1981-03-23

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Whereas in a unanimous decision last Friday the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that the federal government does not have the authority to tax exports of gas owned by a province, therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth (Mr. Scott):
That the Minister of Justice be obliged to apologize for the ill advice he has tendered to the Crown, and that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources now withdraw his destructive national energy policy and replace it with a system which is both equitable and constitutional.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, price increases are averaging above 12 per cent this year. A continuation of inflation at even 10 per cent a year will mean that a 30-year-old Canadian earning $10,000 today will need an income of fully $255,000 a year to stay even in purchasing power at age 65. Full indexation for inflation of the Canada Pension Plan at a 10 per cent inflation rate will, in 35 years from now, require $92,000 per year for such an individual, and fully $68,000 per year for old age security pensions. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney):
That this House condemns the grossly irresponsible spending and money printing practices of this government which are the major cause of rampant
inflation and, thus, the real threat to decent retirement incomes for present and future Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. This week just past underlined further the negative effects the Lalonde-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Thomas Gordon Towers: -energy policies are having on the Canadian oil and gas industry when the one hundredth Canadian oil drilling rig left the country for the United States. Therefore 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay):
That the government re-examine its entire approach to energy questions so that we might have an orderly program of exploration and development with security of supply and fair and equitable prices. Otherwise, Canadians, as losers, will pay.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Lyle S. Kristiansen (Kootenay West):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting with over 100 of my new constituents of Vietnamese and Laotian origin-the boat

March 23, 1981
people, of whom there are close to 200 in my riding-and listened to their pleas for assistance and fair treatment in three languages. They are, of course, thankful for the generous help they have received, but they still have many problems. One serious problem relates to improper and unfair obstacles to employment, namely, arbitrary broad standards of height and weight restrictions quoted by industrial employers.
I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young):
That this House declare that arbitrary standards of height and weight being quoted to industrial employment applicants of Indo-Chinese and other origins are discriminatory, unfair and unCanadian; and, further, that this House, in recognition of basic human rights and of the historical contribution which Canadians of oriental and Asian origin have made to the Canadian economy, particularly in western Canada with respect to the original building and supplying of the CPR, demands that all Canadian employers give equal consideration to all employment applicants with landed immigrant status and/or Canadian citizenship in order that these new Canadians may be accorded a full and equal opportunity to contribute to their new homeland.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No. .


SUGGESTED TABLING OF PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH ON CONSTITUTIONAL RESOLUTION-MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, the government House leader has suggested that speeches by members on the Constitution be printed in Hansard rather than delivered in this House. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Elgin (Mr. Wise):
That the Prime Minister dispense with oral delivery of his speech today and instead submit it for printing to appear in the back of Hansard-


Some hon. Members:: Right on!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Henry (Bill) Domm: -thereby demonstrating to the House the government's sincerity on their claim that there is nothing new to be said and, thus, allow the opposition ample time to expound on the dangers in the proposed constitutional package.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, prior to the Prime Minister's speech this afternoon, whether it is appended to Hansard or not.
In view of reports that the Prime Minister's close friend, the Hon. Gerard Pelletier, is to become Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, and in view of persistent speculation that the Prime Minister's push for constitutional reform is directly linked to his own personal timetable on the world stage, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Portage-Marquette (Mr. Mayer):
That the Prime Minister use the occasion of his second farewell speech later this day to tell the Canadian people whether he has his eye on a senior role at the United Nations, thereby putting personal ambition ahead of the interests of this nation.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for < this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam
Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The former auditor general, James Macdonell, has warned that soon the Canadian dollar will not be worth five cents. If the Grit government does not get its act together to get the 12.2 per cent inflation rate reduced, Canadian workers will continue to be robbed of billions of dollars a year by inflation. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers):
That this House call for the resignation of the Minister of Finance as he has proven he is incapable of managing the finances of this nation.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
March 23, 1981


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, I have a motion under Standing Order 43. In light of the fact that the 2'/i year vacancy for the Liberal leadership of Manitoba has been filled by a former Liberal candidate from Calgary who was brought to Manitoba at public expense only last May to be a special assistant to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy), at a salary of over $36,000 a year, and since this "Albertan" may be ineligible to run for election until 1982 because he does not meet Manitoba's residency requirements, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Sargeant):
That the federal government be instructed not to use the "mobility of labour" clause in the constitutional package to override provincial election laws, and that in future government employees brought into a province to aid dying or dead Liberal parties be asked to read provincial laws.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AID
Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, I rise under Standing Order 43. Today marks the commencement, in Salisbury, of the Zimbabwe Donors Conference, known as "Zimcord". It is taking place on the eve of Zimbabwe's first anniversary, an achievement which symbolizes the success of the democratic process, and an averted racial blood bath. The only post-war reconstruction funding which Canada has given amounts to $3 million. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That this House urge the government to authorize its regrettably low level delegation to the donors conference to scale its announced $50 million-over five years-aid package to Zimbabwe, so that most of the money is available now, at the time of most urgent need, and so that the United States and other governments will be encouraged, by our Canadian leadership, to honour earlier pledges to Zimbabwe.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
Oral Questions PETROFINA CANADA


USE OF GOVERNMENT CREDIT CARDS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The Government of Canada claims it will provide good services and cheap gas to individual Canadian motorists by establishing Petro-Canada service stations and by purchasing Petrofina Canada Incorporated. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Corbett):
That the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources provide similar services to users of Government of Canada credit cards by directing Petrofina Canada Incorporated to abandon its practice of refusing government credit cards.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas Amax of Canada plans to dump 200 tons of uranium in their mine tailings into Alice Arm in northern British Columbia, and such an act is governed by the London convention, of which Canada is a signatory, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That the federal government immediately file with the OECD an environmental impact statement regarding the Amax mine, and that the government call for a moratorium on the project until the OECD has had a chance to investigate the proposed dumping.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works who is responsible for CMHC. I should like the minis-

March 23, 1981
Oral Questions
ter to stand in his place and tell us why he broke his promise to introduce a housing shelter allowance this year.


An hon. Member:: Because the Ontario election is over.


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, there was a representative of the party of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition at the All-Sector Housing Conference which was held three weeks ago. I am sure that if he inquired of the critic for housing in his party about the speech I gave at that conference, to which I believe the right hon. gentleman is referring, he would learn the context in which discussion was introduced to the country at large on the issue of shelter support. I am sure that he would then join with many other people who have indicated that the subject is worthy of serious consideration. If the right hon. gentleman checks the speech he will find that was the context in which the subject was raised.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I have checked the speech and 1 know the context was that the promise was made as an attempt to bribe the electorate of Ontario.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: By the way, Madam Speaker, it is an electorate that they are more interested in attracting to the Liberal party in Ontario than they are in attracting to the Liberal party in the province of Quebec. I know also that in interviews given after that speech the minister said that the program would be introduced this year. I want the minister to stand in his place now and tell this House of Commons why he broke his promise to provide a housing shelter allowance program this year. Why did he make it? Why did he break it?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the groups which would benefit most by such a program, apart from those people who are presently benefiting from such programs in four provinces, other than the province of Ontario, are groups that will be supported with the combination of the MURB provision in the budget of last year in this House and with the initiatives taken by the Conservative government of the province of Ontario both prior to the most recent election and during that election, with add-ons, with what they call the super-MURB program. I am sure that group of people and that income group will be addressed by the combination of those programs. So, in answer to the right hon. gentleman, I must say that I think he is misdirected if he thinks that the province of Ontario is the province or an area that would benefit the most or, indeed, is a target area.


ASSISTANCE FOR HOUSEHOLDS AFFECTED BY INFLATION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the minister has twice refused to answer why he broke, within a month, this solemn promise to introduce a housing shelter allowance this year. He broke that promise the
day after the provincial election was lost, the outcome of which he was trying to influence.
In the publication issued by CMHC, his own department, there was a clear indication that, in 1979, 567,000 households in this country were not able to afford adequate and suitable shelter. The situation would be worse now. The minister has broken the promise he made less than a month ago. Let me ask the minister what he intends to do this year to help those
567,000	households which are caught by inflation, caught by unemployment, and which are now caught by a broken promise made by this minister?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, as I indicated in my opening remarks to the All-Sector Housing Conference, it is the intention of this government, as I indicated in this House on other occasions, to study seriously the question of shelter allowance and to ask for provincial response to it. Unlike the government of the former right hon. gentleman-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Paul James Cosgrove: -who asked for a report, who got a recommendation to study a shelter allowance in October, 1979, and then sat on that report during the last federal election because he was embarrassed by it, we are actually doing something about it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ANNOUNCEMENT OF PROGRAM CANCELLATION
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for CMHC. The community services contribution program was cancelled last fall two days after the Ontario municipal elections. After building up the public's expectations that a shelter allowance would be introduced to alleviate the hardships faced by Canadians trying to find adequate shelter, in a speech made in early March which I heard, the minister has further delayed consideration of the program, announcing the delay the day after the Ontario provincial election.


An hon. Member:: Question.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Through you, Madam Speaker, my question to the minister is this: is this not another broken promise made for cynical political purposes and cancelled with cynical political timing?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that in the Matthews report to which I just referred in my last answer, the recommendation was made to the previous government, of which the hon. member was a part, to terminate the same program, a recommendation incidentally which did not see the light of day until four days after I became the minister responsible for that portfolio in this government.


Mr. Malone:: Yes, or no?
March 23, 1981


Miss MacDonald:: At least you don't pull it out and cancel it the day after the election.


PREDICTED NUMBER OF HOUSING STARTS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is also for the minister responsible for housing. Last week the minister was predicting an additional
10,000	housing starts directed toward low and middle-income people. Despite the introduction of the MURB provision in the October budget, multiple unit dwelling starts are down 32 per cent over the same period last year. Why is the minister suggesting an increase of 10,000 starts when, in fact, there has been a decrease of 9,000 starts?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, when I last mentioned the matter of the 10,000 starts in the House, I am quite sure that I referred to a report which appeared in the Toronto Star approximately two weeks ago. In that report, the company experts and those actually involved in multiple construction and starts in metropolitan Toronto recorded that there had been, through the combination of the MURB and the provincial super-MURB program, those actual starts coming on stream. I was merely recording the facts. If the hon. gentleman has some facts to the contrary or wishes to contradict these, I would be happy to hear from him. I am confident that in metropolitan Toronto there will be an increase in starts in the multiple areas as a result of those two programs.


IMMIGRATION
Mrs. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It concerns the weekend conference on immigrant women held in Toronto. First, I wish to register a formal complaint that members on this side of the house were barred from attending this conference.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: The minister is aware that I hosted a nonpartisan settlement meeting in Vancouver recently to which all politicians, representatives of schools, settlement agencies and government officials were invited. Since the prime concern of participants at this meeting, and certainly of people in all provinces, is that the federal government, which is responsible for immigration policy, must shoulder responsibility for the cost of its policies rather than leaving it as a burden for local government-


Some hon. Members:: Order.


An hon. Member:: Question.
Oral Questions


Margaret Anne Mitchell: What action has the minister taken to do away with the three-year limit he has for funding of settlement services, a policy which discriminates against immigrant women in particular, and will he replace this policy with a funding formula which will be-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, it is too bad that the hon. member has seen fit to provide some negative comments about what was a very useful and very effective conference. This conference brought people from right across Canada to discuss one of the most important issues affecting immigration and women in general. I think the results of the conference and the kind of discussions which ensued have been most helpful to those involved as well as to those in government.
I think that if the hon. member had followed the proceedings of the conference more carefully, she would have recognized that we announced a number of new initiatives at that conference-


An hon. Member:: Come on, Lloyd.


Lloyd Axworthy: -including a commitment to undertake a serious integrated approach to language training, which is unquestionably the most critical concern in the integration of women and of immigrants into the work force. The Minister of State for Multiculturalism and I undertook to provide the fulfilment of that commitment at the conference, and I think it was well received by all those attending. The only person who seems to be complaining is the hon. member.


POLICY RESPECTING LANDED IMMIGRANT STATUS FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, I can appreciate that the minister wants and needs to make political points, but the fact is we were not invited to this conference. I certainly hope that he also has approved funding for multicultural-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member must stick to the question.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: The minister has indicated that he may ease procedures to allow domestic workers to come to Canada as landed immigrants. Therefore, will he implement this policy immediately? Will it be retroactive, and will it contain amnesty for such people as Daphne Williams who is facing deportation and, if deported, will be unable to support her aging parents and five children in Jamaica?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I would question who is trying to gain political points in this particular period. The objective of those of us at the conference was to establish new initiatives to ensure that immigrant women get a more fair deal and to correct some of the inequities of the past. That was the point

March 23, 1981
Oral Questions
of the announcements that we made. The commitments we made in terms of domestic service workers were to ensure that they would have full opportunity at jobs if they lost their first place of employment, and to review the point system to give them greater opportunity to come here as landed immigrants as opposed to transit workers. We will bring about those changes after we consult with the provinces.
In the meantime, we are releasing a major discussion paper by Mary Eberts, an expert in the field, so we can get a full reaction and response from provincial governments and leaders of various minority groups. We are going to proceed in a responsible and proper way and not be pushed into it by the kinds of comments made by the hon. member.


FUNDING FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LIFE SKILLS PROGRAM
Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Madam Speaker, my question is also to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It is with regard to the pending March 31 cut-off of funds for the special English language life skills programs designed to assist in the settlement and integration of the some
60,000	Indo-Chinese refugees here in Canada.
Will the minister take immediate action to extend the funding for these vital and necessary basic programs, plus including provision for child care while attending classes, to ensure that Canada will fulfil its commitment to these new Canadians, who surely have suffered enough, in order that they may have a fair opportunity in seeking employment and have a chance to make their contributions to their new homeland?
My question to the minister is this: will we love them in 1981 as we loved them in 1979 and 1980?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I would point out to the hon. member that when we tabled in this House the report on immigration last October, we indicated, as a government, that the major thrust of our efforts in the forthcoming year will be to provide additional resources and support to the settlement of immigrants and refugees in Canada. We have already introduced additional programs to provide for that support. We announced others this weekend. We will continue the funding of the ISAP program.
Furthermore, we are now negotiating and developing a brand new settlement program that will provide for a much broader degree of involvement of the private sector and the voluntary sector in helping us out with this very important problem. Our thesis is not like that of the group in the corner, which is to have government do everything by government. We want to recruit and enlist the tremendous energies and enthusiasm of the volunteer and private people in this country, which they demonstrated in bringing people over, and they are prepared to do the same in helping people settle in here. That is the philosophy over here.


EFFECT OF ALBERTA COURT OF APPEAL DECISION RESPECTING NATURAL GAS-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The minister and his officials will have had the weekend to study the Alberta court of appeal decision on the natural gas tax reference. In view of the potential significance of that decision I would ask the minister whether his advisers have had an opportunity to study it and whether the government has yet decided to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Also, has the decision prompted the government to rethink its tax regime with respect to western resources in particular?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Justice has received a copy of the court of appeal judgment and his officials are examining it. No recommendation has been made to the government yet, but I am sure that the minister will want to advise his colleagues in the next few days as to what steps he is considering.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Well, notwithstanding that, Madam Speaker, I would ask the minister whether or not this decision has in fact caused the government to reconsider its own tax regime as brought down in the budget by his colleague, the Minister of Finance? In fact, Mr. Leitch, and the producing provinces are now considering the merits of a plan whereby those provinces would take their royalties in the form of gas production 1 would ask the minister, in view of that and the fact there are upcoming discussions with Mr. Leitch and his counterparts in the producing provinces, whether or not he is prepared to look at alternative methods of raising revenue because the present tax regime is under serious attack and questioned by the courts of this land.


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I would advise my hon. friend that matters of taxation are more properly relevant to the Minister of Finance and that is to whom the question should be addressed. As far as the court case is concerned, it is a matter of decision whether or not an appeal should be made and in due course the House will be advised.

[ Translation]


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour. Is it true that the latest offer of the CBC French network to its 180 journalists in Montreal, Quebec City and Rimouski is final
March 23, 1981

and that no further negotiations are possible, as Mr. Paul Mousseau of the CBC declared to the Montreal Gazette? In addition, can we expect return to work legislation in the near future, thus withdrawing the right to negotiate?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister of Labour):: Madam Speaker, the offer made by Radio-Canada was described by management as their final offer, their final position, and that offer is presently before the union to be voted on. That vote is now under way with the results expected, I believe, tomorrow evening. Obviously any future discussion between the parties is dependent upon the outcome of that vote.


David Kilgour: I have a supplementary for the same minister, Madam Speaker. What does the minister intend to do to avoid another strike of the 1,100 employees of the CBC French network? Is he going to let the conflict drag on so that the French-speaking population will have even less of the information to which it is entitled and for which it will pay taxes just like all other Canadians?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, I am not sure about the hon. member, but most hon. members are fully aware of the Department of Labour's role, and it is not within our power to order parties to agree. We provide probably the most able mediation service of any government in the country with a very, very high level of settlements. It is strange that when strikes are settled or avoided, there are never any questions. It is only in relation to the odd or unusual one, where the parties take a particularly difficult position, that a question comes forward. However, I am sure the hon. members on that side of the House would be able to explain to him the limitations on the power of the Department of Labour and what our actual role is.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bob Ogle (Saskatoon East):: My question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and relates to the proposed futures secretariat for which draft incorporation papers were signed some days ago. I understand it is being set up as a non-governmental organization under the name Canada World Centre, with an application for a substantial initial grant from CIDA. He is aware, no doubt, that the setting up of a new government-sponsored NGO to publicize international development issues has been strenuously opposed by the existing NGO community. Many NGOs are seeing their matching grants from CIDA lag far behind the increase in private sector funding. Can the Minister give us the assurance that the Canada World Centre will not parallel or
Oral Questions
undercut the activities of established NGOs in the field of public education?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I share the hon. member's concern, but he has his facts a little wrong. The organization being set up is not a government-sponsored NGO. That would probably be a contradiction in terms. It is an NGO setting itself up and applying to the government for operational funding, which we will consider in due course. Of course, in funding NGOs we are concerned whether or not their functions overlap, and so we will look at all these questions in the allocation of funds. I might say, by the way, that NGO funding is again being generously increased this coming year.


Robert Joseph Ogle: In the North-South report we had indicated there should be increased funding for public awareness programs, but not through the forum of a non-government organization. Does the minister not agree that the centre must be seen as something more than a public relations exercise to sell foreign aid to the Canadian people and not fulfil the whole question of education?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, 1 am not sure if I understand what the hon. member is referring to now. Is he referring to the North-South Institute or to the futures secretariat? I cannot answer the question because I am not aware of what he is referring to in his question.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. In view of the fact that immigration officers at Vancouver airport have, on average, a 63 per cent heavier workload than those at Toronto airport, and a 125 per cent heavier workload than those at Dorval, would he please clarify to this House why the immigration officers at Vancouver are classified as level 1, PM1, while their counterparts at Toronto and Dorval are classified as level 2, PM 2, and would he please tell this House what steps he has taken to regulate this discrepancy?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question points out the serious workload all immigration officers have in performing a very important duty. I can tell him that the matter of wage and position levels has been examined and reviewed, documents have gone to Treasury Board, and it is now a subject of negotiations between my officials and those of the union. We hope they will be completed in a very short period of time and those inequities will then be overcome.

March 23, 1981
Oral Questions EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


POLAND-REQUEST FOR CONVENING OF NATO MINISTERIAL MEETING
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs, concerning the deteriorating situation in Poland which Lech Walesa, the Solidarity leader, described on the weekend as being far more serious now than it was last fall. The minister will recall that when he returned from the NATO ministerial meeting last December he stated in this House that the NATO foreign ministers would be called together immediately upon an intensification of the crisis.
Given Walesa's statement and the fact there are now some
25,000	Warsaw Pact troops on manoeuvres in and around Poland, and given the increasing fear of Soviet intervention to resolve domestic tension, will the minister say whether or not such a meeting has been called and, if not, will he undertake to suggest that to his NATO counterparts so that they can deal forthwith with the increasing threat of Soviet intervention in Poland?
Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Madam Speaker, the Polish situation is indeed such as to give us cause for some concern at the present time. However, no meeting of NATO foreign ministers has been called because it is not believed that this is the kind of intensification for which such a meeting would be useful. Indeed, I would hesitate to suggest such a meeting to my colleagues at the present time because of fear that it might intensify the already serious difficulties there.
The Soviet troops are not present at this time because of any disposition relating to the present problem-or at least not to any apparent one-but because of their normal manoeuvres at this time of the year. For us to intensify the situation even further by calling a NATO meeting, in these circumstances, would not help the situation.


GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR AID
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, on this issue the government has continually failed to show any leadership, and I am sure that the Canadian people are not satisfied with the role which has been taken by the Prime Minister of simply sending a friendly letter to Mr. Brezhnev to tell him what the Canadian attitude is.
I would like to ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs another supplementary question which has to do with the statement by foreign minister Genscher of West Germany on his return from Poland last week. At that time he stated that West Germany would be prepared to offer economic assistance to Poland, and he called on other western countries to make a specific commitment to aid Poland economically so as to try to alleviate some of the tensions which exist there.
What has been Canada's response to that particular and specific request?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, the request which has come to us is not from the government of West Germany but from the government of Poland. Of course we have taken that very seriously. It has both bilateral and multilateral dimensions. On the bilateral side we have given an extension of credit for the immediate future. On the multilateral side we are working with our other allies to work out a general program for the relief of Polish debts. In other words, we are doing exactly the same thing West Germany and the other countries involved are doing.


CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the minister responsible for housing. It is prompted in part by his answers to my colleagues. I want to ask the minister about the actuarial soundness of the mortgage insurance fund, which has over $20 billion worth of potential liability outstanding and practically no cash reserves. Since the minister has had the benefit of the Peat, Marwick study, the assessment of the controller general, as well as the Matthews report, to which he referred and has had ample time to study-unlike our government-what is he going to do? Is he setting up any contingency funds to guard against the contingencies implicit in AHOP and other recent mortgages which are liable to go bad, unlike the earlier mortgages which were taken out years ago and are financed at a lower rate of interest?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the corporation, through its aggressive sales program over the last 18 months, has been able to repay the loan taken from the last government to assist it in meeting claims under the mortgage insurance fund. My understanding is that, of $250 million drawn, approximately $175 million has been returned thus far, and as I indicated in response to an earlier question this year by the hon. gentleman, with the improved and strengthening markets the prices are, of course, improving. That has improved the sales position of the corporation, with the result that it is anticipated that the money borrowed to bolster the fund will be returned and, in fact, the corporation is in a much better position vis-a-vis recouping some of its losses.


REPORTED LOSS IN MORTGAGE PORTFOLIO
Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker, I understand that while the sales program may have been a success-and I am happy it was-more units have come into the MIF than have gone out of it.
March 23, 1981

Let me ask the minister whether he was correctly quoted recently by a Halifax columnist to the effect that while the ostensible market value of the mortgage portfolio of CMHC stands at about $11 billion, the real market value is only about $3 billion. If that is true and if that is the case, does the minister intend to elaborate on this and tell the House and the country a bit more about this multibillion loss?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I have no recollection today of the figures the hon. member mentions or of the information he has quoted from a newspaper. Without having specific numbers in front of me, all 1 can do is comment, as I did generally, and say that with the strengthening market I do not think that the proportions used by the hon. member are accurate at all.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, my question is supplementary to those asked by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, except that I would like to direct them to the Minister of National Defence.
My question concerns the troop exercises in and around Poland which are going on at the present time. Would the minister tell the House if Canada was invited to send observers to watch these exercises and, if so, in what manner did we respond?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, I assure the hon. gentleman that there have been no requests for us to participate in these exercises.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Madam Speaker, I thought that the minister might be aware of the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act respecting observers at exercises. If he is not, could he tell us if he has been briefed by our NATO allies as to the number of troops involved in these exercises and what types of divisions they are using during these exercises?


Mr. Lamontagne:: Madam Speaker, I would explain to the hon. gentleman that when there are NATO exercises we participate in them as requested by NATO headquarters or commands. As a NATO member we are always glad to participate in any exercises NATO would undertake.

<


HOUSING
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the minister responsible for housing. At a public meeting in Moose Lake, Manitoba, on the weekend I heard complaints about the deplorable state of housing in the native
Oral Questions
community. I subsequently saw some of those terrible conditions. Just over two weeks ago in Ottawa the minister acknowledged that more than 100,000 units of new housing would be required to meet the minimum needs in our northern areas, and particularly on Indian reserves. What specific programs does the minister have in order to meet those needs soon?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the issue of Indian housing needs and the lack of the adequate programs to serve the many thousands of native families to which the Leader of the New Democratic Party refers are quite apparent and have been apparent to all hon. members having anything to do with the provision of housing through the federal agency. It was to that end that approximately a year ago-before I became minister responsible for the portfolio-a review was undertaken.
However, in addition to identifying the need specifically and narrowly for housing, there is also a very strong feeling that the native people should be part of that review and, indeed, they have been part of the review over the last 12 months.
In addition to that, as soon as we start studying housing needs and looking at remedies to respond to the lack of services, we immediately come to realize that in the provision of new housing or in providing services, the natives should also be part of that response, so I am happy to say that the native organizations, together with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and officials of the corporation, have completed that review. They have completed drafting a program. That program has been submitted to the two ministers involved and, when we have made a submission to our cabinet colleagues, the program will be presented once again to both native bands and off-native bands, and we will be addressing those needs in the near future.


