1981-03-25

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
5.0.	43
Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I move a motion of great importance to the Greek Canadian community of our country, and ask unanimous consent for its passing.
In full recognition of the outstanding contributions made by Greek Canadians to the social, spiritual and economic fabric of our society, as well as adding significantly to the foundation of our mosaic Canadian culture, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen):
That this House acknowledge such contributions by officially recognizing the significance of this day, March 25, which is Greek Independence Day, and the 160th anniversary of the freedom and independence of Greece, the cradle of democracy.


Madam Speaker:: I am sure that the House will want to express its appreciation for those words by applause.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
[Stage Direction]
5.0.	43
Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Whereas today, March 25, marks the sad day when the one hundredth oil rig is leaving Canada; whereas each of those 100 rigs caused employment for dozens and dozens of Canadians with an economic multiplier effect of at least four times, and whereas only a Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and government which are totally out of touch with Canada's real needs could propose such a misguided energy policy, thereby destroying any chance of oil self-sufficiency, I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That the government immediately withdraw those parts of its energy policy which have caused those 100 oil rigs to leave Canada.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Given the immediate need for both Canada and the United States to control and eliminate acid rain, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That the Prime Minister put pressure on the United States not to weaken the provisions of the U.S. Clean Air Act which is up for review, and that the Prime Minister be instructed by this House to use any and all possible means available to the Government of Canada to bring to fruition, without further delay, the toughest treaty possible to control the long-range transport of air pollutants, the most critical environmental problem facing North America today.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


TRANSPORT
Hon. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Madam Speaker, I wish to move a motion under Standing Order 43 which arises out of the fact that progress is once again being further frustrated and delayed in the grain terminal development of the port of Prince Rupert because of the federal government's refusal to honour fundamental articles in the memorandum of understanding signed and agreed to by the federal government and Prince Rupert Grain Terminal Consortium, specifically, the equal sharing of costs of the site preparation, including caissons for the new elevator. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Elgin (Mr. Wise):
That the Minister of Transport instruct officials of the National Harbours Board to honour the articles of the memorandum of understanding negotiated in

March 25, 1981
good faith, and further instruct his officials to proceed forthwith in ending the stalemate with Prince Rupert Grain Terminal Consortium so that further tenders can be called and the project be proceeded with.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the fact that on Monday, March 23, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) made one of the most important speeches in Canadian history and that neither CBC, CTV nor Tele Metropole in Quebec broadcast this historic event, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Kitchener (Mr. Lang):
That the television networks fulfil their responsibility of keeping the Canadian public informed, particularly on matters of fundamental importance to our nation, by rebroadcasting the Prime Minister's speech as well as those of the opposition leaders.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Clark:: Settle the strike.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Whereas the education deduction for full-time post-secondary school students of $50 a month, first introduced in 1972, has never been increased, and in view of the fact that since that time the cost of living has almost doubled, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid):
That as a result of the fact that tuition fees, accommodation and other expenses for students have almost doubled since 1972, that this House recognize that students are as much affected by inflation as are other groups by urging the government to table a ways and means motion which would increase the present
maximum deduction of $50 per month to a level more in line with the harsh realities of the eroded purchasing power of the dollar.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


MARINE TRANSPORT
Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to see the Minister of Transport in his seat. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I rise to move the following motion.
Failure of the government to move in extending the fuel surcharge exemption to all Canadian flagships operating out of Canadian ports will add some $30 million to the operational costs of those fleets and thus seriously erode their competitive position offshore, as well as creating an unacceptable administrative burden for the government with respect to policing it. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski):
That this House urges the government to extend its exemption on fuel surcharges to all Canadian flagships so as to bring into line all of the transportation modes, not later than March 31, 1981.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43, to move a motion.
Considering that the Liberal government issued a dumping permit by order in council to Amax Limited, in the middle of the 1979 federal election, and considering this action is opposed by the Nishgas and over 50 local groups and Canadians from coast to coast, on solid scientific and medical grounds, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That this House calls for the revocation of the special dumping permit to Amax until such time as a full public inquiry has heard evidence and ruled on the health and environmental implications of this project.


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent for this motion?
March 25, 1981


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


COMPENSATION TO FARMERS FOR EMBARGO ON SHIPMENTS TO RUSSIA-MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, I seek the attention of all hon. members of this House. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I rise to move a motion on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
Having recently returned from a visit to my native province of Saskatchewan I have become acutely aware of a very serious problem affecting western grain farmers. In view of the fact that the Prime Minister made a commitment to western grain farmers that they would be paid compensation because of the boycott policy of the previous government directed toward the sale of grain to the Soviet Union, and in light of the fact that many of these western grain farmers urgently need seeding money for the new crop year, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie):
That this House give unanimous support to the government to act as soon as possible to provide the details of compensation for the western grain farmers to eliminate any further hardships that they may suffer as a result of this grain embargo.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADA PENSION PLAN
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. I have reviewed this motion with the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) and the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Col-lenette), and I believe they will be comfortable with it.
Canadians suffering from a terminal illness, such as cancer, are naturally concerned about the financial well-being of their families. The greatest enemy of these people is time. Canada Pension Plan disability procedures are not set up to give any consideration to the severe problems these people face. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn):
That this House instruct the Minister of National Health and Welfare to study the possibility of setting up priority processing of disability pensions for Canadians suffering from a terminal illness.
Oral Questions


Madam Speaker:: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The province of New Brunswick and its premier have been threatened by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin), the Minister of Indians Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro), and the member for Restigouche (Mr. Harquail), with economic sanction, unfairly, unjustifiably and indefensibly. Despite the fact that they are more pomp and poop, there are citizens questioning the influence of these members. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie):
That the political minister for New Brunswick, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, reassure the people that the government intends to honour all its commitments and will continue to participate in such programs as the general development agreement and primary highway strengthening program as in the past.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister, who will know that Premier Sterling Lyon has reported that the eight provinces meeting now in Manitoba have made some progress toward agreement on constitutional proposals which will be far more acceptable to more Canadians than the constitutional proposal that is now before the House of Commons. In light of that progress that is being made, will the Prime Minister tell

March 25, 1981
Oral Questions
the House why he is intent on rushing his particular constitutional proposal through the House of Commons at a time when it appears that waiting a little longer would result in agreement on an amending formula and a constitutional package that would have the effect of uniting Canadians rather than dividing them? Why is he rushing through with his proposed Constitution?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, I am really happy to hear that the premiers are making some progress. I wish we could say as much for the debate in this House. When the hon. member opposite suggests that we are rushing things-


Mr. Beatty:: Except for your speech.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -I have to remind him we have been on one single amendment for more than five weeks now. 1 have heard from the opposition party that they would like to see the charter improved in the area of rights of women, in the area of aboriginal rights, and so on.


An hon. Member:: Property.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Property. I am amazed that the opposition call it rushing when they have prevented us from even considering amendments which would improve the status of women and so on. The Leader of the Opposition asks if a little more delay would be useful. Madam Speaker, the measure is still before the House. If the premiers have indeed reached an agreement and a consensus, we would be happy to hear from them about it. However, until we hear anything to the contrary, my opinion is that of Premier Hatfield when he said delay would only produce one thing, more delay, and that is what it has been doing.


AMENDING FORMULA
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, what is curious about the Prime Minister's position is that, while he pretends to be reasonable, he has before this House a motion of closure that would get this question out of Canada at the very time when there is an opportunity for agreement to be found in Canada. He might prefer Britain to settle our questions. We prefer Canadians to settle our questions.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: If the trained sheep so graphically displayed in Le Devoir the other day would be quiet for a moment I would put my question to the Prime Minister. He said on Monday, in his long two hour and 20-minute speech before he sought to impose closure on the House, that he did not personally prefer the Victoria amending formula but he was proposing that amending formula only, he made it clear, because it had been the subject of agreement. My question to the Prime Minister
now is would he support another amending formula if it had agreement among the provinces?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition referred to many things, first of all to my long speech. I would point out that under the rules of this House the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition can speak without time limit. If he had more to say on the subject he would have made a longer speech.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Then we hear that closure is being imposed at the very time, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, the very time the premiers are reaching agreement. Madam Speaker, the measure has been known to the premiers for many months now; I have no evidence that in the meetings they held in the fall and winter they reached agreement on anything. Why is he suggesting they reached agreement on anything now? If they had, surely we would have heard about it.
I think the Leader of the Opposition is only using this in the hope that he would destroy the chance of Canadians ever getting a charter of rights.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An hon. Member:: Holding Canada together.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He says he prefers holding Canada together.


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Order, Madam Speaker. Even the Prime Minister is subject to the rules.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The Right Hon. Prime Minister should be answering the one question that was put to him by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


An hon. Member:: He has not answered a thing yet.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I am commenting on the very points raised by their leader. He raises some points. Surely fairness entitles me to deal with those points.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: When did you start dealing in fairness?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Leader of the Opposition also suggested that he would prefer Canadians settle their questions rather than the British. So do we, and we are Canadians in this House and we represent Canada. And if the Leader of the Opposition really believes that, why have all his friends, the provincial premiers, why have they been in London for months lobbying the British?


An hon. Member:: Where is Chretien?


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Walter David Baker: Where is Chretien?
March 25, 1981


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am asked where Mr. Chretien is. Madam Speaker, the Minister of Justice accepted a long while ago-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: A long while ago-


An hon. Member:: How about MacGuigan?


Madam Speaker:: Order. I shall have to interrupt the Right Hon. Prime Minister and let the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition formulate another question, because that one just does not seem to be able to be answered while maintaining some order in the House.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, perhaps the Prime Minister needs two hours and 20 minutes to answer questions in the House as well.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: Let me ask the Prime Minister whether, as a matter of government policy, he has ruled out the possibility of another first ministers' conference or some other form of serious discussion of a different amending formula, between the federal and provincial governments? Has he ruled out the possibility of that kind of consultation before he forces his particular personal formula through this House using closure, despite the fact the premiers are meeting to seek agreement and despite the request of the Liberal leader in the province of Quebec for an opportunity to discuss this question if he forms the next government?
Will he consider holding another discussion on constitutional matters before he forces his measure by closure through the House of Commons?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition calls it my personal formula. May I remind him it is the formula agreed to by the ten premiers and the Prime Minister in 1971.


An hon. Member:: No, no.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, I hear somebody say "no". I would like to have somebody substantiate that. Premier Davis and Premier Hatfield were there, I was there, the press covered that conference, and it is on record, Madam Speaker, that that is the only time in recent memory-


Walter David Baker: Answer the question.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They ask me to answer the question. Did the Leader of the Opposition not say that it was my personal formula, and was he wrong or right in saying that?


An hon. Member:: Don't be so arrogant.
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: And if they cannot stand an argument and the truth-


An hon. Member:: Sit down.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -they should not ask questions.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I can see this is caucus day.


QUERY RESPECTING PROVINCIAL CONSENSUS
Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Madam Speaker, 1 would like to direct my question to the Right Hon. Prime Minister. In his speech on Monday he quoted the Hon. George Brown, who made the point in 1865 that the time was now for Canada to form a union. In his speeches George Brown also made the point that one cannot move in a federal state unless there is widespread acceptance of a proposal.
In view of the fact that the provinces now are at a position where a consensus can be reached among eight of the ten provinces on patriation and a formula for amendment, I would like to ask the Prime Minister whether he would accept that consensus as being sufficient for him to reconsider the proposal he has before the House and to meet with the premiers-


An hon. Member:: You have two years.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: -in order to develop the unity I believe Canadians seek for our country.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, it would be easy and exact to say that the question is hypothetical, and has been for these many months-I should say these many years-when the premiers have not agreed on an amending formula and on patriation, and I have quoted that chapter and verse.
Rather than claim that the question is hypothetical, I would like to put to the hon. member that the resolution before the House does exactly what he hopes to do. It gives the premiers and the federal Prime Minister two years to get together, during which unanimity will be-the hon. member shakes his head. Would he please read the resolution? That is exacty what we say, and I am surprised that as learned a member as the hon. member for Provencher does not know that. We have before us a resolution which says that for the next two years no amendment can be made on basic matters respecting the Constitution without unanimity. That is in the resolution.


An hon. Member:: We all know that.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If hon. members know that, why are they suggesting that I am in some sense imposing my formula? The formula which is brought in by this resolution calls for unanimity over a period of two years. After two years, if there is not agreement and if there is not consensus-


Mr. Nielsen:: There is the problem.

March 25, 1981
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I challenge the opposition to indicate what consensus is to their minds. However, let us assume that there is no agreement; then what do we do? We ask the Canadian people to choose between politicians who cannot agree. What is undemocratic or unfair about that?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL CONFERENCE
Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Madam Speaker, I can see why the Prime Minister is frustrated, in view of the fact that the premiers now possibly could come up with a conclusion on a consensus.
However, in view of the fact that as Prime Minister his first responsibility is the integrity and the unity of the country, 1 would like to ask him why it is that he does not accept the position of the Liberal leader of Quebec, Mr. Claude Ryan, who as late as this morning reiterated that, if elected on April 13, he will insist on a federal-pr. vincial conference. Why is the Prime Minister in such a hurry, prior to April 13, to have this matter go to Britain? Why will he not sit down with the federalist government of Quebec and the premiers who have now come up with a consensus? Why is he unwilling to sit down with his Canadian counterparts?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I have been sitting down with the premiers of the various provinces since 1968. We have been looking for a solution to this problem, as other prime ministers and premiers have been looking for the solution to this problem since 1927.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Why not wait two weeks?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: How can they say I have not consulted? How can they say that I am not prepared to hear other views? They say, "How about two weeks more?" In the name of what?


Some hon. Members:: Canada.


An hon. Member:: Listen and learn.


Charles Joseph Clark: Au nom du Canada.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I just have to remind hon. members opposite that that is exactly the line they were taking in the House when they prevented Canada from getting its flag.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They do not like to be reminded of that. We hear groans when we talk about the flag, but they are on record, and many members sitting in the House were there then.


An hon. Member:: Tell us about national unity again.


An hon. Member:: Where were you when the country needed you?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I suppose it is impossible to answer a question when other members who do not have the floor keep asking questions. I urge those who answer questions to limit themselves to answering the question which was asked by the member who had the floor. Otherwise it is an encouragement for heckling to happen.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I thought you were drawing the attention of the school children in the gallery to the misconduct of the opposition members.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An hon. Member:: You have really cheapened yourself, Prime Minister.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, I hope to have a chance to ask my question and hear the response-


An hon. Member:: Don't count on it.


