1981-04-13

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of most urgent and pressing necessity. It is reported that SCA Chemical Waste Services will begin dumping treated chemical wastes into the Niagara River this month. The people of Niagara have conducted a mock funeral and have declared dead this once mighty river. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid):
That in these days of upset wins and surprise moves the government even yet at this late time take action to prevent this proposed dumping, in compliance with the International Joint Commission's recommendation that governments prevent any additional discharges into the river, and in compliance with the Prime Minister's commitment to the people of Niagara.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I rise to exercise my right under Standing Order 43 and to add a footnote to the contemptible and quite irrational remarks of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) on fascism, which he chose to make outside this House. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga):
That Canadians be alerted to the fact that the Prime Minister sees
Fascism here;
Fascism there;
Fascism everywhere
But it's in his own chair!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, last week the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. LeBlanc) closed the spring herring season on the east coast before it was opened. Now the government is going to gut any of the fishermen who might have weathered that storm by socking it to them via their income tax. I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That the House instruct the government to call off its ton-ton bullies in the Department of National Revenue and let the east coast fishermen go about their business of being honest and hard-working Canadians.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FISHERIES
Mr. Ted Miller (Nanaimo-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. On Wednesday the B.C. Salmon fishing season will open without the proclamation of proposed regulations concerning two-area trolling. The government's hesitancy in legitimizing its policy proposals and press announcements is a result of fisheries department confusion and uncertainty and a sign that political rather than conservation considerations are foremost in the minds of ministry decision-makers. I move, seconded by the hon. member for New Westminster-Coquitlam (Miss Jewett):
That the department curtail all major changes in commercial fishing regulations until the Pearse commission of inquiry has had the opportunity to hear the B.C. fishing industry's concerns and proposals and has reported back to the government and consultations with fishermen have followed so that a comprehensive management plan can replace the present ad hoc policy formation which is destroying the opportunity to make a living in the B.C. fishing industry.

April 13, 1981


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


COMPENSATION TO FARMERS FOR EMBARGO ON SHIPMENTS TO RUSSIA-MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity to grain farmers in Canada who have waited eight months to be paid compensation for the embargo on grain to the U.S.S.R. In light of the conflicting statements made by members of the government, namely, the statement made last Thursday by the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board that he could not in a definitive way say when such payments would be made and how, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) reporting on April 1 that compensation payments will be made within one week, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields):
That the government end the anxiety of whether such payments will be made and how much producers will be paid and stop punishing the farmers of Canada for national policy that the government supported by immediately announcing adequate compensation payments for farmers.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Madam Speaker, I too rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas the herd maintenance program has now been extended to include a further 470 townships, and whereas many producers in those townships did not apply for herd maintenance assistance under the original program because of the government's original error in approving townships, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster (Mr. McKnight):
That those producers within the extended townships be allowed additional time to submit their applications for herd maintenance.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE CENSUS
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) just released the lists of census commissioners for the 1981 Canadian census. In view of the fact that every Liberal Member of Parliament was requested to submit lists of potential commissioners, but all other members, representing 134 ridings in Parliament-soon to be 136-were not asked for their recommendations, and because the lists contain nothing but old Grits, many defeated candidates, their wives, their campaign managers, presidents of Liberal associations and are not necessarily Canadians who are qualified and need the employment or the $4,350 of the taxpayers' money each will obtain, under Standing Order 43, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm):
That the Minister of Supply and Services rescind the appointments which are blatant patronage and conduct a proper search for census commissioners taking into account ability to do the job and need of employment.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 43. Whereas the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cosgrove) has said he would be prepared to move his offices over to the contaminated environment of Les Terrasses de la Chaudiere, and whereas there has been a proposal that there be a temporary radioactive waste dump in Scarborough as an ad hoc response to one more nuclear embarrassment visited on the people of Canada by AECL and unprepared governments, a response which has not been criticized by the minister, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans):
That this House instruct the minister to show the same solidarity with his constituents as he seems prepared to show with federal government employees and consider moving his home next to, or on to the proposed dump site.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
April 13, 1981


IMPERIAL OIL PROJECT AT COLD LAKE, ALTA.-MOTION UNDER
Mr. Al MacBain (Niagara Falls):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the continuous pressure being applied to the Government of Canada by Imperial Oil Limited which is threatening to mothball its Cold Lake project, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond (Mr. Dingwall):
That this House condemns such blackmail by Canada's largest foreign-owned multinational oil company.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing importance under Standing Order 43. Whereas, when the federal government first conceived the idea of using the RCMP for provincial and municipal purposes, attractive financial agreements were offered and some provincial governments and municipal councils therefore disbanded their own police forces, and it is now very unfair to propose substantial increases for this service when there is no alternative readily available, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Portage-Marquette (Mr. Mayer):
That this House urges the Solicitor General to offer the provincial governments and municipalities a new agreement containing only a modest increase as this arrangement does provide a federal "eye" throughout Canada for the federal government.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 and hope that I will get unanimous consent for my motion. In light of recent disclosures about losses from the Public Archives of documents connected with the Gouzenko inquiry, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Grey-Simcoe (Mr. Mitges):
That the Solicitor General or the Secretary of State make a statement on motions at the earliest opportunity to clarify this matter and, in particular, to explain how such losses could occur.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, I too rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Now that negotiations between Treasury Board and the government's veterinary inspectors have resumed again to try to reach agreement on salaries and inequitable working conditions, and to avert a possible national strike which would result in the loss of millions of dollars to our economy and export trade, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Burlington (Mr. Kempling):
That the Treasury Board negotiators take their responsibilities more seriously than they have up to now, and not unilaterally break off negotiations as they did on March 24, losing more than two weeks in valuable negotiation time which could have been fruitfully used, and which would have offset much of the sporadic time off taken by inspectors, and the unnecessary disruptions and loss of income to our livestock industry and the meat packing industry in Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the appalling health, housing and sanitation conditions which the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) saw in his whirlwind tour of Cree communities in the James Bay area; in view of the fact that the James Bay and Northern Quebec agreement was signed over five years ago, with the intent of helping these communities develop decent facilities; and in view of last year's epidemic of gastroenteritis which took the lives of several children, and the possibility of another outbreak this year, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie):
That the minister not wait two months until the completion of the bureaucratic review, but act now, on the basis of what he has seen with his own eyes, and

April 13, 1981
Oral Questions
secure supplementary funds to bring health, housing and sanitation conditions to a safe level.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Otto Jelinek (Halton):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce who assured us that he would be in his seat at this time, I should like to direct my question to the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism. After many months of studies, consultations, meetings, discussions, negotiations and so forth regarding the ailing automobile industry, which in Ontario alone provides one out of every six jobs, can the minister tell us what firm and specific agreements and decisions were reached during the meetings of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce with his counterparts in Washington last week, agreements and decisions beneficial to the future of the Canadian industry? May I add that I have a great concern for the future of that industry.
[ Translation]


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the concern of the hon. member but I would suggest it is inaccurate to say that nothing has been done for the auto industry in Canada. Along with all his colleagues in the House the hon. member has been made aware of the efforts made by both the Canadian and the American governments to help Chrysler Corporation; he is aware as well of the agreements which are under negotiation between American Motors and a European car manufacturer, and of a certain increase in employment at Ford Canada. However, I cannot speak of a definitive agreement which was allegedly concluded Friday in Washington because I was not a party to those discussions.


APPEAL FOR RESTRICTIONS ON IMPORTS
Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, despite the minister's remarks which did not answer the specific question about the meetings in Washington, the counterpart of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, Mr. Malcolm Baldridge of the United States, is quoted in Washington as
saying that no agreements or decisions whatsoever were reached as a result of last week's meetings. That was my initial question.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce said in Washington last week:
We're not talking about joint decisions . . . (with the U.S.)-we're talking about making our own decisions-
This is something for which we have been pushing for so long. As the minister knows, just ten days ago the Canadian Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association, the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, UAW and others appealed for restrictions on imports, especially from Japan, imports which, by the way, increased by a whopping 94 per cent over last year. Could the minister now stop pussyfooting around and tell us in his own words what is his government's decision in this regard, before Canada becomes the North American dumping ground for automotive imports?


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, I just said at the end of my previous remarks that I was unable to tell the hon. member anything about the outcome or the decisions taken at the meeting in Washington because I was not there myself. I should think that that was the only answer I could give to the first question.
As to the second question, the hon. member knows that a Canadian delegation is now in Japan to discuss the issue of growing exports of Japanese cars to Canada. We are extremely concerned over this problem which grows worse as months go by, but it would be premature to voice an opinion before reading the report we will get from the delegation.


Otto John Jelinek: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Finance, since it is obvious that neither the Minister of State nor the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is able to make any decisions whatsoever regarding the auto industry, except to create more discussions. Therefore, since the Prime Minister himself told me last month that the U.S.-Canada auto pact was a high priority issue, I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister at what point the government as a whole would consider the state of the auto industry in this country to be critical enough to take the necessary action, much of which has been recommended by members of this party and other interest groups across Canada? It should be kept in mind that a $3 billion to $4 billion annual deficit is being experienced by the Canadian auto industry.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, in reply to the hon. member's question I should tell him that the matter of the automobile industry is considered frequently by the govern-


FUTURE OF CANADA-UNITED STATES AUTO PACT
[Stage Direction]
April 13, 1981
[Stage Direction]
ment. As decisions are taken they will be announced to the House.

Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce I will direct my question to the acting minister. The minister has had discussions with his American counterpart on the auto pact and he will know that 70 per cent of the auto parts manufacturers in Canada are American subsidiaries which build to order for their U.S. parents. Did the minister discuss how these subsidiaries could become involved in the export of parts to European and Japanese auto manufacturers? Can he tell us whether the subsidiaries will be pursuing export orders directly into the European and Japanese markets?


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows that it has always been the policy of the government, every time a foreign company starts a subsidiary in Canada, to try to convince foreign investors to develop in Canada a new product for the world market. The same philosophy applies to the auto parts industry but, as I said in reply to the hon. member who spoke before him, I cannot disclose in detail the talks that went on in Washington since I was not involved in them. However, I would gladly convey the hon. member's question to the Minister for Industry, Trade and Commerce.


DISCUSSIONS WITH EUROPEAN AND JAPANESE MANUFACTURERS
William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister. The minister knows that many American auto parts manufacturers in Canada have no Canadian domestic or export sales force and carry out all export functions through their U.S. head office. What discussions has the minister had with the Japanese and European manufacturers regarding the sourcing of auto parts in Canada for their world production? Can he tell us how he would separate U.S. and Canadian parts production under such circumstances?


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, I would be happy to inquire of my colleague about this very important issue. My colleague or myself could then report back to the hon. member.
Oral Questions


INCOME TAX
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. As he knows, his officials have singled out Canadian fishermen, who are among the most lowly paid in the country, for auditing this year for tax purposes. Could the minister tell us why fishermen were singled out instead of such highly paid groups as doctors, lawyers, and dentists, whose incomes are well in excess of $45,000 a year? While he is answering that question, could he tell the House why his officials are using what can only be described as bully boy tactics on the fishermen in the process of performing this audit?


Hon. William Rompkey (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, first, it is not fair to say that only fishermen are being singled out. The fishing industry is being audited, as are other industries. For example, the pharmaceutical industry is being audited this year as well. We have a limited audit capacity and we try to spread that audit capacity as fairly as we can among the industries where we see the need. That is the first point.
The second point I want to make is that it is because of the policies of this government, and particularly of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, that the fishermen's incomes are now up to the point where they are self-supporting individuals in this country. I would like to make that point to the hon. member.


John Edward Broadbent: Yes, the fishermen's incomes may be up, but they are about one fifth or one sixth of what doctors, lawyers and other high paid groups earn.


Mr. Crosbie:: Politicians!


An hon. Member:: NDP party leaders!


TACTICS USED BY AUDITORS
John Edward Broadbent: I would like to deal specifically with harassing tactics. No one wants preferential treatment for the fishermen any more than any other group, but one wants some fairness. Considering such tactics as the following are being used-threats to seize assets, inconsistent application of tax rules among fishermen, and arbitrary payback demands which have been forcing many fishermen to decide they have to go out of the fishing business entirely- will the minister assure the House that he will have his officials investigate these abuses and put an end to them?


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, I want to give that assurance. I do not intend to tolerate harassment where I find it. I thoroughly agree with the hon. member that there should be equity and fairness in the application of the law. Fishermen are no different, in that sense, than any other people in this country. 1 intend to see

April 13, 1981
Oral Questions
that the law is applied with fairness. With regard to an arbitrary pay-back, we do try to come to an accommodation with the individual, depending on his ability to pay. In that way there is a certain amount of arbitrariness, in the sense that it is based on the ability of the individual to pay off what is owing. But generally speaking, the law must be applied with fairness and equity, and I intend to see that that is done.


John Carnell Crosbie: Fascist tactics!


REQUEST FOR AUDIT OF HIGH INCOME NON TAXPAYING INDIVIDUALS
John Edward Broadbent: I am pleased to see that the minister will stop the harassment, but he has just referred to fairness and equity. The average fisherman's income is in the neighbourhood of $12,000. Considering that in Canada today there are more than 2,000 Canadians whose incomes are in excess of $50,000 a year who pay not one penny in income tax, will the minister undertake to audit their returns?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, it is important to note that the industry is being audited, and there is not simply an audit of fishermen. There is an audit of the industry, and the companies are being audited as well. However, I do give the undertaking, as I did before, that the law certainly must be applied with fairness and equity, and we do not intend to single out those in the low income brackets.


TIMING OF AUDIT
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of National Revenue if he can tell the House whether he consulted with his colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, before he approved that audit in the late spring of last year? Furthermore, can he tell the House why he authorized the audit to take place in the fishing industry and the 35,000 fishermen of eastern Canada at a time when they had just come through a bad year of bad markets and low returns?


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, the planning for this audit was begun under the previous administration and was in motion at the time that I took office.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Bossy:: St. Stephens strikes back!


Bill Rompkey: I am not saying that the thing was fully in gear by the time I took office, but certainly the groundwork for it was laid and the planning was done, and it was ready to go when I took office.


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: No, it wasn't. No, sir.


Bill Rompkey: I want to make the point again that there is no singling out of industries except in the sense that the audit capacity is limited, and we do try to apply it to various industries in any one year. I appreciate the point the hon. member makes with regard to the seasonality and the unpredictability of the fishing industry.


AUDIT OF FACILITIES USED BY FISHERMEN
James Aloysius McGrath: The minister can try to squirm out of it all he wants, but in fact he authorized the audit after he became Minister of National Revenue.


Walter David Baker: That's right!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: He did so against the advice of his colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. If the minister is going to conduct an audit of fishermen's incomes, is he prepared to recommend to his cabinet colleagues that they also conduct an audit of the facilities that fishermen have to use, which are the responsibility of this government, and which have fallen behind because of repeated cutbacks in the budget of his government? Is he prepared to do that?


Bill Rompkey: Madam speaker, with regard to cutbacks, it was the previous administration that took about $10 million of the small craft harbours program. That is the reason facilities are in the state they are today. As soon as this administration took office it added $10 million or $11 million to the small craft harbours program-


Mr. Clark:: All in Westmorland-Kent.


Bill Rompkey: -to bring those facilities up to standard. Those are the facts and they are on record. With regard to the individual situation of fishermen, my officials have been instructed to ascertain exactly what can be claimed as far as exemptions are concerned for premises and fishing property.


TRADITIONAL BUSINESS METHODS IN FISHING INDUSTRY
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, because serious charges of intimidation by officials have been coming in from fishermen, especially in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, is the minister prepared to issue instructions to his officials that they should take into account the traditional way of doing business in the fishing industry, where a man's word is still his bond? They should take that into account.


Bill Rompkey: agree on the point that there have been traditional ways of doing things in the fishing industry. Indeed, in the case of receipts, for example, I have given instructions that where
April 13, 1981

receipts were not kept, at least 25 per cent, and in some cases more, of gross income is to be taken as a guideline. I think we have accommodated, to the degree that we can, the traditional way of doing business in the fishing industry. There is to be no harassment and I certainly will not tolerate that. Where 1 hear of individual cases, and I can really only deal with them on an individual case basis, I certainly will take action.


Walter David Baker: Hit them with a flounder!


THE ADMINISTRATION
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. It relates to the conflict of interest rules brought down by the Prime Minister in April, 1980, part of which reads as follows:
Ministers must also take care to avoid placing, or appearing to place, themselves under an obligation to any person or organization which might profit from special consideration or favour on their part.
That provision also applies to executive assistants and principal secretaries, in order to get around the Sherman Adams vicuna coat syndrome that occurred under President Eisenhower.
The principal secretary to the Prime Minister accepted a free ride to and from Washington over the weekend in order to participate in a function at the Canadian embassy. I know there is provision in the conflict of interest rules for disclosure of gifts over $200, and this would be worth considerably more than $200. I want to know from the Acting Prime Minister whether instructions have gone to principal secretaries in the Prime Minister's office and all ministers' offices, which indicate that this is not a proper activity on their part, to put themselves in that position with private corporations in this country.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, Madam Speaker. I heard about it just at this moment; therefore no instructions could have gone out.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: The minister is ever vigilant.


USE OF AIRCRAFT BY CABINET MINISTERS
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Madam Speaker, I should like to direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Transport. He will certainly be aware of the fact that Department of Transport planes are being used by cabinet ministers for electoral purposes in the byelections that are taking place today, and in other byelections. Is he asking the ministers involved, who are flying into the byelection territories on government planes, for a contribution toward the actual cost of those planes from the Liberal Party of Canada? Are we going to carry on this kind of pork-barrel operation in the department? Is the minister not going to crack down on this?
Oral Questions


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, members of cabinet can use the planes of the Department of Transport on government business. One of the articles that I read during the weekend made that point very clearly and indicated that, as a matter of fact, members of cabinet were doing just that. I have no reason to believe that they are not.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, on March 24 of this year the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans responded to a question that I raised about the tragic Alice Arm situation. He said "To ensure that my department does not examine itself, I have recommended that a scientific panel of distinguished outsiders look at the matter and give me their advice."
Since it was revealed on Friday that Dr. Mclnerny, who was appointed by the minister as chairman of this now famous Amax panel, in fact set the levels for the January, 1979, permit on the advice of Mr. Littlepage, who was paid approx-imatey $1 million by Amax to prepare their case, a situation that has clearly put Dr. Mclnerny in a conflict of interest situation, will the minister immediately, in this House today, remove Dr. Mclnerny from that panel?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, my experience with the hon. member's allegations is that the first thing you do about them is check them very carefully.


James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, the minister's comments will no doubt come out in the wash in the coming months.


REQUEST FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY
James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, I will put my supplementary question to the Minister of the Environment. Dr. Mclnerny is also Mr. Littlepage's boss at the present time, which adds substantially to the conflict of interest situation. Since the chairman of the Environmental Health and Safety Committee of the B.C. Medical Association-a group which I am sure the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans would call kooks or quacks-has put on the record that the lives of Canadians are endangered by the Amax dumping, will the minister put an end to this shameless cover-up in Canada and at least call a public inquiry into the health and safety of this situation?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, my view is that expressed by my colleague. The important thing in this situation is to find from outside government and independent review which will establish exactly what the scientific implications are and that is being done by the government.

April 13, 1981
Oral Questions


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Science and Technology. It concerns funding to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. I would refer him to the action taken recently by his colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, who followed the example set by the previous Clark government and significantly increased the funding to the Medical Research Council.
I should like to ask the Minister of State for Science and Technology whether he will follow the same course with regard to NSERC. Can he say when he will increase the meagre funding, from the 11 per cent increase already allocated, to something approaching the 35 per cent increase that had been allocated to NSERC by the previous Conservative government?


John (Moody) Roberts: Madam Speaker, the hon. member and the House should know that, as a government, we confirmed the very significant increases for NSERC funding for the first year of their five-year plan. We have re-endorsed the principles of that five-year plan, and the funding for the subsequent years is now before the cabinet. I expect that in about a month's time I will be able to confirm the increased expenditures for the NSERC funding for the subsequent years.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I am sure the minister knows that what I am trying to do is to offer all the assistance possible to get that funding through. That is why I referred him to what his colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, has been able to achieve with a little bit of prompting. Perhaps he will be able to do the same.
I would point out to him that he, in fact, told us in committee a month ago, that he would be in a position by mid-April to indicate to the House the new funding quotas for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Now he says it will be the middle of May. I am afraid he will go on and on putting it off, leaving the research councils in a state of uncertainty both about their funding and about the five-year plan. Can he give us an absolute guarantee that mid-May will be the deadline by which he does increase the funding to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and that it will be an increase amounting to the 300 per cent that has been allocated to MRC?


John (Moody) Roberts: Madam Speaker, I recognize the hon. member's conviction about the importance of these increases, and I welcome the urgency she attaches to them and the urging she is providing to me and my colleagues. I hope she will continue with those efforts to support us.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I will.


John (Moody) Roberts: Clearly, I cannot give absolute guarantees until the spending has been confirmed by cabinet. It is true that about a month ago I said I expected to be able to do so about this time. I regret that there has been a further slippage due to factors beyond my control. As the hon. member knows, periodically the government assesses the outstanding claims against expenditures in terms of the amount of funds available. All that I can assure the hon. member is that I expect that process to take place about mid-May and that therefore I will be able to confirm at that time what the increased funding will be. I cannot give absolute guarantees for an event before my colleagues take part in that decision.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Jim Schroder (Guelph):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board. Would the minister inform the House how he intends to implement the recommendations in the Lambert and D'Avignon reports to increase the efficiency of the government and reduce excessive government spending?


Hon. Donald J. Johnston (President of the Treasury Board):: I welcome that question, Madam Speaker. As at least some hon. members will have noted, last week I deposited in the House a report entitled "Accountable Management" which is intended to bring Members of Parliament up to date on where we are with respect to the implementation of the various recommendations which have come forward, both from the Lambert Commission and the D'Avignon Committee.
Some of the highlights include areas such as the new expenditure management program which exists, and is sometimes called the envelope system.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: The awful system?


Donald James Johnston: We have also deposited in this House, which is of particular significance, a new form of the estimates.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald James Johnston: As all members know, that is a pivotal recommendation to render better accountability of government-


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Are you a pivotal minister?


Donald James Johnston: -and to bring these matters to the attention of parliamentarians. I am disappointed I have not had the commentary from members that I would like. Therefore, 1 would encourage all members of the House on both sides to look very carefully at the pilot projects which have been tabled in the House and referred to the public accounts committee. 1 welcome input from all members, Madam Speaker.
April 13, 1981


COMPENSATION TO FARMERS FOR EMBARGO ON SHIPMENTS TO RUSSIA
William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. On April 1 the minister reported to the Standing Committee on Agriculture that the compensation payments due to farmers in Canada arising from the embargo on grain to the Soviet Union would be paid within one week. Now that the week has passed, is the minister able to give the House a further update about that?


An hon. Member:: Which year?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, I do not have the minutes of the committee. I do not believe 1 was as specific as the hon. member stated. I did say the other day that I hoped in a few days.


Mr. Epp:: A few days, a few days, and a few days.


Eugene Whelan: That all depends on what you define as a few
days.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Eugene Whelan: I still hope that in a few days we will be able to make the announcement.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Madam Speaker, the reply from the minister does not contradict anything that he has said so far.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: It is a matter of whether it is one day, two days or a few days.
In light of that, why did the assistant to the Minister of Transport, Senator Argue, last Thursday in Saskatchewan say that he could not say in a definitive way whether payments would be made to the farmers of Canada?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Get your agricultural act together.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Would the Minister of Agriculture intercede so that the farmers of Canada would have some idea as to when they will be getting it? Anything within 30 days-


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Argue with Argue.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Argue with your colleague.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: -anything within 30 days would be appropriate.


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, remembering very well just what the hon. member said, anything will be done within 30
days.


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


INQUIRY RESPECTING RAPESEED FREIGHT ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
Hon. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture in the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. It has to do with the government's refusal to renew the interim freight assistance program for processed rapeseed products. I know the Minister of Agriculture is keenly interested in this program. Therefore, could he enlighten this House as to what decision the government is going to make with respect to the renewal of the interim freight assistance program since it expired at the end of March?


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, I hope that an announcement on this will be made in a few days.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


STATUS OF WOMEN
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Wesminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the minister responsible for the status of women.


An hon. Member:: Good luck.


Pauline Jewett: Last week, on Thursday, I believe, the membership of the review panel decided to conduct a review of the council's operations. The panel consists entirely, with one exception, of people who were themselves involved in those shenanigans. I wonder if this kind of internal review, being judge in one's own cause, constitutes, in the eyes of the minister, the independent external review he promised about a month ago to Canadian women?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, as I have told the hon. member and other members of this House many times before, I think it is incumbent upon members to respect the autonomy and independence of the council and to allow it to make decisions concerning its own affairs.


Pauline Jewett: Madam Speaker, the minister himself recognized the autonomy and independence had been undermined-


John Carnell Crosbie: He undermined it.


