1980-06-26

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, most hon. members no doubt recall the announcement by the Hon. Don Jamieson a couple of years ago of the biggest expulsion of Soviet spies in the most significant espionage case revealed since the Igor Gouzenko affair after the war.
What most hon. members do not know is that the key figure involved, an RCMP agent, has been refused the right to have his own independent counsel, with no expense to himself, when testifying about matters which he considers important before the McDonald commission. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Jelinek):
That the Solicitor General arrange immediately to provide Corporal James Wood with counsel of his choice in the same way as ministers of the Crown or, for example, the RCMP agent Warren Hart, were provided with counsel paid for by the government.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. On Friday, June 20, 1980, at Toronto international airport, a spill of radioactive uranium dust was found in the hold of Air Canada flight 108 from Saskatoon, which was carrying 118 passengers. The dust was being shipped to France by Amok Limited of Saskatoon, a French-owned mining company.
In view of the enviable safety record of our airline, and in order to avert the possibility of future disasters such as that
which occurred at Mississauga, Ontario, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie):
That a complete inspection system of containers carrying hazardous goods such as radioactive material, toxic isotopes, etc., be implemented immediately.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Given the fact that the United States Senate has passed a bill requiring 80 oil-fired power plants in the northeastern United States to convert to coal, and given the fact that the United States Senate has refused to ensure that these power plants will reduce or at least maintain current levels of acid rain-causing emissions, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. Rose):
That the Canadian government send the strongest diplomatic protest possible to the Carter Administration stating that this move, without tough environmental controls limiting the amount of acid rain-causing emissions, is an unprecedented threat to the total Canadian environment and is completely and totally unacceptable to this country.


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. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I seek the unanimous consent of the House to present a motion of urgent and pressing necessity.

June 26, 1980
5.0.	43
In view of the danger that the invasion of Thailand by Vietnamese forces operating out of Kampuchea could all too easily escalate into a major regional conflict, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That this House express its outrage at the Vietnamese invasion of an independent neighbour, Thailand, inflicting heavy loss of life on the refugees being sheltered in that country, condemns the Soviet Union for its continued support of the Vietnamese forces in Kampuchea, and urges the Secretary of State for External Affairs to convey Canada's deep concern to the ministers gathering in Malaysia for the ASEAN meeting later this week.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
[Stage Direction]
5.0.	43
Mr.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, I also rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity in connection with a proposal for which there may be a favourable attitude in this House, it has to do with the decision made yesterday by the United States Senate approving a bill requiring 80 power plants in the northeastern United States to shift from oil to coal, with the resulting considerable increase in acid rainfall. I move, therefore, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That the Minister of State for the Environment renew his efforts in putting pressure on the U.S. government so as to prevent the implementation of this project which will seriously damage the environment north and south of the border.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NORTHERN PIPELINES
Mr. Bill Yurko (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, Canada is importing $3 billion to $4 billion worth of oil and $1 billion worth of coal per year. Canada's unemployment rate is rising rapidly, and its balance of payments is rapidly deteriorating.
The pre-build section of the Alaska highway gas pipeline will provide 150,000 man-years of employment, a favourable balance of payments of $1 billion per year, and investment in
Canada of $1.6 billion with $360 million in Ontario and Quebec. Therefore, under Standing Order 43, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hastings-Frontenac (Mr. Vankoughnet):
That the federal government immediately approve all Canadian aspects of the pre-build Alaska highway gas pipeline while concurrently continuing negotiations with Ihe United States of America for guarantees in regard to construction of the northern and Alaska sections of the gas line.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HISTORIC SITES
Mr. G. M. Gurbin (Bruce-Grey):: Madam Speaker, 1 rise pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43. If Canadians are to understand and take pride in our country, we must learn to preserve and honour our history and the spirit that made this land.
In view of the fact that the historic sites branch of Parks Canada has postponed any decision about what is to become of the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker's home in Rockcliffe or whether or not to give official recognition to his birthplace in Neustadt, Ontario, and given the fact that as each day passes the possibility of saving these homes for future generations becomes more remote. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon):
That this House instructs the Minister of the Environment: (l) to take immediate action on establishing both the Diefenbaker birthplace in Neustadt and his residence in Ottawa as national historic sites; and (2) to have a statue of the late Prime Minister commissioned and erected upon Parliament Hill.


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. Bob Ogle (Saskatoon East):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Yesterday, the Associated Press carried a story on the statement by a group of 40 catholic priests in El Salvador documenting the massacre there in May of 600 peasants by
June 26, 1980

Salvadoran troops and members of a far right paramilitary organization. About the same time, some of us in this House were being briefed by a delegation from the Guatemalan Democratic Front Against Repression about gross violations of human rights in their country.
In view of the extreme violence and repression which has become a fact of daily life in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the urgent representations of the Guatemalan Democratic Front to members of this House, and taking into account the hopeful revolution in Nicaragua against this spiral of violence, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie):
That the Government of Canada give serious consideration to establishing a parliamentary fact-finding mission to go to Central America in the near future to investigate conditions there first-hand, so that the report of such a group can provide a better basis for reviewing and renewing our aid and other bilateral relations with the countries of this region.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jim Schroder (Guelph):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of an article in today's Ottawa Citizen which indicates that the herbicide 2, 4-D may pose a health hazard to farmers and their families, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Lambton-Middlesex (Mr. Ferguson):
That the Minister of Agriculture immediately look into this problem and assure the people of Canada about the dangers which may be inherent in the use of this herbicide.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, 1 rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In light of Canada's depressed rubber industry, the resulting unemployment as illustrated by the termination of 650 workers at Firestone in Whitby, the lay-off of 55 at General Tire in Barrie, and the
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possible ultimate lay-off of up to 2,000 at Goodrich and Uniroyal in Kitchener-Waterloo, and in light of the commitment made several years ago by the Liberal government to prepare an industrial strategy, on a sectoral basis, which certainly now must be completed, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart):
That in order that this House and Canadians may understand the government's position regarding the manufacture and distribution of new tires, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce make a statement on motions regarding the Liberal government's industrial strategy as it relates to production and employment in the rubber industry.


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. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. The Prime Minister recently appointed a very senior serving officer as his special adviser on defence matters.
Disregarding the crushing insult this lack of confidence in the advice of the minister indicates, can the minister explain if he will have any way of discovering what matters are discussed and what decisions are taken in defence matters between the Prime Minister and his new special adviser on defence?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, if I understand the question put by the hon. member and if I am not mistaken, I am being asked whether the Prime Minister has appointed a defence expert to advise him about defence problems. I think that the Prime Minister's office, even under previous governments, has always had advisers who acted as liaison between the Department of National Defence and the PMO in special cases and when foreign governments were involved. So I do not feel there is anything unusual about the fact that there is someone in the Prime Minister's office who can advise him and the Minister of National Defence.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Madam Speaker, the minister indicates a little uncertainty as to the location of this special adviser. Could the minister advise the House if our NATO allies were apprized of the apparent fact that their new chairman of the military committee will be attempting to serve two masters,

June 26, 1980
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Dr. Luns of NATO and the Prime Minister of Canada, at the same time and as well will have the most basic conflict of interest imaginable?


Mr. Lamontagne:: Madam Speaker, 1 think we have to clear up the matter in this case. The appointment of the chairman of the military committee of NATO was recommended by the Prime Minister's office on the suggestion of the minister and the Department of National Defence. I think that Admiral Falls who is now chairman is a very lucky man and we are also lucky to have such a man to represent us at NATO. For the first time, Madam Speaker, it is a Canadian.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: I wonder if the minister can tell us approximately how many hours each week this senior, distinguished officer will work in his role as special adviser to the Prime Minister, what advice it is that Admiral Falls can provide which collectively neither the minister, the present Chief of the Defence Staff, nor other senior officers can offer; and, finally, what is his annual salary as an adviser, which we presume will be in addition to his military salary or pension?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I do not see what benefit the hon. member opposite expects to gain by criticizing such an eminent man as Admiral Falls who serves with dignity the interests of Canadians within NATO. 1 can say that Admiral Falls is available to NATO 24 hours a day, and that whatever the needs and information may be, he is there to defend our interests 24 hours a day.


BIDS ON FRIGATE PROGRAM
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker, on June 13 the Minister of National Defence may have contradicted, by press release, his pledge of fairness in dealing made in committee. I should like to ask him whether he considers he has contradicted his pledge of fairness by arbitrarily excluding two of five consortia from making a second bid on the S3.2 billion frigate program.
Can the minister clarify this situation, particularly in view of the almost defenceless position of our navy which was so graphically illustrated in the recent exercise in the Bay of Biscay, and the obvious need to strengthen our navy as soon as possible?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Apparently, Madam Speaker, today is my day. In reply to the hon. member, may I suggest that he direct his question to the Minister of Supply and Services whose officials are dealing with the main parties involved in the frigate program.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his answer and I will ask him this question; or perhaps the Minister of Supply and Services might care to answer it.
As I understand it, this vital program is approximately 18 months behind schedule. Since it appears that the government has broken its own rules as stated in the "Request for proposals" which indicated that proposals received after 1200 EST on November 30, 1978, would be rejected, is there any indication that legal action will be taken by those who have been discriminated against? Further, can the minister explain or justify this extra delay in a program which seems to have slipped another 18 months today?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Madam Speaker, I should like to say that there has been no discrimination. Both corporations had sent in tenders which have been turned down in the normal way, because their respective tenders did not meet the requirements of the call for tenders. We have asked the other three corporations who had submitted tenders to "correct", so to speak, their tenders to meet the Canadian content requirement in the three tenders and the Canadian capacity in a new technology, and 1 am sure the hon. member supports this policy put forward by this side of the House.


INDUSTRY
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce concerning capital assistance grants and loans currently being given to Valleyfield Chemical Products Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Space Research Corporation.
Was the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce not aware of the RCMP investigation into Space Research Corporation's activities in illegally shipping arms to South Africa at the time it made its $5.3 million loan and its $3 million grant to SRC's Valleyfield operation? Can the minister tell us, further, whether the loan is still outstanding and whether the grant has been terminated?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Madam Speaker, I will get the information for the hon. lady and inform her as soon as possible.


Pauline Jewett: Madam Speaker, I have been giving notice of this question in one way or another for the last week, and I am shocked that the minister is not aware of the grants and loans
June 26, 1980

which have been given to SRC by his own department. I take it, then, he also has no knowledge of the-


Madam Speaker:: Order. Ask the question, please.


Pauline Jewett: I am asking it.


Some hon. Members:: Oh!


Pauline Jewett: I take it, then, that the minister has no knowledge of the $1 million grant which was also given by the Department of Regional Economic Expansion.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: No, I do not, Madam Speaker.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence and it flows from the answers he gave to my hon. friend from Victoria.
Will the Minister of National Defence tell us the exact circumstances under which Admiral Falls was named as a special adviser on defence matters to the Prime Minister of Canada? Will he tell the House of Commons the terms of reference, or are we to believe-as the minister's earlier answer suggested-that the Minister of National Defence did not know that Admiral Falls had been appointed by the Prime Minister as a special adviser on defence?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, if 1 am well informed, the appointment of Admiral Falls as chairman of the NATO military committee was suggested when the Liberal government was in power and later during the nine months of Progressive Conservative administration. At that time no decision whatsoever was taken by the Progressive Conservatives, including no decision against that move. We approved Admiral Falls' appointment when we were expected to staff that position on June 1.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, what is painfully evident here is that the Prime Minister of Canada has nominated a serving military officer, Admiral Falls as a special adviser on defence to the Prime Minister, and he has not told the Minister of National Defence. That is what is evident here. We have been putting questions to the minister asking why that appointment was made. He has been answering in relation to the appointment to NATO, not to the Prime Minister's office, and my question is why-
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Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I am sorry, but I have to ask the right hon. Leader of the Opposition to put his question, too.


Charles Joseph Clark: You will understand, Madam Speaker, how startled we are to find this minister did not know about the appointment.


An hon. Member:: You are stunned.


Charles Joseph Clark: My question to the minister is twofold. First, when was the minister first advised of the appointment of Admiral Falls as a special adviser on defence matters to the Prime Minister of Canada? Second, what are the terms of reference of Admiral Falls, and how do his duties relate to those of the minister?
In my government, it was the minister who was responsible for defence policy, and when there were appointments made in the domain of national defence, the minister was at least advised: the minister knew. What is shocking here is that the minister apparently does not know.


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, in our government, defence policy is not only the responsibility of the Minister of National Defence: it is a collective responsibility of the whole cabinet, the Prime Minister as well as the minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Let's pray for the country.


Maurice Lamontagne: When the nomination of Admiral Falls as president of the military committee of NATO was made by the Prime Minister, I had a talk with him, and it was understood that Admiral Falls was, of course, an adviser to the Prime Minister and an adviser to the Minister of National Defence on all defence matters.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, there has been a formal order in council passed designating Admiral Falls to a special advisory-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I ask the right hon. Leader of the Opposition to ask his question.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, in light of the fact that there has been an order in council passed appointing Admiral Falls, not to NATO but as a special adviser to the Prime Minister of Canada on defence matters-a new appointment and an appointment without precedent-will the Minister of National Defence tell us when he was first advised, if he was advised at all, and what are the terms of reference on this appointment?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, the former prime minister should know that all ministers are informed when an order in council is issued by cabinet. 1 knew at the time that Admiral Falls was going to be appointed and although this did happen while I was away the procedure is not unusual.

June 26, 1980
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Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I believe I should have allowed a third question to the hon. member for New West-minster-Coquitlam. 1 apologize to her and I will allow that question now. I suppose I must have become flustered by the fact that the right hon. Leader of the Opposition was rising at a time when I was not expecting it.


INDUSTRY
Pauline Jewett: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. My third question is also for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
In view of the fact that the government is seriously considering buying part or all of Space Research Corporation-and, indeed, is discussing it today, I believe-would the minister be good enough to tell the House whether he thinks that the Valleyfield Chemical operation will likely be part of the SRC that is purchased?
Will he also give us some assurance that until the RCMP report is made public and charges are laid, there will not be any further grants or loans to SRC or its fully-owned subsidiary?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, the question as to whether Valley-field will be part of a purchase of Space Research by the government is just one of the aspects of this matter that we are still considering and on which we still have to reach a decision.
With respect to the second part of the question, 1 think the Minister of Justice said in the House the other day that it is not part of the practice of law enforcement activities in Canada for police reports to be made public, certainly not before decisions are taken with respect to the laying of charges. Certainly, until the matter is resolved by the courts one cannot presume that the parties will be ineligible for further assistance based on economic development aspects.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. On May 6, this House unanimously accepted a motion congratulating the British government and its Special Air Service commandos on the successful rescue operation of hostages from the Iranian embassy in London.
Given that Mr. Danson, the minister's predecessor, announced on November 7, 1977, that the cabinet had just approved the creation of a Canadian anti-terrorist squad, would the minister report what progress his government has made in its efforts to create such a group?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, I do not have any precise details on that particular unit of the armed forces. However,
I will inquire on the state of the matter and be sure to convey that information to the hon. member.


William James Kempling: Perhaps the minister should ask Admiral Falls. Will the minister confirm that the special service force at Petawawa has neither specific orders nor any of the specialized equipment necessary to train for this important task, that Canada has not such unit which can compare with the "Pagoda" units of the British forces, and that if hostage incidents should occur in this country our forces would be sadly unprepared?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I cannot deny or confirm the existence of such a specialized unit, but I can say that whatever events may occur in Canada, the armed forces are ready to face the situation.


REPORTED TECHNICAL PROBLEMS WITH F-18 FIGHTER AIRCRAFT-COST OF POSSIBLE REDESIGN
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Madam Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of National Defence. There have been distressing reports that the whole wing of the F-18 fighter aircraft which Canada is committed to buy may have to be redesigned because of technical problems in meeting the specifications laid down by the U.S. navy.
Will the minister tell the House if a proportion of the extra design or development cost of this work will have to be paid for by Canada over and above the some $4 billion we have already agreed to pay?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: I feel, Madam Speaker, that perhaps the hon. member should not believe everything he sees in the media or magazines. There are conflicting opinions concerning those matters. I can say that I had a discussion with the Minister of Supply and Services who recently spent three days in St. Louis where the F-18 is being manufactured. The minister came back with the unquestionable assurance that McDonnell Douglas will satisfy all contract conditions.
June 26, 1980


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Madam Speaker, 1 have a brief supplementary question for the minister. Can the minister tell the House if it is true that the F-18 is now up to two years behind schedule on the critical milestone for production go-ahead, and that it is now planned that the United States Defence Systems Acquisitions Review Council will not give that clearance until some time in the spring of 1982?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I am not aware of any delays in the manufacture or delivery of the F-18 aircraft. I want to assure the hon. member that 1 will personally go to the United States at an early date to check it out. I repeat once again that the Minister of Supply and Services has spent three days there and that our information is that everything is going according to schedule. Whatever the circumstances, we have a contract which is quite firm and the terms and conditions will be met.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. There are measures, we believe, which would be available to the government to lessen the impact of the drought on prairie farmers.
Farmers have been approaching me because the banks are threatening foreclosure action. Furthermore, farmers are saying it would alleviate their situation somewhat if currently insured crops could be written off now and used for green feed. Could the minister please inform the House of the plans he might have for alleviating the drought-stricken farmers' credit situation, and whether the minister could discuss with provincial officials some leniency with regard to crop write-offs?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. member is aware that the provinces administer crop insurance under the crop insurance agreements we have with them. Producers and farmers pay half the premiums and the federal government pays the other half of the premium, which this year will cost us about $90 million. The reinsurance program, if the weather stays the way it has been, can cost the federal government in total well over $500 million in payments to farmers.
Some of the crop insurance people at present are making the kinds of arrangements to which the hon. member has referred, evaluating the crops and letting the farmers harvest them for green feed, which we think is the proper thing to do. That kind of product can be salvaged to be used later in the year or it can be used at present.
I want to add the following to what the minister of agriculture from Manitoba has said in proposing to us a green feed program which he is going to institute and in which he wants
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us to participate. I think it is a very good program under which farmers will be paid $15 an acre to seed. I hope there will be enough moisture so that they can harvest more green feed in the areas of need. Some of the suggestions have been very good and positive, in my view, with a view to maintaining the livestock industry in that area.
With regard to interest rates, so far as we have anything to do with the Farm Credit Corporation we have said there should be no demand for payment from those farmers who are hit in a hard way.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, members of the official opposition have decided not to ask me any questions on drought today, so I am happy that the hon. member has done so.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


RIDING MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK-AVAILABILITY OF FEED HAY
Laverne Lewycky: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of the Environment. 1 am receiving daily representations by way of resolutions, telephone calls and telegrams from western constituents. This week, for example, the northern district of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities passed a resolution requesting that the federal government permit farmers to enter the Riding National Park to secure the feed hay which is available in the park.
Considering the fact that farmers have been previously able to do this, and notwithstanding the minister's response in the House yesterday but recognizing the emergency situation, I should like to ask the Minister of the Environment to tell the House what plans he has to open up the parks, and will he consider the fact that farmers need to be allowed haying operations to help sustain cattle herds within Manitoba and Saskatchewan?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, as I indicated to the House yesterday, 1 have no such plan at present. In response to questions, I indicated that to do so would be clearly contrary to long-established national parks' policy.
I did indicate that if members on the far side of the House could provide me with more information on the situation than I have so far received, I would be happy to explore the question again. But up to the present time I must reiterate what I said in the House yesterday, that is, that there are no present plans to follow the course of action which the hon. member recommends.

June 26, 1980
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ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Norman Kelly (Scarborough Centre):: Madam Speaker,
I should like to direct my question to the Minister of the Environment. The United States has just approved a bill which will replace oil by coal in 80 power plants throughout the northeastern states.
Since this bill has the potential to increase the acid rain content in parts of southern Ontario and the maritimes by nearly 16 per cent, 1 ask the minister whether he would inform the House of his reaction to the bill and outline the course of action he might pursue to protect the Canadian environment.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


An hon. Member:: This question was asked yesterday.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


John (Moody) Roberts: Madam Speaker, this is an extremely serious situation and we are very concerned about it. The legislative proposals have not passed through the entire legislative system of the U.S. government. They have, however, passed the Senate, which is one step toward their completion.
We have expressed on many occasions our concern to the U.S. government, on my own part as recently as last Monday when 1 met with Mr. Costle, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency of the U.S. We are renewing our expressions of concern to the United States. The legislative proposals still have to go through the House of Representatives. 1 expect that in the process of undertaking that path they will be substantially modified.
But 1 share the concern expressed by the hon. member. It is an extremely serious situation. We have made our views on this matter clearly known to the Americans on many occasions. We will not in any way diminish our efforts but will, rather, redouble our efforts to ensure that the American Congress, the Administration and the American public are conscious of the very grave dangers which these proposals imply not only for Canada but for the United States as well.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: Another admission of ineffectiveness.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Donald W. Munro: Madam Speaker, the Minister of National Defence is undoubtedly aware of the advanced age of our 16 steam destroyers and, therefore, that their equipment is subject to unpredictable breakdowns and failures. Could the minister inform the House whether he is planning to announce the second phase of the upgrading program, Delex?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I am fully aware of the Delex program. The first phase is practically over and I believe we will try, depending on available resources, to launch the second phase as soon as possible. I agree with my colleague opposite that this program is of extreme urgency and we will do our utmost to complete it as quickly as possible.


Donald W. Munro: I was wondering whether the minister would be able to tell us the cost of the second phase of the program, and what action he is taking to have his officials prepare for the day when the Delex program comes to an end in 1990 to replace the destroyers which are now being upgraded?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, everyone knows full well that there is a program to replace the six frigates. As was recently mentioned, there is no undue delay in the implementation of this program. Obviously, as soon as the decision is made to replace these six frigates, we will have to consider the study which will be submitted to us at the end of this month on the possibility of building smaller ships, which incidentally was a suggestion made by the official opposition, and to try and continue upgrading our destroyer fleet.


EQUIPMENT AND MORALE OF CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds-Grenville):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. The minister told the news media that he does not want to talk about a defence white paper because it bores him, and that we should read the speeches of the defence staff to know what is going on.
Considering there has been no defence white paper for ten years and defence costs are about $5 billion per year, does the minister not think it is time the people of Canada had the right to know the present equipment and morale status of our forces and the exact plans of the government for the future, especially in view of critical statements on these matters made by some of the very same persons on the defence staff he told us to listen to?
June 26, 1980


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I hope that the series of questions that is being directed at me today does not undermine the excellent resolution which was taken unanimously by the House yesterday in recognition of the efficiency and the commitment of the armed forces, a resolution which 1 fully endorse, of course, and for which 1 thank all my colleagues.


An hon. Member:: When will insults cease to be hurled at our armed forces?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, in reply to the hon. member's question, I must say that instead of wasting his time preparing endless questions as he does, he should attend the sittings of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence. At the committee's last sitting, I tabled a brief stating and explaining our past, present and future defence policy, which 1 think would have answered all his questions.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Rather than answer that nonsense, may I ask this: the minister answered my question last week by saying that Major General McNichol was "inaccurate and misleading" when he stated that we were working in the 1980s with 1950 equipment, and the minister said that the matter was closed. Since then Major General McNichol confirmed his statements, showing the matter is not closed.
Will the minister tell the House what steps the government will take to increase manpower and update outmoded equipment, particularly such things as what is reportedly the world's oldest-living computer used by the air defence group at North Bay, radar equipment in certain places with outdated valves, irreplaceable in the western world and only available from behind the Iron Curtain? In general, will he tell us what he will do about the armed forces operating in a completely undermanned and sadly ill-equipped state?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I find it rather difficult to answer this whole series of questions, but as I said, if the opposition would take the trouble to read my brief to the committee they would find that all the answers are also in that brief. They explain quite well the positive steps taken by this government to modernize the equipment and thereby boost morale in our armed forces and, in the final analysis, make them more efficient.


CONSIDERATION OF REPORT &quot;FEDERAL POLICIES FOR EMERGENCIES-A PLANNING REVIEW&quot;
Mr. Bob Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
Oral Questions


Robert Lloyd Wenman: In view of the recent call by the central committee of the Soviet Union for a further build-up of that country's armed forces, the recognition of the growing Soviet threat in recent statements by the Minister of National Defence, the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Secretary General of NATO, the reflection of this concern in President Carter's call for reinstating the draft and in Congressional demands for increasing military spending, and in view of the lack of planning-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: What is the question9


Robert Lloyd Wenman: In view of the-


An hon. Member:: He cannot even read his question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member should have followed his intuition and gone right to his question.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: In view of the lack of planning and policy in the civil defence of Canada-


Madam Speaker:: Order. When I call a member to order because I want him to go immediately to his question, I do not mean that he should repeat that paragraph. He should go right away to his question, if he would, please.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Robert Lloyd Wenman: Has the minister read the civil defence report waiting on his desk entitled: "Federal Policies For Emergencies-A Planning Review"? Will he table that report in the House before the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence discusses this issue at its July 8 meeting?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I think the answer to this question is quite simple. If the hon. member wants to obtain all the information he is seeking, he can come to the standing committee's next meeting and ask the question, and we will then be in a position to provide him with all pertinent information.
Madam Speaker, it must be realized, after all, the way the opposition lead their questions they are making a speech almost every time. Let hon. members put a precise question, and we will answer precisely.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: I would assume, then, that the minister has not read the report.


Charles Joseph Clark: He has never heard of it. He has never heard of his department; he thinks it is the Post Office.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: His particular emphasis in civil defence must relate to emergency warning. If the minister has read the report, will he inform the House whether he has communicat-

June 26, 1980
Oral Questions
ed to the department his personal preference for either the national emergency alarm repeater, a warning system attached to any electrical outlet, or the crisis home alert technique, a system operating through radio or television sets?
[ Translation]


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, one thing has to be recognized: the questions I am now asked are excessively technical. 1 do not think the Minister of National Defence should be expected to give explicit answers to every question of this type. But if hon. members want answers-


An hon. Member:: Answers is not what they are after!


Charles Joseph Clark: Trudeau needs Falls.


Maurice Lamontagne: Do you want an answer, or not?


