1980-06-19

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Under present gun control laws, the black-powder hand-gun is classified as a restricted weapon. In the words of the National Firearms Association, "if one has any knowledge whatever of the intricacies involved in the operation of these firearms, it would be like comparing the use of a model-T in modern car races". Therefore, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Portage-Marquette (Mr. Mayer):
That this ridiculous provision be brought before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to be reviewed and amended immediately.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity concerning the Garrison diversion project in North Dakota.
Whereas the Congressional supporters of the Garrison diversion project in North Dakota have attached an additional amount of $9,7 million appropriation for the project to Mount St. Helens' disaster relief bill as an obvious move to bypass the United States administration opposition to the Garrison project, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp):
That this House deplores the tactics employed by the Garrison promoters in the United States Congress, and that the Secretary of State for External Affairs contact the United States Secretary of State, Edward Muskie, directly today in
order to express the sentiments of this House and impress upon him the serious concerns we have affecting this very important issue relating to the relations between our two nations.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FUNDING OF GARRISON DIVERSION PROJECT-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity and with a view to giving the House a second chance with respect to the issue of the Garrison River diversion project.
Today the United States Senate is considering a supplemental appropriation bill which would provide $9.7 million in funding to the Garrison diversion project in the state of North Dakota. In view of the fact that the completion of this project in its presently approved form would be almost inevitable should these funds be approved, and that the completion of the project would spell environmental disaster for the lakes and waterways of Manitoba and would be in violation of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy):
That this House unanimously communicate to the United States Congress its disapproval of any action on the part of the United States Senate or House of Representatives which would provide further funds to the Garrison diversion project, until such time as all possibility of inter-basin biological transfer and the' ecological disaster it represents is eliminated from the Garrison plan.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TAX CONVENTIONS
Mr. Jack Masters (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Given the fact that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) will be attending the Summit conference in Venice next week, and that Bill S-2 relating to tax conventions with a number of

June 19, 1980
nations, including Italy, is before the House, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Lang):
That this House urges the hon. member for York-Peel to end his personal filibuster of Bill S-2 in committee so that the good will of Canada to Italy can be exhibited in Venice next week.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Douglas Roche (Edmonton South):: Madam Speaker, my motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 is seconded by the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand) and the hon. member for Saskatoon East (Mr. Ogle).
On two nights this week, CBC national television news has shown horrifying pictures of starvation and human suffering in Uganda, a country which has never recovered from the devastation it experienced under the former regime of Idi Amin. Therefore, I move:
That this House express the deep concern of many Canadians for spreading starvation and malnutrition in several parts of the world by specifically urging the government to direct emergency humanitarian assistance to Uganda.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SALE OF FUEL TO FOREIGN VESSELS AND AIR CARRIERS- MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Otto Jelinek (Halton):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that offshore oil subsidies will reach approximately $3.7 billion this year, and because millions of dollars worth of subsidized fuel is being sold to foreign interests while in Canada, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Perth (Mr. Jarvis):
That this House instruct the government to immediately establish a practice whereby all fuels sold to foreign vessels and air carriers in Canada be sold at the world price.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Mark Rose (Mission-Port Moody):: I rise, Madam Speaker, to propose a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that the 1978 crash of a Soviet satellite carrying a nuclear reactor caused extensive contamination damage and, hence, expensive clean-up operations in northern Canada, and since reports indicate the failure of Canada's attempts to negotiate damage costs recovery, despite the fact that both Canada and the U.S.S.R. are signatories to a 1972 international liability convention, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie):
That this House condemn the Soviet Union for its failure to settle its $6 million clean-up obligations, and that the Department of External Affairs request the creation of an international claims commission in an attempt to settle this contentious matter.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Since the Government of Canada has declared itself in favour of federal funding for the new permanent home of the Vancouver art gallery, and since the $5 million in private money raised locally was contingent upon federal government support, and since the Secretary of State and Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox) has had ample time to review cultural funding requests, as he promised in the House, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney):
That this House instruct the Secretary of State and Minister of Communications to cease his procrastination, and to announce forthwith his decision regarding the funding of the Vancouver art gallery.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
June 19, 1980


HOUSING
Mr. Bill Yurko (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
The sectoral conference on housing held in Edmonton at the end of January, 1978, attended by federal and provincial ministers, reached agreement on the need to permit home owners property tax deductibility on the principal residence up to an approved maximum. As the housing industry is now in serious need of stimulus, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor):
That the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance include in the forthcoming budget a home owners property tax deduction feature of up to $500 on principal residences; and, futhermore, that a similar deductible feature of up to $250 be included for renters.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43.
In view of the fact that the Laycraft inquiry into alleged bugging by the RCMP of certain Alberta police officers was prevented from receiving important documents because of a certificate filed pursuant to section 41(2) of the Federal Court Act by the then solicitor general Francis Fox on grounds of national security, and in view of the fact it now appears that the grounds for RCMP secrecy in that case were not national security, but an illicit liaison between staff sergeant Maduk of the RCMP and a local RCMP staff person, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie):
That this House call upon former solicitor general Francis Fox to appear before the justice committee to defend his abuse of the provisions of section 41(2) of the Federal Court Act, and to call upon him to explain why he was either misled by the RCMP, or why he misled the Federal Court of Canada.


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


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that three weeks ago CNR laid off one-half of its rail car repairmen in Prince Edward Island, and in view of the fact that CN has now rehired these men at least until July 31 so that negotiations about the future of the men can proceed without further loss of their pay, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Malpeque (Mr. Gass):
That this House commend CNR for rehiring the employees and that it urge CN to make every possible effort to retain the employees in Prince Edward Island after July 31.


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 QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Bill Jarvis (Perth):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. From a brief discussion I had with the minister during the luncheon hour, and according to press reports over the last hour or two, it appears that his negotiations with the minister of energy of Alberta, yesterday and today, have failed to result in an agreement with respect to energy pricing.
Can the minister confirm that talks have indeed broken off, whether or not the existing agreement will be extended for the one-month period as reported, confirm whether or not the Prime Minister and Premier Lougheed will be meeting during this extended one-month period? Finally, would he indicate, if the agreement is being extended, whether or not it will include a semi-annual price increase at the wellhead, likely due on July 1?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, I shall try to answer seriatim the questions raised by the hon. member. I held meetings both yesterday and today with my colleague from Alberta. I think we had a very helpful exchange of views and very helpful discussions. We considered two additional proposals which I put forward. These additional proposals, which were additional

June 19, 1980
Oral Questions
to two previous proposals I had put forward, were not considered satisfactory. It was felt, therefore, that it was advisable to extend the present arrangement by one month to August 1 and during that time to arrange for a meeting between the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta.
We also agreed that in the meantime, before the first ministers' meeting, we would try to have further exchanges in order to advance the discussions. I would also advise the hon. member that there will be no increase in the price of oil or gas during the month of July. The present arrangement will merely be extended to August 1.


William Herbert Jarvis: Madam Speaker, the minister has repeatedly said that he is not prepared to make public the details of his proposals until he has had a chance to discuss them with the other producing provinces, namely, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. Can the minister inform the House whether or not meetings are now scheduled with the two other producing provinces and, if so, the dates of those meetings? Can he also give us a firm date, now, upon which he will make public to the House the details of the proposals that he has set forth so far?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I am meeting with the minister of energy of Saskatchewan, Mr. Messer, tomorrow in Ottawa. My office is in touch with my colleague in British Columbia, and we are trying to find a mutually convenient date for a meeting. I shall be available to meet with my counterpart in British Columbia during the course of next week if he can make it.
With regard to the hon. member's question about releasing the details of the negotiations, after discussions with my colleague from Alberta we agreed that it would be preferable not to reveal the details of the discussions until after the first ministers have met some time in July and concluded their discussions.


INDUSTRY
Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. It relates to my concern about the state of Canada's manufacturing industry and the potential loss of jobs if this current recession continues.
With the first quarter's drop in the GNP indicating general weakness in the economy, does the minister feel that a further reduction in interest rates is appropriate, particularly as Canadian rates are so high relative to those in the United States?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Madam Speaker, due to the floating rate policy of the
Bank of Canada which is supported by this government, interest rates are already much lower than they were when the Conservatives were in office.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, again we have a great indication of how forthcoming the minister can be when answering a very straightforward question. In the formation of his economic development strategy, does the minister regard the level of the Canadian dollar as a key element in the international, competitive position of Canadian industry and in the decisionmaking process of companies considering investment in plant and equipment? If so, will he indicate to the House the appropriate level for the Canadian dollar which is consistent with the competitive position of Canadian manufacturing companies so that these companies can plan their future with some assurance?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I certainly consider this to be a key aspect to the success of companies, but I do not think the previous government was willing to state an appropriate level for the dollar. I think this can be left to the very capable Minister of Finance.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, I think we are trying to look forward to what we can expect from this government in the future, rather than continually looking back. In view of the answers the minister has given, will he tell the House how the current policy of relatively high interest rates, compared to those in the United States, and the climbing exchange rate is beneficial to the current long-term interests of the Canadian manufacturing industry?
Will the minister make strong representations to his colleague, the Minister of Finance, to reverse this policy? If that does not happen, will he again promise to resign if the Minister of Finance does not act in that direction?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, we have seen a great breakthrough since the Conservatives, for the first time, are trying to look forward, rather than back. I want to assure my hon. friend that I am talking frequently and directly with the Minister of Finance on the matters he has outlined. We will continue to have policies that will further the well-being of the manufacturing sector of this country and the entire economy, unlike the circumstances when the previous government was in office.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Edward Broad bent (Oshawa): Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. At this very moment a special subcommittee of the United States Senate is considering a special measure, which it is anticipated will be passed by that committee, which will provide $9.7 million for the Garrison River diversion project in
i:

June 19, 1980
[Stage Direction]
North Dakota. It is further anticipated that, if this happens this afternoon, the measure will be passed through the United States Senate later tonight.
Given the devastating effect this project will have on Manitoba, can the minister tell the House what action he has taken today to ensure that this contemplated action by the United States does not take place?
Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House that I will be issuing a press statement later on saying that we presented a note on this subject to the United States yesterday. If I may quote briefly from the note, we expressed the serious concern of the Canadian government that important new funds may be appropriated for the Garrison River diversion project. We are especially concerned about this because it is a rider to a bill on another subject and so might not receive proper consideration. We therefore took this unusual step of expressing our views in strong language in a note to the United States government. We welcome the endorsement of the opposition, which I think we have, in expressing our feelings on this matter.


Mr. Broadbent:: Madam Speaker, I am sure the Americans are shaking in their boots after that strong note. Officials of the Canadian embassy in Washington expressed their view this morning that the measure is going to get through the Senate and will, therefore, become effective law because this particular measure is attached to a broader bill and cannot be vetoed by the president.
Would the Secretary of State for External Affairs please wake up to the fact that he may have sent a note yesterday, but recognize that maybe he should get on the phone today and call his counterpart directly in the United States to head off this action?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, we take an extremely serious view of this matter. But the hon. member must recognize that, in terms at least, these additional funds are specified to be for work which is unrelated to any effect on Canada. We have made strong representations, and we shall continue to do so.


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, there is at least a New Democratic Party member of Parliament who is in the U.S. Senate today trying to do the job which the minister should be doing. I would like to get clarification from the minister since, if the funds are approved for this particular part of the project, it means inevitably that the rest of the project will have to be completed and therefore the damage will be done to the province of Manitoba. Is the minister telling us today that he is really not very concerned that this part of the project is completed, in full knowledge that if it is, the final project will be completed, doing irreparable damage to the people of Manitoba?
Oral Questions


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, I am telling the hon. member that some members of the U.S. Congress may not realize the situation because the funds are specified to be for work in the United States. That is the reason we have made strong representations. The member of his own party to whom he is referring consulted me before going to the United States and received my encouragement for doing what he is doing. We are making our representations to the United States government as well.


TRADE AND COMMERCE
Hon. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce if he and his assistant, the Minister of State for Trade, are using their advocacy role to untangle the interdepartmental confusion when aid wheat is shipped offshore. If they have not, will they take a lead role in solving the bureaucratic and legal entanglement that exists between the Department of Supply and Services, CIDA, the Canadian Wheat Board and the Department of Justice?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Yes, Madam Speaker.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the minister if he would seek an interim emergency payment which would prevent the bankruptcy of a private sector company that has performed its services to the letter of the law, but is unable to receive payment for damages due over the past three years from the government; that is, damages caused by the Canadian Wheat Board not being able to meet shipping schedules as agreed.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I will be happy to look into this matter on an urgent basis.


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Gordon Gilchrist (Scarborough East):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. For many years now the business and scientific communities have made numerous constructive and sensible submissions on how government can increase the level of vitally-needed research in Canada. When will the minister announce a practical R and D incentive program consistent with Canada's industrial needs, instead of simply continuing the same old tactics which have dropped Canada's level to less than half the level of other industrialized countries?

June 19, 1980
Oral Questions


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I recently met with representatives of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association to discuss with them the work they have done. I have also met with representatives of the Business Council on national issues. They put forward some very useful and constructive ideas on improving our efforts to assist research and development.


An hon. Member:: When?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: 1 am working actively on this matter with the Minister of Finance. But, as the hon. member has said, these are incentive measures which relate to a budget and they are matters of tax policy. I hope we will be able to proceed on them very soon.


James Gordon Gilchrist: Madam Speaker, those are the kinds of measures I am talking about, submitted by responsible agencies such as the CMA. Because research and development is the most important factor in Canada's future industrial and economic development, even more important than oil exploration or movie-making, when will the minister implement the personal income tax legislation for research and development investments as that which exists for film-making?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I do not want to treat a serious question facetiously. I could say that I will implement those changes if and when I ever become minister of finance.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: John Evans just fainted.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I am happy to say-and 1 think everybody agrees-that we have an outstanding Minister of Finance now, and he is treating the subject very seriously. I am working with him to get the kind of further action the hon. member is talking about, but about which his government did nothing.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. 1 note that the Prime Minister will be going to London and having talks with Her Majesty the Queen and with the British prime minister. According to government sources, he will be talking about the constitution. I wonder whether he can confirm this to the House. 1 am talking about the report this morning that the Prime Minister will be talking to Her Majesty the Queen and the British prime minister about the constitution. Can he
confirm that? If he will be having talks about the constitution, can he tell the House some of the details of those talks?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, there is no agenda set, that I know, which might include constitutional talks. With regard to the meeting with Her Majesty, it is usual with Her Majesty, as the Queen of Canada, to inform herself of how things are going in Canada in various areas, in Parliament and with respect to the constitution. I will inform her that we are meeting, the ten provinces and the federal government, and that we hope to carry out our pledge to bring in a new, renewed form of federalism in the very near future. Patriation, as the hon. member knows, is one of the subjects that the Minister of Justice and the other provincial ministers are discussing. Naturally, that would involve the British Parliament.
Turning to the hon. member's second question, I have no specific plan to discuss this with Mrs. Thatcher, the British prime minister. It is possible it will arise. If it does, I hope we will have the support of both sides of this House to end the situation where Canadian affairs must be cleared through the prime minister of another country, and that we will bring back the constitution once and for all. I will explain, of course, to anyone who wants to hear about it, that we hope on this side of the House-and, hopefully, on the other side-that we will get the consent of all provinces to assist the federal government in making this final step-I repeat-to put an end to a situation where Canada cannot amend its own constitution without getting permission from the British Parliament, something that should have been ended a long time ago.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Will the Prime Minister be making a proposal to the Queen or to the British prime minister about patriation? If so, what will that proposal be? Also, can he assure the House that he will not raise the possibility of any unilateral action while the negotiating process is under way? In other words, will he give that process a fair chance to work itself out, so that we can have a consensus of the provinces as well as the federal government before there is any patriation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, if the hon. member is seeking reassurance from me-which I gave in my previous answer-that we will seek agreement among all provinces, certainly if asked I will say that that is the federal government's intention. I understand that even the Leader of the New Democratic Party and the members of that party supported a motion presented in this House by the hon. member for Edmonton East that we should get on with the process of patriation. I hope the NDP is not backing down from that commitment.
June 19, 1980


INDUSTRY
Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Can the minister indicate why he failed to co-operate with CAE Industries in their bid to win a $300 million contract for Canada that would have resulted in 200 additional jobs? In indicating why he failed to co-operate, will he agree that this is discrimination against a healthy Canadian company?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I am glad to see the hon. member's conversion to the cause of Canadian nationalism-belated, but welcome.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: The hon. member's premise that I failed to co-operate with the company is quite inaccurate. We worked actively to see if we could find, within the programs that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce has to administer and within the envelope that he left me, capital funds to enable this project to go ahead. Unfortunately, I do not have a program yet available to provide capital assistance for nondefence related projects. I was able to offer the company loan guarantees which did not fit in their plans.
I intend to continue working with the company to help it to continue expanding and to succeed. I might point out that this company has already received some $21 million in assistance in the aeronautics and aerospace area through programs like the defence industry productivity program and an innovation grant under the enterprise development program to assist another automotive related project in St. Catharines.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: My supplementary is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, who indicates that he is short of funds within his capital budget. Perhaps he can indicate why he gave preference to certain 100 per cent foreign-owned concerns such as Chrysler. As he knows, money was set aside for General Motors to assist them in expansion in the province of Quebec. He is now telling us there is no money available, even $13 million, to help a Canadian company that has been profitable and has been producing Canadian jobs with 3,500 people working for that concern.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: If the hon. member is talking about General Motors, Madam Speaker, he is talking about a possible application by them under the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. Is the hon. member urging that the plant move from where it is located now into a DREE area? Let us have that on the record. Second, with respect to Chrysler, they received loan guarantees which would not be available until 1982. If CAE had wanted that kind of help, it was readily available to them, and still is available to them.
Oral Questions CONVENTIONS


DEDUCTION OF EXPENSES BY UNITED STATES VISITORS
Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the aspiring minister of finance, the present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. On May 23, the Department of Finance stated an agreement had been reached between Canada and the United States which would allow the deduction by Americans of expenses incurred while attending conventions in Canada. Will the minister confirm that this issue has been resolved?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, as I understand it, the matter has been resolved at the level of negotiation among officials. It still must be approved by governments-in the case of the United States, not only by the administration but by the U.S. Senate.
I hope the agreement in question, which is part of negotiations for a tax treaty, will be in place very soon.


Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Will the minister make strong recommendations to the Secretary of State for External Affairs to encourage him to discontinue making intemperate remarks so that he does not poison the atmosphere of Canadian-U.S. relations?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, there is no reason to urge my colleague and neighbour, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, to cease making remarks which are aimed at helping the climate of relations between Canada and the United States.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. John M. Reid (Kenora-Rainy River):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice, who I understand is the minister responsible for constitutional negotiations, the minister responsible for federal-provincial relations and the minister who is chairman of the cabinet committee for Indians, Inuit and native peoples of Canada.
My question is: will the minister appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs to indicate his dossier on the constitutional negotiations, so that members of the House might become more informed and more involved?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, next week I will appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and if the hon. member wants to come and put some questions to me on that occasion, I will be glad to reply.

June 19, 1980
Oral Questions


INDUSTRY
William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of the fact that Canada has many multibiilion dollar projects such as pipeline construction and tar sands development presently in the planning stages, I ask the minister: is it the government's intention to have all these major projects begin construction on the same day? If not, when will he announce a schedule for the orderly commencement of such projects?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: This is an important matter which we are working on constantly with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The hon. member has raised an important point. Orderly scheduling of these projects is important in the Canadian national interest.


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: When will the government stop importing technical and engineering services and ensure that Canadian skills are used in these Canadian projects?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, 1 am pleased to find the hon. member supporting the commitment we made during the election campaign and in the throne speech.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: We already have a precedent for this type of action in the legislation setting up the Northern Pipeline Agency, and we will follow through with this precedent in the form of concrete action. We already have a group in my department working with the people who are putting together major projects to make sure that Canadian expertise and Canadian suppliers are used.


FARM CREDIT CORPORATION
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: My question, Madam Speaker, is directed to the Minister of Agriculture and has to do with the Farm Credit Corporation. In some parts of the country the demand for Farm Credit Corporation loans is reported to be up by some 25 per cent or more, yet the allocation of funds for this year has been set at $5 million less than at the beginning of last year, and $55 million below the final allocation if we include the $50 million addition to the original allocation.
When does the government intend to increase the current allocation in accordance with the Liberals campaign promise of last February when they said, "We will increase the amount of money available to the Farm Credit Corporation"? When? How much money will be added?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. member has followed closely what everybody has been saying about the Farm Credit Corporation-how good it is, what a great job it has done for agriculture in Canada, how it has on record 75 per cent of all long-term loans for farm and agricultural operations in Canada. We intend to improve even on that record. We intend to present, possibly before the House adjourns, new legislation which is necessary for us to allow Farm Credit to operate in a way in which I am sure, Madam Speaker, the hon. member himself would want it to operate, and so that all farmers in all parts of Canada will be treated in an equitable fashion.
We will not have programs such as they have in his province which give farm-start loans at reduced interest rates which put at a disadvantage farmers in other provinces which do not have the same resources as his province has to subsidize agricultural interest rates.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the minister that most of the provinces do not have programs competing with the Farm Credit Corporation, though they certainly do with the Farm Improvement Loans Act. There are very few provincial programs for the purchase of land under long-term loans. The question is still there, Madam Speaker, the promise was made during the election-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member will have noted that all questions were quite short today. I would like the hon. gentleman to conform to that good rule.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The question of when the funds will be increased is still left in the air. We have not received an answer.


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, given the utmost co-operation of all members of the House, I would hope it would be soon.


RAPID TRANSIT
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of the withdrawal of federal funds by the minister from the joint project with the province of Ontario to develop the Bathurst Street Go-train connection in Toronto, will the minister confirm that the $38.2 million contribution to the Hamilton rapid transit project will be made and that the letter of intent between the previous government and the province of Ontario will be honoured?
June 19, 1980


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, this is still a subject for negotiations. Certainly I would like to see that project proceed.


William James Kempling: The minister is saying that the matter is not going to be confirmed by the new government. I want to know if he can tell us when they will recommit the $30 million contribution to the Bathurst Street Go-train connection in Toronto.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: First of all, Madam Speaker, I did not say that we are not confirming the Hamilton project. With respect to the other matter I will look into it and report to the hon. member as soon as possible.


SMALL BUSINESS
Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Small Businesses. I am sure the minister is aware of the importance of maintaining a strong domestic capability for the construction and repairs of ships in Canada, which involves some 15,000 direct and 45,000 related jobs in that industry. When is the minister going to announce the continuation of the 20 per cent subsidy which is due to expire on June 30 of this year?
What other badly-needed measures will the hon. gentleman announce to match the subsidies which offshore shipping companies are receiving from their governments so that Canadian companies will have a fair and equal chance when tendering for orders?
[ Translation]


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of State, Small Businesses):: Madam Speaker, 1 have had some meetings with the Canadian Association of Shipbuilders. Cabinet is now considering various possible options to give a new impetus to the program which, as we know, will end on June 30.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Garnet M. Bloomfield (London-Middlesex):: Madam Speaker, I should like to direct my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Could the minister tell the House what Canada is doing to ensure that Pakistan does not join the nuclear club, or market that technology through the capability of the reactor Canada sold to them?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, from time to time there have been press reports, as there are now, that Pakistan is involved in the
Oral Questions
production of nuclear technology leading to a nuclear bomb. We have not been able to verify those reports, but because we have been concerned about them, the government, and the previous government, have both conveyed their strong feelings to Pakistan that no action should be taken which would lead in this direction. As the House knows, we have not been involved in nuclear co-operation with Pakistan since 1976 and, of course, we continue to be very concerned about their use of the technology they have. We are monitoring the situation closely.


SALE OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES WITHOUT SAFEGUARDS
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a supplementary question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs. Given the concerns expressed by him and by many countries around the world about the danger to world peace of the development or potential development of a nuclear bomb by Pakistan, and given the early involvement in the nuclear cycle in Pakistan by AECL, will the minister give a clear and emphatic guarantee to the House of Commons and to the people of Canada that the government will not enter into the sale of nuclear reactors or nuclear facilities to any country that does not abide by full-scope safeguards, such as Argentina?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, that is certainly the policy of the government-not to enter into agreements with any such country. This has been made clear many times, and I expressed that view recently to representatives of the Argentine government.


INDUSTRY
Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce regarding the ailing auto industry where further staggering lay-offs are continuing; in fact, weekly UIC pay-outs to laid off auto workers are approaching $6 million to $7 million a week, while auto parts manufacturers are closing down and going under. Yet we find no concrete action being taken by the government-just talk.
My question therefore is this: Since there are a number of options which could and should be taken in this country, such as imposing quotas on offshore imports, eliminating the 9 per cent federal excise tax on North American-built cars, along with many others, when will the minister stop pussyfooting around and take the immediate action which is necessary in order to stimulate the industrial sector of our economy?
[DOT] (M50)


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: We are actively working, Madam Speaker, on all the kinds of options which my hon. friend mentioned. We want to

June 19, 1980
Oral Questions
make sure that the actions we take will not have adverse consequences on the economy as a whole and on sectors other than the automotive sector. I am working on the whole matter actively with the Minister of Finance.
I want to confirm that our formal consultations on the auto pact with the United States government will begin in Washington on June 27, and I am personally leading the delegation. 1 will be going to Japan in the last week of July to begin discussions personally with the heads of the major Japanese automotive manufacturers.
I might say that while hon. members seem to keep on sniping at the assistance we are giving to enable the Chrysler Corporation to expand, to restructure and retool, that effort will help preserve the existence of a large number of independent Canadian parts manufacturers and the jobs connected with them, and the sourcing clause in that agreement will also enable us to put pressure on the company to expand their sourcing. So we are taking concrete action in a number of important areas.


