespread, apparently, on the other side-that we in the west are greedy and want, either as members or as provincial governments, to keep all our riches, old or new, to ourselves. That has been and remains untrue. A former British Columbia premier made an offer some years ago in relation to natural gas and petroleum resources that if the federal government would guarantee the public development of those resources for the benefit of all the people of Canada then British Columbia would be prepared to share those resources with all Canadians. I understand similar offers were also made by the government of Saskatchewan. There were no takers, but the offers were made. The west, or at least a portion of it has been willing, and is willing, to put Canada first in the interests of all Canadians. And that, Mr. Speaker, is not greed.
What is the federal interest and what is the federal government's record in resources? In the absence of a clear and open commitment by the federal government as to its intent on this matter, within the context of their resolution, one is left to assume they intend to intrude even further in the traditional provincial domain. In view of the past Liberal record we must seriously question the motives behind any such move.
Until the early 1970s there was little expressed interest, not to mention interference, with western resources on the part of the federal government. It was not until the western provincial governments took decisive action to maximize the return on those resources to their people through royalties, direct ownership, marketing agencies and other means that the federal government and the federal courts moved to intervene levying, in effect, double taxation or other penalties which caused great anxiety and difficulty for both the governments and industries involved. It seemed that as long as the private sector was the major winner the feds never acted. But as soon as the people and their provincial governments moved to secure their fair share, the federal government intervened. Maybe it was accidental-we are generous-but it was enough to make us very wary as to some of the motivations which lay behind those central government actions. If the federal government ever wants support for a greater role in economic development they had better start to improve their track record and credibility in that regard.
The Constitution
There are more than a few, especially in western Canada, who hold the view that Canada was created because the CPR needed a country to pay for their railway to resources and the Hudson's Bay Company needed a country and taxpayers to pay the cost of policing their territory. Whether that is an accurate reflection of our origins or not, successive Canadian governments have certainly continued to act as if it were in fact very close to the truth. That is the picture many of us have and federal government actions in recent years have tended to add credibility to what was originally a rather humorous version of the origins of Canada.
Something else has taken place over the years which make us wonder what the constitutional fuss is all about. I think the hon. member for Qu'appelle-Moose Mountain (Mr. Hamilton) referred to it in a slightly different way a few moments ago. It has to do with why the federal government has again deemed it necessary to move in on the resource field over the last few years.
I want to talk about taxation for a minute. Since the Second World War the direct taxation field has been less and less of a burden on the corporate sector. Federal governments-mostly Liberal-have retreated through political pressure, it would appear, from the field of direct taxation, particularly of the corporate sector.
The level of resource taxation by the provinces, in their field, has not retreated at the same time. Consequently, we see the federal government denying itself, through its own timidity perhaps, access to revenues in its traditional sector while the provinces have not been so encumbered. It has thus found itself in this financial squeeze and obviously it has to find a way out. It would appear that it is not prepared to turn on the corporate sector and return it to its appropriate and historical level of taxation in Canada, so it must find another way.
My friends to my right, during their brief tenure in office, attempted to find yet another way out. They did not go after the provinces but decided, instead of raising taxes, to raise prices as a means of hiding the situation. In the meantime they would look for another way without causing a major tax revolt by searching different routes to see if moneys were available to allow our governments to carry on.
It appears, for whatever the political reasons, that the federal government does not dare to restore corporation taxes. Therefore, it has chosen to move in the field of resources. How it intends to work things out, I do not know, but I do understand that ministers over there are in a bind. We think it is extremely unfair to attack provincial administration and sources of funding in order to escape the rather obvious answers to their own timidity over the years.
I referred some time ago to the play "Paper Wheat". There is a section of that play which refers to the expansion of the Canadian west. It says that it goes on, and on and on and on and on.


Erik Nielsen: And on.