Charles Joseph Clark: Yes.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: Go ahead, give us an answer.
[ Translation]


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, if they want real, complete and evolved answers to their questions, 1 do not think the question period is the only forum. 1 can supply them in other ways, either in written form or otherwise.


HEALTH AND WELFARE
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Recently, the educational services section of the health protection branch began distributing to the public a slideshow called "Alice in Additive Land". In my view, this show is sexist in nature and tends to have a very uncritical attitude toward the whole food additive industry.
I gave the minister notice that I intended to raise this matter in the House two weeks ago, so that she would have an opportunity to view the slideshow herself. I ask the minister now whether or not she has had a chance to view the slideshow called "Alice in Additive Land", and whether or not she is prepared to pull it out of circulation and have it redone so that it is a much more balanced presentation than it is at present.


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, 1 saw the show the evening of the day the hon. member gave me notice. I thank the hon. member for having mentioned this particular slideshow to me. I did not
find it sexist at all, nor did I find it biased toward the industry. On the other hand, it is not a show that will win an Oscar.
This slideshow was done, as 1 understand it, just before I came back to the department. It was ready for distribution in March. It is obvious that it was done with very little money: the style of cartoon is around the 1955 era of the film industry.
Other than that criticism of the style of delivery of the show,
I did not detect-and I read the script twice- any other criticisms. I have asked my officials to review it once more with regard to possible industry bias. However, I saw no such bias. That is all I can tell the House at this point.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, the slideshow is not the only act which is not deserving of an Oscar.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I find it very difficult to believe that the Minister of National Health and Welfare-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I think we need a little more silence in the House today: it is very hard for me to follow what is going on.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I find it difficult to believe that the Minister of National Health and Welfare does not find that slideshow insulting to women. Can the minister tell the House when the Department of Health and Welfare became a public relations agency for the food additive industry?
[ Translation]


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, I am going to answer in French as it is obvious that my message did not get through. I thought I had explained to the hon. member that the two allegations he made against me, first, that the slideshow is sexist and, second, that it gave a biased image in favour of industry, were completely wrong. If he has any evidence whatsoever of sexism, well, my God, let him educate me because I fail to grasp it.
As concerns the only problem which I consider to have any gravity-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Monique Bégin: Now I must check the translation.

As concerns the only problem which might be serious, even if it did not appear as such to me, that of a possible distortion in favour of industry, I do not believe that it is true. I would point out to the hon. member that we made a survey on food additives among Canadians. When I made that study public, Canadians showed that they were very concerned about food additives and yet they did not know exactly what they were. The role of my department is certainly to inform the public and 1
June 26, 1980

might say in passing that we intend to play a more active role in that area.

[ English |


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Jack Masters (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of National Revenue. Because it is generally recognized that living expenses in the north are higher than in other parts of Canada, has the minister considered tax remission proposals to assist northerners in certain areas, a move which will compensate for their higher cost of living?


Hon. William Rompkey (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, 1 thank the hon. member for his question.


Walter David Baker: He read it very well.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. Indeed, Treasury Board and cabinet have authorized me to remit taxes to those people in certain areas of the north on certain benefits which they now pay. The areas to be covered will be north of the sixtieth parallel as well as other areas which are identified as isolated posts by Treasury Board regulations. The areas of remission will be subsidized housing, low cost housing, and travel for vacation and medical purposes. The cheques will be made directly available to the employees.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam
Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


A. Daniel McKenzie: The minister recently announced that the Aurora long-range patrol aircraft, LRPA, was delivered on time and within budget. At the same time, the President of the Treasury Board tabled in this House a list of cost overruns showing the Aurora project as having an overrun of $98,735,000. Will the minister kindly explain this $100 million difference of opinion?
Oral Questions
[Translation)


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, what we call an overrun in English is an unforeseen expense or an expense caused by unforeseen surpluses. However, I believe that this increase of $98 million is due to inflationary costs and could not have been foreseen because of the economic situation. It is not an overrun, it is simply an increase of expenditures-


An hon. Member:: That is not an overrun.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Maurice Lamontagne: That is true-

-due to the economic situation at the time.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Madam Speaker, I agree that this government appears to have little control over anything financial. My supplementary question refers to another cost overrun. Can the minister explain how his department fell into the book of records for cost overruns when a research and development project concerning helicopters, with an approved cost of $150,000, ended up costing $1,484,000, an overrun of approximately 1,000 per cent?


An hon. Member:: It is just inflation.


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for introducing this question during the occasion of Armed Forces Day. I think it is a demonstration of the respect the opposite side shows for the armed forces.


An hon. Member:: But not for you.


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I have no detailed information on the case mentioned by the hon. member. If he wishes, 1 shall provide him with an accurate reply and relevant explanations.


TASK FORCE REPORT ON UNIFICATION
Hon. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Madam Speaker, surprisingly, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. Unlike the more difficult questions the minister has been called upon to answer, it is a very simple question. It concerns the Fyffe task force report on unification.
On May 18 the minister was quoted as saying that the task force report was "a superficial thing containing hardly anything of substance". Does the minister disagree with the majority of the 135 serving generals and colonels who appeared before the task force and who gave as their opinion that they preferred a joint chiefs of staff system to the current unified one?
2400

June 26, 1980
Oral Questions


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, when the unification task force presented its report, 1 said at the time that one of its recommendations had already been implemented, namely the one to include in the defence council the three commanders of the armed forces, that of the army, the air force and the navy. This is a recommendation that we had already accepted. As for the other allegations that the hon. member has just made, 1 would say that they do not necessarily reflect what 1 said. I do not recall ever having said that this report was not important, but I did say that the other recommendations should be re-evaluated since the report made no mention of the cost of implementation or non-implementation of these recommendations. When the task force that I have established to re-evaluate this whole issue has made its report, a decision will be made. However, I would not want to express any opinion at this time before those who are now examining the report now so that they can express their own views.


J. Robert Howie: A supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Given that one of the stated objectives of the Liberal government of the day which forced the unified system on the Canadian forces was to cut back on the high number of senior officers caused by the triplication of posts on account of having three services, could the minister explain to the House why in 1969, prior to unification, there were 109 serving generals for a total force of 100,000 men, while in 1979 there were 108 generals for a force of 79,000 men and women?


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I think it is rather difficult to compare the pre-unified system with the present unified system because nowadays all major generals, lieutenant generals and brigadier generals are known as generals. In the past, for example, we had air marshals, admirals and generals, a completely different system. At that time, I think we had as many generals, marshals or admirals as we have today, if not more, because the qualifications and the evaluation were not the same.


NORTHERN PIPELINES
Mr. Gary F. McCauley (Moncton):: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Given conflicting reports on the progress of negotiations concerning the Alaska Highway natural gas pipeline, can the minister clarify the position of the United States government, in light of the apparently encouraging reports
emanating from the minister's discussions with the United States officials in Venice?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, I had the advantage of extensive discussions with the Secretary of Energy for the United States during the Summit. We had a lengthy exploration of improvements that should be made in the position of the United States and also clarification of their position. We stated very clearly our view as a government speaking for the people of Canada.
I expect an answer from the United States Secretary of Energy within the next few days. In particular, we made it plain that we want a very clear indication from the United States government and the United States Congress that they are still in full support of building the full Alaska gas pipeline.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, I should like to address my question to the Minister of National Defence. Reports from Venice indicate that the Prime Minister supported the Summit demand for a total withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan. We are pleased to see such a show of unity.
Could the minister tell us if he believes the government's aims in this regard are helped at all when two Canadian parliamentary delegates to a NATO meeting in Luxembourg two weeks ago abstained from voting on a resolution condemning the Russian invasion?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, 1 know that. 1 think that two members of that committee abstained from voting. 1 would not say that they voted against the resolution, but they wanted to maintain a personal opinion.
If the hon. member wants to know what I think of the meeting which took place in Venice or what is my perception of the international situation at the moment, he simply has to read the article published in yesterday's edition of the Journal.


Stan Darling: A supplementary question. One of the abstainers, Senator Frith, is a Liberal and by his abstention indicated to our allies that the Liberal party which happens to be in power at the present time-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The question, please.


Stan Darling: Can the minister give us any assurance that Liberal delegates will not embarrass us in future by going against government and Canadian policy?
June 26, 1980


Maurice Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, first, the hon. members took a personal stand, and I am convinced that no hon. member on this side of the House will embarrass the government.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, 1 wonder if I might ask the government House leader what business he intends to put before us today, tomorrow and next week.


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, we had a fruitful meeting of the House leaders this morning. There is agreement that we proceed with debate on motion No. 11 later today; that we proceed also to report stage and third reading of Bill C-28 without debate, except for perhaps one short comment from each party, if necessary; then later today we will proceed to Bill C-19 in Committee of the Whole; and, if possible, to second reading stage of Bill C-3, the Unemployment Insurance Act.
Subject to further talks at our scheduled House leaders' meeting tomorrow, we might deal with all stages of Bill C-36, the "O Canada" bill, if possible. I understand that later today Bill C-35 will be reported from committee, and if there is unanimous consent we shall deal with that bill tomorrow also; then Bills C-5, S-6, C-13 and C-22.

Next week, depending of course on the progress of business both in the House and in committees, we could complete consideration of the following bills: C-30, on the borrowing authority for the year 1980-81, C-6, the Bank Act revision, S-2, concerning tax agreements, and C-4 respecting grants to municipalities, 1980.


Mr. Knowles:: Madam Speaker, may I confirm that there have been discussions about a number of the items mentioned by the government House leader. In doing so, 1 can say we are prepared to agree that motion No. 11 should pass without debate. The chairman of the committee referred to in the motion is grateful for that. We are also prepared to give third reading to Bill C-28 without debate. I notice that a spokesman for the official opposition wishes to have a minute or two on that. We would claim the same amount of time only if he says something provocative. If what he says is inane, we will let it go without further debate. We shall proceed with Bill C-19 and C-3 for the rest of the day.
I may say also with respect to the order of business for tomorrow that when Bill C-35 comes back for report stage and third reading, we feel it has been adequately dealt with in committee and so it can be passed without further debate.
Business of the House
I confirm the minister's statement that there have been discussions about the "O Canada" bill and the possibility of dealing with it tomorrow. We are prepared to co-operate and it is hoped that something might be achieved at our meeting tomorrow morning.
The minister can tell me later if he included the Small Loans Act in the plan for the next little while.
With respect to next week, I suggest that it is a little way off and things do get changed, so we will accept the suggestion about the number of bills and deal with them when they come up.
1 am still annoyed, Madam Speaker, that we have gone this long without the bill respecting veterans and their survivors appearing on the order paper. We have been told repeatedly, since the first week of this session, that there would be such legislation. The minister told us in the standing committee that it will be brought foward in time for us to deal with it before we recess. It seems to me, if that commitment is to be kept, that the bill ought to be on the order paper now. We have given a commitment in the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs that when the legislation comes before us, we will deal with it quickly.
I think without any further playing around the government House leader should assure us that the bill will be on the order paper before we recess and that time will be given for the bill to be passed, so that the veterans and the widows covered by that bill will receive its benefits. I am told now-I regret this-that the bill will not have any retroactivity in it. That means that every week of delay in passing, it delays getting those benefits to the people concerned. I put it to the minister as strongly as I can that this House must not break for a summer recess until we have done the right thing by our veterans.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, we are going to have a House leaders' meeting tomorrow and we can discuss a number of the things that have been raised here today. But I just want to remind my friend the government House leader that we indicated to him that if the Minister of Veterans Affairs would bring back the bill which had been placed on the order paper in the Thirty-first Parliament by the former minister of national defence, the hon. member for Victoria, with respect to pensions, we would be grateful.
The Minister of Veterans Affairs has indicated that he has some improvements to that bill. He said so in his speech to the Royal Canadian Legion. If that is the case and there are such improvements to be brought forward, then I would think that it would be appropriate and a matter of priority that that bill be prepared and cleared through the cabinet.
I just want to tell my friend through you, Madam Speaker, that if that bill does come forward, we are prepared to live up to the undertaking. Assuming it is a bill that is at least as propitious and beneficial as the bill put in by the member for Victoria, we are prepared to give that bill three readings and get it out of the House of Commons and over to the other

June 26, 1980
Business of the House
place to be dealt with. In this way it can become law very quickly, in fact, in one day. If that can have some effect upon my friend the government House leader and his colleague, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, to speed up the process with respect to-that bill, then I want to assure him of our co-operation in that endeavour.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Madam Speaker, I wish to speak briefly on this piece of veterans legislation. I would like to point out to the government House leader that in a statement by the Minister of Veterans to members of the standing committee, he stated that in all probability they would table Bill C-28, with minor changes or no changes. A similar bill to Bill C-28 was introduced by the last government. If the minister is making the statement that he is prepared to table the previous bill, I really do not understand why we are having this delay. Everything is right in the bill. It only has to be tabled. We want to make one brief speech and the NDP will make one brief speech. The bill will go to committee and it will be all over in a half a day. Let us do it before we recess at the end of July.


Mr. Rae:: Madam Speaker, could I ask the government House leader whether it is the intention of the government to bring in an act to repeal the Small Loans Act prior to the end of this session. There have been discussions. We have stated for the record that we are in favour of repeal of the Small Loans Act and that we will be in favour of speedy passage of that bill. I understand that similar points of view have been expressed by the Conservative party. Does the government intend to bring that measure forward before the recess?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, to alleviate the concerns expressed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre over the veterans legislation, I want to assure him that 1 will consult the Minister of Veterans Affairs to see if his concerns are founded. Some suggested that the Minister of Veterans Affairs made certain statements before the Royal Canadian Legion and the standing committee, but as I said last week, the minister said the truth and I do not want to come back to the matter. The hon. member who was wondering about the minister's statement before the committee wanted to know if we were going to introduce the bill before the summer recess, at the end of July.
Allow me to say that 1 never mentioned the end of July. Those are his words. As for the hon. member who has just referred to the Small Loans Act and who has asked me to introduce a bill to repeal it before the recess at the end of July,
1 would like to say to him that we have still some 20 urgent and important bills which should be passed before the recess. The veterans bill could be included but I do not want at this stage to make any promise about a specific date for the summer recess.
Now if in fact my colleagues would like to know the date of the summer recess, I would suggest the question is quite
premature. The veterans bills are now being drafted. As for the Small Loans Act, the bill is obviously not yet on the order paper. It is a matter which I will take into consideration. As for the other matters mentioned by the House leader of the official opposition, I agree with him that we should complete the discussion during our meeting tomorrow morning before question period.


Mr. Oberle:: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Privy Council concerning another bill, namely Bill C-26. There have been some discussions. It is a very minor matter, that is to say, ratification of an agreement entered into between Canada and the province of British Columbia, which will require half an hour. I know that the House leader of my party has discussed this matter with him. Could the President of the Privy Council give us some indication today when he intends to bring this bill in so that we can be assured it will be dealt with before the recess?


Mr.   Pir.ard@: Madam Speaker, we have indeed to discuss it and I intend to reconsider it with the minister as well as with the parliamentary leaders at the meeting tomorrow.


POINTS OF ORDER
Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In the question period today the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne), in reply to a question, imputed motives to this side of the House to which l take great exception. To quote him, I believe he said that "it showed the respect for our Armed Forces held by members on this side of the House''. We asked a number of questions from this side of the House, and I believe he clearly inferred that we do not respect the Armed Forces.
I would like to say that this is imputing motives to people on this side of the House which I take serious exception to. I was a member of the Armed Forces. I would like him to withdraw that statement or to stand up now and apologize to members of this House, because I think that it was the most deplorable kind of accusation that he could make.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, obviously there are no grounds for a question of privilege. Most of the questions which were asked could well have been put on the order paper and I think that the House should proceed with its regular course of business if there is any real desire for an adjournment before August.



June 26, 1980


Madam Speaker:: Indeed I must tell the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) that there is no ground there for a question of privilege. In my opinion it was not a question of privilege but rather a point of order. I understand the hon. member did not appreciate the interpretation given by the minister regarding the questions asked by the opposition. The hon. member has made his remark. He rose on a point of order. Still 1 cannot really accept it as a valid point of order. I can understand the fact that the hon. member did not appreciate this comment but anyway these are things that can happen during question period.

MR. MacKAY-REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION OF REMARKS OF MINISTER OF NATIONAL DEFENCE


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker,
I want to raise a brief point of order which has reference to what the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) said. Perhaps you can look at the blues and check what the minister said tomorrow. Maybe the minister did not mean it the way it came over, and perhaps there was so much noise, as you have pointed out, and if I contributed to it, my apologies. But I understood the minister to say, in effect, that if members wanted questions, the place to ask them might not be during the question period.
1 can understand, depending on which side of the House one sits, that sometimes questions can be embarrassing. If that proposition is allowed to stand without being underlined or clarified, that is to say, that the question period in the House of Commons is not a very suitable or the most appropriate place to ask questions, then that is a very marked departure from parliamentary tradition.
I just want to ask you, Madam Speaker, to check the blues and perhaps ask the minister to check his answer, because as I understood him the effect was that if members wished to have answers to questions, the question period may not be the best place. If that is not the best place, I would like to know what is the best place.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, obviously the hon. member misunderstood the answer. What the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) said was that he was not referring to all the questions in general but to one specific question that was asked of him, and that it should have been put on the order paper. I think he was right in saying so. I also think that on the principle, as the hon. member well knows, he did not have to answer any of the questions, but he did answer in the best way he could.
Obviously there is no point of order in what the hon. member has just raised. Ministers are free to answer and the minister did answer well. When he stated that some of the questions should not have been asked during question period, he was right in saying that because most of the questions asked of him should have been placed on the order paper.
Privilege-Mr. Anguish


Madam Speaker:: I believe that I was able to follow adequately what went on during this exchange in question period.
I can check Hansard as the hon. member has requested, but it seems to me that the hon. minister said about one, or perhaps even two of the questions, that he needed additional information since the issue was rather complex and he would rather reply at another time than during question period.
1 do not have to remind the hon. member that, in any case, the minister can choose not to reply to any question. He answered in his own way today. The hon. member may not be satisfied, but I cannot force the hon. minister to give another answer.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege regarding certain behaviour during the question period this afternoon. The question asked by the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Masters) was obviously a set-up. It was read from a piece of paper, and when responding the minister read the reply.
I have here a copy of a press release issued by the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Rompkey). On it is stated "Not to be released before 3 p.m. Thursday, June 26, 1980". Therefore, it was a direct cover-up by the Minister of National Revenue. The minister did not want those in the opposition parties to respond to the announcement he made about remitting taxes to residents in isolated northern areas. There are many concerns we would like to raise about that. Therefore, the government are covering up and taking away our privilege as members of Parliament to act on behalf of our constituents and express our concerns about measures imposed by the government which directly concern us.
In connection with that, I also notice that according to the House plan, members opposite do not sit in their proper places. Therefore, either the House plan should be changed or members should sit in their proper seats. The hon. member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon sits in the wrong place, as does the hon. member for Niagara Falls (Mr. MacBain), making it hard to identify them.
That is the first question of privilege. The second is that we should have an opportunity to respond to ministerial statements.


Madam Speaker:: Order. The hon. member admits that he is dealing with two questions of privilege at the same time. I can only entertain one.

June 26, 1980
Privilege-Mr. Anguish


Douglas Keith Anguish: The question of privilege, if I only have the opportunity to raise one, is the fact that we should not have set-up questions in this House, even though the Conservatives obviously agree with that by what the members here are saying. 1 disagree with that. It impedes my ability to act as a member of Parliament in the interests of my constituents on statements that should be made as ministerial statements.
Set-up questions by the Liberal government impede my ability to act as a member of Parliament and respond to a very important concern whereby people are being affected by a tax remittance. This remission is only effective to the end of 1980. What happens then to these taxable benefits? The oil companies which many of these people work for had profits in excess of 108 per cent in the first quarter compared to what they had last year.


Madam Speaker:: Order. I know the rule of relevancy is not often invoked in this chamber, but I am afraid 1 must invoke it at this point. Has the hon. member completed his question of privilege? If so, I am ready to rule on it.
The hon. member is discussing a grievance he has regarding what happened earlier in the question period. I would say to the hon. member that the member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon (Mr. Masters) is not the only member who reads his questions. That is acceptable in this House. I found the question acceptable. It is not unparliamentary. On the contrary, it is a custom which is prevalent in many parliaments, including this Parliament, whereby members give prior notice of a question to a minister. I do not know whether prior notice had been given in this case. However, that is not unparliamentary; it is quite acceptable.
The hon. member himself may do that if he wishes in order to receive a more complete answer to one of his questions. He could give notice to a minister of a question that he wants to ask. I do not see how the privileges of the hon. member have been breached by this. It is perfectly acceptable procedure during question period.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not think it is a matter of the notice from the hon. member to the minister of the question that is going to be asked. It is the growing suspicion in this House that there is notice by a minister to a member to ask a question.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I have just ruled on this question of privilege, and, therefore, cannot allow the hon. member to comment on it.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order arising from what was said at one point yesterday by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Collenette) when, as he does each day, he announces the order paper questions to be answered. On Wednesdays he announces-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Since the hon. member is referring to something that took place yesterday, 1 would require notice in order to entertain his question of privilege.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: The reason I could not give you notice, Madam Speaker, is that the gentleman he mentioned-


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member might-


Thomas Charles Cossitt: I think I should have the privilege of explaining while I am on my feet and then you could rule.


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member might have a lot of good reasons for not giving notice, but I must apply the rules. I require notice if the hon. member wants me to entertain a question of privilege on something that happened yesterday.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: May I ask you to clarify, Madam Speaker. 1 may have mentioned something, but if something occurs right now across the floor of the House, why can I not raise it as a point of order? The situation did not exist yesterday. It began yesterday but the entire situation exists right now. The two members are here. I feel I have a perfect right to proceed on a point of order.


Madam Speaker:: If the hon. member is speaking of something which flows from the deliberations of today, I can entertain his point of order.


Mr. Siddon:: Madam Speaker, I just want to make a brief comment on the previous point of order relating to the-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. 1 made a ruling on the previous points of order raised in this chamber and I cannot entertain further comments on them. I do not know what is wrong with members this afternoon.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: I have not yet had a chance to go outside to see what the weather is like, but it must be the weather! I would ask hon. members to restrain themselves and raise only legitimate points of order, if they have any.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Madam Speaker, it is a point of order relating to a reply that the deputy House leader gave with respect to the answers given by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) during question period. It is not a matter on which Your Honour made a ruling.


Madam Speaker:: Order. I believe the hon. member is referring to something on which I have ruled. That was his introductory statement. 1 have to take it that he wishes to comment on a ruling I have just made. Therefore, I cannot give him the floor.
June 26, 1980



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


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

Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2) I have the honour to table in both official languages the agreement among Her Majesty the Queen in right of Canada and Chrysler (Canada) Limited and Chrysler Corporation as well as the Chrysler (Canada) Limited Operating and Financial Plan for 1980 to 1985. I have copies of this material for opposition spokesmen.
*
* *
[ Translation]


ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT
Mr. Louis Duclos (Montmorency) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-608, to change the name of the electoral district of Montmorency.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 100, 164, 245, 332, 334, 611, 634, 683, 690, 722, 767, 796, 828, 843 and 897.
Order Paper Questions

Macdonald royal commission-featherbed file


Mr. Cossitt: Will the government consider referring the Featherbed File to the McDonald royal commission for examination and, if not. for what reason?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: The commission of inquiry concerning certain activities of the RCMP reviewed the Featherbed File in 1978.


Mr. Cossitt: Flave Russian citizens serving as maintenance staff or in any other post resigned from the staff of the Canadian Embassy in Moscow and, if so (a) what problems-has this caused (b) how many left their jobs and, in each case, what was their (i) name (ii) address (iii) job designation (iv) salary (v) reason for leaving such employment?
2.	(a) Is the government considering dismissing all remaining Russian citizens at the embassy and filling such positions with Canadian citizens (b) docs the government of the Soviet Union use this system and, if so, is there any reason that Canada hesitates to use such a system?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: 1. A number of Russian citizens have resigned from the staff of the Canadian Embassy in Moscow recently. This has meant cutting back on certain services and redistributing the duties amongst the remaining staff. Information on those employees who have left jobs is attached.
2.	(a) The government is not considering dismissing all remaining Soviet citizens at the embassy and filling such positions with Canadian citizens.
(b) The Soviet Union to our knowledge employs mainly Russian citizens at its missions abroad. Canada employs a system whereby, in addition to the necessary complement of Canadian employees, it hires citizens of the country where its embassies are located to perform certain non-sensitive duties, such as drivers, gardeners, translators, customs clearance clerks, etc. This system which is used by Canada in Moscow, is similar to the one used by most other western countries there. In the government's view the adoption of the Soviet system at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow would be very costly, inefficient and unnecessary since it would require the posting and maintenance in Moscow of several more Canadians than is now the case, and many of the duties such Canadians would perform could be adequately performed by Soviet citizens.
Name
Davydova, L Fatyanova, A Juritsin, S
Reason for Leaving Husband transferred Husband posted Personal
Neustroyev, V
Better work elsewhere
Popikov, A	None
Mishen, S
Better work elsewhere
Cherkasova, L	Better work elsewhere
Nilubov, V	Better work elsewhere

June 26, 1980
Order Paper Questions VETERANS AFFAIRS-HOSPITALS


Mr. Herbert: 1.	How many veterans presently in hospitals administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs are not considered the responsibility of the government?
2.	What is the cost to the government to look after them and what amount does each provincial government contribue toward the cost?
3.	Does the government permit the inclusion of such provincial contributions for the calculation of the federal-provincial medical cost-sharing program?


Hon. Daniel J. MacDonald (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: 1.	899.
2.	Ste. Anne's Hospital, Province of Quebec
Cost to Government	-	$ 70.00 per diem
Recoveries (Provincial)	$ 35.00 per diem-Active
$ 25.00 per diem-Chronic
Deer Lodge Hospital, Province of Manitoba
Cost to Government	$143.10 per diem-Active
$ 73.45 per diem-Chronic
Recoveries (Provincial)	$ 127.55 per diem-Active
Nil	-Chronic
3.	No. The federal-provincial medical cost-sharing system has been superseded by a system of block payments to the provinces.


