1982-07-14

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Mel Gass (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) has proposed an 8 cents per hundredweight additional charge to the cost of seed potato inspection paid by farmers in P.E.I. and New Brunswick. This amounts to a 1,200 per cent increase in the cost. This increase is being imposed while the inspection service to the producers is being reduced. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain):
That the Minister of Agriculture aid his government in creating a 6 per cent country by greatly reducing his potato seed inspection fee.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, a New York State study shows that levels of the deadly chemical dioxin in the Love Canal area during the years 1980 and 1981 were among the highest ever recorded. Just recently a United States district judge approved an environmentally unsound toxic waste agreement relating to the Hyde Park dump, one which will allow the continued seepage of deadly chemicals from the dump into the Niagara River and on into Lake Ontario. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart):
That whereas four million Canadians use the waters of Lake Ontario for drinking and recreational purposes, the Minister of the Environment take positive action now, even to the extent of taking legal proceedings so as to protect the water quality of Lake Ontario and particularly to prevent the agreement entered into with respect to the Hyde Park dump from becoming a precedent with respect to the Love Canal.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE MINISTRY
Mr. Bob Ogle (Saskatoon East):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Yesterday Agriculture Canada announced that it takes $450 more this year than last year to provide the average family with a basic healthy diet. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy):
That the Prime Minister and his cabinet show Canadians how their 6 per cent restraint program will work and agree to lower their salaries to that of the ordinary Canadian, and that they attempt to feed, clothe and shelter their families on $18,600 this year, finding a way to cope with price increases that are currently running at twice the level of their recommended 6 per cent solution.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Madam Speaker, bearing in mind the geography of our nation and our settlement patterns which, combined, tend to lead to more regionalism than would be desirable in our nation, and noting that you can fly more cheaply from Edmonton to Hawaii than from Edmonton to Quebec City, more cheaply from Vancouver to London, England, than from Vancouver to Toronto, or more cheaply from Toronto to Florida than Toronto to Calgary, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Malpeque (Mr. Gass):
That this Parliament encourage the Minister of Transport to set in place policies that would allow for more extensive use of internal charter air flights and that these policies be set with the objective of nation building and harmonizing each region's understanding and appreciation of this great nation, Canada.


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

July 14, 1982
5.0.	43


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
[Stage Direction]
5.0.	43
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, despite attempts by the government, through measures contained in its recent budget and other hastily conceived responses, the situation with respect to the business community remains dangerously critical. In the first six months of this year business bankruptcies climbed to 5,383, that is, 37 per cent higher than during the same period last year. That is to say that 5,383 employers lost their businesses. Experts feel the number may be as much as five times higher when those who do not bother to file for bankruptcy are included in the total. The tragedy is compounded when, using estimates of 11 employees per company as an average, the number of jobs lost, because of these businesses folding, could be well over 250,000 since the first of the year. 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis):
That the government take immediate action to reduce high interest rates in Canada, rates 3 per cent higher than in the United States, and rates which are a direct, major cause of this devastation of our business community.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


INCREASE IN FOOD PRICES-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, the Department of Agriculture reports that, due mainly to Liberal high interest rates and a devalued Canadian dollar, food prices rose 1.3 per cent in the month of June alone and so far are up 10.5 per cent on a year to year basis. At the same time the government proposes to limit wage increases to 6 per cent. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen (Mr. King):
That the Minister of Agriculture explain to this House how he expects ordinary Canadians to feed their families under the regime imposed by the Liberal government.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to raise a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In May the New Democratic Party Environment Task Force released a report on the problems of toxic pollution in the Great Lakes and Niagara River. Since then there have been further reports of dioxin contamination, and further cutbacks to Great Lakes research by the Reagan administration. A task force recommendation for an all-party committee to study these and related problems was presented to this House by the NDP House leader on June 30. Since we have now learned that the Minister of the Environment is opposed to this idea, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton):
That this House supports the idea of an all-party committee to study the production, use and disposal of toxic chemicals in Canada; and that the Minister of the Environment show some leadership by supporting the proposal.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, the farmer's retirement pension is his land, and the businessman's nest egg for retirement is his business. Farmers and merchants do not get pensions from governments or Crown corporations. The November 12 budget ruined the retirement plans of hundreds and perhaps thousands of farmers and businessmen through the elimination of income-averaging annuity contracts. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That the IAACs be reinstated in order that our merchants and farmers, who have contributed to this country for up to fifty years or more, may have a reasonable chance to retire in some dignity.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
July 14, 1982


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, according to the World Congress of Free Ukrainians there has been particularly severe repression taking place in the Ukraine in the last few years, and especially in the last few months. Apparently the Government of Canada has not had a single release of a Ukrainian political prisoner attributed to its efforts. I move, therefore, seconded by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Lewycky):
That this House instruct the Canadian government to become more sensitive to this area of human rights violations and more forceful in demanding changes in the plight of specific Ukrainian political prisoners and repressed persons.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. I am sure the minister is aware that a Statistics Canada paper has recently pointed out that while inflation increased during the period April, 1981, to April, 1982, by 11 per cent, government regulated prices, that is, prices on telephones and heating, and hidden taxes such as those on the sale of stamps and gasoline prices, have increased by 18 per cent, while market prices have increased by only 9 per cent. Since this government-controlled component of inflation has clearly played a predominant role in our inflationary problem, would the minister explain why the government has done nothing more than put a wishy-washy statement in his most recent budget to try to address this problem?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, the statement was clear and firm, and it will be implemented.


Mr. Paproski:: When? 1986?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: That is the sort of response which undermines the total efforts of the government to get a restraint program working.


DIRECTIVE TO REGULATORY AGENCIES
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, the minister must surely be aware that regulatory bodies have to abide by legislation, by regulations, and by their past
Oral Questions
practices in carrying out the regulatory process. They are not compelled to respond to some general statement in a discredited budget.
Is the government proposing to issue a specific overriding statement to these bodies to put some teeth into the request he appears to have made and, if so, what will be the nature of such a directive?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, 1 think I indicated earlier in reply to questions that it was the specific intention of the government to direct the agencies within its jurisdiction not to exceed the 6 per cent and 5 per cent guidelines. The Prime Minister has already communicated the wishes of the government to all the ministers, who in turn will be in touch and communicate with the regulatory bodies. In adition to that, it is the intention of the government to monitor very carefully all price changes within the government structure and to limit them to 6 per cent, unless circumstances justify different treatment.


Mr. Clark:: What circumstances?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: This aspect of the 6 per cent limit will be followed very carefully by the government through the regulatory agencies and through the departments of government. If the hon. member has further suggestions as to how this particular aspect might be undertaken, I would be glad to hear from him because I expect he and his party would also be prepared to support all efforts to bring the economy from the present 12 per cent level of prices to a 6 per cent level of growth and recovery.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, let me make it quite clear that we do support a program of restraint if it means something.


Mr. Chretien:: Vote for it.


