1982-05-25

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Recently the Royal Canadian Naval Association held a convention at which the considered opinion of the delegates was that the equipment of the Canadian navy was nothing more than a joke. In view of this opinion, expressed by the 1,500 delegates to the convention, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper):
That this House congratulate the Royal Canadian Naval Association for its forthright assessment of the Canadian navy, and further urge the Prime Minister to pay as much attention to the Canadian navy's need for ships as he does to his own need for ego tripping on the world stage.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Bill C-85 will establish a Crown corporation called Canagrex, and the present bill gives this corporation such broad powers that it could, subtly, take over all export business and monopolize same to the detriment of producers and the private sector that is doing a good job and which is capable of expanding to do anything necessary; therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker):
That this House requests the Minister of Agriculture to withdraw the bill or alternatively to delete the clauses proposed in Section 14 and elsewhere in the bill which provide the opportunity for this corporation to become a complete monopoly in the export business.
Canada is a free enterprise country and free enterprise can do the job better than any Crown corporation.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


POLITICAL PARTIES
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Four months ago the first signs of the dissolution of the Liberal Party surfaced when ten Liberal MPs wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) urging him to adopt new job-creation measures. Then another 15 MPs in a caucus economic development committee sharply criticized the government's economic policy. Now La Presse has revealed that the following Liberals have broken ranks: the hon. members for Sudbury (Mr. Frith), Gloucester (Mr. Breau), Laval (Mr. Roy), Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. McRae), Sherbrooke (Mr. Pelletier), and York South-Weston (Mrs. Appolloni). Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly):
That this House call on the above-named Liberal MPs to stand by their convictions and criticisms by joining the New Democratic Party in terminating the government's budget legislation and thereby terminating the government itself.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NORTHERN AFFAIRS
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order

May 25, 1982
43. It is now a month since the all-party report on the Northern Canada Power Commission was tabled in this House. So far no response has been forthcoming from the government to the recommendations which would substantially reduce the horrendous cost of electricity in northern Canada. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen):
That the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development immediately move to implement the recommendations contained in the sub-committee report on the Northern Canada Power Commission.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. It is unjust that freshwater fishermen, who are obliged to pay into the unemployment insurance fund, cannot collect UIC benefits when unemployed. Thousands of freshwater fishermen are not only unable to collect UIC benefits, they are now unable to find work during the off season as a result of the government's total and complete mismanagement of the economy, which is causing severe unemployment across Canada and unbelievable hardship. Therefore 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga):
That this House be directed to remove immediately this discrimination against freshwater fishermen and amend the necessary section of the Unemployment Insurance Act so that freshwater fishermen who must contribute to the unemployment insurance fund may become eligible for UIC benefits when necessary.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Mark Rose (Mission-Port Moody):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the criticism of the Liberal government expressed by the member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau), who was quoted in La Presse on the weekend as saying:
In defending our policy by relying on the international situation, we don't really impress many people.
-I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That this House urge the Minister of Finance to heed the advice of the member for Gloucester and stop blaming others for his own economic incompetence.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on an urgent matter relating to youth unemployment. Unemployment among youth aged 15 years to 24 years, currently running at 16.6 per cent seasonally adjusted, and actually at 18 per cent, is one of the most serious concerns for Canadian society today. This represents nearly one fifth of the nation's vibrant potential lying unnecessarily idle and unproductive. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon):
That the government institute a program, funded by the resulting saved unemployment benefit funds, to expand special summer armed forces reserves by at least an additional 25,000 recruits, thereby encouraging service to one's country and reducing unemployment in a sector that desires and requires productive employment.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the statements in La Presse this weekend by the Liberal hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. McRae), that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) should stay at his post for the moment as long as the economic storm continues and then should pass the mantle on to someone else, and also the criticism voiced by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Frith) that the country cannot endure another winter like the one we have just
May 25, 1982

been through, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That this House urge the Prime Minister not to put us through another winter like the one just past, but to pass the mantle on to someone else quickly, and further that the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare live up to their statements by voting against the government's inadequate and destructive policies, or resign.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


PRESSURE APPLIED BY LIBERAL MEMBERS-MOTION UNDER
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, 17 Liberal members of Parliament met on May 18 with a sense of urgency to pressure the government into adopting a realistic interest rate policy for Canada. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling):
That this group of Liberal backbenchers and other dissidents broaden their objectives to urge upon the government not only a realistic interest rate for Canada, but also a realistic transportation policy, a realistic energy policy, a realistic foreign policy, a realistic housing policy, a realistic economic policy, and a realistic social policy.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that media reports indicate that unemployed Canadians are still running into bureaucratic foul-ups under the unemployment insurance plan, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie):
That this House instructs the Minister of Employment and Immigration to speed up processing of unemployment insurance claims for unemployed Canadians.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
Oral Questions MEDICAL CARE


CALL FOR BANNING OF EXTRA BILLING BY PHYSICIANS- MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, in view of the fact that there is to be a federal-provincial health ministers meeting and that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) is finally getting around to doing something about the medicare crisis, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Beaches (Mr. Young):
That this House instruct the Minister of National Health and Welfare to include in her proposals for the revitalization of medicare, mechanisms for the banning of extra billing by physicians.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Allan Lawrence (Durham-Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. I wonder whether the Prime Minister would reiterate or reconfirm that it is his government's policy that cabinet ministers should not attempt to communicate with judges about matters or persons coming before the courts.


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, the policy was stated several years ago, and it is along the lines repeated by the hon. member. I cannot recall the exact wording of it, but I could dig it out and make the hon. member aware of it, if necessary.


INTRODUCTION OF LETTER IN PEEL COUNTY COURT CASE
Allan Frederick Lawrence: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is also directed to the Prime Minister. I wonder whether the Prime Minister is aware that last Thursday in Peel County Court in Brampton, Ontario, defence counsel tried to introduce a letter from the Solicitor General about a former campaign worker about to be sentenced for two armed robberies in a federal penitentiary under the jurisdiction of the Solicitor General. Does the Prime Minister share the judge's view that the introduction of such a letter was, and I quote, "in poor taste"? If so, is the Prime Minister going to discipline the Solicitor General in any way?

May 25, 1982
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member is putting me in an impossible position. He wants me to say whether the judge was right or wrong, and if I said the judge was wrong, then surely the hon. member would take me to task.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Madam Speaker, I think it is fundamental in our political system that there be a separation of the judiciary and the executive.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


QUERY RESPECTING POSSIBLE RESIGNATION BY SOLICITOR GENERAL
Allan Frederick Lawrence: Madam Speaker, we have had instances where Prime Ministers have accepted the resignation of cabinet ministers, Mr. Drury for one, and the present Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development for another.


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: I ask the Prime Minister has the Solicitor General submitted his resignation? If not, has the Prime Minister demanded that resignation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member made a loud speech in his preamble about separation of the judicial, executive, and, presumably, legislative powers. He then asked me did I think the judge is right or wrong. Surely he is asking me to set aside that concept of separation of powers by asking for my judgment on the judgment of the judge.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: I am asking about the Solicitor General.


CHARACTER REFERENCE GIVEN BY SOLICITOR GENERAL
Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Solicitor General who, as a lawyer, will know that the purpose of calling character evidence is to lend prestige to the accused through the person or office of the character witness. Will the Solicitor General please confirm that he sent a letter to the lawyer representing Mr. English to be used as character evidence in this particular case, and will he acknowledge the conflict because, as Solicitor General, he and his department are responsible for Mr. English who is now in a penitentiary?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: The hon. member indicated quite clearly in his question that my representation was not made to the judge. I know the individuals concerned and my letter was sent to their lawyer. I told the lawyer that I would be prepared to give evidence on behalf of these people whom I know, and it was on that basis that the letter was put forward. Certainly there was no telephone call, private representation, or off-the-record representation to any court.
The representation was made frankly, on the record, and on behalf of people whom I know.


Chris Speyer: There is no doubt that it was on the record, and there is no doubt that the judge said it was in poor taste given the Solicitor General occupies the position he does.


CONDUCT OF SOLICITOR GENERAL
Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question to the Prime Minister is: does he approve of conduct where a Solicitor General, who is responsible for a person sentenced to penitentiary on two counts of armed robbery, makes written representations in order to minimize the sentence? Will he not now ask for the Solicitor General's resignation in light of all the miscues he has made?


Mr. Nielsen:: He is responsible for the parole board, too.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is trying to make a clear case of one which is not very clear to me. Surely a minister, like anyone else-


An hon. Member:: They are not like anyone else.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -should be entitled to give character references on behalf of someone he knows in order to ensure that justice is tempered with mercy. That does not seem beyond the limits of any human being.
Surely it is up to the judge to decide whether he wants to receive such representation or not. Apparently the judge did not. I think this is certainly not the case of a minister trying to influence a judge-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -in any way that any citizen is asked to give a character reference.


Erik Nielsen: He is not any citizen.


An hon. Member:: He is the Solicitor General.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He is also a human being.


Mr. Nowlan:: Then he should not be in that cabinet.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If the judge does not want to take into account the testimony of this human being on behalf of one of his fellow Canadians, that is the judge's prerogative.


APPROPRIATENESS OF SOLICITOR GENERAL'S ACTION
Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, if the Prime Minister does not acknowledge that there is a distinction between a person acting in his own private capacity and when he holds the position of Solicitor General, my question to him is this: since the Solicitor General is responsible for everyone coming into the penitentiary system, and because the
May 25, 1982

Prime Minister knows that the purpose of good character evidence is meant to minimize sentence, does the Prime Minister not acknowledge that it is inappropriate for a Solicitor General to be giving good character references on behalf of anybody?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, all I can say is that this is not a clearcut case as far as I am concerned. This is not a minister trying to, once again, in an inappropriate way influence a judge. This is a minister offering his opinion as a human being. It might have been, in view of the temper of the opposition these days, that he should not have done that, but I am not prepared to say this.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Since February of this year there have been ten Liberal members from the Montreal area who have indicated that they think that the economic direction of the government is a disaster, 16 Liberal members of the Liberal caucus economic development committee who have expressed a similar concern to that of those ten Liberal members, the Solicitor General who wrote a letter saying that the government's economic policies were a disaster, and we now have the Minister of State for Economic Development reported in today's Le Devoir as indicating that the economic policies being followed by the government are a disaster.
Given that there now appears to be a sense within the Liberal party that what is happening in this country with respect to the economy is heading us in a direction which will cause untold chaos and hardship for tens of thousands of people, can we expect to see a policy put forward by the government before the end of this current session-before the end of June-that will begin to address the problems that confront the one and a quarter million to one and a half million people who are currently unemployed, and the tens of thousands of people who are presently looking to their jobs with considerable trepidation mainly as a result of the government's inability to implement an economic policy which is not a disaster?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, what surprises me, frankly, is that the opposition seems to be showing great interest in the views of this caucus with regard to the economic situation in Canada.


An hon. Member:: Everybody is.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Indeed, as the hon. member from the opposition says, everybody is. It would be surprising if members of this caucus, Liberal as they are, were not showing great concern for the rate of unemployment, the high rate of inflation, and for the economic difficulties that the country is going through.
Oral Questions
I appreciate the solicitude shown by opposition members for the views of members of this caucus. I have great interest in those views myself. They are made known to me several times a week, and certainly in caucus every week. Indeed, that is the way this government operates, by soliciting the views of our caucus members and trying to adopt policies which would be beneficial to the country.


REPORTED STATEMENTS MADE BY MINISTER FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, would the Prime Minister care to respond to the statement by the Minister of State for Economic Development, the Senator in the other place? Does he agree with Senator Olson when he says that the major economic thrust of the government was megaprojects, that the high interest rate policy of the government has been the primary factor that undermined the megaprojects, and that there are tens of thousands of jobs which have been lost as a result of the high interest rate policy of the government? If the Prime Minister does agree with him, will he now take steps to bring forward a new policy or, failing that, will he replace the minister?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I would challenge the hon. member's accuracy when he quotes Senator Olson as talking about high interest rate policies. The Senator knows, as does everyone in the House, that there is no high interest rate policy. There is a high interest rate. That high interest rate is due to the fact that Canada is an open market as far as capital is concerned, and its interest rates cannot be dissociated from the interest rates which prevail on the money markets of the world. That is the reality. It affects Canada, it affects France, it affects Britain, it affects Germany, it affects Italy, it affects Japan-it affects all countries. That does not mean that all of these countries are all seeking to have high interest rate policies; on the contrary, these countries are trying to fight against that high interest rate by having anti-inflation policies.


ALTERNATIVE POLICIES
Ian Deans: Is the Prime Minister suggesting that the people of Canada should believe that there is no action which can be taken by the federal government, or by any other government in Canada, to bring down the level of interest rates and thereby safeguard the jobs that they must have in order to provide their livelihood? Is the Prime Minister honestly telling the people of Canada that the policy which has brought about high interest rates and which has destroyed the very opportunities for those people is the only policy the government could follow?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, I am not saying that, Madam Speaker. I challenge the hon. member to say whether he was quoting Senator Olson accurately or not.


Ian Deans: Yes, I am.

May 25, 1982
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Apparently, he was not-


Ian Deans: I am.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -because he went on to some other subject. He referred to the people of Canada and no longer to Senator Olson.
As far as the people of Canada are concerned, there are other policies which can be followed. The premiers of most of the provinces proposed such a policy last February. It was that we lower the value of the dollar, perhaps to 75 cents, perhaps lower-who knows? That might temporarily bring down interest rates. It would certainly be only temporary; but, anyhow, that debate is open. I have not heard the views of the hon. member from the New Democratic Party on that matter.


Ian Deans: Oh, yes, you have, many times.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Is he proposing a 75-cent dollar or a 70-cent dollar? Which is he proposing?


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF HIS EXCELLENCY, MR. ISMAEL TOURE, MINISTER OF MINES AND GEOLOGY OF THE POPULAR AND REVOLUTIONARY REPUBLIC OF GUINEA
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour of drawing the attention of the House to the distinguished presence in our gallery of His Excellency, Mr. Ismael Toure, Minister of Mines and Geology of the Popular and Revolutionary Republic of Guinea.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
 * *


POLITICAL PARTIES
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The minister knows that an increasing number of members of his own caucus are abandoning their support. The Prime Minister has just said that the reason is that they are as Liberal as they are, and I suggest to you, Madam Speaker, that the reason is that they are as scared as they are. In any event, can the minister tell the House how many Liberal MPs and Liberal cabinet ministers no longer support the finance minister? In other words, could we have the latest count?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, I do not go around
applying a loyalty test, as must be the practice in the Conservative Party.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The hon. member asks how many Liberal members support the policies of the government. I refer him to the rather numerous votes which have been taken when motions have been moved by the opposition condemning government policies, and which have been joined in by Liberal members. That is the latest count. Every motion that is brought forward is defeated by Liberal members.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, we are not interested in the very significant difference between those Liberals who do not agree and those Liberals who vote for it anyway.


RECOMMENDATIONS MADE BY LIBERAL CAUCUS MEMBERS
John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, I want to direct a supplementary question to the Minister of Finance. On February 3, in a public letter, ministers and members of the Liberal caucus stated that measures must be taken as soon as possible as they are necessary right now. In April the minutes of a meeting of the ministers' own caucus were headed, "A sense of urgency", and stated the need to act quickly, and last week there were more comments urging action. Can the minister advise whether any of the recommendations from the Liberal caucus will be acted upon? It seems a shame to find that they are just wasting their time.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I do not think it is really the hon. member's business to inquire into the business of the Liberal caucus, and it is not the business of the House of Commons to inquire into the business of the Liberal caucus.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


QUERY RESPECTING LIBERAL MEMBERS' SUGGESTION ON INTEREST RATE POLICY
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, my question is also directed to the embattled Minister of Finance, who finds that he has as many critics behind him right now as he has in front of him.


Some hon. Members:: Not so.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I would like to ask the minister about the group of Liberal dissidents who met on May 18 and advocated, at that meeting, the adoption of a realistic interest rate policy. Since they obviously feel that the present interest rate is not realistic, has the minister called them in and asked them what they mean by a realistic interest rate policy? When will he take steps to introduce a realistic interest rate policy?
May 25, 1982


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I really want to make a point of this. It is not appropriate for members opposite to inquire about the business of the Liberal Party or how the government and members of the government relate to their supporters. That is not an appropriate subject matter for questioning on the orders of the day. I do not mind answering the question, but I do not think in principle it should be acknowledged that these members opposite, who apparently have no ideas of their own, have to come to our caucus to get ideas to ask us questions about what our members are discussing with us.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


DATA SUPPLIED TO LIBERAL CAUCUS MEMBERS
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is also to the Liberal Minister of Finance who is ashamed of the fact that his backbench members are spewing their comments about his economic policies all over the public press. It is from the public press that the information comes.
I would like to ask him about this latest group of dissidents who had data made available to them which shows that the unemployment rate in Canada will probably be increasing this year. That is a matter of grave concern, given the present disastrous jobless rate in the country. I would ask the Minister of Finance whether that data which shows that the unemployment rate will be going up this year has also been made available to him. If so, what programs is he prepared to introduce that will prevent the jobless rate from going up this year? Will he introduce them this afternoon during the opposition debate on unemployment among youth to match the employment measures that we will be putting forward so that we can see if the government has any measures to combat unemployment?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, if the hon. member wants to ask about the unemployment rate, and trends in the unemployment rate, I would be glad to answer, but when she asks me questions about the Liberal caucus I want to make a principle of it; I am not going to answer.


AIRPORTS
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Transport I will address my question to the Prime Minister. I must say that the sophistry in the answer of the Minister of Finance-
Oral Questions


Madam Speaker:: Order. I did say before that comments on previous answers are not justified in the question period, and all the more so if it is a new questioner taking the floor. The hon. member of Annapolis Valley-Hants, on a question.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Yes, Madam Speaker, on a question, after we have heard the most insulting sophistry in this House from the Minister of Finance.
My question to the Prime Minister is on an issue that has been debated by members on all sides, an issue that has got into the public press, and not just from the Liberal caucus, whose members have taken positions on Mirabel and Dorval. In the decision that is about to be taken by his colleague in cabinet, the Minister of Transport, will the interests of all Canadians be taken into account on any shift of air traffic from Dorval to Mirabel and not be just a tug of economic war between those who live close to Dorval and/or the Minister of Communications, and members who have an interest in Mirabel?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Madam Speaker, I can give that assurance. I am pleased to see that the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants is taking an interest in this very important question.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I am taking a very real interest in it. I certainly hope that the Prime Minister, who is a member from the Montreal area as well as the Prime Minister of a national government in name only, continues to take an interest in it.


MINISTER'S APPEARANCE BEFORE COMMITTEE
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, will the Prime Minister assure the House that when the Minister of Transport appears before the Standing Committee on Transport he will in his open way, and sometimes very frank way, give some of the reasons both pro and con why he is even considering such a move from Dorval to Mirabel?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I cannot comment on the proceedings in a committee, let alone predict what will happen at that committee and what questions will be asked. I can give the hon. member the assurance that the minister will answer with his usual honesty and competence.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Over the weekend the very distinguished Liberal member of Parliament for Thunder Bay-Atikokan said in an interview with La Presse:

May 25, 1982
Oral Questions
Our monetary policy is disastrous ... it overestimates the effects of inflation. We can adjust to inflation, but not to ... high interest rates. They're too much of a burden for the budgets of families and businesses.
In light of the opinion of that hon. member and of the overwhelming majority of people in this country, will the Prime Minister now follow that advice and change the government's monetary policy before the economic conference in Versailles next month?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan is, of course, right in deploring the high interest rates. The hon. member can be sure that we are taking into account his advice and that of all caucus members in establishing the posture we will be taking in Versailles.


PRIME MINISTER'S REPLY
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister just said that the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan is right in his analysis that the monetary policy of the government is a disaster. If the member from Thunder Bay-Atikokan is right, I want to know why the Prime Minister is not changing the monetary interest rate policy of Canada.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I do not know whom the hon. member is trying to fool, but I said that the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan was right when he said the interest rates were too high. If the hon. member reads what he said as a comment on that, he will see that it is completely inaccurate and false.


LAW OF THE SEA
Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Hamilton West):: Madam Speaker, I would like to address my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. In light of the monumental agreement on the Law of the Sea which was recently achieved by the United Nations, would the minister advise this House of the major effects which this agreement will have on Canada?
Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Madam Speaker, as with every agreement of this kind, the achievement is based on a series of compromises which do not entirely satisfy the national interest of any country. However, for coastal states such as Canada, the gain of the 12-mile territorial sea and the 200-mile economic zone, and especially for a country like Canada with the recognition of the continental shelf, there will be, when the treaty is in effect, an enormous leap forward in our control over our offshore resources.
I might say that the greatest importance of this treaty is not what it does for a single country like Canada, however meritorious our claims may be, but the fact that especially in the law of the deep-sea bed we have for the first time the recognition of a common heritage of mankind, and the setting
up of an institution which can act for the benefit of all mankind.


THE JUDICIARY
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam
Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. In light of his earlier answer on the matter of Claude English, would he object to any of his ministers writing to any judge in similar circumstances about anybody in the future? Would he object to having them write to the parole board or to the Commissioner of Corrections? Does he have any policies with respect to conflict of interest matters such as the one that was raised here this afternoon?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the question is hypothetical in nature. I was asked about a specific case. I gave the answer as best I could. I would have to consider any other questions in light of the circumstances when they are posed.


David Kilgour: The Prime Minister is unbelievable on this and many other issues.


MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
David Kilgour: Madam
Speaker, specifically would the Prime Minister object if his Solicitor General wrote a letter to the parole board or to the Commissioner of Corrections, who in effect is his employee, about this matter now that Mr. English is in a federal institution?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, my recollection of the guidelines is that they do not cover cases of that kind. The guidelines indicate that no minister of the government should try to influence a court of record by dealing with it in a surreptitious way or in a way which was generally outside the presence of lawyers or of the other party involved.
My recollection of the spirit of the guidelines is that it was precisely to prevent a minister from trying to influence a judge toward one side presumably without the other side being present to make the countrary case. If that is the spirit of the guidelines I think the Solicitor General acted within that spirit by doing something overtly which the other lawyer and the other party were presumably prepared and disposed to challenge, the result of which was an opinion of a judge which I heard quoted across the aisle-but I am not aware of the details of this case.
Once again I am not prepared to make an over-all statement beyond those guidelines that were issued some years ago
May 25, 1982

stipulating that there should be no attempt by a member of the government to influence a judge in one direction on a case behind the back of the other party to that case. It seems clear from facts that have just been made known to me by questions from across the aisle that the Solicitor General did not attempt to do that.


POSSIBLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN PAROLE ISSUE
Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, this is a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister not agree that the Solicitor General, in his capacity as the responsible minister in this House reporting with respect to the operations of the parole board, the decisions of the parole board, has totally compromised himself, in the sense that, when the application for parole of Claude English comes before the board, as it eventually will, together with the Solicitor General's letter, no doubt, whatever decision that board makes, whether it is to grant parole or not to grant parole, the accusation will be made that the board's decision has been influenced by the Solicitor General's action? Whether or not that be the fact, does he not agree that that perceived compromise, that perceived conflict is there?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is talking about a hypothetical case some time in the future when the parole board looks at the dossier of this person. It seems to me that the parole board will be looking at the conduct of the prisoner during the time when he was in prison. I do not see that the parole board will be looking at some previous document, produced or not produced at the trial. When the hon. member asked me if it is not more important, I think, to save the appearances, was the effect of his question-


An hon. Member:: Perceived.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: To be perceived-my answer, and I have given it many times before, is that I think it is more important that justice be done than that it appear to be done.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


SCOPE OF GUIDELINES GOVERNING MINISTERIAL CONDUCT
Erik Nielsen: I have one further supplementary, Madam Speaker. Are we to take it from the Prime Minister's answer that the Solicitor General in his ministry, as the minister responsible for the penitentiary system and as the minister responsible for the parole board, is at perfect liberty to provide written material, knowing full well that it is going to be used as evidence in the fixing of sentences before our courts of law and the criminal justice system-that he is perfectly at liberty to do so? If he believes that, does he not believe that that is a radical departure from the rather rigid guidelines governing the conduct of ministers of the Crown, which were originally laid down by his predecessor, Mr. Pearson, and re-
Oral Questions
endorsed by himself as Prime Minister at a time when he was having difficulties with other members of his ministry?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member makes the point that the minister is responsible for the parole board. But he is not responsible for the courts of justice. The document which is being referred to is apparently a letter sent by the lawyer to the courts of justice, not to the parole board but to the courts of justice.
Once again I am referring to the information I have received from the members across the way. I have not had any notice of this case until the first question was asked this afternoon. I repeat, the minister is responsible for the parole board, not for the courts of justice. My recollection of the guidelines-I will be happy to refresh my mind and refresh the mind of the hon. member for Yukon on the contents of those guidelines-is that no minister should attempt to influence, in a one-sided way, a court of justice. But a minister remains a member, a citizen of this country, a person who is interested in the fair application of justice. I can see no part of a guideline which would be contradicted by the act of the hon. minister. Once again, let us look at the guidelines and let the hon. member refresh his own memory and indicate to me what part of the guidelines is covered by the question we are discussing now.


REQUEST THAT PRIME MINISTER INVESTIGATE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING MINISTER'S ACTION
Hon. Walter Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, this is a supplementary to the Prime Minister. The case we are discussing is not a case which is the responsibility of the opposition. It is the responsibility of the Prime Minister as head of the government to see whether or not in this case there has been a contradiction of the guidelines. I am sure if the Prime Minister looks at the guidelines he will see that, aside from the specifics of the guidelines, there is a general disapprobation of behaviour that might be inconsistent with the holding of public office.
What the House would like to ask the Prime Minister, who has responsibility in this matter, and who said that he has not seen it until just today, is whether or not, now that he has had it raised in the House, he himself will undertake an investigation, and chat with the Solicitor General, to see whether ot not the circumstances are such that the Solicitor General ought to remain as a law officer of the Crown or ought to be moved to some other responsibility.


Erik Nielsen: Or out entirely.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I can assure you that from the time the first question was asked this afternoon it was my intention to refer to the guidelines and then to ask information about exactly what was done. I can assure the hon. member that in any discussion I have with the hon. minister, with the hon. member or anyone else, I would still hold it is not a bad thing in our society for justice to be tempered with mercy.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

Oral Questions


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE-POSSIBILITY OF FAVOURITISM
[Stage Direction]
May 25, 1982
[DOT] (M50)
Walter David Baker: The question is not whether justice should be tempered with mercy; the question is whether or not there should be any favouritism with respect to justice.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Walter David Baker: 1 think it should be obvious to the Prime Minister that a letter from a Solicitor General intended to be part of the legal proceeding in a court does not have that sense of evenhandedness about it, and that ought to be obvious to anyone. Will the Prime Minister undertake that he will approach this from the point of view of the appropriate administration of justice, because that is what is at issue here?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The hon. member makes his case around the question of whether there was favoritism or not. 1 can assure the hon. member, as I know the Solicitor General, that he would be prepared to intervene on behalf of anybody who deserved intervention, whether he be a minister or whether he be-


An hon. Member:: A campaign worker.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -or whether he not be a minister. The question once again is one that I am sure all members of this House must ask themselves when they are asked to intervene on behalf of anyone. The fact that we are a Member of Parliament, let alone a minister, is in a sense lending our authority to a particular case.