Otto John Jelinek: The minister has been saying this for four or five months, but no action has been taken-it is just talk. I wonder, if he would tell that to the unemployed, what they would think about it.
In any event, I wonder if the minister can now justify the $4 billion auto parts deficit with the United States, and tell us as well what specific proposals-and I mean specific proposals- he intends to make to the Americans later this summer which would reverse the negative position in which Canadians find themselves so far as the auto pact is concerned. In other words, what incentives can Canadian auto parts manufacturers look for? They certainly need some.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: I could ask my hon. friend exactly whose side he is on. Why does he want me to tip my negotiating hand with the Americans before the meetings even begin? But I can also say to my hon. friend that during the election campaign, in our automotive policy statement we said we would put into place a facility in the enterprise development fund to help the auto parts manufacturers to get the capital they need to retool and re-equip. Work on that project is quite far advanced.
With regard to my hon. friend's concern about action and talk, in this part of my hon. friend's government's life they had not even called Parliament-they were not even talking. We are talking about concrete steps and we are taking those steps right now in the interests of Canadian workers and the Canadian economy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: You said you would resign if the interest rates went up, and you did not.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In 1977, it was found that the Industrial Biotest Laboratories had falsified and shredded documents relating to the testing of thousands of federally-approved products, including drugs, pesticides, food additives and industrial chemicals. The same year the Canadian government recognized the problem and set up a review procedure. Here we are, three years later, and these products are still on the market, despite the fact it was discovered that two-thirds of the tests were found to be invalid. Under Canadian law, I understand-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Would the hon. member put his question?


Simon Leendert de Jong: I should like to ask the minister whether she is prepared to recommend to her colleague, the Minister of Agriculture, that he ban the use and registration of these products in Canada.


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, as we say in French, the hon. member is in the potatoes.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
[ Translation]


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, I was saying that the member is not in pesticides but in the potatoes. Yesterday he asked me a question on a matter which I consider to be very serious and one that should be studied and dealt with as such, that is, the many data analyses to decide whether or not the use of pesticides is acceptable in several countries, including Canada. I gave him the findings and was even kind enough to hand over to him my documentation so he would understand the question better. This afternoon he acted in the typical fashion of the New Democratic Party which is always seeking to alarm Canadians about their health in connection with the colour of the food they eat or the size of the package it comes in. I would like to say to him that he has erred, that this question is seriously wrong and will deceive the people. He has just said in the House that two-thirds of the pesticides have been found unacceptable. It is a mistake. Eight pesticides have been found safe and can be used, so we know there is no mistake about that. I told the hon. member that I am now drafting a press release on the matter.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Madam Speaker, 1 might be in the potatoes, but I really wonder where the minister is. I understand she is concerned with, and responsible for, the health of the Canadian people. Here we have a lab which has deliberately falsified information, and we are using products based on that-


Some hon. Members:: Order.
June 19, 1980


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. It seems that we cannot win. When we get short questions, we get heckling.


An hon. Member:: We get long answers.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Would the minister give us the assurance that she will not pass the buck and ask the Department of Agriculture to take the responsibility for the testing of these products but that, indeed, her department will carry the investigation through as soon as possible?


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is a relatively new member. He should know that the drama of my life is that I do not pass the buck enough. So this is obviously not my usual way of conducting the affairs of the department.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


FISHERIES
Mr. Remi Bujold (Bonaventure-IIes-de-la-Madeleine):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
In view of the fact that red fish prices in Canada have dropped from 10.5 to 7.5 cents a pound, and that this price decrease has led to the closing down of a plant on the Magdalen Islands and the lay-off of 265 workers, could the minister tell the House whether he intends to take energetic measures to restore the support price of red fish?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question, all the more as I know that this situation worries many fishermen and plant workers.
The price of red fish on the American market has dropped sharply. Iceland and Canada have entered into competition that is harmful to Canadian fishermen and workers. We are trying to straighten things out. I asked the Price Stabilization Board to report to me on this question and I am waiting for that report to see if we can be of any assistance to red fish plants which are experiencing difficulties.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. In view of the fact that the automobile industry's problems and
Oral Questions
lost jobs are clearly a result of the uncertainty of the government's policy surrounding energy pricing, is the minister pressing the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and the Prime Minister to produce a long-term energy pricing policy so that industry can plan and can avoid more industrial problems and lost jobs?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, we already have the elements of a good energy policy. That is why we are here with a majority.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The minister is having trouble seeing in any direction-forward, backward, up or down. The minister should also be concerned about the supply problem. When can we expect the minister to begin speaking out publicly about the need for a secure domestic supply of oil?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Whatever problems I have, at least I do not have the hearing problem of my hon. friend. I was speaking about this problem even before we took over the government-when we were in opposition, and well before that.


TRANSPORT
Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the acting minister of transport. I should like to point out that our Minister of Transport has trouble differentiating between grain shipments-the gold commodity-and coal shipments, which is the black commodity. So I would like to say I am talking about the black stuff.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pat Carney: This week, the B.C representative in the other place admitted there was no direct federal funding available for B.C. coal development on terms acceptable to the B.C. government, but he indicated that some funds might be available in the future. When will the minister announce these funds, and for what purpose will they be used?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the Minister of Transport is out west for discussions. I will be glad to bring this matter to his attention as soon as he returns.


Pat Carney: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Again let me say that the Minister of Transport has trouble telling the difference between natural gas exports and grain exports, and I should like to ask the minister this question. Since British Columbia is going to use natural gas revenues to construct the railway line for transporting coal, will the minister assure the thousands of British Columbians that they will

June 19, 1980
Business of the House
not lose their new jobs because he will pre-empt this source of revenue?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I am sure that in whatever arrangement we arrive at with the producing provinces there will be ample revenues to ensure that British Columbia will prosper with the help of the British Columbia government and the national government of this country. I can assure the hon. member that she has no reason to fear.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, by way of a point of order, I wonder if I might direct a question to the government House leader. Could he tell us the business of the House this day, tomorrow and into next week as far as he can see?
Also there is the matter of the designation of an allotted day. If one has not been designated, perhaps he might look into that.


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, today we will continue debate on second reading stage-and hopefully reach the conclusion of that debate-of Bill C-3, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971. In the following order we will be looking at Bill C-35, Bill C-5 and Bill C-22. The first day the House will be sitting next week is Wednesday.

Wednesday of next week will be a day allotted, I think, to the New Democratic Party. Then we will try to complete the debate at Committee of the Whole stage as well, I hope, as on third reading of Bill C-19, to amend the Employment Tax Credit Act, and Bill S-6, to amend the Two-Price Wheat Act. If tomorrow we do not complete the debate on Bill C-22, to adjust the Accounts of Canada, we hope to be able to do so sometime next week. That is the work for next week, subject to the return to the House from the committees of priority bills which the government might decide to consider ahead of those I have just listed.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, there have been some reports of statements being made by the leader of the government respecting proposed reforms in the Standing Orders and practices of the House of Commons. The most recent report I have seen appeared in the current edition of The Legion magazine. Prior to the adjournment of Parliament for the summer, is the government House leader planning to table a document in the House of Commons respecting his precise proposals for reform of the House? If he is doing that, would he consider quickly a reference to the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization in order to give that committee an opportunity to organize itself and to look at certain firm proposals, on the understanding that we would have some proposals to make as well? The reports seem to indicate that perhaps it is time, rather than talking about parliamentary reform, that Parliament start to take a look at it. What are the plans of the minister respecting that?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I have not read the article to which my learned colleague has just referred concerning a time frame for the proposed reform of our Standing Orders in order to streamline them and make them more efficient and probably more human. I am prepared to entertain his suggestion. I should like to remind him, however, that in 1974 and 1975 our Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization had the opportunity to deal in depth with this. Three reports were published following these committee meetings, and we have also benefited from the opinions expressed by both sides of the House on these proposed reforms. Some of them are even favoured by the former government House leader and we have found them interesting. The study stage is not necessarily over, but it is well advanced, so that we might now consider quicker ways to make this Parliament more efficient, but always after consultations with both sides of the House.
If my hon. colleague will help me set the tone, I am willing to repeat the same suggestion I made to him last week to set a 20-minute time limit on speeches until the summer recess. If he can agree to that today on behalf of his party, and if the Leader of the New Democratic Party can do likewise, I undertake to limit the time allotted for speeches to 20 minutes until the summer recess. This could be a step in the right direction and help make Parliament more efficient and more equitable. I would point out to my colleague that it would not penalize the opposition. If speeches were shortened to 20 minutes it would not take time away from the Progressive Conservative or the New Democratic Party. It would give more members and particularly members from western Canada an opportunity to get involved in the debate. That would only be fair in a House that now has 282 members.
Finally, to answer the question of my colleague on parliamentary reform, I would say we are open to reform and the methods to be used. We want them to be the most expeditive and the fairest. We want to make changes in the spirit of Parliament and in consultation with all members of this House.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, the problem with parliamentary reform in this House is that it has not been parliamentary reform in the real sense; it has been little piecemeal bits such as shortening the length of time of speeches. I am prepared to discuss proposals with respect to limiting debate regarding the length of speeches, but this Parliament wants to discuss much more than that in terms of
June 19, 1980

parliamentary reform and in terms of the private members of this Elouse. I think it is important that my friend recognizes this willingness to discuss, as he has, that he presents his proposals to Parliament-we have presented our proposals-so that there is an opportunity for input from all members of the House of Commons and changes are made in an appropriate manner, that is, by considered discussion within the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization. That is my point.
Dealing once more with matters respecting parliamentary affairs, there has been a great amount of agitation. Indeed the former government, in which I occupied the position of my friend, proposed a parliamentary inquiry into the whole question of nuclear energy in Canada and the question of the nuclear age in relation to Canada and the world. I know there is an ongoing investigation within the government respecting that matter. Does the government have any plans to create a select committee, a joint committee or some committee of the House of Commons, so that those matters being pursued within the bureaucracy can be pursued publicly in the House? He may not be able to answer that question today, but will he take it as notice of our interest in making that discussion public, so that the public will have an opportunity for some input into that very important question?


Mr. Knowles:: Madam Speaker, may I indicate to the government House leader that we agree with the statement just made by the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton that the place to sort out our rules and recommend changes is in a committee where consideration can be given to those changes on a rational basis. We can hardly change the rules of Parliament by a snap decision of the floor of the House. We are prepared to discuss these matters in committee, including any change which might be made in the length of speeches.
However, there are two other questions I should like to put to the minister at this time. As he may know, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, at the meeting of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs two days ago, said that his legislation respecting pensions for the widows of disabled veterans and respecting changes in the War Veterans Allowance Act is sufficiently far advanced that it could be dealt with before a summer recess. We do not know when that date will be, but if there is to be a summer recess, it will have to be dealt with within the next few weeks or a month. Can the minister assure us that he will co-operate with the Minister of Veterans Affairs in making available time to deal with that legislation?
My other question to the government House leader is one that has been put to him before. When will the promised legislation respecting freedom of information be put on the order paper?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, concerning the remarks made by the Conservative parliamentary leader, I want to say two things. First, he indicated how his party thought a more in-depth parliamentary reform might be made. I agree there
Business of the House
are deep changes to be made. However, experience has shown that if we are overly anxious to make changes in this institution we might in fact end up with absolutely no change at all. I would not want opposition parties to try to prevent changes from being made to the rules of this House by ridiculing what could be done as a first step because they think the changes do not go deep enough. 1 do not believe that is the intention of my colleague. However, 1 want to tell him there is no doubt in-depth changes will have to be made sooner or later but that should not prevent more urgent changes from being made to bring this institution more in line with the requirements of the eighties. I would not want that once again steps be taken so we would be in a situation where, to avoid the simplest changes, we would be caught in endless committee, subcommittee and commission of inquiry meetings and in the meantime have hon. members become disabused and see their role become increasingly less interesting. In any case the spirit of changes that could be made, regardless of the method or the means used, would be to enhance the role of hon. members and make this institution more efficient, more modern and more humane. That is how those changes will be made, without penalizing opposition parties and in consultation with members on both sides of the House.
So, whatever the means used, whether it is a special committee or the existing Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization or meetings between parliamentary leaders or joint party caucuses, whatever the method used for the in-depth reform, the objective would be to make this institution more modern and more in line with the requirements of the eighties. I want to assure my colleague that we are prepared to forsake traditional means finally to arrive at changes that are in the spirit of what was indicated in the Speech from the Throne.
With respect to the second point, the hon. member talks of a select committee or committees on a matter of great interest. He knows full well that we now have six parliamentary task forces which are special committees of the House of Commons considering matters of national interest. His suggestion concerns another matter and I believe it would be wise to wait for the reports of these committees which must be tabled by December 19. If the experience is worth while, there is nothing to prevent us from considering setting up new parliamentary task forces which could deal with the subject he has mentioned.
As for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, he raised three points. First, he wanted some assurance that any changes to parliamentary procedure would be made through a committee of the House. I cannot give him that assurance for the reasons I have just stated, but I can assure him that any change that might be made will be implemented only after reasonable consultation with all members of the House. I do not want to set any restrictions concerning the means to bring about such changes. As for any major reform, it is, of course.

June 19, 1980
Business of the House
more logical for such changes to be considered by the Standing Committee on Procedure and Organization. However, changes which might be needed more urgently could be implemented without spending several months in committee, but always after consultation, and in any case, Parliament would be advised.
According to the hon. member, the Minister of Veterans Affairs stated in committee that drafting of the bill was nearly completed and that he thought it could be dealt with before the summer recess even though he did not know when Parliament would adjourn. If this is so, and I believe the Minister of Veterans Affairs, I shall co-operate with him so that the bill can be introduced as soon as possible. As for the summer recess, I do not know when it will come. As to his third point, when we can expect the bill on freedom of information to be introduced in the House, I can assure him that this is one of the priorities of the government and that we shall introduce this bill as soon as possible.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, may I put a supplementary question to the government House leader with regard to the veterans' legislation. 1 wonder if he is aware of the fact that both the spokesman for the Progressive Conservative party and I, as spokesman for our party, gave the assurance in the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs the other day that the House would deal with that legislation in less than a day, and will he take that into consideration in arranging for that legislation to be brought forward before the summer recess, whenever it is to take place?


Yvon Pinard: Yes, Madam Speaker.


Mr. Beatty:: Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, raised the question of freedom of information legislation. The Secretary of State and Minister of Communications has been charged by the Prime Minister with responsibility for both the freedom of information and privacy legislation. He should be aware of the proposal made by the previous government in both areas. Would the government House leader indicate to the House whether, at the same time as legislation on freedom of information is introduced, the House will also be presented with legislation on privacy, and will an effort be made to introduce both bills prior to the summer recess in order to ensure that parliamentarians and Canadians at large can look at the contents of those bills over the summer recess?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, the suggestion made by the hon. member is very interesting. I must admit that others have had the same idea and that there are very good chances that we might do what has been suggested.


Douglas Roche: Madam Speaker, when the government House leader announced the list of business for tomorrow he said he would call Bill C-5 in second position. I would ask the government House leader whether he would consider calling Bill C-5 next Friday rather than tomorrow, which would allow me to participate in the debate. I think I can say from this side of the House that it will be a very short debate.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I am willing to accommodate the hon. member but I would not like all the work of the House to be delayed as a consequence. I will talk with the House leaders and, if possible, we will try to find something else to deal with as the second item tomorrow so the hon. member can attend his meeting. I will try to do so, but I cannot undertake to accommodate him at this stage.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

[Stage Direction]
First report of Standing Committee on Regional Economic Development-Mr. Pelletier.
[Editor's Note: For text of above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]

Mr. Alain Tardif (Richmond) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-606, to change the name of the electoral district of Richmond.


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

Hon. Francis Fox (Secretary of State and Minister of Communications) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-37, to amend the Holidays Act.


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

June 19, 1980

Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to my notice to you at noon today, I ask leave, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 26 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely, the matter of the Garrison diversion project and the effects of the Senate appropriation bill presently being considered by the United States Senate.
The United States Senate is presently considering a supplemental appropriations bill that would provide $9.7 million in funding to the Garrison diversion project. Should the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States approve such funding, the completion of the full irrigation project would be irreversible. It would cause pollution in Canadian waters and the introduction of nuisance fish species which would effect an estimated $6 million in damage annually to the commercial freshwater industry in Manitoba.
In addition the interbasin biological transfers that would result from the linking of the Hudson Bay and Missouri River basins would be a clear violation on the part of the United States of America of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty Act which promises that one country will not pollute another's waters to the detriment of health and property.
Because of the extreme likelihood that this bill will pass the Senate this week, it is imperative that this House discuss this matter at the only opportunity available to it, which is this afternoon.


Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, I did not intend to interrupt the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy) who has introduced the motion under Standing Order 26, but I would draw your attention to section (3) of Standing Order 26 at page 18, which states:
When requesting leave to propose such a motion, the member shall rise in his place and present without argument the statement referred to in Section 2 of this Order.
I believe it was the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Hargrave) who three weeks ago introduced a motion under Standing Order 26 and who, in the introduction of this motion, presented considerable debate. I would ask your indulgence, Madam Speaker, to rule on this matter or at least give an interpretation of the rule. I know that you are very gracious and like to give all hon. members an equal break, but I do believe that, since there is a rule on the books, it should be observed unless we intend to change it.
Order Paper Questions


Madam Speaker:: I do not feel that the hon. member abused the rule. I believe that in the presentation of such a motion an hon. member is allowed to give a very brief explanation, but not to enter into argument, and on that point the parliamentary secretary is right.
With regard to this motion under Standing Order 26, it is undoubtedly a very important matter that the hon. member has raised, as it has been raised many times in this House and in committees over the past several years. In determining whether a matter should have urgent consideration and is appropriate to ask for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 26, the Chair must have regard to the extent that it concerns the administrative responsibilities of the Government of Canada or could come within the scope of ministerial action.
The written statement submitted by the hon. member shows concern in relation to a bill which is before the United States Senate. In this connection it is clear to the Chair that neither the Canadian government nor this House can interfere with proceedings in the United States Senate. There are already in place mechanisms as, for instance, the Department of External Affairs, for which the minister replied today during question period, and the International Joint Commission, which has been very active with regard to the problem raised by the hon. member, by which Canada may protect its interests in such matters.
Until such avenues are known to have been exhausted, it would be very difficult for the Chair to set aside its scheduled business, particularly in view of the fact, as noted in paragraph (5) of Standing Order 26, that there is a probability of the matter being brought before the House within a reasonable time by other means which could be more effective. For instance, the main estimates for the current year are before various standing committees where the various questions relating to this matter can be dealt with in depth.
For these reasons, I regret that the hon. member's request for leave cannot be accepted at this time. Should it not be possible to consider this matter in that way, or should the situation change substantially, the House may want to reconsider it then.




[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 185, 199, 202, 235, 307, 605, 706, 720, 808, 840 and 933.

June 19, 1980
Order Paper Questions
1 ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	For each fiscal year (a) 1977 (b) 1978, what was the total revenue and net earnings or deficits for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd?
2.	For each year, what was the total (a) of direct or indirect subsidies or other benefits conferred by the government on the corporation (b) of loans, advances or guarantees extended by the government to the corporation (c) investment by the government in the corporation both before and after any write-off?


Marc Lalonde: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited reports as follows:
1.	(a) 1977
Total revenue-$132,795,000 Net deficits-$180,678,000 (b) 1978
Total revenue-$203,239,000 Net earnings-$ 20,249,000
2.	(a) 1977
$1 10,057,000-Total parliamentary appropriations 1978
$128,491,000-Total parliamentary appropriations $126,199,000-Loans forgiven
(b)	1977
$177,971,000-Loan advances 1978
$209,000,000-Loan advances
(c)	1977 nil 1978
$149,159,000-In 1978 Parliament granted AECL authority to convert loans from Canada into equity.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	For each fiscal year (a) 1977 (b) 1978, what was the total revenue and net earnings or deficits for Eldorado Aviation Ltd?
2.	For each year, what was the total (a) of direct or indirect subsidies or other benefits conferred by the government on the corporation (b) of loans, advances or guarantees extended by the government to the corporation (c) investment by the government in the corporation both before arid after any write-off?


Marc Lalonde: Eldorado Aviation Limited reports as follows:
1.	(a) and (b) 1977 and 1978-nil
EAL operates on a non-profit basis with revenues being equal to expenses. Revenue is billed to Eldorado Nuclear Limited in flying hours and not in dollars. The costs of
EAL are assumed into the costs of operating the Beaver-lodge mine by ENL. The financial statements of EAL are consolidated in the ENL statement.
2.	(a) 1977 and 1978-nil
(b)	1977 and 1978-nil
(c)	1977 and 1978-$28,000 (no write-offs)


Mr. Herbert: 1.	For each fiscal year (a) 1977 (b) 1978, what was the total revenue and net earnings or deficits for Eldorado Nuclear Limited?
2.	For each year, what was the total (a) of direct or indirect subsidies or other benefits conferred by the government on the corporation (b) of loans, advances or guarantees extended by the government to the corporation (c) investment by the government in the corporation both before and after any write-off?


Marc Lalonde: Eldorado Nuclear Limited reports as follows:
1.	(a) 1977
Total revenue-$68,623,000
Net earnings-$ 6,933,000 (b) 1978
Total revenue-$124,046,000
Net earnings-$	17,618,000
2.	(a) 1977-nil
1978-nil
(b)	1977
$56,414,000-Balance owing on government loan
$45,152,000-Balance owing on government loan
(c)	1977 and 1978
$6,586,000 (no write-offs)


Mr. Herbert: 1.	Were officials of the Department of National Health and Welfare successful in defining the outer boundaries of portability or accessibility to the health insurance programs and, if not, for what reason?
2.	Is it intended to define the uniform conditions in the federal medical care legislation?
3.	How many physicians are known or believed to have emigrated from Canada in each of the past five years?
4.	How many physicians are now known to practice outside medicare?


Monique Bégin: 1 and 2. Departmental officials have documented precedents and interpretations with respect to the program conditions which have evolved since the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act and the Medical Care Act were passed. These have been provided to Mr. Justice Emmett Hall who is conducting the Health Services Review '79. It is hoped
June 19, 1980

that the suggestions and recommendations of Mr. Justice Hall will serve as a basis for developing, in concert with the provinces, a better common understanding of the program conditions and what they entail.
3.	Active Civilian Physicians Emigrated Abroad
Year	Total (excluding interns and residents)
1975	242
1976	363
1977	549
1978	663
1979	605
Source of Data: Computer tapes purchased from Sales Management Systems,
Don Mills, Ontario.
4.	Known physicians practicing outside medical care: About 2,200 practitioners.


Mr. Herbert: Is the government conducting research into methods of improving the efficiency of using (a) oil (b) gas (c) electricity for home heating and, if so, have any findings been made public and would such information enable the householder to compare the present day comparative costs of these fuels for heating purposes?


Marc Lalonde: The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources reports as follows:
(a) A major program to improve the efficiency of oil heating equipment has been developed by EM&R in conjunction with the Canadian Standards Association, oil furnace and burner manufacturers, and the oil industry. When installed, this package should reduce the energy consumption by an average of 20 per cent, both as a result of the more efficient combustion of oil and as a result of matching the size of the furnace more closely to the heating demand of individual houses. Before promoting such a program on a widespread basis, it has been essential that the retrofit package be tested and shown to be completely safe. An acceptable procedure for testing retrofit equipment has been developed by the Canadian Standards Association, and seven manufacturers are currently preparing to submit equipment for testing against this standard. The cost of these tests will be financed by EM&R. In addition to encouraging development and certification of acceptable equipment, the successful implementation of a retrofit program requires the upgrading of oil burner mechanics. To achieve this, EM&R has conducted a series of seminars to train provincial instructors of furnace servicing mechanics on appropriate techniques for installing the retrofit package.
Beginning this year, a publicity and promotion campaign is planned to advise the public of the package,
Order Paper Questions
and to inform them of the benefits of installing this equipment.
(b)	No similar retrofit package has not yet been devised for gas heating equipment. A co-operative program with the gas association, the gas utilities and the provincial regulatory bodies has recently begun, and a research program designed to develop such a retrofit package will soon be initiated.
(c)	With respect to electric heating, the federal government has over the past several years, provided substantial funding for the Canadian Electrical Association to support the development of heat pump systems which are appropriate for the Canadian climate. It is expected that when such systems are prepared, they will offer a significant efficiency improvement over current electric resistance heating. Studies have also been undertaken on the cost effectiveness of hybrid heat pump oil systems which would further improve the over-all performance of such systems during the entire heating season.
Since the above studies are generally at a research stage, no specific proposals to implement programs to encourage the widespread installation of such systems are in preparation.
The information which is currently available to householders will not generally permit a realistic assessment of the relative efficiency of specific oil and gas furnaces or boilers in their home. Steady-state efficiency measurements of gas heating systems are not made publicly available by the Canadian Gas Association. Further, the seasonal efficiency of a furnace varies considerably, largely as a result of proper sizing of the furnace to the heating requirements of the house. No simple method of estimating seasonal efficiency has yet been developed to allow householders to make reasonable predictions of final use in a specific furnace.
Other initiatives have been taken by the federal government to reduce the heating bill of householders, regardless of the type of fuel they use. The CHIP program under which grants of up to $500 are provided for insulation materials, was designed to encourage the installation of insulation materials which will reduce the average energy consumption by 37 per cent. In many cases of detached housing units, savings of over 50 per cent can be expected. This program can thus allow substantial savings in energy-related expenditures, regardless of the type of fuel which is currently used.


