1981-11-10

REMEMBRANCE DAY


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Madam Speaker, it is my privilege as Minister of Veterans Affairs to remind all members and all Canadians that tomorrow, November 11, is Remembrance Day.
Well over half of our present population was born after the end of the Second World War, and, as the echoes of that conflict become fainter, there is always a possibility that, for the younger generations, November 11 will have no special significance. I consider this would be a tragedy because there is an inspirational story rooted in our past.
The day before yesterday I was at Vimy Ridge, where Canadians won everlasting glory. On that occasion one could not help but be reminded of the words of General Byng, the commander of our forces at Vimy, who said:
There they stood on Vimy Ridge on the ninth day of April, 1917, men from Quebec stood shoulder to shoulder with men from British Columbia and Alberta and there was forged a nation tempered by the fires of sacrifice and hammered on the anvil of high adventure.
Over 600,000 Canadians fought in the First World War. They were so splendid at the Battle of the Somme that British Prime Minister David Lloyd George later wrote:
The Canadians played a part of such distinction that henceforward they were marked out as storm troops; for the remainder of the war they were brought along to head the assault in one great battle after another. Whenever the Germans found the Canadian corps coming into the line they prepared for the worst.
Next summer we will be commemorating the fortieth anniversary of Dieppe, where Canadians were also asked to serve as storm troops. Those men who landed on the Normandy beaches were in the finest traditions of the Canadian forces, as were our airmen in the Battle of Britain, and our seamen who crewed the perilous convoys of the North Atlantic.
This tradition of service and sacrifice was continued in the Korean war when Canadians volunteered to join the United Nations peace foice.
Tomorrow, November 11, we will be remembering those men and women from all those wars who gave up their lives so others could be free, and at the same time we will be recognizing the achievements of former members of our forces.
For the millions of our young people who have known nothing but the privilege of peace, let us hope that Remembrance Day will always be something special. If we take the
time to reflect on the example set by our forebears, Canadians can face the future with confidence.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam Speaker, they served; we care.
On behalf of the Conservative Party I wish to add our thoughts of remembrance at this time of reflection. So basic was the belief that everyone has a right to the freedoms we now cherish that over 100,000 Canadian men and women gave their very lives to ensure that end. Through the World Wars, the Korean war, and many other battles, hundreds of thousands of Canadians have fought to ensure that these cherished freedoms would never be forfeited. We gratefully remember their sacrifice.
November 11 will mark the passage of another year since the fighting ceased on the western front. Then, as now, mankind prayed that the last war had been waged. Whenever Canadians have been needed, they have served and served with distinction. Many returned maimed and disabled. We hope there will be amendments to the Human Rights Act to bring equality to the handicapped in this International Year of Disabled Persons.
I feel it is our responsibility, as the benefactors of their arduous labours, to remember both the 100,000 war dead and the 770,000 veterans who now live on. They deserve to be treated with respect and compassion. Currently many veterans die before they receive their due benefits from the country for which they have faithfully done battle.
It is an honour to remember our fallen comrades through eulogy, but we should also remember the actions of our living veterans by acting ourselves. The greatest tribute we could give them would be to eliminate by next Remembrance Day any causes of frustration they may now have and, in particular, the excessive time delays in processing pension applications. They served; we remember.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, I lived in Great Britain during the Second World War. I remember the Second World War as a boy, the air raid sirens, the nights in the bomb shelters, the enemy aircraft overhead, the terror of the bombs, and I remember the devastation.
I remember when it ended, when men and women returned
from the battle front; some walked and some could not, and we
thought of those who had died protecting us, and we vowed

November 10, 1981
that never again would this occur. With the faces of lost loved ones still fresh in our minds we determined that we would remember them.
We owed a great deal to those whose lifetime would be one of suffering, and we owed a great deal to the widows and families of those who had lost their lives. We were prepared to make sacrifices then to ensure that they would never want. Have we kept the faith? Could we have done better? Have we truly remembered as we promised that we would?
On behalf of Stanley Knowles, whose battle for veterans has been and continues to be unended, and on behalf of my colleagues in the New Democratic Party, I join in paying tribute and pledging that in the year ahead we will strive to meet our debt to those who served our country in World Wars I and II, in Korea, and in the other conflicts as part of our peacekeeping effort, conflicts in which we participated willingly. And I pray we will remain mindful of the need to develop throughout the world an economic order that will eliminate poverty and want for all people, and to that end eliminate the need for war.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, it takes up to five years for the Department of Veterans Affairs to process applications for veterans pensions, a procedure which in the United States takes three months. On this, the eve of Remembrance Day, I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid):
That this House urge the Minister of Veterans Affairs to respond to the needs of veterans with as much speed and good will as those veterans responded to Canada's needs during times of conflict, by streamlining the cumbersome and time-consuming practices of his department.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INFORMATION
[Stage Direction]
CONFLICT CONCERNING "LE QUOTIDIEN" AND "LE PROGRtS-DIMANCHE" IN LAC-SAINT-JEAN-SAGUENAY REGION-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Marcel Dionne (Chicoutimi):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
Whereas an agreement signed by union and management representatives at Le Quotidien and Le Progres-Dimanche will prevent these newspapers from closing, which would have been a disaster as far as information is concerned in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, and since this will meet the recommendations made by the Kent Royal Commission on Newspapers which encourage competition in this field, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Roberval (Mrs. Beauchamp-Niquet):
That the House congratulate those concerned on their efforts to reach a settlement.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADA LABOUR CODE
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, yesterday the Canadian Labour Congress properly pointed out to many members of this House that our country is currently losing more than 70 million working days a year because of work accidents and illnesses. That is fully six times the annual loss due to walk-outs and strikes. In the typical year about 20,000 Canadians are permanently disabled and more than a thousand are killed while on the job. I move, seconded by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie):
That this House calls on the government to amend Part IV of the Canada Labour Code as quickly as possible in order to deal more effectively with the prevention of workplace accidents and diseases, and to streamline existing procedures under which fully 15 separate federal departments and agencies currently have an involvement in occupational health and safety.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
November 10, 1981


INDUSTRY
Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The federal Superintendent of Insurance recently took control of the assets of Pitts Insurance Company. This is the second insurance company which has run into financial difficulty this year, leaving policyholders uncertain about whether they can collect either their claims or, indeed, the money they paid out in premiums. Since protection from financial losses arising from theft, fire or property damage or automobile damage plays such an important part in Canadians' sense of financial security, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser):
That this House refer the question of the solvency of insurance companies to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs to allay fears of Canadian policyholders.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, I would like to propose a motion under Standing Order 43 which I feel confident will receive the support of the House. The delays encountered by the veterans of Canada in having their claims for benefit processed by the Department of Veterans Affairs are intolerable. There can be no justification accepted for veterans having to wait years while the bureaucracy, which is no doubt overworked, attempts to struggle with its heavy load.
On behalf of my absent colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), and seconded by the hon. member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent), I move:
That the Minister of Veterans Affairs immediately take whatever steps are necessary to reduce the waiting period for veterans' claims and to review veterans legislation to ensure that it adequately responds to the needs of today's society in all its ramifications.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


S O. 43 INDUSTRY CALL FOR PUBLICATION OF STUDY ON DEPOSIT INSURANCE-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, the $20,000 level of deposit insurance coverage provided by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation which was fixed in 1968 has been subject to the same inflationary erosion as the Canadian dollar elsewhere. Now its worth is less than 47 cents of the original value fixed. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That the study on deposit insurance commissioned by the Minister of State (Finance) in January of this year be now made public and that the appropriate amending legislation be introduced, and introduced now, so that other Canadians do not suffer the same loss of their life savings as those depositors did in the Astra Trust Company.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
Whereas the results of the tests conducted by the federal government on urea formaldehyde foam insulation were to be announced some time this month, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle):
That the federal government take up its responsibility in this matter and, as promised by the member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Joyal), start to assess the damage caused by this product.


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the motion presented by the hon. member. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43 this motion requires unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
12688

November 10, 1981
the constitution


INDUSTRY
[Stage Direction]
MANUFACTURE OF DOMESTIC APPLIANCES-MOTION UNDER S O. 43	'
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, over the past years the number of domestic appliance manufacturers in Canada has seriously decreased and the number and kinds of domestic appliances made in Canada and the Canadian market share have been seriously eroded. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Brampton-George-town (Mr. McDermid):
That the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce immediately report to the House on motions on efforts he is making to ensure that the appliance manufacturing industry in Canada remains viable, and exactly what efforts he has made to prevent the disappearance of Canadian Admiral as a company involved in the manufacture of appliances in Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mrs. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, I too rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In the words of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), "We must keep at it to battle for substantial boosts in basic pension rates as well as for other improvements for our veterans and their families." In honour of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, that veteran fighter for veterans' causes, as well as the many veterans and their spouses who served Canada or were our allies, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell):
That the federal government take immediate steps to provide full benefits without a residency requirement to all those veterans and prisoners of war who were our allies and now are Canadian citizens, to provide fairer coverage for Dieppe prisoners of war and, at long last, to recognize, with full benefits, the veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau battalion who fought bravely for freedom in Spain.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR INCLUSION OF CHARTER OF RIGHTS- MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Ron Irwin (Sault Ste. Marie):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Yesterday the Canadian Human Rights Commission, headed by Mr. Gordon Fairweather, a distinguished former member of this House, released a poll which indicates that 72 per cent of Canadians support the principle of including a Charter of Rights in the Constitution. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson):
That this House affirms its desire to pass as expeditiously as possible a constitutional resolution which includes a Charter of Rights.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ROYAL FAMILY
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen):
That through you. Madam Speaker, this House expresses its loyal congratulations to Her Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales, and to her husband, His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, on the announcement regarding an anticipated royal event this coming spring, and at the same time assures the royal couple of our good wishes and continuing loyalty and interest.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, because of continued economic mismanagement on the part of the government Canadians are losing their jobs, their homes and, as a result, their faith in the future. To return to the people of this country the knowledge that their past and present efforts are not in vain and that, with proper planning, national and individual aims and aspirations can be achieved, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Prince Edward-Has-tings (Mr. Ellis):


Some hon. Members:: No.
! y .	'
November 10, 1981

That the Prime Minister instruct the Minister of Finance to include in the upcoming federal budget practical short-term and long-range programs designed both to provide immediate assistance to Canadians losing jobs and homes and to promote sound economic planning so that the mess in which we now find ourselves will not be continued and repeated.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that Alexander Paritsky, a Soviet Jew, goes on trial tomorrow in Kharkov in the U.S.S.R., principally because he wished to emigrate from the U.S.S.R. to Israel, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney):
That this House urge the Government of Canada to bring the concerns of the House to the Government of the U.S.S.R. and to ensure that a Canadian observer request to be admitted to the trial.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Madam Speaker, whereas investors are allowed a $1,000 income tax exemption for interest income, while war veterans receive an interest exemption of only $100 annually before it affects their war veterans allowance, whereas today's high interest rates bring interest returns on even very small investments above the $100 exemption allowed war veterans, and whereas this national disgrace does not even allow the war veteran to save enough money to cover his own funeral expenses or to repay any debts, much less leave any savings to his spouse, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo):
Oral Questions
That the government remedy this injustice by immediately raising the $100 exemption on interest income for war veterans allowance purposes to at least $1,000.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works responsible for housing. Members of Parliament have been referring specific cases of home owner hardship to the minister's office. Will the minister tell the House what guidelines his officials are using when they contact home owners who are facing mortgage renewals immediately prior to the budget?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, I can report to the hon. member for Simcoe North that, since the offer was made in this House, officials from my office and I personally have responded by telephone to approximately 200 cases. We have on occasion been able to secure alternate financing from alternate lenders other than the lender with whom the person calling was dealing. We have been able to obtain deferrals of contracts and contract renewals until after Thursday or Friday of this week. In a lot of situations the people receiving the calls and surveying the increase have, with the persons calling, been able to direct them to take actions themselves, that is, for example, to speak to the ombudsmen that have been directed by some of the banks to deal with these questions on a customer-client basis, rather than continue the intervention of Canada Mortgage.


ADVICE GIVEN BY OFFICIALS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the same minister. One of the individuals in the minister's office talked with an individual in Delta, B.C. whose mortgage matures today, November 10, who was told by the minister's official to hold off signing a mortgage renewal until Friday because there will be help in the budget on Thursday night.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: My question to the minister is this. Is that information or advice being given by the minister's officials on a selective basis?

November 10, 1981
Oral Questions


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the answer to that is an unequivocal no. 1 do not know what will be in the budget on Thursday night.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER MAKE STATEMENT ON MOTIONS
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, I would remind the minister that in his earlier answer he referred to suggestions as to what should be done Thursday or Friday. There is no way the minister can justify selective secrecy. Every Canadian who is renewing a mortgage is entitled to that advice. Now that the budget secrecy has broken down, will the minister make a statement on motions and clear the air for all Canadians renewing their mortgages?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I have already indicated that, as the minister reporting to this House for Canada Mortgage and Housing, I do not know of the contents of the budget affecting housing. I have indicated, and I say unequivocally, that I have specifically instructed my officials to make no reference to the budget or to hold out promise that there will be assistance in that budget.
What I have said is that with the discussions in this House and in this country since interest rates went to 20 per cent, I have given advice to the government, and I have said that it would be prudent for anyone who is facing a very difficult situation to wait and see, indeed, if there is any assistance, or any reference or any discussion in the budget.


REPLIES FOR HOME OWNERS
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, it boggles the mind how the minister of housing can refute what he said in his first answer. Would the minister of housing please give this House a straight answer concerning his request. The minister of housing asked me some ten days ago to supply him with a list of names. I brought them into the House of Commons, Madam Speaker, on November 2. I hand delivered them to the minister, and I tabled them in this House.
As of twelve noon today, the minister has not corresponded, nor phoned, nor has any official in his office communicated with any of the 32 people who are losing their homes. How do you get on the preferred list? Does the minister intend to leak out budget information secretly to a privileged few, and stand idly by while thousands of Canadians are losing their homes on the false promise of the minister of housing?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, as a matter of practice, each day when 1 come into this House I ask for an update from officials of my ministry, who have been responding to letters received from members of the House on all sides, to advise me of the letters that have
been received and of the action taken. So far as I know, all letters that have been received by my ministry have been acted upon, and letters have gone forward as of twelve o'clock noon today.


QUERY RESPECTING MINISTER'S ACTIONS
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Obviously the minister of housing does not even know what he says in this House of Commons, let alone what his officials say. On the front page of the Peterborough Examiner, there is "Warsaw man faces a mortgage crisis-loses his home." Why has the minister not contacted that man in Warsaw, Ontario, who was one of the 32 names tabled in this House, Madam Speaker, on November 2? I should like to know if the minister will stand idly by while CMHC offers bombs like AHOP, and balloon payments on grants and subsidies that are compounded onto the end? Will the minister be as bad as the banks? Will the minister balloon those payments at 19'/2 per cent through CMHC while he sits by, does not return the calls and does not correspond with the people? This House deserves an answer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Paul James Cosgrove: In
responding to the hon. member's question, I would be repeating myself in saying that I have been advised by the officials who have handled these cases on an individual basis that all cases have been responded to, and that all members have been acknowledged, and that all people-


Mr. Nielsen:: They have not.


Paul James Cosgrove: -who have made enquiries have been contacted by telephone by the people in CMHC who have been handling these calls. If the case to which the hon. member refers has not, then given the specifics I will look into that later this afternoon.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. He knows that all parties in the House of Commons were committed to the entrenchment of aboriginal and treaty rights as expressed in Clause 34 of the original constitutional proposition. Since the Minister of Justice just yesterday reiterated the federal government's commitment to entrenchment, I should like to ask the Prime Minister the following question. As an expression of continuing non-partisan concern with this issue, and in view of the seriousness of it for the native people of Canada, would the Prime Minister agree that it would be an important step for a letter to be sent, signed by the Prime Minister and the leaders of the other opposition parties in the House of Commons, to
November 10, 1981

each of the premiers in Canada requesting that they commit themselves to Clause 34?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member says that all parties in the House of Commons agree that that should be in. I am not quite certain that has been the case over the past year. 1 wonder why the hon. member would want me to write that letter only on behalf of the aboriginals and not on behalf of all other Canadians who do not have the equality clause and legality clause entrenched, that are subject to "notwithstanding." Yesterday we heard about women's rights, and I am sure we will hear about the disabled and so on.
I am trying to get the hon. member to understand that there was an accord last Thursday. It left some things out that we did not like left out. It put some things in that the provinces did not want put in. It was a compromise. I think it should be the task of this House, if it wants to act on that accord, not to try to renegotiate that accord after the fact. I do not mind going on record as saying that we would still stand by all the rights that were in the charter as they were when we first put them in.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: They weren't in the first one.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Some bellyacher over there says it wasn't in. Madam Speaker, we thought we had put them in. The aboriginals must have thought they were in because they want to go back to what was in.