REQUEST FOR ACCELERATED PROGRAM
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I have been in the House for 13 years, and every other year there has been a review of housing needs of native people which has not met those needs. It is time for some action.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Edward Broadbent: Considering that at the 1981 rate of housing starts the minimum needs, as described by the minister himself, will not be met for 60 years, and since he has now told us he has another report at which he is looking, will he make a commitment today that the minimum needs of the native people of Canada will be met, not ten years or 15 years down the road, but completely within a maximum of five years?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has an advantage over me. I have had only one year's experience in this House. 1 have used that year to inform myself of the housing needs of Canadians generally. I agree with the hon. member that the most pressing need and demand for housing and improved housing standards in the country are those with respect to native Canadians. I

March 23, 1981
Oral Questions
hope my cabinet colleagues and members of the parties opposite will join with the government when we bring that program forward, because I think it is urgent.

_


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Hamilton West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development. It is my understanding that the government interprets the charter of rights in the proposed constitutional resolution as it pertains to the question of abortion as being neutral.
What assurance can the minister give that Section 7 of the charter of rights will not be construed so as to make abortion, in the early phase of pregnancy, essentially a matter of privacy and thus protected from the sanction of the Criminal Code?
The Supreme Court of the United States, in dealing with a constitutional provision guaranteeing individual liberty, inferred that the concept of liberty included the concept of privacy and that the concept of privacy makes abortion, in the early phase of pregnancy, essentially a private matter, not a matter upon which the state should enact a penal sanction.


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, the question has been debated at length in the committee. I have stated the position of the government in this matter, that the question of abortion is dealt with in the Criminal Code and in no way can the charter be used to interfere with the actions of this Parliament in relation to the Criminal Code and abortion.


Mr. Hawkes:: Wrong!


CONGESTION AT PORT OF VANCOUVER-GOVERNMENT MEASURES TO ALLEVIATE
Hon. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. It arises out of the congestion in grain terminals in the port of Vancouver, resulting in the lowest level of space in the terminals in several years, some 49,000 tonnes. There is a scarcity of ocean vessels arriving at the port of Vancouver. Over the last two shipping weeks only four shipping berths were utilized during that time. Also there is a record number of cars en route and in terminal position, and the unloads are declining. In view of these facts, could the Minister of Transport tell the House why this lack of co-ordination is occurring and what he is prepared to do about it?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member gave a very adequate description of the complexity of the rapeseed situation.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Not rapeseed, grain.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Grain in general, but particularly applicable to the rapeseed situation.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: No.


Jean-Luc Pepin: If it is the entire grain situation, 1 am sorry to say that my hon. friend is wrong. The delivery at Winnipeg- the delivery at Vancouver has been extremely good in recent weeks.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Or somewhere!


Jean-Luc Pepin: 1 have the figures here which I can share with the hon. member. The rapeseed situation has been a difficult one. In that particular instance the acting grain co-ordinator met with the industry. There were problems with respect to inland elevators and producer cars. They have agreed now on the sharing, the percentage in each instance, and it is my information that the situation will continue improving.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, my information is more up to date than that of the Minister of Transport. I should like to quote the latest Alberta agricultural statement on west coast traffic. They described the situation as "becoming critical". The fact of the matter is that ships have not been arriving on time. There are over 9,000 cars loaded with grain, waiting to be unloaded. There is only room for 49,000 tonnes.
What is the minister doing to ensure better co-ordination for the arrival of grain to terminal position and the arrival of ships? Is he not aware of it? If not, will he look into it immediately?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I also have the kind of information my hon. friend used to have.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You had better read it.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Indeed the situation is difficult in the port of Vancouver, but my information is that, generally speaking, the situation has been quite good up until now, with an increase of 4 per cent to 5 per cent in unloading at the port of Vancouver. The present situation is a temporary one which will be rectified.


HEALTH AND SAFETY
Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. It concerns infant crib deaths as a result of high colonial-style corner posts. Since individual manufacturers recognize the hazard involving the cornerposts on very
March 23, 1981

popular colonial-style cribs, but no individual manufacturer wants to eliminate them because of the risk of competitive disadvantage, can the minister say what changes he has made or is making to the Hazardous Products Act? What is his department doing to compel manufacturers to modify the design of these colonial-style cribs?
[ Translation]


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Postmaster General):: Madam Speaker, I will check that question with my department officials and report to the hon. member as soon as possible.


Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same minister. Would he verify that crib manufacturers themselves have been asking the department to compel them either to modify or eliminate these cribs from the market, and that one of his department's spokesmen has been saying that there has been a good deal of foot-dragging within the department on this very serious and controversial matter?
Will the minister assure the House that he will press his cabinet colleagues to back his own officials, so that circumstances leading to the tragic death of a little girl in Peace River will not be allowed to repeat themselves again?


André Ouellet: Madam Speaker, I will check that question as well.


PRODUCTION AND USE OF METHANOL AND ETHANOL AS ALTERNATIVES TO GASOLINE
Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Etobicoke-Lakeshore):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In view of the fact we can use waste products to power cars and that we can grow crops on land, which cannot support food crops, to make fuel for our cars, will the minister consider developing new energy industries around locally-produced fuel, whether methanol or ethanol? Also, will the minister recommend that the Excise Tax Act be changed so that farmers could become energy-sufficient by devoting about 10 per cent of their crop land to fuel alcohol production?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, certainly I will study with great interest the representation of the hon. member and also draw it to the attention of the Minister of Finance.
Oral Questions PUBLIC SERVICE


STAFFING PRACTICES OF PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION-RESIDENCY RESTRICTION RESPECTING EMBASSY APPOINTMENTS
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The minister will know that I rose in the House last Monday to ask why one had to be a resident of either Ontario or Quebec to become a secretary in one of our diplomatic missions.
On Thursday the Public Service Commission indicated that it simply bowed to a policy request of the Department of External Affairs. Could the minister tell the House whether or not he personally accepts responsibility for that policy? Could he enlighten the House on why he thinks living in eight provinces, the Yukon or the Northwest Territories, should make one ineligible to represent Canada abroad?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, I am not familiar with that reply of the Public Service Commission, and I will take that question as notice.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: At least say you do not believe in it.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Madam Speaker, that answer is astonishing, in that same press release indicated that the commission told the Department of External Affairs, as of last Thursday, to broaden that competition to include all provinces of Canada. For the minister to stand up here four days later and say that he is unfamiliar with it is simply unacceptable.
Is the minister telling the house that he and his department have taken no action to broaden that to include the cities of eight provinces, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, or are we still in a situation where one must live in Ontario or Quebec to work for the Canadian Department of External Affairs?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question is highly inflammatory. I will reply to it on a subsequent date.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


REQUEST FOR STATEMENT BY MINISTER
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, I should like to ask a supplementary question. 1 think that the House deserves an explanation.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Marc Lalonde: The deputy minister is from Winnipeg.


Donald W. Munro: Is the minister now prepared to make a statement on these unusually restrictive provisions in recruiting Canadians to serve Canadians abroad, that they should be drawn from only two provinces? I think this is outrageous; there used to be a decent public service.
Privilege-Mr. Greenaway


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, if I had been prepared to make a statement like that today I would have made it. I will make it in due course.


PRIVILEGE
Madam Speaker:: I have notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin.


Mr. Lome Greenaway (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege with reference to an exchange which took place on Friday, March 20, between myself and the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin). The reference in Hansard is at pages 8454 and 8455, wherein she implied that I was not telling the truth in this House regarding the deaths last year of three children from the James Bay of northern Quebec. The minister said:
-I repeat that ten small children did not die last summer, as the hon. member indicated. That is completely untrue.
I would like to read into the record-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Lorne Everett Greenaway: -the names of the four children who died in Mistassini in 1980. One, Patrick Samuel Mattawashish, son of Charles and Janie Mattawashish, died at the age of three months-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. member is entering into debate with respect to his question of privilege. I would ask him to restrict his remarks to the privilege that he feels has been breached.


Lorne Everett Greenaway: Madam Speaker, I have here the list of nine children who died last summer in Cree villages. I would like to put their names on record.


Madam Speaker:: That is not relevant to the question of privilege. If the hon. member feels that his privilege has been breached, he must explain to me in what way that privilege has been breached and not enter into debate on the question which was put to the minister.
I have read the statement which the hon. member has given me as notice of his question of privilege. As I read the statement, I frankly feel that he does not have a question of privilege. The hon. member says that some unparliamentary language was used and that it reflected on his reputation. If one looks at the list of examples of unparliamentary language as set out in Beauchesne, then I agree with the hon. member that we have two lists and that they are contradictory. If the list does not help us we must go to another factor, which is the factor that some trouble or commotion would have been
March 23, 1981
caused in the House by the words that an hon. member had used. At the time when the minister used those words, indicating that the statement was false, there was no trouble or commotion in the House. The hon. member did not rise in his seat to protest at that time. Thus, in this instance, I feel that the hon. member does not have a question of privilege and that the language used was not unparliamentary.


Lorne Everett Greenaway: Madam Speaker, she obviously called me a liar-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. We cannot debate the question any further, since I have already ruled on the hon. member's question of privilege. I assure him that the basis of this statement does not allow me to find there is a question of privilege in this particular circumstance.


Hon. Walter Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, you have made a ruling, perhaps prematurely, with respect-


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Walter David Baker: -on the basis of a written notice. I said perhaps.
Unless I am wrong, and I stand to be corrected, I understood that the basis of the written notice was to inform the Chair of the area in which the privilege lay and that the member, on the basis of that, was to be allowed to put his point. The written notice is the pre-condition for allowing the member to make his point. I have not heard the member make his point in the House, which he has a right to do.


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member is right, the purpose of the notice is to give the Chair an idea of the area in which the question of privilege might arise. But members are also invited to present some of the arguments that they feel they want to invoke in favour of that question of privilege.
The hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin rose in his seat, began to describe his question of privilege, then immediately entered into debate. I had to conclude that he was debating the question rather than exposing the question of privilege.
Also, from the statement I received, which consists of about ten lines, I was able to conclude that the hon. member did not have a question of privilege but rather was dealing with a question of unparliamentary language, which at the time was not challenged.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

[Stage Direction]
Third Report of Special Committee on a National Trading Corporation-Mr. Roy.
[Stage Direction]


*
;
ft-
[Stage Direction]
March 23, 1981
[Stage Direction]
[Editor's Note: For text of above report see today's Votes and Proceedings.]

Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise on behalf of 275 constituents of mine who have presented me with a petition requesting that the Canadian government clarify its stand on the possible threat of Soviet invasion of Poland, and to deplore the government's lack of action to date in this regard.
I think this is a particularly timely petition in view of the military manoeuvres by Russia in Poland last week and the existence of the military in Poland, and also the harder lines taken last week by the police in Poland with respect to activists.
I am therefore pleased to represent those who have signed this petition and who have asked me to speak on their behalf in urging this government to take a strong stand and clarify its position with regard to the very serious danger of intervention by the Soviets in Poland. This is particularly true in light of the response of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) in answer to a question today.

[ Translation]


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
[Stage Direction]
On the order: Government Notices of Motions:
March 19, 1981-The President of the Privy Council:
THAT WHEREAS the Prime Minister tabled in the House of Commons on October 6, 1980, a document entitled "Proposed Resolution for a Joint Address to Her Majesty the Queen Respecting the Constitution of Canada";
AND WHEREAS the motion to refer the said document to a Special Joint Committee of the House and Senate was debated in the House on 11 days between October 6 and October 23, 1980, allowing some 78 members to speak;
AND WHEREAS the Joint Committee, on which some 132 members of this House served, held 106 meetings, sat for 267 hours, received over 1,000 written submissions and heard testimony from 95 groups and 5 individuals;
AND WHEREAS the Joint Committee, having had its reporting date extended twice, reported on February 13, 1981, with the recommendation that the government introduce a motion for the presentation of the Address as modified by the committee;
AND WHEREAS the motion of the Minister of Justice implementing the Joint Committee's recommendation was moved on February 17, 1981;
AND WHEREAS the Hon. member for Provencher moved an amendment to that motion on February 17, 1981;
AND WHEREAS the said amendment has been debated by this House for some five weeks, with the result that as of March 18, 1981, there have been 52
Business of the House
speakers on behalf of the official opposition, 15 speakers on behalf of the New Democratic Party, and 31 speakers on behalf of the government;
THEREFORE until the motion of the Minister of Justice for an Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada and any amendments thereto have been finally disposed of. Standing Order 6(1) and Standing Order 40 shall be suspended and, notwithstanding any other Standing Order, Private Members' Business shall be suspended, and the House shall sit from 10 o'clock a.m. to 1 o'clock p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays for the consideration of government business; and Standing Order 6(3) shall be read as if it said "At 11.59 o'clock p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, at 10 o'clock p.m. on Wednesdays and at 7 o'clock p.m. on Fridays, Mr. Speaker shall adjourn the House until the next sitting day".
AND during debate on the said motion of the Minister of Justice and any amendments and subamendments proposed thereto.
(a)	notwithstanding Standing Order 31(1) no member shall speak for more than twenty minutes;
(b)	when no member rises in his place to participate in the debate, or at fifteen minutes before the time of adjournment provided for by this order on the second day during which the motion of the Minister of Justice or any amendments and subamendments proposed thereto have been under consideration following the adoption of this motion-whichever occurs first-the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of any amendments and subamendments then under consideration;
(c)	if, at the time provided for in paragraph (6) there is no amendment or subamendment under consideration, the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the main motion; otherwise, after the amendment and any subamendment have been disposed of, the debate on the main motion may be resumed;
(d)	at fifteen minutes before the time of adjournment on the second sitting day following the resumption of the debate on the motion of the Minister of Justice pursuant to paragraph (c), the Speaker shall put every question necessary to dispose of the motion, including any amendments and subamendments proposed thereto; and
(e)	any member who, not having spoken in the debate either on the main motion or on an amendment or subamendment may at any time before the fulfilment of the conditions set out in paragraph (b) deliver to the Clerk a written speech relevant to the debate of not more than about 3,000 words, which will be printed as an appendix to the House of Commons Debates on the day following the conclusion of the debate.
Madam Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 21(2), this notice of motion is transferred to and ordered for consideration under government orders later this day or at the next sitting of the House.


Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I simply wish to give notice that if and when this motion is moved 1 shall raise a point of order with respect to the final paragraph thereof. My point of order will be based on citation 311 of Beauchesne's fifth edition, which reads:
Under no circumstances may a member merely table a speech for printing in Hansard.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: I appreciate the hon. member giving me notice of the point of order which he would raise if and when this motion is brought before the House.

March 23, 1981
Order Paper Questions


Walter David Baker: I rise on the same point of order, Madam Speaker. We have some reservations as well about the matter, which we will discuss at the time.


UNAUTHORIZED PRESENCE IN CHAMBER OF PHOTOGRAPHER
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I have been informed-and this can be verified by Your Honour-that contrary to the understanding which exists in the House with respect to the presence of photographers in the House there is a photographer on the floor of the chamber, or in the alleyway, who is not one of the members of the press who have been authorized to be here on an experimental basis. I understand that this photographer is a photographer from the Prime Minister's office. I have been informed that his name is Robert Cooper. He is a stranger in the House and I would ask that he be removed.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Quite obviously the permission for photographers was limited to the two photographers from the Canadian Press. This was agreed to after consultation among the different parties in this House. If there are other photographers present I would ask them to leave, please.

[ Translation]


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 132, 1,504, 2,031 and 2,038.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Did the former government appoint a person to select a site for a statue on Parliament Hill of the Right Hon. John G. Diefenbaker and, if so, who was appointed?
2.	Does the government intend to change any of the arrangements or decisions made by the previous government on who will be involved or what site will be selected and, if so, what are the details?


David Michael Collenette: 1. The office of the former prime minister contracted with Mr. Keith Martin on January 23, 1980, for services for the period January 23 to February 21, 1980, "to study and recommend possible appropriate means of recognition by the Government of Canada for the late Right
Hon. John G. Diefenbaker". Mr. Martin requested advice on March 7, 1980, as to whether "the present government wishes me to continue my services". Mr. Martin was requested to continue his work and advised that the government looked forward to receiving his report. The report was received on April 8, 1980.
2. The present government is not aware of "arrangements or decisions made by the previous government".


Mr. Turner: 1.	How many law firms, counsellors or lawyers were employed by the Royal Commission on the Mackenzie Pipeline (the Berger inquiry) and (a) what was his/her name (b) what amount was he/she paid per diem (c) what was the total that he/she received?
2.	How many days did each counsellor or lawyer work?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: 1. The following two law firms and one self-employed lawyer were employed by the Berger inquiry:
(i)	Cameron Brewin & Scott,
(ii)	Decario & Waddell,
(iii)	Mr. Michael Jackson.
(a) Name of Firm/Lawyer	(b) Per diem	(c) Total Paid	(2) Days
		to law firms	Worked
		(includes fees)	(average)
(i) Cameron Brewin &		$ 497,564.00	
Scott			
I. Scott	$ 75.00 (per hour)	77S. Goudge	50.00 "	77I. Roland	50.00 "	77A. Ryder	50.00 "	77(ii) Decario & Waddell	$ 110,768.00	Ian Waddell	$ 2500 (per month)	270(iii) Mr. Michael Jackson	$ 2500 (per month)	$ 103,578.00	250
NOTE: In part (c) it was not possible to indicate the total amount each individual lawyer received as each was paid by the law firm for which he/she was employed. The response therefore lists the total paid to each law firm in question, with the exception of Mr. Michael Jackson who is self-employed.


Mr. Herbert: What were the principal items of material or equipment obtained in the fiscal year 1979-80, from the (a) Department of Public Works (b) Department of Supply and Services (c) Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, for sale by the Crown Assets Disposal Corporation?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: I am
informed by Crown Assets Disposal Corporation as follows:
(a)	Department of Public Works-Chemical and laboratory test equipment, assorted wood, laboratory furniture and shelving, and a scow;
March 23, 1981

(b)	Department of Supply and Services-IBM processor and assorted furniture and equipment;
(c)	Canada Mortgage and Housing corporation-Assorted furniture and furnishings.
N.B. Principal items are defined as reports of surplus declared having an acquisition cost in excess of $100,000 or a recovery value of $25,000 or more.


Mr. McKenzie: 1.	Are there 217 positions in the Canadian Pension Commission scheduled to be relocated in Prince Edward Island and, if so, how many of the employees have actually agreed to move?
2.	What was the total cost, so far, to the Department of Veterans Affairs for the P.E.I. move apart from land and buildings?
3.	Has there been an increase in the forecast of the $23 million total cost of the move?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: 1. There are 217 positions in the Canadian Pension Commission scheduled to be relocated in Prince Edward Island. The number of employees who agree to move will not be known until nine months prior to the official date of relocation of the positions. At present, the tentative official date of relocation for the CPC is September, 1983.
2.	The total cost, so far, to the Department of Veterans Affairs for the Prince Edward Island move, apart from land and buildings, is $9,867,400.
3.	Yes. The present forecast is $35 million. The increased costs are directly attributable to several events that have occurred during the past three years: the decision to relocate the Veterans Land Administration originally slated to remain in Ottawa. The delay in the anticipated completion date of the new Veterans Affairs building in Charlottetown to September, 1983, from September, 1981. This delay resulted from the decision in 1979 to change the building site and meant a rephasing of the relocation schedules to span a five-year period rather than the originally planned three-year period. Consequently, additional resources were needed to support increased parallel operations, staffing, and communication links between Ottawa and Charlottetown. The introduction of legislation affecting War Veterans Allowance/Civilian War Allowance and Canadian Pension Commission benefits. This legislation necessitated a review and revision to the manual and automated benefit payment systems being developed as part of the relocation package.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, if questions Nos.
Order Paper Questions
533 and 2,057 could be made orders for returns, those returns would be tabled immediately.
I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that questions Nos. 533 and 2,057 be deemed to have been made orders for returns?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	On January 1, 1979, by department, what were the number of persons employed on a (a) term basis (b) contract basis (c) casual basis by classification and salary range?
2.	On January I, 1979, and, in each case, what benefits were payable to such employees by (a) classification (b) salary level, where applicable?
Return tabled.


Mr. McKinnon: 1.	In 1980, how many contracts were placed by the Department of National Defence for electron tubes and (a) to which companies were contracts awarded (b) what was the amount of each contract?
2.	Where were the electron tubes, specified in each contract, manufactured?
Return tabled.


Thomas Gordon Towers: Madam Speaker, 1 have asked the parliamentary secretary on four different occasions if we could have an answer to question 811. This has to do with the metric conversion program which the government has been foisting on the Canadian people, a program which they do not want. It would be nice to know exactly what the administrative costs of that program will be. The Canadian people have the right to know the cost as it is their dollars which are being spent.
I would hope that in the not too distant future the parliamentary secretary can tell us what the Metric Commission is costing Canadian taxpayers.


David Michael Collenette: I will certainly give my undertaking to reply to the question.
I would ask that all the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker, I regret that for the second time I must ask the parliamentary secretary about two very straightforward questions which I placed on the Order Paper on May 14 relating to costs of the McDonald commission of inquiry. Simply because this commission has turned into an annuity, there is no reason why the answers must also. These are very factual questions. I would respectfully request the parliamentary secretary-this is the second time I have asked him, and I have waited for some weeks since the first time-to

March 23, 1981
Order Paper Questions
see whether he can give me this data, some of which goes back to 1977. That was a year after the commission began work.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Madam Speaker, I wish to bring question No. 2,040, to the attention of the parliamentary secretary, which I placed on the Order Paper in January of this year. The question is: What is the estimated number of additional beds that will be required for the domiciliary care of chronically ill veterans for 1981, 1982 and 1983?
As there is a long list of veterans waiting for entry into these military hospitals and the veterans' organizations across Canada are very concerned about this matter, I would appreciate it if the parliamentary secretary would contact the Acting Minister of Veterans Affairs to supply me with an answer as soon as possible.


Mr. Cossitt:: Madam Speaker, I would like to draw attention to two questions which 1 asked about on several previous points of order, just to jog the memory of the parliamentary secretary. One is question No. 132, pertaining to the rental of a DC-9 aircraft which the Liberal Party of Canada used during the election of May, 1979. The bill for this rental was still outstanding at the outset of the election of February, 1980, last year. I asked whether the Air Canada bill had been paid, how much was paid, and various details about the delay in paying this bill.
I was advised by people within Air Canada that the answer was made available to the government approximately one and one half or two months ago. 1 therefore find it rather difficult to understand what has happened to it in the meantime, in view of all those devious channels it must pass through on the other side of the House.
I do not have the number handy, but I am sure that the parliamentary secretary would be familiar with another question I have had on the Order Paper for two years and some months-I am not sure how long over two years. It relates to a number of members of the Canadian Transport Commission who have passes to use Air Canada services. That question has been raised in every session of Parliament, but it has gone unanswered. I think it would be easy to answer, unless there are some people in the Canadian Transport Commission, or their spouses, who hold passes to which they are not entitled.
For that reason I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if he could give the House a rough estimate as to when these two questions could be answered. Perhaps I should ask him to give a precise estimate, as one question has been unanswered for over two years.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, as the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville (Mr. Cossitt) knows, I cannot predict which given day I shall table any given answer; but I have made notes of the comments today, and I will do my best. I would note that we have answered some 80 per cent of all questions on the Order Paper.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed debate on the motion of Mr. Chretien, seconded by Mr. Roberts, for an Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada.
And on the amendment of Mr. Epp, seconded by Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton)-That the motion be amended in Schedule B of the proposed resolution by deleting Clause 46, and by making all necessary changes to the Schedule consequential thereto.
Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Madam Speaker, last Thursday evening 1 commenced speaking on the amendment to the resolution presented by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp).
I begin by congratulating the joint chairman of the committee, the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Joyal), whose fairness and belief in the parliamentary system contributed to the make-up of that committee and allowed it to work. I hope he will give that feeling of fairness and parliamentary tradition to some of his colleagues and to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). If he does, I am sure this House will be a much better place. I would like to add special congratulations to the hon. member for Provencher who, not only through the debate in that committee but also from early on last spring, was the main spokesman for my party on the constitutional resolution.
I would also like to offer additional thanks to the hon. senator from Quebec, Arthur Tremblay, who is well known in his province for his intellect and concern and who is now known in Canada as a man who puts this nation ahead of all else.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, we have heard hon. members from the other side say that this debate has carried on far too long, that it is unnecessary. I do not want to contradict them; but when we are writing a constitution which not only myself and my children, but also my grandchildren and citizens of Canada yet unborn, will have to live under, time should not be a consideration. We should ensure that this resolution respecting the Constitution of Canada is well and perfectly written.
I would like to go back a little bit in history. It took us from 1864 to 1867, in Canada, with Canadians, to write the present BNA Act. Because of the time taken and the concern shown by those Canadians, those Fathers of Confederation, when the BNA Act was presented by Canada to the United Kingdom at Westminster, only one small change in the wording was necessary; A "united colony" was changed to "Canada".
If we do nearly as well with the presentation of this Canada Act, as it is called, we will have done well; but we have not done that yet. We do not have before us a Constitution written
March 23, 1981

by Canadians for Canadians; we have a Constitution which is written by the Liberal Party. That is not acceptable to the majority of Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Relating to the length of this debate, I would like to bring to the attention of the House that there was another debate, the pipeline debate, which lasted from May 1 to June 6, 1956, some 32 days. There was a flag debate extending from June 15 to December 15, 1964, lasting 33 days.
We started this debate on October 7, and this is now only the twenty-ninth day of debate. If a debate on a pipeline takes 32 days, and a debate on a flag-just a symbol of Canada- takes 33 days, a debate on a Constitution under which we will be asked to live and which will change the powers of provincial governments, the powers of the judiciary and the powers of this House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada should surely take longer than 29 or 33 days.