INQUIRY RESPECTING PROPOSALS TO PROVINCES
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, what I am trying to find out is whether there is something in the direction the minister is taking, or the whole government is taking, with respect to regulated prices which will have some teeth, which will work, and which will bring down regulated prices from the 18 per cent level of the past year to something closer to the 6 per cent and 5 per cent in the budget. Unless there is a specific directive, a statement by the minister, a budget has no weight at all.
Let me ask a final question of the minister. Since restraint efforts can only succeed if governments can be seen to be doing everything they can to control prices under their jurisdictions, and since prices are the main problem, would the minister

July 14, 1982
Oral Questions
advise the House whether the government has put forward any specific proposals to the provincial governments to address the problem of regulated prices?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has spoken about administered prices as if they were the single component of the restraint program. They certainly are an important component, but an even more important component is the wage restraint program which is now before the House of Commons. Wages and incomes constitute the greatest source of increases throughout the entire economy, the hon. member could help us all by getting the bill that is before the House to committee at the earliest possible date.
The hon. member will have to wait to see the program develop, because there will be specific instances of price increases that will be proposed in excess of 6 per cent that will have to be dealt with by the government. In cases where it is possible, it is the intention of the government to review the conclusion of regulatory agencies and to insist, if any prices recommended are above 6 per cent, that they be justified in the circumstances. I assume that the hon. member would agree that in certain circumstances it would be absolutely necessary to permit prices to rise above the 6 per cent level, but they would be exceptional circumstances and would have to be justified on a case by case basis.


NATIONAL PARKS
Gordon Edward Taylor: Madam Speaker, may I address a question to the Minister of the Environment who is in charge of national parks. Given that restraint in increasing prices is essential if there is to be effective wage restraint; and given that this government is asking industry and business to keep down prices and wages; and given that in the Banff town site Parks Canada is holding wages to 6 per cent but is increasing rentals by from 15 to 40 per cent and perhaps more, is the government prepared to practise what it preaches and cut the proposed increases in land rents on August 1 to not more than 6 per cent?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of the Environment and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Madam Speaker, the hon. gentleman is referring to a decision which was taken two years ago and which was required to be taken because at that time leases had expired. He knows, or ought to know, that there are a variety of leases, whether cottage leases or commercial leases, and whether people have a need to reside in the parks or not. Other than for commercial purposes, the increase in leases is below 6 per cent and, indeed, there is considerable criticism that the rents being charged are below what should be charged, and are below what is charged in
similar circumstances in the eastern part of the country. I do not think it would be appropriate for me to follow the course of action that the hon. member has suggested.


RENTS CHARGED TO PARK EMPLOYEES
Gordon Edward Taylor: Madam Speaker, the minister is not keeping a close tab on what is going on in Banff. Workmen in his department are now getting rental increases of 15 to 30 per cent, that is $100 per month, on August 1. Will the minister tell us how an employee who receives a 6 per cent increase in wages will be able to pay a 20 or 30 per cent increase in rent? That just does not make sense.
Will the minister also tell us why we are being asked to fight inflation when the government's policies are inducing inflation? As the minister knows, the rentals in Banff have increased by 100, 1,000, and in one case by 1,045 per cent. That is inducing inflation? Would the minister comment on that?


John (Moody) Roberts: Madam Speaker, 1 would be happy to do so. If the hon. member is referring, as his question seems to imply, to people who need to reside in Banff in order to accomplish their work, then they pay a nominal rent which is well under $500 per year.


SMALL BUSINESS
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance who will know that today we found out that business bankruptcies have increased by 37 per cent in the first half of 1982 and that, if receiverships and walkaways are included, the figure would probably be 25,000 or 30,000 individual firms. Presumably the government is planning to assist Dome Petroleum during its financial difficulty. Does the minister plan to assist the probable 25,000 to 30,000 businesses that also will be in financial difficulty in the remaining six months of 1982?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Yes, Madam Speaker. A number of measures have been announced in the budget that will have the effect of assisting small businesses which may be in financial difficulty. It would be desirable if more could be done, but within the circumstances that presently face the government it is doing the maximum that is possible to assist small businesses get through this difficult period.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, if memory serves me, it seems the budget assists small businesses expanding their operations, in that the small business bond of course is virtually no longer available to assist the survival of small businesses.
July 14, 1982


BANK OF CANADA
Nelson Andrew Riis: To go into another area, Madam Speaker, we all know that the reason businesses, large, medium or small, are having difficulty surviving is because of high interest rates. The Bank of Canada Act, in Section 14(2) says:
-the Minister may. after consultation with the Governor and with the approval of the Governor in Council, give to the Governor a written directive concerning monetary policy, in specific terms and applicable for a specified period, and the Bank shall comply with such directive.
Is the Minister of Finance prepared to provide the survival mechanism for all business in Canada and all Canadians by directing the Governor of the Bank to lower interest rates?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the simplicity with which the hon. member asks the question might lead some people to believe that it is a solution to the current problems. There is no way in which an effective reduction of interest rates can take place without first a reduction in the level of interest rates in the U.S. and a reduction in the level of inflation in Canada. A directive to the Governor of the Bank seeking an arbitrary reduction in interest rates, unrelated to the economic facts which exist in the country, would have very damaging effects on the future of the economy. What might appear as a temporary lowering of interest rates would undoubtedly lead to a considerable number of adverse consequences, including subsequently higher interest rates in the country. That is why I have not thought it wise to ask the Governor in a directive to do the impossible.


BANKRUPTCIES
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, we know that business bankruptcies have increased by 37 per cent in the first six months of this year. Over 5,300 businesses have gone bankrupt, with liabilities almost double last year's $1 billion. The reason they are in trouble is because of high interest rates.
Given the fact that up until now the majority of bankrupt companies have been small and medium size, but today's Financial Times suggests that by winter many large companies will be going bankrupt, and given the fact that the minister's budget proposals for helping business have all been referred to that blue ribbon committee of experts who will not report until September, so that it will likely be next January before the minister has any proposals to help, can we assume that he has no further ways to help business reduce interest rates, and therefore by the end of the year we will see that 11,000 or
12,000	businesses have gone bankrupt?
Oral Questions


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member states that the cause of the bankruptcies is high interest rates. Has he stopped to ask himself what is the cause of high interest rates?


Mr. Crosbie:: This government is.


Some hon. Members:: You.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: My answer to that question is high prices. Until we get our rate of inflation down, do not ask for relief on the interest rate front. If the hon. member were serious in his question and in his interest, he would co-operate with the President of the Treasury Board and get the wage restraint bill through to committee, instead of taking up endless time obstructing it in the House of Commons.


HOUSING
Hon. Allan Lawrence (Durham-Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Finance and refers to some of the comments he made earlier today when he appealed for help from the opposition in respect of instances where there can be a rollback. May I point out to him something that is well known to the minister responsible for housing, because I have had correspondence with him, as have other members, about rental increases in many of the over 9,000 rental housing units across the country owned by CMHC. When the minister talks about help with agencies within federal government jurisdiction-I have two instances here, one in my riding where rents went up on July 1 by 20 per cent, and another one in Pierrefonds, Quebec, in the riding of Vaudreuil where rents have gone up 42 per cent since the budget, did the Minister of Finance intend this rollback to 6 per cent to apply to CMHC, a federal government agency?