Pauline Jewett: -by himself and others, and that is why a month ago he promised Canadian women that there would be "an independent external review of the advisory council". When is the minister going to have that independent external review?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is wrong in her assertion. In a meeting with a number of representatives of women's groups, I undertook to discuss the question of a

April 13, 1981
Oral Questions
review with the advisory council. This I did. At the same time I indicated that I would abide by its decision and that 1 would wait to see what kind of a report it would prepare. Once the report by the advisory council has been given to me and I see its contents, I will take what actions I think are necessary.


Pauline Jewett: You promised.


CROWN CORPORATIONS
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Weilington-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, while the President of the Treasury Board is in a mood to report on his various projects, it was one month ago today that I asked the President of the Treasury Board when the House would be seeing the much promised Crown corporations bill, the omnibus bill. The minister replied as follows, as reported in Hansard at page 8224:
I assure hon. members that very substantial progress has been made and that the bill will be brought forward in the very near future.
When will we see the bill?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I repeat what I have said in the past, that very substantial progress has been made indeed.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Thirty days?


Donald James Johnston: The matter is a very serious one and is one which deserves the widest consultation and maximum input from all interested parties. That is what we are doing. Again I repeat that I do hope to bring forward legislation for consideration by my cabinet colleagues at a very early date.


Charles Joseph Clark: Have you heard from Allan MacEachen?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Madam Speaker, the President of the Treasury Board has been promising for the last 13 months that the bill would be forthcoming in the very near future. Will the minister today flesh that out by giving us a date, or will he admit that the Minister of Finance has blocked his efforts to get the bill through cabinet?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance has been most co-operative with respect to all legislation that we have attempted to bring forth from Treasury Board.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Stand up and take a bow, Allan.


METRICATION
Thomas Gordon Towers: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Small Business. When will the government be tabling the overview report of the metric commission?


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, I have not inquired about this recently. 1 will do so today and report back to the hon. member.
* *
*


MARINE TRANSPORT
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, my question is for the multi-modal minister of transportation. Would the minister advise the House whether or not he has now rejected his own suggestion that the ferry service from Nova Scotia to Argentia, which occurs during the summers, be cancelled? Will he confirm hopefully that he has cancelled that suggestion and that the $8 million or $9 million in costs will continue to be spent on that, and that the Newfoundland government will not be asked to agree to losing that service in order to have money spent on other transportation facilities in Newfoundland?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I will attempt again to explain to my hon. friend what we are trying to do in Newfoundland-


John Carnell Crosbie: I know what you are trying to do.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: You are trying to sink the island.


Jean-Luc Pepin: -in terms of a new approach. Should the province agree to a reduction or an elimination of a service, it would not lose the money that would be saved in so doing.


Walter David Baker: A new approach?


Jean-Luc Pepin: It is in that context that the ferry from Argentia to Sydney


Flora Isabel MacDonald: North Sydney.


Jean-Luc Pepin: North Sydney was mentioned.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Flora's hometown.


Jean-Luc Pepin: The other day in the committee I assured hon. members that this was not to be done this summer. However, it is an item for negotiation between ourselves and the government of Newfoundland.
April 13, 1981


John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, the people of Newfoundland know what the minister is trying to do to them, and that is to reduce their transportation services and to put the squeeze on the Newfoundland government to say "eliminate a service here and then spend the money somewhere else". These are all vital services in Newfoundland. We cannot sacrifice a ferry service for a road.


TRANSPORT
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is this: will the Minister of Transport tell the House whether or not he is going to enter into a new primary highway strengthening agreement with Newfoundland and with the other three Atlantic provinces this year? Or has a decision been made that the Government of Canada will not contribute to road improvement spending in the provinces any longer, that, it is merely a matter to be left to DREE or not to be done by the Government of Canada at all? The agreement expired at the end of March and it is vital for these provinces now to know whether they will have any help in improving the Trans-Canada or their primary highway.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, on the new or second primary highway strengthening program, a decision has not been made. This is exactly what we are trying to work out with the government of Newfoundland. There are some savings to be made. There is a need to use whatever money is available in the most efficient way. The government of Newfoundland understands that and is willing to negotiate with us in that spirit. If more money is available by way of increasing the size of the envelope or what is in the envelope, so much the better. But we have to go at this two ways; if possible, increase the amount of money going to transportation in Newfoundland, and at the same time take advantage of any savings that can be effected by way of the best use of the money available.


John Carnell Crosbie: Ten o'clock.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Donald W. Munro: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General who, I am sure, will know that Canadians accord considerable importance to the role the Taschereau papers and the Mackenzie King documents would have in clearing up some of the uncertainties surrounding the issues involved. I am wondering whether the minister could say why he and his colleagues
Oral Questions
appear to be so indifferent to the disappearance of these documents. Is he relaxed or indifferent because he is satisfied the documents have been spirited away somewhere, have been destroyed and hence are unfindable, or does he believe the embarrassment they might cause certain people could be avoided through some other method?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: Madam Speaker, while I am, of course, interested in this, I think it fair to note that my interest is more historical than political since the fact that these documents were missing from the material I have read was first noted by Jack Pickersgill in 1947. Their so-called disappearance has been a matter of record for a very long time.


Donald W. Munro: Madam Speaker, I am not sure whether the minister was referring to the Taschereau papers or the Mackenzie King documents, because there were the two sets. In any event, I wonder whether he can assure the House that there is an inquiry going on within his department or in the Department of the Secretary of State to make sure every possible clue is being followed up to find out where these documents might be.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, the inquiry which is under way now is one I have described in the House already. It is an examination being done of the Taschereau-Kellock material, the transcripts of the Gouzeko investigation, to ascertain whether the release of that information and those documents would violate the privacy of any individual, contrary to the government's policy in respect of personal privacy. I indicated that that inquiry would be completed, I hope, within a month or two and that the government would have the recommendations of the official doing the work and be prepared then to make a statement about whether the Taschereau-Kellock papers would be made public.


POST OFFICE
John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Postmaster General. He has solved one of my problems and I thank him very much. I would like to ask him when people in fast growing areas such as Mississauga North and South, Brampton-Georgetown, and La Prairie, the riding of my colleague in Montreal, where subdivisions are growing at a rapid rate, can expect to start receiving this service they are paying for through their taxes, but have not been receiving at all for two years?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Postmaster General):: Madam Speaker, under the latest Post Office estimates, it will be possible to add a number of postmen to provide services in some areas in Canada

April 13, 1981
Oral Questions
mentioned by the hon. member. The Post Office Department is, of course, subject to the restraints with regard to person-years as are all other federal departments. When the Post Office is no longer a department but becomes a corporation, it will then surely enjoy a greater freedom.


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, the minister will pardon me if 1 am a little cynical. The last time we had new mail carriers in our community was the day the election was announced in 1979. If it takes an election to get mail delivery to these new subdivisions, will the Postmaster General urge the Prime Minister to call an election so we can get some mail delivery in our communities?
[ Translation]


André Ouellet: Madam Speaker, I think that service in those areas will be provided long before the next election.


FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, I have a question I would have asked the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce but, I think in another context, I will direct it to the Minister of Finance.
I am sure the Minister of Finance is familiar with the Rockwell Corporation. This is the same corporation that has closed down five plants in the last five years and cut the work force in two others from approximately 1,500 to 260. Just last week it was announced by FIRA that it had been given approval to take over Wescom of Canada in Georgetown. I wonder whether the minister might explain what significant benefit we can expect from Rockwell this time?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, that is a question I would rather hand over to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce.


Ian Deans: I do not blame the minister, Madam Speaker. I would rather hand it over to him as well were I the minister. However, I am under the impression that the cabinet gives ultimate approval. Therefore that means, in my mind, that the cabinet includes all the ministers. I wonder if I might ask this minister whether this matter was in fact brought to the cabinet, whether Rockwell's performance in Canada was considered, and what in heaven's name is the use of FIRA if it is going to approve this kind of takeover by a company which has abused Canada and the people who work here.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is right. Usually these applications are brought forward by the minister and considered at least in cabinet committee. There are a fair number of applications considered and it would be quite impossible for any minister to recall the details of every
case. I can assure the hon. member that either the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce or myself will provide him with the information which led to the conclusion. He may disagree with the conclusion, but at least I will assure him of the information.


THE PERFORMING ARTS
Mr. John Bosley (Don Valley West):: Madam Speaker, 1 have a question for the Secretary of State and Minister of Communications, but in his absence I will direct it to his parliamentary secretary. The parliamentary secretary will know that some time ago the St. Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto made an application to the special initiatives program for some funds to renovate and upgrade the theatre. This is a program which has already received the support and approval of the provincial and municipal governments, yet as far as we can tell to this date the federal department has yet even to acknowledge the letter of application. Could I have an undertaking from the parliamentary secretary that he will look into the matter and, beyond that if possible, will he provide some information as to when the theatre may expect both an answer to its letter and the determination of approval or refusal of its request, and I would prefer, of course, approval?


Mr. Peter Stollery (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State and Minister of Communications):: Madam Speaker, fist of all I would like to point out to the hon. member that it is becoming a bit of a problem. The provincial governments, particularly Ontario, under the agreement in respect of Loto Canada, have said they would cover some of these expenses in the arts community. But then, after receiving the money from Loto Canada, they go back and tell these people who need the money that they should go back to the federal government for the money which the federal government has already given to the provincial governments. Having said that, I would assure the hon. member that the situation is being looked into and there will be an answer shortly.


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism. The subject to which I want to refer affects the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. We would like someone to speak for small business on the issue of the implementation of metric in the retail food sector at a time
April 13, 1981

when neither the Canadian Federation of Retail Grocers, Loblaws Corporation, IGA or Loeb approve of this move.
Would the minister responsible for small business advise this House whether he will or will not speak for small business, and address the concern of small business about forced metric conversion in Canada?


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, the hon. member may have contacts with opponents of the metrication of scales in the retail food trade. As for me, I am convinced that I speak also for Canadian small businesses, and my contacts in the small business sector do not lead me to the same conclusions as the hon. member.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, I would like to invite the minister to the press conference tomorrow morning to hear the small business people in Ottawa complain about the implementation of metric.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR REPEAL OF ENFORCEMENT ORDER
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the same minister. I remind him that the last two ministers of small business in the Liberal government are no longer in this House because they would not listen to small business.
Will the minister intercede as a member of the Privy Council to repeal the order in council which forces metric on Canadian business people whether they want it or not? There are fines of up to $5,000, imprisonment, and business lock-ups. Will the minister speak for small business, or will he follow the same line as the last two Liberal ministers for small business, who are no longer in this House because they too did not listen to small business? No one over there speaks for small business.


Madam Speaker:: Order.


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is quite free to hold meetings or to take part in press conferences for his own public relations. He is entirely free to take part in tomorrow morning's press conference at eleven o'clock. As concerns the question as to whether I speak on behalf of small businesses within this government, I must say that, in my opinion, the Canadian small business sector, as far as exports, the manufacture of new products and services are concerned, will benefit enormously from metric conversion in Canada.
Order Paper Questions



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 1,744, 1,857, 2,075, 2,127, 2,151,2,164 and 2,213.
I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Stevens: For the current fiscal year, what are the estimated expenditures of the Department of Agriculture for (a) advertising (b) free or subsidized publications (c) other information conveyed to the public?


Eugene Whelan: (a) $179,290, (b) $2,011,200, (c) $543,950.


Mr. Miller: 1.	In the past year, by month, what was the number of persons in the Lockeport, Nova Scotia area receiving unemployment insurance benefits?
2.	For the same period, what was the amount expended for such benefits?


Lloyd Axworthy: The commission does not maintain statistics on the number of persons or amount of benefits for Lockeport, Nova Scotia. To provide these statistics would entail a lengthy and costly examination of individual files and records.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	With reference to the answer to question No. 65, what are all the reasons that Via Rail Canada cannot supply the information requested?
2.	Does Via Rail Canada keep any statistics anywhere on passenger travel and, if so, for what reason are such statistics not kept for Brockville, Ontario?
3.	What methods does Via Rail Canada use to assess effectiveness of its service if it does not possess such statistics?


Mr. Robert Bockstael (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: 1. VIA Rail Canada cannot supply the requested information because the previous operator, Canadian National Railways, did not keep such information. VIA became responsible for trains through Brockville in April, 1979, and they estimate that during 1979 32,000 persons boarded and 29,000 disembarked at Brockville, Ontario.
2.	VIA keeps many types of statistics on passenger train travel. With the development of a new reservation and reporting system called RESERVIA, VIA will have the capability to produce detailed statistics not currently available. The reserva-

April 13, 1981
Order Paper Questions
tion portion of this work was implemented in 1980. Brockville, as an important point in the network, will be examined in greater detail once better operational statistics are available.
3.	Effectiveness of the services is constantly monitored through the loads on the trains. The assessment procedures will be expanded considerably with the availability of data in greater detail.


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich): 1.	What was the capital cost of acquiring and commissioning Coast Guard Vessel 122 based at Ganges Harbour?
2.	Where was the vessel acquired and at what cost?
3.	What are the annual operating costs for the vessel?
4.	What is the average cost per rescue involving the vessel (a) on its own, taking into account overheads (b) in co-operation with other rescue agencies?
5.	What is the average reimbursement per rescue paid to Coast Guard auxiliary personnel, in the area where the vessel normally operates?
6.	Since the vessel was acquired (a) how often was it called out on rescue duty (b) how many auxiliary vessels answered rescue calls?


Robert Theodore Bockstael: 1. $197,122.
2.	James L. Reid Inc., Lachine, P.Q. at a cost of $182,752.
3 Year to date June, 1980 to February, 1981 $124,000.
4.	(a) $900.
(b) $920.
5.	$20.
6.	(a) 175 times.
(b) 211.


Mr. Herbert: Has the International Development Research Centre concluded an agreement for scientific co-operation with China and, if so, does the agreement provide for exchange visits between Canada and China?


Hon. Mark MacCuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: The International Development Research Centre replies as follows: A memorandum of understanding was signed on September 16, 1980, between the International Development Research Centre and the State Scientific and Technological Commission of the People's Republic of China. The memorandum provides for co-operative development research activities in China, in other developing countries, and in Canada. Included is provision for exchange visits of scientific personnel between Canada and China.


Mr. Cossitt: With reference to the answer to question No. 5 which states in part, that $62,400 was paid to H.J.M. Comm Productions Ltd., Ottawa, in a period of less than two years for preparing speeches for ministers (a) for what reasons was this particular firm hired (b) were bids or presentations obtained from other firms
and (i) if so, what were the names and addresses of such firms (ii) if not, for what reason (c) what is the name and job designation of the highest ranking person who recommended the firm (d) what were the names and job designations of all other persons recommending the firm or who in any way negotiated the contract?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: In so far as the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned:
(a)	H.J.M. Communications Productions was hired in order to research and write speeches for Ministers of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
(b)	Bids or presentations were not obtained from other firms as H.J.M. Communications, in the opinion of the then director of information, provided satisfactory service to ministers' requests for speech research and writing.
(c)	Alan Duckett, the then director of information, Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce recommended and negotiated the contract with H.J.M. Communications Productions. Keith Gardner, the then deputy director of the information branch also assisted with negotiations.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Did the Department of Fisheries and Oceans refuse to grant a lease in the 1980 season for a wharf property owned by the government at Portland, Ontario and, if so, was the refusal (a) made to the township of Bastard and South Burgess (b) on the grounds that the township did not maintain an administrative program nor collect fees in 1979?
2.	Did the Burlington, Ontario office of the department at 3050 Harvester Road, receive telephone calls from an official of the township on June 16 and on August 18, 1980, making inquiries and, if so, did the township receive a reply to the inquiries and, if not, for what reason?
3.	Did the same office receive a letter dated March 5, 1981, drawing the matter to the attention of a Mr. Smead and, if so, on what date will the township receive an answer to its inquiry?
4.	Does the government file involved bear the number 5883-70/P669?


Roméo LeBlanc: 1. No.
(a)	The Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued a lease to the township of Bastard and South Burgess to administer the government wharf at Portland in accordance with the Fishing and Recreational Harbours Act and Regulations. This lease was for a period of five years effective May 1, 1979, and required the township to collect all tolls, dues and charges in accordance with the Fishing and Recreational Harbours Act and Regulations.
(b)	This lease was terminated effective April 30, 1980, as the township refused to collect the toll and dues in accordance with the terms of the lease.
2. Yes, telephone calls from an official of the township were received. Written replies to the telephone conversation were not sent as it was felt that these matters were adequately answered during the telephone conversations.
April 13, 1981

3.	Yes, letter of March 5, 1981, was received in the regional office on March 10, 1981, and a reply was forwarded March 13, 1981.
4.	Yes.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West) moved:: That this House expresses its sorrow and sympathy for the more than one million Canadians who are unable to find work and who, with their families, face an uncertain future, and urges the Prime Minister to endorse this sentiment by shuffling his cabinet.
He said: Madam Speaker, I rise in this House this afternoon to debate this motion with almost a sense of tragedy about what is and what might have been. I was reading this morning the front page of the Toronto Star of May 23, 1979. On that page there was a headline. Hon. members might remember that that was the day after the May 22 election in 1979. The headline read: "Joe sees growth, jobs and hope". Here we are, almost two years later, and we do not have the same sense of hope. We certainly have fewer jobs and more unemployed, and it is difficult to find anywhere in the actions of this government a true commitment to growth.
It is with that sense of reality, which I think all of us in this House have had to face, that I move this motion, which urges members of this House collectively-and perhaps particularly backbenchers in the Liberal Party-to express some sense of sorrow and sympathy for the more than one million unemployed in Canada today.
I think it is necessary for each and every one of us who accept the responsibility of sitting in this Parliament to accept responsibility for our actions. Particularly members of the governing party must accept some responsibility for their actions because it is they who time after time support a cabinet which seems to be less concerned about people and more concerned about political gain than is right or good for Canada. Without the support of those quiet tin soldier backbenchers, I wonder if the cabinet would have the courage to take us into the calamities which have characterized not only the last 12 months but a considerable period, approaching 12 years, prior to the last 12 months.
Unemployment
In Canada today there are well in excess of one million adult Canadians who would like to make a contribution to this country and who would like the opportunity to work, to produce and, in return, to have an income and a sense of stability. They would like to enjoy the kinds of friendships which characterize the workplace for most of us. However, those one million Canadians cannot find jobs. The reason they cannot find jobs is to be found in the attitudes and the hypocrisy of a succession of Liberal cabinets which are and have been more concerned with political gain than with economic growth, development and a future for Canadians.
I think too often in this House we deal with the broad picture and tend to forget that we have a responsibility to legislate on behalf of the people of this country in ways which help them. When we are talking about one million unemployed Canadians, 1 wonder how often we in this House realize that one in ten adults who live on our blocks or in our apartment buildings is currently unemployed. Some time this year or in the year ahead one in five of those adults will face the trauma of wanting to work but not being able to find a job, at least for some period of time.
One young person in seven in this country faces the reality of wanting to get a start in life and have work experience but not being able to find a place to begin to build the kind of future they have been taught they have a right to expect and aspire to.
Hidden in the statistics of unemployment are the tragedies. How often do we in this House stop to think about the concept of work? It is easy, perhaps, to remember that work provides an income, and incomes are important. We need money to provide ourselves with shelter, food, transportation and clothing. There is a basic reason for wanting to work. However, there are other reasons that are just as important to people.
We sometimes forget that a great deal of our personal identity, our sense of self-worth, of who we are and what we are, comes from our relationship to the world of work. Out of that, we are likely to develop a sense of self-worth because we produce a product or a service. Hopefully those of us who sit in this House, from time to time at least, through the fruits of our labours are able to conclude that by being here it makes a difference; perhaps not every day but from time to time.
The work place is where a lot of Canadians get a great deal of their sense of self-worth. When we say to one million Canadians that they cannot have a job and be part of the work place, we are robbing them not only of the income they need and want but of that sense of self-worth, a sense of being able to make a contribution to our society.
The third element for most people, which goes along with being part of the work force, is the sense of friendship and companionship. For most people this flows out of a daily contact with fellow workers or customers, the social interactions that take place in the work force.
We are saying to these one million unemployed Canadians that they cannot have a decent income or the sense of self-

April 13, 1981
Unemployment
worth which would be available in a job, and they cannot have the friendships which flow out of the workplace. This is a real tragedy for those individuals as well as for our society. We are getting so used to such a high unemployment rate that when the statistics come out monthly we feel no sense of outrage on behalf of those one million unemployed.
Within that one million people 1 would like to identify and remind this House of are three categories which deserve special attention. First let me speak about the young people. Of the number of young males in this country looking for a job in March, 14.1 per cent, or 1.4 for every ten in your block or apartment building, could not find a job. Who are these young people? What will happen to their future if this situation is allowed to continue? At 15, 16 or 19 years of age, or perhaps after college graduation at 22, they go out and look for jobs. The first question an employer asks is, where did you work before? Fourteen per cent of them do not find that beginning work experience. The weeks go by, the months go by, the years go by. On any job application which they put forward, employers ask where they have worked before. These people have to put "nowhere". The employer probably thinks it best that he not hire those people, because experience tells him that people who are experienced in the world of work are more likely to make good employees.
Before we know it, a decade has gone by with a spotty work history. Somebody who is already 30 years of age still has 35 years to go to reach the magic age of 65. We have to predict that those people we are hurting today at 15, 16 or 19 years of age will be the victims of tomorrow and on into the second and third decades. That is what is happening in this country and it is amazing that we feel no sense of outrage about it.
The next class of people I will refer to as the breadwinners. A few years ago that was usually a male who had a wife and family. In our modern age, it could be a female just as easily as a male. These people have family responsibilities. They have children who are dependent upon them for material needs such as shelter, food, transportation and clothing. The young people are dependent on these adults for health, love, guidance, time and attention to help them, in turn, to develop into adults who have a personal sense of worth, adults who are ready and willing to make a personal contribution to the development of this country.
Do we make that job easier for those adults? Do we make the situation better for those children when we say to the breadwinners that they do not belong, that there is no job for them, that they cannot earn an income, have the sense of self-worth that comes from being a productive member of the work force, and cannot have the friendships which flow from the workplace? What does that do to the minds of those people? Not too much, perhaps, in the first day or two, a little more in the First week or two and a great deal more in the first month or two. We have a real tragedy when it spins out to a year or two.
How can those breadwinners maintain that sense of selfworth, that important component of parenthood which allows them to feel secure in their worth and, therefore, have the
kinds of feelings which enable them to deal with their children in positive, developmental ways? As decades go by with extremely high rates of unemployment, are we creating a future generation who will find it difficult to find their place in the mainstream of Canadian society? I suggest we are.
What about the third class of person in Canada, which is a more recent phenomenon? These are what I call the re-entries into the work force, people who mostly have spent a significant portion of their life as parents. As they get into the mid-years of the adult life cycle, their families grow and move away and they are looking for a challenge. Perhaps they have faced widowhood or the spectre of divorce. Then suddenly, after 10,
15	or 20 years of being out of the work force, they have to look for a job for one reason or another.
Our society is very hard on people like that. In looking at an unemployment rate that in real terms in the month of March was 8.5 per cent, it is the young people, the new entrants into the labour force, who are least likely to be able to get that first job to get the experience and possibly develop the skills which will last them for the rest of their lifetime.
I could mention some of the other groups, such as the regional group, people who live on Indian reserves and face 90 per cent unemployment, or people who live in places such as the finance minister's home town, where on Cape Breton Island unemployment in the winter is characteristically very high indeed.
I draw this to the attention of the House because today we have two byelections. The people of Prince Edward Island in the consistency of Cardigan will complete their voting in just a few hours, and an hour after that the polls will close in the constituency of London West. I wonder what is going on in the minds of people who live in the ridings of Cardigan and London West. Do they realize that on Prince Edward Island one year ago, in the month of March, the unemployment rate was horrendously high at 13.4 per cent but that today it is 16 per cent? Do they realize that on that tiny island there are
2.000	fewer people working today than there were one year ago and that the money they would make, if they were still working, would be circulating through the economy and helping the people who run beauty parlors, restaurants and the service industries of the island? But they are not working today. One year ago 6,000 of them were unemployed; today
8.000	are unemployed. The rate has risen from 13.4 per cent to
16	per cent. It began over a decade ago with Liberal cabinets devoted to political gains at the expense of economic reality, aided and abetted by the red rump on the left.
Then let us consider the people of London West. I have data for the city of London. The voters may remember that they returned all the members from London; in 1980 they selected Liberals. One year ago they selected Liberals, and at that time the unemployment rate was 5.5 per cent. Today it is 50 per cent higher at 8.1 per cent. I wonder how many people of London West realize that their unemployment rate is 50 per cent higher than it was a year ago, when they returned every
April 13, 1981

member of that district to sit on the backbenches of the party across the way.