An hon. Member:: Well said!


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: The amendment presented by the hon. member for Provencher would delete the referendum procedures as outlined in Clause 46 of this resolution. The government has tried to argue that with the referendum the people of Canada will have the final say in drafting our Constitution. I do not believe that. The power will not be in the hands of the people; it will not even be in the hands of Parliament.
Section 44(5) of the resolution reads as follows:
(5) If Parliament docs not enact laws under subsection (4) respecting the rules applicable to the holding of a referendum within sixty days after receipt of a recommendation from a Referendum Rules Commission, the rules recommended by the commission shall forthwith be brought into force by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada.
That means the cabinet, the governor in council, will set the rules for the referendum even if the House of Commons does not. How will that affect the people of Canada, the people we are supposed to represent in this House, those whom the government continues to maintain will be represented in making the Constitution? How much power will this leave the provinces when an order in council of the cabinet can overrule Parliament of the provincial legislatures? I am sure the Prime Minister and the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent) are aware that they lack support for this constitutional package. They know that it is not the government, not the Liberal Party nor the NDP party that should control the destiny of Canada; they know that the power should be vested in Canadians. That is what the majority of Canadians believe and that is the Canadian tradition.
Canada was designed on the parliamentary system with the legislatures of the provinces and Parliament being the final court in their respective jurisdictions. This resolution will hand much of the power over the life of Canadians to the courts.
The Constitution
Federalism has worked in Canada for 115 years. It has made Canadians one of the most envied races in the world. Federalism has worked because reasonable governments and reasonable leaders in this House and in the provincial legislatures have wanted it to work. It could continue to work if this government and the Prime Minister would be reasonable.
The government is imposing on the people of Canada the long-rejected Victoria formula for making future changes in the Constitution. We on this side of the House have presented an alternative based on the Vancouver consensus. The criticism of the Vancouver consensus is that it will allow the provinces to opt out. The advantage of the Vancouver consensus is that it will allow the provinces to opt in to the parts of the Constitution with which they wish to be involved.
Section 46 of the resolution creates several classes of provinces and several classes of citizens in Canada. There are the first-class provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which have the veto; there are the second-class provinces of British Columbia and the four Atlantic regions; there are the third-class provinces such as Alberta, and the fourth-class provinces, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Second, third and fourth-class citizenship for the people of Canada is created by this resolution. Four classes of provinces that wish to add something to the Constitution of Canada are created. What is the status of these provinces if they wish to prevent something being added to the Constitution at a future date, however? There will still be the First-class provinces of Quebec and Ontario; one second-class province, British Columbia; Alberta will remain third class; the four Atlantic provinces will be fourth class, and a new class has been added for Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
It seems strange that the New Democratic Party, with representatives from Manitoba and Saskatchewan, can bear to see their provinces and mine relegated to fifth-class or even fourth-class citizenship in this country.
In talking about the jurisdiction of provincial legislatures, we must look at the eight parts of the constitutional resolution. The first part contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; the second part deals with the rights of the aboriginal people of Canada; the third part deals with equalization and regional disparities; the fourth part makes it mandatory for the Prime Minister and the premiers of the provinces to meet once a year; the fifth part deals with the interim amendment procedure-and this is important to the provinces; the sixth part provides for an amending procedure two years after the act comes into effect; the seventh part deals with non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources and electricity; and the eighth part deals with the language of education.
The reason I go through these, Mr. Speaker, is that only the second part of the resolution deals exclusively with something within federal jurisdiction; all the other parts change or create different laws, statutes and methods of operation to be imposed upon the provinces. Only one part out of eight deals with federal jurisdiction.
The constitutional resolution takes from Parliament and from the legislatures of the provinces the ability to protect citizens' rights and places it directly in the hands of the courts.

March 23, 1981
The Constitution
It removes the supremacy of Parliament and establishes the supremacy of the courts and of the governor in council in the lives of Canadians.
There are two reasons for having entrenched rights, Mr. Speaker. The first is to entrench those rights so that they may not be removed; the other reason for having them entrenched in the charter is so that the people of Canada may know what their rights are and therefore may continue to demand them.
The resolution before us achieves neither of those objectives, however. It does not entrench rights and it does not educate the people of Canada about their rights. We on this side believe that there should be a charter of rights, but it should be one that is permanent and should ensure that the rights will not be changed in any way.
We should like to have Parliament supreme, as it should be, and we should like to have the courts supreme, as they should be. The people of Canada must be represented and it is only in the Parliament of Canada that this can be properly done.
The Supreme Court is not responsible to anyone; it is appointed by the Prime Minister. According to the constitution of the United States, the President may appoint members to their supreme court but the appointments must be ratified by the senate. This will not be the case in Canada. I feel this goes against the parliamentary democracy on which our country was founded and which, we hope, will continue to exist.
I should like to speak for a moment about what happens when the Supreme Court rules on a question that is political, not legal. I think all hon. members are familiar with the Dred Scott or the Scott Sanford case in the supreme court of the United States. Mr. Scott was a black descendant of slaves who had asked to be declared free by the supreme court. The court ruled that because of his ancestry he could not be set free. That decision went against the will and wishes of the majority of people in the United States. What followed in the United States was a civil war, before they made their twelfth amendment. I am not trying to say that there will be civil war in Canada; I do not want to go that far.


An hon. Member:: Then don't.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: An hon. member opposite says "Then don't". If the government will not listen, if it is not receptive to the opposition which is trying to assist it draft this resolution, then why do we have what we call a parliamentary democracy in this country?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: We may not have civil war in this country, but we will have communities and large groups of people who wish to withdraw their support, remove themselves from this country and perhaps form a different country. We will have people who will reject the fabric of the Supreme Court and of the judicial system, because a judicial system making a legal decision on a political question will spread distrust and animosity throughout the country.
I should like to put forward two examples of a situation where the proposed constitutional resolution could cause the courts to be asked to rule on a political question in a legal manner. Capital punishment is an obvious example, Mr. Speaker. What will the consequences be when the Supreme Court rules against the use of the death penalty and the majority of the Canadian people believe, as they do now, that it should be imposed? What will happen when the Supreme Court is asked, as it could be under this constitutional resolution, to rule on the right to life of the unborn child? If it rules against the right to life and in favour of abortion on demand, how will the people of Canada who believe rights were given by God and cannot be taken away by courts feel about the judicial system of our country?
These are just two examples. I cannot speak for the rest of Canada, but I can speak for my constituency of Kindersley-Lloydminster and for how my constituents would feel if the Supreme Court ruled against their wishes as Canadians on a political issue.
The majority of Canadians believe that there is a God or a supreme being. They believe they have the freedom to ask Him for guidance. They believe they have the freedom to worship under Him. I am sure Canadians would be very upset if a Supreme Court ruling was made, such as was the case in the United States, to remove the saying of the Lord's Prayer from the schoolrooms. The majority of Canadians, old and young, believe they can ask guidance from God.
What would happen if the Supreme Court ruled, because of the exclusion of property rights in this constitutional resolution, that individuals in Canada did not have the right to own property? Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that the majority of Canadians would feel that the Supreme Court had ruled properly? Do you not feel that they would impose their will and their wishes in another manner in our country and cause havoc and chaos, not because they are anarchists but because they believe they have a right to own property in Canada? Professor Edward McWhinney of Simon Fraser University, who I am sure is familiar to members on the other side, has said this:
In the end, the preservation of national minimum standards of constitutional liberties and the-rule of the law generally must rest on public opinion and on political action expressed through the ordinary political processes; and no amount of judicial liberalism can be expected to fill the gap in constitutional law created by a combination of weak or timorous executive-legislative authority and an apathetic and indifferent, or downright intolerant, general public.
Before my time runs out, I would like to ask a question of the New Democratic Party and of its leader, the hon. member for Oshawa. The question is this: Why is the New Democratic Party so anxious to impose this resolution on Canadian citi-; zens? Why is that party rushing to impose this Liberal Party I document on the people of Canada? It is not because the NDP does not recognize the inadequacies of this document, because it presented 43 amendments to the resolution, only two of which were accepted. Our party has presented 22 amendments, seven of which were accepted. The government pro-
March 23, 1981

posed 58 amendments and, strange as it may seem, all were accepted.
This is not a resolution authored by an all-party committee. This is a resolution authored and supported by the force of the Liberal Party and the majority on that committee. When the Liberal Party members decided to accept an amendment, it was accepted. When members of the New Democratic Party voted in favour of one, it was not necessarily accepted. When members of my party voted in favour of an amendment, it was not accepted.
When there are as many as 43 mistakes in the resolution in the eyes of the New Democratic Party and only two are corrected, why is that party so anxious to pass this imperfect document? Even the premier of my province-that political mugwump who sits with his mug on one side of the fence and his wump on the other and who was led down the garden path by the Prime Minister-has decided on behalf of his government and the people of Canada that this document is an imperfect one and does not warrant the support either of his government or the people of Saskatchewan.
We have heard this document described as a civilized document. We have heard it described as the very best document. That description was given by the hon. member for Oshawa. I cannot see how a very civilized and very perfect document can have at least 43 mistakes in his eyes, only two of which have been corrected, and then be rushed through.
I notice the Prime Minister is in the House. I have a question or two for him which I am sure he will answer when he rises in his place in the House to speak. I understand he is going to speak today rather than table his speech, as was suggested today in a motion moved by our party under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
With regard to an amending formula, what will be the long-term effect of western resentment to the resolution that establishes several classes of provinces, with the western provinces being made fourth and fifth class? Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were colonies until 1930. We in western Canada had not been given the right to our resources by the government. We had not been treated as other provincial governments had or other people in other provinces had. In 1930 we were given those resources. We would like to know now why we are being relegated to fourth and fifth-class status. How can the federal government, with any credibility, call for co-operation with its partners in confederation if those partners feel they have been legally discriminated against by the tyranny of the majority in the House of Commons?
Concerning a referendum, what will any province feel when an issue is raised that the federal government proposes to resolve by bypassing the provincial legislatures in a national referendum? What confidence can anyone have that the federal government will discuss changes in good faith, knowing the federal government can wait for a year and then hold a national referendum to reach a decision?
I come now to the charter of rights. What faith will people have that a charter of rights will be more than just a symbol if
The Constitution
it is imposed on the provinces? We all realize that it is the provinces which deliver services and rights. When you drag someone into a method of transferring freedoms and rights to individuals, I do not see, Mr. Speaker, how you will receive those rights any faster than if they were not mentioned at all.
The imposition of a charter of rights against the customs of Canadian constitutional law is no way to ensure the protection of rights. The provinces must willingly accept those rights and endeavour to deliver them to the best of their ability, rather than try to deceive their populace. 1 believe that if those rights are presented to citizens who live in provinces in Canada, the demand of the citizens to receive those rights will motivate the provincial governments. I do not think they have to be clubbed by the government in central Canada.
In Canada last May, we experienced a referendum in the province of Quebec. I ask the Prime Minister, how do Quebecers know they made the right choice on May 20 if the changes they were promised are nowhere to be found in the Constitution?
I go back to Mr. Ryan's beige paper and his campaign in the province of Quebec. He said there would be greater power for the province of Quebec as soon as the referendum was over. Nowhere in this resolution do I see that power. What proof is there from the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien), who says this is just a beginning? Quebec has been given a constitutional veto, but so has Ontario, Sir. I would like to know how that equates with the feelings of the people of the province of Quebec. If constitutional renewal is to bring national unity, there must be a reference to equality in the field of resources. There must be the reference to equality which the Atlantic provinces asked for, the division of power sought by Quebec and the institutional renewal sought in most parts of western Canada.
Patriation is an important symbol for Canadians. It is a symbolic opportunity and we will have that opportunity only once. But what will be the symbolic value of patriation if it is accomplished in an atmosphere of division to the point of legal action such as we see now is the case? The Prime Minister says that process is not important, that substance is what is important. But it is the process and not the substance which gives Canadians the concepts of trust, confidence and tradition which lead to a building and strengthening of our country. The substance will change as times change. Trust and confidence of the people in their governments will always be necessary if Canada is to remain united.
Unilateral action undermines that trust and replaces it with resentment. Resentment feeds on itself, especially when there is incorporated a provision like Clause 46. The flag debate was a dispute over a symbol. We replaced that symbol with another symbol. In a sense, the resentment caused by that debate has removed itself from the minds of Canadians. This resolution entrenches the seeds of ongoing resentment because of its unfairness and its lack of concern for people outside of central Canada.

March 23, 1981
The Constitution
The people of Ontario and Quebec are protected by their parliamentary numbers, but what about the people of Prince Edward Island, Manitoba and Saskatchewan? We do not have that protection. Nowhere in the resolution is there any method of replacing the protection afforded to Ontario and Quebec by their numbers. The people of Ontario and Quebec are fair; it is not their fault. They are represented by members of a Liberal government who feel they must have more power than the people really want them to have. The Prime Minister stated on May 19, 1979:
We will at last be able to have a Canadian Constitution made by Canadians in Canada for Canadians. And we will do it together. We will do it with the people of this country.
In case anyone has forgotten, the Prime Minister lost that election in May, 1979. He did not make that statement during the election campaign in February, 1980. I ask the Prime Minister, why impose now upon the people of Canada, without the support of the majority of the people in the provinces, a Constitution they will have to live under for the next 100 years with all its inequities and faults? I say to the Prime Minister that in the region of Canada I come from, we believe we are as Canadian and as proud and strong as any people in Canada. The Prime Minister is imposing upon them something which will cause them to live as fourth or fifth-class citizens, maybe for the next 100 years, maybe forever. This is something that I and my party cannot tolerate, nor can any fair-thinking Canadian. I will be voting against the resolution.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, as I stand to speak on the motion before the House, I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that I am doing so in response to popular demand. I was particularly touched, as recorded in last Friday's Hansard, when the hon. member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn) and the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) called on me to speak in this debate. I thank in particular the hon. member for Athabasca for saying:
Madam Speaker, not only the opposition but I think all the people of Canada would like to hear what the Prime Minister has to say.
I repeat, I am somewhat encouraged by that because I realize that this resolution has caused deep division among members of both Houses of Parliament, members of all political parties, within the ranks of provincial premiers and indeed among the Canadian population. However, I find some consolation in the fact-and this was pointed out just a moment by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight) in his speech-that the division seems to arise not so much from the substance of what we are debating as from the process and the timing. They are the elements which are divisive. That is the argument that was made by the hon. member who preceded me and by many others.
I want in my speech this afternoon to deal with these three aspects; very briefly with the first, the substance of the resolution, and then perhaps at greater length with the process and the timing.

Madam Speaker, the resolution before us essentially proposes two things. First, that Canada give itself a Canadian Constitution with an amending formula that would allow the Canadian people to amend their Constitution at home, and second, a charter of rights and fundamental freedoms.
As for the first aspect, patriation and the amending formula, suffice it to say, Madam Speaker, that since 1927, the Canadian people have wanted it, they have been systematically seeking it under ten different prime ministers, under dozens of premiers and at numerous federal-provincial conferences. Moreover, this was confirmed in the House last May when the House unanimously agreed on the substance, namely, that we should patriate the Constitution with an amending formula. Allow me to simply refer the House to Hansard for May 9 last, when the member for Edmonton East (Mr. Yurko) moved the following resolution, and I quote:

Whereas some provinces have repeatedly refused to endorse the patriation of the Constitution of Canada from Britain, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp):
That the Parliament of Canada submit an Address to Her Majesty the
Queen, that Her Majesty may graciously be pleased to cause a bill to be laid
before the parliament of the United Kingdom to provide for the amendment in
Canada of the Constitution of Canada.


Madam Speaker:: Such a motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?
After a few comments, Madam Speaker declared:
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?
The motion was agreed to. We remember, Madam Speaker, that there was unanimous agreement in this House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: On the substance of patriation, there can be no disagreement in this House. I believe that is made even more clear by the statement made to the special joint committee by the member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) on January 20, 1981, when he spoke on behalf of his party and introduced a document which began with these words:
In presenting our proposed amendments to the government's resolution we do so in the knowledge that it is the popular will of Canadians that our Constitution rest in this country.
He goes on to deal with the second matter before the House:
It is also the popular will that we have a charter of rights and freedoms for the Canadian people embedded in the Constitution.
That is the position of this House, of the Conservative Party and, in so far as we can rely on surveys, the position of the people of Canada. I say that not only because the hon. member for Provencher said it is the popular will, but because we have the Gallup poll that was published in The Gazette last August 6. To the question whether Canada should have its own Constitution written and adopted by Canadians, 78 per cent of Canadians polled said it should. Then the question was asked: Should the Constitution guarantee basic human rights? Nine-
March 23, 1981

ty-one per cent of Canadians said it should. And on minority language rights, Madam Speaker, the figure was 81 per cent.
Those are the figures we found last August. Have they changed substantially over the months in spite of the debate which went on, or perhaps because of it? Let me read from the Toronto Star of January 8, Madam Speaker. The answers to the questions asked are tabulated as follows: 83 per cent agree that the Constitution should include a charter of rights and freedoms; 70 per cent agree that it should include an amending formula to be reached over the next two years, and any changes to the Constitution before then would need the unanimous consent of the federal and provincial governments. Seventy per cent agree with the very proposal in the resolution before the House, Madam Speaker: two years of debate and consultation between the federal government and the provinces, during which time unanimity would prevail.
Another survey published by the Calgary Herald on November 19, 1980, which covered 1,400 households in the western provinces and was carried out by the Canada West Foundation found that while westerners are solidly opposed to the method being used to change the Constitution, they are willing to endorse the basic features of the federal government's constitutional package.
Asked whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the package should be binding on both levels of government, 78 per cent agreed and 11 per cent disagreed.
Finally, Madam Speaker, referring to a survey apparently commissioned jointly by the Edmonton Journal and the Regina Leader-Post, published in the February 21 edition of the Journal and March 14 edition of the Leader-Post, the question was asked: "Would you like the patriation of the Constitution to be done in the next six months, the next year, the next two years or the next three years?" In Saskatchewan, Madam Speaker, fully 81 per cent wanted patriation to take place either during the next six months or the next year; in Alberta, the figure was 63 per cent, and in British Columbia, 71 per cent. In all cases, whatever part of the country we look to, there is a clear majority in favour of patriation.
As to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because this is a sensitive question with our opposition the question was asked: "Should the charter be included before patriation, after patriation or not at all?" The answers: In Saskatchewan, before patriation 70 per cent; in Alberta, before patriation 55 per cent; in British Columbia, before patriation 56 per cent.
The Canadian people, Madam Speaker, are not afraid of this tag of colonialism which has been attached to this action of Parliament by the opposition. They are right, and I will explain later why they are. However, for the time being, I am merely talking once again to the substance of the issue and indicating that the Canadian people want a charter. The hon. member for Provencher said on behalf of his party that the Canadian people want a charter, and every political party represented in this House is on record as wanting a charter.
In the case of the Conservative Party, it goes back to the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker who, when he moved a bill of
The Constitution
rights binding only at the federal level, deeply regretted that he could not make it binding on the provinces because they would not agree. That would have been the ideal, and he clearly says so in his memoirs "One Canada", published in 1975. And if we look at the position of the official opposition as shown by the resolutions adopted by that party at last month's general meeting, it is clear that they, too, enthusiastically endorse the inclusion of a charter in the Constitution.
The position of the New Democratic Party was also made clear by the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) when on February 23 he spoke in this House and said, as reported on page 7593 of Hansard:
1 should like to say a few words about the suggestion of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) and certain other Conservative members that a bill of rights is something new and that this is a recent decision made by one man who is attempting to foist his views on Canada.
The hon. member for Burnaby recalls that in 1960 there was the Diefenbaker bill of rights, but:
...in January of 1959, the then premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy Douglas, wrote the then prime minister, Mr. Diefenbaker, saying that the time had come for a constitutional amendment in this country to entrench fundamental rights and freedoms.
I am told, Madam Speaker, that the Hon. Tommy Douglas is in the gallery.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am happy, as all hon. members are, to acknowledge his presence in this House where he will always be a welcome guest. I just wish he would spend a little time with the present Premier of Saskatchewan.
The hon. member for Burnaby goes on to say this:
So, it was not the present Prime Minister who was the great pioneer in this area. If anyone was a pioneer, it was Tommy Douglas who fought in 1959 to entrench these fundamental rights in the Constitution of Canada.
And finally, Madam Speaker, I can say with some modesty that our party, during the period of the 1970s, is on record as to the substance of these matters. One can refer to the newsletter of January and February, 1981, and see, particularly at the Winnipeg convention of 1980, that we are clearly once again on record for patriation and entrenchment of a charter. Therefore, all the political parties, and certainly the joint committees of both Houses of Parliament representative of all members, first in 1972 and then in 1978, are clearly on record as saying that a charter should be entrenched in the Constitution.
Of course, this is also true of the recommendation of the joint committee of 1981, the one made public just a few short weeks ago, which unequivocally stated that a charter should be in the Constituton. In that regard, I found an interesting statistic in an article in the Catholic Register yesterday written by the hon. member for York South-Weston (Mrs. Appol-loni) which shows that 54 groups out of 75 appearing before the joint committee were in favour of entrenching a bill of rights.