John Carnell Crosbie: The minister of housing does now know.


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, I answered a similar question yesterday afternoon put by an hon. member of the New Democratic Party.


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Do it again.


Paul James Cosgrove: I indicated that the advice from my officials, and preliminary advice in looking at the definition of a regulatory body as used in the statement of the minister on the night of the budget, at first review did not include Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation under its mandate, under the National Housing Act. More than that, 1 further indicated that in an attempt to meet the spirit of the government's move in its determination to get inflation down to 6 per cent, officials are looking at what the impact would be on the taxpayer

July 14, 1982
Oral Questions
of our attempt to control the deficit and also to control the inflationary pressures, both in wages and in prices, that appears in the rental figures which the hon. member has used.


APPLICATION OF RESTRAINT PROGRAM TO CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Allan Frederick Lawrence: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Finance who must be aware, as are most members of the House, that the public is fed to death with this minister of housing fiddling around with reviews and waiting to see what the impact is going to be.
Mir. Crosbie: They are fed up with the Minister of Finance and with the Prime Minister.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: My question is a blunt one, either to the Prime Minister who has sent a letter to all of his cabinet, or to the Minister of Finance. These properties are owned by CMHC and rented by CMHC, on which there have been huge rental increases since the budget; in most cases as of July 1.


John Carnell Crosbie: Dominion Day.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Does that 6 per cent restraint program indicated in the Minister of Finance's budget-I will not repeat his words but they certainly cover vital commodities- cover CMHC, or does it not? One way or the other, please.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I have made it clear, I think many times in the House, that the restraint program will apply to all agencies and all departments of the government.


John Carnell Crosbie: When?


Charles Joseph Clark: Parks Canada?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It applies to increases that come into effect over the next 12-month period.


John Carnell Crosbie: What about Sussex Drive? Does it apply there?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: The hon. member will realize that with respect to roollbacks, as he used that term, the only one that has occurred is with respect to the salaries of ministers and Members of Parliament, salaries which were reduced from 11 per cent to 6 per cent-or will be reduced as of July 1. I attempted to reason earlier with the hon. member's colleague that in certain cases price increases for institutions and for public utilities might be justified. The premiers, I understand, suggested at the First Ministers' conference that in certain cases their public utilities would not be able to follow the 6 per cent guideline because they would be losing money or they would be unable to cover their cost increases. That seems to me to be a reasonable point to make.


Walter David Baker: What a dodge.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: But, Madam Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member would he support keeping the justified cost increases or rental increases to 6 per cent in CMHC, and increase the deficit by a similar amount-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -which is a decision the government would have to take.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Andre:: Zap, you're frozen.


BANKRUPTCIES
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. The minister clearly has one standard for people working for the government and another standard for government charges.


Walter David Baker: That is absolutely right.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: The government can charge whatever it feels like but, as far as what the government pays out, it is going to limit its expenses. That is another way of increasing taxes on Canadians.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Since June 30, 1980, bankruptcies in terms of liabilities have increased 260 per cent, and the minister has been Minister of Finance all during this period. I would ask him to tell us right now where, in his three budgets, did he do anything to reduce interest rates and to improve the inherent business conditions in the country? Or is that 260 per cent increase in business bankruptcy losses the direct evidence of the kind of management he has given the country?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question is purely rhetorical and purely political.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Maybe the member would like to reflect upon a period, say, in 1978, when 1 was not Minister of Finance, when bankruptcies were running at 42 per cent in the first six months of the year. How would he put that in his pipe and digest it?


Walter David Baker: You can do better than that.


John Carnell Crosbie: It is Chretien's fault.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


John Carnell Crosbie: That is right.


Arnold John Malone: Wreckonomics.
July 14, 1982


LEVEL OF INTEREST RATES
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Finance. The minister knows that every person commenting on the matter has talked about the fact that interest rates are the principal cause of business defalcations and the problems we have. We have had a high interest rate program in the country for nearly all of the time the minister has been Minister of Finance. What programs has the minister initiated over three budgets to reduce interest rates? While he is figuring out another fast, smooth, and cute answer for that one, will he tell the House why Canadian business today pays at least 3 per cent more for borrowed money than business in the United States pays for borrowed money?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, maybe for starters the hon. member might understand that the rate of inflation in the United States is about 7 per cent.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Huntington:: Why is that?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: It is close to 12 per cent in Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: That might help the hon. member in a study of the elementary facts facing our economy.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam
Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of Public Works. It deals with the fate of the Daly Building, a federal building in my riding which has been vacant for at least three years. The press has reported today that the building in question will be demolished. I would like to know from the minister whether that decision is final, when the building will be demolished, and does the minister have any comments to make on the decision?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the issue of the Daly Building, I am sure, is of interest not only to members on this side of the House but to those on the other side of the House as well. It is an issue that is a difficult one for many people inasmuch as it attracts very heated opinion one way or the other, on both sides. It is because of that, and in light of press information on the decision of Treasury Board, that I have indicated it is my wish to appeal that decision and to put the issue in the context of a study that is under preparation, of the total accommodation within the Ottawa capital region.


Charles Joseph Clark: Another study?
Oral Questions HOUSING


PROPOSED MORTGAGE REDUCTION SCHEME
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, 1 have a question that 1 believe only the Prime Minister can answer.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: Only your best friend will tell you.


Ian Deans: I hope the Prime Minister can answer it. He will recall that two days ago he was asked whether or not the cabinet had finally decided on the implementation of the mortgage interest relief program which had been indicated was to be under consideration, according to the budgetary statement of the Minister of Finance.
I am sure the Prime Minister will recall that he said that the cabinet had not made a final decision and therefore it would not be possible for him to commit the government to a 3 to 6 per cent decrease in mortgage interest rates for people purchasing homes. He surely must know that not only did the minister of housing indicate that the program was in place but he has subsequently indicated in a press interview, carried in today's Globe and Mail, that only the detail remains to be worked out, and that the program is forthcoming. Who is right?
Is there such a program and will it materialize? Is it forthcoming? Can people go out and buy houses secure in the knowledge that that program will in fact yield the benefit of the 3 per cent to 6 per cent decrease in mortgage rates?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, since the program was put forward in the budget, and more particularly in the form of a white paper, it does indicate the government's commitment to carry out that program. That is what a white paper is. It is not a green paper only involving consultations on possibilities. It is a program of the government. That is stated in the white paper. It has been stated in the budget of the Minister of Finance, and the minister of CMHC responsible for housing is quite correct in indicating that it is a government policy.


Charles Joseph Clark: It is on again.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: But the implementation of that program will be in the nature of all policies which flow from white papers.


John Carnell Crosbie: Maybe, maybe not.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They are put in the form of white papers- this is well known to all parliamentarians-precisely because they are made to be the objects of consultation-


John Carnell Crosbie: And ridicule.