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The Constitution


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: That is a fairly accurate description of the Canadian prairies or it certainly seemed that way to our people when they first arrived in that part of the country. I am also afraid that if these last three days are any example it will begin to characterize the description of the debate we will have on the constitution, as might be gathered even at this early stage.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't put the idea in anybody's head.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: It reminds me of a saying which is often used with regard to strikes, that it does not take much talent to get one started, but it sometimes takes a great deal of wisdom to put an end to one with honour and justice. It is not enough that we write something in stone. For all the importance that a constitution, or in another sphere a contract, may have in its wording and its distribution of benefits and powers, the key thing must be leadership and the willingness of all the parties to live together.
The important thing when we put together the constitution is that it be done in such a way that we can live together in balance. There must be something in it for everybody or everybody loses. It is the same in a marriage; people are entitled to their own space, and that space must be recognized. There must be something of value in the constitution for all the major parties.
In conclusion, I would simply say that while there may be many important concerns and differences in addition to the obvious difference we have over the matter of resources and provincial rights, this is not the time to let those other differences stop us from doing what we must. We must rise above those differences and demonstrate a faith in ourselves as a maturing nation to deal with all these remaining issues in our own time, in our own way in Canada and as Canadians. That is what the process in which we are engaged should be all about, and we in this party believe this is what it is all about. We are willing to play our part and recognize the limitations of our role.
We should have a constitution that is made in Canada. We should have a constitution and a structure in which all Canadians from all areas and all regions can work together and live together to produce what should be in this world of ours the greatest and most wonderful quality of life imaginable anywhere on this planet. Again, that is how we see it and we are prepared to move. We hope that others are as well.


Mr. Roy MacLaren (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, 113 years ago, with the British North America Act, the people of Canada engaged in an act both of rejection and of affirmation. It was an act of rejection in the sense that we rejected the "Manifest Destiny" which some saw as our future, to be annexed to the United States. But much more important, as an affirmation of our commitment to an equal partnership between our two founding races, Canadians acted at that time to create a political structure that would accommodate the interests of the two founding peoples. Today we are engaged in
another stage of that evolution, that of providing political unity without racial, cultural or linguistic conformity.
We are no melting pot. We are committed to a nation in which two founding races can live in equal partnership. However, that equal partnership has been variously interpreted at different times and places in our country's history, creating confusion and frustration. The most recent manifestations of course are the Quebec referendum and the regional preoccupations which mark much of our country today.
Those various interpretations of how we must achieve our political unity have brought practical problems impairing our collective ability to deal with our difficulties. But that commitment to equal partnership has never wavered in all who believe that confederation will be judged a failure if we cannot assure all our citizens full opportunity in either the French or English language and in their own culture. The time has come to place that commitment in a Canadian constitution. In the past, as our country expanded west and east, as industrialization advanced and brought a changing role for governments, as social programs were advanced, amendments to the British North America Act were successfully made.
However, in the absence of an amending formula, that process of evolution, that process of constitutional change, of relying upon amendments to the act of another parliament, has become increasingly cumbersome, increasingly laborious and increasingly anachronistic.
As Senator Forsey said recently, this idea of unanimous consent of the provinces was voted down twice by the House of Commons, in 1869 and in 1871, and that was by a House of Commons which contained a number of fathers of confederation, all of whom voted against the idea of unanimous consent of the provinces.
Against that background, the time has clearly come to patriate our constitution.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Mr. Speaker, in the last session on May 29, I asked the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board if he could inform the House and the farmers of western Canada whether he had
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investigated the question of grade promotion, "uppages" or upgrading and, if he had done so, whether he had assured himself that the farmers of western Canada and the producers of grain in that area are receiving full value for their grain.
The question was asked not only on behalf of the grain producers and farmers of western Canada, but on behalf of the Canadian Wheat Board, which represents the farmers of Canada. They also lose money as a result of this practice.
The minister replied in the House that he would report back. He did report to me by mail rather than doing so publicly in the House so that it could be on record.
In his written reply, the minister stated that the practice of grade promotion was performed under the auspices of the Canadian Grain Commission which reports to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan). The Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) then said that if there is any specific evidence of difficulties in relation to grade promotion, he would be pleased to discuss them with the Minister of Agriculture.
1 should like to quote his answer. He said:
Grade promotion at terminal elevators is closely supervised and controlled by the Canadian Grain Commission which reports to the Minister of Agriculture. I am assured that the commission is carrying out its responsibilities to ensure that farmers are receiving full value for their grain. If there is specific evidence of difficulties in relation to grade promotion, I would be pleased to discuss this with the Minister of Agriculture-
I should like to say that the terminal elevators are entirely different from the country elevators system where grade promotion is carried out. At the terminal elevator system it is perfectly legal to blend grades other than one and two CWRS but by law the blending of other grades at terminal ports, in the terminal elevator system, is specifically excluded. There is nothing to prevent this practice at the country elevator system-that is, the initial system, the first bout, when the farmer delivers the crop he has worked to grow and for which he hopes to receive a good price.
He may be given a lower grade for his grain which the country elevator will then blend with a higher grade of grain, increasing that grade by one point. The farmer therefore loses the difference in price between the lower grade he was given and the higher grade the elevator system receives.
I have heard of institutionalized theft and that is what this works out to. This is the product the farmer has worked all year to grow and he should be given a fair grade and a fair return. The benefit is going somewhere else-it is going to the country elevator system.
I am well aware of the old argument that the majority of grain in western Canada is sold through co-operative elevators and, in turn, they supposedly will give the shares back so that all members receive equally. This benefit is going somewhere else, that is, to the country elevator system.
I am well aware of the old argument that the majority of the grain in western Canada is sold through co-operative elevators. In turn, supposedly the shares are given back and spread over so all the members share equally. But that is not what it is
Adjournment Debate
about. When a person has his own grain which is worth a dollar, why should he not receive the benefit? Why should he not keep it? Why should it be spread out among other members?
There are examples ranging as high as over a dollar a bushel difference in Durum grades; a dollar a bushel between grade No. 4 and grade No. 5 in amber Durum. We have seen this in the past. That is a tremendous difference to a farmer who may deliver 15,000, 25,000, or 30,000 bushels of grain. That could be almost as much as some members of Parliament would lose if they had to take lower pay for their jobs and have their pay blended in with someone else's who performs a little better. In that case, they would not receive full pay.
With respect to the minister's report, I would like to refer to the Booze-Allan report commissioned by his Liberal predecessor, Otto Lang. The report dealt with misshipments and misgradings of grain, and I quote from the report as follows:
The implications of these misshipments and misgradings of grain should prompt the establishment of management incentives and controls which could improve performance-
I know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Ostiguy), who I see here tonight, will be reading from a prepared text, but I hope he will take these thoughts into consideration and take them back to his minister so that the farmers of western Canada can receive a fair dollar for a fair product.