March 23, 1981
The Constitution
I do not need to go on much longer on the substance. Most provinces have bills of rights, and several premiers have indicated their clear preference for a national charter in the Canadian Constitution. Premier Davis has; Premier Hatfield has. In February, 1979, Premier Lougheed went on record to that effect. Premier Peckford did on August 18, 1980.
Hon. members opposite have shown great interest these past days in the leader of the opposition in Quebec, Mr. Ryan, and expressed the clear hope that he will become premier of the province.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is a hope which, of course, is shared on this side, although rather than hope I should talk of certitude. On December 3, 1980 Mr. Ryan went on record as wanting the entrenchment of a charter in the Canadian Constitution. Perhaps that is not surprising because in the encyclical letter of Pope John XXIII, "Pacem In Terris", on page 101, I read the following words:
-in the juridical organization of states in our times the first requisite is that a charter of fundamental human rights be drawn up in clear and precise terms and that it be incorporated in its entirety in the Constitution.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, as it could not be any plainer that all members of this House, the greatest majority of political leaders and Canadians agree on the substance of the motion now before us, that is, patriation with an amending formula and the entrenchment of a charter of basic rights in the Constitution, we have to ask ourselves the following question since we are elected to serve the people: how should we fulfil our duty? How should we comply with that wish clearly expressed by the Canadian people?
Madam Speaker, technically and legally, there is a quite obvious and clear reply to that question. It can only be done through a joint Address of both Houses of Parliament to the Queen, an Address which will be conveyed by her to the British parliament. Technically and legally, this is not even debatable. Amendments have always been made in that way. This is how Canada, ever since 1867, has been able to amend its Constitution. Whether we want to change our judges' retirement age, make it possible for Newfoundland to join confederation or update our unemployment insurance or old age pension scheme, there is clearly this way to amend some basic elements of our Constitution and it is through a joint Address of both Houses to Her Majesty the Queen.
I say to you, therefore, that the argument which we hear sometimes that drafting here an amendment or a charter borders on colonialism is clearly misleading. It has always been done that way. The point of this resolution before the House was not to ask the British parliament to wash our dirty linen, as some people have suggested. How could they use such an expression when referring to a charter of basic rights and
freedoms? It had nothing to do with this. The formal process has always been very clear: a joint resolution of both Houses, debated and adopted by the Canadian Parliament, has always been the way to give substance to an amendment wanted both by the Canadian people and hon. members. The argument, therefore, is not on the legal or technical manner, but on the degree. Differences come to light when we deal with the degree or amount of provincial support such a process should get.
For a constitutional amendment, adopted through a joint Address to be given to Canadians, what degree of support should it get from the provinces? First of all, Madam Speaker,
I should like to say that if there is a way which is sure to fail, it is to seek unanimity. I suggest this has been established by our history since 1927, because seeking unanimity is like looking for perfection. If there is something to be learned from our history, Madam Speaker, it is that seeking unanimous support to a resolution of both our Houses is a notion which is wrong in theory and in practice. In theory, I submit that the notion Canadians need unanimity to amend their Constitution is based on the misleading assumption that there can be no consensus among Canadians, that there is no national will expressed unless 11 first ministers come to an agreement.
Is there one single town council, school board, labour union or corporation which could operate if the unanimity rule were to apply to all basic questions? It is clear, Madam Speaker, that this unanimity is wrong in theory because it assumes that there could be no consensus otherwise and that all participants should have a veto right. I submit again that no town council could operate this way, especially if each member could have a veto right. In practice, anyway, this system does not seem to work.
On February 17 I heard the hon. member for Provencher make the following statement in the House, and I quote:

The record shows that since 1927 this matter has come up in federal-provincial relations on 48 different dates.
A little while later, on February 23, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) repeated the same idea, somewhat triumphantly, when he said:
-if one consults the record of federal-provincial discussion on the Constitution or on related measures, one will find that in the 54 years since 1927 the Constitution has been discussed for exactly 48 days-
One would think they were arguing that we should be getting on with it and that on as fundamental a matter as having our own Constitution and on as fundamental a matter as giving Canada the last evidence of its sovereignty, 48 attempts by dozens of premiers and prime ministers over a period of 54 years would lead them to say "Enough!" But, no, they are arguing that it was only 48 attempts. How many more attempts should we attempt; another 48?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
March 23, 1981


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The history of this country since 1927 establishes that the theory of unanimity leads only to deadlock, to inaction, to the entrenchment of the status quo. For those who think that maybe unanimity is no longer possible but that at least we should get a consensus, that at least this resolution should be supported by a consensus of the premiers, let me just disillusion those members of the House, if they think that a consensus would be sufficient and that we could forge ahead if we had one.
In 1966, Mr. Daniel Johnson, the then premier of the province of Quebec, linked patriation to a package of provincial powers; nobody could get patriation in the country unless the province of Quebec got increased jurisdiction. Perhaps at the time this was an original step which to my knowledge had not been taken before, but I suggest that that is the moment when in this matter the provinces lost their virginity, and every time we have met since then to seek not unanimity but a consensus, we have failed. We failed in 1971. We had everyone in agreement on the amending formula, on patriation, on reforms to the Supreme Court and on many other subjects. Then suddenly one premier, the Premier of Quebec, said, "But you will get it if you increase the powers of my province in one particular area".
I then let a few years elapse. On April 19, 1975, after a meeting of the ten premiers and myself in Ottawa, I tried once again for unanimity or at least consensus. I wrote every premier on that date a letter saying, "Let us at least agree on patriation with an amending formula; let us not try and do all these other things". I did not even talk of a charter then; I said let us just patriate with an amending formula.
The premiers met in the summer of 1975 and again in the summer of 1976, asking themselves how they would answer this renewed invitation. I have the answer in a letter from the Premier of Alberta, who was then chairman of the premiers' conference, addressed to me and dated October 14, 1976. Here are his words:
All provinces agreed with the objective of patriation. They also agreed that patriation should not be undertaken without a consensus being developed on an expansion of the role of the provinces and/or jurisdiction in the following areas: culture, communications. Supreme Court of Canada, spending power, Senate representation and regional disparities.
It took exactly ten years for every provincial premier to follow the lead of Premier Daniel Johnson in 1966. Then they said there was no way the Canadian people will have their Constitution, no way the Canadian people will be allowed to amend their Constitution in Canada, unless as Premier Lough-eed put it, we give the provinces more power, more jurisdiction, an expansion of their role in half a dozen fields.
This was somewhat discouraging, so I addressed myself to the premiers once again and said, "Maybe we can give you some more powers in this or that area, but, please, would you as a condition of that agree to give Canadians their Constitution and the power to amend that Constitution in Canada?" Two more years elapsed. The premiers met again in the summer of 1977 and then in the summer of 1978. Premier Blakeney of Saskatchewan was then chairman of the premiers'
The Constitution
conference. He wrote me on August 22, 1978, and 1 quote from his letter;
Constitutional reform-The premiers discussed this issue at some length. The following are some general principles which they believe to be important.
(i)	The premiers endorse the need for constitutional reform.
(ii)	The premiers believe that major proposals from all sources must be given careful consideration in any process of constitutional reform.
Here we get the package again, major proposals from all sources. Then, sliding back even from the position of 1976, I read:
(iii)	The Premiers firmly believe that significant constitutional change should have the concurrence of all governments.
Back to unanimity. The premiers are telling us after all these years of effort that the Canadian people shall not get their Constitution unless everybody agrees and unless the provinces are given substantially more power.
Recent history is present in the minds of many of us. We recall February 6, 1979. We were yet again at a federal-provincial conference to discuss not only patriation and an amending formula but several other areas wherein provinces wanted to increase their jurisdiction. Though the federal government made various proposals then that we give provinces more power in family law, more power over resources, more power over indirect taxation, more power over interprovincial trade and even more power over international trade, the premiers said on television in February, 1979, "Not enough, we want more; if you want a Constitution for Canadians, we want more".
Premier Davis, sensing once again that there would be a deadlock, proposed immediate patriation, a joint Address by both Houses. "Forget all this debate; go ahead and do it", he said. We recall that that was worth a lot of headlines for him. I was quite relieved to hear at least one premier say, "Go ahead and do it".


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This proposal for immediate patriation was supported by Premier Buchanan, Premier Bennett, Premier Hatfield and Premier Lougheed. The five of them and myself made six out of 11. In step, Premier Blakeney then says, "No patriation unless it is linked to a package of provincial rights." Naturally, Rene Levesque agreed. Any move toward patriation, even though we were six out of 11, was stopped in its tracks.
I think everyone in this House probably watched television in September, 1980-just last September-when we had this very strong package by the premiers saying that if Canada is to have its own Constitution and its own amending process then we would have to give them all these things, and if we did not give them all, to even one province, then we could not have a Constitution. In other words, we were back to the veto by one province. We were back to unanimity. It was not only a veto over the amending formula, it was a veto over a shopping list that the premiers had brought to that conference.

March 23, 1981
The Constitution
What has happened since September, 1980? You would think that if consensus was sufficient, or if unanimity was possible, then we would have heard from the premiers. Six of them met in Montreal a couple of months ago to hammer out a consensus or, perhaps an agreement among themselves. I understand they then met with two other premiers. All this- several meetings of premiers and officials-since we in this House have been debating this motion sine the beginning of October. You would think that if consensus were possible we would have heard about it. You would have thought that they would have confounded us and said, "These people up in Ottawa are unreasonable. Consensus was not found because of the Kirby document, or because Trudeau was too arrogant, or because the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) did not work hard enough. But we, the six of us, getting together, will show that unanimity is possible." Have they done that? Has the opposition not urged them to do that?
Surely it would be a bit embarrassing to the government if they were able to show that six or eight of them could agree on something; then they would only have to move on and convince the other two to reach unanimity. Why has it not happened? Why has a consensus not emerged? I will tell hon. members why. Even if they could agree on an amending formula, they could not agree to let it go until each got satisfaction on his shopping list.
Have we heard Premier Peckford say that we could patriate before he got jurisdiction over the offshore? Have we heard Premier Levesque say that it would be okay to patriate with whatever amending formula provided we did not write the notion of self-determination into the Constitution? Have we heard the Premier of Saskatchewan say that they had reached a consensus and we could go ahead and patriate, even though we had not given the provinces jurisdiction over international trade? Have we heard Premier Lougheed say "We have got a consensus on patriation and on an amending formula, go ahead and do it, even though we have not got more jurisdiction over resources?" Have we heard Premier Bennett say that patriation should be proceeded with even though he has not got what he wants with respect to the Senate? No, Madam Speaker. There is no consensus, not on an amending formula and certainly not on patriation, for the simple reason that, once again, the Canadian people will be able to get what is due to them, and has been due to them for the past 114 years, provided premiers A, B, C, D, E, F and G get more powers for their governments and their provinces.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: So, Madam Speaker, if the provincial premiers are unable to reach agreement amongst themselves, it is clear, under those circumstances, that they will not come to an agreement with us in this House. One would have thought, however, that the official opposition might have allowed itself to define exactly what a consensus is since unanimity is impossible, as has been proved. Or again, it might want to tell
us to try to reach a consensus, a word they use constantly in their speeches when they criticize us for acting without the broad support of the provinces. What is that broad support they want, they wish we had? Would nine provinces be enough? If nine provinces stood with us, could we go ahead? I ask the Leader of the Opposition: Could we go ahead if, for instance, Quebec or Alberta were not a party to the consensus? Could we go ahead then and patriate the Constitution? Could a consensus exist without the support of the federal government? We do not know where they stand; they have always called for a consensus if not unanimity, but they take great care not to define it. Let me put this question to them: could we patriate the Constitution with an amending formula if Prince Edward Island were opposed, or again if Alberta or Quebec were opposed to it? There is no answer, Madam Speaker? So-

It is quite clear that the way not to proceed in giving Canadians a Constitution is to seek unanimity or even a consensus. We cannot, we have not and we would not get our Constitution that way.
But what about the bill of rights, Madam Speaker?


Mr. McDermid:: They have it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I can tell you once again the way not to succeed in giving Canadians their basic rights, as recognized by the Conservative Party in a statement by the hon. member for Provencher, the way Canadians will never get a charter of rights and freedoms in the Constitution, is to seek unanimity. The hon. member opposite just said they have already got these rights. Why, then, is the spokesman for his party saying it should be put into the Constitution? Why did the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker want to put it in the Constitution?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Were they both mistaken? I can tell the House that the way not to get a charter in the Constitution is to seek unanimity. We have already been told quite clearly by Premier Lyon of Manitoba, both in Canada and from London, that he never would accept a charter of rights in the Constitution. He also went on to say that the only way Canada could act in this matter was through unanimity. So the way not to give Canadians what they want is to look for unanimity.
What about a consensus, Madam Speaker? Again let me ask the Leader of the Opposition or his party: what kind of consensus would be necessary to put a charter into the Constitution? Could we go ahead with just Premier Lyon opposing? What is the position of the Conservative Party on this matter? They have been telling women, Indians, property owners- they are even telling God-that they want to see them entrenched in the Constitution. They want these greater rights.
I challenged the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) just a few weeks ago when she said that we should accept an amendment to give greater protection to
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women in the Constitution. I said, "We will take it, but will you support us if we do?" Of course, she said no.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We just heard the speech of the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, who was somewhat disappointed that we do not refer to God in the Constitution. Hon. members on this side have repeated many times that in our preamble presented to the ten premiers last June we recognized the importance and the role of God in governing the destiny of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We have told the Leader of the NDP that we would be prepared to accept yet another amendment on aboriginal rights and entrench it in the Constitution. We have made it quite clear that we were and are prepared to see the charter improved. It can always be improved.
What do the Tories say? They say they want to see more rights for women, more rights for Indians, but then they go on to propose a process which is sure to deny those rights to women and to property owners.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Sure they want to protect the rights of Indians and women, refer to God in the Constitution and insert property rights and many other things. But then they recommend a way that is sure to fail, either because we would need unanimity-and we have already been told by one Tory premier that we could not count on it-or else they would propose the Vancouver formula, one which permits opting out. As the Minister of Justice has said in his speech, it would permit God to be acknowledged in the Constitution, perhaps in Ontario and Quebec, but not in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. What kind of a charter is that?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member for Provencher made a vigorous plea to treat provinces equally; and again today the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster suggested that we were treating provinces unequally. Yet they come up with an amending formula, the Vancouver one, which, if implemented, would guarantee inequality between citizens because it would permit one province to opt out of the charter and another to opt in. It would guarantee inequality between the provinces. There again, when Canadians might want to change the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, a province, particularly a powerful one which did not need whatever was being discussed, could opt out. They talk about equality? They are guaranteeing inequality for the people and for the provinces.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
The Constitution


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I think I have shown how not to proceed if we want to get a Canadian Constitution and charter of rights. Let me now examine the ways in which we can proceed if we want to give the people what we recognize they want. We could succeed in patriating the Constitution with an amending formula by adopting the joint resolution before the House. We know that Premier Davis is in favour of that. Premier Hatfield is in favour of that. We knew that three other premiers-I named them a moment ago-in February, 1979, said that that is the way it should be done. We know that this party and most of the New Democratic Party also think that we should proceed by way of joint resolution. I guess we probably represent, between us, something like 60 per cent or more of the population.
More importantly, I refer to the resolution of the hon. member for Edmonton East that I read a little while ago. Quite clearly, he got every member of this House to say we should move on. He did not talk of consent of the provinces. On the contrary, his preamble said that whereas some provinces have repeatedly refused to endorse patriation, we should get on with it; and every member of this House said: "Aye, we should get on with it; that is the way to do it!"


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yet if we needed any more assurance that this is the right way to do it, let me read from Hansard of October 22, 1980. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition moved, and I quote:
That this House supports the immediate patriation of the Constitution of Canada, incorporating only the generally agreed upon formula known as the Vancouver consensus, so that all other constitutional changes shall be made in Canada by Canadians.
In his speech, he went on to say:
This motion calls for the Parliament and the people of Canada to act quickly on the one constitutional question with which virtually every Canadian agrees-
Quickly, Madam Speaker; immediate patriation. No talk of unanimity from the provinces, no talk of provincial consent, no talk of a consensus. We must do it and we can do it. That is the substance of his motion.
If we have this repeated evidence, not only from the premiers and the majority of the members of this House, but, indeed, from all the members of this House on the motion of the hon. member for Edmonton East, and if we have the statement from the Leader of the Opposition that this House can go ahead and do it immediately-not after a federal-provincial conference, not after a year of negotiations, but immediately-then surely we have found the way in which we can succeed in patriating the Constitution. It is by way of joint resolution of this House; no more, no less.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Then let me ask the members opposite: if we can do that for patriation and an amending formula without being estopped by some constitutional convention, if we can do that, as has always been done since 1867, by a mere joint resolution of this House, if we can do that unilaterally-since

March 23, 1981
The Constitution
that is the word that has been used to confound us-to patriate, as the Leader of the Opposition suggests, without having ten or five or three provinces agree, why, then, do they invent a constitutional convention to say that we cannot give the people their rights in a charter?
Why does the Leader of the Opposition say it is okay to patriate? Why has this House said it is okay to patriate because then we give Canadians their own Constitution, but some convention, some obscure theory of constitutional law, says we cannot do it for a charter? What is the logic of that position? How can they argue that unilateralism is all right to give Parliament and the provinces their independence, but it is not all right to protect the people?
I think at this point we hear them say, "Well, it may be legal. Maybe that is the way it has always been done. Maybe technically, in law, you can do it. But"-and then we use the big notion-"it is not legitimate; it is legal but it is not legitimate". They might even go on to say, "and probably not moral".
Let me examine this legitimacy argument. It is obviously an argument which is hard to define. I would begin by conceding that the Canadian people do not like to see their elected governments disagree or quarrel among themselves; they do not like confrontation. They would prefer harmony and so would we, Madam Speaker. That is why, since 1927, we have been seeking to do this without confrontation. That is why I, as Leader of this Government, have been seeking to do it since 1968 without confrontation in all these meetings, all these letters to the premiers, all these discussions. So I agree that it would be better if we could agree. I concede that at the outset.
Having shown that agreement is not possible or certainly not likely, given that the substance of what we are doing is wanted by popular will, to use the words of the hon. member for Provencher and given that we are elected to leadership to this country, let me now ask, on the three aspects of legitimacy, first, is the process we are engaged in compatible with our traditional political values? Second, is the process we are engaged in shifting the delicate balance of federalism toward, as we have been accused, a unitary state or some form of republicanism? And third, is the process fair?
I think if I can examine those three arguments I will have begun to deal with the question of legitimacy. Let me ask, first of all, if this resolution is compatible with our traditional political values.
[ Translation]
Well, if it is a matter of traditional policy, then I think it is undeniable that evolution is part of the Canadian tradition and that we continue to evolve from the colonial state to that of nationhood. It has always been so from our very beginning, and that, with the complicity, I might say, of the parliament of Westminster whose greatness we recognize in that it has always granted its colonies their independence when they requested it.
And so it has been that from 1867 to 1931, when the Statute of Westminster was passed, traditionally Canada clearly evolved toward complete sovereignty. That was also true when prime minister St. Laurent abolished the appeals to the Privy Council in the late forties, and also true when this Parliament gave itself the symbols of a distinct nationality, the Canadian nationality, when it gave itself a flag and, finally, a national anthem; and perhaps one of these days in proclaiming July 1 Canada Day.
So when it comes to compatibility with the traditions toward more autonomy and more independence, I think we are following those traditions very closely when at last we are asking for our own Constitution. Let us look now at the amending formula. Is it compatible with Canadian traditions, with the political values which are generally acknowledged and accepted in Canada?
Well, what we are proposing is not an amending formula like in Australia where the states, the provinces, have nothing to say, an amending formula which provides for a referendum upon the initiative of the government of the Commonwealth, of the federal government. Some people say that our method will lead to republicanism, that it will destroy the constitutional monarchy, and that it is anti-federalist. Well, Madam Speaker, Australia has been amending its constitution since 1901 without consulting the provinces or the states. They do that but as far as I know that country has not yet turned to republicanism, nor has it destroyed parliamentary democracy or abolished the constitutional monarchy. But here in Canada we are not asking for that much.
What we are proposing in fact is an agreement, a consensus among the provinces and the federal government. Is it contrary to our traditions for us to seek constitutional amendments that way? No, quite the opposite, they object to the Victoria formula. And again I heard the hon. member who spoke before me protest because, it would seem, that formula makes the provinces unequal. Well, is that what we proposed in the Victoria formula? For a very simple reason, Madam Speaker: because it is the only amending formula on which all the provinces and the federal government unanimously agreed and which was recognized as such over a period of several months, from February to June, 1971. That is why we have proposed the Victoria formula, not because we prefer it. I, for one, said publicly that I would prefer others. For instance, I would rather have a formula under which a constitutional amendment is allowed and possible if there is agreement between the federal government and six provinces representing perhaps 70 per cent, 75 per cent or 80 per cent of the population, I do not know. We will not name the provinces, we each have a better amending formula in our pocket. All I know is that if we had come up with one on our own, we would have been told that the federal government was again acting arbitrarily.
Madam Speaker, that is why the resolution before the House contains the formula on which the ten provincial
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premiers agreed in 1971. And no one should suggest that it is discriminatory against western Canada, as the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster said a moment ago. If it does make a distinction between the western provinces and the Atlantic provinces, for instance, it is because the western provinces wanted it that way. It will be recalled that Premier Bennett in 1971 insisted on having a special clause for British Columbia and that premier Schreyer-he was then premier of Manitoba-said: Well, let us give him that.
The western provinces fashioned that amending formula to suit themselves. They did so with their agreement. It was not the formula we had in mind. So no one should tell us that is reeks of arbitrariness and that we are discriminating against the provinces.-We have proposed the only formula about which the ten provinces were ever able to reach agreement.

Let me just ask in that regard if the formulae presented by the Progressive Conservative Party are more in keeping with our tradition. Would they be more legitimate, more akin to our traditions? It is a bit hard to say, Madam Speaker, because they have at least two formulae and one is subdivided into three parts. Let us take each one in turn.
In October, in the motion I read a moment ago, the Leader of the Opposition said that they would prefer the Vancouver formula. As I think I pointed out to this party that suggests the Vancouver formula, it makes the provinces unequal. The Vancouver formula by its very essence, because it is based on the conception of opting out, presumes that any one province which does not want to go along with the Canadian consensus can have its special status, can opt out, can say, "We are not like the rest of Canadians." It can say "We have citizens in our province who are not equal to citizens of the other provinces because we do not have a charter; we have rights in our province not equal to the rights of other provinces because of the opting out provision." So much for the desire to put provinces on an equal footing, Madam Speaker.
That is just one of the amending formulae. The other one was presented by the hon. Senator Tremblay before the joint committee in February. I do not know whether it had official status. I do not know whether his proposal supersedes that of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. But at any rate, if we look at it we see that it proposes discussion over three stages during a period of one year, following which, if there is no agreement, we end up with unanimity as the amending formula. In other words, one year of discussion where we propose two; and unanimity where we propose it is the people who should decide. Which of the two parties wants to get Canada out of the status quo and move forward with reforming its Constitution, the one which is based on a large consensus or the one which seeks unanimity? I believe the Canadian people can decide about that.
We heard finally that our proposal is not in keeping with our traditions, that it is not legitimate because we have provision
The Constitution
for a referendum. Actually we have provision for two referenda. One will be in the case where the provinces and the federal government cannot agree and we will ask the people to break the deadlock. That does not seem so outlandish in a democratic country. But it is not against that particular to which I have heard objection; the objection is to the permanent deadlockbreaking mechanism.
Since we are told that we are doing something not in keeping with our traditions, let us ask ourselves how we break a deadlock now. How did Mr. St. Laurent break a deadlock when he wanted to bring Newfoundland into confederation and Quebec said no? How were deadlocks broken in the past? They were broken by the federal government asking Westminster to do something. That is our tradition. That is our law and that has been our practice. What are we proposing? We propose that when there is a deadlock, the federal government, as traditionally and legally has been the case, asks not Westminster-since we will be independent-but the Canadian people to break the deadlock. What is illegitimate in that, Madam Speaker? What could be more in keeping with our traditions as an autonomous sovereign state to break a deadlock, not as in the past by going to Westminster, but by going in the future to the Canadian people and telling them to get agreement among yourselves?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I have talked about traditional political values as they apply to patriation and as they apply to an amending formula. I would like to say a few words now about the charter. I listened to the preceding speaker. His was one of the few speeches in this debate that I have heard. But in it I found all the cliches which have been repeated from day one, and I am just wondering after five months why the opposition has not been able to renew its arguments a little. But since it has not, let me deal with the argument about the charter being in some way against traditional values. Is it against federalism? Is having an entrenched charter something which denies the spirit of federalism? We just have to look to the United States, the greatest federation in the world. It has a charter. Is it against parliamentary democracy? We can name many parliamentary democracies which have a charter. I think the ones which would impress this House the most would be Denmark, Norway, and the Federal Republic of Germany. But more important are the provinces of Canada. They are parliamentary democracies and most of them do have charters. Therefore, what is against traditional values if the Canadian people have a charter binding themselves or if most of the provinces have such a charter? I can see nothing there against traditional values.
Let me remind this House that in 1971, in Victoria, we had a charter called the Victoria charter. It was not as good or as perfect as the one we have now. It had a guarantee of basic linguistic rights and democratic rights. It was a charter. Was that against our traditions, or are we just following the tradition which the ten premiers accepted in Victoria? They had a charter. We have a charter in the Victoria charter. It was

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The Constitution
written in Canada, in Victoria, by Canadians, and it was to be presented to Westminster by way of a joint Address. I admit the provinces were also going to pass resolutions supporting it, but they offered a vehicle to bring a charter written in Victoria, Canada, to Westminster. Was that colonialism? We hear it said now that, if we write a charter in this House, it is colonialism to have it passed in Great Britain. What about the ten premiers who said in 1971 that the way to do it was, "We write it here; we get it passed in Westminster." So much for the argument of illegitimacy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I now come to the language issue, Madam Speaker. Is there anything against Canadian traditions in the language provisions contained in the resolution before the House? Well, Madam Speaker, let me remind members of this House who repeated many cliches on this matter, together with provincial politicians, that under our original Constitution in 1867, the federal government, the Government of Canada, not only had the right but also the obligation to protect minorities in the area of education.
Under subsections 93(3) and 93(4), we now have the right to legislate in educational matters so as to protect minorities. Indeed, those minorities were then defined in terms of religion, whereas we now tend to define them in terms of language, and we know the historical reasons for that change. But the principle was there; the Fathers of Confederation-and that is the most beautiful and noblest aspect of our tradition-said: It is up to you in the federal government to protect in the field of minority language education. Well, this is what we are doing in the charter before us, but to be on the safe side, I remind the hon. members that the provincial ministers agreed in St. Andrews in 1977, and then in Montreal in 1978, to protect minority language education in all provinces. It is true that at the time it was proposed as a reciprocal agreement, which was never followed up. It is a fact that now we are making that proposal in the Constitution, but it is also a fact that we are carrying out a duty and following a tradition going back to the beginnings of confederation, according to which minority education must be protected in this country if not by the federal government or through reciprocal agreements, at least under a charter of fundamental rights and public freedoms.


Madam Speaker:: I am very sorry, but according to our Standing Orders, it is now my duty to interrupt the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in order to proceed with private members' business. Unless the House would agree-


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, there are two other alternatives that are available subject to the unanimous consent of the House. We could agree that private members' hour be suspended today. Failing an agreement on this, we could agree
that private members' hour be deferred to nine to ten o'clock tonight, instead of having it from five to six o'clock. Those are two suggestions that I submit to my hon. colleagues.


Madam Speaker:: Does the House agree to the first proposal, that the private members' hour be postponed in order to allow the Right Hon. Prime Minister to conclude his remarks?


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister has spoken now for an hour and 15 minutes. If it would be convenient to him not to break his speech, we would be prepared to agree to the second suggestion; that is, that private members' hour commence at nine o'clock and end at ten o'clock this evening.


Stanley Howard Knowles: We agree, Madam Speaker.


Madam Speaker:: The House then agrees with the proposal that the Right Hon. Prime Minister be permitted to conclude his speech and that the hour reserved for private members' business be taken from nine to ten o'clock tonight?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I want to thank the members of this House for having permitted me to continue an already long speech. I am grateful that they permit me to continue at this time. I will not abuse the privilege and take up too much of their time, but as was pointed out on Friday, I have waited a long time to speak and I find it important to try to deal with as many arguments as possible.