July 14, 1982
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The ridicule that the Tory members are mentioning now generally comes from the Tory party and it is because they look at their own navels too much.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Munro (Hamilton East):: Not a very attractive prospect either.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: They do not want to have to look at yours, too.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I at least address my answer to the members of the NDP who are interested in this mortgage instrument and interested in seeing interest rates come down.


Mr. Stevens:: One socialist to another.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is the situation. I made it quite clear in the House that we had a white paper because we wanted consultation with the various institutions and people who are involved in the implementation, in the application of such a policy. Naturally, we have to wait for the results of that consultation before we can say that we are going ahead with the implementation of it. That is exactly the situation. The government has that policy. We want to see it applied, but we do want the feedback from that committee which we set up, before proceeding with the legislation.


Ian Deans: 1 appreciate that answer, I must say.


IMPLEMENTATION OF GOVERNMENT POLICY
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, referring to the budget statement, the Minister of Finance said, as reported at page 18880 of Hansard of June 28, 1982:
Tonight, I am tabling a consultative document containing proposals, which, if implemented, would have the following major effects: .. . Buyers of new homes would be able to secure mortgages at significantly reduced interest rates-3 to 6 percentage points lower than prevailing rates.
I ask the Prime Minister if I can then assure Canadians who come to me that they can renew mortgages today, that they can buy homes today, and that they will be able to take advantage of the 3 per cent to 6 per cent reduction that the Prime Minister has indicated is government policy and will be forthcoming, and on what date can they expect to see that policy brought to the House of Commons for deliberation and disposal?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, my answer would be just as conditional as the question is. If the blue ribbon committee, the consultative committee, is prepared to support this policy of the government in general terms and in detail, and then if the House of Commons will give expeditious approval-


Gordon Edward Taylor: If, if, if.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -then he can give this assurance to his constituents. I keep getting interruptions from the Tories again about the hypothetical nature of it. As parliamentarians they should know what a white paper is. It is the intention of the government to apply and implement the policy. It is done in the form of a white paper rather than the introduction of a bill for first reading, because we want to go into consultation. It is possible, perhaps even likely, that the people whom we are consulting will suggest some form of modification which will be an improvement.


Ian Deans: But it will happen?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: In that case we would be happy to accept it. It is our intention to pass this legislation, to bring it into policy. But it is not our intention to pre-empt the conclusions of that committee. They agreed to sit on a committee for the purpose of improving the policy enunciated in the white paper. If their intention was to condemn it, presumably they would not be on the committee. Therefore I think that the hon. member can give that assurance as to the policy. I do not think he should give assurance as to the particular details.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


QUERY RESPECTING PROVISION OF GUARANTEE
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, is the Prime Minister giving us a guarantee that the Canadian government will implement a system for providing loans at 3 per cent to 6 per cent below the market rate?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I would refer the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition to my previous answer.


Charles Joseph Clark: No, you are not going to get away quite that easily, Prime Minister.


GOVERNMENT POSITION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the new definition of a white paper is a snow job in the hands of this government.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Let me put the question very directly to the Prime Minister of Canada. Is he giving the House of Commons a guarantee that the Canadian government will implement a system for providing loans at 3 per cent to 6 per cent below the market rate? Is he giving us that guarantee?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If the right hon. member refers to the question asked by his colleague in the New Democratic Party, he will see that it is, in essence, the question I was attempting to answer. I am sure that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition would have been able to
July 14, 1982

understand my answer if he had not been drowned out by the guffaws of people sitting behind him and next to him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


STATEMENT MADE BY MINISTER OF PUBLIC WORKS
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister may know that in a broadcast on July 11, a texted broadcast, his minister responsible for housing said, "The Canadian government will implement a system for providing loans at 3 per cent to 6 per cent below the market rate." Was the minister telling the truth?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, if the right hon. member refers to my answer he will see the answer to that question.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The poorest people in Canada, the Indian people, are having difficulty pinning down the Indian Economic Development Fund. This fund is essential to provide employment for those people. Can the minister say whether the $345 million set aside for the next four years will be spent, and is the deferral just for two years? The native people want to know this.


John Carr Munro: Yes, Madam Speaker, essentially that is correct. It is a deferral. It is not a cutback in the overall amount. The shortfall for this year and next year will be added to the back end of the over-all commitment, which remains.


NATURE OF DEFERRAL
Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Madam Speaker, the native people and I are having difficulty finding this money in the estimates. We would also like to know just what the relationship is between the Indian Economic Development Fund and the Western Economic Development Fund and if this deferral is, in fact, moneys coming out of that fund, a fund in which we have not seen any money to date?


John Carr Munro: Madam Speaker, the plans for this fund and the terms of its over-all amount, the $345 million and the number of years that it is spread over, are referred to in the Minister of Finance's budget speech or, more particularly, the papers that backed up that budget speech. If the hon. member
Oral Questions
wishes to check it, he will find all the relevant material there. If he is not able to see it, I will be more than pleased to point it out to him.


LAW OF THE SEA
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs and relates to the Law of the Sea Treaty and the development in that particular area which was brought to the world's attention last week. By now I am sure that the minister will have had an opportunity to examine closely the statement of the U.S. administration, and to have spoken with his colleagues, particularly the Minister of State for Mines and other ministers. Recognizing that Canada is an important producer of nickel and copper, I am wondering whether he is in a position to say what effect the U.S. decision will have on Canada's employment opportunities down the road, recognizing that this matter would not apply next year but that it is coming?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, the Government of Canada is very disappointed with the announcement of President Reagan that the United States will not participate in the Law of the Sea Treaty. We are presenting a note to the United Sates, I believe today, to that effect. Nevertheless, we will continue with our intention of making that treaty as universal as possible.
With respect to the kind of question that the hon. member asks, it is really far too soon to estimate the possible effects on employment. For example, the continued presence of the United States might have led to further modifications in the Law of the Sea Treaty with respect to deep seabed mining which might have been less favourable to Canada. I think it is therefore impossible for us to answer, in a precise and short fashion, the kind of question which he asks. But, generally speaking, the decision by the United States not to sign the treaty and not to continue in negotiations is a retrogressive step.


IMPACT ON OFFSHORE ECONOMIC ZONE
Donald W. Munro: Madam Speaker, bringing the matter closer inshore, and closer to us in the matter of time, is the minister prepared to make any comments on the implications of U.S. withdrawal from the convention on Canada's exclusive economic zone, as far as fishing, exploration for petroleum resources, mining, and pollution are concerned?

July 14, 1982
Oral Questions


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, I think that there will be no adverse effect to our claims under the treaty, assuming that the treaty goes into effect, and that we are signatories of it, which I fully expect we will be. The question is whether the United States would be able to make similar plans, whether it could be successfully argued that the provisions of the treaty were limited in their advantages to those who are actually participants in the treaty and are not matters of general international law, or customary international law, as a result of the treaty. I think that this is a legal argument and an international political argument concerning which there will be much controversy in the years to come.


