1980-05-28

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Walter Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, I move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 which I hope will receive the unanimous consent of the House.
Having regard to the function which is to take place on Parliament Hill this evening, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mr. Robinson):
That this House, in recognition of the contribution to Canada of Canadians of Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian descent, welcomes their honorary consul and representatives of the respective communities to the eighth annual Baltic Evening on Parliament Hill.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: Does the House agree to such a motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]

TWINNING OF EASTERN MPs WITH ALBERTA RIDINGS-MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I propose a motion, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of current concern to the citizens of Alberta.
It concerns the government party's announced plan to twin eastern MPs with Alberta ridings. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields):
That east is east and west is west and never the twain shall mate, and that Senator Olson be applauded for his courage in proceeding with the formation of the Alberta chapter of the Gemini Lonely Grits Club.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mrs. Ursula Appolloni (York South-Weston):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43.
Since the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broad-bent) has been quoted in the press as having confused Manitoba officials by stating that the provinces are liable for 100 per cent of the costs of military aid in firefighting, and considering that provinces are not charged for salaries of regular armed forces members employed in firefighting-nor are they charged for use and maintenance of equipment-and considering that charges made to the provinces for incremental costs are, in fact, a small percentage of the costs of the Department of National Defence to provide these services, and that this represents a much smaller cost to the provinces than such services provided by other sources, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke (Mr. Hopkins):
That the Leader of the New Democratic Party correct his statement regarding services supplied by the armed forces in order to eliminate the confusion he has caused and in order to give credit to the very excellent work of the Canadian Armed Forces in assisting the provinces and Canadian citizens threatened by forest fires.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


STANDING COMMITTEES
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
The Thirty-second Parliament has now been in session for some 44 days, and as yet there has been absolutely no move to

May 28, 1980
organize the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs. In view of the fact that there are important questions of immediate national urgency facing our country, involving the Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General, among others, and there has been no action by the government to constitute this important committee, I have made arrangements, in connection with the appropriate House officials, for a committee room and time to assemble interested members of Parliament to constitute and organize this committee. Therefore, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Durham-Northumberland (Mr. Lawrence):
That this House directs that the organizational meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs be held at 8 p.m. on Thursday, the 29th day of May, 1980, at room 306, West Block.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that forest fires are raging throughout parts of several provinces, especially Ontario, Quebec and the prairies, and that some of these are still out of control, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm):
That the Minister of the Environment conduct immediately an assessment of the damages inflicted by those fires on Canada's over-all environment, including Canada's inventory of accessible forest stocks, and that he table the results of such an assessment without any delay.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ABORTIONS
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, I rise, under Standing Order 43, to present an urgent and pressing matter.
Whereas the Canadian Bill of Rights guarantees the rights of individuals to life, and whereas an unborn child is an
individual, and whereas thousands of unborn individuals are denied the right to life because of our abortion laws, I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper):
That this House urge the government to bring in legislation to amend the Criminal Code in regard to abortions, to conform with the Canadian Bill of Rights.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
Whereas the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) did not appear in front of the Parliament buildings today to receive the presentation of the public employees of this country in their protest of the meagre 5 per cent raise they have been offered, as opposed to the first-class air travel offered to members of Parliament, which they do not want, the 7 per cent raise that is given in the first year to members of Parliament, and the fact that we had a 9.1 per cent increase in the cost of living last year, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy):
That this House suspend its regular duties momentarily to have the House accept the presentation in the form of a wooden nickel that we would like to present at this time to the President of the Treasury Board.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


RENEWED FEDERALISM
Mr. Len Gustafson (Assiniboia):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact Quebec's referendum resulted in strong support for Canadian unity, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga):
That this House acknowledge the message received from the students of the history club of Notre Dame College, in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, who are deeply conscious of the strong attachment of the French Canadians of the province of Quebec to their culture and their determination to work for a renewed federal-
May 28, 1980

ism. I would like to pledge their good will to work toward understanding the Quebec viewpoint and thus facilitate a frank dialogue toward a more prosperous, equitable and serene federalism which will result in a stronger Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


POST OFFICE
Mr. Mel Gass (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, I rise, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 43, on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
In view of the fact that there is widespread fear among the residents of Freetown, P.E.I., that the Freetown post office may be closed, and in view of the fact that almost 100 per cent of the boxholders using that post office have signed a petition against the closing, which has been sent to the Postmaster General, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan):
That this House instruct the Postmaster General to immediately make known to this House, as well as the residents of Freetown, his plans for the Freetown post office, so that he can honour his commitment made in this House on April 17, 1980, that being that he would consult with the elected representatives of the Parliament before any reductions in postal service would be made.


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


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister, who I am sure shares my satisfaction at the positive attitude taken by governments across the country to the prospect of co-operating to reform the constitution. The Prime Minister knows the importance of nurturing that good will if we are, in fact, to achieve that kind of reform.
Oral Questions
My question concerns the action of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who yesterday, in a prepared speech, suggested that the motives of the government of Alberta were " to get economic sovereignty with political association".
1 wonder if the Prime Minister would tell the House whether the Minister of Energy was speaking for the federal government when he attributed a motive of sovereignty-association to the government of Alberta?


Mr. Nielsen:: What did you say, Marc?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that we must maintain the spirit of Canadianism which has emerged in the past weeks. I have to admit that I have not read the speech that he refers to, although it is my custom to attempt to do so in advance. I have not had the occasion to do so at this time. However, I am informed by the minister that he mentioned no province in his speech.


Mr. Crosbie:: Watch your nose, Pinocchio.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, let me direct a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. He will recall, having read the speech last night-a deliberately prepared speech-that the great bulk of the references prior to that particular paragraph were to the province of Alberta. If the minister was not referring to the province of Alberta, will he stand in his place and assure the House that he does not accuse that government of those motives; and will he tell the House of Commons to whom he was referring?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, I must point out that the Leader of the Opposition, in his question, misquoted what I said by saying it applied to the government of Alberta. The paragraph in question reads as follows:
We just came out of a referendum in which we fought hard for a united Canada. We defeated those who wanted political sovereignty with economic association. We did not carry out this difficult battle to get economic sovereignty with political association.
That is the end of the paragraph.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: That is the sum total of the paragraph, Madam Speaker, and if the Leader of the Opposition thinks that the hat fits the government of Alberta, that is his judgment.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Energy, whose reputation and capacity for reconciliation is unparalleled in the land, will know that the immediately preceding seven, eight or nine paragraphs in that speech referred specifically to the province of Alberta. The conclusion was there to be drawn,

May 28, 1980
Oral Questions
and has been drawn by commentators and no doubt by the government of Alberta.
But the minister can clear it up. He can stand in his place now and make a categorical statement that he does not accuse the government of Alberta of those motives, and he can tell us to whom he did direct those comments, to whom he was referring when he made that statement from a prepared text yesterday.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition referred to the immediately preceding paragraph.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Andre:: Try honesty.


An hon. Member:: Tell the truth.


Marc Lalonde: Calm down:
Economically, looking ahead, Canadians have every reason for optimism.


An hon. Member:: Answer the question.


Marc Lalonde: We have barely begun to tap oil and gas in our Arctic and offshore territories. If we can survive politically, we can, in not too many years, be the strongest democracy in the world. And we can survive if we realize that our fortune and our freedoms hinge on our interdependence.
That is the preceding paragraph.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: The following paragraph, which 1 quoted in this House just now, applies to any and all provincial governments to whom it may fit. It applies also to the whole of our country.
As I said, we fought hard in the province of Quebec in particular to ensure that the solutions to the problems in this country would be within the federal system. I think we should fight just as hard against all those who are going around and saying that the federal government-


Some hon. Members:: Who?


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I will now allow the minister to complete his answer.


Marc Lalonde: I will finish by saying that the hat fits so many people on the other side, I will let them pass judgment.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I will spare the House the tedium of reading earlier paragraphs, except perhaps initial sentences in them, those immediately preceding the ones cited by the minister.
The first one, "The Alberta government"; the next one, "The Alberta government"; next "But in fact, Alberta's conventional oil revenues"; and, "Alberta's industrial base." They
are clear references to one province. Now the Minister of Energy has broadened his accusations not simply to deal with the province of Alberta to which he was referring in the prelude of this statement but to include members on this side of the House of Commons.
Will he tell the House of Commons who, specifically, he had in mind? Who is this enemy that he wants to have the Government of Canada take on? Who is the straw man? With whom is he seeking a conflict and a war as we enter a period that is designed to achieve agreement on constitutional reform? Who are the enemies here, in the minds of the Government of Canada?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: The answer is very simple, Madam Speaker. Indeed, it applies to all those in this country, whoever they are, who think that this country can still go on as a federal country while turning the federal government into a mere agency of the provinces. We do not believe that this is the way of the future of this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Bill Jarvis (Perth):: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In the interests of calm, I want to point out to him that that paragraph-


Some hon. Members:: Question.


William Herbert Jarvis: Really, Madam Speaker, 1 think this is a terribly crucial thing leading up to the June 9 conference. The minister will realize that if it is not Alberta, then Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Newfoundland could all interpret that speech, with every justification, as referring to them. If the minister does not intend that, surely in the interests of this forthcoming conference he will wish to take this opportunity to correct what one might suggest is a wrong assumption. I give him that opportunity at this moment. If he was not directing his remarks to Alberta, will he clarify that neither is he directing them to those other three provinces?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I am not going to add anything to what I said.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Marc Lalonde: It is quite clear in my speech. I specifically said in my speech earlier that as far as the producing provinces are concerned, their viewpoint is understandable. The government of Alberta has argued it well and forcefully. What is not so well understood is the federal viewpoint. What I have stated is the perception of Canada as I see it and as I believe this side of the House sees it. That is what we are going to defend.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Herbert Jarvis: My supplementary question is to the Prime Minister, who not many days ago led this House in one of the

May 28, 1980

most moving afternoons that we have ever spent, in my view. I give him full marks for it. But I am terribly distressed when I see the reaction of various provinces, particularly Alberta, because for some reason they thought those remarks were directed right at them, though I am equally concerned with the other provinces I have mentioned.
So would the Prime Minister please take this opportunity to indicate that the minister was maybe negotiating, by long distance, a new energy contract or something like that, and that it had nothing to do with constitutional discussion? In the interest of all of us, not in a partisan interest, would he please take this opportunity to correct what is obviously a very bad proposition advanced by his colleague?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I accept the plea put forward by the hon. member, and I want to tell him that as far as the government is concerned we will approach the meeting which has now been arranged for June 9 in the conciliatory spirit which was present in this House last week. But I would add, because of the previous questions and the debate which has taken place, that the minister was not speaking in a vacuum. We have heard premiers take some pretty strong positions.


Some hon. Members:: Who?


Charles Joseph Clark: Name them.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I do not think members opposite are ignorant of what several premiers have defined in the past few weeks.


Charles Joseph Clark: Which ones?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, on the one hand I have a member who is asking me to be conciliatory, and on the other I have the Leader of the Opposition who is asking me to name names. I will name one name for starters, and I apologize in advance to the premier for bringing him into the debate.
Premier Peckford was here on the evening the referendum votes were counted, and he defined federalism, the federal government, as an agency of the provinces. Now, this is not our view. I hope it is not the view of the opposition. I am not sure if it is the view of Mr. Peckford himself; perhaps it is a bargaining position. I am prepared to receive him with open arms in spite of his statement but I think he should realize that there are people on this side who do not accept his image of the federal government as being a mere agent of the provinces. That is what the minister is staking out as our position, and in that I support him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Herbert Jarvis: A final supplementary. I can agree with the concern about Premier Peckford's speech with respect to the federal government being an agency, though I respect his right to say it. What concerns me is that the Prime Minister now seems to be associating himself with the sovereignty-associa-
Oral Questions
tion implications in the address given by the Minister of Energy last night. 1 hope I have misinterpreted him, but that was the nature of the Prime Minister's answer to me. The talk about the federal government being an agency is not sovereignty-association.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. It must be a question, not argumentation about what has just been heard. Please ask a very brief question, because the hon. member is on his third question.


William Herbert Jarvis: Without wishing to embarrass his colleague, will the Prime Minister make it clear that he dissociates himself from any idea of accusing any premier, of whatever province, of advocating sovereignty-association?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Obviously not, because there was a referendum battle fought in Quebec precisely on that issue. But if the hon. member is talking about accusing any province of seeking economic sovereignty in political union, I think there have been signs in Canada of a tendency to downgrade the federal government and to give the provinces a type of overwhelming economic "say", which would be corrosive to the type of Canada we seek. I believe there are a lot of people in Canada who share this worry and who would only applaud-


An hon. Member:: Do you?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, I applaud the dichotomy made by the minister, in the sense that there can be dangerous tendencies not only toward political sovereignty of provinces but toward economic sovereignty of provinces, and I support him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the President of the Treasury Board. Visitors to the Hill today from the Public Service Alliance of Canada were disappointed that the minister did not come out to receive a rather large token of their small esteem. By the way, that token is in my office and the minister can pick it up after the question period.
In view of the fact that the clerical and regulatory group of the PSAC have been without a contract since last November, and in view of the rather successful intervention of the Postmaster General in the postal workers' dispute, would the President of the Treasury Board please intervene personally in the negotiations which are going on with the clerical component, and make sure that the offer is more than the paltry 5 per cent being offered at the present time?

May 28, 1980
Oral Questions


Hon. Donald J. Johnston (President of the Treasury Board):: Madam Speaker, some time before the demonstration to which the hon. member has made reference, I instructed my department to attempt to bring the parties back to the bargaining table in a meaningful way in order to arrive at a just and fair settlement.
I should point out to the House that the 5 per cent offer to which the hon. member refers was made in January of this year, so one might regard it as a rather "conservative" offer.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, since the offer was "conservative", I presume the Liberals are offering nothing. Can the minister assure this House and the workers involved in the clerical component that the government will not try to institute a clause-which it has in quite a few public service agreements-which will discriminate against people who will quit the public service prior to the date of the signing of the contract? Will the government assure the people that it will not try to insert this type of clause and, therefore, deny a large number of people the pay raise they should have received if negotiations had gone on at a reasonable pace?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I take notice of the hon. member's representation. I would like to point out that the reason for the pace has not been the fault of my department or the government. As I say, we hope to bring this matter to a rapid, fair and equitable conclusion.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, 1 am glad the minister is taking notice. Since he has already agreed that the last offer was made by the previous government, he must have some responsibility for the lack of progress.
In light of the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruling yesterday that the government is discriminating against at least 3,000 public servants, most of whom are women, since the discrimination exists in violation of the equal pay for work of equal value clause, and in view of the fact that a large number of the members of the clerical and regulatory component are women, is the minister now willing to accept the ruling of the Human Rights Commission and reimburse workers who are denied equal pay for work of equal value?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, the hon. member seems to be confusing a number of issues. I have already spoken with regard to the general services group and the particular case in point, and I have indicated in this House that the Treasury Board will be discussing with the Human Rights Commission a means of making a proper and fair settlement of that particular complaint.


TREASURY BOARD
Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the President of the Treasury Board who, the House will recall, two weeks ago yesterday, filed with the
Committee of the Whole House a list of 497 current projects which the minister had found with potential cost overruns of $1,062 billion which, linked to the $1 billion in overruns revealed by the Treasury Board last January, means that bureaucratic bungling and mismanagement may cost the average worker in this country over $200.
Would the President of the Treasury Board now indicate to the House why, in making his filing over two weeks ago, he failed to disclose $200 million of further overruns and yet represented that the entire $1,062 billion in overruns was included in his filing?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I take notice of the hon. member's representation. He put the question to me at the time. He recently occupied the post of president of the Treasury Board, so I presume he had this information at his fingertips, and I am surprised he did not make it available to me when I was answering his question in the House.
I used the information which I had available. I and my officials filed the information which was requested. I will look into the matter the hon. member has raised and report back to him.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Madam Speaker, on the specific day to which I am referring, the President of the Treasury Board said he was reading a cost overrun memo which showed that there were 497 projects having a possible cost overrun of $ 1.062 billion. He offered to table that list in the House. He did subsequently table a list, but forgot $200 million of the overruns. I am now asking when we may expect that added filing to be made, and why did the minister mislead the House?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I take great exception to any suggestion that 1 misled the House. I produced at the time a computer print-out which I believe was as of December 31, 1979. That is by memory, so I stand to be corrected on that point. The information was made available, I think the hon. member would agree, in a most expedient manner within literally minutes, if not an hour, after he requested the information.
The hon. member has raised a question with respect to other cost overruns, which I have undertaken to look into. But 1 reject any suggestion that there was the slightest attempt to mislead this House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PARKS CANADA
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the President of the Treasury Board. It stems from a
May 28, 1980

recent decision to cancel the Parks Canada move from Cornwall to Peterborough and from a statement made by the President of the Treasury Board in this House on May 13, at which time he reported, and I quote:
-one of the reasons Treasury Board supported leaving Parks Canada in Cornwall is that it is cheaper. It will cost the taxpayers less money to leave Parks Canada in Cornwall than to continue with the move to Peterborough-
I would like to advise the minister that he was in receipt, two weeks prior to that, of a Treasury Board statement. With that knowledge of its costing $1,130,000 to move the employees back to Cornwall from Peterborough, and only $900,000 to move them there in the first place, can the minister answer as to why he figures that that extra cost of $230,000 is cheaper to move them back to Cornwall than to leave them in Peterborough?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I apologize that I do not have that information with me at this time, but I recall very well the exchange of questions and answers and my response to a question by the hon. member for Vancouver South, who formerly had responsibility for Parks Canada, and 1 made the point very clearly that 1 was comparing the direct cost of the move from Cornwall to Peterborough with the costs associated with the cancellation of that move.
I made that very clear in my response to the hon. member for Vancouver South, because I had thought that the answer this hon. gentleman read from Hansard might very well have suggested that I was taking into account all the costs. So 1 made that point clear at the time. I still stand by that statement because I verified, upon returning to my office, that that was correct. There are other costs which may be involved over the long term which have nothing to do with the cost of cancelling that move, but I would be very happy to furnish the hon. member with that information.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, the difference I pointed out to the President of the Treasury Board was the difference in the cost of moving the employees either up or back. However, my supplementary question is to the Minister of the Environment, because it appears obvious that the Treasury Board has very little regard for the dollars as it allocates them at the request of ministers.
In light of a mass grievance by the employees of Parks Canada to the National Joint Council, a copy of which was sent to the minister, and in view of the submission to the Treasury Board by the Ministry of the Environment on April 30 confirming that 115 of the 145 employees had signed agreeing to go to Peterborough-which is 79 per cent in favour-would the minister now, in the interest of controlling government waste and excessive cost overruns, agree to reconsider this cancellation, or is the minister supporting this cancellation against the will of the majority of the civil servants in Cornwall?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment):: No, Madam
Oral Questions
Speaker, I have no intention of reconsidering a decision which is taken.
I think the hon. member is confusing two things. One is the willingness of civil servants. An hon. member opposite says the hon. member may have confused much more than one or two things, but I think he is confusing, in this instance, two things. One is the willingness of the employees of Parks Canada, as loyal employees, to move. Many of them are ready to accommodate the decisions which are taken within the administration.
There is a great difference between willingness to move and desire to move. While it is quite true that many of the employees of Parks Canada were willing to make that change to Peterborough, it was quite clear to me that by far the majority of them very strongly preferred to stay in Cornwall.


CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. I should like to ask if he is aware that Chrysler Corporation, General Motors, Ford Motor Company and American Motors have all provided purchase rebates to their American customers, and have failed to provide those same rebates within Canada.
Furthermore, the Chrysler Corporation has provided recall and repair services for American automobiles, and has failed to do this in Canada; instead, relying on a secret warranty program. Finally, the Chrysler Corporation has failed to acknowledge responsibility and rectify major defects in its automobiles in Canada.
Can the minister indicate if he is aware of these problems, and what moves or plans does he have available to obtain for Canadians the same benefits that those corporations provide to their American customers?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Postmaster General):: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to tell the hon. member that I am very much aware of this issue. I discussed the problem with representatives from the Automobile Protection Association of Canada, and following that meeting, I wrote the presidents of Canadian companies to inform them of this situation and ask them for corrective measures. I am pleased to tell the House that I have already received replies from two companies, Chrysler and Ford. Chrysler Canada and Ford Canada answered in the affirmative, and from now on Canadian car owners will be offered the same benefits granted American car owners.

May 28, 1980
Oral Questions


PARKS CANADA
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Treasury Board. The minister said that the reason for the cancellation of the move was that it would cost less to keep Parks Canada in Cornwall than to proceed with the move to Peterborough.
Can the President of the Treasury Board tell the House why the submission to Treasury Board of the Ministry of the Environment, dated April 30, 1980, which set out the cancellation costs, makes no mention of the cost of completing the move versus the cancelling of the move? Would the President of the Treasury Board explain how he comes to the conclusion that it would cost less, when the document submitted by the Minister of the Environment makes no mention of the cost of continuing the move to Peterborough?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, first of all, I did not say that the only basis for supporting the submission was cost.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald James Johnston: One of the reasons that Treasury Board supported the move was that it costs less. That answer was read by the hon. member who was quoting from Hansard. I presume the hon. member would know that we at Treasury Board have the capacity to make our analysis, which is also done when such submissions are presented. That is one of the principal roles of Treasury Board.


John Allen Fraser: 1 take it from that, Madam Speaker, that the President of the Treasury Board had no submission at all from Parks Canada as to what it would cost to continue the move, as opposed to cancelling it.
May I ask the President of the Treasury Board-who does not seem to want to tell us exactly what cost figures he had- whether it is now Liberal government policy to allow the preference of a minority of personnel in a work group-and it is a minority, because 115 signed their willingness to go-to override the decision that would increase efficiency and save the taxpayer money?
Why did the President of the Treasury Board ignore the legitimate interests of the taxpayers of Canada by refusing to take into account the fact that the move would result in increased efficiency and a saving, on an annual basis, of well in excess of $200,000 from now on?


Some hon. Members:: Shame.


An hon. Member:: Tell them, Don.


An hon. Member:: He looks lost.


Donald James Johnston: In response to the first part of thg hon. member's question, Madam Speaker, I was not under the
impression that he had asked me to furnish him with the respective costs.


John Allen Fraser: You said you would do it, but you have not done it.


An hon. Member:: Will you do it?


Donald James Johnston: The hon. member says that I would give them to him. If I had said that, I will make sure they will be made available to him at an early date.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Madam Speaker, I have some questions for the Minister of Agriculture arising from a Canadian Press report out of Regina last weekend which quotes material provided for several cabinet ministers who made a political jaunt out there last weekend, including gimmicks such as MPs touring drought areas. I want to assure the House that that is not necessary. I can tell them now it is so dry out there that every time the wind blows, the dust is so thick that gophers are ten feet up in the air, digging.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I should like to ask the Minister of Agriculture a question in two parts. First, can he confirm that the government has accepted the agreement in principle between respective deputy ministers of a 50-50 shared cost on drought assistance based on the 1977 program? Second, would he advise the House if the Government of Canada is prepared to accept requests from Saskatchewan to share the cost of, at least, transportation for screenings from Thunder Bay to the prairies, hay from Ontario to the prairies, and alfalfa pellets from Alberta and Saskatchewan being distributed to livestock producers in the three prairie provinces?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, all I can say to the hon. member is that wherever I was in western Canada from last Friday until late Monday evening, it rained.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eugene Whelan: I did not go to Manitoba. But even in the hon. member's area, in the city of Regina, it rained while I was there. I am sorry if it quit when I left.
I want to say that we are well aware of some of the things that have been written in the press, and we are well aware of some of the things that the provincial ministers have said. Our officials have made suggestions. They met in Ottawa yesterday and they are putting together a paper, or they have been putting it together late yesterday and today. It has not arrived on my desk as yet.
May 28, 1980

1 have acted as I believe a good federal government should, and we will act in the same way in the future. But one thing I resent is provincial ministers making decisions for us to abide by. The idea is mutual co-operation and understanding on the terrible situation with which they are being faced at this time. They are incorrect on some of the actions to which they said we had committed ourselves.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, obviously the Minister of Agriculture must have travelled, in the west, on his knees, praying, but he missed Kenora 23 and a few other places where forests are burning.
I asked the minister to confirm whether or not the government accepts the agreement in principle by deputy ministers on cost-sharing, and he did not answer that. Nor did he say what the government's feelings were on the three additional items which the government of Saskatchewan is asking for.
May I proceed to ask him a question regarding a further request of the government of Saskatchewan to the Minister of Agriculture, namely, whether he will request the Canadian Wheat Board to stop moving non-board grains, that means feed grains, from the prairie provinces to eastern Canada until the drought threat is over?
[DOT] (M50)
Will he also advise what the stand of the federal government is on the other request of the government of Saskatchewan that the Canadian Wheat Board take control of all feed grain supplies so they can be managed and guaranteed for use, where necessary, at Wheat Board prices?


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, I am sorry if the hon. member misinterpreted my answer. We made even broader suggestions at those meetings in the way of instructions that I and other ministers concerned in western Canada gave regarding the drought, including possibilities of mass irrigation in those areas where there is water.
All of these have strong possibilities, as long as they are put into action before June 15 in order to produce forage, etc., in those areas where water is available. We know water is limited, but we know that we can increase the production of forage in eastern Canada for transportation to the west. We have acted in a responsible fashion in the past along the lines of all these suggestions, as we will again.
Having regard to what the hon. member has said about the Wheat Board, I had discussions with the minister in charge of the Wheat Board about this very matter more than two weeks ago. I understand he has in his hands now all the information concerning feed grains on the prairies at the source and where there is need. I am told that instructions have been issued that a proper banking of this information is to be made available, and that proper stocks be kept in Canada to meet the needs of domestic producers before any further exports take place.
Oral Questions PARKS CANADA


LOCATION OF REGIONAL OFFICE-COSTS INVOLVED
Thomas Michael McMillan: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment and it is supplementary to those posed by my colleagues, the hon. member for Peterborough and the hon. member for Vancouver South.
On May 13, 1980, the minister stated in this House that the government had cancelled the relocation of the Parks Canada regional office from Cornwall to Peterborough because-he said-of the morale of the staff involved. How does the minister reconcile the statement he made on that occasion in this House, as the rationale for that extravagant cancellation decision, with his own statement in a confidential Treasury Board document that I happen to have, addressed to the Treasury Board from the minister which says the department is prepared to contemplate very costly legal suits from the staff involved "for personal suffering, career prejudice, and mental anguish, stemming from the cancellation of the relocation decision."
How does he reconcile the two statements, the rationale he gave in this House and his own statement in a confidential Treasury Board document?


John (Moody) Roberts: Madam Speaker, I will try to be brief in attempting to explain what 1 think is a relatively simple process. I am not going to discuss, nor would the House expect me to, the contents of cabinet documents. I will, however, reiterate for the hon. member the basis, clearly, on which decisions were taken.
As I said earlier in the House, it is my conviction, after conversations with the people involved and after communication in a confidential manner from virtually all the people affected, that by far the vast majority of the people working for Parks Canada at that regional office had a strong desire to stay in the Cornwall area. Just as clearly-as I have said to the House, I think, on several occasions-there are those who would have preferred to move to Peterborough. There was no way, in taking that decision, that we could satisfy all the aspirations of all of the individuals who were concerned in it.
Therefore, while I believe we have met the interests, the desires and the needs of by far the majority of Parks Canada employees, there were those who had made previous commitments to move to Peterborough and who will be financially and otherwise damaged by the decision we took. Those people-not the majority, I believe, but a minority-who had interests at stake could, quite clearly, have taken legal action as a recourse for the damage which had been done to them. 1 believe it was, therefore, incumbent upon us, as a government, to ensure that those who were damaged-and, 1 repeat, a minority-by the decision to have their interests fully compensated.
I think that is as clear as 1 can make the explanation for any possible divergence members on the opposite side might see in
1494

May 28, 1980
Oral Questions
whatever document they may, or may not, have at their disposal and the decision I announced.


Thomas Michael McMillan: Madam Speaker, since the Minister for the Environment is unable to satisfy this House, may I pose a question to the President of the Treasury Board?
The proposal to the Treasury Board from the Department of the Environment which would compensate the Parks Canada employees involved covers every conceivable cost associated with the cancellation of the move. It covers everything from mortgages, to home furnishings, to lost income of spouses, and all the rest. In some cases it involves lump sum settlements of $10,000 to $30,000 per employee.
Will the same type of generous compensation from taxpayers across the country be paid to the province of Prince Edward Island, for example, for the substantial damages to it surrounding the cancellation or at least the change of site in Charlottetown of the Department of Veterans Affairs from the waterfront to uptown, against the interests of the province of Prince Edward Island, in spite of a binding legal agreement and without any consultation with the province involved?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, surely it is apparent that this government has always been, and will always be, fair in its treatment of people who are in any way prejudiced by government action.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


TREASURY BOARD
Mr. Gordon Gilchrist (Scarborough East):: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the President of the Treasury Board. I guess the people who watched the "late show" on television realize how difficult it is for the opposition to get satisfactory answers because of claims of not having the statistics in front of them.
Last fall, the Conservative government set about establishing a special committee which would have allowed a much better examination of cost overruns. This is an extremely serious matter, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
Will the minister set up such a special committee, now, to examine these cost overruns? This is a vital matter to the proper administration of government, and I suggest such action would tend to make the bureaucrats more accurate in future calculations of costs. Will the minister establish such a committee; and why does the minister want to hide these overruns in the public accounts committee?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but I missed the last part of the question. Could I just have the last part of it?


James Gordon Gilchrist: Yes, Madam Speaker. I asked why the minister would want to hide these overruns in the public accounts committee.


Donald James Johnston: I find that question quite extraordinary, Madam Speaker. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, who is a member of the party opposite, is chairman of the public accounts committee and I can think of no reason why he would be interested in hiding cost overruns. It is the duty of the public accounts committee to look into cost overruns. I have previously answered that question fully in the House in response to questions by the hon. member for York-Peel.
If it is the unanimous decision of this House that the public accounts committee is so overworked that it is incapable of looking at these areas of cost overruns, then indeed I would consider the establishment of a committee to do so. They are being actively considered within my own department and all the information in respect thereto, if it has not been made available, will be made available to this House. I can assure you, Madam Speaker, that I have confidence in the chairman of the public accounts committee even if the hon. member opposite does not.


James Gordon Gilchrist: Madam Speaker, as a former chairman of the public accounts committee I am sure the minister would know how overworked that committee is in discussing these specifics. I wonder whether he will appear before that committee and go very carefully into these cost overruns which are so expensive? Will he allow a full review of the cost overruns in that committee, and will he attend and explain them?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, not only will I allow a full review, but I would be delighted to conduct such a full review either before the public accounts committee or in any other forum.


EXCESSIVE COST OVERRUNS-REASON THEREFOR
Mr. Thomas Siddon (Richmond-South Delta):: Madam Speaker, my question is also addressed to the President of the Treasury Board. Yesterday, in appearing before the public accounts committee, the Comptroller General, Mr. Rogers, indicated that direct action against key management personnel would be contemplated to cope with the problem of cost overruns in government departments. But the Comptroller General also felt that overruns to date are not yet serious enough to warrant direct action such as firing, censure or demotion, against key personnel.
How does this square with the fact that substantial cost overruns are projected for programs currently in progress, overruns sometimes in excess of 100 per cent which are obviously the result of incompetence, mismanagement and bungling at senior levels of the bureaucracy? My question to the President of the Treasury Board is simply this: At what level of overrun, and under what circumstances, will such direct action be warranted? When will the managers be held accountable for these inexcusable overruns?
May 28, 1980


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, the hon. member probably knows, if he has been attending meetings of the public accounts committee, that we do have policies which cover major Crown corporation projects and which make specific individuals accountable. I do not think it is fair to say that all the cost overruns to which he refers arise from bungling, mismanagement or incompetence.
We know very well that a substantial number of cost overruns arise by virtue of the fact that the contracts were originally quoted upon in constant dollars. Also, there are sometimes foreign exchange fluctuations, as in the case of the Aurora contract and the long-range patrol aircraft contract. These matters, obviously, result in additional costs due to inflation and cost overruns, but I really do not think it is fair to blame the overruns on bungling or incompetence in terms of administering those particular contracts.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Madam Speaker, in the breakdown tabled a week or two ago in this House, the President of the Treasury Board presented data which, I assumed, normalized out all those factors to which he has referred-the question of constant dollars, and the like.
I would like to follow up on a question raised by the hon. member for York-Peel with regard to the $200 million discrepancy, and ask why it is that certain projects in certain departments are not even reported in the sheets which are presented to members of this House.
In particular, why does the prepared list presented not include small craft harbours' projects in the amount of some $25 million each year within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans? Are these projects running in arrears; otherwise, why were they deleted? What is the government trying to hide, if anything? Is it bureaucratic interference, or political interference?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, as 1 recall, the list which I tabled-and I stand subject to correction-was prepared during the tenure in office of my predecessor, the hon. member for York-Peel. If something was deleted or hidden, I suggest that the hon. member direct his question to his colleague.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: You didn't give us all of it.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. John Bosley (Don Valley West):: Madam Speaker, earlier this afternoon a motion under Standing Order 43 was put by the hon. member for York South-Weston (Mrs. Appol-loni). As I understand it, the hon. member is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence. There are some traditions in this House with regard to the rights and duties of parliamentary secretaries. I suggest that my question of privilege is a complicated matter, and I would like the right
Privilege-Mr. Benjamin
to pursue the matter through the blues and to check the record. I reserve my right to raise this matter at another appropriate time in this House, and I would appreciate your consent to that, Madam Speaker.


MR. BENJAMIN-LEASING OF EQUIPMENT TO FIGHT FIRES
Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege relating to a statement made in the motion moved by the hon. member for York South-Weston (Mrs. Appolloni) under Standing Order 43 this day, in which she said "nor are they charged for use and maintenance of equipment". I was in telephone conversation within the past hour with the department of northern Saskatchewan which assured me that the Department of National Defence is being very co-operative and that they were grateful for that.
The Department of National Defence is leasing equipment to the government of Saskatchewan to fight fires and are, by the way, charging lease fees which are less than the commercial rates. But they are, in fact, charging lease fees for the use of DND equipment in fighting fires on other than Indian reserves, in which case the Government of Canada pays 100 per cent of the cost.
I would like to suggest that the hon. member was in error in her motion. I am sure that either the hon. member or the minister would like to correct the record in that regard.


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, I shall not take too much time to tell the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) that the matter he raised is not a question of privilege. The statement by the hon. member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent) was the subject of a motion under Standing Order 43. I think that what he said: "Ottawa's help needed" was certainly confusing. Madam Speaker, we must appreciate the effort that is being made by the Canadian armed forces in the four provinces that are stricken by forest fires, the equipment that is being loaned and the services that are given. It is customary to send a bill later for what is called incremental charges that are, I would say, only a very small part of the real costs to the armed forces.
So, Madam Speaker, I do not think there is a question of privilege. I can understand that the hon. member for Oshawa was misinformed, perhaps because of information he was given, but I can assure the House that what is called incremental charges are very small compared to the real costs and are less than half the amount suggested by the hon. member for Oshawa.
I think that the motion was simply to correct the newspaper reports and also the impression that may have been created that the armed forces are not doing all they can at the present time to help the people affected, as I said two days ago in the House. The forces are at the service of the population and I think that in urgent cases such as forest fires they are even more so.

May 28, 1980
Point of Order-Mr. Stevens


Madam Speaker:: I hope the explanations given by the minister satisfy the hon. member. Should he not be satisfied, he can ask other questions at some other time in the Elouse, but I think this is clearly not a question of privilege.
I can understand that the hon. member was not satisfied with the answer he received or else that he did not interpret it in the same way as the parliamentary secretary, but in any event this does not constitute a question of privilege.