Mr. Clark:: They were not in the first one; you know it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. Leader of the Opposition wants to say something. Could you recognize him next, Madam Speaker?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I hope the Leader of the New Democratic Party will take from my answer not that I am unsympathetic to his request but that I find it perilous indeed to try to reopen the accord of last Thursday piecemeal and to try, each of us, to put something back in that was in in the first place and that was taken out as a result of an agreement hammered out with the difficulties he knows about.


POSITION ADOPTED BY PREMIERS
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I would be prepared at this point not to question the motives of the Prime Minister in this issue if he would be prepared to agree that the comparison he tried to make between women's rights and other rights and aboriginal and treaty rights is a bad comparison, precisely because aboriginal and treaty rights have been dropped completely from the accord that was reached between the federal government and the provinces. That is not the case for other rights to which he alluded.
Oral Questions
Since the governments of Ontario, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan are publicly on record in favour of the entrenchment as expressed in Clause 34, does the Prime Minister not think it would be useful, on this important question, simply to write the other premiers to get their views and, if they are opposed to the entrenchment, is it not important for the people of Canada to know which provincial premiers are opposed to that idea?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member says that he won't question my motives for the time being, Madam Speaker. Let me say that I won't question his for the time being.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I assume the hon. member would like a Canadian constitution with an entrenched charter, though not the best one in the world that we had when some of his members and mine wanted to see this thing proceeded with.
We never knew how many hon. members because I don't think they knew themselves how many, Madam Speaker. It seemed to be a changing date.
The hon. member says that aboriginal rights are in a different category from women's rights. I point out to him that it was his own member from, 1 believe, New Westminster, who asked the first question about that, and who was indignant because somehow women's rights have been somewhat diminished. I am telling him that if we want to reopen the accord for the natives, then why not reopen it for other things too, and isn't that the surest way of destroying the accord?
He quotes, I believe, three provinces that say they are in favour. Madam Speaker, I think it is on record that we were in favour as well. It is still in the resolution which is before the House, that clause, which if my memory is correct, the Indians were campaigning violently against even in London and throughout Europe. That clause was in there and now they want it back. It was in the government's resolution. If he wants to put another government on record he can put our name. But I do not think he should be asking me who was the author of that particular deletion.
If the hon. member is asking for individual provinces I can tell him that seven provinces, in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, put together a final compromise solution. They put it to us. We were already into the fourth day. We had already lost two premiers; a third was packing his bags.
We had to decide whether we would proceed unilaterally, as the saying goes, to the United Kingdom, with the Charter in all its purity, or whether we would make some compromise to get nine provinces on side. We made the compromise. I thought that it was also the desire of the Leader of the New Democratic Party because, in the days preceding that meeting, he was urging us to have a meeting and to seek a compromise. If he

November 10, 1981
Oral Questions
didn't want some changes, he should not have urged us to seek a compromise.
We negotiated the best compromise we could. Certainly it was considerably better than the compromise put forward on Tuesday where the only entrenched thing was democratic rights and linguistic equality at the federal level. Everything else, including native rights, equality rights, legal rights, mobility rights and linguistic rights, was to be sent off to a commission for two years; that was the proposal on Tuesday. On Thursday I think we got considerably better. But if the hon. member didn't want a compromise, he shouldn't have urged me to seek one.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST THAT PRIME MINISTER SEEK SUPPORT OF PREMIERS
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, regrettably we are back to the old polemic style in dealing with this issue. This party wanted some consensus; the Prime Minister is right. But we also recognize that there is a profound distinction to be made in that document between women's and other rights which are still in there in some form, and aboriginal and treaty rights which have been removed completely. There is a distinction I wish the Prime Minister would acknowledge.
What is to be lost in his writing the other premiers to ask them, because it was in a document that he said he received? I happen to know that some of the people who were supporters of that document would include entrenchment. What is to be lost by the Prime Minister writing those premiers a straightforward letter now, or soon, to ask if they would support the re-inclusion of Clause 34?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member said that there was a profound distinction between these rights and the others. 1 wish he had told me when I asked him before meeting with the premiers, when I said, "Look, Ed, what do you think we should give up; what do you think we should drop?"


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is what 1 asked him. Let him try to remember the answer he gave me. Don't look puzzled, my friend; don't look puzzled.


Mr. Hees:: What was it, Pierre?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We were being urged to seek an agreement, by everybody, including the hon. members' party. We fought for four days to keep our charter as it was. The choice then was, and it is now, of forgetting about the accord of last Thursday and moving unilaterally. If I have the entire support of the hon. member's party, and of the province of Saskatchewan, and of a couple of other provinces, we will revert to that. We will destroy the accord of last Thursday and we will proceed with it, if I can have that.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Oh, oh! Now hon. members don't want me to protect women's rights or native rights.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Maurice A. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. In light of the minister's remarks in Chatham, New Brunswick, last Saturday, and last night's distressing report on the CBC national news, including the negative and counter-productive statements of the crepe-hanging mayor of the town of Chatham that the base will close, will the minister state whether or not there are plans within his department vis-a-vis CFB Chatham about which we have not been informed?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, it is very unfortunate sometimes that newscasts do not reflect the whole reality. It is true that I was in Chatham to address its Chamber of Commerce.' I told the people of Chatham and of the Miramichi region that they should plan for a change because we were phasing out our 416 squadron of Voodoos, of F-101 fighters.
We know the consequences this will have on the region. However, I told them as well that this was supposed to happen in 1982, and we gave them further leeway of two more years to do it. I think they understood very well. We told them too that we were establishing an interdepartmental committee so that we could see altogether what we could do to alleviate the consequences of these squadrons leaving the Chatham base. 1 think some people understood very well. I have information to the effect that the Premier of New Brunswick, Mr. Hatfield, called Mr. MacMillan of the Miramichi Region Development Corporation, to tell him that he would give him all the help possible. If Madam Speaker would allow me, I would like to read one sentence of the communication from Mr. Ernest MacMillan as follows:
Thank you for coming to Miramichi to place your department's position regarding CFB Chatham before the public.


Some hon. Members:: Order, order!


Mr. Lamontagne:: It is very important that everyone in the House understands the way the government is handling a case for which we have much concern.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Maurice Lamontagne: I thank Madam Speaker for her indulgence. It reads:
We at the Miramichi Region Development Corporation accept your challenge to plan for change ... We are pleased that you do not plan to abandon CFB
November 10, 1981

Chatham and are to establish an interdepartmental committee to plan for the future role of CFB Chatham.
The government is concerned with the problems of the people of Chatham, and we will look after them.


FISHERIES
John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. As the House knows, Dr. Peter Pearse brought down his interim report on fisheries on the Pacific coast yesterday. The report is extensive and we all hope that it will be very useful. But yesterday Dr. Pearse said that he considered the whole policy framework, including that for administration, inadequate and that it must be changed. He said that the government must develop a policy to allow the fisheries department to carry out its job. It is now admitted that the lack of government policy has made it very difficult for the government to do its job.
Now that there are some interim recommendations, and in view of the fact that none of these interim recommendations or suggestions is easy, as Dr. Pearse pointed out, what can the minister tell us about giving people who will be affected by these recommendations the chance to discuss them, not only with the government but perhaps with an appropriate House standing committee, before the government makes a final decision on whether to implement these recommendations or to modify them in accordance with certain needs that may be expressed?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, I welcome the hon. member to his new role. I assure him that my department is fully open to him and any questions he may have to ask.
I welcome the Pearse report. I asked Dr. Pearse to go the whole way in telling the story as he saw it. He did a very thorough job. He was working under considerable time constraints. His recommendations have come to me, as they have to hon. members, and I think they were widely distributed. I recommend the report to the attention of hon. members. I hope that it will be fully discussed.
I only have one difficulty. If we want to make some changes we must do it early enough so that fishermen can adjust for the 1982 fishing season. Certainly I am in favour of full discussion, either through the parliamentary committee system or through the advisory committee on the west coast with which I intend to meet after it has had time to look at the report and is ready to make some general comments.


REQUEST FOR REFERRAL TO STANDING COMMITTEE
John Allen Fraser: I welcome the minister's desire to have this matter discussed not only with
Oral Questions
the government but also with the committee. I would ask the minister if he could advise us, perhaps no later than next week, what discussions he has had with the chairman of that committee so that the necessary steps can be made to have the committee consider these preliminary recommendations and possibly call witnesses because, as the minister knows, certainly the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union has already voiced its very grave concern about some aspects of the recommendations.


Roméo LeBlanc: Madam Speaker, I hope that some members of the public, including some fishermen's organizations, do not arrive at hardened positions before they have read the full report and analysed all the recommendations, and frankly, have had a chance to sit down with Dr. Pearse and discuss how he sees certain issues that he has raised in his report. However, I very much favour full discussion and full information which should be foremost at such meetings.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. Since the minister stonewalled the Senators this morning, just as he has stubbornly ignored hon. members of this House on the VIA Rail question, may I ask the minister, with the candour that he used to show when he really cared for this country, just what is the purpose of having a commons committee on transportation when it cannot meet to review or even discuss a unilateral, arbitrary cabinet order which affects so many Canadians from coast to coast?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I do not think it is stubbornness; it is the conviction in what one is doing.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am willing to live up to the conviction we have that this is the best way to restructure the railway transportation system in Canada.
1 was in the committee of the Senate this morning simply because I was invited to go there. I presented the case in the best possible way I could. I am willing to do that for the House of Commons committee on transportation. The reason hon. members have not consented to see me up until now is simply because-and this is their right to claim-they would like to have the right to report to the House of Commons on that subject, and, by so doing, to ask for a third day of debate on the subject. The House leader on my side and I have not been willing to accommodate that desire.

November 10, 1981
Oral Questions


REQUEST THAT MINISTER APPEAR BEFORE STANDING COMMITTEE
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, the minister well knows that on October 28 we had a little rhubarb in this House when the chairman of the standing committee had difficulty in standing in his place because of the presence of the government House leader in reference to the unanimous report of the steering committee which stated that this matter should be reviewed, at least before Nov. 15. There was never an attempt from the government side, with those who helped draw up the terms of reference, to provoke a debate in this House as long as we had a chance, in an abbreviated form before the standing committee, to hear this matter. Therefore, there has not been a chance for Members of Parliament, elected to carry on the people's business, to discuss something like a 20 per cent removal of the people's trains. How does the minister rationalize or reconcile that, especially if he thinks his facts are so good? What does he have to fear in coming before the transport committee, even on a shortened schedule?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I have learned something that I did not know. If my hon. friend is right, I have just learned that that committee would be willing to listen to my explanation of the program announced on July 27 without making it the subject of a report which could be tabled in the House and would be debatable. That is something new. I have not been informed of that. I do not know if the House leader has been informed. He seems to say that he has not been, either.
The reason I went to the Senate this morning was so I could give all the explanations I have; therefore, it is not fear of explaining the program, obviously, because I have already done it this morning. I am willing to do it again before the committee of the House of Commons if what my hon. friend says is true; unfortunately, I doubt that it is.


MINISTER'S ACTIONS WITH RESPECT TO CUTBACKS
Hon. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: I have a supplementary question. Last week in the House, Madam Speaker, the Minister of Transport responded to a question posed by the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria. The hon. member asked the minister if he would consider the maintenance of service between Edmundston and Moncton until such time as alternative service could be provided. The minister indicated that he would take that under advisement, and he implied that something would be done in a positive way.
As well, the hon. member for Timmins-Chapleau has written to the Minister of Transport, indicating that as a result of the cutbacks there will be some very serious problems with regard to mail service. In turn the minister has directed the CTC to issue a modification to the order in council so that those complaints will be looked after. Why is the minister so adamant about forging ahead with the cutbacks on November 15 while making selective exceptions for members of his own party?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, the point I have been making all along is that these decisions have been made and they will be implemented on November 15 in most cases, and on September 1, 1982, in the case of commuter-like trains. What I have been saying all along is that the world will not stop breathing on November 15. There will be adjustment and accommodation to those situations. The example that I chose was the Edmunston to Moncton route. I cannot be totally candid on the subject because it is not completely finished. However, what we will see in the coming days is the development of alternative modes of transportation by way of road and air which will make up for the loss of the railway at a cost to the government which will be immensely lower than the government is now paying and would have been paying for years to come had the rail line continued to exist. It is as simple as that.
These changes have been going on in Canada for a number of years. Between 1970 and 1978, 28 per cent of the railway route system was eliminated, and adjustments were made.
My friend does his best, and is doing very well, trying to postpone, postpone, postpone what is with us and what is bound to happen, and to which we must adjust. I wish he would be more of a liberal, having a sense of adjustment which would be in keeping with what happened in the past.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Bob Rae (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, my question concerns the Atlantic provinces and is directed to the Minister of Finance. It is clear that the Liberal induced recession in the rest of the country is producing a Liberal induced depression in that part of the country, with bankruptcies up 85 per cent, with 10,000 fewer jobs in October than in September, and with unemployment in Newfoundland, for example, running at 17 per cent.
In light of these really astonishing figures, and the human reality which they portray, I would like to ask the minister whether he is now prepared to tell the House that he and the government regard the problem of unemployment and, in particular, the problem of unemployment in Atlantic Canada, as public enemy number one, along with inflation.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: I have no hesitation, Madam Speaker, in declaring that unemployment is, of course, a serious problem. The question my hon. friend will obviously go on to consider is: what is the best economic policy to follow in present circumstances, with very high inflation, to ensure a sustainable economic growth and permanent jobs down the road? I regard a good deal of the unemployment occurring in the country today to be the result of high inflation that we are experiencing in the economy.
November 10, 1981


Bob Rae: Madam Speaker, one of the causes of unemployment in Atlantic Canada, apart from high interest rates, which seems to escape the minister's attention is, of course, the closure of the air base at Chatham, New Brunswick, which will cause the loss, according to the town itself, of half the jobs in that town.


IMPLICATIONS OF UNEMPLOYMENT
Bob Rae: My supplementary question to the minister is this: in light of the Olson report, in light of the report of the unemployment task force, and in light of the admission of the Minister of Employment and Immigration that the job situation is worsening, I wonder if the minister cannot confirm for this House that the real implications of the government policy are that the 120,000 unemployed in Atlantic Canada will have to ride the rails in the 1980s just as their ancestors did in the 1930s.


Erik Nielsen: No rails to ride!


Some hon. Members:: What rails?


Erik Nielsen: Have to ride the twin track!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member will have to improve his rhetoric if he intends to get any support in the Atlantic provinces.


HOUSING
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the minister responsible for housing arising out of his contradictory answers to two earlier questions in the House. In answer to the first question he admitted that he or his officials had been in touch with at least 200 home owners across the country and had suggested any decisions people might make regarding their homes "be deferred until after Thursday or Friday", that is, be deferred until after the budget is brought down in the House of Commons. Then the minister got up and told us that he did not know why he was telling them to defer their decisions because he did not know if there was going to be any aid in the budget.
Having told people to defer their decisions, and having admitted in this House that he did not know why he was telling them to defer their decisions, is the minister being so irresponsible as to use the authority of his office to cause people to defer actions on their houses on the off chance that something will happen, or does he in fact know that there is going to be something in the budget? And if there is going to
Oral Questions
be something in the budget, will he tell the House now what that is?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Crosbie:: Even Allan doesn't know that.


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, if the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition had had the opportunity, as I did, together with the chairman of the Quebec caucus, on September 15 to listen for an hour to petitions and cases of hardship presented to us by people who are genuinely concerned about the prospects of maintaining their homes and concerning their ability to meet new mortgage payments at new interest rates, I am sure he would have shared with me the observation I made at that time, and that I have made in the weeks since, that any prudent person faced with the real prospect and the real trauma of the loss of his or her home would wait until this government presents its economic plan, its financial plan for next year and for the years to come on Thursday of this week through the Minister of Finance.