Rodney Edward Murphy: My question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. In light of the document which was released yesterday in which it was pointed out that inflation may be fought on the backs of public servants, and in which it was also pointed out that 68 per cent of the public servants whose contracts are expiring in the near future are already lagging behind the private sector, and since it is also pointed out in the document that the guideline of the government would, of course, have to override the principle of comparability in the determination of public sector compensation, would the minister explain to the House why it is government policy to force the public service to take the brunt of the blame for what is happening in terms of inflation, and would he also explain to the House what he considers to be a justifiable wage gap between the poorly paid public sector and those in the private sector?


Hon. Donald J. Johnston (President of the Treasury Board):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member seems to be relying upon press reports and not upon the stated policy of this government with respect to public sector compensation. I answered the question directly in the House yesterday and he may have seen the press reports this morning. I believe the hon. member is referring to some suggestion, as I recall it, that a 10 per cent cap was to be applied. I can assure hon. members
March 25, 1981

in the House that that is not the policy of the government. The government has consistently taken the view that public sector employees should be fairly paid. Those comparisons are available. I think the hon. member will find that we have been consistent and fair in our treatment of public sector employees, and will continue to be so.


EQUALITY FOR MALE AND FEMALE EMPLOYEES
Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, this is not a press release, this is a cabinet document. Since the cabinet document speaks of yet another group that is being picked upon by the government, that is, the postal operations group which is 75 per cent female and earns approximately $3.50 an hour less than the male group doing the same type of work, and since just last week the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled against the Treasury Board proposals for the settlement of the equal pay for work of equal value claim of the general services group, will the minister confirm to the House that he and his government have no commitment to the Human Rights Act and that the government is going to ignore or stall any attempt to achieve equality in the workplace because it uses its workers as the victims of its policy?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, it is ironic for anyone to suggest that this government has no commitment to the Human Rights Act since it was the preceding Liberal government that introduced the legislation which enshrines the principle of equal pay for work of equal value in Section 11 of that statute.
We made an offer to the Human Rights Commission with respect to a settlement of the general services group dispute. The matter is extremely complex given that there are seven subgroups of the group, three of which are female dominated and four of which are male dominated, but within each one of those groups there are 13 different pay levels and there are 22 different pay zones in Canada. So the challenge for us was to come up with a formula which we thought was fair without creating reverse discrimination against the male employees in groups which could be moved behind some of the female dominated groups. We have made such a proposal and I was pleased that the Human Rights Commissioner, Mr. Gordon Fairweather, acknowledged that we were making a genuine attempt to resolve this difficulty.
We are re-examining the views expressed by the Human Rights Commission and I hope we will come forward with some other negotiated settlement. But the proposal we made, I think, was fair in the circumstances. It moved to an average and substantially increased the various levels of women's groups, in many cases beyond comparable levels for male groups, which, of course, could give rise to what we call the leap-frog effect. So the matter cannot be dealt with in a simple approach. It is a serious problem, one which we are working very hard to resolve on a fair basis to the women employees in the federal government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions


POSSIBILITY OF LEGISLATIVE CHANGES
Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, the minister seems to think that just because Treasury Board made an offer, that is a real attempt to reach a settlement. It took a long time for the government to get around even to making an offer in this case which has been hanging on its back for months and months.
The document and the minister's memorandum to cabinet list what I would call a horror story of union bashing tactics, including limiting the right to strike, ignoring comparability, making the public service take lower pay increases than the cost of living, ignoring equal pay laws, lockouts, wholesale designations, deferring the right to strike, and even excluding some groups from the right to seek arbitration. Can the minister answer two questions: first, what legislative changes will he be proposing to the House, and second, what other unilateral action is he planning to take to deprive workers in the public service of their already limited right to negotiate a contract?


Donald James Johnston: Madam Speaker, I think the view this government takes is that legislation should be re-examined from time to time to make improvements which are in the interests of both employees and employers, in the case of the PSSRA, for example. That act has been in effect since 1967. I would point out that the right to strike was also given by a Liberal government. There is absolutely no intention of being unfair to public service employees.
That document which the hon. gentleman keeps waving and which he alleges is a cabinet document, is simply not one. I do not know what other documents he has at his disposal, but I am quite prepared to discuss with the hon. member, or with any other members of the House, the kind of proposals they believe should be brought forward to make the right to strike more effective and to protect the interest of the taxpayers, the citizens of this country, as well as to protect the interest of the public servants.


TRANSPORT
Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. It arises out of the stalemate in the negotiations which is further delaying the development of the grain terminal at the port of Prince Rupert. It arises out of the fact that the National Harbours Board is reneging on one of the fundamental articles of the memorandum of understanding signed by the federal government and the Prince Rupert Grain Terminal Consortium, that precise article being the equal sharing of the cost of site preparation, including the placements of caissons if necessary.
I would ask the Minister of Transport why the National Harbours Board is refusing to honour that commitment. May

March 25, 1981
Oral Questions
I also ask the minister whether he is prepared to intervene personally and instruct his officials to comply with the spirit and the articles contained in that memorandum of understanding which was negotiated and agreed to by both parties in good faith?
tion". The National Harbours Board is there to attend to those matters, and I will attend to it if a resolution of the conflict does not take place.


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I am surprised to a certain extent that the hon. member for Vegreville identified me as the cause of this difficulty, because he is on record as having said in the House of Commons that what I did at Prince Rupert was exactly what he would have done. Be that as it may, it was understood from the beginning that the consortium would build the elevator. So, what is happening now is a discussion between the National Harbours Board and the grain consortium as to the definition of site preparation. Of course, the consortium is interested in giving it a wider definition, because there will be a sharing by the federal government of the underground preparation of the elevator.
To the question itself, of course the National Harbours Board will meet urgently with the consortium and discuss the issue. I will await the results before deciding what I will do.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, the difference between our government and this government is that we were prepared to honour the commitments which were signed and agreed to; there is no question about that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Further, there can be no question as to the obligation of the government in respect to fulfilling the commitment to share in the cost of site preparation, including the placement of caissons. That has been further concurred in, in the exchange of letters between the Department of Transport and the National Harbours Board.
The minister said that there are ongoing discussions. I am informed that a letter was directed by the consortium to the National Harbours Board indicating, in very blunt terms, that it will refuse to negotiate any further tenders until this matter is clarified. In order to break the log jam, will the minister personally intervene? If the government continues to be intransigent, as it is on this particular point, the entire project could be in jeopardy.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, my accessibility is well known by everybody.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Tom Cossitt (Leeds-Grenville):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. In reply to one of my Order Paper questions on March 11, 1981, the government said that it was continuing the investigation ordered by the solicitor general of the Progressive Conservative government into why the Taschereau national security papers were being or had been locked up again by this government for a further ten years. Also it said that it was anticipated that this review would be completed by May 1 of this year, in other words, in a month or so.
Is the Solicitor General now prepared to confirm to the House that Ralph Branscombe has been appointed to make the review as to whether the papers should be released? Who appointed him, along with terms of reference? Will the report be tabled in Parliament or made public on or about May 1?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: Madam Speaker, I can confirm those questions that were asked. I will not confirm -that this is a study which is continuing one begun by the Conservative government. In fact, the then prime minister indicated in the House, during the Clark administration, that they were considering having a study. But, I have no evidence that they ever put a committee together or that they got the study off the ground.
This study was organized by the Clerk of the Privy Council; it is under way now. May 1 is the anticipated date on which we will have the report. I am not prepared to make a commitment that it will be the exact date on which the report will be made, but that is the target toward which officials are working.


QUERY RESPECTING EXISTENCE OF BOOK CONTAINING PERSONS' NAMES
Thomas Charles Cossitt: Madam Speaker, I am somewhat shocked to hear the Solicitor General say that he will not confirm this question; maybe it is because of the lie detector test he took in Montreal yesterday.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Do something.


Jean-Luc Pepin: This agreement was signed last November. Since then the consortium manifested no disagreement with the terms of the agreement whatsoever.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is wrong, and you know it.


Jean-Luc Pepin: At the very last minute the consortium came up with a different interpretation of the meaning of "site prepara-


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Seriously, his government has already confirmed it in an answer given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of Privy Council. I know he did not say anything about Ralph Branscombe, so I remind him of that.
By prefacing my supplementary question, could I say that I discussed on different occasions-and the last time was as recently as this morning-the Taschereau papers with Mr. Igor Gouzenko. Will the Solicitor General at least tell the
March 25, 1981

House that the Taschereau papers include a book containing about 150 names of persons attending meetings of communist party cells, which was found in the possession of a now prominent professor at an Ontario university, and also that the same Taschereau papers contain the names, among other names, of a former deputy minister of finance and certain past and present heads and members of Canadian Crown corporations and commissions?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I am certainly prepared to confirm that I have not read the Taschereau papers. I do not know what they contain.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: Did you ask to read them?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: I have not asked what they contain, but I have described the process being followed to make the decision on whether they can be released, in the public interest, earlier than the date which was prescribed some six or seven years ago.


Thomas Charles Cossitt: What about Ralph Branscombe?


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. What action does the Minister of Finance and the government propose to take, on behalf of the over one million people who are unemployed in Canada, to bring into line the multinational corporations which are spending Canadian dollars developing subsidiaries abroad and creating far more jobs outside Canada than they are currently creating in Canada?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, when I have any new policy to announce on that rather broad subject, I will make it clear to the House.


Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Would the Minister of Finance care to indicate whether he considers it acceptable that out of 52 multinationals operating in Canada and controlled in Canada which were studied, 26 of those which operate in Ontario, showed absolutely no growth in employment in Ontario at the same time as showing a 7.8 per cent growth outside the country; that 15 multinationals operating in Quebec showed a net loss of 1.5 per cent in employment terms, while showing an 18.4 per cent increase abroad; that in every region of Canada there has been a marked increase in multinational operations outside as they affect employment, while Canadians sit idle looking for work?


An hon. Member:: It is because of the government.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.
Oral Questions


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I remind the hon. member that I have heard similar speeches in other countries about investment in Canada.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Paul E. McRae (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It deals with a recent statement of the President of the United States about South Africa and the reaction among other black nations, particularly at the United Nations, to the visits of South African generals to the United States.
Will the minister explain that a policy of cozying up to a government with racial policies like South Africa can only weaken the relationship between other industrial nations and other South African nations? It can actually be counterproductive, in that it will make the climate more amenable to penetration by communist nations.


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I think it is fair to say that the position of the United States government toward South Africa at the moment is somewhat unclear. During the meeting last week we made our position very clear to the United States government. Especially with respect to Namibia, we made it clear that South Africa had no right to be in that country illegally, as it is, by international law.


HOUSING
Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works who is responsible for housing. I understand he recently met with representatives of Canada's associations for the handicapped. I am encouraged by some indication that he agreed to increase the allocation for handicapped housing in Vancouver from its present level of 50 units. Could he confirm that he is increasing the allocation for housing for the handicapped in Vancouver and other urban centres in honour of the International Year of the Handicapped?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity during the national housing conference, the all-sector conference, to hear representatives of the handicapped associations of Canada, the coalition of handicapped associations. At that time we indicated that the social programs of the government in place under section 56(1) of the act have been adjusted so as to respond to what appears to
8598

March 25, 1981
Oral Questions
be an increase in requests for use of those social designated units.


Walter David Baker: User pays.


Paul James Cosgrove: I can confirm-I have a recollection of a project in Vancouver within the last couple of days which has been designated for the handicapped under the social programs of the government.


Pat Carney: My supplementary question is also addressed to the minister responsible for housing. I might refresh his memory. I understand that his department has apparently tripled the number of houses allocated for the handicapped this year. He may look into that.
My supplementary question deals with the maximum unit price of housing for the handicapped which is set by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation at about $68,000. Considering the fact that the average unit price for homes in Vancouver is now $156,000, what measures is the minister taking to increase the $68,000 limit to more realistic market levels?


Paul James Cosgrove: The response of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation on the question of multiple unit prices- the MUPs, which is a control device to ensure quality for money expended and the integrity of the projects-is under constant review in all of the programs to which it applies. In the Vancouver market, for example, that particular design provision with respect to all of the designated areas under MUPs is under review. I am happy to say that so far as housing for handicapped is concerned, because of additional building requirements and expense involved in some of the multiple features, CMHC is also reviewing the relationship of the MUP price and the different categories within it, with a view to assisting handicapped people.


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Today we have the unfortunate convergence of two unhappy events in the oil industry. As my hon. colleague previously noted, today marks the day the one hundredth rig has left this country since the National Energy Program was announced. We also have, in the Oilweek, the announcement that current rig activity this year is lower than last year; 480 wells last year against 467 wells this year.
Hon. members on this side, the drilling industry, and the oil industry have been forewarning this ever since the announcement of the National Energy Program, but the minister has pooh-poohed it at every opportunity. Matters will get worse before they get better.
What action will the minister take, now that these worst fears are being confirmed by actual activity? What action is he
going to take to head off this exodus of drilling rigs which has been so damaging to the alleged number one priority of the energy policy, which is self-sufficiency?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is confirming that he and his colleagues on the other side are certainly very slow readers if they only discovered in the last few weeks that there would be a decline in the activity of rigs in Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Marc Lalonde: As a matter of fact the drilling contractors association said, before the budget and the National Energy Program were announced, it was predicting a 30 per cent decline in drilling activity this year due to a surplus of natural gas in this country and an overbuilding of drilling rigs in Canada in the last three years. This was announced and published by the drilling contractors association quite independently of the National Energy Program in the October 28 budget.
My friend has obtained his information a little bit too late, I am afraid. He should have read-


Charles Joseph Clark: Will you answer the question now, Marc?


Marc Lalonde: -what the industry was saying before the budget, and the publication of the National Energy Program.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Again, the minister has neglected to answer the question. Maybe "neglect" is not the right word. He does not want to face the truth.


Charles Joseph Clark: That's right.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: What is happening here in Canada is a result of actions taken in the National Energy Program. Cutbacks in activity have been announced since October 28 by many oil industry representatives in this country. What is happening in Canada is in stark contrast to the United States. Let me give you a couple of figures. Three thousand, eight hundred drilling rigs were active there last year, against 4,700 this year. I might remind the minister that 100 rigs are Canadian. This is expected to lead to an increase of 12 per cent in drilling activity.