Mr. Howie: How many lawyers are employed on staff in the Ministry of State for Economic Development?


Marc Lalonde: None.

June 19, 1980
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Clarke: 1.	For the fiscal year 1978-79, how many contracts were let by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce for professional services, to persons who at any time within the past Five years, had been employed in indeterminate positions under the Public Service Commission?
2.	How many contracts were (a) for less than one year (b) for one to two years (c) over two years?
3.	How many contracts were let outside the National Capital Region?
4.	What was the total cost of all such contracts?


Mr. Gerald Laniel (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: 1. 14 contracts.
2.	(a) 11
(b)	3
(c)	None.
3.	None.
4.	$90,683.00.


Mr. Clarke: 1.	With reference to the uninsured losses of more than $1,000 due to fire damages to buildings recorded by the Department of the Environment in footnote number 3 at page 12.62, Volume 1 of the 1978-79 Public Accounts of Canada, did the department take steps to determine the cause of the fire in the hydrogen shed at (a) Baker Lake, N.W.T. (b) Fort Smith, N.W.T. and, if so, in each case, what were they?
2.	Was the department able to determine if anyone was culpable in the fires and, if so, what action was taken against them?
3.	Did the department undertake procedural or structural changes to ensure that such losses do not recur and, if so, what were they?
4.	What use does the department make of the hydrogen sheds?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment):: 1. (a) The fire at Baker Lake, N.W.T. was investigated by a team comprised of R.B. Hall (Electrical Engineer-Instruments Branch), J. MacLeod (Air Inspector-Central Region) and J. Keefe (Safety and Security Officer Atmospheric Environment Service). In that the building was totally destroyed and the contents very badly burned, the task of determining the exact source of the fire was a difficult one. After careful examination of the fire scene and consideration of the information obtained from witnesses the investigating team concluded the probable cause of the fire to have been a malfunction in the electrical cubicle of the Stuart Electrolytic Hydrogen Plant. Because of the combustible nature of the building construction, the fire was able to spread to nearby walls and flooring.
(b) The fire at Fort Smith, N.W.T. was investigated by E. C. Holly, (Chief, Airport Emergency Services-Transport Canada, Fort Smith), P. Chporney (Meteorological Inspector-A.E.S. Western Region) and the station officer in charge. The cause of the explosion was immediately evident as having been a procedural one. A weather balloon being inflated with
hydrogen was not adequately clamped to the filling stand and broke loose during the inflation process. The balloon, being lighter than air, immediately rose to the ceiling where ignition occurred (probably from static electricity) and the hydrogen gas exploded.
2.	There was no evidence to indicate culpability in either incident.
3.	The structural design of a hydrogen inflation/storage building has been under review for the past three years by Environment Canada and Transport Canada. As a result of this review a basic design package has been formulated which meets or exceeds all existing standards for such structures. Included in the new design is non-combustible construction material which probably would contain and prevent the spread of an electrical cubicle fire such as Baker Lake and adequate explosion venting which will enable a building to withstand the pressure of a balloon explosion as occurred at Fort Smith. The explosion venting also provides protection of anyone in the building at the time of such an explosion by preventing pressure increases which reach a hazardous level. In addition to the design changes, all upper air employees have been warned of the hazard associated with the balloon not being adequately clamped to the filling stand.
4.	Hydrogen is needed for inflating aerological balloons because it is the lightest of all known gases. The balloons carry aloft an electronic instrument to measure the pressure, the temperature and humidity of the air through which it passes. The information thus obtained is picked up by a receiver at the ground station. Hydrogen sheds are used to house the Stuart Electrolytic Hydrogen Plant which produces hydrogen by means of the electrolysis of water. Hydrogen thus produced is stored in a 650 standard cubic foot tank at a maximum pressure of 100 pounds until it is used to inflate the balloon.


Mr. Beatty: 1.	Do departments or agencies have computers which are connected as hosts to the (a) Datapac network of TCTS (b) Infoswitch network of CN/CP Telecommunications and, if so, which ones?
2.	In each case, what was the average network traffic, measured in packets-per-day, in the first four months of 1980?
3.	In each case, what application packages or data bases were remotely accessed during the first four months of 1980?


Mr. Robert Daudlin (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: 1. The following department or agencies have computers which are connected as hosts to the
(a) Datapac network of TCTS:
Agriculture
Communications
Energy, Mines and Resources
Environment
National Research Council Post Office
June 19, 1980

Veterans Affairs
(b) Infoswitch network of CN-CP Telecommunications: Employment and Immigration Supply and Services
2.	In each case, the average network traffic, measured in packets-per-day, in the first four months of 1980 was:
(a)	Datapac:
Agriculture: 682 Communications: nil
Energy, Mines and Resources: 7,707 Environment: nil
National Research Council: 30,000 Post Office: 4,305 Veterans Affairs: 328
(b)	Infoswitch:
Employment and Immigration: 57,026 Supply and Services: 5,000
3.	In each case, the application packages or data bases which were remotely accessed during the first four months of 1980 are:
(a) Datapac:
Agriculture: AGNET scientific computing network Communications: testing Telidon videotex system Energy, Mines and Resources: a large number of mostly scientific data bases of which the followingare examples: Financial and Personal Systems Hazardous Materials Mineral Deposits Oil Import Compensation Surveys and Mapping Project Control St. Lawrence River Basin Study Ottawa River Basin Study Water Resources Glaciological Data
NAQUADA (National Aquatic Quality Water Quality)
Fish Quota Management System Foreign Fishing Vessels Licensing System Tides and Water Levels Wave and Climate
Environment: not operational at the time.
National Research Council:
CAN/OLE (On-Line Enquiry) system with 18 bibliographic data bases, such as:
Biological Abstracts Alberta Oil Sands Index
Order Paper Questions
Chemical Abstracts
Engineering Index
Canadian Transportation Documentation System
Northern Research
Post Office: Manpower Utilization and Analysis System Veterans Affairs: veterans data base
(b) Infoswitch:
Employment and Immigration: Field Operational Support System for Immigration
Supply and Services: FINCON financial control system


Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1978, were studies made by the Treasury Board regarding the cost of continuing the full pension to the widow of the recipient of a public service pension?


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: No studies regarding the cost of continuing the full pension to the widow of the recipient of a public service pension have been completed since January 1, 1978. However, all aspects of survivors' benefits including their costs are now being reviewed in light of the recently promulgated regulations to the Human Rights Act as they relate to employee benefit plans.


Mr. McKinnon: Did DND let a contract with International Imports of Waterloo, Ontario, for the purchase of $49,701 worth of rifles and, if so, for what type and for how many?


Mrs. Ursula Appolioni (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: The Department of Supply and Services, on behalf of DND let a contract with International Imports of Waterloo, Ontario for the purchase of 72 match rifles in the value of $49,701.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, June 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy that Bill C-3, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Mr. Lyle S. Kristiansen (Kootenay West):: Madam Speaker, as we came to six o'clock yesterday, I indicated that I would be changing my tack from the cataloguing of various administrative and regulatory problems within the department which I discussed yesterday. I began my remarks yesterday by saying that one of our main reasons for opposing Bill C-3 is that the UIC program has come more and more to be one in which the people who have the least end up paying the most and receiving the least benefits, particularly in recent years.
I would like to refer to some figures which will demonstrate rather clearly how this is happening within the administration and the effect it is having on our unemployment insurance system. The figures to which I will be referring are based on 1978 statistics, so there may be some minor discrepancies, but basically the message will hold true. For example, for someone who had an earned income in 1978 of $6,000, the required contribution was $90. Of course, because of the income level, such an individual does not receive any deductions from taxable income because he does not have a taxable income. Therefore, the net contribution is $90, and should he become unemployed he would receive a weekly unemployment insurance benefit of $76.92.
For someone who earned $50,000 a year, the required contribution was $187.20. The tax savings received as a result of the deductions based on those contributions was $97.04. Basically the net contribution would have been $90.16 in order to be eligible for benefits. The benefits which he then received were $160 per week. Therefore, someone earning $6,000 would pay $90 to get $76.92, while the individual who earns $50,000 would make a net contribution of $90.16 in order to receive benefits of $160 instead of $77 per week.
Another example concerns an individual who earns $10,000. The net contribution would be $111.12 for the year which would then entitle that individual to $128.21. That figure is compared to someone who earns $20,000 and who makes a net contribution after taxes of $119.81 to receive $160. In other words, the lower a person is on the income scale, the more they pay, but the less the benefit to which they are entitled. The benefit evens out at annual earnings of approximately $15,000 a year, but there is an obvious inequity in such a system.
Any time we consider drawing up a social insurance plan or a means of redistributing income-and this is more properly an insurance plan-whether it is family allowance, UIC or
anything else, members of this House would normally feel that people should pay according to their ability and not that the poorest pay the most to get the least.
Rather than pursuing the direction set by this bill, the government would be better advised to reduce dramatically all premiums and then not allow them as a deduction from income. I know that the minister cannot take such action on his own, but in order to overcome the inequities in the unemployment insurance system perhaps it would be wise to reduce the premiums and not make them deductible from income. This would make for a more fair distribution and a greater degree of equity in the unemployment insurance system, as those earning the most would pay accordingly; and in the event of becoming unemployed they would receive appropriate compensation. Because of the problems experienced in applying exemptions and deductions as opposed to tax credits, almost all our income redistribution and social insurance programs have suffered.
In 1971, when the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Mack-asey) was minister, he introduced what most people in the country and in this House considered to be a rather good package. Since then, the government which saw fit to give has also seen it as their prerogative to take away. As the years pass they have been taking more and more away. Premiums were slightly reduced at the beginning of 1978, but at the same time it was decreed that, instead of unemployment insurance benefits being set at 66% per cent of normal earnings, they should be reduced to 60 per cent. Premiums have risen since then, so we are now paying more and receiving less.
The bill before us provides that in future the administrative costs of the national employment service will not be paid out of general revenue but rather will be covered through increases in employer-employee contributions. I fail to see the rationale for this, other than that it brings more revenue into the government's coffers. There is certainly no rationale in terms of equity or social cost accounting. Other items that come under the unemployment insurance program such as maternity leave, sick leave, etc., and which have gone beyond the bounds of the initial concept of unemployment insurance, should really not be paid for through employer-employee premiums. They are not related to the experience of any particular industry. On actuarial grounds it is difficult to justify such payments coming out of premium income rather than out of the general revenue of the government.
I should like to turn now to some examples of individual problems or localized issues which occur in the administration of the system. Yesterday I decried the backlash which sometimes occurs in the country and also in this House in times of high unemployment when people attempt to attack the unemployed instead of unemployment. We hear phrases like, "The unemployed are lazy and do not want to work"; or "They are freeloaders who have it too soft and can live better on UIC than on wages". This is an ironic commentary in itself on income levels in this society, Mr. Speaker. Statistics on unemployment issued within the past couple of months have predicted a growing problem for the next few years. If the usual line
June 19, 1980

of thinking in the country is expressed, we will hear those phrases again and again in the future and there will likely be a call for a further crackdown on alleged abuses.
It has often struck me and many others, Mr. Speaker, that if the business community attempted to eliminate shoplifting it could go broke in the process. A percentage of abuse or loss must be allowed in any business. I think we ought to look at the unemployment insurance system in the same way. We should attempt to persuade the rip-off artists running around that they cannot get away with such abuse. But it is folly to engage in a program such as the one introduced a few years ago when hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to hire investigators and run advertisements to bring the abuse below the level that is normal in any other business activity. Surely, at some time we reach the point of diminishing return.
I worry that we will face a period of backlash on this question very soon. Attempts to tighten up the system do not usually affect those who make a profession of ripping it off. Unfortunately, there are a few of those people and they quite often become specialists in this line. No matter how the regulations are tightened up or the laws redrafted, they can always find a way around them. Those who suffer are those who seldom claim benefits. They may mistakenly think that because they have contributed to the plan for years and years they have earned the right to benefits, but as they are not experts on the rules, when faced with stalling, red tape, trick questions or hassles their reaction is often to say, "To hell with the UIC and the government", and walk away with it. As a result, they and their families suffer because of their stubborn although rather admirable pride. It is through no fault of their own that they are out of work, even if it is only temporary, and they tend to resent interrogation and the often trick questions that they are faced with.
I should like to draw your attention now to a few specific areas that should be changed. In terms of the deduction of income tax from unemployment insurance benefits, it can be argued, and it is now the case, that we treat that as income. If we treated other sectors in our society in a somewhat equal way, I suppose one could say that that is fair. When we deal with the unemployed, we say a buck is a buck. The Carter royal commission tried to suggest that we do that in other areas of our economy a few years ago without as much success as it had in the administration of unemployment insurance.
Is it not possible for the government to consider holding back on the deduction, holding back on receiving those revenues, until the end of the tax year when people fill out their forms? When someone is thrown out of work, that is the time when a person is least able to take an even further cut in income. Certainly if one's annual income comes up to an appropriate figure, that person should be paying taxes. That is fine, but when a person is already taking at least a 40 per cent reduction in income level, I suggest that that is the wrong time to be drawing back into government coffers even further the
Unemployment Insurance Act
rather small amounts of income on which these persons and their families have to live.
Other members mentioned earlier in this debate that they felt the matter of workers' vacation pay should not be considered as income for the purpose of delaying payment of unemployment insurance benefits. I would agree with that. Again, it is difficult to find any reasonable rationale for the delay that is caused in making payments simply because someone over the course of the year has accrued moneys to be used for that person's vacation. Why should people be expected to give up their vacation simply because they happen to be unemployed for two months of the year? They pay for that. Those who negotiate agreements make some sacrifice. They make a trade-off. It is not extra money, but it is for a specific purpose, and surely those people are entitled to proper vacations the same as anyone else.
The final issue I want to raise is that of double jeopardy when it comes to the situation of employees who are fired. When an employee finds himself dismissed-maybe quite properly, and in many cases it is-from his employment because of some action or inaction on his part within the company for which he works, that is enough penalty. But to suggest that people's unemployment insurance payments should be held back for a period of six weeks when they have already been faced with the maximum penalty that someone in the work force can pay for whatever indiscretion, is a form of double jeopardy and totally without any justice.
Some people feel that the Liberals giveth and the Liberals taketh away. In my opinion, that is what we have seen over the period of the last few years. I do not know what the hon. member for Lincoln is going to say, but I suspect that he will have some regrets to express about some of the things that have happened to this program over the last few years. If he does, then I wish him every success in trying to bend the social conscience of that party which forms the government into the direction which hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers wish it would take. It is not a welfare program. It is not basically an income distribution program. It is a program of social insurance, but it is more than insurance for working people who find themselves out of work. It is insurance for the democratic process and it is insurance for the society in which we live. It did not come into place, this program or others like it, because of the soft hearts either of the population at large or members of this House of Commons. It came into place because it was necessary to keep society operative and its economy functioning.
It takes only a very quick glance at the kind of material we find in newspapers daily to see suggestions that we are moving into perhaps the deepest recession-if that is the term-in decades. It would be necessary, not only for the working people of this country, but for the people of the business community in Canada and all others, that we maintain those people who have been in our work force at an appropriate and dignified standard, at least in the short term. This should be done until we can put into place in Canada the kinds of mechanisms, job-creation opportunities and intelligent planning which will

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
hopefully ensure some day that the benefits of Canada's production will be equitably shared in some rational way among the people who do the basic work and pay the bills of keeping our society operating.
1 urge the minister and the officials of his department to finally show more flexibility and allow more flexibility at the local level within the administration of the unemployment insurance system. Is it really necessary that everything, whether in a regulatory or legislative way, be locked in? Many members of boards of referees, whether they are employer representatives, employee representatives or even people who serve at chairpersons on those boards over the years, have developed a great wealth of experience. Perhaps it would be advisable, to get some constructive and informed input on the kinds of problems that are faced on the ground floor, to call together representatives of these boards of referees from across the country on a regional or on a national basis. By doing this, an attempt would be made to get input and see what kinds of changes they feel are necessary to give them the tools with which they can do a better job, not only in terms of guarding the treasury of the country but in terms of serving the legitimate needs of the people in their areas.
One of the recommendations may be that new members of these boards of referees should be given a little more opportunity to learn the ropes before getting started in the business. These are mostly part-time people. At the moment I believe all they are eligible for on a paid basis is one day to gain experience and get some training. Many would like the opportunity to sit in for one, two or three days just to listen, watch and get a feel for the kind of process that takes place. 1 think that would be a worth-while investment and a very small one.
1 urge the minister to allow for more flexibility at the local level, both for officials within the commission and for people operating on the boards of referees. They can then use the combination of their hearts and their heads and apply the rules, hopefully, in a more constructive and humane way for the benefit of everyone-government, society and unemployed workers alike.


Mr. Rosaire Gendron (Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup):: Mr. Speaker, when Bill C-14 was first introduced, I and several of my colleagues had many reservations in respect of this bill. We feared that it might hurt heavily disadvantaged areas like ours, and we wanted to get the assurance and guarantees that indeed disadvantaged areas would not be unduly hurt by the implementation of this legislation. We were then given the assurance that all the money saved through stricter implementation of the law would not go to the treasury, but would be re-invested in disadvantaged areas to create employment through Canada Works projects, that more emphasis would be put on manpower retraining projects, in short on training, and that emphasis would be put on work rather than on unemployment.
The second safeguard was that regional redistribution, what is called the zoning of unemployment insurance, would be done in such a way that statistics would reveal the exact unemployment situation in the various regions. The minister gave us the assurance that a joint task force from Statistics Canada and the Department of Employment and Immigration would be set up to evaluate the situation and give equal chances to disadvantaged areas and more justice to the unemployed.
It goes without saying, Mr. Speaker, that we as members of the House have been frustrated for a long time. This commitment by the minister can be found at page 2419 of Hansard for December 22, 1978. The minister referred specifically to the hon. members for South Western Nova, Charlevoix, Compton and Riviere-du-Loup-Temiscouata. The elections have added the hon. member for Rimouski (Mrs. Cote) who is in a rather odd, peculiar and unfair situation in that the Temiscouata part of her riding, where seasonal employment is more common, is in a non-privileged area, while the Rimouski part, maybe better off, is in a privileged situation. We waited for the report of that task force for so long that we began to have doubts about its very existence and expressed our concerns to the present minister.
I also made a number of representations under the last government in order to have the work accelerated and the situation rectified. The statistics which are still being used as a basis to figure out the unemployment rate revealed a rate of approximately 9 per cent while the media and myself, using information from the local UIC and manpower offices, came to a rate of unemployment running between 31 per cent and 41 per cent.
I ask hon. members of the House where in this country would people tolerate such a rate of unemployment without demonstrations and possibly riots. Still, when we made representations and showed our figures to the officials in order to correct the situation, we were told that the statistics of the department were scientifically established and that some form of averaging was used. If that were as accurate as science could get, boy, we would be in serious trouble. As far as averaging is concerned, it cannot fill one's stomach. As far as the people of my riding are concerned, they currently have to live on baloney. But we kept on fighting and we hope that the two being interrelated-region, redistribution or zoning and statistics-the department will in the end establish the actual rates of unemployment and put an end to the feeling and general atmosphere of frustration which is quite real in my riding and also quite justified.
And when I am told that Statistics Canada is in 46 areas and ten cities, I believe, in terms of setting up these unemployment samples, I find it hard to understand that the unemployed themselves should have to meet Statistics Canada's needs rather than Statistics Canada determining the actual unemployment situation in the areas. A simple telephone call
June 19, 1980

to the local UI office in Riviere-du-Loup would give them the actual figures and if they have to go by samples, let them at least go in areas of high unemployment and take that as a sample, in order to do justice to workers and the unemployed.
In terms of areas, 1 do not think a Ph.D. in geography is needed to understand that Grand Portage is part of the Lower St. Lawrence area and the Gaspe Peninsula. But I do not see why they go on using areas that do not truly reflect the local and regional situation, thereby diluting the high unemployment rate in underprivileged areas with the rates of others that are better off. This creates a double injustice because it means that in terms of statistics the worst off areas are giving points to more prosperous ones, subsidizing them both with UI benefits and with public funds under the job-creation programs, including the Canada Works projects. The most in need are paying for the rich. That kind of nonsense must stop. It must be corrected.
One does not have to be a wizard in order to find a solution to the problem of one area reflecting on the other. Let the make-up of one area reflect on another. This is what we say: Let us determine the true unemployment rate of each one, and this will put an end to cross-subsidization. This way the areas with real needs will be treated justly.
Of course the frustration of members of Parliament has been widely shared by the unemployed themselves, who established a regional common front including the following groups: Comite le reveil du transcontinental; the Kamouraska East committee against unemployment problems; Kamouraska Action Committee; Operation Dignity II; Riviere-du-Loup Unemployment Action; JAL and Basques workers and unemployed groups.
I should like to read parts of a letter that was sent on June 11 to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Ax worthy):
The regional common front against the designation of unemployment insurance area of Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup, Temiscouata and part of Rimouski wants to remind you of its annoyance at the delayed announcement of changes to the present limits of economic areas for unemployment insurance purposes. The common front also wishes to repeat its claim regarding the designation of the area and indicate what makes other proposed solutions unacceptable to us.
We think it is important first to remind you of the effects that resulted from the designation of new areas following the passage of Bill C-14. Because of the many seasonal jobs and despite a very high unemployment rate, many workers were denied unemployment insurance benefits because they did not meet the new requirements attached to the integration of our area to that of Quebec. Such a situation has brought those workers very serious financial difficulties, insecurity and all those social and family problems that could entail. Those cuts in the right to unemployment insurance have led, of course, to a slowdown in regional economic activity through a reduction of the purchasing power of those unemployed workers.
Even this time of the year the new zoning is still having substantial effects. Some people have gone back to work but many of them were unable to do so due to the economic slowdown, particularly in the construction industry. Workers who could not accumulate enough weeks to qualify under the new zoning still find themselves in a very difficult position. The others who were able to get benefits are having their weeks of benefits greatly reduced in the supplementary phase and, in a lot of cases, are no longer entitled to them. So there you have a
Unemployment Insurance Act
quick picture of the situation to show the urgency of amending the present unemployment insurance zoning.
What the regional common front (KRT plus part of Rimouski) has been asking for since the beginning, about a year now, is that the zone of Grand Portage (Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup-Tcmiscouata, part of Rimouski) be taken out of the Quebec City area and put in the Lower St. Lawrence-Gaspe area.
Several reasons have already been given in support of that request, the main one being that the regions of Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup-Temiscouata and part of Rimouski have a socioeconomic situation much more similar to the Lower St. Lawrence-Gaspe area than the Quebec City area. That claim can be readily verified if you take a look particularly at the number of unemployment insurance claimants, the number of unemployed workers registered with the Canada Employment Centre in relation to the population and the regional rate of unemployment.
Those representations resulted in commitments by no lesser people than the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and five or six ministers who committed themselves during the election campaign to correcting that situation. We have since had the task force report but that report is still based on data produced by Statistics Canada which I question and which do not reflect, far from it, the unemployment situation in the area. So I urge them to review their statistics and I urge the minister to put pressure on them so they will do a sampling in the area.
Since they want to use samplings, I would suggest to them and to the minister-the administration would be much simplified-and some will certainly say that according to the act, the figures of Statistics Canada must be used. I do not want to wait for amendments to the act before this problem is solved, but if the figures of Statistics Canada have to be used they should at least change their method of operation and communicate with the manpower centres. Officials in those centres are the ones who are really aware of the situation and who could give their due to the workers.
I know that the minister is also in communication with other members of the cabinet, especially from the Quebec area, to review this situation. In fact, this bill is valid if it aims at extending the application of the variable eligibility requirement, but we find it unacceptable if the problem of zone designation is not rectified because this would perpetuate an inequity. I therefore ask the minister and his cabinet colleagues to make every effort to correct this unacceptable situation, especially for an area where 95 per cent of the young people, whose education has been paid for by their parents and the region, have to go elsewhere to earn a living.
When we know the level of unemployment, and I repeat that it would never be tolerated anywhere else, I ask whether a rate of 40 per cent would be accepted in Winnipeg or Windsor. There would be a revolution! Does anyone think that we will accept such a situation because we live in a peripheral area and because people talk about the beauty of our region? Heaven knows that we are ready to work and heaven knows how many struggles there have been to develop our country. Yet, how many problems we still have and how many obstacles

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
are laid in our way! We have to conclude that we are talking to a brick wall. However, when we have unemployment problems, we would like this at least to be recognized and our workers to be treated fairly. We would also like the authorities to show particular understanding for all the regional programs aimed at correcting the situation of unemployment and providing a future for our young people and security for the adults, so that the region that we love so dearly may truly make some progress. In the meantime, something is urgently needed and this is not to perpetuate an obvious inequity through Bill C-3, but rather to correct the situation immediately.