An hon. Member:: And with good reason.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: If one wants to be unemployed, that is good reason to vote for the Liberals; if one wants jobs or a chance to participate, one should consider voting somewhat differently. I wonder if the people of London West who may be having trouble selling their houses or finding jobs realize that in that area today there are 13,000 fewer wage earners. There are
13.000	fewer people who have incomes to spend in that community today. I wonder if the people of London West remember that one year ago there were 10,000 persons unemployed, far too many. In the month of March there were
14.000	people looking for work. I bet there is one more person on every block or in every apartment building looking for work than there was a year ago.
Not only have those people lost the opportunity for earning an income, they have lost the opportunity to develop a sense of self-worth which comes from being a productive member of society. They have lost the opportunity to develop friendships in the work place. The tragedy is not only economic; it affects all aspects of our lives.
Could these effects have been predicted? I bring to the attention of the House one little example which people might remember because it occurred not long ago. The Minister of Finance, aided and abetted by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), brought down a budget last October 28 and gave us the National Energy Program. Those of us from the province of Alberta who were sitting in the House were quick to bring to the attention of the government, in question period and on every possible occasion, the fact that the program would produce greater numbers of unemployed people in Alberta who work within the oil industry and also create a problem for Canadian industry. We said to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources that it would not happen right away, that next spring was the time.
March is the first month for which I have statistics. In the first month of Spring the unemployment rate in the province of Alberta went up 14 per cent. At the same time the Canadian economy lost 10,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector. Are the effects of a bad budget and of a bad energy program predictable? We predicted those effects in late October, early November, and today they are a reality. Unemployment in producing provinces is up 14 per cent; 10,000 jobs have been lost in manufacturing. That was predictable last October because Liberal backbenchers chose to support a cabinet which is more concerned with polticial gain than with economic reality and jobs for people.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I should like to take a minute to refer back to the headline of May 23, 1979 entitled, "Joe Sees Growth, Jobs and Hope". Let me contrast the job side of our nine months in office with the 12 months of the government opposite. During
Unemployment
our nine months in office, even though women have a tough time in Canada getting jobs, an average of 23,000 women per month obtained jobs. In the last 12 months the average is down to 15,000. Our record on behalf of the women of the country, in terms of helping them obtain jobs, was 50 per cent better than the record of the present Liberal cabinet.
As for those young people who are facing a 14.1 per cent unemployment rate, our average increase was 6,000 young people per month who obtained jobs; under the present Liberal cabinet the figure is 2,400. Our record was 150 per cent better than the present Liberal cabinet in terms of creating an economic climate which produced jobs for our young people.
Then there is a special group, those who find themselves unemployed at 55 years of age or over, a forgotten minority in our society. In our nine months in office, 3,000 more people in that category per month obtained jobs. Under the present Liberal cabinet the figure is down to 833 people. Our record for people 55 years of age and over was 300 per cent better than the record of the government.
Looking at the available statistical data for the goods-pro-ducing sector of our society, which includes agriculture, manufacturing and construction, our record was 13,000 jobs per month, whereas the record of the Liberal cabinet is 4,000. Our record was 300 per cent better in the goods-producing sector that produces the real wealth, which is the first step toward a decent sharing program. It is awfully easy to share nothing equally. It is an easy equation; everyone gets nothing. Politically it is more difficult to talk about reality and the need to create real wealth before it can be shared.
In terms of tax spending on the creation of public sector employment, under our regime 667 jobs per month; under this cabinet, 4,750. There was 700 per cent more spending on public sector jobs than there was under our government. We created jobs in the goods-producing sector; that is, manufacturing, construction and agriculture. The government is creating job programs through tax spending. Under our government there were fewer taxpayers but more tax spending. The amount of taxes goes up for those who do work and the results in our society in the long term are not positive.
If you look, Mr. Speaker, at the figures for the regions of our country, you will see that the region which has been in the most trouble under this government in terms of job creation is the Atlantic region. Under our Conservative government there was a 3,444 increase per month in jobs in the Atlantic region. Under the present government the figure is 1,250. Our record was 300 per cent better. Why is this? It is simply because the people had a sense of confidence that they had finally elected a government which understood that Canadians want jobs. They want an economy that grows at a rate where jobs are created so that they can earn a decent income, develop a sense of self-worth and build the kinds of friendships that tend to go along with the work place.
In the face of nine months of demonstration, this government has taken us far away from concern for those people and

April 13, 1981
Unemployment
their future and has confronted us with the constitution, and not even honestly. The government wants the members of this House to adopt an equalization clause which will enshrine in the law of this country the reality that the federal government can bypass provincial governments when it comes to making fiscal payments. This government is destroying the tradition which has been part of our attempt to develop a stronger Atlantic region and a stronger province of Quebec. This government wants the constitutional right in perpetuity to ignore those provinces when it comes to equalization payments. I wonder how the members from Newfoundland and some of the 20 members holding seats in the other Atlantic provinces feel about that. I wonder how the 74 who represent the province of Quebec feel. I wonder how the people of Quebec would feel if they really knew what was happening.
This government tells us about mobility rights. There are two important groups that we should keep in mind when we talk about mobility rights. The first group involves secretaries who live in eight of the ten provinces, in Yukon and the Northwest Territories. They still cannot work for the Department of External Affairs. Then there are the pilots who want to fly airplanes for the Department of Transport. They cannot obtain a job unless they live in the province of Quebec. This government in its day-to-day behaviour is the single largest employer which puts mobility problems in the way of Canadians who want to work in different parts of the country. It also wants a Constitution which enshrines the right of the government to deny the provision of social services to any Canadian who moves across provincial boundaries. This government threatens disadvantaged Canadians by telling them that if they move from province to province they run the risk of not being able to receive health care, family allowances or pensions, or of not receiving a decent education. It wants to deny the provision of social services to the people who need it most.
As this debate continues today I hope that members in the House will listen closely and underline those one million unemployed Canadians who need our help. Maybe after today we will see the kind of cabinet change needed to start on the road to being able to help those people.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have read the motion put forward by the official opposition, which is as follows:
That this House expresses its sorrow and sympathy for the more than one million Canadians who are unable to find work and who, with their families, face an uncertain future, and urges the Prime Minister to endorse this sentiment by shuffling his Cabinet.


Mr. Knowles:: Not many here to shuffle today.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, if that is the answer, then God help us! I want to read to the House something said by a young woman in Toronto. It is an excerpt from the "Metropolitan Social Planning Council Study-Layoffs". She says:
My Dad is unemployed And I hate it
It isn't his fault he hasn't a job
He tries hard enough
His company had to let somebody off
Guess who got picked?
I hate his employers for what they did For the quarrels and tension But especially for making my Dad feel So useless, unwanted, unneeded I hate them for it.
Mr. Speaker, this little girl expresses a sentiment far closer to the truth than an expression of sorrow and sympathy and a shuffle of the cabinet would. Surely that kind of situation justifies more than the idle nonsense expressed in this motion. Even if the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) were to accept this motion and shuffle his cabinet, we would still have the same people. It would not change the cabinet's direction or create a plan or economic strategy. It would not create any kind of vision for the development of this country on behalf of Canadians. Therefore, what would be the use of shuffling the cabinet? What is required is a dramatic change in the attitude of the government toward the needs of the people of Canada and the way in which the natural strengths of this country can and should be used in the interests of all Canadians.
That young 13-year-old girl who says that she hates the people who took the action which created unemployment for her family, created hardship, tension and quarrels, does not need sympathy. She does not need an expression of sorrow. What she and countless other young people who see exactly the same circumstances affecting their families in many communities right across this country need is a plan of action, not an expression of sympathy and sorrow. I want to suggest that there could be no less appropriate motion than the one we have before us.
Earlier today I was asking the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) about an approval given by FIRA which will allow Rockwell to acquire Wescom Canada in Georgetown, and therefore give Rockwell control over the lives of yet another group of employees. Rockwell's record in this country is abysmal. This is the company which from 1975 through 1980 closed down five plants in five different communities in the country. In addition to that, it reduced the work force in two other plants from a combined total of approximately 1,500 to 260. This is a company which says in its application to FIRA that there will be significant benefit, including increased employment, if it is allowed to take over yet another small company. The Minister of Finance told me that he would rather pass that question over to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray). I cannot blame him; he must be embarrassed. I could see the embarrassment on his face. I could see in his eye the horror as he realized that he had approved something in cabinet which is inexcusable. The minister sat there while this measure was approved, and today he did not even remember it because he did not pay sufficient attention to what was before cabinet at the time. He did say he would go out and try to find the detail for me, which at this point is simply an explanation of something which can hardly be explained. It would certainly be an excuse for taking an inexcusable action.
April 13, 1981

1 suggest that it is that kind of action which undermines the viability of the Canadian manufacturing sector. It is that kind of action which makes it possible for that young woman, 13 years old, to speak with such feeling about the effect of a company lay-off on her family. That kind of action does not require sorrow or sympathy. It is the kind of action which requires immediate attention.
This government has absolutely no plan. It has no strategy. It has no vision of Canada. The government does not even have an understanding of the greatness or the potential of this country. Where else in the world would one find a country with resources like ours? Where else in the world would one find a country which has unused manufacturing capacity in excess of 20 per cent? Where else would one find a group of employees laid off in such a vast number, which now exceeds one million? If one would take into account hidden unemployment, the number of unemployed is probably close to 1.4 million, Canadians who should be working, who want to be working, who have been out in the work force looking for jobs, knocking on doors, trying to provide for their families. Where else would you find all of the natural benefits that this country has? Canada, relatively speaking, is self-sufficient in energy; it has the ability to harness its energy, together with its resources and people, to build employment opportunities and a better life for everyone. Where else would you find neglect of such resources? There is no other place. Given that these resources could be mismanaged in the way they have by years of Liberal government and a brief interlude of Tory government, just for seasoning, one wonders just where we are going.
I was looking at some devastating statistics for the first half of last year which show that, in the province of Ontario,
130,000	people were laid off; people were being laid off at the rate of 1,000 for each working day. When we brought this to the attention of the government, the government shrugged. I mean, after all, what could they do? It said: "Well, we'll do the best we can. We'll make some temporary, makeshift work programs. We'll throw a few dollars into each constituency. We'll hire a few people." But did the government bring forward an over-all strategy? Did it do anything about the bank profit margin, the ever-increasing interest rates which undermine consumer purchasing, and the very manufacturing sector which was laying these people off? No, there was just an apology.
The number of people on indefinite lay-off reads like a "Who's Who" in termsof the municipalities of the province of Ontario. In Brantford 750 people were laid off in July; in Chatham-Sarnia, 2,440 people; in Hamilton, 275; in the Kitchener area, 2,950 people; in London-Stratford, 450 people; in Montreal and Quebec-to go outside of Ontario-485 people; in Niagara-St. Catharines, 2,700 people. In northern Ontario, another 115 people; in Oakville, 2,130 people; in Oshawa, 1,320 people. Ottawa-Kingston might interest some hon. members; there were 415 people laid off. These are indefinite lay-offs. In Toronto, 10,335 people were on indefi-
Unemployment
nite lay-off in July of 1980. Most of them have not yet been recalled to work. In Woodstock, 500 people were laid off.
One must ask oneself, how can it be in this country that these statistics are staring us right in the face yet the government can sit and talk about its Constitution? How can it be, with statistics like this and the people of this country suffering as they are, that the government can fail to come forward with an economic program which would make some sense and stimulate consumer purchasing power to allow for a regeneration of the desires and the hopes the people?
I want to relate the most recent statistics, those which dealt with the first half of last year. In The Financial Post dated April 11, 1981, under the normal categories for measuring progress in the economy, average weekly earnings were down from the previous month from $329.37 to $324.97. That means that purchasing power went down. However, the consumer price index in February went from 224.1 to 226.4. Bank loans in February went from 96.80 to 98.57. Housing starts were down from 179 to 177. The all-industry output shows a marginal increase of .2 per cent. The labour force increased .08 per cent. Then one finds that manufacturing capacity usage-taking into account how much we produce and how much of our capacity we are using-has gone down this year to 79.9 per cent from 84.3 per cent last year at this same time. Why? Because the very things I am talking about-consumer purchasing power, the ability of people to go into the marketplace and buy, their wages, every measurable item-are under pressure. There is less being manufactured and less manufacturing capacity being used.
I note with interest that in the month of January manufacturing shipments were down 2.2 per cent; new orders were down 3.5 per cent; inventory was up .8 per cent-all of these facts speaking to an even worsening economic situation in this country and to even greater numbers of people being unemployed.
Where is the government's program? The Tories suggest we shuffle the cabinet. I must ask you, Mr. Speaker, do you not think that in this country it is possible to take advantage of what we have inherited, of what we have by virtue of the strength of the country itself? Surely it is possible for us to take advantage of that and build a society which is second to none. Surely it is possible to harness our energy and other resources, take advantage of industrial capacity, build a nation in which everyone will be able to have a job and where no child will ever have to say what the young child I have quoted said.
I look at plant closings in the province of Ontario in the year 1980. They occurred in every community: Beach Foundry in Ottawa; Bendix in Windsor; Canada Ferro in Brampton; Chrysler in Windsor; Crown Fab in Oakville; Essex Wire in Dunnville; Firestone in Whitby; Ford (Engines) in Windsor; Gabriel in Orangeville; Houdaille in Oshawa; Rockwell in Parry Sound-the same Rockwell I mentioned, incidentally, only a little while ago; Sealed Power in Stratford; Vulcan Equipment in Fergus; Winchester Western in Cobourg. And it goes on and on; one could read for 20 minutes and still not come to the end of the list. We are supposed to feel sympathy
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April 13, 1981
Unemployment
and sorrow for the people rather than demand of the government that there be in place the kinds of requirements which make it necessary to take into account the effect of plant closures and shutdowns on the people in those communities.
When other countries in the world were faced with the kind of economic restructuring that this country is now going through, they began to set up the necessary consultative programs to allow the change-overs to take place. They put in place the requirements which made it necessary for companies that were under economic pressure to still live up to their obligations to their employees and to the communities in which they were located. In Canada, legislation regarding labour standards is generally considered to be within provincial jurisdiction, but in truth that is not necessarily so. There could be and should be an over-all strategy in Ottawa which ties together the strengths of the nation, enables the people of Canada to move freely and to find new employment, and requires that people who receive FIRA approval and government grants live up to their commitments.
What was apparent 30 years ago in places like Sweden is only beginning to become apparent in Canada. Labour-management groups were established in major industry to prepare workers for redundancy two years in advance and to finance relocation and retraining. Unemployment was held down despite massive shifts in the economy. Now that we are faced with the same thing in Canada, why are we not moving ahead? Why do we not require a pooling of resources and that there be the money up front to guarantee employees will be retrained and be able to maintain their families during periods of dislocation? Why do we not require that such communities be repaid for the investment they made in providing the necessary site for the location of those companies? Why do we not put in place the kind of economic strategy that puts the Canadian people first? We should insist that one of the costs of doing business in Canada is that attention be paid to the effect of a particular enterprise on the people employed in it and on their families, and that attention be paid to the effects of relocation and dislocation on the communities involved.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the answer is not easy, but neither is it impossible. It can be found. Others have found it; others have faced it and succeeded. I cannot for the life of me understand why we should be offering sympathy and sorrow in place of action.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond on behalf of the government. I believe all members of the House share the degree of sympathy and concern on this issue that is expressed in the resolution. Where we differ is on the kind of approach that we would propose to take.
I shall begin by saying that I think it is important, when discussing unemployment, to shear away much of the mythology and mystique, and sometimes the misrepresentation, that surrounds the topic. I do not think any of us in this House gain
anything by going through the monthly ritual of bringing out the employment statistics as a weapon for battering the government over the head. I think this matter is so important that it should engage all of us in an effort to discover answers to the problem. In order to do that, we must share a sense of the reality of economic conditions, shear away some of the more florid and flamboyant rhetoric-with apologies to some members who preceded me-and give an accurate portrayal of what is taking place in this country. In this way we will have a road map to guide us.
I do not think any of us gain by constantly shooting into the air great clouds of smoke and fog in an effort to cause confusion. I will try to dissipate some of that fog and smoke generated by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes). I do not think he was as relevant with his remarks today as he was two weeks ago, when he spent half an hour of the time of the House trying to decide what time it was. His remarks were far more relevant in that debate than they are in this. He did not do his party or this House a service by bringing forward a convoluted tabulation of statistics which was obviously geared to certain election proceedings taking place outside this House, and he totally obscured the reality of what is taking place in this country.
It is interesting to see how people use statistics in different ways. I think it is necessary to provide some correction to the position taken by the hon. member in the propositions he put forward. First of all, he tried to indicate that unemployment is uniquely and solely the problem of this country. He suggested, as did the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans), that Canada had the worst employment problem in the world. As you and I know, Mr. Speaker, that is totally contrary to the truth. Over the past decade, even over the past year, we have had the highest growth in employment of any industrial country with the exception of Australia, which this year had a rate .1 per cent higher than ours. In the period 1973 to 1979, the employment growth rate in Canada was 3.2 per cent, compared to the United States where it was 2.5 per cent, Japan, 1 per cent, West Germany minus .6 per cent, Italy 1.5 per cent, Sweden 1.1 per cent and the United Kingdom .4 per cent.
For all the flourish of the hon. member opposite, he does not deal with the facts. Last year 326,000 jobs were created in this country. In the last three months 140,000 jobs were created. In the last year 178,000 jobs were created for women alone. The employment rate for women has dropped from 7.5 per cent, when the Conservatives took power, to 6.2 per cent this year.
We can take some satisfaction from those facts, Mr. Speaker. They are not the total answer, but we should not be running our country down and denying the progress made in the light of very serious and negative world-wide economic conditions.
It is crazy to talk about the employment picture while avoiding what is going on in the world around us. Does the hon. member for Calgary West, the oil-producing centre of Canada, forget that oil prices have gone up 500 per cent, 600 per cent, 700 per cent, 800 per cent since 1973? This has generated huge profits and enormous inflationary pressures on our economy and every other economy. Is the hon. member not
April 13, 1981

aware that, in order to fight those highly inflated pressures, all governments would have had to introduce stronger monetary and fiscal controls in an effort to keep down the rate of inflation?
I have heard the hon. member and other members of the Tory opposition speak with great fondness of the economic posture taken by the Conservative Party in Great Britain. Does he know that the unemployment rate in Great Britain today is 11.3 per cent, 4 per cent higher than ours? That is the result of the very kinds of policies that are advocated by the hon. member for York-whatever-it-is, the "hon. slasher" and other members, in the Crosbie budget.
I have heard the hon. member for Calgary West speak at great length about the injustices of the National Energy Program. He said it is going to ruin the economy. Let me point out for his interest a second statistical fact, that every time a dollar is added to the price of a barrel of oil, it has an impact of 0.1 per cent reduction in the employment growth of this country. That adds up to 11,000 jobs. If we compare the pricing put forward in our National Energy Program with the proposal advanced in the Crosbie budget, we see that we would have had an additional 140,000 people unemployed in this country by 1984. This is the kind of hypocrisy and double standard that hon. members opposite are trying to perpetuate. They proposed an economic policy that would lead to higher unemployment, less sharing of the wealth of this country, and a greater and more serious impact upon the non-oil producing areas.
Let me point out another fact which I frankly find funny. The hon. member for Calgary West has a hobby-horse that he rides about the growth in public service employment. Day in and day out he castigates this awful federal government for adding to the employment rolls of the public service and letting the private sector go free. If he were to look at the Statistics Canada reports a little more carefully, he would see that the growth rate in the public service at the federal level was 1.5 per cent. The real growth in public service employment came from the provincial governments. Over the last quarter it reached 14 per cent. It was the provincial premiers, upon whom he daily lavishes his fondness, who contributed to the growth of the public service in Canada of 14 per cent versus the federal 1.5 per cent.
It is time we got down to the real facts and realized what is taking place regarding the employment situation in this country. It is time we forgot the fol-de-rol and the fog which the hon. member from Calgary is trying to create. He stands in this House with all the drama at his command and says "Think of the poor people in Prince Edward Island. Think what they face today as they go to the polls, comparing the records of the Liberal and Conservative governments."
I would like to make one comparison which the people in Prince Edward Island, I think, would find interesting. It was the Conservative government which cancelled and decimated the direct employment programs which provided hundreds of
Unemployment
jobs for people in Prince Edward Island. In fact, close to $45 million has been spent this year alone in direct employment grants. This has provided for the development of new wharves and harbours and new programs for long-range economic development. As well, it has provided for the introduction of the new, innovative program to develop long-term community employment.
That is what the people of Prince Edward Island gained by the defeat of the Conservative government a year ago. They gained the assistance of government in ensuring there would be employment wherever it was necessary. The Conservative government cancelled the direct employment programs which are absolutely necessary in the provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, northern Manitoba and northern Alberta. If the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) had asked for more money to create jobs for the Indian bands, he would have been in a sorry pickle if there had been a Conservative government sitting on this side, because there was no program from which he could have received money.
Let us not get involved in this great gnashing of teeth; instead, let us get down to the real issue of employment, which is: How do we direct government programs in the most effective way? That is the question. The hon. member for Hamil-ton-Mountain said that we do not have a plan of action, that there is nothing there.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: That is absolutely right.


Lloyd Axworthy: I take issue with the hon. member for Hamilton-Mountain and point out to him how we have a well devised strategy, one on which we are working and which is having success. It is pointing in the direction we have to go in the 1980s. We have tried to do a careful analysis of who it is that is unemployed. The hon. member from Calgary kept talking about the other person in his block. In Alberta that is not much of a problem because the unemployment rate there is 4.1 per cent. For males over 25 in Canada the unemployment rate in Alberta is only 4.5 per cent. By most economist's standards, that is virtually full employment within that specific group. You must take into account that a lot of people change jobs.


John Horton McDermid: Changing jobs?


Lloyd Axworthy: The hon. member from Brampton obviously has economic training, which is something to be desired. He should know that each month 300,000 people come into the work force and 300,000 people leave the work force. People do change jobs, you know. They look for improvement. They provide for new opportunities. People try to go where the jobs are. There is obviously a constant flow in and out of the unemployment ranks.
The hon. member talks with great pride about his government's record concerning jobs for women. I will tell the House what our record is. His mathematics are not very good. We created 182,000 jobs in the last 12 months; in other words,
15,000	jobs per month for women in Canada.

April 13, 1981
Unemployment


Flora Isabel MacDonald: You do so much for women.


Lloyd Axworthy: That is true. I will talk to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) because she has a bad memory when it comes to what we are doing.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I have a great memory.


Lloyd Axworthy: She prefers to latch on to the sensational. I cannot be responsible for the sensational tactics of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: You find it tiresome, I know.


Lloyd Axworthy: She is far more interested in her publicity and press clippings than in actual performance and progress, as we saw in the record of her own government.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Horton McDermid: Look who's calling the kettle black.


Lloyd Axworthy: The record speaks for itself.


Mr. Jarvis:: It is despicable.


Lloyd Axworthy: I do not have to get on the soap box, as does the hon. member from Kingston to proclaim her intent. Our record proves what we have done. Our record shows the kinds of achievements we have made.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Some record.


Lloyd Axworthy: It goes back to the analysis that we made that hard core unemployment is concentrated on people in certain regions and groups.


William Herbert Jarvis: You cannot believe this?


Lloyd Axworthy: If you really look at who is unemployed, it is not most Canadians. Unemployment is concentrated among certain people in regions of Canada where there is no economic development. That is one reason this government in its early days established a DREE program. We have spent $600 million on DREE this year. This was to try to bring economic development to the poorer regions of Canada, to make sure they would have an equal opportunity. That is why we put the concept of equalization into the charter of rights in the constitutional package, so disparagingly talked about by members opposite. It was done to ensure that the poorer regions of Canada would have a fair share of the revenues. The hon. member for Calgary ignores that resource revenues for the people of Alberta are 15 times what they are for the people of Prince Edward Island. This concept of equalization in the charter of rights can somehow rectify that disparity so that there can be some kind of common standard across Canada. We think a charter of rights is important because of the need to equalize opportunities in this country.


Pauline Jewett: That does not have a thing to do with it, Lloyd.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let us talk about the necessity to equalize those opportunities. That is where the unemployment issue really resides. Our strategy was to begin to allocate our programs and resources to meet hard core unemployment. First, we reintroduced the direct employment programs. They were geared in terms of allocation to the poorer regions and areas of Canada. It may be of some interest to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, who has such a scoffing attitude toward the record of this government, that over 50 per cent of the participants in those programs were women. That is because we introduced an affirmative action program, something which her government never had the guts or ability to do.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Lloyd Axworthy: The hon. member can laugh, but that simply shows how committed she is to the issue. Rather than standing up and promoting the development of affirmative action programs to reduce the work barriers faced by native people, women and those who are disabled or handicapped she scoffs at it. That shows her commitment to the problems of women. She scoffs at our attempts at affirmative action programs.


William Herbert Jarvis: You are beginning to take yourself seriously again.


Lloyd Axworthy: That just shows how really committed the hon. member is.


Pauline Jewett: Talk to your colleague.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Find out from other women, Lloyd.


Lloyd Axworthy: Let me talk about the non-traditional training programs which we brought in for women to assist them to move into new occupations which they have been prevented-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: You are getting tiresome.


Lloyd Axworthy: We may be getting tiresome, but frankly, I find the hon. member opposite really demonstrates her true colours, which have nothing to do with the causes she espouses. She does not support real efforts to bring about improvements, progress or reform. All I ask is that the people of this country look at the record of her government in these areas, at the cancellation of employment programs, the refusal to move toward an affirmative action program, and find out whose record really stands up under scrutiny.


An hon. Member:: Are you smarting under it?


William Herbert Jarvis: Where is Bud Cullen?