Mr. Marcel Ostiguy (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I would very briefly like to reply to my colleague on the other side following a question he asked last May 29. I think that his speech almost contained the answers I am about to give him and which complement the letter he received from the minister responsible.
First of all, we all know that the main object of grain grading is to guarantee to each producer that the product he delivers at a regional elevator is given the proper grade according to the applicable standards as defined by the Canadian Wheat Board.
In cases of dispute over a shipment, a sample chosen by the producer and the elevator representative is sent to the chief inspector appointed by the board. His decision on the grade given is binding on all parties.
Once the product is in the elevator and has changed owners the agent representing the silo can, if he so wishes, mix the grain if he has to upgrade it. I think that the hon. member even mentioned this a moment ago.
For example, he could buy from five different producers 5,000 bushels of wheat of top quality grade No. 1 and 5,000 bushels of grade No. 2 wheat-higher than average for this grade-and mix both and ship 10,000 bushels of grade No. 1 wheat. Of course this extreme case is strictly for illustrative purposes. In practice, Mr. Speaker, grain improvement through mixing at the regional elevator allows an over-all

October 9, 1980
Adjournment Debate
quality increase in the order of less than 10 per cent. And I know what I am talking about, because as my colleague from Louis-Hebert (Mr. Dawson) suggested in Sainte-Rosalie, there are many in the Saint-Hyacinthe area, and we know that the Cooperative federee has enormous silos.
Anyway, that improvement brings indirect benefits to producers. Elevator operators derive financial advantages that lower their handling costs. Once in the elevators, we know that grain can be conditioned, and it can be mixed, with the exception of the two higher classes of red spring wheat. For example, let us take the case of a wagon of No. 3 "out of grade" wheat from western Canada. It is classified grade 3 because of some pebbles, and was brought from a farmer by the representative of a regional elevator. Once cleaned, that wheat is mixed with ordinary grade 3 wheat from western Canada, which improves the quality of the original grain. Here is another example: a farmer ships a load of No. 1 wheat-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but his time has expired.
[English}