Some hon. Members:: Order, order.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Will the minister explain why he has championed this energy program when it is having such disastrous results for Canada; and is he proposing to announce changes in policy prior to the meeting on April 13 with Mr. Leitch, which will give some signal to these drilling companies to leave their drilling rigs in Canada so they can do the job in Canada, to produce supply in this country?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
March 25, 1981


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I have already indicated to the hon. member that the drilling industry itself had predicted last year a 30 per cent decline in its activities in Canada. It is not at all surprising if similar activities have increased in the United States: that country is faced with a shortage of oil and natural gas, while Canada on the contrary has a surplus of natural gas. That there should be a very firm demand for derricks in that country is not surprising either.
As to the Canadian energy policy, the hon. member is perfectly aware that it is based on three fundamental principles: first, that Canadians should have greater access to that industry, second, that they should seek energy self-sufficiency as far as the oil supply is concerned through the development of oil sands and Canada lands reserves, and third, that they should set up an energy structure to ensure that they are not subjected to the kind of prices the Progressive Conservative Party wanted to foist upon them while it was in power. We have every intention of pursuing this policy.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, I would like to address my question to the Minister of National Defence. Is it the intention of the government to increase the pay of the Canadian Armed Forces on April 1 and, if so, would he advise the House what percentage of increase on average will be awarded?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, because of the past military service of the hon. gentleman from Northumberland, I understand his interest in this question. He probably remembers the time when he was in the army and was paid a couple of dollars a day. But I remember-


An hon. Member:: One dollar a day.


Mr. Lamontagne:: The pay increase of the Armed Forces is under revision at the moment, but whatever it will be-the percentage by which we will raise it, or whatever we decide- we will take the special environment and special capability and competence of our Armed Forces into consideration.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. The Keable commission recently released its report in Quebec. Several important recommendations of the commission were directed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, namely, one recommending that it prosecute the federal officers responsible for six illegal acts. However, the main recommendation dealt with the infiltration of supposedly subversive groups and insisted that officers or individuals acting as infiltrators receive prior authorization to do so by a judge's warrant. Has the government any intention of implementing that important recommendation of the Keable commission? What disciplinary measures does the government intend to take against the RCMP officers involved in the illegal acts described by the Commission?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I did indeed take note of the recommendations of the Keable commission but, as everyone knows, and especially the hon. member, the McDonald commission is still sitting; we are awaiting the results of that inquiry and the last report of the commission, which I have yet to receive, before reaching a decision in the matter. Nevertheless, as the hon. member also knows, recommendations were made not only with regard to the RCMP but also concerning other police forces in Quebec, and such recommendations were made to the attorney general of that province. The latter will assume his responsibilities when he sees fit to do so.


RCMP MAIL OPENING REPORT
Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, many Canadians are wondering when the Prime Minister's friends in the Privy Council office will finish their extensive editing of the McDonald commission report. One of the areas being studied by the McDonald commission is the question of RCMP power to open first-class mail. In view of the fact that both the Solicitor General and his Conservative predecessor as solicitor general have been quick to endorse the recommendations of the Marin commission to permit the RCMP to open the mail of Canadians with judicial rubber stamping, has the Solicitor General yet received the long-promised, revised report from the RCMP on the subject of mail opening and, if not, why is the minister rushing in so quickly to support this totally unwarranted intrusion into the private correspondence of Canadians?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I certainly reject the contemptuous statement made by my friend about the judiciary in suggesting that the judicial process would amount simply to rubber stamping-

March 25, 1981
Oral Questions
[ Translation]
and I should like to indicate that the RCMP are not empowered to open the mail and that they are not opening it. For years I have held an opinion which I have expressed in the House, but until the whole matter has been considered by cabinet, after the McDonald report has been received and appropriate amendments have been made to the act, there is no way we will authorize the RCMP or any other police force in Canada to open the mail of Canadians.


MARINE TRANSPORT
J. Michael Forrestall: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance and it concerns the question which I raised last week about bunker and diesel surcharges for Canadian flagships. May I ask the minister whether he is prepared to indicate to the House today the preparedness of government to extend the exemption which already exists for vessel trips between Canadian ports in Canadian waters, to all Canadian flagships prior to March 31, which he will recognize as an important date for the Canadian shipping industry?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member will remember that there was a definite purpose in recommending a marine and aviation charge, because foreign fleets and foreign airlines were, in a sense, being subsidized by imported Canadian oil, and compensated by the Canadian taxpayer. In an effort to gather from these carriers the world price for oil, we put forward this particular proposal.
My officials have had very extensive discussion with representatives of the industry and with other departments. We have made a number of changes in order to meet the requirements, particularly of the Canadian fleet. We are still satisfied that this is the right course of action in the interests of Canada without jeopardizing the competitive situation of Canadian carriers in comparison with foreign carriers.
The hon. member mentioned the date of March 31. I do not know whether he had in mind that that was the date on which the charge was to take effect. If that is so I would like to tell him that, for administrative reasons, I am delaying for some weeks the tabling of the ways and means motion to bring the charge into effect.


J. Michael Forrestall: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the minister's response, but he left me with the impression that he is unaware of the inequity that this imposes upon one mode of Canadian transport as opposed to other modes. I was specifically wondering if the minister could indicate to us whether he is prepared to extend to all Canadian flagships the type of exemption that should be given to certain classes of Canadian flagships with respect to the movement of goods? Or, is he
about to build in an inequity and place in serious jeopardy the capacity of the Great Lakes shipping fleet to move grain from Thunder Bay out to salt water and iron ore back up the system, at an economical and advantageous commercial rate? Is he giving consideration to making sure that Canadian business entrepreneurs can operate and receive equal treatment from government regulations, whether or not they may be in trucking, in rail, in shipping or in air?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Indeed, Madam Speaker, that is our desire, not to create a bias in favour of any particular mode or, to put it another way, to discriminate against other modes of transportation. I will be pleased to examine the detailed question put by the hon. member about the application of this order.
In conclusion, I would say to him that the purpose of this is to try to put those carriers in international commerce on the same level as their competitors on international routes, both air and marine. That is the purpose, in order to equalize the purchase of oil at the world price.


POINT OF ORDER
Madam Speaker:: The hon. member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) addressed the House yesterday on a point of order relating to the use of one dollar items in the Supplementary Estimates (C), 1980-81. He alleges that these dollar items are being used to legislate programs rather than simply to seek the approval of the spending of money for programs previously authorized by statute, or that they amend legislation other than former appropriation acts.
The hon. member recited the history of these estimates since the substantial rule changes in 1968. Under the old system, there was opportunity in the committee of supply to take exception to items in the estimates and they were objected to but nevertheless tolerated.
Since 1968 there has been only limited time to consider supplementary estimates, hence it was felt that they should be restricted to proper items and not contain anything that should be done by statute.
In 1971 hon. members commenced to take exception to those items in supplementary estimates which in effect were amending statutes other than appropriation acts. The hon. member mentioned those occasions commencing with the ruling of March 10, 1971, leading to the ruling of December 7, 1977, on a point of order which the hon. member himself had raised on that occasion.
Because it was a new point in 1971, the Speaker disallowed only some of the items objected to on the ground that they were obvious amendments to statutes other than appropriation acts while permitting, with a warning, less obvious items to remain in the estimates. On December 10, 1973, the three
March 25, 1981

items objected to were considered not to be properly before the House and were allowed to remain in the estimates only by unanimous consent.
In 1974, on March 26, the Speaker said he was not convinced that the item establishing the Food Prices Review Board program was a legislative item because it did not seek to establish a "legislative principle".
In 1976, the Speaker found that while there may be existing legislative authority to permit the establishment of and funding for Loto Canada to pave its way in a supplementary estimate, he went on to say that where a question of principle was involved in an urgent situation, such as that which has given rise to this course and this particular situation, it would be considered an extremely singular situation and would not be repeated in the future.
In 1977, on March 22, the Speaker reviewed the previous rulings on the question of the estimates and pointed out that whether it is a one dollar item or not, a vote in the estimates may not "contain legislative content". He went on to say:
On the general question, it is my view that the government receives from Parliament the authority to act through the passage of legislation and receives the money to finance such authorized action through the passage by Parliament of an appropriation act. A supply item in my opinion ought not, therefore, to be used to obtain authority which is the proper subject of legislation-
The Speaker struck down two items as being legislative items and said that while he had grave doubts about four others as being proper he would give them the benefit of the doubt and the remaining items to which objection was taken were less clear but that in any case, in the absence of a procedure which allows a full exchange on these matters, he would allow them to remain. He cautioned members, however, not to take this lenient approach as a precedent.
Then on December 7 of the same year, the Speaker struck down the item in the supplemental estimates covering VIA Rail as representing an amendment to legislation.
The hon. member for Calgary Centre, in a well prepared argument, submitted that the part of Vote 5c energy, mines and resources relating to the purchase of Petrofina by Petro-Canada was a legislative item for, among other reasons, it did not request even the traditional one dollar. With respect to Votes L18c finance, and Votes 7c and 8c industry, trade and commerce, he also says that there is no legislative authority to support these, and directs our attention to certain sections of the Financial Administration Act which, he alleges, suggest that the course of action to accomplish what is set out in these three votes should be done by statute and is beyond the traditional scope of an appropriation act.
With respect to the eight items which delete or cancel debts, that is 5c agriculture, 30c health and welfare, lc national revenue (part), 5c national revenue, 10c public works, 20c public works, lc regional economic expansion, and 5c supply and services, he points out that none of these items ask for any money, the traditional use of estimates but that Section 18(1) of the Financial Administration Act only permits that debts up
Point of Order-Mr. Andre
to the amount of $5,000 may be cancelled. In other words, each of these items is in effect an amendment to Section 18(1) of the Financial Administration Act.
While the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) did not direct our attention to the authority under which they were to obtain the funds, he submitted nevertheless that the items in question were not legislative in nature and pointed out on more than one occasion that nothing in Supplementary Estimates (C) represents a departure from past practices.
I think that it is fair to say that this is the First time that we have heard arguments against the use of dollar items to cancel debts or to pay for programs set out in Votes LI8c (finance), Votes 7c and 8c industry, trade and commerce, and 5c energy, mines and resources, particularly the line of argument raised by the hon. member for Calgary Centre. They have been in use for some time but there has never been any argument raised in the past.
When in 1971 and later objections were raised principally concerning using the appropriation acts to amend acts other than the appropriation acts, because of the novelty and also because of the time constraints, the Speaker felt compelled to remove only the most obvious cases of improper use of estimates and give a warning with respect to the other objectionable items.
I have been placed in this present position. It is clear in my mind that the eight items referred to above which cancel debts are pure legislative items and seek in each case to amend Section 18(1) of the Financial Administration Act and I would rule that they should be and are hereby deleted from Supplementary Estimates (C), 1981-82.
While I have grave doubts about the other items referred to by the hon. member for Calgary Centre, it is not as clear that they too infringe upon the traditional use of estimates. This is the First time that we have heard submissions concerning guarantees, and probably also the First time in connection with the use of the estimates for acquisitions such as Petrofina. A major concern here is the time constraints. Later this day all questions will be put to dispose of the supplementary estimates and interim supply.
As was done by my predecessor in 1971 and later, I would say that should they be raised at some future date. I will have to be convinced that the matters such as those raised in Votes 5c energy, mines and resources. L18c finance and Votes 7c and 8c industry, trade and commerce are not really legislative items that should be introduced by a separate statute.
There is now under way a reprint of the bill based on Supplementary Estimates (C) in which the items 5c agriculture, 30c health and welfare, lc national revenue, 10c and 20c public works, lc regional economic expansion, 5c supply and services, and the debt deleting portion of Vote 5c national revenue, will be deleted.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, will it be your intention, perhaps tomorrow, to deal with the substantive argument advanced by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes), who based his argument on this question in

March 25, 1981
8602__________________________________
Privilege-Mr. Hovdebo debate yesterday on the impossibility of members giving any consideration to estimates that were not before the committee?


Madam Speaker:: Yes, I did consider the arguments given yesterday by the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes). I think the House must understand that I have no way of judging whether there was sufficient time or opportunity to discuss some of the estimates, and I have to comply with the custom that, once the estimates are brought back in the House, they are deemed to have been studied by the committees. 1 have no judgment on that, but that argument was considered.


PRIVILEGE
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, I just wish to give notice now that I want to compare answers given to questions which I posed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) today, with answers he has given to similar questions earlier in the session to see whether they are consistent. My recollection is that they are not consistent. At one stage or another the minister has not given us a straight answer, and I wish to review today's Hansard with previous issues. Therefore, I am serving notice that I may be raising a question of privilege tomorrow.


Madam Speaker:: I take that as notice, but I just want to remind the hon. member that answers which are inconsistent, incomplete or unsatisfactory to a member do not constitute a basis for a question of privilege. I realize the hon. member is not telling me now that will be the basis of his question of privilege, but I do want to caution him that if what I have just stated is the basis for his question of privilege, I can tell him his question may not be very well founded.


MR. HOVDEBO-REPLY OF MR. WHELAN RESPECTING COMPENSATION TO FARMERS
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. Yesterday in this House the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), in reply to my question regarding compensation to farmers for the grain embargo on shipments to the Soviet Union, chose to attack the work of a member of the parliamentary staff.
I believe that this attack on a person who works for all Members of Parliament was both unparliamentary and an abuse of the privileges of all Members of Parliament, for the following reasons. First, this person is unable to answer when his work is publicly disparaged. Second, the high reputation of the institution for which this person works, namely, the research branch of the parliamentary library which serves all Members of Parliament in a non-partisan fashion, has been called into question by the minister's remarks. Third, the reputation of the person in question as a researcher for all members has been unfairly questioned by the minister, Who
had not even taken the time to read the study on embargo compensation compiled by the researcher.
For these reasons, I ask that the Minister of Agriculture publicly withdraw his remarks. They are most unfair and debilitating to a person who serves all Members of Parliament in this House.
I ask you now, Madam Speaker, to rule on whether the minister's remarks are an abuse of the privileges of all members of this House. If you so find, I am prepared to move the necessary motion so that this matter can be referred to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I do not think it will be necessary for the hon. member to put his motion. As I read the minister's answer, I see no question of privilege. If the hon. member feels this was an attack on a civil servant, it was certainly in the most indirect fashion. The minister said:
The figures we used were figures presented by all the different people in the different departments concerned with grain marketing, by compiling all the information available in the grain trade and putting it together in a very thorough manner. When a decision is made, these figures will be tabled.
I do not feel there is any kind of attack in that wording on a civil servant, not even in an indirect way. Therefore, I do not find a question of privilege.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Madam Speaker, the answer I was referring to in my question of privilege was the first answer by the Minister of Agriculture, not the second one.


Madam Speaker:: I can only repeat what I said. I find no direct attack on officials in that answer. I cannot find a question of privilege.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) will want to correct the record as it appears at page 8548 of Hansard for March 24. The minister incorrectly advised the people of Canada that they have until 1982 to object to an order in council. I have with me the order in council as it appeared in The Canada Gazette. It clearly stated they have until April 29, 1981, to object to the order in council making Canadian units of measurement illegal in Canada. In his answer at page 8548 the minister said:
The answer is no, Madam Speaker. I believe that those who want to express their views have ample time to do so before 1982.
That is incorrect and I am sure the minister, his parliamentary secretary, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray) or the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) will want to
March 25, 1981

Order Paper Questions
correct it so the people realize they have only until April 29,
1981.