POINT OF ORDER
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Madam Speaker, my point of order relates to the apparent exception which the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) took to my statement that he misled the House with respect to the filing of certain documentation touching on overruns of approximately $1,062 billion on 497 projects.
The reason I feel it is fair to say that the House was misled can best be illustrated by reading from Hansard of May 15 at page 1103, where it is reported that the President of the Treasury Board stated:
-I am not in a position, nor would I take the time of the House, to furnish that list at this moment.
That is the list to which I just referred.
But I will provide such a list to the hon. member. I would like to point out that the $1,062 billion overrun figure which I cited was the total overrun for the 497 projects calculated back to the original budget.
Subsequently, during the Committee of the Whole proceedings, the President of the Treasury Board, as reported in Hansard at page 1129, rose to state:
-I have the report on the breakdown, as it were, of the projects on which the cost overruns that I referred to were incurred.
The President of the Treasury Board subsequently filed that report. Upon adding up the projects we found that they totalled only $820 million, not the $1,062 billion which the President of the Treasury Board had indicated. That, to me, is misleading the House. I would like the President of the Treasury Board to correct the error.


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I do not have that information in front of me. My recollection is, though, and I thought that 1 had told the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) at the time, that in one instance we are looking at an overrun figure on specific projects. At the other end we are looking at a net overrun figure which takes into account savings which are incurred on other projects, which does happen.
In any event, I shall check the point and if there is any misunderstanding I will ensure that it is cleared up. My
recollection is that that amount with respect to the projects is correct but that there were savings in respect of other projects which probably account for the difference.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Madam Speaker-


Madam Speaker:: I am sorry, I cannot hear the hon. member a second time on a point of order.
I must say that I have the distinct feeling that the two hon. members are engaged in a debate which started earlier on. Perhaps they could pursue it tomorrow at question period.
Is the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) rising on a new point of order?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, it is a point of order relating to the question of privilege I raised.


Madam Speaker:: I am sorry, I cannot hear that as I have already ruled on the question of privilege.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 6, 16, 68, 147, 205, 221, 305, 328, 375, 591 and 851.
I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Prior to May 22, 1979, did any branch of the government distribute a pamphlet entitled "Organization and Methods of the Russian Intelligence Service" and, if so (a) how many copies were printed (b) what are the names of all persons who received it (c) who published it (d) on what date or dates was it distributed?
2.	What are all reasons that the government, at the time of distribution, did not see fit to allow the Canadian people to have knowledge of the information contained in the document in the interest of (a) freedom of information (b) an informed public?


Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: 1 and 2. It is not in the interests of Canada as a sovereign state or as a member of several defence alliances to reveal publicly any detailed information which might undermine its intelligence capabilities or the trust it enjoys within the alliances.
May 28, 1980


Mr. Cossitt: What is a full list of all security services, committees, groups, etc., operated by the government, directly or indirectly, during the past five years including the dates involved, the number of personnel and the purpose in each case?


David Michael Collenette: It is not considered to be in the public interest to provide detailed information about security arrangements. To disclose such information concerning the ongoing work and structure of government security mechanisms which have existed in various forms for many years, and through the tenure of office of numerous governments, would serve those who seek to undermine our national security and political system.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Between January 1, 1972 and May 22, 1979, how many public servants were fingerprinted or were under instructions to be, or were designated to be, fingerprinted by the government?
2.	How many were processed, or are being processed, or will be processed by
(a)	the Public Service Commission (b) the RCMP (c) any other government agency or anyone acting on behalf of the government and what are the names of such entities?
3.	What are the names of the departments employing public servants who were fingerprinted and what was the total number for each department?
4.	What are the reasons that justified this procedure, other than for those engaged in national security matters?
5.	How many Public Service Commission offices were engaged in any way whatsoever with the fingerprinting of public servants and, in each case, what is the (a) address and location (b) Christian and surname of those in charge?
6.	Is the government continuing any form of fingerprinting of public servants and, if so, what are all the details?


David Michael Collenette: 1. Several attempts, all unsuccessful, have already been made to find the necessary basic figures to answer this question. No policy instruction has ever been issued to government departments to register and account for every individual fingerprinting.
2.	Figures on the number of employees or applicants having been processed, being processed or to be processed are not available for the reason stated in 1. Fingerprints may be taken for security clearance purposes by any department or agency of government which has a suitably trained technician. These fingerprints are submitted to the RCMP by the security officer of the department-agency concerned for a check against RCMP criminal records. A criminal record can only be identified correctly on the basis of comparison of fingerprints.
3.	All departments-agencies have a number of officers and support staffs who have been fingerprinted for security clearance. For the reason stated in 1, it is not possible to compile a total figure with an acceptable degree of accuracy.
4.	The only government-wide policy which requires the taking of fingerprints of employees-applicants is in connection with the security clearance investigation process as defined in CD 35 and authorized for application by regulation 26 of the
Order Paper Questions
Public Service Employment Act. Government departments and agencies which used the umbrella of CD 35 to take fingerprints in an administrative reliability screening context were informed by PCO on July 19, 1978, that this practice was inconsistent with the intent of CD 35 and that the RCMP would discontinue checking fingerprint records unless such records indicated clearly that the subject was an applicant for a classified position. The only department which has a fingerprinting policy is the Department of National Defence. The primary purpose of this policy is to ensure the correct identification of casualties. These same fingerprints, however, may be used for security clearance purposes, as required.
5.	There are six Public Service Commission of Canada offices engaged in fingerprinting of public servants and prospective public servants:
(1)	Mr. Samuel E. Mombourquette Director, Halifax Regional Office 4th Floor, Royal Bank Building 4161 George Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia
(2)	Mr. Hugh Hiscox
Director, Manitoba and Saskatchewan Regional Office
Room 500, Credit Foncier Building 286 Smith Street Winnipeg, Manitoba
(3)	Mr. Douglas P. Learoyd
Director, Alberta and the North Regional Office Room 300, Tower Mortgage 10355 Jasper Avenue Edmonton, Alberta
(4)	Mr. Claude Lacombe Director, Quebec Regional Office Suite 300, 685 Cathcart Street Montreal, Quebec
(5)	Mr. A. R. Slater
Director, Pacific Regional Office Box 11120, Royal Centre Room 313, Norwich House 1575 Georgia Street West Vancouver, British Columbia
(6)	Miss Patricia Kouri
Chief, General Services Section Room 1581, West Tower L'Esplanade Laurier 300 Faurier Avenue West Ottawa, Ontario

May 28, 1980
Order Paper Questions 6. Yes. See part 4.


Mr. Turner: 1.	How many times during the past year have Via Rail Canada trains been derailed due to any reason except by a car-train crash?
2.	How many times during the past year have Via Rail Canada trains been involved in a train-car/truck/bus accident?


Mr. Robert Bockstael (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Via Rail Canada Inc. advises as follows: 1. Twenty-eight.
2. Sixty-eight.


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


Robert Theodore Bockstael: The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority advises as follows:
Total Revenue
Net Loss after Parliamentary Appropriations
(a)	(b)
1977/78	1978/79


[Stage Direction]
(a) Parliamentary Appropriations Welland Canal
Non-Toll Canal-Sault Ste. Marie
1977/78	1978/79
$ 18,001,914	$	-$ 1,313,188	$	1,380,765
[Stage Direction]
(b)	Long-Term Loan at end of year
(Continuous from year to year)
(c)	Investment by Government of Canada
(Continuous from year to year)
$210,000,000 $210,000,000 $624,950,000	$624,950,000
Mr. Herbert: For the years 1970-75, what amounts were in dispute in the settlement of the transfer payments to the provinces under the medicare program?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: In so far as the Department of National Health and Welfare is concerned:
For the years 1970-75 no province disputed the federal calculation of the cost of insured services-within the meaning of the Medical Care Act-furnished under its medical care plan. However, in the settlement of the amounts transferred under the medical care program, three provinces disputed the
estimated populations used to calculate the federal contribution to them for some of the years mentioned. These matters were resolved along with parallel issues under the hospital insurance program.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	What is the estimate of the amount of (a) paper (b) coin currency presently in circulation?
2.	How much currency is estimated to be held by the chartered banks and other financial institutions?
3.	What has been the percentage change in the amount of currency in circulation in the past year?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State, Finance):: 1. As
at February 29, 1980, currency circulation outside banks comprised $8,225 million of Bank of Canada notes and $952 million of coin.
2.	Chartered banks' holdings of notes and coins totalled $1,173 million as of February 29, 1980. Currency holdings of other financial institutions is not available but is included in (1) above.
3.	The year-over-year growth rate in currency outside banks as of February 29, 1980, was 8.5 per cent.


Mr. Herbert: How many (a) permanent (b) other employees were on the payroll of Canadair Limited and its subsidiaries as at March 31, 1979?


Mr. Gerald Laniei (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: In so far as the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned: At March 31, 1979, there were on the Canadair payroll:
(a)	4,826 permanent employees;
(b)	One hundred and forty-two temporary and casual employees.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	What is the present number of beds in the Edmonton Veterans Home?
2.	How many beds are occupied by veterans who are accepted as the responsibility of the government?
3.	What is the per diem cost per patient?
4.	Are any beds occupied by patients who are considered the responsibility of the provincial government and, if so, how many arc there and what is the per diem contribution of the provincial government towards the cost of care?


Hon. Daniel J. MacDonald (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: 1. One hundred and forty-six beds-all priority use for veterans.
2.	Six.
3.	$40 per diem.
May 28, 1980

4.	Yes-137-except for a co-insurance charge by the department of $10.50 per day per patient, the provincial government pays the cost of hospitalization.


Mir. Cossitt: 1.	Have any government representatives participated directly or indirectly in meetings with United States officials concerning the alleged United States interest in keeping the St. Lawrence Seaway open in the winter months?
2.	Is the St. Lawrence Seaway losing money financially and, if so, what was the deficit in each of the past five years for which figures are available?
3.	In what way can the capital expense be undertaken that would be involved in winterization?
4.	Is the government giving any consideration to such a project as suggested by certain United States interests?


Robert Theodore Bockstael: The St. Lawrence Seaway Authority advises as follows: 1. Yes.
2.	1978/79	1977/78	1976/77	1975/76	1974/75
Loss $1,671,064 $2,647,157 $21,919,478 $29,572,318 $18,646,985
3.	Since there has been no decision made to embark on such a project, no consideration has been given to different financing alternatives.
4.	No.
1978-79
1980-81
Borrowing Authority Act
Michelle Boivin-Rochon	Ottawa
Rachel Grondin	Ottawa
Donald MacPherson	Manitoba
John Manwarning	Toronto
Gary Martin	Ottawa
Linda Vance	McGill
James R. Aldridge	York
Philip de Villars-Raworth	Alberta
Pierre Dallaire	Ottawa
Robert Drolet	Laval
Mark Lawrence Kerbel	York
Andre Lareau	Sherbrooke
Robert Tetrault	Sherbrooke
Gregory G. Blue	Victoria
Suzanne Boivin	Ottawa
Roger Alan Cotton	UNB
Albert Hudec	Toronto
Donald Kenneth Piragoff	Manitoba
Nicholas Roy	Laval
Richard A. Stainsby	York
Fran?ois Bernatchez	Sherbrooke
Edward C. Foley	Dalhousie
Yves Gagne	Sherbrooke
Caroline J. Hunt	Western Ontario
Stephen Kloepfer	Ottawa
Alicia Soldevila	Laval
Fabien Tremblay	Laval


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
*
* *


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton): From 1975 to date, who have been awarded scholarships under the Duff-Rin-fret Scholarship Program and which university did each recipient attend?


Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Duff-Rinfret Scholarship Program
Scholar	University
Daniel Barbeau	Ottawa
Vincent Del Buono	Toronto
Henri-Louis Fortin	Laval
Lorraine Godard	Montreal
Bradford Morse	UBC
Richard Paquette	Montreal
Norman Ratti	Sherbrooke
Larry Wilson	Saskatchewan
Lome Wolfson	York
Daniel Bellemare	Ottawa
Jacques Fremont	Laval
Diane Labreche	Montreal
Paul Lindsay	Toronto
Julie Morrow	McGill
Michael Stober	Ottawa
Susan Tacon	York


John Leslie Evans: Madam Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: Shall all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, May 27, consideration of the motion of Mr. MacEachen that Bill C-30, to provide supplementary borrowing authority for the fiscal year 1980-
[Stage Direction]
May 28, 1980
Borrowing Authority Act
81, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, last night I started to speak on this bill and I have a few preliminary comments. I wanted to assure hon. gentlemen opposite that we have no intention of rushing this bill to authorize a $12 billion borrowing authority by the government through this House. We are going to be just as quick in rushing this bill through as the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) becomes quick in answering questions about the economic and financial shape of this country.


An hon. Member:: He is not even here.


John Carnell Crosbie: If we go by his example since April 14, he is in slow motion. He is stuck in the bog. He is stuck in the tar sands somewhere because he has not answered a question yet.
Why are we not going to rush this bill through? It is because in his speech last night the minister gave us no information. He said that on April 1, 1980 he had $2.9 billion in borrowing authority left, but he did not deign to tell this House how much of the $2.9 billion is left today.
The minister is forgetting that I have a little black book- the book that was prepared for me when I brought in the borrowing authority bill last October 23. It contained all the information current to that date. I know that the minister has a little black book but he is not sharing the content of it with us. He wants to keep it secret. We have some questions which I am going to put on the record in a few minutes.
The Minister of Finance claims to be the genius who arranged for the defeat of our government on the non-confidence motion on December 13 on the budget that we brought down.


Mr. Breau:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: The party that brought down our government on our budget which outlined the way we saw the economy needed to be handled for the next several years. Surely having done that, they accepted the responsibility to bring in their own budget outlining their own approach to the economic and financial problems of Canada as soon as they had the chance. They have been in power now 86 long days. It is like a sentence of 86 years. They have been in office since March 3 and not one new initiative in the economic or financial area have they taken.
The minister does not want to tell us about the budget or that he is going to bring down a budget. I will illustrate how he answers questions in just a moment.
The kind of thing that we and the people of Canada want to know was asked the other day in an article in The Globe and Mail written by Wayne Cheveldayoff, a very astute financial reporter. I have liked him very much since last January 1-in particular since then. I will quote from this article of May 26 as follows:
The big policy question in Ottawa these days is what, if anything, the federal government will do about the recession.
Ottawa could do three things:
Leave things alone and let the Canadian economy dip downward with the U.S. economy-
One gets the impression from reading the financial statement of the Minister of Finance of April 21, I think it was, the bootlegged statement he made-his first speech in this House; his second was last night, a five-minute speech that as usual told us nothing-that that was the course he was going to take. He said in the course of those remarks that we could not do much in Canada, that we are in the hands of the United States and had to follow them no matter where they go. That is one course. He continued with his second course as follows:
Try to prevent the recession from getting worse-
As the Liberal government did in 1974-75.
-by using the Keynesian techniques of tax cuts and government make-work projects-
That is another course the government could take except, of course, the government is already planning for a $14 billion deficit this year. The government has got itself in a straitjack-et with the deficits it plans for this year and the deficits it has racked up for the last eight years. It is going to be difficult for them to do that. They used the Keynesian techniques during all the good years. Now that they have used them through the good years they do not have them available to use during the bad years.
We are already in a morass of deficits and this year's is the largest yet. So can they do that? Are they going to attempt that? Is it not about time the government told this country and the financial community, the workers, the employers, which one of these alternatives they are going to try to take?
The third point was as follows:
Make the recession worse by following Britain's lead in tightening the money supply and cutting social programs to reduce the fiscal deficit.
That is another alternative. There are three alternatives. Later the author pointed out:
In fact, Mr. Trudeau's public statements so far indicate that he will attempt to duplicate the 1974-75 experience.
I say he probably would. He has no understanding of economics. Some of his statements would make your hair curl if you were not so busy laughing. Here is one of his statements. Back on April 24 at a press conference the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said that the reason he wants to reduce the deficit is not to improve the health of the Canadian economy. He said it is healthy. The Prime Minister thinks the economy is healthy. Rather, he said, it is necessary to reduce the deficit because the interest charges on the deficit are so high due to high interest rates. The Prime Minister does not even see the connection between a higher deficit and more money that you have to pay in interest. That is the kind of rudimentary knowledge of economics that he demonstrates in this House.
In a February 14 campaign speech in Winnipeg the Prime Minister argued that the federal government should be doing the contrary to what the Conservatives planned in the Decern-
May 28, 1980

ber budget. When are they going to start doing the contrary, or to start doing anything in relation to economics and finances in this country?
The Minister of Finance said in response to a question that his policy and mine were the same. When is he going to clarify that statement? When is he going to give some leadership to this country as to where we are going? Is this the government that is going to do what the Prime Minister indicated during the campaign? I would say the odds are against it. He has not done a thing yet that he indicated during the campaign he would do.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: These are some of the reasons why, before we approve a $12 billion and more borrowing by this government, we want to know what direction the government are going in and to what use they are going to put that money. Just what are they going to do? The Minister of Finance was reported as saying this on April 18. I have quoted this before in the House but it is so remarkable that I want to put it on the record again. In The Toronto Star for Friday, April 18-the Toronto black hole I call it-the Minister of Finance said:
__the lower rate was "welcome news", but it's worth pointing out that the high
interest rates we have had and the very rapid increases in these rates recently have been a direct result of action taken in the United States.
This was the same minister who got up here yesterday, patted himself on the back and pretended that there was some virtue of his that has resulted in interest rates dropping precipitously in the last several weeks, when on April 18 he admitted that the high interest rates that we have had have been a direct result of action taken in the United States. And, of course, the lower interest rates now are the same direct result. They have nothing to do with this Minister of Finance who answered a question yesterday with smart alec answers. We do not want smart alec answers. The 4,000 or 5,000 people who are going to be unemployed in the iron ore mines of Labrador in July do not want smart alec answers from this minister. They do want answers, but this is a minister who will not even answer. As I said last night, he is the silent butler of the government. He is the soft-shoe dancer. He is the soft-shoe specialist extraordinaire pit-patting down through the halls of power without giving us any answers. That has got to change. We are not satisfied with his soft-shoe techniques any more, Mr. Speaker.
Here is an article written by Ronald Anderson in The Globe and Mail who points out the sharp drop in interest rates. He writes:
Interest rates are moving down only because of a pronounced falling off in the demand for loans, especially for business loans in the United States. This, in itself, is a clear sign that the recession has arrived, and confirms the evidence of such other indicators.
Mr. Anderson goes on to examine the situation in the United States. Then he gives opinions from various financial houses and says that the weight of evidence indicates unmistakably that the North American recession will be severe
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rather than merely average, and so on. This will have its direct effects in Canada.
What position is the Minister of Finance and the government going to take on that? Are they going to reverse themselves again and adopt the same policy as was laid out in our budget-that you have to start getting the deficits down and under control over the next four or five years? You have to give more room to the private sector. They have not encouraged the private sector to build and grow, expand and employ more people; but you do have to stop borrowing so gigantically in the financial markets and give the private sector room to grow so it can borrow, grow and create jobs.
Is he going to take that route even though he voted against it? That is quite possible because since the government has assumed power he has gone all kinds of routes that he voted against on December 13. Is he going to do that, or is he going to take the 1974-75 lessons, ignore them, and go the other way as the Prime Minister indicates? He cannot have it both ways. What is he going to do? He should not just come to this House and ask for $12 billion and refuse to tell us or give us any indication of what he is going to do.
Just to give you the flavour, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Rae:: That is exactly what you did in November.