Mr. Herbert: Does the government intend to conclude an interim funding arrangement for the fiscal year 1979-80 for minority and second official language education and. if so, will the terms and conditions of the agreement be made public?


Mr. Peter Stollery (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State and Minister of Communications):: Arrangements for providing financial assistance on a interim basis for the 197980 fiscal year for non-formula programs and for formula funding were concluded with the provinces. The interim arrangements basically constituted a continuation of programs provided under previous agreements and therefore were governed by the same terms and conditions, subject to arrangements limiting total funding for formula programs to $140 million and for non-formula programs to $30.4 million. The terms and conditions governing former agreements, which had been made public previously, were therefore still applicable.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	Is it the government's intention to support the opportunities for Canadians of the minority official language group in each province (English in Quebec, French in other provinces) to be educated in their own language and, if so, by what means?
2.	Will conditions apply to any new agreement and will it be possible to terminate the agreement, at any time, if the conditions are not fulfilled?


Peter A. Stollery: 1. The federal government has provided financial assistance to provinces since 1970-71 with the objective of supporting opportunities for Canadians of the minority official language group in each province to be educated in their own language. The assistance has been provided under two successive federal-provincial agreements on official languages in education, the latter of which expired March 31, 1979. Funds for the 1979-80 fiscal year were provided under an interim arrangement, and funding on an interim basis has also been agreed to for certain programs in 1980-81. Negotiations to conclude new long term agreements, commencing 1980-81 are currently underway.
2.	As the new agreement has not yet been finalized, it is not possible at this time, to comment on any particular conditions that it may contain.


Mr. Howie: How many lawyers are employed on staff in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources?


Marc Lalonde: The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources reports as follows:
There are no lawyers employed on staff in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. However, the Department of Justice has assigned six lawyers to provide the day to day legal counsel required by the department.


Mr. Howie: How many persons engaged in public relations, publicity or media relations, are employed on staff in the Department of the Environment?


John (Moody) Roberts: Headquarters: 43
Regions:	25
Total:	68


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Did the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission receive a resolution under cover of a letter from the city council of Brockville, Ontario approximately five months ago on the subject of service etc. rendered by Brockville Amusements Limited and some times known as Brockville Cable Limited and, if so (a) what was the date of the letter (b) was the letter answered or acknowledged and, if not, for what reason?
2.	Did Vincent Lee Chong of the CRTC receive an inquiry within the last several weeks from a member of the Brockville city council asking why the commission had not had the courtesy to reply and. if so, was the answer given
June 26, 1980

that Brockville Cable Limited had yet to reply to the commission's representations made as a result of Brockville city council's resolution?
3.	If the CRTC does not receive replies to its mail within a reasonable time is it customary to wait five months or more to follow matters up and, if so, for what reason?
4.	Will the commission reply to the Brockville city council and. if so, on what date?


Peter A. Stollery: I am informed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that the reply to the above question is as follows:
1.	A letter dealing with this matter was received in the commission, December 17, 1979.
(a)	The date as typed in the letter was "1979 12 13".
(b)	An interim response to this letter was sent to Mr. A.
J. Miles, city clerk of Brockville, on January 30, 1980.
This letter informed Mr. Miles that the city's resolution
had been brought to the attention of Brockville Cable.
2.	Mr. Vincent Lee-Chong, an employee of the commission, did receive a telephone inquiry from Mr. Bob Runciman, member of the Brockville city council, re the resolution of the Brockville city council. This inquiry was received in late March 1980.
The answer given was that no reply had yet been received from Brockville Cable regarding the city council's resolution. Brockville Cable was subsequently contacted and questioned about this and other complaints re cable service. Copies of 13 responses to complainants were forwarded by Brockville Cable to the commission in a letter dated April 14, 1980. These responses did not include any concerning Brockville city council. A special letter dated April 24, received by the commission April 27, contained a copy of a response to the Brockville city council resolution. This response was dated April 3, and apparently had been sent directly to Mr. A. J. Miles, city clerk of Brockville. Brockville Cable had been advised in the commission's letter of January 30, that in addition to communicating with the commission, it could get in touch with the complainants directly.
3.	It is customary to issue follow-up communications if response to commission mail is not received within reasonable time. In this case this follow-up communication was sent approximately two months after the original CRTC letter to Brockville Cable.
4.	The commission has replied to the city of Brockville. In that letter the commission, after outlining earlier inquiries into the matter, undertook for senior staff to visit Brockville, meet Brockville city council representatives and inspect the cable television operations. Further action will depend on the findings of that visit.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS-CONTRACTS FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
Mr. Clarke: 1. For the fiscal year 1978-79, how many contracts were let by the Department of External Affairs for professional services, to persons who at any time
Order Paper Questions
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?


Mark R. MacGuigan: 1. Five.
2.	(a) Four; (b) one; (c) none.
3.	None.
4.	$31,260.69.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS- LOSS OF VEHICLES
Mr. Clarke: 1.	With reference to the uninsured losses of more than SI.000 of vehicles recorded by the Department of External Affairs in footnote number 7 at page 12.62, Volume I of the 1978-79 Public Accounts of Canada, for what reason was the loss of $21,450 unexplained?
2.	Did the department undertake steps to ascertain the whereabouts ot the two vehicles and, if so, what were they?
3.	Was the thief apprehended ?
4.	In what locations did the losses occur?
5.	Did the department undertake steps to ensure that such losses do not recur and, if so, what were they?


Mark R. MacGuigan: 1. The descriptive title of the Public Accounts statement in question is considered to be self-explanatory (i.e., losses due to destruction or damage), and no further explanation appears necessary as in accordance with relevant instructions from the Receiver General, the footnote identifies those losses which occurred other than by destruction or damage.
2.	The vehicles concerned were utilized by our embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. Their loss due to theft was reported to the civil authorities. The vehicles were a 1972 Landrover and a 1975 Peugeot 504 Sedan.
3.	No, the vehicles were taken during time of civil uprising. Local authorities attempted to investigate, however, results were negative.
4.	The losses occurred in Beirut, Lebanon.
5.	The department always ensures that maximum protection is afforded to all public assets.


PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE-PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE-ADMINISTRATIVE AND POLICY CONSULTANTS UNDER CONTRACT
Mr. Shields: Since August 1, 1978, how many (a) administrative (b) policy consultants were under contract to the Prime Minister's office and Privy Council office and or any boards, commissions or corporations reporting to the Prime Minister and. in each case, what amount was paid to them?


David Michael Collenette: In so far as the Prime Minister and Privy Council offices are concerned: (a) and (b) none.
In so far as the Economic Council of Canada is concerned:
2408

June 26, 1980
Order Paper Questions
(a)	3-$14,980.87
Mr. Norman Lafrance Mrs. Eileen Pruden CEGIR Company
(b)	1-$31,083.48
Mrs. Gail C. A. Cook

In so far as the Chief Electoral Office is concerned: (a) and (b) none.
In so far as the Public Service Staff Relations Board is concerned:
(a)	2-$24,884.81
Data Crown	$21,384.81
Pouliot, Guerard & Associates	$ 3,500.00

(b)	None.
For the fiscal year ending March 31,1978
By other federal departments and agencies and
By NRC coordinated by NRC
Total
(i)	in-house	$ 915,000	$410,000	$1,325,000(ii)	outside R and D 1,900,000	755,000	2,655,000
For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1979
(i)	in-house	$2,832,000	$2,351,000	$5,183,000(ii)	outside R and D 4,970,000	2,638,000	7,608,000


BAY OF FUNDY TIDAL POWER-ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY
Mr. Howie: Since January 1, 1978, what amount was spent by the government on studying the economic feasibility of Bay of Fundy tidal power?


Marc Lalonde: The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources reports as follows: $79,190.


NATIONAL FORESTRY POLICY
Mr. de Jong: Does Canada have a national forestry policy and, if not, is it the government's mention to develop such a policy?


John (Moody) Roberts: Although each province has jurisdiction over the forest resources within its own boundaries, there is need for agreement on basic goals and principles in the management of our forests. The Canadian Council of Resource and Environment Ministers has addressed this matter. As a result, all the provinces and the federal government have agreed that Canada should try to increase the flow of benefits from the forest resource and eleven basic principles which each jurisdiction will take into account in developing its own forest policy have been identified. A discussion paper on federal policy on the forestry sector was released by the federal government on January 15. Environment Minister John Roberts outlined the federal policy on March 25 (Environment Canada Press Release, Montreal, March 25, 1980).


ENERGY DERIVED FROM RENEWABLE RESOURCES
Mr. Howie: For the fiscal year ended March 31 (a) 1978 (b) 1979, what amount was spent by the government with respect to energy derived from renewable resources on (i) in-house (ii) outside research and development?


John (Moody) Roberts: In so far as the
National Research Council is concerned, the reply is as follows:


EXTERNAL. AFFAIRS-PUBLISHING OF &quot;INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES&quot;
Mr. Cossitt: 1.	With reference to the announcement made on May 9, 1980, by the Secretary of State for External Affairs, that International Perspectives and its French counterpart Perspectives internationales will no longer be published by the government but by Alex Inglis, 150 Wellington Street, Ottawa (a) were tenders called for the publishing of this material and, if so (i) on what dale (ii) from whom were they received and for what amounts (b) if not, for what reason was Alex Inglis awarded the contract without tenders?
2.	Was Louis Balthazar of Quebec City selected to edit the French language version and, if so (a) for what reason (b) were others considered as well?


Mark R. MacGuigan: 1. With reference to International Perspectives and Perspectives internationales:
(a)	No.
(b)	The Department of External Affairs was aiming to have the private sector publish the journal(s), preferably without public subsidy but with limited subsidy if necessary; therefore, the department had nothing to sell and thus nothing on which to call tenders; instead, the department-on the advice of the Canadian Government Publishing Centre-let it be known in the international relations community in Canada that proposals for the takeover of the journal(s) at the lowest possible cost to the public would be welcome; of the proposals received (three), Mr. Alex Inglis asked for the lowest amount of public subsidy.
2. Mr. Louis Balthazar, as editor of Perspectives internationales, is in a business relationship with the publisher of that journal; questions having to do with his selection for the job would have to be directed to Mr. Alex Inglis.
June 26, 1980


David Michael Collenette: While 1 am on my feet I should like to take the opportunity to refer to questions addressed to me yesterday by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers) with reference to order paper questions Nos. 810 and 811. I can inform the hon. member that, as of a couple of days ago, these answers were still being prepared. 1 will do my best to follow the matter up for him.
Reference was also made yesterday to starred question No. 876 by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie). I can tell the hon. member that, as of yesterday, part of the answer had been compiled. 1 am awaiting the other part and I will do my best to bring it to the House as soon as possible.
1 would ask that all the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Thomas Charles Cossitt: On a point of order, Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary has just referred to points of order raised in the House concerning delays in replying to questions on the order paper, and he has indicated, roughly, when answers might be expected. In these circumstances I feel justified in asking when I might expect an answer to a question of mine which is on the order paper which inquires as to the amount of government business received by Martin Goldfarb and Goldfarb Associates.
I would say I have raised the point of order about this unanswered question six times in the last three years. The hon. gentleman's predecessor said it would be answered "soon". I asked the present parliamentary secretary two years later how soon is "soon", and he said "eventually". Now, if the hon. member has been so kind as to tell other members when questions are going to be answered, would he now tell the House when this one is going to be answered?
While I am at it, might 1 make one further inquiry concerning another matter-I do not have the number of the question in front of me, but it is easy to locate. A year or so ago I asked for a list of Soviet diplomats who had applied to travel outside the restrictive limits placed on them by the government. That is simply a matter of the Department of External Affairs consulting their records. Something has gone wrong if it takes them two years to do that.


David Michael Collenette: In answer to the hon. member's questions 1 should point out that there are more than 1,200 questions on the order paper. Many of them have been placed there by the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt). Answering such questions involves considerable expense and I sometimes wonder whether or not the hon. member is perhaps abusing his position by such questions and putting the government, the
Helsinki Final Act
taxpayers of Canada, to such inordinate expense in answering what appear to be trivial questions. Be that as it may, I assure the hon. member that there are questions he has asked that I signed recently. Not a day goes by without a couple of his questions being answered. There are three or four today, perhaps five, in the group I have just mentioned. So I would ask him to be patient.
He did misquote me when he referred to my reply a couple of weeks ago to the question concerning Goldfarb Consultants. I defined "soon" as being "some point in the future". Obviously we have not reached that point yet.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: A question of privilege, Madam Speaker. If I understood the parliamentary secretary correctly, he said I was abusing my privileges by asking questions in this House. If I understood him correctly, that was roughly the tone of his remarks. Madam Speaker, when the day comes on which a member of the government can tell the opposition or a member of the opposition that they do not have the privilege of questioning the government, then we will have a dictatorship in Canada, not a democratic government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Thomas Charles Cossitt: I ask the hon. member to stand in his place and withdraw that remark. And let him not say he was misquoted, as he did a minute ago, because he was not misquoted.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, I did not accuse the hon. member of abusing the rules of the House; I was wondering whether or not some of his questions perhaps constituted abuse. Perhaps there is a fine line there; I was expressing a personal view. When I look at these questions day after day and when I think of the expense the government has to go to to answer them, I feel a legitimate concern. Perhaps I should not voice this concern in the chamber and I would ask Your Honour to rule.
If I have offended the hon. member through failing to follow the Standing Orders, then obviously I would apologize. But 1 certainly have a legitimate right, as have all hon. members, to express reservations I may have about any procedure going on in the House or on any bill which is before the House.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Collenette) has given explanations which perhaps will satisfy the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt). There is a different interpretation of the sense in which a certain word was used. I do not think it was unparliamentary, but this clarification will probably satisfy everybody.

June 26, 1980
2410_____________________________________
Employment Tax Credit Act



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Yvon Pinard: That the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence be empowered to examine the implementation of the provisions of the three baskets of the Helsinki Final Act by Canada and other participating states and consider Canada's participation in the Madrid follow-up meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) and report to the House; and
That the committee be empowered for this purpose to retain the services of advisers to assist in its work and that it also be empowered to retain such professional, clerical and stenographic help as may be required and that it also be empowered to advertise invitations to the public to submit opinions on the aforementioned matter.


Madam Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. Yvon Pinard (for the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans) moved that Bill C-28, to amend the Fisheries Improvement Loans Act, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry, be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.
Hon. Yvon Pinard (for the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans) moved that the bill be read the third time and do pass.
Mr. Mel Gass (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, members on this side of the House recognize and accept the need for urgency in passing this bill. It is imperative that Bill C-28 be passed before July 1 since the fishermen are dependent upon the continuance of the fisheries improvement loans program.
Our party is somewhat disappointed that Bill C-28 was not brought before us earlier so that better discussion of the program could have taken place. However, upon consideration, Madam Speaker, we have decided to allow the bill to be passed without further debate so that any fisherman desiring credit shall not be denied consideration.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.


EMPLOYMENT TAX CREDIT ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Wednesday, June 11, consideration in committee of Bill C-19, to amend the Employment Tax Credit Act-Mr. Axworthy-Mr. Blaker in the chair.
The Assistant Deputy Chairman:: Order, please. When the committee rose on Wednesday, June II, 1980, clause 1 of the bill was under consideration. The hon. member for Richmond-South Delta had the floor. In his absence I will recognize the next hon. member who wishes to address himself to the bill. The hon. member for Calgary West.


Mr. Hawkes:: Mr. Chairman, I would like to indicate to the minister opposite how much we appreciate the availability today of information. I hope we can proceed quickly because there certainly is a growing number of unemployed in this country, and the faster we can get on with the passage of this bill the better off I think those unemployed might be.
I would like to begin by reviewing with the minister the announcement he made in this House some two and one-half weeks ago about other alternative ways of creating employment. I wonder if we might begin with the community services program. 1 think the amount mentioned by the minister was in the order of $11 million for that purpose. 1 wonder if the minister might tell us how many man-weeks of employment that program might create in this fiscal year and what the dollar cost per week of that employment might be.


Mr. Axworthy:: Mr. Chairman, I welcome the invitation of the hon. member for Calgary West to dispatch this particular bill, which has been with us a good long time. 1 certainly do agree with him that there have been many unemployed people awaiting its passage with some degree of interest, and it is useful to know that in fact members of the opposition will now accord it the proper treatment which we had suggested earlier on.
As far as the participants are concerned, in terms of community service projects the total number of participants estimated this year is 1,100.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I am pleased to know that there are 1,100 participants, but my question was how many man-weeks of employment are involved in the current fiscal year, and what is the dollar cost per week of employment for this community services program?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out to the hon. member before, the measurement we use to determine the nature of the program is participants. The other form of measurement he uses is not one we apply, and therefore we cannot give him an answer.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, let us go to the bill before us, the employment tax credit bill. Could the minister indicate to us-and we will try to keep the questions simple and perhaps
June 26, 1980

work up to something a little more complex-the average cost per week of the employment tax credit program?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I think we gave the hon. member answers to that question before, but we estimated that the average cost for the place or position created by tax credit is about $3,300 to $3,500. It is difficult to estimate because sometimes there are different numbers of weeks applied to the program. They do not ail operate on a 12-month basis. There is some variance, but that is about the average cost of the program over all.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, perhaps we could narrow it down, but what is the cost to the government of the employment tax credit program per participant per week?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, about $65.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: We have a number of $65 for the employment tax credit program. Could the minister indicate why we do not have a similar cost per week per participant for the community services program?


Lloyd Axworthy: Because, Mr. Chairman, at this point in time the program is not in effect, and we can only use judgmental factors. Until the program actually has some operational time in which to see how it is working, we cannot provide that measurement.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Could the minister tell us, in terms of the community services program, on what basis he is going to determine the wage rate that people who work under that program will get, and what portion of that wage rate will the federal government pay? Could someone be paid $5,000 a week under that program, or is there a maximum or a minimum? There is no sense of average, obviously, but could he give us some of the parameters of the cost per week per employee for the community services program?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out when we announced the program, the basis upon which the salaries will be paid is that the federal government contribution would be related to the minimum wage paid in respect of provinces, with some discretion in the program to add to that. However, that does not necessarily relate to the total wage which would be paid to the participant because organizations would have the capacity to top up those salaries if they so desire.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, there is a much larger program which the minister announced costing $72 million, which is getting into the neighbourhood of the cost of the employment tax credit program. On the $72 million program, the community development program, does the minister have an estimate of the cost per week per employee of the community development program?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out in a similar answer, the program is not yet operative. We have estimated what the cost might be in terms of participants on the basis of a fiscal year of the government, and that is the measurement
Employment Tax Credit Act
we will use. Again, until we have some operational criteria or data, it is difficult to pinpoint that. The same formula will be used in terms of using the minimum wage as the base line for the cost of each participant in the program, but with an ability to add approximately an additional 20 per cent, depending on the nature of the project, the skills involved and so forth; so there are a number of variables involved. We can actually pinpoint that, and we will be glad to provide that information once we have some experience with the program.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, can the minister give us an estimate of the number of participants in the community development program?


Lloyd Axworthy: We are estimating about 20,000 participants this year.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, the budget figure is $72 million and the minister is estimating 20,000 participants. Somehow there must be some relationship between the number of people who participate and the dollar cost. How did the minister arrive at the estimate of $72 million and/or how did the minister arrive at the estimate of 20,000 participants? Can
20,000	people be hired for $72 million and, if so, what is the cost per week?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the allocation was based on what kind of money we thought we would be able to put together as a consequence of the estimates which had been established for spending programs or guidelines which were already in place. Needless to say, we would have liked to have provided a great deal more, but those were the parameters within which we worked. The estimate of participants is, of course, related to the estimate of the total sum of money available but, as 1 pointed out, there are variations.
At this stage in time when we are simply preparing the actual operational features of the program, which we hope to be active by this fall, it is difficult to make any clear estimates because we are putting the program into effect. Until we are actually able to put the machinery into motion, we will not be able to give a clear estimate, but I think 20,000 is the basis for subdividing now the money we will have available in this fiscal year.
1 should point out to the hon. member that he made a substantial misjudgment in one of his earlier statements when he did his own division work and did not take into account the fact that, because many of these jobs are committed for the fiscal year 1981 and go into the next fiscal year, we have to put money aside to make sure that we can fulfil our commitments. So it does range over into the next fiscal year when we sign agreements under the community development program.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, now I am becoming confused. Can we go right back to basics? Is the minister spending $137 million this year to create the employment program which he announced in the House? Is that $137 million to be spent this
mm

June 26, 1980
Employment Tax Credit Act
year or is he telling us now that it is an expenditure which ranges over more than one fiscal year?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member will obviously be able to understand that if we are putting a program into place beginning this fall but which has the ability to work for a year or, in the case of the community services program, over a three-year period, we obviously must be prepared to commit ourselves to spend that money to create that situation. So we are spending $137 million in this fiscal year in terms of the commitments that we are prepared to make in job creation. In many of those cases those positions will run over beyond the end of the fiscal year in April for 1981-82, so obviously we must have the money because it has already been committed to be spent. But the positions will be created.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Let us stay right here, Mr. Chairman. The amount of $72 million is budgeted for the community development program which is the three-year program to which the minister refers.


Lloyd Axworthy: It is a one-year program.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Okay, a one year program. Let us stay with the community development program which is a one-year program. Does one year mean 12 months, and therefore the $72 million will be spread over two fiscal years and, if so, in what proportion? Or does the minister intend to spend $72 million in this fiscal year?


Lloyd Axworthy: As we explained to the hon. member several times, it may be for a year or it may not be for a year. It depends on the applications we receive from the various sponsoring groups. The minimum requirement for job creation under the program is eight weeks. It may go for 25 weeks, for 40 weeks, or even beyond that.
The fact of the matter is that the community development program, in terms of its initial outline, was to be a program that could run for a year, and if the program had merit it could go beyond a year, but that would require further negotiation and application. But the minimum requirement under the program is for an eight-week employment package. Anything between that is available. However, the program was late getting started because of the election and the change in government. Since there were no direct job-creation programs available for us to use because they had all been cancelled, the program will not be started until this fall. Therefore, if a sponsor puts in an application to create employment for a full year period and the program does not get started until November, by simple mathematics it will obviously carry over until the next fiscal year.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Does the minister have any kind of estimate of how much of the $72 million will be spent in this fiscal year and how much will be spent in subsequent fiscal years?


Lloyd Axworthy: I will answer the same question but perhaps in a different way to try to expand the explanation further. The money is being committed this year for all those jobs. I
think the hon. member would recognize that it would be highly irresponsible for us to invite people to apply for jobs and then not have the money to pay for them. But at this point, until we actually have the applications in our hands, we cannot determine what the full length of those job tenures will be under the community development program. So the $72 million which we are committing this year is for jobs which will be started this year. They will be in effect and in operation this year. They may carry over into the next fiscal year, but we have to keep paying the salaries regardless.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: So there is an indeterminate portion of the $72 million which will be spent this year and an indeterminate portion which will be spent next year.
Let us go back for a second to the community services program which is the minister's three year program. The amount announced to this House for this program was $11 million. Does the minister have an estimate of the proportion of that $11 million which will create jobs for this fiscal year, the proportion for next year and the proportion for the third year?


Lloyd Axworthy: Again, the $!l million is committed for actual positions that will be created this year.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: So for the community services program we have $11 million for this year, and for the community development program we have $72 million, some portion of it to be used this year and some portion next year. Let us run through the other parts of the $137 million. There is the local economic development assistance which, it was announced to the House, would cost $3 million. What portion of that sum will create jobs this year?


Lloyd Axworthy: The hon. member might want to refer back to my statement. He will recognize that the local economic development program is a pilot project and its major objective is long-term job creation, enabling communities to establish a firm economic base in the community so that the jobs created will not be of a short-term nature and have to be renewed.
Economic factors will be taken into account to allow small businesses to develop. Under that program what we are offering to a number of pilot projects, most of which we hope will be established over the summer and the fall of this year, is front end money for organizational work, marketing work, developmental work, and the establishment of a corporate structure in these communities. Then, if they are operative by that time, the rest of the funds will be available for equity financing. But no one could begin to speculate on how quickly that will happen or how many actual jobs will be created out of it. The objective of that program, as I explained in the House, is to be an innovative program which attempts to develop longer-term assistance to communities where there are not many employment prospects but where, with government assistance, they might be able to organize themselves. So I cannot give the hon. member an actual estimate of jobs at this time until the program comes into operation.
June 26, 1980


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The next program is the new technology program at $7 million. Is all of it to be spent this year or part of it next year?


Lloyd Axworthy: Again, it is committed for this year.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: How about the program for the disadvantaged people at $15 million?


Lloyd Axworthy: As I explained in my statement to the House, that $15 million was set aside in our budget for a new program dealing with the disadvantaged people. There are no employees as yet because we are still working on it. We hope to be able to bring in legislation, if necessary, this fall to provide that kind of incentive to the private sector to hire severely disadvantaged people. So the $15 million at this point is just a reserve in our budget until we are able to arrive at the details of that program.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The next program is the native training program at $10 million. Is it all to be spent this year or will some be spent next year?


Lloyd Axworthy: This year, Mr. Chairman.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The next one is the critical skills training program at $10 million.


Lloyd Axworthy: It will be spent this year, Mr. Chairman.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The next one is the non-traditional training for women at $2 million.


Lloyd Axworthy: It is for this year, Mr. Chairman.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The next one is the language training for refugees at $7 million.


Lloyd Axworthy: It is for this year, Mr. Chairman.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let us come back to the community services program. The minister has told us the following facts about it, that there is an $11 million budget which will be spent this year. I believe the original announcement was that there would be 1,000 participants. If those 1,000 participants participate for the length of time available to them this year-I think it has the starting date of October 1 and the fiscal year ends on March 31-if one does a little rough calculation, it comes to 26 weeks of employment for 1,000 people at $11 million; and the cost of that job-creation program comes to $423 worth of taxpayers' money each week. Can the minister confirm those mathematics?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I did not hear those mathematics.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I will be only too happy to repeat them in the hope they might stick. The minister has announced a budget of $11 million. He has confirmed in this House today that that $11 million is to be spent this year. The starting date of the
Employment Tax Credit Act program is October 1. If we are talking about this fiscal year, which the minister has confirmed, then the program would terminate March 31. If those 1,000 people work in that entire 26-week period, then the cost will be $423 per week. If any of them work a shorter period of time, the cost would go up. In the case of the community services program, we are talking about a cost to taxpayers of $423 per week per job. Are those mathematics correct?


