1981-06-22

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: 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 the 1937 record of 258 millimetres of rainfall has now been surpassed in the lower mainland of British Columbia by a new record of 331 millimetres, which has caused severe problems for farmers in the Fraser Valley, as many fruit and vegetable farmers are unable to plant their crops, while others are having seeds rot or wash away, and recognizing the $81 million paid to grain farmers, subsidies to the textile industry, etc., I move, seconded by the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon):
That the Minister of Agriculture take immediate action to ease the plight of the Fraser Valley farmers who face a minimum $15 million loss and are in a disaster situation because of the record amount of rainfall.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FITNESS AND AMATEUR SPORT
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Whereas the Government of Canada expects to receive a whopping revenue from the resource development of the north, lands mostly occupied by native peoples, and whereas the funding of the Northern Games has been cut off because of ministerial disputes and miserly considerations, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson):
That this House impress upon the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development the fact that without funding the Northern Games will not take
place and that this will be a grievous and not to be forgotten slap in the face by this Liberal government to Canada's native peoples.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOUSING
Mr. Peter Elzinga (Pembina):: Madam Speaker, because of the rapidly rising costs of housing, and in view of the record high Liberal government induced inflationary rate, and whereas the tax exemption levels for the registered home ownership savings plan have not been increased since the plan originated for the 1974 taxation year, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers):
That this House instruct the Minister of Finance to raise the levels that one may contribute to the registered home ownership savings plan on a prorated basis comparable to the rate of inflation since 1974.


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 very urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the fact that the United States Environmental Protection Agency has defended recommendations that the U.S. Clean Air Act be weakened to such an extent that individual states will be able to compete for the lowest possible air quality standards in order to attract acid rain polluting industries, and in view of the fact that these proposals are a sellout of the environmental heritage of Canadians and American and fly in the face of work being done to achieve a clean air treaty between Canada and the United States, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
10830

June 22, 1981
That this House severely censure Anne Gorsuch, the U.S. EPA administrator, and strongly urge the Minister of the Environment to communicate the outrage of this House and all Canadians at the attempt to scuttle the work of the Canadian and U.S. governments in their attempt to reach a treaty on the limitation of long-range trans-boundary air pollutants.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADA DAY
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I would like to introduce the following motion. Whereas the Department of the Secretary of State has insisted on spending $83,000 of the taxpayers' money on a fireworks display at Yellowknife, and a similar amount in Whitehorse, to celebrate the ill-fated, ill-considered, and non-existent Trudeau Constitution; and whereas at the same time the government is cutting down on funding to sports events such as the Northern Games, to education, to public works, and needed programs to combat personal economic hardships caused by policies of the Liberal government, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen);
That this House begs to advise the honourable the Secretary of State that there are better uses for his $83,000 and, secondly, that fireworks do not show up too well at mid-summer in the land of the midnight sun, and even Grits should know that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Lome Greenaway (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, and in view of the very serious situation which has developed on the Resti-gouche Indian reserve in Quebec, particularly as it concerns this government and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro), and in light of the urgent need for a mediated solution to this escalating fisheries dispute, I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath):
That this House immediately provide the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development with a reference to investigate the situation forthwith, travel if necessary to the reserve, and report its findings to this House.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam
Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. A recent householder put out by the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Bockstael) praised the National Energy Program as stimulating security, opportunity and fairness.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


A. Daniel McKenzie: Whereas to date this policy has completely shut down Manitoba's 10,000 barrels per day oil production, driven hundreds of businesses out of Canada, forced Canadians to pay world prices for oil rather than buying it at $23 per barrel cheaper in Canada, and will cost a projected 60,000 Canadians their jobs, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga):
That the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs initiate an immediate investigation into the completely misleading nature of this publication which violates all accepted codes of honesty and objectivity, and also that the hon. member for St. Boniface re-examine the true meaning of the words security, opportunity and fairness.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SMALL BUSINESS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a small business matter I have discussed with representatives of all parties, for which I request unanimous support. Since the preferred tax rate ceiling for small businesses and the accompanying limit on retained earnings for small businesses were set in 1976 and ought to be adjusted now for inflation, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young):
June 22, 1981

That this House urge the Minister of Finance to give consideration to raising the preferred tax rate ceiling and the accompanying retained earnings limit for Canadian small businesses.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CORPORATE AFFAIRS
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, I rise to underscore allegations which have arisen from the purchase of Petrofina by the federal government. There is strong evidence of handsome windfall profits to insiders who may have benefited from advance information. There is a report that 91 senior employees of Petrofina netted over $10 million in profits through a company stock option plan. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) is on record as promising an internal investigation. This is tantamount to placing the cookie monster in charge of investigating missing cookies. This is far too serious a matter for a departmental or ministerial whitewash. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga):
That the Prime Minister act immediately to commence a judicial inquiry into the allegations that insiders profited from the sale of Petrofina to the Government of Canada, with the Canadian taxpayer picking up the tab.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


BILINGUALISM
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to request the unanimous consent of the House to introduce a motion concerning a matter of urgent and pressing necessity.
SECOR, a private firm commissioned by the federal government to compare the French presence in the private sector in Montreal to that in the federal public service, has concluded that in many major Montreal companies there is French and English parity at the communications level and that there is a higher proportion of French-speaking executives than in the
Oral Questions
federal public service. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro):
That this government finally implement, through its official languages policy, what it has been preaching for so many years and that federal departments with headquarters in Ottawa apply this policy which consists in operating in both official languages and offering better job opportunities to French-speaking executives.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. It concerns a letter which one of my constituents wrote him. It is a "Dear Allan" letter, asking for his suggestions on how Canadians should deal with inflation. My constituent, a single parent, asked the Minister of Finance:
Since I am now working at two jobs, seven days a week ... I would much appreciate your suggestions on how to tighten the belt that I cannot afford to buy.
She indicated that she buys her clothes at thrift stores, and that working seven days a week means there is not any recreation. She asked what other items she can do without, or how she can add some hours of work to earn a little more income.


Some hon. Members:: Order!


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has read from a letter. I will be glad to answer letters in the normal way. On orders of the day I do not intend to adopt a new practice of replying to letters. They should be dealt with in the normal way.


CONCERNS OF MEMBER'S CONSTITUENT
Pat Carney: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is also for the Minister of Finance. I am sorry he cannot be more explicit to my constituent, but I suppose his mind is still clouded by his attempts to explain to his OECD colleagues why our economic performance last year of 0.0 economic growth rate ranked twentieth out of 24 nations.

June 22, 1981
Oral Questions
Since there is a great deal of national interest in the nature of the minister's advice, I would like to pursue the question raised by my constituent in her letter. She goes on:
When the owners of the apartment block in which I am living refinance their mortgage 1 expect my rent to go up quite significantly. Unless I can find some way to pay this increased rental, my daughter and I will have to leave the apartment, and believe me, in Vancouver there is no place to go.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Pat Carney: What measures is the minister prepared to introduce to deal with the concerns of my constituent?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I have already indicated, with respect to individuals who may be confronted with mortgage payments which are beyond their capacity, that the financial institutions would bend over backward to assist them over this particular situation.


Mr. Clark:: This is a rental situation.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The hon. member has raised the question of rental accommodation. It is not my intention at the present time to introduce a new program, because of the financial circumstances of the government.


CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Finance. On Saturday a young couple visited my office. In 1976 they bought an AHOP home with a 10 per cent CMHC mortgage. Financial assistance from the government brought the mortgage interest rate to 6 per cent. Last week CMHC graciously offered to renew the mortgage at 18 per cent. The monthly payments will leap from $174 per month to $444 per month. The minister has suggested that he has talked to the banks. I would ask him if he has talked to CMHC since it is the mortgagee in both cases. What does he expect a young couple to do without losing their home?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, it was in direct response to situations such as the one the hon. member has specifically referred to that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, with the assistance of the government last year, and again this year, introduced a program to protect people who might be faced with costs which were unreasonable, too high, or above the average which most Canadians are required to pay toward maintaining shelter needs.
In the case outlined by the hon. member, or in other cases where the amount of a person's income, or family income, required to meet shelter costs which go toward principal, interest and taxes that exceed 30 per cent of their income, the program provided for the government to continue its assistance
to those needy couples. I hope that the specific case mentioned by the hon. member will be brought to the attention of the local officials of CMHC, to see if they qualify for aid.


BANKS AND BANKING
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Finance. It is about the Minister of Agriculture who is on a crocodile tear tour across the country. He spoke in Nukko Lake, British Columbia a few days ago, and he said this:
-some serious work is being done about changing the banking system in this country.
He also said:
-the government will change the banking system if the chartered banks don't do something to help farmers.
My question to the Minister of Finance is this: who speaks for the government in matters affecting the banks, interest rates and fiscal and monetary policy? If it is still the Minister of Finance, did he authorize that statement of the Minister of Agriculture? Would the minister tell us if the government is seriously planning to change the banking system in this country? Would he tell us what it is the chartered banks are supposed to do to help farmers, particularly when the government's own bank is charging 21 per cent to 23 per cent on its loans? I wonder whether the minister would answer and clear this up because the Minister of Agriculture is usurping his position, or pretends to, across the country.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, a similar question was asked several days ago. I stated then, and I repeat now, that if there is any plan or any new announcement to be made about the banking system, it will be made in the normal way.
However, I want to tell the hon. member that we have already completed, just in this session, a revision of the Bank Act, which took several years. It is not my intention to reopen that act at the present time. That is a statement which I have already made, and which does not contradict in any way, as I read it, the comments made by the Minister of Agriculture which may have-


Charles Joseph Clark: Except 100 per cent.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -which may have been erroneously reported. It sometimes happens.


John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, the minister, then, is saying that the Minister of Agriculture was incorrect, if he did make these statements that the government plans changes in the banking system. The minister knows that the Minister of Agriculture is going around the country trying to pretend that the government is concerned about interest rates for farmers.
June 22, 1981


INCOME TAX
John Carnell Crosbie: In addition to the Minister of Agriculture, the minister's own parliamentary assistant has said, on the weekend, that the government is not seriously considering abolishing the indexing of income taxes in its October budget. He said the subject has never been regarded as a realistic option. The minister has said to this House, and his deputy has said to senate committees, that this was a serious option. Is the parliamentary secretary to the minister now setting government policy? Will the minister tell us is his parliamentary secretary correct, and that the minister is not seriously considering the abolition of indexing, and that it has never been regarded as a realistic option? Who is the minister? Or is the minister just a Deputy Prime Minister who is paying no attention at all to financial matters?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It is obvious, Madam Speaker, that the hon. member is not paying very much attention to the accuracy of the comments he uses in his questions. I have a quotation from the parliamentary secretary, which is in quotation marks-


Mr. Nielsen:: Source?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -and which reads as follows:
"I can tell you with total and complete honesty that I have not seen anything-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: He is as dishonest as Andre Ouellet.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: This is a quotation from the Montreal Gazette of Monday, June 22, 1981, attributed to the parliamentary secretary, which goes on to say:
-I have not seen anything that would lead me to believe that the government is seriously considering this at this time-
If that is not a very guarded statement, I do not know what is.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin):: Madam Speaker, my question, in the absence of the Minister of Transport, is directed to the Minister of Labour. Considering the fact that a number of Indians and Metis in Manitoba are planning to blockade the CNR tracks outside Dauphin today because of alleged discrimination while working for the CNR, is the minister prepared to investigate independently the incident at
Oral Questions
Ochre River where 25 CNR extra-gang employees left their job due to discrimination?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister of Labour):: Madam Speaker,
I thank the hon. member for the question. I must quite honestly say to him, through Your Honour, that I am not aware of this incident, but that I certainly will make inquiries in relation to the department. The hon. member will quickly recognize that, if these are unionized employees, they have remedies under the collective agreement, and also of course under human rights. However, not having enough background,
I am unable to say to the hon. member at this moment that I would have a formal investigation made. What I would undertake is to make inquiries immediately into the situation, and based upon the facts, as they are ascertained, take whatever action is appropriate.


ACTIONS OF RAILWAY FOREMAN
Laverne Lewycky: Madam Speaker, these are extra-gang employees who would not be unionized. However, my supplementary question is for the same minister. Indian and Metis employees on the extra-gang at Ochre River state that they were called "dogs and pigs" and that the CNR foreman carried a stick or club while making his rounds among the men while carrying out his investigation. Would the minister specifically address this issue of Indian harassment and the CNR's handling of this incident, with a mind to redressing the grievances that have been expressed?


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, the hon. member will note that the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is now also in the House. I will seek an opportunity (a) to discuss the issue with him, and (b), I would appreciate any further information that the hon. member is able to give me after question period. I will see to it that appropriate steps are taken.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Lorne Everett Greenaway: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and it concerns the situation at Resti-gouche. The minister was asked on several occasions, as was the Prime Minister, to send aid to the Micmacs at the Resti-gouche reserve. He went down over the weekend and told them that he could not provide help to them in the form of protection, but that his very presence on the reserve offered protection. Now that he is not on the reserve, could he tell us what protection the Micmac Indians have at Restigouche at the present time?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Madam Speaker, I do not think the

Oral Questions
hon. member's preamble is very accurate. What I said is that I could not afford protection of the kind that I think some people, in their justifiably concerned state, were asking for, in terms of more alarms and talk about guns, tanks and so on. I do not believe that that was going to assist the situation in any possible way.
There is no question, though, that there is a good deal of fright permeating that entire community. I indicated that on my return here I would talk to my colleague, the Solicitor General, with respect to the return of the nets to the band. I have not had an opportunity to do so yet. Also, my officials had talks with the Quebec provincial police. They indicated that probably as of today they would be withdrawing the very heavy contingent of Quebec provincial police that are not on the reserve-they have not come on the reserve since June 11, but they are surrounding the reserve-that they would be withdrawing those people today. I am checking, and 1 am told that they have not been withdrawn yet. We are still hopeful that they will be withdrawn today.
As far as any further action that may be required is concerned, we are monitoring the situation each day. I had indicated that on my return I would be getting together with my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, to examine the nature of the application of the regulations under the Fisheries Act. I have not had a chance to do that, but I will be doing it later today. It is on that basis the Quebec police are founding their jurisdiction to take the action they have. I indicated to that delegation that I would like to have an opportunity to review and examine the situation with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.


RESPONSIBILITY FOR ABORIGINAL RIGHTS
Lorne Everett Greenaway: I wish to ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. The Minister knows that according to the constitutional resolution the question of aboriginal rights is to be settled or at least to be discussed at the first two first ministers' meetings. In view of the fact that the provinces will have a tremendous amount of input into these discussions in describing aboriginal rights, and that the whole question at Restigouche is over aboriginal rights, if this is the way that the Quebec government sees fit to deal with people on the question of aboriginal rights, what hope do the Indians of Canada have as far as having aboriginal rights described in any way that would be beneficial to them?


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, I have not had an opportunity to get into any type of philosophical discussion with the Quebec government with respect to aboriginal rights, certainly not at this stage. I would hope that the question would be addressed and that we would find out how that province and other provinces feel with respect to it, during the second stage. The Indian people on the reserve, as well as I myself, feel that in the interval a more adequate way to deal with it on an immediate basis is through an examination of the
application of the regulations under the federal Fisheries Act which is being enforced by the province of Quebec.


TRADITIONAL FISHING RIGHTS
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, as a supplementary question, is it the position of the Government of Canada that the native people of Restigouche have existing rights, under treaty, to carry out traditional fishing as they have carried out that fishing for years?


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, to remove all doubt with respect to that is one of the reasons that the government went along with, and is quite happy with, the provision that is in the constitutional resolution now before the Supreme Court, that would ensure recognition of aboriginal and treaty rights. I think it is unfortunate that the official opposition could not see fit to be more enthusiastic with respect to that position.


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, what the official opposition was anxious to do was to ensure that the courts of Canada had the right to consider that question before the Constitution was shipped off to another country.


POSITION OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, if I might come back to the particular matter having to do with the controversy at Restigouche, with the rights of the native people and the obligation of the federal government to protect those native people, I asked a very specific question about the view of the Government of Canada concerning fishing rights under treaty of the native people at Restigouche, I would appreciate an answer as to the position of the Government of Canada on that specific matter.


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, the independent legal advice I received, and I took one lawyer with me who is an expert in his field for the federal government-I just heard an interjection which I think was most unbecoming from an hon. member in view of the total retraction of The Toronto Sun. It did not seem to deter that member from involving himself in innuendo and smear comments about two weeks ago.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carr Munro: In any event, the Indian lawyers who were on the reserve, together with our own legal advice, coincided with respect to this particular matter, that a by-law passed by the band would supersede the regulations under the Indian Act. However, the courts have interpreted now that this would not apply out into the Restigouche River, five or six feet offshore. Obviously that would not solve the problem with regard to fishing in the Restigouche River.
June 22, 1981

The courts have not been overly helpful from the Indian perspective in terms of recognition of their treaty rights. The feeling on the part of the Indian people and ourselves is that the solution lies in the application of the fishing regulations for now until constitutional provisions of the nature I have just discussed are firmly enshrined in the Constitution.


REQUEST FOR REFERRAL TO STANDING COMMITTEE
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the minister will know that earlier today my colleague, the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin, moved a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 suggesting that the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development be given an assignment, directed by the Government of Canada, to interest itself in this question. This is a matter which is of interest to the whole House of Commons, not just to the government, because the federal government has a traditional, historical and essential role in the protection of the rights of Indian people. Would the minister give us an undertaking now that he will make such a reference to the standing committee so that representatives on all sides of this House, representing the federal interest in protecting the rights of native people, will be able to be involved in this question?


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, I do not think a formal reference is necessary because of the nature of the committee. The chairman and members of the steering committee are here in the House. During the discussions and my appearances before the committee, if they had wished to, hon. members could have gone thoroughly into questions of this kind. I believe members of the opposition leader's own party would agree there has been no hesitation about thoroughly examining that question, and I am quite prepared to do so with them.


PROTECTION FOR MICMAC FISHERMEN DURING REMAINDER OF SALMON FISHING SEASON
Mr. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the same minister on the same important subject matter. The minister knows two important things with regard to the Micmac Indians at Restigouche, first, that the issue of treaty rights and regulations is involved and, second, there are only three weeks left in the salmon season.
Would the minister give the House the federal government's unequivocal assurance, because it is the federal government's responsibility, that it will ensure Micmac Indians have the right, for the next three weeks, to finish out the current season in safety, to be followed by a period of negotiations in which the Micmac Indians have indicated they are interested, dealing with, among other matters, conservation for the future? Surely these people's rights should be protected for the next three weeks.


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, that is the very
Oral Questions
objective I have under way on my return today. I tried to indicate that earlier. There has been some indication, I hope solid indication, from the Quebec government and the provincial police that they are prepared to withdraw. There is an offer on the table for discussion between the Indian leadership and the Quebec authorities, which discussion I hope will take place in the interval. It is my intent, during the course of today and tomorrow, to discuss the immediate question of affording the Indian people an opportunity to carry on fishing there for the remaining short time which the Leader of the New Democratic Party just indicated.
I have not had an opportunity to get those discussions under way, but I will be talking to my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and to my colleague, the Solicitor General, hopefully today and tomorrow, to see just exactly what can be done to attain that objective.


John Edward Broadbent: We hope those rights will be protected for the next three weeks.


LACK OF EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES ON RESERVE
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I have another question which has a direct bearing on the Micmac Indians. Considering that unemployment on that reserve is in excess of 80 per cent, could the minister tell the House why his department has not yet replied, indeed has not even acknowledged, a request from the Micmac, made in April, for a housing project which would have provided both housing and jobs? Furthermore, why has his department made no progress at all on a two-year-old request for a sawmill on that reserve which would have provided employment opportunities for the Indians?


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, as far as the chief and the band council are concerned, the question which the Leader of the New Democratic Party is asking now, in terms of all my meetings, was not high on the list of priorities during the past weekend. That is not to indicate the unemployment situation on that reserve is not serious. It is.
I am sure the Leader of the New Democratic Party must be aware that there is a capital amount for the Quebec region for this fiscal year, voted by Parliament, which is applicable to all the reserves in that province on the same basis as all the other reserves, and the funds unfortunately have to be rationed. There is an endeavour to make those capital funds, whether for sawmills or any other economic activity, equally proportionate among all the reserves in the province. I believe the chief and the band council recognize that. I believe there have been discussions with the Quebec region with respect to the allocation in the capital budget for that reserve during this fiscal year.


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, it is pretty obvious that during the past 48 hours there was not discussion of this particular point because they were interested in preserving their fishing rights for now. But I can tell the minister the

June 22, 1981
Oral Questions
Micmac Indians brought their general economic situation, the terrible situation that it is, to my attention, and that is why I have brought it before the minister today.


INTRODUCTION OF GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, my final question is for the Minister of Finance. He indicated last week that he was tired of dealing with general economic questions and was more interested in particulars. Since almost every aspect of existence of our native peoples of Canada, whether it is unemployment levels, conditions of housing, or average life expectation, is right at the bottom, could the minister name one special program which the government is prepared to bring in soon that will improve their general economic condition?


John Carnell Crosbie: Go and see the banks, Allan.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is obviously correct in his assessment of the condition which prevails among the native people of Canada. No one disagrees with the big job that is facing this country in attempting to raise their living standards and to provide for greater economic development. I do not need to be told this by the hon. member.


John Edward Broadbent: When are you going to do something about it?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I have Indian reservations in my own constituency.


John Carnell Crosbie: There are a lot of reservations about you.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I know first-hand about conditions. The responsibility for the allocation of funds for all social programs within the government is assigned to the committee on social development. In the envelope system over the next number of years, an increase in total social expenditures has been projected of about $8 billion. It is within that over-all amount that ministers must make the difficult choices as to how they will allocate these funds among many pressing priorities, including the needs of the Indian people.