John Carnell Crosbie: I know that little voice from the NDP. He is so far away from power; he is right down the rat hole and he is not even going to be near power. We are dealing with the men here, not the boys. I do not want to be interrupted any more.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: This caterwauling indicates why they are never going anywhere. They are going down the gopher holes out west in the next election.
Here is an indication of how the Minister of Finance treats this House. In Hansard on April 18, at page 160, the Minister of Finance was asked by me a question about the budget and oil pricing. This is what he said:
1 will certainly bring in a budget as soon as possible, but I do not see that possibility within the near future, or even beyond the near future.
This is as clear an answer as we ever get from that minister. He is going to bring in a budget as soon as possible, but he does not see the possibility within the near future, or even beyond the near future. We do not know if he even sees. I doubt that he sees. He certainly does not speak.
Then we move on to May 5 and we can see how informative he is on that day. The hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) asked about financial assistance on wheat prices. Wheat prices are lower because of a decision made on embargoing grain shipments to the Soviet Union. This is the fulsome answer of the Minister of Finance at page 703 of Hansard:
Madam Speaker, 1 am not in a position to announce any immediate steps today but I shall take the hon. member's representation under consideration.
1502

May 28, 1980
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He is an expert at taking member's representations under consideration, and that is the last we ever hear from him. Has the hon. member for Prince Albert heard from him since?


An hon. Member:: Not a word.


John Carnell Crosbie: Not likely. Would the member for Prince Albert nod his head if he has heard from him? The hon. member is not nodding his head, so he has not heard from him since. The no nod NDP.
Now I will turn to Hansard for May 6, 1980, at page 742. This is why we are not rushing through $12 billion for somebody who cannot even speak or will not speak. The Minister of Finance was asked a question by the hon. member for St. John's West, who does not often get a chance in this House to ask. At page 741 of Hansard, the Minister of Finance was asked this:
-will the minister advise the House what steps the government is taking to increase real domestic output, manufacturing output, and employment in Canada this year, particularly in view of the forecasts-
That is for Ontario. Ontario is having a bad time economically. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you are amazed to hear that, coming from Ottawa, but it is true.
The Deputy Prime Minister was then asked a supplementary question about the Canadian dollar. In answer to that question he said this at page 742:
My hon. friend knows that the Canadian dollar is reacting to market forces at the present time.
That the Canadian dollar is reacting was a real nugget. The final supplementary question reads as follows:
Is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance satisfied with the present level of the value of the Canadian dollar, and is his policy to keep it at the present level of value or is he prepared to allow it to rise?
The answer to that question is as follows:
Madam Speaker, the Canadian dollar has fluctuated rather widely in the last two months.
Then I interjected with the following:
So have you.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: Then the Minister of Finance goes on to say:
The governor of the Bank has permitted that fluctuation to take place, and 1 believe that is a comment in itself to the hon. member.
That is a great answer, that the governor of the Bank of Canada has enabled it to take place, and that that is a comment itself. The Minister of State for Finance is here today listening with rapt attention, and I congratulate him for that because he is not going to get a chance to listen to his minister who does not say very much. But when we ask a serious question about the economic and financial future of this country, these are the kinds of answers we get from the Minister of Finance.
Again, on May 21, 1980-I am only giving a rapid selection because I do not have much time to speak today-in Hansard at page 1256, another question was put to the Minister of Finance. This time the question was raised by the hon.
member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) about a $1 billion saving the minister is going to get from the blended price system. The Minister of Finance replied in this way:
I can only tell the hon. member that the blended price system can achieve results, but the greater the increase in international prices, the greater the difficulty.
That is a fulsome answer when he is asked to explain how he can save $1 billion. In answer to a supplementary question about commitments made in his April 21 economic statement, the Minister of Finance said this:
With respect to the question as to what is now the precise burden of the oil import compensation program, I would be pleased to get those updated figures and make them available to the House and to the hon. member.
Has the Minister of Finance got those updated figures and made them available to the House and the hon. member? He has not. He answered the question here in the House that day and then he softshoes out of the House, down the halls, going down to get those prices which he forgot about and which we have never seen since. We turn the page to page 1259 and the Minister of Finance is asked by the member for St. John's West the following:
It was announced in Newfoundland yesterday that Wabush mine, which operates an iron ore mine in Labrador, has suffered a 15 per cent loss of sales of its product to the United States this year because of depression or recession in the United States, and as a result for one month-the month of July-all of its workers are going to be laid off or have to go on their holidays. What steps is the Minister taking to try to overcome such effects of the recession in the United States as are now becoming evident in Canada? What steps is he taking to overcome these effects?
I consider that to be a serious question, not just a light question, not just a little question to get up on your feet and exercise yourself getting up and down. There is going to be 1,500 people out of work. Since then we have the news of another 4,000 in Labrador city. Here is the answer given by the Minister of Finance to that question:
With respect to the workers affected by the lay-off, as the hon. member knows, they will be able to take advantage of programs especially in place at the present time.
And so on. He went on to say:
In connection with the recession that may be taking place and is undoubtedly beginning in the United States-
A great admission by this minister.
-the hon. member raises a question that is very broad indeed.
That is very informative. It tells the House that I have raised a question that is very broad. The minister continues:
As he knows, there are only, in a sense, two ways that one can act in circumstances of this kind; that is, through increased spending or through reduced taxes in order to stimulate the Canadian economy. 1 have not yet reached the conclusion that that is an appropriate stance to take at the present time.
Do you get that, Mr. Speaker? Pure and utter bafflegab; pure and utter vacuity; pure and utter lack of information. This is a government that has been in place 86 days, that ejected us from power and that used every pragmatic means-
I will call it that because I am going to be statesmanlike this afternoon-to get back in power themselves. They disagreed
May 28, 1980

with our budget. They thought it was shocking and frightening.
When the minister is asked 80 days after he got into government what he is going to do to meet the U.S. recession, he does not know. He tells us there are several options: we can increase spending or reduce taxes. We already knew that. Every simpleton in Canada knows you can increase taxes or reduce taxes or increase spending or reduce spending. We do not need a Minister of Finance to bafflegab and flap that past us in the House when we ask a question. He says he has not reached a conclusion which is appropriate at the present time. Well, we have not reached a conclusion as to whether $12 billion is appropriate for borrowing authority for this minister at the present time, not until he comes into this House and starts to tell the people of Canada and the members of this House what his economic and financial approach is going to be.
We want a budget and we want a firm date set for a budget. We know there is going to be an oil price war. We have seen the attitude of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) outside this House and repeated here today. He is looking for nothing but war and confrontation with the oil producing provinces and many of the people of this country. He gets up and says he has just won a successful battle against separatism in Quebec and now he has to fight another battle. He implies it is another battle against separatism, only this time in Alberta and with the oil producing provinces.
He is the man who is supposed to go out and negotiate for this government a successful conclusion to this whole oil price and energy price difficulty that we have had for the last year. We can see now what he plans to do. He plans to have war and confrontation with Alberta, hoping that he can rally the rest of the country around him on the ground that we need a strong central government to deal with the separatist threat in the west.
This man will put this country in peril just to try to achieve the carrying out of cheap political promises made last fall and winter to this country, and he knows he cannot carry them out any other way. He knows he can only carry them out if he unilaterally imposes new taxes on the oil and gas industry and takes the money from the producing provinces and the industry. This is the stage he is sitting. His tactic is beneath belief. It is unconscionable.


Mr. Paproski:: Dishonest.


John Carnell Crosbie: Yes, it is a dishonest approach. How can anyone going out to really try and negotiate with a group of people a very contentious question like this and make statements so insulting, so calculated to make the blood boil? The Prime Minister of this country endorses this attitude. He should be ashamed of himself.
To come back a bit more to the topic, let me look at the debate of October 23, 1979, when I asked this House for borrowing authority of $7 billion for the rest of 1980, to expire on March 31, 1980. What did gentlemen opposite do? They spoke on that bill. I had to borrow the money to meet their
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obligations to carry out their budget. It was not mine. I was asking the House for $7 billion to carry out their programs, their financial system and their budget of the previous November, and what did they do? They talked for four days. We had nine Liberal speakers and seven NDP speakers. They will speak on anything, that crowd in the NDP. They will speak on anything, any time they get a chance, God bless them. They are great speakers. There were two PC speakers. We had four days of debate, the 23rd, 25th, 26th and 29th, on second reading.
There was a long interruption caused by the hon. member for somewhere or other down in New Brunswick. The hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau) moved the adjournment of the House. A couple of hours were lost because nobody was here; nobody anticipated this resolute action by that fighter for civil liberties, the honourable Breau. That is the kind of thing that went on when we asked this House for $7 billion last fall.
We heard also from the present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray). We do not see him around too much these days. I guess he has gone up the spout somewhere with Chrysler. He seems to have them and only them on his mind. The then finance critic is up the tailpipe.
The then finance critic said we only needed $3.5 billion. We did not need $7 billion; we only needed $3.5 billion. Therefore we have ample precedent just a few months ago as to what to do with this bill. We have serious purpose behind this objection we are taking to this bill because we are going to carry out the advice that they gave us last October 23. Let me just briefly refer to some of it. I am referring to Hansard, for those of you who have not looked recently. The hon. member for Windsor West complained about interest rates and so on. He has forgotten it all now. He is thrilled with the interest rates since. He said that we bore the responsibility for the damage the interest rate increases were doing to small business, the farmer and the consumer. When this government got in, interest rates went up 2.2 per cent. That is how much he cared. He said this at page 509:
But there is another serious flaw in the way the Conservatives are proceeding with this first financial measure they have called for debate in this new Parliament. They are seeking this $7 billion in borrowing authority in Bill C-10 without first presenting their own budget to Parliament.
He was seriously upset. The "honourable Herbie" was seriously upset that we had not presented a budget and we deigned to ask for $7 billion in borrowing authority to carry out their spending plans. There is our serious flaw. I give this advice to the Minister of Finance. He has got a serious flaw in asking us for $12 billion because he is seeking it without first presenting a budget to Parliament. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
We want to see a budget before the end of June. We will then give the government the $12 billion if we think it is a worth-while budget. If we do not think it is a worth-while budget, they will have to claw us, fight for it, impose closure and rack it up and down the House and out in the corridors to get it. But don't be afraid to bring in a budget. All that can happen is they might be defeated.

May 28, 1980
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Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Let me give them another piece of advice that we got in that debate from the present Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien). He said this. He understood my problem. He urged me to talk to the then prime minister and make sure that the oil and gas pricing problem was resolved very quickly. Good advice, Mr. Minister. 1 am glad to see that M. le Ministre of Energy, Mines and Resources is buckling right down to settling this question very quickly. We saw that last night. He will need tanks to settle the question. He will need artillery to settle it if he is going to proceed as he did last night. That is the only way he is going to settle it. There is no agreement between two consenting parties. There is not going to be any agreement between two consenting adults in private or in public if he continues as he was acting last night and this afternoon.
What else was the good advice from the former minister of finance? He said this. He was all caught up about a budget and he said this at page 516:
-so that the people could make plans for the year to come on the basis of a budget that would be known to everybody.
He asked this question:
How can they prepare against inflation next year without knowing the government's budgetary intentions?
I ask the same question of the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, who 1 know is not listening and will not pay any attention anyway. How can the people of Canada prepare against inflation? How can they prepare against anything when they do not know what this government's budgetary intentions are? They have been frightened to death and frightened out of their wits by the $14 billion deficit already indicated by the Minister of Finance, but they have had no indication yet as to how the government is going to tackle our economic problems.
At page 517 the former minister of finance was talking about the difference in their approach compared to ours, and he said this:
We do not think it is necessary to let the Canadian economy go into a recession as the Americans have. We managed to prove that point in 1974 and 1975, and 1 hope that the Minister of Finance will keep that in mind.
That is the belief of the former minister of finance. We do not know the belief of the present Minister of Finance. When is he going to let Canada know? When are the manufacturers going to know what the prospects are with this government? These are some of the questions we have.
Here is Mr. Carl Beigie outlining an economic plan. Canada needs a co-ordinated strategy to reduce consumer spending and raise investments as much as it needs national unity, according to Mr. Beigie, who is the president of the C. D. Howe Research Institute. This is what we read in a clipping from The Globe and Mail of May 22, 1980. He was speaking to a group of economists in Montreal. He proposed action on five key points-more cuts in government spending, a willingness to allow prices to rise faster so as to discourage consumer spending and encourage investment, more taxes on consumer spending, a set of measures to reward productive investment and measures to punish the use of capital for dividend increases, mergers and acquisitions. The final recommendation is maintenance of the dollar at a level favouring sectors other than non-renewable resources.
Those are the suggestions of one economist as to what should be done at the moment. There are dozens more. People engaged in the industries of this country along with the farmers and fishermen need to know in which direction the government is going. But all we hear from the Minister of Finance is that he cannot make a move until there is an oil pricing agreement. He can make assumptions. There will be no oil pricing agreement. I make that forecast now, Mr. Speaker. Certainly there will be no agreement by July unless the government has a plot, as I now suspect it has, to start a war with the province of Alberta and the other provinces which possess resources, and then impose a unilateral solution. But there is going to be no agreement.
Here are some of the questions to which we need answers from the minister. This is some of the information we should be getting. There are two ways for the government to secure borrowing authority. One is from Parliament, and the government is now asking for authority under this bill. That is new money. But the government has continuing authority to borrow funds to repay maturing debt. What we want to know is: How much authority do they now have in view of the fact that they have been repaying maturing debt over recent months? We know they had to redeem more than $1 billion in Canada savings bonds. That gives them authority to borrow another billion without coming to the House at all. So let the minister tell us what he has under that heading.
We know that all their authority under the bill passed last fall expired on April 1. But the usage of borrowing powers is calculated on a net basis, so that as the government reduces the level of outstanding debt it increases its borrowing power. On November 1, 1979, there was $2.9 billion of unused borrowing authority still outstanding, available to be carried forward. The minister has stated that this was still the case on April 1. So let us have the facts on that. Imagine coming to this House for authority to raise $12 billion and the minister doesn't even tell us how he plans to get it-how much by way of Canada Savings Bonds, how much by way of marketable bonds, how much by way of treasury bills. How does he plan to borrow this $12 billion? What is his borrowing plan? He makes a five-minute speech during which he tells the House nothing. He doesn't tell us how much will come from government pension funds, how much is expected to come from the public market-


An hon. Member:: Or at what rate.