Lloyd Axworthy: Let us go to the issue which was raised by the hon. member for Hamilton-Mountain, namely the issue of lay-offs. He reamed off page after page of lay-offs. He asked why we did not do something about them. Somehow in his flow of rhetoric he forgets the introduction of the industrial adjustment program. That programs has been geared exactly to the very problem he pinpoints. This country is going through
April 13, 1981

technological change. Industries do go through transitions. We cannot as a government stop progress. We cannot say to industries which have been producing products for 30 and 40 years that when some new innovation comes along they should not produce, that we should subsidize and support false economies. Of course, when industry changes, jobs change too. We must provide some support for those communities which are hard hit.
It is not just government alone that has this responsibility. As a member of a party which establishes close alliances with trade unions, it might be helpful if the hon. member spoke to some of the unions about the kind of immobility which is built into certain agreements in the areas of pension plans and seniority rights. For instance, people who are laid off from work in Windsor refuse to go 100 miles down the road where there are jobs because they lose their seniority. I sympathize with them because that work is their basic right. That is why we have built into the industrial adjustment program ways of trying to promote mobility of workers so they can move their families and bring their talents and skills to areas where there are jobs.
The paradox being faced in Canada right now is that in certain regions of the country we are short of skilled workers. In western Canada alone we are short of 35,000 to 40,000 workers. It is difficult to provide a flow of people from areas where jobs are disappearing. Mobility is one of the real issues we must face in Canada. A worker in a community will build the home in which his family resides and will, of course, be reluctant to move. These workers have a vested commitment. It is their form of property rights. There has to be some support and protection of the rights of those workers.
That is why the industrial adjustment program provides retraining assistance for those who want to be retrained, provides mobility assistance for those who want to move and provides industrial grants for bringing new jobs into areas. We admit this is an innovation. It is a new program. But we think it important to try this program in order to determine its effectiveness. If it works out we can begin to apply it in other communities across Canada.
The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain is wrong when he says there is no strategy. Of course there is, and it is there in the programs. It has been announced and is now being implemented. I suggest to the hon. member that rather than standing on his feet scorching the earth with the flame of his remarks, he might be far more effective if he looked at what is happening in Sydney, Windsor and Sorel and found out just how effective that program was for people in those commu-nites. He would find out how important it was to give them some hope and opportunity for the future, to give them some choice as to the kind of future they want to face. It gets you nowhere to engage in false rhetoric. We would ask members of the parties opposite, particularly the New Democratic Party which has such a concern for the labour force in this country, to provide support for these kinds of initiatives, and to give us
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the kind of backing we need to develop and expand further programs. We will not get it from the Tories, we know that. They cut programs out. They do not provide that kind of assistance. The record shows they were not doing so. We might be able to look to members of the NDP for some assistance in this area.
Finally, we should also look at some of the efforts we have made in terms of training. There is no doubt in my mind that the one way to break through hard core unemployment is by providing new training skills and new opportunities.
The composition of the work force is changing. We are now going into the era of the 1980s when there will be far more demand for blue collar skills, for technical skills, for manufacturing and construction skills. We must prepare people for those opportunities. During the 1970s the major growth was in the service industry, in areas which provided tremendous opportunity for women and young people because they were the easiest to move into.
However, in the 1980s the work force is going to change. Job opportunities will be in the manufacturing, goods-produc-ing and construction areas. Those are the areas from which a lot of people up to this time have been excluded. This is why in the revised critical skills training program we have tried to bring about a different combination of support, so that people can get on-the-job skilled training while having the opportunity to go to an institution to improve their academic skills. This is why we introduced the non-traditional program for women. They have found difficulty getting into new occupational areas. We are now providing major subsidies for people moving into areas to which they have been denied access.
Hon. members ask what we have done. On May 1 a brand new employment program will be introduced which gears the resources of this country toward assisting the disabled and handicapped, one of the groups which finds it most difficult to get employment. We will also be gearing our employment program toward the economically disadvantaged, those who have been out of the work force for 20 weeks. It will provide an 85 per cent subsidy to employers to bring them into the job market and will provide the re-entry about which the hon. member for Calgary West talked. He must have missed his mail or has not been looking at the paper on his desk, because there was an announcement that this program will be commencing on May 1.
This again is an attempt to target our employment training program at those groups which need help most. We want to zero in on exactly where help is needed. We want to get to the chronically unemployed, bring them in to the work force and supply the support needed to do that. We want to get the private sector employers interested in overcoming some of the biases or discriminations which have faced economically disadvantaged persons. We want to provide not only the subsidy rate for the handicapped person, but incentives to employers to change equipment and facilities; that is, to build ramps and bring in new equipment.
I do not consider this is necessarily all we can do, but it is a beginning. We have other important programs, like the eco-

April 13, 1981
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nomic development program in respect of which we have received close to 80 applications from across this country. This is a way of providing long-term employment, working with community corporations in low employment areas.
If the hon. member wants to know what we are doing, those are the kind of efforts we are making. We still believe more can be done. That is one reason we have a parliamentary task force, and why in a matter of a very few short weeks we will be tabling in this House and presenting to Parliament the findings of the reviews we have been undertaking in our own department in respect of unemployment insurance and labour markets. In this way we can provide a further new direction which can be debated in this House, by labour and by business, in order to establish a different approach to employment, training efforts and initiatives for the decade of the 1980s.
I think we are trying to make an effort to respond to the changing composition of the work force and of unemployment. We are doing it in the context of what is real, what is practical and what is effective, not what is purely rhetorical and irrelevant.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, we have been treated this afternoon to three entirely different speeches. We have just finished listening to the hon. minister of hoodwinking. I guess I am one of those terribly cruel, uncaring Progressive Conservatives who does not care for the little people or the unemployed, who wants to see them unemployed. That is a complete and utter falsehood which he travels around the country spreading. I want it to be known right now that this kind of nonsense will not be swallowed by the people of Canada. The people of Canada are too smart to accept that kind of gobbledygook.
The minister went on to say how cruel our budget was. The National Welfare Council said it was the fairest budget it had seen for the poor people in Canada. The Canadian people will not accept the minister's nonsense, and I want to tell him that the Progressive Conservative Party does not run Canada down. We like to build it up. We are a party of builders. For him to stand and say we do nothing but run it down is utter nonsense; and he should know better than to stand in this House and spread that sort of nonsense in the hope that the Canadian people will accept it from him.
Let me read a motion that was presented to this House. It reads:
That this House deplores the complete inaction of the government, after six months in office, with regard to the creation of jobs, regrets the inhumane cutbacks in the Canada Works program that have eliminated hundreds of communities across Canada that have been suffering from high levels of unemployment and condemns the government for its failure to date to bring forward a comprehensive employment strategy for the coming year.
That might sound like a Progressive Conservative motion, but it was not. It was one brought forward some time ago by a well known Liberal, I think the Secretary of State and Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox). At that time he was condemning the government for a number of things. Let us see what he is recorded as having said in Hansard last December. He was extremely critical of the government at that particular
time for inaction on programs. Yet the amazing thing is that the statistics he brought out showed that the unemployment rate would go from 11 per cent to 11.4 per cent by the year 1981. Indeed this is a novel way of looking at job creation in this country. The unemployment rate, as we now know, is well over 12 per cent. This minister is not saying anything about that today.
The hon. member for Longueuil (Mr. Olivier) said on December 6, 1979, during the same debate:
Mr. Speaker, in an affluent society such as this, suggestions that a 7 per cent or 8 per cent unemployment rate is acceptable are simply shameful.
I have to agree. The figure is up to 11 per cent or 12 per cent. I believe he is the chairman of the Quebec caucus. Where is he now? Why is he not standing up and being heard by the Canadian people? Where is he? Why is he not condemning the government for its inaction?
I take umbrage at what the minister has been saying. He has been going around saying 130,000 jobs would have been lost if the energy policy of the Progressive Conservative Party had been implemented. Yet I find that the province of Ontario is losing jobs every day because of inaction in the energy field. People are being laid off because they are not getting the contracts from out west which they should be getting. Those contracts would be going to Canadian companies. Canada's potential is unlimited and phenomenal. I have travelled, and I find that the only country which comes close to Canada is Brazil. Brazil has a great future. It has resources and people, and so does Canada.
The problem of the shortage of skilled labour should have been addressed years ago. Instead of training Canadians to do Canadian jobs, this government has seen fit to bring skills in and not train our own young people. Today the statistics on unemployment among young people are shameful. Among young people aged 15 to 24 there are 452,000 unemployed. A year ago 439,000 were unemployed. The figure is up 3 per cent. Unemployment among men in the 15-year to 24-year age group is up 4.2 per cent, and among women it is up 1.1 per cent. Those percentages may not sound extremely high, but if we look at our population as a whole, we can see that the problem is getting much worse, not better.
Among people in the 15 to 19 age group, 7,000 more are unemployed. This means that young people coming into the work force-about whom the minister brags all the time-are in fact not getting jobs. They are not getting the meaningful jobs they should be getting. A report by Statistics Canada recently said that 25 per cent of the young people who are getting jobs are under-employed. The ministry is forecasting 13 per cent to 14 per cent unemployment among young people this summer. That is completely unacceptable.
The minister talks about his various programs. I like to call them make-work projects. There is nothing permanent about them. In my community over the winter the Canada Works program provided 12'A jobs. They were not permanent jobs; they will last perhaps 40 to 50 weeks, but no more. These are
April 13, 1981

strictly stop-gap measures, but they look good to the public. They throw out a little money; they provide 12 jobs in the riding of Brampton-Georgetown, 14 jobs in Oakville and 10 jobs in Mississauga; and on it goes. However, they just do not provide meaningful employment, especially for young people.
We spent Friday going over applications for summer employment. There were 24 applications submitted in my constituency. I think we accepted 11 applications. Those were all we could accept because of the limited budget. Summer jobs were provided for 20 young people. The minister brags about how wonderful this program is and about what a great job it does for young people. I say that is nonsense. If we had a program which provided incentives to the private sector to hire young students for the summer, we would see many more employed and much more meaningful employment.
The Progressive Conservative goal was to create a climate which would encourage the private sector to have confidence in the government. That is very important. Employers are skeptical of government programs. They cannot face the paper work involved. Private industry and government must work to solve this problem, but for some reason the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) does not trust the private sector. He wants to do everything through grants and special programs.
I can give an example of how the small business person is skeptical of the government. Recently a tender was sent out by the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) to 52 small businesses in Canada. Only ten applications were returned to him. Twenty-eight tender calls were sent out in Ontario, but there were only four responses. Why? A couple of the small businessmen came to me and explained why; it was the paper work. They have to go through an absolutely horrendous amount of paper work to tender on jobs. That is ridiculous. My point is that the private sector does not trust the government. That is a shame, because it should and they should work together. However, they do not.
The minister continues to create little programs to throw a few dollars here and a few dollars there in the hope that that will solve the problem. Private employment incentive programs introduced by the Progressive Conservatives would have stimulated employment by allowing employers to claim $80 weekly tax credits for providing jobs. They would have had the option of carrying unused portions of the credits forward. That policy addressed a couple of problems. It addressed itself to the employment of youth, which is very important. Youth is a very major target group. I would say almost half a million youths in this country are unemployed. The statistics say the number is a little smaller, but those are the ones we know of. The Progressive Conservative policy would have led us away from the trend, which the Liberals have established, toward creating a society in which young people are frustrated with the job market. What we are creating is a generation of unemployment insurance and welfare recipients. Young people-and they will tell the minister this-are fed up. They want continued employment, and they want futures they can plan.
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What do we do in our apprenticeship programs? There are ten months of on-the-job training-hands on training-and then two months of classroom work. What do they do in the two months? They apply for unemployment insurance. The first thing we teach in an apprenticeship program is how to apply for unemployment insurance. That is a ridiculous approach. There must be better ways. As a matter of fact, I recommended one in this House to the minister of state responsible for student loans which would make far more sense than teaching young people to become dependent on unemployment insurance during an apprenticeship program. That is completely unacceptable.
We hear horror stories about how terrible our employment plans would have been and about how they would not have created any jobs. That, of course, is complete nonsense. Up to
105.000	young people could have been placed in meaningful jobs, 89,000 of them in the private sector. We proposed a youth employment secretariat, which would have zeroed in on youth employment programs, monitored existing programs and co-operated with the private sector and provincial governments to harmonize programs. Right now governments are going off in all directions. There are some good provincial programs, but the federal programs are not in any way tied in with what is happening in the provinces. That situation must change as well.
Our national youth service program would have placed
14.000	young people in Canada with the volunteer sector. They would have been working on federal, provincial or community projects. They would not have had to depend on unemployment insurance. That would have been a very important program.
According to the present minister, $100 million would have been spent to create jobs for 49,000 students. That means that in my constituency 20 students will get jobs. Under our program we proposed to set aside the same amount of money, which is rather ironic. But it would have created 70,000 jobs,
21.000	more than is planned by the present government. That is poor planning. I grant that money is being spent on job creation, but it is not being spent wisely.
I wish to point out a couple of other matters the minister raised during his criticism of the use of statistics which I found rather interesting. He talked about how the federal government will increase its staff by only 1.5 per cent. I note with interest that the energy minister has been given permission to increase his staff by 507 bureaucrats this year, bringing the department staff to 4,269.
To let one department grow by 13 per cent and still maintain that 1.5 per cent level, other ministries must shrink. The health department will have to say goodbye to 354 employees this year and Indian affairs will lose 398 people this year. I ask the federal government, who cares for the people? So much for the social service Field. Heaven knows there is a great deal of work to be done in Indian affairs. I am sure my colleague will

April 13, 1981
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have some comments on that later. Obviously the social policy field is the clear loser.
Again we hear how devastating our budget was, how hard it was on the poor people. However, a professor from Ottawa's Carleton University says that this government's failure to count the effect of higher oil and gas prices on lower income groups through an energy tax credit, which had been the feature of the 1979 Conservative budget of John Crosbie, indicates the relative abandonment of social priorities.
The minister likes to say that by the time the next election rolls around the baby boom will be moving through and we will be very short of labour in the not too distant future. A few years ago that might have been the case, but recent studies suggest that that is really wishful thinking. For example, in Executive magazine of December, 1980, John Kettle wrote:
At the end of the 1980s, the labour force should still be growing at around 2 per cent a year, and this is most unlikely to precipitate a labour shortage.
I therefore say to the government that it is time they took a long, hard look at their programs and policies. They should zero in on the young people of Canada who are experiencing unemployment rates of 13, 14 and 15 per cent. In a country with a future like Canada, that is completely unacceptable. In fact, it is a national disgrace.
I hope the minister will zero in on this area and present some policies which will give the young people of Canada some long-term, meaningful employment, jobs and careers they can count on for years to come.


Mr. Rene Cousineau (Gatineau):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. Minister of Employment and Immigration for the honour he is affording me, especially today, by inviting me to speak to this motion of the official opposition concerning employment in Canada. I did say "especially today" because an election is being held today in Quebec. I did my duty this morning and I take a few moments to invite and urge the people of Quebec, particularly in my federal riding of Gatineau, to exercise their right to vote so that tomorrow morning the electors will not look at themselves in the mirror while shaving and say: I should have gone out to vote. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, the best way to safeguard the right to vote is to exercise it.
Mr. Speaker, a debate such as this one is indeed what we need, for it will enable us to set Canada's employment situation in its true and full perspective and to point out-and this will be the thrust of my speech-how and to what extent the federal government has contributed to create jobs throughout Canada. Of course, in a system of free economy such as ours where people choose to do what they want and where we experience difficulties which affect certain regions or certain industries, there is unemployment. But we should not forget that in spite of that our workers enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. Unfortunately people do seem to forget that Canadians, be they in Quebec, Ontario or
Alberta, have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Should it be recalled as well that in our economic system the main responsibility for creating jobs rests with the private sector? The role of governments, including the federal government, is to help private industry and create a more favourable climate for growth and expansion through budgetary or other measures.
Mr. Speaker, hardly a few weeks ago the federal government selected five regions, including Tracy-Sorel and Sept-lles, both in Quebec, where it launched a $350 million assistance program to help regions and industries going through particularly hard times. Incidentally the federal government's job-creating role has undergone tremendous changes in recent years so that it could make a larger contribution in the creation of employment. Mr. Speaker, former manpower and immigration ministers used to hold responsibilities which were limited to placing and training workers.
During the seventies, the government launched various schemes, including the Local Initiative Program and the Opportunities for Youth Program, which once developed and improved became, for instance, the Canada Works Program, and now the community development projects which benefit Canadians by the thousands who are happy to be involved in useful projects hundreds of millions of dollars.
The integration of the Unemployment Insurance Commission into the Department of Employment and Immigration has favoured also a better co-ordination of the services to the benefit of the workers. Finally, we should not overlook that, at the same time, the federal government shares with the provinces the cost of workers' training to the tune of $800 million. I would be remiss not to mention that in the areas of training and retraining as well as job creation, the department pays special attention to the particular needs of the young, the women, the Indians and the handicapped. But today, Mr. Speaker, I should like to deal with the Federal Government's employment programs, namely, the Community Development Projects, the Community Services Projects, the Local Economic Development Assistance (LEDA), the New Technology Employment Program, and finally, the Summer Youth Employment Program.
Under the community development program, government assistance is granted to all areas of the country, with special emphasis on areas of high unemployment. Last fall, for example, $1,400,000 were committed to special projects in the Windsor area where many auto workers were laid off. Also, $7 million were committed to programs set up by natives in various regions. This was in addition to the $32.6 million provided through the local economy development assistance program and aimed at native communities across Canada. Also, Mr. Speaker, $10 million were added to the worker training program budget for special native requirements.
April 13, 1981

With regard to the community development program which, as we all know, is aimed at helping local organizations which develop and administer temporary job opportunities for the unemployed, I am pleased to report that as of April 2 last, 3,842 projects had been funded through federal grants for a total of $100,249,400. A little over $40 million were earmarked for community renewal and development projects, $11 million for fish breeding and related industries, $9 million for tourism, over $7 million for long term local economic development, with the remainder being split between conservation, housing, environmental clean up, and other local or regional economic initiatives.
The purpose of the community services program is to help support projects lasting up to three years and aimed at creating jobs for the unemployed, especially the young, the handicapped women, and native people. Among the organizations which have actively supported this program, let us mention the Chambers of Commerce, the YMCAs and the YWCAs, as well as other organizations serving the handicapped and other special needs groups of our society.
There were 456 projects approved, for a total of 1,080 jobs, and some 336 of those projects will last almost three years and, in many cases, will lead to permanent jobs. This program is still at the experimental stage, but has already been enthusiastically received by many social groups. The purpose of the program is to help such non-profit organizations as day care centres, distress centres, and senior citizens agencies, as well as to promote the development of voluntary services and help them become independent.
Particular attention is paid to programs for native people, women and immigrants. About a quarter of the projects will be directed to women, 14 per cent to native people and 12 per cent to immigrants. The federal cabinet has approved allocation of $11 million for this program during the fiscal year 1981-82. Mr. Speaker, the new technology employment program is designed to provide employment for the graduates of specialized courses in technical and scientific areas who have trouble finding employment in their field. It allows small businesses, research centres, as well as associations, community organizations and even individuals to receive salary subsidies to create jobs in research and development. The department has already received 647 applications which could result in the creation of 1,225 jobs. Sixty-two percent of applications come from small businesses and 72 per cent are directly related to research and development.
Mr. Speaker, the federal contribution to salaries can go as high as 75 percent up to a maximum of $290 per week per job for a maximum period of 12 months. The maximum amount that can be paid to an individual employer is $150,000. As I stated earlier, most of the recipients under this program are small businesses, but there are also other major employment sources in universities and colleges (13.14 per cent) and research centres (6.33 percent). Funds amounting to $6.6
Unemployment
million have been allocated to this program for 1980-81, and it is expected, Mr. Speaker, that the federal contribution for 1981-82 will exceed $7.4 million. Since the end of the current fiscal year, 56 new applications have been received and are now being processed.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to tell this House about another important job creation program known as LEDA, or the Local Economic Development Assistance Program, which is administered jointly by the Commission of Employment and Immigration of Canada and the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. This program innovates in the field of community development. Its purpose is to assist small and medium size semi-rural communities which unfortunately always have a high unemployment rate, on the condition, Mr. Speaker, that these communities make themselves some effort to ensure the success of their economic development. This program is in two stages. During the first stage, the community can receive up to $50,000 for planning purposes. Acceptance of a development project leads to the operational stage, during which a LEDA Corporation can receive $250,000 a year for three years. This can be used to develop economic projects or studies or to support existing or even planned businesses. The projects of 13 communities have already been approved for an amount of up to $50,000 since they are only at the initial phase. It is expected for the fiscal year 1980-81 that approval will be given to 874 projects in which about 10,195 people, including 42 percent of young people and 32 percent of women, will take part. Finally, Summer Canada will provide this year $76.7 million to create employment for about 32,800 students.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to point out that in my riding, that of Gatineau, the department spent over $250,000 to create jobs for students. Those students must all be listening to this debate, and it is important that today's youth should listen to this debate; they will get jobs through the Canada manpower centres. A part of the $21.7 million allotted this program is redistributed by various federal departments and organizations. Past experience as well as unemployment rates and regional job opportunities for students are taken into account. The same criteria will be used for the other part of the $46 million program administered by the Employment and Immigration Commission on which hon. members will be consulted to find out whether or not they are in favour of setting up local advisory committees. The projects to be given priority will concern parks, recreation camping grounds and services, health and social services, energy conservation and renewable energy, tourism, arts and culture, as well as services for the handicapped.
Mr. Speaker, I close on these words. I am optimistic about the future of our country. The minister and his department have made efforts and much has been undertaken. I congratulate the minister on the programs he has introduced, and I feel

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I can use the words he has used time and time again: This is only a start and not the end; it is only the start towards a better future.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for North Vancouver-Burnaby (Mr. Cook)-Housing-Effect of inflation on industry and home owners; the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert)- Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Possibility of compensatory payments to Ontario and Quebec; the hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid)-Supply and Services-Re-opening of contract to construct F-18 fighter aircraft.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
Consideration resumed on motion of Mr. Hawkes.
Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to address the motion which is before the House at the present time. I know that a number of things have been said about the rising unemployment, which is increasing right across Canada.
In his remarks the minister compared unemployment conditions in Canada with those in Great Britain. I suggest it is a real fallacy to compare a country such as Canada, a relatively new country with boundless resources from coast to coast, indeed offshore as well, with a country like Great Britain, with its economic conditions and hardships. I suggest that the government is not addressing itself to the problems that face us today in Canada right across this country. The number of programs which have been introduced by this government, notably the National Energy Program in the budget of last fall, have clearly done nothing but put a damper on the economic growth which could be taking place in this country from coast to coast.
I would like to limit my remarks to a problem which I see increasing very drastically. It is borne out very clearly in documentation from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Before I continue I would like to provide a bit of the background. In the past two weeks members of the Bigstone band, which is a small reserve in northeastern Alberta led by Chief William Beaver, walked 240 miles from the reserve to the city of Edmonton, specifically to the Department of Indian Affairs office, to draw attention to their plight. I am talking about living conditions but, more important, their walk has been termed "a walk for economic equality". Their chant has been: "We want jobs, we want jobs." There is a fallacy abroad in our land, and unfortunately some people believe it-one wonders if members of the government believe it as well-that Indians are lazy and do not want to work. I would like to remind the government that Indian people who walk 240 miles to demand jobs are not lazy. These people are sincere in their efforts to gain economic equality with their white brothers.


Mrs. AppoIIoni:: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member opposite has just accused Liberal members of saying that Indians are lazy. No Liberal member has said that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The hon. member for Athabasca.