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: And purchasing Petrofina.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State and Minister of Communications. First I should like to commend
the minister for the representations he made to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with a view to ending as soon as possible the journalists' labour dispute. However, a CBC spokesman, Mr. Rousseau, has stated that negotiations broke down on two minor points. Since a settlement is so near, is the minister prepared to urge the CBC to make a last ditch effort and seriously consider the proposals from both the union and the mediator?


Hon. Francis Fox (Secretary of State and Minister of Communications):: Madam Speaker, if I heard correctly the question of the hon. member concerning the striking CBC journalists and the latest offers made to them, I should like to inform him that, according to the information given to me by the corporation, the union, of course, now has the latest offer from the corporation and wants to consult its members tomorrow, June 23.


COMMUNICATIONS
David Kilgour: Madam Speaker, we are not asking him to settle the dispute personally, for we are sure he could do so if he wanted. As a supplementary question, I would like to ask the minister whether he knows what the CBC French network intends to do about the French news coverage of the economic summit if unfortunately this labour dispute should drag on. In addition, are there any plans to use the Ottawa based parliamentary reporters and freelance reporters to cover that event? Finally, what about coverage by the English network?


Francis Fox: Madam Speaker, the CBC French network had to discuss that matter with the union of English-speaking technicians. The corporation asked the union if it would be possible to secure a guarantee that the CBC will be able to play its role on the occasion of the summit. The corporation has informed me today that it was unable to obtain such guarantees from the union and that it will have to revise its position. I expect that Crown corporation to make an announcement on the subject perhaps today or tomorrow.


TESTING OF PESTICIDES
Mr.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, there was a report over the weekend of improper safety tests conducted by some 2,000 laboratories in the United States. The results of these tests have been used by governments around the world to register pesticides for sale. Will the Minister of
June 22, 1981

National Health and Welfare inform the House whether the results of any of these tests conducted by these companies were used in Canada as the basis for approving certain pesticides? If so, what steps are being taken to examine these products so as to determine which should be withdrawn from the market?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, we are familiar with the problem referred to by the hon. member. We expect to receive, probably at the end of the calendar year, the assessment of the studies done by these industrial laboratories other than IBT which have been assessed by the American food and drug administration as not being valid. We do not yet have these reports. However, we have been informed that they are shortterm studies not central to our registration process of pesticides. As soon as we receive these assessments, we will identify the Canadian companies and those products sold in Canada which used this data for their registration process. We will then act accordingly.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. The reserves in Canada, which play a very important role in our armed forces, are under strength, some would say dangerously so. Has the minister given consideration to encouraging increased enrolment by recommending to his cabinet colleagues that the income tax on salaries of reservists be discontinued? If not, why not?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, it has been stated several times by the Chief of Defence Staff and myself that one of the priorities of the armed forces and my department is to try to improve the status of the reserves. I can advise the hon. member that some units that previously were not up to full strength are now up to full strength. We are trying to encourage businessmen to help in any way they can to facilitate their employees joining the reserves.
With regard to the hon. member's question about discontinuing the income tax, I suggest he direct that question to the finance minister because it is related to financial policy. However, I would again stress that we are doing everything possible to encourage people to join the reserves. We are well aware that it is very important to our regular forces to have the proper back-up.


John Horton McDermid: I think the answer is no, it has not yet been considered. This policy is now followed in Australia and their reserves have increased by 14,000.
I will direct my supplementary to the Minister of Finance. Will the minister and his cabinet colleagues give consideration
Oral Questions
to such a proposal so that our reserves in Canada might be increased?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, all tax changes are reviewed prior to the budget. I will be pleased to add that to the other matters that will be considered.


BANKS AND BANKING
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The minister will know that with the restrictive monetary policy restricting the growth of the money supply, with his demands on the money market for money to finance the government's deficit, and with the increased demand by the private sector, in view of perhaps the improving business conditions, the only method of determining who gets the money is to determine who can pay the price. Has the minister had any discussion with the banks with regard to some credit allocation system to ensure that farmers, small businessmen and home owners are able to get their share of the credit supply without having to bid against the multinationals, business people making big takeovers, and the government, for that money supply?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I have already had discussions with representatives of the banks in which I pointed out to them the difficulties that might be faced by certain home owners renegotiating their mortgages, and by small businessmen and farmers. I have received assurances that in particularly difficult cases the banks will, to use their expression, lean over backwards to be accommodating. The hon. member raises another particular point, namely, the reallocation of credit, which is somewhat different but related to the main subject.


FINANCING OF CORPORATE TAKEOVERS
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, the minister will know that large borrowings of over $ 1 million from the banking system are up 36 per cent this year, that a great deal of that borrowing has been to finance takeovers, and that today with inflation it is cheaper to buy an existing asset than to create new one. That is why the government bought Petrofina. Rather than create a new oil company, it bought an old one. That type of thing does nothing to increase productivity in Canada. Is the government prepared to direct the banks not to continue financing these kinds of takeovers but to use its credit to ensure that new business, new activity and new productivity in Canada are enhanced and improved?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, it is obvious from statistics on the rate of growth and production, both in the first

June 22, 1981
Oral Questions
quarter of this year and in the last quarter of 1980, that the very large volumes of funds which are being borrowed at the present time are adding to the over-all production of the country. That is evident in the statistics which were released at the weekend with respect to the first quarter, which show that, depending upon which series of statistics one accepts, real growth in production was either 4 per cent or 6 per cent, and that is very considerable at the present time.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance. Is the minister aware of the statement made over the weekend by the leader of the Liberal party in Ontario to the effect that inflation is a Robin Hood in reverse; that it robs the poor and benefits the rich? Is he also aware of the suggestion made by the leader of the Liberal party in Ontario that therefore the federal government should collect more taxes from the rich so that it will have the funds to increase pensions and provide benefits for the needy?
Will he in particular accept the suggestion of the leader of the Liberal party in Ontario that there be a full capital gains tax exempting only the home one lives in, and will he do something about the fact that there are more than 2,000 wealthy Canadians who pay no income tax at all?
that the holders of Canadian government annuities had the basic rate for calculating those annuities increased to 7 per cent in 1975 but that that rate has stayed at 7 per cent ever since? Since the minister has so much to say about indexing and protecting people, will he arrange for the rate on government annuities to be increased so that those pensioners will also be protected?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, one would hesitate to compete with the New Democratic Party in the creation and proliferation of myths. The hon. member is up to the same old game his leader played the other day when he talked about the taxes paid by banks. Obviously the taxes in certain circumstances paid by banks are less than they would be if they were not asked to support desirable social policies like the small business development bond. That is one of the big reasons why the banks in these circumstances are not paying the tax they otherwise would pay.
Hon. members in the New Democratic Party get up one day and ask me to extend the provisions of the small business development bond, and then the next day they complain because the banks are not taking a full tax load.


Stanley Howard Knowles: What about government annuities?


IMMIGRATION
Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member knows that at the present time there is a progressive income tax system in Canada, and that is very much in line with the objectives of the leader of the Liberal party in Ontario. However, I remind the hon. member and other hon. members that, because of the type of taxing system and indexation system we have in place at the present time, in a period of inflation the poorest groups, those most exposed, are virtually fully protected against inflation, and the amount of that protection each year exceeds hundreds of millions of dollars. We have in place a safety net which accomplishes a good part of the hon. member's objective.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, I think it is time my friend assumed the role of minister of myths. He keeps handing us this nonsense about the poor being fully protected. He tells us we have a progressive income tax system. How does he square that with the fact that more than 2,000 wealthy Canadians pay no income tax at all?


LOW INTEREST RATE PAID ON GOVERNMENT ANNUITIES
Stanley Howard Knowles: Madam Speaker, with respect to one particular group which is feeling the pinch and getting no indexing, may I remind the minister


Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Last week in a press release the minister announced that an additional $4.3 million had been approved to assist Indo-Chinese refugees. He also announced that of that amount $927,000 would fund activities of various voluntary community organizations under the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program. I wonder if the minister can tell the House whether the increases announced last week will bring funding under ISAP to the various immigrant services associations- and I speak specifically of those in the province of British Columbia-up to the rate of funding of last year, or will it still be under that rate of funding?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, the additional moneys which were allocated for the ISAP will in fact raise the level of funding beyond that of last year. We have written to the different ISAP organizations indicating that there has now been an augmentation of the funding and that our regional offices will be in touch with each of the voluntary organizations to work out their budgetary requirements. That does not mean to say that every organization will necessarily receive the same amount because I believe that, for reasons of accountability, we should go back and review the performance of each of the organizations. However, certainly the total sum is larger than
June 22, 1981

it was last year, and most of the organizations will be receiving funding comparable to what they received so that they can continue a very important service.


John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, I thank the minister for his reply and, in posing the next question, I am sure it would be appropriate to point out that the increased load these immigrant services associations are carrying is such that even added on last year's funding this will not be sufficient.


TIMING OF PAYMENTS
John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, may I ask the minister how soon these various organizations will know definitely how much money they are getting? They are running out, and they are in serious difficulty.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, letters from my office went out last week informing them of the additional moneys, and in them I also indicated that our regional offices would be looking at each of the proposals and applications, reviewing them and getting back to those organizations as soon as possible. I do not expect any long delay because we already know about most of the programs, so they should be informed within a very short period of time. I hope it will be within a matter of about a week or two.


INCOME TAX
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and it has to do with the special audit of Atlantic fishermen by his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, and Revenue Canada. A telegram today from the government of Newfoundland to the minister's colleague indicates that over 1,400 fishermen have received their party demands by which 50 per cent of their gross incomes are being deducted, leaving many fishermen, some of them with large families, with as little as $60 a week to get by on. That does not seem to be fair, I am sure not even to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I am sure he would agree that situation cannot continue.
The minister was in Newfoundland last week with his colleague. Was this matter discussed? Is he prepared to intervene on behalf of these fishermen to see that they receive fair and equitable treatment?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is correct. I spent two days-Thursday and Friday-in Newfoundland. We had public meetings with four or five groups of fishermen, which went on for an hour and a half or two hours. There were questions from the floor on a whole variety of issues. In most of those meetings my colleague, the Minister of National
Committee Reports
Revenue, was present with me. This question was not raised. The fishermen did not raise the question. If the minister of fisheries of the government of Newfoundland has sent a telegram, I have not seen the telegram. I can only say to the hon. member that I have seen the fishermen. They did not raise this question with either my colleague or myself.


TREATMENT OF FISHERMEN
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, the minister knows that he has in fact received representations from the Newfoundland fishermen's union. He now knows that there has been a telegram from the minister of fisheries of Newfoundland to the Minister of National Revenue in which he points out the seriousness of the situation. Many fishermen will be forced to go on social assistance. They could very well be deprived of the right to provide for basic essentials for their families. We must assume that the situation is correctly described by his provincial colleague.
Therefore, notwithstanding the minister's reply to my previous question, is he prepared to get in touch with his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, to determine just exactly whether there is this kind of what I would call harassment of the fishermen taking place during a season when they have all kinds of other problems to contend with, including high interest rates and high fuel rates?


Roméo LeBlanc: Madam Speaker, I have not seen recent messages from the fishermen's union. I, of course, would read them very carefully when and if they are brought to my attention. As for the avalanche of telegrams that I get from my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries for Newfoundland, I must confess that I assume nothing until I check the facts very carefully.


Charles Joseph Clark: What contempt.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
Fourth report of Special Committee on a National Trading Corporation-Mr. Flis.
[Editor's Note: For text of above Report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]
[Stage Direction]
June 22, 1981
Order Paper Questions

[Stage Direction]
Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Energy, Mines and
Resources): Madam Speaker, I would like to table in both official languages a paper entitled "Discussion Draft of the Energy Security Act, 1981".
* *
*

[Stage Direction]
Hon. Pierre Bussieres (for the Minister of Supply and
Services) moved for leave to introduce Bill C-68, to amend the Currency and Exchange Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
* *
*

Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-69, to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
* *
*
[ Translation]

[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. 1,546, 2,426, 2,458 and 2,475.
I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	What is the average length of time, after the completion of a contract allotted by the Department of Supply and Services, between submission of the contractor's final account and the issuance of the necessary cheque to the contractor?
2.	Is the government aware as to whether or not a number of members of Parliament are receiving complaints alleging that in many cases a number of months elapse?
3.	Will the government take steps to speed up the process and, if so (a) in what way (b) on what date?


David Michael Collenette: I am informed by the Departments of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Supply and Services as follows:
1.	During 1979-80 fiscal year, the payments made out of the supply revolving fund amounted to about 7 per cent of the value of the contracts allotted by the Department of Supply and Services. Of this, 76.5 per cent was paid between 0-30 days, 23 per cent between 31-60 days and 0.5 per cent over 60 days. The average length of time, from the date invoices were received in the department to the cheque date, was 29 calendar days. It should be noted that cheques are issued by Supply and Services Canada on the average within three days upon receipt of a requisition for payment from government departments. Supply and Services Canada has no control over the time it takes for supplier invoices to be processed by other government departments prior to forwarding of requisitions for payment to our district services offices for cheque issue.
2.	It is only very seldom that we hear either from the suppliers or members of Parliament complaining about delayed payments.
3.	The government, of course, is very concerned that it may be causing hardship to some firms that supply it with goods and services due to a slower than necessary payment process. Officials of the office of the Comptroller General, the Department of Supply and Services, and of the small business secretariat are currently examining a number of alternative approaches to streamlining and otherwise improving the payments process. Any comment on the timing and details of possible changes would be premature at this time. However, the government intends to take action on this matter in the near future.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	In each of the past five years, by province, what amount was granted under the Open House Program?
2.	Did the Department of the Secretary of State grant monies under the program to L'Ecole Secondaire de Vaudreuil and, if so (a) on what date (b) in what amount (c) for what purpose?


Mr. Peter Stollery (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State and Minister of Communications):: 1. See summary of
grants below. 2. Date	Amount	PurposeApril 26, 1978	$8,468	Travel grant for(trip took place	an exchange visitin April)	with the PortMoody Senior Secondary School, in Port Moody, B.C.
June 22, 1981

Corporations and Labour Unions
Date	Amount	Purpose	April 13, 1981	Approx. $15,000	Travel grant for	(trip will take	an exchange visit	place in June)	with the	Armstrong Junior Secondary School	in Armstrong, B.C.	Open House Canada Grants by Province	Year	Year	Year	YearProvince	1977-78	Amount	1978-79	Amount	1979-80 Amount	1980-81 AmountNfld.	26,668.00	393,099.00	241,197.80	313,209.90P.E.I.	8,874.00	98,400.00	102,531.60	141,185.75N.S.	20.468.00	470,081.00	338,570.80	279,000.90N.B.	1,773.00	170,513.00	180,747.00	239,291.40Que.	138,060.00	1.120,510.00	1,496,062.62	1,416,888.78Ont.	144,012.00	1,028,573.00	723,290.00	685,556.86Man.	17,075.00	163,849.00	197,628.00	177,868.30Sask.	42,804.00	253,438.00	303,270.00	262,791.62Alta.	14,706.00	655,706,00	718,048.00	790,197.65B.C.	172,576.00	1,896,724.00	1,600,001.00	1,508,228.69Yukon	-	65,246.00	19,256.00	76,565.00N.W.T.	4,000.00	154,279.00	152,741.00	84,258.40Non-Governmental National	-	3,300,000.00	3,368.000.00	3,899,000.00
Organizations
Note: Open House Canada granting activities began in 1977-78.
"FEDERALISM AND DECENTRALIZATION: WHERE DO WE STAND?"


Mr. Dinsdale: 1.	What was the total cost of the publication "Federalism and Decentralization: Where do we stand?"?
2.	(a) How many copies of the publication were printed and what was the price per copy (b) how many copies were distributed?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: The Canadian Unity Information Office:	
1. (i)	Main document $28,700.
(ii)	Highlights $ 4,372.
2. (a)	(i)	Main document 35,000 copies at 82 cents per copy. (ii)	Highlights 50,000 copies at 9 cents per copy.(b)	(i)	Main document 28,070 copies. (ii)	Highlights 44,250 copies.


Mr. Herbert: 1.	What is the latest estimate of the cost of all health care in Canada as a percentage of the gross national product and, of this expenditure, what is the percentage contribution of all levels of government?
2.	Is the government aware of the comparable percentages in the United States?


Mr. Doug Frith (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. It is estimated that in 1980 total health care spending in Canada accounted for approximately 7.3 per cent of the gross national product. This represents an increase from the 1979 level of 7.1 per cent. Aggregate government health expenditures last year accounted for about 73 per cent of national health spending.
2. Comparable American figures published by the health care financing administration establish total health spending in the U.S. at 9 per cent of the gross national product in 1979. It is estimated that government health spending in the U.S. accounts for about 43 per cent of national health spending.
[ Translation]


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, June 17, consideration of the motion of Mr. Blais that Bill S-10, to amend the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
Mr. Bob Rae (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, when I last spoke on this bill on June 17, I commented on the fact that the information we have with respect to corporate salaries and executive compensation in general is totally inadequate, indeed non-existent. It is not simply the Canadian

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
public who do not have access to this information, it is the shareholders of our largest corporations. This information is of direct concern not simply to the public and government, but also to shareholders of these companies.
We go through an annual ritual in this House, Madam Speaker, when the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States releases certain information respecting executive compensation. That commission is required by law to release figures on executive compensation by companies subject to its jurisdiction. We as Canadians have access to that information, as any individual does, and so every year we get a glimpse of the extent of increases in that compensation and some idea as to what executives are being paid these days. The figures are indeed shocking. They show that for the last year the increases amounted to some 30 per cent on average; that the most senior executives in our largest companies are paid anywhere from $250,000 to $1 million a year in salary and benefits. We also discover that there is another class of benefits which is harder to measure but nevertheless has to be declared on the SEC form, that of deferred compensation and deferred benefits which excuse the executives from paying income tax.
We have these schemes in Canada and it was with respect to some of them that my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), was asking today: Well, why does not the government stop deferring this compensation, start collecting the taxes and provide benefits for those Canadians in need? The minister then went off on a tangent talking about the small business development bond and the banks, two totally unrelated subjects.
By the way, Mr. Speaker, the small business development bond has not existed long enough to have any effect on the rate of taxes paid by the banks. If he does not know and understand that, and know that the reason the banks are paying such a low level of tax has to do with the income debenture system which has been part of the Liberal system of taxation throughout the entire decade of the Trudeau government of 1968 to 1978, then he simply does not know some of the most elementary facts of taxation which are his responsibilities.
The hard fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that we do not have provision in this bill as it now stands to get the most basic and elementary kind of information on the question of who gets what, when, where and how in our society. We do not have equality of information because we are faced with the fact that salaries and benefits of Canadians of low and middle income are known. We know what welfare benefits are, we know what wages are because they are published in collective agreements, and we know exactly how much the average working person makes. But we do not know, and this bill will not tell us, how much executives are making.
What is the nature of the system of compensation in our society? How great in fact are the inequalities? If we are to have any degree of equality in our society, if we are to have decisions with respect to redistribution of wealth, decisions with respect to policies which will help Canadians in need of help, we simply have to have information with respect to the distribution of wealth and opportunity in our society.
This is why I find it strange that the government would take so long to bring in a bill on corporations and labour unions and do nothing to deal with a major gap in our legislation. This gap has been raised annually by hon. members of my caucus with the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet). Most notably it was brought forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow). For years he has been campaigning for the need to provide Canadians with information which is theirs by right. It is important to know just how serious the inequalities of wealth in our society have become and just how great is the gap between the rich and the poor.
Canada has the lowest rate of taxation on wealth of any country in the OECD. Canada also has the lowest rate of taxation on inheritances and on capital gains of any OECD country. These rates are lower than the ones of the Americans who are frequently cited by my friends on the right as being the wave of the future.
I find this animal called Liberalism strange. In its Ontario manifestation over the past weekend, it talked about the problems of distribution of wealth and opportunity in Canada and in Ontario. It talked about the need to bring in new legislation respecting capital gains, when it is the Liberal beast on that side of the House that is responsible for the taxation system which create this inequality. That Liberal beast created the loophole in capital gains taxation which allowed some people to benefit from inflation while others are hurt by it. It would be horrendous if it were not so funny.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) said in British Columbia on Thursday that the Liberals were considering major changes in the banking system. This is the message the Minister of Agriculture is trying to get across to the audiences he is addressing throughout Canada. The leader of the Liberal party in Ontario told people that the distribution of wealth in Canada is a disgraceful situation. We know where the bottom line is; we know what really happens. The government brought in the Bank Act which did nothing to reform the banking system. It resisted every step of the way every progressive amendment put before it. It only accepted a minuscule number of them because the government was forced; it wanted to get the bill through. This is the reality.
The hon. member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis), the hon. member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly) and myself were present in the committee during those summer months. We know how interested the Liberal party is in reforming the banking system. Perhaps the Minister of Agriculture would do well to study the minutes of the committee meeting to know what the real Liberal party thinks.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. I regret to inform the hon. member that his allotted time has expired. He may continue if there is unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
June 22, 1981


An hon. Member:: No.