John Carnell Crosbie: -or what rate he expects to pay. We want some information on that. What does the government intend to do about Canada Savings Bonds? A huge proportion of our debt is represented by Canada Savings Bonds. The people who
May 28, 1980

hold those bonds could come in tomorrow and ask for payment. What would the government do about that? The government says it will reduce its reliance on Canada Savings Bonds and if members over there are not going to do it, they are making a bad mistake.
Just look at the proportion here. It is something like 18 per cent to 20 per cent of our indebtedness, if not more. In the first several months of this year, $1.1 billion were redeemed, an amount equal to the whole of last year. In a moment, looking through these notes, I will come across the proportion of government debt which is in Canada Savings Bonds. It is a very high percentage. The government must get out of that. The people are getting worried about their interest rates, worried about inflation and we may yet see the whole kit and caboodle, widows and all, coming in next week with $18 billion worth of Canada Savings Bonds to be cashed.
What is the government going to do if that occurs? It might not be $18 billion, it might be only half that amount, $9 billion. It might be a quarter, $3 billion or $4 billion. We cannot continue with so high a proportion of our debt in Canada Savings Bonds. Does the Minister of Finance intend to explain what he is going to do to avoid trouble and difficulty in that direction? Is that not his responsibility when he comes to the House for authority to borrow $12 billion? Does he think the members on his own side are dum-dums, dodos or greenbacks who would not be interested in this information? Does he think they are uncaring? I see a number of members over there who are caring. Others are passed caring-the ones who have been there any length of time. But the rest of them are still caring. Shouldn't they have this information? Shouldn't the members of the cabinet have it?
This is the kind of information we want. We want to know how much of our indebtedness is in treasury bills, how much in one year bills, how much in Canada Savings Bonds, how much in bonds altogether. What is our present debt as of today, or as of May 15 or some reasonable date? How is it held? How much is on short term, how much is on long term and the rest?
According to my little black book, back in October when this estimate was done, interest charges for 1980-81 were expected to be $10.5 billion. That has since gone up to $10,750 million. The gross public debt charges as a percentage of total government outlays were 18.2 per cent. The figure is higher, now.
I remember when I was minister of finance in Newfoundland. The minister of finance of the mighty Liberal government, which was almost solvent in those days, back in 1972, was advising me that Newfoundland was headed for bankruptcy if we continued to borrow in the way we were borrowing. That is when the borrowing started here. It went up from $1,253 billion in 1972 to total $46.5 billion over the next seven years. It quadrupled from the time the Prime Minister took office in 1968. Now, 18.2 per cent of all government outlay is going to pay public debt charges and the minister comes to this House with the thought that we are going to give him $12 billion borrowing authority. And he gives us no information. What is the interest cost to Canada going to be, Mr. "Assist-
Borrowing Authority Act
ant Minister of Finance"? What is the latest estimate for 1980-81 of what the interest on gross public debt is going to be? What percentage will that be of total government outlays and what percentage will it be of the gross national product? The Prime Minister of Canada might not care about the deficit, but I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that it is very, very important. The people of Canada, or their children, will rue the day that this kind of thing went on. It is our duty to ask questions and look to the future. So we want some information about these matters.
It was originally thought that in 1980 the interest cost, the cost of the public debt program, would be $8,350 million. That is what was in the Main Estimates prepared by the same government which sits opposite now. That was an 18.3 per cent increase over the previous year's level, 1978-79. Well, then the estimate went up from $8,350 million to $8,450 million, an increase of 19.7 per cent over the previous year. That happened during the year and the estimate had to be revised. The latest note I have here is that last October we expected the interest costs for last year to go to $8,600 million, or 21.8 per cent above the previous year. What was the figure? What did it finally turn out to be? The last estimate I had was that it was going to cost us 21.8 per cent more for interest in 1979-80 than it had cost us in 1978-79.
We want that information, Mr. Speaker, before we pass this bill. The minister will just have to be more forthcoming. The people of Canada want to know what is happening with these tremendous increases in interest costs.
There is a note here also that the balance outstanding in employee pension accounts continues to increase, accounting for a major source of government financing. A lot of the government's financing now is coming from compulsory acquisitions of funds from government pension accounts, moneys paid in by public servants and other people paid from the public treasury. They are compulsorily having to lend that money from their pension funds to the Government of Canada to reduce the amount the government has to go to the markets for. How much is that going to be for the present year? What is the latest forecast on that? What are they going to be able to take from non-government sources, from government pension funds and the like? We would like to know. We would like to know how much of the Canadian debt now is payable in Canadian dollars and how much of it is payable in foreign currency. That would be of interest. The last figures I have here are that at October 31, 1979, we had a total government debt of $68,067 billion. Of that, $63,144 billion was in Canadian dollar debt, and the remainder was in foreign currency debt, the Deutschmark, the Japanese yen, the Swiss franc.
There is nowhere that this government will not borrow. They will go anywhere in this world to borrow. Their next loan will probably be in the old Zambian Kwacha or whatever. We would like to know what these figures are now for the latest period we have them for before we go authorizing another $12 billion. How much of their domestic debt program last year is

May 28, 1980
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held by the Bank of Canada? How much are they planning to have the Bank of Canada hold for this year? Last year, at least up until October 31, the Bank of Canada had financed Government of Canada cash requirements to the extent of $1.2 billion. What did this turn out to be for the whole year? What are their plans for using Bank of Canada financing this year? That has an important effect on inflation, the money supply and the like.
These are some of the questions we expect to have answered, and they are not unreasonable, surely, when this House is asked to approve $12 billion in borrowing authority. What are the interest costs on the foreign debt? The gross annual interest cost on foreign loans for March, 1978, outstanding as of October 31, amounted to U.S. $326 million. What is it now? What are the net interest costs? What are they earning on those proceeds? These are some of the questions the Minister of Finance or his Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Bussieres) might find that if they answered we would be co-operative in trying to get this bill through the House before we adjourn in July, August or September.
What is the government's fiscal plan? What is the government going to do? How much is the oil import compensation plan now going to cost? What is the latest figure on that? It was $3.1 billion, but now we have had increases in the price charged by foreign countries in connection with our oil imports, so what is it going to be now? These are some of the things we want information on.
I do not believe I have forgotten any questions. I know some of our speakers will have further questions, and that is all to the good.
Now, what are some of the things that the people of Canada are concerned about and want to get information about? They want to know what the government is going to do, and this government will not tell them.
According to a report I have here, in two decades of surveying consumer attitudes the Conference Board in Canada has never found Canadians to be as pessimistic as they are now. That is what the board said on May 22. They have been doing these surveys. They did a quarterly survey of consumer confidence, and they find that Canadians are showing increasing concern about their families' financial prospects, about employment possibilities, about making major purchases at this time.
Well, if consumers are the gloomiest they have been in two decades, surely it is up to the government to try to reinstil some confidence in the consumer by telling the consumer what the government's plans are and how they foresee the year. If the government cannot do anything and if the government's hands are tied because of its present huge deficit and its present huge deficit in the balance of international payments, the government cannot go into expansionary spending or increase the deficit beyond the $14 billion. I myself cannot see how they could do that. It would be very dangerous and damaging. If they cannot do it, they should tell the people of Canada that they cannot, and about what we have to prepare for and how they see us coming out of it.
According to the board, for the first quarter of 1980 the index was 82.7, one of the lowest levels measured since the surveys began in 1960. Well, is to ask this House for borrowing authority of $12 billion without any information or indication of the government's financial and economic plans going to induce confidence in the consumer? You bet it is not, Mr. Speaker.
Here is another clipping. One does not have to be a genius to read the papers and see the result of these surveys. Canada has the worst productivity in the seven major free world nations. We had a decline of productivity last year from 1978 levels. The U.S. had the lowest gain, but they had a gain. But Canada had a loss. Canada had a decline in productivity, 0.8 per cent. Italy had an increase of 8.7 per cent; Japan, 8.3 per cent; France, 5.4 per cent; Germany, 5.2 per cent; Great Britain, so often sneered at and looked down on, had increased productivity of 2.2 per cent. Canada had a "decline" of 0.8 per cent. What is the government's plan to help deal with that situation? The government has been in office for 16 years with a brief interruption of eight or nine months. They are back in office again. What is their plan to deal with that?
When the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce was finance critic for the then opposition, he was full of plans as to how he was going to overcome all these things.
According to another report, the decline in our buying power is the worst since the depression. This comes from Statistics Canada. Canadians' purchasing power has declined steadily in the last three years. It is the worst drop since the depression of the early 1930s, according to Statistics Canada. How long does the Minister of Finance think this decline in our buying power is going to go on? Does he see this stopping this year or next year? Is there anything he can do about it?
The whole history of collective bargaining in this country will be affected by the expectation of the labour unions as to whether their buying power is going to continue to decline or not. Can the minister not bring in a budget and give them some indication of where he expects this situation to go? What is the long-term outlook if we are restraining ourselves now and our buying power is declining now? Are we going to be better off in the future? If we tighten our belt now, are we going to be better off a year, two years or three years down the road?
These are questions the people of Canada want answered. They do not want the minister to be mute on these questions. They do not want him to be sliding and skating all through the question period refusing to answer any questions, just talking. He is a very skilled parliamentarian. We all know that this Minister of Finance can avoid answering questions. We know that if he is not the most skilful, he is one of the most skilful parliamentarians in this chamber. That does not mean that he is to be admired for refusing to answer questions when he is the Minister of Finance.
The President of the CMA, Mr. Newall, spoke recently. He said, and I am quoting from a report in The Globe and Mail of
May 27:
May 28, 1980

-if government will provide the right climate, manufacturing industry can invest between $150 billion and $200 billion in larger and more productive plants this decade.
The pertinent words here are "if government will provide the right climate". Most people do not expect that this government will provide the right climate. The budget of December 11 did provide the right climate, a climate for people to invest with confidence that they were going to get a return on their money, that they were going to be able to employ more people and that we were freeing up the private sector to some degree so that they could get on with the job of doing what they know best-removing the dead hand of the government.
That is not the attitude this government has been known for in the past, and it does not sound as if it is going to be in the future, so is the government going to provide the right climate? What climate are they going to provide for our manufacturing industry? We can only know that when we have a budget. That is the only time we are going to know that. We are not going to know by giving the government the right to borrow another $12 billion.
Here is the C.D. Howe Research Institute again making a report. This is May 2 in The Globe and Mail again.
Canada will not begin to solve its inflation problem until the federal government's deficit is reduced, according to Carl Beigie-
Mr. Beigie, again, is the president of the C.D. Howe Research Institute.
In Canada surplus demand originates primarily in the government sector through budgetary deficits.
And so on. I will not read it all into the record, but it is true. It is correct. Mr. Beigie and I believe that the federal deficit is the key to inflation. Is this government going to do anything about inflation? Are we going to feel safe to save money or not? Is it going to become too dangerous for people in this country to save money because the government does not care about inflation or it will not fight inflation or will not take the painful steps that are necessary to fight inflation? This government has now got a safe majority for the next four or five years. It does not take any courage to fight inflation when you have a safe majority.
We made the decision that we were going to fight it when we did not have a majority. I suppose that in political terms that was a mistake, but the government now has a majority. When is it going to indicate to the people of this country, to the people who have some money to save, to the people whose money is needed to be invested in this country, whether or not it is safe for them to save it, or should they all shoot outdoors today and spend it before it loses even more of its value? That is the main question.
The bill which we passed in the House yesterday giving $35 per household to help those who receive a guaranteed income supplement to the old age pension is a picayune measure. That $35 might help them temporarily, but what helps the old age pensioner, the older person and those on fixed incomes is not that kind of small token, a handout from the government, or
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whatever it is, an attempt to give them security. The only security they will have is if we overcome inflation so that their cost of living will not go up by 10 per cent, 12 per cent or 15 per cent every year. We must ensure that this country does not go bust, that we do not wreck the economy. The only security anyone has in this country is if we operate the economy properly and we produce more so there is more to divide among us all and we give more to the senior citizens and the rest.
A party that is not interested in the fight against inflation, that will not battle inflation, is not interested in the older people, the senior citizens, is not interested in the dispossessed, is not interested in those who do not have strong organizations to protect them. The people of Canada want to know: is this government going to fight inflation? Because we have no indication whether or not they are. The minister's statement of April 21 indicates they are not. He is satisfied with a deficit of $14 billion.
The United States, whose interest rates and everything else the minister is following, are going the other way; they will have a small surplus next year in their budget. If they adopted the same policies we have and followed us-our deficit is $14 billion-they would have a deficit ten times that size amounting to $140 billion, yet they are going to balance their budget next year to try to fight inflation.
What is this government going to do? It is not telling us. All we have had is this pitiful excuse, this document which was presented to us on April 21 which we were not allowed to debate.
As I mentioned a few moments ago, we have a Prime Minister who thinks we have a healthy economy. Well, we should have the world's healthiest economy. We have the possibilities for a healthy economy, but we have an economy which has been badly mismanaged for the last ten years at least. For nine months we made a beginning in trying to get it back again to a healthy state. Now we do not know whether this government will follow that direction or go on to complete the dismantling of our economy which they proceeded to do from 1972 to 1979.
I believe that the Prime Minister is the Count Dracula of the Canadian economic system. The Prime Minister has to start giving it a transfusion, giving it more power, not just taking the blood out of it. His government has been like Dracula, like a vampire bat feeding on the economic system of Canada for the last seven or eight years. Are they going to stop that and start giving the economy a transfusion, or will they continue taking all the life blood out of it? That is the question which the Minister of Finance will not even answer.


An hon. Member:: He is not even here.


John Carnell Crosbie: The Minister has had to go somewhere outside the country, I believe. But the Minister of State for Finance is here and I think that he is the man concerned with these questions and he might put them to the Minister of Finance.

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The Prime Minister remarked on our healthy economy. At the same time, on April 21, here is how the Minister of Finance spoke about the health of our economy. He said inflation appears worse now than in the previous peak inflation years of 1974 and 1975. That is one point he made. He said also that the underlying rates of inflation in the United States and Canada are not very different. He said the consumer price index will rise by 10 per cent this year. He said there will be little or no growth in Canada in 1980. He said that residential construction is likely to decline. He said that Canada cannot insulate itself from the slowdown in the United States because of the substantial deficit which already exists on the current account of our balance of payments and because of the size of the already existing deficit of the federal government. That statement is the exact opposite of the statement made by the present Minister of Justice on October 23 when he was in opposition, and which I quoted earlier.
The Minister of Finance said that the unemployment rate would rise this year to an average of 8 per cent. Does the Prime Minister think that is healthy? Does he think that all these things are healthy?
As I just mentioned, the Conference Board has found Canadians never to have been so pessimistic before. The productivity situation is not good, our purchasing power has declined. But the Prime Minister says our economy is healthy. He does not worry about deficits, except that they cost more in interest. He is worried because interest costs are higher. All this is not calculated to reassure the people of this country that their serious economic problems will receive much attention, if any.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, as the first speaker 1 have unlimited time. As the opposition spokesman on the government bill I was hoping to address myself to this bill for three or four days to review in depth what the government needs to do and what the problems are. But I have to take a plane to Toronto this afternoon to fulfil a commitment to speak there tonight, and therefore I cannot take the time I want on this bill. But eventually this bill will go to committee.
I suggest to the Minister of State for Finance that when he speaks-and I am sure he will be speaking-he give us some of the basic information we want. If we can get some sense from the government on what their economic and financial plans are, we are willing to give the government borrowing authority. It might be $12 billion or less than that, depending on what the government shows it needs. It depends on the government telling us what its plans are and telling the Canadian people. If the government can show at any time that there is some emergency, that they cannot meet a cheque, that they cannot meet the social security payments, or something like that, because they cannot borrow the money, they do not have that authority, if they can show that then we will be agreeable to rush through $1 billion or $2 billion of borrowing authority, some reasonable amount. But the government is not so down in the mouth, so financially strapped, that it cannot carry on its operations because we will not give it borrowing authority. We will give it some borrowing authority, but the official opposition will not agree to give $12 billion borrowing authority blind. We are not like the three blind mice. We want to see some evidence of the government's serious intentions and actions.
We want to have information. We will not be shoved around here by the government. Perhaps the electorate does not worry at present. They do not appear to be following public affairs with any great attention. This might be the case now, but they will not always be like this. I have been here only since 1976 and I thought I had seen some arrogance exhibited by the government up to May of 1979, but what I have seen in this House since April 14 shows that in the few brief months that they were out of office no new attitudes at all have been adopted.
The government thinks it has a majority and does not need to worry about anything. It thinks that the memory of the public is so short that the public will not remember in three months' time what the government is doing or not doing today. It made solemn commitments to mortgage holders, to the renters of Canada, to home owners. It told them that we were not doing enough. They were in this chamber and they opposed our mortgage tax credit legislation. They fought it bitterly in this chamber. The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) when he was in the opposition wept crocodile tears and said that we were not helping renters, we were not helping the lower income people.
During the campaign, they went on with the same line. They stopped our attempt to help the home owner, the poor person burdened with mortgage costs, and they pretended that the high interest costs were our fault. When they came into office they allowed those costs to go even higher to 16.2 per cent for the bank rate and 17 per cent or 18 per cent on mortgages. Now, luckily for them and for everyone, the rates are coming down because of the recession, for no other reason. They promised the people of Canada they would help the home owner, the renter and the mortgage holder. They have not done a thing in their 86 days in power.
This House has been sitting since April 14 and the government has done nothing but give excuses for not helping the renters of Canada, not helping the mortgage holders of Canada. Ministers are still saying they are going to help 4,000, 5,000 or 6,000 people who got involved in AHOP and have been put in a terrible position over that program. They now have to renew their mortgages after five years at double and triple what the costs were originally and they cannot afford it. The government says it may still help them, but those are the only people it is going to help in Canada. These are the people who made the welkin ring in this House last fall about how their hearts bled for the Canadian home owner and the Canadian renter, yet they have done nothing since they got into power. They have offered no legislation to this House and they do not explain now why they opposed what we did offer. They could have supported that and improved it, if they thought there should be improvements, when they got into
May 28, 1980

power. They think the people of Canada have very short memories. Perhaps they are right, but they are taking an awful chance. If the people of Canada have got short memories, we are going to be here to remind them about some of the things the government promised and committed but which it is now not doing.
They are trying to fool the people on oil pricing. They have blended prices; they have "blanded" prices. They have the best kinds of prices. They have a new electric blender over in the Prime Minister's office and he is getting all the stuff and he is blending it all up, and they are going to try to convince the Canadian people that prices will not have gone up more than they were going up under our policy-$4 a barrel this year and $4.50 next year. We will be revealing how that is not so as they try to unfold that program.
The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, if he was Pinocchio, would have a nose that would reach from here to Vancouver with the stories he has told on energy pricing since he became the minister on March 3. If the Canadian people are not listening too intently now we intend to see that the record is clear so that when they do take an interest they will see what we were trying to accomplish and how, and what this government promised and what it has done, which are two distinctly different things.
By the way, 1 have a final note here. This is a final piece of arrogance and 1 have not received an apology for this yet. Here is a document sent out by 74 of the Liberal MPs from Quebec to householders in Quebec just before the referendum vote. This one here is from the MP for Vercheres (Mr. Loiselle). It shows a separated Quebec gone from Canada, and gone with Quebec is 110,000 square miles of Newfoundland and Labrador. Not only that, Newfoundland is pushed out 200 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. It is no wonder Premier Peck-ford said you should only be the agents for the provinces. In this brochure you have pushed the island out 200 miles into the Atlantic and you took Labrador away from it, showing it going off with a separated Quebec.
Every one of the 74 members from Quebec, as far as I know, sent that brochure out. We have not heard a word yet to say it was a mistake, that they did not mean to include the 110,000 square miles of Newfoundland with Quebec. Perhaps they did not want to show the true boundary because there was a sensitive election going on. Maybe that was the reason. We call that arrogance down in Newfoundland.
My God, there is so much to talk about, Mr. Speaker, why do I have to leave? We have a Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who said in a brave speech in Toronto when he was again threatening Alberta on May 6, and this appears at page 3 of his speech:
There will be free flow of goods and services in this country. No province has the right to dictate development outside its borders, and the federal government will fully defend this basic constitutional principle.
That is what he said in Toronto. When he is asked in this House whether he will apply that principle to Newfoundland and Labrador so there can be a free flow of hydroelectricity from Labrador to other provinces in Canada across Quebec,
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which is now stopped by Quebec which will not permit it unless the power is sold to it at the price it sets so it can resell it at a far greater price and make fast profits, while we hewers of wood and drawers of water in Newfoundland make nothing, they do not assure us that they will apply that principle in the province of Quebec.
This is the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources who has so flexed his muscles now with Alberta he is "super Marc"; he is going to crush Alberta; he is going to crush Lougheed. He says the principle is:
No province has the right to dictate development outside its borders, and the federal government will fully defend this basic constitutional principle.
When Newfoundland and Labrador asked him to defend that principle against Quebec, Newfoundland with seven seats and the province of Quebec with 75, that is the last we hear of it. They turn and they twist every way you can think of in the House here to avoid answering that question. That question will be coming up when the Lower Churchill studies are finished in the next couple of weeks. That question will then be right in the lap of the federal government, because those developments cannot go ahead; the Lower Churchill cannot be developed with a potential 2,500 megawatts of power badly needed in the maritimes to displace oil. That cannot go ahead unless Newfoundland can transmit that power across Quebec to these other provinces. That problem will be right in their laps, and that great principle will have to be followed or revealed to be a completely hollow principle.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that the requests we are making are reasonable. When you look at the way the debt and the borrowing have increased in Canada, it just makes your head spin, particularly the way it has happened in the last ten years. We now have a situation where the House is being asked to authorize $12 billion in borrowing authority. There was one period of two years when the amount was $28 billion. This is given in my briefing book which says "net debt borrowed", and there was borrowed $28 billion in 1977-78 and 1978-79. Now the government is asking for $12 billion. These are huge amounts of money.
The man who asks the House for this authority spoke last night for five minutes, filling just one page of Hansard. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance can treat this bill so lightly that all he thinks he has to do is ask the House to give him the right to borrow $12 billion without a word of explanation as to why he wants it, how he is going to raise it, what his present authorities are and the like. This just boggles the imagination. He treats the matter very lightly, just as the minister has treated us in respect of the questions we asked in the House. It is not a question of whether we like the Minister of Finance or whether we do not like him. I personally like him. I have a high regard for his ability to do the old soft-shoe dance. I call him "old slippery heels". But he is going to get caught. He cannot be Minister of Finance and avoid answering all the questions. He cannot be Minister of Finance and avoid telling the people of Canada what his approach is going to be to the economy and the financial system of Canada for the next two or three years. He cannot do that without ruinous effects to our economy.