Lloyd Axworthy: Again, Mr. Chairman, I should like to correct the hon. member's mathematics. I think he is a much better sociologist than a mathematician. As I explained earlier, a commitment is made this year of $11 million. It is made to projects to pay for the estimated 1,000 participants. They will be given the funds to use, but those jobs may carry over into the next fiscal year. Therefore, that is the basis upon which he should add in several additional weeks; it will substantially lower the cost per week.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, this is becoming extremely difficult. In the beginning we went very slowly. We went through every program. We asked the minister whether the budget would be spent this year or spread over two years. I think the Hansard record will show very clearly that the minister corrected me in terms of the community services program. He indicated that the entire $11 million for employment creation would be spent in this fiscal year for that program. Using the minister's own figures, the mathematics of the situation come to $423. Surely it is a simple calculation.
This line of questioning began with an attempt to ascertain the number of man-weeks of employment created and the cost per week. Those figures are in the bill before us. I suggest it is completely irresponsible to propose any employment-creation program without some estimate of the cost per week per job. Surely the minister or his department has those figures. He has one of the largest research departments and perhaps the largest budget in government for this purpose. We cannot continue to have it both ways. Either the $11 million is spent this year or not. If it is, the cost per week is $423 minimum, and it may be more.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I would not want to disabuse the hon. member of his own opinions, but I suggest that he should re-examine his calculations. We indicated to him that our form of measurement, which I think is a responsible one, was to take a sum of money and subdivide it in terms of what we think will be the potential pay-out per participant. We have indicated that we estimate there will be some 1,100 participants. He insists upon using only that portion of time remaining within this fiscal year. I have indicated that it could extend beyond this fiscal year, even though the moneys are advanced this year to pay for the project.
I think it is a reasonably simple concept to understand because the work has been created this year. If it is a 12-month program, obviously it will extend beyond April. Therefore, the money is in the project to pay for the continua-

June 26, 1980
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tion of that work. Then we will renew it and bring in another level of programs in the following fiscal year. The hon. member can redo his calculations based upon that if he wants, but he cannot estimate it because we do not have the evidence in front of us since the program obviously is not in place yet. We can do it more easily with the tax credit program because we have the experience of that program to base it upon. It is simply a continuation of an existing program as opposed to a new program. Therefore, obviously the range of figures is somewhat different.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Mr. Chairman, first of all 1 have a couple of statements to make before I begin to question the minister in a more specific manner. I have some concerns about Bill C-19 to amend the Employment Tax Credit Act, along with other measures the minister announced a couple of weeks ago to create new jobs to try to reduce unemployment in the country, which is reaching critical proportions, even though in my judgment most of the jobs created will be of a short-term nature. It is a make-work, kind of patchwork approach to employment in the country from which a very large segment of our work force has been suffering throughout the entire Liberal period of the 1970s. A major national industrial strategy has not been established to look at the total employment problem in the country. It should be put into place so that people are not entering, re-entering, moving into and removing themselves from the work force in a patchwork manner year in and year out, as we have seen in the past decade.
We on this side of the House, particularly in the New Democratic Party, hoped that the new minister, as young and vigorous as he is, would have brought in new and vigorous policies to cope with this patchwork approach about which his predecessors were complacent.


Lloyd Axworthy: Aging rapidly.


Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: I said the minister was young and vigorous; 1 presume he is. Anyway, he is a little younger than I.
In the short time allotted to me this afternoon, I should like to focus more specifically on one of the cruelest and saddest aspects of unemployment and on the almost total failure of job creation either through tax credits or other mechanisms. Of course, 1 am referring to 300,000 native North Americans, our Indian population, whether or not they live on reserves.
I think it was yesterday that a booklet came out entitled: "Indian Conditions-A Survey". 1 have not read the entire report. 1 have not had a chance; it just came to my attention a few hours ago. Under the heading "Economic Conditions- labour force/employment" at page 59, it reads as follows:
Recent estimates of Indian unemployment have ranged from 35 to 75 per cent of the labour force (proportion of working-age population-15-64 years- employed or actively seeking work). These estimates vary in part because of the absence of reliable surveys but largely because of varying assumptions about the labour force participation rate.
There are a number of surveys suggesting that Indian labour force participation is about 40 per cent and employment rates about 32 per cent of the working-age population, compared to about 60 per cent and 56 per cent for the national population. Based on this information, Indian unemployment would be over 18 per cent compared to 8 per cent of the national labour force.
As we all know, there are some reserves or some pockets of Indian unemployment in the country which range as high as 70 per cent to 75 per cent to 80 per cent, yet the minister announced a $10 million program known as the native training program. 1 will deal with the tax credit aspect of this a little later, but when we consider that this is all the funding that we at the federal level can give to one of the most tragic areas of unemployment, it is not only revolting but disgusting.
I should like to know just how many jobs will be created. How many meaningful, long-term, skilled and semi-skilled jobs will be created? We must consider that there are thousands upon thousands of native North Americans out of work in this country who, through no fault of their own, are badly educated, undereducated or non-educated. How many of these people will find meaningful employment through the native training program? I will allow the minister to try to answer that question when I am finished.
1 do not honestly think that the minister has the answer. Nor do 1 suggest for one moment that he has the money, because $10 million will go nowhere, as far as I am concerned, in creating permanent, long-term, meaningful jobs for our native North Americans. 1 am not just speaking for my constituency and the unemployed in the county of Brant in southwestern Ontario; I am speaking for all the unemployed in Canada, particularly the unemployed native North Americans. The Six Nations Mohawk Indian reserve can be found in Brant county. On that reserve there is some industry. But compared to smaller municipalities within the constituency, such as Paris, St. George and particularly the city of Brantford, economic activity on the reserve, except for agriculture, is almost non-existent. There may be a service station at a crossroads, a small restaurant or a pottery operation, but as far as industry is concerned, it is virtually non-existent. As a result, it is very difficult to find jobs on the reserves, particularly for the young people who are entering the work force.
In what way will the minister's tax credit program assist native employment and create jobs for native North Americans who live on reserves if virtually every impediment or obstacle is placed in the path of entrepreneurs or would-be entrepreneurs on reserves who cannot establish themselves in business in the first place? We can talk all we want about the tax credit for the creation of jobs, but if we do not have businessmen and women establishing businesses on Indian reserves in the first place, then how will this help in a positive way native North Americans living on reserves? That is my second question to the minister.
Does the minister have any solution? When will he get the FBDB off its backside and working in the interests of young Indians or, for that matter, middle-aged Indians on reserves to create viable corporations, companies, partnerships or private companies on reserves? This would create a healthier climate of business activity and employment activity so that younger and middle-aged native North Americans do not have to leave the reserve and enter the almost alien environment of large
June 26, 1980

cities, where they in many cases fall by the wayside, end up without jobs, on welfare, or in the courts, suffering from alcoholism, drug abuse and so on. These are very serious matters.
1 am, as I am sure is my party, terribly disappointed at the lack of understanding on the part of the government of the very legitimate needs of native North Americans, whether they live on or off the reserve, with respect to job creation and business enterprise. These two areas must go together in order that we may, first of all, make the reserves more viable economically, and secondly, but just as important, that we may make the reserves better areas of employment. This is what our native North Americans want. They do not want handouts; they want the same kind of entitlement and financial assistance which non-native North Americans are receiving off reserves in large and small communities.
1 come back once again to this deplorably small sum of $10 million which is allocated to train natives. I have a third question which I would like to ask of the minister. What will the natives who are trained under this native training program be trained for? Are they being trained to be mechanics in the city of Toronto, or skilled workers in Vancouver, or are they being trained in native skills for native industry which should be developing and, indeed, mushrooming on reserves?
I am not saying that Indians should be held on the reserves or that they should be forced to live on the reserves and be limited to searching for jobs in reserve related economic activities. 1 am saying that they should have the choice. If the native North Americans wish to remain on the reserves, then the government should make every effort to promote industry, large or small, such as native crafts, non-native crafts, or any kind of entrepreneurial enterprise, so that the natives may be trained in their own skills, if need be, or other skills.
1 am very dissatisfied with the government's total package, both in terms of what the minister announced a couple of weeks ago with respect to the native training program and with respect to the tax credit bill which we are discussing in Committee of the Whole this afternoon. Despite the $10 million which the minister is touting as a breakthrough in native North American training, 1 see virtually nothing in Bill C-19.
1 have asked the minister several substantive questions. I shall not take up my full 20 minutes, but I anticipate that the minister will provide me with some substantive answers. I do not want the kind of answer in which he rattles on with a lot of figures, percentages, man-hours per year or woman-hours per year and so on. I want the minister to present his fundamental philosophy with respect to job creation and business development on Indian reserves and his basic philosophical approach to the very serious unemployment problems facing native people in Canada. What is his government prepared to do in a substantive way to alleviate these problems? Many of them are economic or material in origin. To what extent is the minister prepared to commit the government financially, over and beyond the $10 million for this fiscal year, so that we can begin at last to embark on a long-range, upgrading, retraining
Employment Tax Credit Act
or training program for native North Americans, whether they be on or off the reserve, in conjunction with the development of industry, whether it be native craft or non-native craft industries on reserves.
I have posed at least half a dozen questions. I ask the minister to open up to this Elouse and tell us what he really believes this legislation will and will not do. Will the minister commit himself in this House to going beyond the $10 million when it is financially possible-1 hope that will be as soon as possible-so that we may finally put to an end the situation which exists on reserves or, at least, we can begin to see the end of the mass poverty and depression from which our native North Americans have suffered. This suffering is due primarily not only to the federal government's lack of compassion as shown through its pocketbook, but to its lack of compassion and understanding of the problems which face native North Americans in Canada.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, 1 agree with some of the assessments made by the hon. member. There is no doubt that the condition of native people in this country is serious. 1 had an opportunity to begin reading the report mentioned by the hon. member just last night. It details many of the ongoing and continuing problems which native people face.
However, it would be wrong for the hon. member to state in this House, and I wish to correct the record, that the only program of the government is the $10 million native training program. This program is in addition to many other programs which are already in operation. If I may take a moment, 1 will outline those programs. For example, in my own department with regard to employment, we have the LEAP program which has a budget of over $70 million for this year, of which $30 million to $40 million is allocated to native employment programs throughout Canada. It is one of the most successful employment programs the federal government has introduced, and provides long-term employment and economic development for a great number of status and non-status communities in Canada. A large proportion of that money is allocated to development work among the native people.
In addition, my department has Outreach, the special employment counselling program where 40 per cent of the nearly $10 million budget is spent on enabling native people to develop their own employment services in order to help bring people into the work force. Within the training program that $10 million is simply a special increment. We spend well over $800 million on a wide variety of training programs in which the native people participate to a degree greater than the percentage they represent of the total population. Last year close to 10,800 native people were added to training programs across Canada. 1 do not say that is enough as, of course, there is never enough. In the department we do not speak of expenditures of $10 million but expenditures of well over $100 million, and perhaps beyond that, on training and job creation for native people.

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There are also major commitments under the regional economic expansion programs. The Northlands agreements which are in place in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, parts of Alberta and the Northwest Territories have introduced major work programs for native people. Manitoba has spent close to $26 million per year under its Northlands agreement which is almost entirely allocated to economic development programs for native people. This is the case in the other provinces as well, so DREE has a major commitment to economic development for native people.
The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has also set funds aside, not only for support of the reserves but also for capital investment and economic development within the reserve structure.
A number of programs are available, but perhaps they have not been co-ordinated or focused on specific problems. We may need to take a different strategic approach to the problem. Perhaps it would be a good idea to consolidate the programs and concentrate large amounts of capital on specific economic development areas.
Two years ago the federal cabinet set up a consultative committee which has been meeting with the provinces and native organizations to develop new economic development approaches. I believe it is close to developing certain ideas which this government will implement.
Progress has been made in a number of areas but it cannot be expected that hundreds of years of abuse, grievance and neglect will be corrected in two, three or five years. It is necessary that this House agree that this is the number one priority for Canada. If that is agreed, then perhaps it is worth debating whether there should be a full-scale mobilization of our resources in that area. However, that would be telling other groups-young people and women, for example-that money cannot be put into their employment or economic development program. There is a wide variety of competing interests and groups which feel they have the right to special consideration, but with reasonably scarce resources and budgets, it is impossible to satisfy all needs at the same time.
I think the hon. member's sentiments are correct and his assessment of the condition of native people is accurate. It is something that 1 share but I think we need more dialogue about how to make use of resources in excess of $10 million- perhaps in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars. If we commit more resources to these programs, are we prepared to withdraw them from other people or interests? That is a topic which is worthy of debate but I would say this is not the time or place for that debate. It should be given more time than is available for debate on this bill.
I should like to say to the hon. member that I would welcome his comments when my estimates come before the committee. Also, his colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North, is a member of a task force assigned to examine the new employment opportunities and demands for the next decade and ways in which the government should respond to them. I believe they will begin hearings shortly. Parliamentarians and interest groups may appear before them and I welcome their contributions so that we may have the benefit of their experience with this very critical problem. It is precisely to deal with this problem that the task force was established. For the same reason the department is undertaking an evaluation of its programs in order to ensure that they meet the severe and special needs which exist in the country. My department hopes to present a paper to Parliament in the late fall or early next year. I hope we can then have a full-scale debate on the questions which the hon. member has raised.


Denis Éthier: Order, please. I am sorry to have to advise the hon. member for Brant that his time has expired. Before I recognize the hon. member for Calgary West again, I have to see other hon. members who are seeking the floor. The hon. member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke.


Mr. Parker:: Mr. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on Bill C-19, to amend the employment tax credit program. I should like to refer to the minister's comments regarding LEAP funds and the Outreach program. These have been very effective in my area but when I have contacted the minister's office I have been advised that funds for my area have been depleted and that the program cannot continue. That is a very sad thing for a place like Golden where there is no Canada Manpower office. Ten or twelve volunteers must work with one Outreach applicant to help them get employment. I think that such a program should take preference over a tax credit program. I should like to hear the minister's comments on this matter, first of all.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member's remarks confirm the success of the LEAP and Outreach programs. I regret that the funds for his province have already been committed but we have to work within budgetary limits. It must be recognized too that the spending estimates have been established by previous governments and that this government must live within those parameters. I would be prepared, however, to see whether the funding available to the British Columbia region specifically has been fully committed.
I would point out also that I have held commitments to the Outreach program in reserve, in part because I wanted to see whether there was a fair allocation of funds to other constituent groups such as women's organizations and handicapped groups. Some money may possibly be left in that part of the program.
I am not sure whether funds for the LEAP program for the hon. member's region have all been spent. The budget for this year was close to $70 million, which was a substantial increase over 1978-79 when I believe the budget was $5.8 million. If the member thinks this is a successful program, then we will examine it carefully when we make our forecast for next year.


Sidney James Parker: Referring now to the tax credit program, Mr. Chairman, last week I presented the Minister of Communications with a petition listing 10,000 names protesting cutbacks in employment and the movement of telephone workers into other areas.
June 26, 1980

The government has spent a great deal of taxpayers' money putting satellites into the sky in order to bring about better communications. Business enterprises are making use of those instruments and I really do not have any reservations about that. But when it comes to a large company changing their administration in order to reduce the number of their employees and using the funds for other purposes than providing an approved service, then I am concerned.
1 will recap what has happened in the past. I worked for the railway. In the 1950s the railway put in an application to do away with their firemen. I do not know if hon. members remember the issue; it was a hot issue across Canada. The firemen were forced back to work and the company was allowed to phase out the employment of the firemen. The words used were "phase out". They did not phase them out fast enough, and after a certain period of time the railway company came forward and tried to buy some of them out. In fact, some of them were bought out. The company literally paid the firemen to leave their jobs and to go elsewhere.
As we got into the 1970s, the railway needed railway engineers. The railway had no firemen who could become engineers. Instead, the railway started to train people from other classifications to become engineers. To my understanding, the railway was given funding to help train and create the engineer's position. Those are the kinds of programs in which we have been involved.
In July of last year the railway was given the opportunity of reducing the numbers of tail end brakemen. In my area, this is a very serious issue. Without the tail end brakemen, the railway has been allowed to increase the length of its trains. Tonnage is reaching exorbitant heights. We have railway conductors who have worked for 15 years and taken a reduction in salary of $100 per month. They went back to work as brakemen and now we are faced with the situation where we will have to start training other classifications.
With the tax credit program, such as the minister is bringing forward, are we going to allow companies of this size to be able to change their mode of transportation and come to the government for assistance to help train workers for other programs? I resent those kinds of programs taking place when large companies like that are allowed to phase out employees, especially when we have almost one million people unemployed in Canada.
I want to say to the government that we should be standing up to these companies and telling them that this is not the time to start reducing manpower unless it can be shown there is loss of revenue and a loss in the cutback in services.
I am not happy with the tax credit program that is being presented to this House. I think there are other ways of bringing about employment programs which will help to alleviate unemployment. I will be speaking on the unemployment bill later on, so I will leave it at that.
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Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Chairman, a couple of weeks ago, 1 believe it was June 11, when we were debating Bill C-19 in Committee of the Whole, I had just begun my remarks leading up to questions for the minister. I am pleased to be able to continue that intervention now.
I think the concern which the minister has been hearing from this side of the House is that, while the initiative of the extension of the employment tax credit measure is admirable and will be supported, at least by this party, we are genuinely concerned that real jobs will not be a long-term product of this legislation, particularly jobs and opportunities for young people.
This afternoon I want to hone in on a special category of jobs. These are jobs relating to the mushrooming demands that will be placed on our society by the,energy developments of the 1980s. These are jobs in the high technology areas in particular. It is a fact that the unemployment rate among our young people is almost twice the national average. We will be requiring for every multi-billion dollar oil sands plant, heavy oils, coal or nuclear installation, thousands of skilled people, and young people. These young people are the ones who are coming up now through our high schools and junior schools. They will have to be trained with many specialized skills.
The solution to that problem is not merely going to involve government largesse, money and programs; it will have to be one involving attitude and long-range planning. We have to provide new types of incentive to technical training. As my colleague-the hon. member for Prince George-Peace River indicated a week or two ago, we have to start looking at the European model for vocational training. We have to look at the notion of having our young people study one day a week at a technical school while working four days a week at a plant side in industry developing on-the-job skills. This kind of thing will only come from a close relationship between the classroom and the work place environment. We will be requiring thousands upon thousands of young people to be trained as civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers. We will need physicists, heavy equipment operators, controllers, computer programmers, instrument mechanics and electronic technicians. This will be a special type of demand upon our society which will represent a change from the traditional pattern. It is no longer a time, I submit, for task forces, committees, further studies and reviews.
I hope the minister will tell us that the studies have been done within his department and that he is prepared now to implement the action required to deal with tremendous anomaly which will develop in Canada over the next ten years. Otherwise we could end up with the situation, as we once had, of importing large numbers of skilled and semi-skilled people from other countries to fill the demand when we suddenly have to fire up our steel and pipe mills and deal with heavy equipment for the purpose of removing overburden and mining coal in large quantities. We will need a large number of specially trained young people to meet the demands of the next decade. Therefore, I think the objectives of the employment tax credit program are not likely to provide the permanent jobs

June 26, 1980
Employment Tax Credit Act
and skills that will be required to meet the special challenge of the 1980s.
A couple of weeks ago, speaking in Committee of the Whole, the Minister of Employment and Immigration said that he had no crystal ball. At page 1999 of Hansard the minister stated that his best forecast was the forecast of 8 per cent unemployment for next year, but he would not predict beyond that. He said:
I am not going to vault myself into crystal balling into 1983, 1984 or 1985.
The theme of what 1 am trying to say is that the minister must begin to plan, at least to 1985 and preferably to 1990, because our future development and security as a nation depends on our ability to harness our own energy resources and to develop energy related industries. Those demands will be inescapable if we are going to develop that tremendous resource potential that we have at our doorstep.
Alternatively, are we going to continue to incur deficits and court national bankruptcy to the detriment of our children by increasing our imports of foreign sources of energy, paying heavy subsidy costs to foreign governments and industries so that they might develop their own economies and provide employment for their people in the 1980s while massive numbers of young Canadians remain unemployed? Canada must be self-sufficient in energy by 1990. We can be if we use a little foresight and long-range planning instead of being shortsighted and politically opportunistic. We have to plan a long way down the road.
What do we need? What am I talking about? 1 think the minister has heard some of these suggestions before but I would like to state them again for emphasis. We need increased financial assistance for our universities. The minister, having come from an university environment, as have some others in this House, will appreciate the importance of additional financial assistance for universities. This assistance should be not merely in terms of more opportunities for research, but more support for classrooms, laboratories, equipment, and more capital assistance for the programs which the universities are going to need to mount in order to train these young people all across Canada. This opportunity will not merely reside in Alberta or British Columbia, but will develop all across Canada if the minister and the federal government provide some guidance in the planning and design of these programs. We have to provide capital funding for universities, trade schools and technical colleges. It is fair to suggest the federal government must accept some leadership, if not financial responsibility, in this matter.
We must provide financial incentives to keep young people in school. 1 was a product of the Canadian educational system, as were most members here. I was a product of Canadian graduate school programs, as was perhaps the minister and others. 1 know how difficult it is to attract graduate students to stay within Canadian universities. Perhaps it was because of our experience within the university environment-and this goes for the Minister of Employment and Immigration as well
as his adversary, my colleague from Calgary West-the atmosphere in Canadian universities in the seventies, which brought us to this hallowed institution to practice this exercise of politics because of the frustrations we experienced in university.
At a time when the federal government was spending more and more in excess of its revenues by way of deficit and giving less and less to universities, in particular to faculty members and their graduate students, as well as meeting requirements for the purchase of equipment and apparatus, the government which gave less and less to supporting the basic underpinnings of our technological development as a nation was willing to spend profusely large amounts of money, wastefully, on alphabet soup programs and the like. Perhaps that is why some of us are in this House of Commons today. It is high time, and I hope the minister will respond, that the federal government exercised some leadership in these areas.
We have to provide more encouragement within the university environment. We have to make it worth while for professors to stay in universities and not enter politics, as well as for their students to stay in universities and obtain masters or perhaps doctoral degrees to enhance our centres of educational excellence all across Canada. If that had been occurring over the past ten years, perhaps I would not need to be here today making these comments.
It is very important that we recognize the support required for our educational system in all of our universities and trade schools. In addition, it is important that we recognize the shared responsibilities of labour and management to allow on-the-job training in technical and vocational schools. 1 wish the minister were listening. It is time we had a co-operative program which allowed our young people to be employed and learn at the same time; one day in school, four days in the work place, and not at union wage scales. The unions will also have to make compromises here and accept that these massive numbers of young people which we will need to support our energy-related industries, will have to be given opportunities to learn on the job and develop essential skills.
Coming to the point, I wish to ask the minister if it is expected by the year 1990 to have to resort to importing these very essential skills from the United States, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, France and many other countries, when we have the potential skills here. We have the young people, the resources and the opportunities. Will the minister tell us- because I expect he will be in his present position for a year or two at least-how he is going to plan to put this country on the right course in providing opportunities for young people?
If that has something to do with his new technology employment program, 1 hope this afternoon he will give some explanation to the people of Canada, particularly the young people, for whom we must all be very concerned.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member raises some all-encompassing questions. It taxes one's imagination to respond to them as fully as one would like. I would say to him that any limitations 1 might have in providing some deeply
June 26, 1980

committed plan could be greatly alleviated if members would allow me to get out of the House so that I could have some time to do that. He might suggest to his colleagues, as one answer to one of the questions he poses, they allow the minister to go back and do the job he is suggesting we do. However, 1 want to give him some assurances within these areas. First, some things are taking place, and second, some things are in motion.
As the hon. member knows, the federal government already spends over $800 million on training programs. We are the largest educators in Canada. However, we are limited in the expenditure of that money to joint agreements with the provinces. The provinces have clear jurisdiction over education. We do buy a substantial number of places within community colleges and vocational schools, but that has to be based upon the agreement of the provinces themselves. The curricula established in those colleges are very much under provincial control. We are in a position where we have to renegotiate all the training agreements under the Occupational Training Act with the provinces in the next year or so.
The preliminary meetings I have had with provincial ministers indicate to me that they are prepared to start shifting substantial amounts of money into the industrial training area. We will be negotiating over the next several months how that can take place. Beyond that, 1 would point out to the hon. member that we do have the so-called critical skills training program which is designed to do on-the-job, on-site training. We did add an additional $10 million this year under our job creation package to bring the total expenditure in that area up to $30 million.
I would also like to tell the hon. member, because he did ask the question last time, that we are aware of the tremendous human resource requirement in the energy industry. I would report to him that 1 met with senior officials of the oil companies in Calgary last week where we discussed what their manpower or personpower requirements are. We have begun to take steps to do some joint planning in those kinds of areas.
The hon. member should recognize as someone interested in this area that the energy industry itself has been very negligent in its own planning for manpower requirements. Private industry in Canada has been accustomed to supplying its skilled needs by offshore recruitment. We are providing much tougher requirements now. If they want to bring people from offshore, they must also train people as part of the program. We are insisting upon that in a very direct way. Really what is required now is much closer co-operation between ourselves, industry and the unions to make sure we have those skills flowing through. Industry itself is now coming to a recognition of that fact. However, they have had it easy. We have all had it easy.
The hon. member properly identifies-and this is undoubtedly one of the critical issues of the eighties-that many major resource projects will not go ahead if we do not have the people in place or the skills necessary to make it happen. The great paradox on which he properly puts his finger is that we have increasing demands for new skills in the energy and
Employment Tax Credit Act
resource areas, and at the same time we have a large pool of unemployment. The task of this government and industry will be to make the transition from that pool of unemployment to those job areas. That is something we identify. We hope to be able to borrow again from the experience of members of Parliament of the task force which has been established, which I hope will be able to pinpoint many of the difficulties and the solutions that we can use and utilize over the next years to come.