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a few comments on Bill S-10. The bill has been nicknamed "CALURA", or as my hon. colleague behind the curtain just said, perhaps it should be nicknamed "cholera". It sounds like the name of a perfume, but it does not smell like perfume when I read the bill.
I should like to deal with a few items in the bill so that the House will know exactly with what we agree and disagree. The object of the bill is to provide for the reporting of financial and other information of corporations and labour unions. That, in itself, is a worthy objective-the Government of Canada should know certain information about corporations and labour unions. The information should be available to the government for its own purposes. It will not be used for financial purposes because people report such information in their financial returns. When companies and labour unions are filing returns, there should be some guarantee that this information will not become the topic of conversation in coffee shops or beer parlours.
It is quite proper for information to be gathered, but another item in the bill which bothers me somewhat is the transferring of technological information from Canadians to foreign interests and from foreign interests to Canadians. I have searched the act and the bill in vain to find a definition of "technological transfers". It may be a very innocent item or it may be a very important item hidden by the fact that it is not very conspicuous in the bill.
A few years ago the House heard the metric system being discussed. In that bill there was a hidden section indicating the the standard or imperial system would be done away with; it was not emphasized. It should have been the major part of the bill because it concerned Canadians. I am wondering whether technological transfers is something similar. The minister mentioned that it was in the bill and that was all. As far as I can recall, he made no other comment with regard to technological transfers.
Technology is how we do things. For example, one company from the United States came to the country and spent millions of dollars developing a process for separating sand from the oil in the Fort McMurray area. The process belonged to that company; it was not required to give it to anyone else. It spent millions of dollars of its money to develop it. When Syncrude came on the scene, the great Canadian oil sands shared the information and received compensation for that sharing. In other words, it gave up part of its land it had secured through the proper process to Syncrude. It is a very important item. If technological transfers mean that these processes must be brought into the hands of the government through this board, and then they will be made available to others-and there may be leaks-it is very, very important to know exactly to what we are agreeing in regard to the bill.
Technological research is the basis of advancement. We must have research. When research is developed by an individual or a company and they apply under the laws of the
Corporations and Labour Unions
country for protection, they should have that protection. It should not be passed on to a government body. This is the part that worries me.


An hon. Member:: Is Nova Scotia under a government body?


Gordon Edward Taylor: Why do you not stand up and talk once in a while instead of muttering from your seat? The man has nothing to say so he keeps shouting like a foghorn.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is no way to address the Chair.


Gordon Edward Taylor: You had a chance to speak a few minutes ago. Why did you not get up and speak then?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. Remarks should be addressed to the Chair. I would invite hon. members on both sides of the House to comply.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite is the one who was foghorning. I have the floor.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: That is precisely what I just reminded hon. members. The hon. member for Bow River has the floor.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the findings in science and research, or whatever field, must have some protection, otherwise the initiative which brought it about in the first place is destroyed. Here there are these technological transfers without any definition, without saying what it is supposed to do or who is supposed to do it. Again, this is something about which I certainly disagree. If technological transfers were defined in the act, then we would know exactly what is involved. But it is not defined. This government is getting into the habit of doing just that. It included aboriginal rights in the Constitution and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) said today that it is not known what the term means so it must go before the courts for definition. He was deploring the fact that the courts decided against the Indian people before, yet he is saying that the courts much decide again. When will this government learn that when legislation is written that is the time to define the terms? That is an elementary principle in the writing of laws.
In 1978 the CALURA report which was tabled in this House reported that the top 500 non-financial enterprises accounted for 53 per cent of sales in Canada, 66 per cent of the profits and 70 per cent of the equity. Of that 500 some 274 were foreign-controlled corporations. In other words, without those foreign-controlled corporations the gross national product in this country would have been a great deal lower than it was.
Canada was made up of people who came from all countries of the world. Money, unions and corporations coming from the nations of the world combined together to make up Canada. They all came under Canadian law. We set the conditions. Alberta was a "have-not" province in the hungry thirties when some 52 per cent of our taxes went to the financiers to pay

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions interest charges alone. What was the principle then? The money was going out. There was no control over that situation.
Then we wanted to get some money in order to develop. We went to eastern Canada, to the Bank of Canada, to Canadians, to England and to Germany. No one was prepared to invest their money in the province of Alberta. We then went to the United States. The Americans were prepared to invest their money in Alberta. They developed our oil and gas industry. That was the beginning of what we have today. Had that course not been followed we still might be a "have-not" province-the way this government likes to keep our provinces.
If the money had not come in the oil would not have been developed. We invited the Americans to come. They did so and worked under the conditions set out by the government of Alberta. They did not try to establish the rules; they obeyed them and became good corporate citizens.
This is an area in which the government shows day by day that it is lacking. It talks about Canadianization when it means nationalization. Which means that if you have a good thing you are liable to lose it in a short time because the government may take it over. Why does this government not have people come in, work under the rules of Canada and develop our gross national product? That is the way to develop the country. That is the way in which this country was developed, but now the government asks for all kinds of reports and information. Its own report, tabled in this House in 1978, indicates that over one half the sales, the profits and equity in non-financial enterprises would not have occurred had it not been for foreign-controlled companies working in this land under the rules and conditions which we set out.
What use will be made of the information for which we are asking? I think this is a very important item. Right now only the aggregates are available to other departments. They are then made public, as set out in the bill.
Bill S-10 re-establishes the conditions which existed before 1965 when the federal government had access to the financial information provided by individual companies. That provision was done away with in 1965. The government of the day wanted to give some credibility to the companies. It wanted the companies, the corporations and the trade unions to believe in it so it made the aggregates available to other ministries. But it did not make the financial statements of individual companies available.
That is not good enough for the government in power today. It wants to go back 16 years to 1965 in order to make the whole financial statement available to other departments. The bill sets out who will receive this information. It says that an official who is an officer, or another person taking his place, shall, where authorized by the Chief Statistician of Canada, on the request of any minister of the government, for any purpose relating to the determination of policy, make this information available.
The bill provides that, upon receipt of an application for inspection, payment of a fee not exceeding one dollar is required. I suppose that if the information is to be made
available it should be available to everyone. I do not think any individual wants to have his financial statement published in the press or made available for inspection to people off the street where it can become the talk at the coffee counters and the beer parlours of the nation. In the case of trade unions, all the information must be made available free of charge.
Who will be required to make these reports available, to provide this information? This is a good point in the bill. If the bill has any good points at all, this is fit. A corporation with assets exceeding $250,000 and/or sales amounting to more than $500,000 must file. That is the situation now. If enacted the bill before us will raise that amount to $5 million. It provides that any corporation with assets exceeding $5 million or sales amounting to more than $10 million must now file. Companies which had to file under the old legislation will not any longer have to go to the expense of filing, while the larger corporations and the labour unions will have to do so. According to the minister, there will be some 70,000 businesses affected which will have some redress from filling in all of these forms.
When we come to the labour unions part of the bill, the minister says Bill S-10 will lead to significant improvements in the administration of the act. I have searched to find out whether these significant improvements are for the unions of our country. I cannot find them in the bill. Perhaps the hon. minister will outline them when he is closing the debate. However, the one thing I did find is that the definition of "union" has been extended, and not restricted, to any association which regulates relations between employers and employees. Under the old bill, there are some stipulations under which a union did not have to comply. Now any and every union will have to supply the information. The international unions will have to report all direct revenues from Canadian subsidiaries, and also financial data of pension and strike funds, and report on their membership on a calendar year basis. I do not suppose there is anything particularly wrong with reporting on their membership.
I do not object to labour unions being required to give information on membership and other important matters to the government providing those items are then kept somewhat confidential. However, it seems to me that international unions are being pinpointed for special abuse. International unions have done a real service in this country. Anyone who knows the situation knows that the international unions have done a great deal. As a matter of fact, there have been times in this country where, had it not been for international unions, many of our workers would have gone hungry. I refer to the United Mine Workers of America.
I was raised in a coal mining area and I know what goes on in a coal mining area. There were times when we had no work, when Ontario was buying its coal from the United States and Canadian mines were idle, pretty much the way it is right now. We still buy large amounts of coal from the U.S.A. Not all mines stand idle, but all miners do not get the work. In
June 22, 1981

addition to that, we have coal in Alberta, in Canada, which has low sulphur content. But does one think we could use that to reduce acid rain? No. We keep on buying coal with much higher sulphur content from the U.S.A. to aggravate the acid rain problem.
However, the point I am making is that there were times when workers, through no fault of their own as there was no work available, would have gone pretty hungry had money not come from the international unions, from their American offices, to assist coal miners in this country. That is not a fairy story, that is the truth. The international unions have also shown a great deal of responsibility. I do not know of any union in this country which has been more responsible to the United Mine Workers of America. Did one ever hear of a union saying to the mine operator: "We are going to forgo even the cost of living increase in our wages this year because we know you are having a tough time keeping this mine open; we will forgo any increase just to keep our jobs? That happened in a mine in this country. The union showed responsibility as an international trade union. I think we should recognize that there is a place for unions and that we believe in the autonomy of unions. If the miners of this country want to work under the auspices of the United Mine Workers of America, why should we tell them that they cannot do that?
I remember one of the worst strikes I have ever seen, and I have gone through many of them. A union called the Canadian Union, which was simply the mouthpiece for the communist organization, tried to oust the United Mines Workers of America from authority in the coal mines in Canada. The coal miners caught on to the idea. They are autonomous. They have complete rule of their unions in this country. They do not take orders from another country. They objected to a communist inspired union, as its final and ultimate objective is to do away with unions altogether, under a communist regime. The Canadian Union lost out because the United Mine Workers held together. I remember the difficulties, trials and tribulations during that strike, when women with axes, brooms and shovels and men with clubs stood along the road to try to stop people from going to work in a strike which was called by this communist union known as the Canadian Union. The United Mine Workers were loyal to their own union and loyal to their own country and they refused to stop at that time. Therefore, do not tell me that international unions are all bad. Maybe some are bad, but a lot of them are good. I think we should give them credit where they deserve credit.
Again, in this country we have always had some freedom of choice. Why should our workers not decide what union they want and whether they want a Canadian union or an international union? There are disadvantages to both. However, our workers are not illiterate any more. They should have the choice. We should not be pinpointing an international union, requiring it to do things that we do not require of our other unions.
The international unions will have to report all direct revenues from Canadian subsidiaries and financial data pertaining to their pension funds. If other corporations have to report
Corporations and Labour Unions their pension funds, then I think international unions should also.
I would like to comment about strike funds. What concern is it of the government how much money workers put into a strike fund? I want to know why the government wants to know that kind of information. It is like a census form wanting to know how many toilets there are in a house. It is ridiculous information. No wonder our people are riled up about that long census form.
While I am on that subject, I am wondering what authority there is for the government to ask some people to fill in a short form while others must fill in a long form. Again, this is discrimination of some kind. Why do we not all have the same form if the government must have that information? What good is the information coming from one tenth of the population? What does that prove? We might as well let Gallup poll do it. It would not cause the taxpayer all the agony which is being caused through this census information. I believe in the census, but why is there a difference between Canadians, where some have to work hours on it and others can fill in the form in five minutes?


An hon. Member:: Ask your leader.


Gordon Edward Taylor: The hon. member is yapping again. If one throws a stone at that side and hits someone, they start to yap. It is like throwing rocks at a bunch of dogs. If one of them starts yapping, one knows they were hit in a vital point.


An hon. Member:: He authorized the form.


Gordon Edward Taylor: This strike fund is something I want to know about. What business is it of this government how much they have in their strike fund? It is not the government's money, it is the unions' money. It is none of the government's business. I know why the government wants to know. If there happens to be a strike, the government wants to know how long they can stay on strike, and maybe it leaks the information. No one believes in this government any more. It has no credibility. People will not trust it as far as they can see it or throw it. The government is concerned about a strike fund, but it is none of the government's business. This is the workers' own money. It is not the employer's business either. It is coming out of the pockets of the workers, and it is their business only.
The government has no right to this information by asking them to report how much money they have in a strike fund. That is ridiculous. It is their money. That can be resolved in the union meetings. It is none of my business and it is none of the government's business. I object to this type of thing being carried on in the name of government. It is just another one of these things, like the technological information, where the government tries to get information to which it is not really entitled and which it may well misuse.
Another section of this bill which is of concern is the penalties provision. We put the penalties in to try to force people to do exactly what we want them to do. The penalty under section 12(1) of the act is that the guilty party is liable,

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
on summary conviction, to a fine of $50 per day if the form is not filed. The bill provides for up to $250 per day. A very large corporation with bookkeepers, researchers and accountants would have no problem finding the information that is required but many of the smaller unions that rely on volunteer workers would not have the time to do this. The people there work after hours or give up their Sundays to do this type of thing. A $250 per day fine for failing to file a return would be difficult for them. The government has no business asking for all this information anyway and I do not think it is right. The fine is exorbitant and ridiculous for small unions. Because it has the law on its side, the government is trying to threaten people into doing something it knows they should not have to do.
We pass many of these laws in the way we passed some the other day. I have never seen anything so ridiculous as going through scores of pages without a chance to debate the legislation. We wonder why people do not want to obey the laws and we make it an offence if they do not, yet we do not have enough time to discuss them. They have not been carefully thought out, yet the government brings in closure to stop the House debating the bill properly.
This penalty is too high for many small unions, Mr. Speaker, and I want to go on record as saying that it should be reduced. The fine should vary in accordance with the offence. All offences are not the same and there should be no difficulty in setting out a range of fines instead of simply saying not exceeding so much. If the offence is committed in one province there may be a $10 fine, while in another part of that province or in a different province the fine could be $250. The government has given discretion to the courts but has not given them any guidelines.
Clause 8 of the bill provides to whom the information may be made available. A few moments ago I dealt with the matter of the unions providing the information free of charge.
In my view, this bill simply brings the government more into the lives of the people. Just the other day the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications (Mr. Stollery) praised the government for wanting more and more intervention and more and more regulation and defamed anyone who wanted deregulation.
Another thing that bothers me, Mr. Speaker, is that this bill will not create one job outside government. It will make things more difficult. Perhaps I should not say it will not create one job, as some large corporations may have to hire a full-time man to put together all this information that the government wants, to report the technological advances and so on. It will not create any work for labourers, however. Those people whose unemployment insurance is running out today cannot hope for a job as the result of this bill. The government could have brought in all kinds of bills that would create jobs in the country.


Mr. Kelly:: How many jobs is it costing?


Gordon Edward Taylor: I will tell you how many have been eliminated-thousands and thousands. If the hon. member had enough sense to go out into the sticks where the people are unemployed, he would not be so glib with his tongue.


Norman Kelly: You do not know the bill, do you?


Gordon Edward Taylor: He should go to the places where people are losing their jobs and going hungry. Then we would see if he would be so glib. It is all right to talk here when drawing a big salary. He should go out and see those people who are losing their jobs. The National Energy Program is costing jobs all across this country. He should go out and see that, but he sits there jabbering away. Just the other day a businessman in Standard said that he had cancelled his orders for machines and is not bringing them in any more. Hon. members opposite do not care as long as they get their salary, but a lot of people are going without jobs. Why should they spend their time trying to create jobs in this country instead of thinking up ways of getting more information, more forms more regulation, more government and less gross national product?
The government talks about high interest rates stopping inflation and producing a higher gross national product. Why is that not happening? I do not see any increase in the gross national product. The government should encourage people to invest their money instead of making it almost impossible to do so. It should discourage the flight of capital into the United States. It should find a means to keep our rigs and money in this country instead of sending them to the United States to find oil for that country. If we kept them we would keep enough jobs as well; but this bill does not bring about any jobs. It is complete bureaucracy.
Small business in this country will receive some little benefit from this bill. If we take the minister's word, 70,000 of them will not have to fill out forms in the future. Many of them will still go under, however, because they cannot pay the high interest rates.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) has said that the small business development bond will be helpful. It might if it were made available to everyone, but so many stipulations are attached that it is valuable to only a handful of people. A company has to be incorporated before it can receive benefit from that legislation. But thousands of farms and businesses in this country are not incorporated, Mr. Speaker, so they cannot make use of the lower interest rate of the small business development bond.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) made reference to the Farm Credit Corporation. That is a good organization and is useful to those who qualify for loans. But thousands of people do not. Sometimes it runs out of money before it can even start to deal with the line of applicants who want to develop their farms.
Small business is looking in vain for some help from this government but all it is getting is a regimented society. The inequalities and the gap are becoming greater and greater all the time. That situation was outlined a few moments ago by

the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood (Mr. Rae) so I will not go over it again.
Instead of being anxious to get hold of Alberta's wealth, I wish the government would show a little interest in helping the other provinces to develop their resources and get things going in those provinces. That is what we need in this country. Thousands of other people would do the same thing if they were in this House today. They are sick and tired of regimentation, sick and tired of the government wanting to distribute wealth all the time.
Why does the government not help the provinces to create wealth? Each province in this country has a lot of potential. Would anyone invest their money under this government? No. It talks about Canadianization and nationalization and about how much it can get hold of, how much it can take. It takes and takes and takes, as it is doing from gasoline prices today. People are now waking up to the fact that the government has already gone way beyond the 18 cents per gallon that it denounced so wildly in the PC budget. It denounced that and now it is collecting far more.
The government talked about the "Tale of Two Cities" when it wanted to take one pound of flesh. It will take the pound of flesh and the blood and the bones and the grit as well. It wants the whole works and that is what is destroying this country today.
If the provinces were encouraged to develop their natural resources and if the people were encouraged to keep their money in the country instead of investing it in other countries such as the United States, and if our rigs were encouraged to stay here, things would be better. But the government will not even enter into an agreement with Alberta for oil at $20 per barrel. It is quite prepared to pay foreign countries $40 and $45 a barrel. But that would interfere with the government's plans for disunity in this country. The government would find out that small business would develop by the hundreds in this country if the incentive was there. We should have a bill to help develop our resources and do away with some of the inequalities.
The CALURA bill is going to make more book work for our unions and companies. It will not create any jobs in the country. The CALURA bill is not that important. I would rather have had a bill which would create wealth instead of bills that snatch on to some of the wealth after it has been created. We need a bigger gross national product, not a smaller one. That will not be done by regimentation but by encouraging people to invest their money in this country. That will be done by encouraging our people to use their creative abilities, our technological advances and our research. If we can do that, we can get this country moving again. But people look in vain for anything like that from this government.
Encouraging people to invest and use their creative abilities will build stronger provinces and a greater nation. But this government wants a central government which is going to control everything. This government does not care two hoots
Corporations and Labour Unions
what it does in trying to reach that objective. It will destroy the provinces. It will separate the country if necessary.
That is the sad story of what is happening in Canada today. It is a sad story about a government which does not care, that does not listen but is determined to build a centralist organization. The longer this government can keep each province in poverty, the better it likes it because then the government can say, "We will give it to you." Then when you get your bread from the government, you do what the government tells you to do.