QUERY RESPECTING GOVERNMENT'S PLANS
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, a few moments ago in this House of Commons the minister responsible for housing told us he did not know what was going to be in the budget or if anything was going to be in the budget. That is what he told us. On October 15 in answer to a question posed by the hon. member for Oshawa, in referring to the government he said:
It has indicated that in the budget it will protect those people.
Will the minister tell the House of Commons what it was he knew on October 15 that he does not know now? What program was the government committed to on October 15 when the minister gave that solemn commitment to the House of Commons that the government is not committed to now?


Erik Nielsen: Come clean, Paul.


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, if my memory serves me correctly, I believe the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition probably asked the first question of me earlier in this resumed Parliament, a question quite similar to the question that he has just asked again this afternoon. My response then and my response today is that this government's approach to the problems facing Canadians was guided by the commitment of this government in the Speech from the Throne when it took office, specifically, that we would move to assist people who need help the most, and we would do that first.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER MAKE STATEMENT ON MOTIONS
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam
Speaker, I regret this wriggling by the minister responsible for
housing. As reported in Hansard for October 15 at page

November 10, 1981
Oral Questions
11809, referring to the government, the minister said very clearly:
It has indicated that in the budget it will protect those people.
Those are the people who would be losing their homes referred to by the hon. member for Oshawa. The minister said that very clearly. On October 15 he knew there was a program in the budget. Today he does not know if there is a program in the budget.
The minister has been phoning Canadians, some of them, selectively. Not all. Some he chooses and others apparently he does not phone. Some 200 Canadians have been phoned and have been told to wait. Canadians who are concerned about losing their homes-and thousands already have lost their homes as a result of the policies of this government-want to know whether they should be waiting for a program that will be in the budget or whether the minister is simply talking through his hat. The best way for the government to clear this up would be for the minister to stand in his place and make a statement on motions.
Will the minister extend to all of the people of this country that selective service he has extended to the 200 people whom either he or his officials telephoned, and will he stand up on motions today in the House of Commons and tell us what help is intended for Canadians who are in danger of losing their homes, or who may be forced to sell their homes at a loss? Will the minister make that statement today to Canadians who have a right to know where this government stands?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the discouraging thing to me as the minister reporting to this House for Canada Mortgage and Housing is the apparent politicking in which the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is engaging today. Since this Parliament resumed in the middle of October, there was the course of action that flowed from my offer through my office to attempt to assist people who are generally fearful of losing their homes. I made that offer in this House, and in my view I followed up on it.
The weekend following that offer, after protestations of calls to the office of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, I had my office contact every office of every hon. member on the other side of the House asking for those cases of the thousands of people professed to be in fear of losing their homes. I think six people responded that day, six people were in their offices who showed concern. We followed that up by telephone calls to constituency offices. I think I may have contacted a further six people. Since that offer, and during the last few weeks, the support for the thousands of people whom the right hon. gentleman refers to has boiled down to some 200 cases. We have attempted to respond to them, and 1 think we deserve some credit for that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PETITIONS FROM HOME OWNERS
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, perhaps this clarifies the matter. Do I understand the
minister to be saying, the minister who has apparently ignored the petitions containing thousands of names laid upon the Table of this House by myself and other members and by other members of the Opposition, that he is reserving his help-and not just his advice, but his help-to the 200 people he has been in touch with, or is there a general program which will be outlined in the budget that will be of help to Canadians who are faced with the prospect of losing their homes or selling them at a loss? Will there be a program, as there was going to be a program on October 15. If there is, will the minister stand in his place on motions today and tell the whole country what that program is, and not limit that advice to selective telephone calls?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I am sure the answer will bear out my statement. Regarding the claim just made by the Leader of the Opposition, the claim that I have ignored thousands of people who have petitioned hon. members in this House, I would like to advise the right hon. member that I have personally in the last two weeks signed over 10,000 letters in response to those petitioners.


Charles Joseph Clark: Saying what?


Paul James Cosgrove: I invite the hon. member to get one of them and to read my answer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



AIRPORTS


Mr. Douglas Fisher (Mississauga North):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Transport Canada has just awarded the contract to operate duty free stores at Toronto International Airport to a foreign company despite having received six bids from Canadian firms.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Can the minister tell us why the American firm was selected since his own tender specifications and the briefings of his officials firmly stated, as early as 1979, that no foreign company would be allowed to bid? Can the minister further tell us what plans he has to compensate those six Canadian companies, several of which are in my constituency? They followed our rules, they bid legitimately, and each one of them spent thousands of dollars in the course of losing in this bidding process.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I doubt very much if foreign companies were prevented from bidding in the first place, because a number of them did. What happened was that when this was found, and when
November 10, 1981

one of the foreign bidders appeared to be the winner, a decision was made to get the case to FIRA.
FIRA and my department developed a regime for duty-free shops. The regime indicates, for example, that the shares should be owned more than 51 per cent by Canadians, that the directors, except one, should be Canadian, that employees should be Canadian, that preference should be given to Canadian goods, etc. A regime was developed which is met by the company which now has the contract. I would like to indicate also that there was a difference of $13 million between the offer of the company that won the bid and the second one in line. My department is not indifferent to that kind of language.



CANADA LABOUR CODE


Mr. Bruce Lonsdale (Timiskaming):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. Yesterday representatives of the Canadian Labour Congress, when attending a convention discussing health and safety regulations, met with several Members of Parliament asking for more uniform and stronger legislation in the health and safety field. Will the minister advise the House if he is giving consideration to amending the Canada Labour Code to implement these recommendations, and, particularly, if he is considering the establishment of federal minimum standards to protect the health and safety of all Canadian workers?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of Labour: Madam Speaker, submissions have been made to the Government of Canada by interested individuals, by labour organizations, and by employer groups. Those recommendations have been looked into very carefully, and those recommendations that are constructive and positive will Find their expression in a proposed measure that hopefully will be introduced in the House in the new year. This government introduced the labour code just a few years ago, and it will be this Liberal government that will continue on the road leading to better protection of the Canadian worker, hopefully with the support of all members in this House.



QUERY RESPECTING ESTABLISHMENT OF HEALTH AND SAFETY COMMISSION

Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the same minister which is related to the one just asked.
Because there are at least 17 different departments and agencies at the federal level involved in health and safety, creating a bureaucratic nightmare, while workers are killed or are dying as a result of occupational disease, is the minister making provision for the establishment of a federal government health and safety commission to consolidate and control
Petition
all occupational safety and health programs at the national level and, if so, how much longer must we and the workers under federal jurisdiction in Canada have to wait for this very important decision to be announced?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of Labour: Madam Speaker, without being in the position of giving a very precise answer, the government is fully aware of the present condition and it is most anxious to resolve it in the best possible manner as recommended by a number of groups and, in particular, by the Canadian Labour Congress. As to the ability of proceeding, we would already have been able to proceed had the opposition not taken up so much time with Bill C-48.



INFORMATION ON DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES

Derek Nigel Ernest Blackburn: Madam Speaker, the minister knows that these proposed changes have been in the works for a year and a half so this is not the fault of us on this side of the House.
In view of the fact that Canada is the only industrial nation in the world which does not have national health protection standards for the workplace, is the minister prepared, through legislation and regulation, to identify and control dangerous substances on a national basis, and make all information available to all workers, which is the case in the United States?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of Labour: Madam Speaker, this matter, as well, is of particular concern to the government, and 1 can give the member assurance that we are looking into it to find satisfactory answers.



PRESENTATION OF BUDGET-EARLY ADMITTANCE OF PUBLIC TO GALLERIES

Madam Speaker:: I would like to ask permission of the House to allow the public to come into the galleries to be seated on Thursday night when we resume to listen to the budget at eight o'clock so there will be no delay of the budget, since we will have to hear the prayers and then proceed with the budget. If the House agrees we will let the public in a few minutes before eight o'clock. Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



PETITION


Madam Speaker:: 1 have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table the one hundred and sixteenth Report of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petition presented by the hon.

November 10, 1981
Privilege-Mr. McKnight
member for Halton (Mr. Jelinek) and finds that it meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Madam Speaker, having given you notice of a question of privilege I wish to bring to your attention and request your guidance on a matter which brings into disrepute the integrity of this House.
My question of privilege arises from a householder printed by the House of Commons on House of Commons stationery and paid for by the taxpayers of Canada. I refer to this householder in my hand which I have no way of identifying. I have no idea of the constituency involved or which member will be using this householder to communicate with his or her constituents. There were several thousands of these in a truck in the basement of the Confederation Building. The only thing I can go by is that on that truck there was the name of the hon. member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse), a member of the NDP.
This booklet contains the biographies of members of the NDP from Saskatchewan only, plus a quote from J. S. Woods-worth. I am not sure what he has to do with the present NDP. He was the leader of the CCF.
The cover is headed "Our West". I would draw to your attention page 3, headed "By way of Introduction". In the second paragraph this appears:
-even though some of you don't live in constituencies represented by a New Democrat... You are welcome to contact any one of us at anytime-
I feel that this is a misuse of taxpayers' funds to publish something that could better be done by party headquarters, and in most parties it is done that way. This is a political handout.
I would just like to read from a page of Hansard where Your Honour made a ruling in reply to a question on which I had asked you to give some guidance. At page 5325 of Hansard for December 4, 1980, you are recorded as stating:
There are rules regulating the contents of the householder mailings, but members must take full responsibility for material mailed under their frank and written on official stationery.
Those rules which you referred to and which we in this House, I would hope, would all attempt to follow include the rule under the Allowances and Services Printing Guidelines. In Section 6-5(b) it states in part:
-a political, partisan or party nature-
Anything in that category is unacceptable. I think when you look at this purported householder you will find it is of a political and partisan nature. Also under Section 6-5 (b), referring to unacceptable printing requests, we find:
(iv) election campaign material-
I would suggest this would fall into that class. It includes:
(v) publications normally made available by party headquarters.
I would also like to draw to your attention a document sent to all members regarding household mailings received in my office on October 8, sent on October 7, 1981. On the back page it states in part:
-the purpose of the four householder mailings available at Parliamentary expense is to enable Members to convey information to their constituents-
It says, Madam Speaker, "convey information to their constituents".
When I look at this mailer, Madam Speaker, I do not find which constituency it would go to. I do not see anything different in it that we and all political parties would ordinarily send out from our political headquarters. I do not see anything in it that would make me think it is anything different from a political publication.
The people of Canada support all of us equally in this House in our efforts to communicate with our constituents. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie):
That the matter of the New Democratic Party pamphlet entitled "Our West", printed as a quarterly household mailing by the House of Commons printing office but clearly designed as a party handout of the type normally printed and distributed by the headquarters of a political party, and the disrepute such misuse of publicly-funded facilities is liable to bring to the House of Commons and its members, be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, I wish to join in echoing the sentiments of my hon. friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight). After examining the so-called householder and looking at the rules clearly established by this House and through the Management and Members' Services Committee, it would seem to me on the surface that the document which my hon. colleague is bringing to the attention of the House is one that constitutes an abuse of the rules. I believe the action that is undertaken by the members of the New Democratic Party is highly improper and it is, indeed, misleading. Because if one looks at pages 18 and 19, one might be led to believe that Saskatchewan has only seven Members of Parliament. I am referring to the seven New Democratic Party Members of Parliament.
I believe that it does constitute a blatant abuse of the rules which have been established by this House and by the committee. This is a service which has been provided to all Members of the House of Commons, as pointed out by the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, and it is essentially for the purpose of communicating our activities, as members, to our constituents as well as the activities of the House of Commons.
It is generally ruled that anything of a partisan nature is not allowable, and therefore distribution of a document is essentially for the purpose of information rather than for the dissemination of anything which could be construed as politically partisan.
November 10, 1981

It is rather strange that the New Democratic Party, which is usually the first one to cry wolf when the rules and procedures of the House are being stretched or encroached upon, is the first one to take advantage of the situation and wallow in the public trough. This comes from a group which is sanctimonious; but on the first examination of this document it would seem to me that the actions that are being taken by the members of the NDP clearly constitute something less than honesty and could very well be ruled as being deceitful.


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: In my view, this clearly constitutes an abuse of the privileges of members of this House and it is clearly a case of using public funds for partisan and narrow party purposes.
When I had the privilege of serving as Minister of Transport in this House a couple of years ago, the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) was the first one to draw attention to the fact that there was a suggestion that we were infringing upon the rules of the House as a government party in the appointment of members to conduct a study into grain transportation as well as the matter of prairie branch lines.
At that time the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) admonished the members in our party, notwithstanding the fact that the precedent had been clearly established by previous governments that it was allowable that members of one party could be assigned to conduct specific tasks. It was done, for example, in the case of the Hon. Charles M. Drury when he was selected as constitutional adviser for the development of the constitution for the Northwest Territories. The hon. member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner) was assigned a special responsibility by the government for the purpose of assisting the minister in developing the proper framework for negotiations with respect to northern and native land claims.
Notwithstanding that precedent, and notwithstanding the fact that the Speaker at that time ruled that it was not illegal but may be on the verge of being improper, our party acknowledged the admonition of the Speaker and undertook to pay the expenses which were involved as a result of the publication of this document which was commissioned by myself and undertaken by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil).


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I should say as well, to illustrate the fact that the document was intended to do a job that was clearly necessary to carry out public transportation policies, that after the matter had been clarified and the invoice had been paid and settled by the Progressive Conservative Party, the present Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) asked if we would release the report to him and he would refund any costs that were involved as a result of the printing. I agreed to that and that has been done. The report is now public.
I think it clearly shows that while there may well have been some question about the methodology, the action taken by our
Privilege-Mr. McKnight
party was sincere and was taken in a manner which was deemed to be necessary-that a clear statement of government policy at that time be undertaken.
I believe when you examine this matter, Madam Speaker, you might want to reflect on the exchange which took place at that time. Now the shoe is on the other foot. You may want to remind the members of the New Democratic Party of some of the rhetoric they espoused in the House of Commons when they took exception to the manner in which our work was being carried out.
I should say that the then hon. member for Nickel Belt, who fortunately or unfortunately is not with us at present, had some very harsh things to say about the process undertaken by us when we were in government. At page 2142 of Hansard, for December 7, 1979, he is reported as saying:
The Conservative Party does not need to eat at the public trough to have a study done with a partisan slant.
I think it is quite obvious that while he may have some opinions about who is eating at the public trough, the then Minister of Transport did not see this as a partisan document. Nevertheless, that is behind us. I simply point that out to you, Madam Speaker.
There is an obligation, indeed a responsibility, on all of us to ensure that fairness and justice not only be done but appear to be done. It is equally important for all of us to accept our responsibility in ensuring that we work toward overcoming the cynicism that does prevail and is associated with Members of Parliament, indeed, the institution.
I humbly submit that the actions of the New Democratic Members of Parliament are such that they are not enhancing the calibre and the credibility of this institution but, in fact, are eroding confidence and adding to cynicism. I suggest that they should do what we did when there was a question of doubt. Rather than the public and the House of Commons paying for this highly partisan document, it should be paid for out of New Democratic coffers.


Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, I have listened with interest and, I must confess, with some degree of shock to the statements made by both the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight) and the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski). I find it interesting that when viewing something which was done by his own party the hon. member for Vegreville could find that it was done with sincerity, integrity and honesty, while attributing to another member from another party that what was done by that member was done without those same three ingredients.
To begin with, I want to suggest that the document which has been placed before Your Honour is not a document which was in any way considered to be a political document. It was considered by the hon. member to be within the jurisdiction of his responsibility to inform people in his province of the role being played by members they elected. It was never intend-

November 10, 1981
Privilege-Mr. McKnight
ed-neither is it intended now-to place a slant on any of the roles of any of the other members. Neither did it make reference to that.
I suggest to Your Honour that if you were to undertake a review of the documents sent out under the names of various and many members of this House of Commons under the guise of reports, which we undoubtedly will now begin to do, you would find that there are very few, if any, that do not contain some degree of partisan material. For a member to rise in his place in an attempt to leave the impression that to indicate a degree of partisanship in any of the reports is somehow a departure from the normal practice is, in my judgment, to be quite untruthful.
I want to put to Your Honour something of which I am sure Your Honour is quite aware, that is, that the hon. member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse) is as honest a man as there is in this House, that his integrity is without question, and that for some Tory in a sleazy way to try to indicate that this hon. member has done something wrong is appalling.
If the hon. members who have risen honestly believe that there is a need for Your Honour to review the document, we have no objection. If in your judgment Your Honour was to find that there has been some minor deviation from accepted norms we will, of course, accept that judgment. But I am confident that Your Honour will see through what is undoubtedly a partisan attempt by certain Conservative members to discredit the hard work of the hon. member for Humboldt-Lake Centre, and I ask Your Honour to disregard those submissions and to find that there has been no deviation from accepted practice.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, my intervention will be very brief, but it will touch upon a matter which was not raised by the hon. member who suggested that there is a question of privilege here to be considered-and I speak in support of that submission-nor was it touched upon by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski). The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) did not touch on anything.