Walter David Baker: Exactly.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am sure that members opposite lend their authority-


Walter David Baker: Not in the criminal courts.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -whether it be intervening as character references or whether it be by approving the application of some citizen or some student for a bursary; we are all lending our moral authority. 1 do not think that in doing that we have a feeling that we are using favouritism.
In this particular case, once again if I refer to the first question asked this afternoon, it appears that the judge discounted that.


An hon. Member:: He said it was in poor taste.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He said that it was in poor taste. He did not say it was improper. He said he thought this should not have been done. That shows that the courts have not been influenced in this case. Once again, let the hon. member refer to the guidelines. 1 will do it myself and I will discuss this question further.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Madam
Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Veterans Affairs. The minister has said that he has no objections to the implementation of a six-month time limit for the processing of veterans' pension applications, including the appeal process, except that this time limit might hinder the retrieval of medical records from veterans. Surely the new computer system being phased in by the department would eliminate any such information transfer problems. Assuming that the department can establish a means of gathering the necessary medical data in time, will the minister now commit his department to a six-month time limit?


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has raised the question of the processing of pension applications on a number of occasions. We commissioned a study to look into the administrative process by which pensions are handled by the Pension Commission. We have made very definite progress in terms of reducing the time limit. I set six months as an objective, and 1 will continue to work until we achieve that goal.


INTRODUCTION OF TIME LIMITS
A. Daniel McKenzie: Madam
Speaker, it seems improbable to me that the minister would choose to ignore recommendations made by the Public Accounts committee, by the Senate Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Science, by many veterans' organizations, and by the Conservative Party, that the processing period must be drastically shortened and that this period be set at six months. If the minister is not ignoring this backlog of advice, what is he planning to do about implementing firm time limits so that veterans can at least live with the knowledge that they will receive an answer at a given date?


W. Bennett Campbell: Madam Speaker, it is obvious that the hon. member did not listen to the answer to his first question. I said that I agree with the six-month time period and will work until we achieve that.


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Prime Minister. The Liberal member for Laval was quoted in La Presse this weekend as follows:
May 25, 1982

-it is clear that our policies now seem stale. We have no comprehensive program for job creation to propose, we have only crutches.
As more and more Liberal Members of Parliament abandon their party's economic ship, will the Prime Minister now admit, as do his backbenchers, that they do not have a clue about what is happening in the long-term the short term, or what to do about the unemployment crisis in the country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, if anybody does not have a clue it is members of the New Democratic Party who have spent the whole afternoon quoting members from this side.


REQUEST THAT PRIME MINISTER RESIGN
Douglas Keith Anguish: Madam Speaker, the quotations go on. The hon. member for Sudbury said, "The country cannot endure a winter like the one we've just been through". On behalf of all members on all sides of the House I ask the Prime Minister if he will not go to the people at this time, when can we expect his resignation as leader of the Liberal party and as Prime Minister of this country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, that proves what I just said; the hon. member does not have a clue.


PUBLIC WORKS
Jack Wendele Shields: Madam Speaker, may I put a question to the Prime Minister. Is the government or the Prime Minister considering postponing the design and construction of the embassy building in Washington because of the economic hard times facing Canada, with unemployment at an all time high, farmers going bankrupt, and small-business men going bankrupt and, if not, why not?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I seem to recall that that very same question was asked last week. The government has not changed its position on this in the past week. If the hon. member is going to ask the question next week, maybe he could suggest other buildings in other countries that should be postponed, because Canada is proceeding with construction across this country and some other embassies in other countries. I will be happy to hear the question next week and see if there is anything new.


REQUEST THAT PRIME MINISTER CONSIDER SPENDING EMBASSY FUNDS IN CANADA
Jack Wendele Shields: Madam Speaker, at a time when literally every businessman and every farmer in this
Oral Questions
country is postponing capital construction, the Prime Minister comes out with an answer like that.
I ask the question again, Madam Speaker. Because of the economic difficulties facing people in Canada would the Prime Minister consider saving that $30 million and spending it in Canada where it might do some good?
I will ask again next week.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Could she inform the House of the month in which there will be an insert in family allowance cheques regarding the rights and resources available to women who become battered wives? Which month will that insert be included with the cheques?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, given prior notice I could have answered the hon. member's question right away. Unfortunately, I do not have the information in my head but I could send him an exact list of future inserts and their subject matter.


PROVISION OF SHELTER FOR BATTERED WIVES
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Public Works. When will vacant Crown buildings be made available to groups who wish to provide shelter for battered wives?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, there is a program and provision under Section 56(1) of the National Housing Act which deals with co-op and nonprofit housing. On a number of occasions that provision has been used by some organizations in some areas of the country to provide shelter assistance to wives who are looking for shelter on an emergency basis.


THE JUDICIARY
Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, as a result of some questions being asked about the Solicitor General's intervention in the Mr. English case, I want to ask a short question. What pertinent facts, if any, could the Solicitor General provide that would not have been available from some other source?

May 25, 1982
Oral Questions


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I know the young man. I felt that having known him and having worked with him for a short period of time I was in a position to put evidence forward that, if he was given a break in life, he could turn out to be a decent and contributing member of Canadian society. In the part of Toronto that I represent, unemployment among teenage blacks is a very serious problem. I felt that he is a decent kid who had made a mistake but still deserves a break.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


INTERPRETATION OF GUIDELINES GOVERNING MINISTERIAL CONDUCT
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. We are talking about the integrity of the Canadian courts. In view of his reply to the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona I want to ask the Prime Minister if it is his interpretation of the guidelines that it is now all right for ministers of the Crown, including the Solicitor General, to try to influence judges if they do it up front. Is that the position he is taking in this House?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has heard my answer. I did not say "You can influence judges if you do it up front". I said there is a difficult question as to whether a minister can act as a human being or whether he must dissociate himself from that position when he is intervening in a case like the one mentioned by the hon. member. Surely this is not a case of one side fighting against the other. This is the Crown trying to establish whether a man should receive a longer or shorter sentence. It is a known judicial practice in this country that character references are given by citizens. The more distinguished the citizen, the better from the point of view of the lawyer and from the point of view of the accused.
Once again, without refreshing my memory on the guidelines I cannot answer this question with finality. I undertook earlier to look at them. I cannot see that it is against the spirit of the guidelines to try to help a human being who is going to be sentenced by saying, "I know this man and he deserves to be treated with mercy".


POSSIBlLITY OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, if the guidelines were not breached, does the Prime Minister accept the proposition that the Solicitor General, in intervening a pre-sentence hearing by way of counsel-it was an intervention-was in serious conflict of interest given the fact that the person before the courts was convicted of not one but two violent crimes?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, it would be interesting to find out from the hon. member what interest was in conflict with another interest. I cannot see any personal gain which would accrue to the minister by giving a character reference. In that sense, what was the conflict of interest? He may have been acting in a way which was unusual; he certainly was acting in a way which does not have the approval of many of the opposition members. But whether that was against the guidelines or not I will only say when I have read the guidelines again. All I say is that my recollection of the guidelines is that they are not offended by this act, and that the minister has sought no personal gain. I repeat for the third time, he has just sought to ensure that justice be tempered with mercy, which is a good Liberal attitude.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PETITION
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table the two hundred and forty-eighth report of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petition presented by the hon. member for Fraser Valley East (Mr. Patterson) and finds that it meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, last week a number of things happened during proceedings of the House which prompted me to serve notice in the normal way that I intended to rise today on a question of privilege. On returning to the House, having had the opportunity of reading Hansard from last Friday, I learned that you ruled the question of privilege I wished to raise would be considered a grievance over a commitment by a minister and the carrying on of the affairs of his ministry through his civil servants, namely, the enforcement of metrication.
For that reason I will defer my question of privilege, and I am now exploring the various ways you have suggested where this matter might be raised as a grievance in the House or through other means. If you would bear with me until I have an opportunity to explore those opportunities, I will defer my question of privilege.
May 25, 1982



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mir. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council): Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2,810, 2,833, 2,849, 2,865, 2,913, 2,952, 2,953, 3,553, 3,556, 3,896 and 4,149.
Mr. Clarke: 1.	With reference to the education leave costs recorded by the Department of Communications at page 13.6, volume I of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, what guidelines were used to determine (a) which employees should obtain educational leave and whether such employees should be granted (i) leave with pay (ii) travel expenses (iii) payment for tuition (b) whether the skills to be acquired were needed on a permanent basis?
2.	What percentage of the education leave cost of $118,708 was necessitated by the acquisition of new equipment and by the need to have new skills in order to use the equipment?
3.	What percentage of the education leave was necessitated by reason of job redundancy because of the (a) acquisition of equipment (b) change in the role of the employing agency (c) change in the capabilities of employees?
4.	What percentage of employees granted such leave in the past three years have subsequently left the public service?


Mr. Jack Masters (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: In so far as the Department of Communications is concerned, the answer to the above question is as follows: 1. (a) and (b) Please refer to Treasury Board Policy, Personnel Management Manual, chapter 110-5, "Conditions governing education, training and development, including subsidization".
2 and 3. Nil.
4. Fourteen per cent.


Mr. Clarke: 1.	With reference to the education leave costs recorded by the Ministry of State for Science and Technology for the National Research Council of Canada at page 13.6, volume 1 of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, what guidelines were used to determine (a) which employees should obtain educational leave and whether such employees should be granted (i) leave with pay (ii) travel expenses (iii) payment for tuition (b) whether the skills to be acquired were needed on a permanent basis?
2.	What percentage of the education leave cost of $19,891 was necessitated by the acquisition of new equipment and by the need to have new skills in order to use the equipment?
3.	What percentage of the education leave was necessitated by reason of job redundancy because of the (a) acquisition of equipment (b) change in the role of the employing agency (c) change in the capabilities of employees?
Order Paper Questions
4.	What percentage of employees granted such leave in the past three years have subsequently left the public service?


Mr. Jim Schroder (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: In so far as the National Research Council is concerned, the reply is as follows:
1.	(a) The eligibility provisions for a recommendation put forward for a member of the scientific or professional staff are defined as staff who: (i) does not possess a doctor's degree, (ii) has academic qualifications of scholarship calibre, (iii) has been on staff for at least two years and has demonstrated outstanding ability, (iv) is considered suitable to become a member of the permanent staff of the council.
Education leave is normally granted at half pay, but may be granted at a greater or lesser rate. An employee who does not meet the requirements detailed above may be granted education leave without pay. A recommendation may be made by the director of a division to the executive vice-president who may approve it on behalf of the president.
(b)	The eligibility provisions make it clear that the skills to be acquired are needed on a permanent basis.
2.	None.
3.	None.
4.	Thirty-three per cent. Two employees out of six have left NRC.


Mr. Clarke: With reference to the professional and special services recorded by the Department of Transport under the Air Transportation Program at page 32.40, volume II of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, with particular reference to hospitality services (a) how does the department account for the 38 per cent increase in expenditure for the item over that for 1978-79 (b) what is a list of each contract of a value more than $2,000 (c) are guidelines used to determine when the department will pay for hospitality and, if so, what are they (d) of the $37,594 paid for hospitality, what percentage was principally used to entertain (i) foreign visitors (ii) Canadian businessmen (iii) provincial public servants (iv) federal public servants (v) ministerial exempt staff (vi) Members of Parliament (vii) Members of Provincial Parliaments, Legislative Assemblies and the National Assembly (viii) Canadian dignitaries, such as the Governor General and Lieutenant Governors General (ix) federal Crown corporation executives (x) provincial Crown corporation executives (xi) members of federal commissions, boards and councils (xii) any other categories?


Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: (a) Increase in 1979-80 due to: (i) $6,500 spent for a reception hosting the Royal Canadian Flying Clubs, (ii) $1,200 spent for the Dubin Inquiry on Air Safety, (iii) price increases in meal allowances and entertainment.
(b)	None.
(c)	Guidelines used are those stated in chapter 360 of the Treasury Board Administrative Policy on hospitality.

May 25, 1982
Order Paper Questions
(d)	The information requested is not readily available.
a DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, TRADE AND COMMERCE-HOSPITALITY


Mr. Clarke: With reference to the professional and special services recorded by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce under the tourism program at page 32.16, volume II of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, with particular reference to hospitality, including posts abroad (a) what is a list of each contract of a value more than $2,000 (b) are guidelines used to determine when the department will pay for hospitality and, if so, what are they (c) of the $450,922 paid for hospitality, what percentage was principally used to entertain (i) foreign visitors (ii) Canadian businessmen (iii) provincial public servants (iv) federal public servants (v) ministerial exempt staff (vi) Members of Parliament (vii) Members of Provincial Parliaments, Legislative Assemblies and the National Assembly (viii) Canadian dignitaries, such as the Governor General and Lieutenant Governors General (ix) federal Crown corporation executives (x) provincial Crown corporation executives (xi) members of federal commissions, boards and councils (xii) any other categories (d) what percentage of the $450,922 was used for hospitality (i) outside (ii) inside Canada?


Mr. David Berger (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: In so far as the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned:
(a)	Individual payments made of a value more than $2,000 which related to a single event were as follows:
Edmonton Klondike Days Association, Edmonton, Alta., $2,005 and $3,776; Calgary Convention Centre, Calgary, Alta., $2,037.67; Le Chateau Champlain, Montreal, Que., $2,565.20 and $14,153.97; Convention and Tourist Bureau of Metropolitan Toronto, Toronto, Ont., $4,000; Marriott Hotels, Chicago, Illinois, $3,059.54; Thunderbird Motel, Bloomington, Minnesota, $2,321.08; Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii, $2,292.30; Air Canada, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, $3,527.29; Hyatt Regency Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, $7,953.80.
(b)	Treasury Board Hospitality Directive March 1, 1977. Treasury Board Circular No. 1977-3. Foreign Service Hospitality Directive TB No. 694590 dated February 12, 1970. Heads of Posts Directive TB No. 692275 dated October 2, 1979.
(c)	This information is not readily available from our accounting records.
(d)	(i) Fifty-one per cent. This percentage reflects only the costs incurred under the foreign service hospitality directive by the various posts abroad.
(ii) Forty-nine per cent. This percentage reflects all other hospitality expenditures authorized by headquarters. Our accounting records do not readily allow a breakdown of hospitality costs incurred inside or outside Canada, except as described in (d)(i).
dot-TECHNICAL PERSONNEL SERVICES


Mr. Clarke: With reference to the professional and special services recorded by the Department of Transport under the Marine Transportation Services Program at page 32.39, volume II of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, with particular reference to technical personnel services (a) how does the department explain the 79 per cent increase in expenditure for the item over that for 1978-79 (b) what was the name of each type of service (c) what was the amount paid for each service and, for contracts over $2,000, to whom was it paid?


Jesse Philip Flis: (a) The main reason for the increase over 1978-79 expenditures was the grounding of the oil tanker Kurdistan. A total of $913,861 was required for oil clean-up work, surveillance, environmental and legal consultation.
(b) The department has readily available only the name and amount of contracts over $2,000.
Name of persons	Amount over	Coast Guardor firms	$ 2000	OfficeA & B Construction Co. Ltd.	$ 2,982	WesternAcres Consulting Services Ltd.	5,530	HeadquartersAdga Ltd.	237,424	WesternAero Photo Inc.	4,400	HeadquartersWallace Amos	4,880	MaritimesArctec Canada Ltd.	125,301	HeadquartersAqua-Marine	2,770	LaurentianAqua-Spection	11,396	LaurentianAtlantic Video Productions	4,381	HeadquartersBastion City Charters	18,363	WesternBeck Construction Ltd.	70,332	CentralBen Livingston & Sons Ltd.	2,185	MaritimesB. H. Levelton & Associates	3,579	WesternLtd.	Boiler & Air Conditioning	2,258	HeadquartersMaintenance Inc.	Boyds Underwater Services	3,300	MaritimesBrabazon Associates of Canada	2,302	LaurentianBramalea Ltd.	2,813	CentralK. Lois Brown	7,504	NewfoundlandBuckland & Taylor	13,205	WesternBurness Corlett & Partners	35,518	Headquarters &Ltd.	MaritimesBurrard Yarrowns Corporation	9,386	NewfoundlandCanadian Marine Rescue	33,618	WesternAuxiliaries	Canadian Marine	3,347	HeadquartersTransportation Centre	Chiassons Trophies	2,100	CentralC. E. Cloutier	13,424	MaritimesC.N. Marine	4,009	MaritimesColynis Nursey	7,000	WesternCompagnie General Electrique	6,998	LaurentianCooper Tanner & Associates	4,358	WesternE. C. B. Corlett in trust for	2,032	HeadquartersNetherlands Ship Model Basin	Creed Petroleum	7,096	MaritimesDavan Construction Ltd.	4,375	CentralDecorverd	2,958	LaurentianD. E. McMullen & Associates	14,200	CentralDominion Diving Limited	4,178	MaritimesDavid Andrew Drake	12,454	HeadquartersMichael Dufour	6,449	HeadquartersEastern Canada Towing	240,113	MaritimesElectromec Division Maritime	32,192	LaurentianInc.	J. M. Forsyth	7,541	MaritimesFriesen Kaye and Associates	10,200	HeadquartersDavid Gauthier	13,319	MaritimesGerman & Milne	8,969	HeadquartersEnvironment Halifax	51,114	MaritimesHull	10,000	HeadquartersRegina	8,500	Western
May 25, 1982

(c) Name of persons	Amount over	Coast Guardor firms	$ 2000	OfficeFisheries & Oceans	158,642	MaritimesHealth & Welfare	5,000	HeadquartersIndian & Northern Affairs	5,675	CentralNational Defence Halifax	68,422	MaritimesOttawa	3,788	HeadquartersNational Harbours Board	128,015	HeadquartersPublic Works London	4,242	HeadquartersOttawa	3,150	CentralWillowdale	19,184	CentralRevenue Canada	2,814	MaritimesSecretary of State	9,589	HeadquartersStatistics Canada	61,493	HeadquartersSupply and Services	36,272	HeadquartersTransport	3,632	HeadquartersRoderick Hayes	2,000	LaurentianHayes Stuart & Co. Ltd.	2,198	HeadquartersHoyles Niblock International	15,000	WesternLtd.	Hunter Construction Ltd.	5,230	WesternIMP Group Limited	2,160	MaritimesInternational Simultaneous	13,848	HeadquartersTranslation Service	G. Isenor	12,110	MaritimesJ. A. Edgett Excavating Ltd.	252,900	WesternKevin Madge Construction Co.	2,500	CentralLabsonic	2,345	LaurentianPierrette Landry	3,002	HeadquartersLasalle Hydraulic Laboratory	10,000	HeadquartersLtd.	MacGregor Canada Ltd.	4,002	HeadquartersJohn A. MacDonald	8,969	MaritimesMacLaren Morex Inc.	9,593	MaritimesJohn E. Mahoney	7,035	HeadquartersMaritime Waste Oil Service	14,202	MaritimesB. McShane	12,375	MaritimesMinistcre du Tourisme de la	2,205	LaurentianChasse et de la Peche du Quebec	N. S. Department of	116,459	MaritimesEnvironment	Pacific R/M Janitorial Service	7,623	WesternPort Arthur Shipbuilding	15,701	CentralPreston Landscaping Regd	3,879	MaritimesRemotec Applications Inc.	7,490	NewfoundlandRobert Wahba Consultant &	21,425	CentralAssociates	R. W. Digdon Construction	5,171	MaritimesLtd.	Sanivan Inc.	297,000	LaurentianThomas Smith	8,230	WesternThomas Henry Smith	3,000	WesternSociete d'Etudes	2,400	LaurentianComplementaires en Administration	Sperry Gyroscope	9,297	HeadquartersSt. Lawrence Seaway Authority	46,825	WesternSullivan Construction Ltd.	202,746	MaritimesS. Mason Tangier	12,537	MaritimesChantal Tanguay	11,477	LaurentianHarry A. Taylor	5,200	WesternTed Mason Landscaping Ltd.	7,975	WesternThe Royal Danish	391,649	HeadquartersAdministration of Navigation and Hydrography	The Wind Turbine Co. of	15,358	Central/LaurentianCanada	Thor-Tech Services	10,935	CentralTri-County Construction	4,944	MaritimesTurjo Construction Ltd.	2,140	MaritimesUniversal Enterprises	6,375	MaritimesWainwright Analytical	7,000	MaritimesPreston Young	12,478	Maritimes
Order Paper Questions NRC-CATERING AND QUARTERING SERVICES


Mr. Clarke: With reference to the professional and special services recorded by the Ministry of State for Science and Technology for the National Research Council at page 32.30, volume II of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, with particular reference to catering and quartering services (a) what was the name of each type of service (b) what was the amount paid for each service and, for contracts over $2,000, to whom was it paid (c) for what reason does the council require these services?


James Duncan Schroder: In so far as the National Research Council is concerned, the reply is as follows:
(a) and (b) Luncheons, food servicesworking groups	$7,813.38
Luncheons, food services-hospitality	21,059.90


[Stage Direction]
There were no contracts for $2,000 and over.
(c)	Luncheons, food services and hospitality are provided by the council when discussion on official matters are held with persons who are not employees of the Government of Canada, by persons who are members of national or international committees or organizations.
Mr. Clarke: With reference to the professional and special services recorded by the Ministry of State for Science and Technology under the Scientific and Technical Information Program-the National Research Council at page 32.31, volume II of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, with particular reference to catering and quartering services (a) what was the name of each type of service (b) what was the amount paid for each service and, for contracts over $2,000, to whom was it paid (c) for what reason does the council require these services?


James Duncan Schroder: In so far as the National Research Council is concerned, the reply is as follows:
(a) and (b) Luncheons, food servicesworking groups	$1,637.57
Luncheons, food services-hospitality	1,627.76


[Stage Direction]
There were no contracts issued in excess of $2,000 each.
(c) Luncheons, food services and hospitality are provided by the council when discussion on official matters are held with persons who are not employees of the Government of Canada, by persons who are members of national or international committees or organizations.
Mr. Herbert: With reference to the answer to question No. 3,330, was a similar question dated July 23, 1975 answered by the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and, if so, on what date and for what reason was the statistical system changed?


Mr. Gary F. McCauley (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Yes, a similar

May 25, 1982
Order Paper Questions
question was answered. The changes to the statistical system were made in 1976 when the department realized that the amount of trustee fees were of very little use to the users of the data and not very representative without the other costs of administration.


Mr. Blenkarn: 1.	With reference to the Auditor General's statement on page 167 of his report that over 40 per cent of the investigations commenced were not completed within the target date of 18 months and that some investigations are now behind by as much as 43 months (a) which investigations were not completed in 18 months (b) who were the persons being investigated (c) which persons were investigated in excess of 43 months (d) for what reason did it take so long to investigate these people?
2.	What are the guidelines given by the minister to the Bureau of Competition Policy to make investigations?
3.	How many persons are employed in the bureau of Investigation?


Gary Francis McCauley: 1. In keeping with the provision of Section 27 of the Combines Investigation Act, which stipulates that any inquiry under the act shall be conducted in private, the policy tradtionally followed by the director has been not to give any indication nor disclose any information with respect to inquiries under the act. The public is informed about the administration of the act through the periodic reports of the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission, special inquiries, court proceedings and the annual report of the director which has to be submitted to Parliament. Accordingly, no details can be given on the questions asked in paragraph 1. except for part (d) which relates to the reason why it takes so long to carry out the investigations. Inquiries are often interrupted by court proceedings initiated by those who are under inquiry for the reason that the director or the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission has no jurisdiction in the matter. The dimension and size of many investigations, the technical complexity of the economic or legal questions involved require a substantial portion of the limited resources.
2.	None. The law sets out the guidelines for initiating inquiries.
3.	Two hundred and thirty persons are employed in the Bureau of Competition Policy, 184 of which are assigned to the direct enforcement of the act.


Mr. Miller: 1.	Did the Office of Native Claims of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development submit the Nuu-chah-nulth Land and Sea Claim to the Department of Justice to ascertain the claim's legal merit and, if so, on what date?
2.	What (a) procedure and criteria (b) specific information sources did the Department of Justice use to ascertain the legal merits of the claim?
3.	What were the results and recommendations the Department of Justice forwarded to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development concerning the legal merits of the claim?
4.	What information and documentation were the Nuu-chah-nulth claimants asked to provide to the Department of Justice to support the claim?


Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: I am informed by the Departments of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Justice as follows: 1. Yes, February 1981.
2.	A review of the claim was made on the basis of the 1973 policy on comprehensive claims and of information supplied by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
3.	Any advice provided to the department of IAND would be confidential.
4.	None.


Mr. Corbett: What are the names and addresses of the licensed eel fishermen in Queen's county, King's county. Saint John county and Sunbury county. New Brunswick?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Lists of fishermen traditionally have not been published. This policy is practised in order to protect the fisherman's right to privacy.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, if question No. 2,969 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Does the House agree that question No. 2,969 be made an order for return?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Clarke: 1.	With reference to the uninsured losses of more than $1,000 of equipment recorded by the Department of the Environment in footnote No. 7 at page 13.4, volume I of the 1979-80 Public Accounts of Canada, under what circumstances was the equipment lost and (a) who was culpable (b) were any convictions made and, if so, what sentences were imposed (c) are any trials or appeals pending (d) was the equipment replaced (e) did the department undertake steps to ensure that such losses did not recur and, if so, what were they?
2.	What other equipment losses are part of the unaccounted balance of $42,120?
3.	What use does the department make of the portable radio, audio visual equipment, outboard motor, saddles and saddle bags, electronic sartorious balance and the water level recorders?
Return tabled.
May 25, 1982


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call starred question No. 3,462?


Mr. Young: 1.	Does Canada Post intend to move the location of its philatelic services from Ottawa to Antigonish?
2.	How many employees currently employed in the unit are (a) physically disabled (b) mentally handicapped?
3.	Are measures being taken to place such employees in other employment and, if so, what are such measures?


Gary Francis McCauley: Madam Speaker, the answer to the question is:
1.	Yes. In response to the federal government's decentralization program, the Canada Post Corporation is now planning the move of its philatelic services from Ottawa to Antigonish.
2.	(a) five, (b) two.
3.	Yes, the measures being taken are: (a) preferred consideration for any positions at an equivalent level that become vacant elsewhere at the head office of the Canada Post Corporation in Ottawa; (b) preferred consideration for developmental assignments to positions in other sections to try to enhance the qualifications of the employees concerned; (c) registration of the names of the employees with the Public Service Commission's placement bureau for handicapped employees for transfer to positions in government departments and other federal agencies. If the employees have not been relocated to other positions between now and about nine months before the move is scheduled to occur, action to transfer them to other positions will be intensified at that time.