Thomas Gordon Towers: Mr. Speaker, one of the great fears that we as members of Parliament have in opposition is the method of intrusion that this government is embarking upon into the Canadian way of life. This is not only in intellectual property or corporate property, but into the very privacy of our lives. Every aspect of our way of living is now being scrutinized by some government official. This has never happened before in Canadian history, but it is certainly very obvious that the government is now making a very major intrusion into the sanctity of the Canadian way of life.
For instance, the Constitution is a perfect example of what the government is up to. Bill C-57, which is to be voted on this evening, is the last chance, our last swing, that we will ever get as to what the government is doing in that legislation. It is very obvious what the government is up to. It is trying to get total control of our Canadian way of life.
It started some years ago in our armed forces. We saw centralized control. The three commanding heads of three departments were taken away and put under one head. Therefore, it is much easier for a centralized government to control the armed forces. This is happening all the way through our system. There are suggestions in this bill. I will read a portion of it to show what the government is doing. On page 11, Clause 2, we find the following sub-paragraph:
"(viii) the name and address of each employer resident in Canada with which the union or a local union or branch of the union has a collective agreement, and the number of male members and the number of female members of any local union or branch of the union covered by the collective agreement-
What difference does it make whether a member of the union is male or female? Surely they are entitled to be classed as a Canadian citizen and they are entitled to the right to membership in a union if they so desire. Why should the government want to know that? It means the records are always changing. As my colleague from Drumheller said, in some corporations there will have to be an extra person charged with the responsibility of keeping all the data up to date and filling in the questionnaires. All the costs associated with that will have to be added to whatever business it is. If it happens to be a labour union, the dues will have to go up. If it is a corporation or whatever, the cost will be passed on to the consumer. In summary, this is an added cost to our over-all system.
We have a government which has promised to do away with some of the paper burden. It is not doing away with it fast enough. There is a suggestion that raising the amounts to $150,000 and $5 million will eliminate some people. Yes, it

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
will. But with inflation as it is, for how long will they be eliminated? This is the question we have to ask ourselves when we are dealing with this type of legislation.
I think it would be much better if the government were to set some guidelines in the area of where it is going to cut back on the demand on the backs of Canadians. The load becomes too heavy. We have to recognize that this is a non-productive part of our business and our economy. What is happening to a greater degree in Canada is that too many are riding on the backs of business and there is not enough productive capacity. There has been too much of this tax taking and extra work in paper burden. If the government would change its policy to a greater degree, and much more quickly than it has up to the present time, then we would see Canadian business move ahead more quickly.
We have a $17 billion deficit in manufactured products in Canada. We have over one million unemployed. We have a tremendous amount of potential and we have a tremendous amount of natural resources. All we have to do is put those three together and we will start to resolve some of our major problems. This is the direction in which the government should be going. It should not be putting the extra load on to corporations that are struggling as a result of having to comply with government policy. This is one of the reasons we see so many of our corporations moving out of Canada, either going to the United States or, in some cases, to South America.
If many of these people involved in the corporations were assured that the information being given was relevant and would be used properly, that information would be given much more graciously than it is being given at the present time. We have to be careful. I must warn this House that, in my opinion, we have to be very careful when we allow governments to collect information, in view of what can be recorded now by various methods. Various people are able to have access to a computer system of knowledge. Who knows what will happen as a result of bringing all this information together? It has not been proven to us in the opposition nor to Canadians generally that there is a requirement for the massive interventionist attitude upon which this government has embarked. It is not only destructive to our Canadian way of life but it creates a fear. There is a lack of confidence on the part of many Canadians as to what the government is doing by collecting this information. I do not like what is happening.
As I said earlier, tonight we are passing Bill C-57. That bill makes a major intrusion into our Canadian way of life in a manner never witnessed before in Canada. One of the best examples is the newspaper industry. For the first time ever, civil servants with their rulers will be making assessments in the newspaper industry. For the first time ever we are going to have government inside the press rooms of our country.
I must impress upon hon. members the danger that creates for our Canadian way of life. Freedom of the press is one of the basic freedoms of this country. However, we are now going to have a bureaucracy moving into our press rooms. That is
very wrong. No doubt this data will all be collected so that when the time comes, and we hope this will never happen, a centralist government will have when it wants this centralized power. We have seen in our lifetime the dangers of centralizing power, knowledge and important information. I am convinced the Canadian people are travelling in the wrong direction under the administration of the present government and the centralist way they are being led.
I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the privilege of bringing this to the attention of the House. It is something I hope members opposite will give consideration to because their freedom is as much at stake as mine.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a few comments on this very important bill. It is not receiving the attention in the media that it should. Perhaps many of them do not understand the seriousness and the complications of the legislation, which was pointed out by the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers).
Our lead speaker, the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington), gave an example of what is happening under this government's regulations. I quote from his speech of June 17:
In the Thirtieth Parliament when I was doing work on a street view of corporate concentration, what attracted me to CALURA was four or five small businesses in Quebec which had been taken to court and fined under the powers of CALURA. Some of those businesses no longer exist. In fact, I do not know if any of them do. Those little businesses had to pay fines of $700 or $800.
Here is the startling point in the hon. member's remarks:
On the other hand, while doing my work on corporate concentration, I found that the holding company for Power Corporation had never filed under CALURA. If Power Corporation or the holding company had been treated in the same manner as these small businesses, which the government likes to talk to about protecting and reducing the burden on so much, the holding company for Power Corporation would have been subject to fines of over $3 million. However, they were not taken to court.
CALURA has been on my mind for some time. It is an important piece of legislation that has not been attended to for some time and that needs amending.
For many years it has been Liberal policy to be on the backs of small business. That is a classic example. It takes from the little guy and gives to the huge Power Corporation of Quebec.
We agree with the reporting part of the bill as well as that of union reporting, but not with the information aspect which demands that an inventory of technological information, intellectual property, trade marks and patents and so on be reported. It is highly interventionist.
This is an omnibus bill just as so many others have been. One example is Bill C-57, which automatically increases taxes for the handicapped, the beer drinkers and other groups across Canada. The element with regard to fines is overpowering for small business. There are excessive fines of $250 per day for not providing information. Under the metric law to be forced on the Canadian people, there will be heavy fines and jail sentences for those who do not comply.
Because the Liberals had to have their Constitution passed, Parliament is being forced to rush through important legislation such as this without giving it proper attention. It is not so much the bill we are opposed to but rather the way the Grits
June 22, 1981

will use the information. This bill will curtail individual rights and freedoms by unduly restricting and overextending the requirement of the reporting responsibility of small business.
I will give a few examples of over-regulation. The National Energy Program is having an absolutely devastating effect on the nation's economy, especially in my province of Manitoba where it practically closed down the whole oil exploration industry just as it was getting going. There could have been a real economic boom in Manitoba but this ridiculous NEP over-regulates the oil industry in the province of Manitoba and other provinces and is bringing the industry to a grinding halt. It only helps the economy in OPEC countries such as Venezuela and Mexico.
This is an interventionist policy of ill repute which threatens the theory of free enterprise. It is completely non-voluntary and requires an overly large amount of information. There is some connection between this bill, the strengthening of FIRA, the Competition Act and some provisions of the Constitution which impede the natural rights of Canadians. This type of legislation will make the empire builders within the Liberal government happy. It will give them a lot of work to do.
To give another example of what the National Energy Program will do and what it will cost the Canadian people, I want to quote from the June 6 edition of the Edmonton Journal:
It should be clear that Canadians are paying $43 a barrel for oil we had offered to sell last year for $20 a barrel.
That is a quote from the Alberta energy minister, Mr. Leitch. We can see what all this regulation is doing. It is a fantastic cost to the Canadian people. This overregulation interferes with the free enterprise system across the country. The literature being distributed in the ridings across the country of Liberal members of Parliament gives a completely false interpretation of the National Energy Program and the serious effects of the regulations contained in it. This literature talks about security as follows:
Canadians will again control their energy future through security of supply and independence from the world oil market.
That is a false statement. We are importing more and more oil. It is costing Canadian taxpayers $500,000 an hour to import foreign oil. Under the regulations made under the National Energy Program, by 1990 it will cost Canadians an additional $182 billion a year to import oil at heaven only knows what price per barrel.
The Liberal propaganda says the following about opportunity under the new energy regulation program:
Canadians will now have real opportunity to participate in the energy industry and to share in the benefits of industry expansion.
That is absolute rubbish. I have documentation here which shows that over 100 businesses in Alberta-and this is a statistic just for one individual area of Alberta-will be experiencing layoffs and cutbacks because of the new regulations contained in the National Energy Program. Where is the opportunity for them? This energy program provides a great
Corporations and Labour Unions
opportunity for the United States, and that is where most of the industry is going. Under "fairness" the propaganda says, and I quote:
Canadians will have a petroleum pricing and revenue-sharing regime that will be fair to all Canadians regardless of where they live.
What is fair about Canadian taxpayers having to spend $43 for a barrel of oil brought in from Mexico or Venezuela or other OPEC countries when it could be bought here in Canada for $20 a barrel? That is highway robbery. This is the kind of documentation the Liberals are distributing around the country. It is completely false and misleading. Why are they not telling the people about the businesses they are chasing out of the country? Why are they not telling Canadians about the adverse effects their energy policy has on businesses in eastern Canada? Why do they not tell that to the people of Ontario and Quebec? They should not be bringing in these ridiculous regulations which do absolutely nothing about energy self-sufficiency in this country.
I would like to give another example of how Liberal regulation affects various businesses. The Chevron oil company in Vancouver volunteered the following information recently: Chevron Canada Limited has to complete 491 monthly, quarterly and annual reports for the federal government which are then inspected by 14 federal agencies, 19 provincial agencies and 8 municipal departments; this apparent duplication of government inspection and excessive paper work must be monitored more closely.
As far as we in the Conservative party are concerned, it should be reduced. We had taken steps to deal with this. Duplication and all this regulation was on the agenda for the first ministers' conference of December 15, 1979. The government of our leader, who was then the prime minister, was going to do away with this waste, duplication and overregulation. We were going to do something about it, but are the Liberals doing anything about it? No, they most certainly are not.
Just recently I learned from the Manitoba Teachers Society of another example. That society informs us that there are over 70 federal agencies involved in education and educational research. The Canadian Parks Association points out that there are over 66 federal government agencies duplicating services provided in the area of recreation. Why on earth do we need that many regulations and that many departments at the federal level involved in recreation and teaching? The bureaucracy has complete control of this Liberal government. This government has allowed the bureaucracy to continue its overregulation and empire building within the departments. If bureaucrats can come up with new regulations or new programs to set up new departments or Crown corporations, they have the full co-operation of the Liberal party.
It is predicted that the National Energy Program and the new regulations I mentioned earlier will cause the loss of 60,000 jobs by mid-summer. I did not see that in the Liberal propaganda being sent out to constituents. Liberal backbenchers should be telling their constituents what the ridiculous program they are forcing on Canadians is doing in relation to

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions jobs being lost. I would like them to explain to me how the loss of 60,000 jobs will benefit us.
One of the regulations in Bill C-57 imposes another 9 per cent tax on prosthetic devices. These devices are used by the handicapped. Prostheses used on legs and ankles are excepted. This tax was soundly criticized in the House last week as a blatant slap in the face of the handicapped during the International Year of the Disabled. This government is imposing additional taxes through regulations which will be passed year after year. Taxes will be increased by order in council. This government will not have to come back to Parliament. There will be more regulation and more taxation without even having to come to this House. The government is going to tax artists who create original prints. This will affect members of Eskimo co-operatives in northern Canada whose prints are considered highly valuable works of art around the world.
Nobody escapes the clutches of this Liberal party. The newspaper industry has expressed grave concern about a 9 per cent tax on advertising supplements which, the industry says, threatens its livelihood. This government is threatening everyone, regulating everyone and taxing everyone.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I would just like to refer to a cartoon which was in the Winnipeg Free Press last week. It showed three thugs in a jail cell along with a little Canadian citizen. He had just been put into the cell with them. The three thugs asked what he was in jail for. "Oh," he said, "I would not tell the government how many toilet seats I have". The census which is being taken now and other individual surveys in the past have required information respecting how many bathrooms people have and how many toilet seats they have. This is absolutely ridiculous. We never get any explanation of what this information is needed for. This will not create jobs, lower taxes or do anything of the kind.
The ECC recently released a report about regulation. It pointed out, and I quote:
The question is, are the hurts worth the gains you get, can you properly concentrate or take it easy?
The council pointed out that what we need is more productivity and less regulation.
A report in the Toronto Star said this about this Economic Council report:
-while the Economic Council's provocative report sounds a timely note of caution on the subject of government regulatory involvement in the economy, it also underlines the importance of those regulations that ensure all Canadians a better quality of life. Reform should be on the agenda, but not hastily.
The ECC also point out in an article in the Montreal Gazette of June 15:
Overregulation of the Canadian economy costs several billion dollars a year. That is perhaps $120 per Canadian, perhaps more-say, $500 a year for a family of four. Most of that money comes straight out of our pockets, not governments'.
All it is is job-creation programs thought up by empire builders. I do not know why the Liberals are not commenting on this today. It would be nice to know how many Liberals in the House support these regulations, how they can justify
costing a Canadian family $500 a year. Do they actually support this type of program? If they do, let them get up and give us an explanation why. We do not see the need for them at all. We do not see a need for finding out how many bathrooms and toilet seats people have, Mr. Speaker.
The Winnipeg Free Press, in an editorial on June 11, has pointed out their feelings on the reforming of regulations, as follows:
-the Economic Council of Canada has offered some sensible recommendations aimed at creating compatibility in the marriage that exists between the Canadian economy and the regulations that affect it. The recommendations suggest moves that could make the marriage work to the better satisfaction of both parties, rather than advocating a quick and final divorce.
It urges the abandonment of regulations that have lived longer than the problems they were designed to correct, and the provision of flexibility in others to reflect the changing conditions of the marketplace.
Most people feel this document on reducing regulations is going to be put on the shelf to gather dust. I certainly hope that is not the case.
I have referred to this before, Mr. Speaker, but I think it is worth mentioning again. Some citizens are so concerned about government regulations that they are putting full page ads in newspapers. The Citizens' Coalition had an excellent one recently: "Do You Believe This Man?", and his ridiculous NEP and regulations costing Canadians billions and billions of dollars to pay for foreign oil. There are a lot of people examining what this Liberal government is doing, and they are putting their money where their mouth is by paying for ads concerning these ridiculous programs and regulations.
An excellent document has been brought to my attention recently concerning the impact of the federal budget and the rules and regulations regarding the NEP. This document shows 41 oil service companies in Nisku Park in the Wetaski-win area of Alberta affected by the NEP regulations. It goes into some detailed explanation as to the effects in branch offices where there will be lay-offs and closings. The document points out a loss of operations in Canada and gives statistical information on companies being driven out of the country because it is going to be more beneficial to operate in the United States. I do not know how on earth that is supposed to help Canada.
The document also points out how the regulations are going to affect employment, and it gives one example of 255 jobs lost amongst Nisku firms with an additional 173 jobs lost at branch operations. Considering the large amount of oil service and related firms in Alberta, these figures from only 41 firms represent a great loss of jobs throughout the province. There is no loss of jobs in the OPEC countries, Mexico or Venezuela because of these regulations. They are very beneficial to other countries.
It then goes on to list the effect on other industries. These are not general statements, Mr. Speaker; companies are named. Here are just a few of the affected eastern Canadian suppliers: Algoma Steel, Allen-Bradley-maybe some of these businesses are in Liberal ridings and they could check them
June 22, 1981

out. AMP of Canada, Arnie's Trailer Sales, Atlas Chemicals, Atlas Steel, Border Brokers, Brown Boveri Canada, Browning Manufacturing, B. & W. Eleat Treating, Canada Cement, General Electric, Canadian Industries, Canadian Liquid Air, Canadian National Railways. Nobody escapes their clutches, Mr. Speaker. Canadian Timken, Cessco Ltd., Cooper Energy, Dacro Industries Ltd., Dominion Bridge Company Ltd., FAG Hearings, Federal Mogul, FMC Link-Belt, Ford Motor Company, Gates Rubber, GMC, Hay's Trucks, IHC Truck Assemblers, Kenworth Trucks, King Tractor Manufacturing, Nelson Building Components, Penn Dome, RHP Canada, Roadmaster Trailers, Safety Supply Canada, Steelco Steel, Stelco Canada Ltd., Steldor, SKF Canada, Timkin Ltd., Tarrington Inc., Volcano Boilers and Westinghouse Canada Ltd.
That is just a sample of 43 eastern Canadian businesses affected by the situation in one federal constituency in Alberta. There are 18 more. Then there is Saskatchewan, Manitoba and all the rest of the areas affected by these ridiculous regulations of the NEP.
These are some of the general industries in eastern Canada affected by the NEP. Electrical suppliers, hose and fittings manufacturers, lumber firms, oil field equipment and suppliers, packaging, paints and supplies, steel building manufacturers, steel mills, tire companies, trailer companies, wire rope companies. The people in Ontario should be up in revolt and hounding every Liberal MP out of his seat. This Nisku group also pointed out:
As a result of cutbacks or cancellations of purchases by the 41 companies responding to our survey, $1,470,000 in revenues was lost by eastern suppliers in the last quarter of 1980. Forecasted cutbacks in purchases to eastern suppliers in 1981 will amount to approximately $20 million from these 41 firms.
Then 55 Alberta firms affected are listed, Mr. Speaker. Every type of industry is affected by the ridiculous regulations of the NEP. They also list the general industries in Alberta that are affected. Building contractors, electrical contractors and suppliers, fabricators, fittings distributors, lumber firms, oil well firms, plumbing suppliers, trucking transportation companies, warehousing and welders. It also spills over into area motels, restaurants and truck service stops which rely on the oil industry.
So you can see the importance of removing a lot of these ridiculous regulations. This is just an example of how it affects Canadian industry, Canadian workers, and the cost to the Canadian people of the Liberal party's programs. If we are wrong, if all these firms are wrong, if everybody in Alberta is wrong, then some of these Liberals should get up and tell us what benefits there are in this ridiculous program.
The Nisku group also point out the multiplier effect of the NEP. Shown losses of revenue are direct-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The Chair has been listening quite attentively to the hon. member and I hope in the remaining minutes he will be able to relate what he has said concerning these companies and so on to Bill S-10, which is now before us.
Corporations and Labour Unions


A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I can explain it quite easily. It is the regulations contained in the new National Energy Program, and the bill we are debating today deals with regulations. This is an opportunity for us to talk about regulations and to point out how they are hindering Canada's growth, with lay-offs and businesses being driven out of the country.
In conclusion, I should like to give an example of the multiplier effects of these regulations upon small Canadian businesses. Earlier I referred to the Chevron oil company and the Manitoba Teachers' Society and how they require additional staff. It is just a quagmire for them. The shown losses of revenue are direct and do not include multiplier effects. For example, a loss of sales by Algoma could lead to a lay-off in Ontario, which in turn could lead to a new car or other durable not being purchased. Subsequently a lay-off by automotive manufacturers could occur and so on. It is impossible to generate accurate figures on the loss to the Canadian GNP which might be directly or indirectly attributed to declining purchases by the 41 companies surveyed. However, the total will be far in excess of the $50 million estimated for 1981.
I hope I have made clear the effects of the regulations in the National Energy Program and all other regulations, whether they are concerning education, oil companies or whatever. I hope we hear a government announcement one of these days that it will pick up the program the Conservative government would have started, that is, meeting with the provinces to eliminate excessive regulations and duplication among all levels of government. It would be an excellent start. At their Liberal caucus meeting this week, they should band together to get the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) to withdraw immediately the National Energy Program. It would be the greatest contribution they could make to Canada in their lives as parliamentarians.


Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak this afternoon on Bill S-10. CALURA was first passed in 1962 to collect officially information on certain corporations and labour unions in this fair Canada of ours. I understand this is the fourth time the bill has been before Parliament; obviously it is in need of much debate. It looks innocuous but it is not. It should have afforded uninterrupted debate in the House because of its complicated nature. I am sure hon. members have not had time to digest fully the entire bill in the short time it has been before us.
The present government has the undesirable habit of allowing this type of legislation full of amendments to slide by Parliament. It also adopts the dangerous practice of invoking Standing Order 75c. We have seen bills such as this omnibus style bill in the House. We have seen them many times before, vis-a-vis amendments to the Criminal Code in 1968 and the metric bill. This legislation requires a lot of debate.


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order based upon the comments of the hon. member. There is still commit-

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions tee stage and third reading in which to discuss this particular bill. Everything is not done in the House on second reading.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is the report stage as well.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Yes, there is the report stage.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: That sounds like a Liberal point of order.


Jean-Jacques Blais: That sounds like a Tory comment.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Particularly small business has been fined under CALURA, not the bona fide large corporations such as the Power Corporation which was mentioned a few moments ago. As I said, we are sliding down the slippery road to a unitary state. We are becoming a controlled society. We are controlled more and more by the present government.
When we received the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in the House in 1968, we also received 1984 early. Since he assumed office, the state has encroached more and more upon business and upon our citizens, as per this bill. "Big Brother" is constantly looking over our shoulders, with a survey here and a questionnaire there, just as this bill indicates. Consolidated financial statements will be obtained directly from enterprises through questionnaires-state interference. Approximately eight existing questionnaires will be integrated into one, supposedly to reduce the paper burden. The point is that they are questionnaires and they represent going into patents and other such items-straight intervention in our system.
We have heard much about the need to lessen the paper burden on business, but it is only lip service, as any businessman will tell us if he is questioned. It is only government public relations in action. There is a lot of it going on now and government has become the biggest advertiser in Canada. The fact is that the paper burden is not being lessened, it is being increased.
The private sector of the country keeps the country in spending money. It generates the wealth which unfortunately the government dearly loves to redistribute. The government fails to realize-especially those members opposite who have never been in business-that it has been slowly strangling the goose which lays the golden egg with overregulation, big brotherliness, government interference, crippling taxation, direct and indirect, and the lack of an industrial strategy. Where is the industrial strategy about which we have heard so much? I have not seen it. Also it neglects research and development. We all know what a half of 1 per cent in research and development will do for the country. It will do a lot more than Bill S-10.
Through its ambitious social programs, more ambitious than those of our wealthy neighbours to the south, the government has chipped away and eroded the work ethic of the entire country. It is a sad thing to see in the youth. The government has made it more attractive financially to collect UIC than to work. Now we are faced with Bill S-10. It has placed a staggering debt load on the backs of Canadians. Our taxes are high enough but our real tax toll is the combination of
corporate and personal income taxes, the accumulated debt, and the oil and service charges which must go to discharge the tremendous borrowings of this great Big Brother.
I do not believe anyone in the government actually calls out for the business community. No one in the government understands what it is like to attempt to make it in the cold, corporate world of big or small business. Canadian business needs a hand up, not handouts. It does not need Bill S-10 to overregulate it. Canadian business needs the government off its back. Canadians need an end to the Big Brother phenomenon.
I have a speech which was made by the former president of the treasury board. It is entitled "How we became a socialist state". It pointed out the encroachment of government, through legislation such as Bill S-10, to compile information which is not needed to run the country, for it to be rich, powerful and strong again. It is encroachment of government; it is intrusion of government. It is the imposition of government will against that of the business community. Bill S-10 is just another law restricting our rights. We do need acts restricting corporations and the creation of wealth. We need greater production, not another paper burden.
Every move of the government is toward centralization. This was pointed out time and again under Bill C-48, another form of overregulation. As a small businessman I am confronted with capital expenditures. It is bad enough to cope with a 20 per cent interest rate, let alone cope with the bureaucracy of increasing paper burden and less rights.
This bill is more interference in the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act. It is government poking its nose into the business of private corporations. It is regressive, not progressive, legislation. I presume Bill S-10 is the preamble to the introduction of the Competition Act, and Lord knows what we will find in it.
The information aspect of CALURA frightens me. Will the financial statements of corporations be made public? Who will get their hands on this information? Multimillion dollar corporations file, others do not. It makes one ask why. Who can have the information in this bill? Obviously the government, but who else under section 8? I do not know.
The current definition of "labour unions" liable to report under the act is being improved to cover all labour unions with one hundred members or more resident in Canada. Supposedly, this was to ensure the widest possible coverage and, hence, completeness of data on labour unions. This is nothing but more government interference.
Why does the government need such information? International unions will report all direct receipts from their Canadian affiliates and all expenditures directly attributable to their operations in Canada. Is this not denigrating some of the great labour unions? Also, all unions will report information separately on each of their special funds, such as pension and strike funds. Why is this necessary? It is just more government interference. This provision was supposedly to broaden the
June 22, 1981