Madam Speaker:: The minister is not in the House at the present time. I am sure this will be pointed out to him and he will want to correct it. I have no authority to correct an answer given by a minister. The hon. member's point is well taken.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. D. M. Collenette (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2,055 and 2,081.


Mr. Herbert: ]. On what date was the Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship Program instituted under the National Research Council?
2.	How many persons, by province, have benefited from the program?
3.	What has been the cost of the program on an annual basis?
4.	Are statistics retained on the percentage of candidates that remain with their company for a period of at least one year after completion of the program?


Mr. Roger Simmons (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment):: As far as NSERC is concerned the answers are as follows: 1. During the year 1970-71.
2.	See list below.
3.	See list below.
4.	Fifty-nine per cent of the fellowships held remain with their company after completion of the fellowship.
Total Number of Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowships Held by Province since 1970-71
Ontario	289
Quebec	159
British Columbia	48
Alberta	36
Saskatchewan	10
Manitoba	3
PEI.	3
New Brunswick	3
Nova Scotia	4
555 of the Industrial Postdoctoral Fellowship Prograi	
since 1970-71 1970-1971	56,022.64
1971-1972	194,728.70
1972-1973	417,558.90
1973-1974	687,434.24
1974-1975	769,514.39
1975-1976	771,637.55
1976-1977	831,389.72
1977-1978	1,222,224.08
1978-1979	1,576,651.15
1979-1980	1,377,889.73
1980-31 Jan. 1981	1,352,641.98


Mr. Halliday: 1.	Since the inception of the Milk Supply Management Program, what was the total market sharing quota (MSQ) for each year in (a) Canada (b) each province?
2.	For the past four years, what was the (a) production (b) consumption of cheddar cheese (excluding curds) in (i) Canada (ii) each province?


David Michael Collenette: I am informed by Agriculture Canada and Statistics Canada as follows: 1. (a) and (b) See lists below.
Market Sharing Quota by Province and Total Each Year since the Beginning of the Market Sharing Quota Program
(mil kg of B.F.)
Original(i)
Entitlement
Dec. 1, 1970	Apr. 1 /74	Apr. 1/75	Apr. 1 /76	Apr. 1/77	Apr. 1 /78	Aug. 1 /79<">	Aug. 1/80PEI.	2.9	3.4	3.2	2.2	3.1	3.1	3.2	3.3N.S.	1.9	2.0	1.9	1.9	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.2N.B.	2.0	2.2	2.0	2.0	2.2	2.2	2.2	2.3Que.	89.3	99.7	96.2	77.1	80.5	78.9	81.2	84.4Ont.	67.5	68.9	62.5	50.3	52.6	51.6	53.0	55.1Man.	8.2	9.5	8.9	6.3	6.5	6.4	6.6	6.7Sask.	6.7	7.2	6.7	4.0	4.2	4.3	4.4	4.4Alta.	15.5	17.5	16.3	10.8	11.3	11.0	11.4	11.5B.C.	5.2	5.6	5.4	5.0	5.2	5.1	5.2	5.4Canada	119.2	216.0	203.1	159.6	167.6	164.6	169.2	175.3(i)	Provincial and total quota entitlements remained the same until April 1, 1974.(ii)	Dairy year changed to an August 1-July 31 basis from April 1-March 31.
March 25, 1981
Order Paper Questions
2. (a)	Cheddar cheese production by	province (metric tons)	1977	1978	1979	1980(0	Canada	80356	84341	97105	110004(ii)	P.E.I.* N.S.*	3536	3926	5213	5566N.B.* Quebec	35452	37592	48060	57548Ontario	30043	30823	30600	32183Manitoba	4885	5121	6011	7294Saskatchewan	1412	1443	1333	1282Alberta	3527	3866	3771	3745B.C.	1501	1570	2117	2386*Not available for individual provisions of the Statistics Act.	provinces because of confidentiality	(b)	Cheddar cheese consumption (Metric tons)	(January to Novemberonly)1977	1978	1979	1980(i)	Canada	76618	82947	91949	91847(ii)	Provincial consumption cannot be calculated as	no information concer-	
ning interprovincial movements of dairy products is collected.


David Michael Collenette: 1 ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, Notice of Motion for the Production of Papers No. 42 is acceptable to the government, subject to the usual reservations about documents received in confidence from sources outside the government.


Madam Speaker:: Subject to the conditions described by the parliamentary secretary, is it the pleasure of the House that Notice of Motion for the Production of Papers No. 42 be deemed to have been adopted?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.

[ Translation]


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, if question No. 81 could be made an order for return, that return would be tabled immediately.


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Is it the pleasure of the House that question No. 81 be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Between April 20, 1968 and May 22, 1979, how many public opinion polls were ordered, performed or commissioned by the government involving the expenditure of public funds and, in each case, what was the (a) name of the pollster (b) amount of the fee received (c) date of the poll (d) subject matter of the poll (e) actual result of the poll (0 cost of the poll?
2.	In the same period, what was the total cost of all polls involving public funds?
3.	Since the present government took office, have any public opinion polls been ordered or commissioned by the government and, if so (a) with what pollster (b) on what subject (c) what is the estimated cost in each case?
Return tabled.


[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 42-Mr. Fulton:
That an humble address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House before March 2, 1981, copies of all correspondence, telegrams or communications exchanged between cabinet ministers and/or their past or present staff and any officer or employee of Amax Limited.
Motion agreed to.
David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call notice of motion for the production of paper No. 43?


[Stage Direction]
Motion No. 43-Mr. Fulton:
That an humble address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House before March 2, 1981, copies of all correspondence, telegrams or communications exchanged between Mr. John Aird and cabinet ministers and/or their past or present staff regarding the permit for Amax Limited at Alice Arm.
David Michael Collenette: The Departments of the Environment, of Fisheries and Oceans, and of Indian Affairs and Northern Development have informed me that their files do not contain correspondence, telegrams or communications exchanged with Mr. John Aird. I would therefore ask the hon. member to withdraw his motion.
March 25, 1981


Mr. Fulton:: Madam Speaker, I would ask that the motion be transferred for debate. It is very clear that the correspondence is between any cabinet ministers past or present and their staffs past or present, not the singular department referred to by the parliamentary secretary. I would ask that it be transferred for debate.


Madam Speaker:: Transferred for debate.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, I would ask that the remaining Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: Shall the remaining notices of motions for the production of papers stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre) moved:: That this House condemns the government for failing to present, both to this House of Commons and to the forthcoming National Pensions Conference, a position for significantly expanding the public pension system in Canada in order to ensure that Canada's senior citizens, both now and in the future, will have an adequate standard of living in their retirement years.
He said: Madam Speaker, I present this motion today because I believe it brings into focus one of the important issues with respect to the state of pensions in Canada. It raises this question: Are we going to try to solve what has been referred to as the pension crisis by relying on the private sector to get its house in order and provide adequate pensions for our people, or are we going to realize that the only way in which to make sure that our retired people, both now and in the future, will have an adequate standard of living is by expanding the public role with respect to pensions?
With all the respect, appreciation and admiration I have for the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin), I fear that she is being led in the direction of relying more than has been the case in the past on the private sector. I hope that in this debate today we might persuade her that the future of the older people of Canada-those who are older now and all the rest who will get there some day-is much more secure if we rely in the main on expanding the public role in pensions.
Often times when I speak of pensions in Canada, I say two things that might seem to be contradictory. On the one hand, I
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assert that we have come a long way in the last 50 or 55 years. Indeed, I am even known to boast on behalf of my party about the role that we have played in helping to win a tremendous advance in the whole field of social security. On the other hand-and I do not regard this as contradictory because it is simply a case of there being two ways of looking at reality- there is still a great deal to be done to achieve the retirement goals that all of us in this House accept. By the same token, I have kind words for the Minister of National Health and Welfare who I think has done well in her role as minister.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: She has accomplished a number of things. I think both she and the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) take more credit than they deserve for what the $35 increase last year did, but at least she accomplished that. She kept a promise that she had her party make in the last election campaign, and although it may be a negative compliment I offer to her, I think she has done well to keep the right-wingers in cabinet at bay.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: I suspect that, had she not been there, we would have none of the improvements that we have seen recently and we might even have had cutbacks; so I am glad she is there. But just as I have said that there are two views with respect to pensions generally, so I say that her main job is still ahead of her. This is no time for any of us to rest on our laurels; the job is still ahead of us because everyone is talking today about the pension crisis.
Now, many people, when they hear that word, assume that it has something to do with the state of certain funds. People wonder whether there will be enough money to pay Canada Pension Plan benefits down the road or to pay old age security pensions at the indexed rates that will multiply in the next few years. I suggest that that is not the crisis. We pay pensions out of current production and income, not out of accumulations from the past, and any organized society can apportion the wealth that it produces to pay for the things it wants. If we want to provide adequate care for our children, provide education and adequate retirement income for the elderly, we can see that the money is available. The crisis relating to adequate pensions is not one of capacity to pay; it is the difficulty that older people are having in getting along on the amounts they receive. As the minister knows, about 60 per cent of the two million senior citizens age 65 and over live at or below the poverty line. That is all one needs to say to underline the fact that this is a state of crisis so far as pensions are concerned.
I point out also that about 53 per cent of the senior citizens who receive old age security also receive some or all of the guaranteed income supplement. To get all of that supplement one has to have virtually nothing else, and even to get a portion of it one has to have very little other income. This means, therefore, that 53 per cent of our senior population is in difficulty, as shown by the fact that those people have to apply for this supplement. Of the other 47 per cent, there are a few

March 25, 1981
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senior citizens, probably the top 10 per cent, who have an adequate, perhaps even more than adequate, income; but in between those two groups there is a third group of about 30 per cent who have just enough that they do not qualify for anything under public plans, and yet not enough to stay very far above the poverty level. So that is the crisis, namely, that for all we have done, for all that the minister and I will boast about-because we have come a long way since the middle 1920s when the first old age pension act was passed-for all that, life is still difficult for many of our older people.
If I may take a moment longer to spell out the positive side, yes, we not only have pensions ever so much higher than they were a few decades ago, but we have medicare and hospitalization that covers our senior citizens, indeed everyone, thanks to efforts that have been made in the social policy field. We have senior citizens' apartments in Canada that provide, for many people, better living than they knew in their working years. We have New Horizons grants and the many things we do to make life better. But when it is said that most of our senior citizens are living at or below the poverty line, we are admitting that persons of retirement age are consigned to a state of living less than that enjoyed by those who still work, and that is not good enough. It was good enough once upon a time when we first began to pay pensions of $20 a month to senior citizens to keep our senior citizens alive, but that was about all. And it may have been good enough a few years after that to pay pensions that provided a standard of living that was 40 per cent or 50 per cent of what pensioners enjoyed while working. But we are one people, one Canadian family, and we have reached the point where we believe and contend that our senior citizens have helped to build the country to what it is and are entitled, not just to a portion of the standard of living available generally to Canadians, but to share in that standard of living and have it increased as productivity and other factors make life better in this country as the years go by.
So the problem is there and it must be coped with. I am sure the minister and I see eye to eye on this, no question about it. I suspect she deplores just as much as I do the fact there is a tendency in this country to say: We have done enough for the old age pensioners, let us worry about some of the other problems. I face that all the time and I am sure the minister does. Worst of all, I suspect she faces it in the cabinet. As I said a moment ago, I am glad she is there to keep those right-wingers at bay.
The fact the minister realizes that the battle is not over and that old age pensions still have to be improved is, of course, attested to by the National Pensions Conference which she and the Minister of Finance have called for next week. I thank her for her personal invitation to me to be there. I hope to be there some of the time next week, depending on what is going on in this place Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week and what hours we have to spare.
I am concerned about statements which have been made by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde)
and by the Minister of National Health and Welfare herself about the aims and purposes of that conference. For example, speaking about the conference a few months ago she said:
The preference of the government for accomplishing these reforms-
That is, reforms to the pension system.
-is through the development of a stronger private pension system in Canada. 1 am not ruling out the possibility that there are improvements to be made in the public plans also; but I hope that the major emphasis will be on private plans.
That is where I feel my good friend the Minister of National Health and Welfare has been led astray. I am trying to get her back on the straight and narrow path.
A while ago the minister also said:
We would prefer to achieve this ... reform of the pension system ... through improvements in the private pension system. For that reason, the National Pensions Conference will focus on how to improve private pensions in Canada.
I am all for the efforts the minister has made to get the private sector to try to get its house in order; I am all for any improvements she can win there. But she is relying on something which cannot be relied on at all if she thinks that the private sector will develop the kind of pension structure which will meet the needs of all our older people. The private sector is ready to do it. It is lobbying. Some spokesmen have been in touch with me already. They contend that if we could give more to them, they would solve the problem of security for our older people.
I am not against their trying to do it. I well remember when we had the lengthy sessions of the committee on the Canada Pension Plan that the pension and insurance industry representatives were there throughout. They presented all their arguments against that scheme, though there were one or two, like the late William Anderson of North American Life, who seemed to have a social conscience, and one or two of them admitted that the development of the Canada Pension Plan was not going to take away their business but might even improve their chances to do business in the pension field. That has happened. Once we took the means test off the original old age pension and it became possible for people to save something other than their government pension and not lose it, then the market for other kinds of pensions grew.
It is not for me to tell private industry that it does not need to worry, but I say to it that it does not need to do so. The more improvements we make in public pensions, the more people will feel there is some point and value to augmenting what they get, and private industry will have its way. But to rely on the private pension industry, the insurance companies and the rest of them to develop plans to cover the situation is something we must not permit.
I have already said that 60 per cent of our senior citizens are living below the poverty line; 53 per cent of those over age 65 have so little they qualify for the guaranteed income supplement. As for private plans, they cover away below 50 per cent of the working population. As for private plans which provide indexing of pensions after retirement, I think the figure is somewhere around 2 per cent. There is just no chance that those people out there will do the job.
March 25, 1981