A. Daniel McKenzie: Madam Speaker, 1 rise concerning two questions I have on the Order Paper, one of them being No. 4,072 from February 25. The question deals with Department of Transport directive No. 2080-1, which in turn deals with "Francophone participation-Ontario region", which establishes special recruitment teams to go into universities and schools in Ontario and Quebec to hire Francophones for employment in the federal civil service. My question deals with whether or not other language groups such as Polish, Ukrainian, Italian and Portuguese will be receiving these same privileges. This aspect of the government's bilingualism policy has never been brought out in the open and explained to the Canadian people, especially the 40 ethnic groups and the Anglophones who are not receiving this preferential treatment.
In addition, there is question No. 4,175 which 1 placed on the Order Paper on March 24. This is not an unusually long period of time, but it is extremely important that we find out
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what is going on in the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs because a senior official, Mr. R. W. Bailey, has written a letter to the assistant deputy minister stating that there are rumours circulating in the patent office that the hiring team presently seeking examiners has been instructed to limit their search to Francophones, particularly unilingual Francophones.
It has been further alleged that academically qualified Anglophones have been rejected for employment. Mr. Gagnon wrote back to Mr. Bailey that this was correct, that this is the policy. So I would like to impress upon the parliamentary secretary the importance of having these questions answered as soon as possible. Nothing like this has ever received all-party approval and there has never been any discussion in this Flouse or anywhere else about preferential hiring policies of the government.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, I am not aware of what stage the answers are at right at the moment, but 1 will be pleased to look into the matter for the hon. member. At such time as the answers are available in the two official languages of this country, they will certainly be tabled.
I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker moved:: That this House condemns the government for the economic mismanagement which has led directly to the loss of 300,000 jobs since August, 1981 and produced a crisis situation for students seeking summer or permanent employment, and calls on the government to accept its responsibility for this tragic mess and promote the private and public sector hiring of Canada's youth so that those attending school can afford to continue to acquire needed skills, and those graduating can immediately become productive members of the work force.
He said: Madam Speaker, you have just read a motion which sets forth that since August of last year some 300,000 jobs have been lost, the bulk of which is borne by the youth of this country.
This motion of condemnation is well deserved by the Liberal government. It is moved on behalf of all Canadians, but especially on behalf of our youth. Liberal times are becoming truly lousy times. Young Canadians are being forced to pay for the accumulated blunder of the government, and for the ignorance and plain stupidity of its policies. The fault lies directly with the cabinet but also with Liberal backbenchers.

May 25, 1982
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At the time of each vote in this House they choose to protect their personal incomes rather than choosing to vote against cabinet schemes which aggravate and cause problems rather than solve them.


Mr. Collenette:: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. The hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) 1 believe has committed a trangression of the rules of this House by imputing motives on the part of members on this side of the House. He said that we vote in the House of Commons for a particular motive, that is, to keep our jobs. That, Mr. Speaker, 1 submit is out of order. It is a question of privilege. 1 demand the hon. member withdraw those remarks immediately.


Paul James Cosgrove: That was a low blow.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to see how sensitive Liberal members opposite are. They should be sensitive because they bear personal responsibility for the conditions which the young of this country face. This government has mortgaged the future of the young people of this country. What our young people will face in one year, five years or ten years from now is a lifestyle that is substantially diminished because of the personal actions of Liberal backbenchers who are continuing to keep an evil and corrupt cabinet in power. Young Canadians are standing in soup lines today while Liberal backbenchers keep this corrupt and evil government in power. When the government attacks the youth of this nation, it attacks the very future of the nation itself. This Liberal government must be defeated because the future of this nation is at stake.
There is an alternative set of policies which will return Canada to a position of strength and where social justice for all can prevail. 1 will set the scene of Canada's current plight which has been caused by the Liberal government. Other speakers on this side will elaborate on regional problems, on specific industry problems and particularly the problems faced by the youth. We will deal with and we will totally smash the weak and futile arguments which Liberal members put forth. Their pathetic attempts to blame the opposition, to blame the Premiers, to blame the United States and, indeed, to blame Canadians themselves, will be exposed for the hollow and shallow arguments they really are. The fault lies with the Liberal cabinet and Liberal backbenchers. The solution lies in their defeat.
Why is it that today 1.2 million Canadians are unemployed whereas in 1968 only 300,000 people were unemployed? Why is it that youth unemployment today is at 17.5 per cent whereas in 1968 youth unemployment was virtually nil? Why is it that inflation today is at 11.6 per cent whereas in 1968 it was a mere 4 per cent? Why is it that interest rates today are at 15.3 per cent whereas in 1968 they were at 7.5 per cent? Why is it that federal spending is at $74.2 billion whereas in 1968 it was a mere $12 billion? Why is it that the federal deficit is at $50 billion for this year alone-it may be greater-whereas in 1968 it was a mere $500 million? Why is it that the gross national debt is $140 billion whereas it was approximately $30 billion in 1968?
Why is it that we as a nation are paying interest on the national debt of some $16.7 billion this year as compared to
$1.4 billion in 1968? Why is it that the federal government has to advertise to the tune of $250 million to tell people how good the nation is, whereas in 1968 the advertising budget was a mere $29 million? Why were we a strong and vibrant nation in 1968, a nation that had the sense of climbing the mountain and building a future for our young people? When we came out of university at that time why did we have no thoughts of despair and no thoughts of the nation going backwards? We were building a great nation them. That is how it was in 1968.
How did we achieve full employment in 1968? How was it that we had a universal medicare system available to everyone, the poor included? How was it that we had a hospital insurance system that was sound and well funded? How was it that we had a post-secondary education system for our youth who found jobs immediately upon completion of that education? None of us ever thought of unemployment when we came out of university or college in those days. There were five or six jobs for every graduate upon completion of post-secondary education. Even though we had all of these benefits in 1968, we had balanced budgets, we had low taxes and we had true social justice.
The answer to all of my questions is simple. Before 1968 we were not governed by a bunch of socialists. Before 1968 both the Progressive Conservative Party and the Liberal Party believed in individual enterprise rather than state enterprise. We believed in minimal government intervention, government as a regulator rather than as a participant and major player. Wc believed in capital investment by Canadians and by people from other parts of the world. We knew, and we in this party know today, that capital investment means jobs. When there is no capital investment, there are no jobs. Both of the major parties in those days believed that people should be compensated for the risks they take rather than for the position they held, patronage or prior wealth. Only our party believes that today. The situation has changed since 1968. We have a government that has been in power since 1968 and has abandoned individual enterprise for state control and management. The result is exactly the same as in every other country in the world that has tried state centralized control-loss of individual freedoms and loss of choice, which lead to personal despair.
Why is it that Roumania, Poland and the Soviet Union were all massive exporters of food in the early years, but from the time they took to central decision-making and started to get Crown corporations involved they have lost even the capacity to feed their own people? Their people now stand in food lines. That situation is happening here in Canada. We will see more of it. The people who are bearing the brunt of that penalty are the youth of this nation.
Unfortunately, since 1968, and especially now, compensation depends upon prior wealth. You know, Mr. Speaker, the interest to service the national debt is some $16.7 billion. That means people who have wealth in the nation have concentrated into their hands an additional $16.7 billion, which means the rich become incredibly rich. This leads to a class society, which
May 25, 1982

can be seen in other countries that have fabulously rich people and extremely poor people. We know, too, that deficits lead to inflation and with extra money around the value of land goes up. As a result you have a land class and a class without land, the tenants. That is a return to feudalism. What kind of a Parliament and what kind of a government would impose feudalism on the youth of this nation? Our youth will be faced with being tenants and serfs rather than being owners, able to exercise their individual enterprise.
Since 1968 compensation under the Liberal government has depended upon political patronage. One needs only to look at who heads up the Crown corporations, who heads up the advertising and consulting agencies, and who are the heads of boards and commissions. All of these people are paid fabulous salaries and have great indexed pensions. Who are the senior civil servants? All of them have a close tie-in with a small group of men and women who have been running this country since 1968. They are all Liberal party hacks. Most of them were actually turfed out by the electors of the nation. The electors looked at them in their individual constituencies and said that they did not want that man or woman to lead them. They were defeated and then the Liberal government appointed them to very lucrative positions. This is how one gets ahead in 1982 under the Liberal government! It is wrong. It is not what we want for the youth of the nation.
Who suffers under these conditions? Who bears the penalty of inflation or of political appointments? It is ordinary working Canadians-small-business men, farmers, fishermen, senior citizens, and last but not least, it is the future of the country, namely, our youth. We can say goodbye to the just society under the Liberal government.
I will now give some details of the youth situation, which will be followed up by other hon. members on this side. Unemployment in April was some 1,233,000 people, for some 9.6 per cent of the work force. As well there were almost 100,000 men and women who have simply given up. They have just gone home and they are sitting there, awaiting better times, because there is no sense even going out into the market. But more importantly, since August, 1981, over 300,000 jobs which existed then have disappeared at the rate of tens of thousands each week. This will continue for the foreseeable future. Of these 300,000 lost jobs, over 53 per cent were held by young people. Over-all youth unemployment today is 18 per cent.
What is the situation faced by college and university students who need jobs to finance their next year of education? There are simply no jobs available for them. Approximately
190,000	students come out of colleges looking for jobs in the summer and approximately 463,000 out of universities, a total of three-quarters of a million young people looking for jobs to finance their next year of education, so that they are ready, educated and skilled when they complete their education in some two, three or four years. If they cannot find jobs and thus cannot return to school, they sit at home. Their whole attitude toward life is changed or they emigrate to countries where
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there are jobs available. This is certainly not in the best interests of Canada.
Beyond the students in universities and colleges, who amount to only 20 per cent of the total youth who start in the school system, 80 per cent of the young people are going out into the work force with grade 12 or less education. What kinds of jobs are available to them? The facts show that the government has reduced research and development so that there are not as many positions available in universities for research or in private corporations because they do not obtain proper tax credits for research and development.
Why are there no jobs for the youth? The answer lies in a long policy-at least since 1968-of state or government intervention in the economy of the nation. I refer to recent policies such as the National Energy Program, which is a nationalization program not a Canadianization one; policies which confiscate wealth from existing corporate enterprises and from individuals who own oil and gas interests; a budget which attacks investors and individual enterprise, whether it is small-business men, farmers, fishermen or individual workers trying to balance their budgets.
The result of these policies within the last few months has been $10 billion of Canadian money flowing out of the country in order for people to purchase shares in companies of other countries. Originally these people may have lived in other lands but they had shares in companies in this country. Approximately $8 billion over and above the $10 billion left this country so that people could purchase shares in United States businesses. They decided that the country was not worth it and that the business climate was wrong. They took their money and purchased shares in United States businesses, in United Kingdom businesses and in businesses around the world. This means that the related jobs are in these various countries rather than here.
Then we can look at the $5 billion to $6 billion each year which leaves the country to buy imported oil. This means that our oil wells in the west, primarily in Saskatchewan and Alberta, are closed in and shut down. Approximately $6 billion flows out of the country to Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Nigeria and Mexico, which creates jobs in those countries rather than here. We could have $10 billion still working for us here, we could have another $8 billion still working for us here, and we could have $5 billion to $6 billion each year to create jobs for the youth of the nation.
It makes me weep, coming from Alberta, when I return to my riding and observe the oil industry. It once was an industry which created jobs for young people, not for Alberta's youth- there are many jobs still available for them-but for many young men and women from Newfoundland, from the rest of the maritime provinces, from Quebec, Ontario, and in fact from the rest of the country. It was a vibrant industry. Over 700 companies were creating jobs. Well over 90 per cent of the staff of multinational corporations were Canadian men and women, including the upper management of those companies. Indeed, Albertans and other Canadians have gone on to the

May 25, 1982
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parent companies of multinational corporations and are holding great positions of influence and power. We were truly Canadianizing the oil and gas industry because most young people would go into a multinational corporation, learn the skills and then leave in order to set up their own companies. This is where the 700 oil and gas companies got their start. We must remember all the service industries, the people in the mud companies and the welders. What about people who provided food or were involved in the entire infrastructure of the oil and gas industry? It was totally Canadian.
Then the National Energy Program killed it. It brings tears to one's eyes when one realizes that hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost because of an ideology which directly attacks the young people of the nation and deprives them of a future they deserve. It is smashed, and it just makes me weep.
It also weeps when I look at the automobile industry and see tens of thousands of young people not obtaining jobs in Ontario. They are not obtaining jobs because in 1972, when the world price of energy was rising, the government decided that it would not be subject to any blackmail by an Arab nation and it held down the price. This immediately started the hemorrhage; money flowed out of the country to pay for imported oil and sent a signal to buyers to continue purchasing large cars and to manufacturers to continue producing them. Meanwhile, Japan and Germany, having to face the world price for oil, immediately trained engineers and skilled people to produce smaller and more energy efficient cars. The result is that some eight years later they are whipping us in the automobile sales industry. Why not? It goes to show that the government in making its decision did not really understand the ramifications of it and genuinely hurt people. Young people across the nation need to know that they cannot obtain jobs today because of Liberal government decisions of some eight to ten years ago.
How do we create jobs? First, we need a country with resources. Clearly we agree that Canada has plenty in the way of resources. We have oil and gas beyond the wildest dreams of other countries. We have potash, coal, forests, minerals, electricity and a resource we have not even tapped-water. More water flows into the Arctic Ocean than we could use in a million years. It is our ace in the hole.
Second, we need not only a nation with resources, we need people. Canada has the people. We do not have too many people, unlike many other countries with limited resources. For example, Japan, with 122 million people sitting on a rock in the middle of the sea, has some problems. India, with 600 or 700 million people and limited resources, has real problems. In Canada we have 24 million people spread over the assets of an entire half continent. Clearly people are not the problem.
Third, we need educated people, and we have them as well. We have an infrastructure of colleges and universities second to none in the entire world.
Fourth, we need a stable society. It is crystal clear that Canadians are a stable people. Canadians are far more stable than the Liberal government, which has been able for a number of mysterious reasons to con them into letting it stay
in power. Canadians are greater than the Liberal government that governs them at this moment.
The fifth and prime reason why we are in trouble and have this much unemployment, in spite of our resources and people, is the lack of the business climate which we need. When you examine each individual cabinet minister, you will find that they have no comprehension of business climate, the need for a certain tax structure and for stability in taxation and government policies. The Liberal government has failed miserably. Clearly, the solution is to defeat this government.
The youth of this nation are beginning to discover that this is the remedy. As the youth spokesman of our party, I am absolutely delighted to find as I travel through every province to provincial conventions that the youth are beginning to realize that while a slave is someone who is taxed 100 per cent of his economic value, which then passes into someone else's hands, they are 55 per cent slaves in Canada. They work hard but 55 per cent of their worth goes into the hands of other people who decide how their money should be spent. They are not happy with this fact and it is a great sign of hope for Canada. The youth of Canada must understand that they need to organize. They will join this party, as they are by the tens of thousands, and we will throw the Liberal backbenchers out riding by riding.
We need a new government which will limit the growth of government and government intervention for reasons other than the ideology that a small group of men and women in Ottawa want to control this nation. It cannot be done. It has never been done in any other country, including those much smaller than Canada.
We need a government which will stress education. When one sees our party's policies, one can see that they are tremendous policies for the development of education. We need to stress research and development and to stress certainty in a solid business climate.
It can be done. A Progressive Conservative government will do it. The youth of Canada are not to be blamed for our problems today, Canadians are not to be blamed and the United States is not to be blamed. It is the Liberal cabinet and individual Liberal Members of Parliament who are responsible for the problems of this nation. Truly, Liberal times are lousy times.


David Michael Collenette: Mr. Speaker, while Mr. Deputy Speaker was in the Chair a few moments ago at the beginning of the speech of the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker), I rose on a point of order and subsequently on a question of privilege to draw to the attention of the Chair that, in my view, the member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) transgressed the rules of the House by imputing motives to members on this side of the House.
Unfortunately, Mr. Deputy Speaker was engaged in a private conversation with the Clerk of the House at the time and did not hear all the words that were uttered. I advised Mr. May 25, 1982________________COMMONS DEBATES_______________________17737
Deputy Speaker privately-I assume he has left the chamber for a few moments and has been delayed-that I would raise this matter after the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills had finished his speech as, in all courtesy, I felt he should at least be allowed to finish.
1 would ask Mr. Deputy Speaker and yourself to undertake to look at the record of the early part of the speech by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills, wherein he stated very clearly that members on this side of the House were voting on legislation and other measures in the House solely to protect their own jobs.
After reviewing the precedents during the last few minutes, this is clearly a breach of privilege of members of the House and it would cast a reflection not only on members on this side but on all members if statements such as that are allowed to continue. I draw your attention to Beauchesne, Citation 316(e) and 316(i). Citation 316(e) states:
Besides the prohibitions contained in SO 35, it has been sanctioned by useage that a member, while speaking, must not-
(e) impute bad motives or motives different from those acknowledged to a
member;
And Citation 316(i) states:
-reflect upon the past acts and proceedings of the House.
If you proceed to Citation 319(3), it states:
In the House of Commons a member will not be permitted by the Speaker to indulge in any reflections on the House itself as a political institution; or to impute to any member or any members unworthy motives for their actions in a particular case; or to use any profane or indecent language; or to question the acknowledged or undoubted powers of the House in a matter of privilege; or to reflect upon, argue against or in any manner call in question the past acts and proceedings of the House, or to speak in abusive and disrespectful terms of an Act of Parliament.
This last point is extremely crucial. It is outlined and documented in Erskine May, 1 believe page 153; there are many cases in British parliamentary history where members may not reflect upon votes which have already taken place in the House of Commons.
Finally, I would draw to your attention page 424 of Erskine May, where it states under the heading "Reflecting upon votes of the House":
The objections to the practice of referring to past debates apply with greater force to reflections upon votes of the House, unless made for the purpose of justifying a motion that the vote be rescinded. Those reflections not only revive discussion upon questions already decided, but are wholly irregular, inasmuch as the member is himself included in, and bound by, a vote agreed to by a majority.
I sincerely feel that this kind of abuse of the rules cannot be allowed to continue if this place is to function in any serious way. We are guilty on all sides of the House of using extreme rhetoric at times to make our case. That is fully acceptable no matter how tiresome it may seem to hon. members and certainly to the public who view us on television each day. However, if this place is to continue to exist and hold the confidence of all Canadians, we must ensure that the rules, procedures and Standing Orders of the House are upheld.
I know the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills and I am sure he did not intend to break the rules of the House or reflect
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upon the procedures of the House. Therefore, I would ask him, with all respect, to withdraw those remarks immediately.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, the whole basis of the case by the hon. member for York East (Mr. Collenette) concerned some allegation 1 made about their jobs. I did not say one word about their jobs or trying to retain their jobs. The Deputy Speaker, who was in the Chair immediately prior to you, considered the case and treated it with exactly the disdain it deserved. He made no ruling and just sat down because I had the floor. The objection by the hon. member for York East has no basis in fact, and since it was dealt with by the prior Speaker, I would also claim the privilege of autrefois acquis.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. ex-parliamentary secretary should pay a little more attention to the language that is used in Beauchesne and the other precedents he cites. I do not intend to prolong the debate on an opposition day on a spurious question of privilege, but if you look carefully you will find that while it is improper for a member to refer to the vote of another member-singular-there is nothing improper about referring to the vote-collectively-of a party or members belonging to a party.
On a point of order now Mr. Speaker, I believe there is a general disposition, if you are to inquire, that apart from the lead speakers in each party, speeches by members be limited to 15 minutes throughout the remainder of this debate.


David Michael Collenette: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry that you allowed the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) to inveigle another point of order totally unrelated to the question of privilege. That being the case, perhaps 1 should explain. I thought I was clear earlier in my remarks that Mr. Deputy Speaker did not actually hear the words because he was engaged in conversation. I told him that I would raise it after the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills spoke. At the time I made the original intervention, Mr. Deputy Speaker had no other recourse than to make the decision he did because he did not hear what was being said.
I submit and would ask you, Mr. Speaker, not to resolve the matter at this time, but to look at the "blues" and the record and perhaps consider this matter in due course.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I will recognize other hon. members if they see fit to seek the floor on this question of privilege. Obviously, I did want to recognize the hon. member for York East (Mr. Collenette) who raised it and the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) who properly wanted the occasion to comment on it. It is obvious that as the present incumbent of the chair I am in no position to make any decision now, not having heard the words used and not having access to either the "blues" or Hansard. Consequently, the Chair will take the question under advisement. If it appears appropriate to have the matter raised again, either by other hon. members or by the Chair tomorrow, then that can proceed.

May 25, 1982
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The hon. member for York East has raised the point and has therefore protected his views in so far as having raised the matter immediately upon its occurrence. As I have said, I think it is self-evident that the present incumbent could not handle the matter without access to Hansard and so forth. If there are other hon. members who want to address themselves to the question of privilege and put their thoughts on the record with regard to the matter, I would certainly recognize them for that purpose. Otherwise, I will go to the point of order raised by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen). To avoid confusion, perhaps hon. members who seek the floor on the question of privilege might indicate to the Chair that that is what they wish to do. Otherwise, I will move on to the point of order.
I will recognize the hon. member for Yukon on the question of privilege. I might and should note that the hon. member has already spoken on the question of privilege and it is not customary to hear an hon. member twice. I have seen that happen in the House. I will recognize the hon. member for that purpose, but I would hope that we will try to keep to one intervention per hon. member.


Erik Nielsen: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, there is nothing wrong in allowing hon. members to speak more than once on a question of privilege, and our practices have allowed this for the 25 years 1 have been here. Those new innovations of interpretation have the unfortunate habit of becoming precedents when they have been imposed more than once.
I rose simply to say that the disposition of 15-minute speeches, which will allow more than the usual number of hon. members to participate in this very important debate, might very quickly disappear if we embark upon extended and doubtful questions of privilege.


David Michael Collenette: Blackmail!


Erik Nielsen: It is not blackmail at all. In my view, the hon. member for York East just used an extremely unparliamentary term when he accused me of blackmail. Perhaps the Chair might take that under advisement, too, when considering this exchange.


David P. Smith: Have we now reverted to the point of order, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the time?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I would like the House to do so, if that is agreeable.


David P. Smith: Yes. This side of the House is agreeable to going along with the request of the opposition for 15-minute speeches.


Erik Nielsen: "Suggestion".


David P. Smith: I think the understanding was that the 30 minutes would apply to the mover of the motion and the first hon. member responding for the government, which is the norm under Standing Order 58. I do not believe it would apply
to the hon. member speaking for the New Democratic Party, but I understood that we had agreed that that hon. member would be allowed 20 minutes-


Erik Nielsen: That is correct.


David P. Smith: -and that everyone speaking after the first three would then be limited to 15 minutes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: The Chair sees some indication by hon. members that the suggestion of the hon. member for Yukon, which has been referred to in some detail by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Smith), is agreeable to the House. I do not think I need summarize it further. Is the proposal of the hon. member for Yukon acceptable to the House?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Agreed and so ordered.


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg-St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I was a bit unsure whether I would ever get the chance to speak to this motion. With all of the notices of privilege from the other side of the House, I just began to wonder whether or not there was some sort of privilege which would disqualify us from criticizing government policy.
The opposition motion before the House today is a very important one because it is an attempt to focus public attention upon the problem of unemployment among youth across the country. While it is important to discuss unemployment among youth across the country, we cannot, of course, do so in isolation. We must deal with the whole question of unemployment as it affects everyone and which is at such record levels today. When we deal with the question of unemployment among youth, we must deal with the fact that the government of the day is really abdicating its responsibility to manage the economy in a humane and just fashion.
I noted with interest that the first hon. member to speak for the Conservative Party really seemed to indicate that he was in favour of the government continuing to wash its hands of responsibility for economic matters. I guess that is why, when the recent Gallup poll came out asking Canadians whether or not there would be any difference in matters of economic policy if a Conservative government were in office rather than a Liberal government, the majority of Canadians indicated they recognized there would really be no difference. So while it is obviously time to defeat the Liberal government of the day, Canadians will have to look elsewhere for new economic policies and not to the PCs.
The economy today is in one horrific mess. We simply have to remind ourselves of the fact that bankruptcies are at a very high rate. Small businesses are closing daily. Large enterprises are threatened by the present economic recession. Lay-offs continue unabated. These are announced quite regularly and just seem to continue to mount. Mortgages are extremely expensive, so that only a very small percentage of Canadians
May 25, 1982

can afford to buy a home. Those who presently own homes or who have mortgages are struggling to keep those homes. Many people are having to sell homes for which they have worked and dreamed about for very long periods of time. Government revenues are down because of the present economic recession, and with these revenues down, we begin to get threats to public service salaries. The quality of services which government provides to people is threatened, whether it be in the area of education, health, or in the amount of unemployment insurance available to people. New services are put on hold, whether it be adequate pensions for people or adequate daycare across the country.
The general economic malaise really cuts across all kinds of economic indicators. The one which stands out most, of course, is the fact of unemployment, which is at its highest level since the depression of the 1930s, with over 1.25 million people unemployed today. Things are so bad that even the Liberal caucus seems to begin to recognize the severity of the situation, and not only backbenchers, but also even some cabinet ministers. We recall, for example, the letter from the Quebec MPs who called upon the government to stimulate the economy. I bring to mind the recent document of the Liberal party caucus committee on economic development, which recently became public, pointing out the need for "radically alternative ways of revitalizing the economy and of offsetting the current hard times".
It is in the midst of all this political, social and economic trouble that young people today are graduating from universities, seeking employment and not finding it. Other young people are out of universities for the summer, seeking employment so that they can afford to go back to university in the fall, and are not finding that employment. It is not only those young people who have chosen to go to university who are out of work and who need to work, but, as well, young people who are simply out of work today and who are looking for jobs. We should consider that, of the total number of Canadians unemployed in Canada today, close to half are under 25 years of age. For example, in April's statistics, there were 1,233,000 people unemployed and 508,000, or nearly half of them, were between the ages of 15 and 24. Last month, the seasonally adjusted general rate of unemployment was 9.6 per cent while, on a seasonally adjusted basis, youth unemployment was significantly higher, at 16.6 per cent. If one looks at the unemployment rate among youth on an unadjusted basis, one finds that it was at 18 per cent.
If we take into account the hidden unemployed across this country, those who have simply given up looking for work and who are no longer actively looking for jobs because the jobs are not there, we find that the unemployment rate among young people in this country jumps up to the astronomical figure of 25.1 per cent. We have some 777,000 young people looking for work today. When we add to that the summer students looking for work so they can return to university in the fall as well as the new graduates, the situation is clearly intolerable.
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We are threatening the future of this country, making it so difficult for young people today that we are going to rob them of any hope of participating in society in a positive manner. We will rob people of the opportunity to return to university in the fall. Young people are being robbed of the opportunity to contribute to society in a positive way.
Given the severity of the youth unemployment situation, we expected some real innovative and tough action by the government. Instead, we have a government which is clinging to the economic strategy outlined in last November's budget. That budget as an economic instrument is clearly and totally ineffective as we look at the present circumstances, with over a million unemployed as well as the large number of youth who are unemployed.
I wish to review the budget of last November. I think it can be quite fairly described as a tax grab, in the name, ironically, of social justice. It has hurt many ordinary Canadians. It even attempted to tax dental and health plans. The budget had an economic strategy based on energy megaprojects which have now fallen to the ground. They are not going to be the driving force in the economy which the budget anticipated. However, the government has not yet replaced those megaprojects with any other major and important economic stimulus.
The budget of last November cited inflation as the number one problem. Today inflation is continuing to go up and unemployment along with it. In citing inflation as the number one problem, the budget outlined a fiscal and monetary arrangement which would keep interest rates up and ostensibly restrain public expenditures, thereby failing to stimulate the economy. There is no help in the economic policy of the government for the unemployed of this country. There is certainly no real help for those young people who are unemployed.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) made a number of announcements with regard to job measures. I want to highlight one of those announcements. On March 11 this year the minister announced the addition of some $20 million to the summer Canada program, the federal government's student employment program. This was to add
10,000	young people to the employment rolls. It was to bring the total under the federal job employment program this summer up to 53,000 young people.
If we are generous and accept the figures of the government with regard to employment, we should compare that measure with the real need. I wish to refer to a recent article in The Globe and Mail, a well-known, respected and objective journal in this country, dated May 19, 1982. It deals with the question of youth unemployment. The measures of the government pale by comparison with what is needed. I quote from the article:
Employment counsellors and economists cannot remember when the job outlook for students was as dismal as it is this year, and they are predicting that about one-sixth of all students in the labour force this summer will be unable to find work.
One out of every six students will be out of work this summer!