LABOUR CONDITIONS-NEWFOUNDLAND-REPORTED DECISION OF PROVINCE TO RESERVE OIL RIG JOBS FOR NEWFOUNDLANDERS
Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Mr. Speaker, it is most propitious that this adjournment debate should occur in the midst of the constitutional debate with which the House is presently confronted. I am particularly delighted that it has, having regard to the fact I have not yet had an opportunity to speak on the current resolution. On May 26 in the question period, I had occasion to refer to a statement made by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Regan) at a Winnipeg conference at which he was quoted as having said:
-provincial moves such as Newfoundland's decision to reserve jobs on oil rigs for Newfoundlanders do more to damage Canada in the long run than any nationalism that has surfaced inside Quebec.
I would ask the minister whether he would acknowledge that in following the procedures it has, the government of Newfoundland has simply followed the practice in the province of Quebec under legislation which precluded Ontario construction workers from gaining employment in that province. The minister in part responded by saying:
-I happen to believe that the essence of this country is having a common market in which Canadians can move to another part of the country and be employed without restrictions on the basis of what province they come from.
Typically, of course, the minister did not respond to the question. There has been a silence of a profound nature with respect to the conduct of the government of the province of Quebec in connection with breaches of our present constitution and inroads made into what would have been expected to be the goodwill that would exist between the provinces of this country. It is easy to enumerate them.
They have as a result of the imposition of a special retail tax on Ontario construction equipment which enters the province
of Quebec for construction in that province specifically breached the provisions of section 121 of the British North America Act as part of our constitution. That province has, as I indicated in asking that question of the minister, in addition specifically prevented construction workers from any province, and in particular the province of Ontario, entering the province of Quebec for the purpose of carrying on the legitimate activities of their employers with construction contracts in that province.
The province of Quebec has, contrary to the specific provisions of section 133 of the British North America Act as part of our constitution, imposed restriction on the use of language in the courts and in the legislature of the province of Quebec. In addition, they have been the beneficiary of inaction by the present federal government against the desires and expressed wishes of the province of Newfoundland, under the authority of the federal government, to impose on a public federal works project across Canada or any part of it for the purpose of transmitting hydroelectric power from the lower Churchill to some part of the United States. Yet the federal government has with ease taken those necessary steps under a national works project to allow a pipeline both for natural gas and petroleum products from western Canada into the province of Quebec. That created no problem.
It is a legitimate concern of all Canadians that equity, fair play and justice be enforced by the Government of Canada against all those which breach not only the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law in Canada. No province should be singled out for special preferential treatment, yet this has been the case.
Where has the Minister of Labour specifically laid out condemnation against the action which directly resulted in the action taken by the province of Newfoundland? That province has had a good teacher. The province of Quebec did what it did with impunity. Other provinces in this country can expect to do the same with the same results, unless equity, fair play and justice are put in place and implemented by the Government of Canada. I know we will hear that the current legislation before this House answers all the difficulties and problems. If I may refer to proposed section 6(2), you will find there that it states:
Every citizen of Canada and every person who has the status of a permanent resident of Canada has the right
(a)	to move to and take up residence in any province; and
(b)	to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province.
That is not what the minister said. The minister said "to move to any part of the country and be employed". In order to be employed you not only have to move to but take up residence in, and the term residence has a specific legal meaning defined by the Supreme Court of Canada on a number of occasions. It would not apply in my submission to construction workers from the province of Ontario who move to the province of Quebec.
October 9, 1980

In any event, we find in section 6(2) as proposed in this measure that those rights are restricted in the event that a provincial government imposes laws primarily on the basis of some internal requirement the province may have. That is a sham. It does not answer the question in respect of real rights of mobility in the country, and this government in introducing that as a panacea for the problem is defrauding the public. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
[ Translation]