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of unemployment insurance is surely to look after those who are genuinely unemployed. There are so many "ifs", "ands" and "buts" connected with the Unemployment Insurance Act that the genuine cases sometimes experience a great deal of difficulty in getting assistance. Most people want to work and most people will go the second mile to secure a job. The purpose of unemployment insurance, then, is fulfilled to the greatest degree by making sure that men and women who are unable to find employment despite every effort on their part when they are able to maintain a reasonable standard of living. 1 do not think anyone wants those who are unemployed through no fault of their own to live in dire poverty or in an abnormal way.
The fact that unemployment insurance is sometimes used unfairly, or abused, makes it all the more important that we endeavour to recognize which are the genuine cases and which are the fakes. In my opinion, policy with regard to unemployment insurance has not been carefully thought out over the past several years. For a number of years, economic conditions have been good. The economy has been affluent. During those good years we should have been building up the unemployment insurance fund to look after the lean years. Economists know, as I think everyone knows, that there are some good years and some bad years. We remember the biblical reference; people filled their granaries during the years of plenty so that they would have food in the years of scarcity.
Such foresight is applicable to the management of funds such as the unemployment insurance fund. Today we worry about the fund being able to do the job for which it was set up. Well, we have experienced many years of affluence during which it would not have been difficult for the government to have set money aside in the fund to make sure that those who were unemployed in the future through no fault of their own might have a reasonable standard of living.
Some people criticize the government of Alberta for setting up a heritage trust fund, but in my opinion the premier and the legislators of that province should be commended. They realize they will not have oil and gas forever and that unless proper disposition is made of the revenues now there will be difficult times facing the province in the future.
We also realize that the oil and the gas which come out of the ground today do not belong solely to the present generation but that the future generation has a claim on them too. Premier Lougheed and his cabinet set up the Alberta heritage trust fund of which one-third of the revenues will be used to look after the future, to provide jobs when present jobs are gone, and to make sure that we do not place a heavy load of taxation on the shoulders of our people when the going is tough.
I cannot see why this could not have been done with the unemployment insurance fund. The revenues of Canada have been exceptionally good for many years, in fact since the Second World War, but there has been no planning. Instead of setting some money aside, shamefully we have gone into the markets of the world to borrow, as if we could borrow our way out of debt. And we are still trying to do that. Now we are trying to work out ways and means of taking as many people off unemployment insurance as possible.
I sympathize with the minister's having to decide on policies which will take away unemployment insurance benefits from people who are legitimately unemployed. That should never be the policy of an unemployment insurance fund. There is really no reason why this fund today should not be large enough that we would not have to worry about the unemployed having at least a reasonable standard of living. If the fund is worth anything at all, it has to provide benefits to men, women and their families during periods of unemployment. History tells us that every country suffers periods when there are large numbers of people who are unemployed. The policy of making provision for the future was not followed, and today the unemployed in many areas are suffering. The old saying "Where there is no vision, people perish" was never more true than when applied to the situation of unemployment insurance, which was designed to help those who cannot find work in spite of all their efforts.
Now I should like to deal for a moment or so with the positive aspects of unemployment insurance. The best possible way of handling an unemployment insurance scheme is to make sure that we have as much employment as possible and that jobs are available. Yet many things are done today by government which result in the elimination of jobs. Then we castigate people because they cannot find work or because they go on unemployment insurance. In many cases they must apply for welfare. I suggest to the minister-who I notice is not in the House-that he should do his utmost to get people back to work. Every day we hear questions about what we are doing to provide employment for more people, and every day we learn that the matter is under consideration or is being studied. We do not hear concrete proposals which will get people across this country working. In a country as rich as Canada there should be minimal unemployment. There will always be some unemployment but it should be kept at a minimum.
What are some of the things that we do today to stop people from investing money? When people invest money in an
June 19, 1980

industry, men and women are hired. That is what creates employment. If we can have hundreds or thousands of small shops across this country employing one or two people, it would cut down the unemployment rate drastically and add to the buoyancy of the economy. But we do not encourage this.
Today it is difficult to go into business. There are obstacles from every level of government and people become discouraged; they do not want to go into business or invest in business. They say: "If they do not want my business, I will go elsewhere." I was stopped by a man in the streets of Calgary in 1978 who said, "I am completely disgusted with this country." "How come?", I asked. He said, "I have tried to invest money in three provinces. All I have run up against is obstacles, difficulties and frustrations. So I went to the United States where I have invested $100,000. I have $200,000 more that I wish to invest, but I will not invest a cent in this country until things change."
What was one of the beefs he had? Capital gains tax was one. It is killing initiative, stopping the expansion of businesses and ruining the retirement plans of people who have spent their lifetime building industries, farms or businesses in this country. Today the government still wants in taxes half of every cent you make, when you are expanding or selling your business. How many hundreds of people are unemployed today because of the capital gains tax?
Look at the amount of money which comes in from the capital gains tax and the money which is being spent to look after the unemployed. I have no hesitation at all in saying that the government would be smart and clever to eliminate the capital gains tax. If the owner of a lumber yard wants to expand his business, or if someone wants to build a heritage for his sons and daughters or put away money for his retirement, he would have the incentive to do so. Today there is no such incentive and many people who wanted to retire at the age of 65 or 70 do not retire because of this capital gains tax. When they do not retire, they keep their business as small as possible, just large enough to make a living, whereas if they could sell it to a younger man or to someone who wants to advance, more people would be employed and there would be more production. Sometimes we forget that if this country is to develop economically, we must increase our production. It is from production that all good things come. Unless we increase our production in this country we will not have as good a life as we could have.
The unemployed also deserve a good life; they are entitled to it. It is important to get people working again. Let us provide work and jobs for those who want to work by removing the impediments which today prevent businesses from expanding. If we removed some of these obstacles, such as high interest rates, this will have a tremendously beneficial effect on our economy. Look at the effect high interest rates have on the housing industry. High interest rates prevent people from building houses and they eliminate jobs.
Unemployment Insurance Act
For the last several days I have wanted to ask a question of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray) but I have not been fortunate enough to be recognized. I wanted to know how much interest was being charged on the line of credit of $25 million which we gave to Mexico a few weeks ago. That information was passed on to us in a press release, but it did not indicate anything about the interest rate. My assistant phoned the department to find out what interest rate was being charged, and someone in the department said that that was confidential information and could not be given out.
Why not? It is the people's money we are lending and the people will be responsible for the line of credit. Since when have members of Parliament been denied information concerning interest rates? Is it because the interest rate is similar to that which was announced the other day by a member and carried in some of the papers? Is it a zero per cent interest rate or a 3 per cent interest rate, while the people of the country have to pay 12 per cent or more? If we can cut interest rates for other countries, surely we can cut them so that people in this country can have homes and the unemployed can go to work.
I am not asking the hon. minister to tell me that it cannot be done; I am asking him to find ways of doing it. That should be the positive approach of any government in this day and age. It is not to say that we cannot do it or it has never been done, but it is to say that we will find some way of doing it. I am satisfied there are ways if there is a determined effort. I wonder how many hon. members of this House have ever been unemployed for any length of time. Fortunately I have not, but I came from a home in which I was one of ten. My father had a hard time feeding all of us. It was hard enough when he was working, but when he was unemployed for several weeks or months I saw the aging effect it had on my mother. She was worried we could not pay our grocery bill. We did not know where money was coming from. In a way I am thankful I had to go through that, because today I have feelings for those men who are unemployed, their wives and their children. They do not know from where the next meal is coming.
An hon. Member; They will have to eat baloney.


Gordon Edward Taylor: I hear an hon. member saying that they will have to eat baloney. I should like to tell him that today many of our unemployed cannot even afford baloney; baloney is not cheap any more.


An hon. Member:: Except around here.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Except possibly in the House of Commons where at times we get quite a bit of it, but one cannot eat that. Perhaps it would be good if some members of the House of Commons were unemployed for a while and felt the pangs of hunger. Maybe they would have more heart for those who are unemployed today and double their efforts to provide them with jobs, because most of them want to work.
2278

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
There are many other ways in which to provide incentive, but we do not have the time to go into all of them today. We should provide an incentive for people to invest their money in this country instead of other countries. I believe the money is in this country and Canadians are anxious to see industries, shops and businesses expand, if we would just provide the incentive. But when we make it difficult for anyone to go into business, no wonder the money is leaving our country, and no wonder every time $100,000 leaves Canada a number of people are left unemployed. That will grow and grow unless we start changing it.
I want to say a word or two in connection with the regions. I cannot follow this matter. If a man with a wife and a family of five is unemployed, he feels the dint of unemployment just as much as if there are 1,000, 2,000 or 10,000 unemployed. Why is there a difference? Is it because we think people do not want to work? Why do we say that we will pay the unemployed so much in one area and less in another area? They are all human beings. They all have wives and children or husbands and children. They all get hungry. Their stomachs ache when they do not get food. They bleed when they are pricked. Too often we try to work out ways and means of cutting down the amount, until we get to the point where we wonder if they have enough on which to live. A genuine, bona fide case of unemployment, whether there is one person or 1,000 unemployed, should receive equal and fair treatment.
I feel very keenly for the point I believe the last speaker was making on behalf of the people of his area. When one comes from an area without the large daily press, sometimes one's case does not secure very much publicity or attention. But if there is unemployment in the area, the people feel the dint of it just as severely as those in the big city where there is a daily press to espouse their needs.
I should like to deal for a moment or so with administration. I realize the administration of the unemployment insurance fund is difficult because everybody is not honest. I think most people are genuine and most people want to work, but there is a percentage who do not want to work and find technical reasons for drawing unemployment benefits without really being genuinely in need or unemployed. One winter in the city of Edmonton, I put on a leather jacket and went down to the CNR depot. That evening there were 20 or 30 reasonably young men there between the ages of 20 and 30. I sat and talked with each of them in turn. Out of the bunch who were there, 15 of them were on unemployment insurance. They made no bones about it. They did not lose their jobs; they just did not like working in the wintertime. I said to one of them, "Well, I do not like working in the wintertime either but I have to do it to hold my job." He said, "We do not. We work in the summer to build up enough unemployment and then we draw it in the winter."
That was not the purpose of unemployment insurance. I can understand genuine unemployment in a coal mining area in the off season when there is no work. I have seen that many times in my lifetime because I come from a coal mining area. 1 can understand genuine unemployment in a fishing area where
off season there is no work to be had. But in an area like Alberta where young men decide to work in the summer and enjoy the winter in the bright lights of the cities, that is not genuine unemployment. It might be a nice life, but it is not the purpose of the unemployment insurance fund to support that sort of life. No wonder farmers and businessmen are frustrated when they go to unemployment insurance offices and see a line-up of people but no one will go out to their establishments to work. One motel in Lake Louise last year had to close up a month early because they could not find anyone who would work.
There are abuses. I agree with the hon. member who said a few moments ago that we should not spend a lot of money and go on a witch hunt, but when these abuses show up let us throw the book at them. These people are taking food out of the mouths of those who are genuinely unemployed. I have no sympathy for those who abuse this system for their own particular advantage, but 1 think the situation could be rectified if the desire is there.
I wrote a letter to the minister of the last government. The government was defeated, so I wrote another letter to the present minister in connection with young students. Employers hiring young students who are going back to school at the end of the summer season have to deduct unemploymemt insurance premiums, which are then refunded when the students return to school. Employers in the area of Banff have told me it is hard enough to get employees there without having to deduct these unemployment insurance premiums, particularly when it is known that those young people will return to school and the deductions will be refunded. Let us put some sense into this thing. Those employers told me they could not see any sense to this procedure. I hope the minister will show some common sense in this regard. Ordinary everyday horse sense is the most wonderful thing this country ever had, but we do not have enough. We need more to straighten out a lot of these things.
Unemployment insurance was intended to provide a reasonable standard of living for those who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Let us make sure that objective is attained.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. Before 1 recognize the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey) may 1 deal with the late show this evening.
June 19, 1980

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 Central Nova (Mr. MacKay)-Administration of Justice-Dealing with grievances of RCMP officers; the hon. member for Burlington (Mr. Kempling)-Air Canada-Service out of Hamilton-Effect on Nordair; the hon. member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. Rose)-Fisheries-Closing of Fraser River, B.C. fishery-Request for tabling terms of reference.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy that Bill C-3, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, my first words are to congratulate the present Minister of Manpower and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) for the very excellent work he has done since he assumed office and this session commenced. I want to express my satisfaction too on the choice by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) for this particular portfolio. This ministry requires particular dedication on the part of the individual. I say that not necessarily or exclusively because I was a former minister of manpower-and there are many in the House-but because I know the pressures on the minister of manpower, and I know they will grow over the next six months or year or two as we move into a recession, hopefully short but obviously very painful.
This portfolio requires a minister whose basic philosophy is such that he can stand up to the pressures, not only from outside the government but from within. 1 am sure from my many, many years of friendship with the minister, which goes back over long decades, that he has those qualities and qualifications. I am sure he will take any of the remarks 1 make today in that light. 1 might be able to warn him of some of the pitfalls that are ahead of him.
Last evening I was sipping a glass of good Canadian wine from the region of Lincoln in honour of the birthday of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) and, incidentally, the celebration of my eighteenth year in this House. It is not quite 18 years. Let me put it another way; it was 18 years ago yesterday that 1 was first elected to the House. That is, of course, true of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray), but we are among a diminishing group in this House. I am not suggesting we are getting older, but perhaps the standards have changed in the House and we are not going after quality as much as we did in 1962.
Unemployment Insurance Act
What I thought I would do last night was review, if I could, the impact of the unemployment insurance plan at the end of the decade. In a way, that was inspired by some of the remarks of the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) who mentioned philosophy. Legislation, concepts and principles must be based on a clear philosophy. When I looked at the filing cabinets of documents gathered before the 1971 amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act and gathered since, supplemented by writings, documents and debates in forums on economic views as to the impact of the plan, I decided to be philosophical for half an hour when talking about unemployment insurance.
The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) reflected in a way the philosophy behind the original act brought into this House in 1941 or 1942. Members know that in the hungry thirties, to which the hon. gentleman alluded and so graphically described as the ten lost years, there was no such thing as unemployment insurance. That was a shame because of the degradation to the worker and the farmer, those people out of work for no reason of their own. Many farmers were victims of climatic conditions. It is amazing how people survived during that period of time, but some did not and riots broke out.
In 1942 the provinces ceased to concern themselves about their provincial jurisdiction or their rights and gladly ceded jurisdiction in this area to the federal government. The legislation reflected the philosophy of the 1930s, and it prodded very gently into the field of social policy and social reform. There was still that old biblical concept, despite the 1930s, that there was something wrong about going on unemployment insurance, even if you were unemployed through no reason of your own. I was not too sure, as I reviewed some of the documents, editorials and writings last night, that we have shed the principle that somehow it is immoral, illegal or wrong to accept unemployment insurance or even welfare.
The legislation in 1942 was based on philosophy reflecting the 1930s. The legislation of 1971 attempted to reflect the problems of the future, the problems of the seventies. Legislators did not dare predict the problems or the challenges of the 1980s. I welcome the minister's determination to come in with perhaps a new white paper, based hopefully on the same philosophy but not necessarily so.
I hope that the task force which the minister will set up has the courage to stand up to vested interests which still believe that there is some merit in a free enterprise system in having a large pool of unemployed in order to keep wages down. I hope that the task force will portray the right degree of cynicism when that particular lobby approaches it, as it did members of this House in 1971.
Before I get down to some fundamentals, the legislation of 1971, for which I received some credit, in this House, was not my legislation; I would like to say that it was. It was a piece of legislation which reflected the collective views of the members of all parties. It was a piece of legislation which was adopted unanimously in this House and which reflected very intense

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
areas of the white paper, as hon. members will know. 1 think it was the hon. member for Scarborough West (Mr. Weather-head) who was the chairman of that committee.
I like to think that we brought in a good piece of legislation in 1971 which is based on insurance principles. I would like to expound a little on that and remind the minister of it, because he mentions in his document the need to get back to insurance principles. The old act reflected sound, basic insurance principles. Its formula was simplistic. The government paid 20 per cent of the cost, the employees paid 40 per cent and the employers paid 40 per cent, and benefits were perhaps 40 per cent, 45 per cent or 50 per cent of the average wage in the country. Administrative costs were shared. However, when the depression hit in the 1950s, the leader of the government of the day, the Hon. John Diefenbaker, wisely introduced such things as seasonal benefits which, however, had no rhyme or reason in any plan related to insurance. So the members of the House decided in 1971 to get down to fundamentals and broad insurance principles.
The hon. member for Bow River talked about the unemployment insurance fund and the need to accumulate money. I feel a little guilty about the matter because in 1971, in retrospect, I should have done what is commonly done today, and that is spend $2 million or $3 million to explain to the people a little more fully the intricacies of unemployment insurance.
For instance, there is no such thing as an unemployment insurance fund; that disappeared from the act. What there is is a commitment by the employers and employees of Canada to meet the financial requirements of all the obligations which were defined as theirs in 1971. There was an interesting proposal that the government, in turn, would be exclusively responsible for the obligations which the act designated as theirs. So in essence, if we are going to use the word "fund" for explanatory reasons, unemployment insurance is the financial obligations of two groups, the employers and employees, one group and the government, the other.
Members who are really interested in the subject might look at sections 62 and 63 of the act, which were referred to, I think, by an hon. member opposite. They will find something that should please them, as well as economists and people who believe in insurance principles. Succinctly put, it says that the financial obligations of employers and employees should be met entirely by the premiums charged to the employees and employers. If at the end of the calendar year this obligation has not been met-the government has had to advance funds-the law states specifically that the premiums must be raised to meet that deficit.
The act also states that if during the year the contributions are beyond what was needed to meet the obligations, it should be reflected the following year by a decrease in premiums. I think it was the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young) who made a very interesting contribution yesterday which, stripped of its partisan paragraphs, might be required reading for people who wish to evaluate what happened during the 1970s to our plan.
I am not great at mathematics, but even with a 10 per cent rate of unemployment, which we do not have in this country, and because we made the plan universal and as broadly based as possible-including even the armed forces, school teachers, public servants and millionaires-it is obvious that nine workers and the employer should be able adequately to carry the financial burden of one person in the work force who is unemployed through no fault of his or her own.
Of course, that has been the case. But unnoticed by the press, by hon. members and perhaps also by the Canadian Labour Congress, which has been notorious for its silence over the past ten years in protecting this plan, and despite the abuse referred to at times-and I will not get sidetracked on that issue at the moment-every single year since perhaps the first year the employer-employees contributions have been more than sufficient to meet their particular obligation, regardless of what members in this House might think of maternity benefits and sickness benefits. The cost of maternity and sickness benefits are borne exclusively by the employers and employees of this country. There is no financial input by the government at all, and it is almost theoretically none of its business but theirs.
However, I would like to turn to the other chapter, and it is a significant one. What happened to the financial obligations of the government? How well did the government meet its obligations? Its obligations were based on a prediction by the Department of Finance that the average level of unemployment in Canada in the 1970s would be 4 per cent. I am afraid there is very little resemblance between the prediction and the reality of that prediction.
I am not being contemptuous of the department's anticipation of the future. Few people, I think, were able to anticipate the effect of technology. For instance, there is the situation at the Montreal waterfront where the work force has been reduced from 3,000 people to 1,300 people today with about three times the productivity in volume. As desirable and welcome as it should be in an industrialized society, nevertheless 1,700 people must be looked after.
There is also the proper and welcome influx of women into the work force. There was a tremendous growth, perhaps the largest in the western world, by our work force through the influx of young people reflecting the post-war baby boom. Regardless of the fact that Canada was able to generate more jobs in the 1970s than any country in the world, we still did not contain unemployment. The cold, sobering fact is that too many Canadians were out of work.
More Canadians will be out of work if fiscal and monetary policy continues to be concerned more with inflation than with unemployment. The tragedy of this fact is that the Department of Finance did not appreciate or want to accept that the unemployed people of this country were sometimes unemployed as a result of policies of the government. They were not to be stigmatized, but the benefits they received would be in recognition of the fact that they are unemployed through no fault of their own, but by international forces, if you like. Instead, through the 1970s the unemployed continued to be
June 19, 1980

stigmatized by Canadian society. That is deplorable, Mr. Speaker.
The emphasis on abuse is frankly degrading. When we discuss medicare in this House, as we will, I hope we will not dwell for hours and days on end on the doctors who rip off medicare-and there are a few. When we discuss automobile insurance surely we will not spend days and weeks discussing the dishonest garageman or repairman who helps pad a dishonest citizen's repair bill. Of course, there are people who abuse the unemployment insurance system.
What irks me is the fact that statistics are available now, in 1980, based on the experience with unemployment insurance in the 1970s, but not many people have bothered to study them. Where is the great Canadian Labour Congress that the NDP endorsed? Why was their voice so silent in the 1970s about protecting unemployment insurance? Was it because they represent the 30 per cent to 33 per cent of the work force who have job security and therefore are not prepared to do something about their social conscience? Did they worry about the unemployed person who is not unionized and has to work for substandard wages? 1 have seen no evidence of that as one who has observed the Unemployment Insurance Act. There has not been a decent voice in the Congress on this subject since Andy Andras departed.
1 have looked at those statistics, however, and I am particularly interested in the impact of the eight-week eligibility feature. I am particularly interested today because most of the hon. members who have spoken in this House have made rather emotional and logical pleas for something to be done about the 10-14 week attachment requirement to be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.
The hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie), who is a former privy councillor and a very sensitive human being, made a strong plea yesterday that New Brunswick be considered an area where ten weeks be the criterion for eligibility for unemployment insurance. Mr. Speaker, in the sixties it was 30 weeks, over a two-year period. We brought in eight weeks as the benchmark in 1971. When I checked the figures in 1974, the particular group of people that qualified for unemployment insurance after only eight weeks was the one group that remained on unemployment insurance for the shortest period of time. They were prepared to find work, to leave unemployment insurance after eight, nine, ten or 12 weeks, rather than stay as they perhaps could have, by using a little deceit, for the full term. The full term could have been almost a year in regions of high unemployment. That they did not is testimony to their honesty.
In the seventies, eight weeks was regarded as something terrible and a series of amendments was brought in to the Unemployment Insurance Act which in effect meant giving in to those reactionaries who thought that way. The period was increased to 20 weeks, but no, that was too much. Then it was reduced to 14 and now it is ten to 14 weeks. We are coming very close to the original concept of eight weeks.
Unemployment Insurance Act
I want to speak now of something that bothers me, Mr. Speaker, and I think the minister should be aware of it. This is not based on hearsay but on facts and years of digging into statistics and reading documents. Several people are engaged in writing a document on unemployment insurance and just last week one of them borrowed some of my documents.
When the bill was brought in in 1971, there was within months a concerted effort in the country-in the editorial pages and other places-to stress the alleged abuse of the system as a result of the eight-week period. Mr. Speaker, the French people have a saying, "Qui profile du crime!" which means, "who benefits by the crime?" I have to say that a certain group in the civil service, concerned that they were unable to justify their 4 per cent prediction and hard pressed to find the money needed to offset the government's commitment, felt that a series of amendments was needed to shift the financial obligation for some of the provisions in the Unemployment Insurance Act from the government. They were not honest enough to admit they had miscalculated and had not anticipated, because of reasons beyond their control, a long period of 5 per cent, 6 per cent, 7 per cent or 8 per cent unemployment in the country.
It would have been more refreshing if they had admitted this and let Parliament bite the bullet and make the necessary changes. Instead, they set out to condition the people first by telling them that the changes were needed because of abuse of the system. When people became really upset about this alleged abuse, then they brought in the logical amendment to shift certain financial obligations from the government to the employer-employee. This probably cost $1 billion in the decade of the seventies. But because of the sound economic concept of weekly premiums and universality of the work force, the employers and employees were able to absorb the transfer of these financial obligations to them from the government.
It was difficult for me to accept the fact that in preparing the groundwork for their amendments they had to stigmatize hundreds of thousands of people by suggesting they would prefer to draw unemployment insurance benefits rather than work. That is wrong, Mr. Speaker, and 1 am glad hon. members opposite have made that point so eloquently in the last two days. I would warn the minister to be careful over the next few years, because within weeks of the passage of our bill those many years ago there was a determination to destroy its very basic principle.
Just a month ago I spoke to a former employee of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. He reminded me of the party that took place when the bill was passed. Civil servants are hardworking and dedicated and it was the usual sort of thing. In the jubilance of that evening I had remarked to my staff that I was not sure the act would be intact by 1980. I was not sure if the bureaucrats were prepared to stand by the predictions and 1 was not sure if the government was prepared to assume its obligations for its fiscal and monetary policy. I was not sure if the government was that dedicated to controlling unemployment beyond 4 per cent or if it was prepared to

June 19, 1980
Veterans Affairs
shoulder the cost of bringing unemployment down to that level by stimulating the economy.
Some people may think that I am overreacting but I am not, Mr. Speaker. I have here a research paper which is extremely objective and which explains the various amendments to the act since 1971. 1 shall not go through them all but there are a few that 1 should like to comment upon. Dealing with the changes which came into effect in 1976, the document defines the purpose as-
-to provide a better balance in the sharing of costs among the federal government, employers and employees.
That is a euphemism for saying that more of the costs will be shifted from the government to the employer-employee.
The document also deals with some of the changes in the bill that altered the eligibility period from eight weeks to ten to fourteen and with the cost saving, regardless of the impact on the work force and regardless of the fact that there was no evidence that the eight weeks resulted in any more abuse than 19, 20, ten or 14 weeks. On page 12 of the document there appears the following statement:
The amendment was made because it was felt that the former eight-week entrance requirement provided an all too readily financial inducement reinforcing unstable work patterns.
When one asked our economist about this, the answer given was that there was no evidence about unstable work patterns. That evidence is available-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but the time has arrived for private members' hour.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed in today's order paper, namely, private bills, notices of motions (papers), public bills.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds-Grenville) moved:: That an order of the House do issue for copies of all correspondence, notes, minutes of meetings and other communications relating to the decentralization of the Department of Veterans Affairs to the province of Prince Edward Island.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the government has refused to produce to Parliament all documents, correspondence and details of negotiations with regard to the movement of the Department of Veterans Affairs to Prince Edward Island. This is a most regrettable decision considered against the background facts, namely, that the thousands of members of the Canadian
Legion from coast to coast have asked that the department be left in Ottawa. In addition, no one can quite accept the necessity of doing something that will probably, as estimated, cost Canadian taxpayers anywhere between $30 million and $40 million and in the long run will give nothing to Prince Edward Island.
First of all, why has the government refused these documents? We were told a few days ago that it would be too costly to photocopy the documents. In my view, this is nonsense. It seems to be a convenient way of answering, a ploy which this government has often used in the past to shield many matters; namely, it is too costly to copy.
The simple, plain truth is that publication of such documents would, in my view, reveal that the whole thing in the first place was a crass political manoeuvre or somewhat of a political pay-off. the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald) lived in Prince Edward Island, so what better way to bolster his political fortunes than to move the department from Ottawa all the way there? This of course, will result in a decrease in service to veterans of Canada and a high cost to the taxpayers, but such factors were apparently quite incidental to the political facts of life.
I must say with regret that my own party, while in office, did not reverse this perverse decision, but then, 1 can only offer the excuse, and it is not a very strong one, that we did not have much time. Now the present administration carries on in the same blind, stupid way, a fact that would be clearly revealed by making public the documents which the government is still keeping hidden from public view.
I admit that the government has condescendingly said that I could look at the documents personally if I wished to do so, but I do not think that answered the question. I am not the hundreds of thousands of members of the Canadian Legion from coast to coast or the millions of taxpayers in this country who have a right to know. I must, in all conscience, take the stand that I am talking at this time, namely that it is a matter of principle, and one should not slavishly follow something that one believes is utterly and completely wrong.
I can find every reason to be against the move to Prince Edward Island and not a single reason to be in favour. Let me deal with the views of the Royal Canadian Legion on this topic. One of the complaints, in my opinion a very valid one indeed, made by the veterans of Canada is the length of time that it presently takes for something to be dealt with by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The processing of a pension seems to average anywhere from 12 to 18 months, and if a veteran wishes to appeal a decision, the appeal can last up to as long as two years or more. I have known cases in my own constituency, and I am sure other members have faced somewhat similar situations, where veterans have died between the time they first applied and the time the decision was made. This is an intolerable and unacceptable situation. How does the government believe that by moving things to Prince Edward Island and leaving the minister with a small, skeleton staff here in Ottawa is going to improve the situation?