MEDICAL CARE
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, my question is one that I might normally address to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, but seeing it is becoming increasingly apparent that it is the Minister of Finance who is in charge of medicare, I will direct my question to him. The Minister of Finance will know that in Nova Scotia, his home province, the provincial minister of health recently announced lay-offs in the health care sector and that user charges are about to be introduced in that province. The reason given for this is the deficit of that province and the related reduction in federal transfer payments. This is exactly what I warned would happen when the federal government cut back the money attributable to compensation for the termination of the revenue guarantee. Irresponsible Tory governments have been given an excuse for attacking medicare.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Will the government now admit that it was wrong and that it recklessly played with the future of medicare in this country, and will it now do something about that mistake that it made earlier this year?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, it will be difficult for a province, be it Nova Scotia or any other province, to impose user fees in the health system on the grounds that moneys were reduced for health payments to the provinces, because they were not. The provinces are receiving, on the average, for every one of the coming five years, an increase of approximately 13 per cent in health payments, so I do not understand how user fees could be charged to people in Nova Scotia-


Miss MacDonald:: It is 4.6 per cent.


Monique Bégin: -on the ground of a supposed reduction which never took place.


FEDERAL FUNDING
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, the Minister of National Health and Welfare knows that she, along with the Minister of Finance, created the political context for the things that are happening in medicare in the provinces. The parliamentary task force said that the federal funding of health care was adequate, but its analysis included the revenue guarantee money. Since then, federal funding has been reduced and costs have increased.
Will the government reconsider its ill-advised funding reduction and resume a posture which would make it possible for the government to bargain with integrity for clarified, toughened and enforceable national health care standards?


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, last summer the provincial premiers among whom was the Premier of Nova Scotia, said themselves that they never spent the revenue guarantee on health services, so there is no way they can now pretend that their cut backs had anything to do with the federal government.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You always did. You changed your mind.


INDUSTRIAL AND LABOUR ADJUSTMENT PROGRAM
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Over one month ago officials from the Guelph area met with the minister to request that their area be designated under the ILAP program. Since then figures have been released showing that lay-offs in the Guelph area in June of this year were higher than in June of last year by some 452 per cent. Now that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce has looked after his own area through a $6 million interest-free loan, when will the people of the Guelph area be hearing from the minister?


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Madam Speaker, the Cabinet Committee responsible for the Industrial and Labour Adjustment Program will be sitting between now and the end of July to consider applications under this program.


CRITERIA FOR DESIGNATION
Henry Perrin Beatty: Madam Speaker, in the month of June the community of about 75,000 had lay-offs totalling 1,077, and the city's welfare budget was overspent by some 30 per cent at this point. What evidence is needed by the government before it is prepared to take action
July 14, 1982

to mitigate the disastrous effects in this area caused by the government's general economic policies?


Charles Lapointe: Madam Speaker, although the hon. member sounds very convincing, I did not attend the meeting with the city officials of Guelph, so it would be very difficult for me to give a satisfactory answer to his question at this time.


GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Earlier in the question period the minister said that his restraint program would apply to all departments of government. I am concerned that his program is being undercut by some of his ministers. Is the minister aware of the fact that there was announcement yesterday by the Minister of National Health and Welfare of a massive and expensive decentralization and relocation program, involving movements of part of that department from Toronto to Peterborough, Chatham and Timmins, and from the national capital area to Peterborough, Chatham and Timmins, a very expensive program in a period of restraint? If he was aware of that, can he tell us how that will help to reduce the deficit? If he was not aware of it, would he undertake to look into it from the point of view of the reduction of the deficit?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I was aware of that announcement. Indeed, I participated in the announcement effecting the relocation from Halifax to Sydney, Nova Scotia, of a branch of the minister's department. The hon. member has not related the implementation of our decentralization policy to the price guidelines of 6 per cent and 5 per cent. I do not see the relationship between the decentralization program and these price guidelines. I was pleased that we were able to restore these projects which had been so unjustifiably cancelled by the former government during its short period in office.


Walter David Baker: If the Minister of Finance does not see it, most other Canadians do. Public servants and others are being asked by the government to accept a cap of 6 per cent and 5 per cent with respect to their own personal programs, but it does not apply to the government, and that is the message in this restraint program.
Point of Order-Mr. Domm


TIMING OF TRANSFERS
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I want to ask the President of the Treasury Board this question. Is it true that he sent the Minister of Public Works to Peterborough to make his announcement about a change that is going to take place in 1986? Is there some motive in the fact that these agencies are moving into the Liberal ridings of Timmins, Sydney, and Chatham in 1984 and 1985, but moving into Peterborough just in time so that they can arrive after the next election and can therefore be promised by the candidate in Peterborough at the time of the next federal election?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, yesterday morning I did attend in the Conservative riding in which the city of Peterborough is located. I attended a press conference under the chairmanship of the mayor of Peterborough, who welcomed the news of some job generation activity by the federal government in that Conservative riding.
I might say that I did that in co-operation with the Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Charles Joseph Clark: What are your plans for 2003?


POINTS OF ORDER
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have noted over the course of the last few days that the Deputy Chairman, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier), has not been in the chair. I want to bring to your attention, his attention and the attention of the House that he has been missed, that he enjoys the confidence of the House and we look forward to his return.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: No, he does not enjoy the confidence of the House.


MR. DOMM-ALLEGED MISLEADING STATEMENT OF MR. COSGROVE
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to a statement made by the minister responsible for housing. I know that he has either unconsciously or unintentionally misled the House.


John Carnell Crosbie: He is unconscious all the time.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: The minister responsible for housing said he is making this move to Peterborough with the concurrence of the mayor of the city of Peterborough, and that is not correct.

July 14, 1982
Point of Order-Mr. Nielsen


Madam Speaker:: Order. The hon. member is debating a question. He is not raising a point of order.


MR. FULTON-REPLY OF MR. BLAIS RESPECTING TICKETS ISSUED TO PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES FOR TRAVEL ABROAD
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order arising out of yesterday's question period. I have had an opportunity to speak to the minister. He said in his answer to me, I recall, that the letter he sent me was in answer to a question that 1 put on the order paper. That is not correct. I think the minister would like to clarify that. It was in relation to the 1,500 tickets for international travel during a one-month period. The minister said it was for tickets that referred to travel from any place in Canada to foreign countries. I think the minister is now aware that that statement was also incorrect and that the 1,500 were in fact from Ottawa.


Madam Speaker:: Order. It is up to the minister or any member to correct a wrong statement. Members may not correct statements of other members.
Is the hon. member rising on a point of order?


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, whether it is a point of order or a question of privilege, I will leave for the Chair to decide.


Madam Speaker:: Order. The Chair cannot determine under what circumstances a member is rising. The member has to indicate to the Chair why he is rising, whether it is to raise a point of order or a question of privilege. The hon. member rose on a point of order that clearly was not a point of order. He was obviously debating a question. That is his privilege, but not under a point of order. It cannot be done. 1 may take this occasion to tell the hon. member that the same question cannot then be brought under a question of privilege.