reporting of financial data. I guess it will. It will permit a better presentation of union finances. It will interfere with every union in this country. The government will be in their hip pockets and looking over their shoulders every waking minute. Membership data of individual unions will be made available to federal and provincial government departments for analysis and publication purposes, thereby reducing possible duplication of reporting by union locals. Where are the magnificent benefits to the unions in this bill? I fail to find any in what I have just stated.
From looking at this bill it appears to me as though international unions are coming under special reporting conditions. Even their strike funds will be affected. I do not think we want that situation in Canada. The government says that 70,000 small businesses will not have to report, that the paper work will mysteriously disappear. I think everyone on this side of the House knows for sure that will never happen. The provisions have been changed from reporting $250,000 in assets and $500,000 in sales to $5 million in assets and $10 million in sales. In my view, that is not an improvement. It smacks of crass socialism, of government riding shotgun on technological transfers. It all adds up to one thing-government intervention, stateism, centralization, nationalization, whatever you want to call it.
Bill C-48 was mentioned by my colleague from Winnipeg. He said the provisions therein were not for Canadianization but purely and simply for nationalization. Bill C-48 smacks of government interference, just as Bill S-10 does. This is overregulation, which is driving our Canadian dollar crazy and causing our interest rates to climb. I am wondering what this House is all about if it is not to debate bills to tremendous importance such as Bill S-10. In my view, Canadians are over-regulated and we will be more so once Bill S-10 is enacted.
It has been estimated that every man, woman and child in Canada could be regulated by government up to a value of $500. It is estimated that the cost of importing foreign oil to every man, woman and child in Canada is $150. Recently a representative of General Motors came to speak to our caucus. If people understood the costs of a General Motors car which are directly attributable to government regulation, they would be staggered. We have socialist, stateist policies. Our country was not built by overregulation or by government interference in our unions.
If we took the earth's surface and reduced it to one little country of a square mile and one tenth, with a population of 1,100 we would find that of those 1,100 some 22 would be communists, 440 would be under the direct control of communism, and 814 would be ignorant, poor or hungry. Only 286 would have sufficient food, clothing and shelter. Of the 1100 some 66 would be North Americans. Those 66 North Americans would own just 6.6 per cent of the land and 58 per cent of the wealth. They would produce 37 per cent of the food and electrical power, 50 per cent of the copper, iron and steel and 34 per cent of the coal. They would own 66 per cent of the automobiles, telephones, radios and televisions.
Corporations and Labour Unions
That will not be allowed to carry on if we have much more overregulation of our industries through measures such as Bill S-10. Those 66 North Americans would have 11 times more orchestras, groups, schools, museums, books and laboratories. That has been our legacy as a free enterprise system. The 66 North Americans would have 17 times more personal possessions than the other 1,034. A full 99 per cent of them would own a refrigerator, a telephone and a television. Some 80 per cent would own a washing machine and 92 per cent would own at least one car. Some 55 per cent of the goods in the world in the last 10,000 years have been produced in North America over the past 200 years.
Those are amazing facts, Mr. Speaker. Is this the result of socialism, state control and such measures as Bill S-10? No, Mr. Speaker. It has been accomplished by free enterprise, something the government across the way has forgotten. We must remember that as Canadians we are 10 per cent of the population figure I have just mentioned.
Why have Canadians been great? And we are great. It is because so far we have been free. We have not been overregulated. We have not had socialistic points of view forced on us in the past, as we are having them forced upon us now. We have been free to live and work under the free enterprise system.
Another word which I think members opposite have forgotten in their zeal for overregulation is the word "profit". It is a sad thing that too many people today have forgotten that word, including high school and college graduates, bureaucrats, members of Parliament including the entire New Democratic Party. Bill S-10 is designed to overregulate on the one hand and deregulate on the other. It does not assess what we really need, which is an increase in production. A great many people in this House, especially hon. members to my left, think that a capitalist is an elephant jumping up and down in a yard full of chickens screaming "Every man for himself'. To them, making a profit is a vice.
Winston Churchill is a great favourite of mine. One of the best quotes of his was not the one about fighting on the beaches or "Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few", but "It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; the real vice is making losses". This government is making a loss by overregulation, by centralization and by taking us down the slippery road to socialism. The facts of life are that nothing happens until something is sold. By overregulating industry you do not sell things. You do not have a productive country. The socialistic policies in the handouts which this government makes are in some cases much needed, but we cannot afford to make them in this country because of the huge deficit we have incurred unless we increase productivity and meet the situation head on.
The facts of life are that profits make everything happen in our society. Without profits nothing happens. Our present government is not profiting. It must be made to take a look at the economic fiasco it is making of our free enterprise system. It is hitting at industries by giving more paper burden to corporations such as General Motors. Our gross national

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions product is at a standstill, and now we are faced with Bill S-10. We are in a deficit position of SI5 billion this year alone and we owe another $101 billion in gross debt. Isn't that a great legacy for my children?
Right now it takes more than 20 cents of every tax dollar to pay the interest on the national debt. And we want more regulations, we want S-10! It is suicidal. We have an energy bill to nationalize the oil industry. It is a good job it was amended, because before it had actually got to the point of confiscation of 25 per cent of the private enterprise land rights. Thank God for small mercies on that one!
We have before the Supreme Court of Canada a resolution, not a bill, to patriate unilaterally. Again it is overregulation. It is another form of S-10. Have we not learned what happened in the U.S.S.R.? It was once a net exporter of food, the bread basket of Europe; but what is it now? It is a net importer. Look at the difference between East and West Germany. How many S-lOs do you suppose they have? They do not have very many, I will grant you that. Free enterprise is plenty in the West, but there is a downtrodden, state-controlled, near-starvation populace on the other side of the wall in East Germany.
Look at Britain. Will we not learn what happened to it when there was state control? I do not think we have learned our lesson very well. The leader of the Labour party, Aneurin Bevan, once said of Britain:
This island is almost made of coal and surrounded by fish.
Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish in Great Britain at the same time. After a few years of that overregulated, S-10 style government of those socialists in Britain, there were shortages of both fish and coal in Britain. By 1976-


Jean-Jacques Blais: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: The hon. the Minister of Supply and Services on a point of order.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to indicate to the hon. member that Bill S-10 has nothing to do with regulations as such. I am delighted that he should be making a great speech on the recent report of the Economic Council of Canada but Bill S-10, on the contrary, is intended to reduce the obligation of Canadian and foreign companies to file various forms and therefore corporate organizations will have fewer obligations to provide additional information to the Government of Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. The remarks of the hon. minister have been fully understood. That is precisely what I did earlier when I urged the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie) to limit his remarks to the bill under study, Bill S-10. I would therefore invite the hon. member who now has the floor, the hon.
member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart), to do the same thing.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Mr. Speaker, the corollary between S-10 and what I have been saying is very evident to anyone who sits on this side of the House. It is overregulation.


Jean-Jacques Blais: You did not even read the bill.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: I have read the bill, believe me!


Jean-Jacques Blais: Show me where it deals with overregulation.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: The hon. member will get his chance. I am on my feet at the moment; just listen.


An hon. Member:: Oh, my goodness, the arrogance!


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Mr. Speaker, overregulation in S-10 or in any other form of government is what is killing us in Canada. It is centralization. The bill kills the spirit of unionism and it kills the spirit of everything we are trying to do in this House.
I mentioned the fact that profits are very definitely tied to a bill such as S-10. We have to the south of us a President who wants to control and balance a budget. He wants to reduce inflation. But this is not the case here. Our present government is leading us down the garden path of socialism, not to Utopia but perhaps to Armageddon.


Jean-Jacques Blais: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would like the hon. gentleman to indicate in this debate where the issue or the question of socialism versus capitalism is affected by any of the provisions of this bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It is very difficult for the Chair. I invited hon. members on two occasions to address their remarks to the bill. Perhaps those who read Hansard later will analyse it in their own way. The hon. member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart) still has the floor. Again, he is invited to address his remarks to Bill S-10.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I thank you very much. My whole preamble was directed directly at the bill and taken apart. Now I am referring, through overregulation and state control, to that bill.
I would like to make in conclusion six points. If we are ever to get anywhere in this country and come back to deregulation, to profitability, and to the matters which this bill and others should be addressing themselves, we must recognize that we are in the hands of a socialist government and do something about it. We must support all kinds of things which will cap the teeth of inflation and government spending, stop the overregulation of our wonderful industries, and which will not interfere with unions doing their job to increase productivity, which this type of bill will do.
The causes of inflation are myriad. We have too much regulation by government. That is the real point. Thomas Jefferson summed it all up by saying:
June 22, 1981

The government's job is to keep men from hurting one another but to leave them otherwise free to regulate their own affairs.
Is that direct enough, hon. member? Too much government is the cause for many business failures today, and also increases inflation by 2 per cent. Check that.
There is too much expansion of government. Too many of our people are eating from the public trough. There are too many free lunches. The job of government is not to confer happiness upon us but to give us opportunities to work out happiness for ourselves. Any government which is big enough to take things away through a bill such as this is also big enough to destroy us. Let us turn government away from the big unions, the big educators, the big consumer advocates, the big interest groups, which are the regulators, the welfare recipients and all those who espouse big government, and turn it toward the great percentage of Canadians, the small businessmen and the free enterprisers who provide the production and pay the bills in this our society.
My goal sitting in the opposition is to stop the socializing of your country and mine, Mr. Speaker, to support a strong defence policy-if I might pop that one in-to fight inflation, to reduce taxes and lessen government regulating influences, and to stop the expansion of big government through bills like S-10. In other words, fish or cut bait.


Jean-Jacques Blais: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. Again on a point of order, dealing with relevance it is evident that the hon. gentleman has not read the bill. This bill aims to return CALURA to the status it was in prior to 1965, namely, the bill which was passed by John George Diefenbaker. Unless the hon. gentleman wishes to equate John George Diefenbaker with creeping socialism, I think that the hon. gentleman should withdraw every one of those allegations that he has just made.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. McKinnon:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I am sure the minister would not deliberately mislead the House, but John George Diefenbaker to my recollection was not the prime minister in 1965.
I would also like to point out, relating to a previous point of order, that this bill did not create difficulties for business. Several sections of the bill require a return comprising a set of financial statements, a balance sheet, a statement of income, and the entire bill goes on with additional returns required for business. Surely the minister has read the bill, I would hope, and would have noticed this.


Jean-Jacques Blais: On a point of order, please-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please.


Jean-Jacques Blais: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please.


Jean-Jacques Blais: The bill was passed in 1962, it was amended in
Corporations and Labour Unions


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: Order, please. Now hon. members want to enter into a debate. The hon. member for Simcoe South.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I have read the bill with interest and I quarrel with the formula of it, as I have stated continuously throughout this speech. I will conclude with the old saying, as a former salesman, that "Old salesmen never die, they just go out of commission". That should make the hon. member happy! These things that I have mentioned cannot happen to us.


Jean-Jacques Blais: That is as relevant as his comments.


Ronald Alexander Stewart: However, Edmund Burke, a conservative philosopher of the eighteenth century, once said:
The price of freedom is enternal vigilance.
That is what we are trying to do on this side of the House, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I was involved in a debate last week which caused me at the time to raise the question of why the government should decide at that time to introduce the matter then before the House. This was either on Monday or Tuesday of last week. It was Monday, because that was their allotted day, so to speak, and they decided to talk about foreign affairs, and to go on from that to the North-South dialogue.
I asked a question right at the outset of my speech then. I asked why the government should have decided to introduce at that time for the second time in a decade, by a government motion, a matter for debate covering foreign affairs. I did not get a very satisfactory answer and I suspected that it had something to do with the delay in the ruling to be handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada.
I am forced to ask again why it is that today, June 22, a bill should be introduced to this House, presumably on the basis of the government's set of priorities, that was passed by the Senate on December 11, 1980. I am not complaining about some of the matters that intervened, but I would ask if the government has nothing more important than this to introduce as we approach the summer recess. It causes me to speculate a little bit about the intentions of the government in introducing a measure of this sort at this time and to regard its priorities as being weird and beyond the comprehension of an ordinary citizen such as I.
I should like to draw attention to another aspect of the preparation and presentation of this bill, Mr. Speaker. When I examined it to see if there was something I wanted to say about it, I took it for granted that it would deal with amendments to the Corporations and Labour Unions Act and, as with other bills, assistance would be provided on the right hand facing page regarding the existing legislation being amended. It may be that bills that come to us from the Senate do not contain such provisions. Nevertheless, I think it ought to be the

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
rule that when dealing with an amending bill there should be readily available to us, on the right hand page, as is normal with Commons bills, the provisions now on the statute book which the bill is intended to amend.
In order to see what this bill aims to do, I had to go back to the Revised Statutes, which are in themselves invaluable but a little bit cumbersome. The text of the act that is being amended appears in the Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter 31. That chapter, with all its attachments, is 17 pages long while the amendments contained in this bill run to 15 pages. To a considerable extent there are deletions from the original act, but there are also some lengthy additions. All the complaints we have been listening to about reducing the need to report are an oversimplification of the amendments being suggested to the Revised Statutes of Canada, Chapter 31.
The paper burden notion has been before us on many occasions. It is within my recollection as a member of this House that a new committee was set up called the Joint Standing Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments. I am not a member of that committee. It deals with the amount of regulation of our society that is achieved by ministerial discretion or by statutory instruments which regulate. I shall come to the matter of ministerial discretion and the regulation which the minister may or is required to produce under the amendment before us. Members of that committee ought to be wondering, as I am, why we are adding to, rather than subtracting from, the number of regulations under which we suffer in this country.
The government put up one speaker on this bill. As well, there were complaints and specious points of order in the last half hour by a minister who suggested that the member then on his feet had not read the bill. I wonder whether the bill has been read by anyone at all on the other side.
Is anyone over there aware of any super-regulation being imposed by this bill? The hon. member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon) mentioned one or two items in the bill and the returns that will have to be made as a result of them. They include the very matters already provided in the Income Tax Act by corporations and unions, and now another element comes into it.
We have just finished the 1981 census, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that every member of the House received complaints of one kind or another about the questions asked in the census. Some of the complaints were like this: "Only a month ago I filled in my income tax return. Why do you have to know the details again? How well are you going to preserve the confidentiality of the information?" The confidentiality assigned to statistics obtained and presumably analysed and incorporated into graphs by Statistics Canada is of great concern to many people. The secrecy element is another concern, and if someone had to fill out the long form, all the particulars of a family, which are none of his business, would be known to the census taker. One wonders whether it is really any business of Statistics Canada to require the information. If someone's income falls within the $10,000 to $20,000 bracket, that is fine; but particulars of gross income were required in some
census forms. Therefore, I think we are entitled to ask, and we would be remiss in our duties if we did not ask, the purpose for which all the information required to be produced by corporations and unions under Bill S-10 is going to be used.
I am looking square at a couple of officials who will probably be able to answer that question, but I doubt if there is anyone here in the House who would be able to answer it.
Have these additional bits of material been required of the Canadian people, corporate or trade union, in order to increase the bureaucratic power of some because he finds that he is not quite fully occupied with the material he has available to him, that he would like to get a little bit more? I think that is a possibility. Much of the information could be obtained by cross-checking in a confidential manner with the income tax department. It is within the walls of the Government of Canada. The information is provided in income tax returns. I see no reason why, if it is needed for any particular reason, it should not be transferrable on demand and under conditions of confidentiality from one department to another. But no, we want it all again. Take the small business person who runs a florist shop on the corner. The requirement to produce statistics to the government add overhead in an immeasurable way. I use "immeasurable" in the sense that it is beyond measure. There is no reason why that florist should either have to hire an accountant, on the one hand, or spend hours after closing time to fill out the forms that are demanded by Statistics Canada in order to fulfil their petty dreams or their petty requirements.
There is, as has been said on more than one occasion, an invasion of the privacy of the small enterprise, the corporation or the union in this particular bill. I do see a fairly large component of Parkinsonianism entering into the rationale behind these amendments. It is very difficult to check, of course. Still, I cannot understand why it is there.
With specific reference to the text of the bill before us, 1 notice Sections 3 to 6 of the original act, Chapter 31 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, are repealed. The replacements are given. Sections 3 to 6 occupy pages 2 to about page 7 in the original document, but the replacement occupy pages 3 to 10. So we have seven pages to replace three. And this is a simplification, we are old, of a bill so as to reduce the amount of reporting required. I question that, given the particulars required. Ones mentioned by the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon) are: the name of the corporation, the address of the head office and the manner in which the corporation was incorporated. Surely these particulars are on 80 files in this country, and yet Statistics Canada requires it again? For what purpose? Surely the name of the corporation would suffice?
In addition to that, the bill goes on to ask the manner in which the corporation was incorporated, the amount of the share capital, the number of issued shares and, in the case of corporations having 50 shareholders or less, the number of shares of that class held by persons having addresses shown in
June 22, 1981

the relevant records of the corporation, and so on. The very reading of these amendments, these shortenings of the original act, in themselves tax the imagination. Let us take the case of a florist, a wholesale flower distributor, or a nursery. Under this act these businesses would be required to produce this material once a year. I ask hon. members why. Why are they being burdened with this nonsense material?
There is another element here which concerns me. It goes back to a matter of ministerial discretion and regulation. On page 8 in clause 4.1(3) we find first:
The minister may, where he considers it advisable, authorize or require any holding corporation to file separate sets of financial statements in respect of itself and its subsidiaries-
Here we have the minister intervening for the first time with a discretionary power. I have already mentioned the problems we have had, and the need to set up a special committee about ministerial discretion. But in clause 4.2(2), again on page 9, we find:
-a return in the prescribed form specifying such information as the governor in council may prescribe relating to transactions involving transfers of technology-
What is this all about? Supposing that a transfer of technology is from Algoma Steel to Ipsco. Is that a concern of any government? This is a business transaction, a transaction between two corporate entities within Canada. Why should they be required to report that? What about a transfer of technology outside of Canada? I see, reading further, the following:
-to the holding corporation or any of its subsidiaries from persons not resident in Canada.
These are business transactions. What is Statistics Canada going to do about this? Is it going to report to the Foreign Investment Review Agency? Is that its policing function? Has it taken on this function? Therefore, we have a dual complaint: ministerial discretion, on the one hand, and the requirement to report transfers of technology, on the other.
Again we find in Section 4.2(2) the following:
-the governor in council may prescribe relating to transactions involving transfers of technology in the reporting period to the corporation from persons not resident in Canada.
Supposing Algoma Steel does get a process from Bethlehem Steel in the United States. Is it required under law to report it to the Government of Canada? I am at a loss to understand why it should. There is no reason at all. I hope some members on the other side will realize what is being asked of our various industries and trade unions. Their privacy is being invaded as never before.
We are now confronted with technological transfers. This bill used to be known as CALURA, which sounds like an Irish folk song, "Calura-lura-lie". With the introduction of the transfer of technology I suppose we will now have to call it CALUTTRA, the corporations and labour unions and technical transfers returns act. I cannot see any other name for it. It
Corporations and Labour Unions
destroys much of the harmony of that beautiful, lilting CALURA, but CALUTTRA I suppose it will have to be.
With regard to this technical transfer notion, I realize in one clause there is no requirement-"shall be deemed not to include any scientific or technical description of any product or process". Thank goodness for that. At least copyrights, trade marks and patents are safe.
That still does not explain why Statistics Canada has to know about these transfers, whether in or out of Canada, when they are covered by patents, copyrights or trade marks. However, they seem to feel they need to know. I see the members over there sitting back and not worrying one whit about it, which disturbs and distresses me. I will leave the comments on labour unions to some others.
Section 7(1) of the original act has been amended. There on summary conviction the fine did not exceed $50 for each day of such default. It is not surprising to learn that inflation has set in and instead of $50 it will now be $250 a day. The fine has been increased fivefold since the original passage of the act. Now any corporation that fails to file with the Chief Statistician of Canada its return for the reporting period every year or to comply with subsection 6(2), that is the one involving transfers of technology, will be liable to fines up to $250 per day so long as the default continues. I see by jumping over to page 13 that that same fine, instead of being probably $25 with respect to a union, has gone to $250 for each day of such default on summary conviction if the report has not been produced.
All things considered, I have my misgivings about the need for this bill. I would have been quite happy to see an amendment withdrawing Chapter 31 because it really does not produce much of value except perhaps for the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) to know where he can levy his taxes. Maybe that is the reason. Maybe at the end of my speech I have discovered the rationale of the whole amendment.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, I do not often rise to participate in a debate on this subject. However, the minister having invited me to read the bill, I am unable to resist participating for a very few minutes.
Despite what the minister says, Bill S-10 is a confusing bill that is bound to add a fair amount of difficulty to conducting business in this country. I will try to stick as closely to the bill as I can. I will begin with the definitions and ask the House to note that the reporting period, which is spoken of quite a bit, is different for some businesses and some unions. The definition is a period that lasts not less than 12 months and not longer than 53 weeks after its commencement, and that ends between November 1 of one calendar year and January 31 of the following calendar year.
There are a few mysteries I hope will be cleared up when the minister speaks on this bill about the corporation, which is defined as a holding corporation.
A corporation is the holding corporation of another corporation if that other corporation is its subsidiary.