June 19, 1980

1 would like to read into the record a few excerpts from some of the letters that I have received from various branches of the Royal Canadian Legion. The following is an excerpt from a letter received from G. L. Marr, secretary of branch No. 484, Royal Canadian Legion, Mallorytown, Ontario. This letter reads in part:
The Mallorytown branch is most perturbed at the proposed move of the Veterans Affairs Department to Prince Edward Island. It is understood that only a small portion of the present staff have agreed to such a move. This can only lead to reduced efficiency in a department which has obvious room for improvement as it stands now.
Next is a letter signed by Louis Mitchell, president of branch No. 231 of the Royal Canadian Legion, known as the Rideau Lakes branch. I quote:
Since outstanding claims are taking far too long in Ottawa, why the move to Charlottetown where it is admitted it will take even longer?
Further on in the same letter, Mr. Mitchell says:
Since government is seeking ways to curtail spending and save money by any means possible, what does the move to Charlottetown do for the economy?
Then Mr. Mitchell says this:
Veterans are all reaching the age where their needs will flood the department. In view of this, what preparations are being made to handle this?
Here is further quotation from the president and secretary of the Royal Canadian Legion in Delta, Ontario, namely, Mr. Harry Vollick and Mr. Peter Bredyk, who say:
We seek your assistance in having the proposed move of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and more particularly the Canadian Pension Commission, to Prince Edward Island, cancelled in the best interests of veterans.
Legion branch No. 96, in my home city of Brockville, expressed it this way in a letter from Henry Elliott, president: The Brockville branch No. 96 .. . with 1,082 members we have by unanimous consent at a general meeting directed the writer to register opposition to the proposed move of the Department of Veterans Affairs and more particularly the Canadian Pension Commission from Ottawa to Prince Edward Island.
One could go on at length, as I am sure every member could, and quote from letters which they have received. I have one final quotation which comes from a letter written by the dominion president of the Royal Canadian Legion. He says:
We are in sympathy with the plan to create jobs in Prince Edward Island but not at the expense of disabled war veterans.
Obviously the purpose of the Department of Veterans Affairs is to be of service to the veterans. If this is not being fully accomplished now, and it will only deteriorate by moving the department to Prince Edward Island, then other than for political reasons why should a move take place? This seems to be a case of nobody wants anything done, except the politicians.
It is reported, and I have no reason to believe that the figures are inaccurate, that the staff of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ottawa is highly opposed to the move. It would uproot their lives and force them to emigrate to a far part of the country from homes in which, in many cases, individuals were born and lived for many years. It has been stated that not any more than 5 per cent of the present employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs are actually willing to move.
Veterans Affairs
By releasing the papers and documents that I have requested, perhaps we could find out how the government feels the move would benefit Prince Edward Island itself. The government has trumpeted the supposed fact that it will benefit the economy of the island by adding another industry, so to speak. It is an unfortunate fact of life that the number of veterans is decreasing every year as time passes, from the time of the First and Second World Wars and the Korean war. Unless another war occurs, which we all hope and pray does not, there will simply be no veterans left. In short, we are giving Prince Edward Island a white elephant at the expense of $30 million to $40 million.
I think all MPs are in favour of a certain diversification of government services to various parts of the country, but not for political purposes, and certainly not by moving a department that will not be of a more permanent value to the area to which it is going.
Perhaps the making public of all the behind-the-scenes documents that exist would reveal the monstrously unnecessary expense. Already the Department of Veterans Affairs is well housed here in Ottawa, but nevertheless the government is prepared to move it to a far-away place and spend millions of dollars on the move and on construction work to build accommodation at that place.
The ridiculous situation exists that right across the street from the veterans affairs department here in Ottawa is the National Archives. They say they need more space, so the federal government is going to Hull and spending $40 million on new buildings while at the same time vacating the DVA building here. It will be left empty when it moves to the province of Prince Edward Island. If this inane move goes through, surely the National Archives could enlarge by simply moving across Wellington Street. It would save the taxpayers a great deal of money.
It seems that the government continually indulges in the spending of money on schemes that create unneeded, brand-new buildings, leaves other buildings unoccupied, and in addition vacates many rented premises here in the city of Ottawa with long-term rents when the government is obligated to pay those rents for many years.
About the only certain thing concerning this move of DVA will be that the government will have to lease more telephone lines between here and Prince Edward Island. After all, there is a skeleton staff in the ministry here and nothing else. By making this move, I suppose Bell Canada will benefit; but that in itself would be a pretty foolish reason for the move.
I have heard this matter talked about by many members of this House privately in conversation. I think almost everybody has reservations, at least to some extent, about this situation, why it is being done and whether it should be carried on.
One of the excuses given by the government for not making public the various papers that I requested was that it would involve obtaining the permission of the government of Prince Edward Island. This may well be so in regard to some of the

June 19, 1980
Veterans Affairs
material, but I can only reply with the question: Why has the Government of Canada not asked for such permission from the government of Prince Edward Island? The inevitable answer is that the Government of Canada just does not want these papers to become public because it would probably reveal a staggering tale of political patronage that would not be pleasant for the Canadian people to see.
It seems most strange to me that a government which speaks of increasing freedom of information continually gives examples of restricting information, and this is certainly the case when the government turns down the release of the various documents on this particular matter. One can only conclude that the present administration in actual fact only pays lip service to the principle of freedom of information, and if it were not so, the Minister of Veterans Affairs or someone speaking on his behalf would rise in this House today and say that the government has talked this over, has changed its mind and will release the necessary papers.
Yet another factor that seems to have received practically no consideration is the fact that this country has two official languages. By law, Canadians must be served in the language of their choice. It is obvious that French is not the language of Prince Edward Island. Therefore, to stay within the law created by the government, we would obviously have to import to Prince Edward Island bilingual people to render the services that would be needed by Canadians in provinces such as Quebec and certain other parts of Canada. What benefit is that to decreasing unemployment in Prince Edward Island?
I have already touched several times on what is obvious political motivation behind the move to Prince Edward Island and for a moment I would like to enlarge on this. It seems to me to be utterly incredible that a government is willing to put first a political favour to the Minister of Veterans Affairs rather than to put first the veterans of this country who suffer everything from shattered bodies, blindness, mental anguish and, in so many cases, permanent disablements because they stood up for Canada when they were needed. For it to come down at this time to a decision based on the political welfare of a few individuals rather than on the welfare of those who need and deserve the best of service and consideration constitutes an unbelievable chapter in the history of political manipulation.
If this government were truly interested, as it says it is, in promoting the economy of Prince Edward Island and other sections of the country, then why does it not do so by coming up with policies that will assist various provinces, rather than policies that will assist various Liberal cabinet ministers?
Without much difficulty, this government put up millions and millions to bail out the Chrysler Corporation and just recently more millions of dollars to Michelin Tire in a declared attempt to help the unemployment situation of this country. In the case of the Department of Veterans Affairs, they would throw $30 million to $40 million down the drain that in the long run will not be of help to anyone.
I believe it is essential for the government to produce the papers for public view in regard to the Prince Edward Island move, and I am sure it would help result in putting an end to
any further-I hate to use the word-bribery to other sections of the country to assist members of the Liberal cabinet who are either in danger of electoral defeat or who have some foolish notion that they deserve a personal favour from the government for the services they have rendered here in Ottawa.
I have touched on what I believe to be the main reasons that the Department of Veterans Affairs should not be moved to Prince Edward Island and why the government should make public the various documents and correspondence which led to this most unfortunate decision. In summing up, I can only say that there is no excuse for spending millions and millions of taxpayers' dollars without a beneficial purpose to the taxpayer. There is no point creating a situation where service to the veterans of Canada is even worse than it is now, and above all, there is no point whatsoever in this House condoning the shuffling around of government departments, not on the basis of sound judgment but entirely on the basis of resulting benefits for members of the Prime Minister's entourage of cabinet colleagues.
I hope the government will see fit to reverse its decision and allow these documents to be made public so that we can all judge for ourselves. If I am wrong in what I have said, and others are wrong in what they believe-that this was simply a political move in the first place-I am sure we will all readily admit it. However, as yet I have not heard anything by the government to indicate in any way whatsoever that they have valid, justifiable reasons, other than political reasons, for the move that was announced several years ago and is still being carried on today, probably soon unfortunately to reach the point of no return. I hope the government will stop before it goes that far.


Mr. Douglas Fisher (Mississauga North):: Mr. Speaker, I support the move to Charlottetown.
I would like to take a few moments now to speak about some of the benefits and particularly some of our preparations for the relocation of the headquarters of veterans affairs to Charlottetown. Every effort has been made at every stage to make this relocation as smooth as possible. The planning has been designed to accomplish the move to Charlottetown without affecting the quality of service and at the same time avoiding serious disruptive effects on the people of Charlottetown.
The relocation is already well under way. Plans call for a phased relocation spread out over several years. There are now 50 veterans affairs employees operating in Charlottetown. Included in this group are 11 war veterans allowance board employees who will soon be joined by the other board employees. This is a milestone in the relocation program. This board will be the first complete unit relocated to the island. By September, 1980 a total of 160 jobs will have relocated to Charlottetown and an additional 30 will have relocated by September, 1981. The remainder of the portfolio will relocate in 1982-83.
June 19, 1980

This plan for a phased move to Charlottetown was developed to ensure that service provided to the veterans and their dependants would not suffer. A phased move is the most practical method. It guarantees the continuity and quality of our service to our veterans and it spreads out the effects of the move on Charlottetown over a longer period of time. The community can absorb significant numbers of new residents if given enough time to increase the supply of housing and community facilities available.
Numerous studies have been undertaken into such areas as communication facilities, housing, education, industry, labour markets and the social and economic impact of the relocation. Veterans affairs is now using these results to everyone's benefit. They can anticipate situations, they can gain insight into the possible effects of the relocation and they can assess what is needed and what is available before proceeding in any given direction.
Several programs have been established within the Department of the Veterans Affairs to monitor and facilitate the relocation. There are key positions in which it is imperative to have a fully trained person upon relocation to Charlottetown. These positions have been identified and are now being staffed in Ottawa by employees willing to move to Prince Edward Island. In fact, only recently the department appointed a new assistant deputy minister of finance, personnel and administration, a new assistant deputy minister of veterans services and a new director of financial management, all of whom will be moving to the island in 1982-83.
Another fairly recent appointment, that of director of policy, planning and evaluation, is being double-banked and the newly-appointed director will be working very closely with his Ottawa counterpart until he moves to the island to assume his duties there on August 1, 1980.
A comprehensive training package provides the necessary training to new employees before they assume the full responsibilities of their positions. To assist trainees in new positions, all systems and procedures are being documented to ensure that the most up-to-date manuals are used by these employees while training.
All these new employees and their families will all have a certain impact on Charlottetown, its economy, its educational, cultural and social facilities. These employees have diverse backgrounds, age, education, family status. They will comprise a variety of occupations-doctors, lawyers, senior administrators, accountants, secretaries, clerical workers, finance officers, personnel officers. These people will bring with them not only their work expertise but a variety of interests.
Veterans affairs is determined that the last thing that should happen is that the relocation should have a disruptive effect on the social fabric of the city or the island or that the present way of life be affected to any great degree. The relocation could potentially add another thousand residents to Charlottetown-an immigration of professional people moving with
Veterans Affairs
their jobs and families, people who will be taking their place in the new community, starting a new life.
A key element to the integration of the Department of Veterans Affairs employees into Charlottetown is communication and information. It is important that the people of Charlottetown and Prince Edward Island know something about the type of people who are considering moving to their community. Equally important, however, is the need on the part of our employees to be aware of what they can expect to find in Charlottetown-the lifestyle of the island, the type of community they will be moving into, the type of people who will be their neighbours.
In Charlottetown a tri-level co-ordinating group has been established and meets on a regular basis to deal with all matters pertaining to the relocation. This committee has representation from the provincial, municipal and federal governments. Five subcommittees have been formed to deal with such things as housing, education, economic impact, social impact, and the new veterans affairs facility. In particular, great strides have been made in the housing area as a result of the housing subcommittee's attempts to stimulate the housing industry to meet the needs of our employees, while at the same time ensuring that this does not cause a drastic upward trend in housing prices.
In Ottawa all employees have been provided with a comprehensive information package on Charlottetown telling them about the island climate, education, linguistic make-up, housing, health services, cost of living, recreational and commercial facilities, transportation and municipal services. Relocation advisers are available to assist any employees seeking advice on relocation. The portfolio has a relocation resource room where employees have access to Charlottetown newspapers, real estate listings, university and community college calendars, local magazines and other publications provided by groups from Prince Edward Island.
Assistance is also being provided to employees who do not wish to relocate. They can have counselling and information about securing alternate employment within the national capital region. A resource room has also been established specifically for these employees where they can find publications to assist them as prospective job hunters.
In the fall of 1979, DVA held nine days of activities, called "Operation Information", to inform employees of the facilities, services, life on Prince Edward Island and also to provide information on the employment situation in Ottawa and various means of seeking and finding reassignment. "Operation Information" was organized to give all employees information to assist them in their relocation decision and to prepare them for whatever course of action they might choose.
These programs and activities are all intended to make for a smooth transition into Charlottetown for the portfolio and its employees. Certainly with the magnitude of this relocation there will be eventualities which have not been anticipated and problems may develop. But with the support of people in Ottawa and Charlottetown, these problems can be resolved
2286

June 19, 1980
Veterans Affairs
and DVA will successfully and smoothly relocate in Prince Edward Island.


Mr. Marcel Dionne (Chicoutimi):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today of the decentralization of DVA headquarters to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Public servants work for the entire country and must therefore get closer to the realities, the needs and the desires of the various communities they serve. Public servants in Ottawa have been blamed for their so called ignorance, insensitivity and isolation from the rest of Canada. The proposed move, as all others, is aimed at reducing the reason for these accusations and to make the public service more aware of the concerns harboured by the people it serves. Also, the proposed move of the veterans affairs headquarters is extremely important because it corresponds to the wishes of each of the previous governments which have tried to bridge the gap between the levels of economic well being enjoyed in the different areas of the country. The move of DVA headquarters will give Prince Edward Island the economic boost it needs. Also, Charlottetown can provide headquarters with all it needs to continue to give adequate service to Canadian veterans and their dependants.
Charlottetown was chosen because it has administrative support and clerical workers who can easily be trained and assigned to the various divisions of the department and organizations-


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I should like to draw attention to the fact that at the time when I rose a moment ago there was not a quorum in the House. I believe that 20 members are required. At that time there was not a quorum, unless someone rushed in hurriedly since then.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Either the hon. member rises to call a quorum, or he does not. Would he kindly inform the Chair whether he is calling the quorum?


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Yes I am, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: May I explain to hon. members that there is a procedure for counting members to see if there is a quorum, and it will take a moment to go through it. If I understand the hon. member for Leeds-Grenvilie (Mr. Cossitt) correctly, he rises again on a point of order, we hope not the same one.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Since I raised the quorum call, about four members rushed in on the other side. I think a count should be taken of those who were here at the time the question was raised, not counting those who came in later.


Mr. Lefebvre:: Read the orders.


Mr. Hopkins:: I would like to bring to the attention of the House the fact that when the hon. member rose on this point of order, I took a count of members in the House and I found that there were in fact 20 members here when he was on his feet the first time.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: No, 18.


Mr. Regan:: Let us not quarrel over two.


An hon. Member:: Did you count yourself?


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Yes, I counted myself.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. The Chair has a difficulty. The hon. member for Leeds-Grenvilie has raised the difficulty himself, that is to say, that at the moment he rose, he himself says, to call the quorum, there was a quorum present.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: No, I did not say that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: If I understood the hon. member correctly, he used some language to say, at the moment he rose, that he was calling the quorum but that at that moment there was not a quorum.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: That is correct. There were 18 members in the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Then it is clear that the Chair has a difficulty because the Chair does not have in its possession an electronic Hansard which would permit the Chair to do a retroactive count. If the hon. member wishes to call a quorum and to ask, on the basis of good faith, those hon. members who were not present when he called the quorum to retire, then I suppose that perhaps this might be observed. Perhaps those members who were not present when the hon. member called a quorum could remove themselves from the chamber. But the Chair is in no position to ask each individual member whether he was or was not here at the time that a quorum was called.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, this is matter which concerns me quite often. Many a time in the last month or so I have been tempted to raise the same point of order. I think that our attendance should be a lot better than it is. But, in all fairness,
I think that the rules should be noted. If the rule is noted, then, I am afraid, you do not have to ask members whether they were here at the time the point was raised. Citation 209, on page 73 of Beauchesne's fifth edition reads as follows:
While the House is being counted the doors remain open and members can come in during the whole time occupied by the counting.
So if there are 20 members here now, all I can say to my friend, the hon. member for Leeds-Grenvilie, (Mr. Cossitt) is, try again some time when there are only 12 or 15 members here.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
June 19, 1980


Thomas Charles Cossitt: May I then withdraw the quorum call. 1 realize that the hon. member for London East (Mr. Turner), the Minister of Labour (Mr. Regan), the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard), and numerous others, darted in to their seats after I called quorum. But according to what our learned friend, the member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), who is an authority on the House rules, has said, they are permitted to do that. So, of course, I will withdraw my quorum call. 1 was simply trying to point out that often there are very few members in attendance in the House. Here comes another gentleman.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I do not know whether it is necessary to recognize the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) to pursue the matter. 1 have checked Beauchesne and I find that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) appears to be correct. My recollection is that the last time a quorum was called in the House under similar circumstances the Chair called on the Assistant Clerk to identify every member who was present at the time when the Chair called for that count to be made. The Chair cannot check the situation retroactively. I would then become a judge as to whether each and every individual member were here. 1 would have to start a count now through the offices of the Assistant Clerk. Unless there are other members, or the President of the Privy Council who a moment ago seemed to be rising on a point of order, wishing to speak, the advice of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is accepted.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There are now 30 members in the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: At this moment, the Chair sees a quorum.


Marcel Dionne: Mr. Speaker, may I suggest that Charlottetown can provide headquarters with all it needs to continue to give adequate service to Canadian veterans and their dependants. Charlottetown was chosen because it has administrative support and clerical workers who can easily be trained and assigned to the various divisions of the department and organizations. It has a regional university which will train competent professionals for us and some of its residents are bilingual. Another factor which is essential to the proper operation of a head office with district offices throughout Canada is an advanced network of communications and transport, something Charlottetown has. Moreover, employees will be able to rent adequate lodgings at reasonable prices on the island, and should the need arise, others may be built.
The decentralization of the Department of Veterans Affairs brings many benefits to the city.
The strategic location at the limit of Charlottetown's commercial zone will bring an economic development whose need is strongly felt and will revitalize the retail shops in the area. The new headquarters building will improve the immediate vicinity-
Veterans Affairs


An hon. Member:: Read the rules.


An hon. Member:: I don't need to read them, I know them.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. The point of order which was raised on the quorum is, no doubt, of interest to all members. But if they want to discuss it they should rise on a point of order and seek the attention of the Chair. Otherwise, as a courtesy to the hon. member speaking, we should allow him to complete his remarks without interruptions.

I must say that it is the hon. member for Chicoutimi (Mr. Dionne) who has the floor.


Marcel Dionne: Thank you again, Mr. Speaker.
The new head office building will enhance the immediate area and the veterans affairs project will probably generate other development initiatives from the private sector. Some time ago, veterans affairs announced the plan to move gradually its head office staff to Charlottetown. Under that plan, all veterans affairs head office employees should be relocated in Charlottetown by 1983.
When the decision to move was announced, the Minister of Veterans Affairs guaranteed that the quality of services would not be reduced and that veterans would continue to receive before, during and after the move, the services of superior quality with which they have always been provided. The minister repeated that he was standing by that commitment and those same guarantees. The task force on the relocation of veterans affairs is responsible for planning and executing the move while at the same time maintaining the present quality of service. Obviously, the planners of the task force are convinced the client service will not be affected in any way during the move because otherwise that relocation would not be going ahead as it is at this time. To make sure the minister's commitment is met, it is important that the veterans affairs head office has a qualified staff to carry out its legislative and administrative mandate. That task will be carried out through the relocation of certain employees and the special training programs that have been put together to train the new employees replacing those who are not moving to Charlottetown.
An important question keeps coming back about the move, namely, what will be the social impact of this proposed move on the people of Charlottetown and Prince Edward Island? The move to Charlottetown will result in the relocation of a rather large number of employees and their families. Those civil servants will make new friends, join associations, send their kids to school, and their spouses will look for jobs. In other words, they will become part of the community and will start a new life.

June 19, 1980
Veterans Affairs
Studies have been undertaken by the Department of Veterans Affairs itself, or on its behalf, to determine the effects of the move. They dealt with such things as communication services, housing, education, industry and the labour market on the island; in other words, on all the social aspects of the move. Because of these studies, we were able to foresee various situations and better determine the impact of the move and the services to be offered or already offered before committing ourselves in any direction. However, in the final analysis, the success and validity of these studies will be confirmed only when the move is completed. 1 believe that I should now explain the basic plan for the move. The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning to make the move over a certain period which is now expected to last from two to three years.
A small first group and a small operational unit are now installed on the island. Another group will move this summer, which will raise the total number of positions to 160 by September. Moreover, 30 positions will be transferred in September, 1981, and the other positions will follow over the years 1982 and 1983. Before closing, I wish to add that a central group will remain in Ottawa to help the minister in his work and to fulfil directly their responsibilities toward those people or groups which can be served only by the office of the minister. I therefore believe, Mr. Speaker, that this move of DVA headquarters to Charlottetown must be considered as a great step toward providing equal opportunities for all Canadians. This decision was not cancelled by the former government, not because it did not have time to do so, but because this decision was the best that could be made.
1 am convinced that the veterans will be very well served and that the grievances mentioned by the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt) are unfounded. Maximum use will be made of modern communication methods, and not only will the move to Charlottetown of the main office of veterans affairs be a great step toward providing equal opportunities for all Canadians, but it will also serve the interests of the veterans, and not certain political interests, as some have suggested.