I think we have to consider some of the factors which are involved in this situation. One of the things that the private pension people do by way of confusing the picture is to bring together such factors as savings, redistribution of income and a pension policy. They talk a lot about pensions involving savings and about how all this works together and the savings help to keep the economy going, and so forth. They have to be treated separately. The private sector wants to get into the pension field because it gets hold of savings, and then that is supposed to improve the economy. It just does not work that way. Saving is one thing to be done for the purposes of the economy. Redistribution of income through income tax arrangements and so forth in the economy is another thing. But pension policy guaranteeing that everyone will have a standard of living at least equal to what his standard of living was when he retired has to be a matter which stands on its own feet. There has to be a pension policy for the nation as a whole, and no private industry and no collection of insurance companies is in a position to be concerned about all our senior citizens in the way it is possible for that concern to be expressed by the government.
As I say, I am grateful for the invitation to the conference. I look forward to listening to the presentations which are made. Hon. members can tell me my mind is made up before I go there if they want. It is. I just know that the only way we will get coverage for all our people is for the government to have an over-all public pension policy. The statistics I have already given indicate that most of the people of my generation-and everybody knows I am seven years past the pension age of sixty-five-who have anything to go on have it because of what the government has put in place.
Earlier the government talked of old age security and the Canada Pension Plan as the base "and let the private people build on top of it". For most people the base is all they have, and most of our senior citizens who enjoy any kind of security in terms of income, housing, health or what have you, do so because of public policy.
In this respect, though I am being critical I am also being boastful and offering compliments. What we have done in this field is tremendous, considering what the situation was 50 years ago. However, we have to go on with this process. We have to keep in mind that what we want is for all our retired people to have a standard of living when they retire which is just as good as it was before retirement. We want that standard to go up, and the only way it can do that is by having the public sector carry the major portion of the responsibility.
I expect the Minister of National Health and Welfare to listen, as she will as one of the hosts of this National Pensions Conference, to the pleas which will be made there, but I regret that the minister has not, even before that conference, presented to this House and prepared for presentation to the conference policies which show that the government is prepared to expand the public side in this whole pension field.
As I say, that is the fundamental issue that is facing us in the pension field. We do not have to argue any more that there should be pensions and that everyone should be covered. It
Pensions
took a while to win that point. I was here for the battles, but we won them.
Whether we are going to have pensions which are adequate and whether senior citizens will have not just enough to stay alive but enough to enjoy the standard of living they have made possible depends upon whether we have a policy which will bring this about. A policy relying on the private sector will not. We need a policy relying on the public sector to do that important job.
I urge that the minister take this plea of mine seriously. I do not have to tell her that it is a plea from a friend. It is a plea from one who has been concerned about pensions and who is very appreciative of what we have accomplished. But if we start veering the other way, letting the private industry, with its concern for profits, have a larger role, if we cut back on the proportion of the job we feel that governments should do, there will be a state of crisis for our senior citizens down the road.
What we have to be concerned about in pension policy is not how many dollars a person now 50 years of age or 30 years of age will have at age 65. That is the approach that private industry takes; it thinks in terms of how many dollars have to be put into some fund or account so that there will be a certain amount at retirement age. There is no way of telling what amount of dollars will be required ten or 20 years from now for an adequate pension. What we have to establish is a relationship. We have to establish as a principle that people who have done their share of the nation's work, whether in industry or in the home, are entitled when they reach retirement age to a portion, a share, of that decade's wealth, that decade's production, so that their standard of living is equal to that of people who are still working.
Can the private sector do that? It could not possibly do it. The only sector which can concern itself with pensions as a matter of relationship, as a matter of fairness, is the public sector. That is why we have the Department of National Health and Welfare. I remember the time when we did not have one. When I first came to this House, there was no Department of National Health and Welfare and old age pensioners were an item in the estimates of the minister of finance. We usually reached that item on the last day of the session or thereabouts although I managed to make quite a few speeches before we got there. However, we got over that. Mr. King was the one who brought in provisions for a Department of National Health and Welfare.
We have come a long way since then. I know I have said it half a dozen times already, but I know how true it is because I remember what life was like for the generation before me. I remember the plight of the senior citizens 70 and 75 years old back in the 1920s and 1930s. As I said, since then we have come a long way. But it is no longer good enough just to provide sufficient money to keep these people alive. What we have to establish is a relationship according to which Canadians who are 65, 70 or 75 years of age or older are entitled to enjoy the same standard of living as that enjoyed at that time

Pensions
by younger people, with some differences, such as children in families to be cared for and the fact that you do not need certain things because you do not go out to work. You cannot measure these things in dollars. You cannot measure them in actuarial tables and contributions. You have to measure them in terms of a relationship, and the only body which can ensure that that relationship is maintained is the people of Canada through their government.
I say again that what we have done is tremendous and what the present minister has done is tremendous.


An hon. Member:: Don't get carried away.
March 25, 1981
must correct that abomination of the spouse's allowance which protects certain women, since it is mostly women between the ages of 60 and 65 who get it, but does nothing for women who are unattached, single, widowed or divorced. She must do something better than she has proposed thus far about the Canada Pension Plan with respect to housewives. She must stick to what she knows is right in this field, and that is universality. We are not talking about ways and means of handing out welfare or meeting particular needs; we are talking about the philosophy of life which says our older people are just as much a part of the Canadian family as are the rest. That has to be done for the others too.

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Stanley Howard Knowles: Anybody who has kept the right-wingers in the cabinet from cutting back on pensions deserves-


John Edward Broadbent: Don't give her too much.


Stanley Howard Knowles: -a compliment, and I do not hesitate to give it.


An hon. Member:: That's enough, Stanley.
My friend, the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell), has a lot to say about what we should be doing for children. My friend, the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young), has a lot to say about what we should be doing for the handicapped. But let us not pull back from what we have done for our older people by trying to turn part of it over to the private sector.


Stanley Howard Knowles: My hon. friend, the minister, hears the remarks I am getting from behind me!


An hon. Member:: We are beginning to suspect something.


Stanley Howard Knowles: I am concerned that she not be led astray by the idea that we do not need to do any more through the public sector, that it can be done in the private sector. One of the ways in which the minister could demonstrate her realization that the public sector should start moving forward is to increase immediately the basic amount of old age security. She shoved me off the other day with such an absolute rejection of that suggestion that even I was a bit shocked. Here I was, quoting a William Mercer Ltd. official, Laurence Coward of all people, as conservative and cautious as he could be, pointing out that a scheme which does not meet the needs of 53 per cent must have something wrong with it. They were arguing that this money put into the basic old age security should be accompanied by a change in the tax structure so that those at the top who do not need it will pay it all back, and that was the solution. I say that something like that should be done and that certainly today's senior citizens should be getting pensions of $500 a month right now.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Stanley Howard Knowles: I believe the Canada Pension Plan must be enlarged. The proposal which came from the Ontario royal commission is not nearly as valuable and effective as it would be to enlarge the Canada Pension Plan so that, instead of paying pensions equal to 25 per cent of the income one had at retirement, the pension should be 50 per cent or 75 per cent; or, at least, a combination of the Canada Pension Plan and old age security should amount to 75 per cent or 90 per cent. We should start moving in that direction now.
Then there is the whole question of lowering the age of retirement. The minister, while she is in that office, really
While we are dealing with this, there are a few individual matters I should like to mention. As I said, we should be doing more for widows than providing these 50 per cent pensions. If the husband dies first, the widow gets only a 50 per cent pension, but if the wife dies first, the husband gets 100 per cent. This is for the birds. We have to do something about railway pensions. I mention that because for the most part they come under the direction of the federal government. We have to do something to improve the public service pensions and veterans' pensions.
I am mentioning these things briefly, one after another, because I see the clock moving faster than it does when other members are speaking! I see your finger, Mr. Speaker, and 1 am just about ready to sit down. This will not be my last speech on pensions. I shall be back again. But right now I agree with the suggestion that we are facing a crisis, not in terms of funds but in terms of the difficulties people are facing I and the way in which the government is going to go for the | future.	i
In my view, one of the best things this House ever did in all j the years I have been here was when it made old age security universal. This is my final word, Mr. Speaker. I say to the minister that what we must look forward to is the day when not just a pension but an adequate pension is universal for all our older people. The challenge to achieve that rests upon the government, but for today it rests on the shoulders of the Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I heard it said years ago that an NDP member is a Liberal in a hurry.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
March 25, 1981


Monique Bégin: I think the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) must be an NDP member in a hurry because the contents of the motion he put before us for debate this afternoon on this opposition day is quite different from the program of the NDP which was put forward before the Canadian public during the last federal election campaign in January and February of 1980. This has to be reconciled. In any event, I cannot accuse the hon. member because he has been a key player in pushing governments, year after year and decade after decade, toward a better pension for Canadians. I cannot really accuse his party of not being concerned and having a position on pensions, but I cannot say that for all political parties in this chamber.
On January 23, 1980, the New Democratic Party published its political platform on pensions. The views of members of that party are different from ours, as are some of their priorities. They recommended a general, quite substantial increase of $40 per month for every pensioner in Canada through the basic old age pension. They did not refer in their document to increasing the tax portion of the money which must be paid back by rich pensioners; they did not touch upon this area in their document. Therefore, they want an expenditure which will be well over $1 billion. Without giving any details, they indicated that they would readjust the GIS, the supplement. Also they referred to a shelter allowance for senior citizens; I think it was called a shelter grant for pensioners in need. It was their priority. This would add another $1 billion to the actual system.
As a second step, they very clearly identified a complete reform of the private pension system based on four principles which were identical to the ones set out in the speech of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) of April, 1979. We do not quarrel with the principles. In fact, we added one principle, the concept of flexibility in the age of retirement. But during the last public debate on the question, members of the NDP did not speak of enlarging the Canada Pension Plan, of doubling it, or increasing it in whatever way possible.
When the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre launched the debate on his motion today, he did not tell us- and I suspect I know why-by how much he wanted the CPP increased. He did not tell us whether it should be increased all at once, over several years, or when it should be done.
I realize it is a serious problem. The workers of Canada, if it is the route chosen, will have to pay a portion of that large increase, but this as yet has never been discussed with them. This is why we want a national conference to start discussing together what I call the updating of an old social contract; the relationship, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said, between salaries and what will come from where in terms of retirement income and who will pay for these layers of future retirement income.
The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre gave his own view today. It is different from the one of his party, unless his
Pensions
party has updated the document which was part of its platform exactly a year ago. I do not know the views of the Tory party on pensions. The only thing Canadians know is that in their budget over a year ago, they wanted to give $40 to senior citizens in need for the first year in the form of a tax credit for heating costs, and $80 in the second year for the same reason.
I should like to put before Canadians the views of the political party which forms the government, since we were elected by them, on a subject matter which was discussed throughout the country during the last election campaign, namely, our platform regarding pensions. We differ with the NDP. Of course, it is not difficult to differ with the Tory party because, as I said, I have never heard them discuss pensions much. It is a social issue and usually they do not feel very comfortable with social issues. We have put our concept of what we think should be the retirement income in the country and our priorities to the Canadian population, and we will be putting it forward again during the conference next week.
An ideal retirement income-and this is the only concept which was offered and never questioned, to my knowledge, by specialists-must be equivalent to average industrial wages which are now over $16,000.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Hear, hear!


Monique Bégin: Now, what will form that income for Canadians? We want the first layer to be the basic old age pension, as it is now. It is not the full 15 per cent; it is approximately 13.5 per cent of the average industrial wage. We want to keep it the way it is and continue to save the value of the dollar by determined indexation every three months.
On top of that, Canadians receive about an additional 25 per cent in the form of their CPP cheques. The way the Canadian Pension Plan is now, when it has matured and is at the maximum it amounts to an additional 25 per cent of their ideal retirement income. These two cheques account for 40 per cent. The questions are: From where will the balance of the money come? Who will issue the cheque for the missing 60 per cent? Who pays?
This is the purpose of the conference, this is the question on which we want to focus. Usually it is assumed that approximately 10 per cent must come from the private savings of a person which were put aside during one's working life. Then there is the remaining 50 per cent on which we want to focus. We think a large portion of it must come from one's private pension from the company where one worked. This is the raison d'etre of the conference which will take place Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of next week in Ottawa with approximately 300 participants.

We believe, if I speak now of reforms which should be made, that the situation is as follows. The basic old age security benefits that every Canadian receives would still be indexed quarterly as is now the case. However, when the pensioner does not have a sufficient income, he must necessarily ask for the guaranteed income supplement. We know and we have

March 25, 1981
Pensions
often repeated the commitment of this government to bring all the senior citizens who now receive the supplement over the poverty line. Some might criticize this objective, but it is a priority of the Liberal government. Those who live alone are often women. In spite of the increase of $420 a year which we granted after being returned to power, the couples who are now over the poverty line must not make us forget that many people who live alone, whether single, separated, divorced, widows or widowers, are still below the poverty line. As soon as economic conditions permit, we want to find and set aside the amount required to give them an income which will put them once and for all above the poverty line. We are speaking of about $730 million. We are therefore speaking of a large amount which is not easy to release in view of the present economic conditions. Last July, we released over $500 million and we placed the burden of this allocation on corporate taxes. I believe that this was a fair procedure to achieve social equity. However, we decided to act in two stages, which represented first an increase of $35 a month, or $420 more a year-and I would like to point out the large difference between this amount and the $40 a year increase suggested by the NDP- and there is still one stage remaining.
This is what we shall bring at the National Pensions Conference. At this conference, the private sector, which is not monolithic, but which includes people with sometimes diverse if not contradictory interests, whether they be life insurance agents, actuaries, pension fund managers for other companies or individuals, major employers with their own pension funds, and so on, all those who make up the private sector will have their first opportunity to meet one another and to also meet the other economic groups, including provincial and federal governments, senior citizens, women's groups, unionized and non-unionized workers, and to say what they are willing to do and how quickly.
I am pleased to note that there is no diversion of opinion at all; in fact, we have full support from the NDP. There are five objectives which I believe are now well known. We want universal coverage. We have not attributed specific costs and priorities to the five objectives, with the exception of the fifth one; more flexibility in the age of retirement is obviously not in the same league as the other four objectives.
The first four objectives are, first, universal coverage-right now only one half of Canadian workers have a private pension; some form of indexing, a way of keeping the value of the dollar; equity for women-survivors' benefits and other questions such as the splitting of pension credits will be discussed. Then, of course, we want portability and early vesting, as well as flexible retirement.
The motion triggers interest in and curiosity about the conference more than anything else; it surely does not criticize us very deeply. The motion suggests that we should go to the conference with a specified position. We have objectives, but
we have kept enough flexibility to permit the various partners in the business of pension reform to play their role and come forward with proposals.
I believe this is the first time since I have become minister that I am directly involved in such a major undertaking with partners everywhere in our society, including all provincial, territorial and federal governments, and also the so-called private sector and many other groups in society. I must say that I am a bit astonished at the reaction expressed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, which I have heard in many quarters, both provincially and in the private sector.
People always complain that governments do not consult, that their ideas are already fixed when they go to the people and want their views to be accepted on certain matters. When we start the process, at its very beginning, with simple rules of the game and basic fundamental objectives, everyone thinks that there is a plot, and they want to know what your position is because you do not state it right away. But if you were to state it, you would not let the other partners really express their own views.
I would like to rebut a few points which were made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre. He referred to a text of mine but did not check with me first to see if I really said that. The text referred to the government preferring the private pension sector. That is not the situation. The government has decided that there are five objectives. The government has decided to have a National Pensions Conference, with the various players, as the starting point of a process which will lead us to a real change in the situation. However, we have not decided which avenue would be the best. There are several avenues, not only an enlargement of the Canada Pension Plan. In theory, we can identify four avenues; but we have no preferred philosophy. It is not a matter for philosophy, by the way; it is a pragmatic problem. We have no ideology, and any avenue which will give Canadians and all Canadian workers good pensions will be the favoured avenue for us.
A major increase in the Canada Pension Plan is only one avenue, one of four which I can easily review with colleagues in this House. In theory, the government could decide that the private sector would do the job. That attitude of laissez-faire would let things fall into the hands of the private sector. A major question is whether coverage will be provided for everybody. Coverage is one of the key elements in the problem today.
A second avenue, in theory, is that a mix of legislation and regulation by all 11 governments-I should say all 13, including the territories-could impose rules of the game on the so-called private sector. All the governments could agree on similar legislation to force the private sector to give a pension, whatever the size of the industry or employer, to make it portable, to provide for early vesting, and so on and so forth.
The third avenue is the one recommended by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, but not supported by his party, to my knowledge. This would be the enlargement of the Canada Pension Plan and one would say that we should forget the private sector. We will go the route of an imposed con-
March 25, 1981