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
One should not be surprised that the next section puts it backwards:
A corporation is a subsidiary of another corporation if it is controlled by that other corporation.
That is fine except a little later on in the bill one finds:
-one corporation is affiliated with another corporation if one of them is the subsidiary of the other-
It rather confuses one as to how this could be true if a corporation is a subsidiary of another corporation that is controlled by that other corporation. They should really decide if it is a subsidiary or affiliate and preferably not have both at the same time.
When looking at page 8 of the bill, I became rather concerned about the role played nowadays by the Chief Statistician of StatsCan. My thought here was, "StatsCan, what are you doing?" StatsCan are apparently doing what the Department of National Revenue did heretofore. There was a time when business details were considered confidential to business-industrial confidential. One could ask the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) about details of the business conducted between McDonnell Douglas and the Canadian government. He would say he cannot tell you what the bids were on this, or what the bids were on that, or the offers on one plane or another, because it is industrial confidential.
The government insists in this bill that each business must produce, not for the Department of National Revenue but for Statistics Canada, the following:
(a)	a balance sheet showing the assets and liabilities...
(b)	a statement of investments of the corporation ...
(c)	a statement of income for the reporting period,
id) a statment of retained earnings...
(e) a statement of changes in financial position-
Why does StatsCan need this information? The Department of National Revenue would refuse you flatly if you asked for this information of any company or individual in Canada, yet we are going to entrust it to StatsCan which, as we all know, has the security of a leaky sieve. Businesses do not appreciate having anyone other than the Department of National Revenue ask for business details in this manner.
I am puzzled too about returns on transfers of technology which every holding corporation has to turn in. There is a definition of technology, but there are excuses by which corporations can be allowed out of that requirement. For instance, it says on page 9-perhaps I had better read it-the following:
Every holding corporation ... shall... file with the Chief Statistician of Canada not later than March 31 ... a return in prescribed form specifying such information as the governor in council may prescribe relating to transactions involving transfers of technology-
Two paragraphs later it says:
For the purposes of this section, information relating to transactions involving transfers of technology shall be deemed not to include any scientific or technical description of any product or process.
What on earth, then, is technology? It is baffling. In one place it says the transfer of technology, and in the next clause it excludes everything one always assumed was technology.
If you try to get out of sending in this return, there is a very uncharming, if I can use that word, or a very disagreeable clause, namely, Clause 6 on page 9, which says:
The Chief Statistician of Canada may, by notice in writing, request proof from any corporation that fails to file or fails to complete any part of a return required under this part that it is not subject to the application of this part in respect of the return or of the part of the return not completed.
In other words, you are absolutely guilty unless you can prove your innocence. I thought this assumption of guilt went out of vogue some one thousand years ago. I hope some way can be found by which the innocent-until-proved-guilty part of our common law can be retained, other than Clause 6 on page 9.
If you do not provide this notice, the notice is good only for ten days.
A corporation shall, within ten days after it receives a notice under subsection (1), furnish the Chief Statistician of Canada with the proof requested in the notice or file or complete, as the case may be, the return in respect of which the notice was given.
Ten days' notice to a business to produce the reasons it should not have to produce that file and proof of it is totally unrealistic. It is totally unrealistic to expect a firm of any size to do that within ten days.
I notice that labour unions do not have to comply if they have fewer than one hundred members resident in Canada. I suppose we can get this information at the committee stage, but I am curious as to how many unions in Canada have fewer than one hundred members resident in Canada and as to whether they might not prefer to break into branches of unions to ensure that they do not have to comply with some of the faulty law implicit in this bill.
At page 11 it says:
(a) a return in the prescribed form containing the prescribed information
including the following particulars:
This is not later than 90 days. However, this deals with unions. Let us go back to where businesses are dealt within the descriptions of the reporting stage. For unions the period is between November 1 of one calendar year and January 31 of the following calendar year, yet in the case of businesses this return has to be in by the end of March. If their reporting period ends January 31 and the return has to be in by the end of March, that is only two months which is allowed instead of 90 days. It seems that some of these corporations being spoken of could be very large indeed, and they would have to do in two months what a small union would have to do in three months. I think there should be a little more equity in that respect.
I am pleased to have participated in this debate. There are so many things wrong with the drafting of this bill and there has been so much confusion created one could almost take this as a textbook example of the burden placed on businesses and unions to comply with regulations. There is no apparent need for many of the regulations. I am particularly concerned that Statistics Canada should be requiring so many returns-which
June 22, 1981

are usually confidential-from firms which try to conduct business and keep this country going.


Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, in joining in this debate on Bill S-10 I suggest to many members in this House that if they feel that this bill is something of a routine nature or something the House might rubber stamp or pass without proper examination and debate, I feel they are overlooking some of the very serious implications inherent in the bill. It is a sleeper. In many ways this bill demonstrates the tremendous paper load the federal government places not only on businesses but also on labour unions in this country.
What I will try to point out in my remarks is that there is a serious question as to why we are passing this bill in its present form. I followed the minister's speech in the House, I read the Hansard report of his speech, and I was surprised to find that at no point did the minister attempt to justify the continuation of the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act. Instead, he tried to slide this bill through by saying it is going to be less onerous. Why should it be onerous at all to the Canadian businessman or to the Canadian labour union? I think a case can be made to show that this government should be taking steps we had intended to take when we were in power, namely, to trim government regulations regarding statistical information. The program we were putting into place was to relieve business of much of the paper work which governments and bureaucracies behind governments love to foster. There is a serious question as to why we should permit the government to bring in the bill in its present form.
I say that because I think we often overlook the true impact of what we are talking about here. Let us first ask ourselves whether this statistical data is relevant. If statistics are to mean much, they should be fresh, accurate and recent. And, of course, they must be relevant to what people are interested in.
On the first question-is the statistical information fresh- as we know, on December 15 last the minister tabled the last Corporation and Labour Unions Returns Act report. For what year? Was it for 1980 or 1979? No, it was for 1978, two years after the fact. In December of last year we were finally furnished with the report dealing with corporations as of two years earlier. At the same time two other reports were filed. One was on labour unions and was called "Catalogue 71-202 Annual". The other crafty little document was called "Catalogue 71-202S". It was a supplement dealing with labour unions which gave much more intimate details concerning the labour unions of this country.
I mention this because I suggest that any statistical compilation which is more than two years old before people who might be interested in the data have access to it cannot be represented as being fresh information which industry, labour unions and government anxiously await. I suggest instead that the type of material we have before us fits better into the general category of what is gathered in a census, which is what we went through on June 3; in other words, information catalogued from time to time but certainly not on a quarterly basis. There is probably no necessity to have it even on an annual basis.
Corporations and Labour Unions
When I take you through some of the detail, Mr. Speaker, on the cost to the Canadian consumer, the businessman, the worker, members of a labour union, I think there is a very serious question as to why we should continue the act at all. I say this because I note the minister, who has repeatedly interrupted some of our speakers, rose and said: "The bill was introduced in 1962 by the then Diefenbaker government." We do not deny that, but I would suggest that is reflective, if you like, of this rather stale, archaic type of government we have in power today. They suggest that because something was introduced by our government-and I would suggest to you that it was relevant in 1962-almost 20 years later it should be left on the statute books notwithstanding the tremendous differences there are on reporting by labour unions, corporations and individuals today a compared to 1962. That is the difference, and this sleepy old reactionary government is not up with the times. They do not seem to realize that in a modern day society it is government that is lagging, not business; it is government dragging business back because it just cannot keep up with them. Here you have an example where they suggest that something introduced about 19 years ago should be left on the statute books just because it was introduced 19 years ago.
Let me take you to my next point, Mr. Speaker, which is perhaps even more serious. It deals with the question of cost. What does it really cost the Canadian consumer? Let there be no mistake, people may say: "Well, what does it cost business, corporations or labour unions?" The ultimate person who pays when there is unnecessary cost is the consumer. Here is what the minister said in the House upon the conclusion of his introductory remarks on the bill. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that I asked him this:
Could the minister tell the House whether any evaluation was made during that study of what is the cost of complying under the act for business and for consumers throughout Canada? Is there some estimate as to what it is costing businessmen to comply with the act as it now exists, and can the minister give us any estimate as to what it will cost businessmen to comply with the new act if it is passed in its present form?
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, the minister replied:
I do not have with me any information in terms of the total cost to any individual company of completing a form on an annual basis. However, I would suggest to the hon. gentleman that it would not appear to be a concern of any of the companies with whom we have had exchanges.
In all fairness, Mr. Speaker, how can a minister come into this House and say it has never been of concern to any of the companies with which he has had exchanges when the selfsame government in, I believe, 1978, in a return given to a committee of this House pointed out there were 124 corporations with assets of over $5 million each that had not complied with the various forms under this act. That was in 1978, in relation to 1976 data. There were 12,000 corporations in total that had not supplied the information two years after the fact back in 1978. Yet we have a minister with the audacity to come in here and say the government has heard of no troubles as far as corporations are concerned.
I point this out because I think it is relevant that we review exactly what we are talking about here. Many of the speakers

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions have referred to questionnaires and the fact this data is prepared therefrom. What is the nature of these questionnaires? Let us take a look first at the eight questionnaires business is now asked to fill in which have some relevance to this bill we now have before us, namely Bill S-10. If you like, I will challenge the minister on this. I will bet that the minister has not read those eight questionnaires. In short, while he has been inferring that many of our members did not read the bill, I would suggest to him that he probably does not even know the questionnaires to which he referred in his statements before this House. If the minister has not done his homework, I think it is time that I at least read into the record the type of questionnaires to which they are subjecting Canadian business at the present time.
Let me point out, Mr. Speaker, that if you took those questionnaires and hooked them up end to end you would find you have 52 feet of questionnaires every time someone has to comply with the present act. On top of that, you would have 31 feet of instructions to go along with it. That means 83 feet of paperwork for people to go through every time this act is complied with. You will recall the minister said he thought there were about 90,000 poor souls out there, not counting the labour unions, that have to comply with this type of paperwork. So if you add up all those things, you will find he is inflicting on Canadian business-and add to it the labour unions, if you like-7,470,000 feet of paper. Think of how many miles that is if it were ever stretched out.
However, let me first of all touch on what these forms are supposed to be about. The first one, questionnaire No. 1, is called "Annual Return of Corporations under the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act". This is a kind of general form dealing with a lot of information that I would suggest is relevant today in many other places, relevant I suggest in the sense that it can be found. We have a new corporations act, the provinces have corporations acts in which, in virtually every jurisdiction, the type of information solicited here is probably available under the relevant corporations act, be it provincial or federal.
The next one is the annual return of corporations called "CLR 3". This one is a more particular form but a shortened version of the larger one I referred to. We then get into two marked "confidential". I am not sure why. One is called "The Annual Report", the other is called "The Quarterly Report". Both refer to selected information on companies in Canada wholly or largely foreign owned. Probably the reason they are marked "confidential"-we would never want to disclose anything about a foreign firm here-is that this is something for the minister's eyes only, or perhaps for FIRA.


Stanley Howard Knowles: That is the best way for it to get out.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: In short, Mr. Speaker, here are a couple more forms the Canadian businessman has to cope with.
That then brings me to questionnaire No. 5, a four-page form which is a report of transactions between Canada and other countries for the calendar year 1980. They ask you to keep one copy for your file. It goes through a lot of detail as to
what you have been doing in bonds, stocks, bank stocks, and activities in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Questionnaire No. 6 deals with the geographical distribution of ownership of capital. This deals with the balance of payments division of Statistics Canada. It is a green form. I do not know what the colours signify. I notice there are yellow, green, grey, white and pink forms. Presumably this form deals with what they call the geographical distribution at the end of the current period of the various items they ask corporations to set out in the form.
Then there is questionnaire No. 7 which concerns ownership in Canadian companies. It is another compilation of the type of information I would suggest is readily available in many areas at the present time. Incidentally, as we have probably noticed, much of the information in these forms to which I am referring is of no concern to the banking community, to insurance companies or to loan companies. They are all exempt because presumably they are on friendly terms with the government. But they are of great concern to small businessmen and to the labour union people.
Questionnaire No. 8 is the real dandy. If you, Mr. Speaker, were in business sometime and you heard that Statistics Canada wants questionnaire No. 8 filled in, duck, because you will not make much money that year after filling out the form. Look at its size! It has a white, a pink, a yellow, a grey and a green part; it is in technicolour.
I will not take the time of the House to go through each one of these forms, but I should like to refer to the various areas they touch upon. One deals with the construction industry, another one catches all general corporations; one touches upon durable goods manufacturing industries; one deals with the real estate, rental and development companies; one touches upon mining, petroleum and natural gas; then there is the gas pipeline transport form. In short, it takes a 34-page booklet to describe what they want companies to do in all the forms to which I have just referred. This is the minister in action, this is Statistics Canada.
I will throw out another challenge. I bet that the minister has never even once gone to Statistics Canada to go over these forms with its officials; he has never been in the building. Yet he has the nerve to rise in the House and say that he knows what is best for businessmen and labour unions. What absolute rubbish, or, if I may use the emperor's comment, what garbage!
This is an example of an institution, Statistics Canada, proposing various forms to compile data which are mainly stale-dated when the information is finally compiled and certainly are, in most instances, absolutely irrelevant to any current decisions we in business, in government or in the labour sector would want to make.
One justification used for the present approach in the bill is that somehow they will take all those forms and reduce them to one form, that is, the new form contemplated by Bill S-10. The minister has probably never had a peek at this, but I got a
June 22, 1981

peek at the type of form of which the officials of Statistics Canada are thinking, if Bill S-10 is passed. Here is the draft form they are thinking of putting business and labour union people through.


Jean-Jacques Blais: We do not know what colour the new form will be.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I hear the minister indicating that he does not know what colour the form will be. This indicates how pertinent he can be. The main thing he is concerned about is whether the new form will be pink, blue or green.


Jean-Jacques Blais: You have been talking about colours since you began your comments.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: If the minister has any input in the forms which will be devised by Statistics Canada if the bill is passed, his most important comment will relate to the colour of the form. It is certain that Statistics Canada will not pay much attention to what he says about what should be in the form or whether there should even be a form.


Mr. Evans:: Tell us what is in the form.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: I notice the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) is shushing the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Evans). I do not blame the minister for trying to put him down after all the faux pas he has made over the last few months. I will not embarrass the Minister of Supply and Services by following up on that.


John Leslie Evans: It is because you do not know what is in the forms.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: The parliamentary secretary insists. I will tell him what is in the forms.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Don't pay any attention to him; he is not in his own seat.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Form No. 1 is to be addressed to the "Chief Statistician of Canada" for the fiscal period ended-then there is a blank. It includes the corporate name as per charter, the postal address of the head office and the nature of the business. If the address in 1(b) is outside Canada, it will include the address of the principal office in Canada. It requests the end of the previous fiscal year. It includes the date of incorporation, day, month and year; the act of incorporation, whether it be federal, provincial or outside Canada; the manner of incorporation, be it by letters patent, memorandum of association or special act. The corporation is to be listed as public, private or other. Then the corporation directors will be listed with their initials, surnames, the positions they hold, their postal addresses, citizenship, number of shares of each class owned and the classes. Then it includes the share capital of the reporting corporation. As far as this area is concerned, the corporation must comply with items (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f) and (g).
Corporations and Labour Unions
Then it deals with corporations, individuals and related groups on owning 10 per cent or more of the total shares issued of any class, items (a), (b), (c) and (d) which request the number of shares and various information. It goes on page after page. If Statistics Canada is not willing to give these forms to the minister, I will certainly send him copies.
I have referred only to the opening form. The next one is very weighty. It runs for approximately 20 pages. It deals with the geographical distribution of transactions corporations may have had in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. It asks for the retained earnings position; it even includes a fold-out which deals with any bonds, debentures, notes, mortgages, advances, bank loans, leasing liabilities and such.
In short, if we combine all these forms, we will find that the minimum length of these forms, according to our calculations, is 26 feet. We are really talking about passing forms tonight with which Canadian businesses will have to live that are 26 feet long. If we take the figures of the minister wherein he thinks that only 20,000 businesses will have to comply with these forms, it will generate 520,000 feet.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It being six o'clock I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At six o'clock the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see the Minister of Labour (Mr. Regan) has joined us tonight. Undoubtedly, he has come into the House in anticipation of joining in the debate. Since this debate touches so heavily on the unions of Canada, I could never anticipate that a minister of labour would sit in this House and stay mute for an entire debate which touches upon a form which is being so opposed by the labour unions in Canada. I look forward to the Minister of Labour making a contribution later on. I hope he will be patient for I will certainly try to be brief in my remaining remarks. I only touched on a few points earlier in my speech, as you will recall, and I have a few more points I wish to make.
Just before we adjourned at dinner time I pointed out that the three questions which will now be put to Canadian businessmen, and which amount to several pages as far as forms are concerned, will, if put end to end, actually stretch to a length of 26 feet. There are 26 feet of questions which we will, in effect, allow Statistics Canada-and I see officials from StatsCan sitting in the gallery wringing their hands, wanting to get this legislation in place so they can grind out more and more forms to Canadian businessmen-to put to businessmen.
On behalf of the labour unions and corporations of Canada, and businessmen generally, we must give some protection to those sectors of our economy as far as Statistics Canada is concerned. Anyone who wishes to review the activities of that
10862

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
organization knows that it allows data processing and the compilation of data to run rampant if no controls are placed on it. So, I am asking that the minister reconsider this evening the actual pressing of this bill and that he reconsider whether he even wants to offer it to the House of Commons for passage in its present form. We in the official opposition believe that it may well be that the bill should be withdrawn and that studies should take place to determine whether in fact we need this legislation any longer. The type of information which is spelled out in the various drafts forms which Statistics Canada has prepared is something that, I suggest, could be obtained from other sources. At the present time in the country we have a tremendous amount of data which is already available to government. I suggest that if that date were utilized in a way that Statistics Canada desired, there would be absolutely no need to subject the businessmen and labour unions of this country to the type of documentation and form-filling which is anticipated in the bill before us tonight.
I sometimes think that the magnitude of the requirements which government places on business is overlooked. It is a formidable task which we impose on business. The total number of forms or acts, if you like, which business must comply with include the following items. There is federal sales tax collection, there is provincial sales tax collection, excise duties, customs clearance, UIC deductions, workmen's compensation, hospitalization, loan applications, building permits, equipment operating licences, property taxes, vehicle registration, transport operating licences, communication licences, income tax forms, income deductions at source, detailed house surveys, bounding, business licences, restaurants and liquor taxes, CMHC housing surveys, safety inspections, tax audits, FIRA requirements, elevator licences, boiler licences, subsidy applications, development permits, waste control, minimum wage guidelines, Statistics Canada surveys-including the type of thing we are now reviewing-manpower training programs, employee hiring procedures, government contracts procurement, grants and incentive programs, consumer protection standards, census of population, drivers' licences, welfare and health benefits, and CPI samples.
I could go on with many other things that we seem to feel we can demand of business; and yet we assume, presumably, that there is no consumer consequence or cost. The fact, as we know, is that there is a very big cost. I could mention that those various items I have read into the record were not original with me. They were items which were referred to by a minister, Tony Abbott, when he was in power as a member of this government. At that time, he was the minister for small business. He was pointing out the need to relieve small business of much of that type of requirement.
Tonight we have a golden opportunity literally to do something about this problem, which people have talked about for years and years. In short, let us consider the possibility of not amending, but simply rescinding, the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act.
Having said that, I would like to go on to point out that in the spring of 1977 an Industry, Trade and Commerce interview team went across Canada and met with business people to listen to their views on how well government operates generally, and how well industry, trade and commerce specifically operates to meet their needs. Of the 5,000 businessmen interviewed, 35 per cent identified paper burden as the major irritant they had to live with. There was no other item that the businessmen reported to that team which bothered them so much as the paper burden to which they were subjected by governments. I would suggest that that observation is consistent with the findings of the Economic Council, which recently brought in its report, indicating its concern for the impact of regulations and paper burden on small business. The council found that for small businessmen-and I use their words as a direct quote-"paperwork was the major regulatory irritant-entailing an average of one to ten hours of extra effort per week-with federal paperwork demands exceeding provincial or municipal requirements in all provinces except Quebec."
In assessing the costs exacted by government paperwork, small business can undoubtedly be singled out as particularly hard hit because small businesses do not have the resources to hire specialized personnel or outside consultants to handle the paperwork. Often, paperwork represents a direct demand on the time of the principal operator, which is time he requires to work, plan and innovate in order to stay in business and grow.
I would suggest, in that respect, that most agree today that one of the great deficiencies in our country is in the area of productivity. Our businessmen are just not producing as much as most economists would like to see them produce. Let me assure hon. members and Your Honour that the passage of this bill in its present form will put a greater load and impediment on those very businessmen to whom we are turning to get the real growth in this country going up instead of down, as far as the average worker is concerned.
The proposed amendments to the CALURA are positive in that they will exempt numerous small businesses from having to report. On that we wish to agree. I think it is good that some businesses are exempted from having to fill in the present form. However, as I indicated earlier, our question is: why do any businesses, even at a $10 million threshold level, as far as sales are concerned, or $5 million in total assets, have to live with this type of documentation and data compilation when one bears in mind that it is done at tremendous cost, not only to those businesses but, most important, to the consumers who buy from those businesses?
I would suggest to Your Honour that the government claims that 70,000 businesses will be exempted, though one wonders if this figure, first used in 1978, is still realistic given, first of all, the high interest rates resulting in many small businesses going bankrupt and discouraging others from starting up and, second, the high levels of inflation, artificially increasing sales and assets.
In short, if the minister wants to continue with this type of legislation, our feeling is that the ceiling of $10 million in sales
June 22, 1981

and $5 million in assets is too low. It was a ceiling which was first suggested in 1978. With inflation it becomes less and less as far as effective exemptions are concerned. In short, if we must have this type of legislation, let us increase the ceiling, certainly beyond the levels suggested by the minister.
For those companies which still have to report, the paperwork has been reduced, it is stated, by approximately 50 per cent. However, when one considers the over-all burden of government paperwork imposed on business, when examining CALURA one should ask the following questions: What is the purpose of the act? Has hope for benefits been measured against cost to business and government? Clearly, unless the minister misled this House, and I would hate to say that he deliberately misled the House-