I believe that I have therefore just shown that when we protect the linguistic rights of the minorities, there is no encroachment on and no departure from our Canadian traditions. However, I also want to deal with the delicate matter of Section 133 of the Constitution, since we have been criticized for not extending the provisions of this section to a greater number of provinces. I would simply like to say that we did not find on this side of the House that we could do this without effectively providing ground for the illegitimacy argument. Let me explain why. In the early days of confederation, Section 133 was forced upon certain provinces, namely, Quebec and later on Manitoba, and not upon the other provinces, contrary to what occurred in the field of education where we were justified in taking action. However, I am still surprised, Madam Speaker, that many people objected to our action while they had no objection when the provinces met in 1977 and 1978 in St. Andrews and in Montreal to speak about the protection of minorities in the field of education. No one blamed Mr. Rene Levesque at the time for not having said that Ontario and New Brunswick at least, and perhaps the other provinces, should also agree to be bound by Section 133, since Quebec was bound by it and that reciprocity would
March 23, 1981

require that the others be also subject to it. No one blamed Mr. Levesque for this, neither Quebec nationalists, nor the leaders of francophone minorities in the other provinces. Why is this? Probably because the Quebec premier was then thinking in practical terms. He probably thought: "Let us get what we can for now, but I shall not ask such a thing of Ontario." 1 find it rather strange that all those who oppose the proposal now before the House are also those who were saying at the time that we should go even further. Those who accuse us of trying to use force and to encroach upon provincial powers are also saying that we should have encroached even more upon these powers.
Madam Speaker, I would like to remind a number of people in this nationalist bunch, both clerics and lay people, who prevented entrenchment of at least part of Section 133 in several provinces to come into effect when we, including myself as Prime Minister, negotiated this entrenchment in 1971. Once again, it was the nationalist movement in Quebec which put an end to the Victoria proposal even though it would have brought about the entrenchment of certain rights. 1 would also like to remind them that if the Victoria project was able to go rather far in implementing Section 133, it was not with the support of public opinion in Quebec. It was thanks to premiers like Mr. Smallwood, like Alec Campbell, like Bill Davis, who agreed that we protect wholly or partly francophone minorities in their own provinces by implementing all or part of Section 133. And if there was nothing in the Victoria charter concerning the protection of education rights of minorities, it was because the Quebec representatives did not want to hear about it. We now know why. It is because they were being advised by a certain Claude Morin who was thinking about Bill 22 and Bill 101.
It is with a certain emotion that I speak of these matters, Madam Speaker, because I believe that history will find it a paradox that what occurred in 1971 in Victoria, thanks to the support of a number of francophone premiers, repeats itself today in 1981, ten years later, as we entrench in the Constitution the Official Languages Act, which promises to all Canadians from sea to sea linguistic equality before all federal institutions and jurisdictions, and which guarantees to our anglophone and francophone minorities entrenchment of their basic educational rights in the Constitution.
Let me emphasize that history will find it paradoxal that we do not have the support in this regard of the nationalist movement in Quebec and of the Quebec government. We have the support of the Leader of the New Democratic Party, a man named Broadbent; we have the support of Premier Davis and we have the support of Premier Hatfield. This will go down in history, Madam Speaker! If the Quebec government found Section 133 so important, why did it not say: "Go ahead and impose Section 133 on Ontario and we shall support you." This is what it would have done if it really wanted to protect francophone minorities instead of opposing our resolution,
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which does more to protect francophone and anglophone minorities than any other piece of legislation to be introduced in this Parliament. The same happened in 1978 with Bill C-60 when we tried to convince the four provinces with the largest francophone minorities to accept Section 133. Who supported us and who opposed us at that time? History will show that it was again the nationalist movement in Quebec which opposed Bill C-60.
Madam Speaker, I would now like to deal with another aspect of legitimacy and ask whether this is actually a power grab, whether we actually are on the road to a unitary state, whether the federal government by way of the resolution now before us actually wants to grab additional power. This I can dispose of quite briefly. What about patriation, Madam Speaker? Does patriation involve a power grab on the part of the federal government? What is actually happening? We are transferring power from Britain to Canada, not to the federal government, but to Canadians as represented by a national government and by a number of provinces, or, lacking an agreement, to the Canadian people by means of a referendum. Is that a federal grab for power? What about the amending formula, Madam Speaker? Here again, does the proposed amending formula involve a bid to increase federal powers? We have said throughout this debate that the Constitution is now being amended by way of the federal government applying to Britain. Far from increasing our powers, we are distributing them to the provinces and to the people in that respect. Henceforth, if the resolution does pass, we will amend the Constitution not by unilateral action on the part of the federal government applying to Westminster, but by action of the federal government in co-operation with the provinces or, lacking such an agreement, by the Canadian people assuming the power to amend the Constitution. Is that an abuse of power?
Let us now look at the charter. Is there actually a transfer of powers to the central government? Quite the opposite, the charter in fact takes away a little of the powers of all the governments. But it takes away the most from the federal government itself, because as things now stand the provinces in a number of areas are prevented from abusing basic freedoms. There have been numerous decisions on this by the Supreme Court: in the Saumur case, the Padlock act case, the Jehovah's Witnesses case, etc. Provinces now do not have that power. I would refer in that respect to a speech made by the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae) before the University of Toronto Law Society. He quite aptly showed that basically the federal government is limiting its own powers under the Criminal Code and, I would add, its powers under the Emergency Act to infringe upon public liberties. If there is a transfer of powers, Madam Speaker, it is essentially a transfer from the central government to the Canadian people.

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Are we really going toward a unitary state, Madam Speaker, when in all these instances we are giving more power to the provinces and the people of Canada than they have under the present Constitution? And let me just ask, is that not also the question one must answer when we look at the provisions for equalization which I have not yet discussed this afternoon? But what are we doing? Grabbing power for the federal government? Are we moving toward a unitary state? Ridiculous, Madam Speaker. By entrenching the equalization obligation in the Constitution we are giving more powers to the regions, not to the centre.
The same can be said, of course, on the division of powers, sections 91 and 92. Is this a power grab, Madam Speaker? Can anyone in this House show one single instance where the federal government could have more power in the resolution now being discussed? On the contrary, there is one section in this resolution which touches the division of powers, and that is the amendment moved by the Leader of the New Democratic Party. I wish he had not, quite frankly, because he did it to please the west and I have not found a single western premier who says it is okay; they have all said it is too little.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: But if there is any transfer of power in this resolution before the House, that is it, Madam Speaker. It gives the provinces new powers, powers they do not have in the area of resources, powers of indirect taxation and interprovincial trade. So much for saying that the resolution is not legitimate because it is a power grab. If anyone is getting more power, Madam Speaker, it is the provinces and people of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Madam Speaker, the third and final argument of illegitimacy is that the process is unfair. Let us examine that. Is the process fair? By this I suppose I mean: Are the opponents of the resolution, whether here in Parliament, in the provincial legislatures or among the Canadian people, in some way being deprived of the means of redress by this resolution? Is the resolution changing the course of our history in some way which is irrevocable and irremediable?
Well, let me just say it is quite clear, Madam Speaker, that neither the judicial process nor the political process is in any way affected. If we look at the judicial process we have the evidence of six provinces presently in front of the appeal courts; so obviously fairness, in so far as it can be expected from the courts, is not tampered with in any way by this resolution.
I was interested to hear the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster once again object to this charter because it suddenly gives more power to the courts, at the very time when the six premiers who share his opinion are in those courts
seeking justice, Madam Speaker. Let them make up their minds.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If one were to believe that the provinces are more interested in the judicial process and in judicial redress, you would think that they would have asked the courts to determine with a little more celerity. You would wonder why they staggered their appeals in three different provinces over a period of several months and, having lost the first appeal in Manitoba, took more than six weeks to go to the Supreme Court. If they are sincerely interested, Madam Speaker, in seeking judicial opinions rather than fighting this issue by the political process, they would obviously have proceeded differently. So let us not hear the argument that we are in some way abusing the legal or judicial process in this matter.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: It is the provinces who are using the courts, presumably to be better able to fight the matter among the electorate.
Is the political process in any way affected? Well, Madam Speaker, Sections 3 and 4 of the charter guarantee the continuance of that political process. They guarantee that in less than four years from now we will have to seek a mandate from the Canadian people. The provincial governments will also have to seek new mandates from the Canadian people. The Canadian people will judge the course that we are following, and the official opposition will have the occasion to seek a mandate to redress the situation. That is the political process. That is what is taking place now, not in the courts but here in this Parliament, Madam Speaker.
How can this situation be redressed through the political process? I am not sure what would happen in the case of patriation. I suppose theoretically a party could campaign that, if returned as the government of this nation, it would seek to re-establish the colonial status. I think to state the objection is to answer it; it is obviously a ridiculous situation. But then you must wonder that if it is obvious that no party would ever campaign to re-establish the colonial status of Canada, even supposing that the British would be foolish enough to accept it, how is it that they are opposing patriation now? How can they oppose it when they think colonial status would not be worthy of any support by the Canadian people when election time comes around?
Look at the amending formula. Are we interfering with the political process? On the contrary, the political process is written right into the referendum formula. It provides for two years of negotiations. Those negotiations are prescribed right in the resolution. There must be meetings between the federal government and provinces for two years, and then agreement either follows or does not. If it does not, is there some arbitrary measure which is then imposed by the federal government? On the contrary, if we cannot convince the provinces and they
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cannot convince us, no arbitrariness intervenes. It is the people of Canada who are called upon to decide.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, can redress be found in any other way? The opposition has said-and some senators have also said-that they are horrified by the idea of the deadlockbreaking mechanism. So be it. They are horrified. It can be changed. The Leader of the Opposition, the opposition parties and the provincial governments just have to seek a mandate to change that. There is not a referendum procedure forever in the Constitution of Canada. It is there until somebody uses the amending formula to change it. Political process is respected. We think the referendum as a deadlock-breaking mechanism is valid. It is in keeping with our traditions, but anybody is entitled to hold the contrary view. Any politician can run on the platform that, if elected, he will bring in constitutional amendments which will do away with the referendum process and which will do away with the charter, if that is what he wants. I think I have hinted that we would be happy to see the opposition parties campaign on such a platform.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: "Elect us and we will take away your rights; we will seek a constitutional amendment; no doubt it will be supported by Premier Lyon; we just need a certain number of provinces and we will take away the charter".
Once again, to state the argument is perhaps to say that it does not have much substance. Why are so many people opposed to the charter now who indeed would not want to consult the people on it or campaign on it? The answer is very simple. It is in those statistics and the Gallup polls and others to which I referred earlier. The people want this action. It is in the answer of the very member for Provencher who says it is the national will.
I believe I have dealt with substance. I have dealt with process. It remains to deal with timing, and perhaps I will deal with timing in a short and timely manner.
Many times when Canada was engaged in the process of nation-building we have heard that the substance was right. The flag was all right; we needed one. We needed a national anthem. But now was not the time. The time was divisive. Let us procrastinate. Let us postpone. I say with some regret that though the Conservative Party played a very eminent role in the creation of confederation, its members have long since abandoned that spirit of decisiveness which existed when Canadians took, because they were Conservatives and Liberals, the great leap into the future called confederation.
Let me just recall that at the time of confederation there were two great debates, very much mustering arguments like the ones we have heard today and very much saying that now is not the time; just wait a little longer. What did George Brown, a great Liberal, have to say at the end of his speech during those debates in 1865? I want to read these ten lines because they are very appropriate to today's debate. I quote:
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-the man who strives for the postponement of this measure on any ground, is doing what he can to kill it almost as effectually as if he voted against it. Let there be no mistake as to the manner in which the government presents this measure to the House. We do not present it as free from fault, but we do present it as a measure so advantageous to the people of Canada, that all the blemishes, real or imaginary, averred against it, sink into utter insignificance in the presence of its merits ... Let us look at it in the light of a few months back-in the light of the evils and injustice to which it applies a remedy-in the light of the years of discord and strife we have spent in seeking for that remedy-in the light with which the people of Canada would regard this measure were it to be lost-
Today those who say that the timing is not right have one of two motives in mind. Either they think that with a bit more time the measure could be improved, or they are using the passage of time to destroy this measure, and I want to look briefly at each of those arguments.
With the passage of time could it be improved? We believe it could. The Minister of Justice and the government House leader twice gave more time to extend the deadline of the joint committee. They believed we could bring in amendments. Amendments were brought in by the Minister of Justice, who has done incredible service to Canada by his work-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -by the co-chairmen, the hon. member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Joyal) and Senator Hays-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -and by members of the opposition such as the hon. member for Provencher and the hon. member for Burnaby. Members of various parties have improved this measure and, no doubt, through the amending process, more improvements can come in the future.
If hon. members in the official opposition want to improve the measure, it makes one wonder why they have held us up for five weeks on one amendment.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The New Democratic Party has amendments to propose in the area of aboriginal rights, amendments to propose in the area of women's rights. We would like to see reference to God in the preamble.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We have many amendments we would like to put in. Hon. members opposite laugh. I repeat, we would like to see God in the preamble; we would like to see the preamble brought back which we presented to the provinces last September.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If ever proof were needed that a consensus and unanimity are not possible in this matter, it was given last June when that preamble was rejected. One of the reasons was that the preamble indicated that Canada was a nation. That

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was the reason, as is well-known, that at least one province did not want to accept the preamble.
The motion before the Elouse can be improved. We hope there will be time to improve it, but we say that once the resolution is in Canada, we then have an amending process which can permit any improvement wanted by Canadian people and by the members of the House and of provincial legislatures.
Let me just once again ask those who are perhaps prepared to vote against this motion because it does not adequately protect women's rights, would women's rights be more protected in the country if the charter were defeated? Would God be more respected if the charter were defeated? Would aboriginal rights be more entrenched if the charter were defeated?
I make that point to those who have hesitation in voting for this measure because it is not perfect. But, to those who are asking for more time, who are saying that this motion is not timely because they really want to see its defeat, because they are hoping with the passage of time that somehow the judicial process and the political process will permit the measure to be defeated, let me just say that they are in the purest traditions of those who at each stage of nation building said that the time was not now.	.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: First I refer briefly to the abolition of appeals to the privy council when prime minister St. Laurent in the late forties proposed a bill to get rid of this link to colonial status whereby the final courts of appeal sat in Westminster. What did the then leader of the Conservative Party have to say? Mr. Drew speaking on this matter had the following to say:
-I cannot imagine what injury will follow by holding this back until there can be full consultation in regard to the whole question. I strongly urge that this matter be held back, along with others affecting the Constitution, until the whole Constitution and its interpretation and the system by which its terms will be interpreted can be discussed fully by the representatives of the dominion government and the provinces.
So much for nation building when it came to cutting off appeals to the privy council.
Another important step was the matter of seeing Newfoundland enter into confederation. On February 14, 1949, in debating the proposed address to the King representing the entry of Newfoundland into confederation, opposition leader George Drew made clear his support of the idea of Newfoundland joining confederation, but he stated the following:
We should not tamper lightly with our Constitution, simply on the ground that the results are much worth while ... No matter how desirable it may be to hasten any procedure, this is no time to take short-cuts which have the effect of lessening respect for the Constitution itself. .. desirable though the object may be, this course should not be adopted ... As I have already suggested, the proper procedure is to consult the provinces now.
Do we need another example?


Some hon. Members:: Yes, yes.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We hear the same arguments, we hear the same procrastinations, no doubt we are listening to the same speech writers.
In 1949 amendments to the British North America Act were brought forward respecting the amendment of the Constitution, that is, Section 91, paragraph (1) of that new amendment. Again we can listen to the Hon. Leader of the Opposition today, although I am quoting Mr. George Drew when he said:
This motion should not be proceeded with until after the conference, which is to take place after the termination of this session, in regard to limited aspects of the constitutional problem.
It does not seem to me that a single argument has been placed before this House to indicate why this matter cannot very well stand over until that time. What is the urgency? ... In view of the statements already made by some of the provincial premiers with respect to the misunderstandings that may follow this piecemeal approach ... I believe a very dangerous step will have been taken if this resolution passes and the provincial representatives are called together only after this has become a fait accompli, after this positive and definite step has been taken.
One more example of nation building is the flag debate in December 1964. I will only quote one phrase because members have referred to it and members are now sitting on the other side who participated in that debate. We will remember Mr. Diefenbaker then making it clear that Mr. Pearson was creating divisions which would be remembered way beyond this generation. These are the strong words that he used:
During the past months great harm has been done to the unity of the nation, greater than that during any other period in my lifetime.
Rather than quote more, let me just refer members to the tale of an eye witness which was given to me. It appeared in last Saturday's edition of The Ottawa Citizen. The eye witness was David Kwavnick, an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. Let me read a few words:
I can recall spending most of December 14, 1964, in the gallery of the House of Commons watching the culmination of the long and acrimonious flag debate.
Under Mr. Diefenbaker's leadership, it continued:
-large segments of the population reacted as though the government intended nothing less than the bloody rape of their history and heritage. The country, it seemed, had not been so divided since 1917.
I apologize for the next phrase:
I can recall Tommy Douglas telling the House that though he supported the measure, he opposed the way in which the government was handling it; that by using closure the government had thrown away a golden opportunity to unite the country; that instead of giving the country a flag of unity it was saddling the country with a flag of division. And it all sounded so reasonable at the time.
In the wee small hours of the morning, Mr. Pearson rose to conclude the debate. The atmosphere in the House was tense and ugly. When the result of the vote was announced, Mr. Diefenbaker stood, shaking his fist and hurling imprecations which could not be heard above the tumult. J. Waldo Monteith slammed his fist on his desk and stomped, cursing, from the Chamber. Other Conservative members stood silently staring across the aisle, and in those stares there was hatred.
That's how we got our flag.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We hear something of the same language today. On Tuesday, February 17, the hon. member for Pro-vencher said:
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This resolution is creating an atmosphere which will disrupt any possibility of genuine reform taking place in the coming years ... To tear up those federal traditions which are at risk now, Madam Speaker, is threatening to tear up our own country-
The hon. member's leader, the Right Hon. Mr. Clark, interviewed on CTV's "Question Period" on February 22 had this to say:
-the Liberal legislation to patriate the Constitution with a charter of rights will cause in the region I come from in western Canada a legacy of division that we might not overcome as a nation.
It could quite literally break up this country . .. This could be the final straw.
What is being given to the Canadian people is that which everybody recognizes they want, even in western Canada, if these surveys I quoted are exact and if the hon. member for Provencher is right in saying that the Canadian people want a charter and want their Constitution now.
The Leader of the Opposition goes on:
It could mean the end of this country. It's more dangerous than anything Quebec Premier Rene Levesque proposed because this isn't a dream that somebody is talking about, this is a juggernaut that somebody is trying to force upon a country.
He said the bill represented a personal obsession by Trudeau. Well, so much for separatism and Mr. Levesque's efforts to break up this country. It was not as serious as the effort we in this chamber are making to give Canadians their fundamental rights and freedoms.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We are a country blessed with great resources, human and physical, secure from war or civil strife. Peace and prosperity have permitted our two languages, various cultures, to grow deep roots. Perhaps these very conditions have increasingly permitted the assertion in recent years of regional and individual self-interest at the expense of the common one.
What do we see, Madam Speaker? What has been described as we look around the country? We see alienation in Quebec, the west and the maritimes. It seems to me that makes it clear that the course of our national development cannot be left in limbo. We have promises to keep. After the Quebec referendum we on this side, at any rate, have promises to keep to change the Constitution so that we can move out of the status quo. We intend to keep those promises.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Even if we did not have any more time, lest the forces of self-interest tear us apart, we must now define the common thread which holds us all together. If this realization of our identity involves hard choices, whoever said that the coming of maturity was easy?
I do not think there is any permanent equilibrium in the political affairs of any nation. It is always a moving equilibrium. This is particularly true of a federation where checks and balances, regions and the centre are constantly adjusting that equilibrium. What we are doing today is merely providing Canadians with the means of seeking that equilibrium.
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In sloughing off the last vestiges of colonialism, in entrenching those values Canadians hold in common, we are merely setting the stage with a contest about the kind of Canada we will have in the future. The contest about the two kinds of Canada, perhaps, will be laid out. Will we be highly centralized? Will we be a loose confederation of shopping centres, as some wag said about Los Angeles? Will we be something in between? I don't know.
The next two decades will see the gestation of the twenty-first century in Canada. I do not know what kind of country our successors in this place will leave behind them. But I do know, and I deeply believe, that it is our duty to leave behind us at least the ability to our successors to choose Canada's destiny. In that sense what we are doing is ending the beginning; the beginning being all that period during which Canada has moved toward independence and that period which is lasting now during which we cannot amend our Constitution. We are merely setting the stage for those who follow us to then have that debate about the equilibrium, about the kind of Canada they want.
I would like to end with an appeal to men and women of action, as we are in this House. We are not theorists. We are not academics. We are not people who can pontificate from on high, as can some of the people sitting above us. We are elected to produce results. I want to appeal to members of this House to use a device I sometimes use myself when arguing about a particular course of action, with myself, or with somebody else when I find that the pros and cons of a particular course of action are not conclusive, as in this debate.
We are told that the evils flowing from this resolution will be great. We hold that the good flowing from this course of action will be great. Let us say there is a stand-off. Let me appeal to members who oppose this resolution; let me appeal to Canadians who oppose it, to use the opposite test, to ask themselves not what will follow from the adoption of this resolution, but to ask ourselves what will follow from not adopting the resolution? Let us ask them to tell us in what positive way Canada will suffer from the defeat of the resolution before us now. If this is defeated, let me ask opponents of the measure whether they are prepared to accept a Canada where fundamental freedoms, mobility rights, equalization, language rights and non-discrimination will never be a part of our Constitution? Let me ask them if this resolution is defeated would God be more present in our laws? Would the right to life become more sacred? Would aboriginal rights be more entrenched? Would women be more equal? Would linguistic minorities be more protected if this resolution is defeated? Let me ask those who want to see the defeat of this motion what their victory cry will be. Will it be "Praise God, we have defeated the charter of fundamental rights and freedoms."? Is that the course that they really want to see followed?
What will be the boast of those who have defeated patria-tion? Will they say, "We were there, we were sitting in Parliament when we prevented Canada from taking its final step toward sovereignty."? Tell me what the provincial governments will say. What will their shout of triumph be? Will they

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say, "we were successful through the courts, through Westminster, in keeping Canada a colony a little while longer. Hooray! We managed to delay one year, five or ten, the coming of age of this country"? What a triumph for those who argue that a little more time would make this resolution more perfect, who we know in their hearts they are seeking at this crucial moment of nation building to procrastinate in the hope it will not happen.

In conclusion, Madam Speaker, I would like to quote the words of a committed man, Charles Peguy, who was also a poet and a writer. Here is what he wrote:
Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.
He went on to say, and I quote:
What really matters is that mysticism not be devoured by politics to which it gave birth.
Well, Madam Speaker, we must remember that in this sentence Peguy said that mysticism must end in politics because he was not a pure speculator. He did not revel in contemplative endeavours. He was a committed man, just as we are committed men and women in this House. We have no right to seek shelter in idealism and in federalist mysticism to avoid making choices when we are asked to make them. We do not enjoy the right to shirk our duties as politicians, duties which, for all practical purposes, amount to taking political decisions which translate that federalist mysticism into the concrete, difficult and complex reality of every day. It is our job to make difficult choices. It is our job to devote ourselves to the art of the possible in a complex and imperfect world; that is why we have been elected and we do not have the right, to wait blissfully for a gentle procedure to settle the basic conflict between those who are for this measure and those who are against. Mr. St. Laurent gave us an example of that when he had Newfoundland join confederation against the injunction of the Conservative Party, when he abolished appeals to the Privy Council in spite of the warnings of the Consevative leader. Mr. Pearson gave us an example of that when he courageously proposed a Canadian flag and for months had to take the insults of those who were saying that he would divide the country; and yet, three years after the flag was adopted, everyone was proud to speak about it at the Montreal world fair in 1967. Those are men 1 give as examples to those who know what personal commitment means, Madam Speaker, and as to those who do not know that, I leave them with this other sentence from Peguy who said, and I quote:
It is easy to keep one's hands clean when one has no hands.
Well, Madam Speaker, we have hands, we set them to the plough and we are not afraid to get them dirty for the simple reason that it is for a cause about which everybody is agreed that this is what the people want.
Well now, this constitutional debate has already lasted over five decades in this country, and in this current phase it dates
back to the month of June last year. Our forebears used to say: Carpe diem, seize the day. Well, I call upon all Canadians: time has come to stop going around in circles, time has come to act, time has come to sever the Gordian knot.
If I may, I would like to appeal to the Leader of the Opposition who spoke in Toronto on June 6 of last year. Referring to the Monday in June when the 11 first ministers got together, he said:
The participants in Monday's conference speak for 11 governments. Parliament speaks for 23 million Canadians. If the first ministers of the federation cannot make marked progress towards changes which fit the Canada of the 1980s, then the Parliament of the federation may have to assert a stronger role.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I read on:
But if it does-
That is if Parliament does.
-that must not be as the instrument of one government, but as the forum of all Canada. Parliament, alone among institutions, reflects that country and can lift the discussion above the question of what governments need and focus on the question of what the nation needs.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If that is not an appeal to action, by the Leader of the Opposition, spoken to those people, after some eight or nine months of procrastination, if that is not an appeal to action by this Parliament I do not know what is. I commend those words to the followers of the Leader of the Opposition, just as I commend the words of the Leader of the New Democratic Party to those of his followers who may have some hesitation.
I quote the words of the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party, as reported in Hansard of February 17:
After the improvements that have been made, can any person who takes human liberty as a fundamental value oppose what is probably the best charter of rights in the world?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Once again, as in every important instance of nation building, this Parliament, these hon. members, must choose between action and inaction.
In closing, I want to quote the words of Georges Vanier, who was a great Canadian soldier, diplomat, statesman, and governor general. Three days before his death in 1967 he said:
The best time is always the present time, because it alone offers the opportunity for action, because it is ours, because on God's scale it is apocalyptic, a time when the lines between good and evil are clearly drawn, and each one of us must choose his side, a time when there is no longer room for either the coward or the uncommitted.
In this crucial stage of nation building let me echo those words. The best time is certainly the present time!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
March 23, 1981



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Madam Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Argenteuil-Papineau (Mr. Gourd)-Airports-Increase in passenger traffic at Malton, Edmonton and Calgary; the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight)- Grain-Change in policy on timing of announcement; the hon. member for Kootenay West (Mr. Kristiansen)-Canada Labour Code-Protection of uranium miners.
It being six o'clock, I do now leave the Chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed debate on the motion of Mr. Chretien, seconded by Mr. Roberts, for an Address to Her Majesty the Queen respecting the Constitution of Canada.
And on the amendment of Mr. Epp, seconded by Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton)-That the motion be amended in Schedule B of the proposed resolution by deleting Clause 46, and by making all necessary changes to the Schedule consequential thereto.
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise to participate in the debate on the Constitution which I consider the most fundamental law of the land. Since the beginning of the constitutional debate hundreds of Canadians from all provinces and all walks of life have sent letters to me concerning the Constitution.
One letter written by Mr. A. V. Godden of Scarborough, Ontario, deserves special attention. Mr. Godden had the opportunity to follow the Constitution debate both in the House and at the special joint committee. He writes as follows:
-in recent months the delicate and oft-times fragile threads of Canadian unity have been most grievously weakened and the present and future security and stability of Canadian society is tragically most insecure and unstable. This is
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indeed a cruel paradox, when having in mind that the gaining of Canada's Constitution could and should bring the whole family together, in terms of will and purpose, towards a better and more equitable recognition of our many and diverse needs and aspirations.
As one who has been involved in the constitutional debate for many months, I, regrettably, have to agree with his observation.
I ask, Mr. Speaker, what has happened to Canadian unity when we have, as we have today, not a concerted and positive effort to renew our federal structure but instead a serious and growing confrontation in which a majority of provinces are challenging the legality of the central government's constitutional initiative in the courts of the land.
What has happened to Canadian unity, to our sense of family, when in the quiet prairie town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, the former riding of Tommy Douglas, who was the premier of my province, a separatist organization can attract more than 1,000 people to a rally?
What has happened to Canadian unity when important instruments of national integration, the political parties themselves, are all deeply divided because of the federal government's constitutional plans?