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It may be that the Minister of State for Finance will repair all the damage of the Minister of Finance when he speaks. I think he is the back-up man for the Minister of Finance. I think the Prime Minister knows that the Minister of Finance is not too forthcoming so he has got the Minister of State for Finance to back the minister up and do the things he is not going to do. We hope that is the case. In the meantime we are prepared to explore these issues and discuss every aspect of government operation in the coming weeks until the government does become more forthcoming and, particularly, until we find out when there is going to be a budget, or, in the alternative, what this government's approach is to our economic and financial problems about which they were so anxious to defeat us. Perhaps they defeated us just because they were anxious to get into power again. I think that is the true reason; I think that is the only reason. If that is not the reason they should be eager to come into this House and show us how they are going to go right when we were going so wrong. That is what we want the minister to do before we give him this authority to borrow another $12 billion.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, we are being asked through the provisions of this bill to permit the Government of Canada to borrow $12 billion for the fiscal year 1980-81. As I listened to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) outline the reasons he was bringing forth this bill in his very brief speech yesterday, I did not know whether to laugh or to cry. I remember that this is the finance minister who engineered the defeat of the Conservative government last December. This is the finance minister who persuaded the Fiberal members of Parliament last December to vote for the NDP motion which led to the defeat of the Conservative government. This is the finance minister who, according to the most knowledgeable media people, persuaded or forced all Liberal MPs to be here in this House to vote on that fateful day last December. This is the finance minister who, we are told, persuaded the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to stay on in politics. This is the finance minister who, having moved from the opposition benches to take his portfolio, seems to have forgotten all the pledges made by his leader and his party before the last election and during the last election campaign.
This is the finance minister who has implemented all of the measures proposed by the former Conservative finance minister last December, except for the 18-cent a gallon excise tax. This is the finance minister who obviously believes that the government should not interfere actively in directing the economy, either to get it moving at a faster rate or to slow it down. This is the most silent finance minister I have ever seen in my 18 years of Parliament.
Under the regime of this finance minister we will see a situation in the coming year in which growth will be restricted to just a 1 per cent increase in the gross national product, according to the Conference Board in Canada. The cost of
living will increase by 10 per cent or more if the price of oil moves up as the province of Alberta wishes, and unemployment will undoubtedly increase by at least a half to 1 per cent in the next year over what it was in the last year.
I would like to remind members on the government side that on December 13, 1979, their party voted for an amendment moved by the New Democratic Party to their amendment on the budget of the Conservative party. That vote led to the end of the Conservative government. Our amendment was supported by the Liberal party, so we assumed that they endorsed its principles. Our amendment was:
-and this House unreservedly condemns the government for its outright betrayal of its election promises to lower interest rates, to cut taxes, and to stimulate the growth of the Canadian economy, without a mandate from the Canadian people for such a reversal.
When the Conservatives were in power, the interest rate was approximately 11.5 per cent. In the few months in which the Liberal government has been in power, it went up to approximately 17 per cent. Of course, the minister is now taking credit for the fact that it has gone down, but the interest rate is still at 13.75 per cent, more than two percentage points higher than what it was when the Conservatives were in power.
The government has done nothing to lower interest rates or cut taxes. There have been no tax cuts at all. The only consolation is that it has not levied the 18-cent excise tax per gallon of gasoline proposed by the Conservative government. There have been no measures to stimulate the growth of the Canadian economy. It is obvious, particularly since the United States is moving rapidly into a major recession, that we are going to have much more unemployment in this country in 1980 than we had in 1979.
1 would like to spend a few moments putting on the record some of the comments which were made by members of the Liberal party while in opposition and who are now members of the cabinet in the present government. The present Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray) said on December 12, 1979, the day before the Conservative government was defeated, as reported at page 2299 in Hansard:
What we should have had from the Conservatives last night was a budget that would reduce inflation, strengthen the economy and create more jobs for Canadians-
Where is the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce now when we need him? Why is he not saying the same things and giving the same message to his colleague the Minister of Finance? Now the Liberal government is refusing to bring in a budget, just as the Conservatives did for so many months, and we are to give the government authority to borrow $12 billion.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce was not the only Liberal member who took that line. The following day, December 13, 1979, the present Secretary of State (Mr. Fox) concluded his attack on the Conservative government with the following paragraph which is reported in Hansard of that date at page 2349:
So there, Mr. Speaker, after six months in power, this is the only record of the Progressive Conservative government: the highest interest rates that members in this House have ever seen and an unemployment rate-as the result of measures put forward by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Crosbie) who does not seem
May 28, 1980

pleased that we already have such an unemployment rate-that will make it impossible for 850,000 Canadians to find a job. In addition to that figure, the policies of the minister unavoidably lead to the unemployment of 986,000 Canadians in 1980. I will end on those comments, Mr. Speaker. Such is the record of the government. It is time that we put an end to it and that we close the books.
Now, in 1980, we have higher interest rates than what the present Secretary of State was talking about last December. We have more unemployment and we have higher inflation. So much for Liberal promises.
One of the things about which the Liberal party spoke so fervently while in opposition and during the election campaign was the failure of the Conservative government to adopt an industrial strategy, a failure which led to an increasing decline in our manufacturing industry which is the backbone of every industrialized country. It seems to me that government members have forgotten the criticism which they levelled at the Conservatives and what they voted for then, now that they are in government. The Prime Minister in a number of his speeches during the election campaign mentioned this kind of need. I would like to quote from a speech which he made on February 12, 1980, in Toronto. He said, among other things, that a Liberal government:
-will convert the Canada Development Corporation into a bigger player in industrial development along the lines of Petro-Canada's role in energy.
Have we heard a word about that promise? Silence. He further said that the Liberal government:
-will capitalize on Canada's energy base in order to build a world-competitive industrial sector.
Have we heard a word about that? Silence. And further he said the Liberal government:
-will strengthen Canadian industry's research and technological capacity by encouraging development of Canadian-controlled high technology firms and ensuring that foreign multinationals expand R and D efforts in Canada.
Those are just a few illustrations of what the Prime Minister was talking about at that time. Have we heard anything about any of those promises? Of course we have not, because the Liberals are now in office and they have a few years before they must think up a few more promises. What we see is that the Liberal government is retreating from its pre-election promises of more intervention into the economy, in the same way that the Conservatives broke their promises.
The problems are becoming more serious as time progresses. In a recent issue of The Globe and Mail, Geoffrey Stevens dealt with the whole question of the need for the Government of Canada to change its ways and become involved, as other governments have in the industrialized world, in the whole process of research and development. He quoted the following paragraph from the Speech from the Throne:
My government reaffirms its commitment to increase Canada's over-all expenditures on research and development to 1.5 per cent of the value of the gross national product.
That paragraph was in the Speech from the Throne on April 14 this year. The government has been making that promise for more than a year, Mr. Speaker, and every few months putting back the date when it expects to achieve that 1.5 per
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cent of gross national product expenditure on scientific research and development.
Mr. Stevens went on to give some of the figures that show the real record of how we have failed. He wrote:
We haven't even tried to keep up with our industrial competitors. In 1968, Canada's 'gross expenditure on research and development' (known to its intimates as GERD) was 1.26 per cent of gross national product. In 1969, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recommended that Canada's GERD should be raised to between 2.1 and 2.4 per cent of GNP. In 1972, the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy (the Lamontagne committee) recommended a GERD of 2.5 per cent by 1980. But by
1978,	our investment in R and D, had, yes, fallen-a GERD of 0.94 per cent of GNP.
We invest less than half as much of our national wealth in R and D as other developed countries do.
This is the record of this government which has talked so much about the need to get our economy moving and the need to get our country moving in the direction in which other countries have long since moved.
I had the opportunity last fall to spend a day and a half in Japan. Those of us who were there were briefed by the Canadian ambassador in Tokyo on how the government of Japan, a free enterprise government, goes about promoting private industrial research and development. We were given a document prepared for the Canadian ambassador in July,
1979.	Any resemblance between the way in which the Japanese government encourages research and development in their country and the way it is done in our free enterprise system is purely coincidental.
I should like to put on record a summary of the system followed in Japan. The report to which I refer is restricted to research and development activities in the physical sciences and reads in part as follows:
The most important ministry in industrial R and D is the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which has two R and D related external agencies. One is the Agency of Industrial Science and Technology. (AIST). The other is the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency (SMEA).
The responsibilities of the AIST include research and development of industrial technology of national importance which is conducted in 17 research laboratories, the promotion of research and development by the private sector, and the standardization of the industrial technology.
For small and medium-size companies, special care is needed. The restrictions on government subsidies and loans for large companies may be too severe for small businesses. Hence, SMEA is used for this sector.
The Science and Technology Agency (STA) in the Prime Minister's office co-ordinates and promotes science and technology R and D in five major fields; (1) nuclear technology (J space development (3) marine technology (4) disaster prevention technology (5) others, jet engine development and remote sensing R and D. Most of these areas, except nuclear technology is not yet profitable; however it is necessary for the future and hence the government assumes responsibility here.
Compare that with our government disinterest in and rejection of any responsibility to give any real leadership in the field of research and development. The report continues:
Approximately 50 per cent of the Science and Technology R and D in 1977 went to universities. It should be also noted that in university research expenditure, 56.4 per cent went to basic research, 38.2 per cent went to applied research, . 5.3 per cent went to development research in 1976.

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The government R and D involvement is roughly divided into two categories. One is for R and D in which the government is directly involved and the other one is where there is no direct government involvement. The result of the R and D belongs to the government in the case of direct government involvement and to the company in the case of indirect government involvement.
I could go on, Mr. Speaker. The Japanese are spending more than twice as much of their gross national product on research and development as Canada. Is it any wonder that their economy is booming, that their manufacturing industries are alive and growing while ours are declining and, in many cases, dying?
Just one last point on the Japanese situation. In their system, tax deductions are far less attractive than the other loans and tax-free subsidies which can be obtained by doing what the government wants done. Thus many corporations are attracted to the activities the government wants done.
These conditions affecting the success of corporations in getting subsidies are detailed. They include technical competence, sound planning and management, financial stability, and they cannot be a foreign-owned or controlled corporation. The cost of purchasing or manufacturing tools, machinery and buildings is also taken into account. Compare that with what we do and do not do in Canada and you will see why they are moving ahead while we are in a declining situation.
The government may want to encourage manufacturers to invest more money to improve their productivity and to employ more people. There is very little indication that this is the case.
Under the headline "Canadians Must Triple Manufacturing Spending", there appears the following article in the Montreal Gazette of May 26:
Manufacturers have to make up for lost time and invest three times more in this decade than in the 1970s, says J. Edward (Ted) Newall, who takes over today as president of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association (CMA) at its Ottawa convention.
"In the 1980s we will have to invest a lot more than the $50 billion of new money that went into manufacturing in the 1970s."
Later in the article Mr. Newall is quoted as saying:
"We're looking at investing $150 billion to $200 billion in Canadian manufacturing in the 1980s. We will have to have confidence to invest that kind of money and take those kinds of risks-"
I do not know how they can have that kind of confidence given the failure of this government over the years. This government has been in office, except for those few short months when we had a Conservative abberation, for more than 20 years.
We have had a great deal of talk about the need for an industrial strategy and the need to do something about our lagging productivity, yet we have done very little about it. In an article in the Financial Times of May 26, 1980, Don McGillivray wrote:
During the past seven or eight years, Canada has steadily lost ground in some of its areas of previous economic strength, becoming more dependent than ever on imported capital and on the markets for its primary products.
Since the last recession began in 1974, for example, Canada has created about 1.8 million jobs. But only 130,000 of the jobs have been in manufacturing, which has thus declined in the proportion of the nation's work force employed.
B. W. Wilkinson, an Alberta economist, said in a study published last week that this is not so much because the performance of the manufacturing sector has declined as because it has failed to keep up with performance elsewhere. What was good enough in earlier years is no longer good enough.
His argument was echoed by the president of the C. D. Howe Institute, Carl Beigie, who said in a speech in Montreal a few days ago that incentive programs by government should favour reinvestment of profits and discourage increased dividends or the use of capital for mergers and the acquisition of other companies. Today is not the time to go into it in detail, but what we have seen in the last couple of years is a host of mergers, of purchases of one corporation by another which may have brought benefits to the corporations and their shareholders when they purchased another company, but really did nothing for Canadians in terms of improving our productivity or bringing more modern methods of production to this country.
During the campaign before the February 18 election, the Liberal party advocated a strategy which would involve more government action. Where is that government action? We have not seen it. What we need very badly is an industrial strategy which will put the people of this country to work, the more than one million people who want to work and who simply have been unable to find jobs.
If we are going to accomplish that objective and put the people of Canada back to work and find jobs for the very large number of well-educated, highly-trained, skilled young people who are looking for work now in the hundreds of thousands, work which is not there, we must have a plan. We must have an industrial strategy. We must plan by studying our economy, sector by sector, as advisory groups representing both labour and management have already recommended to this government. There should be a permanent secretariat serving those advisory committees so that solutions to our industrial weaknesses can be worked out through long-term discussions rather than enforced by arbitrary and by seat-of-the-pants decisions made because we are facing a crisis in a particular sector of our economy.
Second, we must set up an investment fund system such as they have in Sweden whereby companies are not given tax concessions automatically, as they are in our system. They are given assistance only if they place a portion of their profits in a special government organized fund from which they can receive tax benefits. This could be done here if and when they propose to expand their facilities and if and when they propose to increase their labour force in Canada.
What we do not need is the kind of thing which International Nickel did. It used the profits that it made in Canada elsewhere. It used the money, the deferred taxes, which it did not have to pay to the Government of Canada, and loans which it got from the Government of Canada, to open facilities in countries such as Indonesia and Nicaragua to mine nickel which will be sold in competition with nickel mined in Canada. This will probably increase the profits of International Nickel, but it means three or four thousand less workers are employed
May 28, 1980

in Canada. That is the kind of tax system that we have had up until now. This is something which we in the New Democratic Party want to see disappear.
We need to have an industrial strategy. We need to aim to strengthen certain of the basic industries which are found in every well-managed, successfully functioning industrial society, many of which industries are now located outside of Canada. These are industries which supply input to other industries producing final products. These basic industries include those that produce industrial machinery, industrial equipment, chemicals, plastic materials, telecommunications and basic metal fabricating products. These are the foundations of a modern industrial economy.
To meet our needs in these categories we depend very heavily on imports. When our economy is moving ahead, when it is stimulated, which is not happening now, it is in precisely these fields that we have to expand our imports. What we do is produce jobs in other countries instead of in Canada. If we are to find jobs for our people, we must substitute Canadian production to replace the present policy of importing these products. In some of these industries we should encourage such specialization and efficiency so that we will be able not only to meet Canadian requirements but to compete for a share of business on a worldwide scale.
I have used this illustration before, but we are frequently told by representatives of Liberal governments and by some of our manufacturers that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to compete with large countries such as the United States and Japan.
I have pointed out before and I will do so again that the sound system in this chamber was produced in Austria, which I suppose has one quarter the population of Canada. Austria produced the sound system, these speakers and microphones, and sold it, 1 presume in competition with Canadian manufacturers, and installed it here in Canada. I say that if Austria can have an industrial strategy and if Sweden can, both countries being much smaller than Canada, then Canada can have one too.
Let me give some examples of specific industrial opportunities that we ought to be exploring. First, I think of the transportation industry. Because of the shortage of oil and the shocking increase in the cost of oil, we must move, as other countries must move, to the modernization of our mass transit system. If we do that and increase the number of people who use public transit, we must concentrate on a new and improved technology for those systems. We can do that in Canada if we set our minds to it, rather than importing that kind of a system from other countries, something which we have done so frequently in the past.
Our passenger and freight movement by the railway must be made more efficient. Rail lines, railways, railway engines and rolling stock must be upgraded. We should be looking at the electrification of our railways. We have some companies in Canada, 1 think in Quebec and Ontario-for example, the Bombardier company-which have gone into these fields. What these companies are doing mainly are producing for
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sales in other countries, not for sales in Canada. That seems to me to be part of the continued shortsightedness and lack of vision governments have had in recent years.
Now I come to the automobile industry and the automobile parts industry. It has been estimated that somewhere between one in ten and one in six people in Ontario, our largest province, work in the automobile industry or a related industry. We have a deficit of about $2 billion a year in our automobile and parts trade with the United States. We must renegotiate the automobile pact with the United States with the objective of eliminating that $2 billion a year deficit. We need a greater share of the parts manufacturing industry in Canada and a substantial increase in the design and development facilities of the automobile industry. We have been restricted and relegated mainly to assembly type jobs in this country. That simply is not good enough.
Then we have the whole field of agricultural machinery. This country which produces such tremendous amounts of the world's foodstuffs is at the same time one of the largest importers in the world of agricultural machinery. The tariffs on farm machinery between Canada and the United States have been removed. We produce between 7 and 8 per cent of the North American market for agricultural machinery, but Canadian farmers purchase 12 per cent of the farm machinery produced in North America. If we produced a fair share of the North American market, employment would be increased by 50 per cent. That would automatically stimulate other industries, such as the steel, rubber and electrical equipment industries.
One last illustration is the machine industry and the equipment industry. These are high technology industries characterized by favourable working terms, high wages, high skills, clean working conditions and so on. It has been estimated that the industry now employs about 120,000 people and production is about $5 billion a year. However, we import $5.5 billion a year of this kind of equipment. We see that a high degree of dependence on imports of machinery is evident in almost every category-forestry equipment, construction equipment, machine tools and even oil and gas drilling machinery.
Even though there is a tremendous spurt in the search for oil and gas in Canada, we import most of that equipment from the United States. We need an industrial strategy. The government should begin putting into place some of the promises with respect to an industrial strategy made before and during the last election campaign.
1 want to deal with another aspect where the government has failed completely, and that is in the field of manpower training. On April 1, as reported in the Winnipeg Tribune, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) announced that a high level group of civil servants was working out a new multimillion dollar job-creation package to be ready in time for the April 14 opening of Parliament. We are some six weeks past that date-


Mr. Blenkarn:: And we have not seen a thing.