John Gerald (Jack) Masters: Mr. Speaker, first of all I remind the House in reference to a remark made earlier that no money has been made available to Chrysler; only loan guarantees have been offered, which is quite another thing.
Because I believe a number of government offices can and should be moved to other parts of Canada, I should like to speak today on the subject of the relocation of veterans affairs headquarters to Prince Edward Island, and in particular the economic impact of this relocation on Charlottetown. The jobs moving from Ottawa to Charlottetown are grouped into a small number of independent agencies and programs, each with different but related and interlocking functions, and all
working to serve the veteran clintele. At this time I intend to deal with questions such as: what will be the economic impact of the relocation of this head office on Charlottetown; will there be a notable increase in demand for goods and services; what will be the effects from the demands of the households moving to Charlottetown; what will be the effects from the demands of this department which is going to Charlottetown?
The economic effects will be felt over two distinct periods in addition to the initial arrival of employees. There is the limited period of the construction phase, and the operating phase which will be continuous for as long as anyone can project. The economic effects in each phase will be both direct and indirect and will be the result of the demands of both the employees and their households and of the portfolio headquarters office for services and goods on the island. For the construction phase of the relocation, studies indicate that the direct impact will be in the creation of approximately 300 jobs. It is estimated that these 300 jobs will receive in the neighbourhood of $5 million in wages and salaries for the duration of the construction period.
The total construction bill for the new veterans affairs facility is estimated at approximately $15 million. For the purposes of studying the result of this expenditure on the economy of the island, the expenditures were allocated over a three-year period: $2.5 million to design and prepare the site in the first year, $10 million to the second, and $2.5 million to the third. At the present time these expenditures are allocated to 1981, 1982, and 1983 budget years respectively. The spread of retail purchasing for construction over the three years is estimated at about $184,000 for 1981, about $737,000 for 1982, and $184,000 for 1983.
Of course the construction phase is a one-time shot in the arm for the construction industry and related businesses because it will last only over the period related to the construction of the new building. However, what is more significant is for us to gauge and to prepare for the long-term, direct and indirect economic result of the operating phase of veterans affairs on the economy of Prince Edward Island and Charlottetown in particular and the effects created by the demands of the new households and the newly situated head office. Again, the direct consequence is the number of new jobs created by this phase of the relocation for which islanders will be able to compete. These jobs cover the full range of positions in the organization, from the most senior decision-making officials to service staff.
Some of the jobs to be filled in the veterans affairs headquarters will be filled after relocation has taken place, after the job has moved to the island. Training will take place in Charlottetown.
All key positions will be staffed before the job moves from Ottawa, and the successful candidate for the job will be trained in Ottawa.
Studies have shown that the number of people in the labour force on the island and throughout the Atlantic provinces in
June 19, 1980

jobs similar to those at veterans affairs is quite large in relation to the anticipated demands for new staff at the headquarters. We must not forget that there is a significant number of federal public servants already employed in the Atlantic region in classifications similar to those supporting the veterans affairs headquarters operation. It is likely that many of these people will be interested in transferring to veterans affairs because of the senior positions which may become available within the portfolio, or perhaps just a desire for a change in employment.
There is also a substantial number of new entrants to the labour force on the island being generated by the various educational institutions, and the salaries and the promotional opportunities offered by veterans affairs as part of the federal civil service will attract many of these graduates.
It has been found from the experience of other relocating federal departments that 40 per cent to 50 per cent of the personnel recruited after relocation were working somewhere else at the time they were hired. This has been especially true among the senior classifications where the draw will undoubtedly be on the other government departments in the region.
Despite this inducement on the market of the already employed, studies also indicate there is no lack of qualified personnel available to take up any of the vacant or vacated positions in veterans affairs headquarters or elsewhere in similar positions on the island. To give one example, in the secretarial category, the annual outflow of trained persons far exceeds the anticipated veterans affairs headquarters requirements.
Once the operating phase is under way, there will be the indirect impact of the veterans affairs employee expenditures which will create employment and generate new income. The veterans affairs annual wage bill which will be paid on the island is estimated at approximately $14 million. Statistics show that around 71 per cent of wages is spent on consumer goods and services. Therefore it is projected that out of the veterans affairs wage bill, the sum of about $10 million will be spent on various commodities every year, and presumably much of this will be spent on the island. The impact of this spending, it is estimated, will be the creation of approximately 250 new jobs over and above those new jobs within veterans affairs headquarters. In addition it is expected that the total indirect income generated will be in the area of $2.8 million a year.
These figures can be broken down to indicate roughly where and in what proportion it will be spent. Food will take about 25 per cent of the total, creating approximately 90 jobs and generating about $900,000. Housing will take 31 per cent of the total, creating 34 jobs and generating $575,000 income. Clothing will take 10 per cent, creating 31 jobs and generating $270,000 income. Transportation will take approximately 14 per cent, creating about 40 jobs and generating $350,000 income. Personal and health expenditures will take about 4.6 per cent of the total, creating around 20 jobs and generating about $270,000 income. Recreation and education expenditures will take 6 per cent of the total, creating 22 jobs and
Committee Report
generating $260,000 income; and tobacco and alcohol expenditures will take approximately 5.5 per cent of the total, creating about 14 jobs and approximately $132,000 income.
Additional local employment and income are expected to be generated by the ongoing expenditures of the veterans affairs headquarters. It is anticipated that approximately 77 new jobs will be created and that additional income of about $675,000 annually will be created. This is as a result of an expenditure by the head office of about $1.8 million.
In the final analysis, therefore, it is expected that the relocation of veterans affairs headquarters will result in around 1,000 new jobs being added to the island work force, including veterans affairs personnel relocating with their jobs from Ottawa. The dollar figure for additional income created by the move has been estimated by studies as about $15 million per year.
I hope I have covered the subject of the economic impact of the veterans affairs move to Charlottetown in enough detail to give members an understanding of the figures the Department of Veterans Affairs is operating from and using to anticipate any eventuality. In the long run, and under any analysis, I think this House will agree that these facts and figures represent a positive impact on the island.
While I have dealt with the economic implications to Prince Edward Island, I wish to assure this House and our veterans that the need for sensitive service and quality service will not be lost, but rather that the service will be enhanced. Further, this move is another step to benefit the many regions of the country which should be assisted economically to share adequately in the growth of this country we call Canada.


Miss Campbell:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek the unanimous counsent of the House to revert to presenting reports by standing and special committees.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: The hon. member seeks unanimous consent of the House to revert to that stage of the proceedings for the purpose of submitting a committee report. Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
First report of Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry-Miss Campbell.
[Editor's Note: For text of above report see today's Votes and Proceedings.]
[Stage Direction]
June 19, 1980
Veterans Affairs

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Cossitt:
That an order of the House do issue for copies of all correspondence, notes, minutes of meetings and other communications relating to the decentralization of the Department of Veterans Affairs to the province of Prince Edward Island.
Mr. Raymond Savard (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words on the move to Prince Edward Island, of the headquarters of veterans affairs and especially the economic impact of that move to Charlottetown.
The jobs moved from Ottawa to Charlottetown belong to a small group of independent organizations and programs. Each of these has a different but related and interdependent role, and all serve veterans. 1 would like to address the following questions: What will be the economic repercussions of the move to Charlottetown? Will there be a significant increase in the demand for goods and services? What will be the impact on demand from the move of families to Charlottetown? What will be the impact on demand from the move of the department to Charlottetown?
Economic repercussions will be felt over two different periods in addition to that of the arrival of employees. There will be first the limited period of the construction phase, then the operating phase which will be permanent as far away as we can anticipate. During each of these two phases, the economic impact will be both direct and indirect, and will derive from the demand for goods and services on the island from employees, their families and the veterans affairs headquarters.
As far as the construction phase of the move is concerned, studies indicate that the direct impact will be the creation of some 300 jobs. It is estimated that these 300 jobs will supply some $500 million in salaries and wages over the construction phase. The total cost of building the new facilities for veterans affairs is estimated at some $15 million, and in order to consider-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but I must do so under the Standing Orders.

Before noticing the clock, I wonder if the Chair might be permitted the observation that the attendance in the House at this moment during private members'1 hour is certainly more attractive than is often the case. Perhaps the hon. member for
Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt) has caused some interest in the matter.
The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business having expired, 1 do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6.03 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy that Bill C-3, to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1971, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Bryce Stuart Mackasey: Mr. Speaker, at five o'clock when the debate was interrupted for other business I had reminded the House and the minister and, perhaps equally important, the officials in the gallery, that since 1971 when the Unemployment Insurance Act was brought in, reflecting the views of all members of the House, there have been no less than five or six amendments to the bill, if I recall correctly. In each and every one of these amendments there has been a clause or provision, among others, subtly to shift the financial burden of unemployment from the consolidated revenue fund and the government to the employer-employee to the point that it is almost absurd. I would say that close to $1 billion has been so shifted.
I want to emphasize that again for a second, Mr. Speaker, so that officials know that at least some of us understand what they are doing. I want to say, before I get to the amendments, that it might have been more fair if the officials had told Parliament that they had miscalculated the rate of unemployment in 1970 when they said it would average 4 per cent and that, for reasons beyond their control-the energy crisis is a good example or the unexpected growth of the work force- unemployment should more realistically be predicted at 6 per cent. They could have made the necessary adjustments, and 1 think Parliament would have understood, the country would have understood, and the opposition would have understood.
Instead, either by coincidence or design, prior to every one of these amendments we had a well-orchestrated campaign based on the alleged abuse of the plan, thus preparing and conditioning people for the amendment and supposedly aimed
%



at reducing the abuse or tightening up the regulations, when in fact the main purpose of most of the amendments was to shift the financial burden from the government to the employer-employee. 1 think that has been very unfair.
I should like to quote again from the document I referred to earlier, entitled "A Brief History of Unemployment Insurance Legislation in Canada", which is a research paper issued by the Library of Parliament. Referring to the 1975 act it states on page 19 that the purpose of the act was as follows:
-amended the financing formula so as to increase the share paid by employees and employers and reduce the government's share.
The paper does not state why that was necessary but just that it was one of the purposes. In the next paragraph, referring to the Employment and Immigration Reorganization Act of 1977, the paper states:
A variable entrance requirement of 10-14 weeks was introduced, depending on the regional unemployment rate. The benefit structure was simplified, reducing the number of phases from five to three.
The practical application of changing the requirements from eight weeks to ten to 14 weeks was to reduce the financial obligations of the government. The government had another alternative, simply to raise taxes or find the money elsewhere. What the amendments did in 1978-and this is perhaps the most massive change to the act-was to stipulate a higher entrance requirement, once again, for those claimants who were entering the labour force for the first time or who were re-entering it after a period of absence. The 1978 legislation changed the minimum insurability, it reduced the rate of benefits to 60 per cent of average weekly insurable earnings from 66 per cent and it required higher income recipients to repay a portion of the UIC benefit. Again, all amendments were designed to reduce the cost of the plan.
To emphasize that point, the financial obligation of the employers and employees as specified in the act in 1971 has always been met by the contributions of the employers and employees. What bothered officials of the Department of Finance was their inability to get their hands on that surplus of $1 billion over those ten years. They did the next best thing in their opinion which was to shift the financial burden of this plan from the government as responsibility linked to the level of unemployment and the government obligation to control that level. They shifted it to the employers and employees thus once again reducing their need to raise funds elsewhere.
Ironically, the plan is still essentially intact. What is needed now is a shift in emphasis in this House, in this country and in the Department of Finance, a realization that the average French-speaking Canadian, the average English-speaking Canadian wherever he or she comes from or whatever philosophy he or she may share, whatever their background in whatever province they live, would prefer to work rather than draw unemployment insurance.
It bothers me particularly that in 1980 we still attach some stigma to those people who draw unemployment insurance benefits because they are out of work for reasons beyond their
Unemployment Insurance Act
control, whether they be regional differences, a very high level of unemployment or whatever. Somehow in Canada we cannot seem to shed the old biblical concept that man must earn a living by the sweat of his brow. If only we could bring ourselves to appreciate that periodically in this country, like in any other country, people are out of work because of technology or because of competition-the auto pact is a good example of this-and that it is our responsibility to finance those people to see that they have an income. Succinctly put, I do not think Canadians would stand the inhumanity of the 1930s prior to unemployment insurance. I do not think anyone in this House is suggesting that we go back to that period before the 1930s. I plead with the new minister and this government to leave the plan alone for a while and let the officials get on with its application.
One of the unfortunate things about this series of amendments was that they had to be backed by regulations and it made it virtually impossible for the people whose responsibility it is to administer this whole operation, to do so efficiently. As soon as they get familiar with one set of regulations, along comes another.
I want to put one other statistic on the record and remind the House that in 1971 the financial obligation of the government for unemployment insurance-I am referring to the new plan-was about 12 per cent. For employers and employees it was 88 per cent which was reflected in the appropriate level of premiums needed to meet that 88 per cent. By 1978, prior to the 1978 amendment, the financial obligation of the government had risen to 50 per cent leaving the employers the other 50 per cent. Why did it rise to 50 per cent? Because of the high level of prolonged unemployment, and not for any other reason. In 1979, reflecting the 1978 amendments the governments share of the total financial obligations was reduced to 33 per cent, with the predicted financial obligation of the government in 1980 going back to 20 per cent.
I know that my time is almost up, Mr. Speaker, and I want to say that I intend to support this bill. The bill in isolation makes sense, but as part of the total amendments in the seventies it appears to me to be part of a very concerted effort by some officials to get their hands on that pool of money-


Mr. Andre:: I thought the bill came from the minister, not the officials.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: -which in reality does not belong to the government in the first place. It belongs to the employers and employees. It reflects their weekly contributions. That surplus, if the act operated properly, should have been reflected in lower premiums in order to offset that surplus.
Finally, I plead with the minister not to listen to those who would suggest that the contributions of the employer and employees of this country to unemployment insurance should provide the moneys needed to finance manpower programs. That is the government's responsibility and it should be met out of general funds. The minister said that he would get back to me about that. I welcome his statement on the need to return to insurance concepts. Then there would be no room in

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
the plan in the future for a continuing shift of government responsibilities to the private sector. Manpower is a government responsibility reflected in the department of manpower. Unemployment insurance is an entirely separate program which belongs to the employers and employees of the country, and the funds should be made separate. We in this House should be vigilant in making certain that they do remain separate.
I can only remind the minister, from past experience, that over the next few days, few months or few years, he will run into strong pressures, both in and out of the government, that would emasculate the plan if he permits it, and I do not think the workers of this country would be very appreciative.


Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Mr. Speaker, 1 welcome the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-3, one of the principal provisions of which is to transfer the cost of initial and extended benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Act from the consolidated revenue fund to the employees and employers who are covered by the provisions of the act. Incidentally, that rather major provision will have the effect over a full fiscal year of transferring total costs of something in the neighbourhood of three-quarters of a billion dollars. 1 make mention of this fact because we are confronted with a series of estimates which indicate budgetary deficits for the year in which we find ourselves in excess of $14 billion. If indeed this bill were not introduced and passed, those estimates will show a deficit of something in the neighbourhood of $15 billion. That fact, of course, is not generally made known nor will the government loudly proclaim the benefits or disadvantages of the system.
Since the introduction of the substantial amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act in 1971, there is little doubt that the unemployment insurance fund has not in all cases had the desired effect, hopefully attributable to the government, as long as I do not misinterpret the government's intentions.
While no one can challenge the need to provide income security for those gainfully employed in Canada, the government is derelict in its duty if it does not recognize the abuses to the system and move to remedy the same. 1 am personally familiar, as I am sure many members of this House are, with cases in which legitimate claims under the act have been made by persons covered thereby. Those claims have not been met expeditiously and with dignity. Those who contribute what has commonly been referred to as premiums are entitled to make a claim when the event with respect to which the premium was paid should occur.
The Canadian public is generally familiar with the provisions of insurance policies and insurance claims in the private sector. The concept is that when one pays a premium and the occurrence transpires, one is entitled as a right, and within the printed, usually simple but sometimes legalistic terms of the policy, to reimbursement for the loss sustained.
We are invited not to treat this plan as an insurance plan. If in fact it were, then those protected by the plan would be in a position whereby the quantum of the premium coverage would give rise to the payment of an additional benefit. In fact the minister would appear to reject the concept of escalated voluntary premiums giving rise to escalated provisions by way of benefit under the act on the theory that we are creating some kind of a two-tier system.
I suggest to the minister instead that what we should have is a sliding scale system for the voluntary contribution of premiums so-called under the act, with a corresponding increase in benefits if this act is properly designated as an insurance act. However, the suggestions have been rejected. If we examine it and its purposes and the way in which these amendments contained in the bill are to operate, the act is nothing but an act pertaining to the raising of revenues by way of taxation. The only difference between this act and the provisions of the Income Tax Act, aside from the extreme complexity of the latter, is the fact that we have selected a group of taxpayers who are not the general taxpayers of Canada. They are a special class of taxpayer, the employed and the employer.
As a simple piece of taxing legislation, we are surely inclined to ask whether it is serving any other purpose in society. The purpose can be measured by the results. In part, those results are damaging to the work ethic which has been endangered by the development of a system whereby a gap that exists between the net revenue, income or sustenance that one may retain by way of benefits under the act, and the net revenue sustenance or benefit that one may retain after one labours or invests, is growing perilously close in many instances.
The natural inclination is that there is a disinclination to become engaged in productivity, and society thereby develops a code of non-production, and claims are devised to avoid the unpleasantness of work. The task of government is to widen the gap that exists between earned income for labour and enterprise and income derived under the act. I am not suggesting for one moment that that gap be widened through the process of reducing the amounts to which one becomes entitled, but rather that the gap be widened through tax legislation and the retention of a larger portion of what one produces in the hands of those that do the production.
Accordingly, it is necessary to reduce taxation in Canada. This piece of legislation, standing as it does in the form of nothing more than a taxing statute, should be viewed in that light. Unfortunately, we are confronted by a government which has given every indication that it will pursue potentially and likely a policy of reversing the very suggestions that I have made.
It would appear that ministers are inclined to favour the de-indexing of the provisions of the Income Tax Act which currently grant some measure of relief to the taxpayers of Canada. Statistically that measure of relief will be removed from those less able to pay for the further intrusion into their pocket by the Government of Canada. Very clearly the suggested de-indexing of the provisions by way of rates and
June 19, 1980

deductions under the Income Tax Act will open the floodgates to additional government spending. It will obviate the necessity of government to come before this House to face the fact courageously that they may from time to time require additional revenues to cover what has in the past been massive waste and extravagance.
It is interesting that the very course they would take would be quite contrary to the provisions of an intended piece of legislation passed by the United States Congress, introduced by Jack Kemp and William Roth. If I may, I will read from a brief commentary related to the legislation which they introduced. I quote:
Under current tax law, personal income tax rates are continuously rising because inflation is permitted to push all workers, savers and investors into higher tax brackets. This incentive-robbing combination of inflation and steeply progressive tax rates-known as "bracket creep" or government's "inflation dividend"-is the greatest single cause of declining productivity, declining growth, and chronic budget deficits in the past 15 years.
The real problem in this country that gives rise to the need to make the changes that confront us in Bill C-3 is the prospect of continued growth in the number of Canadians unemployed. Rather than take steps which will deal with the cause, the government has, in its traditional patchwork form, endeavoured to deal with but a symptom, making it easier to conceal the fact that there is a tax imposed upon Canadians who are working and Canadians who are supplying work in Canada.
Investment responds to incentive. Business, I submit, the employer of labour and the creator of the jobs that are required, in order to minimize the demands upon the Unemployment Insurance Act-so called-requires a form of incentive. It is the same incentive as I spoke of in regard to the difference between those who, as employees, are prepared to work and contribute, and those who voluntarily choose not to, and that incentive must surely flow from the retention of more of what is produced, the retention of more of what is earned. This can happen only in the event the government introduces a plan designed to reduce the tax grab in this country. But instead of endeavouring to persuade business that Canada has a stable future and a government known for its determination to curb waste and excess, we are confronted with Bill C-30 which provides among other things for the borrowing of some $12 billion by the administration. When I say "among other things", I would include, as the most damaging of all, the provision entitling the government to go abroad to borrow whatever funds are required.
It was not long ago that the same government went abroad. They went to Germany and borrowed $825 million. They went to Japan and borrowed $500 million. They went to the United States and borrowed $1.5 billion. Then they wondered why our dollar came under attack. Ultimately it became necessary to pay interest on the loans which had been taken out and the prospect of repayment confronted investors who might otherwise have been examining favourably the total cash flow in and out of our country. We are stuck with the loans which
Unemployment Insurance Act
have been taken out in the past, and when those loans are ultimately paid off it will be to the detriment of the exchange rate on the Canadian dollar. We will once again go into the market exchanging Canadian currency for German marks, Japanese yen, and United States dollars, and that will have the unfortunate effect upon the value of our dollar which will immediately prompt the Bank of Canada in its traditional fashion to demand higher interest rates in Canada so as to attract investment to this country. The vicious circle in which we find ourselves is never-ending.
The government has proposed in this bill to do the worst conceivable thing it could for the long-term benefit of the country. This has traditionally been the policy of the government which confronts us now. I say "confronts", because it is something over which we on this side, unfortunately, have little control. Hopefully, given time, they may be persuaded, if they listen enough, to realize the damage they are doing not only to Canadians of today but to those of tomorrow as well. It is uncomfortable for business to recognize that this year disclosed a deficit of $14 billion plus. We have failed to come to grips with the reality of this kind of news, coupled with the certainty, almost, that the deficit will, as it has in the past, exceed the expectation of government. It shows mismanagement, inability to cope with the revenue-raising and expenditure functions of government. Stability and certainty are essential if business is to expand and develop.
If business does not expand and develop, I suppose the only way the government can hope to cope with unemployment, so that the payments made under the act confronting us this evening may be reduced, would be to hire the jobless as public servants. I know that the payroll of the public service on an annual basis is in the amount of some $8.6 billion. I wonder how long the public will tolerate the increments which are constantly being made. We saw one example a short time ago. It showed an increase of 26.6 per cent from 1979 to 1980 in salaries paid to the lowest group in the Post Office, inside workers, at a cost to the taxpayers of some $36 million a year. That did not in any way abate the inflationary pressures which will grow from wage settlements of that nature.
When I originally realized that the threatened strike would not materialize I am sure that, like many others, I was gratified to find that business would once again be able to rely on the postal services and that employees of businesses might continue to be gainfully employed. But it is not that simple. We have set in motion once again, as in the past, an inflationary spiral motivated directly, approved and encouraged by government.
The ill of inflation which has a direct bearing on the way this country can perform, the hazards of excessive government expenditures, the remarkable inability of the government to deal concretely and decisively with energy policies, have the effect of driving from our nation those who by their enterprise in the past would be prepared to provide employment for today and for the future. The government has demonstrated clearly that it is incapable of dealing with any of the problems which confront the country.

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, believing, as i do, that the House of Commons is a place where members should debate the issue which is before them, I wish to make a few comments about several of the speeches we have heard this afternoon and this evening.
The hon. member for York North (Mr. Gamble) who has just completed his speech wants the tax system changed so that those who already have most in this country would be able to keep more of the wealth they have. He proposes to do this by reducing their taxes. Does he not realize that the top fifth of income-earners in this country already get 42 per cent of the total gross national product while the bottom fifth gets less than 4 per cent? In other words, the bottom fifth have average incomes of less than one-tenth of the top fifth. What greater degree of inequality does the hon. member for York North want? Does he not realize that the share of the gross national product which goes to business and industry has risen steadily in the last three or four years while the share which goes to wages and salaries has gone down? Yet the hon. member comes here and complains that postal workers' wages have been increased too much. Of course, he does not say a thing about the fact that profits are virtually at an all-time high right now.
The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), who spoke this afternoon, urged the government to get though with people who abuse the unemployment insurance system. I am not going to defend anybody who abuses the unemployment insurance system, but I would be much more willing to listen to the hon. member for Bow River if occasionally he would get up here and talk about the fact that there are some doctors who abuse the medical insurance system and suggest that the government ought to go after them.
I would be happy if the hon. member would rise in the House sometimes and talk about the fact that there is a number of large corporations in this country which have been prosecuted, charged, tried and convicted, not once but two or three times, because they have been involved in an illegal conspiracy to maintain prices at a fixed, too high level. We never hear a word about that from the hon. member for Bow River. I should like him to talk about that.
I find it somewhat puzzling that when the president of the Postal Workers' Union broke the law, it did not take very long for the government to charge and bring him to court and then to have him convicted and have him actually serve a sentence. There were some very big leaders of industry in Hamilton, however, who conspired to fix the price for dredging and who bilked the public of several million dollars. They had a long, long, trial which went on for several years, and they were found guilty. I wonder when, if ever, they will serve the sentence which the judge imposed on them. Some of us wonder at the way justice is done and at the equity which we have in our justice system. We do not hear the hon. member for Bow River talk about that.
I want to say a few words about the speech we heard from the hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey). He was loud in his criticism of the Canadian Labour Congress, of its supposed silence on the question of unemployment insurance. I do not have to defend them; they can look after themselves. I have a pretty good idea, because I have spoken to some of their elected officials and to some of their research staff, of what they think of the present law which we are discussing, and of the whole system of unemployment insurance. The hon. member for Lincoln implied that the reason they were not talking very much about unemployment insurance was that their members are working and were guaranteed their jobs.
I wonder where the hon. member for Lincoln has been in the last year or so. Does he not know that there have been major lay-offs in the auto industry, rubber industry, the glass industry, the plastics industry, the forest products industry, and the construction industry? Does he not know that there are tens of thousands of workers in this country who have not been employed in the past, some of whom have never drawn one week of unemployment insurance benefits before 1979 and 1980, and who continue to be unemployed now? I think the hon. member knows that, and I think he was talking tongue in cheek when he made those comments.
I wonder whether he was not so vehement because he knew deep in his heart, but did not want to admit it publicly, that what the Liberals had been doing almost from the time that the major rewriting of the Unemployment Insurance Act took place under his direction when he was minister in 1971, has been to cut down that act step by step. Of course, the hon. member for Lincoln now is a Liberal member of Parliament and he cannot say that publicly about his own party, but that is what the government has been doing. So what does he do? He sets up a strawman which he can beat.
He blames the civil servants, the bureaucrats, and he implies that the reason the whole plan is in trouble is that the senior civil servants duped their political masters, the cabinet ministers, that they were wrong in the estimates that we would only have 4 per cent unemployment, on which figure the premium rates were set back in 1971. He implied that if only they had not made that mistake, to which, of course, they do not want to admit, and had their political masters, their cabinet ministers, been as bright as the hon. member for Lincoln, they would have seen the facts as they were and we would not be in the trouble in which we find ourselves. I do not believe that for a moment.
I believe that the cabinet ministers knew exactly what was happening and they were very happy to follow the advice of the senior civil servants which was that the premiums paid by both the employer and employee should be raised, as they have been steadily raised since 1971, because, for a number of years now, they have been in a mood of retrenchment and restraint, in a mood to show the public that they can control government expenditures. One of the best and easiest ways to control government expenditures closely is to stop paying as much unemployment insurance costs by the government as possible, and to shift the cost to the employees and employers in the
June 19, 1980