Jack Wendele Shields: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is obvious that the hon. member who rose on a point of order was not listening to my remarks. I suggest that rather than stand behind the curtain she remain in her chair; then perhaps she will hear what I have to say.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jack Wendele Shields: the programs which have been offered by the government to assist native people. In 1964 an estimated 36 per cent of the Indian population received social assistance or welfare. In 1977-78, between 50 per cent and 70 per cent received social assistance. In a matter of 13 to 14 years the number of Indian people who received social assistance increased from 30 per cent to between 50 and 70 per cent.
One must then draw the conclusion that we are not actively providing economic opportunity, training or jobs. In the past ten years, there has been a total investment in the Indian communities across Canada of $250 million, creating 10,000 jobs. We must create 20,000 to 30,000 new jobs in the next 10 years. What is happening? Economic development funds are being withdrawn and budgets are being reduced. I will give the House a comparison. In the fiscal year just ending, in Wabas-ca, the people of Chief William Beaver of the Bigstone band said enough is enough and decided to walk from northeastern Alberta to Edmonton, a distance of 240 miles, suffering severe hardship. Indeed, some women were in their fifties and sixties and had arthritis. Little children also joined the walk. But they completed that march because last year alone $1.5 million was spent in that community on social assistance and welfare, but only $40,000 was spent on economic development. That shows the priority that the present government places on economic development in native communities.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) has now been given the responsibility, through the western Canada development fund which gives priority to the economic development of native peoples, to search out and develop the economic viability of various reserves so that native Indians people on the reserves can be gainfully employed. We hear stories from the Secretary of State (Mr. Fox), from Indian affairs, from manpower, about various programs that the government are throwing out all the time to create employment.
Certainly, some programs were developed. There was the Canada development program where communities submitted projects and said: "These are the things we're going to develop in our communities and it is going to create so many manhours of employment." But they are stop-gap measures. They are like frosting. There is nothing underneath. They remind me of the great big cake one sometimes sees in the lobby of a hotel, with candles and frosting, but if one cuts through the frosting there is nothing but a cardboard shell. There is nothing inside; there is no substance.
We must project a five or ten-year program and say, "This is what we are going to do with economic development."
I hear the comment that we are spending too much money on Indian people. Federal government expenditures for Indians increased 14 per cent per capita in real terms between 1970-71 and 1978-79, a period of nine years. At the same time, there was 128 per cent per capita growth in other federal social programs. Other federal social programs increased 128 per cent, but programs and expenditures aimed directly at the
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Indian people in that same period of nine years increased only 14 per cent. We know that that 14 per cent does not even keep up with inflation.
By all conservative estimates, Indian unemployment in Canada reaches anywhere from 35 to 75 per cent, depending on the locality. I ask all hon. members to think for a moment. What constituency would accept an unemployment rate ranging from 35 to 75 per cent? Not one. There would be such a furore developed in the community that hon. members opposite would not be sitting in the House of Commons; they would be thrown out on their ears.
The same would be said of any government which allowed that kind of unemployment to exist in any community. I am talking about white communities. However, it is an accepted fact that there is 35 per cent to 75 per cent unemployment right across Canada in Indian communities. We create situations where we are prepared to spend, on one band, on one reserve, $1.5 million in welfare, which is destructive, rather than spend $40,000 for economic development in a community which would create jobs. These are not my figures. These are figures that come right out of the survey prepared by the Indian affairs and northern development department. I have more copies if hon. members want them.
Let us talk for a moment about the human misery of an individual who must go home day after day to his wife and children and knowing he cannot provide for them because he is unemployed. Must he not say to himself periodically, "I wonder what my children think of me because they know I am not working and cannot get a job?" Is it any wonder that violence breaks out in the community? Is it any wonder that there is an abnormal amount of alcoholism on many reserves? Is it any wonder that young children-and I mean young children, 14, 15, 16 years of age-who should be looking forward to great opportunities, wake up some morning and decide that they do not want to live any more, that life is not worth living and they take their own lives? It is something to which we must all address ourselves. It is too bad that the hon. member who raised a point of order would not stop talking long enough to listen to what I have to say, because I think it is important.
Is there a way to stop this erosion which is taking place on reserves in Indian communities? Certainly there is. Many of the people living in Indian communities today are illiterate. Others have minimal education. What is the difference? We are prepared to spend from $30,000 to $100,000 educating young people raised in white communities so that they can become productive citizens. The Department of Employment and Immigration buys training positions in educational institutions. Indian people do not take advantage of these because the entrance requirement in vocational schools is usually grade nine education at least, and they do not have that.


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

April 13, 1981
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[ Translation]


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that the debate has taken a new turn, because the last three speakers have spoken more constructively than the first ones I heard.
I	should like to deal this afternoon with five areas, and I hope to make suggestions and recommendations to my colleagues so that they will know that positive measures are being taken in Canada in connection with the employment of Canadians.

The five areas that I should like to touch on are employment service, industrial and labour market adjustment, training, direct job creation and, if possible, disadvantaged employment.
II	va sans dire, Mr. Speaker, that the provision of an effective employment service is one of the main responsibilities of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axwor-thy). I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that it is also a responsibility for every member of Parliament in this House.
I am fully aware of those aspects of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Commission service that can and should be improved. I am impressed with much of its performance to date and its plans for improvement. Just last Friday the Minister of Employment and Immigration presided at the official opening of the metropolitan order processing system in Toronto. This is a computerized method of recording all job vacancies and unemployed clients in a metropolitan area. It is a far cry from the paper-based technology which quite often resulted in an employment centre knowing very little about its clients or the job openings in its immediate area.
What is the significance of this innovative system? First, it has proved that the CEIC process has had a dramatic effect on the quality of service provided to employers and to workers. For example, MOPs, as it is called, the metropolitan order processing system, was installed in metropolitan Vancouver two years ago and was a major factor contributing to the 50 per cent increase in the number of vacancies listed and people placed by Canada employment centres in greater Vancouver.
The second and perhaps most important consequence that should be associated with the launching of MOPS in Toronto is that it signifies and is symbolic of a quiet revolution that according to international experts in such matters will result in the finest employment service in the free world within three or four years.
This may surprise you and some of my colleagues a little, Mr. Speaker. At first blush, I must say it took me happily by surprise. As I thought it over, I realized that the expectations against which we and the public measure the performance of Canada employment centres is really quite unrealistic. The centres are considered to be ineffective if they have not found a job for our sons, daughters or neighbours, whether or not there are any job openings for persons with their skills. Similarly, they are considered to have failed if they have been unable to find a skilled worker for any employer, whether or
not the employer has fulfilled his or her obligations to train people.
What is the basis for this international opinion that Canada's employment service is emerging as the finest in the world? Partly, of course, it is a reflection of its performance to date. I will note a few of the positive results. Between 800,000 and
900,000	placements are made per year; people who go through the CEC route find jobs three weeks sooner than those who do not; 60 per cent of the people who look for jobs use the CECs as a job search vehicle. Partly, too, the international view is a reflection of our new national job bank, whereby all jobs which cannot be filled locally are entered into a national computer system and made known to all CECs across Canada.
Just as MOPS creates a "metropolitan" labour market, the national job bank has, since its inception 12 months ago, created a truly national labour market.
It sometimes happens that people in my riding have skills for which there is no demand at a particular time. The hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid) knows that we had to import people with welding skills for the naval shipyard. We were able to fill some of these jobs by going to the national job bank and bringing in people from as far away as the west coast. That bank was a great help in my previous riding. Some of the people now in that riding are currently being trained under that program.
Experts in other countries are similarly impressed with the work the CECs are doing in developing an effective employment counselling service. Counselling is the core or heart of an employment service's ability to assist people who have difficulty entering or staying in jobs. Canada is recognized internationally as a leader in the development of effective employment counselling. This is reflected in the fact that last September the first world seminar on employment counselling was held in Ottawa and attracted some 600 people from more than 15 countries.
These are just some of the reasons why the Canada employment service is so highly respected. We should take pride in the service and the people who staff its offices. It is a system which brings job seekers and job vacancies together effectively and efficiently for the benefit of all concerned.
I am putting great stress on the development of an effective counselling service. As hon. members know, while many of the people who come to CECs are fully job-ready, many are not. These range all the way from those who need training in how to conduct their own job search, to those who require a great deal of counselling on how to prepare themselves for the labour market and even how to retain employment. Of course, such counselling assistance is labour-intensive. However, consistent with the government's policy of helping those who need it most, this is a function that will receive priority attention.
For those members of our population who need more specialized assistance than that provided by a nominal CEC-I am thinking more of women returning to the labour market after raising their families, or natives, or the blind and the handi-
April 13, 1981

capped-it is vital that the CECs should organize themselves to meet the needs of such clientele.
What I have tried to do is give a brief "tour d'horizon" of the changes that are being made to help make the CECs more responsive to the needs of clients and employers. It is work that is most gratifying because it is people helping people, and it does help. Between 800,000 and 900,000 people find jobs annually.
I turn now to industrial and labour market adjustment. The hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) mentioned earlier that we would spend our money better if we gave it to small enterprises to train apprentices and prepare them for the job market. One of our priorities is to ensure that we reap the employment and economic benefits of changes in technology and trade patterns. Such changes have brought immense benefits in the past and will do so in the future, but- and I emphasize this-only if we make them work for us.
That is one of the key reasons for the $350 million industrial and labour adjustment program. It provides industrial and labour incentives to help make the shift toward the industries and jobs of the future, not only those of today. It has several broad features. First, it has provision for the enhancement of our critical trades skill training program, which assists industry to train many of the skilled people we need, such as millwrights, industrial mechanics, heavy duty equipment operators and industrial electricians. We need these people in about 27 key occupational areas. In addition, it is to make provision during slack times for the continuation of the training of laid-off apprentices in key trades, even if they are not in institutions or industry, and it provides for stepping up skill training in trade centres across the country.
A second broad element is the provision of industrial incentives in key industries. Both the critical trades skill training and the industrial incentives will help industry to expand and take advantage of new opportunities.
A third, very important element is the community-based portion of the program. Here I digress a moment to explain the community-based program we have in mind. It is to be used for the revitalization of industry by the designation of communities for one year with possible six-month extensions. We expect that there might be five or six such communities at any given point over the next three years. We have already moved to designate four: Sept Iles-Port Cartier; Tracy-Sorel; Windsor and Sydney.
In the communities selected a range of incentives will be available to help existing firms expand or change and to help new firms to come to the community. Just as importantly, there will be a range of measures to assist workers to adapt, including critical trades skills training, enhanced training allowances for workers training in labour-short occupations and portable wage subsidies to assist the re-employment of workers 46 or more years of age. There will be early retirement benefits for workers over 55 years old who have extreme difficulty adapting and cannot realistically expect to find new,
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high-paying employment. We will also be providing community employment programming to stimulate the local job market during the period of transition. For those who choose to move elsewhere, we will provide for a tripling of mobility benefits.
We now see a great number of workers going from the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and Quebec, to the west, specifically to Alberta and British Columbia. I visited the tar sands project around Fort McMurray last summer. At that time I spoke to many people who had taken advantage of the mobility grants which were put forward by the government. These people were the ones who benefited greatly because they got jobs. But I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and to all hon. members in the House that the people who run the tar sands, a project which will benefit all Canadians, also benefit because those men and women brought their skills with them and contributed to the over-all betterment of that area.
Another area I want to address this afternoon concerns training. Canada has one of the most substantial and significant adult occupational training systems in the world. It consists of basic training for skill development and occupational training in institutions, industrial training, apprenticeship training and critical trade skills training. Although training does not itself create jobs, it can and does enable people to fill them. It is crucial both for economic and employment growth. The availability of a skilled worker is often crucial to the employment of several other people. For example, how many times would you see one bricklayer, because of his particular skill, create three or four labour-intensive jobs? The same could be said of electricians and plumbers.
We are awaiting the results of the work of the special parliamentary committee and other bodies on the direction the training program should take for the future. In the meantime, we have moved to make better provision, through critical trades skills training, for training people in high level skills, mostly in apprenticeable areas, people who are needed in the economy now and whose skills will be required three to five years down the road when their training is completed.
I submit that training programs are very important. Financial provision for the industrial training program, including apprenticeship, will be at least $196 million this fiscal year, providing training for 132,500 people.
Provision of occupational, prerequisite, basic educational and immigrant language training will cost at least $362.7 million this fiscal year. In addition, $96 million will be provided to pay basic support allowances to people taking this training, and up to $190 million will be made available to continue the unemployment insurance benefits of others while they take this training. Altogether, we expect that about
170,000	people will receive training in institutions this fiscal year.
Direct job creation is worthy of study. Direct job creation is being used as a flexible, targeted approach to create jobs in areas where they are needed, with particular focus on the needs of those groups of unemployed with the greatest need. The fundamental purpose is to provide employment at times

April 13, 1981
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and in areas where the private sector is either contracting or is unable to expand rapidly enough to keep unemployment rates at an acceptably low level. The funding levels cannot themselves illustrate the second main purpose of job creation programming namely, to utilize the skills and energy of the unemployed to produce goods and services of benefit to the community at large.
Direct job creation is a quicker, more effective and less inflationary policy instrument for intervention on the demand side of the labour market than tax cuts, increased general government expenditure, or increased transfer payments.
A recent OECD study of direct job-creation programming in a number of countries, including Canada, gives positive recognition to this country's ability to create needed employment in a targeted and relatively inexpensive manner which responds to needs at the community level. The study estimated the program's net cost at between one half and two thirds of its gross cost. As noted by OECD, the relatively low wage levels do not contribute to upward pressure on wages generally and thus have little or no inflationary impact in times of economic slack. Because of their flexibility, they can be targeted on individuals and areas which benefit least, or not at all, from more traditional measures.
A key aspect of the evolution of direct job creation programming has been focused on sponsorship of projects by responsible organizations and the establishment of clear federal priority areas of activity.
I direct my final statements to current job creation programs which are providing in excess of 50 jobs for the young people in my riding. I think this is an innovation which is good not only for the community but for the country at large. I should hope that all hon. members will be very diligent in making sure that the young people who are employed under these projects this summer in their areas will have the opportunity to develop those skills needed to fill the jobs they will no doubt be filling in the future.


Robert Alfred Corbett: Mr. Speaker, 1 wish to express my appreciation for the opportunity this afternoon of taking part in the debate on this opposition motion. It involves a topic which is extremely critical in Canada today. It involves a matter with which members and others in areas directly responsible for the economic interests of our country should be concerned.
The motion states in part:
That this House expresses its sorrow and sympathy for the more than one million Canadians who are unable to find work and who, with their families, face an uncertain future-
The fact of the matter is, those words are only too true. The future of those Canadians certainly is, at the very best, uncertain. We all must feel compassion and we should be expressing our sorrow and sympathy to those people who would be in the work force if they just had the opportunity of finding employment in this country, employment denied to over one million employable Canadians.
These Canadians want more than our sympathy and sorrow. They expect more and, in my opinion, they should receive more. These people want the consideration of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy). They want the consideration and affection of the people who work in his department. They expect members of this House of Commons, their elected representatives, to address themselves to the plight they are currently facing; the difficulties they are having in providing a living for their families, education for their children and in coping with day to day inflation, higher food costs, higher energy costs and higher clothing costs. Most of them seem to think, and rightfully so, that the present minister and his government are certainly not addressing themselves to these problems.
As a member from Atlantic Canada, I intend to deal specifically with the problems being faced by the people of that area. I intend to deal with the tremendous difficulty they are experiencing in trying to find places for themselves in the work force. On a per capita basis, Atlantic Canadians experience one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada. It is my opinion and the opinion of many other Canadians that this intolerable situation should not be allowed to exist; that it is a situation which, indeed, need not exist.
Let me just give you some background statistics which indicate the real current difficulties in Atlantic Canada. My comparison will be made in respect of unemployment in March 1980 and March 1981. Realistically speaking, we have to work with the unadjusted estimates because they more closely and clearly reflect the true unemployment picture in Atlantic Canada.
In March of 1980 the unemployment rate in Newfoundland was an astounding 15.7 per cent. In March of 1981, after all the efforts of this minister and this government which, they maintain, they have expended to assist employment in this country, that rate dropped only .3 per cent to an unacceptable figure of 15.4 per cent. That indicates just how ineffectual are these programs which have been developed by the minister and this government.
The unemployment situation in Prince Edward Island is also appalling. In March of 1980 the rate was 13.4 per cent. Can you imagine an astounding unemployment rate of 13.4 per cent on an island with such a small population? Just one year later, unemployment in Prince Edward Island had increased by 2.6 per cent to an incredible 16 per cent rate. In spite of all the successful programs and efforts this government and the minister maintain they have made and have implemented to the benefit of Canadians, the unemployment rate in Prince Edward Island rose by 2.6 per cent to an intolerable 16 per cent rate in just one year.
Nova Scotia is one of the more fortunate Atlantic provinces. It is vocally and ably represented in this House by several members of the government party. Despite the fact that the government has several members in its party representing Nova Scotians in this House, the unemployment rate in that
April 13, 1981

province in one year jumped one full percentage point, that is to 12.5 per cent of the total work force.
We are not proud of the fact that in New Brunswick the unemployment rate has remained fairly static at 13 per cent. Actually it went down .4 per cent during the year. It is certainly an unemployment rate from which the minister can take little comfort.
The unemployment rate in Atlantic Canada in comparison to that in the rest of Canada is unacceptable. This government should be condemned for its callous and uncaring attitude toward the difficulty Atlantic Canadians face in finding work.
The unemployment rate in Canada during the 12 month period of 1979 was 7.5 per cent, while in Atlantic Canada that rate was 11.7 per cent. Those are shameful figures. In 1978 Canada had an unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent. In the Atlantic region it was 12.5 per cent. The litany goes on and on.
I could recite figure after figure, which would not be very encouraging to the people of Atlantic Canada, but suffice it to say that today, in 1981, the unemployment rate is still as intolerable as it has been in previous years. The government does nothing about it. The Department of Employment and Immigration does nothing about it. It is a disgraceful situation.
There have been no meaningful programs developed by the government. Let us not forget that this government has been in power since 1963, with the exception of a brief interlude. This government has to take responsibility for the fact that the country has been mismanaged and misgoverned. It is an economic calamity and an economic chaos that no economic development measures have been taken in Atlantic Canada, either in the short term or in the long term. There has been increasing inflation; we have seen unemployment skyrocket; Regional growth has stagnated to the point where it has ceased to exist. The difficulties in Atlantic Canada caused by inflation coupled with unemployment are just intolerable. What we require is some imagination. We require the government to implement programs which will be meaningful and create lasting jobs.
What do we get instead? We get makeshift programs which are meaningless. There is nothing of any substance. The hand-out attitude of this government toward Atlantic Canada obviously continues to be its solution to the problems of Atlantic Canada. The attitude of the government seems to be that DREE is there, that it will create part-time jobs, that the government will give Atlantic Canada equalization dollars and that that will make up for the 12.5 per cent unemployment rate which is being experienced in that area. However, that is not what Atlantic Canadians want. Atlantic Canadians want to contribute, as much as any other Canadian across this nation, to the future and to the economic stability of this country. We do not have those opportunities because this government has lacked initiative and imagination. We require the people who control departments, beginning with ministers and on down, to come up with proper policies which will create jobs and situations in which people will have the opportunity to
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produce and be involved in the permanent work force. We require a policy which would provide basically full employment opportunities for Altantic Canadians, or at least to the same extent as the rest of Canada has them. Obviously the minister's department is highly inefficient to the detriment of Atlantic Canadians. There is no basis on which we can pin our hopes for the future.
Various programs have been implemented. I refer, for example, to the educational programs to train people. I suppose that the fundamental idea behind them is good but they have not worked. It seems to me that the minister and his departmental officials do not really have any idea about what the programs themselves are supposed to be accomplishing.
I have received representation after representation from constituents who have experienced the frustrations of attempting to deal with the minister's department. They have attempted to enrol in some of the special programs and have been frustrated to the point where they just have not been able to fulfil their ambitions. There is a program in place called the vocational educational program. It is supposed to be assisted by the fee-pay scheme. It was created to try to draw people into the work force and to give them special training so that they can go out and train others, but in order for them to take advantage of this program they must be able to support themselves. What is happening in the meantime? People who are enrolling in these programs are finding that their applications, although acceptable to universities, are not acceptable to the Employment Insurance Commission. These people are extremely frustrated. I want hon. members to know that when people write to me and say things like "I am in a situation now where I am becoming a beggar in my own home," things are extremely serious.
I have documentation from various parts of Atlantic Canada and from various parts of my constituency which indicates that our young people, who so desperately need a foundation and a future in this country, are leaving the region literally in droves because there are no opportunities for them to upgrade their training or to better themselves so that they can qualify for jobs.
In my constituency there are the three small communities of Albert, Alma and Hillsborough. In one of them a young lady was looking for a job but was unable to find one. She was drawing unemployment insurance and trying to repay a student loan and another $500 she had borrowed from the university. She said, "My unemployment insurance has just about run out, and I am getting desperate". That just typifies the attitude of young people in this nation who are having problems in obtaining employment, and there are hundreds of thousands of them. This young lady provided me with a list of 69 young people in those three little communities to which I have referred who have left the region to seek employment outside Atlantic Canada because of lack of opportunities there.
These are frustrations people experience, and as we sit in this House of Commons we have no idea of how frustrating it must be for people who are attempting to feed their families and educate their children but cannot find jobs.

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I urge the government to take this resolution very seriously indeed because it indicates that there is a desperate need in the community known as Canada for people to obtain employment, but employment is just not available.
The government can talk all it likes about external reasons for the desperate economic situation in our country. Ultimately they must accept the responsibility, for they are the ones who create a climate in which the country either prospers or becomes a pauperdom. Under the present administration, the future for young people in this country looking for jobs as well as for the rest who are on unemployment rolls is indeed very bleak.


Edward Allan Miller: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to speak on this important topic which is important not only to the unemployed who are dependent on tax dollars coming through government funds, both federally and provincially, which will provide some of the social benefits Canadians expect and should be able to obtain in this resource rich nation.
We are dealing with a topic that has had expression ever since I have been a member of this House and long before that. Over the years, the topic of unemployment in Canada has occupied much of the time of this House. However, the problem has not been resolved. In fact, over the last decade the unemployment rate has doubled.
Each month we hear over national television, radio, and the other media, the monthly proclamations of Statistics Canada on the unemployment rate in this nation. It talks about
900,000	or one million unemployed. Each month we expect the unemployment rate to increase. Despite the comments of what a great job the Department of Employment and Immigration is doing, we do not see a slackening off in the unemployment rate. In fact, it is rising.
As a former member of a profession in which I dealt with young people at the high school level, I have often thought that we cannot reflect in statistical terms the damage that unemployment does to the young people of this nation. I was pleased to hear the member who immediately preceded me talk about young people. The hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) talked in terms of native people, the young people on the reserves who, out of frustration, a forlorn feeling and a lack of hope, are resorting to the tragedy of suicide, which occurs on the reserves in this country.
I cannot express strongly enough the frustration felt by young people in grades 8, 9 and 10 when they look at the rate of unemployment in this country. Those a little older in grades 11 and 12 try to choose a career for themselves. We hear about the numbers of people who have university degrees and are unemployed or underemployed, which is tragic for both the individual and this country. The young people in our high schools experience a feeling of hopelessness. They would like to have their choice of employment. They are not sure what their opportunities are. The government cannot give them any guarantees. It does not seem to be able to overcome the high rate of unemployment being experienced in Canada.
The problem with this government is more than policy. I am not sure that every member on the government side has the callous attitude of regarding the rate of unemployment as a mere statistic, although it appears that those who hold positions in the government prefer to deal with unemployment in terms of a statistical analysis. Not all are willing to accept 8 and 10 per cent unemployment, as suggested in the last budget. It is also suggested in programs initiated by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy), such as summer youth employment programs, that he accepts a rate of about 8 per cent. Your riding does not receive very much in the way of funds and programs unless there is a certain amount of unemployment among the work force in that community. Programs suggested by our constituents show a need in our communities for recreational facilities, care for native people and young people, and work opportunities for our young people in our communities. The response we get indicates that there is a willingness on the part of people to work. In my riding in British Columbia, the young people have grown up with the idea that this government accepts 500,000, or one million, unemployed. It surprises me that they accept the fact that they will have tremendous difficulty in finding employment in the careers they choose.
What about the effect on the family? What about families that must support members who are perfectly capable and willing to work but find themselves in the growing reserve army of unemployed workers, an army into which the Liberal government drafts more people each day? These family members are often young and ready to work, but they are forced to remain dependent on their families because of a system that places profits and dividends ahead of job creation.
We must develop an attitude in this nation whereby we will use our resources to provide jobs for yound people. All too often we see our raw resource being exported at the cost of job and employment opportunities which go to other nations. Unemployment is left here. With today's rising costs and prices, those families supporting youngsters who are able to work could use all the income that is coming to them and more. What about the employment, income and hopes for the future of young people? What about families who live on the reduced earnings of breadwinners who are constantly out of work? Do you not think they would be better off if they could plan for the future without thinking that they might lose their home and their furniture and become unable to give their children an education because there are suddenly no more jobs? Of course they would.
What about older workers? Our society disregards people who have given years of service to the work force by allowing them to suddenly lose their job. There are very few provisions for retaining such people, despite what the hon. member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) says. They are thrown on the job market where they have to compete with young people. How do they feel?
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What about Canada's native people? They have always been the last hired and the first fired. When there are fewer jobs all around, they are not hired at all. Unemployment on some reserves in my riding on Vancouver Island, next to fantastically resource-rich oceans and forest lands, is 80 or 90 per cent. The opportunities do not present themselves to our native people. How do they feel about unemployment?
The government talks about what it is doing to help women, but we see very little being done to effect those programs which help women. Official statistics show that last month unemployment among women was 8.1 per cent of the working population, compared to 6.3 per cent for men. Working women are paid less than men, and when they do not work, they draw smaller unemployment insurance payments than men. Many women who are unemployed live below the poverty line.
May I call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock p.m.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Edward Allan Miller: Mr. Speaker, at six o'clock when we adjourned for the dinner hour, I was commenting about the fact that unemployment affects particularly young Canadians, native Indians and women in Canada. I would like to speak about some of the ways in which the New Democratic Party thinks the unemployment picture could improve if the government took the proper attitude toward unemployment, rather than acquiescing to it and using programs under the Department of Employment and Immigration to try to justify unemployment or to give some solace to Canadians.
In my riding of Nanaimo-Alberni, there are two very important renewable resource industries which provide opportunities for many of my constituents. One is the fisheries industry which comes under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and the other is the forestry industry which is under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Forestry Service. I think the service has responsibility to try to co-ordinate activities among the provinces, the industry and the federal government and encourage an objective look at our forests to ensure that such renewable resources continue to provide the economic stimuli they have provided in the past. We are not doing the proper job in forestry, either at the federal-provincial level or in the private sector. Indeed, we are finding that our forests are becoming a depleted resource rather than a renewable, longterm one.
We should see some leadership from the federal government in the field of intensive forestry management and in reforesta-
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tion and regeneration of some of the 70 million hectares of forest land in Canada which is now lying fallow and unproductive.
W. G. Burch, the vice-president of Timberlands and Forestry company in British Columbia, at a forestry conference in Toronto last September spoke about intensive forest management. He suggested that there are some very large benefits to be gained if Canadians, through their provincial governments and with some direction from the federal government, started an intensive forest management program. He suggested that an increase in employment would be one of the main advantages of such a program. He said:
Most forestry projects are labour intensive: in fact, it is conceivable that at certain periods of the year, a logging operation practising a full range of intensive forestry projects could employ more people on forestry work than on logging. A recent study by Les Reed indicated that an intensive forestry program across Canada would involve nearly 25,000 new jobs.
This is a productive way of employing Canadian people. Perhaps it would be more productive than some of the ad hoc programs the Liberal government likes to bring up each fall and summer which involve a few people over a few months of time. They establish a need in a community, and funding is often cut off without the demand being satisfied. The federal government could direct some of its attention toward that important field at the moment.
Fishing on the Atlantic coast, in British Columbia and inland is a very important industry in Canada. At the moment in British Columbia a very serious situation is developing in the fishing industry where people are being driven out of the industry rather than being attracted to it. Young people are not being encouraged to become involved in the fishing industry because of mismanagement on the part of the federal government and of the Liberal minister who has neglected the fishing industry in British Columbia. He has disregarded the potential employment of native people in the processing and fishing industry and of young people looking for employment opportunities along a coastline with which they are acquainted, a coastline which has a long history of salmon fishing, coastal traffic and transportation routes. However, what has happened is the result of mismanagement and the inability to control the size of the fleet. We now have a capital intensive fishing fleet which is probably overcapitalized to the point of being four or five times what we need. What that has done is to work against the young people who may wish to buy a fishing vessel and enter the industry, since the value of the licence, what people will pay for the privilege of fishing in British Columbia, at one time reached $10,000. It has been considerably reduced over the last two years, I might add, because of the poor fishing conditions.
What is happening to a renewable resource in British Columbia is that through mismanagement on the part of the government it is not implementing and enforcing some of its own fishing regulations, which attempted to stop the environmental degradation of rivers, streams and estuaries. These regulations are being totally ignored by the federal govern-