Mr. Rose:: Mr. Chairman, I did not want to let this opportunity pass without having regard to some of the concerns that have been expressed to me about this whole matter of unemployment and what it is likely to be in the eighties. I sometimes wonder whether somebody up there did not like the minister when he gave him that particular job. If the projections are anywhere near accurate, in spite of all his task forces, band-aid programs and $10 million programs, there has to be a much more fundamental kind of approach to this whole problem or else we are going to be defeated in this one as we have in many others.
Let me just give the committee a few statistics. In 1946, about 25 per cent of the work force was employed in agriculture, but only 5.2 per cent were so employed in 1975. In the same year, 1946, mining and forestry employed 4 per cent of the work force. Many of those in my province were unemployed but if they were working it is probable that by 1975 they would be employing possibly 2.4 per cent of the work force. It is the number one industry in my province and yet in terms of the total contribution to the work picture across Canada it is a very small amount. It is a very serious situation.
Similarly, manufacturing shows a terrific drop over the last 20 years, from 26 per cent to 21 per cent. That is a very serious matter.
What is an even more serious matter than it appears to be- and it is aside from the one mentioned by the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta-is the one which concerns the ultimate future of the communications and telecommunications industry in this country. It appears there will be a great number of people unemployed. Formerly, as people were dropped from the agricultural, forestry and manufacturing industries, they found employment in the service sectors in the 1950s and 1960s. Nearly two million jobs were created between 1970 and 1979, mainly in the retail and trades services, and it is precisely those jobs which are now being threatened by the new micro-technological revolution we are embarking upon.
The Secretary of State and Minister of Communications appeared before the committee this morning and told us that he was deeply conscious of these problems. Perhaps he will take an interest-at least, I hope he will-in the task force having to do with new employment opportunities, because it is precisely in the field which he administers that the great shocks of unemployment are likely to come. All kinds of

June 26, 1980
Employment Tax Credit Act
problems will be associated with it, especially those affecting women.
My hon. friend from Kootenay East-Revelstoke mentioned the problems attached to the centralized and computerized chip switching which is going on in British Columbia right now in many of the smaller communities he represents. The problem there is that women operators are being put out of work by new forms of technology. Nobody wants to be a Luddite about these things; we are not trying to hold back the clock. But we certainly want to make sure that the benefits of technology are at least distributed equally among the population. The benefits should not all go to those who happen to be captains of industry favoured by a number of other things-the tax system, import duties, tariffs, various things like that.
What has happened with centralized switching is that these people are being offered an opportunity to be retrained; the women will mainly be retrained into the jobs that are going to disappear. If they are going to be retrained into jobs such as clerking jobs or retail freight jobs, that is not going to be helpful.
During the fifties and sixties, as I and others have pointed out, the service trades and retail trades expanded. But it is precise by the clerking and the service trades that are going to disappear with the new technology, technology that hooks the computer to the fiber optics cable or the coaxial cable, and ultimately to the word-processor which can not only write letters but can do all the filing and the retrieval of information from storage. So it seems to me we have to consider alternative ways of placing the employees concerned. The telecommunications workers anyway estimate that approximately a million and a half women in the eighties have jobs which are going to be displaced by the new technology.
Let me give an example of the benefits. In 1976 computerized switching was introduced into Vancouver. After that, 22 per cent of the operators jobs disappeared! Computerized switching was introduced into New Westminster shortly after that-1 think around 1978-79. What happened then? Forty per cent of the operators disappeared from that kind of employment. It is not laughable. The minister is smiling but it is a very serious matter if you happen to be the one who loses his job. And the minister is the one at whose desk the buck will stop, because he will be charged with creating a great number of new jobs in the eighties if his efforts are not co-ordinated with a government policy that includes an industrial strategy.
When the minister appeared before the committee this morning he talked about the increase in manufacturing in the communications industry in Canada. 1 will give the House an interesting statistic. As far as telecommunications is concerned, our imports in 1956 amounted to 46 per cent of all telecommunications equipment we used. In 1976 we imported 76 per cent. What this proves conclusively is that our manufacturing sector in telecommunications is shrinking. If our manufacturing is shrinking, presumably our employment is shrinking in those very sectors. The picture is something less than rosy, if I may be excused a terrible pun.
It is not just this particular member who is making these predictions. I do not think the public is aware of the extent of these things at the moment but certainly the ministry must be. And the ministry must be prepared to move actively toward an industrial strategy which will take care of these predictably displaced people, some one and a half to two million people, mainly women, in the next decade. The president or chief executive officer of Northern Telecommunications-which can hardly be called a radical outfit and is not usually quoted by the New Democratic Party-Walter Light, who was speaking before an audience at Concordia University, was kind enough to send me a copy of his speech. He was speaking to a group of engineers and had this to say:
Canada imports 80 per cent of all the technology that it uses.
That includes all technology, including telecommunications technology. This means that as an industrialized country we are only 21 per cent better in the creation of technology and innovation than any non-industrialized Third World country that is totally dependent on others for its technology. So there is no point telling us that we are going to create a lot of jobs in the eighties if we have an industrial strategy that ignores the amount of imports and does nothing to encourage domestic production while allowing a flood of things to come in here. The minister is wasting money on these little penny-ante programs if the government has no policy for an industrial strategy which favours Canadian manufacturing over imports. Apparently we have not.
I gave two figures; we used to import 46 per cent of our telecommunications equipment but we now import 76 per cent. The Secretary of State this morning told us we are going to increase that percentage. I hope he is right. He suggested this morning that he would like to encourage the manufacturing and export of Canadian-produced telecommunications equipment. I am saying that the experience of the last 20 years flies in his face. If he can reverse that-


Mr. Fox:: I was not here then.


Mark Willson Rose: He says he was not here then. May 1 carry on with a quote from the same speaker? I see the clock, Mr. Chairman, but if you give me one minute, I can conclude my remarks.


Denis Éthier: Order, please. Unfortunately, 1 have to advise the hon. member that he cannot carry on.


Mark Willson Rose: You will hear it at eight.


Denis Éthier: It being five o'clock, it is my duty to rise, report progress, and request leave to consider the bill again later this day.
Progress reported.

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June 26, 1980



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. 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 Calgary North (Mr. Wright)-Post Office-Deplorable mail conditions in Calgary-Steps to improve; the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson)-Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Alleged supply of weapons and explosives to native community in B.C.
It being five o'clock, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper, namely, private bills, notices of motions (papers) and public bills.
There being no items on the order paper under the heading private bills, the House will proceed to notices of motions (papers).


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Motion No. 19 in the name of the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon). Shall the motion stand?


Some hon. Members:: Stand.


SPECIAL INDEX FOR SENIOR CITIZENS
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West) moved:: That an order of the House do issue for a copy of a report on a special index for senior citizens prepared by the Treasury Board.


Mr. Daudlin:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not want to pre-empt the hon. member from proceeding with his speech. I am sure there are matters he will in fact want to discuss. I just want all members of this House, and particularly the hon. member, to have the information which is available to me now.
Contrary to the answer given by myself in this House, I think some two weeks past, I think we have now been able to identify the report the hon. member has been seeking, and we are in a position to put that report forward. I want the hon. member to have that information before he makes his comments.


An hon. Member:: Withdraw. Let's call it six o'clock.
Index for Senior Citizens


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: In the event that there is consent on all sides, I would have the document put forward.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: In the first place, Mr. Speaker, that was not a point of order the hon. member raised, in my opinion. I knew earlier this day that the document we had asked for had been found. My hon. friend, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), asked for it last December 10. For the sake of the record I would like to give the House a little resume of occurrences since December 10. As recorded at page 2186 of Hansard, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said, and I quote-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. Just to be clear, the parliamentary secretary did rise on a point of order and, if I heard him correctly, I thought I heard him seeking unanimous consent in some manner which would have delayed the debate on this particular motion. I understand that in fact the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) is refusing unanimous consent and that private members' hour will proceed normally. Does the Chair understand the procedure we are following?


Stanley Howard Knowles: He wants to speak to his motion.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Exactly.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Precisely. The hon. member now wishes to speak to his motion, so unanimous consent has been denied, and we will proceed in that manner.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I did not even do that. I did not deny unanimous consent. I got up to speak to my motion. I did not hear the hon. member say he wanted to table anything.
May I continue with my motion for the production of papers, which have not yet been produced officially?


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: Mr. Speaker, I regret that my hon. friend did not understand or hear what it was I wanted to put forward. It is quite correct that the Chair heard me seeking unanimous consent to table a document which I understood was the document the hon. member was seeking. If he prefers not to give his consent or to delay that consent, so be it; but I do not want him to labour under the misapprehension that I was not seeking consent so to table.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: The parliamentary secretary seeks unanimous consent to table the document to which he has referred. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Table it, fine.


David Michael Collenette: Mr. Speaker, what I think my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Daudlin), is getting at is that it has now been determined that the said document is available, and he is prepared to table it, which makes the debate for the next hour unnecessary.

June 26, 1980
Index for Senior Citizens
If the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) prefers to speak anyway-and perhaps my colleague will table the document at the end of the debate-that is up to him. I think there is a way by which we can give hon. members an extra hour for dinner by tabling this document and by ending the debate. If that is done, I would be prepared to call it six o'clock.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, tabling it before or afterward evades a little matter in issue which has been apparent for a number of months. I could care less whether the parliamentary secretary tables it now, after I sit down or tomorrow. I do not know if he has the authority to do so. I think a cabinet minister would have to do that.
In any event, if I may continue, last December 10 the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said, and I quote:
As the President of the Treasury Board will recall-
It was then the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens).
- in October I raised with the Prime Minister the question of a special index for senior citizens related to the things they have to buy. Outside the House that day the President of the Treasury Board said he would give serious consideration to that proposal. May I ask if any action has yet been taken on that?
The then president of the Treasury Board replied:
I am pleased to reply to that question. I did follow it up and a report has been prepared. If the hon. member feels that it would be helpful, I could cither deliver it to him personally for his consideration or I could table the report in the House.
I put a motion for the production of papers on the order paper. The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board said on June 1 1:
Madam Speaker, since the Treasury Board did not prepare any report on a special index for senior citizens, I would ask the hon. member to withdraw his motion.
I suppose in the height of technicality he was right, but since Statistics Canada was under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Board at that time and at the time the hon. member for York-Peel was in office, the parliamentary secretary was inadvertently and probably unavoidably in error, because he did not know that Statistics Canada, under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Board, had prepared the report.
The whole issue of special indexing for senior citizens for the things they have to buy in relation to their cost of living, in relation to the poverty line and in relation to increasing standards of living for the rest of society requires that there be thorough, authoritative and competent inquiries, investigations and studies into what it costs senior citizens to live and what it would cost to increase their standard of living in direct relationship to all other sectors of society, and if an index produced by Statistics Canada or any other agency of the government is insufficient, then there are many other sources to get such indices from. There are a number of social agencies in Canada outside government which have already done extensive work on this. This has been totally ignored by successive governments.
The OAS and the GIS were designed to ensure that retired Canadians would not fall below the poverty line, and even using the Statistics Canada poverty line, which is drawn much
lower than the poverty lines of social agencies, OAS and the GIS are not meeting this goal.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, when the minister introduced Bill C-16, she admitted that even with the additional $35 increase in the guaranteed income supplement, some pensioners' incomes would only reach 80 per cent over the poverty line. There is no doubt that she said that-
-an income which is slightly lower than 80 per cent of the poverty line is not acceptable in a country as rich as ours and is certainly not enough to live on decently.
Most of us who are now working can expect a substantial decrease in our standard of living when we reach retirement. Our retirement income is so inadequate that half of all our senior citizens qualify for the guaranteed income supplement benefits, which has to tell you something about the old age security pension, the Canada pension and a host of private pensions.
More than six out of ten Canadians over the age of 65 have incomes under $5,000, and three out of four women over the age of 65 are poor. Because of the ineffectiveness of the present indexing system, the Liberals have been forced to increase GIS payments twice in the last 18 months, by $20 in January, 1979, and by $35 in July of 1980. This piecemeal, band-aid approach to a program of economic survival for our elderly citizens condemns 60 per cent of them to "golden years" of bleak existence. Surely the OAS and GIS must be revised so they fulfil their original intention. I am confident that my good friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board and my colleagues in the official opposition, will agree that that goal must be reached.


Mr. Paproski:: Right.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It must be reached to ensure that all senior citizens remain above the poverty line, and preferably a standard of living above the poverty line which is designed by our social service agencies, which are more realistic and practical than the ones devised by government agencies have been to date.
On Bill C-16, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) suggested a goal of 25 per cent above the poverty line, which one could hardly call overly generous. This would assure senior citizens of a standard of living which would allow a measure of comfort rather than mere survival. This, first and foremost, should be the basic goal of every member in this House.
Once that level is achieved, how should the pension be indexed? The current method of indexing quarterly to the CPI does not represent an increase. It merely keeps the pension up to date and provides some semblance of protection of the purchasing power of the dollar that senior citizens receive. The cost price index relates to the urban population of Canada and does not reflect the experience of any particular family or individual or of other segments of the population such as, would you believe, senior citizens.
June 26, 1980

Two other types of indexing possibilities should be explored. One is the creation of a special senior citizens' index which would reflect the spending patterns characteristic of this particular population group. This index should be formulated around the cluster method, derived by isolating the age, labour force status and number of people in the family unit. Some studies which have been done on special groups, such as low income populations, have shown that there was not much difference between a special CPI and the regular CPI and, in fact, in some cases the special CPI was lower. Other economists have pointed out that these studies were not sufficiently sophisticated and that in fact a comprehensive special CPI has not been properly done in Canada. A senior citizens' index, taking into account the cluster characteristics identified earlier, must be explored.
A second possibility is to compare increases in the cost price index and guaranteed income supplement with the average wage and salary in Canada. When the old age supplement was first introduced in 1952, until 1964 it was equivalent to approximately 17 per cent of the earnings of the average worker. Since 1964 its value has been allowed to fall so that the OAS is now equivalent to only 13.5 per cent of the average wage and salary earnings. During the last 15 years, therefore, the old age supplement has failed to keep pace with the growth of incomes of other Canadians.
May 1 suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) and StatsCanada might consider some other solutions. First, pensioners should immediately have an income of at least 25 per cent above the poverty line. Mr. Speaker, in spite of the cries for restraint and government cutbacks, no country that has any self-respect or measure of decency and which is as rich as ours can stand for anything less than that. If we can afford several billion dollars for fighter planes, most of which we do not need or cannot use, surely we have money for this.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Right on.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Pensioners should be fully guaranteed and protected against inflation after they have arrived at a basic 25 per cent above the poverty line, and this would allow them a little more measure of decency. These people could then take equal part with the rest of the people in Canada in a rising standard of living that the average worker and employee in the country attains over a period of years in his lifetime at work.
My final point, Mr. Speaker, is that the OAS and GIS pension systems are a transfer payment. That means that money for this system comes from a big pot from which it can be distributed any number of ways to any number of programs. The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) when she was speaking on Bill C-16 insisted that there was not enough money. Her solution was to pump more money in as soon as the economy expands.
That solution of hers is a neat sidestep. The money is there for the asking if the income distribution system is made to work the way it was intended when Parliament passed those laws, money given to groups which need it the most. Surely no
Index for Senior Citizens
one will doubt or argue that our senior citizens qualify for that dubious honour. The profits of our corporations, the salaries and wages of our working people, have been rising, in the case of corporations too much, and in the case of our wage and salary earners sometimes enough, sometimes not enough. Surely if that can occur in our society, it can automatically occur in lock step for our senior citizens.
1 am happy that the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board has located in that department the document for which we asked on the order paper under our motion for the production of papers and that it will now be provided to the House after I sit down, tomorrow or whenever. We will be pleased to have it. I know that the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre will want to examine it extremely carefully and he may want to raise the matter later.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I have had it since December.


Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak very briefly in support of the motion put forward by the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin). I realize that some procedural difficulty has been occasioned by the fact that the report which the hon. member seeks is now in the hands of the parliamentary secretary and can be tabled in the House. But I think the motion put forward by the hon. member for Regina West goes beyond the mere mechanics of tabling the report at this stage and points up the special circumstances under which the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre raised the matter in the first case last December in the House. I think what was in the minds of those members, and indeed in my own mind and in the minds of many members on this side of the House, was the very special needs of senior citizens. So this report was a start in dealing with those special needs and a recognition of the very difficult situation in which senior citizens find themselves in this day and age.
As I travel throughout my constituency and across Canada, I am very mindful of the fact that senior citizens are more affected by the inflationary costs we see about us than other citizens. Particularly the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) is very mindful of this. It has been raised time and time again in the House. It was in response to those kinds of concerns that the special index idea was promoted.
As I understand it, the special index would take into account the goods, materials and services senior citizens must have in order to survive which in relation to senior citizens are quite different. For example, they may be less concerned with the cost of motor vehicles and appliances, but very much concerned with the cost of food, home heating fuels and the very basic necessities of life. I do not think anyone in the House or elsewhere would deny the special status senior citizens ought to have in a wealthy economy such as our own. I do not think anyone would deny to those in their golden years the right to

June 26, 1980
Index for Senior Citizens
live out their time with a high degree of happiness and free from some of the cares which beset those of younger years.
As parliamentarians and legislators we have a very special duty to senior citizens to examine their special needs and react to them. Earlier I mentioned the effect of inflation upon our senior citizens, i repeat that the items of very great need for all citizens but particularly senior citizens are increasing daily in cost. This has a very adverse effect upon people with fixed incomes. For the most part, with some very minor exceptions in terms of numbers, it is senior citizens who are on fixed incomes and cannot absorb these costs. One feature of a special index would be that any governmental assistance for senior citizens in the form of the old age security program with the guaranteed income supplement would be related and adjusted to the very basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. At times we have recognized the needs of senior citizens, but always in a very stop-gap way.
Many times during the election campaign and since I was asked whether 1 favoured the increase in the guaranteed income supplement because it was put forward by what is now the government party as its proposal for senior citizens. 1 always said that, of course, 1 favour any increase in the amount of money the government makes available to senior citizens, but 1 fear that when the money is put forward in the form of just another dollar increase, it will not be spent wisely. As I recall it, the estimated cost of increasing the guaranteed income supplement to all senior citizens who qualified would be in the area of $500 million. It occurred to me that this $500 million spent in another way could relieve a great many of the problems so many senior citizens experience. For example, there is the matter of increased home heating costs. I am sure $500 million applied to supplement senior citizens who incur increases in their home heating costs would almost eliminate that as a problem. I and many members on my side of the House feel that some very special examination is needed of the needs and problems of senior citizens, so that we can formulate plans and programs directed at our senior citizens which will get at the real problems they have.
As I have said, I am not against increases in the dollar value of the aid now provided, but I think the money could be better spent. One thing we should ask ourselves to consider is the manner in which senior citizens live, their actual mode of survival. I am mindful of the fact that a great many senior citizens are now housed across the country in institutions of a nursing care or home care nature. Certainly in the province of Nova Scotia, which I represent, in many cases some of these institutions are supported by funds provided at municipal and provincial levels.
As a result of the programs undertaken by many provincial governments, in some cases with assistance from the Government of Canada, we have a number of institutions which are healthy, clean, observe high standards and in which a great many of our senior citizens are now housed. As I visit these senior citizens' homes, I never cease to marvel at what wonderful institutions they are. I feel senior citizens housed in these institutions are well taken care of. It does not mean that they
cannot use extra funds for a comfort fund or that each and every one of their needs is met, but basically they are in situations where their needs are taken care of and are not in situations which require instant aid.
Having regard to senior citizens living in such circumstances, I want to point out and underline the situations of senior citizens who are attempting to maintain themselves in their own homes. These senior citizens are the ones who are really hit by inflation and the problem of coping with the 1980 situation. Because many of these senior citizens own their homes, they are able to subsist on the basis of the guaranteed income supplement together with the old age security pension, particularly in the case of couples whose combined incomes allow them sufficient funds to maintain themselves. But the senior citizens in this situation are hit with a number of increases which are not taken into account in the old age security pension and the guaranteed income supplement. I have in mind municipal tax increases. Although seme municipalities make allowances for senior citizens, I do not know of any that do not require senior citizens who own their own homes to pay some form of tax.
The cost of fuel oil is an increasing expense and an essential one, particularly since senior citizens more than others require their homes heated to reasonable standards and have no alternative in that respect. We now know that again these costs will escalate as soon as the government establishes its made-in-Canada price for oil. I predict this particular cost will be increased by as much as 20 or 25 per cent. In the case of an average home where a person may spend $800 a year for heating costs and hot water, it would mean an additional expenditure of $200 a year. So one can see that the increase available to a married couple in the guaranteed income supplement of $35 is immediately eaten away by the projected increase in the cost of fuel oil in the case of senior citizens living in their own homes and incurring such expenses.
I could go on with the many expenses incurred by senior citizens of a similar kind. Food costs are escalating on a daily basis. Senior citizens experience a similar difficulty and any attempt to provide additional dollars through the guaranteed income supplement is immediately eaten away. There is no question in my mind that senior citizens require special attention in the form of an index which is applicable to them and takes into account the impact of increases in very basic living costs as they apply to persons on fixed incomes or whose earning power is diminished as their years advance.
We have in this country over two million senior citizens, persons who are 65 years and over. The number, because of our health care program and better attitudes toward longevity in terms of health care facilities, is increasing at a more rapid rate. I am sure that we would not want, both in this House and throughout Canada, to condemn those citizens who attain those golden years to a life of poverty. We should take every step we can to ensure that they are able to live out their golden years, as they have been described, in a situation which is
June 26, 1980

enjoyable, worthwhile, and a credit to the whole Canadian community.
1 agree with the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), who brought this matter to the attention of the House, that we ought to have a special index. 1 am happy that the parliamentary secretary has indicated that the report is available. i hope that it will be the beginning of consideration, in this House and elsewhere in the halls of government, of our senior citizens so that they may look forward to a new age.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, in view of the earlier suggestion that we do not need to spend this full hour on this motion, my remarks will be very brief. I thank the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) for the statement he just made on behalf of senior citizens, and 1 welcome him to the team. I hope, however, that one of the byproducts of this debate will be a slight improvement in the filing system in the office of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston).
When the motion by my friend, the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), was called on June 11, as it is noted at page 1996 of Hansard, he was away ill. He does not look it now, but he was ill then. As a result it became my responsibility to move the motion on his behalf. I confess I was quite surprised when the parliamentary secretary stood up and said that the Treasury Board had not prepared any report on special indexing for senior citizens. Accordingly, he asked that the motion be withdrawn. At that point I asked that it be transferred for debate.
I knew that the report existed, because I had a copy of it in my office. I wondered how it was that the parliamentary secretary could say that there was no such report. 1 first asked for the report on October 19, 1979, of the then prime minister, the right hon. member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark), who said that his government would go ahead with the idea. Then on December 10 I asked the then president of the treasury board, the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens), where the report was, and he said that it was being prepared and that he would be glad to send a copy to me shortly. Two or three days after that, something happened that has not been forgotten, but on December 21 the then president of the treasury board wrote me a letter and sent me a copy of the document.
When the parliamentary secretary said that he did not have the report, I began to wonder if it was a case of grand larceny and whether the hon. member for York-Peel had run away with the document, and to think that maybe we had better put the RCMP onto the matter. The hon. member for York-Peel is not guilty at all. The report was left in the files, but somehow or other the staff in the office of the President of the Treasury Board could not find it. It has been found. All is well that ends well, and we are glad that the document can now be tabled.


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: Mr. Speaker, on a damp day such as this, with the thunder rolling outside, it is always pleasant to have the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) putting the needle in just a little bit-
Index for Senior Citizens


Steve Eugene Paproski: "Mr. Thunder" himself.


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: -and trying to demonstrate that it is always required once in a while to prod the government to test and determine that in fact it is operating, and operating well.


Steve Eugene Paproski: We call him Thor.


Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: While I have not had the opportunity to review the question when it was originally put by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, I wonder if, at the time he put the question, the hon. member saw fit to ask that it be sought from Statistics Canada, or whether indeed he put the question directly to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston). In this particular instance the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) is asking whether or not a report was prepared by the Treasury Board.
An examination was made of the records at Treasury Board and, indeed, it was determined that they had prepared no such report. Subsequently we determined that Statistics Canada had prepared the report. It is true that, at the time the report was prepared, the minister responsible for reporting to the House on Statistics Canada was the President of the Treasury Board. All hon. members know that since that time the responsibility has been delegated to the Minister of Supply and Services.
Be that as it may, I do have a report which, fortunately for the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, is not the exact report which he was given on December 21. The passage of time has afforded the opportunity of updating the report and to annex to it. When I table that report, I think that the hon. member will find it even more informative than the original report.
Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, I might now be afforded the opportunity to reverse the needle just a little bit and inquire of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre why it was that he did not share the letter and the information that he received from the former president of the Treasury Board with his colleague, the hon. member for Regina West. I am sure that the hon. member for Regina West would have appreciated having at least a look at the report as it was originally prepared. I suppose we will all wonder forever what exactly went on as to why in fact there was not that kind of sharing of information. Whatever the reason, it did not happen. I shall now table the report which will afford them both the opportunity to look at it.
I am a little concerned, and I will accept the advice of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, with respect to tabling this report. I recognize that to table the report in the place of the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais), I would require the unanimous consent of the House. However, I wonder if we could also have something on the record that would indicate that the hon. member for Regina West is now withdrawing his motion for production of papers, so that I might be allowed to table the report with consent.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: The parliamentary secretary can proceed in that fashion if he so wishes. However, I have before me a notice of motion for papers by the hon. member for Regina West. If that motion stands with the consent of the House, then it constitutes an order of the House to table the report to which it refers.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Let's pass it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I shall simply ask hon. members to adopt the motion, and the order will issue. The parliamentary secretary will then be entitled to table the report or document referred to in the motion.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Robert Mose Patrick Daudlin: Mr. Speaker, I submit, in both official languages, the report requested by the hon. member for Regina West. I ask all hon. members to take a look particularly at the item indicating the implications of such a special index and the fact that, notwithstanding that we are looking at special items, it does not become the panacea which we would all hope it to be for senior citizens. Indeed, it raises another set of questions which must be considered.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Which is exactly what I said.