May 25, 1982
employment and to meet local needs is just nowhere of the magnitude that will meet the need.
Basically, Mr. Speaker, what the government is doing for student summer employment this summer is just too little. We need further action and we need it now. What the government is doing in regard to unemployment in general is inadequate. With one and a quarter million people unemployed, nearly half of whom are young people, the economic situation is disastrous.
It is time for a new economic strategy. It is time for a new budget. It is time for an adequate program of employment for students. It is time to moderate interest rates. It is time for some economic stimulus so that we can get out of this recession. It is time to stimulate consumer demand which is at an all-time low. It is time, finally, to put in place a long-term industrial strategy that will see Canada processing its natural resources, rather than just selling them off on international markets and leaving Canadians as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and at this time as simply unemployed.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly welcome the opportunity to debate this resolution. It deals with a concern that everyone in this House shares, that there is a serious problem relating to the job market for young people. I hope that during the course of this debate we will all be able to come to some resolution, some shared purpose, some shared direction, as to how we can deal with it.
I must say, Mr. Speaker, we did not start out too well. I listened with great care to the contributions made by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) and by the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Keeper). Once again we were caught between two extremes. We heard from the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills give the classic textbook analysis of what is wrong with the world, the analysis that we have been hearing from the Conservative Party for some 50 or 60 years; that is, if only you get government out of everything, all problems will be solved.
I suppose the hon. member's own enthusiasm has been cured by the recent conference in Toronto of the Conservative Party. From what I read, it seemed to endorse and adopt those policies being followed by President Reagan in the United States and by Prime Minister Thatcher in England. They have led to such wonderful economic results! We know how well the policies endorsed by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills and carried out in practice by the Conservative Party in Great Britain are working-they have a 12.6 unemployment rate! So, Mr. Speaker, I suppose if we were to follow with some degree of fidelity the purposes and objectives set forward by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills, we could look forward to a much higher unemployment rate; because that is what he is endorsing.
I know we cannot take it too seriously because 1 am sure that does not reflect the position of the Conservative Party. But we have no way of knowing, because at the party convention less than 5 per cent of their delegates managed to get to
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the workshop on unemployment questions. That shows that their commitment to and their interest in the subject leaves something to be desired.
We do not know exactly where the Conservative Party stands because in an important moment in our economic history, when we are all seized of the degree of severity and the degree of concern expressed by Canadians about the issue of unemployment, the party which sees itself as the alternative to government and which has been instructed by its leader to sit in congress and come up with solutions, could get only 38 members to that convention. Only 38 members out of 800 managed to find their way to the workshop to deal with these matters of great importance. So although the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills indicates that the represents the future and that the young people are flocking to their banners, they were simply not flocking to that Saturday workshop because less than 5 per cent of them could be found. We have to assume that the particular orthodoxy and theology of the right that the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills has once again put forward is his point of view. We accept it as that, but it is worth examining what he really means by it. It leaves a strong antagonism towards increased government expenditure and intervention.
It is important for Canadians watching this debate in this House to ask whether, in effect, he is advocating that the 70 per cent of the expenditures of the federal budget which goes to transfer payments should be cut back. In other words, should we cut back on help to the elderly for their guaranteed income supplement and their old age pensions? Should we cut back on provincial government aid to education, which I have heard him espouse from the platform should be increased? Should we cut back on the aid that we could provide under the CAP program to the disabled, to the people on social assistance? Is he advocating that we cut back all those transfer payments that represent about 70 per cent of total federal expenditure?
We presume that we cannot take him as meaning that in that area; he would not want to cut back on those forms of assistance. So we must say, look at the other part of the budget which may be discretionary. Would he want to cut back on the aid that we provide to Mitel Corporation to establish 2,000 jobs in New Brunswick through the economic development program? Does he want to cut back on aid to the Export Development Corporation to help provide 20,000 jobs in the province of Quebec through export assistance? Is that what he is advocating? We never hear what hon. members opposite would do differently. What would they cut out?


Gordon Edward Taylor: Cut back on advertising and cut back on metric.


Lloyd Axworthy: The hon. member says cut back on advertising. The hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) was a member of a parliamentary committee that advocated more advertising in the training area. Now he has

May 25, 1982
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changed his mind. That committee said that one of the important objectives of the federal government should be to encourage young people to develop higher skills and that we should make our programs more widely known.
As a responsible minister, I took that advice. We provided the programs and now he is against them. I guess it amounts to a matter of what they recommend on Tuesday they forget on Thursday. They have no consistency.
Let me examine the positions put forward by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills on behalf of his party. What he is saying, basically, is that they should do nothing-cut back government expenditures, cut back everything, have no government intervention, do nothing, stand still and shrink the budget. That is what he was saying but now he denies it. If he denies it, that means he is contradicting what he said before. Now we are more confused than ever about the position of the Conservative Party. What he said initially he now says forget; he wants to say something else. Perhaps he wants to correct himself and say we should expand government programs and put more money into projects. I suppose we have to conclude that the Conservative Party does not really know where it stands.
Now let me come to the contribution of the New Democratic Party. I compliment the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James on his fine reading of the article in The Globe and Mail. He repeated word for word the article in what he called that "objective journal of opinion". That is a contradiction in itself.
1 was very pleased to hear what The Globe and Mail had to offer but I was curious to hear what the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James might have to offer. But there was nothing-the cupboard was bare.
When we got down to the hard reality of what the New Democratic Party would propose in order to deal with the issue of unemployment among young people, all we heard was: "Let's have a new industrial strategy; let's spend more money; let's stimulate and restrain at the same time". That is a fine set of resolutions to come from a party which steeped itself in trying to develop the image of what they think is the intellectual, political, leading edge of Canada. We heard about a new industrial strategy. No content, no details, no fine tuning except a large rendition from The Globe and Mail and then some very vague suggestions that we have a new industrial strategy.


Mr. Paproski:: They are waiting for Dennis McDermott.


Lloyd Axworthy: I guess they have not received their marching orders because the convention is not yet over. We will have to wait until next Thursday to find out what the NDP is thinking.


Mr. de Jong:: You are getting boring, boring, boring.


Lloyd Axworthy: Nothing could be more boring than having to listen to a reading from The Globe and Mail for the second time and then hear nothing but a number of very general, vague, amorphous suggestions that what we need is a new industrial strategy.
I will try to point out the things that we are attempting to do and then suggest things that the members of the House, in unity, might do to deal with the problems faced by young people in the job market. Large numbers of young people are unemployed and that is something that this party does not tolerate any more than the other party. Early today hon. members opposite chided Liberals for making suggestions, but this just shows that the opposition cannot be very serious about wanting a full and open debate.
Perhaps the most useful and important suggestions have come from members of this party, who have looked at the problem seriously rather than repeating articles from The Globe and Mail or from the Friedman textbook ad nauseam. Members of this party have discussed the matter in great depth and have consulted with experts across the country. They do not follow orthodoxies. They do not pick up a textbook from a chamber of commerce meeting and repeat it in the House. They are trying to come to grips with the problem in an honest and intelligent way. Surely they should not be chided and the government should not be chided for listening to them. They are Members of Parliament doing their job, trying to come to grips with a serious problem and present answers to the minister. That seems to be the obvious, rational and proper thing for a Member of Parliament to do.
I would have to say again that it is curious and passing strange that the opposition finds, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said in question period, that the only things they can offer are things that members of this party have developed. I compliment members of this party for being so generous and charitable in sharing their ideas with members of the opposition so that they may have something to say in question period. We would be a lot better off if hon. members opposite would forget for a moment their entrapment in their own orthodoxies, in their own theologies and come to grips with the same kind of honest appraisal of the situation, using real facts and dealing with real problems, rather than trying to deal with a world that they have conjured up within their own little crystal balls.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Socialism is the problem.


Lloyd Axworthy: Now we have the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills saying that socialism is the problem. In his speech he was using the standard of 1968 when everything was good. He kept asking the rhetorical question, why? The reason is that we had Liberal governments before 1968 which had brought in all the measures he thought were so good. I would amend his comments to say that from 1968 until this year this country has had the strongest record of job creation of any country in the industrial world. We created more jobs for more people than any other country. We were creating jobs at the rate of about 4 per cent per year, or 350,000 jobs per year. During that period the government that is now being chastised was creating more jobs than any other country in the world.
This simply points out what we have had to repeat time and time again. It is not the commitment of this government to job creation that has changed. We are dealing with very different
May 25, 1982

economic conditions. We are dealing with conditions which affect every single country in the world.
We are not here to lay blame. I know there is deepseated paranoia on the part of the Conservatives. They always want to see conspiracies in everything. There always has to be someone to blame. That is the way their minds work. They go around pointing fingers at who is to blame. We are here to debate solutions. We are not interested in trying to waggle the finger and say, "We caught you doing something nasty". We are here to find creative solutions. We are here to debate what might be done to help young people. We do not deal in this world of paranoia that hon. members opposite seem to enjoy so much.
Since 1968 we have been responsible for creating far more work than other countries. Now we are saying that we should deal with the reality. That paragon of countries which the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills so honours and thinks is doing all the right things, the United States of America, with all its policies of cut-back and restraint, now has an unemployment rate well over 9 per cent. It faces the same kind of problems we do. The hon. member uses, if I may be allowed to say so, some of the most ludicrous examples to say that somehow they are doing things right and we are doing things wrong. For example, he said the Canadian government made a serious mistake in the energy field by keeping consumer prices low. The Canadian people obviously did not think we made a mistake because they kept voting for this government which is committed to keeping prices low.
Fie also says the problem is that we did not know what we were doing and that is why the automotive industry is facing the problems it is. That is an interesting proposition, Mr. Speaker, one that deserves some analysis. If that is the case, then the United States, which went to the world price for energy about three and a half years ago, should not be facing problems in the automotive industry. If one follows his logic, you have to say the U.S. is charging world price, we kept ours below world price; therefore their automobile industry should be healthy and ours should be sick. But the reality is somewhat different, Mr. Speaker. We know that the U.S. industry is really sick because consumers' preferences have changed and, what is more important, the large automobile manufacturers- those wonderful managers which the hon. member likes to put on a pedestal-made serious managerial mistakes by not increasing automation and developing new products in order to compete. That is the reality of the situation. We say this kind of argument, Mr. Speaker, is simply not based on fact and reality. It is based on theory, theology, orthodoxy, which we cannot share because we want to come to grips with the real problems.
What are we doing to help young people in these circumstances, Mr. Speaker? My own department will be spending close to $800 million this year to deal with a wide variety of measures directed toward young people in the labour market. Of the three million young people coming into the market, 2.5
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million will get jobs virtually immediately, within the first 30 days. The others have available to them counselling services, mobility grants and training programs in order to provide for the upgrading of skills and placement in jobs. We have 50 employment centres in universities to provide specialized counselling and placement services for young people. We have opened 400 special youth employment centres across Canada which will have provided placements for over 300,000 Canadian youth this year and last. We did not hear members of the opposition talking about the valuable service provided to young people by those centres.


Mr. McDermid:: Wrong.


Lloyd Axworthy: We are spending a great deal of time and effort going to employers and asking for their assistance, asking them to use those centres as the forum in which young people can be given assistance to find jobs in the private sector. The government has made that commitment.
In addition, as I have said several times, we have concluded that perhaps the most useful and effective support the government can give to young people coming into the job market is to provide them with training which is relevant to their job needs. The hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills wants to know what we are doing. We are prepared to spend over $1 billion on training programs which will affect over 300,000 Canadians, 70 per cent of whom are young people. If that is one of the programs which the hon. member wants us to cut back, if that is part of his "pull in the belt" philosophy, then he flies in the face of the opinion of young people themselves. What they want most sincerely is an opportunity to be trained in a skill for a job that will be there. That is exactly what we are doing. We are putting in place a new training program.
If members of this House want action, if they want something they can do immediately to help young people obtain employment, then I have a suggestion for them. They can agree today in this debate to accept the training legislation we introduced for first reading last Friday and have it passed within a day. We will then have hundreds of thousands of young people going into new training positions. Are the members of the opposition prepared to follow through on that recommendation? They want action; well, here it is. If we get their agreement, the bill can be debated within one day, go to committee, come back and be passed, and we will provide thousands of new job-training positions for Canadians. They can co-operate with us rather than standing up and raising vague questions about industrial strategy. I say to the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James, the hon. member for Rose-dale (Mr. Crombie), and to others who are here, discuss it in caucus tomorrow; give us a chance and we will have tens of thousands of young people being trained for new jobs.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Blaine Allen Thacker: Why did you cripple the oil and gas industry?


Lloyd Axworthy: We would like to have the help and assistance of members opposite, and we are asking for it. They can

May 25, 1982
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make a major contribution to the employment picture for young people. 1 think we can go beyond that, Mr. Speaker. We have to recognize that we are in special times and special efforts need to be made. I see the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) in her seat. I think she made a very valuable contribution last week in question period when she said that we should undertake special activities to try to obtain more jobs for young people. I agree with her, so we are putting in place a special communications program for young people. In particular, we are going out to talk to the employers of this country.


Cyril Keeper: But not hire them.


Lloyd Axworthy: Well, Mr. Speaker, that is the attitude of the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James. Does he give it a chance, is he prepared to go back to his own riding and talk to employers door to door, as I have been doing, and tell them that students need their help, will they register their jobs in our employment centre? Oh, no, he does not want that kind of thing. He is prepared to deny it before he even gives us a chance.


An hon. Member:: You made the same speech three years ago.


Lloyd Axworthy: With that kind of negative attitude, how do hon. members expect us to be successful when we cannot get Members of Parliament like the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James-


Some hon. Members:: Get serious.


Lloyd Axworthy: -to go into his own riding and ask employers to make a special effort to ensure there are jobs for students? I do not think the students in his riding are going to be too pleased at his attitude.
I agree with the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands;
I think the effort should be made, and we will do our part. We will undertake to see what we can provide in the way of additional jobs in government departments. I will personally undertake to write to major employers across Canada and ask them to re-examine the situation to see what they can do to provide additional jobs. I would ask Members of Parliament on both sides of the House to do the same with business people and employers in their own ridings. I think we have to make a special effort and that we can combine our efforts in this area and show Canadians this is not a partisan issue which divides us. We can show that we are prepared on behalf of young people in this country to work together in seeing what we can do to develop new job opportunities. We have provided a network through our employment centres, and we are prepared to work with Members of Parliament in their own ridings so that we can mount a special campaign to bring in new jobs for young people.
Members of Parliament can go back to their ridings to work with provincial governments, many of whom have cut back in their own job-creation programs. I would point out that we have added to ours; provincial governments have cut back on
theirs. There are two provincial exceptions, and in this connection I would like to compliment the government of Ontario for its budget last week which added a few additional dollars for youth job creation. But many other provinces have cut back. Again, I suggest that Members of Parliament talk to their provincial counterparts in their ridings and ask them for some special effort on the part of their governments, rather than having to suffer these cutbacks. The federal government has made that effort.
We are saying in this debate that there are a number of things the government can do and that members of the opposition can do. They can pass the training bill and hon. members can work with us to provide new recruitment and job placement. We can begin to look at ways in which we can open up the job market for Canadians and develop an economic policy, one that has not fallen into the trap of the orthodoxy of the right. In other words, to cut back on social programs and programs that help people. We have maintained ours and retained them. At the same time we must recognize that we must not have a wild spending spree as advocated by the NDP, which would force up inflation and force up interest rates even higher.
We are trying to do what the Liberal Party has tried to do for generations, and that is to undertake a balanced approach, not one with simple, easy panaceas but one that is based on constructive, rational and useful thinking.


Hon. David Crombie (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to participate in this debate with respect to youth unemployment. I was particularly impressed by the speech of my colleague, the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker). He dealt with the government's global economic policies, to which I will refer, but I want to talk also about the government's policies with respect to job training. 1 want to speak about what I consider to be the government's feeble efforts concerning unemployment.
About three or four weeks ago a study was submitted to the government of the province of Ontario and to metropolitan Toronto. This study is entitled "Youth: The Forgotten Generation". The minister and others may be aware of this study. It has to do with skill training and apprenticeship programs in metropolitan Toronto.
It is too early yet for any of the recommendations to be acted upon, but in my opinion this study was important because it clearly identified youth as a group or sector in our society who are suffering far more than we have heretofore understood. We all assumed that certain policies had been carried on by the federal government and by the provincial and municipal governments for a number of years, and we assumed that by and large programs were in place to look after the youth of the country. Therefore, in the natural course of events our youth would be able to enter the labour market and compete well for jobs, not only in this country but throughout the world.
May 25, 1982

This study, and I commend it to the minister, shows that none of that has happened. Despite the minister's huffing and puffing about how well he and his colleagues in cabinet and the federal government do, those things are just not happening.
I will read three paragraphs from this study which show exactly what it means to these people. They are as follows:
To want to work and be unable to find it is painful at any age. but youth unemployment has particular effects, both on the individual and on society. A lengthy period of frustration and enforced idleness when a person first enters the labour force can disable him or her psychologically and in terms of experience for later employment . . . those who encounter serious difficulties in their formative years (from 16 to 24) fail to acquire the experience, training, competence and credentials that would earn them a regular job yielding a reasonable income in their adult years.
In the past society looked to its youth to be the future strength of communities. But even then too many youth were left behind. Now the problem has grown worse. The aged and aging, the training of high-tech workers and other special needs groups gain most of the attention.
Today's youth are being forgotten as we are distracted by continual economic crises and rapidly changing technology. Personal alienation and the risks of social unrest have become substantial and appear to be worsening.
That is a report of four weeks ago. Statistics, particularly as they relate to young people, bear out the grave comments in that report. Youth unemployment rates in this country are double-not just some minor percentage higher-the national average. Unemployment rates are now running close to 18 per cent for people between the ages of 16 and 24.
In 1981, although people between the ages of 16 and 24 made up only 26 per cent of the work force, they accounted for 46 per cent of the unemployed. A total of 238,000 jobs were lost between February, 1981, and March, 1982, and 52 per cent, on 118,000, were jobs held by people between the ages of 18 and 24.
When we talk about youth unemployment, it cannot be dealt with glibly by simply accusing other people of not doing the right thing. Before I outline what I think ought to be done- the minister has heard this before, but despite this he keeps saying that no one puts forward suggestions and continues not to listen-let me say that when we talk about youth unemployment we are not talking about some strange breed of people who do not belong to our society. People between the ages of 16 and 24 do want to work. They want to work for exactly the same reasons that women in our society want to work, for exactly the same reasons that handicapped people in our society want to work and for exactly the same reasons that everyone in our society wants to work.
There are three reasons. They are simple enough that even the minister can understand them. First, people need money to purchase the things they need in order to carry out their responsibilities. Second, people want to make a contribution that is not to be lost. Let me expand on that point. If you find at your very first attempt as a young person entering the work force that no door is open to you-it is not only a question of money because we have social programs which offer some money when people are unemployed-and you find there is no contribution you can make, a scar is formed which lasts a long time. Third, a first job opportunity provides a strong force in the shaping of a human personality.
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People want to work, not only for money, not only to make a contribution, but to know who they are. Anyone who raises kids between the ages of 16 and 24-if 1 could call them kids-knows that. Outside of the question of money and contribution, the most important thing they need to know is what kind of people they are. It is probably not appropriate for me to bring in three of the Crombie children who are in that age group. But when young people are looking for employment this summer or looking at what kind of jobs they will get into in their first job in the work force, the single, most important thing they need to know is whether or not they will be able to get a job which will tell them a little bit about who they are. The kind of employment one has determines in large part the kind of person one becomes.
When we talk about youth unemployment, we are not talking about another one of the minister's statistics, nor can the question be dealt with by another one of the minister's announcements. We are dealing here with something very important because we are talking about the first time a person tries to make a connection with the community in terms of contribution, the making of money and the finding out of what kind of a person he or she is.
What is the problem with youth unemployment? It is not complicated. I might say to the minister that there are two elements to it. First, there are not enough jobs. It is that simple, and that is the first reason. There are not enough jobs in this country. The hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills made it clear that the first thing the minister and the government should understand is that the reason we have youth unemployment is the same reason we have unemployment in every other sector of our society-there are not enough jobs.
People need jobs. That people need jobs is not a complicated theory. The record of the minister's government does not have to be recalled by me. It has been recalled by the hon. member for Lethbridge-Foothills and it will continue to be recalled by every other speaker. It is recalled in the question period daily in this House of Commons and it is mentioned from podiums right across the country. We have a government with an economic record which is the worst we have had in most people's memory, certainly since the depression of the 1930s.
The first problem with youth unemployment is that there are not enough jobs because the government has created an economic climate in which people will not invest. We should not miss the point that people will not invest because they do not trust the goverment to look after their investment. If people do not invest, we will not have jobs. The government's energy policy brought the energy industry to its knees. What it has done in the west it will now do in the east.
The manufacturing sector, which affects employment opportunities in the heartland of the country, in Ontario and Quebec, is also on its knees because of the government's record. I will not go through all the indicators. The minister wishes the boy upon the stairs would go away, but he will not

May 25, 1982
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until the government decides that it is not good enough to put its head in the sand waiting for the Americans to come along with a solution. Also it is not good enough to deny the fact that there is a problem.
Until the government decides that there is a problem, that there are not enough jobs or a climate for investment, we will continue to have the problem faced by the youth of the country; that is, there will not be a sufficient number of jobs for people between the ages of 16 and 24. Also we will continue to have an unemployment rate of 18 per cent. The minister should hang his head in shame.


Mr. Tousignant:: What suggestions do you have?


David Edward Crombie: 1 hear a noise over there about suggestions. I have some suggestions. My first suggestion deals with the kinds of jobs which should be related to the educational system. This is a 15-minute debate and 1 only have four minutes remaining, so I will make five suggestions. The first is that the minister ought to consider a change in his understanding of the educational system so that there is a more flexible system of training. Last Friday he brought forward and tabled a training bill. Of course, we will support that bill which deals with training, particularly because the minister and his department have spent so long considering the matter. First there was Bill C-23 and then there was Bill C-67. They are still on the Order Paper, and now we have a new bill. We have not been holding it back; it is the minister. We need to bring back the link between training and work which was lost in the 1960s and 1970s. I might add that it was never brought back together by the federal ministry when it funded all the community colleges in the country. It is time that it was.
Second, we need an apprenticeship program so that there are more in-service rather than pre-service programs. We need to expand, not simply nudge along a little, counselling services in the country. If the minister brings forth anything on counselling he will do good because counselling has failed every neighbourhood, town, village and city in Canada. The link between work and training has been lost as educational systems and schools built up bureaucracies.
Third, there must be co-operation between the federal government and the provinces and municipalities. I should like to refer to an example of what can be done. A certain municipality, a fishing village in Denmark, was faced with a situation where it had some unemployed people. Rather than pay out the amount it would pay for the jobless, it created various jobs. Rather than import the boxes needed to pack fish, it began to hire people between the ages of 18 and 23 to manufacture the boxes. Then they became involved in repairing furniture and toys for schools, particularly for kindergarten classes. They did carpentry work, gardening, recycling projects, painting, and odd jobs; they worked with old people and so on. The point I want to make is that the national government of Denmark did not become involved in the actual operation of the program. It provided some funds which allowed local talent to figure out the best way to do it. This is why time and again we on this
side of the House have insisted it does not matter how much money the minister says he will put into a program, the billions in figures which he uses or how many announcements he makes. He can do it only by co-operation with the provinces and the municipalities. The training bill which he brought forward will only be used in a useful way if the government understands that it cannot be done from Ottawa. The only thing Ottawa can do well is to create an environment within which those who can do the job do it.
Finally, if the government and the minister would announce less, think a little more and try to co-operate a little more, not only would other people trust him but even the minister's department would begin to trust him. Then he would not have to run around trying to figure out where to put ombudsmen to look after their mistakes. We have a situation now where the minister no longer has the support of his own department. He needs to do something soon to re-establish his credibility in the country and certainly in the House. Those of us who represent the rest of the country look forward with anticipation to the debate on the training bill.
[ Translation]