Ian Deans: I got to the root of it.


Erik Nielsen: Once again I want to draw your attention, Madam Speaker, to what I suppose one would call a memo of explanation or a memo of clarification which was sent around by Mr. A. Silverman dated October 7, 1981, part of which has already been quoted by the hon. member who raised this matter. In support of my submission to Your Honour I wish to emphasize the use of the words on page 2 "is to enable members to convey information to their constituents," it is not for the purpose of conveying information to the constituents of other members. Householder mailings are for the purpose of conveying information to a particular member's constituents. That is the narrow stricture placed upon the use of householder mailings. If it were not to be so interpreted, there would be nothing to prevent any member of this House from using his householder privileges to address mailings to the constituents
of any other member or members of the House of Commons. I am sure that that was not the intention when the service was originally set up, and I am certain it would not be the wish of members of this House to impose that kind of added cost to the expense of running this place which, in the final analysis, is paid by the taxpayer.
Having laid that groundwork, may I again refer Your Honour to the introductory page in the offensive pamphlet. In the third paragraph at the second line it says "even though some of you don't live in constituencies represented by a New Democrat". It does not say "even though some of you might not live in a constituency represented by a New Democrat"; it says specifically "even though some of you don't live in constituencies represented by a New Democrat." There is a clear implication there that this political pamphlet has been mailed throughout the province of Saskatchewan to people who do not live in constituencies represented by New Democratic Party members. There can be no doubt, therefore, I submit, that the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight) has raised a very valid question of privilege.
The additional point I want to make in support of a reference to committee has to do with a matter on which you, Madam Speaker, and I have exchanged some correspondence, namely, the proper use of members' franking privileges. These pamphlets are not distributed-I do not think this particular one is-by New Democratic members and their workers in the province of Saskatchewan, but I could be wrong there.


An hon. Member:: You don't know.


Erik Nielsen: The clear implication is that they have been mailed from this House of Commons under members' franking privileges. That was never intended.


Ian Deans: How do you know that?


Erik Nielsen: I do not know that, but I am asking hon. members and you, Madam Speaker, to draw the very clear inference that that conclusion is inescapable in the absence of any explanation, and there has been none, that mailing privileges of members have been abused as well.
The whole matter could be cleared up, as suggested by the hon. member for Vegreville. Although he did not make the direct suggestion, I do. The whole matter could be cleared up if the House leader of the New Democratic Party as a representative of his party would rise in his place and give the assurance that he is prepared to discharge any costs incurred in the printing and distribution of this political pamphlet.


Mr. Kempling:: Including the postage.


Erik Nielsen: Including the postage. In any event, since I do not anticipate that will happen, it seems to me, and it certainly is my strong submission to Your Honour, that there has been a solid case made out that goes beyond the mere requirement that Your Honour reach a conclusion that a prima facie case exists and therefore merits the matter's being sent to committee. There seems to be an inescapable conclusion which leaves
November 10, 1981

no doubt that there has been an abuse. There has been no explanation forthcoming, and therefore I submit that your finding should be that there is a prima facie case and that the matter should be referred to committee.


Madam Speaker:: I think there is one part of this question I can clear up quite readily. Although the mailing of the householders of Members of Parliament is a privilege, I do not believe it falls under the definition of privilege as described in Standing Order 17. I do not feel that this is a question of privilege in the sense that was invoked by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight). However, it seems it does raise a new aspect of our printing guidelines, which have recently been clarified. Perhaps we will need to clarify them even more after this occurrence.
Since 1 have been in the chair, the management and members' services committee have asked me to modify somewhat the rules and guidelines concerning householders in the sense that they felt it should not be left in the hands of bureaucrats to evaluate or tell Members of Parliament what they may or may not say to their constituents. 1 may say I fully agreed with that; it was putting a responsibility on the bureaucrats that did not belong to them.
Obviously if our printing service printed this particular householder, they looked at what they were printing to see whether there was some flagrant misuse of the privilege. Because they printed this one, they obviously felt it did not contravene the guidelines. Since we have removed that responsibility from the bureaucrats, I will not give it back to them. I will look at this householder against the guidelines set by the committee to see whether they need to be further clarified.
Members should keep in mind that what is partisan to one member is sometimes not partisan to another. It would have to be more than an opinion about a certain issue that was expressed in order for me or anyone else in this House to decide that it was partisan. But perhaps we will have to clarify the guidelines.
I have not completely read the householder in question. As I look at it, I see nothing at first glance that would permit me to say that it is a flagrant abuse of the privileges of Members of Parliament. However, I think it would be wise for me to look at it more carefully against the arguments presented to me in the House today, and perhaps, if I find there is reason for doing so, send a request to the members' services committee in general terms so that they will look at the guidelines and see whether there is a possibility of clarifying them in order to avoid this kind of occurrence or misinterpretation of the guidelines.
It is not always easy to interpret the guidelines. That is why we have removed that from the bureaucrats. I certainly do not want to be in the position of having to read all householders and determine as Speaker whether they are in accordance with the guidelines. We feel very strongly, and I think every member will support me in this position, that members them-
Privilege-Mr. Lewis
selves should take responsibility for what they write in these householders against the guidelines which they have made for themselves.
Basically the responsibility is with the member. The member bears the onus of having bypassed or gone beyond the guidelines, and that is it. He stands or falls on the fact that he is interpreting the use of his own privileges in a way that is considered to be proper. I will look at this question and take it under advisement.


MR. LEWIS-ALLEGED BREACH BY MINISTER OF BUDGET SECRECY
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, I gave you notice of a question of privilege which arises out of today's question period. Today the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cosgrove), who is responsible for housing, admitted in this House that officials of his department had advised some home owners to wait until Thursday or Friday of this week to resolve their difficulties. I submit that this is a clear breach of the traditional secrecy which surrounds budgets. There is a very large difference between Thursday and Friday to every Canadian home owner.
We have posed questions to the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) in this House. He has quite rightly not answered any questions in the House directly affecting the budget. As a matter of fact, on October 20, 1981, as reported at page 11964 of Hansard, the minister stated:
It is easy enough to ask whether "A" will be in the budget and whether "B" will be in the budget and, by a process of daily questioning, presumably, the budget would be produced by instalments, and then hon. members would be saying, "Well, why have you broken budget secrecy?"
I submit that today the minister responsible for housing admitted to either "A" or "B". If his officials are calling members of the Canadian public, and he has admitted they are, with specific knowledge from the Minister of Finance, that is a breach by the Minister of Finance of budget secrecy. There is a second breach. When the minister responsible for housing directs his officials to make certain comments during phone calls to certain Canadian home owners, that is a breach. The third breach is the actual giving of advice to a Canadian home owner by an official in the minister's office.
Budget leaks are often considered to be something which triggers a large capital gain in the stock market, or something which could be said to be depriving the government of revenue. We are not talking here about a big kill on the stock market. We are talking about the basic right of Canadians to the same knowledge as every other Canadian. It is just as vital to the Canadian who owns a home, has contacted his or her Member of Parliament, has then had their name forwarded to the minister's office and receives a phone call from the minister's official, as it is to every other Canadian home owner. We have here a discrimination against every Canadian home owner who renews a mortgage or buys or sells a home.
We have information which has made us aware of an
individual in Delta, B.C. with a mortgage expiring November

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Privilege-Mr. Lewis
10, 1981, this very day, bearing interest at 13% per cent. The credit union offered to renew the mortgage at 20% per cent. The individual contacted his Member of Parliament, the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen). The member contacted the minister's office and an official in the minister's office then contacted that individual. When I talked to that individual last night, he told me that he was advised to stall his renewal until Friday because something would happen Thursday night which would help him.


Madam Speaker:: Order. Can the hon. member tell us whose privilege he is discussing? Is it his own privilege or that of his constituent? Constituents do not enjoy privileges under our Standing Orders in the sense that members of the House do. If the hon. member wants to help the Chair with regard to a finding in the case, he has to restrict himself to what constitutes privilege. Up until now I have heard nothing in his intervention which leads me to believe there is a question of privilege in this case.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: My research on the question of budget secrecy did not spell it out as a matter of the privilege of any one individual member, although I submit in this case we may have that. It is rather a question of the privilege of the House and every member of this House to be entitled to the same information at the same time. First, I submit it is a breach of the privileges of every member of this House. Budget secrecy seems to be handled in a different section in the authorities. Second, it is a breach of the privileges of every member of this House, including the hon. member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm), who talked about an individual in his constituency who did not receive a call. It is a breach of our privileges when the government does not release the same information at the same time.
Both sides of the House represent different ridings in this country. We all have Canadian home owners in trouble. If the minister were to play fair and square with this House and with the people of Canada, he should issue a press release as soon as he knows what is in the budget and direct all of the institutions, whether it be trust companies, banks or credit unions, not to renew mortgages until after the budget. He should then come into this House and make the same point to the Canadian nation and to everybody at the same time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: This is so that the hon. members of the House get the same information as the officials in the minister's office.
The leading authority on the question of budget secrecy, what is called the Dalton case in Britain, is where the chancellor of the Exchequer casually mentioned to a reporter that tobacco taxes would rise prior to the budget announcement that evening. The reporter was privy to information that the House did not receive. As a result of the uproar, the minister was given the opportunity to resign. I am referring to the notes
from the Parliamentary Library that were prepared for the House of Commons by the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. The document is entitled "Background Information on Government Secrecy, Financial Measures and Parliamentary Secretaries". I draw your attention, Madam Speaker, to page 2572, it looks like to me-I'll confirm that because I am not really sure what it is.
Budget secrecy, in fact, is considered so confidential that even cabinet colleagues to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen) are not made aware of the budget proposals until shortly before its presentation in Parliament, and even then they are often provided with only a general outline.
I submit to you, Madam Speaker, that if the minister of housing directed his officials to make telephone calls telling people not to do anything until Friday morning, in effect he is releasing information which is contained in the budget. It is one thing to utter a bland statement in the House that "everybody in the House should wait and see if we address the concerns of Canadians in dire straits"; but it is another thing for an official in the minister's office to phone somebody, based on information he received from a Member of Parliament, and tell that individual to wait until Friday.
If you were to find a breach of the privileges of this House, Madam Speaker, I would propose the following motion:
That the matter of the possession of budget information by members of the ministerial staff of the Minister of Public Works, the communication of budget information by those staff members to individual members of the public with mortgages due, specifically in telling them that mortgage help would be contained in the November 12 budget, and the violation of the necessary constitutional and parliamentary tradition of budget secrecy, be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.


Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, I submit we have not heard anything today that raises a question of privilege. The hon. member used the phrase "that the minister should be fair and square." If we were to be "fair and square" in this House, I think it has to be pointed out that the hon. members of the Liberal Party for the last few weeks have been subjected to a daily barrage from hon. members of the official opposition, in particular where we have heard ministers invited and encouraged to reveal what is in the budget. Today the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) repeatedly asked if a minister would disclose what would be in the budget. Now we have an hon. member of the opposition complaining about something the minister said that could somehow be interpreted as breaking the rule against disclosing anything that might be in the budget. As a result of this, a question of privilege has arisen. The most blatant, double standard I can conceive of is for hon. members to say "disclose", but then if you were to say anything, they say "shame, shame; terrible, terrible".
I suggest that nothing that the minister has stated, or that his officials have done, that we have been advised of indicates that a breach has occurred. The only thing that seems to have taken place is that people have raised issues with which they are concerned. They have even said, "Well, you have to wait for the answer and see what is in the budget." If some tidbit has been tossed out, what is it? What is the information that
November 10, 1981

has been provided to these people? We have not heard anything about that. We have simply been advised that they have been told to wait. Everyone has been told to wait.
I submit this is a totally spurious point of privilege, Madam Speaker, and just a waste of the time of this House.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I shall be brief, Madam Speaker. The point that is at issue here has to do with the nature of the representation that was given, with the declared authority of the minister responsible for housing, by one of his officials to at least two individuals of the selective 200 that were telephoned by representatives of the minister responsible for housing.
In one case, a citizen in Delta, British Columbia, was explicity told that he should hold off until Friday. Obviously, that information was conveyed with knowledge by the official to the citizen that the budget would come down on Thursday. The inference drawn was that if the citizen were to hold off until Friday, which was the information authorized by the minister of housing and conveyed by his official, there would be something brought down in the budget that would be available to him.
A citizen of Halton was explicitly promised by an official authorized to impart such information by the minister of housing that there would be, and I quote, "help in the budget for people like you." It was not a suggestion that one should wait. It was a clear commitment that there would be help in the budget for people like the person in Halton that had a problem with his house.
The minister responsible for housing admitted in this House earlier today that he authorized those telephone calls. There can be no doubt at all about that. He has said that and he has accepted responsibility for it. He lamented that he did not call more people. However, he made it clear that he authorized those telephone calls. The telephone call he authorized in at least one case told a Canadian citizen explicitly that there would be help in the budget.


An hon. Member:: How do you know that?


Charles Joseph Clark: That clearly indicated that there was the communication of the nature of a budgetary provision that was not known to the rest of the people of Canada and not known to the House of Commons, but which was conveyed by an official of the minister's office, with the minister's authority.


An hon. Member:: Pure inference.


Charles Joseph Clark: That clearly breaches all of the practices in relation to budget secrecy that we have known in this House.
What makes it even more of an affront to hon. members of this House is that, as the hon. member for Don Valley East (Mr. Smith) has just indicated, we have been asking time after time in this House, in light of the grave circumstances that Canadians face in the prospect of losing their homes, that if there were to be provisions in the budget with regard to aid for
Privilege-Mr. Lewis
home owners, the exception be clearly made, as a result of all party agreement, to make an early announcement of such. That request has been denied frequently on the floor of the House. What they have refused to do by agreement, they have now done in breach of all budgetary practices.
We have here two instances. One, we have the selective release of information to particular individuals, in the face of a refusal to make a general statement of the nature of that budgetary provision; and second, on the authority of the minister responsible for housing, we have an official telephoning an individual Canadian whom he knew to be interested- not someone chosen at random, but someone whom he knew would benefit from the information-and conveying to that individual the explicit information that there would be help in the budget for people like that individual. When the minister authorized that call to be made, he authorized a call to be made by an official to a person whom he knew would benefit and would have an interest. I believe that falls clearly within the boundary of what has been described in the past as a breach of the privileges of the House and a breach in relation to budget secrecy.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, I should like to respond very briefly to some of the comments of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) on this matter.


An hon. Member:: Right honourable!


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition; excuse my breach of decorum. I believe there are only two points which we have to make on this. First, for many months now it has been a declared policy of the government to help people who find themselves in dire straits. My second point is also very simple. Anyone who finds himself in dire straits should, if acting prudently, wait until the budget comes down. That is all I have to say on the point.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, sometimes when I intervene on a question of privilege my remarks are somewhat lengthy. I will make my comments very brief today. I had hoped to raise my own question of privilege tomorrow as a result of question period today.
In response to what has just been said, I think it was a rather critical, serious statement that people in dire straits should wait until budget time. The hon. member is disagreeing very definitely with the minister responsible for housing, who repeatedly told the House that there was no need to wait for the budget. He told people to contact their Members of Parliament who will bring their messages directly to the minister responsible, not after budget, not at budget time, but immediately. The exact date of the communication from the minister directly to every Conservative Member of Parliament was October 23.