An hon. Member:: Six o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. I hear the call for six o'clock, and the Chair will recognize it is six o'clock. Accordingly, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 5.40 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration in committee of Bill C-19, to amend the Employment Tax Credit Act-Mr. Axworthy-Mr. Ethier in the chair.
Denis Éthier: When the House rose at 5 p.m. clause 1 of the bill was under consideration, and the hon. member for Mission-Port Moody had the floor.


Mark Willson Rose: Mr. Chairman, I was in full flight when the five o'clock whistle brought me down. I was quoting that great socialist, Walter F. Light, president of Northern Telecom Limited and his expression of concern about the fact that we import about 80 per cent of our technology. He commented that we are just like a developing country, except for that 20 per cent. He said:
1 simply want to demonstrate that political sovereignty without technological sovereignty is a chimera-
I was a little doubtful about what a chimera actually was, but I found it was a mythical beast of antiquity.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't look at me!


Mark Willson Rose: I am sorry; I did not mean to nod toward the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre when I mentioned a mythical beast of antiquity. Mr. Light suggested that other countries had operated more loyally, perhaps, toward their own workers and their own industries. He went on to say:
Our second great vulnerability is the massive subsidization of innovation and research that is under way in competitive industrial countries in Europe and Asia and, to a lesser degree, in the United States. Much of this subsidization is in the electronics industry and in the key technologies of semiconductors and software.
If we are to be faced with a technological revolution that will displace massive numbers of workers, then we must build a closer relationship with industry. Finally, Mr. Light said:
What is required is an investment by industry and government in innovation, in research and development, of sums of money never before contemplated in Canada.
1 am inclined to agree with him on that point. We must determine what we are going to do about new technologies, where the pressures will occur, and where the incentives will come from that will change that 80 per cent importation of technology that replaces and displaces our workers. I think it has to come from government, Mr. Chairman. I do not think it can come from any other source.
The government tends to object to or shrink from direct intervention in industry and, of course, industry also shrinks from government. They do not want regulation; all they want is money-incentives, tax write-offs, various kinds of capital cost allowances and that sort of thing. The government has to deal with these problems because there is no one else to do it. That places a great load on the minister's shoulders. As I said in my opening remarks, I do not envy him, his task. It is an immense one and he cannot do it all himself even if he wanted to, or even if he thought he could, as the rest of us are inclined to think. He just could not.
We need long-term plans in order to look after those workers who are displaced, Mr. Chairman, and we need government plans for retraining, earlier retirement, shared work, an industrial strategy, and control of our own Canadian resources. While a comprehensive industrial strategy has been alluded to,
June 26, 1980

it has never been revealed by this government which has been the government of the country for most of this century.
The minister seems reluctant, however, to do some of the things that he could do. A brief presented by the Canadian Committee on Learning Opportunities for Women sets out the following points in its preface:
The brief concerns the impact on women of federal cutbacks to training allowances and Outreach programs. We predict two major outcomes for these cutbacks:
(1)	a decrease in access for women to vocational retraining programs-
-academic upgrading and language classes.
(2)	as a result of decreased access to these learning opportunities, a decreased
access to stable, well paid employment.
So it is a vicious circle. I know the minister is sincerely convinced that there should be more and better opportunities, but his acts do not always parallel his utterances. That concerns us in this party, as well as it must the minister and other people who are victims of these cutbacks. The last one was $62.5 million. That is not a small chunk at all, especially when you consider the cost of living going up. So the number of opportunities are reduced and the kinds of training offered or selected by the women, according to the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women in its brief dated June, 1980, are not always adequate nor necessarily suitable. This is what is reported in the brief:
The majority of women work in relatively few poorly-paid sex-typed occupations. Ideally, training can be a vehicle to alter this pattern. However, training of women in the skill training program tended to follow the well-known pattern of occupational concentration and segregation. Eight occupational groups accounted for 85 per cent of all female skill trainees started in 1978-79, and these occupational groups consisted primarily of traditional female jobs. Over 50 per cent of the women were trained in two occupational groups alone-stenographic and typing occupations and other clerical and related occupations (despite the fact that only 14 per cent of female trainees gave these as their usual occupations.) Over 90 per cent of those trained in these two occupational groups were women. In comparison, the eight leading occupational groups for male skill trainees accounted for ony 56 per cent of these trainees.
What is even worse is that the kinds of jobs for which these women are trained, according to the experts, are trained under the investment by the Government of Canada, through the minister and the ministry, and are the ones that are most likely to disappear under the micro-technological kind of revolution we will experience in the 1980s and 1990s. I think that should give the minister and his very able staff members pause to consider some of the kinds of priorities which they are pursuing.
It is not a simple matter, and no one needs to gloss over it or point a finger of scorn at the minister as if he could wave a magic wand or a magic buck and solve it. No one is suggesting that. But I think the minister knows that the kinds of programs such as the one he is trying to get through here tonight are merely stop-gap programs. There are cutbacks in various other programs under his direction and responsibility which negate the laudable kind of objectives of the new plan of action that he has called for under the title Towards Equality for Women.
It is in his power to do something about these matters when we encourage him to do so. However, I think it would only be
Employment Tax Credit Act
fair to get to some questions. I would like to give the minister an opportunity to answer some of them. They bear at least in some degree on the matters that I have raised. First, is the minister aware of the probable impact on employment of new technologies such as those already here in the telecommunica-tions-computerization field, especially for women? What is the government's intentions to overcome these? I will try not to rush these questions, but I want to give the minister time to answer and therefore I will read them quickly.
Second, what is the government prepared to do to decrease the importation of 80 per cent of our technology? Of course that is a job associated question.
Third, what is the government going to do to encourage the manufacturing of high technology industries in Canada, as other countries are doing, by subsidy if necessary. In this connection, I would like to quote again, but I do not have the time.
Fourth, when is the government going to implement a comprehensive industrial strategy?
Fifth, when is the government going to insist that industry co-operate with the government in forward planning, domestic research and development, and job retraining, as government does in other countries?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member, as he is well known to do, has been able to cover a wide variety of topics in a very short time. I would not want to try to duplicate his efforts, his breadth of knowledge or experience, by trying to answer them, because he has raised a number of very important questions, questions which some of my colleagues are in a much better position to answer. Certainly this is true on the issue of industrial strategy, for which the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce has a responsibility and on which I know he is working very diligently.
The hon. member has suggested that the government really must be responding to problems of high technology and how this will create dislocations in the work force. I think he is correct that there will be dislocation. But at the same time I think there is a tendency sometimes to be too Cassandra-like about these developments. We tend to be too pessimistic. 1 can recall several years ago when there was a great deal of moaning and groaning about how the advent of a computer was going to put all kinds of people out of work. In fact what we found is that new computer technology has created substantial new jobs and it has been a labour-saving device. In its own right it has spurred on a number of new activities and new technologies.
I think we have some degree of restraint in our pessimism about the future. We have a way of not being able to anticipate perhaps as clearly as we would like, and perhaps as others have to forecast the future clearly. Nevertheless, in saying that, I do not disavow the necessity to keep a careful watch on the future.
I would point out to the member that my colleague, the Minister of Labour, just announced in Toronto this past weekend that the government intends to hold a conference in

June 26, 1980
Employment Tax Credit Act
the fall dealing exactly with the question he raised on the impact of the new micro-technology products and their impact on the employment of women.
1 think there are a number of papers being prepared by the Department of Labour and other departments which will be utilized at that conference and where we will be able to consult with a broader range of public interest groups and women's organizations to look at the impact. 1 believe it is at that stage, Mr. Chairman, where we must first gather up the opinions of others, and the experts in this field, because it is a new field that is coming forward.
I accept his premise that government has a responsibility to take a lead in this area, to provide for some forward planning and direction, but it does have to take place at a fairly measured pace. By not rushing into these things hopefully we can avoid mistakes along the way.
The developments that are now going on are in new technology areas which are being examined in my department, in the Department of Labour, and in the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. We hope that we will be able continually to present to this House our resolutions to those issues.
On the other matter which the member raised, I would only caution him that again I work under certain limitations with the present stretch of programs that we have, namely that budgets and estimates were set and we could only work within those estimates in terms of re-orienting programs or re-establishing them. 1 would point out, however, that within those we did try some innovations. We did introduce a program of employment for young people in the new technology research field; we will provide incentives for employers to hire graduates of our professional and technical schools to bring them in and give them their jobs in research and development. That is based upon our analysis of the graduates coming out of our schools who did not get the opportunity to get their first job experience in a research-related activity. This will give them their first entry into those areas. Hopefully it will provide them with a continuing career in research and development. If the program seems to have some effectiveness, then we will be able to expand that program. But it is an innovation that we have tried under our job creation program.
Similarly, we are trying to induce employers to hire women in non-traditional fields by offering an incentive program to bring women into areas in which they would not normally work. The hon. member is quite right, women have been employed in the service industry and traditional areas and these may be more severely feeling the impact of changes in the economy. One of the answers to that is to enable women to move into areas where there will be an increasing demand for new skills, such as in resource and in high technology areas. Again, we are hoping this program that we have introduced this spring takes off and shows that it has some impact and effectiveness. We can then build upon that the year after and develop it as a broader skill program to enable women to go into areas of employment where they would not otherwise have the opportunity to go.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, I would like to return to a subject which we opened this afternoon, and perhaps put it in a little different context. Part of the job of the opposition is to determine, when examining any piece of legislation, whether the taxpayers' dollars are being effectively spent. In the context of the employment tax credit bill, which is a method for the government to assist people to find employment in a time of high unemployment, we have an obligation to contrast the expenditure in that way with other possible expenditures.
The minister indicated earlier in the life of this Parliament an expenditure of $137 million for direct job creation. When my 20 minutes were up earlier today, we were exploring the costs of that form of employment creation versus the costs relative to this employment tax credit bill. 1 was left with some confusion. The minister indicated at one point that he did not have available the cost per week of a variety of job-creation measures which he has brought before Parliament at this point. I would like to clarify this so we might be very specific in terms of our background.
1 ran over a number of programs with the minister. 1 inquired whether or not the amount that had been allocated in the budget was to be spent in this fiscal year. A definition of "spent" would be that it goes out of the hands of the government and into the hands of those people employed on the project. If I could come back to the community services program, a budgeted expenditure of $11 million, can the minister clarify whether that $11 million will be spent in this budget year or fiscal year?


Lloyd Axworthy: As I pointed out, Mr. Chairman, several times to the hon. member, those are commitments that we make this year for the positions that are established. The expenditures will span the fiscal years because, under the guidelines of the community services project, the commitment, offering or invitation to prospective applicants is that they can commit themselves for a full year's employment and beyond that into two or three years.
In terms of our expenditure pattern, if the program is not operative until this fall and the applicant wants to maintain an employee from October-November to the next October-November, we commit the funds as part of our expenditure within that position. It will span the two fiscal years. We cannot fully estimate that because we have not seen the applications. We do not know what the average length of time will be within that program because, as 1 pointed out to the hon. member, it will span two fiscal years.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: In summary, the $137 million program announced in this House is a program that covers at least two years, and maybe longer. That $137 million will be spent over a span of time rather than spent for the creation of employment in the current fiscal year. Is that an adequate summary of the position?


Lloyd Axworthy: No, Mr. Chairman, that is not what I said. It is not a fair summary. What I said is that we are commit-
June 26, 1980

ting jobs for this year. Those jobs will cover the span of the next fiscal year and move into it, but they have to be committed now. Otherwise we would be in the ludicrous position of saying, "You can make an application in November, but we will cut you off on April 1". We want people to have some term of employment that would at least continue for a 12-month period. That is the basis upon which we have to commit the money during this fiscal year in order to realize our responsibilities to whomever makes an application for this program.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, I continue to get somewhat confused. Let's go back to a specific, the community service program. The budgeted amount is $11 million. Will you spend-take out of the government's hands and put it into the hands of individuals-$11 million this year, or will you spend considerably less than that this year?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member is confused, I suggest it may be of his own making. We have said very clearly that we would have to commit under a program such as this, and we are publicly responsible and accountable for the statement, that we are prepared to make an invitation to applicants to create jobs which we are prepared to pay for, or subsidize. Those jobs will obviously cover the span of two fiscal years. The $11 million is a commitment for those positions.
We have every opportunity, and I hope we will take advantage of it, in the next fiscal year to make a new offering and have a different kind of job program, after we have analysed it, which could add upon it or continue it. Perhaps I can use by way of an example the kind of situation that the hon. member's own government was into with the Canada Works program. They cancelled the Canada Works program, but they had ongoing commitments which run into this fiscal year which we are just now paying. Those programs are being phased out over the summer. I believe by September, October, the programs will be totally and completely wiped out. However, those Canada Works commitments that were made in the previous fiscal year must carry through this year. His government had to carry those expenditures as part of their estimates in order to cover all those Canada Works programs.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: That is what I thought I heard the first time. Then 1 come to a conclusion. The minister has announced an expenditure package for employment creation purposes of $137 million. I simply ask him, is it fair comment and a good summary to say part of that $137 million will go from the government into people's pockets in this fiscal year prior to March, and the balance will go in the next fiscal year or subsequent years? In other words, part of the $137 million will be in this year and part will be in next year. Is that an appropriate summary comment?


Lloyd Axworthy: No, Mr. Chairman. It will all be committed this year.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I am not anxious to get into a word game. I understand clearly that you make commitments that go
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beyond one fiscal year. I am asking the minister what portion of that $137 million will be spent in this fiscal year, will actually go from the government and into the pockets of those people who get those jobs.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the commitment will be made for all of the money to those sponsors, but the commitment that is made is that they may spend part of it going over the next fiscal year because they made commitments on those jobs. I have now said several times this evening that if someone is hired to begin work on November 1 and the community services program goes over until next August, September or November, obviously the money we have given to that group will be spent during that period of time. We are giving to that project group, whoever makes application, the money this year to be spent to create the job this year.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The job will start this year and it may continue into next year.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I think we should stay with the community services program for another second or two. In the back-up paper which the minister provided to the House of Commons, he says that that program will create 1,000 jobs. Can the minister tell us whether his departmental officials have estimated the average cost per week for one job within that specific program?


Lloyd Axworthy: 1 would caution you, Mr. Chairman, that this is exactly the same question that was asked two or three times earlier. It has already been answered. I am quite prepared to answer it again to make sure that the hon. member is clear on it. It is a question that is becoming repetitive, and I think the Chair should recognize that fact.
The point is that we are simply saying that the program is not operative. Therefore, the guidelines of the program are very difficult to judge. We are saying within the parameters of what we can guesstimate in terms of when the program may get started, the length of time in which the community services may be operative in terms of the individual applications, which can go anywhere from eight weeks as a minimum to a full year, we have estimated that the cost per week would be in the range of about $200.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I am just busy writing down that figure. The minister indicates that the average cost per week for the community services program may be in the neighbourhood of $200. Could he give us the average cost per week of the community development program which involves an expenditure of $72 million?


Lloyd Axworthy: It would be within the same range.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Could the minister give us the cost estimate as a cost per week of the new technology program?


Lloyd Axworthy: In the order of $250 to $260.

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Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: It is wonderful to come back in the evening, Mr. Chairman. These questions were not getting the same response in the afternoon. Maybe people have looked a few things up. What about the native training program, the additional $10 million? What is the cost per week of native training?


Lloyd Axworthy: Two hundred dollars, Mr. Chairman.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Those four examples are among the biggest allocations of money from the department and they run between three and four times as expensive for the creation of a week of work as does the employer tax credit program. What does the minister consider as being three or four times the value in these programs as compared with the employer tax credit program? We established earlier that under the employer tax credit program it cost around $65 to create a week's work. These other programs cost between $250 and $260. Why does the minister favour programs of that kind as opposed to the employer tax credit program?


Lloyd Axworthy: If the hon. member had been listening to recommendations made by other hon. members of this House he would have his answer. We heard from his hon. friend from Richmond-South Delta a strong and persuasive case for establishing special programs to train young people and move them into new resource areas, as well as for helping native people and other groups with special needs. When we introduced the job-creation program our primary purpose was not to rely on any one technique but to have a variety of instruments at our disposal so that we could target in on hard core unemployment areas.
The employment tax credit plays a role in this general strategy and, as I said, we are prepared to spend close to $100 million on that program. It is designed to provide an incentive for an employer to bring in a worker he would otherwise not hire. Work of this kind tends to be created in areas where there is a fairly high frequency of manufacturing organizations and businesses which can take advantage of the tax credit. But there are many regions which do not have such an opportunity; the underpinning of small business does not exist. These are the areas we want to target in a geographic or regional way.
There also areas where special groups of people, the hard core unemployed, would not be affected by a tax credit program. We have introduced a direct job-creation program to assist in those circumstances. The underlying philosophy does not encourage one program to the exclusion of another but is an attempt to provide a balance of programs and find an equation applicable to each area. We have given our regional directors some degree of autonomy in choosing the mixture of programs which would be employed in each area. That is why we have restored direct job creation.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The minister has told us it takes direct job creation to reach some of the disadvantaged groups. There is some truth in that proposition, but it is not all truth. I would draw the minister's attention to the fact that one of the new programs he announced had to do with job training for women
in non-traditional areas. This affects a group about which we are particularly concerned. The basic principle we follow when providing jobs of that kind is the tax credit principle. There is another supplementary and somewhat similar program which we have not seen. It is not in the legislation we are examining today and it is not in the $137 million program which the minister announced earlier. I refer to a wage subsidy program. Could the minister tell us whether or not we are likely to see a wage subsidy program in operation in the future? Can he give us his own analysis of what might be good about such a program and what might be not so good?


Lloyd Axworthy: Again, I believe that if we look at the wide variety of employment incentives which might be offered we shall find that a wage subsidy is being used by certain jurisdictions. It was my hope that through discussions and debate in which the parliamentary committee will engage, and in which our own talk force will engage, we would be able to come up with a proper assessment and evaluation of those techniques as well as others. As the hon. member knows, because he is well versed in this field, there are a number of options available. What we have to do is determine the proper mixture of programs in the future; it is not enough to throw a smorgasbord of plans on the table and simply hope they will work. We now have a job program which is within the parameters of the money available to us to meet the short-term need and fill the vacuum which was created. We hope through the work of those two task forces to make an exact assessment of other techniques which are available, and determine which will best serve us. Wage subsidy programs will be examined as part of that process.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The data base relative to wage subsidy programs is growing, I believe, as more and more jurisdictions around the world have made use of this technique. One element of a data base which might be collected by the minister's department would include some idea of the cost vis-a-vis direct job creation and so on. Does the minister have any idea where wage subsidy programs might fit in this range from the cheaper employer tax credit program to the more expensive direct job-creation effort?


Lloyd Axworthy: I do not have that information on hand at the moment but I know it is part of the data base being assembled by the task force in my department; figures of that kind on alternative job-creation options will be developed.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: 1 would think such data already exists somewhere in the department given the number of people who are involved in research. One of the advantages of a wage subsidy program is that in the Canadian context it is estimated it would make the other 50 per cent of our businesses eligible to employ people. Once this legislation is passed, the richest 50 per cent of Canadian businesses will be in a position to use the employer tax credit program and hire people, receiving benefits, in a sense, from the other taxpayers of the country. That is because they make a profit and pay certain taxes. Unfortunately, we are in a period of the economy at which bankrupt-
June 26, 1980

cies have risen by 15 per cent, 20 per cent or 25 per cent, depending on the month.
The fringe businesses in this country, the 50 per cent which have not been in business long enough to make profits, or which are experiencing particularly difficult times, cannot provide jobs. Every time a business goes bankrupt a certain number of jobs are lost. We lost 61,000 last month in Ontario alone. They disappeared from our economy. I wonder whether the minister might care to speak for a minute or two about the consideration he has given to wage subsidies relative to employment possibilities in fringe businesses which are barely profitable.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I think it would be wrong to assume that the employment tax credit is utilized only by large, rich corporations. It is actually quite the contrary. The major users of the employment tax credit program are small businessmen. Well over 70 per cent of the applications which come under this program are put forward by business organizations which employ fewer than 20 people, so the major recipients and users of this program are small business organizations.
As far as the other problem the hon. member puts forward is concerned, I agree with him. There is nothing that is giving me greater concern at this point than the major dislocations which are taking place in traditional industries which have been very strong and have not required support. The automobile industry is a prime example. However, I do not think a wage subsidy is necessarily the panacea for that problem. We are examining it very closely. We have had a series of meetings with the UAW. We are looking at different ways by which we can provide for transition in that major area but, as I tried to answer the hon. member who spoke before, we are really going to have to work jointly with business and unions to find a way to combine a number of programs to impact upon those areas where major industrial change or dislocation is taking place.
It could well be that a wage subsidy is one example, but I can also point out to the hon. member, for example, that in the American jurisdiction what they are using now is increasing the use of split work programs or work-sharing programs, which is another concept the Americans are beginning to employ with more frequency. The hon. member is probably aware of the experience in the state of California with the four-day week insurance programs that they are beginning to develop. Those are all options we are looking at, and I encourage the hon. member, as one of the representatives of his party in the parliamentary task force, to use his experience and his obvious interest and concern about wage subsidies and to bring that forward for examination by the parliamentary task force so that we can get the benefit of his wisdom.


Denis Éthier: Order, please. The traditional 20 minutes allotted to each member of the committee has expired. However, if nobody else seeks the floor, the hon. member for Calgary West may be recognized for a second round.
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A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Chairman, I would like to discuss with the Minister of Employment and Immigration the industrial benefits from the new fighter aircraft contract which is in progress now.
To date we know that 49 per cent of the spin-off benefits will go to the province of Quebec, 37 per cent to Ontario, and 12 per cent to the rest of Canada. As the minister well knows, we have a very capable aerospace industry in the province of Manitoba. There are four firms there: Standard Aero, CAE, Boeing and Bristol. They are very concerned, and to date there have been only some minor contracts allotted to Bristol for the manufacture of but one part of the new fighter aircraft. Is the minister taking into consideration where the remaining 12 per cent is going to be allotted across Canada? If there are not going to be some industrial spin-offs and if at least 10 per cent of the remaining 12 per cent for eight provinces is not going into the province of Manitoba to these four aerospace firms, they could face very serious problems with lay-offs because, once the old fighter aircraft is finished, which is being worked on now, there will be nothing more for them. Can the minister explain what he is doing about getting part of the new fighter aircraft contracts into the four aerospace firms in Manitoba?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to answer that question. It is not exactly within the confines of a discussion of the employment tax credit, but because of our mutual interest in our home province I would be prepared to answer that.
I think it is fair to say at this point in time that the negotiations and discussions on the allocation of contracts for the aerospace industry are in process. The presentation by a number of the major contractors is just now going forward to the interdepartmental committee which has been put together to make assessments of different proposals. As the hon. member pointed out, both Bristol Aircraft and Standard Aero, which are well-founded and well-established companies, have made proposals in those areas. They are part of a number of proposals which are being considered by the major contractors and by the government itself.
I welcome the hon. member's support and encouragement. It is my intention to support and encourage the allocation of work where there is the beginning of an aerospace industry, and I think I can tell the hon. member that there is some progress in those negotiations, but I would not want to make any specific announcements because no decisions have yet been taken on much of that work.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Chairman, the minister does not have to worry about my concerns. This is something I have been working on since 1972. I met with these four members of the aerospace industry last Monday in Winnipeg, and they are very concerned about what work they are going to obtain from the new fighter aircraft industrial spin-offs. If they do not obtain some contracts in the very near future, they will be faced with lay-offs. Can the minister give us some assurance here tonight that the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the Ministry of Supply and Services will be meeting with the four aerospace firms in the very near future to discuss
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what portion of the new fighter aircraft contract they can obtain? I asked them, "Are you concerned; are you worried?" They said, "Yes, we definitely are". I did not want to be raising the issue in the House if things were going along smoothly and they were getting assurances from Ottawa that they were going to be getting part of the contract. They have received no assurances at all.
I see that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is here. Maybe he would want to interject something here tonight about this.


Marc Lalonde: Order.


Mr. Gauthier:: This is not question period.


A. Daniel McKenzie: There is a little conversation going on here between two members, but I want to tell the minister that we are talking about employment here tonight as well as the different regions. If we do not get some assurance about the new fighter aircraft contract in Winnipeg, there will be many lay-offs, and the four firms in Winnipeg are very concerned. Will the minister give some firm commitment as to when he will arrange a meeting between the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, the Minister of Supply and Services, the Minister of National Defence and the four aerospace firms in Winnipeg so that they can be given some confirmation as to when they will get a firm commitment with regard to building some parts-


Marc Lalonde: Order.


Denis Éthier: Order, please. With the greatest of respect, I must interject at this time and ask the hon. member to confine his questioning to the bill before us, namely, the tax credit bill, and certainly not to the creation of employment in other areas which do not concern this bill.


A. Daniel McKenzie: With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, we are talking about employment and-


Marc Lalonde: Order.


Denis Éthier: Order, please. We are talking about tax credits.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Does the Minister of Employment and Immigration want to respond to what I said?


Mr. Dawson:: Is this question period?


Marc Lalonde: That is out of order.


Denis Éthier: Order, please. The hon. member for Wetaskiwin.


Mr. Schellenberger:: Mr. Chairman, I want to intervene just briefly regarding the employment tax credit bill and the employment program regarding native Canadians which was announced. Just yesterday or Tuesday a report was tabled. That report was rather astonishing, although I suspect most hon. members are aware of the employment conditions, shelter
conditions, and some of the other problems which affect native people.
Under the employment tax credit bill, particularly at a time when we have high unemployment, employers generally seek people who are experienced. There are many people who do not have jobs but do have some work experience. Part of the problem with native Canadians is that most of them have never had the chance to get any experience in order to compete for these jobs. While I understand the technique of the employment tax credit, I do not feel it will assist native Canadians in any way. It might assist only a very few.
Because reserves are becoming crowded, many native Canadians are moving into urban centres. The problem then becomes worse because they are out of their culture. They are often driven to welfare, alcoholism or violence, as a result of living in urban areas. I understand that some $10 million was assessed to the other program which was announced. My question is on whether the minister believes that the employment tax credit will assist in any way native Canadians in solving their problems, particularly those who have left the reserves. Is the $10 million, under the program which has been announced, specifically designed for status Indians or will it relate to the 500,000 non-status Indians and the some 500,000 Metis people who sometimes are considered in the same group with native Canadians? If I can get an answer to those questions, it may relate to some others.