April 13, 1981
Unemployment
ment. There are large coal port projects in Prince Rupert and off Tsawwassen in southern British Columbia which are not undergoing environmental studies by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. There are large coal thermal generation projects which will add to the acid rain problems in the very important Thompson River basin which is essential to the salmon industry. Up and down the coast there are coastal community groups fighting to preserve estuaries where salmon require a period of rearing, feeding and resting on their way to sea or, indeed, on the way back into streams for spawning purposes. We see the gradual erosion of the salmon habitat which has been reflected in the smaller runs of salmon and in the lower incomes which Canadian fishermen receive.
We have a government which has not met the challenges of providing a clean environment for our salmon resource.
The answer of the federal government is to allow those streams to be used for dumping mining and municipal wastes. We will allow our rivers and streams to be logged, debris deposited in those rivers and spawning channels ruined by logs and wood. The answer of the Liberal government will be to develop a salmon enhancement program. The Canadian taxpayer will contribute to this program which will provide hatcheries and small projects on streams which could have been raising their own salmon. The government says that it will develop this program and tell the public in British Columbia how marvellous it is and how it will project the salmon resources. If you do not deal with the real problems of environmental concerns, then it is simply a program to conserve what little salmon we have left in the province of British Columbia.
The attitude of the Liberal government to these two renewable resources is the kind of attitude it has toward most of our resources in Canada. What we need is a government which favours the protection of these renewable resources as well as of our non-renewable resources. The government should be using these resources in Canada to provide jobs. We cannot leave it up to the Minister of Employment and Immigration to come up with makeshift programs over the next ten years to solve our unemployment problems. The challenge for this Liberal government is to manage the resources in this country on behalf of the population and to provide jobs for Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Doug Frith (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the hon. member who just finished speaking left off by saying that he was worried about the fact that this government would only come up with makeshift policies to deal with what I view as long-range trends which have taken place in North American economies in the last ten years. I say that because I am convinced that the federal government is in the midst of coming up with a number of policies which, in my view, are not makeshift but, rather, perhaps for the first time, are very realistic with respect to the changes which have taken place in the economy in the past decade.
Principally, in three particular areas, I believe the government will go a long way to addressing the long range implications of changes which have taken place in the western economies in the past decade. Basically, I would like to deal with three particular policy directions which have been taken by this government in the past nine or ten months. The first direction is in the area of industrial restructuring and labour adjustments. I believe the minister alluded to this point this afternoon. I think most members in the House are aware that on January 19 of this year the minister of immigration and unemployment-


Stanley Howard Knowles: The truth came out.


An hon. Member:: It must be Freudian.


Royce Herbert Frith: The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) decided to announce a federal commitment to industrial restructuring which would involve some $350 million worth of federal moneys going into this endeavour. The second thing that the federal government has done in the past year, by paying more than lip service to it, is to announce the government's long-range plans in increasing moneys to be placed into research and development in this country. The third major area where I think there will be a significant impact on industrial restructuring in North America will be announced in the next few months.
In my remarks tonight I would like to put forward two points. One stems from having a personal involvement in the community of Sudbury, which I now represent and have represented since February of last year. I think Sudbury can serve as a model for this nation in terms of how it came to deal with the need for this kind of industrial readjustment as a community. I think most members in the House are aware of the strife over the last three or four years in the Sudbury area. In 1977, because of changing markets on the international scene, we found that the companies required an adjustment of the total number of workers involved in the mining industry, particularly the nickel mining industry. This resulted in a fairly massive lay-off in 1977, by both the International Nickel Company and the Falconbridge Company, of some 3,000 workers. In my four-year term as the chairman of the Regional Municipality of Sudbury it meant not only a loss in terms of people from the Sudbury region but in terms of the severe hardships endured by the families concerned when this kind of massive lay-off occurs in their community. At that time there were no government policies in effect to deal with communities hard hit by massive lay-offs which would increase significantly the unemployment rate in a particular community.
Now that three years have passed I believe that the lay-offs which occurred were a precursor to a number of events which will begin to affect other sectors in Canada's economic structure. At that time, since we did not have any industrial restructuring policies, we were not aware of the need for some basic rethinking on the government's part to deal with these long-range problems. The only choice left to the unfortunate Sudburians who were laid off was to find employment elsewhere in Canada.
April 13, 1981

Over the three and a half to four years since the lay-off in 1977, the population of the Regional Municipality of Sudbury has dropped from somewhere in the neighbourhood of 170,000 people to 163,000. The majority of those 8,000 who went in search of employment elsewhere in Canada mostly had to go to western Canada to find employment. This was because their skills were largely in the mining industry. As a result of the economic boom which was and still is occurring in Alberta and Saskatchewan, those skills were needed in that part of the country.
The people who were left unemployed in the Sudbury area were perhaps fortunate in that at least they did have skills which they could use in other parts of Canada to find employment. That does not hold true for every community in this country. We often find in areas of the country which have significant lay-offs in other industries, whether in the manufacturing sector or the primary resource area, that the skills utilized in those areas are not easily transferrable. As a result of that, the Minister of Employment and Immigration has come in on January 19, with a program which at least allows these workers to adjust to a new kind of economic environment. By and large, that adjustment means that the workers who face this unemployment have to realize that they must be retrained in a different area.
In addition to my personal experiences in the Sudbury area and having sat on the special joint task force, the all-party committee of this House, on North-South relations, I have learned a great deal about changing trends in other parts of the world. Often in Canada perceive most of the countries in the Third World as heeding the pumping in of foreign aid, as if they were charitable organizations. But the Third World is no monolith. Within the Third World there are countries ranging from the poorest of the poor, such as Bangladesh, to what I would call the middle-income countries, which would include countries such as the Philippines.
Most important to Canada and most of the other countries within the OECD are the countries which are presently called the NICs, the newly industrialized countries. These newly industrialized countries, such as Korea and Singapore will, in the 1980s, become very significant threats to Canadian industries. For example, when we recently travelled to Singapore, we met with the minister of education and the minister of employment in that country. Singapore, for a number of reasons, has some very deliberate government policies to retrain its work force to deal with the realities of the 1980s. What it has done is to mobilize all of the resources in that country to retrain its workers from labour intensive industry to areas in which high technology is required. Countries such as Korea and Singapore have realized now that the route to follow in the 1980s will not be to attract labour intensive industries, but to work upon the strengths which they have developed within their own economic structures so they would have, one, a competitive edge in the international markets and, two, at least a reasonable access to the resources required to retrain their people for these high technology areas.
Unemployment
Just let me cite an example, to bring us back down to the Canadian level. Often, too often I think, Canadians are pessimistic about our past performance in the economic field. I happen to disagree with hon. members of the opposition who say that this government has mismanaged the policies which will directly affect Canadians in the 1980s, because the same hon. members of the opposition who complain about the size of the federal deficit are the ones who blame us for not giving enough priority and enough moneys to retraining.
I would just like to remind opposition members of the Conservative Party that when they were on this side of the House for their brief period in office, they did not address this whole problem of industrial restructuring. It has taken a Liberal government to talk about the need for the increased commitment to research and development, and it has taken a Liberal government to talk about, and place within the realms of the federal government's expenditure program for the years 1981-82, some $350 million in the whole area of industrial restructuring and labour adjustment. That is something that we have done on this side of the House. The hon. members of the opposition cannot complain that we have not taken our responsibilities seriously because if one followed some of their arguments about the need to reduce the size of the federal deficit and if one took account of the remarks made by other hon. members opposite about the high rate of unemployment, one would find that they do not fit with the facts which have evolved in the last year in Canada.
First of all, everyone recognizes the major reason for inflation. It is the rapid rise in the world-wide price of energy. Once those oil prices began to have their effect on the international economy-it became very evident, particularly to finance ministers in the OECD countries, that they would have to take some fairly severe restrictive measures to reduce the inflation rate caused by the rapid rise in energy prices.
Canadians, rather than being pessimistic, should be very optimistic because since these rapid rise in OPEC prices, or since 1973, our record has been fairly good. There are only two countries among what we call the seven industrial giants in the western world that have kept their oil price increases below that of Canada and those two countries happen to be Japan and West Germany. So I think that that record speaks for itself; but because of the impact of OPEC prices on our economy in Canada, the finance minister has had to deal with some of the realities. As a result, Canada is not alone amongst the OECD, these major seven industrialized countries, in terms of having to come to grips with the impact that those prices have on the world economy.
I have said, first of all, that we' are not that badly off compared to other countries. However, what is more important, as the minister explained this afternoon, in terms of job creation among those seven industrial giants our record is excellent. He has mentioned that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 140,000 jobs have been created in the first few months of this year.


An hon. Member:: Hear, hear!

April 13, 1981
Unemployment


Royce Herbert Frith: In addition, since this government took power after the February election in 1980, some 326,000 new jobs have been created in Canada. Although there will be no easy way out of the problems which are besetting the whole of the industrialized world, Canada is no longer isolated. We have to relate to ourselves and relate to the international economic order.
With that in mind, I think that the government has finally come to the realization that it will take at least the better part of this decade to face this high unemployment we are experiencing and the need for high technology training. We will have to begin with policies which, in the short run, will alleviate the unemployment situation somewhat, but, in the long run, will mean a whole readjustment of our economic order in Canada.
When we finally bring in the third part of this whole program upon which the Canadian government has embarked-which involves, first, as I mentioned before, the industrial restructuring and labour adjustment program and, second, an increased commitment to research and development-the industrial strategy will focus on what I consider to be the winning industries in this country. That is how we will find the long term solution to our unemployment. As a recent example of that, in Saturday's Globe and Mail, some analysts are now predicting that the Falconbridge Nickel Company will probably write off most of its involvement in the Dominican Republic. I use that as an example because often we say, "Well, how can we ever compete on an international basis with countries which have such low wage rates?" The fact is that Canadians have done very well in terms of adjusting to the new economic order.
It was pointed out in the article in the Globe and Mail that it costs roughly $3.05 for a pound of nickel to be developed from the lateritic deposits in the Dominion Republic, but only $1.70 a pound for the same mineral to be extracted from the sulphide ores here in Canada.
I am using the mining industry as an example, but there are other ones throughout our economy. What that tells me is that the International Nickel Company, despite the fact that it pays very high wage rates for its work force, has also, because of commitments to research and development, developed a technology which makes its operation here in Canada the most efficient one in the world. It is a lesson from which other sectors of the Canadian economy should learn.
I have mentioned the mining sector. There are other ones, such as the communications field, where Canadians are the furthest advanced in terms of the new technology which is being developed. As long as we have this commitment on behalf of the government and on behalf of private business in this country to continue to place high emphasis on the amounts of money spent on research and development, we will develop new technologies to which Canadians who will be displaced from labour intensive industries can be retrained to find new employment.
That is the basis and the thrust of the Liberal government's policy over the decade of the eighties. It means that Canadians will have to become accustomed, as many other countries have
done in the past two decades, to the fact that workers will probably have to go through six or seven employers and will be required to retrain themselves four or five times during their lifetime in the work force.
I recognize that it is not an easy policy to sell to Canadians. If we have learned anything from the success stories in the Third World about these newly industrialized countries, it is that those that were the most successful in adjusting to the economic order on the international scene were those that have actively pursued industrial restructuring and labour adjustment.
I should like to explain some of the government's criteria for the new Industrial Restructuring and Labour Adjustment Program. I think that most members of the House were aware of the four communities which were to be the initial recipients of moneys under that $350 million program. They were Sydney, Nova Scotia, Sorel and Sept-Iles in Quebec, and the Windsor area in Ontario. I do not think that many members would argue against the need to have that program put in place in those four communities, knowing the kind of dislocation that has occurred in them whether in the primary metals sector, or in the case of Windsor, the massive disruption in auto production in North America.
With that in mind, the government introduced the program to ensure that the employment and economic benefits of changes in technology would go to people in those areas. That was one of the key reasons for this $350 million fund which would involve both the industrial and labour adjustment programs. It would provide industrial and labour incentives to help make this shift toward jobs in the future. This brings me back to what I said before, that if we are going to have an active program of retraining, along with retraining those people laid off, for work in areas where they could become productive, moneys would have to be made available to industries in the surrounding area. This would enable them to absorb the workers displaced from the other industries.
Some people may say, skeptically, that this is just another program on which the government cannot possibly deliver. I should like those people to consider some of the recent experiences in the textile industry in Canada. This industry is probably the most vulnerable to imports from Third World countries. Of people employed in the textile industry who suddenly found themselves out of work; within a year 56 per cent had found new jobs in the same area as that in which the textile manufacturing company had been located. This was largely because of the policies introduced by the government for industrial retraining and the incentives provided to other industries in the area enabling them to expand and absorb the work force.
I should like to point out some of the other criteria for the Labour Adjustment Program which has several broad features. The first is provision for enhancement of our Critical Trades Skills Training Program which assists industry to train many of the skilled people we need. I refer to millwrights, industrial
April 13, 1981

mechanics, heavy duty equipment operators, and the like. It is to make provision during slack time for the training of laid-off apprentices in key trades, even when they are not either in institutions or industries, and it provides for stepping up training in key skills in trade centres across the country. That is one of the bases for the program of industrial adjustment.
A second broad element is the provision of industrial incentives in key industries. Both the critical trades skill training and the industrial incentives will help industry to expand to take advantage of new opportunities. The third and very important element, particularly from my own experience, is the community-based portion of the program. This will bring together the companies, the workers and two levels of government in order to overcome these problems that have been created by the past changes in the world economic order.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, as I join in the debate on the motion of the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) and as I see the person named at the end of the motion shuffle his cabinet, I can think of one minister that we in Alberta would like to shuffle out pretty quickly, and that is the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde). There has been some talk about the jobs created in this country. Mr. Speaker, I can tell you about some jobs that are being lost in my constituency because of the energy policies of this government.
In the one little community of Nisku alone, there were over 100 Canadian companies operating in the oil industry. People learned skills in the past from large companies, then they bought a piece of land, put up some buildings, developed an industry of their own and hired Albertans to work for them in the oil industry. These people are now losing their jobs because of the National Energy Program inflicted upon this country too rapidly. The industry did not have time to readjust. In Nisku alone, there will be $40 million worth less work this year for 40 Canadian companies, and 450 people will be laid off. The forecast for the coming year is that $100 million worth of work will be lost because of the non-renewal of contracts. We can speculate how many people will be put out of work. Extrapolate that to the oil industry as a whole and you will see how many jobs will be lost because of a policy which was imposed upon the oil industry too quickly for the small Canadian companies to adjust. Even the large companies cut back some 40 per cent of their budgets due to the tax of 8 per cent. That does not sound very much, but when it is 8 per cent of the total budget and all the other taxes and royalties are taken into consideration, it cuts back on the amount of work that can be done and it hurts those Canadian companies a great deal.
I can think very quickly of one minister whom I would like the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to shuffle so that we can get ahead in a very important sector. This is one of the largest growth industries in the country, but it is being hurt very badly now and things will get worse because those March contracts will not be let this spring.
Unemployment
The hon. member for Sudbury (Mr. Frith) said that we were doing "fairly well" in the job creation area. He gave examples of seven countries in the OECD. If some of those countries had our resources and our population, I think they would be showing much better results than we have shown. There are tremendous resources in this country but there is just a small group of people who have the ability, through our vocational institutions, and our research and technology, to develop them. If only the government would set goals in the food producing sector and in the energy sector that Canadians could work toward, we could put thousands and thousands of people to work. We would not be exporting dollars to pay for oil imported from Mexico and Saudi Arabia, dollars which are used to create jobs in those countries. We lose almost $6 billion per year in the food-producing industry. Mast of that food could be produced in Canada, and it is a labour intensive industry. The transportation sector also needs to be improved. These are job-creating industries. Our governments should quit fighting each other and settle on some goals that Canadians can reach toward.
I should like to put on the record some statistics that we forecast some time ago. We predicted that unemployment would increase as the result of the National Energy Program. The figures for March show that in Alberta unemployment has increased 14 per cent for the month of March. Some 10,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost this month. These are reasons why we put this motion forward today.
In the few minutes available to me tonight I want to speak about an area of unemployment that concerns me greatly. I represent the riding on Wetaskiwin which is largely a rural riding. It has a number of small communities and a large native population. I should like to speak about what I call rural unemployment and the problems that rural people have in dealing with a very serious situation. Of course, people in the cities are concerned about this problem as well. When you consider that over 80 per cent of the country's population lives in large cities, you can see that this is a relatively small segment of our society, but one that is very important. One of our problems is that we are not establishing policies to keep people in the rural parts of this nation. All of the policies we are working toward tend to levitate from the rural areas into the urban sectors. All we have to do is look at what is happening in the farming industry. In the 1960s almost 20 per cent of the people used to live on farms. Now less than 6 per cent actually live on farms and we have only 326,000 farmers.
Because of the policies we have followed, many of the people who used to live on farms have moved to the cities. As well, many small hamlets, villages and towns are dying because there is no payroll to support them. Farms have become larger. As a result, farmers do not shop in those towns as much as they did in the past, and the communities are dying. The young people, the ones who used to stay and work on the farms, are now moving into the cities. There is unemployment in those areas. As people try to find jobs in other areas, they seek unemployment insurance but the Unemployment Insu-

April 13, 1981
Unemployment
ranee Commission states they cannot restrict their job area. They are told that if they live outside the community, they should drive into the cities where the jobs are. It is very difficult to argue that point. However, how far should they be expected to drive for another job? Should they drive 50 miles or 100 miles? Then, they find there is no choice: either they go on welfare or they move to the cities. Again, that is something which is forcing people to move into the cities.
In my opinion, we have to address this problem. All through what we call the industrialized world today, policies are established which move people out of rural areas into urban areas. We have not developed the policies or the ability to deal with the problems that occur when people live on top of each other. Along with that go all the social problems of increased crime and family problems. This situation occurs right across the nation. The costs of operating large cities are enormous. For instance, take the cost of transportation and the budgets for protection. All we have to do is to look at the city of New York and what has happened to it over the past few years.
Canada is a very large country. We have a vast north with an abundance of resources which have not yet been tapped. Canada has large rural areas. We must now try to establish programs which will help to keep people in the rural areas. In fact, we must try to attract people from the cities into the rural areas. This can be done partly by decentralization. Government is a large part of society today. I wish it were smaller. We could move government offices and people, where possible, outside of the big cities into the smaller areas. My province of Alberta has had a great deal of success in taking the Alberta Development Corporation, the Alberta opportunity company; the dairy board and the Athabasca University, to name just a few, out of Edmonton and Calgary. These entities have been moved to the smaller communities where payrolls have been established so that people can stay there. That is important. We must be able to establish those kinds of policies.
Perhaps transportation subsidies can be considered. Subsidies such as that will enable small businesses to move into the small communities of this country. Many small companies have expressed their desire to establish in smaller towns but they are concerned about whether there will be enough people to supply the work force required. Perhaps we can encourage people to move to those areas if we provide jobs and transportation subsidies to get the products to market.
It is necessary to continue policies which will encourage a viable, agricultural industry. In the past, the agricultural industry supported these communities. The policies that have been established over the years have encouraged larger farms. The return to the farmer has not been of the order to allow him to maintain a small operation. If he intends to continue farming, he must keep on expanding his operation. This is an area which requires a great deal of thought. This is something which governments, not only the federal government but provincial governments, must put their minds to. Otherwise, we will continue to see rural communities dying. Also we must encourage people to live in the northern part of this nation.
Next I want to talk about the people for whom I have a great affinity. There are 1.2 million of them in this country. They are classified as status Indians, non-status Indians and Metis people. This group has the largest unemployment rate of any group of Canadians. In many cases, the unemployment level is at 50 per cent, 60 per cent and 70 per cent. In some communities, it is even up to 90 per cent at times. This is an unacceptable situation in most communities in Canada, and yet we allow it. In some cases, we turn a blind eye to the high unemployment figures among these people. We have many statistics available for the status Indians. Some were put on the record by the hon. member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields) earlier today.
Recently many representatives of the status Indian communities have come to my office. They have told me that almost 70 per cent of their people are under the age of 21. These status Indian communities have tremendous difficulty providing the educational facilities and the jobs necessary for those coming on to the job market.
The department of Indian affairs, manpower and a number of other ministries are creating approximately 3,000 jobs a year for status Indians. From the statistics of the department of Indian affairs we find that 4,000 to 6,000 of these people are coming on to the job market each year. Those people range between the ages of 15 and 29. Hon. members can see that we are creating for them only 50 per cent of the jobs needed. Some of those jobs are only short-term jobs under such programs as LIP and others. These jobs are created for only a few months. When I say 3,000 jobs, I question whether that statistic is valid. Perhaps it is in the sense that there are 3,000 man years. But just the same, many of those jobs are shortterm jobs.
As I said before, the Indian working-age population, that is from 15 to 64, which was realitively stable between 1966 and 1976, will expand rapidly in the early 1980s to about two-thirds of the Indian population by the mid-1980s. This increase in the working-age population is taking place in an on-reserve area. The employment market is not satisfactory to meet that increase. As I have said, there is 70 per cent, 80 per cent and 90 per cent unemployment on these reserves. This kind of situation is driving many of the people away from the reserves into the surrounding cities or communities where they try to find jobs. At the same time, the same increase in population is taking place among status Indians and non-status Indians who left the reserve because there was no work for them there. They are competing in a job market already saturated by the baby boom generation, those born in the late 1940s and early 1950s. We see a very serious problem developing. In my opinion, the reserves are not sufficient to meet the requirement for the minimum of 40,000 to 50,000 jobs needed today. Just to reduce unemployment right across this country to 8.5 per cent, we need to create some 50,000 jobs on reserves. This will only let us catch up, and it does not take into consideration some 4,000 to 6,000 young people coming on the job market this year. As I have said before, we have a serious problem which the government must start addressing now or
April 13, 1981

we will be way behind. It is almost like a cone with the narrow part at the bottom, and it takes off as we enter the 1980s.
I would also like to deal with the low levels a labour force participation reflecting a continuing reliance on traditional pursuits. What I mean by that is that a number of status and non status people across this country have attempted to continue their original way of life, trapping, hunting and fishing. As the years have gone and the population has increased, this has just not been an adequate way of life to provide for all the young people coming forward. There are simply not enough trap lines and not enough available fish for large families to sell and make a living. The traditional way of life is no longer an adequate way of employment on those reserves and in those communities in the north.
There are ways to deal with this situation, and I want to go into them. One way is by job training close to the reserve areas. Any attempt to bring these people off the reserves into the cities to train them is successful only in very few cases. It is essential to have training programs close to the reserves.
The minister will be aware of a program that was conducted in that fashion at Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. It was on-the-job training for carpentry which worked very well. Many of the young people attended that training program. They stayed day after day until they learned the trade. That is just one example of the success rate which can be attained when you take the training to those areas where the people have some skills, or at least to a community close by, so they still have some affinity with their own area, instead of trying to draw them out of those communities into already established on-the-job training programs generally located in cities or larger communities. That is one way we can entice young people into this kind of work.
The other example, of course, is the oil industry in the tar sands where companies have been able to draw people from the reserves for on-the-job training in their communities. This has been very successful and is another example of how the problem has been dealt with.
Despite the improvements in education and the shifts toward more active involvement in professional pursuits, Indian earnings are still way below the national level, as the young population increases in size more and more emphasis is placed on the educational aspect of those young people. As I said a few minutes ago, it is impossible with the budgets they now have to provide that kind of training. As a result, a large percentage of the native people in this country do not even have high school education.
If we are to draw these people into the job force, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) must expand the necessary educational facilities. Also, our colleges must train more Indian teachers who can then go on the reserves and teach many of the necessary skills in the people's own language, with an emphasis on their culture, so they might retain some affinity with the past and some way of
Unemployment
going forward into the future to work in jobs which are there for them.
I see you rising, Mr. Speaker. Is my time up? I was just getting started. There are many other things I have to say.


Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, on a number of occasions in this House when I have spoken about problems connected with unemployment I have stressed the links with the economy, because quite clearly when the economy is buoyant and there are more opportunities, people are also apt to be more generous and more ready to try innovative programs.
I was interested to see the same point being made in an article in L'Expansion. It was an interview with two French Members of Parliament.

Lionel Stoleru, who is Secretary of State for the Promotion of Manual Work, said, and I quote:
Whether in the field of employment, income distribution or social protection, a slowdown in economic growth creates a need for imagination in social matters.

This dearth of imagination may be particularly painful if it prevents us from trying new and imaginative approaches to the problem of achieving full employment in the 1980s. We are in a strange situation at the moment in that we have both high unemployment and a great shortage of skilled workers. We have many young workers who are highly educated but lack specialized skills. The French, faced with a similar problem, have emphasized a return to skilled training and apprenticeship training. In the same article from which I have already quoted, Mr. Stoleru, having stated that he had increased the participation of youth in apprenticeship programs by some 40 per cent, and having described the measures which were taken to enhance the status of apprenticeship trades, went on to say:

We must therefore pursue the effort to make school more life oriented with a schooling program where towards the end studies would alternate with on-the-job training.

To take that idea a step further, it seems clear that, in the future, people will have to train and retrain a number of times in the course of their lives, and that a broad base of education which gives certain flexibility, a knowledge of science because the future will be increasingly science based, will be essential together with great flexibility on the part of both employer and employee.
There are tremendous opportunities here for co-operation between labour and union in a way we have not seen before, but which indeed we are seeing in Europe. The most successful schemes of dealing with relocating workers, displaced as a result of improved modern technology. The most successful plans, those which have gone most smoothly, have been those where labour and management worked collaboratively on problems of displacement, retraining, changing hours and so on.

April 13, 1981
Unemployment
One of the opposition members who spoke earlier had some harsh things to say about direct job creation. Experience has shown that the fastest and most effective way of creating jobs is, indeed, by direct job creation. If this is done intelligently, the job which initially is created by the state, if it fills a need, will continue in some form or other supported by private enterprise. Two countries which have had particular success with this are Belgium and France.
The role of small business is also a very important part of an ongoing employment strategy because the experience, both on this side of the Atlantic and in Europe, has been that the smaller and medium-sized enterprises have greater flexibility, are more successful in job creation and are generally more innovative. This applies particularly to the information-type businesses, which may be the business of the future, in a special way.
According to the demographic studies which have been undertaken in Canada, there are a number of factors which it is important to take into consideration in our planning, one of them being that during the 1980s the labour force will become increasingly mature, with a substantially lower proportion of new, young entrants. This means that industrial adjustment programs will depend increasingly on redeployment and retraining of workers already in the labour force. This also offers the promise of more opportunities for the housewife who is returning to the labour force, having stayed home to raise children.
Growth in the service sector, which has traditionally provided the bulk of new employment opportunities for women, however, will taper off. Large numbers of clerical workers are now employed by banks and insurance companies and automation will replace many of the existing jobs, so that women will have to be prepared to take different kinds of training and different kinds of jobs, and it is important that the planning be done now.
The growth sectors in the economy in the future will probably be business services, manufacturing and construction. These are the pursuits for which young people will need to be prepared.
It seems likely that, in the very near future, the full integration of women in the labour force-that is, in the non-traditional occupations as well as in the occupations which have traditionally been filled by women-will become desirable on economic grounds and not only, as is the case now, for reasons of social justice and equality of opportunity.
Progress in training women for trades and in increasing the proportion of women in non-traditional occupations has been and is slow. The Government of Canada now spends more than $800 million a year on training, and in 1979-80 about 42 per cent of those taking Canada Manpower institutional training courses were women.
However, only 862 women took training in such non-traditional occupations as those of machine operators, computer programmers, welders, drill operators and metal workers, as compared with 35,000 men. The majority of women who were
taking training courses were taking clerical-type courses, which may offer them very limited opportunities in the future.
The employment barriers faced by women are pervasive and interrelated, and, even in 1981, comprehensive and integrated federal programs are required. Counselling is required to encourage women to consider non-traditional occupations. Training and appropriate support services are required so that skills can be learned quickly, because the woman returning to the labour force does not usually have a lot of time or money to spend on a lengthy training program. She wants to be able to earn a salary quickly, and the methods of training must be those which are appropriate to an adult. Incentives are needed to ensure that employers hire and promote women in non-traditional fields. In fact, a systematic approach to the widespread problems of bias and discrimination and to counter myth with fact is necessary. This again will require an ongoing and concerted co-operative approach on the part of educators, business, unions, government and employers' associations.
We still see high schools allowing girls to drop sciences without consulting parents, and yet in the science-based world of the future, students, whether male or female, who have not had an adequate background in the sciences will be severely disadvantaged.
Among the factors which encourage women to enter nontraditional occupations will be higher wages, more chances for advancement and social support systems like daycare. Daycare means flexible arrangements. Not every child is happy in group daycare. Not every parent is happy with group daycare, but for parents who wish to have this particular method available, the whole question of trade unions and employers sponsoring daycare is one which has been discussed for the last 20 years but on which we have seen very little action.
Another approach to the care of children is subsidized parental leave. We have seen recently some trade unions include the question of parental leave in their contracts. I think this is an important development for the future. There are many parents who prefer to stay home and care for young children themselves. This surely is an option which society should encourage as much as institutionalized daycare. The choice should surely be available for parents based on their own personal choice and also on the parents' assessment of the needs of their children. Some European countries have gone very much further than we have in providing maternity leave or, as it is increasingly being called, parental leave, because in some cases it may be the father who would choose to have six months at home caring for young children.
If we really believe that the next generation is important, and if we as citizens really feel that we have a stake in the next generation, then surely all of us, including employers, employees, trade unions and those of us who are involved in law making, must be concerned about offering more options and more support to young parents who may leave the labour force for a period. Young parents who leave the labour force should be able to have assistance when they are ready to return-with retraining, if it is necessary-and certainly some kind of special protection.
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One of the chief program instruments now available to the Government of Canada to provide training is the Adult Occupational Training Act. In discussing new federal-provincial training agreements, it is the intention of the government to include the expansion of women's employment in non-traditional fields, and I hope that part of this discussion will also include measures to facilitate the return to the labour force of women who have been out of it for some time because of child-rearing responsibilities.
Another lever that the federal government has is to give greater emphasis to on-the-job training through the industrial training program. There are obvious advantages to encouraging on-the-job training. Employers increasingly have more sophisticated and up to date equipment than do educational institutions. There has traditionally been some skepticism on the part of unions and others. Some fear that on-the-job training may be misused by employers to get cheap labour and that production needs may be put ahead of the employee's need to learn. However, these are problems that can be solved. There are many known ways of measuring and monitoring so as to ensure that on-the-job training is really that. In any case, surely an enlightened employer will consider it in his interests to ensure that on-the-job training really is a fact.
The government has instituted a new initiative for employers. It has been reimbursing up to 75 per cent of the wages of women taking on-the-job training in occupations which were traditionally reserved for men. For on-the-job training and apprenticeship courses, the concept of establishing pooled funds to persuade employers to hire apprentices has possibilities. Granted, apprenticeship training as such is under provincial jurisdiction, but there are methods, such as the one I mentioned, which would allow the federal government, in co-operation with the provinces, to provide additional incentives for apprenticeship training. Such funds could be created through payroll tax deductions or voluntary contributions in order that firms could be fully or partially reimbursed for training costs. In this way, all companies would share the costs and benefits of training. Management and labour representatives could help governments assess training needs so that apprenticeship policies are consistent with requirements.
Affirmative action programs which now exist in three federal government departments, provide a useful demonstration of what people can do who traditionally were not considered for certain jobs. In our time it is very important to move away from fixed ideas and to see what people can do, given the opportunity, and to build on these experiences to get greater flexibility. If there is anything that is sure about the eighties, it is that nothing is sure. It is therefore very important to be flexible and creative.
With an affirmative action program in place within the federal public service, we can begin to apply the same provisions in the private sector through contract compliance legislation. We have been talking about contract compliance legislation for a long time. I remember discussing it in 1974 and
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1975. There has been little or no progress in that area. Surely now is the time to act.
I notice, Mr. Speaker, you are at the edge of your chair. That must mean that it is time for me to stop.


Mr. Fred King (Okanagan-Similkameen):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that it is entirely fitting that this House should be considering this opposition motion in the name of the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes). Allow me to read the motion which we are debating this evening. It reads:
That this House expresses its sorrow and sympathy for the more than one million Canadians who are unable to find work and who, with their families, face an uncertain future, and urges the Prime Minister to endorse this sentiment by shuffling his cabinet.
This motion, without a doubt establishes the most significant debate on bread and butter issues in this House since the all-night debate of December 18 which was focused on the economic plight of the nation we are so honoured to serve. It is important to note that the debate in this House on that occasion-the December 18 debate which established a record for longevity in this House-was also prompted by a motion from the opposition "for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the economic crisis in Canada".
It is unbelievable, unexplainable and an undeniable fact that while the nation suffers the worst economic crisis since the thirties, the Liberal Government of Canada chooses to spend the time, the energy and the substance of this Parliament on a matter which is of indifference to the majority of Canadians concerned with the hard core facts of life, food, clothing, shelter. It is irresponsible of this government to impose on this House and upon this country a debate which has absolutely nothing to do with the provision of life's basics to the citizens of Canada. This is the strange priority of a government out of touch with the realities in Canada.
It is not just interesting, but it is a fact that will be long remembered, that it is the opposition party's initiative which is seeking to force a reluctant government to take cognizance that this most blessed nation in the world is suffering from a severe and crippling malaise in the form of mismanagement of the economy.
There is no one to blame for this situation but this government which has been in power for most of three decades, far too long a period, this government that attempts to blame every other factor in Canada and in the world for our economic difficulties, every other factor except its own ineptitude, its own blind devotion to party well-being before the welfare of Canada and its people.
This is the reason that we are called upon to debate in this House tonight an expression of sorrow and sympathy for the more than one million Canadians out of work, unemployed, disillusioned, disheartened, faced with an increasingly bleak future at a time of the year when Canadians, like the season, should be anticipating growth, productivity and prosperity.
It is indeed symbolic that in the midst of the gloomy forecasts put forward by economists from all sectors of the

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Canadian business scene, this opposition sees absolutely no indication that the present members of cabinet are prepared to acknowledge and address the issue. Without this purpose on the part of the cabinet of this Government of Canada, there can be no recovery undertaken. Without this purpose, the unemployed of Canada can only expect more, not less, in the way of personal distress in the form of unemployment.
This is the reason that the motion has been phrased to include in the national solution to the unemployment crisis, the urging of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that he take the first necessary step in the difficult road to economic recovery by rooting out the insensitive cabinet incompetents who hold such power to do damage to Canada. This is why this motion urges the Prime Minister to shuffle the cabinet-after all, it is his cabinet-and put in place some of the talent that must be hidden somewhere amongst the 140 or so members opposite.
I spoke of the distress being produced in the nation through the critically high unemployment rate inflicted upon Canadians by a government insensitive to the ordinary laws of market place economy and of good judgment. It is comparatively easy to express distress in statistics because you avoid coming face to face with the impact in the form of personal trauma and disaster which result from the individual circumstance behind each statistical entry. Statistics are a very comfortable way of dealing with problems that affect people deeply and disastrously. It is comparatively easy to acknowledge that unemployment rates are up 1 per cent or 2 per cent, but 1 per cent of Canadian employables is more than 100,000 citizens. This implies the possibility of more than 100,000 personal tragedies. This is the measure of the damage which the government is doing to Canada. It is not included in the drab, depressing statistical evidence stated as the percentage of Canadians seeking employment. The measure of the damage being done is seen in the individual case histories of those earnest, conscientious, ambitious Canadians who cannot find targets for their energies and talents.
This tragedy has been defined and quantified in a study by the Johns Hopkins University in the United States which was concerned with deep social consequences inherent in policies which produce situations where able, worthy people are unable to find work, are unable to put their energies and talents to constructive purpose, are frustrated in their attempts to be self-reliant, are faced with personal loss of assets, such as homes and automobiles, and, worst of all, of family and dignity. The Johns Hopkings University undertook a study of the implications to individuals involved in these situations. It is now widely accepted as the valid analysis of what happens to persons across Canada so affected, such as those who write daily to their Members of Parliament expressing their distress.
The Johns Hopkins University study concluded that every 1 per cent increase in the unemployment rate in the United States kills 37,000 persons. It is not through starvation. That does not happen in our western democracies any more; we are much too civilized for that. There are 37,000 persons who lose
their lives through suicide, homicide, heart attack and stroke. Crime rates increase, violent crimes proliferate and family break-ups increase. These are the attendant personal disasters which walk hand-in-hand with unemployment. The study concluded that the social pathology of unemployment has been swept under the rug. The government has been unscrupulously lifting the rug to avoid focus on its failures. Lift the rug; sweep under a few more statistics!
I should like to read some of the statistics contained in the study to which I referred. Appendix 2 is entitled: "Relationship between Economic Conditions and Social and Family breakdown". It estimates the social costs of national economic policy and the implications for mental and physical health and criminal aggression. It refers to the impact of the 1.4 per cent rise in unemployment during 1970 in the United States of America, and it reads as follows:
-the 1.4 per cent rise in unemployment during 1970 is directly responsible for some 51,570 total deaths, including 1,740 additional homicides, for 1,540 additional suicides, and for 5,520 additional mental hospitalizations. These are not major portions of the total number of deaths, homicides, suicides, and mental hospitalizations which occurred during 1970 through 1975. But, unlike most other factors which contributed to the statistics, rising unemployment can be readily avoided.
Using this methodology, one Canadian researcher estimated the following social impacts attributable to a level of 175,000 unemployed in Ontario over the next five years: total deaths, 8,830, of which 2,920 will result from heart disease inspired by concern for unemployment; 120 suicides and 20 murders; incidents of mental illness, 11,200 and prison sentences, 2,400. If that is translated into figures for Canada as a whole, we will have a total of some 50,000 deaths attributable to the trauma of being unemployed over the next five years.
In Windsor, Ontario, earlier this year, the mayor's committee on services for the unemployed reported that the inability to make credit payments or to make unemployment or welfare payments stretch to the end of each month has brought about uncontrollable stress and pressure and has resulted in increased use of alcohol, tranquilizers and other drugs to ease stress. Also the mayor's committee found that social agencies in Windsor have experienced increases in case loads ranging from 25 per cent to 377 per cent. The human tragedy associated with unemployment is also reflected in the committee's statement that having to go on welfare, after other benefits are exhausted, is having a devastating effect upon individuals and their families.
The Canadian Council on Social Development obtained the following comments from individuals across Canada on the relationship between high inflation and unemployment and increased levels of social and family breakdown. Don Peirce, executive director, Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton, said:
I can't believe that any one would seriously suggest there's not a relationship between unemployment and other social problems. It is so ridiculous a statement it doesn't merit an answer.
Ed Smee, former director, Ontario secretary of state, said:
If you don't think there's a relationship, resign your job, and go look for an alternative. Before you do, however, you might like to know that the last time we
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had an open competition for six positions in our department, over 1,400 people applied, and all of them had at least a BA degree.
Angela Julien, social planning department, city of Halifax, said:
There is a direct relationship between unemployment and social problems. Our department has believed for years that there is a tremendous waste of human resources when governments try to fight inflation by increasing unemployment.
There is a close correlation between increased unemployment, declining family incomes, increasing stress and social problems. When families have inadequate incomes, you can expect to find increased mental problems, increased use of medication, increasing child abuse, family violence, and marital breakdown.
There is an increasing number of testimonials in this report, but there is a further insult to the Canadian intelligence and integrity which is being encouraged by a government that seeks answers to the problems it creates. It seeks answers always by the creation of another government program or another government agency. This further expands the bureaucratic empire which strangles us all in red tape and taxes.
Unfortunately, governments do not provide answers for economic problems. Governments produce economic problems by not measuring the implications contained in their acts of intervention in the business, economic and social life of the nation. The National Energy Program is a prime example of incompetent, almost criminal disregard for sense and responsibility in this most important area of Canada's present and future. This bankrupt policy-and I think we give it credit and dignify it by calling it a policy-is the sole cause of thousands upon thousands of Canadians being unemployed today. If common sense does not soon take over from the present direction by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), the number of unemployed in Ontario alone, as a result of this government's National Energy Program, will reach more than 100,000. That is what we are talking about. According to the Johns Hopkins study, of those 100,000 unemployed in Ontario some 4,000 will die through suicide, homicide, heart attack and stroke.
Additionally, we are in the process of teaching a generation of Canadians that smart persons faced with a circumstance of mass unemployment will use the system to their own end and for their own benefit. Fortunately, the majority of Canadians appreciate honesty and effort. But we have a minority, and I think an increasing one, which views the system as theirs to beat.
I would like to read from an article which appeared in the Pentincton Herald entitled "The Cheques Roll In". Under the heading "Unemployment insurance: ticket for a long holiday" is the testimony of two young Canadians, one by the name of Sam, who says:
"I never feel guilty when I rip off the government," he said. "It makes me feel good. How much did they spend on this metric thing? I just took $5,000 or $6,000 from them.
"Every time I worked I knew they couldn't find out. I mailed my report card every other Friday afternoon exactly at 4 p.m. I get my cheque every Wednesday or Thursday morning-depending on what mail box I used."
He said he never had any problem keeping his claim running.
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"As long as you make your appointment (with Canada Employment officers) you're all right."
The article continues:
"I went out of town too. As long as they get their report cards they think you're in town."
A person collecting benefits is supposed to be available for work any time.
Sam said he didn't really look for work until he thought his claim might run out.
Toward the end of the article it says:
He first collected unemployment insurance when he was 17 so by age 21 he knew the ropes. With $1500 in the bank and a desire to travel to Europe,...
He and a friend went to Europe and they mailed in their forms and received their cheques. There was no need to look for work as everyone, including government officials, realized there were no jobs.
All is not despair in Canada. We can look at the record of the province of British Columbia, the province in which I am privileged to live and call my home. I would like to read a brief resume of what is happening in British Columbia under a government which is intent on encouraging the private sector to grow and to be a productive partner in the economy. This is what Mr. Bennett said in a recent speech:
In five years, we have achieved those goals, and our success is directly attributable to that private enterprise spirit and drive that pervades all parts of our vast and diverse province.
I submit that is quite in contrast with the drive of this government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Norman Kelly (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Mr. Speaker, as a parent and long-time observer of the Canadian scene I hope that I will be considered qualified this evening to speak on one of the most challenging problems facing our nation today, that is, the upgrading of our labour force. Before looking at the present situation and what may lie ahead for Canadians, I believe it would be useful to have an historical perspective on training.
Technical and vocational education in Canada today is the product of evolution. Our early settlers learned by watching and practising, and during the nineteenth century such practical instruction became formalized as it was embodied in the school curriculum.
Federal government involvement in the field of education began with the proclamation of the Agricultural Aid Act in 1912, followed by the Agricultural Construction Act in 1913. And there have been various federal acts and agreements made under their authority since then, except for the period from 1929 to 1937.
The federal government has played an increasingly important role in this field, particularly since the passing of the Technical Education Act of 1919 which clearly defined the responsibilities of the provinces and the federal government. This act stipulated that the federal government would share up to 50 per cent of the provincial expenditures for technical education. This federal involvement was justified on the basis

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of the need of a rapidly industrializing nation for an adequate supply of skilled workers, provision of equality of educational opportunity, and the high cost to local and provincial authorities of providing adequate training programs and facilities.
It is also interesting to note that in 1919 the federal government's contribution to technical education was $700,000 compared with its contribution of $800 million to adult occupational training in 1980-81.
The Adult Occupational Training Act of 1967 marked a significant new departure for Canada. It clearly separated the occupational training of adults from the education of the young. The then newly-established Department of Manpower and Immigration was given responsibility for implementing the provisions of the AOT Act through the Canada Manpower Training Program. This act allowed the federal government to purchase training services from the provinces and private schools on behalf of its adult workers and to enter into contracts with employers. A striking feature of the AOT Act was its linking of occupational training for adults with the needs and opportunities of the labour market. The federal and provincial governments committed themselves to a co-operative determination of training needs and the development of training plans. Budgets and guidelines were set nationally, but the focus was on local needs and conditions.
In 1972 the act was amended significantly to increase its flexibility. The program was made available to more adults, some of the restrictions in the provision of industrial training were lifted and certain sections which were no longer relevant were repealed.
While it is very easy to sit back and criticize the training carried out under the AOT Act, the fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have benefited from the program. Without it, many of them would not have had the opportunity to learn a skill or improve their skills. As in any program, there is always room for improvement. At the present time two task forces are studying it and their recommendations may have a great influence on the future direction of training in Canada. These two task forces are the Parliamentary Task Force on Critical Skills for the eighties, headed by the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace (Mr. Allmand), and the other is a high level task force reporting to the Chairman of Employment and Immigration, Canada, which will work to develop a comprehensive employment strategy for the eighties. As a result of these studies there will no doubt be proposals made to increase the effectiveness of the training program.
For many years I have had an interest in the way that young Canadians are prepared for their careers. That interest has increased since I became a Member of Parliament and have had the opportunity to discuss with other hon. members the relationship between education and employment across the country. It is my opinion, and I am sure that many other hon. members will agree, that on balance we have not been doing a good job of preparing students for the labour market. Not only have we failed to give students the technical skills that the jobs of the future will require, we have also failed to provide them
with an elementary understanding of the world of work and the ways in which working life is different from the lives they have so far known-family life and school life. We have not told students about the jobs of the future and we have not found ways to give them the hands-on experience that will reveal their strengths and weaknesses, their likes and dislikes, and what in general they can expect of work.
Too many students are making decisions about their education and the career they hope to pursue without adequate information and without much thought. Too many students are graduating without any thought to the labour market and the places in that market where they may find a niche. I have heard estimates that one-third of our graduating students cannot say what occupations they would like to follow. I suspect that another third of our graduating students, although they can say what jobs they would like, have only the most elementary knowledge of the world of work.
There is a lot that could be said on the subject of the needs of students and the problems that have so far hindered our attempts to prepare them for the working world. There is a big job to be done, and those who tackle it-employers, educators, governments and students-deserve every support and encouragement.
The experts tell us that the next decade will be marked by considerable industrial and labour market adjustment and that shifts away from traditional approaches to training will be inevitable. New initiatives and innovative methods responding quickly to local and regional needs, will have to dominate future training systems. Obviously, everything cannot happen at once. But where we can, we must move quickly to bring about meaningful changes to existing situations.
Before closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the government and, in particular, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) for the special efforts being taken to make training more readily available for those who have traditionally been relegated to dead-end jobs. I refer, of course, to the vast majority of women workers and our native people. Now thanks to such programs as non-traditional training for women and training opportunities for natives, they are being exposed to the type of training which will enable them to break out of their particular job ghetto.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, the generous reimbursement package the government offers employers who train workers in highly skilled fields should have a considerable impact on reducing labour shortages which hamper economic growth. It costs a tremendous amount of money to train such workers, but it is a sound investment in the future prosperity of this country.