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Privilege-Mr. Lewis
I raise a question of privilege which relates directly to each Member of Parliament, particularly Conservative members because they were the ones who received the memo from the minister asking them to act. In all good faith a number of us had the opportunity to return to our ridings to interview people who were in dire straits. It was not because we wanted to leave the House to return to our constituencies, but because the minister responsible for housing asked us if we would in a memo to our offices on October 23. Being interested in the people in dire straits I, as many other Conservative members, returned to my riding; I spent two days there. If this is not a question of privilege I do not know what is.
I took down 32 specific case histories at the request of the minister. My privilege in serving my constituents is seriously affected by this very issue. After two days I brought the case histories back to the House with all the mortgage information I was requested to obtain. I presented them to Madam Speaker in the form of a petition. At the same time, as recorded in Hansard on November 2, I delivered them across the House to the minister responsible because he had specifically requested them.
What has happened since that date is the basis of my question of privilege. My constituents have never heard one word, not a peep, not a telephone call, not a letter, not a communique, not a wire, not an indirect message through a mortgage company back to them, as a result of what appears to be the minister wasting the time of Members of Parliament when they could be better serving their constituents.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. If that is what constitutes a question of privilege in the hon. member's mind, I must interrupt him to say that the manner in which a minister responds to a petition or to a request of any kind from a Member of Parliament may constitute a grievance of great importance in the hon. member's mind-and I do not deny that-but certainly it is not a question of privilege.
If the hon. member has a new argument relating to this question I can hear it, but I cannot allow him at this point, because I have heard enough speakers, to debate the question of hon. members not being satisfied that the minister has properly answered petitions, letters or requests or that some have received answers and others have not. This is not a matter which the Chair can determine. It might be a grievance on the part of a member, but that is all it is; it is not a question of privilege.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, It is my understanding that a valid question of privilege is a question as to whether the law of contempt of Parliament has been breached. Therefore, I should like to put to you whether you judge it proper that a motion be put to the House on the matter I should now like to describe.
The minister of the government responsible for CMHC is well documented in Hansard and elsewhere as desiring that his fellow members forward information to him. I hasten to add that I am raising this matter with Madam Speaker on behalf of all hon. members of the House who have constituents in this
deplorable situation. I now find that the minister's parliamentary staff has informed certain home owners by telephone of information which by every right, rule and precedent of the House should be the exclusive prerogative of the House. I am referring to the information contained in the much-delayed budget which the House can hopefully expect to come down on Thursday.
The reasons for confidentiality of the budget before it is brought down are well known and require little elaboration. It seems to me to be an equally valid point that the effect of the budget must be exerted and felt in a completely uniform manner throughout all sectors of the economy and society. If budget information is being prematurely passed on to certain individuals by the minister, information which Parliament must necessarily be advised of in the first instance by means of the budget speech of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen), then the law of contempt of Parliament should clearly be cited and my rights as an individual member are surely being circumvented.
In view of there appearing to be sufficient cause to establish a prima facie case of breach of privilege, and in so far as it appears that privilege is sufficiently involved that it should take precedence over House business, I should like to support the motion that this matter be referred for full investigation into whether certain constituents in Canada have been privileged to receive certain information. I know for a fact that not one of the 32 people in the Peterborough area have ever received a telephone call. They were not aware until today that there was to be something in the budget at 8 p.m. this Thursday.


An hon. Member:: Madam Speaker, I rise on the same point of order.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I think I heard a sufficient number of interventions on the particular point. It is quite puzzling to me that most of the facts brought forward in the question of privilege seem to be of a hypothetical nature. The hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis) said in his summation that if the minister in fact instructed his officials to say a certain thing to constituents then he would feel, etc. This is hypothetical; no one knows whether the minister did. Even if a minister said a certain thing to a constituent, I do not feel that that in itself represents a question of privilege. I might add that we do not know for a fact whether the constituents reported exactly how the conversation with the official occurred. That too is somewhat hypothetical in the way it is presented to the House. Thus it makes it very difficult for me to say there is anything other than grievances on the part of hon. members who are complaining about the conduct of the minister or of officials of the minister. There is no question of privilege.
The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) said it is quite clear that the minister authorized the calls. I think the hon. minister has acknowledged in the House that he has
November 10, 1981

authorized officials of his department to call a number of constituents concerning their difficulties with their mortgages. In this particular matter I do not see any question of privilege either.
At any rate, we do not know if the minister did dictate the answer which the officials gave to those constituents. Even if he had, I think the minister is free to deal with these complaints in the manner which he chooses. Certainly the Chair cannot determine how the minister will deal with them. Unfortunately again, it might constitute a grievance on the part of hon. members on the other side of the House, but it certainly is not a question of privilege.
The other question which is being argued is that there has been a leak of the budgetary measures to come. We do not really know because we do not know what those measures are; but certain sentences pronounced by the minister are interpreted as being a leak or as giving advance knowledge to certain selective persons of what is contained in the budget.
I will not pass judgment on whether it is or is not a leak, or whether the words chosen were wise or cautious. 1 just want to remind hon. members that the matter of budget secrecy is a convention and is not a matter for the Chair to enforce. It is a convention. It is true that in Great Britain a certain minister resigned because he had-


Mr. Andre:: We know what conventions are.


Madam Speaker:: -inadvertently given some information to a reporter. He did resign. He felt that he had breached a convention-


Erik Nielsen: He followed the honourable course.


Madam Speaker:: -an important convention, and he did resign. That is a case which has merit in itself, and it has to be studied in the light of the facts that surrounded that particular action. Certainly the Speaker in Great Britain did not ask that minister to resign. That was the conclusion he gave to his own behaviour in those particular circumstances.


Erik Nielsen: He did the honourable thing.


Madam Speaker:: Therefore, I do not feel that in this particular case I can make any kind of pronouncement or judgment on the fact that the secrecy of the budget may have been breached.
I think hon. members probably have many grievances. They have expressed them. I listened to them carefully because I wanted to see whether there was really a matter of privilege in their grievances; but I am afraid that I cannot find it.
As for the arguments about discrimination I have said that the conduct of a minister, the way a minister reacts to complaints, whether he reacts in one manner with one person and differently with another person, is entirely on his own making. It has nothing to do with the kind of discipline that the Chair is at all capable of enforcing.
Privilege-Mr. Lewis


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, as you characteristically do, you have drawn attention to some of the difficulties in the matter which was raised today. I want to speak only on a question of process here.
I am reminded by the expert who is temporarily the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin)-


Miss Begin:: And you were made to apologize one day.


Charles Joseph Clark: -that I am not to comment on the judgment of the Speaker, nor do I intend to, Madam Speaker, as you know.


Monique Bégin: Then sit down.


Charles Joseph Clark: However, Madam Speaker, if I might have the attention of the House, and if the Minister of National Health and Welfare could restrain herself, I would like to refer to some of the points you made which indicate that we may well-


Some hon. Members:: No, no!


An hon. Member:: Learn the rules.


Charles Joseph Clark: -that may well-


Erik Nielsen: You learn the rules and take your seat.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, there is a great deal of noise on the other side. I will proceed, now that there is some silence. You had indicated, Madam Speaker, that when we-


An hon. Member:: You are all wet!


Harvie Andre: How would you know? Have you looked in the mirror lately?


Charles Joseph Clark: The emigre from the Newfoundland legislature is speaking.


Erik Nielsen: That's okay, Sir. When you are hunting grizzly bears, you don't go after chipmunks.


Charles Joseph Clark: I am simply celebrating the good fortune of the legislative assembly of Newfoundland.


Mr. Simmons:: Cheer up, Joe, it's a lot easier after puberty.


Charles Joseph Clark: Let me return very briefly to the point that is here. First, as Your Honour correctly indicated, we cannot know if in fact there has been a breach of the budget until the budget has been brought down. Consequently, one of the things I want to do in rising now is to indicate that after the budget is brought down and after we have had an opportunity to see whether or not there is in fact aid for people affected by the mortgage situation, we may well want to raise this question again.
Another very real difficulty that Your Honour-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The right hon. member does not have to give me notice of that kind of thing. After the

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Privilege-Mr. Lewis
budget is brought down, if he feels he has another point that he wants to raise, he may do it. However, I must remind him that the charge has to be very well substantiated, and that is it.
I will look at something that is well substantiated. What I did say today was that most of the arguments were of a hypothetical nature, and it is really quite impossible for me to find any foundation to the question of privilege which was raised. I did rule on that question, and unless the hon. member has another point to raise which does not relate to what I just ruled on, I will not be able to hear him.


Charles Joseph Clark: I have two matters to raise which are different and which flow from Your Honour's very careful comments. The first relates to the underlining of the fact, with which certainly all of us in the House agree, that convention clearly establishes that if there has been a breach of budget secrecy, the practice, as established by Mr. Dalton in Great Britain, is that the minister who broke the budget secrecy should resign. That, I think, is worth having on the record.
The other matter I think Your Honour may have suggested inadvertently, and which I would not want to rest on the record of the House, was that despite the authorization of the minister to make calls, if in fact those calls were made, the nature of those calls and any breach of budgetary secrecy which may flow from those calls would be the responsibility of the public servant involved and not that of the minister.
I am sure that was not what Your Honour intended to suggest, but I think that your remarks, on rereading them, may be open to that interpretation. Certainly I wanted to rise at the earliest possible opportunity to again underline the view which has been long held by those of us in this party, that when an official acts on the instruction of a minister, then the minister is responsible, by our system, for the actions of that official, and that that responsibility cannot be passed off to the official.


Madam Speaker:: That is obvious. The Chair has no way of knowing who is responsible for what or of determining that. Therefore, this is not a matter that the Chair can determine at all.


POINT OF ORDER
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order resulting from yesterday's question period, when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) once again referred to women members in the House as "honourable lady" and "lady", and made other disparaging remarks, while consistently referring to male members-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: -as "honourable members".


An hon. Member:: You are not a lady, eh?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I am sure I represent the concerns of other hon. members in the House. Some hon. members in the House find this attitude offensive and inequitable.
The Oxford Dictionary defines "lady" as "ruling woman; woman to whom man is chivalrously devoted; mistress; woman belonging to the upper class". While the first term, "ruling woman" may refer to Your Honour, I think that the others are probably inappropriate.
Therefore, in light of modern times, and in view of the outdated and sexist overtones of both the terms "honourable lady" or "honourable gentleman", I want to ask Your Honour if you will declare these terms to be obsolete or unparliamentary and require that all members, regardless of sex, be referred to with equal respect as "honourable members".


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Harvie Andre: Let the record show that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) approves.


Madam Speaker:: I thank the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell) for raising this problem. However, I think that she is probably referring to a circumstance in the House when I did rise in order to ask an hon. member not to address, between brackets, a member of the feminine sex as the "lady member". That is quite different from the "honourable lady" or the "honourable gentleman".
In my view, I think the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) did use an acceptable expression when he said the "honourable lady". He did say, "If I can say the honourable gentleman, it follows that I may say the honourable lady".
What I did not accept in the House, and I think the hon. member will recall the circumstances, was a member referring to a member of feminine sex as the lady member. I think that would be offensive because there are no lady members and no men members; they are simply members of this House.
I may add that in other parliaments certain expressions are accepted. For instance, "my hon. friend". If a member is referring to a Member of Parliament who sits on the same side of the House, he is called an hon. friend. If the member sits on the other side of the House, he is called the hon. gentleman. The expression "hon. friend" is limited, 1 understand, to those who sit on the same side of the House. Those are other practices.
I think we can accept the practice in this House of referring to members of the feminine sex as hon. ladies. That is not offensive, any more than it is offensive to refer to members of the masculine sex as hon. gentlemen.


METRIC CONVERSION
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, I have a
point of order. I am rising at the earliest opportunity. Yester-
November 10, 1981

day I reported to this House that the maximum fine for using imperial weigh scales is $5,000 or two years in jail. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. McCauley) then rose to advise this House incorrectly that the fine was only $1,000.
Is there any way the parliamentary secretary might correct his statement in Hansard to show that the fine in 1982 will be $5,000 or two years in jail for using imperial weigh scales?


Madam Speaker:: The Speaker has no way of forcing a member to correct statements made in the House. It would be up to the hon. member himself to make the correction if he feels that he should.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I have the duty to rise and lay upon the Table of the House several petitions. The first one is signed by 227 citizens of the city of St. Catharines. The second is signed by another 83 citizens of the city of St. Catharines. The third is signed by 155 residents of the Niagara area. The nature of each petition is to ask relief from the deliberate high interest rate policy of the Liberal government which is causing people to risk losing their homes. The purpose of the petitions is to seek action by the only agency in the land which can provide general relief, namely the Government of Canada. I submit these petitions in the hope that action will be taken by the Government of Canada.
[ Translation]
In the same vein, Madam Speaker, I wish to present to the House a petition on behalf of the people of Sainte-Julie and surrounding area in the Province of Quebec. The petitioners- there are 2,862-are asking the government to help home owners and prospective home owners by lowering interest rates and improving conditions for mortgage payments.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I have the duty to present two petitions on behalf of my constituents. They are signed by a total of 180 Yukon workers. These petitions indicate to the government that the removal of the moratorium on the taxation of northern benefits would be devastating. The nature of the demand is the continuation of the current moratorium on the taxation of northern benefits to block the tax grab of the government, and for the government to adopt a permanent policy to exempt from taxation all special allowances paid to workers in northern and remote
Order Paper Questions
areas of Canada, including, but not limited to, transportation allowances, housing allowances, meal allowances, northern allowances, special vacation benefits and cash allowances; and for the government to meet with the Canadian national directors of the United Steel Workers of America for the purpose of hearing the said Canadian national directors of the United Steel Workers of America on behalf of the over 10,000 steel workers who live and work in isolated communities.
The petitioners hope that in your examination of their petitions you will find the petitions to be in order, sense the urgency and desperation of their plea and that you might use the discretionary powers vested in your office to allow discussion and referral to a committee at the earliest possible moment.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2,480, 2,747, 3,141, 3,158 and 3,182.


Mr. Herbert: Is the latest signed agreement between the government and the province of Ontario under the Canada Assistance Plan available to the public and, if not, for what reason?


Monique Bégin: Yes, the latest signed agreement between the Government of Canada and the province of Ontario under the Canada Assistance Plan is available to the public.


Mr. Jelinek: Were handbooks detailing inmate rights distributed throughout Canada's security institutions and, if so, what was the (a) total number printed (b) total number distributed and how many were distributed to (i) each province (ii) each institution (iii) institutions or offices other than correctional (c) cost to date and what amount was for (i) research (ii) design and preparation (iii) printing (iv) distribution?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: In so far as the
Correctional Service of Canada is concerned: yes, (a) 25,115, (b) 22,115.
(i) Copies were not sent to the provinces, however each of the five regions of the CSC and its national headquarters had the following number of copies for distribution:
Atlantic	2,100
Quebec	6,700
Ontario	4,000
Prairies	3,40 0
Pacific	2,800
National headquarters	3,115

November 10, 1981
Order Paper Questions
(ii) Atlantic
Springhill Institution Dorchester Penitentiary Shulie Lake Institution Westmorland Institution
Quebec
Regional Reception Centre Archambault Institution Leclerc Institution Cowansville Institution Federal Training Centre Correctional Development Centre Laval Institution Montee St-Fran?ois Ste. Anne des Plaines La Macaza Institution CCC Pie IX CCC Martineau CCC Benoit XV Ogilvy Centre
Ontario
Prison for Women Regional Reception Centre Regional Psychiatric Centre Collins Bay Institution Frontenac Institution Joyceville Institution Pittsburg Institution Warkworth Institution Millhaven Institution Special Handling Unit Bath Institution
Beaver Creek Correctional Camp
Prairies
Saskatchewan Penitentiary Saskatchewan Farm Oskana Centre R.P.C. (Prairies)
Stony Mountain Institution Rockwood Institution Osborne Centre Drumheller Institution Drumheller Trailer Annex Edmonton Maximum Institution Bowden Institution Portal-Altadore Centre Grierson Centre
Note: The prairies regional headquarters are presently distributing 1,500 additional copies to institutions for new admissions, etc.
Pacific
Regional Psychiatric Centre
Kent Institution
Mountain Prison
William Head Institution
Mission Institution
Matsqui Institution
CCC Sumas
Ferndale Forestry Camp
Elbow Lake Forestry Camp
CCC Pandora
CCC Robson
National Parole Board
Regional Headquarters (Communications)
(iii) As copies were handed out on request to interested parties by regional headquarters, institutions and national headquarters, it is not possible to reply to this part of the question.
0)	Research	$ 9,600(ii)	Design and preparation	30,065(iii)	Printing	8,098(iv)	Distribution	413S 48,176


Mr. Cossitt: Since the tabling of the answer to question No. 2,597 on July 3, 1981, were additional retroactive revisions made to the gross and net public debt and. if so, for each year since Confederation, what was the gross and net public debt of the government?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State (Finance)):: The
requested revisions are available in the reply to question No. 2,751 tabled this day.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Does the government withhold the interest owing on Canada Savings Bonds until November 1 of any year if the bond is cashed in after August 31 and before October 31 and, if so, what are all the reasons justifying this action?
2.	Is the government considering changing this regulation to allow the interest owing to be paid on the date the bonds are cashed in at any time and, if not, for what reason?