Lloyd Axworthy: The employment tax credit program would only incidentally bring natives into the work force. It is not a program, as the hon. member properly describes it, which is designed to focus specifically on their concerns. As 1 pointed out in my answer to the hon. member for Calgary West, one of the reasons why we are trying to develop a balanced strategy is to have a range of options whereby we can allocate moneys to where they are most needed. That is why we introduced programs specifically designed to deal with employment difficulties faced by native people. I should say that there is not just a training program.
The community development program is one which will have a very heavy emphasis in those regions of the country where there is a high proportion of native people and, as I believe I indicated-I would like to check Hansard-I believe I said last time, that when we allocate money by constituency, there will be a weighing factor to provide additional funds in areas where there is a higher unemployment rate among native people. So it is that program plus the training program. The training program is available to the native people, both status and non-status, and it is designed to start some innovative programs in the training field.
The hon. member was probably not in the chamber this afternoon when a similar question was asked by another hon. member. We did point out that he should not assume that these are the only programs available for native people. LEAP, under my department, is a close to $70 million pro-
June 26, 1980

gram and almost 50 per cent of that is allocated to work projects for native people.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: I have one other question regarding the program. In his press release the minister stated that it would enable them to take advantage of urban and remote resource development opportunities. I assume that as the moneys are allocated, many of the ridings do not have resource development opportunities. Would it be possible then, if there is a large resource development such as the tar sands plants, when moneys are allocated in ridings where there are not these kinds of developments, for jobs to be created and for people to have opportunities to move where the jobs are, even though the moneys are allocated specifically in one area?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to confuse the hon. member. The allocation by constituency is for the community development program. The training program is one under which we will respond to initiatives and primarily we have asked our regional directors in each of the provinces, particularly the western provinces, to develop for us in consultation with native organizations, how they would like to allocate that money and what is the best use for it. 1 can tell the hon. member that already we have had several meetings with native organizations in Alberta specifically directed at developing training programs relating to the major oil sands projects that are going ahead in that area.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: My final question relates to the number of jobs. If we refer to the statistic which was given to the hon. member for Calgary West we see that it would cost somewhere around $200 per job. Yet in the release the minister states that he will be assisting some 6,000 native participants. If we do some mathematics we find that at that level only some 1,400 permanent jobs would be created. So I assume that we are looking at temporary jobs for a brief period of time, hoping that they will develop into long-range employment. Given that we still have sometimes between 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the native people unemployed, 1 know that this program will assist them, but surely the minister should address himself to additional programs in this area, particularly in view of the reports that have come out in recent weeks. 1 assume that he will give some direction to the parliamentary committee and to his own committee to make efforts in this area, particularly directed to people living on reserves and those who have left the reserves and are trying to exist in large urban centres.


Lloyd Axworthy: I would like to give some clarification. When we talked about 6,000 native participants, we talked about a combination of the training program and the job-creation program under the community development and community services.


Douglas Keith Anguish: Mr. Chairman, I would like to address a question to the minister in reference to something he mentioned earlier about the number of native people who have been helped by projects under LEAP. In the new measures that the minister has announced, will some priority be given to carry over from LEAP in the cases where people have not been
Employment Tax Credit Act
able to finish their projects? Some of the specific projects I can think of would be the band of Canoes Narrows, the community of Beauval and several other places. If they apply under the new program, will they be given some priority to enable them to finish their project which was started under LEAP but for which there are no more funds under that program, so that the facilities there remain useless now and cannot function unless these people receive extra money to complete the project?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, I should point out to the hon. member that LEAP has a specific date attached to it and if jobs end under the program, obviously there would have to be new funding. The people would certainly be eligible for application under the community development program if they so desire, but LEAP has its own terms of reference. I should point out also that LEAP will be continuing as well. Much of the funds that have been allocated this year has been spent, but LEAP is an ongoing, continuing part of our employment strategy. The community development program is in addition to LEAP which is already in place.


Douglas Keith Anguish: Yes, Mr. Chairman, I understand that. What I am saying is that there are some projects, such as 1 mentioned, at Canoe Narrows and Beauval, which have been started under LEAP. They do not have adequate funds to finish their projects. Without additional funds the projects will be useless within the community. If they apply under the new program which the minister has announced for employment, will they be given priority as opposed to projects that are new and possibly more creative? Will the old projects that are not completed be given priority when they apply, as opposed to projects that are new?


Lloyd Axworthy: What I would propose to the hon. member who has a very specific question, is that if he could give me a note on those projects to which he has referred, I would be very glad to talk to our regional director in Saskatchewan to see what can be done and to examine them more specifically. If he could give me a note to that effect, we could follow through and get an answer back to him.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, 1 would like to point out to the minister who, I think, has referred to me two or three times as being a sociologist, that I am a psychologist by discipline. That is what my doctorate is in. My particular specialty has been statistics and research methods.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: One of the commonly used text books at universities for that kind of course is a book called "How To Lie With Statistics". Perhaps we have spent a lot of time on this bill because we have had a shifting data base from time to time and it has been very difficult to pursue the issue and to have clear definitions, and that is part of understanding our world. I was reminded of that as my colleague, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin, spoke about the native employment program.

June 26, 1980
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1 should like to bring to the minister's attention the fact that when today he stood in the House of Commons to announce his $137 million program, in my brief one or two minutes of questioning I asked him simply to define a job, because we cannot understand what our money is being spent on unless we have some definition of a job. In the data which have come out through the course of the day, we have the kind of example I mean about the difficulty of dealing with statistics. We have a program called the community services program. The minister's own officials told us that it will create approximately
1,000	jobs for an expenditure of $11 million, and the minister told us that the cost of those jobs is approximately $200 a week.
If we go down the list of measures announced in the House, we come to native training which is an expenditure of $10 million and the cost is about $200 a week. So, it is very similar-$11 million in one case and $10 million in the other, $200 a week in both cases. But we are told that 3,900 jobs are created for native people. How can that be with $200 a week for both programs and approximately the same expenditure? The answer is that native people are employed for one-quarter of the time other people in the community services project are employed. Can we call those equal jobs when native people in the country are employed for one-quarter of the time of the other group?
I suggest to the minister that we might be able to move more quickly to understand the legislation if we began to use numbers and figures which had a common definitional base so that we all knew with the same degree of understanding what we were talking about. I should like to continue on that vein for just a minute.
When I first got the minister's statement on his programs and the background pages, I had someone in my office add up the number of jobs supposedly created, and it came to 192,000. Then I went and looked into it a little more closely, and some were listed as new program, some were old program, and some were continuing program. We went to the minister's office and got a complete list of the new programs. In the meantime the minister was in a press conference and announced 81,000 jobs. Some diligent reporter continued to inquire, and officials said that it would be 31,000 jobs. After the inquiries here today, 1 think we now have the kind of very simple data base which most of us understand. If we have an employer tax credit program about which the parliamentary secretary told us, the data shows that it created about 45,000 jobs last year. The minister told us that those jobs were created on the basis of $65 a week. Approximately 45,000 jobs were created by the employer tax credit at $65 a week.
Now we have from the minister an indication that the bulk of the programs he announced in the House in terms of direct employment creation cost between $200 and $260 a week. They are at least three times as expensive as the employer tax credit. If that one creates 45,000 jobs, then using the same base, the minister's announcement in the House would have to
be 15,000 jobs. It would not be 31,000, 81,000 or 192,000 jobs, but 15,000. But those 45,000 jobs created by the employer tax credit are within a defined fiscal year. In response to our questions today, the minister told us that his $137 million goes over two years. So, if we take the 15,000 jobs and divide it in half, because half will be this year and half will be next year, then the announcement dealt with 7,500 jobs. It will be 7,500 jobs for a $137 million announcement. It has taken us several days in the House of persistent inquiry to get answers to enough questions to be able to lay that out for the House of Commons and the Canadian people.
When we talk about employment creation, employer tax credits and things of that kind which come under the minister's purview, I hope he would tell us about the cost per week. I hope he would add up the number of weeks of work and the number of weeks of training, that he would report data, and put out his press announcements in that format. It would enable all of us to understand in a common way what is involved in the minister's program. There is a great deal of difference. In a time of unemployment that is well in excess of one million people in Canada today, it makes a great deal of difference whether the government is providing work for something like 200,000 people or 7,000 people. The problem is significantly reduced if we are providing work for 200,000 people. When we are providing work for 7,000 people, it is important to those 7,000 people, their families and the people dependent upon that income. But it tells us clearly in the House of Commons that we do not have a program in place which deals with the serious unemployment problems existing in Canada today.
I want one other indication from the minister about another number that is important to me. I have asked it in a variety of ways on three separate days. 1 will put it in the following context. Wood Gundy, a respected organization in Canada, indicated that in the next fiscal year its projection of unemployment on average will be in excess of 9 per cent. Last month in Canada it was 7.8 per cent. Does the minister have any information from the Minister of Finance, from his own officials or from any other source, which would enable him to stand in the House at this moment and tell us that there is good reason to believe unemployment will not get to that 9 per cent level and stay there pretty much in the next 18 months? Does he have good reason to suspect that we are not looking at the most severe unemployment problem this country has ever seen, and that we are looking at it for an extended period of time, at least 18 months and maybe longer? Does the minister have good reason to tell me not to accept that forecast?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, as I told the member before, I am very reluctant to get into the art of black magic and start predicting all kinds of numbers. 1 would not want to claim the same degree of prescience Wood Gundy has attained in the past when it has been so accurate in its forecast of the stock market. But if the member is looking for some light at the end of the tunnel, some small glim of optimism, at least I would refer to the survey conducted by Manpower Temporary Services of Toronto. It did a very major survey of
June 26, 1980

personnel managers across Canada. If I may, I should like to quote from the survey:
Despite worries about the depth of recession, employment prospects across Canada for the next three months are still fairly bright according to a national survey conducted by Manpower Temporary Services.
I hope that will allow the member to go to bed with some degree of calm and patience this evening, knowing that while Wood Gundy may be trying to plunge us into the depths of despair, Manpower Temporary Services still has a ringing note of optimism in its survey.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Would the minister comment on a quote of the Minister of Finance which was reported today? It is dealing with unemployment. He said that the actual outcome could turn out to be much worse for this year. In our previous discussions on this bill, the minister indicated that the average projection of 8 per cent of the Minister of Finance was allowed to stand. On the basis of the last couple of days, is he getting any indication from the Minister of Finance that perhaps the unemployment forecast should be revised upward? What does the Department of Finance indicate?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, simply I would refer the hon. member to page 2375 of Hansard where the statement of the Minister of Finance relating to his forecasts on employment and unemployment is very well set out and very precisely stated as only the Minister of Finance can do. I refer this for the member's information. If he wants the most accurate forecast, that is exactly from the mouth of the Minister of Finance. I would not even pretend to be able to equal his ability to make that kind of judgment.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I wonder if the minister read the statement made by the Minister of Finance today. I think that the statement he quoted in Hansard is an historical statement. The Minister of Finance is quoted as saying:
I cannot rule out the possibility that the unemployment rate may rise even faster than this figure would imply.
The figure he is referring to is the original estimate of 8 per cent.


Yvon Pinard: What page is that?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: This is an article out of a newspaper.


Yvon Pinard: Oh, 1 see.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, in my short experience in political life 1 have learned to go to the official record rather than to rely upon press reports, which have been known at times to somewhat distort the remarks of politicians, particularly ministers of finance.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I would ask the minister the following: If in some magic way he could be provided with another $500 million, does he think that he has the kinds of programs in place which could absorb this kind of money and would produce useful employment for Canadians?
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Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, if the hon. member is suggesting that we have a kind of a Christmas grab bag of goodies, 1 would simply say to him that the kinds of requests and demands made on this government for a variety of expenditures in the job-creation field far exceed our money supply, It is one of those cases where, if there is an inflationary push, it is for government action and supply that we cannot match. Of course $500 million would be welcome at any time, if the hon. member is prepared to provide it.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: This is my second occasion in Committee of the Whole on different bills. The other occasion concerned a bill to create a minister of social welfare. I would like to ask the minister a similar type of question. Given the minister's assertions about caring about the disadvantaged of the country, the need to help women and native people, is he satisfied representing a government that allows the importation of oil, and the subsequent subsidy, to rise? The original projected expenditure of $2.6 billion has now been revised to in excess of $4 billion. Given the nature of world price rises which are coming into the neighbourhood of $5 billion in subsidies, this brings us very close to 10 per cent of the total federal expenditures and well over 12 per cent or 13 per cent of the money which is raised. Certainly it is a sum which is considerably more than the $100 million which goes into the employment tax credit or the $137 million of the other program which is spread over two years.
Does the minister consider the subsidization of oil to be a greater social priority on which to use taxpayers' dollars than programs, for example, which help create jobs, and help create higher pensions for senior citizens? Is the minister satisfied with the direction in which the government is going? The minister is a member of that government and a member of cabinet.


Yvon Pinard: That is not relevant to the bill, my friend.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is straying into another area of debate. Personally, I believe that in this country there must be some fair degree of equalization of the costs which are borne. If one of the prices of being a Canadian is to ensure that the people in the maritimes are not required to pay far more exorbitant rates for their energy than the people in Alberta, then that is a fair price which 1 am prepared to pay as a Canadian.
With regard to the hon. member's comments about my feelings for the poor and disadvantaged, one of my motivations to work so hard for the defeat of his past government was the idea that the 18-cent increase on a gallon of gas would be borne most heavily by average Canadians, to the point of several hundreds of dollars per year. That was something which Canadians will simply not tolerate and which they cannot afford.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I cannot leave that pass, Mr. Chairman. The person who owns the Cadillac with the great big gas tank gets more benefit out of that subsidy than the senior citizen who does not have a car. That has always been true. It is the rich of

June 26, 1980
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this country who are being subsidized by the oil import pricing system. It is a different issue to equalize the pricing system across this country. The policy issue in terms of expenditure-


The Chairman:: With all due respect to the hon. member, the debate seems to be straying from the bill which is before us. May I invite both the minister and the hon. member to confine their remarks to the bill.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Chairman, I find that I am intrigued by that shifting data base. In light of the information which the minister has provided to us today, and I thank him for it, I am persuaded that the bill which is before us needs amending. 1 think we are looking at a long-term unemployment problem. 1 would therefore move that:
1. Subsections 7(2) and (3) of the Employment Tax Credit Act are repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the "program period" commences on march 8, 1978, and ends on March 31, 1984.
(3)	No agreement may be entered into under subsection (I) after March 31, 1983, and an agreement entered into in respect of eligible employment that commences after that day is of no force or effect."
(4)	Notwithstanding subsections (2) and (j), before March 31, 1983, the dates referred to in subsections (1) and (2) may be replaced by such future dates as specified in a joint resolution of both Houses of Parliament.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: Before ruling on the amendment, the Chair would call the attention of the committee to the fact that clause 1 is under discussion at this time. The Chair would like to defer ruling on the admissibility of the amendment and the form in which it came before us until it has had an opportunity to study the amendment in detail.
I would invite hon. members to consider the discussion of clause 1 which is before us. I propose not to rule on the admissibility of the amendment until 1 have had an opportunity to examine it.
Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: Shall clause 1 carry?


Some hon. Members:: Carry.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: For the purposes of proceeding, the Chair will accept the amendment placed before the House on clause 1. Shall 1 read the amendment?


Lloyd Axworthy: Dispense.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: May 1 speak to the amendment?


Cyril Lloyd Francis: There has been a request that the amendment be read. It is moved by the hon. member for Calgary West, seconded by the hon. member for Burlington:
1. Subsections 7(2) and (3) of the Employment Tax Credit Act are repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the "program period" commences on March 8, 1978, and ends on March 31, 1984.
(3) No agreement may be entered into under subsection (1) after March 31, 1983, and an agreement entered into in respect of eligible employment that commences after that day is of no force or effect."
(4) Notwithstanding subsections (2) and (3), before March 31, 1983, the
dates referred to in subsections (1) and (2) may be replaced by such future
dates as specified in a joint resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
The Chair has ruled that the amendment is in order. The hon. member for Calgary West may speak to the amendment.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: If I could just take a minute or two I will explain the intent of the amendment. Of course the government has a majority and so can pass or reject this amendment, but on this side of the House we are persuaded that the country is facing a fairly long and very severe period of unemployment. I think it is clear from the minister's own testimony that through an employer tax credit provision there will be a maximum increase in publicly supported employment for a minimal dollar cost.
The intent of my amendment is to extend that provision for an additional two years. I think this would probably see us through most of the unemployment crisis because it is an employer tax credit program and it could defer the expenditure to as late as 1989. Not every employer would claim the tax credit immediately and the budgetary situation might ease in the years ahead. That is one of the advantages.
The additional clause which I propose would provide maximum flexibility for change through a joint resolution of both Houses, and also, the date could be altered. I think the mechanism for altering the date would enable the government to provide the greatest possible number of jobs at the lowest possible cost. The official opposition is convinced that those jobs are needed today and that they will be needed in the future. We would like hon. members on the government side to give serious consideration to the amendments and to vote for them.


Cyril Lloyd Francis: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.
Amendment negatived: Yeas, 12; nays, 28.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When shall the bill be read the third time?


Some hon. Members:: Now.


Lloyd Axworthy: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.
June 26, 1980


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT, 1971 MEASURE TO AMEND
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, June 19, 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.
Miss Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, I shall be very brief as I have a short time left to me from the last time we debated Bill C-3. At that time I referred to the reduction in the amount of time that is needed for someone to earn an unemployment insurance stamp. I noted that although the time period had been changed in a previous amendment, this year the Unemployment Insurance Commission had decided that a reduction in the length of time was required.
Before criticizing this particular regulation that was introduced recently in this House by the minister, I should like to point out that the existing regulation had also been changed to make the required period 20 weeks or 30 per cent of maximum insurable earnings. Now that is to be changed again, to 15 weeks or one-fifth of maximum insurable earnings as the time requirement to earn one stamp. This indicates to me that 20 hours of employment per week, or 30 per cent of maximum insurable earnings, cannot be provided to workers at all times. This hits very directly at one segment of society-part-time workers, and women in particular.
The last time the bill was before the House 1 pointed out this difficulty and commented that it would be very hard for this group to find employment. I have pointed out in committee and in the House that it might be better to combine two weeks in order to qualify for a stamp, but apparently the commission decided that there should be a regulation to reduce the period. This zig-zag from one year to the next is very unfair and it is difficult for people to know how much they must earn in order to qualify.
It seems to me it would be more advantageous in areas such as the one I represent if an employer were able to give a stamp for two weeks combined, rather than the period being reduced as is done by the regulation.
It is possible that the task force is considering this proposition, but at the present time the confusion that has been so much a part of unemployment insurance amendments and regulations in the past few years, still exists.
I would remind the minister that in the notes on the employment program and community development projects that he passed out to members of Parliament, he stated:
Members of Parliament and local advisory groups will be consulted by the minister in the decision-making process and funds will be allocated to all constituencies on the basis of unemployment.
This is the reason I have raised the subject tonight as well as other occasions, and why I will raise it again in the future, until the basis of unemployment has been regulated by the minister and the Unemployment Insurance Commission.
Unemployment Insurance Act
I should like to return to the question of the use of the variable entrance requirement based on the economic region. The last time I spoke, I mentioned the use of this factor which came into effect last July. It has led to confusion in those areas of the country where it is being administered. People do not know, from one month to the next, how many weeks of insurable earnings they need in order to qualify for benefits by next November, December or January.
I would like to reiterate that the economic region-unemployment insurance rates been used by unemployment insurance offices, and by that economic region rate I mean that employed by Statistics Canada and used by the unemployment insurance offices. The other night 1 tried to show to the House the difference and the handicap. It is not only under the variable entrance requirement or under the extended benefits or just in the ability to go into, let us say, the employment programs, it is the harshness that it brings about. Yet, if one looked at the labour surplus rate, which I defined earlier, as the number of regular beneficiaries as a proportion of the labour force, we would look at South West Nova and see that a difference existed between the labour surplus rate and the unemployment rate as indicated by Statistics Canada under the economic region. In fact, it shows such a different picture than the use of the Statistics economic region. The labour surplus rate in South West Nova last year was 13.3 per cent compared to a labour surplus rate of 12.8 per cent for the economic region unemployment insurance rate. The reason that the two sets of data are different, as I have said before, is probably the result of the statistical problem in estimating labour force and unemployed data from a sample that may be too small as used by Statistics Canada.
If we had true statistics, and if one used just the unemployment office in that area, the figures would probably show that in South West Nova the unemployment is as high and as severe as any other economic region in the province. I am substantiated in my theory by the benefits paid out. If one looks back to January, 1978, January, 1979, and January, 1980, by taking that particular month we find that in January,
1978,	the total benefits paid in Yarmouth were 15 per cent of the total benefits paid for the whole province. If one looks at
1979,	it was 16 per cent, and in 1980 the figure was again 15 per cent. That includes the fact that there were many people who qualified in 1979 who did not qualify in 1980 because of the use of the variable entrance requirement. It is a very severe handicap. It shows that there were 7,046 beneficiaries in January, 1980, at the Yarmouth unemployment office. This is out of a total of 44,552 beneficiaries in Nova Scotia.
That would be about 15.8 per cent of the total beneficiaries in Nova Scotia. Yet if we take a look at the figures for January, and by assuming that January has the highest number of unemployed, and by assuming that in South West Nova the critical unemployment period is in the winter from November to February, and by assuming the estimated impact of Bill C-13 in a district office area of Yarmouth in 1979-80, by taking the individuals who were prevented from establish-

June 26, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
ing a claim either because they were a repeater or because of the new entrance provision, there were approximately 1,170 people affected.
By adding that figure to the 7,046 registered beneficiaries, we come up with about 8,216, which is approximately 18 per cent of the total for the province of Nova Scotia. We are looking at 18 per cent of the total beneficiaries in Nova Scotia, and one has to consider that in that area we have probably about 7 per cent of the total population of the province and probably some of the lowest salaries earned in Nova Scotia. If we look at the federal-regional rate scale, it shows that South West Nova has the lowest salary scale in Nova Scotia.
1 reiterate this point, because I looked at Hansard the other night and perhaps I did not make it clear enough then as to the acute problem that the continued use of variable entrance requirement will create in South West Nova. I look at it again in light of the fact that 1 reviewed the projects under this bill, and I have to say that I am upset that we are continuing the use of the variable entrance requirement. First, people in South West Nova do not have a definite amount of time that they must work in order to qualify. Second, the use of the money under the new financing arrangement is not going into job creation.
I stop at that point because the use of the unemployment insurance rates based on economic regions in South West Nova has had a cruel effect in that area because of the amount of employment created by the employment programs. 1 say this because in the past under Canada Works it was based on the unemployment rate. If you go to employment strategies it was based on unemployment rates, based on an economic region which did not truly give a good sample of the population that was unemployed in that area at specific times in the year. It goes back to the need for all sorts of employment programs, such as the employment tax credit which does not apply directly. It has some application in the area but it perhaps created about $100,000 worth of job creation last year out of a total package of whatever was used in government tax credits. Yet, that type of employment incentive does not apply to a rural area where the business end of it cannot take that up as a program. They need economic employment stimulation.
I want to say again tonight that I look forward to this bill in committee. I look forward to pressing the minister to find a solution. I ask him not to wait for two years and have two winters of hard times where the unemployment rate for stamps in a given area is not known. I will continue to press this, particularly in light of this bill, and I look forward to seeing what happens in committee. I must say that I find it hard to think that the Unemployment Insurance Commission needs 18 months. I am glad that there is another study under way, but I hope that there will be lots of consultations with the members. Perhaps in the future some of the members will be listened to in terms of the problems which have been suggested to the minister in the past, here in this House and in committee.
1 thank the House for the time allotted to me. I am sure there are many other speakers who wish to speak on this bill and I look forward to the bill coming to committee.