Mr. Dennis Dawson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the hon. member that, in spite of his reservations concerning the resolution presented to this House, I believe that the progress accomplished through this resolution compared with the situation he deplores concerning the resistance of Newfoundland in relation with the hiring of workers from outside the province and concerning the problem of Quebec, which set restrictions to job mobility in the employment sector-I believe that even though no resolution can be perfect, as we are all aware, instead of speaking this evening, he should rise tomorrow in the House and say that he supports entrenchment in the constitution of the right to job mobility, the right for people to move from one province to the other and the right to education in the language of their choice. This is more or less what he objects to in the case of Quebec. I believe that he should start by criticizing the province of Ontario, and refer especially to the right to development in the maritimes and the western provinces. But in any case-

This position notwithstanding, we favour the concept of a national labour market to respond to worker and employer needs across the country so that all Canadians may enjoy the benefits of economic expansion. It should be noted that the employment referral activities of the CEIC are governed by the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1971 and the national employment service regulations pertaining to the act. Nothing in the act or regulations gives a preference based on the residence of the worker seeking employment.
Adjournment Debate
In practice, however, it is normally in the best interests of an employer to hire from the local labour force to the maximum extent possible. This is less costly and makes for a more stable and contented work force. In this regard it is the practice of the Canadian employment centres to exhaust the potential of the local labour force on behalf of an employer before extending the search to other regional and/or the national labour markets.
Reference to the federal powers to disallow certain kinds of provincial legislation is a matter with which the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) is not prepared to deal here. Such matters more properly fall within the purview of others.
I wish to reiterate, however, that except in those cases where affirmative action is judged to be in the best interest of certain disadvantaged groups our preference is for an open labour market which allows freedom of movement in pursuit of employment to all Canadians. That is why this government is moving toward the entrenchment of the liberty of movement in this country. It is on this concept that many of the commission's programs are developed. The Canada Manpower Mobility Program, which encourages the movement of Canadian workers from regions of high unemployment to low unemployment, either to seek jobs or to relocate once jobs have been found, is but one example.
This government has followed such a practice in the past, and if we compare its actions with those of the previous government during the period it was in office I am sure we would see that we are encouraging the mobility of employment and encouraging opportunity so that people will not be part of ten little provinces but part of one big country.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m.
At 10.20 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

October 9, 1980


APPENDIX
[Stage Direction]
14 May, 1980
Mr. Russell MacLellan, M.P.
Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Mines)
House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario
Dear Mr. MacLellan:
My attention, and that of my fellow Commissioners, has been drawn to the following statement made by you on May 8, 1980, in the House of Commons, as reported in Hansard at p. 879:
"The laying of charges is not the responsibility of the Prime Minister or the Solicitor General, but a unique prerogative of the Attorneys General, federal and provincial, depending on the nature of the case. However, Mr. Justice McDonald has clearly indicated that he would prefer any such action to await his report..."
I am not aware that 1 have ever indicated that I would prefer the laying of charges to await the report of the Commission of Inquiry of which I am Chairman. My fellow Commissioners are also unaware of any of the Commissioners having said that.
We understand that the statement you read was based in part on the following passage in the transcript of public proceedings during the presentation by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association on April 17, 1980, at pages 25687-8: "Mr. Alan Borovoy: Mr. Chairman, the proposal we had made a couple of years ago did not contemplate such findings in specific cases.
I quite appreciate that problem.
Our proposal was that the Commission should have recommended that the normal law enforcement processes go forward.
That was the recommendation we had sought.
Had they not gone forward, naturally, we could not have said anything to you about that.
But our hope is that, and the point of the submission then was that you would have used your best offices to encourage the normal law enforcement processes to go forward, and that would not have required specific findings in specific cases.
Cyril Lloyd Francis: It would have required a report by us and it would, therefore, require representations by counsel as to whether there was conduct not authorized or provided for by law."
In order to understand this passage, it is necessary to reproduce pages 25685 to 25688, a copy of which is attached. A reading of those pages will show that there I was attempting
to explain why, as the Civil Liberties Association had said, "the Commission has neither recommended a different course of action nor explained its omission to do so." The explanation boils down to this: Our terms of reference and the Inquiries Act require us to follow a certain procedure before we make a report. Only in a report can we make recommendations, including any recommendation in rspect of prosecution. We should not be expected to follow a procedure which does not comply with the law.
1 also pointed out that
"As far as systematic techniques are concerned, they are in the public domain and the appropriate authorities have been at liberty to investigate them in detail and reach their decisions as to whether or not to prosecute."
Beyond that it would be improper for myself and my fellow Commissioners to comment publicly or privately as to whether there should be any prosecutions, except in a duly presented Report.
I trust that you will bring this correction to the attention of those who may have understood that the position of my fellow Commissioners and myself was as indicated-i.e. that we "would prefer any such action to await his report". In fact, we express no preference one way or another.
Yours very truly,
David McDonald Chairman