Pierre Bussières: 1. For all regular interest Canada Savings Bonds, and old style fully registered CSBs dated prior to November 1, 1977, which are redeemed between August 31 and October 31 each year, the redemption agent deducts from the face value of the bonds the unearned portion of interest when remitting the redemption proceeds to the investor. This reduction of unearned interest is made due to the fact that the investor on November 1 is paid the interest for the entire year on his bonds by cheque or a direct deposit to his savings account. Each year it is necessary to have a two-month closed book period (September and October) during which time the public debt registers are balanced and the necessary interest payments are prepared on several hundred thousand CSB accounts. Such a closed book period is an essential requirement for any instrument, such as CSBs, which is cashable on demand.
2. The government is not giving consideration to eliminating the closed book period in order to pay investors holding regular interest or fully registered CSBs the full earned interest on their bonds when they are redeemed during September and October. Consideration, however, is being given to ways in which the closed book period may be shortened. This feature of CSBs is described on the back of the bond certificates and
625
100
,000
500
400
525
150
50
30
150
100
90
85
265
90
470
12
415
16
27
150
52
301
227
439
65
5
10
November 10, 1981

in the information brochures which are made available to all purchasers at the time new issues are on sale.


Mr. Cossitt: What has been the impact of increases in interest rates on the borrowing cost of the government since the October 1980 budget?


Pierre Bussières: The
impact of increases in 1980-81 of interest rates on the borrowing cost of the government since the October, 1980 budget is estimated at $358 million. The additional interest cost was partly offset by reductions in borrowing from the levels estimated at the time of the budget. As a result, public debt charges in 1980-81 were $10,687 million, or only $287 million above the October, 1980 budget estimate of $10,400 million.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, if question No. 2,751 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Is it the pleasure of the House that question No. 2,751 be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: Agreed and tabled forthwith.


Mr. Cossitt: For each year since Confederation, on a public accounts basis, what was the (a) spending (b) revenue (c) surplus or deficit of the government?
Return tabled.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Monday, November 9, consideration of the motion of Mr. Bussieres that Bill C-48, to regulate oil and gas interests in Canada lands and to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act, be read the third time and do pass.
Canada Oil and Gas Act
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, I have been looking forward to speaking on third reading for some time. We have spent much time on this bill. Some of that time was usefully employed, although major changes were not made and the bill has in many ways been tidied up.
Before I get into a discussion of the principles of this bill, principles that we still find objectionable, I would like to correct the record, so to speak. In the presentation made last night by the hon. member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis), he said that when the matter was before the committee the suggestion was made that the committee travel to those provinces and the northern territories most affected by the bill. He said that move had been objected to by members of this party.
That is not correct and he knows that full well. I believe he would appreciate the record being straightened out. The hon. member for Kamloops-Shuswap is not so badly imbued with the rhetoric of his party that he is beyond redemption, like some other members, for instance the hon. member for Van-couver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell), and I am sure he will see the error of his ways.
I have a few words about the process we have been going through for nearly a year concerning this bill. We first might object to the fact that there was no real consultation in the drafting of this bill with the governments and the provinces affected or with the governments of the territories affected. If we look at the history of the development of northern oil and gas legislation, we will see that in past times, for instance when Bill C-20 was before this House some years ago, there was a good deal of consultation with industry, with other governments at other levels and with people who would be affected generally. This was not the case when Bill C-48 was introduced. The government decided unilaterally what it wanted to do and it did not want to be dissuaded from any of its erroneous ideas by getting advice of other affected persons at the beginning.
I cannot fault the government on the time it has allowed for debate on this bill. In fact, the government has been more generous than usual. I rather suspect that is because the government has nothing else it would like to put before Parliament at this time and is just using this bill as a filler until the government eventually brings in its budget, and the Constitution, if it ever gets around to that.
Although we cannot fault the government on the amount of time allowed, we certainly can fault it for the fact that it has not been able to see fit to change its ideas in the least. I have the impression that what we have been doing for many months now is just beating our heads against a brick wall, because it has not budged one little bit.
The principles contained in the bill are exactly the same ones in the bill one year ago. It would be my supposition that the spirit of Parliament has been violated. Usually when new legislation comes before this House there is a process of give and take and compromise, but in this instance with Bill C-48 that parliamentary spirit of compromise has just not worked.

November 10, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act
Bill C-48 is one of the most radical proposals brought before this House for many years. It is radical in many ways, but the government, egged on by its colleagues in the NDP, has imposed a very socialist framework on probably what in years to come will be the most important segment of the Canadian oil and gas industry. The government has certainly made no bones about the fact that this is the direction in which it wishes to proceed, the direction of state control over oil and gas in northern Canada and in those offshore areas in the maritime provinces.
We look at the objectionable principles contained in the bill and see that in regard to every piece of land on which oil and gas exploration and production will take place it is the government's desire to have government participation. There is not only the question of having a federal Crown corporation acting in normal competition with the private sector; what the government wants is government involvement in every little parcel of land. It does not want anyone to be free of having the state as a partner.
We see contained in the bill the concept of retroactive expropriation. Governments at the municipal, provincial and federal levels must have the power of expropriation. There are times, unfortunately, when this power has to be used. The example that most often comes to mind is the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Lands owned by individuals along the route of the seaway, because of national overriding interests, had to be taken away from those owners. In that circumstance proper compensation was generally paid.
What will be done through this bill is expropriation of something that has already been granted and is not needed because of an overriding national concern. There is no great need for the government to rush in and take away 25 per cent of the land holdings of companies. If the government wanted, it could apply this principle of a Crown reserve to new dispositions of oil and gas rights. But to go in and retroactively expropriate that which has been previously given to someone, without even proper compensation, is surely something we in this House as Canadians should not accept. If expropriation is to take place, surely one of the principles that we should hold dear is that proper compensation be given. We supported this principle in various motions put before the House at report stage. That is not to be the case with Bill C-48.
The government or the state will take over 25 per cent of an undertaking and then repay part of the moneys previously spent on exploration and development out of future production. What kind of a deal is that, I ask, Mr. Speaker? I submit that if we proceed with legislation like this citizens and corporations which operate in Canada will never again be able to take the government of the day at its word.
Years ago there were generous provisions for the disposition of oil and gas rights because that was deemed by the government of the day to be necessary. The government had to give people a fairly easy deal to get them into the country to spend the money and the time. A few years later when exploration results are reasonably successful, in comes the same government and says: "We have changed the rules of the game now.
Sure, we said that to suck you in and get you to spend your money, but now that you have been successful and have found something worth having, we are going to take that away from you." What could be more improper?
Another principle of this bill relates to the way in which dispositions are to be made-the company to government deals that will have to be made. Previously, and as far as I know this has occurred in most provincial jurisdictions to date, oil and gas rights were disposed of in one of two ways, either on a first come, first served basis, or by public tender.
In the old days in the Northwest Territories, if you wanted to acquire an oil and gas lease you went in and physically marked out the boundaries of the area you wanted by blazing trees and putting in corner posts, very much in the same way as you would stake out a mineral claim. If you were the first person to go into an area and do that, you acquired title to that particular lease.
A little later on it was deemed unnecessary to go in and physically mark out the area. The country was divided into a series of areas or units along lines of latitude and longitude. The first person or corporation applying for one of these areas, providing the necessary fee was paid and an undertaking was given to do the necessary work, would receive the rights to that piece of land, on a first come, first served basis.
Another way of disposing of oil and gas rights is by public tender. If the owner of the oil and gas rights, the government, decides to dispose of a particular parcel of land, it is put up for disposal and every party is able to tender, either in terms of an amount of cash payable to the government or on a work commitment-the amount of work the interested party will do on that piece of land-and the one who makes the best offer publicly is the one to whom the oil and gas rights are given.
In the bill before us those two fair and equitable systems have been thrown out. If someone wants oil and gas rights, they have to see the minister or someone who works for him. They have to work out their own deal and it does not go to the person who gets there first. It does not necessarily go to the person who offers the best deal, nor is it publicly determined. It goes to the one who is the smoothest talker, perhaps. It may go to the one for whom the minister wants to do a special favour. I suggest there are many dangers involved-patronage and all the other things we associate with the banana republics. That is what will occur with this type of legislation.


Mr. Cullen:: Nonsense.


Dave Nickerson: If we examine the nature of the dispositions to be made, we find that the time-honoured Canadian concept of the oil and gas lease is no longer there. The nature of ownership will be something much less than fee-simple ownership or lease-type ownership at the exploration stage. In the past a company had an exploration permit in the north. Under this legislation it will have to enter into some form of exploration agreement, as the government calls it. Such an agreement will not give any title at all to that oil and gas or to the land.
November 10, 1981

An agreement under this legislation will only allow a company to do a limited amount of work on a specified piece of land. The exclusivity and degree of title is no longer there.
Even if this argument were valid in the case of exploration, in my opinion this approach should not be adopted when it comes to production. Instead of the 21-year lease or the 10-year lease for the purpose of production, such as was given out in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and other places, the highest form of tenure available under the measure before us will be the so-called production licence. This licence is something similar to a driver's licence or a licence to brew home made beer. It will not give title to the land or the oil and gas thereunder.
We have seen in Bill C-48 a concept of preventing people from having proper tenure to a holding. The intent of the bill is to have explorers and producers of oil and gas act as some form of contractor for the government. In a country such as ours where property rights have always been dear to us, I think this is a step in the wrong direction. However, it is a step we see taking place because of the action of members on the other side and to my left. We are seeing the erosion of property rights, whether it be the right to the lot on which we have our house or the right to own oil and gas somewhere in this country. That is why property rights were taken out of the proposed Constitution. We on this side of the House have stated that property rights must be incorporated in the Constitution and should be incorporated in legislation such as Bill C-48.
Another principle in the bill is the concept of strict control by the government over every aspect of the oil and gas industry. The ministerial discretion provided for under this bill allows the minister to tell a company where it can explore, how it can explore, with whom it can explore, and if the minister is not satisfied he can say that Petro-Canada will do the exploration on the company's behalf and take over the management of that piece of land. The company will still be obliged to pay Petro-Canada for what is done even though it may not necessarily be what the company wishes. Under the provisions of this bill the minister can tell a company where to drill, how deep, and the manner in which the well is to be drilled. It will dictate all the technical terms under which the drilling is to be carried out. I believe the government has a mandate to ensure that wells are drilled in a safe manner and that oil is produced in accordance with good conservation procedures. But the government should not go beyond that.
Where does private enterprise and initiative fit into this bill? I suggest this measure provides for state control through the back door. This legislation is pretence. We are pretending we still have a free and independent oil and gas industry in Canada, but if hon. members opposite get their way this will not be the case because the industry will be under the control of the government. That is what they are working toward.
The manner in which the government will control profits and cash flow is objectionable to me. Not only does Bill C-48 provide for this, but it is contained in the National Energy Program under the provisions of the petroleum incentives
Canada Oil and Gas Act
program. The government does not want to conduct the affairs of the Canadian oil and gas industry in the old way, in which people would invest money in oil exploration and if they were lucky enough to find oil and gas in areas accessible to markets they would make a profit. I believe the industry should still be conducted in that way. As profits mount the better it is, since it provides incentive for people to invest further. However, the government does not view it this way. It wants to impose a very high level of taxation on the production of oil and gas.
The so-called progressive incremental royalty system virtually guarantees that a company will not make a greater return on investment in oil and gas than it would on a controlled utility. It maximizes the rate of return on an investment to a minimum. Therefore, the profit incentive will not be there for the investor.
The government wants to take a huge revenue, channel some of it back again through the petroleum incentives program and then decide which company will be eligible for the grant. The government is discarding the traditional way in which we have always proceeded with our business affairs in this country and is replacing it with strict control of the industry. It controls it from the initial investment through to the ultimate profits. That is the basic plan behind Bill C-48.
I believe the real reason why these measures are being put into place was given by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) in a speech he made recently in Sherbrooke. It is a speech which was reported to this House by the hon. member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone).
There seems to be the idea that the hinterland of Canada, which is any place outside the Montreal or Toronto areas, exists for the benefit of that central area. I am not really talking about this in geographical terms, but I am trying to picture a big Liberal cesspool some place which is just sucking in moneys from all over the rest of Canada. The idea is that no place outside this central area gets too powerful or has any real say; control is to be exercised by the government here in Ottawa, and those other areas in the country have to be content with being told what to do, what investments are to be made in the areas and what little profits can remain there, and everything else comes back to Ottawa. There is a very centralized and bureaucratic control over certain parts of Canada from which the Liberal government does not draw many of its supporters.
Now I would like to make a few comments about the Canada lands. We have talked about this subject at some length, and there have been many objections from this side of the House about the use of the term "Canada lands." My colleague the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) has spoken on several occasions in this House about the rights of the Atlantic provinces. The hon. member has dwelt at great length on the historical and legal claims those provinces have to the areas off their shores. I think all of us know that this matter will eventually be decided in the courts, and it might be a little premature for the Government of Canada to assume

November 10, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act
what the results of those findings at law will be. I suspect that at least some of the views put forward by the Atlantic provinces will be upheld by the Canadian courts.
With respect to the Atlantic provinces, the government at least made an offer to share revenues. I suppose the reason it did this was so that the matter would not be pursued at law. The government at least made an offer to share revenues derived from the exploitation or possible exploitation of oil and gas in those areas with the provinces concerned.
However, the balance of the Canada lands is basically the territorial lands of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. As limited as the government was in its generosity to Atlantic Canada, it is prepared to extend absolutely nothing to the territories. This is an indecent grab from a defenceless people. If the Atlantic provinces did not have the law on their side, I am sure they would be treated in a manner similar to the disgusting manner in which the people of the two northern territories have been treated.
I listened with interest to the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Kelly) when he spoke about Bill C-48. I am going to cut out his speech and use it during my next election campaign. He gave a very lucid explanation of the view of the Liberal party as to what should happen in the Canadian north. He was very proud of the fact that the policy of the people on his side of the House is to exploit and control the territories. In no way does he ever see responsible government in those territories. In no way does he ever see the attainment of provincial status and the ownership of resources, which is the one thing that binds every other Canadian province together. He was quite frank when he stated that the oil, gas and mineral resources of the north, the agricultural land and everything else should, in perpetuity, belong to the federal government. That is something I would never accept, and I do not think anyone else living in the northern territories of Canada could bring himself to accept it either.
In an earlier presentation to the House with respect to one of the motions we moved, I brought the attention of the House to the fact that if things go the way they possibly might, as bad as the colonial system of government in the north is right now, we might end up with an even worse system. In such a worse system the government of the north would not be conducted by bureaucracy and by government department as it is at present, but would be conducted by Petro-Canada, a commercial Crown corporation-


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Multinationals, maybe?