William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate because of the nature of the motion, and I am doubly pleased to find such a distinguished colleague in the Chair this evening. I might say immediately that one would be tempted, and sorely tempted, to respond to some of the remarks of the Minister of Employment and Immigration
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(Mr. Axworthy). Frankly, Sir, it is simply not worth it. The minister-I do not know why-is so preoccupied with his political detractors that I think he has lost all sense and all perspective of the portfolio. I was a critic of the then minister in a previous Liberal government, now the hon. member for Sarnia (Mr. Cullen), and I thought he had some faults; but I will tell you, sir, the present minister makes the hon. member for Sarnia look like an absolute genius in that portfolio.
Earlier today the minister indicated, in a flash of brilliance, that there was hard core unemployment in the regional sense. He grasped equalization to his bosom as if it were a newly found phenomenon. Equalization is so much part of this Confederation that the minister could well have ignored it.
I remember the Kingston communique of a group of Conservative premiers and the leader, some years ago, on the subject of equalization; but I am sure it was not until 1979 that the present minister had ever heard of it and went on to talk about youth unemployment. I am delighted that the minister of National Revenue (Mr. Rompkey) is here, because I just saw an article about the terrible difficulties that well trained young people in Newfoundland have who wish to enter the teaching profession. There is a great surplus of them.
The minister does not need to tell us about this problem. This is a very longstanding, serious problem of young people, and even, for heaven's sake, of lawyers. There is an article in the recent edition of McLean's which talks about this enormous surplus of lawyers. If we have a problem with lawyers and well-trained Newfoundland teachers, can you imagine the problems of the untrained trying to get into the job field?
My colleagues have indicated the problems in those two areas and have covered them well. While I am tempted to reply to the minister, I will not do so. I want to talk about what this government and this minister ignored, in a very narrow sense, because maybe he and they will understand that. They talk about the general economic pressure, and it is true. They talk about it more as an excuse than anything else. They talk about, for example, the depreciation in the automobile industry. Given that situation, let us accept the argument that they can do absolutely nothing about the general economic pressures and the depression of the automobile industry. Let us accept that, as hard as it might be, just for sake of argument.
What could a government do? The minister talks about this great record of job creation. The issue is not the number of jobs created; the issue is: did we achieve our potential in job creation? That is the issue. If we created 300,000 jobs, and our potential was to create 600,000 jobs, we are a dismal failure. If, on the other hand, the potential was for 350,000 jobs, and we created 300,000, then we would have something to brag about.
Let me cite one example. I was interested to hear the remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Frith) when he talked about OPEC and the international oil situation. If I interpreted his remarks correctly, all of a sudden he lumped us with all industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and particularly western Europe. We are the same, he said. That is
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absolute nonsense. We are not part of that group. We have the potential not to be at the mercy of OPEC. We have the potential to be major energy exporters.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Herbert Jarvis: If we achieve that potential, we do not need to worry about that threat from the Middle East. I do not speak only of Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Alberta. I speak of the Atlantic provinces and the enormous potential for export of hydroelectric power, for example. But look at our potential in the last year and in the immediate future. The potential was in the energy field. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), in his talk about the depression in the exploration activity, said there are no unemployment lines in Alberta or in Saskatchewan. What garbage! Do you know where the lines are, Mr. Speaker? They are in my riding and in ridings all over Ontario and Quebec. That is where the unemployment lines are because this government failed to achieve its potential in energy development.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Herbert Jarvis: My riding is a 60 per cent rural and only 40 per cent urban. The city of Stratford is a small city of 26,000 people. In that city we manufacture all types of products in small plants. I do not have any big business, fortunately or unfortunately. They are all small plants. We manufacture a multitude of products which would have found their way into western Canada had this government acted intelligently and aggressively to achieve the potential in petroleum exploration.
I am told, and I accept it although it surprised me, that the petroleum industry is the largest user of trucks. I thought it might be forestry construction or mining that used trucks the most. However, I am told, and I accept it, that the largest industrial customer of trucking is the petroleum industry.
What do they make in these small plants in Stratford? They make brake cables; they make upholstery; they make oil filters; they make fan belts. These are the places that are laying off their employees.
If the minister is right and we cannot do anything because of the general economic condition, because of the international situation or because of the depression in the industry-and I do not think he is-surely, in the name of reason, we should grasp what we have. Therefore, when the Prime Minister says "I do not see any unemployment lines in Alberta and Saskatchewan,"-and I am not so sure that is true, but let us assume that is right-I wish he would visit Stratford or Woodstock or St. Thomas and the multitude of small Canadian cities in Ontario and Quebec. The unemployment lines there are a direct result of the National Energy Policy.
It was months before the minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) would admit that any rigs were leaving the country although my colleagues had been screaming about it for weeks and weeks. But I do not think that the rigs leaving is the tragedy; the tragedy is that we are not

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Unemployment
doubling and tripling the number of rigs in Canada. We should be exploring like crazy out there. If we were, then there would be no unemployment lines in Stratford and my colleague from Oxford (Mr. Halliday) would not have them in Woodstock and my colleague from Elgin (Mr. Wise) would not have them in St. Thomas. These are not great industrial centres, but small viable industrial cities, the heart of any employment strategy in any country.
The problem does not lie just with the automobile industry. In my riding we make industrial boilers, we make turbines and compressors. If one tarsands plant went ahead, I think we would have the potential for 300 jobs in one plant in the city of Stratford for welders, boiler makers, tool and dye makers, machinists and as well, there would be all the feeding plants that would supply that one industry. And that is from just one tarsands plant. Other members from central Canada and Quebec have similar ridings, and I am sure they would say exactly the same thing.
I know that would not solve the job problem in the region or the job problem of young Canadians who want to get into the labour market, but surely we could do that at the very minimum. It would take at least sorrr. of the pressure off.
The minister spoke about the program for the mobility of workers. They should be moving into Stratford, St. Thomas, Woodstock and St. Catharines. If we had achieved our potential last year and could achieve it next year, a mobility program for workers could be applied by moving workers into those ridings. But let us not hear talk about the mobility of workers when an area which could absorb them is being strangled.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Frith) spoke about the $350 million industrial restructuring program. He talked about research and development and about incentives to increase exports. I want to tell him and the House a few facts of life Mr. Speaker.
I received the minister's press release about the industrial retructuring program and I sent it to every manufacturer in my riding. I become very nervous when I sent out this minister's material, but I felt an obligation to tell my corporate constituents about the new program. I had several inquiries about it. But I found out shortly afterwards that ours was not one of the four designated areas. When I consider the areas that were designated, namely Windsor, Sept-Iles and the steel industry in Nova Scotia where there is very high unemployment, I am not going to argue about that. Before that designation, however, I had one very serious inquiry. The situation is as follows.
A company had to decide whether to install capital equipment in its U.S. plant or in the Stratford, Ontario plant. The material produced by this equipment comes into Canada tax free because it is of a kind not manufactured in this country. There is no tax on the $2 million or $3 million worth of this material which flows into the country. The machine would supply all of Canada's needs, so immediately it would stop imports coming into the country. It would produce $1 million worth of goods per year for export. The machine would
provide 40 jobs, ranging from highly skilled to unskilled and would provide a viable research and development program once it was installed. I indicated that we were not one of the areas designated in the program but that there may be other programs such as the R and D and programs to increase exports of manufactured goods.
First of all, we do not come under the $350 million program, so we can forget that. There is no way the company can receive a loan or assistance for R and D because that would not start until after the machine is installed. If the company wanted to hire 40 engineers for some fantastic new product development, it is likely they could do so under the R and D program, but they do not qualify under this program. They do not qualify for incentives to increase the export of manufactured goods because about two thirds of production is for domestic supply which would stop $2 million or $3 million worth of goods coming in from the United States. The company does not qualify for anything.
The minister talks about his government's program, but I do not think that he ever talks to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray). I do not think one has any idea what goes on in the other's department or that they have any idea of working together.
Earlier today I had to laugh because the minister talked about Canada Works, Young Canada Works and the program before that. I forget what it is called this year. Every time we change the minister we change the name. I mean the summer job program for students. In the nine years that I have been in this House, we have received the minimum allocation for each of those programs.
In a very parochial sense, certain things which enriched the life of the community to some degree, did take place. In some years, however, we did not have enough applications in the riding to use up the minimum amount we were allowed which I think was $50,000. The people in my riding are not keen on the hand-out idea. It was up to them to decide. It costs every bit as much to administer and audit a $50,000 program as it does a $5 million program in a very high unemployment area such as the province of the Minister of National Revenue. I got $50,000; he probably got $5 million and he deserved it, but the administration costs would be the same.
In the last nine years, if I had saved up the LIPs, the Canada Works Programs, and the community services program or whatever- this one is called, it is likely I could have had a machine for one small company that would provide 40 permanent jobs, a whole research and development program, would stop $2 million or $3 million worth of imports and would increase our exports by $1 million.
Sometimes I wonder what on earth we are doing. What do I say to the small businessman? I cannot send many of these small business people to the Federal Business Development Bank, Mr. Speaker. The people who want to buy an extra machine or hire a couple more people are not in the league in which the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce move. When I talk to the Minister of State for Small Businesses (Mr. Lapointe), I
April 13, 1981

might as well talk to that clock, Mr. Speaker. He has no authority. I do not think there is even a cabinet committee that considers a strategy for achieving job potential. If there is, I wish someone on the treasury benches would stand up on a point of order right now and tell me.
I see you are becoming restless, Mr. Speaker. May I close by saying just one thing. The great tragedy here is not that the government defies the facts of life; it is that it fails to reach out to the potential that exists, not just in our region and not just among our young people, but among the small businessmen all over Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being 10 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings on the motion pursuant to Standing Order 58(11).



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Chuck Cook (North Vancouver-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I have been trying for some time to get some kind of reasonable answer from the minister responsible for housing in this country. In British Columbia, we have one of the toughest housing situations which has ever faced any area in the history of Canada.
First, let me go over some of the facts relating to my own riding of North Vancouver-Burnaby and what is taking place there. In the last quarter of 1979, the median price for a house in North Vancouver was $94,000. In Burnaby the median price was $79,000. One year later, those prices increased by 65 per cent and 69 per cent respectively to $155,000 and $135,000. People are taking out second, third and fourth mortgages. People are moonlighting at several jobs. They are building extra and illegal suites to offset their payments. Thirty-three foot frontage lots are going for $100,000 for the land alone. Land prices have increased 100 per cent in the last year as well.
Construction costs are up 20 per cent but there is little serviced land left to build on. I might add that construction permits are down 24 per cent over the past year.
Let us take a look at the dismantling of the community services contribution program. Services are not now being
Adjournment Debate
developed commensurate with demand because the cost to start up is too great a load for the community to bear. There is no hope for a family to own their own home if the family income is less than $30,000. Soon, those making combined incomes of $30,000 will be unable to purchase and maintain a mortgage on a house. Only those with incomes in the higher brackets will be able to own their own home in the foreseeable future as a result of the policies of this government.
Mortgage payments per month have increased 50 per cent in the last five years. What have high interest rates done? High interest rates have cut into the profits of builders, contractors and manufacturers. These costs must be recouped somehow. Profit levels for the small entrepreneurial contractor are 3 per cent. Inflation and high interest rates have signalled a serious decline in consumer confidence throughout the lower mainland and throughout Canada.
Let me tell hon. members about the housing starts in British Columbia. We have an average of 50,000 people coming in each year. This government cannot seem to understand that. In 1976 there were over 37,000 housing starts; in 1977 over 32,000 housing starts; in 1978 over 28,000 housing starts and in 1979 over 21,000 housing starts. In 1980 there was a bit of hope with 37,000 housing starts. However, there is some dispute about that figure. Those are the official figures of the government. Yet, when I talked to the Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada officials they told me they could only find 33,000 housing starts, not 37,000. Yet this government talks about things moving up, housing improving, more starts, things happening and the government on its way. Tell that to the people trying to find a place to live on the lower mainland of British Columbia. Fifty thousand people will move to British Columbia this year as they did last year. Experts in the housing field, including CMHC and Clayton Research Associates, have adjusted their 1981 housing starts downward for British Columbia. The main problem is the inadequate supply of developed land. The federal-provincial agreement for assistance in making serviced land available has been cut. What a thing to cut in view of what is going on in B.C. at this particular time.
A minimum of 40,000 housing starts is what is required in British Columbia in 1981, according to HUDAC. The CMHC statistics are sometimes suspect, as I mentioned. We do not know what is going on.
Let me give you the figures for 1980 and 1981 for the first couple of months, and perhaps hon. members will understand my concern. In 1980 there were 5,133 starts in the first couple of months. This year that figure is down to 4,885. In high-demand areas there is no inventory of serviced lands. Those are the facts that lead to tremendous personal tragedies for any number of families in lower mainland British Columbia; they lead to tragedies for people in North Vancouver-Burnaby as well as in other areas. We are talking about 50,000 new people moving there hoping to find jobs, hoping to start families and to purchase homes. There is vacancy rate in apartments and the cost of housing is absolutely exorbitant.

April 13, 1981
Adjournment Debate
What kind of answers do I get from this government on what it is doing with our housing? I get no answers at all. I doubt if I will get an answer tonight but I want the people of North Vancouver-Burnaby to know that at least this government has been made aware of the figures. I would only repeat the question I have asked on a couple of other occasions, and that is, what the devil is this government doing about the housing mess in this country?
[ Translation]


Mr. Louis R. Desmarais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to elaborate on the minister's reply to the question asked by the hon. member on April 2 concerning the effects of inflation on the construction industry and home owners. I should like first to comment on the causes of the slump in the housing industry. In 1980, the trend of interest rates had a detrimental effect on the rate of home construction and has to a certain extent lengthened the period of stagnation in this sector. Housing starts in 1980 fell to 159,000 units, and this decline in activity, which has been going on for four years, constitutes the longest slump we have known since the years 1929-1933. However, it seems rather oversimplistic to blame this situation only on the pattern of interest rates.
As you may recall, Mr. Speaker, before the beginning of the regression, the building industry was producing housing at a rate of approximately 260,000 units per year. The number of completed units in the following years exceeded the absorption capacity of the market. The housing stock increased rapidly and the industry responded by slowing down production. This market adjustment became even more complicated as a result of a decline in immigration, and as the number of immigrants fell to 86,000 in 1978 compared with the record figure of 218,000 in 1974, this decline was reflected in the housing demand which has not led to a quick recovery in the home building sector. While the immigration trend showed an increase in 1980, with a total of 142,000 immigrants, the financial situation has hindered the economic recovery on many markets. However, certain tight markets have adjusted rather quickly to high mortgage rates, and some of them have even showed an increase in housing starts for 1980.

For example, housing starts went up from 1979 by 84 per cent, 31 per cent and 55 per cent in St. John's, Vancouver and Victoria, respectively.
According to preliminary data, urban single detached starts in the first quarter of 1981 were approximately 43 per cent above the same period in 1980. The same comparison also revealed that mortgage interest rates were higher in early 1981, above 15 per cent compared to-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the hon. parliamentary secretary, but his time has expired.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE-POSSIBILITY OF COMPENSATORY PAYMENTS TO ONTARIO AND QUEBEC
Mr. Hal Herbert (Vaudreuil):: Mr. Speaker, it was a little more than a week ago that I put a question to the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) concerning the problem he was having reaching an agreement for the use of the RCMP forces in eight of our provinces. The suggestion I made to him in the question was that he might conclude an agreement with all ten of the provinces so that the two largest provinces, Ontario and my own province of Quebec, which use their own police forces, could receive compensatory payments in lieu of the benefits which are received by the other provinces.
This question derives from some questions I have been putting to the various solicitors general and also on the order paper for the last several years suggesting that if there are benefits accruing to the other provinces from the use of the RCMP and since there is a contribution made by the taxpayers in the two largest provinces of Ontario and Quebec, there should be compensatory payments in lieu of the benefits received by the other provinces.
In his reply, the Solicitor General stated that it is not intended to be a cost-sharing agreement and never has been. Maybe, but the figures might illustrate otherwise. The latest figures I have, given to me by a predecessor of the present Solicitor General, indicate that there are approximately 2,500 members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the two provinces of Ontario and Quebec obviously being used for federal duties or federal purposes. Of the approximately 8,200 members of the RCMP in the other eight provinces, approximately 2,100 are used for federal purposes, 4,100 for provincial purposes and 2,000 for municipal duties.
In addition, I am told that the amount charged to the eight provinces in the last year for which figures appear to be available-the 1979-80 period-totalled SI 19 million.
Going back some five years to 1975-76, the charge in that period was $68 million. I was only able to do my arithmetic for that particular year because of comparable figures, but the calculation, based on the number of personnel of the RCMP used in that year divided into the $68 million charged, indicated that we were charging at that time some $11,000 per person.
From that figure I gained the impression that this was a concessionary rate, and thus I suggested that if in order to maintain one police force in the eight provinces we were in effect to charge only to the eight provinces a rate somewhat lower-in fact, possibly substantially lower-than the actual cost to the federal government of those persons employed and since this cost was paid in part by the taxes of the residents of the two provinces of Ontario and Quebec, the two provinces which have two-thirds of the population of this country, there should be some return to these two provinces to compensate for the benefit which was being received in the other eight provinces.
April 13, 1981

I think it is important at this time to stress this point because the eight provinces, which are apparently reluctant to conclude an agreement, are under the impression-apparently also-that the federal government should be making some contribution toward the cost of the police forces, the RCMP, which are being used in these eight provinces. If this is to continue to be the case, the taxpayers of the two provinces of Ontario and Quebec should be compensated for whatever benefits are being given in these eight other provinces. Alternatively, the Solicitor General should ensure that the amount being charged is fair and just, so that there is no cost to the taxpayers in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) raised in his question a subject which at the moment is my greatest priority as Solicitor General. That is the renegotiation of the contracts for provincial policing services between Canada and eight provinces and 180 odd municipalities across the country. Those contracts expired last Tuesday. They are a very important job for the RCMP. In fact, almost half of the RCMP are engaged in providing provincial and municipal police services.
In their federal role, and there are 11,000 of them across the country doing federal policing, all of the payments of course come from the national taxpayers and the national treasury, as they should. However, under the provincial and municipal role where we provide police to fulfil the responsibilities to other levels of government, we expect that those governments and their constituents who benefit from these services will pay the largest share of the cost for those services.
The hon. member indicated that we should not charge those provinces any less than the cost of the service. I disagree. I think we should charge less than the services cost because there is some national benefit from having the RCMP as a provincial police force and a municipal police force. There are efficiencies. The country benefits from having the same police force working at three levels; sharing their training, communications facilities, offices and other facilities. These are advantages from which the provinces should benefit.
At the same time, these highly trained members of the RCMP are competent when they are working at the municipal level and provincial level to help us in the federal policing program. We are prepared to recognize that benefit and contribute a share of that cost to the provinces and municipalities. The question is how much.
We want to share with the provinces the cost to such an extent that the federal taxpayer will not be subsidizing these provincial police services. The hon. member for Vaudreuil is correct when he states there would be no justification for the federal government providing a subsidy to those provinces.
We do not intend to provide a subsidy. We provide policing service. The offer was available to Ontario and Quebec, not to get money from the federal government, and Canada would have benefited from it, but to have the RCMP serving in their provinces as provincial and municipal police. They chose, as is their constitutional right, to do the policing themselves.
Adjournment Debate
Those provinces which use the force benefit from it. However, the benefits are in policing. The benefits should not be in some subsidy from fellow taxpayers at the national level to those who are in municipalities, whether or not they pay for their own policing, or who are in provinces which do not have the benefit of the RCMP.
These contracts are now up for negotiation. We have not settled the price. However, the principle is very clear. Each level of government will only be expected to pay for the benefits it receives. I hope to be able to report shortly to the House that contracts have been renegotiated and that the RCMP will continue to perform that very valued and historic role for the provinces and municipalities.


SUPPLY AND SERVICES-RE-OPENING OF CONTRACT TO CONSTRUCT F-18 FIGHTER AIRCRAFT
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight at 10.19 to discuss the plight of over 1,000 workers who have been laid off at McDonnell Douglas (Canada) and the mysterious situation surrounding the F-18 contract signed between this government and McDonnell Douglas of St. Louis for an amount in the area of $4 billion in 1981 dollars.
As the House knows, the Department of National Defence had been looking for a long time at various aircraft in order that a purchase be made to re-equip our armed forces which are using outdated equipment. Many in this House studied, through the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence, the various proposals which were narrowed down to two: the F-16 and the F-18.
In meeting with McDonnell Douglas officials, I and many of my colleagues were assured that, if the Government of Canada awarded the fighter aircraft contract to McDonnell Douglas, the F-18 Hornet, the Canadian plant in Malton would receive a significant share of the Canadian offset program. At the same time, my colleague, Alex Jupp, the then member of Parliament for Mississauga North and I both tried to receive assurances that Orenda engines would get some of the work on the General Electric motors, but no assurances were given.
At the time the contract was to be announced, the Quebec Liberal caucus met with the makers of the F-16 which they favoured, not because it was the best for Canada, but because it promised more work for Quebec.
At the same time-and we can give them full marks-they meet with McDonnell Douglas. What went on at that latter meeting has not been told. Was the Quebec Liberal caucus promised additional work in Quebec to the detriment of Ontario? Did the Quebec caucus support the F-18 contract because of a deal which was made between them and McDonnell Douglas? When asked that question, the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) refused to answer, as can be seen at page 9103 of Hansard for April 9.
The contract was awarded in Ottawa last spring by the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne), and we were
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April 13, 1981
Adjournment Debate
all very excited. I attended the signing of the contract and was thrilled by the performance of the F-18 Hornet at the Ottawa International Airport. The workers at McDonnell Douglas were drinking champagne to celebrate, and now over 1,000 of them are walking the street looking for work.
Part of the offset program was construction of components or parts for the DC-9 and the DC-10. I would imagine that part of the contract has already been broken. McDonnell Douglas Canada, with the know-how and the trained manpower, bid on forward fuselage side panels and pylons for the new aircraft.
When Ottawa saw that there were no competing bids for side panels and pylons from Quebec, presto, a Crown corporation owned by the Government of Canada, located in Quebec, namely Canadair Ltd. put in its bid. In answer to a question which I posed on April 9, 1981, as found at page 9103 of Hansard, the Minister of Supply and Services said that it was an unsolicited bid. That is for the public to decide. Then the minister said:
-McDonnell Douglas invited the other bidders to attempt to fix their bids and the whole process is under review by McDonnell Douglas.
I would suggest that "fix their bids" is pretty strong language in the game of tendering, and begs more questions.
I submit that the F-18 contract has been a case of the worst kind of political pressure and that subcontractors in Ontario and their workers will be the victims. I cannot help but wonder, as to the workers at McDonnell Douglas, where the Onario Liberal caucus has been in Ottawa for the past year, especially the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Fisher).
When Bill Patrick, president of local 1967, United Auto Workers, which is the union that represents most of the workers at McDonnell Douglas, invited all political parties and Members of Parliament to a meeting with the union and its membership, not one Grit showed up. Not one Liberal was to be seen, not even the member for Mississauga North, which is where the meeting took place.
The Progressive Conservative Party was represented by the hon. member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) and myself, the NDP was represented by Mike Cassidy, but there were no Liberals. Yet, some people wonder why the working man or woman or the unemployed, as most were at that meeting, are becoming so cynical at the complete inaction and non-interest the government displays. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray), "Herb, lower the interest rates or I'll resign, Gray" has not lifted a finger to help. It takes Premier Davis to show the initiative, as he did last week, to travel to St. Louis to get some action, and there will be significant announcements made in the not-too-distant future. Union President Bill Patrick recognized this initiative as a positive step to help the workers with their plight.
What is happening with that multi-million dollar contract and the 2,000 new jobs promised, many of them at the McDonnell Douglas plant? Nothing to date. Why? The minister says the whole process is now under revision by McDonnell
Douglas. Why? Because the government asked them to change the process? I think it is time that the Liberal government came clean on the entire matter, levelled with the workers of McDonnell Douglas and with the people of Canada. What deals were made? What concessions were made to the Quebec caucus by McDonnell Douglas and/or the government? Finally, when, pray tell, can the sub-contract be expected to be signed so Canadians can start to work on the F-18? For every day that goes by, another F-18 and all its parts is being built in another country, and we lose.


Norman Kelly: Mr. Speaker, I would like to preface my remarks on behalf of the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) with two observations. First, although the CF-18 contract is very lengthy, it is a public document accessible to the hon. member opposite. It describes in great detail the large number of commitments that McDonnell Douglas has made to Canada in connection with the Hornet project. Two, the decision to purchase this particular aircraft was based not only on the sum of the contractual obligations it generated but, more important, because of the suitability of the aircraft itself for Canadian defence requirements.
As for the two questions asked by the hon. member on April 9, as reported at page 9103 of Hansard, I would first like to inform the House that McDonnell (Canada) was not the only firm to bid on the forward fuselage side panels and wing pylons when the bids closed the first time. An additional Canadian firm submitted a proposal to manufacture the forward side panels and two additional firms submitted proposals on the manufacture of the wing pylons.
I would also like to reiterate the minister's response to the second question, which may be found in Hansard on the same date and page I mentioned previously. That is to say that the government was not pressured, nor did it request McDonnell Douglas, St. Louis, to re-open tenders for any of the structural components. The company elected to solicit Canadian industry for new bids when Canadair expressed an interest to join in the competition. The government is not interested in interfering with the McDonnell Douglas normal bid solicitation process. It is not unusual for bids to be re-opened to seek additional tenders if the first bids received are not necessarily responsive to the requirements, or if the requirements change. It should be noted that escalation factors, exchange rates and production requirements have all changed to some extent since the tenders were first called. It is in this sense that the minister used the phrase "to fix" tenders. Perhaps he means "to update" tenders.
The government did not request a bid from Canadair on side panels, wing pylons or any other components. The government has an agreement to purchase complete CF-18 aircraft from McDonnell Douglas. That firm is responsible for choosing its suppliers according to its own policies and the applicable regulations and laws of the United States. In short, there is no assurance that any Canadian firm will be chosen to perform the work in question. Our contract requires that Canadian prices must be competitive with the cost of performing the
April 13, 1981

work in the United States. However, we have no reason to believe that this will not be the case. It is anticipated that McDonnell Douglas will identify the most attractive bidder within the next few weeks.
Adjournment Debate


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: A motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock p.m.
At 10.29 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Tuesday, April 14, 1981