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David Orlikow: No, we have not seen a thing. 1 do not often agree with the hon. member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), but this is one occasion when I have to agree with him. All we have seen so far is an employment tax credit bill which is so weak that it will have virtually no effect.
It is now being said that the minister is planning to issue a position paper on unemployment insurance, manpower training and job creation. When? In January of next year. It will be based on previous studies which have been done. We have had study upon study, task force upon task force, report upon report. What we need is not more reports but action, but action we have not seen.
Let me indicate what are some of the studies which have already been completed. In 1977 we had a comprehensive review of the Unemployment Insurance Act. In the fall of 1979 there was the review of unemployment insurance made by Mr. McCrossan. Then there was the interdepartmental evaluation of the Canada manpower retraining program. Who knows how many other departmental studies of manpower programs have taken place or are taking place at the present time.
In the meantime, the government is ignoring the critical employment problems in Canada. For example, there is a critical skilled labour shortage in Canada. In the Financial Post of May 10, several weeks ago, it was reported that:
-85 per cent of companies in the machinery industry still report at least some difficulty obtaining journeyman workers, but there is now hope that training programs now being implemented will start to meet that need.
What those training programs give us is a couple of hundred people being trained when the need runs in the thousands. I quote from another article in the Financial Post.
Thi- skilled labour shortages that have bedevilled Canada for years could be with us until 1985. That's the opinion of 1,354 Canadian companies surveyed by the Economic Council of Canada for a report to be released in June.
In my own city of Winnipeg, the Free Press of May 20 pointed out:
Like the rest of the Canadian mining industry, the north is faced with a continuing and critical lack of skilled personnel and has had to resort to importing tradesmen from other parts of Canada and overseas.
That is a quote from a speech made by the divisional personnel manager of Sherritt Gordon Mines in northern Manitoba. In The Globe and Mail of May 26 there was the following report:
Firms involved in training are mostly located in the highly populated and industrialized central region of southern Ontario, and tend to be large. These firms believe that all businesses within their respective industries should support employee training in some way.
They believe it, but they have not been willing to put their dollars where their beliefs are. They have done very little. In doing very little they have been aided and abetted by Liberal governments and many of the provincial governments, because none of our governments have really addressed themselves to the problems of manpower training to meet the need for skilled workers which we face.
We in the New Democratic Party support the principle that all firms should be involved in manpower training. This should
be based on a British type training tax whereby all companies would contribute to an industrial training fund, and whenever they trained workers they could obtain rebates to meet some of the costs which they have incurred.
Not only have we failed to meet our manpower needs to give our industries the skilled workers which they need, and not only have we continued to depend on immigration, bringing people from other countries to meet our need for skilled workers at a time when we have almost a million unemployed, but we have failed and are continuing to fail to meet the needs of the-


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


Some hon. Members:: Carry on.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: I would have asked if there was unanimous consent, but the hon. member for Bruce-Grey (Mr. Gurbin) was seeking the floor. I might ask if there is unanimous consent for the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) to continue.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: There is not unanimous consent.


Mr. G. M. Gurbin (Bruce-Grey):: Mr. Speaker, I join in the debate on Bill C-30 introduced by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) for borrowing authority of $12 billion for the fiscal year 1980-81, and seeking explicit authorization for the government to borrow in foreign currencies as well as Canadian dollars.
I was moved to rise to speak on this bill after taking a look at the actual bill. One of the amazing things about the bill is the size of it. It is about one-third the size of a regular page of Hansard. In that one-third page we are asked to give authorization for borrowing authority of $12 billion.
This $12 billion is to be borrowed at a time when the Liberals say they have no budget. Borrowing is taking place to fulfil the commitments made in a "non-budget" which was actually the budget the Liberals felt was so bad for Canada that they had to defeat a Conservative government. Judging by what was left out, the provisions the Liberals thought were bad for Canada included mortgage and property tax credit, energy tax credit and capital gains tax relief. It is obvious Liberals believe that putting money back in the taxpayers' hands is bad for Canada.
Then again, the non-budget ignored the question of paying for imported oil. This year, $3.1 billion will be paid as import subsidies. The Liberals say they will pay for this in a phased-out manner with a blended formula. This blended formula is a little bit to my mind like robbing Peter to pay Omar. What it is doing is taking money from Canada and sending it to the
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OPEC nations in order to satisfy the Liberal's claim that they can provide a cheaper price than the Conservatives could.
There is no telling where that import subsidy will stop, no telling how long it will take for that outflow of dollars from the Canadian economy to be halted because we have improved our own production. It's a dirty trick. It's a modern-day, dirty trick on the Canadian people. It is a "robin hoodwink'', an effort by the Liberal government to absolve itself from the responsibility it has to provide for the energy future of Canada.
Recent OPEC price increases also indicate that more borrowing bills are on the way. If this is an example of how we are going to pay for that in import subsidies, government members are such profligate spenders that even at one-third of a page per $12 billion it won't be long before we have a whole book full of these bills. And that is at $36 billion a page!
Government spending under the Liberals has grown rapidly and to frightening proportions, from $12 billion in 1968 to over $50 billion in 1979. In 1978-79, the government under the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) had a deficit of $12.1 billion more than the total budget of 1968. There were deficits in ten of the 11 years of his administration. I am not sure what happened in the other year.
Over the same period the consumer price index went from 4.0 to 9.1. Unemployment went from 4.5 per cent to 7.5 per cent. It is obvious that the government's policy of buying our way out of trouble does not work. Spending increased at an average annual rate of 14 per cent. As a percentage of the gross national product, federal government spending grew from 16.8 per cent in 1968 to 20.5 per cent in 1978. Spending simply grew out of control. For example, the net debt tripled between 1974 and 1979 and in 1978 alone UIC overpayments amounted to $290 million.
During the last election, the Liberals committed themselves to making no tax increases while promising to reduce the deficit in a phased and orderly manner. This is an exercise in "double-think". Those commitments are never to be kept. We are seeing now, with the proposals and the extrapolations, where that deficit will go. It will increase; it will clearly increase. Canada's gross debt amounts to $97,991 million and net debt amounts to more than $57 billion. Out of every tax dollar, 22 cents is used to pay for interest on debt which is costing us $1 million an hour. This leads to an annual cost per capita of $356 or an annual cost per taxpayer of $964. Every time this government in its past incarnations has introduced a budget within recent memory, it has spent more than it has received in taxes. These continued deficits merely add to the debt.
Mr. Speaker, there are only four ways in which the government can pull itself out of this cycle. In order to prevent deficits and begin to pay off the debt the government must do one or a combination of the following: It can liquidate assets- some people say they have already sold the farm; they can collect more taxes-and this appears likely; they can enlarge the tax base by increasing the gross national product; or they can cut back on services. The most unlikely scenario is that the government will be able to stimulate growth in the economy in
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such a way as to pay off our debts. It is far more likely they will follow their old pattern and actually increase government expenditures while the nation's economy sours. Given such a history of mismanagement it is no wonder the country is heading toward a recession.
The Liberals tend toward big government and bribe taxpayers with their own money. New programs are instituted and are paid for with borrowed dollars. Two years down the road, taxes are raised and then the taxpayer has to pay for the cost of the program as well as the interest on the borrowed money. Then the cycle repeats itself. The country is constantly playing catch-up to pay for yesterday's promises.
The voters who rejected the Conservative proposal that Canada should start paying her bills will be rudely awakened by the final cost of this form of government. There can be no doubt that our energy bill under this government will come as a harsh surprise. The surprise will be greatest among the members of the middle class who thought they would get off lightly by voting Liberal. Experience has shown that the wealthy have an extraordinary capacity for avoiding measures designed to redistribute income. At the same time, the poor have not benefited substantially from the government's social policies. What has really happened is that the middle class has become more heavily burdened and less able to foot the bill.
The party opposite defeated the Clark administration because it felt our tax credits did not do enough to help those who needed help the most. The fact is that our tax measures would have aided the people who would have done the most to ensure that economic growth would continue.
Let us examine some of the items which escaped Liberal notice when they decided to introduce our budget. First, a mortgage and property tax credit. This would have provided for saving in taxes of up to $1,250 on a mortgage. It would have resulted in a flat $250 saving on property tax per year.
Next, the energy tax credit. To shelter low and middle income Canadians from higher energy prices the budget offered a refundable tax credit of $80 per adult and $30 per child. Under our capital gains tax relief proposal farmers would have been able to defer from taxable income $200,000 of capital gains by transferring some of those gains to an RRSP. The common stock investment plan and changes to the rules covering RRSPs would have encouraged Canadians to invest in Canadian companies.
The differences between the Liberal and the Conservative approach include a slowdown in the housing industry, a mortgage crunch, no resolution to the real cost of energy, no assistance to farmers in fighting inflation, no growth in Canadian investment in Canada and a continued commitment to a growth in the deficit. This is the result of the Liberal plan. The Liberals have the misguided and dangerous notion that governments are more efficient than private citizens.
One of the most frightening things in the Speech from the Throne is the notion on the part of the government that the Canadian people want more government rather than less government. This is foolish. The private citizen knows when he

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does not have the money to pay his bills and thus stops spending. The government does not notice. The government does not understand this. Private industry, monitored by government, is, as a result of both economic and legal checks and balances, less likely to be corrupt or poorly managed than government working alone can be. However, these are facts the Grits are unwilling to accept, because if they did they would also have to admit they are responsible for the disaster that Canada's economy has become. The Liberal government is like the person who, faced with a choice between putting his money in a sound investment which would give him a return on his money or buying a luxury good which rapidly devalues, buys the luxury good. There is a heavy cost for failing to consider the future. In practical terms, this translates into the sort of government which would prefer to increase welfare payments instead of creating new jobs-unemployment insurance rather than employment insurance.
Let us look at what this sort of thinking does to Canada's most efficient industry, agriculture. Let us look at agriculture from the perspective of agribusiness. The term refers to all industries and agencies which own, manage or profit from activities directly related to agriculture. The two biggest sectors are farm supply and the food and beverage industries. The food and beverage industries are the largest source of manufacturing employment in Canada, 200,000 workers.
Farmers have annual expenditures of about $500 million in connection with their operations. They buy such things as energy, fertilizer, manufactured goods, transportation and chemical sprays. As well as the few agribusiness companies there are many companies which earn a portion of their profits from some involvement in agriculture. This includes companies like Ford Motor Company, which has a farm machinery division which is the fourth largest in the world and it specializes in farm trucks. It includes Imperial Oil, which manufactures and sells fertilizers as well as its usual items. It includes Canadian Pacific, which benefits from grain marketing through railways, owns a fertilizer plant, speculates on farm land through Marathon Realty and profits on farm fuel sales through Husky Oil.
The point of this discussion is to show that Canada cannot afford to ignore the needs of the agricultural sector. However, this government has chosen to do exactly that.


An hon. Member:: Good point.


Gary Michael Gurbin: Let us consider some of the figures on farming as they were outlined in The Toronto Sun on Sunday, May 25, 1980.
The average dairy farmer in Ontario is $80,000 in debt, on an investment of about $330,000.
The province's farmers, together, are $3.2 billion in debt. For every one per cent, rise in interest rates, an extra $32,000 in interest must be paid. And although rates are falling, the crush of the past six months has already taken its toll.
Over all. Canadian farmers owe about $ 12 billion in debt, an amount almost equal to the national deficit, and as farm
incomes decrease, that debt grows. Young farmers are being squeezed out and, as they go, so does our food supply, our lending institutions, the 200,000 people in the food and beverage industry and everyone else who depends in full or in part upon agriculture for his income. What does the government do? Nothing. It allows young farmers to go bankrupt, and by way of rewarding those who manage to hang on, when it is time for the farmer to retire, he is taxed so heavily upon the sale of his farm that he cannot enjoy the fruits of his labour.
The government says that capital gains tax relief is unfair and that there is no need to protect farmers from high interest rates and low prices. It is a matter of principle for this government-what else can it be?-because one-third of a page and $12 billion later this government has shown that it is willing to spend money. But it is unwilling to spend that money to help farmers. Capital gains tax relief is fair. It is the government that is unfair. Farmers need protection from high interest rates and low prices, but they also need protection from a spendthrift government. The national farm debt is $12 billion, and that is what is Bill C-30 amounts to. It amounts to one-third of a page and $12 billion.
How will we get those $12 billion? I can picture the solution of the Minister of Finance now. He will raise farmers' taxes. I hope the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) can justify his colleague's actions, as Canada's truly last productive industry goes under. What we do not have is a national food policy; we do not have a commitment to the farmers of the nation and we do not have an agreement between the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture. We do not have that understanding, and that is unfortunate for the farmer.
Other areas of our economy are similar. They have the same problems. We wonder now what kind of government we are getting. What kind of commitment does this government have? It originally had a commitment to a decreased deficit, and we see the results of that now. Three years of inflation will totally wipe out the commitment this government made to the social welfare of people to whom it has just given $35 by way of old age pension increases. We see an arrogance. I think arrogance can be defined as 142 seats.
Hon. members opposite are secretive. The amount of $12 billion is before us, and we have no idea of how it is to be raised or how it is to be spent. We have a government which is choking free enterprise by increasing taxes-corporate taxes are to be increased-by increasing red tape and by allowing high interest rates.
One of the worst problems is that many of the social measures which have been instituted-measures which should help people-are doomed to failure because of the lack of ability to continue to pay for them or because inflation will rob real increases.
People in the country are becoming cynical. They are becoming cynical for a reason: this Parliament is becoming irrelevant. Hon. members opposite occupy 142 seats, and now we are getting this type of bill. We are getting one-third of a page, with no understanding at all, in order to borrow $12 billion, and there is no ability to control. We are financing by
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reaction and by patronage, and we are crippling our country. I think this has to change by way of responsible planning.
The first speaker to speak against this bill asked that the Minister of Finance bring before this Elouse certain measures which would allow the House to understand not only the purpose of this bill but also some of the more important aspects in terms of how the money is to be raised, how that relates to the entire financial picture of the country and what effect it would have on our economy.
It is my purpose at this time to join in asking and imploring the Minister of Finance to bring before the House all the things that the previous minister asked for. These things are important if hon. members on this side of the House are to understand what this bill is all about and what this $12 billion is going to do. 1 ask that the Minister of Finance do that.
Mir. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South): Mr. Speaker, the bill before us is a bill to authorize the borrowing of $12 billion, $12,000 million. The way the estimates are presented to us, we have a tendency in this House to leave out zeros. Once upon a time this government said, "What's a million?" Now it says, "What's a billion?" The minister came here last night and said, "Well, I just want $12 billion". He sat down after five minutes, and that was the end of it. However, we must impress upon the government that it is asking this House to give it the right to go to the country and borrow $12,000 million.
There are 282 members of Parliament in this House. Members of Parliament are generally pretty well connected around their ridings, but I doubt if all the members of Parliament in this House collectively know 12,000 millionaires. This government is asking us in one bill to give it the right to expropriate, take, grab or borrow the money of 12,000 millionaires. I think the hon. member for Bruce-Grey (Mr. Gurbin) said that this one bill uses three-quarters of a page of paper. We are asked to go along without any facts or any plan for repayment. We are asked to go along without being given any direction, any budget, any demonstration of need or any evidence other than what this overspending government proposed in what was not even a budget-hon. members opposite say the speech was not a budget on April 21. They now say they have a $14 billion deficit this year. I suppose that deficit is to be stimulative in order to get us out of the hole tomorrow. There is no plan before us. There is no budget before us. There is no policy before us which in any way indicates why we need the money, for what purpose, where the money is to come from, what plan there is for the repayment of that money or how it is going to help the economy of Canada.
We heard last night a five minute statement by the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen). It was his second statement in this session of Parliament. In that five-minute statement he said, "Give me another $12 billion, boys". That is not good enough for us. It is not good enough for this party, and this party will not go along with that position.
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We took over this government last May for a short period of time. They call it the interregnum. At that time we took over the problems which have been set out by the Auditor General. He said that they lost control of spending. We took over the problems set out by the Lambert commission and the d'Avig-non report which show the government lost their ability to manage, and they made their recommendations on how this country should be managed. We took over the disaster that was created.
They did not like us taking over, so they conspired with their friends to my left, they conned them into it and tossed us out. But the big problem is that in the interval, in those few months when we had the opportunity to look into the affairs of Canada with ministers of the Crown now sitting in opposition on this side-particularly the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) and the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Cros-bie)-we had the opportunity to go over what was happening, to find out what those borrowings were all about, and how we could get out of this mess. So they can no longer come to us as they had in the past and give us the con job, because we know where the money has gone, we know where it has been wasted, and we know what to ask them when they come before committee or this House.
The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) cannot get out of it with a quick little answer, as his Liberal predecessor used to be able to do; nor will the Minister of Finance be able to get out of it. It is time they came forward and gave us their plan. After all, they were all fired up to defeat the government which was elected last May. They said they had a system organized to reorganize the affairs of Canada. Presumably they had it all organized when the Conservative government was defeated last December 13. They have not produced it and it is time they did. I say to you, sir, and to the government opposite, that until they produce it, until they produce some evidence in a proper budget of how money is to be spent, a proper economic statement such as the one which was produced last fall by the former government, they can wait, wait and wait for the borrowing authority to be given them. Or they may have to use other methods.
In July of last year when the hon. member for York-Peel first took over as president of the Treasury Board, he made certain projections as to where the spending plans of the Liberal government were taking us. Those spending plans for the period from July until January, 1980, were changed and new projections made. The projections resulting from the December 11 budget represented a change in the spending program and the deficit program, and indicated control over the growth of government. May I refresh your memory, sir, by telling you that the December 11 budget presented a spending plan over four years which committed the government to no more than a growth in expenditure of 10 per cent, which was calculated to be the approximate inflation rate.
In other words, the government of which we were a part was prepared to limit the growth of federal government expense to exactly the rate of inflation and no more. Thus the 10 per cent