Dave Nickerson: -and that, in my opinion, would be the most detrimental thing that could happen. I make the analogy of the government of Rupert's Land, which was conducted by the Hudson's Bay Company, or the government of what is now known as Indonesia, which was conducted by the Dutch East India Company. That is the type of thing into which we could get ourselves.
The hon. lady to my left asks about multinationals. I have dealt with that before. In the case of Petro-Canada the Crown
is there as a regulator and as an operator at the same time and cannot properly undertake its regulatory function. However, in the case of a large multinational oil company the government can exercise its function of a regulator in a proper manner because such corporations are subject to laws of general application. In the case of Petro-Canada, we have already seen that the laws can be changed at will by the government. The government has justified this by saying that Petro-Canada does not have to obey the normal laws of the country because that is the government's chosen instrument; that it is acting in the best interests of the nation; and that therefore we can forget the rights of the people who live in the area concerned, and Petro-Canada can bulldoze right over them.
It is the view of hon. members in my party that the territories should develop economically and constitutionally. In the not too distant future we see the creation of provinces in the north. We see those provinces joining the Canadian confederation. I hope I am around to see that achievement. I hope I am around when the thousands of people who live in the north under the colonial jurisdiction of the Ministry of Indian Affairs and Northern Development eventually join Canada in confederation and are the same as any other citizens of this great country. If that is to happen, the governments of those new provinces must have access to proper revenues with which to conduct government. If the oil, gas and mineral resources are alienated in the way suggested by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, there will never be a proper government in that area.
My colleagues on this side of the House have described how for many years the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan had to fight to get access to resources in order to provide all the conveniences and necessities of government in that area, and we look forward to the same thing for the territories. We do not look forward to being tied to federal purse strings but to having sufficient revenues to conduct the affairs of autonomous government. That is not to say that we would not be prepared to share with the rest of Canada. We suggest that the federal authorities there retain reasonable powers of taxation to derive from those areas revenues sufficient for their purposes, but we do not want the resources and revenues of the north used to fill the Liberal cesspool to which I referred earlier.
I referred on previous occasions to the trust nature of ownership of resources in the north. It is the considered opinion of myself and those on this side of the House that the land of the territories is held in trust for the eventual provinces to be established there and for the people who will reside in those areas.
I do not want to pursue the arguments over and over; we have made them on several occasions. However, I would like to quote from an editorial in the Yukon News of October 28, 1981 headlined "Yukoners blind to resource robbery". I do not think they are blind to what is going on. The Yukoners I
November 10, 1981

talked to know full well the intentions of the Liberal government. I quote:
This existing situation represents a trust... we have placed in the hands of the federal government the Yukon's dowry of the future.
In olden times, a threat against a daughter's dowry was inexcusable, the dowry protected at all costs because it was the only way a daughter could make a "good" marriage.
So should Yukoners be standing up to protect their dowry, their assurement of entry into the brotherhood of the provinces.
That is the gist of what we have said on many occasions. If these areas of Canada are to come into confederation and have their rightful role in the future of Canada, they cannot have stripped from them now by way of Bill C-48 those things which will enable them to become full provinces.
The other day the hon. member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) suggested that what the government was doing was grabbing everything it could right now, and then if at some future time it was forced into the position of having to grant provincial status, it would be handing out to the governments of the new provinces at that time a sucked out lemon. That is the way the hon. gentleman put it and I suggest to you the analogy is to be respected.
By way of Bill C-48 and other legislation and policies put forward by this government, I suggest that in the north they are sewing the seeds of bitterness. I hope that it will not be a tearful harvest. If they are not prepared at this time to at least vest within the territories some degree of ownership over their own resources, they should be prepared to enter into a revenuesharing agreement of the nature proposed for the offshore provinces. There is absolutely no reason why that should not be done.
I suspect there is a propensity on the part of all Members of Parliament, with the possible exception of the cabinet, that something along these lines should be done. Revenue-sharing is quite reasonable and attainable. We can work out some form of compromise on a formula to be used.
Although the government is not prepared to write the provisions of a revenue-sharing agreement within Bill C-48, I urge that it use some other mechanism whereby this can be done and a certain amount of discretionary income can be granted to the northern territories so they do not have to come back time after time, hat in hand, to the federal treasury in Ottawa. When they do that and have their budget carried within the estimates of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, it puts them continuously under the thumb of that department. There is a situation whereby duly elected members are not able to carry out the wishes of the constituents but rather are obliged to follow financial and other dictates of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro).
I see you signalling to me, Mr. Speaker. According to my estimate, I have 20 minutes left. Is that correct?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It may be. If so, the
Chair has been misinformed. When I took the chair, I was advised that the hon. member's remarks might be expected to
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expire at 5.07. I will verify that now. Is it correct that the hon. member began at 4.27?


Dave Nickerson: Approximately.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: In that case I would make it 5.07 when his remarks would expire. I am sure the House would want to convenience the hon. member in order that he might finish his remarks by granting a couple of extra minutes. Otherwise, he would require unanimous consent to go beyond that time.


Dave Nickerson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To properly conclude my presentation this afternoon would take quite a time. I know the hon. member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) has a lot of words of wisdom we should listen to. Therefore, I will not give members the benefits of the two or three pages of advice I have here. I do not know how much of that advice would prove useful to hon. members opposite. I am sure they would find it rather interesting. With Your Honour's indulgence, I will just sum up what will be the likely effects of this bill.
There are some minor good points in the bill. At least the industry will know where it stands. There is likely to be a bit more activity on the so-called Canada lands than at present. However, I do not think there will be anywhere near the amount of activity there would have been had the government laid down proper guidelines and legislation which would have encouraged development by investor-owned corporations and the initiative of people in the oil and gas industry. It has slowed down our goal of self-sufficiency. This slowing down process seems to be quite prevalent on the opposite side. You only have to look at the Norman Wells oil field expansion.
We have the utility concept of the oil and gas business in Canada. We have the idea that the oil and gas industry should have its rate of return controlled and that that industry will be controlled, or within that industry the major say will be had by the Crown corporation, Petro-Canada, in conjunction with certain other large organizations. The large, integrated oil companies that the NDP pretend to dislike so much will be the people running and principally engaged in the Canadian oil and gas business. The little guys will be out. Most are just about out now. They cannot put up with this situation.
Canadians in this business are largely having to look offshore. They are looking towajd the United States. They have been driven out by actions of the Liberal government, supported by their friends, the NDP. They can get a much better deal in other jurisdictions.
In my opinion, with this bill we are sacrificing self-sufficiency or the rapid attainment thereof, Canadian enterprise, the energy future of Canada and the real future of the Canadian north. This is being done on the altar of left-wing idealism and bureaucratic aggrandizement.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I shall make my remarks as
brief as I can, Mr. Speaker. In considering the serious conse-

November 10, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act quences of the bill, I should like to start by making five points that 1 will deal with later in more detail concerning Bill C-48. This is the first time I have had the opportunity to speak on Bill C-48 so I shall try to include as many things as I can in as fast an order as possible.
The major concerns that are seen in Peterborough with regard to Bill C-48 are best described by a public interest research group emanating from Trent University and drawing from the community colleges, secondary schools, the private and public sector of Peterborough, a large municipal, federally-funded group of people, who try to keep themselves attuned to exactly what is going on, if at all possible, here in Ottawa.
I shall now outline their concerns regarding Bill C-48. They are trying to alert the people of Ontario in particular, since they are directly concerned with that area and they are known as the Ontario public interest research group, to the importance of defending native rights in the northern environment. They are gravely concerned that this bill will have a detrimental effect on those two items. They also maintain that this bill makes a mockery of land claim negotiations. 1 think some of those concerns have been expressed by my colleagues. They are really concerned that it gives the minister immense powers, to use their words, and it confirms the colonial status of the north. They go on further to say that it stops the progress of responsible government. I have no doubt about that at all. It contravenes the charter of rights, whatever that charter will be when it is returned to the House. They are still concerned that it does contravene many things in what was supposed to be our charter of rights. We will have to wait and see what is in it when it returns. With all due sincerity and respect, they have asked that this bill be withdrawn.
Fortunately at third reading, and as probably one of the last persons to speak on the bill, I am a little reticent to admit that it will be withdrawn, but I should like to point out some of the concerns from central Canada and specifically from the Peterborough area.
It is my sincere conviction that this Liberal government is attempting to put into place the means to create what I consider a socialist republic here in Canada. It intends to impose this plan of converting this nation into a socialist republic through its budget, in concert with its national energy policy and its Constitution. I know this is bothering some hon. members opposite. It is transferring exploration and recovery incentives to Canada lands. This includes offshore regions. It brings in more revenue from oil and gas that will accrue primarily to the federal government.
It is reducing, without any question at all and they cannot refute this on the other side of the House-the share of the oil companies by 12 per cent, companies that are already leaving for the U.S. and other parts of the world, either by choice or by force. This is in the Liberal government's interest because it will increase their direct share of the oil industry in Canada. Indeed, through this program they are to decrease incentives and subsidies to those companies that have minority Canadian ownership interest, which will lower their market value and thus make a takeover bid by the federal government easier in
the future through the Canadian ownership account. At the same time, the Liberal government seeks to increase the proportion of oil and gas revenue from the provinces.
As nationalization of the oil companies located in Alberta, for example, increases, the provincial revenues decrease because federal oil companies do not have to pay provincial royalties, no matter where they are located. Consequently, the federal Liberal government is determined, in concert with their partners to the left in the House, to nationalize the Canadian oil industry by 1990 and put it in public ownership. The estimated cost to purchase just one firm will be approximately $10.5 million. This cost will be borne directly by the people through the Canadian ownership account.
The government seeks to perpetuate an irrevocable shift in the relationship between the two levels of government in Canada. It seeks to take advantage of the westward economic and demographic trends in this country in two ways: first, by removing the initiatives and awards of such shifts from the western centres to the benefit of the central government; and by disowning the promise of a new federation made to the province of Quebec and to the rest of the country. That promise did not include the moulding of a socialist republic with a strong central government.
This is not the true destiny of Canada, despite the socialist conversion we have undergone under successive Liberal governments which have imposed socialist programs upon the people and have had the people pay for them without having the courage to call them such in an election campaign, namely, the 1980 election.
What is happening here, Mr. Speaker, is that the unholy Liberal triumverate in charge of finance, energy and the Constitution is attempting to snatch power, financial power and constitutional power, from its traditional seat in the provincial legislatures. It will seek to do this at the expense of the unity of our country.
For what, Mr. Speaker? For a grand design born in the precocious and presumptuous mind of one man, and one man only, aided by his loyal and partisan engineers. He is determined to alter the basic, fundamental and historic association of this country, of this constitutional federation, of this democratic union of co-operative levels of government.
If the government was sincere in its stated aims in its energy program, it would not proceed in such a suspect, meddlesome and interfering manner. For one thing, it would not tie itself to the anomalous position of seeking to acquire industrial oil interests in Canada, at the same time seeking to reduce our dependence on oil through conservation. It would not pass on to the consumer the burden of its massive and hypocritical subsidization program to lower the cost of imported oil through the petroleum compensation charge. It would not force the people of Canada to buy foreign-owned oil companies to the detriment of the national deficit and the alienation of foreign resource capital.
The government would have made self-sufficiency in energy a true and legitimate national goal and would have eased the
November 10, 1981

means to that end, rather than using this laudable aim as a cover for power grabbing and a platform for this government to acquire the resource control it needs to blueprint its disastrous vision for a socialist future for Canada.
The government is charting a dangerous direction in its present course. The people of Canada must realize this is a punitive exercise, not only upon them through their tax dollars, but against their futures. We may be witnessing here, Mr. Speaker, not only the perpetration of irrevocable damage to our oil industry-for it is our oil industry one way or the other-but we may also become horrified observers as Canadians to the destruction of our dearly held and highly valued constitutional system, our economic freedom, and our liberty to pursue prosperity through personal determination and not through the high-handed interference of a godlike central government. Like Hansel and Gretel, the Canadian taxpayer has been led into the woods by this government, and they will find out that it is they who are to be cooked, not the "goose" of the oil companies and other corporate interests.
Let me address Bill C-48 before us tonight on third reading, a bill to regulate oil and gas interests on all federal Crown lands and all of the offshore regions, as a member who represents some 90,000 people in the urban-rural area of Peterborough, Ontario. What will Bill C-48 and the other ramifications of the Liberal National Energy Program mean to the people in Peterborough, as it might mean to other people across Canada?
In the first place, it will mean that everyone who uses gasoline, whether to drive to work, to keep machinery running, manufacturers who run generators, elderly citizens who drive to the shops, will be paying, come January, $1.90 for a gallon of gasoline and perhaps $38 to fill the gas tanks of their cars. In Janurary, 1983, just over a year from now, they will be paying $2.40 per gallon, or $48 to fill the gas tanks of their cars. By January 1985, they will be paying $3.10 per gallon of gasoline and they will have to shell out something over $60 to fill the gasoline tanks of their cars.
This is in contrast to a government campaign to hold the price of gasoline in Canada down lower than 18 cents. It is shameful. Is this what Ontarians thought would happen when the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) announced his plan a year ago, along with the dismal $14 billion national annual deficit? Is this what they thought would transpire when the former government was brought down on the 18-cent per gallon increase? I do not think so. As painful and difficult as these increases will be to bear-and I know of no constituent of mine who will easily absorb this amount of increase-it is by no means the only significant and deleterious aspect of this bill and other parts of the National Energy Program.
In the first place, a bill such as this which essentially controls the nature, extent and conditions of oil and gas exploration and development in the remaining tracts of undeveloped land in Canada, must be seen in relation to Canada's energy package as a whole. Petro-Canada is an
Canada Oil and Gas Act
essential and some would say crucial part of the plan. Now some would say that it is a good thing Canada through its federal government is now directly involved in the high stakes energy industry. Some would say that finally Canada is doing something about this foreign ownership about which every Canadian child learns in school. But at what cost?
John Kenneth Galbraith said that it is "the imperatives of technology" and not "the images of ideology" which govern the shape and direction of our larger economic society. However, in the case of Canada's energy sector this does not seem to be true. The primary imperative in Canada must surely be-and I see little evidence anywhere of disagreement on this-the development of our energy resources so as eventually to achieve self-sufficiency in 10 or 15 years. That is agreed by all members of the House-self-sufficiency within a reasonable length of time. Our treasury cannot stand for long the immense drain of our financial resources or, rather, the financial resources of our taxpayers which go to pay for steadily increasing amounts of foreign oil that we find it necessary to import. Foreign oil now costs close to $50 per barrel, and we need 100,000 barrels per day. It is like asking for $50 from every man, woman and child in my riding just to pay for the imported oil for one day.
It is clear that we must reduce our imported oil for both these good reasons-the political reason and the financial reason. But why should the people of my riding, which is as typical a riding as one could find anywhere in Ontario, believe that the government has come to the most viable solution to the energy problems of price and supply? For example, they know that the same government which is offering wholesale nationalization of the Canadian oil and gas industry is the very government which brought the country from a surplus production of 76 million barrels of oil per year in 1974 to a shortfall of 65 million barrels per year in 1978. This will result in compensation payments of $2 billion next year alone. No matter what happens in the way of new strikes of oil, the lead time required for development dictates that one third of our total oil requirement will have to be imported by 1985. This means that even more money will be lifted from the pockets of Peterborough constituents, not just at the gas pumps, even if the pumps display the rather jaunty Petro-Canada maple leaf, but also through their taxes. By 1990 we will be paying up to $9 billion per year for imported oil. This is an alarming figure. It makes up just about 15 per cent of our gross national product. It pretty well takes care of all equalization payments to all provinces on a yearly basis. It goes a long way to servicing our $100 billion national debt. It is four times our largest ever defence contract. In short, it is an unconscionable amount of money to spend on imported oil.
How will our national oil company step in to help the Ontario consumer and taxpayer? What plans does it have for reducing this immense burden? What discount will Canadians enjoy at the pumps for having financed Petro-Canada to the tune of $4 billion?
The first of Petro-Canada's measures to help the Canadian consumer came in 1976 when it took over Arcan for $342