Mr. Claude-Andre Lachance (Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the proposals made by the previous speaker, especially concerning in-service or on-the-job training and apprenticeship programs, and I shall be elaborating presently on those very valid proposals which are, in fact, included in the recommendations of the report prepared by the Special Committee on Employment Opportunities for the '80s, under the title "Work for Tomorrow."
First of all, Mr. Speaker, I may point out that it is fairly obvious our present economic situation cannot but have a disastrous effect on youth employment. When the unemployment rate rises among the labour force as a whole, logically, and unfortunately, there is a directly proportional increase in unemployment among young people. In fact, now that the unemployment rate for young people up to the age of 25 revolves around 16.5 per cent, which is twice the national average, it is entirely appropriate that the House should have an opportunity to discuss this extremely important subject.
Not long ago, a Montreal newspaper, following a recommendation by the Quebec Minister of Education that the passing mark in schools be raised from 50 to 60 per cent, reported that young people who were protesting against the minister's recommendation were doing so simply because they had lost confidence in the system and therefore did not see why they should make the required effort at school to obtain a diploma in order to get a job, since they assumed no jobs would be available anyway. I think all this is a reflection of the difficult times we are experiencing today, and that the passing mark debate in Quebec schools-which has a direct connection with today's subject-demonstrates how distressed these young people are about the economic situation and especially about prospects for employment once they finish their schooling. That being said, I believe we must see these things within their
May 25, 1982________________COMMONS DEBATES______________________'7747
general context. It is true that youth unemployment is excessively high, but perhaps it would also be useful to make a distinction between the percentage due to the economic situation and the percentage due to the very nature of youth unemployment. I may point out that in a study it was shown that between 1976 and 1979, youth unemployment averaged 13.7 per cent, while during the same period, the percentage was 7.2 for adult women and 4.7 for adult men. Furthermore, the turnover rate was 5.9 per cent for young people, but 3 per cent for adult women and 1.8 per cent for adult men. What I am trying to say, Mr. Speaker, is that, although youth unemployment today is twice the rate observed among the labour force in general, this is, in fact, merely a continuation of a trend that was observed earlier and is an indication of the specific labour market adjustment problems found among young people. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, but the same report by the Dodge task force pointed out that 50 per cent of youth unemployment was concentrated among 10 per cent of the youth labour force. In other words, 10 per cent of this population, because of the difficulty they experienced in finding work or adjusting to the labour market environment, represented 50 per cent of the total number of unemployed youth. We have no reason to believe that the situation has changed much today, because the percentages were averaged over five years. And furthermore, when these young people succeeded in finding a job, in 90 per cent of the cases they lost it after a few months. [DOT]
Now, what conclusions should be drawn from these few statistics I have just given you, Mr. Speaker? I can see two. First of all, in today's debate, we must, and 1 have said this before, see these things in their general context, and second, young people are experiencing unemployment and they are being adversely affected by the economic situation, but also by structural problems, namely, the labour market adjustment problems of young people. Consequently, it is imperative that we take this opportunity to find ways of taking corrective action and to seek appropriate solutions to help young people with specific learning problems to enter the labour market. The previous speaker mentioned there were not enough jobs in Canada. That is true but, paradoxically, we have a shortage of skilled manpower, a problem that was already identified in the report by the Special Committee on Employment Opportunities for the '80s. In the House, much has been said, and much more will be said about training, since last Friday the minister tabled Bill C-115, the purpose of which reads as follows, and I quote Section 3:
3. The purpose of this act is to establish a national program to provide occupational training for the labour force and thereby to better meet the need for skills created by a changing economy and to increase the earning and employment potential of individual workers.
I referred just now to the Dodge report, which had ordered a study made in Ontario. It said that out of a sample group of 100 businesses-the study was prepared by the Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities-61 per cent of the
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firms had in-house training programs. The firms in question indicated they had no trouble recruiting employees and also that their training programs paid for themselves, because they filled the firm's requirements for skilled manpower. However, of the remaining group of firms included in the study, 84 per cent indicated they had trouble recruiting skilled manpower, 61 per cent indicated they had trouble recruiting employees and finally, they indicated that the only reason why they had no training program was that they did not have the financial resources to do so. In addition, they indicated that they would agree to establish such programs if government assistance were provided. The obvious conclusion is that if the government were to shift the emphasis from its institutional training program, which has been a spending priority to date, to business-as we have started to do, for instance, in the microelectronic sector, and as will probably be done once Bill C-115 has gone through the legislative mill-it would probably be much easier to deal with the labour market entry and adjustment problems experienced by young people who lack the required skills, instead of resorting to direct job-creation programs which are temporary by nature, although certainly useful in the present economic situation, since they provide summer jobs at least for tens of thousands of young people.
In conclusion, we have, on the one hand, a structural breakdown of youth unemployment, and on the other, a functional breakdown of the situation among business firms, namely, the firm that does provide courses or on-the-job training opportunities and the firm that does not. On the one hand, we have a group of young people-the exact present percentage is not available, but according to the study covering the years from 1976 to 1979, this group represents the 10 per cent of unemployed youth which had continuing problems in obtaining employment-which in 1976-79 represented 50 per cent of unemployed youth, and on the other hand, we have businesses that are either reluctant to set up on-the-job training programs or do not have the financial resources but would agree to receiving government financial assistance in setting up such programs. All of this should be seen within the more general perspective that Canada is suffering from a general shortage of manpower for skilled blue-collar-type jobs. To fill these jobs, for many years we have had to import skilled workers such as bricklayers, masons and others from European countries. In fact, if we could manage to train young people for jobs where shortages exist, we would be killing two birds with one stone, namely, filling jobs now available and providing appropriate training for young people who are in desperate straits because they do not have the skills they need to find a job.
Mr. Speaker, I felt these comments were necessary in order to provide a more balanced picture of the unemployment situation, and especially of youth unemployment. To get back to my earlier example which showed young people in Quebec as having lost hope and expressing their bitterness in the

May 25, 1982
Adjournment Motion
passing mark dispute, 1 want to say that there are jobs for young people who have the required training or who have an opportunity to obtain it. Perhaps not any job because, here again, we must still allow for the economic situation. This afternoon, I would have liked to have been able to give a list of all the government programs which this year will provide jobs for more than 55,000 young people. In any case, we must still put the situation into its correct perspective, so that our young people will not give up on the labour market. They must be given a chance to seek training in areas where opportunities for steady jobs do exist. In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read two relevant recommendations from the report of the Special Committee on Employment Opportunities for the '80s, and herein I support the views of the previous speaker. Recommendation 3 reads as follows:
Governments and the private sector should take steps to correct negative attitudes toward blue-collar trades; to place a high priority on on-the-job training; to provide more instructors (including older workers) for technical training; to make available up-to-date machinery and equipment for training; to reallocate resources to courses offering the greatest employment opportunities; and to establish a continuing education system where an individual can retrain and upgrade throughout a lifetime.
Recommendation 6 reads as follows, and I quote:
Apprenticeship programs should be modernized and expanded to provide for entry at an earlier age, geared to the meeting of standards, not to a time frame open to women and changed to assure completion of course and provide transferable skills.
Mr. Speaker, I support these two recommendations without reservation, and I am convinced that tens of thousands of young people would agree wholeheartedly to take advantage of the opportunities for on-the-job training which could be provided if Bill C-115, tabled in the House by the minister last Friday, is assured a quick passage through this House.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Fundy-Royal (Mr. Corbett)-Pipelines- Building of natural gas pipeline to Atlantic provinces; the hon. member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn)-The Economy-Hearings conducted in Montreal by government ministers and supporters, (b) Responsibility for government policy; the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson)-National Sovereignty-Allegations of CIA payments to Canadian
election candidates, (b) Request that committee study alleged CIA involvement in Canadian elections.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Thacker:
That this House condemns the government for the economic mismanagement which has led directly to the loss of 300,000 jobs since August 1981 and produced a crisis situation for students seeking summer or permanent employment, and calls on the government to accept its responsibility for this tragic mess and promote the private and public sector hiring of Canada's youth so that those attending school can afford to continue to acquire needed skills, and those graduating can immediately become productive members of the work force.
Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on a subject which is very important to Canadians, and certainly to our young people. I listen to the minister on a fairly regular basis because of my interest in the subject of employment and employment opportunities in Canada, but as I listened to him today I could not help but realize just how much time he spent during a 40-minute speech in referring to the Conservative Party, the NDP and all sorts of situations and difficulties other than the real problems which he has been asked to address in his particular ministry. For example, I noted today that he was 20 minutes into his speech before he got to any of the substance of the problem or the solutions that we want to consider.
He suggested that if all parties co-operate and work together, we can come up with some great policies which would go a long way toward solving the unemployment situation of our youth in Canada. That is probably a reasonable and rational suggestion, but I find it very interesting that when we look at what often happens, we find that that simply does not happen. Bill C-48, which was before this House a few months ago, was probably a very good example. In the committee stage, the government introduced over 100 different amendments and we introduced over 50. Every one of the government's amendments was accepted, but not one of ours was accepted. So that shows Your Honour what happens when we refer to co-operation between parties.
The minister asks us to support Bill C-115 to which he referred. As the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) has indicated, we are prepared to do so. But what is significant is that we have to depend on the minister and the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) to introduce that bill in the House. It is not for us to call it; it is up to them to do so. They like to attach all sorts of blame to other people and parties in the House of Commons, but in fact the situation rests squarely on the minister's shoulders.
May 25, 1982

I do want to discuss the serious social and economic problem of youth unemployment. It is something which has been largely ignored by the government. It is a problem which is not being solved. In fact, if we look at what is happening in Canada today, we find that not only is it not being solved, but it is also worsening. It is an historical problem. It has been around for a long time. If we look back to 1966, we find that youth provided some 24.2 per cent of our labour force. The unemployed in that youth labour force made up 40.6 per cent. If we bring that into more modern times, into 1980, we find that the youth share of the labour force increased somewhat to about 26.8 per cent. Its share of the unemployed in Canada also increased to around 47 per cent. Forty-seven per cent of the unemployed people in Canada are the young people of our country. Since 1966, the youth unemployment rate has doubled the unemployment rate of those in the bracket over age 25. If one looks at what is happening in other countries, one finds that Canada ranked fourth highest of the 12 OECD countries in terms of youth unemployment in 1976. In this country, which has so much potential and opportunity, we cannot create jobs for our young people.
Recent data indicate that from March to April of this year unemployment in the group under 25 years of age increased by
23,000	people. In one month there were 23,000 more young Canadians without jobs and without opportunity. We all know that in the present circumstances unemployment is hitting all Canadians, but the ones who are most severely affected are our young and inexperienced. They are the ones who are hurt the most.
I want to look at the causes of youth unemployment in our country for a few moments. The standard response to the cause of the problem tends very often to be the baby boom. We have more people in this particular age bracket. There is a large number under 30 years of age. However, that is not the only cause. I happen to think that the problem is that the government has come up with inadequate policies to deal with the increased number of people in this particular age bracket. In other words, it has not provided an environment and climate in which to create an increased number of jobs to meet the needs of the larger group of people looking for those jobs. It uses the baby boom as an excuse or justification for not dealing with the problem. In fact, the baby boom probably is partly responsible, but it cannot be allowed to become the total reason or justification for the problem we are facing today.


Blaine Allen Thacker: They knew it was coming.


Albert Glen Cooper: That is right. All of the numbers and information available indicated that we had to create more jobs for this particular time, and they will become increasingly necessary as we move on through the next few years. The numbers and information were all there, but the government failed to respond in an adequate, meaningful way. The real problem is that the government has given little attention to our youth. It has given little attention to the effect of the baby boom about to hit our country. It has not been dramatically concerned with Canada's future. Its policies have been inadequate, often
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ending up as being nothing more that simple lip service to a probelm and, at best, temporary solutions.
The root of the problem is probably that the government has created the worst economic conditions for our young people which could be imagined. The budget and the National Energy Program have stunted growth. If one looks at those two examples, one finds what the government has done to job opportunities in Canada. I come from an area which has been dramatically affected by the national energy problem. In our area, we find that unemployment has tripled in the last year. This is not because there is not a demand for natural gas or for our oil. The fact is that the government-created climate of investment in that particular sector of our economy has been destroyed. The result, of course, is that no one is getting jobs. Our young people are looking into various aspects of work in the energy sector, whether it be in engineering, in rig camps or as truck drivers, but it does not really matter in which part of the particular sector they would like to be involved, because those particular jobs are no longer available. It has been the end of business expansion because of the budget and the National Energy Program. It has been the end of the progressive development of our country. Those youths who are now looking for jobs could have and should have been the beneficiaries of the growth which should still be going on in that particular sector of the economy.
Our current conditions probably present the hardest time to our young and inexperienced. If one looks at what happens in any difficult economic period, one finds that the older, more educated and more experienced people will survive. They will be able to keep their jobs. However, when businesses do not have the resources or the climate to risk investment, they will not risk that investment or give that opportunity to young people. They will not gamble. They cannot expand, so the first ones to be cut from the payroll will be the ones most recently hired. Who are they? They are our young people. They are the last to be given a chance with our economic conditions. We see before us a picture that does not look any better. In fact, it looks more and more gloomy as time goes on.
Traditionally what has happened in times such as these is that our young people have turned to education or training programs. They looked at those as an alternative to present employment. Even those options have now begun to be limited.
If we look in the field of education, we find that the federal government is shifting the responsibility for funding from itself to the provinces. In the province of Alberta alone that will mean a cutback of $392 million to that province over the next five years. That is what would have been spent in that province by the federal government on education. It has now been cut back.
Alberta, because of its economy, budget and funds available will be able to make up that difference. But what about the other provinces, the so-called have-not provinces? What can they do? What will happen to their universities and colleges? All of us are receiving letters about this. We know what will

May 25, 1982
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happen. A number of the colleges will be closed. A large number of them will be cutting back on their programs. To survive, a university will first have to raise its fees, lower its quotas, cut back on the number of classes and cut down on its facilities such as libraries and laboratories. The result will be fewer students getting a lower quality education, an education that may not get them a job in the end. What about those desiring education without any funds because they cannot get any summer employment? Once again they are caught in a Catch-22 situation.
In addressing the area of training, we find that the government has been slow to address the problem. Our nation had needed skilled workers. Had the Alsands project gone ahead, we would have needed a dramatic number of skilled workers in this country. We would have had more job opportunities than people to fill them. Our government has been very slow in bringing in training programs.
We talked about Bill C-115 today. As my colleague from Rosedale said, we look forward to supporting any bill that offers increased training opportunities for our young people, women and the Canadian population in general. That is the kind of thing we encourage this government to do.
Today we find ourselves in a really serious, desperate human paradox. We have high youth unemployment. At the same time we have a lack of skilled workers. The government is not addressing the problem. It is not providing choices for our young people. It is not providing either the job or, as I discussed a few minutes ago, the opportunity for education. It is a double-whammy. It is no job or simply a dead-end job. There is no opportunity to train for something that may lead to a job.
The question is, where will the future of Canada be without trained and educated young people? Where will Canada be if our youth are not given an opportunity? Instead, our government is banishing our youth to a life dependent on government assistance. Instead, it should be providing them with opportunities rather than removing those opportunities.
What are the costs of youth unemployment on a country such as Canada? There are two main costs. The first is the social cost and the second is an economic cost. Let us look first at the social cost. Among our young people who are looking for jobs we find a high level of discouragement, a high level of frustration. That can lead to petty crime, vandalism, a feeling of helplessness, an acceptance of a condition that exists, an idea of never going beyond government assistance which they receive at the moment. They begin to feel that things will never get better. All the time they have been looking for a job, they have been refused. That is their experience and that is what they expect to go on. Society is not benefiting from that whole rash of new ideas that we usually attribute to our people.
What about the economic cost? If you look at the unemployment in this group, Mr. Speaker, you find that they are not actively producing. They are not adding to our gross national product. I want to refer to a research study that was done and read a short quotation from it. I quote:
The direct or primary effects of cutting youth unemployment rates in half in 1977 would have been to increase the Canadian GNP by something of the order of 1 per cent, or roughly $2 billion at 1977 prices. Including the secondary effects as well, the total increase would perhaps have been in the order of 4 per cent or $8 billion.
In other words, had we cut the unemployment rate of our young people in 1977 and brought it down to the national average for all age groups, it would have added one direct percentage point to our GNP. It would have taken $2 billion that would be filtered throughout our economy. The secondary effects might have been $8 billion or 4 per cent.
I see that my time has almost expired. 1 want to close by saying that the short-term solutions to the problem are job-creation programs. However, we can never lose sight of the fact that they are nothing more than short-term opportunities. They are an interim solution and nothing better. They are a temporary alternative.
In the long term, what we need to do is to create an environment for our youth to find their own spot in society. We need to restore their opportunity to be independent. We need to restore their opportunity for a good applicable education. They need to be given opportunities to be trained in something they want to do. They must be trained in a way that they can do something to contribute to our country. It all begins very simply by creating in Canada a climate for job-creating investment. That is the bottom line.
One sector we can look at is, very simply, the energy sector. There is a demand for those products. We know there is an opportunity to create jobs there. Those jobs will benefit our youth and the entire Canadian population.
I would like to close with that and emphasize the fact that the number one bottom line we need in this country is an investment climate that will create the risk-takers who in turn will create jobs in this country.


Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Lotbiniere):: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to join my colleagues in participating in this debate, because the subject is one in which I am particularly interested, like anyone who is anxious to see the economic situation improve across Canada, and especially in Quebec. In fact, my own province is among those which have been most severely affected by the economic problems we are experiencing today, and which have also affected a large number of young people. The unemployment statistics for the past months have given considerable cause for concern. For instance, approximately
28,000	jobs were lost in a single month, and the unemployment rate has now reached 13 per cent.
Once again, if we look at the over-all statistics, it is clear that they include many young workers or students who are preparing to join the labour force. In the present state of the economy, it has become particularly urgent to seek new concepts and new solutions to our economic problems. We are examining new ways of establishing a co-operative formula with a view to solving those problems, because it is clear that nothing can be achieved if the parties concerned keep to
May 25, 1982

themselves, often working counterproductively. The successful results achieved at Bombardier are an eloquent example of what can be achieved through effective co-ordination. In the case of Bombardier, the result was a contract to build cars for the New York subway, thus creating many jobs in Quebec, especially in the riding of Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup represented by Mr. Gendron and in the riding of Shefford represented by Mr. Lapierre.
These are two constituencies which will be able to benefit from the fall-out from this extraordinary contract obtained by Bombardier. Of course, there already are many federal programs to support the fight against unemployment and increase job creation activities. For instance, this summer in Quebec, the federal government will spend over $24 million in programs aimed specifically at providing employment for young people. More specifically, as far as my constituency of Lotbiniere is concerned, an amount of $81,000 was budgeted for summer employment.
Many requests were made in the constituency, over 60 projects to be exact, amounting to nearly $700,000 since, like all good promoters, of course, those from Lotbiniere asked for more than they hoped to get and we succeeded on this side of the House, after making representations to the department concerned, in getting for the constituency of Lotbiniere-and the same can be said for all constituencies in Canada and of course Quebec-an increase in the budget to $183,000. Therefore 110 jobs will be created this summer for 37 student projects, which was greatly appreciated by the students of the Lotbiniere constituency. When we look at the effort made by the government and consider the situation, it was fantastic for the Lotbiniere constituency to be able to announce that the budget had been increased by $102,000 to meet adequately the requests of the students who had made great efforts to come up with valid projects. It was obvious that after presentation of these projects, we had to ask the department to increase the allocation, and this is what we did, Mr. Speaker.
Federal projects will also be undertaken in other areas this year and they will create 1,750 jobs in Quebec. 1 believe that this is very important because various businesses are now trying to maintain employment at a level which would be normal in ordinary circumstances. As far as the students are concerned I must say that the only organization or level of government to have made some effort to find employment for young people is the Government of Canada, and I am proud of the fact that the government agreed to the requests of the representatives of these young people in this place that allocations be increased. The Public Service Commission will hire about 500 young Quebecers in fields related to their future careers. I am talking about the career-oriented program which also helps students. In fact, this is one of the points which we emphasized in our student assistance program this year so that young people who find such employment will have an opportunity to acquire an experience which can be useful later on. We want our investments in student employment programs to
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contribute to the training of these young people in addition to providing them with expertise for the economy of the province, which certainly needs it.
The community services projects of Canada, which is another component of the job creation programs, will allow us to allocate $17 million and create 9,134 jobs. These initiatives will also help the communities concerned since they must provide lasting benefits. As concerns this program, Mr. Speaker, the constituency of Lotbiniere which I represent was allocated a budget of $580,000 which was later increased by $100,000 because, in looking for jobs, the workers were effectively asking their Members of Parliament to make representations to the department concerned to increase the funds allocated and help self-employed workers to find employment, and this community development program has been very well received in my own constituency and other Quebec ridings, as it allows Canadian citizens to submit quite interesting projects and provide employment for Quebecers. Another major contribution of the federal government in Quebec is the Canada Employment Centres for Students network. Quebec now has 47 of the more than 400 centres located throughout Canada. Last year, these centres coordinated the placement of 74,949 young Quebecers in summer jobs.
Mr. Speaker, recently, I officially opened my constituency's student employment centre in Victoriaville, and I was given statistics for the previous year showing that out of some 1600 applications, 1495 students were placed by student employment centres. This was truly important for students and, having been a student myself not so long ago, I feel that it is really an exceptional initiative by the Canadian government not to leave students to themselves and to ensure that a student employment centre can refer students to various employers in their area or province, as the case may be. There are also jobs outside the province.
Looking at statistics on the Victoriaville student employment centre in my constituency of Lotbiniere, last year's figures show that this is a truly important initiative that had to be followed up this year. Indeed, student employment centres have become so efficient in these last few years that Canada ranks among the leading OECD countries for student placement. There is a full range of services, from job finding to counselling, and even courses on better ways to look for a job. Employers are canvassed to find out whether they have available jobs. They are urged to report all their student manpower needs. In a spirit of co-operation aimed at maximum efficiency, we also provide all available data on provincial job-creation programs. As 1 said on May 17, I officially opened the student employment centre in Victoriaville, and I was informed that in the three or four weeks it has been opened the centre manager and her three student associates had already conducted a number of interviews and were therefore getting ready to respond as adequately as possible to student applications. Four people work in the student employment centre in Victoriaville, three girls and a young man with

May 25, 1982
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either legal, labour relations or industrial relations training. They were selected through interviews and are in a position to arrange those meetings with employers.
Manpower training in Quebec is conducted with federal funding, a major contribution to the training of skilled young workers and the reduction of unemployment risks. In the last fiscal year, for instance, the Canadian government invested $185.4 million in manpower training in Quebec, helping some
65,000	full-time trainees. Some 50 per cent of the trainees are under 24, which shows how much these programs benefit our young people.
Mr. Speaker, I should also point out that as far as occupational training programs are concerned, even regular workers who had temporarily lost their job and who had to find another job when their unemployment insurance period was nearing its end, could extend their unemployment insurance period by attending those courses. Let us see what happened in the case of former employees of a company known as the Ventilateurs Victoria of Victoriaville. The employees represented by the CNTU, following representations made to me by the union authorities, were in a position to inquire at the Victoriaville employment centre and in the riding of Lotbiniere, especially in Victoriaville, and with the co-operation of the regional and local school board were allowed to attend courses and thus plan for improved job opportunities for the future.
However, we are not altogether satisfied with the results obtained through those training programs and it is exactly for the purpose of improving those conditions, that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) last Friday introduced Bill C-115 on occupational training designed to implement a new training plan, taking into consideration the technological progress of the 1980s and our other economic requirements for that period. I am convinced that all my colleagues in the House would like to ensure the quick passage of that bill which will represent a major step in our endeavour to improve the fate of our young people who are looking for jobs. In this respect, it is also very important that with the report and Bill C-l 14 we should provide for an extension of UI benefits and move to reduce the number of weeks required before drawing unemployment insurance benefits. That was also done at the request of some of my constituents and I see that the minister did come up with an adequate response. I note that it was done in my riding. Those representations had again been made to me by spokesmen for the CNTU and I see that the department has been able to fulfil some of the expectations of those workers in my riding.
As I said at the outset of my remarks, we all fully realize that the situation is serious. The government of Canada acknowledges some responsibility for providing assistance, but it must also be admitted that we cannot hope to succeed if we act alone. The international situation as well as the policies and the active measures taken by the most important elements of our society-provincial and municipal governments, large corporations, small and medium-size businesses-all have some influence on the number of jobs which may be available. For instance, the Quebec provincial government recently
backed out of its financial commitments concerning summer jobs for students. Nothing surprising there.
These past few years, the provincial employment agency for Quebec students has paid part of their salary to employers who hired students through the agency. This year the province will maintain its registration and introduction service, which the federal government maintains as well on a country-wide basis, but it has done away with subsidies to employers. That is one more example of our good government. Mr. Speaker, I find it deplorable that, rather than running some sort of an advertising campaing on the Constitution and on certain rights of which it had allegedly been deprived, the government of Quebec has not chosen instead to come here to Ottawa to make representations as the people are urging them to do through various polls in which they state their agreement with respect to the renewal of the Constitution. The Quebec government spokesmen should be here instead of running that kind of campaign. They should have used that money precisely to sponsor student programs. It is unfortunate that such a situation should exist.
In my own riding, Mr. Speaker, I urge employers to provide students with summer jobs, even if these jobs are to be of short duration. As a rule, people understand that the money students earn during the summer months help them get the experience they need to join the labour force successfully. I suggest, therefore, that employers should make a special effort in these hard times. Hiring more students for the summer would represent a very good investment not only for their own business but also for Quebec's economic future. Mr. Speaker, I should like to stress the fact that the situation in Quebec is in my view quite deplorable. But happily-and I would like my constituents in the federal riding of Lotbiniere to know that- the federal government has really made a tremendous effort this year by increasing the budgets for my own riding by more than $100,000. That has made it possible for all the municipalities with youth projects to be fairly treated by the Government of Canada in the areas of the handicapped, recreation and community services. All the municipalities within Lotbiniere have received money through the Student Summer Job Program within the limits of the financial resources available. I think that it is important for this government to continue these programs, for we are aware that our opponents wanted to get rid of the Canada Works and Young Canada Works programs the moment they came into office in 1979. I feel that we must seek increased budgets for the various programs.


Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, no subject could be more relevant at this time of year than that of student and youth unemployment. Tens of thousands of young people are pouring out of our high schools, our community colleges and our universities in search of jobs, and in many cases full-time, permanent jobs. For many of those young people, perhaps most of them, the search will be a complete failure. I say complete failure because a considerable number of them will not have any success in landing any employment
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at all. Others will have to settle for something less than that for which they took their training and education. Even those who have set their sights only on summer employment to help meet the steadily escalating cost of furthering their education, will find it harder to find a job this summer than at any time since the 1930s. For many in that category, failure to gain summer earnings will force them to postpone or abandon plans to return to school in the fall. Certainly very few parents are able to help their children, given the deepening recession.
Contrast the current situation with that which prevailed when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) assumed office some 14 years ago. I remember the period well because I had completed my first university degree only a few months before he took office in 1968. We were the class of '67 at what is now the University of Prince Edward Island. Some of us went on to take further studies or training, but many went directly into the job market upon graduation. As we approached graduation there was little concern about whether the market could absorb us. A fair number had already been hired by all manner of firms and companies that visited the campus throughout the academic year to recruit students.
Everyone took future possibilities and prospects of employment for granted. It was not a matter of finding a job but of getting one that made the best use of a person's talents and background. The community college system was not as well developed then as it is now. Yet the same optimism was felt by its graduates entering the labour market. It was a time of economic buoyancy, of opportunity and of promise both for them and for the country. No horizon was too far, no challenge too great. The land was strong, to use a recent catch phrase of the Prime Minister. In the late 1960s fewer than 350,000 people were permanently unemployed, compared to over one million today. The inflation rate was scarcely above four per cent, compared to above 11 per cent today. Interest rates were a mere nine per cent, compared to 15, 16, 17, 18, per cent and over today. The value of the Canadian dollar was almost at par with the United States currency. It is currently hovering at 80 cents U.S., the lowest in half a century.
The Prime Minister inherited an economy that was inherently strong, but in a short period he squandered that legacy through sheer economic mismanagement. When the class of '67 graduated, Canada's standard of living was the third highest in the world, second only to Sweden and the United States. It has now plummeted to thirteenth place behind Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, Iceland, France, Belgium, the United States, the Netherlands and Finland.
I have dwelt on the over-all economic picture for the simple reason that youth unemployment must be seen in the context of the economy as a whole, and not in isolation. Youth faces a lack of opportunity because this government has driven the economy into the ground. The answer to youth employment is not make-work projects, although they can be helpful as a temporary measure, nor is the answer exclusively to be found in any other limited approach tailor-made to youth, though no doubt the government could be doing much more than it is doing at present to devise programs with youth specifically in
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mind. Rather, the answer lies in restoring the total economy to health so that the potential of this great land and its people, including youth, can once more be realized through the release of its productive forces.
Every generation has its own distinct contribution to make to society and to civilization as a whole. No generation is the same as any other. The tragedy of youth unemployment is that this generation is being denied its turn at bat. The distinctive talents, interests, education and training of today's youth could contribute much to making our society a better place in which to live. Instead, their abilities are going to waste. Young people with good schooling in stenography, commerce, business, the building trades, the sciences, the vocational arts, even law and medicine and engineering-the traditional tickets to job security and high income potential-are finding it hard to obtain employment.
Let us look at the facts. The over-all unemployment rate last month was 9.6 per cent seasonally adjusted. A record
1.233.000	people were looking for work in April. There would have been at least another 100,000 more if one took into account those who have given up looking for work. The Science Council of Canada says Canada is becoming deindustrialized. Not only are we not creating new job opportunities, we are not even keeping many of our existing jobs. Some
223.000	jobs were lost between August, 1981, and March, 1982, largely in the manufacturing sector, but that figure applies to all sectors. More than half of those jobs were held by young men and women in the 15 to 24 age group. Nearly 53 per cent of the jobs lost in the last seven months were held by young people. Indeed, the largest single group of unemployed is in that 15 to 24 age group.
In my own region, the Atlantic provinces, youth unemployment stands at over 20 per cent, the highest of all five regions and appreciably above the national average of about 15 per cent. Yet the education, training and inherent human qualities of youth in my region are comparable to those of other Canadians. Clearly, however, qualifications are no longer the answer to labour market problems.
The problem, then, is not one of motivation or ability on the part of Canadian youth, whether in the Atlantic region or anywhere else. The problem is lack of economic opportunity, and much of the blame can be placed squarely at the feet of this federal government, specifically its high interest rate policy. The truth is, though, that high interest rates are a symptom rather than the root cause. We are in a man-made recession brought about by 14 years of this government's improvident spending, its lack of manpower planning, its failure to invest in research and development, its over-reliance on the public sector at the expense of the private entrepreneur, its limp-wristed response to the formation of the OPEC cartel a decade ago, and its penchant for governing with the next election in mind rather than with the long-term interests of the country at heart. Having allowed the country to spend itself

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into enormous debt, is it any wonder that our inflation and therefore our interest rates are as high as they are? Is it any wonder that our dollar is the poor cousin among world currencies? Given that we have shunned research and development geared to producing new and better goods and services for world markets in favour of relying on exports of our unprocessed raw materials, is it any wonder that the Japanese, the Germans, the French, and many others, are beating the pants off us in international trade? Is it any wonder that nearly 40 per cent of our auto workers are laid off as one country alone, Japan, threatens to capture 30 per cent or more of our automobile market?
The Canadian government, Mr. Speaker, has instilled in Canadians a false sense of security by insulating the country from soaring oil prices with billion dollar energy price subsidies instead of investing that money to make Canada selfsufficient. Is it any wonder that eleventh-hour efforts to launch energy megaprojects are being wrecked on the shoals of the so-called National Energy Program?
The government blames international forces for the state of the Canadian economy, but we, more than any other country, have contributed to those same forces; for example, by being the world's worst managers of non-renewable energy resources. Over the past four years our industrial productivity has been rising at the second slowest rate among major industrialized nations. Unquestionably a major contributor to our poor productivity is a pathetic research and development performance. The government is content to do as little as possible to foster economic prosperity while spending as much as possible on advertising to manipulate the public into thinking it is doing much more than it is.
The youth of Canada know better, Mr. Speaker; when times are tough, they know; they are the hardest hit by economic recession, indeed depression. When employers cut back because of high interest rates, or whatever, they generally stop hiring students or other young people before they lay off people already on the job. They also tend to lay off their newer, which is to say younger, employees before they lay off those with seniority.
Where do we begin to bring about economic recovery, Mr. Speaker? The first step is to realize that the problem, therefore the solution, is to be found in Canada, not in some mythical world economy. Some of the steps required, for example greater investment in research and development, are implicitly called for in my previous remarks. For the Atlantic provinces,
I would hope such a thrust would include the establishment of a fourth veterinary college for Canada, to be located in that region, it is to be hoped in my own province. An institution of that kind is urgently needed to buttress the fragile base of the agricultural and fisheries industries in the region.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me say that, beyond specific measures of that variety, Canada must get its economic house in order. The government's high inesterest rate policy is a terribly weak hand to play, if monetarism happens to be your suit, when not complemented by a wise government spending
package. I am not calling for reduced expenditures necessarily, but rather for expenditures that constitute a solid investment in our country's future, which will also help to create those much needed jobs for today's youth. We need much more spending on the economic infrastructure of the country and much less on government self-promotion, on the aggrandizement of certain bureaucratic empires, and on government takeovers of industries which have the effect of not creating wealth but of scaring it away.
I think the young people of this country recognize that no government can solve the country's problems alone. But this government more than any other in the past, is responsible for many of the problems with which we are burdened. It is for that reason that our young people, along with their parents, will be looking forward to the day soon when they can cast their ballots for a new deal for themselves and for the country as a whole.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, I must say at the outset that this debate today reminds me a great deal of the emergency debate we had on the National Energy Program some time ago. It was cited as being a great emergency by members opposite in the Progressive Conservative Party, and when I rose in that debate to speak in this House there were about as many members present at that time from the Conservative Party as there are today. I count just three.


Blaine Allen Thacker: We know you have nothing to say.


Gordon Edward Taylor: You have only eight over there out of 150.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I hope that puts things in perspective for the public. I would remind hon. members opposite that there were just two members to listen to their own representative speak during this debate.


Gordon Edward Taylor: You have only eight members.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I think that puts in perspective the political motivation of members opposite who make these resolutions and call for these debates but then have only two members present to listen to their own spokesman on the topic.


Gordon Edward Taylor: There are eight on your side and there are eight on our side. Get your numbers right.


Brian Vincent Tobin: I heard the hon. member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan) speak today. I listened very carefully to the series of words and phrases he used referring to Canadians all the way from being the world's worst, to being pathetic, to having a lack of initiative. He went on to discuss manipulation and to suggest that the only thing this government could do was to manipulate through advertising. What I did not hear, sadly, and what I was waiting to hear with great passionate interest because I, too, am alarmed at youth unemployment in this country were some concrete suggestions from members opposite. It is not enough to score political points and to have
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two members present from an entire caucus and yet offer no concrete solutions.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There are eight members on this side of the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. The Chair is prepared to recognize the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor), but not when he is not in his own seat.


Brian Vincent Tobin: The hon. member is not in his own seat and cannot rise on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: The hon. member has now returned to his own seat and 1 think the Chair will recognize the intent of the hon. member. If he chooses to rise on a point of order, he may do so now.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member keeps saying there are only two members on this side of the House. That is absolutely wrong. He cannot even count up to three. We have four members in the Progressive Party and there are four members from the New Democratic Party. The hon. member opposite has only eight members on his side of the House out of 150 members. 1 say to the hon. member that he had better get his own house cleaned up before he starts cleaning up our side.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, let me point out to the hon. member that he does not have a point of order. This is not our motion. We are not attempting to condemn the government. Neither was it our motion to move an emergency debate last week. It was yours, and you had three members. I would like to have a serious discussion today, not nefarious points of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. Unfortunately, with all of the other hazards of being in the chair, I do not have a crystal ball which would permit me to determine whether a point of order is nefarious or not until I hear it.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. In the meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture today we waited 30 minutes for Liberal members to show up. We had our full complement of Conservative and NDP members, but there was not one Liberal present.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Brian Vincent Tobin: I would like to say something.


Gordon Edward Taylor: If the hon. member would say something, we would not have to raise points of order.


Steve Eugene Paproski: 1 rise on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. I want to indicate that the Chair will be fairly rapid in assessing whether or not there is a point of order.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention, and I think you should bring this matter to the attention of the House, that this afternoon there are four
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committees meeting, namely, the Standing Committee on Agriculture, the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence, the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs and the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development.


Brian Vincent Tobin: That is not a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. 1 would ask the hon. member to come to his point of order as quickly as possible.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, because the hon. member mentioned there were only a few members in the House, he is reflecting upon how many members there are here, which 1 think is wrong. You are the first commoner in this chamber, Mr. Speaker, and you should be able to tell those people in television land just exactly where the members are. The first thing is that the hon. member for Humber-Port-au-Port-St. Barbe (Mr. Tobin) should not reflect on the number of members in this chamber. Second, I would ask you to inform those people who are watching this program that there are other members working in different places in this House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I am delighted the hon. member feels that the role of the Chair should include that of master of ceremonies for a television program. I think I should pass on that suggestion.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, members opposite are attempting to use up the time making political points, time which I would like to have today to talk about what the government is doing.
I think it is relevant and I think the people out there in television land should know when a full day of the time of this House is wasted, whether it concerns the National Energy Program emergency debate, to which no one showed up-


Steve Eugene Paproski: You can say that, but do not reflect on the numbers in this House.


Brian Vincent Tobin: -or whether it be an opposition day motion to which the very members who put the motion do not show up. I think the people of Canada should know that. If we are going to be serious about putting our young people back to work, members themselves had better get back to work.


Gordon Edward Taylor: How often are you in the House?


Brian Vincent Tobin: You moved the motion. We did not. We are here to respond to it.


Gordon Edward Taylor: How often are you in the House?


Brian Vincent Tobin: And you have not showed up to put forward one concrete solution today.
I was a member of a task force which spent a period of six or seven months examining primarily the question of training, training programs and institutions in this country. We made a series of recommendations. This task force was made up of

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members from all parties. I must say that members of all three parties approached their task eagerly and honestly. 1 think we made some very concrete recommendations, not all of which have been adopted at this point by the government, but many have.
I want to refer to the national training bill introduced in this House last Friday. I see my time is quickly slipping by, but I want to highlight some aspects of that bill. The bill will go a long way to addressing those occupations which are at the present time somewhat of a paradox. Literally we have thousands and thousands of people unemployed, while at the same time many jobs are going unfilled. That in itself is a crime. The national training bill will allow higher income support rates to encourage laid-off apprentices to continue with their trades. It will authorize the waiving of the present requirement that adults must be out of school for a period of 12 months, allowing them to return to secondary institutions immediately. It will permit workers to be trained in higher level skills beyong the present 52-week period. Unfortunately, because a person can receive support for a period of only 52 weeks, many of our bright young people are taking short courses instead of going on to study higher technology or computer sciences. There is a need for people with that knowledge and there are jobs in those sectors going unfilled at this time.
Unfortunately, and sadly, because I had much to say which I thought would contribute to this debate, I must call it six o'clock.


Gordon Edward Taylor: You have not said anything yet.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being six o'clock, I do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have an opportunity this evening to discuss the motion before the House which deals with unemployment, particularly unemployment among young Canadians. There is an obvious need to discuss what I view to be one of the most serious problems facing our country today. Statistics certainly point to that need, and those figures in and by themselves are nothing short of a national disgrace. Last month there were some 1,233,000 persons, or 9.6 per cent of the work force, registered as being unemployed. Nearly half that number, 508,000, were between the ages of 15 and 24. On a seasonally adjusted basis unemployment among young Canadians was 16.6 per cent. The unadjusted unemployment figure increases that Figure to some 18 per cent. If the hidden unemployed-those who are unemployed but who are no longer registered as looking for work- are taken into account, that Figure for youth unemployment jumps to some 25.1 per cent of the youth unemployed, which means that there are some 777,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 who are unemployed. On top of that there will be additional thousands of summer students who will be
looking for employment over the next several months in preparation for returning to schools and universities in the fall.
Those and similar statistics have been known and available not only to government but also to government agencies for several years now, and I rather suspect that as these monthly unemployment figures are released, many Canadians are becoming numb at the enormous size of these figures. The reason for this is not that Canadians have been entirely shocked at the figures, as the trends have been fairly steady and fairly persistent; nor do I think people generally have stopped caring about unemployment; it is simply that statistics in these magnitudes are difficult for the average person to comprehend.
The other possible reason is that numbers and statistics fail to reflect the human element and the untold misery unemployment creates for individuals and their families. There is a report today in the Toronto Star of interviews with a number of individuals who have recently become unemployed. The report discusses the particular problems those individuals face. One of those individuals is a young chap aged 29 who is unemployed and struggling to meet a $400 monthly mortgage payment. According to the Star, he is mad at the crowds, the red tape and the complete bureaucracy which stand between him and the $189 a week he knows he has coming in unemployment insurance benefits. They call it Canada Employment, but these days, with 1.2 million out of work, even the name is a cruel joke that mocks the unemployed. In his words: "Picture yourself with a family, two kids, the mortgage overdue, and no money for five weeks". This individual took home some $400 a week before he was laid off, and then he enrolled in a federally-sponsored welding course. It was at that point that he made a mistake. He dropped out of the course to take two weeks' temporary work because his government cheques were not coming in. He says he had bills to pay but that "They don't seem to know what that means; they said being broke was no excuse for dropping out". After repeated visits to unemployment insurance offices to straighten out his claim this individual says he is sick and tired of being harassed by the system his tax dollars and premiums pay for. There are countless stories like that all over this country, and some of them are recorded in today's Star.
In terms of young people, unemployment statistics do not reflect those who have never even had the opportunity of entering the work force. They do not reflect the total frustration of those who are seeking employment for the first time and are rejected at every turn. The statistics even show that many of those kids give up in total frustration because there simply are no jobs. In their search for jobs they not only become frustrated but they also become totally demoralized after being rejected and rejected and rejected for one reason or another, the main one being that there are no jobs to be found. The second reason is that before employers are willing to hire any of these individuals they demand and insist that they have
May 25, 1982

previous experience in a particular occupation or classification. It is a Catch-22 situation; how can a kid manage to get experience on the job when no employer will hire him because he has no experience? That probably has been the biggest failure of the government in the past. It has introduced so-called job creation measures and programs and brought them in under wage subsidy programs, which means that the government has subsidized employers to hire students or young people and split the wages, usually by 50 per cent. In an individual case the employer pays $1.50, and the government matches that with another $1.50. The experience under those programs is that the employer will exploit and take advantage of the young person for a period of, say, three to six months. Then the employer will simply get rid of the individual and hire another person so that he can take advantage of this wage subsidy program again. The first employer goes around and around. Nothing very positive happens to him, and programs like that certainly do not rectify a very bad and serious unemployment crisis.
There are other things unemployment statistics do not reflect. In other jurisdictions evidence of the long-term effects of extended periods of unemployment on the individual and on the family unit have been well documented. Unemployment statistics do not show increases in crime rates, family breakdowns, suicides and other hidden effects long-term unemployment has on the social fabric of the country, yet the evidence is there for anyone to see, and that evidence cries for the introduction of policies and programs to get us out of the mess in which we find ourselves.
What this government fails to realize is that the problems with which we are faced today did not begin overnight, and neither can they all be blamed on international influences. The problems we have today are the result of short-sighted and wooly-headed policies which have been followed by this government in particular over the past number of years, in spite of the fact that those policies were obviously wrong and not in the long-term best interests of the country or the vast majority of Canadians. This government has failed to deal with the most glaring of these problems, and that is the fundamental weakness in the structure of our economy. That weakness results from the uncontrolled domination of the manufacturing and resource sectors by foreign capital and our total lack of control over the exploitation of those vital sectors of our economy. This lack of control has resulted in the devastation of secondary manufacturing in Canada, as branch plant after branch plant has been closed. They have not been closed because many of them were not operating on a profitable basis but simply because decisions were made to supply the Canadian marketplace from other sources, usually the United States. In many cases we lost not only jobs but also the skills associated with them and the technology which developed and grew from the products which we produced. A perfect example of this is the electrical and electronics industry. It was not so long ago that that industry was a vibrant and expanding part of our economy. Just look at it today, particularly in the home entertainment field. Today we cannot go into a store and buy a Canadian-made radio, yet that particular industry employed upwards of 15,000 Canadians ten years
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ago. We cannot go into a store today and buy a Canadian-made stereo system. Every stereo system we buy today is made offshore, yet that particular part of that industry employed upwards of 50,000 Canadians ten years ago. In the television manufacturing industry, I believe I am correct in saying, there is only one manufacturer left in the country, and he is in serious trouble and has either made the decision or is contemplating the decision to get out of that business, which would mean that in a few years it will be impossible to buy a Canadian-made television set.
In today's economy the importation of electronic products to a vibrant industrial economy is absolutely disgraceful and a terrible reflection of the mismanagement of our country's economy by this and previous governments. The reason for this happening was plain to everyone except the government. Those plants were constructed here simply to supply and exploit Canadian markets. Now that those markets are saturated with the goods these plants were built to produce, these plants are closing down and the manufactures will simply supply our needs from plants outside Canada. There is not a manufacturing sector which has managed to escape from this fact, whether it be in footwear, clothing, rubber, auto manufacturing or in countless other areas of secondary manufacturing in this country.
What about the resource sector? This is an area which has been blatantly abused by successive governments for shortterm gain, with little thought or consideration for present or future generations of Canadians. It has been said that this generation has no right to exploit those resources without giving consideration to the needs of future generations of Canadians, and I agree with that view. I would go further and contend that the reason we find ourselves debating this motion on youth unemployment today is the mismanagement of our resources yesterday and in past years.
I recognize I only have a few seconds of time left in which to speak.


Mr. Blais:: Oh, go ahead.


Neil Young: Hon. members are giving unanimous consent to allow me to continue, but I regret having to say that, by all indications, this government and other governments will continue with identical policies, despite all the evidence that they do not work and, in the long term, will be to the country's continuing detriment.
If this government had the political will to take action on this fundamental problem, we could very well be on the way to finding a resolution, not only to present day unemployment among our youth population, but also to resolve unemployment and the boom and bust cycles in our economy which have been a way of life for far too long. The government could do one thing and could do it very effectively, because the private sector is unable or refuses to do it at the present time. It is common knowledge that, for every job created in housing

May 25, 1982
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construction there are three immediate jobs created in spin-off industries, such as the plumbing industry, the furniture manufacturing industry and the electrical appliance industry. In the long term, for every one job created, for example, in the construction of housing, there is evidence to show that 25 jobs are created in spin-off industries. It seems to me that if the government were to embark on that kind of program, to get into the construction of housing, it would not only be serving a socially useful function, but would also be providing Canadians with much needed jobs. There would be money coming back into the economy rather than money going out of the economy.
I could go on to spell out more of what we believe could be done. However, my leader, the hon. member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent) has mentioned in this House on many occasions, and-


Steve Eugene Paproski: Broadbent is the Charlie McCarthy of the CLC.


Neil Young: Pardon?


Steve Eugene Paproski: He is Dennis McDermott's Charlie
McCarthy.


Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives love to direct criticism at this party and at other parties in the House. However, it is their opposition motion today. So far, they have five hon. members in the House. The bells rang for about ten minutes tonight because we could not get a quorum and because there was only one Conservative member sitting in the House-


Steve Eugene Paproski: I rise on a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I think the new hon. member in the NDP should realize that he should not reflect on the number of people in the chamber. He must know that there are committees meeting this evening. If he does not understand what goes on in the chamber, maybe his-


Jean-Jacques Blais: There is a labour convention in Winnipeg!


Steve Eugene Paproski: I see no reason for the hon. member reflecting on who is here in the chamber. We have other things to do than to sit in the House.


Ian Deans: There is no rule or precedent disallowing that.


Neil Young: Well, Mr. Speaker, 1 accept the admonition of the hon. member for Edmonton North (Mr. Paproski).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. As six o'clock approached, the same matter was raised in the House by the same hon. member, I might add. Before going to dinner,
I had requested the Table officers to assist me in finding the correct citation which covers comments on the attendance of members. That has not yet been found, but my understanding is that hon. members may remark as to the attendance of members generally, but not as to the attendance of a particular member.


Ian Deans: That is absolutely right.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: If that will satisfy the House for the moment, I will see if I can do further research while in the Chair, and perhaps with that as a guideline, I could again recognize the hon. member for Edmonton North.


Ian Deans: A very enlightened observation.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your decision. I simply do not exactly know where this matter is dealt with in Beauchesne's. Nevertheless, we do not like reflections on the NDP attending a CLC convention in Winnipeg or on the fact that there is only a half dozen members here. I would not want to do that.


Ian Deans: As a percentage of the total, we are a lot more numerous than you.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I do not think it is fair that any member should reflect on the fact that there is only a handful here from their party.


Ian Deans: Although most of us are not quite the same size, I might say.


Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, we anxiously await the results of your research.
Why do the Conservatives like to criticize and like to say that our policies are all wrong? At least we have a policy and at least we have some suggestions to make, but I have failed to detect anything concerning youth unemployment from what the Conservative Party has said in the House today. Frankly, the only thing 1 could find in terms of Conservative Party policies with respect to youth unemployment came from its position when it unfortunately formed the government for the short period of time between 1979 and 1980. At that time, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) simply promised employers that the Liberal employment tax credit plan would be replaced with the employment tax credit plan of the Conservatives, with exactly the same problems and exactly the same formula used. What did the Leader of the Official Opposition promise? The numbers dropped downward after his election. The national youth service corps, which was supposed to provide 50,000 new jobs for young people in small communities, was later targeted to provide only 14,000 new jobs when the Conservatives were in government. 1 will not go on. I think the country knows that the Conservative Party is long in criticizing but short in solutions.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I could begin by stating that it is the hon. members of the New Democratic Party who are directly responsible for the mess in which so many young people find themselves today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
May 25, 1982


Flora Isabel MacDonald: They are directly responsible because that is the party in this House which joined together with the Liberal Party to defeat the previous government and to bring in those policies which have contributed to the highest unemployment this country has experienced since the years of the depression.
1 would like to direct attention to the motion before us for debate today which states:
That this House condemns the government for the economic mismanagement which has led directly to the loss of 300,000 jobs since August 1981 and produced a crisis situation for students seeking summer or permanent employment-
I want to repeat that last part:
-produced a crisis situation for students seeking summer or permanent employment-
We are into this debate today because a crisis situation exists in the country. The crisis is this. There are some 475,000 young Canadians between the ages of 16 and 24 who are without work today. Of that 475,000, there are some 200,000 students coming out of schools and universities who are unable to find jobs at this time.
They are spread across the country. They are in towns, villages and cities in every part of this great land of opportunity, but there is no opportunity for them this summer. They cannot find jobs. They have come out of school, college or university looking for jobs which will enable them to return this autumn to follow their studies. They are either looking for summer jobs, or they have graduated and are looking for permanent employment. They can find neither.
There are 200,000 students without jobs. There are 475,000 young people altogether without jobs. If they were to congregate in one spot, come together in one massive group from across the country, I am sure even this government would recognize the magnitude of the crisis which confronts us. Perhaps it would be more responsive than it has been so far in today's debate. What we are facing is not just a major problem for young people throughout the summer, but a massive blow to the development of our society if these young people cannot get back into the educational system this autumn.
I used the word "crisis", and I used it deliberately. The motion uses the word "crisis". That is what youth unemployment is all about in this summer of 1982. It is worse than last year and the year before. Job prospects for young people in Canada today are worse than at any time in our country's history. That is not an exaggeration. That, sadly, is a fact.
The point of this debate today is to ask ourselves how this situation came about and what, if anything, can be done at this late stage in the spring of 1982 to improve the situation in the months immediately ahead of us. As a number of my colleagues have stated in this debate, the current high unemployment is a direct result of the economic uncertainty and instability that characterizes Canada today. Government policies have created that climate of uncertainty and anxiety. As a result, investors no longer feel confident that development can
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move ahead in Canada. Confidence has been lost, creativity has been stifled and, as a result, jobs are not being created.
A number of members in the Liberal Party are beginning to recognize that their government's policies such as the National Energy Program, the budget, high interest rates, are not working, that they are wrong.
The policies which the federal government brought in, whether emanating from the budget or because of the high interest rate policies or the National Energy Program, are combining to produce unemployment, not jobs. These policies ensure that students will not have jobs this summer. Fortunately, Liberal backbenchers are beginning to realize the reality of these facts, but the Liberal cabinet still refuses to do so.
Earlier today I pointed out to the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) that date had been made available to Liberal backbenchers which shows that unemployment is going to get worse in the months ahead. That is a startling fact to read. It must have come as a startling revelation to those members of the Liberal backbenches who were handed this information.
I asked the minister if he had had this data made available to him and had it analysed and, if so, had he begun to produce programs that would stimulate job creation. I asked whether he had taken that data to see what could be done and whether he could come up with policies and programs to stimulate new job creation.
I do not expect the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) to be able to do all of this himself. More than any other person, he has to have the co-operation of the Minister of Finance. That is why I raised this point with him. What was the response of the Minister of Finance? He adamantly refused to answer the question. He wants to stick with the policies he now has, even though the impact of those policies has been so severe on the labour force across this country.
In some ways, one might compare the labour force of this country to a giant bellows which expands and contracts at regular periods throughout the year. The tragedy is that it has been contracting more and more since last summer and there has been no expansion. Since last August, 300,000 jobs have disappeared from the labour force. Not only have those jobs disappeared, but there has not been the seasonal expansion one normally sees in the spring and summer which alleviates unemployment, making it possible for students coming out of school and university to find jobs.
The policies of the government have brought about a prolonged contraction of the labour force. Hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs since last summer. These are permanent workers out of the work force. Young people pouring out of our schools, colleges and universities at this time of the year have to line up behind those already unemployed. Unfortunately, they stand little or no chance of getting into the work force this summer, unless some dramatic move is made now by all levels of government to deal with this critical situation.

May 25, 1982
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It is not enough for the minister to stand up and talk about Bill C-114, Bill C-115 or training programs in the future. He knows he will have our support on these measures. What is important is that he take steps to face this economic dilemma that confronts 200,000 students now.
I do not pretend that the government can turn the economy around overnight. I know that is not going to happen. However, 1 am not sure that all the steps that can possibly be taken to avert this summer's catastrosphe have been taken.
Let us not underestimate the problems that are facing students, problems which have been aggravated by recent moves of the federal government. It is this government which has cut $1.9 billion from post-secondary education funding for the next two years. It has cut that out. The immediate impact of that move by the federal government is that tuition fees for students will go up dramatically next year.
The immediate need that students have this summer is finding a job which enables them to earn more, not less, money than they usually earn in the summer months in order that they can meet the increased costs that will face them when they return to university next autumn. They are counting on these summer jobs to provide them with these additional moneys. They are finding that those jobs simply are not there.
It is a reality that students cannot get through university solely by relying on government grants or loans to see them through their education. These loans and grants have to be supplemented by private income, by the funds that students earn when out working during the summer months. But if there is no opportunity for them to earn, then the adverse impact of that situation falls heaviest on those students who come from families of low or middle income, because those students cannot fall back on parental assistance to pay their way through the next school year. Their parents are in no position, given today's economic situation, to do more than look after the daily demands on the family budget. So these young people face not only the bleak prospect of a summer without a job but, even worse, they face the prospect of having to drop out of school, not because of lack of ability but because of lack of funds. That will scar each young person individually, Mr. Speaker, but it will leave lasting scars on Canada's ability to produce the trained manpower and womanpower that we are going to need in the years ahead. In the meantime, what do you say to these young people, to these thousands of young people who are literally bewildered by the turn of events and who desperately want to find work? How do you explain to them that the climate for job creation does not exist in Canada today? Because they will come right back and tell you that it is your responsibility to create that climate.
The reality of that faces me every day in my own riding of Kingston and the Islands, a riding which has such noted institutions as Queen's University, the Royal Military College and St. Lawrence College. In my riding there are some 2,000 students who cannot find work this summer, who are desperately hoping to find a job. They know that the normal factories
and plants are not providing jobs the way they did last year. They know that they cannot go out and work in the local parks and local grocery stores the way they did last year.
1 agree with the minister's comments earlier today that it is the responsibility of all of us to try to help the private sector, to persuade the private sector to hire more students. But the reality is that the private sector has been so brutalized by many of this government's policies, that many sectors of it can no longer stagger along in the way they normally do. They simply cannot expand to take care of an additional 200,000 students this summer, the summer students who are now jobless. At least, they cannot do so without further assistance.
Ten of the minister's colleagues recognized that situation earlier this year, when they wrote to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) as follows, and this is what they said in their letter:
Unfortunately, young people are hit harder by the ravages of unemployment than is any other group in society. We believe that the logical solution to this urgent problem, which demands immediate attention, is to help private enterprise to hire young people. We propose a program of grants to encourage businesses to create jobs for those under 25 years of age.
They urged the Prime Minister to adopt these measures as soon as possible. But, Mr. Speaker, the federal government has not responded to that letter from the ten Liberal members, any more than it has responded to similar suggestions from members of the opposition parties.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration will know that several provincial governments-in particular, the government of Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba-have indicated their intention to take special action to help unemployed students this year. In the province of Quebec the government has recently announced a program to pay bonuses to employers for hiring students.