As Montreal's Le Devoir editor Jean-Louis Roy wrote, and I quote:
The country of negotiation, the country of compromise which used to be called Canada no longer exists.

The resolution before us is acting as a catalyst; a catalyst not of unity but of disunity.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Unlike the flag debate which the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) referred to today-that is a symbol, an important symbol, but merely a symbol-this debate involves the fundamental law of the land and division on this resolution is likely to linger in the canyons of time.
The government's attempt to impose constitutional change is inconsistent with the principles of federalism; it is inconsistent with the principles that have provided unity in a country of diverse peoples and diverse regions.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Last October 7, I rose in this House to affirm my belief in the federal system. I rise today to reaffirm my belief in a federalism of co-operation, of compromise and of consensus.
After many hours of discussions with my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, after many hours of discussions with my constituents, after long discussions with Canadians from Atlantic Canada, from Quebec, Ontario, the western provinces and the north, and after many hundreds of hours of discussions and work on the special joint committee, I am more convinced than ever that this Parliament, in the national interest and in

March 23, 1981
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the interest of Canada, should reject the government's constitutional resolution.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: My opposition in October was based in part on the substance of the resolution, but it was the unilateral action I found the most objectionable. Nonetheless, I decided at that time to try to modify the form and the substance of the resolution in the hope that Parliament would bring forth a package which would enjoy wide governmental and popular support. It is now obvious that a consensus does not exist.
Last October, six provinces opposed the resolution. This March, eight provinces oppose the resolution. In addition, public opinion clearly opposes the central government's initiative. In the past few months, the resolution has both caused and reinforced deep divisions in our country. I am convinced that in the national interest, in the interest of Canada, this House should reject the resolution.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I have in the past argued many times for the cause of federalism, the cause which demonstrates what this country is all about. This cause, should be our cause.
The Fathers of Confederation discussed at great length in the 1860s the kind of a union needed. A legislative union or put in other words, a unitary state, was rejected.
The preamble to the British North America Act states as follows:
That the provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have expressed the desire to be federally united into one dominion.
K. C. Wheare, who is a noted international authority on federalism, defines the federal principle as follows:
As a method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each within a sphere co-ordinate and independent.
Federalism is a means of both uniting and of decentralizing. It is a compromise between the uniformity of a unitary state, like Britain or France, and the simple independence of sovereign states. Like Gil Remillard, one of the five expert witnesses who testified before our committee, I believe federalism is much more than a legal structure. Federalism is a philosophy, a way of thinking, a way of being, a way of seeing things, not only at the state level, but at the level of human relations. Federalism is co-operation, compromise and sharing.
In a federal system it is simply wrong for one order of government, acting alone, to amend the Constitution in important respects.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: It is certainly wrong when the unilateral action involves the most important part of the Constitution, namely, the amending formula itself.
To argue otherwise is to argue that Canada is not a federal country. To argue otherwise is to argue that provincial governments are subordinate to the central authority, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction. It is to argue that there is no requirement for regional approval of major constitutional change; that all we need in this country is a national majority, as expressed in the national Parliament. Remember, Mr. Speaker, that a federal state has two orders of government, the Parliament and the legislatures. Each are supreme and sovereign within their own areas of jurisdiction and each are equal in their sovereignty within their own areas of jurisdiction.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Unilateral action of the kind on which we are embarking in this country is wrong. The process which Parliament has embarked upon will do lasting damage to Canadian federalism and to our capacity to work together as Canadians. When it comes to constitutions, the process is vitally important. Nothing in my experience tells me that good ends come from bad means.

Several people seem to be convinced, as the Right Hon. Prime Minister was this afternoon, that the proposed resolution has to be accepted because we have to keep the promises made to the people of Quebec during the referendum campaign. But, Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that we are not talking about a formula for renewed federalism. During that campaign, not one single federal politician and neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition did commit themselves to support unilateral action designed to change the Constitution of Canada; not one single federal politician did commit himself to admit that the federal government might impose an amending formula and all those conditions; not one single federal politician did commit himself to amend Bill 101. [English]
We are fooling ourselves; we are pretending, if we say that this is being done for the people of Quebec in response to the referendum.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: What about western Canada? Are we taking steps, by means of this resolution, to address the historic grievances and legitimate concerns of the west? Will this initiative help to moderate the feelings of frustration and alienation that are rampant in the west, and are even finding expression for a small minority in western separatism? I think not.
The premiers and legislatures of the four western provinces are united in their opposition to the resolution and are united in their attempt to block it. The resource provision, while useful, represents for less than was offered by the federal government itself in February, 1979. Indeed, there are certain provisions that I will refer to later in the amending formula which discriminate against western provinces.
March 23, 1981


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: This resolution does not meet the aspirations of Quebec or of western Canada, two regions where change is being most vigorously demanded, two regions with profound grievances, two regions whose needs must be accommodated within a new constitutional framework.
Turning now for a few moments to the substance of the resolution. There are many things in it which are good and worth while. Of these, the most important from a historical perspective are: the entrenchment of English and French as the official languages of Canada; the recognition and affirmation of the rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada, a first step which will hopefully lead to further reform redressing the very real problems and grievances of our first peoples; the provision on equalization, an important cornerstone of our federal system; and the resources section, which is good, so far as it goes. But while these are good and worth while parts of the resolution, there are also substantive provisions that are totally unacceptable in a federal state.

First of all, some clauses of the proposed resolution relate to language. In a field of provincial jurisdiction, education particularly, I am convinced that it is not the responsibility of the Parliament of Canada to intervene unilaterally without the consent of the provinces. As to those who do not share my opinion, as to those who believe that Parliament ought to have wider responsibilities toward minorities, what do they propose? First, they advocate certain measures whose aim it is to protect the French-speaking minorities outside Quebec. Let me say that I entertain serious doubts about this proposed legislation being effective enough to protect their right to education in their own language, as the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) says so often.
There are in my opinion too few guarantees, because many of them are subject to the interpretation of the courts of the nine judges of the Supreme Court of Canada. Second, in connection with the conditions in Quebec, those very same people, namely, the Prime Minister, are looking forward to an amendment to Bill 101 although they constantly repeat that such is not the case. I have only two examples to give. It would be possible under Section 23(2) for parents who are Canadian citizens to have one of their children attend an English private school during a few months, so that such a child, his brothers and sisters be admitted in any English public school afterwards. In addition, it would be possible for parents who are Canadian citizens to send one of their children to an English elementary school so that such a child, his brothers and sisters be allowed in any English public school afterwards.
I think in any case that the Prime Minister is no longer in a position to repeat in his speeches that Bill 101 is not amended under that resolution. Third, those people are also suggesting that Section 133 should remain in effect in Quebec while they are not courageous enough to extend those same measures, as
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my friend the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) has said so often in committee, to Ontario where three quarters of francophones outside Quebec are living. The Prime Minister is in favour of unilateral action or he is not, but I would urge him to make up his mind.
Another part of the resolution which remains seriously flawed is the referendum amending section, a provision which appeared for the first time ever on October 2. I do not think it should be there at all.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: On this point, the Prime Minister's former adviser and former privy council clerk, Gordon Robertson, is right. To amend the Constitution by way of referendum is inconsistent with Canadian traditions and with Canadian practice, and would be very divisive. The referendum provision in the resolution is also a denial of federalism. If we are to have a referendum provision, it is crucial that it be fair and balanced. The provision now contained in the resolution fails to meet that test.
As the Prime Minister says, there is a federal-provincial referenda rules commission, but its recommendations can be ignored by the federal government. There is no way that the provinces can trigger a referendum to seek the consent of the people for an amendment desired by the provinces but opposed by the federal government. The referendum technique is a constitutional device placed at the disposal of the federal government only.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: It is Parliament alone that will decide if there is to be a referendum. It is Parliament alone that will decide when it is to be held. It is Parliament alone that will word the question. It is Parliament alone that will set the rules. It is Parliament that is now, unilaterally, imposing into our amending formula the very tools for future unilateral action. That is not federalism, that is wrong and that is not the Canadian way.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Finally, if ever a referendum is held in this country, the counting of the votes itself could be very divisive. A double majority is required; a national majority plus a so-called regional majority. Here is the problem. For a yes vote to carry, a majority must say yes in Ontario, yes in Quebec, but not necessarily in western Canada or the Atlantic provinces. The Yes side could win even if the No side has more votes in the west. The Yes side could win even if the No side has more votes in the Atlantic region. However, that is not the case in Ontario and it is not the case in Quebec.
In the Atlantic region all that is required is a Yes vote in two of the four provinces, and in the west in two provinces repre-

March 23, 1981
The Constitution
senting 50 per cent of the west's population. This means we could amend the Constitution despite the opposition of western Canadians and Atlantic Canadians. This resolution will entrench in the Constitution regional discrimination and regional inequity. I ask whether this is what you want to entrench in the Constitution of Canada?
One final point on the amending formula. I am pleased that Prince Edward Island has been given an important role, but I cannot support the present amending formula which gives Prince Edward Island, with only 110,000 people, more power than Manitoba or Saskatchewan, each with about one million people, or more power than Alberta with 1.7 million people. That is wrong. It must change. It is divisive.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: As I said before, the resolution has been approved with the addition of the resource provision, a provision that confirms provincial jurisdiction over resources, which permits the provinces to levy indirect taxation as well as direct taxation on resources and permits the provinces to legislate with respect to the export of resources to another part of Canada with unqualified paramountcy. What it does not do is permit the provinces to pass legislation in relation to exports of resources to other countries, even with unqualified federal paramountcy. Two years ago the federal government had accepted that constitutional change.
There is one more substantive aspect of the resolution upon which I want to comment, namely the Senate. Hon. members will recall that the original resolution contained a clause which would have limited the role of the Senate in constitutional amendments by giving it a suspensive veto only, of 90 days initially, which the government on January 12 indicated it wanted to change to 180 days. Under pressure from the senators, and with the support of the Progressive Conservative party, the government in a most cynical move has now deleted that provision completely.
I will not take the time of the House now to repeat arguments that have been made by the CCF-NDP for 50 years. Suffice it to say we in our party have always believed that in a democratic system there should be no role for an appointed body in the legislative process. There is wide agreement that the Senate has not fulfilled its intended role as spokesman for regional interests and that Senate reform is high on everyone's list of needed constitutional changes.
Let me just make the following points about the deletion of the original Section 44 of the resolution, the deletion which gives an absolute veto to the Senate.
First, what the federal government is doing by deleting Section* 44 is transforming the convention of Senate approval- and, as we all know, conventions can sometimes be ignored- into the written constitutional law of Canada. Secondly, there will be no way the Senate veto over constitutional change can be circumvented. An amendment desired by this House and all ten provincial legislatures could be blocked by the appointed Senate. Nor could the referendum procedure, of which the Prime Minister is so proud, be used to get around the Senate.
A referendum can only be called on the basis of an amendment being approved by both the House of Commons and the Senate.
What is the background, the pedigree of the original Section 44 which placed a 90-day suspensive veto on the Senate? It was not a hastily-devised or ill-considered proposal. In fact, the very same provision appeared in the Victoria amending formula of 1971 on which, the federal government keeps reminding us, all the provinces agreed. I may point out, Mr. Speaker, they all agreed before there was a Senate veto, before there was a referendum procedure; so when the Prime Minister says they all agreed to the amending formula in this resolution, he is wrong, he knows he is wrong and he should stop saying it.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: In fact, the 90-day suspensive veto has appeared in every serious amending formula since 1971. It appeared in the federal government's draft proclamations of 1976 and 1977, in the Toronto consensus of 1979 and the Vancouver consensus of last summer. In deleting Section 44 the government is turning the clock back, not just four months to October, but ten years at least. If I may borrow and change a favourite Chinese phrase, you could say that what the government is doing here can be called a great leap backwards into the past.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: It is flying in the face of proposals for Senate reform by a number of distinguished groups, not the least of which is the Senate itself. In a report last fall the Senate said:
We feel that the present absolute veto power is not necessary. We believe that a six-months' suspensive veto would give the Senate all the power that it needs.
It even flies in the face of the federal government's own proposal in Bill C-60 of 1978, which would have transformed the Senate into a House of the federation with a suspensive veto only. The unilateral about-face on the Senate goes against the wishes of all the provinces and again, Mr. Speaker, it is not federalism, it is wrong and it is not worthy of the support of this Parliament.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: One final point on the substance of the resolution. The Prime Minister spoke a lot today about the enshrinement of a charter of rights, and I support that, but with the entrenchment of a charter of rights we will see the shift of considerable power to the courts. However, the resolution does not provide any mechanism at all that would place a check on what has essentially become a prerogative of the Prime Minister of Canada; appointment of judges.
Furthermore, as a major impact of the charter will be on provincial jurisdiction, it has become more important than ever to take the Supreme Court out of the sole control of Parliament and entrench the court itself into the Constitution. We must also entrench in the Constitution real provincial input on
March 23, 1981

the appointment of Supreme Court judges so the court can become and will be perceived to be a truly federal institution. Without it, it is a case of one team, the federal government, appointing the referees or umpires to call the shots for both teams. These points have never been addressed in committee or debated here in the House, and were once again today conveniently forgotten by the Prime Minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Something must also be said about the role of the parliament of the United Kingdom with respect to changes in the BNA Act. Frankly, Britain has been taking some undeserved abuse from our government in the last few months. In 1931, Canada asked Britain to retain the power to amend our Constitution until such time as we, as Canadians, could agree on a domestic amending formula. We asked Great Britain to be the referee, which request was with the unanimous agreement of the federal government and, at that time, all nine provinces. The role of the referee requires Westminster not to assess the merits or substance of what is being proposed, but to satisfy itself that the request for change in the BNA Act is a proper request, has the necessary degree of support within Canada and does not do violence to Canada as a federally structured whole.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Some do not accept that point of view. They say that the Parliament of Great Britain has no option but to enact automatically any constitutional amendment requested by the federal government or Parliament, no matter how inimicable to the rights and powers of the provinces they may be, no matter how vigorous the opposition in Canada may be. That is a doctrine which ignores the federal nature of our country.
There is one more point to be made regarding the British connection. It is simply that of the legality of the project. The question is now before the courts and it is not fair to ask, in my opinion, the British Parliament to proceed until the Supreme Court renders a judgment.

At my press conference on February 18, when I announced my opposition to the proposed constitutional resolution, I stressed the need for another federal-provincial conference. My experience on the joint committee on the Constitution has convinced me that an agreement is now possible among the various parties. There is still time for an additional effort. I do not know to what extent the Canadian people realize how close the first ministers came to an agreement when they last met in September.

And for the sake of Canada I appeal to the Prime Minister and the premiers to return to the conference table and agree not to leave until they resolve the impasse; to at least agree on an amending formula so that we can patriate the Constitution and proceed with constitutional renewal in Canada. The Prime
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Minister may have given up hope but I have not, and it strikes me as strange, Mr. Speaker, that when one talks to federal officials, when one talks to the provincial officials in many provinces in our land, many of them have said to me that if the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) had been the Prime Minister, instead of the member for Mount Royal, a compromise and agreement would have been reached.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Three major concerns arise from the unilateral process the federal government has undertaken. As I said today, the process is creating and will continue to create and escalate divisions in our country. Secondly, the current action is damaging intergovernmental relations and will seriously jeopardize future constitutional reform.
Finally, 1 share a concern expressed recently by former Privy Council clerk, Gordon Robertson, that the price of patriating the Constitution with changes, without broader provincial consent, will be the loss of public confidence in government itself. For the sake of Canada, the federal government and the provincial governments must compromise; they must both go the extra mile, they must both hold out the olive branch, they must both practise a federalism of co-operation, compromise and consensus.
In recent years the need for constitutional change has attracted a good deal of attention. It is not possible, in my view, to ignore the continuing presence of enormous pressures for constitutional reform. What I want to advocate now is the need to develop a new approach to constitutional change. While I see no other realistic alternative for the resolution of our historic impasse on the question of an amending formula than an intensive round of discussions by our national and provincial leaders, I have concluded that the federal-provincial conference of first ministers has not served us well as a means of achieving constitutional reform. It seems to me if we are to make changes in our Constitution which will reflect the will of the people, then we will have to broaden the involvement in the formulation and approval of those changes.
If the experience of the special joint committee has taught me anything-and perhaps taught this Parliament anything- it has taught that a multiparty committee of legislators, in the context of public hearings and public scrutiny, can constructively fashion constitutional change. This lesson must not be lost.
Future conference participants must include multiparty delegations selected by Parliament and each of the provincial legislatures. Additionally, there must be direct participation of delegates representing the aboriginal peoples, women and the territories, all of whom suffer the prejudice of the present political system. It would be this body which would propose constitutional amendments to Parliament and the legislatures.
This approach to the formulation of constitutional reform would represent an important democratization of the process. I

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have always thought it is democratic practice that is the essential underpinning of a democratic state.
In closing, I say to all Canadians who support or oppose the resolution to do so without exaggerating or distorting the facts, for doing so will only create more division.
1 say to the Prime Minister that he should not question the motives of us who oppose the resolution, as he did recently in Vancouver, for we stand as proudly for Canada as he does. We stand as proudly for freedom and as proudly for liberty as he does. 1 ask the Prime Minister and I ask members of the Liberal party opposite to consider the words of Bevan, one of the greatest parliamentarians ever to sit in the British House of Commons. In debate during World War II he said, and I quote:
Individual members of Parliament should be free to express in open discussion what they consider is in the interest of their constituents and of the country. Party discipline should end where it infringes upon parliamentary liberty.
I say to my Liberal friends opposite that if ever there has been occasion for free expression, it is now.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The Constitution is the basic law of the land. It is the foundation on which all other laws stand. The Constitution belongs to the people, not to the politicians, not to the bureaucrats. Every indication we have tells us that the people believe the resolution is wrong and that the people believe in a federalism of co-operation, compromise and consensus.
1 want to return for just one moment to the letter I received from Mr. Godden of Scarborough, Ontario, the letter with which I opened my remarks. In the conclusion of his letter to me, he wrote, and I quote:
I, like you, hope and trust that Canada's Parliament can and will always serve and protect the nation in the best possible way.
I believe, and I believe the people of Canada believe, it is in opposing the resolution that Parliament will serve and protect the nation. I believe Parliament will represent the national interest and give expression to the popular will by seeking co-operation, compromise and consensus.

It is in order to say yes to federalism and to Canada that I will say no to the proposed resolution.

Canadians believe in federalism. Let us not go against the will of the people. Let us give federalism and Canada a chance.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, in beginning my remarks tonight I think it only fair and honest to congratulate the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom). He is one of the members of the House of Commons who spent considerable time in the joint committee in
respect of our Constitution. I think his expressions tonight were very dedicated, honest and sincere.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William C. Scott: If everyone else in this House, including hon. members on all sides, would speak with honest conviction from the bottom of the heart, they would have to support what the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville has said. If they did, that would be for the good of Canada. It would not be for the good of their parties, but for the good of all Canadians.
I would like to begin my remarks by saying to my hon. colleagues that this resolution has been launched in this House on false premises. I would go so far as to state that this resolution is a deceptive and fraudulent ploy on the part of this government to set aside our existing Constitution and to replace it with one which does not have either the consent or the support of the majority of Canadians.
The second paragraph of this resolution reads as follows:
AND WHEREAS it is in accord with the status of Canada as an independent state that Canadians be able to amend their Constitution in Canada in all respects;
If this resolution confined itself to the letter of the second paragraph in the preamble, or if it even followed the spirit of that wording, then we in my party would have no difficulty in supporting the government. However, there is no intention, and there has never been, on the part of the government to allow the Canadian people to amend their Constitution in Canada in all respects, or in any respect whatsoever. It must be made clear over and over again, so there can be no doubt in anyone's mind, that what we are debating here is not patria-tion of the British North America Act. We are debating whether we should allow the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to seek the approval of the British parliament of a totally new Constitution for Canada. That is exactly what we have here in this resolution, a new Constitution, written by a group of people selected and directed by the Prime Minister, complete with the Prime Minister's amending formula.
Like most of my colleagues who have spoken earlier on this resolution, I am suspicious of the Prime Minister's motives. I am disturbed by his refusal to seek a consensus on constitutional reform, and I am angered by his efforts to alienate our people from our mother country of Great Britain.
Although it has been mentioned by many of my colleagues, I would like to repeat that the Prime Minister was never given a mandate to replace our Constitution with one of his own making. In the last general election, the Prime Minister asked for a mandate to prevent the Conservative government from raising gasoline prices by 18 cents per gallon. He won his mandate, and in the first year of his government gasoline prices have risen by 40 cents per gallon. So much for the Prime Minister's mandate; so much for his promises. The Prime Minister knows that if he asked for a mandate in the
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last election to do what he is attempting now, he would have been rebuked.
In his improper and shameful haste to impose a new Constitution on our people without seeking a consensus, the Prime Minister has resorted to over-kill. The enormity and the scope of the Prime Minister's proposals are beyond even the wildest dreams of those who have sought constitutional reform in the past or present. When I say that, of course, I exclude those who would try to make Canada a socialist country, if they were given a chance. The Prime Minister has aligned himself with that group, rather than with the vast majority of Canadians who want to preserve our constitutional monarchial system of government.
If this constitutional package passes through the House of Commons and the Senate, and receives the approval of the British Parliament, it will be a sad day for Canada and for the vast majority of Canadians. It will signal the beginning of the end of one of the most splendid examples of nation-building on the face of the earth. It will effectively wipe out 114 years of progress in developing a political and social compact which is the envy of most other nations in our troubled world. It will disown and dishonour our founding fathers and all those generations of Canadians who have worked, fought and died to build and preserve this great Canadian nation.
I am going into my sixteenth year of continuous service and dedication to my riding of Victoria-Haliburton and its people. In those years I have come to know my people. I know them well, and I know they do not want to see their unique Canadian system swept away to suit the whims of the Prime Minister and his small but vocal claque of nation busters.
I know my constituents share a deep sense of love and respect for their monarch, for their history and for their traditional institutions. In the last 16 years of almost continuous Liberal rule most of our traditional institutions and symbols have disappeared. As the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Ellis) pointed out so ably a few days ago in his remarks on the resolution, the erosion of our traditional institutions and symbols has been a part of the Prime Minister's master plan to establish the Canadian republic.
If this resolution is imposed on the Canadian nation it will sweep away all historical and traditional institutions that remain in place in Canada today. In the Prime Minister's words, Canadian history will date from the day he receives back his constitutional package from Britain.
To stay for a moment with the matter of the Prime Minister's plan for a republic of Canada, I would like to refer back to the preamble of this resolution. The first line on page 5 reads: "an act to amend the Constitution of Canada", and at the bottom of the page we find the line: "This act may be cited as the Canada Act".
It should be obvious to anyone that these paragraphs in the preamble do not mean the same thing. The first relates to amending the Constitution in Canada, while the second asks the British parliament to amend the Constitution before
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patriation. This is just one more example of the Prime Minister's double-talk, but in a matter as serious as our Constitution I would have to call it double-dealing.
Let us turn to Schedule I of this resolution. Perhaps I missed the remarks other members might have made on this section of the resolution, because I have not been present to listen to all speeches in this particular debate. However, it is my impression that this section has been completely overlooked by members, perhaps because it does not loom as large in their minds as the charter of rights or the amending formula. It would be a mistake to overlook this section because it is every bit as deserving of our attention as the rest of the resolution.
Schedule I seeks to amend the original British North America Act, 1867 and to change its name to the Constitution Act, 1867. This is the cornerstone of the Canadian nation. It is the starting point of the history of the dominion of Canada. In both name and substance it is a sacred document to all Canadians or, if it is not, it should be.
What would be the purpose of this amendment? I think I can answer that very simply and easily. It is intended to remove any reference to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, the monarch who put her seal to the document which joined the four British provinces and created the nation of Canada.
Schedule I does not stop there. It seeks to amend each and every successive amendment which has been made to the British North America Act to remove any reference to each monarch who put his or her seal to these amendments and to remove all references to the United Kingdom, in whose Parliament these amendments were approved.
The American Declaration of Independence is enshrined in glass, airtight and moisture proof, to protect it from the ravages of time. This document is revered by all Americans. It is the starting point of the history of the United States as a nation. No president would even dare suggest that its name be changed. If one did suggest such a thing he would be scoffed at, or possibly even laughed out of office.
Should we in the Canadian Parliament sit by and allow ourselves to be made a party to the Prime Minister's silly and frivolous attempt to rewrite the history of our country? What purpose would be served by allowing Schedule I to remain in this resolution, to be passed by the obedient Liberal majority and the subservient New Democratic Party, and by sending it to Britain masquerading as the will of the Canadian people? This section does not relate in any way to the question at hand; the patriation of the British North America Act. It does not belong in this resolution, and it should be deleted forthwith.
In his speech last Thursday, the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings said that a Liberal member, the hon. member for Shefford (Mr. Lapierre), told the committee that we would be rid of the monarchy within two years. This statement goes right to the Prime Minister's expressions of contempt for Parliament, for the constitutional monarchial form of government, and his infatuation with republican governments with a president as head of state.