November 10, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act
million. The second attempted acquisition to take over Husky Oil was an unmitigated disaster. In 1979 PetroCan took over Philips Petroleum at a cost of $1.5 billion. At the time it was the most expensive takeover in Canadian history. This year Petro-Canada took over Petrofina for another $1.5 billion at a share price which everyone agreed was grossly overvalued. There were distinct indications last spring that many people who should not have made a lot of money out of the deal in fact did. I know it is a satisfying thing to Canadians to have not just any oil company but the largest oil company in Canada owned and operated by the Canadian government. But I wonder, does the Canadian public realize fully the true nature of the beast?
To put the company in some sort of perspective, the fact is that if PetroCan chooses to exercise all its options under the bill, it will end up with 130 million acres of Canadian land. That immense tract of land, as one oil company representative put it, "is going to be sterilized". He said that the government will need a government building 853 storeys high to house all the geologists and oil engineers to exploit fully the amount of land they will be given. Is this a pleasing image to those taxpayers who favour the government's energy program? It will be an oil company run by the government-not the taxpayers who are by right and in effect the proper shareholders of the outfit-from an immense, inefficient, wasteful, featherbedded government office building 853 figurative storeys high.
The people of Canada should remember that it is Exxon, Gulf, Shell and all the other so-called villains of the scenario which are on the verge of bringing the tar sands on line at a cost of $12 billion of their own money, not that of the taxpayers. The people of Ontario should remember that Cold Lake and Alsands are worth $3.2 billion to Ontario alone. The people of Quebec should remember that these two projects- and shortly there will be four-are worth almost $1 billion each to the Quebec economy. But can any member opposite guarantee that with Petro-Canada's increasing involvement in the tar sands these benefits will flow to the extent and at the speed they would through private development? Will they assure the people of Ontario and Quebec that no more qf their tax dollars will be spent on their mad rush toward takeovers at the expense of genuine development? Will they promise that another year will not be lost when Ontario's aging manufacturing industries sit idle waiting for new orders which might or might not come from the west or from the north while the government is embroiled in some new cash flow problem or development agreement?
During 1982 prices for gasoline will rise by 50 cents per gallon. This is the fact I would like to keep before the House and before the people of Ontario while I address this bill, this document which is essential to the furtherance of the government's socialist plans for an oil-related energy industry. I believe I hear the flutter of faint hearts on the other side. Lately murmers of "too much, too soon" have been heard. A major securities firm adviser recently said in the national press the following:
The fallout from the National Energy Program in both Canada and the U.S. appears to have frightened the government somewhat and resulted in a decision to slow down their nationalistic and interventionist thrusts in other areas of the economy.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Members on the other side of the House do not believe any of these people.
The retiring chairman of the Ontario Economic Council said recently that Canada is butchering its relations with the United States, and the cost may turn out to be very high. A senior partner of a major Toronto-based legal firm said last week that not since the Second World War have international currency and investment markets been as negative toward economic policies in Canada as they are right now. Canada's mind-boggling policies in energy, he said, expand the already skyhigh level of foreign debt at a time when real borrowing costs are the highest in 50 years. Here we are borrowing at the highest interest rates in 50 years to acquire companies that were already functioning under a free enterprise society, giving further evidence to my claim that we are moving into a publicly owned socialist republic here in Canada. This same man said that these Liberal socialist policies jeopardize trading relationships with the United States, the market which accounts for 70 per cent of Canada's foreign exchange earnings.
How are the members of this government going to explain the marvellous plan to nationalize the oil industry and lock up the remaining exploration land when Ontario and Quebec manufacturing-based workers are thrown out of jobs because of the retaliatory cancellations of orders from the United States? There is already evidence in the daily papers that the United States is considering adopting a hard line in retaliation against the actions of this government.
One cannot have it both ways. One must either take the benefits of a mutually cordial trading relationship with one's largest trading partner at the expense of some foreign ownership of the country, or one does not. If one chooses the latter, then I hope that hon. members opposite will enjoy eating their ideology. I hope workers in their ridings enjoy taking home pay cheques that are stuffed with socialist descriptions of Canada's national oil industry rather than with dollar bills. I hope they can explain to the drivers of cars in their ridings that they may be paying $5 at the pumps for a gallon of PetroCan gas but that it is really their own gas that they are buying.
The fact is that neither the circumstances nor the necessity have prompted Canada's National Energy Program or this bill, which is a part of it. Circumstances and necessity obviously dictate that development, supply and price are the essentials of our needed energy development, and private development, of course, responds best to these essentials, not some glorified post office wrapped in a glossy wrapping and called an oil company. Canadians everywhere, but particularly those in Ontario and Quebec, will find this out eventually. I am just sorry that it has to be the hard way.
November 10, 1981


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on third reading of Bill C-48. Along with other members of the New Democratic Party, I have worked to point out the shortcomings and failures of this bill which pretends to usher in a new era of Canadian ownership and Canadian self-sufficiency in our oil and gas industry. My colleagues have shown how the Canadianization provisions are a fraud, and how we are missing the boat by failing to insist upon Canadian content in the spin-off industries. Bill C-48 does not make good economic sense for the Canadian people, although it will make some people very rich. As my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) said, it is a matter of privilege triumphing over justice and equity.
However, in addition to opposing the bill on narrow economic terms, New Democrats oppose the bill because it looks to massive petroleum development without proper protection for the environment, or without adequate recognition of the rights of native people. This was symbolized by the failure of the committee to go north and hear directly the first-hand views of those northern people, in spite of having made an earlier promise to do so.
We should always remember that these two factors of Canadian life belong together. We cannot talk about the rights of Indian, Inuit and Metis people without considering their close relationship to the environment, to the land and the water near which they live. Preservation of the environment has to be the bottom line in any genuine concern for the aboriginal peoples of Canada. For these peoples, culture is not a separate, air tight compartment of life that has no relationship to the economy; rather, the culture is completely linked with the economy, and both depend upon the environment. Destroy the environment and one destroys the economy; destroy the economy and one destroys the culture; destroy the culture and one destroys the people.
When we look at reports of the way in which this act will be administered, we understand very well why the aboriginal peoples feel threatened. Although the regulations have not yet been made available, a September 19 report in the Montreal Gazette points out that the administration of oil and gas development in Canada will be handled by the Canada Oil and Gas Lands Administration, or COGLA for short. In theory, COGLA will report both to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) and also to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro), but the five-member policy committee will have only one member from Indian Affairs and Northern Development and three from Energy, Mines and Resources. No one on that committee will be from the Department of the Environment. No one will be from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It will be completely dominated by a department that is geared and oriented toward development.
Much of the work of COGLA in determining when, where and how exploration, drilling and production will be carried on will be independent of any other government departments. The
Canada Oil and Gas Act
set-up of COGLA confirms what my colleague the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) meant when he talked about the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development as one of the silent partners of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The other silent partners are the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. LeBlanc) and the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts). In spite of the massive impact that proposed developments will have on the environment, and in spite of clear hazards to land and water, the Minister of the Environment has remained silent throughout this debate.
My colleague the hon. member for Nanaimo-Alberni (Mr. Miller) has pointed to the silence of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. For the past ten years we have had a moratorium on offshore exploration and drilling off the coast of British Columbia. Bill C-48 would allow that moratorium to be lifted, with potentially disastrous effects on the west coast fisheries. I ask, where is the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans? Why has he not assured the people of British Columbia that their fisheries will be protected? Why has he not insisted on amendments which would guarantee that protection? The bill fails to provide for mandatory public inquiries into oil spills, and it does not spell out what constitutes an oil spill. All of this is left to the discretion of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. He is the man who is in charge of the environment. His track record in regulating, for example, the nuclear industry does not give us any confidence that he will take very good care of the environment as far as petroleum exploration and development are concerned.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development did at least speak on the bill. One of the things he said was that there would be no effect on land claims negotiations. When he appeared before the committee last June, my colleague the hon. member for Skeena asked him the following:
-would you table for this committee a legal opinion that there is no prejudice with the passage of C-48 in relation to aboriginal negotiations and claims, and second, in relation to going from the old regime to the new regime, that negotiations are not precluded by either existing leases or those leases that are to come in the future.
I ask hon. members to note that he very clearly asked the minister to table a legal opinion. The minister replied:
Yes, I can give a legal opinion.
He went on to say:
If you want a legal opinion that states the obvious, I am prepared to try to get that legal opinion for you-sure.
In October the minister was asked about this legal opinion and why he had not tabled it. He replied:
I do not know whether we are arguing about semantics or technicalities. When I mentioned a legal opinion and when I made that statement, 1 meant that I would obtain a view in writing based on a legal opinion I would receive as to what the situation was.
Either the minister has changed his mind about tabling the legal opinion and is not willing to admit it, or he did not understand a basic, straightforward question. In either case, he is failing the Canadian people who expect a little more leadership than that.

November 10, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act
We want to see that legal opinion. We believe this legislation does affect land rights. Perhaps what the minister means is that there will be no effect on the minister's prejudiced understanding of those rights and the government's very narrow understanding of what land claims are all about.
If one looks at the policy paper the minister submitted to cabinet last year, it is a very different understanding of what the land claims negotiation is all about than many of the native peoples' understanding when they entered into these negotiations. On page 7 of the document entitled "Discussion Paper: Native Claims Policy-Comprehensive Claims", the minister said:
-the factors which have influenced reaching agreement in particular claims are, among others, the following: first, pressures from the imminence or anticipation of major development in the claimed area-
On page 9 we find this statement:
In respect of priority, efforts should be concentrated on those groups where potential for settlement is most promising and/or urgently required, leaving other groups for the future.
In other words, development will take place, and where development is looked to that is where land claims will be negotiated; but the aboriginal people will have to negotiate with a gun to their head.
Some of the guidelines listed in the annex to that document make clear how poorly the government understands what is needed. First, we find the following:
There must be extinguishment of all land claims based on aboriginal title in exchange for conferral of specific rights and benefits.
The aboriginal people have not wanted extinguishment. What they have fought for and demanded is recognition of their rights. The government is taking the position that yes, it owes them something but the government will only begin to talk about paying that something if the people agree the government does not owe it. The government wants extinguishment. The aboriginal people want recognition.
One of the ways Bill C-48 impacts is clearly spelled out in a recommendation which the minister made about negotiations. He said:
Holders of subsurface rights must have access to native lands where necessary for exploration, development and production of resources, subject to fair compensation as determined through timely negotiation and/or an arbitration
system.
In other words, the Indian people will be handed a situation which they have to accept. They have to conduct their land claims negotiations within those very narrow definitions. For the government to try to maintain that Bill C-48 does not affect land claims negotiations only makes sense in the context of the narrow definition of the government trying to impose what those negotiations should be. It does not make sense in terms of the wider understanding of land claims which the aboriginal people themselves have had. Therefore, it is essential that we should have that legal opinion so that members of this House and the Canadian people can determine what the effect of Bill C-48 will be on aboriginal claims.
Over a year ago members of the Nuu Chah Nulth people on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Haida people on
the Queen Charlotte Islands submitted aboriginal claims to the minister. To date no answer has been received even as to whether those claims have been accepted for negotiation. Maybe in light of the government's policy of giving priority to areas where there is massive development projected, the people should hope for some kind of offshore drilling. While it would destroy their environment, it would advance the claims process. The government takes a cynical view of waiting for development before pushing ahead with negotiations.
In the minister's speech to the House on October 19, he pointed to the process by which the Norman Wells pipeline was approved. He pointed to that as an example of a balanced approach to the way in which the claims of aboriginal peoples are weighed and looked at as well as the demands of industry. As reported in Hansard at page 11920, the minister said:
This decision was not arrived at lightly. In weighing the elements of the Norman Wells project the government asked the Federal Environmental Review Assessment Office, commonly referred to as FERAO, to consider not just the environmental factors but also the socioeconomic aspects of that project. The National Energy Board also studied the project, and both agencies held public hearings both north and south of 60 and reported positively, subject to specific terms and conditions.
It seems the minister is suggesting that there was an adequate process and the views of the aboriginal people were heard. In the National Energy Board Reasons for Decision, on page 172 we find the following:
As to regional socioeconomic desirability, the Board finds that the proposed pipeline project may not provide the region with a net positive benefit but rather that its modest potential benefits and modest potential liabilities would balance out, at least in the short term.
The National Energy Board is very pro-development. The most the National Energy Board could hope for was that there might be some kind of a trade-off.
The environmental assessment and review process held hearings and reading from page 23 of its report we find:
At most public meetings a representative of the Dene Nation stated the Dene policy position that there should be no development before a land settlement is obtained in the western NWT. In each community, the band chiefs and councillors reinforced this position.
In each community the local spokespeople emphasized that there should be no development without a settlement.


Dave Nickerson: Some of them did.


James Douglas Manly: On page 81 of that same report we find the following:
The panel concluded that any resource development proposal would face the same opposition, and therefore, declined to make a recommendation which linked land settlement to the Norman Wells project.
In other words, recommendations were made without any clear consideration of the way in which this would affect the land negotiation process.
Last spring the government and all of us rejoiced in the fact that there was an all-party agreement to include recognition and affirmation of aboriginal and treaty rights in the Constitution. On this side we felt this would give these people some protection against the kind of legislation we see in Bill C-48. The Liberals give and the Liberals take away.
November 10, 1981

The problem with that process is that the government thinks it is giving something by putting that clause in, but in reality what it is doing is recognizing a right. These rights are recognized and affirmed, they are not things that can be given and taken away at will. Those are rights that at that time we were able to recognize. Now we are somehow being blinded by some vision of consensus which prevents us from recognizing those rights. Those rights are still there and they should still be recognized. We should not allow this bill to ride roughshod over the peoples of that area.
In conclusion, I should like to point out that this bill fails in its stated objective of bringing Canadian ownership and Canadian control to the oil and gas industry. It fails to maximize Canadian jobs in the spin-off industries, and it fails to do what it intends to do. In the process, it poses a great threat to the Canadian environment, and especially to the rights of the aboriginal peoples. This is not a good bill for the Canadian people and I believe it should be sent back to the drawing board where we should make a few more changes so it will look after the rights of the aboriginal peoples and our environment, and will provide the maximum benefit to the Canadian people as a whole.


Mr. Bill Wright (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, I did not intend to speak tonight, but after listening to a few of the NDP members today I must admit I found it very strange that they would stand in this House day after day berating the government for what it is or is not doing, particularly in view of the fact that they vote with the Conservative Party against the government on most of the amendments presented to this House, both in relation to this bill and others. This is the same party that helped vote the Conservatives out of office in December, 1979.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frederick William Wright: I would like to deal with one member of the NDP in particular. The hon. member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) stood in this House last night and said he was concerned, along with his party, about small business. Where was that party when we stood in the House during the past year telling the government how many oil rigs were leaving the country? The hon. member for Kamloops-Shuswap stated, as recorded at page 12669 of Hansard for November 9, that this exodus of oil rigs was orchestrated. How do they justify that to the hundreds of people out of work and families who are separated because one member has to move to another country in order to support the family? For a member to make such a statement is unbelievable. He stands in this House day after day and says he supports small business. Where was he during the mail strike when everybody in this House knew that the Liberal party had no intention of settling that mail strike until the end of the summer?
Canada Oil and Gas Act
This bill has a greater effect on small businesses in the oil industry than any other. It does not affect the multinationals because they do not care. It does not hurt the multinationals one iota. If you look at the history of multinationals in various countries you will see that they can increase or decrease their exploration funds as they need. That is not true of the independents, those small oil companies which started up ten or 15 years ago. Yet members of the Liberal party, just as members of the NDP, say they support small business. That is hogwash. They really do not care about small business. Four jobs of every ten are provided by small business. It is laughable when those members opposite tell us they support small business.
Ten or 15 years ago many of these small oil companies just got started. They did not represent very much, but hon. members opposite who remember those days will know where those small businesses went when they wanted funds. Did they go to Toronto or to Montreal? I suggest they did not. Many of them had to go south to get partners. That has been the unfortunate history of this country, supported by the Liberal government. One only has to go back to 1965 when basically these small companies really got started to verify that fact.
Let me now speak directly to the bill. In 1974 the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said on a number of occasions that we will have oil self-sufficiency by 1980. We do not have oil self-sufficiency today and there is no possibility we will have it by 1990. The oil companies individually and as a group under IPAC and CPA have told this government there will not be oil self-sufficiency by 1990. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) stands in his place and says: "That is hogwash; of course we will." Then we get a report from the National Energy Board which says we will not have oil selfsufficiency and there is nothing to prove that we will.
At the present time we are consuming approximately 1.8 million barrels a day and we are producing 1.4 million barrels a day. We know our production is decreasing at the rate of
100,000	barrels per day. By 1990 our production will be down to 700,000 barrels per day. The National Energy Board has also confirmed that in 1990 we will still be consuming the same amount of crude oil, namely 1.8 million barrels per day. By 1990 we will need an additional 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day. Where are we going to find it? Will we find it off the east coast? There is no proven find there presently. We have the possible production of 40,000 or 50,000 barrels a day at the present time, but we have no way of getting the oil out. Are we going to find that additional oil in the Arctic where Dome has just indicated an interesting discovery? Will that account for that 1.1 million barrels deficit in oil? There is little likelihood we will have oil self-sufficiency by 1990. The oil companies have been telling the government this and we have been saying the same, but the government refuses to believe us.
May I call it six o'clock?
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November 10, 1981
Canada Oil and Gas Act


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being six o'clock, At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to special order made earlier, this House stands pursuant to special order, adjourned until Thursday at eight o'clock in the evening.

Thursday, November 12, 1981