Lloyd Axworthy: They have cancelled it.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: The minister says they have cancelled that program. If they have, I am sorry that the Quebec government has seen fit to do that, because it might have taken up some of the slack that exists today in the province of Quebec, as it exists in other provinces, among the students.
I would like to suggest to the minister-and I made this suggestion to him the other day-that there are programs which can be initiated jointly by the federal and provincial governments, working together, even at this late date, emergency programs, crash programs, which could be introduced. I plead with the minister to consider the suggestion that I made to him, on the basis of the emergency that exists, to call together his provincial counterparts. That could be done next week. It might even be possible to arrange it this week. The 11 ministers could sit down together to try to work out programs which would assist private enterprise to hire the students, so that they can be put into the labour force this summer. It is going to take a joint effort, I realize that. I know that it is not going to be easy. But the co-operation that was spoken of earlier today by my colleague from Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) was never more necessary than it is at the present time.
May 25, 1982

1 urge the hon. minister, I plead with him, that he call together his provincial counterparts to see if the 11 of them cannot work out programs which will spur the private sector to doing more than they are at the present time, in an effort to hire the students and thereby reduce the crisis which faces not only the country but some 200,000 individual young Canadians this summer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gary Francis McCauley: Mr. Speaker, I believe it is time we injected a few facts into this debate as opposed to the rhetoric we have been hearing from the last two speakers. Let us agree that the high unemployment being experienced by Canadian youth is a matter of grave concern.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gary Francis McCauley: Young people today make up almost half of all unemployed, with an unemployment rate which is double that of the adult population. If we were to ignore the needs and aspirations of this segment of the labour force, the costs for society would be enormous. If we were to ignore this segment of the labour force-but we are not. The situation is not being ignored, Mr. Speaker.
In 1981-82 the federal government spent over $700 million to provide employment-related assistance to some two million young Canadians. With the introduction of new training programs and intensified efforts in other programs, the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission's employment assistance to young people in 1982-83 is expected to increase significantly.
However, in our efforts to deal with youth unemployment, a number of factors must be considered. Among these are our current economic conditions, the changing patterns in industry's structure and growth, the number of students looking for part time year-round work to finance their education, and the sheer size of the youth population.
We are all familiar with the phenomenon of the post-war baby boom and its effect on every aspect of our society's economy. Each year since 1975 another wave of this generation has entered the labour force, with the result that each year competition for available jobs has become all the more keen. Compounding this problem is the fact that the majority of young adults entering the labour force lack marketable work experience. Thus, their transition between school and work becomes even more difficult. Many young people leaving school find that their skills do not meet the needs of the labour market. In a tight economic climate these people are among the most vulnerable to changing economic conditions in which the last hired becomes the first fired. This, in turn, leads to unstable employment patterns, which makes subsequent job searches even more difficult.
It is therefore imperative that, in order to facilitate their future entry into the labour market, young people still in school be provided with an opportunity to obtain the kind of experience that will make them more acceptable to employers.
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The summer jobs for students created through the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission have been highly successful in providing young people with the kind of work experience they need to prepare for their eventual entry into the full-time workforce. The Summer Canada Student Employment Program also has had a significant impact on summer youth unemployment each year. In fact, last summer's program was estimated to have lowered the unemployment rate for students returning to school by between 1.6 and 2.4 percentage points, on average, between May and August, 1981.
In recognition of the serious employment situation that the students face this summer, my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy)-to whom I want to pay tribute tonight for doing a tremendous job in very difficult economic times-announced last summer that funding for student summer employment initiatives in 1982 would be increased by $20 million, bringing the total funding for this year's program to $120 million. This money is being used to create career oriented jobs for more than 55,000 students this summer and to place hundreds of thousands more in employment in both the public and private sectors. This is what the Government of Canada is doing, Mr. Speaker. This is what the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) has referred to as brutalizing the economy for students this summer. If that is brutalizing the economy, then I do not understand what she means.
Summer Canada emphasizes the creation of qualitative, career-oriented jobs that would prepare students for future labour market participation. The program consists of three components. First, in the public service employment component, summer internship for some 3,000 students is being created in federal departments and agencies. These technical or specialist jobs which relate to the students' studies, can last up to three summers, with progressively more challenging work assignments in the second and third years.
The community project stream this year will create about 32,600 jobs for students in projects generated by established community organizations throughout the country. Close to another 6,000 students will find employment in job-creation projects sponsored by federal departments and agencies through Summer Canada's federal project stream.
Included in the federal government's summer employment initiative for students are the Department of National Defence, Cadet and Reserve Training Programs, and the RCMP supernumerary constable program. These programs will create jobs for close to 13,000 more students who are interested in jobs in the military, in law or in law enforcement.
Another important aspect of the government's summer employment initiatives are the Canada summer employment centres for students. There are more than 400 of these centres across Canada which operate in the spring and summer

May 25, 1982
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months. They serve as a key link in the communities between the federal effort and summer student employment, other levels of government and the private sector. In 1981-82 Canada employment centres for students accounted for some 325,961 placements in both the public and the private sector. In all, 695,365 registrations were taken and 355,769 job vacancies were listed with these student centres. Approximately 135,226 post-secondary students were placed in jobs while the remaining 190,735 placements were secondary students. This summer, despite the tight economic situation the centres expect to find employment for some 314,400 students.
The Canada Employment and Immigration Commission also operates a number of year-round programs directed specifically toward youth. These include Canada employment centres on campus, the international young workers exchange, and special youth employment centres.
The youth employment centres which operate in four provinces, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, are an extension of the Canada employment centres for students and are designed to intensify employment services for hard to place youth. They help young people develop realistic occupation and vocational plans, assist them in gaining useful work experience, and they co-ordinate the efforts of local business and labour organizations as well as other organizations and individuals interested in maximizing employment opportunities for youth in the community.
While all of the programs I have described have been developed specifically for youth, young people are also a major beneficiary of all the job creation and employment development programs offered by the government.
These programs are particularly targeted toward areas of high unemployment. Besides the opportunity to earn income at a time when they would otherwise have to rely on unemployment insurance or welfare, participants in these programs benefit by developing good work habits, learning skills that will be of use in future jobs and establishing a stable employment pattern.
Young people aged 25 and under are a major target of all these programs and it is estimated that they represent close to half the participants. In 1981-82, these figures included some 1,057 young people in the local employment assistance programs; 874 in Canada community services projects; 9,979 in the first round of Canada community development projects and 12,928 in the second round; 343 participants in the new technology employment program and 3,000 in the program for the employment disadvantaged. As well, young people are major participants in the federal training programs and represent 45 per cent of the clients of Canada employment centres and 50 per cent of the clients of the federally-funded Outreach projects.
All of these efforts are designed to assist severely unemployed youth in established positive employment patterns and in easing the transition from school to work for youth in general. While they have proved to be successful, we are not stopping here. Intensive efforts are currently being made within the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission
to identify the best methods for assisting young people in becoming productive members of our work force. One of the first results of this effort was the allocation, last March, of an additional $188 million for year-round training initiatives, principally for the benefit of young people. This funding will open up several thousand new training places in skills currently in demand, such as welders, machinists and those in high technology occupations.
Our commitment to the young people of Canada is a heavy one, Mr. Speaker, but it is really an investment in the future of our country. I can assure you that in job creation, as in training, our efforts will continue to see that the employment needs of our youth are met.


Mr. Chuck Cook (North Vancouver-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, my children have been robbed of their future by a succession of Liberal governments.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: My grandchildren have been robbed of their heritage by a succession of Liberal governments. The national debt of this country means that my children and my grandchildren are faced with a debt that it may take their childrens' children to pay off.
Why do we have this kind of debate today? Why do we have this problem in the country today? We have it because the Liberals have been so profligate in their spending over the years that they do not have the money to solve this problem today.
In the first four months of 1981, in British Columbia the youth unemployment rate was 11.5 per cent, and already in the first four months of 1982 it has reached 18.7 per cent. We do not have any answer to that, Mr. Speaker.
In British Columbia, Alcan will employ 80 students in Kitimat this year when last year over 200 students got jobs there. Abitibi Price Inc. and British Columbia Forest Products Limited employed hundreds of students last year but will employ very few this year.
I must stop here, Mr. Speaker. I have been listening to Liberal statistics during this debate and, quite frankly, now I should like to talk about heartbreak, about spirits that are broken and about the many young people who are developing the view that there is no hope for them. Unfortunately, with the kind of government we have, I have no hope to offer them. Four hundred youth employment offices across the country! Well, isn't that a big deal. Except that those 400 offices are telling people between 15 and 24 that there are no jobs. Is this government creating any jobs? No, it is not. They talk statistics, this, that and the other, but are they doing anything? Are they really concerned about the youth of this country? No, they are not. Do not give me statistics, tell me about the young lad who really wants to work but is told there are no jobs.
What is the result of this? What really gets to me is that a young person wants to do something, wants to have a job, and
May 25, 1982

he lives at a time and in a climate where there are no jobs, a climate created by the Liberals. It means that the youth of this land, for this year and, from what I can judge, it will be worse next year, do not have a hope in hell. That is one of the most offensive things to happen in a country which could be as great as Canada. Think of the personal and the psychological effects this can have. I can tell you a bit about that, because I can remember as a very small child wanting to get a paper route and my father saying that no, he could look after us, and that there was a man out there who needed the paper route to look after his family. I can remember at the age of 14 still trying to get a paper route and the circulation manager telling me that there was no paper route for me, he had a guy with a wife and two kids who needed the money a lot more than I or any other kid did. I know what I felt like and 1 can understand what literally hundreds of thousands of young people in this country are feeling today. The future of this country is in our youth, and what has this government done? It has spent the money over the years wastefully, and now it cannot really go out and do the job. Quite frankly, I blame the unions, the provincial governments of whatever stripe, and I blame the Liberal federal government.


David P. Smith: What about the NDP?


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: They are part of the unions. What we have here is a situation in Canada where we are looking at importing miners and technicians from other countries for major developments. Why? Because we have not trained our own people. Because the federal and provincial governments and the unions have not wanted to train the youth of this country to do those jobs. That is the greatest story of neglect by government at every level, and quite frankly I am embarrassed and ashamed of it. The day that we bring into this country a trained worker because we do not have one should be the day the youth of this nation really go into revolt. The NDP can talk about their union friends, but just how many of them are prepared to accept apprentices? They are going to compete with their workers and they do not want them.
There is a young lad in the City of Ottawa who is angry, and the reason is that he makes only $30 a week more working than he could get on unemployment insurance. What kind of incentive is that to a young, single and healthy man? You have not provided the incentive for youth to get out and hustle. You have not provided incentives for people to work more than the minimum required in order to collect unemployment insurance. Do you think that is right? We have all heard of the UIC ski team at Banff in years past, and that situation still exists today.


Mr. Riis:: What is your answer to that, reduce UIC?


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: What are some of the answers? I listened to the minister saying: "I have not heard one good idea from the other side of the Housse". Well, perhaps I will give him a good idea. At least it is a thought, something positive. In the United States in the 1930s they had a thing called the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC. It employed literally hundreds of thousands of young Americans.
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Nelson Andrew Riis: Sounds like socialism.


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: One of the things they did was to build Timberline Lodge just outside of Portland. It was built by the youth of America when there were no other jobs, and it still exists today. It is a great ski resort, I might add. Where is that kind of thinking in the Liberal Party today? I do not know, I cannot find it. Where will the money come from for things like this? The government has this country so far in debt that it is hamstrung in terms of new initiatives, but I suggest that it could take a bloated Canadian unity office and shut it down, eliminate some of this government waste and redirect those funds into youth employment. I suggest to everyone who is watching me on his television set to think about this the next time he sees a commercial from the Liberal government or a billboard telling him how great it is to be a Canadian. You already know that, so the next time you see one of those ads, think about the money they have wasted rather than trying to help the young people of this country maintain their pride, develop their skills and go on to a useful existence.
I am really scared of what is taking place in this country, Mr. Speaker. I do not mind telling you why. I think there are any number of members here who have experienced the same thing. I have met an awful lot of people who were horribly scarred by the dirty thirties in this country. When I first started to work in the 1940s there were men who believed there is only one thing to do: take a job and hang on to it, whatever it was. Security mattered above all else. I think most of us in the House have met those kinds of people. They may or may not have had a job in the 1930s, but their spirit was broken so totally that for the rest of their lives their only concern was security. They may not have liked their jobs, but it was a job and they were going to hang on to it. No matter what else came along, they would not move. They never took a risk, never did anything, I think in many cases never even had a decent holiday in their whole life. Certainly if they were offered a better job with greater potential they would not take it. They have been broken by the 1930s. We went through two generations of people broken by the 1930s. I would hate to see another generation of our youth broken by the same kind of thing, but we will see some evidence of that this summer and it is most unfortunate.
I would like to quote from an article on unemployment and job dislocation. It reads:
Patrick O'Rourke, manager of employment programs with the B.C. Department of Labour, said there will be few jobs for students in the west coast forest industry this summer because of lay-offs and production slowdowns.
"The loss of a large payroll in a community means other companies have to cut back, there are fewer employment opportunities and students have to compete for jobs with people who have been laid off."
An economist with CEIC in British Columbia said the jobless rate for students in the province could be between 18 and 20 per cent this summer.

May 25, 1982
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1 might add the rate last year was 9.6 per cent, and that was bad enough.
Hon. members of the Liberal Party, you are destroying the youth of this country. You have not been creative. You are not altering your priorities. You have been wasting money on all kinds of things. For God's sake, think about what you are doing to the future of this country by spending $60 million in advertising as opposed to creating meaningful jobs in useful work for the youth of our country which they so desperately need.
Let us face it, the youth of this land do not want charity, welfare, or unemployment insurance-they want meaningful work. For God's sake, supply it or face your own children and grandchildren and explain your own failures to them.
[ Translation]


Mr. Remi Bujold (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the motion presented today by the opposition party is most interesting. 1 believe, as others have pointed out this afternoon, that the problem is a challenge to all Canadians and of course to our government. However, when the member for North Vancou-ver-Burnaby (Mr. Cook) remarked that the government was doing practically nothing, to hear him talk was like being in an army column where only one soldier is in step, and the hon. member seemed to identify with this individual, since according to him, everybody else, all the other parties in this House, are not doing what should be done, and only his own party is doing something to remedy the situation for young people. I agree that the situation is most unfortunate, and our government is aware of this, because with the means available to us, we have tried to set up certain structures to help young Canadians.
People who try to make fun of the 400 employment centres we have across Canada should think twice, because these placement offices have been set up to give students across this country a place where they can find out what jobs are available. And that is why we must have the co-operation of all the parties in this House, of all provincial governments, of industry and business and everyone who can provide employment for our young people. If every employer across Canada used our employment centres to recruit students, we would be able to place far more students, because young people at the centres are trained, and the centres can, within 48 hours, provide employers with students who have the requisite qualifications and potential to fill the jobs offered by the employers. This kind of co-operation, Mr. Speaker, is absolutely essential in the present situation, if we are to provide more summer jobs across Canada for our young people.
It is absolutely no use criticizing people and trying to prove that someone is not doing his or her work properly. We must stop this in-fighting and work together to help as many young people as possible to find jobs. As I said earlier, we have 400
employment centres across the country, and in Quebec alone there are 95. Last year, in Quebec, we managed to find jobs for 75,000 young people, and this year we hope to exceed that number. But I must repeat that all businesses and especially all Quebec employers should deal with our Canada Employment Centres. The centres are there to serve employers, and there is no charge for their services. Obviously, the present situation may lead some people to take a very pessimistic view, but in any case, we have to deal with it. In addition to our employment centres, we must also concentrate on training Canada's youth. It was said earlier that we should be focussing far more efforts on the training program for young people. That is exactly what we want to do, Mr. Speaker, and it is for this reason that last Friday, the minister introduced in the House a bill to deal with a situation where, during the eighties, we shall be faced with a manpower shortage. Whether through retraining, or any other kind of training, we must prepare our young people for the labour market, and especially throughout the eighties.
This year, during the 1981-82 financial year, the federal government will be spending over $1 billion on training alone, and I am sure that no one is going to criticize this expenditure. After listening to the hon. members who spoke before me this afternoon, we can probably take for granted that the two opposition parties are going to support the government on the bill now before the House, and that it will be possible to expedite passage of the bill so that quick action can be taken to help young people enter the labour market. It is clear that the legislation must be amended, since it has been in effect for 15 years, and although it has certainly provided an excellent service to many individuals seeking training throughout the country, we must adapt it to the requirements of the eighties.
In Quebec, for instance, as a result of the Axworthy-Marois agreement announced on July 30, 1981, the province received enough money to train over 90,000 workers. Ottawa transferred to Quebec $133 million for the purchase of institutional training and apprenticeship training courses, while $30 million went to training on the job. Add to this $562,000 for native people's training and about $66 million in the form of training allowances and unemployment insurance benefits. Mr. Speaker, I feel these figures are very revealing. In fact, our new legislation is aimed at further increasing the sums of money that will be made available to people who want training that will enable them to get jobs in Canada requiring a certain degree of specialized training. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, the consultations prior to the introduction in the House last Friday of the bill which is intended to provide Canada with a genuine occupational training charter, these consultations first took place some time last year at a federal-provincial conference in Quebec, and again last January, in Vancouver, where participants wanted the legislation now before the House to respond exactly to our needs.
May 25, 1982

Of course, Mr. Speaker, the federal government has no intention of intruding in a field which comes under provincial jurisdiction, in this case education. Since this Quebec conference in September, 1981, we have heard many provincial ministers and other provincial authorities accuse the federal government of intruding in an area of provincial jurisdiction. 1 believe, Mr. Speaker, that the occupational training problem in Canada must be viewed as a national problem. To be able to meet this nationwide demand, it is vital for a government to take care of regional disparities and meet regional needs so that the workers of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Quebec can look for jobs in the western provinces. The only way to give the required training to these workers is to have a central government which can co-ordinate all the training programs and see to it that everyone in the country can have access to the same courses in every region of Canada.
Needless to say, in spite of the present high unemployment rate, we must still seek thousands of specialized workers outside Canada each year. It is expected that Canada will need about 9,000 of these workers every year during the next five years, and one of the objectives of our new legislation is to reduce this need for foreign workers and achieve complete selfsufficiency within our own country. Canadians often say, and rightly so, that they have the capability, and the contract that was signed last week with Bombardier, the contract that this company signed with New York certainly proves that we have this capability, but we in Ottawa want Canadians in general, and this of course includes Quebecers, to have even more capability and to turn to professions that will be more satisfying in every way in the years to come. Mr. Speaker, I shall perhaps be accused of anticipating the debate concerning the new bill on occupational training, but I would like to point out that everything is interrelated in this sector, which is so essential if we want to ensure our young people a better future. This is also a matter of some urgency, as hon. members will know that the agreements renewed last year expired on March 31. In addition, it must be kept in mind that we need a national training program, because we are dealing with a truly national labour market, if we do not want to put Quebec workers who would want to work in Ontario or the western provinces at a disastrous disadvantage.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot overemphasize the need for greater manpower mobility throughout the country, which mobility has in fact been very beneficial to thousands of Quebecers, but I would like to come back to the new legislation on occupational training and mention one of its key components, namely the occupational skills development fund, which can be created only when the bill has been approved and enacted by Parliament. Indeed, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) noted last Friday that, without such approval, we cannot allocate any funds for the construction or extension of any training facility, however urgent the need.
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The federal government has already allocated $108 million to a fund earmarked for this purpose during the current fiscal year, but the legislation must be passed before we can proceed with such a program. The various provinces as well as private non-profit training organizations will be able to receive the financial assistance provided by the occupational skills development fund. The new formula and the new legislation will widen the range of training courses available and the categories of eligible workers. It will provide a list of priority occupations and the extent of courses available in each field. Larger financial allocations will also be possible in some cases and the present requirement that adults must not have attended school for 12 months to be eligible to register for training courses will be eliminated, which will mean, for instance, that recent drop-outs will have access to the courses they need.
Workers will still be in a position to receive a more specialized training during a period extending beyond the current 52-week limit and, when applicable, help will also be extended to employers who must train abroad highly-skilled Canadian workers. Finally, agreement procedures with employers will be simplified as well as the payment to provinces of the moneys provided for in contracts, in order to simplify red tape and to speed up training. In other words, Mr. Speaker, the effort will concentrate to a larger extent on skills where workers are very much in demand, on the training of workers affected by new technologies and the training of unemployed workers to prepare them for future jobs in the coming years.
The challenge of the eighties must be met by offering our workers-and especially young people ready to enter the labour market-conditions that will enable them to play an active and fulfilling role in an expanded economy that will be increasingly technological, and particularly new technology oriented. Every Canadian must have an opportunity to be trained or re-trained to gain access to the two million-odd new jobs, both interesting and well-paid, to be generated by economic development in Canada. This will also enable our country to strengthen its competitive position on the international marketplace by increasing productivity, thus making achievements such as the Bombardier contract easier to come by.
In other words, training will now have to be oriented to future needs and be based on technological developments and on the corporate needs of the new decade. Therefore, the government's role is to determine the nature and scope of adult training needs, to delineate the main policies and supply individuals, companies, groups and provinces with financial help to enable them to undertake or provide necessary training. Provinces and their institutions are the main providers of institutional training; they are responsible for the establishment, management and implementation of programs. The two levels of government therefore have distinctive responsibilities in that respect, but they must work hand in hand so that, when this legislation is passed in this House, a great number of Canadians and especially young Canadians will have access to the labour market of the eighties thus making it possible for
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May 25, 1982
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the greatest possible number of young people to enter the labour market.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: Mr. Speaker, on a downtown Ottawa building the following graffito appears: "In a society that has destroyed all real adventure, the only real adventure is to destroy the society." We are seeing that kind of attitude in our young people today, an attitude which can only lead to pessimism, lack of hope, nihilism and anarchy. Are these the kinds of directions which we are really seeking for the country?
Unemployment sees first a loss of self-respect; second, a loss of respect for authority; and, finally, the unfortunate opting out or unfortunate fighting back against a society which refuses to give hope or opportunity. Last year in British Columbia there were 9.6 per cent unemployed. At that time we thought that 9.6 per cent was very high and that it could not possibly be higher. Even at 9.6 per cent we knew that there were at least some who were not really seeking work. They were registered but not necessarily seeking work or, if they were, in fact they were seeking it selectively. In other words, "I will work for this much but not for that much." There was some of that up to the 9.6 per cent, but certainly not all the way to 9.6 per cent. Now the unemployment rate of last summer has turned into 18.7 per cent young people unemployed. We are talking about people who are seeking employment. They are not seeking employment selectively; they are seeking any kind of employment and any kind of opportunity. Mr. Speaker, I wish you could see the picture 1 have here of Mark Fuller parading on Vancouver streets. I know you cannot see it; you could not see it if you wanted to see it; but if you could, you would see that Mark Fuller's placard says: "For hire, one slightly used 22-year old male. I need employment. Will try almost anything". On the placard is also his telephone number. The placard is a public and desperate plea for help.
There was a time when some young people went through a period of collecting UIC benefits when they joined the Banff UIC team or the Whistler UIC team, but they did so for just a short period of time. They did so only until benefits ran out. However, something new is happening. All of a sudden such people find that when UI benefits run out, there is no place left to go because there are no jobs, even if they wanted them. There are no jobs even for the bright, the well-educated or those who have the will to work. There are no opportunities. Bright young people are turning to welfare and from welfare to a no-hope treadmill.
We talk about how Canada was built on the basis of the work ethic. I uphold the work ethic all the time. We must rebuild the work ethic, but how can we do it? A work ethic is meaningless if there is no work. If there is no work, how can we have a work ethic?
Hon. members should put themselves into the place of high school graduates today. What opportunity do high school
graduates have? They have no experience. They are out in the world looking for experience. The easy line used to be, "You don't have any experience", but now not only are there no opportunities for the inexperienced but even those who are experienced are losing opportunities and jobs. Even if those who are experienced cannot get jobs, how can those who are not? What hope is there for high school students graduating next month and wanting to go to universities, technical schools and vocational schools? It takes money to do that because the federal government is cutting back on expenditures for educational services. All of a sudden the cost of university fees, tuition, books and board will double in many cases. Expenses next year will be twice what they were this year, and the number of job opportunities will be half. Graduates will not be able to get jobs at any rate of pay. They will not be able to go back to school. What hope is there for high school students?