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I am becoming more and more alarmed at the state of the Canadian nation. This constitutional debate has created many bitter divisions in our country between provincial governments and Ottawa, and between racial and ethnic communities across Canada, all to satisfy the selfish and personal ambitions of one person, the Prime Minister.
May I call it nine o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. It being nine o'clock, pursuant to the order made earlier this day, the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper, namely, notices of motions and public bills.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS
[Stage Direction]
Notices of Motion Nos. 31 and 33 stand by unanimous consent of the House.

Howard Edward Crosby: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of amending the Income Tax Act to permit the mother or the father of one or more children who are under the age of twelve years, in computing his or her taxable income, to deduct $10 per day as a child care allowance in respect of supervision and care provided to the child or children by a person other than the spouse of the mother or father for each day that the mother or father works if the spouse of the mother or father also works, or is unable to care for the child or children.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I think I should be permitted to begin my remarks by putting on the record of this House the reason for the delay today in the private members' hour. I do so because of the irony it involves. As members know, and it should be recorded, we delayed the private members' hour by the unanimous consent of myself and other members of the House in order to permit the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to complete his speech on the Constitution. That is ironic, since I was one of those members who accused the Prime Minister of not giving private members sufficient opportunity to speak on the Constitution and other matters in this House. I hope that now, and in the future, the Prime Minister will pay more attention to private members in this House and allow them more time to speak. He should not for one moment suggest that private members in this House should limit the amount of time they wish to spend on the constitutional debate, particularly when he himself saw fit to utilize two hours or more of the time of the House, delaying the very private members' hour, which is really the pith, substance and the raison d'etre for our presence in this House.
With those remarks, I would like to begin the substance of my contribution by reviewing the provisions of this motion I have presented to the House for consideration respecting child care expenses under the Income Tax Act.
While the motion is quite specific in its terms, the real purpose of the proposed change can be stated in more general language. Briefly stated, the purpose of the proposed amendment to the child care provisions is to eliminate the conditions and the sex discrimination now imposed on claims, and establish a reasonable allowance for child care expenses. The allowance could be claimed by any taxpayer who provides care for his or her child while working who has no spouse, or whose spouse works. At present, a working mother can claim child care expenses upon proof, by a receipt for payment, to a limit of $1,000 for each child, with an absolute limit of $4,000 for all children. The receipt for payment must contain the social insurance number of the payee. A working father who has a wife can only claim these expenses when separated from his wife or when she is incapacitated.
By way of more detailed explanation, the applicable statutory provisions relating to child care expenses are contained in Section 63 of the Income Tax Act. Under those provisions, child care expenses are defined so that a number of restrictions are established. In the result, the cost of child care services must be incurred in Canada for a child who is under 14 years of age or who is infirm, in order that the taxpayer can work as an employee, in a business or pursue occupational training or special research. The child care services can include baby sitting, day nursery and lodging at a school or camp. It is important to note that child care expenses cannot be claimed if they are paid to a dependent of the taxpayer or a relative under 21 years of age.
When child care expenses are claimed by a father he must establish that he is either not married, a widower, divorced or separated by a written agreement or court order. If he has a wife, the expenses may only be deducted if she is in prison or if a duly qualified medical practitioner certifies she is incapable of caring for her children.
Section 63 of the Income Tax Act also contains very strict limitations on the amount of the expenses which can be deducted. For both a father and a mother there is the same limitation of $1,000 for each child. Also, there is the same absolute limit of $4,000 where there are more than four children. Of course, only the amount actually spent can be deducted in any case.
An additional requirement is that the mother or father must have earned income substantially greater than the deduction, or the limit on the deduction is reduced to two thirds of the earned income. This requirement is not especially onerous because those persons with incomes at levels below $6,000 would not be too concerned with income tax payments.
Here is an example of the child care expense provision in operation. A mother of three children under 14 years of age who earns $9,000 could pay a day nursery $2,400 a year for one child and baby-sitting fees of $1,400 for two older children, for a total of $3,800 for the year. These expenses would
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be more than reasonable by today's standards, but the $3,800 spent by the mother would be reduced by $800. Thus, the statutory limitation of $1,000 per child taken together would total the absolute statutory limitation which, in this case, is of $3,000. The result is that the mother loses $800 in terms of deductibility because of the statutory limitation.
A married father in the same situation with greater income would have to produce a separation agreement or a court order to obtain the child care deduction. If he was married and not separated he could claim only if a physician certified that his wife was incapable of caring for the children. He could also claim if his wife was in prison. If the wife's incapacity was for a limited period of time, or he only paid for a child's care for part of the year, he would be subjected to a limit of $30 per week for each child to a maximum of $120 per week for all children.
The point in detailing the existing provisions of the Income Tax Act is to demonstrate that they are overly complicated in terms of the conditions imposed, inadequate in terms of the monetary limits on the claims, and discriminatory in terms of the rights of fathers in comparison to mothers. More important, the provisions do not reflect the real needs of working parents in Canada today.
In fairness, and to the extent that Canadians can expect the income tax system to be fair, the child care provision should take into consideration the actual problems encountered by working parents in Canada today.
Let me deal with the proposal contained in the motion. By way of preliminary remarks I should make it clear that the motion is merely a request that the government consider the proposal. The words used are not carved in stone and may not fit exactly with the language now used in Section 63 of the Income Tax Act. I sincerely hope any discrepancies that arise from the letter of the words used will not be used to defeat the spirit and intent of the proposal.
The proposed provision would allow either a mother or a father to claim, by way of deduction on her or his income tax, a specified per diem child care allowance, I have suggested $10 per day for each child under 12 years of age. This claim could be made only when two conditions are met: First, and foremost, the child would have to be given care and supervision by an adult person other than the parent during the day when the parent or parents were at work. That includes single parents; second, the parent claiming the allowance would have to be working and, if that parent had a spouse, the spouse would also have to be working or, alternatively, incapable of caring for the child.
I should point out that if the allowance was claimed for 250 working days, the total would approximate the married exemption of $2,500. By this proposal the requirement which permits the taxpayer to claim the per diem child care allowance has been reduced to two simple conditions. I would ask why? It is clear, when you examine the facts, that a working parent or parents cannot care for a child under 12 years of age and must
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provide for some kind of day or custodial care. Second, there must be a financial cost involved in providing day or custodial care when that care is provided by a person other than the parent, whether that person receives cash or some other benefit.
I am well aware the proposal does not require a specified cash payment to the person who provides the child care. Let me explain why. Quite often, the person best able to provide day or custodial care to the children of working parents is the mother of one of the parents. I am sure almost everyone is aware of a situation in which the grandmother or grandparents provide care to grandchildren while the parents work. Whether the grandsparents make a financial charge or whether some other benefit is provided should be a private, family matter. The point is that custodial care is being provided to permit a single parent or both parents to work and earn income which is then taxed to the full extent permitted by law.
There are many examples in the Income Tax Act where an allowance is provided that is not dependent upon the actual dollars expended. The personal exemption which is $2,890 for 1980, the married exemption which is $2,530 and the dependent child exemption which is $540 are all examples of allowances not related to actual expenditures.
Another relevant example is the employment expense deduction which presupposes that a working person must incur certain expenses related to employment like clothes, equipment and similar items. This allowance is fixed at 3 per cent of employment earnings to a maximum of $500.
Another clear example is the $100 deduction for charitable contributions described in the income tax form as the "standard deduction". Again, the law presupposes actual expenses for medical care and charities of at least $100 per year and does not require an accounting below that level.
My question, then, is simply this: is it not equally fair to presuppose or assume for purposes of the Income Tax Act that single or working parents who arrange to have their children cared for while working incurs extra expenses? Whether those expenses should be fixed at an allowance equal to $10 per day or should be subject to some over-all total maximum like $4,000, I would not want to argue. I recognize the difficulty in establishing a fair amount. But I will argue most vehemently, and in principle, that there should be a child care allowance of some kind for single and working parents.
Let me point out that a single parent or working parents would not have the benefit of the married exemption which is $2,530 for 1980. There may be a possibility of a claim for the equivalent to the married exemption provided under the Income Tax Act, but that would depend on special circumstances. Certainly, it would be a simple matter to ensure that a taxpayer could not claim both a married or equivalent exemption and a child care allowance. I should also say that I do not think the matter is affected by the child tax credit which applies universally.
My point, regardless, is this very simple one. The Income Tax Act should recognize the fact that single and working

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parents incur child care expenses and should be provided some additional child care allowance based on this fact.
Let us consider what is involved in the child care provisions of the Income Tax Act. When they were initially enacted, it was recognized that there was a certain difficulty in establishing a reasonable amount to be permitted for child care expenses. Many of the promoters of the provisions enacted in the act-I believe, in the early 1970s-felt they provided a motive for women to return to the work force, knowing that they would incur expenses for child care, and that their effective incomes would be reduced by the cost of those expenses.
It may be that in this day and age the government does not want to encourage women to return to the work force. But in the 1980s I think it is accepted by most people that married women, whether or not they have children, have a right in our society to join the work force if that is their desire. I do not think that depriving those women, or men, of an adequate child care allowance should be used as a deterrent to keep those people out of the work force.
The Income Tax Act is difficult in terms of determining its philosophy. But to the extent there is a philosophy behind it, it is certainly that it distinguished between those costs which are part of the cost of living as opposed to those costs which are part of the cost of earning a living. I do not think any authority on income tax law in Canada or in the United States would disagree that child care expenses are very much a part of the cost of earning a living when they are incurred in order to allow the person in question to keep working or to join the work force.
Therefore I think, in terms of the philosophy involved in the Income Tax Act that should be applied to this provision, it is clear that the government, through the instrumentation of the Income Tax Act, should recognize the fact that child care expenses are very much a part of the cost of earning a living for people who would not otherwise incur those costs; that is, they would not incur those costs unless they were in the work force.
As I have said, I do not think it is fair to take advantage of those people, in terms of deterring them from entering the work force or from staying in the work force by unfair provisions respecting deductions for child care costs. It is simply not fair, as is the present case, to take advantage of those persons who incur child care costs having regard to the reluctance of persons who care for children in those circumstances, to require the amounts paid to them to be recorded. Provisions in the Income Tax Act now require as a condition of claiming child care costs, that the person obtain a receipt, which receipt must contain the social insurance number of the person who receive the child care payments. Many persons who provide these services by way of baby sitting or custodial day care do not want to become involved with the income tax system to the extent of disclosing the existence of these payments. This works a hardship on many people across the land. That is one other reason for permitting a non-accountable allowance in respect of child care, bearing in mind that
somewhere down the line the cost of child care must be borne by the working parent.
At the same time, the provisions of the Income Tax Act are very clear in respect of the responsibility of recipients of any payments to report the same to the Income Tax Department. However, we should not require those parents who must provide custodial day care for their children in order to permit them to work to be policemen for the Income Tax Department.
One final point which has been made time and time again is that the current provisions of Section 63 of the Income Tax Act discriminate against males, that is, working fathers who are required to care for their children. They are subjected, as I have indicated, to more onerous provisions than working mothers. We do not have too many examples these days where male persons are subject to discrimination under the law. I certainly do not think males across Canada need an advocate in me or any other member of the House of Commons. However, this is one area in which sex discrimination rears its ugly head and is an evil in itself, an intrinsic evil, whether it is applied to men or women. That is one more reason for asking the government to look at this motion, to review the provision of the Income Tax Act respecting child care expenses and to come up with some method, some technique, that will be fair in its application, and will not place such a burden on the working parents of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Charles Mayer (Portage-Marquette):: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to participate in this debate. I think the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) deserves to be congratulated for his proposal, for taking the time to organize his material and for making such a good presentation. I notice that the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) has been in the chamber for the last 20 minutes. It is unfortunate he has not been paying attention. If anyone should pay attention, it should be the minister. He missed a very good opportunity to hear some ideas on this subject so ably put forward by the hon. member for Halifax West. The minister is responsible for the Income Tax Act which should not only be used by the Department of National Revenue for the collection of taxes but to encourage people to be productive. Productive people pay more taxes and the measures outlined by the hon. member would help to bring this about.
I noticed that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Evans) paid close attention to the speech, so I hope he can prevail upon the minister to adopt some of the points made by my colleague.
The motion contains many reasonable and sensible provisions. Parents should only be able to claim if both work or in the event of a single parent. A deduction could be claimed for children 12 years of age or under. This strikes me as entirely reasonable. The motion provides that the government "should consider the advisability of amending the Income Tax Act to
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permit the mother or father of one or more children to deduct $10 per day as a child care allowance-
The hon. member is asking that the House refer this matter to the appropriate committee; that is, the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs. I have had an opportunity to sit on this committee and know it to be very busy and effective. I hope the government will refer the motion to the committee.
I live on a farm in a very sparsely populated part of the country so I know some of the problems parents encounter when trying to find people to care for their children while they are away at work. People who live in cities and in the larger centres have easier access to day care, or other good care for their children while they work. This is next to impossible to find in the country where just not enough people live close enough together to provide such professional services.
It seems to me when money is allocated for day care by the provinces it inevitably goes to the larger centres where there is enough population to justify the centres. 1 think that is rather unfair to the people who live in these sparsely populated areas. The motion would go a long way toward alleviating the inequalities presently in the system. It certainly makes sense to me.
There is other evidence of the well-reasoned thought that has gone into the presentation of this motion. Ten dollars per day is not a large amount and the program would not be expensive to administer. It could be done on the basis of the T-4 tax slip which is sent to everyone who pays tax. It would be a simple matter to use that slip as a means of establishing the number of days worked by the parent.
One of the great shortcomings of the Income Tax Act is that it is difficult to understand and complicated to administer. The hon. member for Halifax West referred to Section 63 of the Income Tax Act, but I am afraid that unless one was paying very close attention to what he said one would find it difficult to understand.
This motion, however, is simple and straightforward and it would let people know where they stand with the tax department at the end of the year. It would give them the incentive to find extra work in order to meet their obligations. The more people who work in this country, the greater will our production be, and the Minister of Finance should consider that.
Children are a very important resource of this country and it is important that they be looked after properly. This motion would be an incentive to parents to meet their obligations toward their children.
It would be appropriate for the finance committee to consider the real cost. The Department of National Revenue could simply look at this, take a figure out of the air, say that at present there is a $1,000 exemption for a child and that, if the figures proposed in the motion were used, one could end up witlj a tax deduction of some $2,500, the difference being $1,500 as an exemption.
If additional jobs were created there would be more money in the economy. The result would be an increase in government
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revenues. I would be interested in having some of the officials from the Department of National Revenue and the Department of Finance appear before the finance committee and go over the net cost of the proposal, which I suspect would turn out to be less than we expect.
A jurisdictional problem is also involved in that day care is a provincial matter and the motion deals with a federal matter. If this proposal or something similar were adopted, the full cost could be borne by the federal government, but I feel the provinces should be willing to shoulder some of the cost of the lost revenue the federal government would suffer.
This is an excellent suggestion, mr. Speaker, and I congratulate the hon. member for Halifax West for doing his homework and for presenting such a well-reasoned argument. I hope the matter will be referred to the appropriate committee so it can be examined to find out the net cost and the benefit to the country, especially to the children. As we all know they are this country's most valuable resource.


Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance);: Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to pick up on what the hon. member for Portage-Mar-quette (Mr. Mayer) has just mentioned with regard to the federal-provincial aspects of this motion. They are very important and we have seen some difficulties with respect to them. I agree wholeheartedly with him that this subject, if it were to be adopted at some point by the federal government as an approach to resolving the great financial difficulties many of our citizens face in respect of day care expenses, would have to be very carefully worked out with the provincial governments.
When the federal government has brought forward programs in the past which transfer moneys to individuals or to the provinces to help defray the costs of programs and areas of responsibility, provincial in nature, in many cases-and I am not saying that as an unequivocal statement-we have seen that the provinces have tended financially to move out from that area to an extent closely corresponding to the amount by which the federal government has moved in. As a result, the kinds of programs in the area of day care, for example, could very well leave the individuals no better off than they are right now, but could leave the federal treasury worse off, and provincial treasuries better off. I would think that would be an area to be very carefully explored with the provinces so that we do not run into the kind of problem the Hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) has related to us concerning medicare, or the kinds of problems we are facing now in the area of post-secondary education. In some cases we find that the federal contribution to post-secondary education in certain provinces exceeds 100 per cent of the cost of post-secondary education, when the original intent was to have a program in which the federal government would participate with the provinces to defray part of the costs, in some cases 50 per cent in a shared arrangement between federal and provincial governments.

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I would not want to see a program in which the federal government enriched its tax expenditures to assist all citizens in day care expenses, with the result that provincial goven-ments pulled back their existing funding of day care, such that individuals would be no better off after the introduction of new tax expenditure than they are now. That is a very serious problem and one which the newly established parliamentary task force to look into the question of federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, could very well explore.


Charles James Mayer: All Canadians would benefit.


John Leslie Evans: I agree with my hon. friend who is making comments on the other side of the House.
Something which I will certainly recommend, and I hope he will support and recommend along with me, is that the newly formed federal-provincial task force look not only at this kind of thing, in addition to the existing federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, but also at other potential areas, including the kinds of relationships and arrangements we should put into place between the federal government and the provincial governments to ensure that when an increase in funding comes from one level of government, be it the provincial or the federal government, the individuals to whom the program is intended to benefit are the beneficiaries and not one or other levels of government.
With that said, I would like to turn my attention now specifically to the motion. This motion relates to income tax deductions for child care expenses. It deals with two separate issues. The first calls for an increase in the amount of allowable child care expenses that may be deducted, and I will return to this question shortly. The other issue, which is a far more complex one, and one which hon. members opposite have spent a great deal of time on, raises the basic principle of this tax provision and asks the fundamental question: What does this particular tax provision seek to achieve?
It is argued that this is a discriminatory provision in our tax law. Indeed, that was the finding recently of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, after examining the complaints of male taxpayers that they did not enjoy equal treatment to that accorded to women by this section of the Income Tax Act.
Briefly, the point of contention lies in the fact that the deduction for child care expenses is available to women with no qualifying restrictions as to their marital status or circumstances within that marriage, but it is available to men only in limited circumstances.
A mother who has a paid job or operates a self-employed business may claim the expense deduction regardless of whether she is a single mother, or whether she has a husband who also works to support the family, or whether, indeed, her husband stays home and acts as a house-husband, so to speak.
But a man, to qualify for the deduction, must be a single or a separated parent or, if he is married, his wife must be unable through illness or as the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) indicated through incarceration to care for their children. In other words, a father will be allowed to deduct
child care expenses only in circumstances where he has to seek outside help in caring for his children while he works.
Having said that, I think it must be clear, however, that in actual practice the great majority of women who claim the child care expenses as tax deduction need the income that comes from their job. I do not have to cite statistics to demonstrate the importance of money earned by women in the labour force toward supporting the family budget. Yet the fact remains that the deduction is available to men only in certain circumstances, while it is generally available to women.
Following the decision last fall by the Human Rights Commission, the Commissioner, Gordon Fairweather, said recently that this is discrimination and that it can be changed only by Parliament.
If we conclude that discrimination exists, however, it does not automatically follow that it should be removed. The Income Tax Act discriminates, and deliberately so, in other ways as well. Are younger people improperly discriminated against, for example, by the special deduction for the elderly? Or consider the proposed charter of human rights which stipulates that special treatment in the form of affirmative action programs to improve the position of certain groups does not constitute a breach of the rule against discrimination, found in that charter. So in the case before us, as in other areas, we have to consider carefully whether the discriminatory treatment is justified.
The deduction for child care expenses in the Income Tax Act was introduced in 1972, as part of the major tax reform being introduced at that time. Its preferential treatment for women has been no secret over the years since then. Yet no minister of finance during that period, including the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) in the previous government, has felt it appropriate to change that provision.
In fact, in 1976, in the wake of the 1975 International Year of the Woman, the maximum deduction allowable under the act for child care expenses was doubled. Why should Parliament have enacted this sort of discrimination in 1971 and confirmed it five years later?
The rationale for the initial measure as part of Tax Reform was stated in 1969 in the government's white paper on tax Reform, which said:
This new plan is intended primarily to benefit mothers who need to work to support their families, and would be in addition to the normal exemption for children.
During the International Year of the Woman there was a very clear need identified for measures expressly designed to alleviate the plight of women in the work force. Probably the chief discrimination against women in the work force was the fact that they were generally paid less than men-a situation which continues to exist, unfortunately, to this day. Making the child care expense deduction generally available to women was seen as one way by which the state could redress some of these grievances.
In addition is the fact that, in spite of changing values, women are still traditionally held responsible for the care and
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nurture of children. I think that is further explanation of why the allowance is generally available to women, but available to men only in most circumstances in which the children's mother is not available to help care for them.
I should note an exception to that last generalization. In order to claim the expense deduction, a man who is separated from his wife must have a legal separation order or written agreement. If he has been deserted by his wife without the legal formalities he does not qualify for the deduction, unless his separation is confirmed by court order. This tax rule exists purely for administrative reasons; how else could one verify separation or marriage breakdown. This is one of the particular problems raised by the Human Rights Commission, and the government will certainly give careful study to that problem.
Ever since the deduction for child care expenses went into effect in 1972 it has been criticized as an example of sexism, or perhaps I should say reverse sexism. There are strongly opposing viewpoints and basic philosophies behind both sides of the argument.
One view sees the child care expenses as a personal expense that arises as a consequence of the mother's discretionary decision to work outside the home. It is her traditional responsibility to care for the children, the argument goes, and if she decides to go out to work, that is her decision made in the knowledge that child care costs will have to be paid. Since there are already tax benefits accruing to a couple where both partners are working, the public should not be expected to provide what is, in effect, a further subsidy through allowing deduction of the child care expenses.
The other contrasting viewpoint, one that I tend to share, sees child care as a shared responsibility and concern of the whole society, and one which should therefore be supported out of the public treasury. It follows from this argument that where a taxpayer must pay for child care in order to work, this should be considered a real expense of earning income and should be fully deductible. I think that is the spirit of the motion put forward by the hon. member for Halifax West.
Before concluding, I should refer to the other aspect of this notice of motion dealing with the ceiling on child care expenses that may be deducted. The present limits are $30 a week, and $1,000 per year for each child under the age of 14, with a maximum deduction of $4,000 in the year. There is a further stipulation that the deduction may not exceed two thirds of the taxpayer's earned income in the year.
As I said earlier, those maximum deduction levels were set in the 1976 budget, which doubled the previous limits established in 1972. This motion proposes a deduction of $10 a day for children under 12 years of age. Assuming a five-day week, that means $50 a week, or an increase of 66 per cent in the present level. Obviously a change like that would involve a considerable cost to the treasury, not to mention the much larger charge on the treasury if the deduction were made
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generally available to men. Such a change would have to be considered in the context of other tax changes in a budget.
One point we should bear in mind is that child care expenses are not the only kind of child raising costs for which our tax laws try to provide. There is the basic personal exemption for dependant children, for example, and the child tax credit which is designed to provide help where it is most needed, in low and lower middle-income families. Both these provisions are indexed to reflect inflation. There are other federal programs, including family allowances, which also have to be taken into consideration when we look at this proposal to change the tax deduction for child care expenditures. Furthermore, in our federal system we cannot ignore the various social services to families provided by the provinces which have the main authority in this field.
Since the decision of the Human Rights Commission, studies have been going ahead in the Department of Finance into the possibility of restructuring the existing resources being allocated to child care, to see whether they could be more efficiently applied to achieve the goals we seek. I should add that in his budget, the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) clearly indicated he is going to undertake a major review of tax expenditures in the tax system. I can indicate to the House that this is one of the areas the department is now considering for modification.
In conclusion, what is being proposed here involves a substantial increase in our so-called tax expenditures. These are not the normal cash expenditures, but they have every bit as much impact on our federal deficit. This motion also proposes a fundamental shift in the policy underlying this deduction which was originally intended to help redress the inferior economic position of women in the labour market. I do not think anyone would argue that it does not constitute special treatment for women-call it discrimination if you wish. Hon. members will have to make their own judgments as to whether that special treatment is justified.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, we agree that the present tax deduction of $1,000 per child per year is far from adequate. In some cases, this means only one sixth of the child care expense of a family is returned through the deduction. We also agree there should be no sex discrimination and that either a father or mother should be eligible for child care deductions, just as either a father or mother might remain in the home to care for a child.
I commend the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) on some aspects of this resolution. However, I cannot agree that an increased tax deduction which allows $10 per day for child care costs will solve the problem of affordable day care for most parents with average and low incomes in Canada. If we accept this plan, my fear is we would merely be continuing present inequities. Only the very rich and the very poor can afford day care in Canada today. The rich can pay directly and the poor resort to welfare subsidy.
What we need in Canada is a universal form of affordable child care. We must have a government policy which makes
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dependable, accessible and affordable child care a must for any Canadian family that needs it. I agree this is particularly important in rural areas of Canada where there is now really no provision for child care services and cost subsidies.
However, to achieve this goal, if we are trying to do it through the tax system, surely the Income Tax Act must be changed to add a child care tax credit. A tax credit would help pay the cost of child care for persons who do not now earn enough to pay income tax. Many of these are working poor, people with very low incomes. Also, there are those who are not working, in addition to some mothers on their own who need day care service.
This bill raises the whole question of the need for a universal child care program throughout Canada. With 44.5 per cent of Canadian mothers in the work force, there are some 721,000 children under the age of six who have working mothers. Very few of these families, about 12 per cent of them, are able to put children into government-approved day care spaces. In the ten years before 1979 the number of working women increased by 62 per cent. We know this trend is here to stay.
There are many points I would like to raise in support of much more active federal leadership to ensure a universal and affordable child care program in Canada. We all agree with the National Action Commission for the International Year of the Child that children are our greatest resource and must be given the first priority in our various policies.
Family structures in Canada are changing. Child care needs are very great. Child care, and I use that term rather than day care because it has a different connotation, must be flexible, meeting the child's development needs as well as the needs of the family as a whole.
It is also important, since the cost of living is so high, particularly the cost of housing and mortgages today, that in many cases both spouses must work. There must be two breadwinners in the family in order to meet survival costs. This means many couples are putting off having a family, and affordable day care would be a great help to them.
Single-parent families also are increasing at a phenomenal rate. Single parents must be assured of stable, high standard care for their children if they are to seek work and, as I said earlier, many single parents must have the choice to remain at home and care for their children, if that is best for them. We must not force single parents, particularly, into the work force if that is not best for them and their child, but we must have adequate flexible day care in any case.
We in this party feel that the federal government must be much more actively involved in the development of a universal child care policy. We must have federal standards that apply in all provinces, there must be fair financial arrangements involving a fair contribution for those who can afford it, and tax credits or deductions certainly would help in that way.
There also must be, of course, a major contribution from the provinces which carry the main responsibility for day care.
This means funding in advance for operating costs, because they have to keep the doors open and pay the overhead. The federal government should certainly be contributing to start-up and capital costs; such incentives are needed to develop new day care centres but were refused by the responsible minister. The federal government should also be sharing subsidy costs, which it does now to some degree through the Canada Assistance Plan, but this is far from universal. It is very important there be an integrated, shared funding policy with up-front moneys to cover the operating costs for day care centres.
Many people, Mr. Speaker, feel that a child care centre should be an adjunct to neighbourhood schools, and I favour this idea. There are many schools where classrooms are becoming available and, with the help of federal funds, these should be converted to good child care centres operated close to home for mothers where the older children are in the regular school program.
It is estimated there are over one million children between the ages of seven and 12, the so-called latch-key children, who go home to empty houses because their parents work, or the single parent works, and they do not have adequate care for this age group. We need after-school care, summer programs, flexible programs that will include care for infants, perhaps with more homemakers going into the home; and we need registered family day care homes, satellite programs connected to neighbourhood day care centres.
We also need accessible, flexible day care in the workplace where this is the best practical arrangement for the parent and child. I am pleased to say a very active day care committee has been working here on Parliament Hill over the past year to establish a model day care centre, demonstrating the need for workers, not Members of Parliament necessarily, but workers on the Hill to have good day care in the workplace. We appreciate the support Madam Speaker has provided to this movement and hope to have the centre open by next September. I am pleased to hear recently that a federal department, I believe the Treasury Board, is considering implementing a pilot project of this kind.
When we talk about financing our day care centres, it is most important also that we remember there must be adequate, well paid staff for this most important service. For too long I think the attitude of people has been that child care is something that can be done by anyone; why do women, who have been in the home anyway, need to get paid adequate wages, they can go and be a supervisor in a day care centre- at terribly low wages. This is not a part-time job for so-called housewives, and this is an attitude that needs to be changed. There must be adequate funding and staffing at decent union rates of pay for day care supervisors.
I would also like to say, Mr. Speaker, that decent universal child care is far too important a subject to be considered as a result of a private member's bill, with all due respect to the member who presented this resolution. I urge that this be a major topic of debate in the House. The present health, welfare and social affairs committee has been studying the report called "For Canada's Children: National Agenda for
March 23, 1981