TRANSCRIPT OF COMMISSION PROCEEDINGS
Mr. Alan  Borovoy@: I think, Mr. Chairman, I was probably momentarily paralysed by the prospect of winning a million dollars and it may have clouded otherwise clear judgment...
The response I think would be this, that people presumptively should have a right to get lost if they so choose, and save and except for an imminent peril to life or limb and something of that kind, we would be concerned that this could erode the self-reporting mechanisms under the Income Tax Act, which in itself could lead to some pretty intrusive interference into people's lives.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: The last is a comment rather than a question.
I would like to refer to your Forward and in particular to the last two sentences of the third paragraph in which you say:
Despite scores of unlawful acts by the RCMP which were admitted as far back as October, 1977, not a single charge has been laid or disciplinary measure imposed. To our knowledge, the Commission has neither recommended a different course of action nor explained its omission to do so.
I would like to observe this:
October 9, 1980

The Government of Canada knows what evidence has been received in hearings before this Commission or recorded in documents received.
The Provinces have available all our public evidence and are at liberty to investigate further those matters, as was done in British Columbia concerning surreptitious entries in criminal investigations.
The law governing this Commission requires us to make recommendations in a report.
The law requires certain steps to be undertaken before we can make a report which is valid in law and we must obey the law.
The law requires that if our report is to include any report against a person, notice must be given to that person of the charge of misconduct.
That this raises difficult issues is demonstrated by the lengthy representation made to us by two counsel for the RCMP, for members of the RCMP, and more recently-that was in early March, and more recently by counsel for the Attorney General of Canada.
I emphasize the Attorney General of Canada and not as reported by a national agency, the Solicitor General.
We, unlike the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, cannot, until the procedure required by law is complied with, reach any conclusion of illegality as far as specific cases are concerned.
As far as systematic techniques are concerned, they are in the public domain and the appropriate authorities have been at liberty to investigate them in detail and reach their decisions as to whether or not to prosecute.
Now, I make those comments in an attempt to enable you to understand our process.
Everything I have said has been said from this chair in public on other occasions, but that does not necessarily mean, I realize, that you have known exactly what has been said in that regard.
All 1 have tried to do is emphasize that our procedure is governed by law and we are not at liberty, simply, to refer to any specific acts and specific situations as being unlawful.
Whereas others can do so in print or orally, they can say that the unlawfulness has been established by admissions and by evidence.


Mr. Alan  Borovoy@: Mr. Chairman, the proposal we had made a couple of years ago did not contemplate such findings in specific cases.
I quite appreciate that problem.
Our proposal was that the Commission should have recommended that the normal law enforcement processes go forward.
That was the recommendation we had sought.
Had they not gone forward, naturally, we could not have said anything to you about that.
But our hope is that, and the point of the submission then was that you would have used your best offices to encourage the normal law enforcement processes to go forward, and that would not have required specific findings in specific cases.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: It would have required a report by us and it would, therefore, require representations by counsel as to whether there was conduct not authorized or provided for by law.
Thank you. We will adjourn now for fifteen minutes. Pardon me.
I have been advised by my fellow Commissioners there are no further questions, and since I have just completed my questions and comments, we can, therefore, adjourn for the
day.
But before doing so, I would like to emphasize again, our gratitude to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association for the high standards of the written submission that has been given to this Commission and the oral submissions made today.
All three of us have said that and I need not say any more, I hope.

Friday, October 10, 1980