form of increased premium payments every pay day. In that way the government appears to be reducing its expenditures.
I will come back to what has happened to the funding of unemployment insurance needs in this country and how much less of the total cost the government is paying than it used to be. If we are in trouble, if the cost of unemployment insurance benefits to the people of Canada is now at about $5 billion, or $5,000 million a year, it is because this country and the governments which have been in control here have not believed and do not believe in full employment. Canada has the largest rate of unemployment of any of the industrialized countries in the western world.
We in the New Democratic Party believe in full employment, and when we say that full employment is possible in this country, that it is possible to produce a job for every person who wants to work, we do not mean full employment with unemployment at the rate of 4 per cent, as was calculated some years ago by organizations such as the Economic Council of Canada, we not mean unemployment of 6 per cent or more, as calculated by some organizations such as the Economic Council and probably the Conference Board today. When we talk about full employment in this country, we mean work for every Canadian who wants to work at a decent wage. We believe that full employment is still possible and should still be the objective that all Canadian political parties should have as a very high priority.
The hon. member for Bow River spoke about the fact that we still have a very large number of unemployed in this country, over 900,000 according to Statistics Canada, and that there were many employers who were looking for workers and could not find them. I am sure that is true. We must look at the situation as it really is. I am sure that there are some people who do not want to work, but I say to the hon. member for Bow River that that is a small number of people, because the figures from Statistics Canada indicate very clearly that while we have 900,000 or more people unemployed, there are fewer than 50,000 job vacancies.
So I say to the hon. member that if every job vacancy were filled tomorrow-which of course is impossible because many of them are for jobs which require skills which Canadian workers do not have-we would still have more than 800,000 unemployed. That is a fact which governments have to face up. We are not alone in our desire for full employment. Back in 1942 or 1943, a Liberal government which had remembered the depression of the 1930s and the tremendous unemployment which Canada had experienced after World War I, brought out a white paper on its post-war plans in which it set out its objective of full employment. It was very clear and explicit as to what was meant by full employment, the providing of a job for every Canadian who wanted a job.
In 1971 the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) reiterated the fact that "Full employment is the goal of this government." Yet, if we look at the record, we see the dismal record of the Liberal government under the present Prime Minister in
Unemployment Insurance Act
meeting that supposed objective. When the present Prime Minister took office in 1968 the number of unemployed was 360,000 and the rate of unemployment was 4.5 per cent of the labour force. The unemployment situation today is very much more serious. There are over 900,000 unemployed, or almost 8 per cent of the labour force. Those are the official figures. I am sure every member of Parliament knows there are several hundreds of thousands of people unemployed in slow-growth areas such as Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and the Interlake area of Manitoba. These unemployed people are not counted in the figures because the unemployment figures of Statistics Canada are based only on people who are not only unemployed but are actively looking for work.
We all know many parts of Canada where a very large percentage of the labour force is unemployed. Many people have given up looking for work because there is no hope of getting jobs. Because of the recession in the United States, there have been very serious lay-offs recently in the automobile industry and its related industries, in the forest product industry and the construction industry. When we talk about one million unemployed, it is difficult for people-including many of us-to comprehend the magnitude of the problem, the serious situation facing unemployed people.
Each unemployed person faces hardship. Each person drawing unemployment insurance benefits has had his income reduced by at least 40 per cent. According to Statistics Canada, the average unemployment insurance benefits received by people was $120 a week and their average earnings before going on unemployment insurance was approximately $200 a week. Given the high cost of living in Canada at this time, a reduction in income of 40 per cent or more is not something people accept very easily. When the unemployment insurance benefits run out, people are reduced to living on welfare at a level which is just a fraction of what they were accustomed to living on when they were working. Largely because we do not have full employment, we have hundreds of thousands and probably millions of people living in poverty.
In see the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) is present this evening. She has spoken frequently and much more eloquently than I about what it means for people to live in poverty. In a speech to the YMCA in May of 1977 she said:
-nearly two million children who live in families with incomes inadequate for their needs and for the 600,000 working families who spend two-thirds or more of their incomes to provide the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter .. . In 1977, the poorest 20 per cent of Canadian families received less than 6 per cent of total Canadian family income-
That is the situation. When I hear members on either side of the House implying that large numbers of people do not want to work and are happy to live on unemployment insurance or welfare, it is just not true, and certainly they should know better.
I want to come back to the bill we are discussing at the present time.


Mr. Epp:: Good.

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act


David Orlikow: 1 hear the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp). My remarks have been closer to the bill than those of most of his colleagues today.
I should like to indicate how far the present Liberal government has moved from its earliest commitment to aim for full employment at the time of the last major revision to this act in 1971, I should like to refer to a few sentences from the speech of the then minister of manpower and immigration, the present hon. member for Lincoln, when he introduced the bill on unemployment insurance in 1971. He said:
What we propose to do in the main, is to limit the cost of the plan, up to a particular threshhold which I will discuss in a moment, to the employer and the employee.
He went on to say:
-the employer and the employee both will be paying their share when unemployment in the country is under the level of 4 per cent.. . above which the state will contribute. But to that point, the employer and the employee will finance the plan.
Further on in his speech he said:
If the rate of unemployment happens to be 6 per cent, that will mean an injection into the economy by the government, through the unemployed people in this country, of approximately $200 million.
I think the rate of unemployment at that time was 6 per cent. He went on to say:
Since the figure of 4 per cent has attracted a good deal of attention, I imagine somebody is going to suggest that the government has determined 4 per cent to be an acceptable rate of unemployment in Canada. Well, it is not my criterion. Like everybody else, I believe the acceptable rate of unemployment is the least possible rate.
He continued by saying:
We have used the 4 per cent figure because 4 per cent, according to our computer estimates, triggers the government's contribution to the fund at a realistic level.
Now we have an unemployment rate which is twice what it was in 1971 when the hon. member for Lincoln was the minister. 1 did not hear much complaint on his part about the unacceptable high rate of unemployment at the present time as compared to 1971. When the member made the statements to which I have just referred, the rate of unemployment was substantially higher than 4 per cent, and it has grown steadily since then. Instead of devising an industrial strategy to remodernize our manufacturing industry so that more well-trained and educated young people can find work, instead of cutting taxes and reducing interest rates to increase the purchasing power of Canadians which would lead to more jobs, Liberal governments have again and again amended the Unemployment Insurance Act to remove people from the opportunity of collecting benefits, to make it more difficult to qualify and so on.


Mr. Benjamin:: Where was Mackasey when we needed him?


David Orlikow: Yes, where is he now when we need him? During the recent election campaign the New Democratic Party called for the introduction of a full employment bill which would set targets for reducing unemployment to 6 per cent by 1982 and to 4 per cent by 1984. We submit that this country cannot afford having over one million people unemployed. Because there is 8 per cent unemployment rather than the 4 per cent which was considered full employment some years ago, it has been estimated that we lose $5 billion a year in the production of goods and services. Because of that, federal tax revenues are $1 billion less than they should be, and we pay out $5 billion in unemployment insurance benefits.
What is the response of the government to this disaster? Government spending on job creation is to be reduced by $85 million, down from $281 million to $192 million. The job-creation programs announced so far by the government are as usual too little and too late. The job-creation programs that have been adopted have not been of a size to have any real effect on the economic system. The Canada Works program and the Young Canada Works program have been geared in an attempt to deal with the regional imbalance, so Quebec and the Atlantic provinces have received the lion's share of the fund. We do not complain about that because they have the largest number and the highest percentage of unemployed, but the jobs created there have essentially been of a short-term or temporary nature. They have been mainly in community improvement projects, necessary and useful, but they have not expanded the economic system to accommodate our growing labour force.
On both the Liberal and the Conservative sides we have seen a desire to push off the failure of our economy to provide the jobs which are required, first of all on those who are unemployed, and secondly on the employed, by putting more of the costs to pay for unemployment insurance benefits on the employer and the employee.
Historically unemployment insurance has been financed from two sources, first the premium account into which the employer-employee premiums are deposited, and secondly by advances from the Government of Canada.
When the government passed the major revisions to the Unemployment Insurance Act in 1971 it predicated the legislation on an average of 4 per cent unemployment throughout the decade. Benefit costs of unemployment insurance up to the rate of 4 per cent, as I have already indicated, were to be paid by employer-employee premiums, and the cost that resulted from a rate higher than 4 per cent was to be recovered from the Government of Canada. The act required that when premiums collected were higher than the benefits they were intended to cover, the premium rates would be lowered. Instead of this the government has increased premium rates over the years, changing the legislation and increasing premium costs to cover program costs which the government itself was originally supposed to cover.
Before 1 give a short summary of how the government has done this, I want to point out that the hon. member for Lincoln, who was the minister responsible for introducing the act in 1971, today defended the changes which have been made since 1971, the very changes which have perverted the intention of the act back in 1971.
June 19, 1980

Let me indicate how this was done. In 1971 the Unemployment Insurance Act was passed and unemployment was forecast at 4 per cent throughout the decade. Benefit costs up to 4 per cent were to be paid from premiums, and the government was to pay for benefits above that level in recognition of its responsibility to ensure adequate employment. I do not want to quote again from the then minister's speech, but that is exactly the argument he gave to show that the government would feel itself responsible for keeping the rate of unemployment to 4 per cent. Of course, that did not happen.
In 1975 we had Bill C-69. The rate at which government contributions helped to pay for initial benefits from 4 per cent up was changed to an eight-year moving average of unemployment rates.
In 1977 we had Bill C-27 which eliminated two extended benefit phases for which the government, not the premium payers, was previously responsible for payment, and in 1978 we had Bill C-14 which shifted the burden of the extended phase of benefits to premium payers from the government, at a cost to premium payers of $400 million, and the premiums were lowered because of greatly reduced benefits.
What was the effect of all those changes? When Bill C-14 was passed in December, 1978, under a Liberal government, government members touted it as a measure to save $580 million. In fact the saving was $180 million or less, and the other $400 million was merely a transfer of costs from the federal account to the premium account.
From the early 1970s on, when the government's contribution to unemployment insurance pay-outs was 53 per cent, the government's share declined to 38 per cent after the 1977 amendments, to something well below that after the 1978 amendments, and the intent of this legislation is to reduce it to less than 20 per cent. That is the only thing the hon. member for York North said with which I can agree. The government department responsible projects total unemployment insurance costs for 1981-82 at $5.2 billion. Government contributions are projected at only $951 million. We can see what has happened to the 50 per cent or more of the costs which the government paid a few years ago.
Incidentally, the short-lived Conservative government we had, proposed to do exactly the same thing in the 1979-80 session of Parliament. Under the provisions of the budget, which did not pass, but was presented in December, 1979, it was proposed that all benefits except regional extended benefits would be financed by employer-employee contributions, with the administrative costs of job referral and employment services also being financed by premiums, and premiums would be increased to cover the increased cost. The premium increase was rescinded on December 19, 1979, by the Conservatives when, of course, they were vulnerable to a voter backlash during the election campaign.
Why did both Liberal and Conservative governments act in the way they have acted? I suggest it is because they accepted as fact what I suggest is fiction, that many people are ripping off the system and unemployment insurance benefits are a
Unemployment Insurance Act
disincentive to work. We heard that tonight from some of the Conservative speakers.
Let me substantiate my claim that both Liberal and Conservative governments felt that way, and probably still feel that way, by quoting first from the then Liberal cabinet minister, and later from the then Conservative finance minister.
This is what the then minister of employment and immigration, the present member for Sarnia (Mr. Cullen), said in December, 1978. He said that the unemployment insurance scheme has changed from an insurance scheme to a welfare act which people are ripping off "by making unemployment a way of life". I do not believe there are many people who do that.
Then the minister of finance in the Conservative government said on December 11, 1979, during his budget speech, that federal government expenditures on unemployment insurance were going to bankrupt the country, and what was required was a government "committed to bringing greater financial integrity to the unemployment insurance program". I do not believe that for a moment. I do not believe the unemployment insurance system does not have integrity.
What is the intent of the bill we are now discussing? This bill would amend the Unemployment Insurance Act to extend until January, 1982, the existing variable entrance requirement for the unemployment insurance program; that is, the number of weeks a claimant must pay into unemployment insurance before he or she is eligible for benefits. The number of required weeks varies with the regional rate of unemployment, so that a worker in an area of high unemployment, over 9 per cent, could qualify for benefits with ten weeks' insurable employment, whereas a claimant who works in an area of relatively low unemployment, 6 per cent or less, must pay into unemployment insurance for 14 weeks. Some of the areas defined by unemployment insurance officials are so large there could be full employment in one city and major unemployment in another, so that people would not qualify for unemployment insurance benefits until they had their full 14 weeks employment because the area is classified as not having a high rate of unemployment.
One of the amendments made to the Unemployment Insurance Act in 1978 in Bill C-14 would have eliminated the variable entrance requirement by December, 1980, setting it at 14 weeks for all areas. There were many Conservative members who supported that bill, although a large number of them came from the Atlantic provinces which have a high percentage of people unemployed. In Bill C-27 which was passed in July, 1977, the entrance requirement was increased from eight weeks for all areas to the variable ten to 14-week rule. This extension of the variable entrance requirement was in response to protests that the 14-week requirement was highly discriminatory because it eliminated many workers from any income protection under the unemployment insurance program. Seasonal workers, whether employed in the tourist

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
industry of Prince Edward Island, fishing off the Atlantic coast or the Pacific coast or farming in any part of Canada, would have been cut off.
This bill would shift to the private sector the government's financial responsibilities of sharing unemployment insurance costs. Bill C-3 will take the government out of this cost sharing by eliminating the "threshold rate", an eight-year moving average of unemployment rates, above which the government pays the cost of benefits. This is expected to save the government $378 million in fiscal 1980-81. Of course, it will add exactly the same amount to the premiums paid by the employers and the employees. In other words, what the government takes away with the one hand it gains on the other hand.
Under the proposed amendments the government will continue to pay only for regional extended benefits. The initial and extended labour force phases of unemployment insurance will be paid entirely through employer-employee premiums. At present, all special benefit phases-sickness, maternity leave, etc.-are financed entirely through the premium account, as are all the administrative costs relating to the unemployment insurance program. As a result of an order in council announced by the present minister on April 3, 1980, the administrative cost to National Employment Service, estimated at $246 million this year, will also be a charge against premiums. Because they are a charge against premiums they will add to the cost of administering the program which, until now, was paid by the government.
I would like to make one more observation on this bill and how it affects a particular group of workers. I refer specifically to women. In the press release which the minister issued announcing Bill C-3, he noted that the government plans to introduce regulating changes that would change minimum insurability provisions so that instead of being required to work 20 hours a week, 15 hours a week, or 20 per cent of maximum earnings, would be the new basis of entitlement for part-time workers. He cited this as an improvement which would eliminate the criticism that the existing rule discriminates against women who make up 71 per cent of the part time labour force, although they make up 50 per cent of the total labour force.
This change is expected to take effect on January 1, 1981, and it is a step in the right direction. However, we would point out that other sections of the Unemployment Insurance Act have regulations which specifically discriminate against women, and they need to be changed-for example, the "magic ten" rule with respect to provisions for maternity benefits, and that adoptive mothers are ineligible to collect benefits.
While there are some very minor improvements in this bill, the whole direction of the bill is to continue the process by which since 1971 the Liberal government-and the Conservative government had the same intention when it was in office- and it would have followed through had it stayed in office- has whittled away at the Unemployment Insurance Act to get the government out of its responsibilities of ensuring that we have full employment in this country and that we give every Canadian who wants to work and opportunity to work for
decent wages, and to put the costs of the unemployment insurance program on those who are unemployed and on the employers and employees of this country. To the extent that they succeed the government will have less pressure and less of an obligation to adopt programs and devise plans which would put the unemployed of this country back to work, where they want to be. It is for that reason that we are so critical of this proposal and of many other proposals of this government.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, it is always great to follow an NDP member in one of these debates. I would like to start off by quoting a little poetry which goes:
They are so pure, so pure as can be,
For they are members of the NDP.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William James Kempling: Have hon. members ever wondered what happens to an NDP member when he either retires or is defeated? One of them became a director of Husky Oil. There was another member of the NDP who came here from the west coast and who was here for years. He was finally defeated. That former member ended up working as a stockbroker. He came back to this Parliament and padded up and down the halls trying to sell stocks to members. That same man stood in the House here and damned corporations and companies for years.
Another NDP member would stand in this House and cry for 6 per cent mortgages. That member sold his farm, and what did he do with the proceeds? He invested in 16 per cent second mortgages. The way things are going, I would expect that the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) will probably end up as director of the Canadian Pacific. That is where he is destined to go. We had the president of the Canadian Pacific before a committee of this House.


Mr. Parker:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have been waiting patiently to speak on this bill. I have some very important points that I would like to make on the Unemployment Insurance Act. The present speaker is taking up time which I would like to have.


An hon. Member:: Wait your turn.


William James Kempling: The hon. member can wait for his turn. When it comes, then he can put what he has to say on the record.
The day that the president of Canadian Pacific came before a committee of the House, I said to the hon. member for Regina West, "Hey, your buddy is here, the fellow you are always damning in the House. Why don't you come before the committee so you will have something else to do tonight?"


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I did, Bill.


William James Kempling: How do you spell NDP, Mr. Speaker? It is spelled "phony". There are some matters with regard to this bill that I would like to talk about. Members from all sides who have discussed this bill have brought forward some very

June 19, 1980

valid points, and I assume that the bill will go into committee where there will be some very good discussions.


David Orlikow: Not tonight.


William James Kempling: Not tonight, perhaps, but it will go into committee where, through the discussions there, it will be honed a little finer and eased where it is necessary. I would like to say a few words, not on precise parts of the bill or about the regulations, but about the attitude of the people who work in the unemployment insurance offices across this country. I had some experiences with them, but at least 1 have not had any complaints in the past few months. There have been some dehumanizing experiences, and I have to say that I believe things would not have happened this way if the people concerned had been directed differently. 1 do not believe they went into the job with the idea of dehumanizing other people who come to them for assistance. I believe it is due to some extent to direction, or to the fact that things are run so loosely so that someone who is a real hardliner is given a free rein. At one time things were so bad that I thought they must have a hit team that was sent from area to area.
I want to mention a few particular cases, Mr. Speaker. Regardless of what hon. members say in this House, or what the provinces say about labour practices, we all know that discrimination is practised against people over 50 years of age. Indeed, it is practised by this government. How many people over 50 years of age have been hired by the government recently? Very few. We all know that it goes in industry. It is against the law, but it is done. In the end, these people go to the unemployment insurance office to seek aid and assistance.
You have been in this House a long time, Mr. Speaker, so I am sure you have handled a lot of cases where women over 50 years of age cannot find a job and end up on unemployment insurance. I have dealt with a number of them in my constituency, and the way some of them have been treated is almost criminal.
There is the case of a 46-year old woman who had been the manager of a department store. She listed her qualifications as manager, buyer, clerk, accountant and supervisor, so she was a very talented person. The department store had closed down and she became unemployed. When she went to the unemployment insurance office to apply for assistance the clerk asked her what she could do. She said, "I have been the manager of a store, a buyer, a clerk, an accountant and supervisor. I can do almost anything in a retail operation." He asked, "What can you do?" She replied, "I have been a manager, a buyer, a clerk, an accountant and a supervisor. I can do almost anything in a retail operation." He said, "What sort of work can you do?" Mr. Speaker, she repeated that six times. Of course the object of the exercise was to get her to blow her stack, as they say-to become so emotional that she would walk out. He could then fill out a form showing that she had a bad attitude toward work. That actually happened, Mr. Speaker.
Unemployment Insurance Act
Then there was a case of a man who was 62 years of age. Try to get a 62-year old a job in this country! He had worked all his life with one employer but the firm was bought out and the new operation cut down and he was let go. He was a veteran and had been a prisoner of war in World War II. He had never applied for unemployment insurance. He was harassed and degraded so much that when he came to my office he was in tears. I was very annoyed about that.


An hon. Member:: That is private enterprise.


William James Kempling: It was the unemployment insurance office that was harassing him. I went to the office with him and they asked him what he could do other than the job he had been doing. He said he was also a photographer. We got him some work going around to real estate agents in the town and taking photographs of the houses they had for sale. We tried to get the unemployment insurance to make a partial payment to him because he was not making enough money at this photography, but they would not do it. The man was almost inconsolable. He said, "What have I done but	work all	my life? I have giveneverything I have to my country,	and	this is the way I	end
up?"
The next case is a rather delicate one and I shall skip around the edges of it. A talented young lady had held an administrative job in the $20,000 per year bracket with an American company that decided to move back to the United States. They wanted her to go with them	but	she	could not because	shecould not get a work permit	for	the	United States, so	she
applied for unemployment insurance. As she was single, talented, and wanted a job in the same income bracket, she went to London, to Niagara Falls, to St. Catharines, and to Kitchener, looking for work. She was a rather attractive looking girl. The people at the unemployment insurance office suggested to her that she was a prostitute, and that if she did not do so much hustling she might be available for work. Can you imagine that sort of thing happening? It did. Ultimately, through her own efforts she secured a very good job at a higher salary. They had been giving her a rough time because she would not take a job as a waitress or a gas pump jockey in a service station.
I think these cases illustrate that the management of the UIC must be very careful about the people they hire. If they find they have such attitudes, then they should get rid of them. There is no excuse for dehumanizing people. We cannot tolerate that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William James Kempling: Another man came to me who had gone to the unemployment insurance office to look at the job listings. He had driven a school bus for seven years, and prior to that was a driver-mechanic in the Canadian Armed Forces. There was a job listed for a transport driver. He had an interview with one of the clerks, and because he did not answer a question the right way the clerk-who could not drive a truck, incidentally-said, "I could not recommend you for the job." The job was available and the man had the talents, but the

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
clerk would not recommend him for it and would not give him the name of the employer. This man went through the yellow pages of the telephone book and placed call after call until he eventually found where the job was. He got it on his own.
Then there was another man who was a stationary engineer by trade but he was getting on in years. He had been only a short time with an employer when he became ill and was obliged to spend some time in hospital. When he recovered he wanted to get to work. He was desperate because he is the type of person who just has to work. In the UIC office he saw a listing for a dishwasher. He said he would take anything- would even wash dishes. The clerk asked, "Do you have any experience?" He said, "I have been married for 40 years." The clerk said, "That does not give you any experience, and I cannot give you that job."
I hear the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) saying that men do not wash dishes, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. Member:: Sexist.


William James Kempling: This man also went through the yellow pages and called all the restaurants until he found the one that wanted a dishwasher. He got the job.
Another difficulty concerns the computer, Mr. Speaker. Whatever goes wrong in UIC is the fault of the computer. If everyone gets an overpayment, it is the fault of the computer. If anybody gets a nasty letter, it is the fault of the computer.
Here is a case of a lady who left her employer because she had a disagreement with him. It is her right. She left and applied for unemployment insurance. The unemployment insurance office replied by telling her that she should not have left her job and that it would cost her a certain penalty of so many weeks before she could become eligible for unemployment insurance. She told them that she understood that. In the meantime she went out to look for a job. She was a reasonably aggressive girl and in the matter of a few days she found a job. After this she began to get wads of paper from unemployment insurance. She called the person who signed the paper but she could not get whoever it was on the phone. However, she told them that she did not want them to send her any more of these papers because she had a job and did not need unemployment insurance. She told them that they had not sent her any money and she did not need any money. She also told them not to send her any more paper. This whole series of events is amazing.
First, she received a piece of paper telling her that she should not have left her job and because she left she would not get certain benefits. Then she received another piece of paper which told her that her occupation was a general office clerk and that it was determined she must make a minimum of 15 contacts per week to be considered eligible for unemployment insurance benefits. Next she was sent a letter that told her that she would have to pay back the money she did not get. Each time the lady received one of these papers, she called the office and told them that she had not received any money. She told
them that they had not sent her any money and how could she send money back that she had not received. Next she was sent a letter saying that because she failed to appear on July 24 at 10.45 a.m. her benefits would be suspended. Again she told them that she had not received any and asked them how they could be suspended. On and on it went until finally the phone calls and the cards got to the point where they caught up with each other and the harassment ceased. Of course all of this was all blamed on the computer.
I think probably the most famous case that we had concerned a man who had three unemployment insurance files. Imagine the frustration. He would call the unemployment insurance office and tell them that he had not received any benefits. They told him to wait while someone got his file. Someone then grabbed his file and he was told that it showed he was not entitled to benefits. The man would then tell the unemployment insurance office that he had been unemployed for such and such a time, that he had paid into the fund for a certain length of time, that he was an architect and he was looking for work, etc. The unemployment office would tell him that they would check into it and advise him later.
The architect would call back and this time file number two would be drawn. File number two showed that he owed them money. First, the man had not received any money, yet he owed the unemployment insurance money.
Believe it or not, there was file number three which said that he was entitled to benefits but that there was a mix-up in the computer and it was hoped that it would all be clear by the fifteenth of the following month. Finally I went in and raised a little Cain, and an investigation was called. As a result, three files for this fellow appeared on the manager's desk.
These are things which happen within the bureaucracy. The point I am getting at, and the message I want to convey to the minister is this: the attitudes of some of the employees should be looked into, and in this connection I think one has to start at the top. By starting at the top one can see where this direction comes from. It is either direction or lack of direction. Either the people are being directed to harass and there is a hit team, or the system is being run so loosely that these people can do as they please.
A lot of the criticisms of the Unemployment Insurance Commission is the result of a few hundred people in some urban areas across Canada. They are the ones who have created the greatest amount of criticism for the Unemployment Insurance Commission in Canada. We all hear about those who abuse the system.
I would be naive if I said there was no abuse of the system. I also believe that these abuses are small in number compared to the total number of claimants. When people come to me about abuses of the system, I always ask them to give me an example or a name. They all know of several who abuse the system, but they can never come up with a name. The answer is usually that they have heard it from somebody else who heard it from somebody else. We all know there is abuse. But I think the numbers generally across the country, especially when one takes the whole thing into consideration, are relatively small.