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Borrowing Authority Act
growth in constant dollars would represent a decline in the percentage of the gross national product to cover the costs of running the federal government. The result was a definite program to reduce the required borrowings and required deficit very dramatically so that the borrowing anticipated would be reduced from a requirement of $9,940 million to $4,790 million in the four-year period. That was a dramatic reduction in the amount of money required to be borrowed.
We now have a government which says: "We do not care for those projections. We will go back to the same kind of thing we had before. We will continue to operate in the same way, no matter what the d'Avignon report said and no matter what the Lambert report said or what our Auditor General, Mr. Macdonell, said. We will go on operating in exactly the same way."
Strangely enough, the former president of the Treasury Board had a projection in his January statement of gross government expense in that period if we went back to the old plan as opposed to where we would be if we had followed the plan presented by the hon. member for St. John's West in his budget of December 11. The then president of the Treasury Board in that projection said that the gross government expense for 1981 would be $58,994 million. Actually, he was a bit low in his estimate. The Minister of Finance said it would be $60 billion, so he was out by about $1 billion. He did not think they would spend quite as much as the Minister of Finance had said they would spend. But he projected that the deficit in 1981, if the government proceeded on the same basis as the previous government, would be $14,949 million.
Let me tell the House what he thinks the expense will be next year if they carry on in the nonsensical way in which they approach things. He said that in the year 1982 the budgetary expense will be $66,354 million and the deficit will be $16 billion; in 1983 the budgetary expense will be $74 billion and the deficit will be $16.5 billion; and in 1984 the budgetary expense will be $82 billion and the deficit will be $18.25 billion. That is what they have for us, that is what we are afraid of, that is what we are upset about, and we will not support that type of program any longer.
We are demanding of this government-and we say the people of Canada will probably demand it vigorously soon- that there be some proper accounting, that there be a plan to reduce the debt, the deficit, and the amount of government expense. They have a duty to the House and the people of Canada, having taken over the government, to produce the kind of accounting that is demanded by our Auditor General and the kind of government that Lambert and d'Avignon said was absolutely necessary.
The minister says he proposes to take in taxes $45 billion and he proposes to spend $60 billion. In other words, he proposes to spend this year 25 per cent more than he takes in. For every $4 he spends, he takes in $3 in taxes. We will go in the hole by 25 per cent this year.
What has been the practice over past years? In 1978-79 we took in $35 billion and we spent $47 billion. Again we took in three-quarters of what we needed. In 1979-80 we took in $40 billion and we spent $52 billion, so the same ratio applies. You take in 75 per cent in the form of taxes to cover what you need and you borrow, beg, steal or whatever the rest. It cannot go on. I say to the parliamentary secretary, so that he will give this message to the minister, that it cannot go on. He had better come up with a plan and program to show the people of Canada where we are going.
Where are we going? You cannot come to this House and say "Give me another $12 billion", without a plan or a program. The former minister of finance, the hon. member for St. John's West, came clean with the people of Canada back in December. He produced a budget which set out what would likely be the revenue receipts and expenditures for not only the fiscal year 1980-81, but for 1982, 1983 and 1984. He set out in pretty fair detail what would likely be the unemployment problems, what would likely be the inflation problem, what would likely be the size of the national debt and where we were going. Members on all sides, particularly members from this government, stood up and said: "This is terrible, we are going to have unemployment". We sure got it. They said, "We are going to have inflation", and we have it. Let me tell you, sir, we are going to have a lot more inflation and unemployment if we carry on in the way we have been. We must have and we demand some sense of responsibility.
One of the things that bothered me, and certainly bothered the hon. member from Winnipeg who spoke earlier, was that the statement-and apparently that is what it was-on April 21 was presented to this House with a whole series of tax measures, small changes, alterations and proposals almost identical to the proposals made by the hon. member for St. John's West in his December 11 budget.
The other day I was looking for an extra copy of the statement of April 21 and I sent my secretary down to the minister's office for a copy of the mini-budget. The staff down there were very upset at the term "mini-budget". They said that it is only an economic statement. Whether it was an economic statement, a mini-budget or a Minnie Mouse budget, it certainly was no kind of accounting that could properly be described as a program on which a responsible government would come to this House looking for $12 billion.
That budget, or whatever you want to call it, of April 21 did the nickel on the booze and cigarettes, it did the nickel on corporation tax and it raised sales tax on cosmetics. Certainly the government across there does need some cosmetics. That government is trying to make pretty pictures and it raised the charge on pretty pictures, but it did nothing to come to grips with the real tax requirements in terms of oil and oil pricing. It did nothing to come to grips with how it was going to reduce expenditures and the rest of it. That is what we require from this government now.
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to obtain some briefing details in respect of how the financing of this
May 28, 1980

government is carried on. I should like to point out to this House what has happened with regard to debt in this country, the amount of money we Canadians owe, and what has happened over the past years.
When the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) first became Prime Minister, or by the end of his first year, the amount of unmatured net debt of the country was $21,725 billion. By 1977-78 it had increased to $51.57 billion. At the end of October, 1979, which is the last accurate figure I have, it was $68,067 billion. 1 am told through my inquiries of the Bank of Canada and elsewhere that it is likely to be $81.5 billion to $82.5 billion by the end of this fiscal year.
This increase in debt, which I might point out was being carried when the present Prime Minister took office for somewhere around 4.5 per cent per annum and right now is costing us very close to 12 per cent to 12.5 per cent per annum, is a burden not only on us but on our children and our grandchildren. I suppose that would not bother me too much if that debt was doing something for us; in other words, if we had gone out and borrowed money like a person might borrow money to buy a home for a family, or if we had borrowed money to put in another pipeline, some more rail service or some harbours. If there were some hard things being purchased with that money being borrowed to create prosperity in the future or to create assets that would pay off the debt, much the same as a business would borrow in order to buy production machinery, that would be fine. But we have not done that. What we have done is borrow money to pay the interest.
In that alleged statement of April 21 last by the minister, he suggests to us that the interest requirement for the public debt of Canada for this current year is $10.75 billion. He wants to borrow $11.7 billion and he asks for borrowing authority to borrow $12 billion. Why he needs the extra I do not know. He says he is just borrowing to pay the bills. The truth of the matter, sir, is that he is borrowing most of the money to pay the interest. When do we get to the point where we cannot borrow enough money to even pay the interest? This is very much like a family that borrows from the bank to pay their Chargex bill and uses the Chargex or Visa card to go to the grocery store. You have to pay certain things as you go along. Surely the ordinary expenses of a country should be paid from taxes collected.
When the government comes to Parliament and says, "Look, give me $12 billion", surely to goodness they should say, "Here is why we need it, here is where it is going and here is how it will be paid back". It almost has a free lunch mentality. What bothers me particularly is the kudos which it attempted to get when it made the recent wage settlement with the members of the Post Office Department.
That particular matter was the subject of a Globe and Mail editorial this morning. I am certainly not one to read The Globe and Mail editorials into Hansard, but this editorial does say that it is a costly, free lunch. The editorial goes on to say that it is a precedent that undoubtedly will be pursued
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throughout the civil service and which will add hundreds of millions of dollars to taxpayers' costs.
Many hon. members will remember a settlement made by a former prime minister, Lester Pearson, when he settled with the Seaway workers in 1966. That settlement increased the wages for that one group of public servants by 30 per cent. That one settlement became the benchmark settlement right throughout the late sixties and into the seventies. What we have here, and I am not saying for one moment that the postal workers were not entitled to more money-maybe they were- is an unbudgeted-for increase in wages far beyond what the projection in the blue book indicates. This increase will require an enormous increase in either taxes or borrowing.
Yet in the budget or the material which we have before us, nowhere does it contemplate what will be required to pay that settlement and various other settlements, which will undoubtedly be required to give certain public servants who, like anyone else, need wage increases to cover inflation, the wages they need. That matter has not been budgeted for nor accounted for in the blue book or in the estimates we have before us.
When asked about this matter today, the President of the Treasury Board more or less shrugged his shoulders and suggested, "Well, that's the way it is". Apparently he was offered a wooden nickel today. The problem is that he seems to want to get $12 billion from this House. Maybe we could use some wooden nickels to pay some of the bills run up by this government. Perhaps this government had better figure out a way to make wooden nickels and to pay its bills with those wooden nickels, because until it gives us an accounting of its spending plans, it should not be coming here for a request to borrow real money.
Prior to the budget of December, this House was presented with a Government of Canada tax expenditure account book that set out all the various tax expenditures that had occurred as a result of legislation up until that time. This tax expenditure conceptual analysis was available to members of Parliament. This is the first report of its kind presented by a government which was concerned about what tax preferences were given to various people in society, how the income and commodity tax system works and what it costs to give certain benefits to certain groups in society.
That report was presented in December, 1979. The government of the day was defeated in that same month, and since that time we have heard absolutely nothing from the Minister of Finance with respect to how he proposes to treat tax expenditures. One of the greatest problems in our country is a tax system which has all sorts of little benefits, and in some cases very major benefits, for certain individuals. We have not had from this government, despite the material available to it, an analysis of whether certain tax expenditures allowed by the various taxing statutes are really doing what they were intended to do.
Once again, having had no accounting, no direction, no proposal with respect to tax expenditures, and considering that even the material analysis and work was done for it, we are entitled to something better than what this government is

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offering and something better than just an outright demand for $12 billion.
I would like to come for a moment to the statement made by the President of the Treasury Board when he was presenting the Main Estimates. The President of the Treasury Board said, when he tabled the Main Estimates for 1980-81 which provided for expenditures of $58.4 billion, that those estimates were prepared on the basis of economic policy and assessments of the previous government and that they were not modified to reflect the policies under development by his government. Given the time required for the technical revision of estimates, that is literally an amazing statement. We have the President of the Treasury Board, on behalf of the government, presenting estimates that he says do not reflect the spending plans of the government.
This economic statement was made in the House on April 21. On April 22 the estimates were introduced, but the estimates do not reflect the spending plans of the government. The estimates do not balance with the cash demands suggested as being required by the Minister of Finance of approximately $60.4 billion. We have a situation where this Parliament has no real indication of where this government intends to spend the money, or how it intends to change the tax structure of the country in order to collect that money. All we have today is a bill asking this House to approve further borrowing by the Government of Canada in the amount of $12 billion.
That request would not be that bad if we had figures, but we do not, so we begin to wonder why it needs all that money. In the spending estimates and proposals made by the former government, it indicated for the year 1980-81 that it would have a financial requirement, excluding foreign exchange transactions, of $8.2 billion. This government says that it may require $11.7 billion. But when one analyses the statement further, one cannot figure out what the non-budgetary transactions are because the government does not give a budget, merely an addendum.
On the addendum, it says that the non-budgetary transactions will save the government $600 million. However, the statement in December produced by the former minister of finance, and on which the present estimates are based, indicated non-budgetary savings of $1.1 billion. Again we have no idea, either in the budgetary amounts or in the borrowing requirement amounts, of where we are going.
The former government, on the basis of the Crosbie budget and on the basis of its financial requirements as indicated in the estimates, said that it could operate this country for the full fiscal year on a borrowing requirement of $8.2 billion. This minister says that he will need $11,730 billion, but he does not tell us how, where or what his spending plans are. He simply says, "Give me more money". That is not being responsible. This House would not be very responsible if it were to vote for that kind of proposition.
The budget statement-or whatever you want to call it- that was produced on April 21 by the Minister of Finance
refers to an oil policy. Buried in his speech is the following statement:
The blended approach to oil pricing, which it is the government's intention to introduce, will allow a reduction in federal oil import compensation payments from the level assumed in deriving the $60.4 billion estimate of total outlays.
That is most interesting. Later in his speech he said:
Implementing blended oil pricing could alone reduce both expenditures and financial requirements by as much as $1 billion.
That is interesting as well. Day after day in this House we have asked, "Where is the blender? How do you blend the price?" But we get no answers. We ask, "What is your oil pricing policy?" We get no answers. We ask, "Are you going to put a tax on oil at the wellhead, at the refinery, at the refinery gate or wherever?" We get no answer. We ask, "How do you blend the price? Do you go to Mexico and pay them $5 or $6 American more than any other country in the world and blend it that way? Do you blend the price by telling Canadians who want to drill for oil in Alberta that they will get less than the Mexicans? Do you tell the Syncrude-type operators that you will give them less than the Mexicans? Do you tell the people drilling off the coast of Labrador that they will get less than the Mexicans? Is that how you blend it?" We do not know the answers but we are told, "You can get a blender and it will give you a billion dollars."
This is all the more reason why we must have a budget before this bill is passed. We want to know where we are going. Why does this country really need to give this government authority to borrow without any facts or figures on why the government need the money? The estimates do not balance; the financial statement of April does not balance; we have the blender here and it does not balance. We do not even know how it is put together. Is that supposed to be reponsible government? Is that how parliament is asked to be responsible in dealing with this irresponsible government?
It would not be so bad if we were borrowing money for capital projects, if we were borrowing money to make Canada self-sufficient in petroleum or if we were borrowing money to build new harbours, seaways and that type of thing. But we have no indication what this borrowing is for. There is no indication of the reason for the borrowing. This is no way to run a government.
An hon. member brought up the question of unemployment and I want to dwell on that for a moment. The bill before us is the same old bill that we had before-the employment tax credit bill. It does nothing to improve employment; it is more of a handout, in some senses, to some employers. There is no evidence before the minister, even, that he has created new jobs with the bill. It does not help companies unless they make a profit. Indeed, our analysis shows that a company has to make in excess of $35,000 profit before it is worth employing anybody under the employment tax credit bill. That is the government's total strategy for employment. It is one of these tax allowance bills, tax expenditure bills, yet we have no analysis from the government on how this type of bill works. We have no statement in a budget to show where we are going.
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This is the only employment bill before the House so we want to know where we are going before we let the government put the country, our children and our children's children further into debt.
Dealing for a moment with the way borrowing in this country operates, in his opening statement the Minister of Finance said that he had on April 1 $2.9 billion borrowing authority left. That borrowing authority is increased every time the existing debt is paid off. In other words, once you have a debt of the country you can continue to borrow up to that debt all the time. You can always borrow money to pay off existing indebtedness.
We know from reading the newspapers that there have been enormous redemptions of Canada Savings Bonds. All of the money required to pay back those Canada Savings Bonds can be borrowed again without any increase in borrowing authority. I am sure the hon. member for St. John's West expected to hear from the minister, as I did, the exact amount of borrowing authority left as of last evening -perhaps as of May 1 or May 15-but that figure apparently is not available to us.
What shocks me is the Minister of Finance coming to this House and saying that he needs the authority to borrow $12 billion when he does not know how much authority to borrow he still has. He dashed in here last night and he dashed right out again. He cannot tell us what he has still available in the way of borrowing authority. There has not been a Liberal speaker come forward to give us any indication. The Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Bussieres) was here this afternoon, as was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Evans). I have put this question now and the member for St. John's West has already asked for it. I would have thought that in the course of the debate the government would have been able to give us some figures on the borrowing authority they still have, but we still have not heard from them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. gentleman but his allotted time has expired. Nevertheless, he may continue if there is unanimous consent.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


An hon. Member:: No.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: I will be very, very brief.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: I am sorry; is there unanimous consent?
Borrowing Authority Act


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: 1 will be very brief. There is a feeling on this side of the House that the government has to do something. It has to produce a financial and economic statement before it gets approval to borrow money that is presumably required to handle all its needs until the end of the fiscal year. If it is really impossible for the government at this point to operate, we suggest that it has an obligation to advise exactly what borrowing authority it needs. We will then undertake with them, so that they will not run into the problem of being unable to pay pensions and so on, to pass temporary borrowing measures piece by piece to enable them to keep the country operating. However, we cannot see the point of allowing them the right to borrow what purports to be the amount of money-it might not be the right amount of money-they are going to need for the entire fiscal year to the end of March without some accurate accounting from them. If the government wants to get this bill through, if they want to undertake with us exactly when they can give us the financial accounting, then perhaps we can come to some agreement with respect to the amount required in the bill.


Mr. Knowles:: Six o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. It being six o'clock p.m. this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).


Mr. Yurko:: Mr. Speaker, a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I think the Chair recognized that it was six o'clock. I do not think there was one minute to go. It was six o'clock. I will entertain a point of order but not concerning the time.


William J. Yurko: Mr. Speaker, I thought there was sufficient time for a member of this House to adjourn the debate on this bill so that the order of speaking would therefore be established. However, because you have indicated that it is six o'clock, I will withdraw my point of order.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Six o'clock.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, May 29, 1980