MR. NIELSEN-RESIGNATION OF MR. ETHIER-POSITION OF OFFICIAL OPPOSITION
Hon. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, I rise on the matter raised by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans). In Hansard for July 8, as reported at page 19165, the hon. member for Glengary-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier) informed the House he was submitting his resignation to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the members of his caucus. Further on the same page the implication was left that he was tendering that resignation to you. Perhaps a little prematurely, Madam Speaker left the impression that she has authority to accept that resignation. I would submit, of course, that you do not, and that the Prime Minister, the government, and only they, have the authority to appoint officers other than yourself to sit where you are as a result of all-party agreement.
I want, on behalf of the members of this party, to dissociate this party totally from the remarks and the endorsement of the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans). I do so because of the rather intemperate words used by the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell at the time he was
addressing the question of his resignation to the Chair. He said:
Madam Speaker, as an official of the chair I might be breaking with longstanding tradition when I ask to be recognized, but I have to dissociate myself from what is happening now. We have long-standing practices here and rules of procedure that we all obey. This is a 15 minute bell, and 1 cannot continue in my responsibilities if members are not going to obey the rules and procedures.
There is a clear inference there, an accusation by an officer of the House.


Mr.   de Corneille@: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: Perhaps the reverend member might want to applaud when I have completed the quote.
The member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell then went on, still serving as an officer of the House, to say:
Therefore, I am telling my Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the members of my caucus that I cannot serve as an officer of the chair because those members not present-
Clearly referring to us.


Ian Deans: How can you say that?


Erik Nielsen: Because we were the only members not here. He went on to say, clearly referring to us:
-those members not present do not comport themselves according to the rules and procedures.
That was bad enough, but he went further and made this clear accusation:
They are not acting as true representatives of this country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: I see hon. members in the Liberal Party supporting the government, applauding that kind of language coming from an officer of the chair. They do not know much about this institution if they can support that kind of intemperate language. Therefore, the member in question, having made his own bed, will now have to lie in it. He certainly cannot be accepted by us after making those accusations against members of the House. Otherwise, how in the world can we have any confidence in him, knowing the feelings he has expressed in the written record of Hansardl


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, regarding this point of order, I would like to explain our point of view, since my fellow House leaders for the two opposition parties have already had a chance to do so. I shall try to be brief and get to the point right away. The basis for the comments made by the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier) is an incident that, as the House is aware, occurred last week and involved the application of two of our Standing Orders. The first one is Standing Order 60(8) which determines the procedure to be followed for putting the question on the budget motion, and it stipulates
July 14, 1982

very clearly that the Speaker shall interrupt the proceedings on the sixth day and forthwith put the question on the main motion. That is as clear as can be! This Standing Order should be read in conjunction with Standing Order 9(2) which deals with the time during which the bells may be sounded, and I quote:
When, under the provisions of any Standing Order or other order of this House, Mr. Speaker has interrupted any proceeding-
That was the case, since the proceedings had to be interrupted because of Standing Order 60(8).
-for the purpose of putting forthwith the question on any business then before the House, the bells to call in the Members shall be sounded for not more than fifteen minutes.
So this is very obvious, and the Standing Order is very clear in this respect. So much so, in fact, that, as I was told some time ago, the House Leader for the Progressive Conservative Party, the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) had taken steps to ensure that this Standing Order would be duly applied and that the bells would not be sounded for more than fifteen minutes. In fact, on that occasion his whip entered the House alone, and ours had to follow subsequently to allow the division to take place. These rules are not new, the procedure is known to everyone and the Standing Order is extremely straightforward.
Therefore, what is the member for Yukon's case against the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, who from his own seat, and in his own terms, was simply referring to established practice and to a Standing Order which is extremely clear in its wording? He was merely saying what the law prescribes and acting in accordance with parliamentary procedure and the Standing Orders. What is so reprehensible about all that? What is reprehensible, Madam Speaker, is the fact that on that evening, the Progressive Conservative members ignored parliamentary practice-as they ignored their own request on an earlier and similar occasion-and ignored the Standing Orders of the House. Today, in a very underhanded manner, and this is an understatement, Madam Speaker, they are trying to discredit an hon. member who was only seeking respect for this institution.
I want to congratulate the New Democratic Party House leader for his excellent judgment in the circumstances and for his courtesy in asking that the resignation, which in any case was not tendered according to form-it was not a real resignation-by the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell be reconsidered. He did not resign. I am happy to see that he acknowledges that this member is extremely valuable and that he has performed his duties well, both as the Chair's representative and from his seat in the House. However, I must deplore the less than direct and less than honest attitude shown by the Progressive Conservatives, who today are refusing to gave their consent, which is not absolutely essential, but they are refusing to acknowledge, out of courtesy, that the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell was only performing his role of experienced and responsible parliamentarian with a concern for the respect due Canada's Parliament. I deplore this attitude on their part, and as far as we are concerned, the member
Point of Order-Mr. Nielsen
for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is experienced and responsible enough to make his own decisions. We welcome the support of the New Democratic Party, and once again, we deeply regret the lack of maturity, irresponsibility and childish attitude shown by the Progressive Conservatives and their leader.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I was involved in that the other night, as members know. After the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier) had said what he had said, using the words applying to the members of my party that they are not acting as true representatives of this country, you recognized me, after you had asked the member to reconsider his decision. I said this:
Madam Speaker, if I may, I would like to speak to the matter raised by the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. I hope that, before he gives any finality to what he has indicated to the House today-
In just that previous statement-
-he would consult very carefully with his seatmate-
And who happens to be the Deputy Speaker-
-with the officers of the Table, with Madam Speaker and with one member in particular from my party, the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens). By doing that he will understand exactly what occurred tonight. 1 do not want to make any point. Others will argue about it perhaps. But I wanted to say that to my hon. friend who, in the sense of my riding, is almost a neighbour. I hope the hon. member will reconsider the matter.
The matter being the charge that he made. That was the invitation put to the hon. member, in good faith. Then the hon. member said, in part:
I appreciate the kind words of the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton-I meant what I said before; I do not speak with a forked tongue, and I stand by what I said-if members do not live by the rules and procedures that were given to them by the Chair. Therefore, I stand by what I said a while ago. Please accept my resignation, Madam Speaker.
Now, Madam Speaker, I think that casts not only a burden on the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell but it casts a great burden on you because you have to decide whether or not that resignation, having been tendered and not withdrawn, ought to be accepted in these circumstances.
I regret to have to say this, because of what I said the other evening. I would think it would not serve the best interests of the House if the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, not having accepted the invitation, which was put forward in good faith, to withdraw, at least to reconsider, at least to check, did not do so.
I say that with some considerable regret because I was one of those who at that time wanted that kind of withdrawal and went the second mile to try to achieve it.
If we are talking about peace in the House of Commons, it would be best if the member did not occupy the chair. I say that with great regret but I believe that as a member of the House of Commons I had best say it firmly, because I was involved the other evening.


Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, when I rose I did not intend to create such a furore.

July 14, 1982
Point of Order-Mr. Nielsen


Some hon. Members:: Ha, ha!


Ian Deans: 1 hear a few little "ha, ha's" from the Tory caucus. Let me put my reasons four square. First of all, I can well appreciate the frustration and anger that was in the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell on that evening. I can well understand it, given that the reason for it was the fact that the members of the Conservative Party refused to come in for a vote and that there was no justification for their actions. Every other member in the House of Commons was being required to sit here and wait while they decided when and if the vote was going to be taken.
I put it quite bluntly that I resented it that evening, and I resent the unctuousness of the House leader of the official opposition when he rises and talks about people's responsibilities. It is about time he understood his responsibility.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: Over the course of the last year we have had nothing but bullying bar-room tactics from the Tories. I am personally sick and tired of them.
On one evening they all rise en masse and walk out. And if 1 had not risen to oppose a request from the government for a House order they would have missed an opportunity to speak on a bill. On another day, they walk out of the House and refuse to come in and vote. On another day, they storm the Speaker's chair screaming and shouting like raving maniacs.
I say to you, Madam Speaker, that I seriously regret that the Conservative Party shows no generosity of spirit in this regard. I suggest to them that they should understand the duress under which the member was put and they should appreciate that he has, under normal conditions, acted fairly and impartially and that they should not take out their childish ignorance on that member.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, 1 will not comment at length on the most recent effort of the New Democratic Party to support the Liberal Party.


An hon. Member:: Tell the truth. Tell it like it is.


Charles Joseph Clark: I am asked by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader to tell it like it is. The Chair will know that the situation on that Thursday evening was as follows. Information was given by the Table and by the then occupant of the chair, the Deputy Speaker, that caused members of this party to believe, on the basis of that instruction, that the 15-minute rule would not or might not be enforced rigidly. Madam Speaker knows that to be the case.


Madam Speaker:: May I interrupt the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) before he goes any further in this kind of exposition of the facts.
It is true that some information was asked for as to whether this was a 15- minute bell or not. Two persons were asked. Both answered, "Yes, it is a 15-minute bell". The second question was, "Could it go beyond 15 minutes?" The answer-more or less, but meaning the same thing-given by the two people in question was, "We have seen it go beyond," and that is an absolute fact; it often goes beyond 15 minutes. It does not go much beyond 15 minutes, but it does go beyond 15 minutes. That is the answer which was given, and it could only mean that it was a 15-minute bell but that it could possibly go beyond that time.
When l was told that there would be a delay in the vote, I said to a member of the Conservative caucus: "That is fine; I might wait for a while, but not indefinitely." I sent a message by one of the officers of the House to the Conservative caucus advising them that I would be taking the vote momentarily.
Those are the facts. I did have to rise, and I apologize if I had to interrupt the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, a thing I do not like to do. However, as the Speaker I feel a very grave responsibility to defend the officers of the Table, who give advice privately to hon. members and to those who serve with me to the best of their knowledge.


Yvon Pinard: Half your caucus walked away anyway.


Charles Joseph Clark: Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. You have set the record straight, exactly in the terms I would have used and, by doing so, you have also corrected the impression left by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans).


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: She did a better job than you.


Mr. Rossi:: The point is 50 per cent of your caucus was gone.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Ross Fulton: Tell the truth.


Charles Joseph Clark: We have heard from an hon. member from Montreal who, if he had any courage, would encourage his Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to call a federal election today. If he did, he would no longer be a Member of Parliament for Montreal.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: As Your Honour has just indicated, the point has to do with the capacity of this House to accept the neutrality of the Chair. Our capacity to respect the neutrality of the Chair in the case of the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier) has been very seriously undermined by, first, the statements of that hon. member in the House, which have recently been read into the record of the House by the House leader of the official opposition. The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell said of Members of Parliament, whose servant he is and regarding whom he is supposed to act absolutely free of partisanship:
They are not acting as true representatives of this country.
July 14, 1982

Those were his words. He was subsequently immediately given an opportunity by the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) to study the facts, of which Your Honour has now apprised the House and the country. He was given that opportunity and asked to reconsider. He has not taken that opportunity. He has not reconsidered. He has not withdrawn his attack upon members of the House of Commons with regard to whom he is supposed to be neutral. He cannot command our respect as someone who would carry out his responsibilities in a neutral way. That is the sum of the situation. He has had several days to repair his reputation. He has chosen not to exercise that option. We in this party can have no confidence in his neutral exercise of the functions of the Chair of the House of Commons.


Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Madam Speaker, I must say that I am somewhat disturbed by the lack of generosity of spirit of the official opposition. I think it can be said of the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole that he has performed his duties in an admirable way.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: He has shown no partisanship whatever, despite the guffaws from the opposition. On not one occasion did hon. members opposite have to raise that issue with this individual sitting in the chair. If hon. members opposite are somewhat disturbed and require an apology, knowing the hon. gentleman as I do I am satisfied he would do that, but I hope hon. members opposite will show some generosity of spirit for a gentleman who felt as he did.
I commend the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker), who tried to bring the facts to the attention of the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier), but in this case there should be some generosity of spirit on the part of the official opposition.


Charles Joseph Clark: He has had three days.


Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Lincoln):: Madam Speaker, I will only take a moment. As one who sat and listened the other evening-and listened with concern because 1 am, I suppose, considered by some to be a devotee of the House of Commons and the traditions and procedures which make this place function-I find it unfortunate that we have strayed from the issue to a degree. The issue is not what happened the other night and not whether 15-minute bells became 20-minute bells, 25-minute bells or 30-minute bells. 1 was here and had full confidence in Your Honour's judgment and assessment that evening.
The issue now is the integrity of the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole. I am appalled that the opposition is questioning, even for a moment, the integrity, sincerity and non-partisanship of the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell (Mr. Ethier).


Erik Nielsen: Of the Chair.
Point of Order-Mr. Nielsen


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: The hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) reminds us all the time about not speaking from our seats. I ask the House leader of the official opposition to do the same.
The rules are simple. If members of the official opposition feel they have no confidence in the integrity of the Assistant Deputy Speaker, they know what to do, and that is to propose a motion accordingly.


Charles Joseph Clark: He has already resigned.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: The Assistant Deputy Speaker of this House is not appointed by the Speaker. His name is put before all parties of the House of Commons at the appropriate moment, and their confidence is expressed in a vote, if they so desire.


Erik Nielsen: That is not right.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: When the Assistant Deputy Speaker of this House was appointed to his role, all members of the House of Commons had an opportunity at that moment to determine whether they felt he would be competent. That is traditional. He was selected by the government. If the opposition feels the hon. gentleman is not competent, they are free to move a motion accordingly.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: He resigned.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: However, I want to say that the Assistant Deputy Speaker can submit his resignation to only one person, and that is to the person who appointed him, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau).