June 19, 1980

I will close by telling hon. members how I treat people who come to my office with unemployment insurance problems. I have never had any difficulty in this procedure. I tell them that if they are legitimately entitled to unemployment insurance, then I will see that they get it. 1 tell them that 1 will do everything that I can. I tell them that if they are entitled under the act, under the regulations, to get unemployment insurance, and they are genuinely unemployed and trying to get job, I will help them. That is the purpose of unemployment insurance. Elowever, 1 tell them that if they are trying to fiddle the system that I am not their man. 1 have followed that procedure for eight years and 1 have never had any difficulty. I have never yet had anyone who has come in to see me say that they did not like that attitude. They all agree and tell me that no one should fiddle system. If we all take that attitude I think we could help the administration along.
I just want to leave those few thoughts with hon. members. I think there is a job to be done inside the commission as well as to look at the act, the statute and the regulations. Attitudes today are most important. Attitudes toward people who are past 45 or 50 years of age-in that age bracket-are very important. They are very sensitive. Most of them have not been unemployed before. They are embarrassed and feel out of place before a younger person when they come into the office asking for advice, assistance and help. Somewhere along the line we have to get a little more humanity and humility back into this operation.


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-3. As we all know, unemployment insurance provides financial assistance to workers during periods of temporary unemployment. Temporary unemployment may be due to a lack of jobs or it may be due to seasonal variations in employment. That, I think, is also due to the size of the country and the types of regions in which we live.
One must never forget that we need such a program. We have to protect the individuals who are looking for employment. Tonight I would like to talk about some of the discontent that I feel about the unemployment insurance program. In particular, I am disappointed in two aspects of the program that have been brought forth to date under the Unemployment Insurance Act. One would be the use of the money that has been saved in the past from unemployment insurance amendments, and also the money which will be saved with this bill in the financing of the premiums.
It seems to me that there should be a return of this money for more job creation. Areas such as my own which will be affected by this bill have been affected in the past. They are not seeing job creations and are not seeing year-round jobs created. I must say that 1 am discontent with the money and where it is going. I am concerned there is not more job creation.
The second aspect is that there does not seem to be any solution to the harshness of the unemployment insurance rates that are applied to the various unemployment insurance regions or economic regions used by manpower offices. The
Unemployment Insurance Act
unemployment insurance regions are those used by the employer, but they are based on the economic regions as derived from Statistics Canada. In the course of my remarks tonight, I will discuss some of these injustices, or the harshness that I feel is incorporated and being continued by the present system of unemployment insurance and this bill in terms of the use of economic regions.
M0)
I would first like to deal with the extension of the variable entrance requirement of ten to 14 weeks beyond December of this year. The variable entrance requirement was used in the past for three reasons. The first was the establishment of benefits. Whether you are entitled to receive benefits depends on the variable entrance requirement in a given area. It is related to the economic regions and the unemployment rate that that manpower office must deal with in the area.
It is also used for the extended benefit period. The last reason is in the former amendments for repeaters in the program. I feel that this area has been the most harsh. In my view, this variable entrance requirement implied a fictional unemployment insurance rate in some areas of Canada. The minister is well aware of my concerns in the use of these statistics and the consequence it has had.
The amendment before us tonight will allow for the continuation of the variable entrance requirement from ten to 14 weeks, at least from December, 1980, to June, 1982, coincidentally the 18 months while the study is being carried out. In other words, if we do not pass this as of January, everyone across Canada will be required to have 14 weeks for a variable entrance requirement in order to receive benefits.
There are pros and cons to that. There are areas of this country that need the variable entrance requirement. However, it is most unjust for one area in proximity to another area to not be included in the same entrance requirement. This is what happened in Nova Scotia. There, all of Cape Breton and most of mainland Nova Scotia have an unemployment rate, yet in the southern end of Nova Scotia there is a different unemployment insurance rate based on an economic region UI rate. They are penalized for being in another area, an economic region that includes Lunenburg, which has a very good economic base.
I wish to continue on with this variable entrance requirement. I do not say that it should not be extended. I just say that when talking about the variable entrance requirement, we must remember that it is not uniform across Canada. In other words, it is variable. 1 will now deal with the harshness of that application.
For example, two unemployment insurance regions in Nova Scotia, that of Annapolis and Digby, would correspond to the economic regions used by Statistics Canada. I believe they are economic regions four and five. Digby includes Digby county, as well as the counties of Yarmouth, Shelburne, Queens and Lunenburg. The Annapolis area includes Annapolis, Kings and probably Hants. Manpower use two unemployment insurance regions. In Annapolis the averaged unemployment insurance

June 19, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
rate from August, 1978, to July, 1979, was 11. In the unemployment insurance region of Digby it was 8.4. Therefore there was a variable entrance requirement in order to receive benefits in Annapolis of ten and in Digby of 11. Looking at the regional extended benefit entitlement, you have 28 weeks in Annapolis and 18 in Digby. With regard to the repeaters provision, there was no exemption because the unemployment rate was not high enough in those areas to exclude the repeater provisions.
The Digby rate is heavily influenced by the Lunenburg area where unemployment is far less than in other counties in that economic or unemployment insurance region and the population is greater there than in other counties. I am sure the wages are also greater there. One must look beyond that unemployment insurance or economic region to the other regions. The commission should begin to take that into consideration.
In 1977 or 1978 the Yarmouth manpower office had approximately 12 per cent of the pay-outs for UI benefit in Nova Scotia, yet it is penalized by an unemployment insurance rate. When analysing statistics, we must look at the other side as well, namely, the labour surplus rate in the unemployment insurance region of Annapolis and that of Digby. The labour surplus rate is derived from the number of unemployment insurance beneficiaries as a proportion of the labour force in a given unemployment insurance or economic region.
In the August, 1978, to July, 1979, period, the labour surplus rate in South West Nova was 14.3 per cent. Compare that to the economic or unemployment insurance region of that area of 12.8 per cent, or the Annapolis unemployment insurance or economic region which was 11.8 per cent. The variable entrance requirement for Yarmouth or South West Nova was related to the unemployment insurance rate in the economic or unemployment area, not to the labour surplus rate. It would be distorting that figure because that economic region is heavily weighted because the Lunenburg area, as I said, is much better off.
1 now wish to deal with the concerns I have in terms of application of the variable entrance requirement. The manpower offices are using statistics that are at least three months old. A unique problem develops. In December the unemployment insurance rate would be based on the variable entrance requirement for that area in September. In other words, the peak employment period in September is used in December. The statistics are three months old.
We then get to the other side. In May there may be a variable entrance requirement of ten weeks because the January unemployment rate, a high rate, is being used. Therefore someone in May now needs ten weeks in order to qualify for unemployment insurance. Using the September rate in December, when there is full employment in that area, a person needs 13 weeks in order to qualify under the variable entrance requirements in December. I am not talking about repeater provisions and extended benefits periods. This is only to qualify for unemployment insurance in the month of December.
Last year in the southern end of the province, Yarmouth in particular, manpower offices had to bring in additional help in order to implement the new variable entrance requirements along with the repeater provisions because where they had been able to settle on a set variable entrance requirement the year before, they now have repeater provisions depending upon the change in each month that could change depending on how many weeks they had received unemployment in the last qualifying period. So you had the unique position that in the month of October the unemployment insurance rate changed, the variable entrance requirement changed, and it went up to 17 weeks.
In the month of November a person had to have 18 weeks, and in the month of December it went up to 19 weeks. But what happened? You have the person who goes into the manpower office comes the middle of November, and he is told: "We will look at your claim." At the time he goes into the office, he needs maybe 17 weeks to qualify for benefits. However, he comes back in three weeks time and it is the turn of the month and he now needs 18 weeks. So then he goes through the whole process of putting in a claim again, only to find that if there has been a slow-up in the manpower office he is going to need 19 weeks. It is all good and well where you have a set unemployment rate in an area over a given year, but when the unemployment rate changes and the variable entrance requirement changes you get the harshness of this application. I think the commission should be looking at this harshness, and this brings me to my third criticism of the variable entrance requirement.
Before getting into the third criticism, I would like to reiterate that in order even to process the claim at the manpower office, it took four times the time to process a claim over the year before, and they had to bring in additional manpower from the Sydney area and the Antigonish area where they did not have that problem.
But let us look at the individual. Sometimes, with legislation, the individual is forgotten. When I say "he" I mean "he" or "she" because in this case it was mainly the women who were being hurt the most. But there is harshness to the individual. At this time of the year, he or she should know how many weeks he or she has got to work in order to qualify. People should not, in the month of December, have to go out looking for an additional week when there is no fish, when there are no jobs and there is no tourist season at that time of year. So, what we are doing to them, they come in and officials say, "Go out and find another week." Where do they find it?
Another thing is that the employer, in order to keep that labour force in the area, should know how many weeks he will have to create employment. I refer to the idea that Canada is a seasonal type of place and there is seasonality in the creation of jobs. IThis implementation has hurt the idea that the individual does not know today how many weeks he is going to need in order to qualify come the month of November or December. There is another aspect of it. Neither does the
June 19, 1980

employer, and the hustle and bustle of trying to find that additional week when a person is going to be without money for the next two months are very hard.
There is also the harshness to the community because the municipality then has to bring in assistance to the families of those people who are not qualifying for unemployment insurance, and then the social assistance program comes in which we, as the federal government, cost-share 50 per cent under the Canada Assistance Plan. So one way or another we have to pay the cost of the individual not being able to qualify for unemployment insurance. These are some of the aspects which I feel under the variable entrance requirement should be looked at in committee in connection with this bill, by which we are extending the process for another 18 months.
I just want to quickly talk about the financial aspect. The government still plans to continue the full cost of regional extended benefits. What they are doing in this bill is allowing the private sector, through premium contributions, to pay for the initial regular and labour force extended phases of the program. In other words, those two areas will be self-financing. That is fine. That is very good. But the saving, we are told, effective July 1, 1980, in government expenditures will be reduced by some $378 million for the balance of the current fiscal year. If you took a whole year from July to July it would come to practically $500 million. I should like to say to you, Mr. Speaker, where is that half a billion dollars going? Is it going to create more jobs? Is it going to add some money so that true statistics may be obtained in certain areas? I have not been told. I should like to know where that saving is going. I should like to see it go into job creation and reduce the unemployment rate. Again, I am looking forward to the committee and a study of this bill to see just what those savings are going into.
I should like to comment on a couple of other areas in the minister's speech yesterday. He told us he would be establishing a task force which will study the unemployment insurance program over the next 18 months. I welcome that announcement. I worked quite diligently for four and a half years trying to get new ideas accepted with regard to the application of the Unemployment Insurance Act. I would hope there is to be some consultation with Parliament on the direction of that task force. The hon. gentleman has not said where the people would come from or who will be involved in the work of this task force. I hope it will not be just people within the department or within the commission who will be reviewing the principles and objectives of the program because, if that is the case, and if we look at what they have given us in the past, we shall not have very much left of the unemployment insurance program. The fact that this program was created to eliminate the difficulties people experience when they are unemployed across Canada must be the top concern of any task force. So my question to the minister and to the members of this task force or study group, whoever they are going to be is: what are you going to look at?
The minister outlined some guidelines but it seems to me those were not the only guidelines. It is the application of the
Business of the House
unemployment insurance program, it is how does it apply in South West Nova as it does in downtown Toronto-how do we look at who the recipient or the beneficiary will be, why does one area of Nova Scotia have a different qualifying period or a different variable entrance requirement from another when people are the same, they basically earn the same living from the same process-it is either farming or fishing or forestry in the southern end.
1 look forward to the task force but I do not look forward to it if it is not a truly consultative group which will incorporate parliamentary concerns with the ideas before they bring forth any new legislation.
The last thing I should like to speak about, and I shall not be too long, is the change from the 20 hours of the part-time worker, or 30 per cent of maximum insurable earnings in order to qualify for a stamp. This has truly hurt the women in particular who make up the greater number of those in part-time employment. The minister mentioned yesterday that one in every four women is a part-time worker whereas the figure for men is one in every 17, if I am not mistaken. I am open to correction on that. In order to qualify for a stamp, last year the change was 20 hours a week minimum for employees on time worked or fixed salary basis, or 30 per cent of maximum insurable earnings for others. I am glad the minister is able, under the regulations, to change this, but had people on the Unemployment Insurance Commission listened to some of us members at the time of this change, it might not have to be changed again.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Stanley Howard Knowles: My friend and I wish to ask the same question. The question on both our minds is about tomorrow. There have been some discussions and the order of business has been altered. Can the government House leader tell us what it will be?
[Translation\


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I acceded to the request made by opposition members who were not ready to proceed tomorrow with Bill C-5. Consequently, we will proceed with Bills C-35, C-22, C-13, S-6 in that order and then we will go on to consideration of items on the order paper in the order they are entered.

June 19, 1980
Adjournment Debate



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I asked a question in the House of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) on May 1 regarding the Hamilton airport and the activities in the future of Nordair and Air Canada. I think it would be appropriate for me to recount briefly what has happened in this area in the last few years.
For more than ten years the expansion of the Mount Hope airport has been discussed by the people of Hamilton and the people in the area beyond that city which could reasonably be serviced by a scheduled airline. The Chamber of Commerce formed an airport committee, as did civic authorities, and several other interested groups joined them. In 1973 the federal government set aside some $10 million for land acquisition. There followed a series of studies costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars on this area. It seems to me there have been about two studies a year for the last nine years. I believe they have studied every tadpole, garter snake and groundhog from Copetown to Tapleytown, and back again, and now we are told there will be some more studies.
I think it would be appropriate if I put on the record the Hansard for May 10, 1978, where the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain of the day, the Liberal member, Gus MacFarlane, asked the following question:
Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Transport. Early in the year he committed the government to the support and development of the airport at Hamilton. At this time, can he give the House any kind of time-frame as to what is occurring there, particularly with regard to runway 06 which seems to be in all the plans; and is anything being done that will prevent the costly diversion of Nordair aircraft to Toronto which seems to occur on a daily basis?
Here is the reply from the Hon. Otto Lang who was then minister of transport. He said:
Mr. Speaker, 1 believe that runway, in fact, is one which has been identified as being a clear part of the development plant at Hamilton, and accordingly we will be moving forward immediately with improvements to the landing system. I can assure the hon. member that in Toronto not long ago, 1 stated that in my view the Mount Hope airport stands in a really good position to help with the overload that we see at different times at Malton. 1 will certainly try to sec that my officials move forward as rapidly as possible with the Hamilton development plans, and, indeed, encourage additional flights by regularly scheduled airlines through Hamilton.
That was in 1978, two years ago almost to the day.
My colleague, the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth (Mr. Scott), asked the Minister of Transport a question on April 28. In his reply the minister said:
Yes, Madam Speaker, I was about to mention that there is another aspect of very great importance, namely, the servicing of that airport by Air Canada. There are a number of negotiations to take place in that connection because it
would be rather useful to have the assurance of regular service if the airport is to be expanded.
Then, in my question on May 1 I asked the minister a supplementary question as follows:
-Air Canada opened an office in downtown Hamilton a few months ago, and a senior official at that opening said Air Canada would be offering a service out of Hamilton once the new airport facilities were arranged at Mount Hope.
I wanted to know what was going to happen to Nordair because, in his reply, the minister said that they really have to do these studies to know what traffic there is before Air Canada could make a decision. Mr. Speaker, I ask you, who is kidding whom? Air Canada controls all the share stock of Nordair; we know that. Is the minister saying that Air Canada has to do more studies now to decide whether there is enough traffic out of Hamilton for Air Canada to put flights in there? Surely to goodness they know from their connection with Nordair what is going on in that airport. I know they know what is going on.
The thing which concerns me is that in 1978 the government purchased Nordair through Air Canada. At the time of the purchase they said that they would sell it within one year. They have not done that. 1 believe it is the purpose of Air Canada and the government to try to run the share stock of Nordair down. If they can dwindle the service away to the point that the shares are worth nothing, it will be just blended into Air Canada and there will be no more Nordair. That was not the purpose of the purchase of Nordair. I think the government should come clean and tell us exactly what its plans are.


Mr. Robert Bockstael (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, on May 1 the hon. member for Burlington (Mr. Kempling) raised the matter of possible air service by Air Canada out of Hamilton should new airport facilities be put in place at Mount Hope. The hon. member went on to ask "what effect this"-and presumably he meant the possible future service of Air Canada-"will have on Nordair." He asked what effect it will have on the purchase offers which have been tendered to the government for Nordair shares held by Air Canada on behalf of the government. The Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) replied that the matter would have no effect at all on Nordair, that this is entirely a different question, and that Nordair would continue to operate out of Hamilton.
The provision of air service at Hamilton by Air Canada is very much in the future. Should Air Canada in fact enter into such service, I am advised that in all probability these services would be in the nature of charters to southern points and perhaps service to western Canada. In short, should Air Canada introduce air service to Hamilton, this service would not be in competition with Nordair.
During the course of the last several weeks the minister met with several of the prospective purchasers of Nordair. At these meetings none of the interested parties made mention of the future presence of Air Canada in Hamilton. In view of the fact
June 19, 1980

these interested parties are astute businessmen, one can readily draw the conclusion that Nordair and Air Canada services from Hamilton are not related.


William James Kempling: Oh.


Robert Theodore Bockstael: The sale of the shareholding of Air Canada in Nordair is a matter now under consideration by the minister. This disposition question is a complicated one, but it is hoped a solution will be found soon. However, it is clear the presence of Air Canada in Hamilton, whenever that may occur, will not have any effect on the proposals now before the minister, nor on any course of action the minister may choose to follow in the matter of disposing of Nordair Ltd.


FISHERIES-CLOSING OF FRASER RIVER, B.C. FISHERY-REQUEST FOR TABLING TERMS OF REFERENCE
Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Speaker, as I rise in my place this evening to express my concern for the British Columbia salmon fisheries, the fisheries in general, and the gillnetters in the Fraser River in particular, I should like to take this opportunity to welcome the parliamentary secretary back from the west coast. He complained to me a little earlier that he felt a little red-eyed, that it was a long trip. I should like to tell him that some of us do it every weekend. So, while we are compassionate, we do not have any particular compassion for him at this moment.
1 think he can probably emphasize and underline the fact that it is not inaccurate to say that the salmon industry is probably experiencing its worst year in the last 25. I think he has ample evidence of that. Anyway, I should like to suggest to him that of all the people in the industry, probably among the most distressed, depressed and even oppressed, are the gillnetters in the Fraser River. Last year by this time they had more than 17 openings and had captured something like their average for the last four or five years, 15,000 fish, out of the early run. This year when the river was slammed shut in their faces, because of insufficient escapement of stocks, they caught some 2,600 fish.
That is a very serious matter for these people. They have bills to pay. They are last in line, and because of bad management practice, in order to ensure escapement they just had the door closed and they had no way to recover the amount of money they were expecting in order to discharge their responsibilities as heads of households and to pay off their capital debts in terms of equipment.
The recent closure of the Fraser River was bad enough in terms of the Chinook or spring fishermen, but in addition the river's inlet has been closed. Many of those gillnetters would have moved, but the river's inlet has been closed at least temporarily, and perhaps even permanently, so that option of moving in order to recover income is not available to them.
This is a brand new policy in respect of the fisheries. I do not know how we can really argue with it, except perhaps to
Adjournment Debate
express our concern for those people who have been disadvantaged. The new policy seems to be, let the escapement in first and then do the fishing. It seems to be to let the required number of fish escape to the spawning grounds and then do the Fishing. That policy seems intelligent, but it creates a great hardship.
The same thing is occurring on the Nass River. While the Nass River is not usually available to gillnetters, because they do not move there from the Fraser, that is a new policy which will cause some upset, at least initially.
There must be something very wrong with fisheries management on the west coast. As a former investigator under the licensing program, Sol Sinclair, said, we are in the midst of a dissipation of resource rent because of overcapitalization. What that means in English is that because of the necessity to provide better and more efficient gear we are spending more money than the resource is providing. We have too much expensive gear chasing too few fish.
A prime example of a very good fishery is that of Barkley Sound, but I heard today that vessels costing over $100,000 each are catching 30 and 40 fish a day. That is a serious matter; it is not something you can laugh off.
We are spending millions on fisheries management. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans' blue book budget account this year, not all spent on salmon 1 hasten to add, is something like $366 million. What is the purpose of this great expenditure? What is the purpose of ten floors of fisheries offices in Vancouver? The purpose is to ensure, if not an increased escapement, a stock of fish on the west coast for our people to harvest. There is an attempt to justify this expenditure on the basis of preserving what we now have, but we are not doing that and that is why everybody is particularly alarmed.
We now have bays being leased to fish farmers farming salmon. We have killed off our wild stocks and we have spent millions on salmon enhancement; we have done all kinds of good things, yet the stocks are declining. We have 3,000 people working in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans with an annual budget of $366 million, and our resource is declining. Something has to be wrong. 1 do not see how we can justify this. What are we spending this money for? This expenditure is not succeeding in terms of improving the salmon stock.
Let me give you some figures from the department's own records. These figures relate to the early runs of Chinook in the Fraser, which usually end about the end of July. In 1954 there were 44,000 caught; in 1964 there were 36,000 caught; and in 1974 there were 15,000 caught. That was the average for the last five years. This year there were 2,600 caught. Something has to be wrong. What has happened, and who knows? Perhaps it is the result of the interruption or interception by the Americans, except that they are not fishing this year so we cannot blame the Americans. Perhaps we might have blamed them in years gone by, but not for this year. Perhaps it is the result of pollution from the pulp mills or from the sewage dumped into the river by the city of Kamloops, or other cities dumping sewage into the Fraser. That is perhaps true. Perhaps

Adjournment Debate
it is the result of unsupervised, illegal fishing, or overfishing by the Indian food fishery. These are all excuses. The fact is that lots of people have various ideas.
Let me read from a letter I recently received. To protect the author, I will keep his name anonymous. Tie wrote:
The number of fishery officers is at about the same level as 1947 despite the massive growth of the west coast fishing industry. The equipment these front-line guardians must use to patrol the entire west coast is often out of service, because of age, or simply too outdated to be practical for modern policing. As a result there is quite a bit of poaching along the coast by a minority of fishermen.
Over the years there have been a couple of reports produced which outline the problems resulting from shortages, but they have been either ignored or suppressed. They say that poaching is a crime, but at the moment there is no way these people can possibly manage to protect our resources simply because they are so few. The Conservative candidate who ran against me-unsuccessfully, 1 am pleased to say-said that unless we protect the habitat from illegal fishing, there is no way-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.


Mr. George Henderson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, commercial gillnet catch data for the Fraser River indicated that the number of Chinook salmon returning to the river this spring is well below average. The cumulative catch to May 27 was only 55 per cent of the 1975 to 1979 average for the same period. Despite the closure this season of the United States fishery off Point Roberts and in the San Juan Islands, which targets mainly on Fraser bound chinook, there was no increase in fish entering the river. Immediately prior to the closure of the Fraser River gillnet fishery, commercial nets were producing 1.5 fish per boat, which amounts to 50 per cent of expectations. During the period April 21 to May 27, eight days of fishing were permitted as compared to ten days in an equivalent period in 1979.
We are not aware of any specific request to reopen the Fraser on two subsequent Mondays although numerous
suggestions from fishermen were heard at meetings held with them. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans closure is in effect until June 22 at which time the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission assumes management of convention waters including the Fraser River. Fishermen are aware that unless the chinook test fishery indicates a substantial increase in stock abundance, there can be no further openings for chinook fishing.
In addition to the closure to chinook gillnet fishing, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has closed the Fraser and adjacent waters to chinook sport fishing until further notice. While there are still coastal areas that will remain open to commercial and sport chinook Fishing, these fish are generally of a different age composition and to some degree of different origin, including United States streams and hatcheries. However, the approach waters of Johnstone Strait and Juan de Fuca Strait where Fraser River bound chinook can be intercepted, are closed and will remain closed until July 13 to commercial net fishing. In these ways, fishermen other than Fraser River gillnet fishermen are contributing to chinook conservation.
On the matter of compensation, the current Fraser closure differs considerably from the commercial fishing closure for Atlantic salmon which was for a period of five years and which was subsequently extended through 1980.
The Fraser situation is a short-term problem. That is, it is an in-season closure that is typical of salmon fisheries throughout the Pacific region. More than 80 per cent of the Fraser gill-net fishermen will, if the usual fishing pattern is followed, fish in other areas of the coast during the course of the salmon season. It is recognized, however, that this closure will cause some short-term economic hardship, but the Fraser gillnetter is not the sole bearer of the conservation burden.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. gentleman. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.19 p.m.


END OF VOLUME II