Walter David Baker: Not him.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: However, unless the minister misled the House, he does not have the faintest idea as to what the cost of this amendment will mean to business in the country. Therefore, how can he say that some type of evaluation has been made as to whether the cost is warranted to business and to government? Is the same information being collected elsewhere? I have already indicated that I believe it is. If Statistics Canada were allowed to be a little more innovative in its approaches, it could pick up much of the data which companies and labour unions will be required to file if this amendment goes through.
Is the language used in the questionnaires clear and comprehensible? I would suggest that that is something which is open to interpretation; but I invite hon. members, especially those who I know want to speak on this bill and have not yet spoken, to read the actual forms which they, as businessmen, may have to fill out in the future if this bill goes through, and draw our own conclusions. I have no indication from Statistics Canada that they are backing down on any of the suggested forms which they want businessmen to comply with.
In short, I feel it will be a tremendous burden for labour unions and corporations to have to live with. Even if we agree with the objectives of CALURA, we must be concerned about the government's use of the information collected. In recent years, governments, and certainly those under the emperor, the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), have tried to exert more and more control, through legislation, regulation and industrial development programs, on the business sector of this country. The information provided by businesses through CALURA will undoubtedly be used by this government to continue with this interventionist approach to our economy.
I could go on spelling out the total impact of what I feel business will be subjected to if these forms become the law of the land; but may I simply conclude by inviting all hon. members finally to read the 1978 reports which are based, two years late, on information filed in 1976, and to ask themselves: "How much of the information in those reports, comprising three volumes, are really relevant to solving the problems which we live with in this economy today? I believe that if most hon. members reviewed those reports, they would see that
Corporations and Labour Unions
they contain stale, dated information that will have virtually no impact on the means of solving the problems of inflation, the trade deficit and unemployment.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the hon. member but the time allotted to him has expired. He may continue with the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Peter Elzinga: Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments to make on Bill S-10, an act to amend the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act which is to provide for the reporting of financial and other statistics relating to the affairs of corporations and labour unions carrying on activities in Canada.
I should like to align myself with the comments made by the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) and share with the House my impression that a good many sectors of our society are opposed to this legislation. We see that it requires small unions and small businesses to be accountable in many areas, so it is obvious that they would be opposed to the legislation. To date, I have not seen the government demonstrate the need for this legislation. To my mind it is another case of government snooping or wishing to have records on practically every facet of our lives.
In its recent report, the Economic Council of Canada documented the need for deregulation rather than more regulation and reporting on that regulation. As the hon. member for York-Peel pointed out, an additional paper burden will be imposed on the small business sector. This government, as did this party when it was in power and during various election campaigns, committed itself to reducing the paper burden of the small business sector. But this legislation is another example of Liberal campaign promises being broken once it has assumed the role of government. Rather than reducing the paper burden of the productive sector of our society, the government is increasing it.
Not too long ago the Minister of State for Small Businesses (Mr. Lapointe) did away with the offices that dealt with the paper burden that had been established across Canada, so it is obvious that this government is not concerned with reducing the paper burden that had been imposed on the small business sector.
This legislation will mean that the small business sector will have to fill out even more government forms and this, in turn, will decrease business productivity. As an hon. member who spoke earlier indicated, the government has not provided any figures to show what it will cost business to do this.
In the time that I have been a member of this House, it has been obvious that the government is concerned with the redistribution of wealth rather than with the generation of wealth. This bill is another example that the government is not con-

Corporations and Labour Unions
cerned with the generation of wealth but is more than happy to place further restrictions on the business sector.
A good many members would like an opportunity to comment on this legislation and we hope they will have that opportunity when the bill is referred to committee so that there will be more feedback. I believe the legislation is worth a lengthy debate.
So much of the legislation that comes from the government attempts to structure our society so that it is aware of every move an individual makes. This is becoming a highly interventionist society because of the government's actions. It is attempting to dictate to the populace their rights and moods. We found that to be true in the wording of the constitutional proposal which indicated the government would grant certain powers to the people, rather than the reverse, that we as legislators would derive our power from the people who elect us. It is my belief that all the power and rights that we have are generated by the population.
Mr. Speaker, Jefferson said that men are naturally divided by temperament into two classes: those who fear and distrust ordinary people and want to concentrate power in the hands of a small, select elite, and those who trust and cherish ordinary people and think of them as the safest, if not always the wisest, repositories of power.
I think this illustrates the difference in the attitudes of the two major parties in this country. We have a party governing the nation that believes in the strong centralist approach; that believes that the elite few should govern and the people should do as it sees fit, rather than having input from the public at large. I am sure I speak for the majority of members on this side of the House when I indicate our belief that the Canadian people are the wisest repository of power and that we support getting more input from them.
During the constitutional debate, hon. members opposite criticized us for prolonging it. They brought in closure and choked off debate on the resolution. The excuse was that the House should be dealing with economic measures as the country was facing a severe economic situation. Mr. Speaker, the country is facing a severe economic situation and we must bring forward some measures to deal with high interest rates, but I would ask hon. members opposite where those economic measures are. The government indicated to us that when debate was completed on the constitutional resolution, it would bring economic measures forward. It has no economic measures, Mr. Speaker, to deal with the serious difficulties facing the Canadian population.
I would like to analyse the economic record of the government.


Mr. Roy:: Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Laval (Mr. Roy) rises on a point or order.


Marcel-Claude Roy: Mr. Speaker, I would remind the hon. member that today we tabled a report on economics and the National Trading Corporation. The Tory party was against that. It is a
vehicle to help small and medium-sized businesses in the export market.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member has a point of argument, not a point of order. The hon. member for Pembina has the floor.


Peter Elzinga: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the information given by the hon. member. This is one of the few times I have heard him speak in the House so I appreciate his intervention. It is obvious that what I have to say hurts hon. members opposite. When we look at the economic record of the government we can see that it is not very impressive. It has set a number of records that it should not be proud of. I wish to share-


David Michael Collenette: Speak to the legislation.


Peter Elzinga: This does relate to the legislation.


David Michael Collenette: No, it does not.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Pembina has the floor.


Peter Elzinga: I wish to illustrate to hon. members opposite the importance of dealing with economic measures when we are facing the serious problems of today. The government has set records in spending. The same thing holds true of its budgetary deficit and unemployment. We have record high taxation rates as a result of the Liberal administration. The inflation rate has also reached a record level and everyone knows that interest rates are higher than we have ever experienced. The one thing that has not reached a record high is our dollar. It is at the lowest level we have seen it in Canada. I ask my friends opposite what they are doing to help. I say this bill should be withdrawn and legislation should be brought forward to help those individuals who are being hurt by the high interest rates, namely the small businessman, the farmer and the individual whose mortgage has to be renewed. Instead of putting increased paper burden on the small business sector, legislation should be brought in to relieve the high interest rates which people are facing.
I realize what I say hurts hon. members opposite because there is scarcely a problem which does not have their fingerprints all over it. I compare what this government is doing with what we attempted to do in the short time we were in government. We brought forward programs to alleviate some of the difficulties which the Canadian population was facing, and yet interest rates then were not as high as they are today.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair has been listening to the hon. member, and finds, with all due respect to him, he appears to be deviating from the subject matter of the bill before us.


Peter Elzinga: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your admonition and henceforth my remarks will pertain directly to the legisla-
June 22, 1981

tion before us, namely Bill S-10. We have a piece of legislation before us that wishes to centralize power, that wishes to give the Government of Canada more authority over the lives of the individual because the government is requiring labour unions and corporations to fill out lengthy documents. This request is being made without giving any specific reason why the government wishes these forms completed.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words on this bill. I was shocked to see one form which will have to be filled out by businesses and labour unions as a result of passage of this bill. I hear an hon. member making a comment, but I say to him that he has looked at it, he should be shocked too. If the hon. member wants to speak on this bill, he should get on his feet and speak. That one form covers ten pages. If you take all the forms and put them end to end, they measure 26 feet. It is quite amazing. Some of the required items involving just a small businessman include purchases during the year of materials and components for manufacture and goods for resale. Many of the items will require changes to be made in the accounting systems of some companies. If this form is given to an auditor to complete, it will cost a considerable amount of money. For some time I have felt that this is really overkill. On one side of the argument we had a minister who was charged with the job of reducing the amount of paperwork which small businesses have to complete. We heard a great deal about that a couple of years ago when an hon. member was given the job. I believe the portfolio was that of minister of state for small businesses. When the hon. member left the portfolio, I asked him how many people he had in his department. Like many people in Canada I thought that the minister of state for small businesses who was in charge of reducing paperwork for small businesses would have a staff to help him. But I found out that the total establishment for that ministry consisted of the minister, two secretaries, an executive assistant and a public relations officer. Here was the minister in charge of reducing paperwork but he did not have the staff to do the job!
I recall seeing some letters that were sent out, publicity releases and copies of speeches that the minister made across the country wherein he said he would reduce the paperwork. Now we have this nonsense.
I have to relate to the House, as I have done before, an experience I had in my own business before I became involved in politics and was elected to the House of Commons. I started a small business. I had a large amount of paper coming into my office from various government agencies. I had to make a decision whether I was going to fill out the forms, as I am sure businessmen will have to do with these forms, or I was going to get on and do business to make some money to pay the bills, my staff, and so on. I took this massive pile of paper and divided it into two groups: one dealt with taxation, because we have to pay taxes, and the other was just a general information which was flowing in from Statistics Canada and other government agencies. The tax forms went to our auditor. In due course they were filed and returned to Ottawa. But the pile from the information seekers kept growing. They kept sending
Corporations and Labour Unions
more and more forms. The pile got to be quite a height until it truly reached a crisis stage in the business. I had to decide whether I was going to spend the time filling out the forms or whether I was going to make some money or do something else in the business. I decided I would dispose of this paper. I went to the rubber stamp supply house in town. I bought a large rubber stamp with the words "not applicable" on it. I bought a red stamp pad. I returned to my office and stamped all these forms "not applicable". Then I sent these forms in their envelopes back to Ottawa.
In due course I received a computerized letter which said, "we are in receipt of form number so and so, which we understand is not applicable." The letter ended with one of those squiggly signatures which look somewhat like Arabic; you cannot decipher it nor do you know who the person is. It is just a mark on a paper made by a marking instrument. I then set up a series of files with the form numbers on the tab. I placed the letter I received in answer in each one. In due course, another form came. I xeroxed the computerized letter I received from one of the government agencies which said they understood it was not applicable. I stamped the document again "not applicable", stapled it and returned it to Ottawa.
In the course of a very few months I reduced the amount of paper flow by 40 per cent. I do not think the government feels any worse about this nor do I think the affairs of the nation ground to a halt, or anything of that nature. What this did was to prove how silly and nonsensical some of these forms are. When I read through some of what my colleague calls "gob-bledygook" after looking at the census form, it makes me wonder whether we are supposed to spend our time filling out forms or doing some business. I can see to some extent the government's desire to get a handle on things as far as technology is concerned. It is concerned about the transfer of technology. The government should be trying to enhance the transfer of technology into this country. That is something we need.
In my own business in the last little while I have gone outside the country and licensed manufacturing within Canada so I would not have to import that particular product into this country. I wanted to get as high a Canadian content as possible, employ more Canadians and not contribute to the balance of payments problem. I wanted to get out of the foreign exchange hassle and so forth. I did that.
FIRA has restricted foreign investment in this country, contrary to what FIRA and government ministers will tell you. Ask the Minister of State what happens when he goes outside the country and talks about investment in Canada. He feels he must tell investors not to be afraid of FIRA.
If Canadian businesses are to be expected to sign licensing agreements or pursue patents and cross licensing with those in other countries for products or designs, we should not be discouraging them by requiring them to fill out these forms. There is a general suspicion with regard to filling out forms

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
when it comes to information such as the transfer of technology.
Just looking through this form, I wonder whether I will be interested in putting down the details, the information regarding my licensing agreement, the terms, how long it is for, what the product is, what category it falls into, whether the information is to be kept secret or confidential or will be available to a lot of other people.
I hope that somewhere along the line we can have another look at this matter. I would like to see it discussed at great length. I know it has been kicking around for a number of years. The Senate had a look at it. However, before we rush into this, we should have the opportunity of having the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism (Mr. Lapointe) before us. Let him look at it along with those from Statistics Canada.
When it comes to forms, it should be the other way around. The minister and StatsCan should be required to convince an all-party committee of this House that the particular form is necessary. They should be required to come before a committee, show why it is absolutely vital that they have the form and give the reasons why. Perhaps if we had that approach, there would be a greater acceptance of the filling out of forms.
By the same token, some members of the committee will have had experience in the business sector and will have filled out such forms. People from the tax foundation, the chartered accountants' association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, people from the John Bulloch group, the Canadian Federation of Independent Businessmen, and all others involved in filling out these forms should have some input. These people should be convinced through committee hearings that such and such information is absolutely vital for the government to function in the way it wants. If that were the case, there would probably be some measure of co-operation.
A tremendous amount could be gained from such a hearing. I am sure that each of these groups, organizations and individuals I have mentioned could contribute something to the construction of the form. I am sure that the same information is being collected time and time again. For example, I have run into many people who object to putting their income on the census form. They say that is their business and that of the Department of National Revenue, never the twain shall meet and there is no way they are going to put down that information. The same will be true of these forms. Businessmen have probably made quite legal arrangements with others regarding the cross licensing of technology.
I had occasion this morning to discuss with one of my colleagues a licensing arrangement with a company in Alberta. The transportation of that product to this market is too costly. It was decided to have a licensing agreement for a certain portion of the country. That company would be very reluctant to let that information become generally known across the country.
I hope others will speak to this bill and add something to the debate. I certainly do not feel it should go forward at this time.
It should be withdrawn and put before an all-party committee or a task force such as the one on government regulations a while back which did a reasonably good job. That sort of approach could be taken with Bill S-10. Withdraw it and put it before an all-party committee, redraft it and bring it back here. If that approach were taken, I am sure it would receive reasonable passage through the House. The way it is now, I certainly cannot support it.


Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to say a few words on Bill S-10 to amend the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act. As my background is in small business, I would like to relate some of the problems that exist in small business and the ramifications of those problems, particularly as they relate to information that StatCan wishes to obtain from small private entrepreneurs and unions. My colleague mentioned what occurs every five years when Statistics Canada conducts a census. I wish to speak briefly about the census because it will lead to what I want to mention about Bill S-10.
As a result of the census in my constituency, I received a number of telephone calls from small communities of 200 people where those appointed by Statistics Canada to do the census were actually neighbours.


Jean-Jacques Blais: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The bill has been before the House for two days. Surely we know what the essence of the bill is. The hon. member's comments relating to the census are out of order, being irrelevant to the principle of the bill.


Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, I do not for a moment wonder why the minister would rise on a point of order to try to stop me from saying what needs to be said, because he is responsible for the shemozzle respecting some aspects of the census. I would like to point out that in small communities of 200 people the minister responsible for Statistics Canada appointed people to do the census.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. With all due respect to the hon. member, the census is not the item before us for discussion. I invite him to return to the subject.


Jack Wendele Shields: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak about Bill S-10, but what I was trying to do was to relate the whole matter. I will go on to Bill S-10 and talk about that first.


David Michael Collenette: Read the title again.


Jack Wendele Shields: As a small businessman in a community, before I came to this honourable place I received in the mail quite regularly long forms such as the one I have in my hand. I had to fill them out properly and return them to Statistics Canada. I had to do this systematically. Some of the data Statistics Canada asked for were complicated to compile. I felt that some of the information requested was private and personal and should not be given to Statistics Canada because
June 22, 1981

that same information was available from the Department of National Revenue. Depending on its size, a small business will have to hire one, two or even three people to do the paperwork this government will force on it because of this bill.
The small businessman will not absorb the expense involved. The expense will not be taken from his profit. He will pass the expense on to the consumer. A businessman must earn a reasonable return on his investment. If he does not, he will go broke. He must retain a reasonable return on his investment; therefore he must raise prices for goods and services to the consumer. When we are talking about inflation, contributing to inflation and what causes inflation it is my contention that the government constantly contributes to inflation, and this bill is just another example of that.
This government is putting small businessmen to some expense because of the census. In exactly the same way this type of activity creates a bureaucracy here in Ottawa. All this paperwork has to be done in order to compile statistics. I say that all we are doing is to create jobs in Ottawa. People will have to sit down and tabulate this information. It has come to my attention-I am not sure where I read it-that some
12,000	small and large corporations in Canada were delinquent in filing these types of returns. I am sure the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) will rise on a point of order and correct me if that is not so, but approximately 12,000 are continuously in default.
I would like to relate a little episode. My son went into business. He formed a company. My son probably had a little more courage than I because he absolutely refused to fill out any forms. His was a small two-man operation. They did not have time to sit down and fill out forms, so my son pitched them into "file 13", the wastebasket. He did that continuously. He received a very ignorant and abrupt telephone call from the civil service demanding that a certain form be filled out or he would be taken to court. He said, "Gee, I am sorry, I must have overlooked it". Forms were sent to him by registered mail. He continued to throw them away. I was horrified when he did this because I thought he would be in a lot of trouble. He has never been bothered since.
I would like to hypothesize that those who absolutely ignore forms-the 12,000 strong-are those who are never bothered. Those who diligently fill out forms receive more and more forms, until they are caught in a web of forms for Ottawa. If the small business community-12,000 strong-is not filling out forms, the statistics that Statistics Canada is trying to put together must be false. They cannot be anywhere near correct. Either the government wins the support of the business community from which it is trying to gather information, it wins the support of the unions across the country from which it is trying to gather information, it shows them how it is absolutely necessary to the functioning of the government that they fill out the forms, it makes the forms simple enough so that the information can be gathered and put together very quickly, or the matter is dispensed with. The amendment before us today should be putting and end to the idiotic system we have.
Corporations and Labour Unions
I want to refer for a moment to the bill itself to show hon. members the power we are giving our civil servants. I refer hon. members to Clause 4.1 which reads:
Every holding corporation to which this Part applies shall, for each reporting period of the holding corporation, file with the Chief Statistician of Canada not later than March 31 following the end of that reporting period a return comprising
(a)	a set of financial statements in respect of itself and any of its subsidiaries carrying on business in Canada during that reporting period, in consolidated form as prescribed, consisting of the same statements in respect of itself and its subsidiaries as would be required in respect of itself if it were filing a return under subsection (2); and
(b)	a list of the corporations covered-
And it goes on. Then we come to 4.1 (2)(a) which reads as follows:
(a)	a balance sheet showing the assets and liabilities of the corporation, made up as of the last day of the reporting period-
We all know that the year end of a company does not always fall on March 31. A fiscal year of a small company can be from January or February. It can be from any date a company chooses. Companies whose fiscal years end March 31 never have this information available until three months down the line. It is impossible because the cut-off date is March 31. What do we have? We have a two-pronged situation. A company has to employ a group of people to sit down, do the books and pull everything out so that these questionnaires from Statistics Canada can be answered. Then three months later the company has to repeat the whole process with the help of accounting people so that matters can be brought up to date and corporate income tax returns filed.
I say again that all we are doing is imposing more cost on the consumer because the costs of goods and services from these companies will increase. Someone has to pay for that. Corporations do not pay for it, unions do not pay for it, consumers pay for it. Once again the government is contributing very directly to inflation.
Let us go through one of these short forms and think for a moment. Perhaps some hon. members opposite are from ivory towers, as is their leader. Perhaps they have never been in business, but perhaps hon. members opposite should tell their leader exactly what he is doing. Clause 4.1(2)(a) says:
A balance sheet showing assets and liabilities of the corporation, made up as of the last day of the reporting period,
(b)	A statement of investment of the corporation as of the last day of the reporting period,
Remember, the reporting period is March 31. It goes on:
(c)	A statement of income for the reporting period,
(d)	A statement of retained earnings, made up as of the last day of the reporting period,-
I personally have a small company the year end of which happens to be in June-


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Jack Wendele Shields: -so some time in February or March I am going to have to try to get something like this going.

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions


An hon. Member:: Shame.


Jack Wendele Shields: Yes, that is right, it is a shame. The Liberal backbenchers over there, the mouthy ones calling "shame" and grinning, you can tell they have never been in business. They do not care about that individual down there purchasing goods and services. They have shown that in this House time after time for the past month. So go ahead and call out "shame"; you are damn right, it is a shame, a terrible thing.
I would like to refer you, Mr. Speaker, to another part of Bill S-10-


An hon. Member:: Stop reading and give us your punch line.


Jack Wendele Shields: -clause 5, "return to be certified". It says:
Each return and each statement comprised in a return required by this part to be filed with the Chief Statistician of Canada shall be certified by the president or vice-president of the corporation filing the return and by one other officer-
If that certification is not correct, it empowers the civil service to walk in and demand proof. Shades of a police state.
The total bill, Mr. Speaker, should be amended. It should be brought under review and passed on by an all party committee so that people can have input into what is happening.
I received a letter from the owner of a small concrete placing firm, Western Shotcrete of Fort McMurray. He sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to StatsCan who are demanding he fill out these forms. He said he was absolutely not going to fill them out. To fill out the forms required of him over a period of one year would require the hiring of at least three additional people. He stated emphatically that he is not prepared to do that unless the government is prepared to pay their wages.
You hear it time and time again, Mr. Speaker. This is the constant complaint of small business, of being inundated with form after form in the paper war, because they know they must pass that on to the consumer and they are in a competitive market out there. The government must recognize that it and Statistics Canada have lost support for the information gathering they are attempting, whether it be the census, small business, or unions. They have lost support right across the country. We are here to pass laws at the request of the voters, not to pass laws to impose on them. Too often we forget this.
I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, that the Liberals across the way would not pause to listen for a few moments to a legitimate concern expressed to me time and again in my riding. I am sure if they sat down and read their own mail they would find they are getting the same kind of response to this continual interference in the marketplace by government. Information is gathered, statistics drawn up and shelved. Very few people need it. If the government needs information to launch programs, to assist small business or in any way assist the consumer, then of course they have to gather the information. However, it should be mandatory that the public, those affected by it, are convinced it is necessary. If the government cannot do that, then it is not necessary because, remember, we are here to represent the voter, not to dictate to him.


Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, there have been approximately Five occasions on which I felt it necessary to rise in this House to speak on bills which have created unnecessary paperwork in the business community. What is most disturbing is the fact that in all these debates that I can think of the minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism (Mr. Lapointe) has not been present to give at least some measure of support to the opposition parties as they put forth their thoughts in this regard.
I recognize, Mr. Speaker, that there have been four recent attempts to amend CALURA. It was passed first in 1962 to allow collection of financial and other information on certain corporations and labour unions operating in Canada. It was amended once in 1965. What has happened in recent years is that the government has made several attempts to amend the act, first, with Bill C-7 in the third session of the Thirtieth Parliament; second, with Bill C-3, in the fourth session of the Thirtieth Parliament; third, with Bill C-12, in the first session of the Thirty-first Parliament; and finally, with Bill S-10 in the first session of the Thirty-second Parliament.
In presenting Bill C-7 to the House, the minister of State for small businesses gave three main reasons why the amendment of CALURA was necessary. He said that since 1962:
-the economy has become much more complex and policymakers, as a consequence, have had to request additional date to keep abreast of developments.
His second reason was:
At present, over 90,000 corporations file ownership schedules under the act. The majority of these respondents are small, Canadian, privately owned businesses, originally not intended to be under the purview of the act. Bill C-7 is expected to relieve some 70,000 of these businesses from reporting under the act.
So said the minister in referring to Bill C-7. The third reason was:
As part of a streamlining process, Bill C-7 integrates six Statistics Canada questionnaires and two questionnaires collected by Industry, Trade and Commerce into one single questionnaire.
One significant new amendment has to do with trans-border technology transfers, and I will refer to that in just a moment. Let us take a look at returns filed by corporations under part one of CALURA as of June 15, 1978. We must bear in mind that there are many parts and many forms, some of them as long as seven pages, to be filled out, but let us just take a look at part one. It is somewhat shocking to learn, going back to 1974, that 77,869 businesses were filing. In 1975 it went up to 94,562. For the date year 1976, in which more than 85,000 filed, collection this year is still in progress.
The number of corporation returns outstanding is shocking. Let us take a look for a minute at how the business community reacts to CALURA and at some of the businesses which ignore the forms. Let us discuss statistics to see how we stand. We will deal with 1974 and 1975, because the government is still collecting the outstanding forms for 1976.
In 1974 a total of 1,610 businesses never filed, refused to file. What has the government done to those businesses in relation to the 77,000 businesses which took the time to fill out
June 22, 1981

this multitude of paperwork? To my knowledge, the government has done nothing. For data year 1975, there are 1,517 businesses that have not filed as yet. For the data year 1976, collection is still in progress. It is estimated that returns from approximately 12,000 corporations are yet to be received. Of those, 124 corporations with assets of over $5 million have yet to file.
I should like to deal with the burden imposed by CALURA on businesses. The present situation is that there are eight questionnaires. There are 52 feet of questions and 31 feet of instructions, if the paper is measured lengthwise. On an annual basis, there are 83 feet of paperwork for a corporation. For the
90,000	businesses operating in Canada, times the 83 feet, there are 7,470,000 feet of paperwork. This is the same government that told Canadians if it was elected it would reduce the paper load on behalf of small business.
On an annual basis, government personnel handle 52 feet times 90,000 or 4,680,000 feet of paperwork to process CALURA questionnaires returned by businesses in Canada. This does not include the paperwork generated by CALURA questionnaires which are sent to unions. We would have to add that amount to the list as well.
I should like to give a few figures relating to the costs associated with personnel in the administration of CALURA. What is it costing the taxpayers of Canada to administer CALURA in Ottawa in this massive government bureaucracy? Under an amended CALURA, there are three questionnaires which I have. There are 26 feet of questions and a small number of instructions. With only 20,000 businesses reporting, the paperwork generated would be 520,000 feet. This is still a considerable sum when one takes into account all the paperwork businesses have imposed upon them by governments today. What does it cost Ottawa to administer CALURA?
I should like to indicate three basic examples in man-years. In Ottawa, 43.5 man-years were spent in the 1977-78 fiscal year to administer the corporation area of CALURA. What did that cost? In the one fiscal year of 1977-78, the cost to administer the corporation branch was $843,000. To administer the labour unions area, there were eight man-years at a cost of $128,000. To administer CALURA alone, it took 2.5 man-years at a cost of $87,000. What business would not consider it a plum to be handed $87,000 in return for 2.5 man-years? In 1977-78 it took a total of 54 man-years to administer CALURA at a cost of $1,058,000.
Who is featherbedding? Who is gaining advantage from CALURA today? It is certainly not the business community. I do not see the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism standing in the House and asking the government to show some compassion and consideration for the small business community.
This is only one more bill in a great number of pieces of legislation which have brought extreme costs to bear upon the Canadian business community. These costs are passed on to consumers, thus inflation is inflamed and our ever-growing cost of living is increased.
Corporations and Labour Unions
CALURA represents only a small portion of the over-all paperwork imposed upon businesses by governments at all levels in Canada today-municipal, provincial and federal. We are specifically discussing federal in this Parliament. We are asking the government to live up to its commitment to the small business community and to show some tangible evidence of its concern and interest in reducing the paper burden upon the small business community.
Paper burden is defined as information requirements established by government which can be judged to be unduly burdensome and very costly. They include application forms, reports, surveys, record-keeping requirements, and unnecessarily complex regulations and procedures. At the federal level numerous acts and their attendant provisions, procedures, standards, etc., all impose paperwork over and above the call of duty upon the small business community.
There are 16 departments and agencies-the Department of Agriculture, CMHC, CCA, CRTC, CTC, DREE, the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, Environment Canada, the Department of Health and Welfare, the Department of Labour, Revenue Canada, Statistics Canada, The Department of Supply and Services, to name but a few. When will we receive some tangible evidence that the government is sincere in its intent to reduce paperwork?
In addition to federal department and agencies, provincial, regional and municipal programs generate massive amounts of paperwork upon the business community today. That is the reason there are 6,000 or 7,000 bankruptcies annually in the small business sector. This figure is growing on a monthly basis. This is one of the major reasons for small business bankruptcies. A one or two-person operation requires almost an equal number of staff to administer its operations today to keep up with the burden of paperwork. The magnitude of these requirements is formidable, as the following list of required government paperwork illustrates.
I have a list of 45 government agencies that all require reports to be filled out by the business community. We must give credit where credit is due-there are some exceptions, but by and large very little compassion is shown for the business community. Meeting these paperwork requirements imposes a significant cost upon the public as well as the private sector, but these costs have not been accurately tabulated in Canada. One United States estimates puts the annual dollar cost for federal government paperwork at $500 for each United States citizen. First there are the economic costs which vary from business to business, from person to person. They include the time cost to design, develop and instal information systems in businesses; direct and indirect costs of data collection; the costs of processing and analysis, filling out forms, hiring consultants, lawyers and accountants. What small incorporated business can operate today without the services of one or two chartered accountants? I suggest, Mr. Speaker, very few. It was not many years ago that a small businessman, an entrepreneur who wanted to open up a business, could do his paperwork in the evenings in an hour or two. I defy him to do

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions that today. Even operating a business as basic as a service station requires countless reams of paper to be filled out for government agencies, both provincial and federal. This government has very little compassion for the small business community.
These costs are more difficult to measure, but they exist and are expressed in terms of anger and frustration, disillusionment and helplessness. Helplessness because they feel they have been betrayed by governments which made the solemn promise that they would reduce paperwork, show that they care and that there would be some action. And what do we do in this House of Commons week after week? We come in here and debate legislation which will put greater pressure on the strength of our country, the free enterprise system. Very seldom do we see a ray of light in this House of Commons to the point where we would conscientiously reduce the load we are bringing to bear on the business sector of our society which offers us a degree of hope in the future.
In the spring of 1977 the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce interview teams went across Canada and met with business people to hear their views on how well government operates generally and, specifically, how well IT&C operates to meet the needs of the business community. Of the
5,000	businessmen interviewed, 35 per cent identified paper burden as the major irritant. Who sits in this House today who did not campaign in 1979 and again in 1980 with the solemn promise to decrease that paper burden borne by the business community? I will agree that there are only some 47 people here on the other side of the House who know what it is like to be in business today. I doubt if there are even that many. But I know 47 businessmen who sit in this House of Commons. They said they would reduce paperwok. What we spend most of our time doing in this House is adding to the paperwork of the small business sector. This is consistent with the findings of the Economic Council of Canada in its concern for the impact of regulations and paper burden on small business.
Let us take a look at what the Economic Council of Canada said. The Council found that for small businessmen:
-paperwork was the major regulatory irritant-entailing an average of one to ten hours of extra effort per week-with federal paperwork demands exceeding provincial or municipal requirements in all provinces except Quebec.
Some credit may be given to the Quebec provincial government but no credit is due to the 75 members who sit in this House from the province of Quebec. The Economic Council says that this Liberal government has been remiss in its promise to the people to reduce the paper load.
In assessing costs exacted by government paperwork, small business can undoubtedly be singled out as particularly hard hit, because small businesses do not have the resources to hire specialized personnel or outside consultants to handle the paperwork. Paperwork often represents a direct demand on the time of the principal operator, the time he requires to work, to plan and to be productive. Why do we on this Hill have less than 60 per cent productivity? It is because the government
does not know how to manage its own shop. Until we manage our own shop better and until we start doing the kinds of things we said we would do when the people elected us, we will not change the situation. It is no wonder that to a large degree the people of Canada have lost faith in governments today. I do not know of one of the five promises made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in January, 1980, that has been kept. That is why the business community has lost faith in Parliament, because it did not do what it said it would do when it campaigned in the 1980 election-


An hon. Member:: Parliament did not campaign.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: That is right, Parliament did not campaign, the Liberals campaigned. The Liberals who form the government today have not done what they promised in the election campaign of 1980.


Monique Bégin: The GIS increased.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Yes, the GIS increased.


Monique Bégin: Right on.


An hon. Member:: Speak to the bill.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: An hon. member opposite asks me to speak to the bill. He should ask his front benchers to speak to the bill.


Monique Bégin: Then shut up!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I can understand the uneasiness, the shifting around in their seats of members opposite. They have every reason to be shifty, sly and slippery. They are masters at it. We cannot let them fool the people of Canada into thinking that this bill is what they promised, any more than the excise bill is what they promised when they added that tax in an area which they had no intention of touching when they campaigned.
I would like to take a moment to put CALURA into perspective.


Monique Bégin: Again?


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Maybe the minister responsible for the health of this nation would sooner I talked about UFFI and the health hazards which it causes. I do not know what she is talking about over there.


William James Kempling: She doesn't either.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: The proposed amendments to CALURA are positive-this is what the Council says-in that they will exempt numerous small businesses from having to report. That is a lot of hogwash. There are 1,817 businesses which have not reported since 1976 anyway. In other words, in 1976 there were 75,000 businesses which should not have taken the time to fill out these 38 pages or 90,000 feet of paperwork.
June 22, 1981

This government is making fools out of the business community in Canada today. The government claims that 70,000 businesses will be exempted. In 1974 only 77,000 reported, and now this government is going to exempt 70,000? Who are the remainder? Are we going through this two days of debate to make 7,000 business people fill out all this paperwork and hire a bureaucracy, which will cost us a million dollars this year, to administer this act in Ottawa? The figures do not add up, Mr. Speaker. The small business community is receiving another snow job.
For those companies which still have to report the paperwork has been reduced by approximately 50 per cent. This is what the government says. What does that mean? According to the statistics, of the 7,000 which still have to report, only 3,500 will actually report. Or does it mean that the 7,000 will do half as much? If that is so, then I ask the government by how much it will reduce the bureaucracy to administer this program. Is the government going to reduce the staff which administers CALURA by 50 per cent? Not a chance. There is no sunset clause in this government. The expenses will go on as usual. Even if we agree with the objectives of CALURA and even if we agree that in order for the government to operate today it requires more statistics, we must be concerned about the government's use of the information collected.
This bill, before it is passed, should go before a group of people, namely, one headed by the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism. The minister, whose job it is to look after the business community, should appoint an all-party committee to scrutinize CALURA to report to the business community. Through whatever organizations it would like to report to, whether it is the Canadian Organization of Small Business or the Federation of Independent Business, it should report to them and justify the bill before it is passed. The bill should not be brought into this House and then shoved through under the guise that the government's taking the interest of the small businessman and the reduction of his paper load into consideration.
In recent years the Liberal governments have tried to exert more and more control through legislation, regulation and industrial development programs. We have seen it in the budget, we have seen it in the energy policy and we have seen it in the Constitution. The information provided by these businesses through CALURA will undoubtedly be used by this government to continue in this vein of gathering information for ulterior motives. It is sad to see this bill going through the House, with speaker after speaker from the Conservative party here speaking on behalf of a small business community and very little action from anywhere else. I think that any time we introduce paperwork into this House we are betraying the people who we campaigned to support if we were elected. We are showing a complete disregard for our election commitments to reduce paperwork by the setting up of offices to scrutinize and justify the paperwork before it is imposed upon the business community.
Corporations and Labour Unions
One of my colleagues has already pointed out to this House that those offices which were set up to scrutinize paperwork and to show that it was necessary before the legislation was implemented, are no longer in place. Why has this government presented this piece of legislation without first showing the business community that it was necessary and that there were offshoots from which would benefit the people who are most adversely affected by this paperwork? There is every reason in the world why we as a government and as a Parliament should oppose this bill, Bill S-10, as it appears now for second reading debate as amendments to CALURA.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate. I am glad to see that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Regan) is in the House this evening. I want to speak to him briefly through Your Honour. I do not know whether he is aware of the impact of this bill upon those parts of the economy which fall under his partial jurisdiction in the House of Commons, in terms of reporting at least at the federal level. I am talking about labour unions. I think he has been here during two periods of the debate in the House. I was rather hoping he would inject himself into the debate with respect to this matter. I still remain with the hope that there will be time for him to do that. My understanding of the matter goes back some distance to the days when I was practising law and acting for national associations. I had concern then, and I still have that concern, with respect to the kind of information which is being requested.
Thus far the debate has focused on the impact of this legislation, particularly as it relates to difficulties of people who happen to be incorporated and engaged in small business, people who run the businesses by themselves and for whom accountancy help and legal help is a major overhead factor.
Viewing a bill such as this, which now requires the filling of some eight rather complicated forms, one could wonder if the government is doing anything other than lessening appreciably not only the number of forms, but also the kinds of businesses to which those forms apply. What has really happened is that instead of a member of a business being able to choose the kind of form which applies to the particular business in question, now everyone who happens to be in a small business must fill out all these forms, whether or not they are relevant to the kind of business being carried out. The government may have lessened the weight of the paper; but rather than lessening the onerous duty upon the small businesses to fill out forms, the filing has been made much more broad so that they apply to a larger number of businesses. Therefore, every business must fill out one of these forms whether or not that particular matter applies to them.
If the government will think about it for a moment, it will find that it has compounded the problems of the small businessmen with respect to filing. This is the first point I would like to make.
Second, I wonder if there has, in fact, been any consultation with the small business sector. Each one of us in this House

June 22, 1981
Corporations and Labour Unions
receives correspondence each month from the members of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business who are largely small business people trying to make their way in a world which is tough enough as it is without also having to deal with paper. Was a consultative group ever established by the government to talk to such a group of representative businessmen-and there may be others in the community-to see whether this is really necessary or whether there is another way that this information, which is admittedly important to government, could be made available so that government would have it at its fingertips? I daresay that if the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) were to check the records, he would find that there has been very little consultation at all with the small business sector. There is no reason at all to worry too much about the multinational corporations, but one must be concerned about that. If there were some further consultation, having regard to the debate which has taken place in this House, it might lessen the burden on business. I hope that the minister will undertake to continue that discussion before this bill gets through.
The other matter I want to refer to now is the question of the information which is required in the forms themselves. By the way, Your Honour knows this is information which is filed with the government in confidence so that the government can plan. If that is the case-and I have no reason to doubt that- then it seems to me that it is the kind of information which is perhaps already within the knowledge of the government. Corporate information which is filed relating to directors' shareholdings and things of that nature is the kind of information which could be incorporated into and form part of government information. In fact, a great deal of it could be gleaned from the returns which are now filed annually with the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs from corporations and incorporated businesses, and that would cut down some of the duplication.
Another aspect which the government should perhaps consider, and may consider on second thought, is the availability of information within the Department of National Revenue. I happen to know that the Department of National Revenue is scrupulous in preserving the confidentiality of information filed with it by taxpayers. However, I daresay that if one would put the alternative of filing a form like this to any businessman, or allowing another department to consult with the Department of National Revenue on the basis of confidence, and if a waiver were signed to that effect, and if that businessman could be assured that he would not have to fill out one other form or deal with another pile of papers at the same time as he is trying to sell, I am sure that that businessman would opt for the simpler method of granting the waiver on the understanding, of course, that it would be confidential.
I think this would go a long way toward reducing the amount of paper that the small business community has to deal with and about which it is always cursing governments.
Governments have made great strides, Mr. Speaker. When I was minister of national revenue I gave credit to officials of
the department for streamlining import procedures on the customs side of the operation, so that people did not have to file for each transaction but could file over a longer period of time and thus facilitate matters.
Within government itself there is a desire to cut down on the number of filings that are necessary, although many people do not believe this to be the case. If it would take advantage of the expertise that is available in the public service, it could do a great deal in this direction, but sometimes I think it does not realize this. The business life of the small businessman could be relieved of further complications if, for instance, he did not have to file an international trade form when he is not engaged in international trade. The system, which was complicated enough before, has become more complicated, and I think it could be changed.
The government ought to be given an opportunity to reconsider this bill, Mr. Speaker. It is not urgent. I suggest it withdraw the bill and consult with the business community to see whether, by marrying the expertise that there is in the private sector with that in the public sector, something more relevant, not just for government, but for small business, could be devised.
I am not going to carry the debate any further, Mr. Speaker, except to say that I think the government ought to consider withdrawing the bill and dealing with the question in another way. We would be happy to assist it in that undertaking.
I hope this view is shared by members on the other side, although sometimes I have my doubts-that the small businessman ought to be burdened as little as possible. He is overloaded with paperwork as things stand now. I am sure there is not one member of the House who does not have a constituent who complains about the amount of filing that has to be done to government. I think we ought to be attempting to lessen this instead of increasing it.


Mr. Charles Mayer (Portage-Marquette):: Mr. Speaker, I have some concerns about the bill as well.


Jean-Jacques Blais: You have 60 seconds.


Charles James Mayer: I see the Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) is in the House and he wonders if I can get all my concerns on record within 60 seconds. If a proper bill had been produced, I probably could have done so.
I note that on June 17, in rising on a point of order questioning some of the things said by the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington), the minister said as follows:
-that this bill is to amend the Corporations and Labour Unions Returns Act, and that act is to provide for the reporting of financial and other statistics relating to the affairs of corporations and labour unions carrying on activities in Canada.
It is fine to ask for additional information but I am not so sure that the government has justified the reason for asking for the additional information.
I represent a constituency that is largely made up of farmers and small businessmen. For them paperwork is a major problem; it is more than an irritant.
June 22, 1981

Earlier today a colleague quoted from the report of the Economic Council of Canada to the effect that excess paperwork caused problems and that the regulation itself was a major regulatory irritant. 1 think it is more than an irritant; it is a genuine impediment to small business in this country being as productive as it might be. 1 myself farm and I represent people engaged in farming. One of the things that bothers us is the amount of paperwork that is involved. I could give some recent examples of the things that government requires. It seems to me that if the government is interested in regulatory reform it should set a good example.
I have been concerned about some of the things requested by the Canadian Livestock Feed Board which regularly requires information that is available from other sources.


Mr. Deputy Speaker;: Order, please.


EXCISE TAX ACT AND EXCISE ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, June 19, consideration of the motion of Mr. MacEachen that Bill C-57, to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act and to provide for a revenue tax in respect of petroleum and gas, be read the third time and passed, and the amendment thereto-Mr. Lambert.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please, it being 9.45 p.m., pursuant to agreement made Friday, June 19, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading and passage of Bill C-57.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.
Madam Speaker:: 1 declare the amendment lost. Amendment (Mr. Lambert) negatived.


Madam Speaker:: The question is on the main motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Madam Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

June 22, 1981
Excise Tax


Some hon. Members:: Yea.


Madam Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. Members:: Nay.


Madam Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Madam Speaker:: Shall I dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Paproski:: I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker. The hon. member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson) was in the chamber, voted and left before the count was completed.


Madam Speaker:: If he left the chamber, then his vote will not be recorded.


Some hon. Members:: Out, out!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Where is the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan)?


Some hon. Members:: Out, out!


Madam Speaker:: Then one cancels out the other.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed. [Translation]
Madam Speaker:: It being ten o'clock, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 2(1).
At 10.27 p.m. the House adjourned without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Tuesday, June 23, 1981