tributory plan where employers and employees have much larger compulsory CPP deductions from their paycheques. I suppose we would have to at least double present premiums. If the actual situation did not protect workers at all, and if so much was missing from the pot, the premium should be at least doubled, which would raise billions of dollars and create a fund to be reinvested, etc. At this point in time all these questions are open because we do not know what the private sector can do and is committed to doing.
The fourth avenue is a mix, and I call it the British model. It would be made up of an enlarged CPP, imposed on everyone. However, where a so-called good private plan existed, that employer would receive a certificate and would not be subject to compulsory CPP contributions. That would be the best of both worlds, because it would respect the private sector where a plan existed, while rapidly providing benefits to employees who do not have a plan.
The federal government is not alone in that reform because no government in Canada has the monopoly on jurisdiction over pensions. The federal government can cover about 10 per cent of the labour force and each provincial government shares a portion of the remaining 90 per cent. It is not fair to say that the provinces cover 90 per cent; that is not the way it is. Each province covers a portion of employers in one geographic zone. An example is the fact that the B.C. government can rule on B.C. employers, but B.C. employers in the pulp and paper industry can have affiliates in Quebec where a different province has jurisdiction. That is why the co-operation of all players in this reform is absolutely essential.
I think I have given the five objectives of the conference and I have attempted to review rapidly the four avenues of action that are open to us.
Following the conference we will assess the results and then discuss and finalize the federal position. We will then have numerous consultations and negotiations with the provinces. They will also have to formulate their own stand on the action they would like to see taken toward the reform of private pension plans in Canada.
I think it is fair to offer the so-called private sector an opportunity to remain in what I call a good business; after all, the private pension industry is worth some $45 billion. If it is weak because of the lack of proper coverage, indexing, portability, or survivors' benefits, we are giving it an opportunity to update what it offers people. We are telling the private sector to grab this opportunity, to offer pension plans to small employers who do not quite know how to go about offering one. We want the industry to give us innovative ideas about how a pool could be established that would protect employers who go bankrupt and whose employees, therefore, run the risk of losing their pension altogether. This is a business opportunity and the industry should grab it and offer us something.
I do not quite know when my time finishes, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to touch on the fact that we cannot conclude that the private sector is not ready to make changes. It has learned from history and from government that it was not giving the people as much as it should in terms of social
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benefits. The industry may have lost opportunities but I think it has learned a great deal.
Something that I have observed and which is quite positive is the regrouping of forces. In Canada we have often talked about the private sector, but the private sector does not exist in pension matters. There are many different players who are not regrouped as in Europe, where there is one single body of employers called "le patronat". We do not have that in Canada. However, they have started regrouping themselves in a very positive way, and there are now spokespeople for the so-called private pension sector. Many players in the private sector have made surveys and have set up task forces of their own. They have started moving toward pension reform.
As minister in charge of the Department of National Health and Welfare, in a way I am the voice of pensioners in cabinet, so I think it is fair for me to say that the government will assess the results of the conference. I hope these results will be published right away, after the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and I have co-chaired the meetings. We will be asking two questions. First, are the reforms proposed by the private sector enough and how do they meet our five objectives or, more precisely, the first four objectives in particular? The second question in assessing any of the avenues open to us is, will benefits be provided quickly enough? These are the questions that I will be asking. Other ministers, because of their responsibilities, will have to ask different questions, such as whether the economy can afford it and so on.
I think it is fair to repeat what I have often said in the country in discussions with groups about the reform of pensions-that these will be my criteria for an analysis of the results, leading to the choice of one avenue instead of several.
I will finish by dealing with a question that has often been put to me and which I am sure will be asked again next week at the conference. People ask how it is that we are in such a bad situation in Canada. I must say again that Canada and Sweden have the best public pensions in the world but, unfortunately, Canada and the United States have the worst private pensions in the world. It is important for members to act. We must now address the question of retirement income coming from one's employer-in other words, the company pension.
I do not know the exact explanation for this, Mr. Speaker, but I am told that in Europe, because of the war, the unions attached top priority, in their dealings with employers and in their collective bargaining, to the building of pension plans. In Canada, on the other hand, the unions have historically done more to bring about indexation of benefits and COLA clauses than to build private pension plans. This is not a criticism. I just want to try to explain why it is that all Canadians-and keep that image in mind, because that is why we are having a conference-in whatever revenue group they find themselves, in the five last years of their active life, the best years, the day they retire have their income cut in half.
That is the challenge that we want to address. It is not a fight against poverty that I am proposing; it is a fight for ' better retirement income for the vast majority of Canadians. I think that is quite a challenge. It is time for action. I want to

March 25, 1981
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thank the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre for his opposition motion because it is quite a positive one.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Vince Dantzer (Okanagan North):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, as one of the most recent members of this House, I should like to say how pleased I am to participate in this debate on pensions provided by the motion introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I think that the hon. member's great interest in the subject and his contribution to the whole area of pensions over the last number of years is well known to members of this House and, indeed, across this great country.
I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion because it is of particular interest to me, and more important, it is of particular interest and relevance to my constituents in Okanagan North. As most Canadians are aware, Okanagan North is blessed with what is possibly the finest scenery and finest weather in all Canada. This fact is not lost on Canadians in other parts of this great land, particularly the prairie provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba. After spending a lifetime of hard work enduring the vigorous and sometimes rigorous weather on the prairies it has become somewhat of a tradition that in later years Canadians from these areas can spend their golden years in the Okanagan Valley. May I say we welcome them and we will continue to welcome them because they make fine citizens indeed.
However, it means that my constituency enjoys a much greater number of senior citizens than the national average. Therefore, the whole question of pensions, adequate incomes and adequate housing for senior citizens is of great importance to the well-being of the people in my area, so I welcome the opportunity to speak on this topic.
The National Pensions Conference is to meet next week commencing on March 31. It will continue until April 2. I suppose this conference has been called by the government in recognition that the existing schemes both in government and in private industry have been unable to meet some of the very pressing needs of our senior citizens. Our existing pension schemes have been criticized because they are inadequate and do not provide adequate incomes for those who have retired, or for those who are retiring and, perhaps, because taxpayers are asking more than what their contributions would provide.
It is interesting to make a comparison of the contribution rates with other countries for old-age, disability and survivors insurance. In Sweden, the total contribution made by an individual is up to 20 per cent; in France, it is 12 per cent; in Switzerland, it is 9 per cent; in the United States it is about 10 per cent and in Canada it is only about 3.6 per cent.
My belief is that the 1980s will see the whole matter of pensions as one of the major social concerns of our time. There are two basic areas in the programs we have in place which have to be reassessed and improved if we are to meet the needs of the people who wish to retire in later years, and meet the
needs of those people already retired and no longer in the work force. Both the public and the private sector are concerned with pensions.
First, let me examine some of the inequities in the existing systems. It has already been mentioned in this House that our pension schemes are based on a three-tier system. We have public programs and the so-called private programs and systems. The public program consists of the old-age security, which is designed to provide a basic retirement income to everyone at the age of 65, regardless of means.
A second tier is the government program called the guaranteed income supplement, the purpose of which is to meet the needs of pensioners who have little or no income, apart from the basic old age security pension. This program, of course, is subject to a means test. Both OAS and the GIS are indexed.
If we examine these programs, we see they are really nothing more than guaranteed annual income. In the same tier is another program called the spouses' allowance. This program was introduced to provide assistance to couples where the oldest spouse was in receipt of OAS benefits but the younger spouse had not reached the mandatory age of 65.
The third tier of the pension system, and I believe the most important, encompasses the private pension schemes found throughout industry through employee-employer contracts and individual and tax supported registered retirement savings programs.
Unfortunately, because of a number of factors-mostly inflation-the system provides inadequate income for large segments of the senior citizen population. The most dramatic example of a group left out of the scheme are single women over the age of 60. It is a national scandal that this country has allowed this group in our society to subsist on less than the poverty wage, the ones who have given so much to our country in earlier years. I submit it is a national scandal and shame that this government, which runs a deficit of some $14.2 billion a year which, on a whim or by the stroke of a pen can spend $1.4 billion to buy an oil company, something which does not add one job, produce one drop of oil or in any way adds to our economy, allows these women to literally starve to death. I believe the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid) later on to day will be enlarging on what I consider to be a national shame.
In a sense, the government pension schemes as practised by this government are somewhat of a fraud. This government points consistently to the $35 a month increase which was given to the elderly last year. The minister has again referred to that increase in pensions this afternoon. I commend the government for at least fulfilling one of its election promises.
However, I strongly condemn this government for following such irresponsible economic and fiscal policies which have wiped out any benefit this increase might have meant to senior citizens. Indeed, such policies have worsened the lot of every retired person and every person on a fixed income, to such an extent they are at this moment struggling for their very
March 25, 1981

existence to overcome the terrible effects of an inflation rate of some 12.2 per cent.
The pension schemes as practised by this government are a fraud because, under the present method of financing, Canada Pension Plan contributions are not sufficient to fully fund the plan. Today, the rate of benefits paid out exceed contributions. Very shortly the Canada Pension Plan will have to be tax supported if it is to pay out the benefits promised to those who have made contributions.
The Canada Pension Plan does not provide any kind of protection against inflation. I suspect inflation will continue, because this government seems unable to change its policies, and the kind of protection provided will be completely inadequate to give even the smallest degree of retirement income and security to Canadians.
I condemn the government for failing to provide any leadership whatever in the whole area of public pensions and retirement income to overcome the problems of high interest rates, inflation and lack of adequate funding. These are the problems which threaten the security and well-being of every senior citizen in Canada.
The other area in which this government has failed to show leadership, and to provide answers is in the area of private pension schemes. By and large, it is estimated about 4.19 million Canadians are covered by these plans; that is about 62 per cent of the population. One hundred per cent of employees in the public sector are covered and 50 per cent in the private sector. Therefore, much reliance is placed by Canadians on these plans for security in retirement years.
However, most of these plans suffer from serious defects. Most of them are not adequately protected against inflation. Most of them do not provide adequate vesting or portability benefits and most of them do not provide adequate survivor benefits for spouses.
If private pensions are to fully do the job required of them, this government must show some leadership in providing adequate frameworks and plans which can be used by private pension plans-by employers, employees, unions and private individuals-so that the majority of private pension plans provide what is so necessary; that is, vesting at an earlier age, and I am glad the minister supported that concept; so that the majority of private pension plans provide complete portability, and I was glad the minister indicated her government might support that pension plans provide for portability so that a worker can have and take his benefits with him to another job or another province whenever it is necessary to do so, and so that the plans provide requirements for spousal survivor benefits to a much greater extent than now. That is one of the reasons many senior women are facing such hardship.
1 am fully aware that pensions are to a large degree a matter for provincial control. I am also aware that this government's track record in negotiating with the provinces is pretty dismal indeed. It does not make one very optimistic about any future
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leadership role which this government may play in providing some direction for improved existing pensions.
I was very disturbed when the minister said her government has no philosophy, no ideology in connection with pensions. If this is true, it is clear this government has been running off in all directions and accomplishing nothing. I suggest this government would be wise to have some philosophy and ideology to guide them in the way they approach the whole pension field.
However, in spite of that, I urge the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) to take her courage and her humility in both hands and proceed to negotiate a reasonable program to encourage the private sector to improve existing pension schemes. I am sure that, in collaboration with provincial governments, a scheme can be put in place so that the vast amount of our pension requirements over and above the government schemes are provided by private industry.
A problem which is basic to the question of pensions and one to which I must refer is the question of aging and population trends. It is a well-known fact that the age structure of the Canadian population will shift dramatically in the next several years. The result of this shift will be that Canada will see a steady increase in the proportion of its elderly and pensioner citizens, and at the same time, and this point is crucial, a much smaller work force.
The number of Canadians over 65 years of age is forecast by Statistics Canada to increase from the present 9 per cent of the population to 20 per cent early in the twenty-first century. That is more than doubling the number of senior citizens. The dependency rate for elderly Canadians, that is, the population of age 65 and over, expressed as a proportion of the population aged 18 to 64 will rise to 30 per cent over the same period from its present 14.5 per cent. Thus, by the year 2031 there will be three working adults for each senior citizen. There are now seven working adults to each senior citizen. It does not take much of a mathematician to understand the tremendous tax burden that will be imposed on those workers in the early part of the twenty-first century if we do not plan now to provide senior citizens with retirement income.
Briefly, we may expect in the future more old dependents and fewer workers to support them. These facts alone are reason enough that it is essential plans be put in place now to meet this future obligation of our society. We hope and anticipate that these elderly Canadians will be supported by their savings, employer pensions and government pension programs. However, since at that time there will be a relatively smaller working population, if the tax burden on those working people is not to be an excessive burden, we must plan now to encourage savings and properly funded private and government systems.
It may appear that the year 2030 is a long way off, but it is well to remember many of the Canadians who will retire in the critical period from 2010 to 2030 are already in the work force. If Canada's system of income security for the aged is to be altered, changes have to be announced well in advance so that people can take them into account when planning retirement. That is why it is so essential that the forthcoming

March 25, 1981
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conference on pensions mark the beginning of serious reform to solve existing inadequacies and future requirements.
I hope it will not be out of place for me to quote some statistics to place the matter in perspective. In 1979 there were approximately 2.1 million OAS/GIS pensioners in Canada, representing about 9 per cent of the total population. Over $5,365 billion were paid out by the governnment as OAS and guaranteed income supplement benefits in 1979. It is also well known that the elderly are significantly over-represented among the poor, whatever definition of poverty line is chosen. Employing Statistics Canada revised definition of low income-an income level such that more than 62 per cent is spent on basic necessities-the proportion of individuals 65 to 69 years of age with a low income was 46.4 per cent in 1976; the proportion among those 70 and over was even higher, 58.1 per cent. The average income for families headed by individuals over 65 was only about half the average for all age groups. In 1979 approximately 57 per cent of all old age pensioners qualified for the federal government's means tested GIS, another indication that Canada's elderly number significantly among the poor.
These statistics show to a degree the magnitude of the problem. We are speaking of exceedingly large sums when we plan a system of income security for older people. We must remember that this is only one of several valid social objectives in the national scheme in Canada, that health and education, and many other valid objectives place demands on our society and its capacity to pay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please, I regret to interrupt the hon. member but his allotted time has expired. He may only continue with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have only a few minutes to go.
I repeat and emphasize that the methods we use to provide adequate income security for senior citizens must be those which will also encourage and assist the economy of this country in supporting our social objectives. We all know the resources of this country are limited, as they are everywhere. We must choose social objectives which are attainable and affordable. It is a principle of the Conservative Party that the government should assist those persons least able to help themselves. It is also a principle of my party that our senior citizens, who have worked long and hard to achieve a full and satisfying life, who have raised their families and contributed to this great country, should be rewarded and cared for by society in their retirement years. As a Conservative I feel this can best be done by ensuring that those policies are compatible with policies of economic direction which are designed to ensure that a healthy and vigorous private sector can provide the real economic wealth necessary to support these retirement programs.