Nelson Andrew Riis: No hope.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: That is right, there is no hope. This is the situation not just for high school graduates but also for university graduates, technical school graduates, vocational school graduates and others who have skills. There has been no overall strategy for education and for preparing people for the work force. The employment balance is out. People who are needed are not where they should be because there has been no over-all educational strategy and no employment co-ordination strategy for young Canadians.
It is one thing to see older people or middle-aged people unemployed. Those people have been used to the Liberal government for a decade. They are used to periods of unemployment. They have lost hope. A husband and wife, both 35 years old, came to my office. Both of them are professionals. They have worked steadily for ten years. They went to high school and, after high school, worked their way through university by working during the summers. They obtained degrees and went out and got jobs. They were employed for ten years and earned seniority in their positions. They both lost that, as well as their jobs. They have been unemployed for six months. This has never happened to them in ten years. They have a young family. Their mortgage payments doubled. They have lost their home, and that is what they came to see me about. It was not because they lost their jobs; they gave up on those a long time ago. They asked if I would call the bank or do something to try to save their home. These people have become accustomed to this no-hope government. They have become accustomed to no opportunity and the wasted potential of this land.
Some younger people, those between the ages of 18 and 25, still have a spark of hope, but hon. members should see their faces when I tell them there are no jobs for them. At one time when they came to my office I could send them to six, seven or eight places and, if they were willing to do anything for low wages, something could be found for them. I suppose now I could send them around a big circle, they would come back
May 25, 1982

and 1 would know they would be coming back, but I do not send them around that circle any more because I have lost hope too. Is it not sad that as a Member of Parliament 1 too have lost hope because I cannot find jobs for them? It used to be that when unemployment offices could not or would not help, I would, but I cannot do that any more. Chamber of Commerce businessmen tell me they have no hope and that they are not creating jobs. This lack of spirit is in young people, employers and others. It is as if nothing can be done and there is no hope.
This government is doing something. It is causing the situation in which there are no jobs, but that does not mean there are not some answers. Perhaps the government should allow young people to take their unemployment insurance cheques to businessmen or prospective employers. Those employers could match those cheques or add 10 per cent or 20 per cent to them and give young people jobs so that they could be productive. This would make for happier, better and more productive young people.
Young people would not have to take their cheques very far. For example, they could take them to municipal offices. The municipalities I represent, Surrey and Langley, had summer student employment programs. I said "had", in past tense. They would be happy to take unemployment insurance cheques and turn them into jobs. They could provide jobs for probably 25 per cent of the cost and would be happy to do so. If they could not do it at 100 per cent, they might at 25 per cent. I called a municipal engineering department, and this is the response I received:
The Engineering Department has come to rely upon the Summer Student Employment Program to provide temporary extra staff during the peak summer construction period. These students have traditionally provided the flexibility to:
1.	Temporarily replace permanent staff who should have at least some part of their vacation in summer; and
2.	Get done a multitude of those tasks which are pedantic and time consuming and, although important and necessary, never seem to get done because of more urgent demands on the regular staff.
And regular staffs are being cut back and cut back. Are there really meaningful jobs? I ask this of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy). The answer is, yes. I have the answer in my hand. There is a municipality which will create all kinds of jobs if it is given unemployment insurance cheques. That is all the minister has to do.
What can young people do? They can do labour work to replace outside workers doing construction and maintenance. Experience is not even required. They can gather data for traffic counts, public works inventories, historical research into files and so forth. They can act as secretarial and clerical replacements. They can update base maps for legal purposes, utilities and land development. They can order information and prepare computer input. They could learn something and begin to grow a little bit. They could use the human potential they have and get some further training, which would make them even more useful to our society. These are real jobs. This is in the municipality of Surrey, Mr. Minister. Here they are. Can we do that? Can we give them our UIC cheques? I wonder.
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I do not want to stop there. There are other possibilities. Let us look at the minister's cabinet colleagues here. Let us look to the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne). Do you know that the Minister of National Defence told me in committee the other night that the Armed Forces do not want to take into their ranks every young person who comes to them and says, "I would like to join the reserves for the summer. I would like to gain that experience and opportunity in the Armed Forces. I would like to learn a little bit of patriotism and how to protect myself and my country. I would like to become the man that the armed services promise us we can become". Sometimes the armed services say, "We do not want them. We do not want those who do not have skills, who are not able." I say to the Minister of Employment and Immigration that there are all kinds of young people who have lots of skills, lots of will and still have some hope. The Minister of National Defence said to me that out of every three who ask to go, the department takes only one because of limitations. This applies to those who want only summer training.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Would they take Trudeau?


Robert Lloyd Wenman: I do not know. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was out there with his children. I thought that they would maybe enrol in Sea Cadets or the Reserves, but I guess there is no place for them.
Why does the Minister of Employment and Immigration not go and talk to the Minister of National Defence and take at least 25,000 of these young people and give them that opportunity? What is the alternative for them? The alternative is wandering in the streets despondently, with no hope and no opportunity to go back to school next year.


Nelson Andrew Riis: They do not like young people.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: They have something against young people, it seems. They must. It is one thing to punish the wage-earner again and again. They are so punished and pushed down that they are in a desperate state. But if the government believes in our future and wants to build up these young people, why can it not take 25,000 or more into the Reserves? Tell me why? When I asked that in the committee, you should have seen the faces of the generals of the Armed Forces of Canada light up. They have been talking about cutbacks for so long that they cannot even imagine expansion. Perhaps we should make it an emergency program. We have 18.7 per cent of the people in that age bracket in Vancouver who might welcome this kind of program. Let us give them an opportunity? Why not? That is a good idea. You know it is. We could take their unemployment insurance cheques and give them to the Armed Forces and say, "Here. Create a job. It will cost hardly anything. Build the country, build the nation, build up our young people". That is the kind of thing we want to say.
I spoke with the recreation departments in several lower mainland municipalities. I phoned them and said, "What about your recreation department?" They said, "Well, we have almost no budgets this year. Recreation got the biggest chop of

May 25, 1982
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all." So those young people who were trying to keep the parks alive, trying to help other young people, trying to build themselves up, cannot do so. But the municipalities could take those unemployment cheques and create jobs in the field of recreation for the summer. There are so many things that could be done. It is not that there is not an answer. It is simply that there is a great waste, a great loss and a great frustration. I cannot believe, Mr. Speaker, that you have not experienced it in your riding or that there is not one Liberal MP who has not experienced the same. Take this idea that I have given you today, take the credit for it and use it. Create these real jobs in this real way. Give our young people a chance.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[ Translation]


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to take part in the debate this evening on the motion introduced by the official opposition, particularly since it has to do with a tremendous problem faced by young Canadians, the matter of employment. However, the motion moved by the official opposition could have been drafted quite differently, because it urges the government, and I quote:
-to ... promote the private and public sector hiring of Canada's youth so that those attending school can afford to continue to acquire needed skills, and those graduating can immediately become productive members of the work force.
This summer we expect that about 1.2 million students will join the Canadian labour force on a temporary basis. In 1981, only 11 per cent out of roughly 1.2 million students were unable to land a job, whereas this year we expect that figure might reach 16 per cent. In other words, some 200,000 young people will be unable to find work.
However, when we read the motion, we realize that they are expressly asking the government to promote the creation of jobs in the private sector as well as in the public sector. With respect to the public sector, the Minister of Employment and Immigration has announced a $100 million grant. So, to those who are urging the government to take the necessary assistance measures, I suggest that an amount of $100 million does represent an incentive and is a concrete way to lend a hand to students. They can always say that it is a fair amount but that it could be larger still, and I agree. But not unlike any government or corporation, we also have budgetary limits.
One thing which really amazes me in this type of debate, Mr. Speaker, is that we hear practically the same comments on either side: we all deplore the fact that students have no summer jobs and we also deplore the fact that family heads aged 35, 40 or 50 cannot rejoin the labour force. I suppose all that stems from the legendary generosity of Members of Parliament, but all those pious wishes combined do not point to a solution. Keeping in mind the very short time at my disposal this evening, I would like hon. members to consider two possibilities which in the course of the coming months and the coming year might help us find a formula likely to enable
us to make much greater use of Canada's student and permanent manpower. The first would be to reformulate various programs and call them voluntary public service. I listened to the member who spoke before me and who, in his own words, was trying to set an objective quite similar to the one I will endeavour to describe in the next few minutes. Our young people, boys and girls, are asking for work. They do not necessarily want high wages, they want to be busy, to make a worth-while contribution to the community, but also to achieve self-fulfilment. That is what the young people want at the moment.
I remember that during four summers I was responsible for student employment on the North Shore, and most boys and girls wanted to work 32 or 42 hours a week at a reasonable salary. Those young people did not spare their efforts or their time and were anxious to share their knowledge as well as to learn. It is quite important even for employers to realize how much those young people can benefit the company. On the other hand, the company is also an excellent school for young people. At present, because of our free enterprise system, it happens that more young people will be unable to find jobs this summer. Let us keep in mind that the system is based on the fact that since we live in a free country, nothing is compulsory. Unemployment insurance and social welfare are characteristics of free countries, because in totalitarian countries, everybody would be working. Everyone is given a registration number and has to perform some duties. Then, there is no unemployment, because everybody is under state control. Thank God this is not the case in America where people are free and have free institutions. We could perhaps therefore review some programs and set up some kind of voluntary public service. And what would we do in that voluntary public service? How would it be financed? Who could belong to the managerial staff? Such a voluntary public service could be distributed throughout the country in six or seven designated areas.
Young people between 16 or 17 and 25 could apply for community work and benefit from contacts with native people, anglophones, francophones and other groups, and could be transferred every six months, along the lines of the methods used by countries where military service is compulsory. With this difference, that it would be a civilian volunteer service without any connection with the Armed Forces or military discipline. It is meant as an opportunity for young people to take a break from their studies, or after leaving school or giving up a job, to gain valuable experience and give society the benefit of their intelligence, energy and creativity. The volunteer service could be administrated by employees of private companies who would be seconded to the program as a contribution to the community, so that no increase in the numbers of federal personnel or of any other level of government would be necessary.
May 25, 1982

Second, this would make it possible to keep both administrative and operational activities flexible. Every two years, companies could lend and delegate staff to enable the operation to function normally. We would be able to make use of the skills of people working as education officers in the Armed Forces. We could also use DND planes. Planes of Canadian private companies could also be used, because it seems they often fly with only about 50 or 60 per cent of their passenger capacity. We have all the resources we need to make a system of this kind take shape and become operational. The will must be there, however, and a detailed analysis will be necessary, on the basis of a pilot project, after which we could increase staff as needed. In fact, we are doing something similar under the Katimavik program. Everybody knows about this particular program, and Katimavik is a little like the program 1 have just described. The only difference would be that salaries would be adapted to the young people joining the civilian volunteer service, and to that salary could be added an increase of 5 per cent or 8 per cent, between unemployment insurance and volunteer work. Thus, we are not taking away jobs from people in the private sector, we are not adding to the personnel of municipal, provincial or federal governments and we are giving young people a chance to develop in their country for a year or two, to discover the various parts of Canada and live with their fellow Canadians.
I have filed a document with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) to have it analysed by his officials. It is a document I prepared four years ago, under the title: Vers une integration a la vie canadienne. If hon. members agree, it could perhaps be tabled here in the House later on. The first part of my plan is civilian volunteer service, the second part would consist in getting the unions interested in our program, and I am thinking of an apprenticeship system which would enable companies to hire young people just out of school to fill jobs with governments, Crown corporations or private companies. All that inexperienced young people would need would be the trade unions' permission to go and work for a company, although there might be already a few workers too many to do the job. But this scheme would make it possible for young people to join the labour force very quickly while gaining some worth-while experience. But that is often the tragedy in our society. Our young people can never join the labour force on a permanent basis or acquire the experience they need, so that a lot of young men and women reach the age of 25, 26, 27, 28 or 30 without ever having had a real job. Those are two schemes I should like the House to consider instead of hearing the same old complaints over and over again, that to be unemployed is a tragedy and to be unable to find work is a cause for serious concern for our young people.
I think that if we took the time to consider these two schemes very carefully, we could come up with interesting new ideas about ways to improve our present manpower training and help our society develop. Well, Mr. Speaker, I thank you very kindly for listening to me. I should like very much the leaders of both opposition parties as well as those of the
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government who are responsible for the manpower matters to look into my proposals. Moreover, with the House's permission, I should like to table the document I mentioned a while ago, so that hon. members may have the opportunity to better understand this plan.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I take it the parliamentary secretary seeks the leave of the House to table the document to which he referred. Is that agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to use the closing moments of this debate to bring to your attention, that of this House and the nation some of the concerns that we in Atlantic Canada have about the desperate plight the youth is experiencing in that part of the country in obtaining employment, and its employment future which is indeed bleak. Atlantic Canada is one of those areas that, unfortunately, is the first to experience slumps and is generally the last to come out of them.
What has transpired over the last few months and years under this government is an experience in Atlantic Canada that is woefully inadequate when it comes to trying to cope and deal with the problems the youth of Atlantic Canada is experiencing in finding jobs.
Just briefly, I want to refer to some of the comments which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. McCauley) made earlier in the debate. He said words to the effect that if they were to ignore this sector of the labour force, referring to the youth, they would indeed be at fault. For the information of the nation, it is only fair and right that the public be apprised of what has happened to the labour force and how much attention this government has been paying to the youths who are employable and are looking for work.
In 1968, when this government under the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) came to power, the youth unemployment rate of this nation was 7.4 per cent. The most recent figures indicate that the unemployment rate in the nation now for youth is an astounding 15.8 per cent. This is the sort of tactic, program and operation that this government has implemented to take care of the youth of this nation.
I could expound with many examples from Atlantic Canada, including my own constituency, that have been brought to my attention by young people who are frustrated and by tearful mothers who are frustrated over the prospect of losing their children to other parts of the country, indeed, other parts of the continent outside this country. Unfortunately, time does not permit me to do that.
I suppose if I were to do a service to the youth of this nation, I would use the remaining minute of my time to propose a minute of silence to the youth of this country. They are going to be the losers. Believe me, the youths of this nation are losing

May 25, 1982
Adjournment Debate
hope by the hundreds. When the young lose hope, the nation loses hope. They are going to be the inheritors of a hopeless Canadian society, compliments of the present government.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Robert Alfred Corbett: Mr. Speaker, on May 20, I asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) if he would provide a schedule for the extension of the natural gas pipeline into Atlantic Canada. As you are well aware, the natural gas pipeline was first promised by this government in Halifax on January 25, 1980 by the then opposition leader and now the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). At that time he promised that a Liberal government would take immediate action to ensure the full co-operation of all parties in the construction of the natural gas pipeline to Quebec City and the Maritimes. He went on to say that the pipeline would have reversible capacity, so that Atlantic Canadians would have the opportunity both to use western natural gas now and to send offshore gas to central Canada at a later date. The present Prime Minister stated at that time that the natural gas pipeline would be like a railroad in the 1980s, an energy pipeline that would have the potential to be a steel link uniting the nation.
On at least two or three occasions I have asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to give us a definite commitment as to when this natural gas pipeline will be constructed. I started questioning him shortly after the May, 1980, election. He has been soft-shoeing the issue ever since. Now we pick up the newspaper and what do we see but, "Maritime Pipeline Project Near Collapse".
Mr. Speaker, Atlantic Canadians have been very patient with this government. They have been patient because they believe in promises. They are people who generally have a great faith in the leaders of the nation. There is no reason for them to think that those promises that the leaders of this nation made to them should not be kept. When they see statements like this in the press, "Pipeline Project Near Collapse", they become despairing, and for good reason.
Why is it that Atlantic Canada always seems to be on the short end of the stick when it comes to receiving any benefits from this government? They are quick to point out that the natural gas pipeline will be completed through the province of Quebec and into Quebec City by 1983. They originally anticipated and expected to have natural gas flowing into the maritimes by 1982 or 1983. Now it would appear as though
there is only a bleak possibility that that will happen. They stated, a couple of years ago, that it would all depend on the viability of the prospects of the finds off the east coast. Mr. Speaker, those prospects are looking very bright indeed, but unfortunately the government's promises become dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.
Oh, they will make a great show. I dare say that the parliamentary secretary will utter great platitudes and tell us that things are going along very nicely, that everything is on schedule, that indeed the natural gas pipeline will be extended to the maritime provinces.
But one thing is certain, and I challenge the parliamentary secretary to deny it: all hope for the natural gas turnaround is now extinguished for New Brunswick or for Nova Scotia. I challenge the parliamentary secretary to refute that statement. Unfortunately, that is the prospect before us, 1 am certain.
Maritimers and Atlantic Canadians have the will to work, they have worked and they have contributed greatly to the prosperity in the past years of this nation. They have contributed in many meaningful ways to the development of this great nation, but for some reason or other this government in its callous, uncaring way seems totally and completely to have ignored even the fact that they exist. That is a great tragedy. It is a great tragedy for the future of the nation and it is a great tragedy for Atlantic Canadians who are facing the bleak prospect of at least another two years before they have the opportunity to deliver to the government the message that they will not be buffooned any longer.


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, it has been stated on many occasions in this House that the extension of the natural gas transmission system to the east coast is one of the top priorities of the federal government.
The Government of Canada has committed very considerable financial support for this pipeline, because it is in fact a central element of Canada's strategy to reduce the vulnerability to supply interruptions of those areas of eastern Canada that are presently dependent on imported oil.
The pipeline extension will provide new domestic markets for natural gas from western Canada. Under the terms of the September 1, 1981, memorandum of agreement between the governments of Canada and Alberta relating to energy pricing and taxation, Alberta will make market development incentive payments to the federal government to help fund national programs to expand domestic natural gas distribution systems, thereby making this less expensive energy source available to more Canadians. The governments of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are strong supporters of the concept.
As the hon. member knows, TQ and M began work on the gas pipeline extension to Quebec City some time ago, however the company has encountered some difficulties which have resulted in construction delays. The federal government had estimated that the construction of the pipeline across the
May 25, 1982

maritimes would begin in 1983 and that it would reach Halifax by 1986. However, this timetable requires adjustment due to the fact that current labour difficulties have plagued the Quebec portion of the line and escalated costs by millions of dollars. TQ and M has also experienced problems related to route selection and delays in obtaining provincial government approval. It should be noted that only recently the government of New Brunswick appointed a distributor for natural gas and no distributor has yet been named in Nova Scotia.
On the matter of project scheduling 1 would like to report that the company is planning for a full construction season, employing a fully integrated work force. Contracts planned to be awarded in coming weeks will be completed in accordance with the company's planning schedule. TQ and M expects contractors working for it to hire as many people as they foresaw initially.
The previously announced economic spin-offs of the pipeline project still stand, a point which should be of particular interest to the people of the maritimes considering the very positive economic opportunities that can be reaped by entrepreneurs in that region of the country.
In conclusion I would just like to express the government's satisfaction with TQ and M's prediction that the upcoming construction season will be very productive. However, there have been delays caused by labour disputes in Quebec and delays in the appointment of gas distributors in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.


THE ECONOMY-HEARINGS CONDUCTED IN MONTREAL BY GOVERNMENT MINISTERS AND SUPPORTERS. (B) RESPONSIBILITY FOR GOVERNMENT POLICY
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, on May 18 I raised certain questions with the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) with reference to what has been known in the past as "the Gang of Ten". You will recall that questions were raised today, Mr. Speaker, about the "Gang of Fifteen" or was it "the Gang of Seventeen", operating out of Toronto.
The issue 1 raised was the issue with respect to ministerial responsibility. When a person who is a Member of Parliament becomes a minister of the Crown, that person takes an oath to act on behalf of the Crown in a capacity that is different from that of an ordinary Member of Parliament. They become part of cabinet or government as distinct from Parliament. As members of the government they are responsible for explaining government policy to the country. What has happened is that this government has caused real distress and concern throughout the country. We have the spectre of the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) saying the budget is a political disaster. We have the spectre of the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) saying that the employment program of the government is a disaster. We have the spectacle of the minister for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Mr. Joyal)-and I call him that because he does not really have any other job. He is the minister for one riding, and I do not know of any other government which appointed a minister responsible for one constituency. However, the minister, otherwise known as a minister
Adjournment Debate
of state, says he is going to conduct public hearings into the budget and economic policies of the government. All this creates a climate of uncertainty and puts the government's entire fiscal stance in disrepute. We have all this simply because members of the government make statements that they think the policies are wrong, there will be changes, and they create an uncertainty we cannot live with.
I happen to believe, Mr. Speaker, that some of the things those three ministers have stated are correct, but that does not absolve them as ministers from the obligtion in our parliamentary system to resign if they think the government is wrong. That, Sir, is why I raised the question. The answer from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was that ministers have to respect the policies of the government, but that the ministers I mentioned are involved in consultation. Well, Sir, what these ministers are involved in is not consultation. It is, rather, active criticism of the policies of this government.


Robert Alfred Corbett: Confrontation.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: My colleague says "confrontation" and I agree. The government speaks out of both sides of its mouth. A minister goes into his riding and says one thing to his constituents, and then goes to a cabinet meeting and affirms something entirely different. It creates the feeling that we cannot depend on the government or ministers of the Crown to give us honest and straightforward answers on where they and the government stand. We are entitled to those straightforward answers, and if the Minister of National Health and Welfare honestly believes we should have make-work programs to put people back to work, then she should say so, but not as the Minister of National Health and Welfare. She should resign. But as a private member of this Parliament of Canada representing her constituents she should make those statements and force the government to change its policies. But she cannot sit as a member of the cabinet and support the budget and the economic thrust of the government and at the same time go around the city of Montreal and travel across the country generally and say that changes should be made. The same thinkg applies to the Solicitor General and to the Minister of State (Mr. Joyal). There is nothing wrong with Members of Parliament, who are Liberal members who honestly believe that their government is not doing what it should do, making advocacy statements, but when a member becomes a minister of the Crown that Member of Parliament loses his or her freedom as an ordinary member and becomes a minister of the Crown of the government. There is a fine but very important distinction there.
This government has lost its sense of responsibility. The Prime Minister has lost his capacity to govern the country. He fails to recognize that ministers in his cabinet have an obligation at all times to support every one of the government policies. If they fail to do that, they have an obligation to give

May 25, 1982
Adjournment Debate
up their seat at the cabinet table. They have an obligation to their constituents to stand up and be counted.


David P. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I think it important to bear in mind what the Right Hon. Prime Minister's (Mr. Trudeau) comments relate to in his answer to the hon. member on May 18. They relate to the hearing process which took place recently in Montreal. It is important that emphasis should be placed on the words which were repeatedly used throughout the Prime Minister's answer, namely, that it was a consultative process.
We have ten Members of Parliament who decided to undertake hearings to listen to what interested parties had to say with regard to various government policies in a co-ordinated way. Those comments were expressed in various locations in eastern Montreal.
Surely the hon. member would not suggest, and I do not believe he has suggested, that the eight members of Parliament who are not ministers should be in any way constrained from doing that. In fact, you could say it is probably their duty, which all Members of Parliament have, to hear what their constituents have to say on whatever issues constituents want to bring to their attention.
I would suggest that the same rights, privileges and duties also apply to the two ministers involved. They may well have been wearing two hats. They would be listening to the representations made to them through this consultative process as Members of Parliament but also as ministers of the Crown.
I had an opportunity to discuss the process that took place with the Minister of National Health and Welfare earlier this evening. She advised me those consultations were successful, that a good listening process had occurred. I think there were opportunities which enabled them to clarify certain government programs and to familiarize those who were making representations on a wide range of topics with what the government has been doing with regard to their concerns.
I do not think we have heard anything here tonight that would suggest the two ministers in question were not supporting government policies throughout this consultative process. There is no evidence of that whatsoever. The hon. member suggested they were doing this or that; they were disagreeing with government policy, etc. He may or may not be correct if the hypotheses set out had occurred. The fact is they did not occur. The consultative process occurred in which ten Members of Parliament, two of whom happen to be ministers, heard what the people from the area they represent had to say on a wide variety of topics. That is a good process and it is probably something more of us should be doing more often. I commend them for having done it. There has been no suggestion whatsoever that anything they said could in any way be taken as disagreeing with government policy. They were there to listen, and they did; they were there to explain, and they did. If anything, I think they should be commended for taking such an initiative.


NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY-ALLEGATIONS OF CIA PAYMENTS TO CANADIAN ELECTION CANDIDATES. (B) REQUEST THAT COMMITTEE STUDY ALLEGED CIA INVOLVEMENT IN CANADIAN ELECTIONS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday, May 19, I asked a question of the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) concerning certain activities on the part of the CIA in Canada between the years 1970 and 1976. I indicated in my question to the Solicitor General that in 1976 a Mr. John Meier of British Columbia, a former associate of Howard Hughes and a man very knowledgeable about the operations of CIA both inside and outside Canada, met with British Columbia Senator Ray Perrault and, following that meeting, met with the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) here in Ottawa. At that time in 1976 Mr. Meier provided Senator Perrault with extensive documentation and tapes concerning allegations of CIA penetration of Canadian security services and, as well, very serious allegations of funding by the CIA of specific election campaigns and candidates in the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan during the years 1970 to 1976.
Last Wednesday 1 asked that the Solicitor General confirm that, as a result of the allegations made by Mr. Meier, the Prime Minister ordered a secret investigation by one Pierre Genest, a Toronto lawyer. I urged that the Solicitor General confirm that inquiry and make public the results of it.
In response to my question at approximately 2.45 p.m., the Solicitor General indicated that he had no information on that subject at all. He said:
I hope to be able to look into it and comment on it shortly.
That was despite the fact that the previous morning in the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs I had given the Solicitor General a copy of a petition which, I informed him, I intended to table following question period the next day, as well as a copy of a lengthy document which I indicated I intended to question him on the following day. As of 2.45 on Wednesday afternoon we have the Solicitor General saying that he knows nothing whatsoever about this inquiry ordered by the Prime Minister.
Following up on that question and assuming that the Solicitor General was accurate in his reply, I urged that the government order a comprehensive study of these allegations by the justice committee; in other words, that the Solicitor General give the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs a reference to study the question of CIA involvement in Canada, not just during the years 1970 to 1976, but at all relevant periods until the present time. I urged that the committee have the power to hear witnesses, including John Meier, who is presently under a warrant of extradition to California which is being appealed, and that it have the power to question Mr. Pierre Genest to determine how it was that he was appointed to conduct this investigation on the part of the Prime Minister's office, what his qualifications were aside from being a prominent Liberal in the city of Toronto, what
May 25, 1982

witnesses he questioned, what was his mandate, and ultimately what his findings were.
We know very well that during this period of time the CIA was active, not only in Chile in attempting to overthrow the Allende government, ultimately successfully in 1973, but as well in Greece and in Central America, and in 1975 in Australia, in attempting to destabilize the labour government of Gough Whitlam. To those who suggest that the CIA would not be involved in Canada, I point out that indeed they were very heavily involved at that time in a number of countries including Australia, a fellow member of the Commonwealth.
We recently learned during the trial in the province of Quebec of an RCMP officer arising from the McDonald commission report that an officer of the RCMP alleged that some $350,000 had been funnelled by what he called a friendly nation into the independence movement in the province of Quebec. This certainly confirms the allegations which were made back in 1976 and recently repeated by Mr. Meier. In view of the seriousness of these allegations and the obvious threat these allegations, if substantiated, would pose to the sovereignty of Canada, I urge that the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs be given a reference to examine all aspects of CIA involvement in Canada to determine whether indeed the CIA has been operating in Canada, either with or without the co-operation of the RCMP security service, and that in that investigation the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs have the power to examine, in camera where necessary, all witnesses who wish to give evidence on this important subject.
In closing, I emphasize that we are dealing here with a very serious matter. We are dealing with the right of Canada to control its own domestic affairs without outside interference. We are dealing with the very democratic process in Canada and the right of Canadians to the assurance that the CIA has not in any way attempted to subvert that very important process. I look forward to the remarks of the parliamentary secretary on behalf of the Solicitor General and, hopefully, to his assurance that indeed the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs will have an opportunity to study this very serious question.
Adjournment Debate


David P. Smith: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I am going to disappoint my hon. friend.
Allegations have been made about CIA activities in Canada, raised in petitions by John Herbert Meier. The hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) is apparently prepared to give weight to these allegations. The government is not, because it is satisfied that these allegations, which were made in the past and investigated in the past by the security service of the RCMP and, as well, on behalf of the government by counsel retained by the PMO, do not merit credence.
I might just say as an aside that I am surprised at the remark made by the hon. member with regard to the qualifications of Mr. Pierre Genest. I would have thought that as the justice critic for his party the hon. member would know that Mr. Genest is one of the most outstanding counsel in Canada.
It should be borne in mind by the House that sensational allegations are easy to make, and it would be very unwise to take seriously all allegations just because they are sensational.
The hon. member claimed recently that he had independent evidence which would corroborate what Mr. Meier said. 1 believe he has a duty to present it before any further investigation is justified. Mr. Meier has a criminal record, which he obtained for falsifying evidence in the United States. He has in the past jumped bail, and he is appealing extradition to the United States, where he is charged with murder.
The allegations which had any substance at all have been investigated in the past and found not worthy of belief. It would not be fair to the individuals purportedly implicated in these allegations, which have no substance, to hold a public inquiry based on these allegations.
Unless the hon. member is prepared to come clean with the House and give the facts which he believes support the allegations, he should not expect any further consideration of these particular allegations.


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

Wednesday, May 26, 1982