Sidney James Parker: Mr. Speaker,
I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-3, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. I am disappointed that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) is not in the House. I realize that he has just had one bill passed. However, I feel that he will have difficulty in putting this one through.
I am very happy to follow the hon. member for South West Nova (Miss Campbell). I wish to comment briefly on an item which she overlooked. In the press release in which the minister announced Bill C-3, he noted that the government plans to introduce regulating changes that would alter the minimum insurability provision. Instead of being required to work 20 hours per week, it would be 15 hours per week.
There is a very serious discrimination against pregnant women who require unemployment insurance benefits. While the minister has looked at the part-time workers, he has discriminated against what is called the magic ten area of women in the work force.
1 wish to relate some of my remarks this evening to problems in Kootenay East-Revelstoke, one of the highest unemployment areas in British Columbia. We have the problem of people having to drive between 90 and 100 miles to register for unemployment insurance. The office is so busy that their applications are sent to Terrace to be processed, approximately 1,100 miles away. These people who paid into the unemployment insurance program while in the work force, and through their employer and the government, have to wait through this procedure.
What I resent even more than that kind of procedure is the fact that 1 received a letter from the Minister of Employment and Immigration just recently telling me that he would prefer if I would deal with problems of unemployment in my riding because his ministry is too busy to deal with them personally. He tried to encourage me to deal with them in my own riding. How can I do that when applications are sent 1,100 miles away to be processed?
I want to deal further with what is happening in my riding. On January 3 there were seven explosive workers who worked on a contract in Fernie. The contract was in a special area of work. The Kaiser resource employees took a strike vote and went on strike January 3. Even though these seven explosive workers were not part of that contract, they were laid off. They received notification from their employer that they were being laid off because of a strike.
These workers applied for unemployment insurance. After driving 100 miles to apply and then back home, they were told they did not qualify and must therefore appear before a court of revision, although a court of revision had been held prior to that on a similar claim that year. The unanimous decision of that court of revision was that these employees would qualify and they were therefore paid.
The unique part of this is that of the seven employees, five were from British Columbia and two were from Alberta.
June 26, 1980

Therefore the five were heard in the province of British Columbia. It was the unanimous decision of that court of revision that they should be paid. The two who went to Alberta appeared before a board of referees. The Alberta decision was also unanimous that they should be paid.
Those seven employees are being subjected to something else. The Unemployment Insurance Commission is going to appeal that decision, taking it to a board of referees. Although this took place on January 3, those employees do not yet know when they will go before an umpire for a decision. This is a cowardly attitude on the part of the Unemployment Insurance Commission. The situation in which these employees found themselves was unavoidable. They had no strike vote and no decision as to when they will return to work, yet they are compelled to go through this kind of procedure.
The decision of the umpire has not yet been finalized. However, if the decision is against those employees, it can be used in any similar incident. The employees do not have the resources to protect themselves. There are another 40 employees of Sawchuck Trucking involved in the same dispute. They, too, have been told they have to appear before a board of referees. After having been out since January 3, only half have been called in for the referee's decision and half are still waiting. They may have to go through the same procedure.
I think that before the minister and the government bring a bill into this House, they should clean up the act we now have. Let us begin to recognize the needs of these people. It is a tragedy that those who pay into the program have to wait for these kinds of decisions. The employee, the employer and the referees all agree, but they have to wait for the commission. That is very wrong. I agree with the process, but I disagree with what has happened in this case.
1 wish to talk a bit about what we should be looking at in our unemployment insurance program. There are almost a million people unemployed, and we have an unemployment centre that does not have the true feeling of the people. That is of great concern. The attitude of the unemployment centre at this time is to try to deny the unemployed person the benefits, for which he has paid. It is time the Minister of Employment and Immigration called in the top union executives and business people to sit around the table and begin looking at where we are going in Canada today. What are we going to do about our problems? We have one million people unemployed. There are people not paying into the program. Possibly I should relate some of the revenue we are losing.
It is important to note in this connection that for every one job created in producing a resource, another six are created in processing it, and yet these are the jobs we export. Unemployment now costs us $5 billion annually in lost production of goods and services, $1 billion in federal tax revenues, $5 billion in unemployment insurance pay-outs. The pay-out for unemployment insurance in 1981-82 is estimated at $5.2 billion.
The minister comes in with a bill that will reduce the application date for part-time workers. The minister and the government should be ashamed with what is happening. The bank interest rate in Canada today has virtually closed down
Unemployment Insurance Act
the housing industry in British Columbia. The lumber industry is almost at a standstill with regard to new development and so on. There are lay-offs in those industries. There is a need for housing yet we are paying out unemployment insurance- when the commission decides to do so. What are we doing?
I asked the minister about an Outreach program which would try to help some of these people. I travelled to Windsor with a delegation of our group and I saw some of the problems in the Windsor area, also. I witnessed the unification of that community in an effort to relieve some of those who are suffering because of lay-offs in the auto industry. If the minister does not realize the gravity of the situation, it is about time a delegation from his party began to travel the country to see at first hand what the needs of the people are.
I want to talk for a moment about the waiting period under the unemployment insurance regulations. Take the case of a man who has been working for a company and who is suddenly laid off. He is in serious trouble to begin with, but now he is confronted with a waiting period. It is as if a man found himself obliged to go to hospital only to be told he had to wait for two weeks for hospital benefits because he did not qualify for treatment. Assistance is needed right away.
In British Columbia, people come into my office in Cran-brook on an almost daily basis with grievances of this kind, and I am told to phone the social welfare office. I say to the minister that this is not a social problem, it is an employment problem, and we should be regarding it in that light. We should not be looking after people under social programs paid for by the taxpayers when the situation has clearly been brought about by a slowdown in industry.
I should like to refer to a communication dated June 26, 1980, which was sent to all members of Parliament by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Indeed, I should like to read it verbatim before commenting further. It states:
As you know, my portfolio embraces a number of important programs which are highly visible at the local level. Employment counselling, placement, unemployment insurance and immigrant settlement, to name but a few, are examples of the day to day services rendered in the community by officials of Employment and Immigration Canada.
The focal points for the delivery of these services are the local Canada Employment Centres-
In my area, it could be Cranbrook, or it could be Penticton, or it could be Terrace.
-and for immigration matters, the Canada Immigration Centres.
I would like to invite you and your staff to take full advantage of the expertise in the local offices of the commission when constituency needs arise in relation to any of the above programs. I am sure you will find the CEC and CIC managers to be knowledgeable, conscientious and responsive to the requirements of their clients.
While recommending that you bring constituency matters to the attention of my local office managers to better facilitate-
In Creston, which is about 65 miles away from Cranbrook, there is a suboffice, but the suboffice is only allowed to take in material and send it to the central office, and the central office sends it wherever it may be necessary. I believe that
2440

June 26, 1980
Unemployment Insurance Act
when there are problems of this magnitude it is the responsibility of the department to make sure there are staff who can attend to the needs of the people affected and give them the service to which they are entitled.
One of the main causes for complaint in my riding is the length of time taken to process claims. I believe responsibility rests squarely on the Government of Canada because the local offices do not have the staff to enable them to carry out the work which has to be done. 1 appeal to the minister to take a more serious view of the unemployment situation in Canada and to bring down a bill which will establish much better facilities than exist at the present time.


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to share some of my thinking on this bill. To my mind it appears to be a chiselling bill from a chiselling government. It reminds me of the time I first became aware of some of the unfairness attached to unemployment insurance as it was first introduced, when I was growing up in the forties. I remember when my father paid into this program and then, when the time came for him to collect, he was not able to do so because of a technicality. Later he was a seasonal worker on construction and always he faced the question of whether or not he would have enough unemployment insurance stamps to enable him to collect insurance after he was laid off.
Unemployment insurance was not the icing on the cake for our family in those days. Rather, in times of unemployment it was our bread and butter. Thousands of workers across Canada and their families shared this reality. In my work with native Indian people on the north coast of British Columbia, I saw how important this same question was to seasonal fishermen and cannery workers. We have built the Canadian economy around the need for seasonal workers, but we have denied those workers all but a few crumbs from the table of Canada's plenty.
In 1971, with the passing of the Unemployment Insurance Act in its present form, we took a large step forward from the days back in 1940 when unemployment insurance was introduced for the first time. Unfortunately, 1971 was the high point. Since then the government's desire to provide a measure of economic security has been steadily weakened by a false set of priorities. Any commitment to economic justice has been over-shadowed by the cloud of unemployment which hangs over this country. Unemployment may not have been what the government wished for the Canadian people, but it is what the government has brought about as a result of its mismanagement of the economy.
The government has failed to deal with the need to provide jobs for Canadians. Instead, it has looked at the growing amount of money needed to finance the unemployment insurance fund and has found ways to chisel out of its commitments. Bill C-3 is only the latest in a depressing series of bills which have chiselled away at the 1971 program. The government goes backwards instead of forwards.
In his speech introducing the bill the minister said the amendment would lower the government's share of the cost of unemployment insurance. In 1979 the government's share of the cost amounted to 31 per cent. Under the new regulations it will drop to 20 per cent. The extra costs will be shifted on to the backs of employers and workers, a most regressive move. However, this allows the government to weasel out of its earlier commitment. We all know that unemployment insurance is expensive-too expensive to the tune of $5 billion a year.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to express my appreciation to the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) for being here tonight. He will remember that on May 30 he indicated to me that he hoped to bring in some legislation to deal with some of the inequities which presently affect members of the RCMP and that he might answer some questions about individual grievances.
1 see that two of the outstanding grievances involving former members McCleery and Brunet have been dealt with. I am sorry to say that they have been dealt with in a very summary way because it appears that the Solicitor General did not even bother to intervene himself but turned it right back to the commissioner again. I would like to ask the minister tonight to explain his philosophy about his ministry and whether he is content to leave not just the management and control of the force to the commissioner but also the guidance and direction with which he, as minister, is charged under the act.
We do not have much time this evening to discuss the issues very fully, but I do want to take the opportunity to ask the minister if he will deal with another grievance which has been long outstanding, that of a member named Danch in Nova Scotia, whom one of his predecessors indicated he would view sympathetically in that the man won his case in the Federal Court but was left with a fairly large legal bill which neither he nor his solicitor has been able to persuade the government to pay.
There are also grievances which are not long-standing, but they are current, and one might say they are pending. I was disappointed that the Solicitor General did not answer my letter which I wrote to him over a month ago involving a man
June 26, 1980

named Robert McGarry, an informer of the force. I explained to the minister that I thought it was something he should look at personally, and 1 gave him some names. I am reminded of the time when 1 wrote to a former solicitor general about Warren Hart. 1 got no answer then either until I raised the matter in the House of Commons, so I reluctantly ask the minister tonight, would he please-and 1 will put it on the record-interview some of the people about whom I told him in my letter of May 22, to see what the situation is?
It appears to me-I may be wrong, and only a proper investigation can tell-that this man McGarry has been subjected to extreme pressures by one or more members of the force and perhaps has been asked to perjure himself in the process. Some of the spin-offs are going to be before the criminal courts. I do not want to be too specific, but I do ask the minister again to look into the matter and to interview people like Superintendent Yelle and Inspector Boivin. 1 have reason to believe he would get good, reliable information from Sargeant Gilles Boudreau and Corporal Mineault. I also ask him that these men be given every courtesy and not in any way be discriminated against or affected because of circumstances which may or may not exist here.
It seems that every time that one brings out a grievance- and there are many involving someone in the force-that there are unfortunate repercussions, and 1 hope the minister will be able to confirm tonight, speaking of that, that the matter involving the Association of 17 Divisions is not controversial any more and that members of the force are perfectly free to talk about it and to be active in it, because the minister well knows that it has been four years since the Marin commission of inquiry recommended certain changes, and to this date nothing significant has been done.
I take the minister at his word that he will do something before the summer, if at all possible, to bring in some changes.
This brings me to the last point, which 1 think is very important, because this is something which ought to be a high profile matter of concern to the Solicitor General. I will refer him to an article by Nick Auf der Maur in the Montreal Gazette of Wednesday, April 9, 1980, in which this columnist raises a point about one man, although he does not know the name of the corporal, whose name is James Wood, whom I have known for some years. This is the man who was widely credited with much of the good work which resulted in the expulsion of 11 Soviet spies not too long ago. This man has not been treated properly, and I think Nick Auf der Maur has summed it up fairly accurately, according to my knowledge of the matter. I will read briefly from his column, as follows:
It has been a little over two years since Jamieson and the RCMP justly and proudly revealed their coup. There has been no further word.
Meanwhile the agent who could be touted as a genuine Canadian hero ready to risk his life, has been languishing in Ottawa.
He has received no promotion, no bonus, not even a token little medal in recognition of his services.
There arc rumours he is under heavy pressure to accept an RCMP transfer to oblivion. Why wasn't he given the hero treatment lavished on Ken Taylor? Why
Adjournment Debate
was he never given any credit, even in private, let alone in public? Why does the RCMP treat its heroes as suspects?
This is an extreme case. Corporal Wood does not feel comfortable going before the McDonald commission, without his own independent counsel. In the past the government has paid independent counsel's fees. They have paid the fees of Warren Hart's counsel. They have paid the fees for McCleery and Brunet's counsel, as well they should. They have paid counsel fees for one of the minister's predecessors, the Hon. J. P. Goyer, and I have no quarrel with that. But why do we have these instances where there is so much apparent injustice?
1 am asking the Solicitor General to take seriously the powers that he has to guide and direct the force, not to interfere but to look into some of these things personally. It can be done, it is not difficult. By way of example, let me point out the case which you might remember, Mr. Speaker, of a lady who practically used to freeze herself to death outside the House of Commons for months looking for redress. It was possible to do something for her, not a great deal, but something to relieve her. You need not tell me that the minister cannot do these things if he wants to.
I hope my friend the Solicitor General will look into some of these grievances, and there are many of them, and that he will do something to identify with some of the rank and file, to use a labour expression in the force. I do not doubt his good will but I expect he is under enormous pressure from those people who are close to him, and I urge him to take a more humanitarian and direct interest in some of these cases. If he errs in judgment, he will only earn respect for it because, if he is not right, he will be on the side of right.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. member made his remarks, and I want to assure him that 1 do move beyond what he tonight called a closed circle, or the upper echelons of the RCMP, in trying to make the right decision in exercising direction over the RCMP, because I recognize fully that it is my responsibility to provide direction to the RCMP under their statute. I am aware of my responsibilities, and 1 believe I do exercise them.
However, that is not to say that I necessarily agree with the positions that are put to me by a variety of people, including the hon. member. He mentioned and I have mentioned before, the long over due RCMP act based on the recommendation of the Marin commission. This commission reported four years ago, as the hon. member said, and, by rights, legislation should have been brought in immediately following reception of that report because it contained very good advice to the government, and it will definitely make many of the internal procedures of the RCMP more fair and equitable. I think that the best way for me to deal with some of the matters to which the hon. member has referred and called inequitable is to do my best to bring that legislation forward rapidly, and that is exactly what I intend to do.
I want to deal with some of the specific cases to which the hon. member referred. He referred to the cases of McCleery and Brunet and argued that I have done nothing. In fact I

June 26, 1980
Adjournment Debate
made the same decision as his own government did when they were in charge of the matter and when my predecessor, Allan Lawrence, was directing the RCMP, which was not do anything for Brunet and McCleery. That was the conscious decision which my precedessor made, I assume, and I have made the same decision. 1 made it after asking for legal advice from the law officers of the Crown about what options I had.
1 learned that I could not directly reinstate an officer of the RCMP even if 1 had wanted to, but I did not have that authority. While the commissioner had the authority to do it, under those circumstances the legal opinion was that he could only do it if he felt, on review of the situation and of the past circumstances, that natural justice had been denied to the individuals concerned. 1 bluntly asked him that question in a formal way. 1 asked him to review the circumstances and, since he has the discretion, I asked him to let me know whether, in his view, natural justice had been denied to Brunet and McCleery. He informed me in due course that it had not, and therefore he was not prepared to take action. 1 have not been ignoring the matter. I have addressed it, and I decided to do what my predecessor did, which was not to take any action on their behalf.
I could refer as well to Danch, McGarry and the Association of 17 Divisions and the efforts that 1 made to establish good relations with the Div-Reps who are the recognized group through whom I operate in trying to deal with the concerns of the rank and file of the RCMP.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE-ALLEGED SUPPLY OF WEAPONS AND EXPLOSIVES TO NATIVE COMMUNITY IN B.C.
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to associate myself briefly with the remarks of the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay) who has been doing an excellent job in this House for some years now in raising concerns about the questions of discipline and the lack of natural justice in the disciplinary process of the RCMP. I assure the hon. member for Central Nova that we in this party fully support the efforts which have been made and will continue to be made to bring some natural justice to this process.
My remarks tonight are a follow-up to questions I raised with the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) on May 26 concerning the report of the McDonald commission. 1 should say that since my question on that date the commission itself has made a ruling which certainly affects substantially the question 1 asked and, indeed, the answer the Solicitor General gave to my supplementary question.
The concern which we on this side of the House have in dealing with the McDonald commission report is that there was a series of allegations made throughout the course of the hearings of the McDonald commission. Some of those allegations were made in private, behind closed doors, and others were in the public eye about wrong doing. That doing consisted of any number of criminal activities. It included forgery, theft, illegal opening of mail, violations of the Income Tax
Act, arson, impersonation, breaking and entry, and a number of other similar offences.
In addition we are quite frankly concerned about the level of knowledge of the political masters of the RCMP before and during this particular period of time. We are concerned to know to what extent the political master of the RCMP at the time, the solicitor general, turned a blind eye to the illegal actions which were being taken by members of the RCMP. We are concerned to ensure that it will not just be members of the force at the junior levels against whom criminal charges are laid. If there has been evidence of illegalities, certainly criminal charges should be laid. But it is not only those persons who should carry the can, in effect. Indeed if there was knowledge and acquiescence on the part of their political masters, they too should accept responsibility and that responsibility should be carried out, where necessary, in the form of a sanction under the laws of this country.
The concern we have is that the evidence of wrongdoing, according to the commission, will not be made public. The evidence of individual actions of wrongdoing will not be made public. The legal conclusions which are drawn by the commission in examining evidence of wrongdoing will not be made public. The submissions on that question are to be made privately. The Solicitor General assured the House that, in particular, references to individuals in connection with various allegations will be made public. 1 certainly hope the Solicitor General intends to carry out this particular mandate.
The concern we have is that because of suggestions of involvement at some fairly senior levels on the part of former colleagues of the Solicitor General, it is not good enough to tell the House and people of Canada that this report on wrongdoings by the security service of the RCMP will be compiled, that the submissions with respect to individual wrongdoing will be kept secret, and then it will be up to the government of the day to decide what to do with those particular recommendations and, indeed, decide whether or not to make those recommendations public.
We have seen too many instances in the past of the disrespect on the part of the government and members of the government opposite for the law and forjudges in this country. 1 need only refer to a few instances over the past several years. There was the Sky Shops affair involving influence peddling. There was a former public works minister who picked up the telephone and called a judge, when one of his colleagues was cited for contempt by that judge. I refer to Mr. Drury. Indeed, his colleague, Mr. Ouellet, was cited for contempt and convicted of contempt of court in the province of Quebec. Francis Fox was not convicted, but he was forced to resign because of an improper signature on a form with which he was involved in his past. John Munro picked up the telephone to call a judge on behalf of one of his constituents. He is the hon. member for Hamilton East. 1 see that my friend, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), is looking around. I realize that I should be naming ridings instead of names, and I apologize for straying from that formality.
June 26, 1980


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear!


Svend Johannes Robinson: The concern that we have-and I hope to have an assurance from the minister on it-is that any evidence not only with respect to violations of criminal law but which might lead to disciplinary action on the part of the RCMP, and evidence which might point to acquiescence or to actual knowledge on the part of former solicitors general, will be made public.
My final point is that 1 would like to hear a comment from the Solicitor General with respect to the suggestion which I made in committee and in this House, that the full report of the McDonald commission be considered, if necessary-and, indeed, it would be necessary when dealing with certain aspects of the report-in an in-camera session of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs in order that members of Parliament, on all sides of the House, may have an opportunity to provide input into the very important questions of the accountability of the RCMP and the political accountability of the people who govern the RCMP.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, I have been accused by the hon. member from time to time of hiding behind the McDonald commission and wanting to delay everything until the report is completed. Since that is the subject of tonight's question, 1 would remind the hon. member that before he came to this House his party was certainly as active as any other party in pressing that this commission be established, that it be given broad powers and that it not be limited in any way.
The commission was set up in response to that type of representation, which, as I say, came not from only his party. Now that it is established and taking a long time in doing its work-longer perhaps than anyone expected-but doing a very thorough job and demonstrating daily its independence- it is a luxury which only the opposition can have, to turn on the commission and argue that, without waiting for it to complete the job for which it was set up, we should begin to expect the Attorney General (Mr. Chretien) and the attorneys general of the provinces to be laying charges.
Only the opposition can have it both ways and argue that an independent commission be set up, that it be given full powers, and then that it be ignored and overruled when the evidence which it may turn up from day to day suggests to the opposition that someone should be laying charges against someone. I am not taking that position, and neither is the government. We support the commission. We are complying with all it requests, we are appearing weekly before it in its hearings, and we are waiting, as the Attorney General of Canada has indicated, for its recommendations before deciding whether or not action should be taken and, if so, what action should be taken within the federal jurisdiction with respect to any unauthorized acts against our laws which are mentioned by the commission.
Of course our view does not apply to the provincial attorneys general. If they decide that they would like to conduct investi-
Adjournment Debate
gations and lay charges now, then that is within their jurisdiction. I would co-operate with them fully so that they could exercise their jurisdiction. However, when the McDonald commission made the decision to which the hon. member has referred, to hold hearings in camera in connection with individuals and their behaviour, I agree with that decision.
I think that the commission is demonstrating basic fairness and decency because, after all, hearings by the McDonald commission into this matter could be going on while the provincial attorneys general are laying charges and holding hearings. What could be more unfair to individuals than to be tried in two places and to be subject to examination before the McDonald commission in what the hon. member would like to be a public forum on the one hand, and on the other hand, if the hon. member's advice were taken by the attorneys general, an individual could be facing charges in another court on the very same day and at the very same time as he is appearing before the McDonald commission. 1 do not think the procedure he recommends is fair in any way to any of the individuals concerned, and 1 am surprised that he would seriously argue both those positions at the same time.
I have indicated that when the report of the McDonald commission is delivered to the government the recommendations which deal with individuals and findings which deal with individuals, will be referred to my colleague, the Attorney General. I shall recommend to him that all such findings be made public.
The hon. member has now asked, as he did when I appeared before the justice committee on estimates, that the entire report be made public or, if it is not made public, that it be brought before an in-camera meeting of the justice committee. That is an excellent suggestion, Mr. Speaker, which other people have also made, but whether the government could comply with that request will depend on the nature of the report.


POST OFFICE-DEPLORABLE MAIL CONDITIONS IN CALGARY STEPS TO IMPROVE
Mr. Bill Wright (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, on May 16 I presented a motion under Standing Order 43 asking the government to direct the Postmaster General (Mr. Ouellet) to correct the deplorable postal conditions in Calgary North. The motion was not adopted.
On June 5 I asked the Postmaster General whether he would direct the Post Office to correct the problem in Calgary North which is not only deplorable but is inexcusable.
Calgary North is one of the fastest growing urban areas in Canada, but it has 4,000 homes without any type of mail delivery. Residents have to drive as far as ten miles in order to collect their mail, which most of them do at 7 a.m. The postal depot is closed at 3.30 p.m. Because it is a new area and usually both parents work, there is no other time they can pick up their mail.

June 26, 1980
Adjournment Debate
I know of a case of senior citizens who moved into a retirement home and who will be compelled to move again because they do not have mail delivery and, of course, they cannot go out every day to collect it. Many of these people were not told there would be no mail delivery. They expected it, and are paying for it.
1 know of another couple who moved to Calgary North from Montreal. They simply cannot believe the government would behave in this manner.
Businesses in my riding suffer tremendous pressure because of this situation. Just a week ago one couple wrote telling me that they were in some financial difficulty because of the problem. I know that the Post Office is doing the best it can, but there is extreme pressure at the depot and the mail cannot be handled there. It just sits there and sometimes people cannot get in every day to collect it.
In my question to the minister I referred to the ridiculous cost of all this. An analysis has shown that if all those people affected were to drive that ten miles every day the cost would be around $2 million per year. The Post Office has agreed that $200,000 per year would correct the situation. If we take that to the ridiculous, then on a national scale, with 200,000 homes in Canada without any type of mail delivery-70 per cent of which are in western Canada-it would equal approximately 2.5 million barrels of oil per year. So the Post Office itself could save approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per year, at a much lower cost to the taxpayer, if it established a proper postal service.
In Calgary North the averages are not national averages on mail delivery. Business is up 12 per cent over last year at the central postal station at the airport, and it was 12 per cent the year before. In Calgary the number of people who come to the various post offices is up 37 per cent. We have an average of 2,500 people moving to Calgary each month. In Calgary North we have an average of 200 homes going up per month. These people have nowhere else to go. They have to use this postal service, and yet they are paying for something which they do not have.
1 asked the Postmaster General to do something about this. In his answer to me on June 5 he said that he is actively considering this. I am also in touch with the Post Office. 1 know where he sits on the matter. I know he has problems out there, and I will not make any more for him. Nevertheless, I must say to him that if he does not act soon, then I am prepared to stand up here and give him some facts which may not be so agreeable. 1 know where the Post Office is sitting on this question. I know where the problems are, but the people in the riding do not understand the problems of the Post Office. All they understand is that they are paying for a service which they are not getting.


David Michael Collenette: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to answer the hon. member on behalf of the Postmaster
General (Mr. Ouellet). The Postmaster General has noted that the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Wright) has raised by question, motion, and now in adjournment debate, the problem of letter carrier extensions for his constituents. It is a problem that the Postmaster General is quite aware of, and I understand the Postmaster General told the hon. member last week in the House that this matter has been preoccupying him and is under constant discussion.
I am sure he knows, and I am glad to note the fact that he is not going to add to the department's problems in dealing with Calgary, that the problem is a direct result of the tremendous growth in the Calgary area. An average of 2,000 people are arriving in Calgary each month and mail service must be provided to match such unprecedented growth. The number of points of call for letter carrier delivery has already exceeded by 255 the figure projected for March 31, 1981, in last year's business plans. The obvious solution is to increase the staff of the Post Office and add more letter carriers, but Canada Post has been called upon by both Conservative and Liberal governments in the past two or three years to do the opposite, in other words, to reduce person years. The effect of this person-year restraint is to achieve and maintain zero growth for letter carrier person years. I would ask the hon. member to keep in mind the government's restraint program which the hon. member's party also followed while it was in office.
The Post Office has not been idle in coping with the expansion in Calgary, however, and people without home delivery have been coming to the post office for regular pick up. At last count there were 3,403 customers calling for their mail, 1,000 of them at one depot alone. This adds to the work load of the counter personnel, and it has been brought to the attention of the Postmaster General that the crew at depot No. 10 now open its doors at 6.15 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. in order to accommodate their customers.
1 might also tell the hon. member that the Post Office has been experiencing staffing problems with inside workers-but of a different nature. The post office has been experiencing problems in attracting and maintaining workers. In fact there is a turnover rate of 65 per cent to 70 per cent in Calgary alone. The new collective agreement criticized by some, including some of the member's own party, as giving an excessive wage settlement, is what is needed to achieve stability in this sector according to the government.
Canada Post has several methods of getting the mail to the public. One of the most common methods is that of the individual picking up his mail from a post office box in a small town post office, in his apartment building or in a large business complex. Another is by general delivery over the counter. Still another is by rural route delivery. In the cities, both business and residences have been provided with door to door service. While this method of delivery is relatively efficient in business areas, the cost per item of mail delivered in the residential areas is relatively high. It is significant to note that the milkman, the breadman and the dry cleaner have cut back or eliminated entirely daily service to residential areas. Obviously, they are faced with the same high costs.
June 26, 1980

I notice that my time for the answer is almost up.	this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The motion to adjourn
the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.30 p.m.

Friday, June 27, 1980