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State (Finance)):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very glad to have this opportunity to say a few words on the extremely important subject of pensions; that is, the income of retired people. I think it is obvious to everybody that the finance department and the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) himself have a direct and special interest in the field of pensions. It is obvious as well that it is a subject of utmost interest to all government members because of the well-known philosophy of our party, namely, that our first concern is for those most in need, and it is a fact that retired people indeed account for a great many Canadians who are in dire need.
I would also like to take this opportunity to commend our Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) for the extremely significant and liberal works she is doing not only in the field of health generally, but especially because of her awareness of the problems experienced by the elderly and retired people.


Mr. Lapointe (Charlevoix):: Hear, hear!


Pierre Bussières: they retire. Obviously, when your income is reduced by 50 per cent, you have problems paying your grocery bills, meeting your housing payments and buying clothes. All these needs do not change that much when you suddenly stop working and retire. We must still be aware of them.
The National Pensions Conference which I mentioned earlier will give us an opportunity not only to review the income problems of our pensioners, but also to examine all the other aspects involved in harmonizing and co-ordinating the various pensions plans available in Canada, whether it be the government plan, in other words the Canada Pension Plan or the Quebec Pension Plan, whether it be the pension system ordinarily called the old age pension system, whether it be the guaranteed income supplement, whether it be the private plans established jointly by private companies and their employees or unilaterally by the employer for a group of employees, or whether it be an individual plan either through some type of insurance or another type of plan, all these means of providing a retirement income will be examined, for the purpose of standardizing these various plans. Naturally, any attempt to reach an ideal must eventually confront harsh reality. Obviously our economy is going through extremely difficult times, and in such a case the best thing to do is always to try to implement policies in keeping with current conditions. But I am confident that the groups that are to meet and will meet at that conference, under the joint leadership of the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Minister of Finance will achieve an in-depth study of the problems confronting our society with regard to pensions, and that solutions will be found that will surely benefit Canadians.
I must limit myself to those few remarks, Mr. Speaker. In closing I advise the House that despite consultations with party representatives, we have been unable to reach an agreement on the application of Standing Orders 75a and 75b on the report stage and third reading of Bill C-59, to provide supplementary borrowing authority. I therefore have the honour, Mr. Speaker, of informing the House that in the course of a future sitting, I shall present a motion under Standing Order 75c to allot one sitting day to each of the stages of the bill I referred to.
Mr. Speaker, I wish that conference every success and I am sure all hon. members will be very happy to participate in the formulation and approval of new policies when the government introduces them.


Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate today. I wish to join other members in the House in expressing my affirmation of the importance of Canada expanding its pension system to meet the devastating need of so many of our senior citizens across the country.
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I want to congratulate the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) for his continuing concern. I want, however, to say that I differ with him as to whether the response to this lies just with government. Rather, I hope the result of the coming conference will be that we will find an accommodation between private and public sectors in order that this problem is addressed. As the minister has stated, the questions which will be addressed will surely be whether reforms will be enough and whether they will deliver benefits to those who need them most.
As a member of the official opposition and the Conservative party I am happy to be identified with social issues and to suggest it is in the balancing of concerns about compassion and incentive that we can find the resources to meet the needs of the men and women of our nation.
As we look at the problems facing us in respect of pensions, we see there is not enough money flowing through the system to the elderly. Only 13 per cent of the income to the elderly is generated by private pensions, while 55 per cent is generated from government sources. The coming conference will be important in that it will look at this imbalance.
In the few minutes given me I want to look at the specific problems facing elderly women regarding pensions. The needs of older women are the same as those of everyone else. They need interesting work to do, money to live on, a place in which to live and other people to care whether they live or die- "Being old does not mean that I will be alone". Unfortunately, three out of five women over 65, or four out of five women over 75 are widowed, divorced or single. Only half of Canadian women over 65 live with their husbands, their children or any other relative. They think, "At least I will have my home and my neighbours". But again that is true only if you are one of the lucky ones. Two out of five single, widowed or divorced retired women over 70 do live in their homes. One out of every four single, separated or divorced women over 70 lives in a rooming house, and almost 70 per cent of the residents of nursing homes are women over the age of 65.
Others will say: "Well, my nest egg will see me through; I have been saving through the years". Maybe, but when we look at the facts, we find that three out of four single, widowed or divorced women over 70 had annual incomes under $5,000 in 1977, and about 333,000 single, widowed or divorced women over 60 lived in poverty, three times the number of men.
We could also look for a moment at poor single parents who cannot afford to save for retirement. They stay poor, and the vicious circle continues.
Facts show that elderly women are poor, but that they suffer under current pension arrangements. In 1979, in preparation for the election campaign, there was this statement from the Progressive Conservative Party: "Improving the situation for older women is an important election commitment". The statement said, and I quote:
Women suffer under current pensions arrangements. Many reports document the fact that old women are the poorest of the poor. They are largely supported by government. Problems of current pension schemes affect women even more

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severely than men: lack of stability, lack of coverage among small employers, lack of indexing of deferred pensions and pensions-in-pay and lack of survivor benefits.
Women suffer more because they are more likely to work for small employers, they are more likely to be in and out of the labour force due to family responsibilities and they are more likely to be widowed.
Subsequently the previous government recommended a full review of the pension and retirement income system and began contacting the provincial governments. This review will now be a part of the coming conference.
I was interested a few weeks ago to receive a letter from Lucy Pickard, the editor of The Owl, an adult recreation centre bulletin in Waterloo, expressing deep concern about women between the ages of 45 and 65. Lucy Pickard referred to women in that age group who find themselves doubly handicapped because of their limited education. Many of them had gone into teaching, for which they had inadequate qualifications. Many were provided with fewer educational incentives than then.
Lucy Pickard wrote:
The single woman restricted through her limited education was usually prevented from gaining the economic security derived from home ownership. Until relatively recently, lending institutions demanded the signature of a man as a guarantor in case of default in mortgage payments.
I have compared that tradition with another part of the Waterloo constituency; the matter of community building. I was talking today about the Mennonite tradition and the tradition of the doddy house, whereby the youngest son or daughter takes over the family farm and, through the years, the other sons and daughters are funded so they can buy their farms. I learned today of one family daughter who bought a farm from a childless couple near Heidelberg. That couple will live in the small doddy house. The tradition of caring goes on in parts of our community. Somehow to extend that tradition across the community is the challenge of the pension conference, soon to be held.
There are problems associated with the Canada Pension Plan, especially for women. The amount of one's pension under that plan is scaled to the amount of one's income, and, since on average women across Canada earn only 58 per cent of what men earn, automatically most women in the work force can expect lower pensions than men, but after retirement their needs are not fewer than those of men.
With respect to the eligibility of housewives, the recent Progressive Conservative convention confirmed that the Canada Pension Plan must be reformed to reflect more adequately the contribution of spouses to the economy. It recognized that there are big problems with the minister's suggestions for possible voluntary contributions by housewives. What happens, for example, if a working husband does not want to give his wife money to contribute? She will be unable to contribute. The government has not suggested an obligatory clause which would force husbands to allow wives to contribute. Wealthy spouses would be able to afford contributions, but not the poor. This would perpetuate the cycle of vicious poverty for the poor.
1 must say we are encouraged by the start made in the income tax changes which will be retroactive to January 1 and which will allow spouses working in non-incorporated businesses to participate in their own right in the Canada Pension Plan, as do all other salaried workers in Canada. This provision was in the Crosbie budget, and we are encouraged that the minister has included this in the programs this government is bringing forward.
Private pension plans in the past have not been of much help to women. I am one who wishes these plans would deal with the problems faced by women. It is our hope that the National Pensions Conference to be held next week here in Ottawa will address some of these problems.
Company pensions do not help many women, as we are reminded by the Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Four out of five single, divorced or widowed women over 65 years of age receive no income from private pensions. A women does not automatically receive her husband's pension after he dies because he may not have had a company pension. Only one in two Canadian workers benefits from company pension plans, and of those who do less than half have a widow's pension option. Those widows who do get a pension from their husband's employer usually collect only half of what their husband would have received.
For women working in private industry, accessibility to private pension plans has been minimal because plans have usually been confined to upper income workers, which excludes many women and almost all part-time workers and, of course, part-time workers are almost invariably women.
Because women tend to live longer, private industry has the real actuarial problem of the equal cost of the plan versus equal benefit. The insurance companies in my riding have been telling me regularly of the dilemma they face in trying to address this real problem. For example, if women will benefit five to ten years longer on average than men, should women's payments be larger? Could a company which institutes such a program then be charged with discriminatory regulations on the basis of sex?
The facts show that more and more women are living longer than men. Everyone becomes old, but women can expect to live to the age of 77, or seven years longer than men, on average. Right now, one million women in Canada are over 65, a quarter of a million more women than men in the same age group. We are told that in just 20 years the number of women over 65 will reach two million, and half of them will be over 75. By the turn of the century women over 75 will outnumber men in the same age group by two to one.
The third problem we have is the problem of vesting. The recent Progressive Conservative convention favoured an immediate review of private pension plans to encourage earlier vesting and complete portability. It is essential that next week's conference should look at this issue as it is a particular problem for women.
March 25, 1981

There is also the problem of indexing. Employers in the private sector say they cannot afford to index pensions. The problem is that without indexation, women who have greater financial problems to face in retirement than they have throughout their lives will see their small pensions decrease because of inflation. For example, when there is no indexation, $100 at the annual rate of inflation of 8 per cent will be worth $24.87 in 18 years. If a pension has not been vested, we can see how the employee who leaves a job loses all rights to the employer's contributions on his or her behalf and simply gets back his or her contribution.
According to Statistics Canada, in 1977, 95 per cent of women who participated in private pension plans found that the plans did not provide full vesting until the employees had ten years or more of service. A comparison of this with turnover rates, which show that three quarters of women aged 22 to 44 change jobs at least every five years as compared to two thirds of men, demonstrates that very few women who participate in private pension plans are likely to get a pension when they finally retire. It is not realistic to expect this situation to change by itself in the coming years, at least not so long as women keep occupying the least interesting jobs and are still held primarily responsible for taking care of children.
These are problems which not only the minister but the conference and all of us are asked to face. What plans are there to help women aged 55 to 64 to become eligible for reasonable pensions, and how does the government plan to address the problems of voluntary contributions by housewives to the pension plan? Specifically, does the minister plan to discuss with private industry the problems faced by part-time workers in private industry and eligibility to private pension plans? I also hope that the actuarial problem of equal cost versus equal benefit, especially as it relates to women, will be discussed.
In a document entitled, "Women and Aging", we find the following statement at page 95:
Old women in Canada need help. They urgently need more money, housing assistance, better public transportation systems and adequate health and social services.
Their poverty is not a result of an accident. Women are poor in old age because most of them have devoted their lives without pay to their husbands and families and were led to believe that if anything happened they would be taken care of. When they become widows, as they almost inevitably must under our present marriage customs, the vast majority find that the promised security does not exist.
Another reason elderly women are poor is that they were discriminated against throughout their lives. Socialized to believe that they need little or no education and training, women end up working for low pay at subservient jobs that do not give access to pensions ... most important, we must stop our present casting out of the old. Instead of complaining about the elderly becoming an increasingly heavy burden, we should allow them and help them to remain useful members of society as long as possible. This position was best expressed by Miriam Krieg in a presentation to the U.S. federal council on the aging in 1975:
"We can no longer ignore the economic plight of the older woman. We have three choices: (I) Let her slowly starve; (2) provide her increasing expensive, inadequate welfare services; or (3) help her to remain an independent, contributing member of society.
We can give her a fish and feed her for the day ... or we can teach her to fish and she will feed herself, and perhaps some others too."
Pensions
The motion suggests a concern, not only of the NDP, but of the official opposition, as it is the concern of the government. We look forward to being part, along with others in the House and from across the country, of the conference next week, and we look forward to addressing this great need across our nation.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, I also welcome this opportunity to participate in the debate today on the motion of the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). I listened rather carefully to what the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) had to say when she referred to the remarks of the hon. member, and specifically to the points she made when she spoke about her understanding of what is the NDP policy with respect to pensions and retirement income. The minister knows or ought to know that when the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre stands up and presents the position of the NDP on pensions or retirement income, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre is NDP policy on pensions and retirement income. I did not hear the hon. member for Winnpeg North Centre say anything which was not consistent with NDP policy, as I certainly understand it. Of course, in terms of policy, it has always been consistent.
As have other hon. members in the House, I have received numerous letters from senior citizens, not only in my constituency but across the country, in which they have expressed their continuing concern with the inadequacies of pension income. It is not particularly surprising to understand that, when even those of us who are not at retirement age and are still active members of the work force know exactly what inflation and the increasing cost of food and accommodation means. Even though it has a severe impact on those of us who are members of the work force, of course it has a severe impact on those people on fixed incomes. Certainly the senior citizens with whom I am acquainted are having an increasingly difficult time to make ends meet on a weekly basis. I am referring to the essentials of life, the costs of food and accommodation.
There is no one in the House who does not recognize the need for an adequate retirement income policy in Canada. I think that is obvious to everyone. My own practical experience within the private sector, particularly in industrial relations prior to coming to the House, convinces me that we will never achieve the level of retirement income both necessary and very much in need for those on retirement if we only rely on the private sector. We will never achieve that desirable state until we have full portability of pension plans. I think this can only come about through more government involvement in retirement income policies. While this has been perfectly true in the past, it is even more true today when one considers the decline in economic activity.
In the last ten years prior to coming to this place, I was involved in six plant shutdowns of varying employment force sizes. Although the Conservative members on my right seem to get some enjoyment from that, I can assure them there was no