Action". This report was presented by the Canadian Commission for the International Year of the Child in 1979, Mr. Speaker. Only now are we getting to this report, and I am ashamed to say that many members on that committee have not shown a great deal of interest in Canada's children and have not been as active as I hoped they would be on this very important issue. I hope this matter will come back to the House for a very serious debate. There is nothing more important than Canada's children and the future of our country depends on adequate care in the home where parents who want to can care for their children, or there should be adequate universal day care available.
In conclusion, I would like to quote excerpts from this report. These are points which I believe are relevant to the debate on this resolution and on which we in this party agree completely. On page 27 it states:
Children have not had equal access to care the way they have had to education.
Child care encompasses a wide range of alternatives to help children develop and flourish as human beings.
Only the very poor and the very rich have access to many of these alternatives.
The major problems in the provision of accessible, available and affordable day care in Canada are cost, jurisdiction and attitude. Although child care is a provincial responsibility, the federal government could participate to a much greater degree and relieve some of the funding problems.
With working parents now the norm, the need for child care programs is more acute than ever. It is unrealistic to expect parents to shoulder the full financial cost of raising the next generation.
Parents who stay at home should have the support they need to best fulfil their caring role.
And finally, Mr. Speaker:
Since healthy, well cared for children are a joy and an asset to their society, the care and well-being of our children should be a responsibility and a trust shared by society as a whole.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Bill Wright (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a few words on this important motion that the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) has put before the House. I think it is a very important motion and I hope the government will take notice of it. He brought out a very important point to which he did not address himself, but I think we will have to over the next few years; that is the preservation of the family unit.
Do we as citizens want to simply work, earn a good living, and look after ourselves, or are we going to look beyond ourselves to the question of why we are here and what this is all about? It looks to me like the preservation of the family unit is in reality what we should be looking for in this coming age.
The hon. member brought to our attention the present limitations on parents, whether they be single-parent families or whether both parents work. However, there are severe limitations placed on people who have to work and have to put their children into day care centres for one reason or the other. Because the time is short, I would like to bring to the attention
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of the House that a number of years ago as a project coordinator for a building project I spent many hours studying day care centres. Most highrise office buildings are well behind in development for the future.
Do I have more time, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately not.

The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired.

I remind hon. members that the 40-hour limit for private members' business, pursuant to Standing Order 15(b), has now been reached and that there will be no private members' business on Mondays and Tuesdays for the balance of this session.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Robert Gourd (Argenteuil-Papineau):: Mr. Speaker, Mirabel is a name that conjures up grandiose projects, projects that were meant to make of that spot the largest port of entry into North America! But Mirabel is also an expropriated community of Canadians who were asked to forget the dreams and aspirations that are typical of all members of rural communities. Mirabel is a white elephant. Mirabel, finally, is a ten-year-old issue that would appear to be so complex that each study leads our civil servants to recommend that a further study be made of it in greater detail. And so, year after year, pressing decisions are put off pending the findings of studies that are under way. So much time is spent on those precious studies that I have come to the sad conclusion that what findings are produced are always obsolete and, as time lost breeds new problems, we find ourselves with even more problems to solve. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, everybody is waiting for the decisions the ministers in charge should be making. The land owners who were expropriated are waiting, as is the whole population of the area and the province of Quebec, because the economic future of Quebec is at stake. I am waiting, and I am sure several hon. members are waiting too. Those the minister responsible considers as Mirabel die-

March 23, 1981
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Adjournment Debate hards are waiting. In short, everybody is waiting and that is the irony of the situation. Also, everybody knows what should be done. I do not deny the complexity of the problem, and I respect the minister responsible who insists on playing it safe to avoid mistakes at all costs. However, how many more years should we continue waiting? And what price will we have to pay for this prudence which borders on paranoia?
There are two main aspects to this issue. On the one hand, the management of the adjacent lands, and on the other the future of Mirabel airport. As to the first element, I am very pleased with the decision which the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cosgrove) announced recently to establish a new Crown corporation. However, the future of the airport itself is still in doubt, and this uncertainty is not without adverse consequences on the Quebec economy. Since the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) is not present, I should like to direct a series of questions to his parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Bockstael), and to avoid all possible misunderstanding, I must advise him that although I have read the Speech from the Throne very attentively, as the Minister of Transport had suggested on December 2,1 have been unable to find any answers to my questions. First of all, what progress in their study have the officials of the Department of Transport made who, after ten years, are still unable to provide us with any additional information on this?
Second, did the parliamentary secretary read the article by Michel Gratton published in the newspaper Le Droit last December 1 ? Can he confirm the increase in passenger traffic at Malton airport, 14 per cent last year, at Edmonton airport with 21 per cent and at Calgary which beat all records with a rise of 23.3 per cent? And can he explain why Mirabel did so poorly, with an increase of 3 per cent? Can he also tell us what steps the Minister of Transport intends to take to turn Mirabel into a money-making venture?
Third, has the Minister of Transport been made aware of the resolution adopted by the Mirabel municipal council on February 3 in which they ask him to authorize the transfer of flights from Dorval to Mirabel? One excerpt from that resolution which I fully endorse is most revealing and deserves to be quoted:
Whereas Mirabel airport has physical and operational features which are unique in North America and in the world because of the particularities of its adjacent territory, because there is no curfew, and because it has the world's most modern cargo and passenger-handling facilities which give it a lead in the operation and the industrial development to which it aspires;
Finally, and it is always the same question every day, when, when, and again when will the minister once and for all take the required decisions? Not only has the time come, we are already late as it is. In my opinion we must act right now. I am convinced that the decision to build that airport in the early seventies was sound. The mistake has been to delay until tomorrow what ought to and could be done today. It is a
complex matter, I admit that, however its characteristic complexity does not justify all that wasted time.


Mr. Robert Bockstael (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Argen-teuil has raised the issue of growing passenger traffic at the Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary airports as well as the question of the measures which the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) intends to take to make Mirabel airport more profitable. The increase in passenger traffic at the Calgary and Edmonton international airports has been remarkable and mirrors western Canada's economic growth.
The increase at the Toronto International Airport was also slightly higher than the national average. Air passenger traffic did not increase as quickly in Montreal mostly because of slower economic growth. However, traffic in Mirabel should increase for the following reasons. First, Mr. Speaker, it should be noted that the commitment of the minister concerning Mirabel is unquestionable.
The hon. member is well aware of the ongoing study on the various options to restore traffic between Dorval and Mirabel. When the many factors involved, and especially the costs, have been analysed, a decision will be made. For the moment, I would simply like to give a short list of the programs to be implemented to promote the development of Mirabel.
-The Action Mirabel group which has already succeeded in promoting the airport as a freight centre open 24 hours a day and as a favourite location for trade exhibitions and symposiums.
-Action Mirabel has also worked on the question of access to truckers from the United States.
-The very recent installation of a free transit zone by the Widex Company.
-A proposal to eliminate what is called the "Last Stop Provision" in landing charges at Canadian airports. This would benefit mostly Mirabel.
-The establishment of a Crown corporation to resell the land adjacent to Mirabel.
I could go on, but 1 would simply like to assure the hon. member that the future of Mirabel is a priority for the minister.


GRAIN-CHANGE IN POLICY ON TIMING OF ANNOUNCEMENT
William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I rise to take part in this adjournment debate as a result of a question and the response by the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, the assistant to the Minister of Transport.
On March 18 Senator Argue made a statement in the other place regarding the seeding plan producers in Canada should
March 23, 1981

adopt for the coming year. He stated that increases should be in the neighbourhood of 10 per cent for all grains, for barley, and oats. He said durum should remain the same and wheat should be increased by 10 per cent.
The problem arises from the statement by the senator, and the answer given by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) in this House. He said that in week 33 of the shipping season, which was last week, there was a scarcity of ocean ships arriving at ports enabling them to loan out of the terminals. That brought the space available in the Vancouver terminals to the lowest level in several years. There was only 49,820 tons of available space in Vancouver.
The assistant to the Minister of Transport made a statement in which he asked producers to increase their production by 10 per cent, without giving them any assurance that they would be able to deliver that grain to market. This also pertains to week 33. We are signalling a warning to the producers and the government that there is a problem building. There are 7,601 loaded cars heading west, compared to last week's total of 7,200 cars, and last year's average of 5,000 cars. I know some people would feel it is progress to have increased loads going west, but when they arrive in the yards we will find there will not be room for them, since last week in the yards there were 14,434 cars in ports to be unloaded.
At the present time there is loading for 11 vessels berthing in Vancouver. Last week there were four vessels loading; there are no ships waiting, according to the information I have. That means when these 7,601 cars arrive in Vancouver there will not be adequate space for them in the terminals. We would like the minister to explain to the farmers in western Canada, who will be putting their crops in within the next six weeks, how they will move their product to market if this situation continues.
1 would also like to take issue with the statement made by the assistant to the minister in the other place in which he stated he was not announcing initial payments this year because last year he announced them too soon. As I mentioned to the Minister of Transport in the House on March 20, it was not that the payments were announced too soon, it was that the statements were inaccurate when they were announced. If you will recall, Mr. Speaker, late in March the minister announced initial payments, readjusted those payments in July and again made a mistake either through incompetence or lack of information. I must say I doubt it was the latter, as at no time since 1971, when this practice was established by the minister's predecessor, the Hon. Otto Lang, was the error so great or the discrepancy so large between the initial payments and the actual interim payments. This practice was established in order that farmers and producers of western Canada would have adequate information in respect of pricing, and thereby have a management tool at their disposal. The present minister would be the only minister since 1971 who would not have that information available to him.
I would like to quote a statement by the Minister of Transport as reported in Hansard for March 20.
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He said:
I said the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board did not give the initial prices. He said, however, that he expected the prices to be strong, to remain as they are now, which is an indication of his view on prices.
However, I looked very carefully at Senate Hansard for March 18, when the assistant to the Minister of Transport bootlegged an announcement into the Senate relating to seeding intentions. He stated that:
Last spring I recommended certain initial payments, and 1 got into trouble because I was too careful, too conservative.
He spoke further, but I do not find anything in this statement of the assistant to the Minister of Transport in the other place which would indicate that he expects prices to remain strong and firm.
I hope the parliamentary secretary will be able to add additional light as to why the Minister of State for the Canadian Wheat Board has not followed the practice set by his predecessors since 1971, including the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski), who had the same information, the same board, the same commissioners, and the same officials as this minister.
I would again say I do not believe this was done through misinformation. I suspect it is perhaps because the present minister, the assistant to the Minister of Transport, lacks the clout in cabinet to obtain a commitment from this government to guarantee initial payments at a level at which they should be guaranteed; we are aware that the federal government is responsible for any shortfall. I take it that the cabinet does not have a great deal more faith in the assistant to the Minister of Transport in the other place, in his judgment call for the initial pricing of grain, than do the farmers of western Canada.


Robert Theodore Bockstael: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises the question of why this year's pre-seeding report from the Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board does not contain an indication of initial price levels for the 1981-82 crop year.
As my hon. friend has noted, this has been the practice since 1971, when it was instituted by Otto Lang, to give farmers a reasonably accurate picture of what to expect in the way of grain prices. That system, by and large, worked well in an environment of stable prices. Last year, it did not work so well. In fact, I remember several complaints from the hon. member that the initial prices were misleading in view of the trend in international prices.
On May 14, he asked the minister in the House about the fact that initial prices were below the previous year's adjusted prices. His colleague, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) brought the subject up again on May 30; and on July 7, the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight) said, and I quote:
In view of the world price for grain today, there is no justification for lowering the initial price.

March 23, 1981
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This lowering is in relation to the previously adjusted price. Indeed, the initial prices have since been adjusted not once, but twice, to reflect the very healthy world prices.
My hon. friend obviously recognized that in a highly volatile market, such as the present one, an initial price announced in March is, in fact, not very meaningful. This year, the Minister of State indicated that initial price levels would be set at the beginning of the crop year, as was done before 1971. To give some indication to farmers, however, the minister continued this practice of recommending seeded acreages, most of which are well in excess of last year's. This, at least, will give the farmer some confidence until July when a more meaningful initial price can be announced.


CANADA LABOUR CODE-PROTECTION OF URANIUM MINERS
Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: I would like to address my remarks to the subject matter of my question of January 28 of this year which related to the lack of safety provisions in the Canada Labour Code or in any other legislation pertaining to uranium miners at Elliot Lake and elsewhere across Canada. During my question, I said that uranium miners in Elliot Lake and throughout Canada have now been left surrounded and jeopardized by a jurisdictional no man's land which leaves them entirely without protection from the very real and hazardous dangers of their industry. I asked the minister if action was being taken, as promised by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) in reply to an earlier question from the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Blackburn) on December 16,
1980.	The minister's response was, in part, as reported at page 6647 of Hansard:
1 might say that submissions were made by the steelworkers requesting that joint safety and health committees be established at the two largest uranium mines, Denison and Rio Algom at Elliot Lake. They were accordingly ordered to be established at these two locations in an order dated April 14. As of this date they are not yet in operation, due to the refusal of the steelworkers to nominate labour members to these committees.
The minister added that he wanted to say that I, as the member for Kootenay West, would do a great service if 1 would pass back to my friends, the steelworkers at Elliot Lake, the message that miners there are as well-protected by safety regulations as those in any mine in Canada. To be generous, Mr. Speaker, people all across Canada who are involved in mining know that that statement is not correct. Anyone involved in mining and anyone in the labour movement knows that that is not correct.
Along similar lines, an editorial in the Sault Star on Monday, February 2, 1981, echoed the minister's words when he responded to my question on January 28. Mr. Homer Seguin, the staff representative of the United Steelworkers of America, whose office is at Elliot Lake, wrote a letter to the newspaper which is basically a reply to the comments the minister made when answering my question on January 28. The letter reads as follows:
Let me briefly acquaint you with some of them.
-The government, provincial and federal has over the years, said uranium workers are well protected.
-From 1955 to 1978 the government said the Ontario mining act applied to uranium workers in Ontario. This act did not even mention radiation and had many other shortcomings, however,
-On December 6, 1978, the federal Minister of Labour announced in the House that the Ontario mining act didn't really apply, but, that Part IV of the Canada Labour Code does, contrary to former belief. In passing, it is interesting to note that the Canada Labour Code had no specific provisions for mining. Indeed, there was no expertise nor inspectors in the field. But, the fed's said we were well protected once again.
-Next, the federal government acknowledge (after considerable pressure from the Union) that we were in fact left without real protections, but they would rectify this inadequacy.
-In August 1979, the fed's adopted the old Ontario mining act by reference. Obviously, this was intended to shut us up since it is the same act that was said to apply (but really didn't) since 1955. It's interesting to note that two months later Ontario adopted Bill 70 and discarded the old mining act as obsolete, but not for uranium workers. Ironically, the new Ontario legislation resulted in large part from developments following a three-week safety and health strike in Elliot Lake in 1974. Again, the government said we were well protected.
-Next. Following more pressure, the fed's agreed there was inadequate protection and in May 1980, adopted the Ontario act by reference into its regulations. We were told face to face by Mines Minister Judy Erola that all of the Ontario Act applied. We expressed doubts about the legality of adopting regulations which conflicted with an act but were assured it applied.
-Next, as we attempted to utilize provisions of the Ontario Act, we were told the Ontario Act didn't all apply. For example. The right to refuse unsafe work was not as contained in the Ontario Act, nor was the rights of our safety and health committeemen nor was the composition of our safety and health committees or their protected earnings, etc.
-In support of our contention that our concerns are legitimate you should know that despite acknowledged violations of existing safety legislation (said to apply) not one charge has ever been laid by Labour Canada or the Atomic Energy Control Board involving the Elliot Lake uranium operations.
-we cannot and will not live in a jungle of jurisdictional confusion and unclear legislative protection. This has already killed hundreds of our members.
In support of the United Steelworkers of America position ... I would refer you to the latest government committee report which investigated this whole area of concern.
The all party provincial "Select Committee of Hydro Affairs" issued its final report December 1980 on "Mining, Milling and Refining of Uranium in Ontario." This committee held many meetings, conducted hearings, and investigations for months and generally supports our Union's position.
-you will understand our continuing concern by reading on pages 12 and 13 of the select committee's report their legal opinion as to what protection we really have.
The letter quotes from the committee proceedings as follows:
The committee considers that there is a very real possibility that the government of Canada has not met the technical requirement of the Statutory Instruments Act and that as a result, Ontario's uranium mine workers are operating wholly without the legal protection they are entitled to and have been assured they have.
And finally	comment that the union has refused to name safety and
health committees is ridiculous.
We have told the government agencies and representatives time and time again that our safety and health committees are in place, ready and willing to be legitimised as provided in the Ontario Act. The government has refused. We ask-if the fed's adopted the Ontario Act, then why does it not apply?
There is an old saying that it takes a big man to express honest opinions but it takes a bigger one to acknowledge he was wrong.
March 23, 1981

I would ask the parliamentary secretary, in the absence of the minister this evening, to finally acknowledge that the government is wrong, that the miners at Elliot Lake are in a jurisdictional no man's land. Let us get on, let us work together to attempt to resolve that problem and save the lives of those people working in the uranium industry in the province of Ontario as well as right across Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. According to the rules of the House, parliamentary secretaries should reply to questions. I see the hon. member for Welland (Mr. Parent) is seeking recognition. I want it clearly understood that this is not a precedent.


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I might point out by way of information that both the parliamentary secretary and the minister are feeling a little under the weather tonight and they asked me, as a former parliamentary secretary to a minister of labour, to read the answer, with your permission, Sir.
With regard to the occupational safety and health protection for uranium miners at Elliot Lake, the federal government's involvement in the Ontario mining industry, as it relates to safety arrangements and practices, is limited to uranium mines and uranium plants which are licensed by the Atomic Energy Control Board. Until October, 1978, the Canada Labour Code, Part IV, which pertains to occupational safety and health was not applied to workers in the uranium mining industry because it is "subject to any other act or regulations," including the Atomic Energy Control Act and the regulations thereunder.
Protection for workers prior to 1978 derived from the requirements of the licence issued by the Atomic Energy Control Board to enterprises in the nuclear field. These licences required such enterprises to conform with the laws of the province in which they were located. This meant that in Ontario workers in uranium mines and processing plants were protected by Ontario's occupational safety and health law
Adjournment Debate
regulations. This arrangement pertained, as mentioned, until the autumn of 1978 when, in response to a letter from the United Steel Workers about jurisdiction, the Atomic Energy Control Board referred the question to the Department of Justice for consideration. The federal justice department at that time gave the opinion that since the AECB had not issued regulations governing occupational safety and health, and since Part IV of the Canada Labour Code was subject only to other acts and regulations, then Part IV applied to uranium mining and processing operations.
The Code does not cover radiation because there are existing AECB regulations respecting radiation and mixed radiation-dust hazards.
Arrangements were worked out with Ontario to reference its occupational safety and health laws by regulation under the Canada Labour Code making them, for purposes of uranium mining, federal laws and thereby designating provincial safety officers as federal safety officers. These arrangements permitted the continuation of the provincial machinery for administering conventional occupational safety and health in uranium mines. Thus, provincial enforcement carried on without significant changes.
On July 11, 1979, and again on April 10, 1980, submissions were made to the ministers of labour by the United Steelworkers Union, requesting that joint safety and health committees be established at the two largest uranium mines, namely, Denison and Rio Algom. In so far as the validity of the referencing of the Ontario occupational health and safety act is concerned, this is a question within the competence of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien), and as far as this justice department is concerned it says that it is okay and that we must take the word of the law officers of Canada.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m.
Motion agreed to and the House adjourned at 10.30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 24, 1981