March 25, 1981
Pensions
enjoyment for the 2,000 people affected by those plant shutdowns and lay-offs. They should remember the severe impact of those shutdowns on the lives of people who enjoyed fairly steady employment over a period ranging from 20 to 35 years. Those individuals suddenly found themselves without jobs, mainly as a result of decisions in head offices located outside of Canada. The head offices made decisions to transfer wealth from Canada to some other country. This was not because the plants were not productive, but because the corporations did not make enough profit and felt they could make more profit if they invested that wealth outside Canada.
Because of the existing legislation, those people did not have enough service with the companies to give them vested rights in pension plans. It is an example of what the hon. member who spoke prior to me said. Those persons were only entitled to receive back the contributions they had paid into pension plans. Some people with up to 14 or 15 years of service with those companies left with no guarantee of retirement incomes. I do not see anything humorous in that particular situation at all. We are talking about some form of financial security for people who have invested up to 15 years of their lives in corporations and end up knowing that those 15 years will not count in terms of retirement income at age 65.
Another area of concern is how the private sector treats people who leave work because of particular disabilities and apply to the Canada Pension Plan for disability pensions under its provisions. Many Canadian private pension plans have a provision which indicates that if an individual applies to CPP and receives a disability pension, any entitlement to a disability pension with private insurance carriers is deducted from the pension income, simply because he or she is eligible for disability benefits under the Canada Pension Plan.
This is inequitable because, when a person buys a pension in the private sector he or she is buying it with moneys regarded by employees as deferred wages or salaries. If the person did not buy a pension, it is assumed that the pension premium would otherwise be reflected in the wage package at the end of each week. Those are moneys to which that individual is and should be entitled when he or she becomes eligible, without being faced with private insurance carriers deducting those benefits when the individual most needs the money.
Pension funds are not small change. Collectively, pension funds in the private sector control some $40 billion worth of assets. Moreover, this figure is doubling every four years, and the Economic Council of Canada predicts that in the next 50 years pension assets will be worth two thirds of the gross national product. Also, pensions reflect a good chunk of total savings.
Between 1972 and 1976, 23 per cent of all savings or $40 billion was spent for retirement purposes. Where was this money invested? Most of it went into corporate stocks, and today pension plans own close to 20 per cent of all shares traded on Canadian exchanges. In addition, a sizeable amount was invested in mortgages and bonds. For example, in 1975 pension funds bought 41 per cent of new corporate bonds, 34
per cent of government securities, and 13 per cent of all mortgages.
There are some 15,000 pension plans in Canada. This figure covers the entire gamut of occupational pension plans, including the public and private sectors, multi-employers versus single employers, both defined benefits and non-defined contribution plans. These plans covered some 4.2 million people in 1978 or 40 per cent of the labour force. Most of these plans or 73 per cent of them, to be exact, have invested through insurance companies which are able to pool assets across a large number of small plants. While it may very well be that this arrangement is preferable for small employers, large employers have sizeable pension assets and they tend toward trust fund arrangements. Under this arrangement, large companies can pick and choose between trust companies and have a greater say in portfolio selections.
In 1978 trustee plans made up 27.2 per cent of all pension plans, but they comprised a much larger fraction of total plan membership, or in the area of 67 per cent. For the largest firms, pension assets are sufficient for self-management of the funds. For example, the Canadian National pension fund, with $2 billion in assets, is self-managed. As an example of its financial clout, the Canadian National fund owns 23.5 per cent of Siebens Oil and Gas Limited.
With these funding arrangements, it is apparent that the control of pension assets is highly concentrated in Canada. For the smaller plans, the investment decisions are made by a handful of insurance companies which specialize in this particular business. The trusteed funds, with the bulk of the assets, are managed by either a few trust companies or are self-managed. For example, the largest 50 pension plans hold two thirds of all pension assets. In total, it has been estimated that some 200 people control the investment of all pension funds in Canada.
It has been proposed that pension investments be redirected in the best interests of both pensioners and workers. In my view, this would involve a strategy of social or alternative investments in growing industries which would include housing, public facilities, and the like. This must be done in such a way as to protect the interests of current and future pensioners. In other words, alternative investments need to be scrutinized to see that they provide comparable rates of return to the fund to fulfil the pension promise. Alternatively, a portion of the fund's assets could be set aside for alternative investments without jeopardizing pension security.
There are numerous examples where pension funds could be redirected to benefit Canadians. For example, pension funds could be used to buy back our foreign-owned industry. The CN pension fund's holdings of Siebens Oil and Gas is but one example of this. Other large funds, like the OMERS-Ontario Municipal Employment Retirement System-fund, with assets of more than $2 billion, should be encouraged to do likewise. At the very minimum, this would stem the dividend outflow
March 25, 1981

from Canada, thus increasing our supply of capital and improving our balance of payments position.
I see my time is practically up, but I would simply end by saying that in my view in the private sector there is a strong argument that the employees, through either the representatives in their unions or associations-and I argue this very strongly-must have the legal right to have representation on private pension boards so they can have a say not only in how moneys will be invested and as it is workers' money in the first place and in the main part, but also to have a say in how that money will be redistributed for those individuals who have paid into those pension plans for income security upon retirement.


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young) for not using up all his time, as a matter of fact, in order to allow me ten minutes to speak very briefly on this extremely important subject.
There are certain issues which, for one reason or another, and I think this is one of those issues, that tend to be the pet interest, the main interest of all political parties. I am pleased that virtually all the contributions I have listened to today, without exception, can be considered to be positive. They reflect a concern that somehow the pension system in this country, desirable as it is, is wanting; it is imperfect and improvements are needed.
I am particularly pleased, as a Member of Parliament, one who has been concerned with social policy for a long time, that there will be a National Pensions Conference next week. I am not too sure if all hon. members quite appreciate the significance of this conference, but those of us who were, for one reason or another, closely associated with social policy in the 1960s can tell you that this type of conference was undreamed of and frowned upon less than a decade ago. The thought that private enterprise; that is, the pension industry, would join forces at such a conference a with labour groups, with senior citizens, and with government, both provincial and federal, was unthinkable. It is heartening and encouraging that we have reached that point.
Of course, one of the reasons for that co-operation is that we are reflecting public opinion. People are concerned. People want progress made in this particular field. People tend to live longer, homes are smaller, and the many problems of senior citizens are compounded. There is a growing awareness that somehow Canada must do more to make certain our senior citizens can live adequately, if not in luxury.
There is not the same-thank goodness!-tendency, when discussing pensions with senior citizens, to fall back on the old argument one hears in other fields where there is more resistance to helping the less fortunate: "Well, they should have looked after themselves. They should have looked after their old age." But, people do not have control over their jobs, their destiny, their health, war, whatever.
I want to say in the short time I have, because there is not really enough time to do justice to the subject, that to be a
Pensions
minister of health, one is required to be a certain type of individual. I was very pleased to hear the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) pay tribute to the present Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin). Her job is, at best, a vocation; a difficult role in the cabinet. One must plead quite often for help for the people who really do not have a lobby. There is really no such thing as a senior citizen's lobby or a pension lobby on the part of employees, like there is representing every other vestige of Canadian society. Lobbies are legitimate. However, there is really no one organization which comes forward on the Hill periodically to say, "Hey, we want something done about the inadequate pensions of this country." This is the difficult role of the minister. Other ministers around the table can say, "I speak for", or "I represent the views of this lobby", or this group or "the farmers or industry" or "the CM A" or the "chamber", or "labour"; "that is my role." There is nobody who can really stand up in cabinet and say, "My 1.8 million people want some improvement in our pension scheme."
Therefore, we are very fortunate-and I say this in a non-partisan way-to have the present Minister of National Health and Welfare. She has done yeoman service; she has worked very hard-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: -to bring this pensions conference to a head. She, more than any other single member of our government, is responsible for this conference. It was her concept in 1979. It was her realization that if we were going to do justice to this whole complicated subject it required the co-operation, in a conference, of all the groups in society which have a vested interest in pension planning. That includes the pension industry, as well as unions and other organizations.
I was pleased at the contribution of the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young), abbreviated as it was, because in this House we speak quite logically and often about senior citizens, war veterans, people over 60, 65, or 70. In this country we have done something to make their lives a little more bearable. Not enough has been said, however, about private pension plans, about the plans to which working people in Canada contribute day in and day out. Nor has enough publicity been given to the points raised by the hon. member for Beaches, such as the tragic circumstances of a worker who may have worked for a company for 20 years or 17 years or 19 years and then finds that company has gone bankrupt. The vested interest of the employer is lost and that person has to start all over to develop some equity in a pension in order to supplement what will be available to him at age 65. We must do something about vesting and about portability.
The challenge at the conference will be really directed to the industry. I do not know of any party which advocates that the government should take over the pension field. I have not heard that proposition put forward in debate by the NDP.

March 25, 1981
Pensions
I have a theory which I should like to develop in the 30 seconds or so left to me. We are a unique country because of our social policies; family allowance, unemployment insurance, medicare, education. Free enterprise and the more enlightened people realize that they benefit from this as much as the employees. We have available the best educated work force in the world because of accessibility of schools and educational programs. Because of medicare, we have the healthiest people in the world. More important, as one vice-president of an automobile company mentioned when speaking about laying off hundreds of thousands of auto workers, "Thank God we have some form of income for people laid off. Otherwise there would be blood on the streets." That was his expression, not mine.
Regardless, our social policy has resulted in the fact that the major political parties in this House are moderate, not extremists to the left or extremists to the right, because there is no fertile ground for that kind of uncertainty or insecurity on the part of the less privileged that we see among people in the Third World.
We all have an interest in bettering the quality of life in this country, particularly that of the worker. Private enterprise recognizes that fact. That is why I believe in free enterprise. I think certain fields require the combination of initiative, drive and incentive that free enterprise employs with the federal government setting the parameters and standards and pointing out the issues at conferences. Government can say to private enterprise, "These are the flagrant abuses and weaknesses in your system." We need portability because the average Canadian worker will change jobs no less than six times in his lifetime, and female workers more than six times. This through no fault of the worker, but because of the changes in technology, because of recession, depression and all the other things necessitating a change.
When you think of that, Mr. Speaker, portability makes sense. There are problems, of course, and portability cannot be applied in all facets. It could be combined with a variation of the RRSP concept where week in and week out a contribution could be made from the employee's pay in cases where portability does not work out. I think that combination would bring portability well within the realm of possibility. Portability, combined with vesting, is the challenge facing the pension industry. If the private pension industry cannot meet that challenge within a reasonable period of time, then the Canadian public will demand that the government take steps. Quite often government is forced by public opinion into areas that could best be administered by private industry, but for one reason or another private industry neglects. I do not believe in more regulation; I believe in less, but most regulations I am aware of are forced on the government. The government is forced to implement them by public opinion and by the fact that for one reason or other private industry has not fulfilled.
While looking at the clock, I just want to say that perhaps the most welcome aspect from my point of view, as far as the conference is concerned, is that you have the direct participation not only of the people who put the money in, the employer
and the employee, not only the federal and provincial governments, not only members from all parties in the House, but participation by the interested spokesmen on behalf of the industry. I do not mean the lobbyists who will go to try to prevent change. If they prevent change it will be at their own peril. Just as we were forced into maternity benefits because private industry refused to meet that responsibility. So will this federal government be forced into portability, vesting and taking a bigger role in the pension industry if the industry neglects to follow up the great opportunity this conference will provide.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: It being 5.45 p.m., it is my duty, pursuant to Section (10) of Standing Order 58, to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of Supplementary Estimates (C) and Interim Supply, and for the passage of all stages of the bills based thereon.


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES
[Stage Direction]
(C)
Donald James Johnston: That Supplementary Estimates (C), 1980-81, laid upon the Table, Wednesday, March 4, 1981, subject to the ruling made by Madam Speaker earlier this day, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Johnston thereupon moved that Bill C-62, for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March 1981, be read the first time and be printed.
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Johnston thereupon moved that Bill C-62, for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March 1981, be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Francis in the chair. [English]
On clause 2-
Stanley Howard Knowles: A point of order, Mr. Chairman. Can the President of the Treasury Board assure the committee that everything in this bill is all right?


Donald James Johnston: Mr. Chairman, the form of this bill is the same as that of bills passed in previous years.
March 25, 1981


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 7 agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Madam Speaker:: When shall the bill be read the third time? By leave, now?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Donald James Johnston: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


An hon. Member:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division, bill read the third time and passed.


INTERIM SUPPLY
Donald James Johnston: 
Madam Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


An hon. Member:: On division.
Motion agreed to.


ESTIMATES FOR FINANCIAL YEAR ENDING MARCH 31, 1982
Donald James Johnston: that Bill C-63, for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1982, be read the first time and printed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Johnston thereupon moved that Bill C-63, for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1982, be now read the second time and be referred to Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Francis in the chair.
The Chairman:: Shall Clause 2 carry?
On clause 2-


Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Chairman, can the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) assure us there is nothing in this bill that ought not to be in it?


Donald James Johnston: Mr. Chairman, the form of this bill is the same as that passed in previous years. The proportions requested in this bill are intended to provide for all necessary requirements of the Government of Canada up to June 20, 1981.
In no instance is the total amount of an item being released by the bill and the form of the bill is the usual one for interim supply bills.
The passing of this bill will not in any way prejudice the rights and privileges of members to criticize any item in the estimates when they come up for consideration in committee. The usual undertaking is hereby given that such rights and privileges will be respected and will not be curtailed or restricted in any way as a result of the passing of this bill.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 3 to 5 inclusive agreed to.
Schedules A to H agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
March 25, 1981
Estimates
Clause 1 agreed to.
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
[ Translation]
Donald James Johnston: that the bill be read the third time and do pass.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
Madam Speaker:: It being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At six o'clock the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, March 26, 1981