Charles Joseph Clark: He has done that.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: The second point which leaves me just a little concerned is the interpretation of the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton, for whom I have great respect and to whom I listened the other evening. I got the mistaken impression from listening quite attentively to the hon. member, and because of the way he phrased his remarks, that he was saying to his neighbour, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, "Please reconsider your resignation". If the hon. gentleman feels differently now, I have to accept his word but I felt very proud of the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton the other evening when he expressed his friendship for the Assistant Deputy Speaker. He spoke of him in glowing terms as his neighbour, and from what I could gather from that intervention the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton suggested to the Assistant Deputy Speaker that he relax, review the situation and change his mind about resigning. There was nothing said the other night which left me with a different impression. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Your Honour expressed the same view.
I hope, before we make this a full-blown debate on the events of the other evening, that we merely remind ourselves-


Charles Joseph Clark: That he has resigned.


Bryce Stuart Mackasey: -that the Assistant Deputy Speaker is an honourable man. He will, no doubt, make his views known to

July 14, 1982
Point of Order-Mr. Nielsen
the Prime Minister as to whether he wants to remain in that capacity. The Prime Minister may want to suggest to him that he clarify the expression "They are not acting as true representatives of this country," just as the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton clarified for me what he meant. Unfortunately he clarified it from a gesture of friendship to a review of the facts. The hon. member for Nepean-Carleton is looking at me now. I say to him directly that the impression I got, not only from what he said but also from his tone-and my knowledge of his friendship with the Assistant Deputy Speaker and his concern for the Elouse-was that what he was really saying to the Assistant Deputy Speaker the other evening was: "You have offered your resignation in haste. Please reconsider that resignation and withdraw it."


Charles Joseph Clark: "You made accusations which you have to withdraw."


Madam Speaker:: I suppose a few words on my part in answer to the presentation made by the hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) are in order at this point. If the hon. member reads carefully the words I spoke that evening, he will find I did not in any way accept the resignation of the Deputy Chairman of Committee of the Whole because, of course, the matter of resigning from the position he occupies is entirely between the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and himself.
I am perfectly aware that the hon. member was probably not well acquainted with exactly what was going on, and seeing that he was obviously quite disturbed by the fact that we might not be following the rules of the House as he understands them, he wanted to make a few remarks precisely about that matter. Knowing that he was not acquainted with the facts, hon. members will see, if they read Hansard, that I told him at that point that when he became acquainted with the facts, which I would be only too happy to explain to him later, he would probably want to reconsider what he was saying at that particular time.
As far as I am concerned, the hon. member is still serving the House in the capacity in which he has always enjoyed the confidence of the House until now. Unless there is a formal motion to the contrary, I cannot allow the conduct of an hon. member to be discussed further. The only way to discuss the conduct of an hon. member, of course, is by a formal motion to that effect. As far as I am concerned, the hon. member still has the confidence of the House.
1 leave it entirely to him to decide whether he wants to clarify some of the statements he made on that particular evening. He may do that. The hon. member has taken a few days of rest. I think he was particularly disturbed at the events that evening, so he has taken a few days of rest-


Charles Joseph Clark: He was here today.


Madam Speaker:: But not sitting in the chair.


Charles Joseph Clark: He was on the premises.


Mr. Cousineau:: Why don't you listen? Be polite for once!


Madam Speaker:: He has taken a few days of rest on my advice. I think we will leave the matter where it is, in the hands of the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I agree that you have no onus here with respect to the matter. The hon. member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey) was correct as far as he went, when he said that the only person who has the power to consider the resignation is the person who appointed the hon. member. That is the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). He may or may not want to take action on the strength of the words that the hon. member used that evening.
I would point out that neither is the onus on this party to take any steps. There was a clear, repeated statement by the hon. member that evening that he was resigning. On the first occasion the statement was directed to the Prime Minister and members of his caucus. He made the second statement, in the event that it was not quite clear to whom the resignation should be submitted, to you while you were in the chair. On two occasions he stated quite clearly that he was resigning. I therefore agree that there is no onus on the Chair for the reasons stated and there is certainly no onus here. We are acting, in future, on the strength of that resignation.


POINT OF ORDER
Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order brought to the attention of the Chair by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton). Yesterday in the House I provided him with information that added to information I had previously provided to him in a letter. I want to confirm that the information relating to the
36,000	trips was accurate in the sense that it dealt with bookings that originated throughout the country. However, in view of his reaction I have had my officials check the second piece of information provided, relating to the 1,569 trips. I wish to confirm-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. There is a difficulty here. The hon. member can be allowed to correct his statement but he was certainly responding to a point of order which I did not accept. It is a bit difficult to rule on that. On the one hand, the hon. minister might have been allowed to correct a statement but 1 do not think he did it in the proper way. However, the point is made.
July 14, 1982



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, it is my understanding that every Member of Parliament has a responsibility and a duty to present petitions to the House on behalf of his or her constituents. It has again been brought to my attention that a government MP has denied this ancient and undoubted right to all of his constituents to present a petition to this House. Therefore, on behalf of the constituents of Niagara Falls and supported by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz) and the hon. member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Bradley), I present the following petition which says:
We believe the pace, degree, and nature of change to Systems International metric should and must be determined voluntarily in the various sectors of trade and industry by the individual firms or industries directly concerned and with minimal government interference;


Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Madam Speaker, I have the responsibility and the duty to present a petition on behalf of a number of my constituents in the riding of Athabasca. The purpose of the petition, signed by 46 residents of Fort McMur-ray, who are private pilots and aircraft owners, is to register their protest against the decision taken by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) to charge aircraft parking fees at the airport in Fort McMurray.
The nature of this petition is to request that the government immediately withdraw this parking fee until such time as the parking lot at the Fort McMurray airport is upgraded to a level deserving of a parking charge. The parking area is nothing more than a gravel pit which cost nothing to build and costs nothing to maintain. The petitioners request that Transport Canada improve the quality and safety of the parking lot at the Fort McMurray airport before the charging of parking fees is considered.
The petitioners hope, in Madam Speaker's examination of this petition, that you will find the petition is in order, sense the urgency of their plea, and that you might use the discretionary powers vested in your office to allow discussion and referral of this petition to the Standing Committee on Transport at the earliest possible moment.


Mr. Bud Bradley (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Madam Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition signed by 18 church members from the town of Dunnville in the constituency of Haldimand-Norfolk. The purpose of this petition is to protest the government's proposed changes in Bill C-10, which will allow a court of law to interfere in the affairs of the church body. The nature of the petition is to urge the government to drop the
Order Paper Questions
provisions in Bill C-10 which would infringe on the rights and privileges of the church to take a moral stand on matters concerning membership of that church body.
The petitioners hope that in your examination of the petition you will find the petition in order, and that you will exercise the discretionary powers vested in the office of Speaker of the House to allow discussion and referral to committee at the earliest possible time, in order that the sanctity of the church in Canadian society can be preserved.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Donald J. Johnston (President of the Treasury Board):: Madam Speaker, I wish to inform the House that there have been consultations among representatives of the parties and that it has not been possible to reach agreement under the provisions of Standing Order 75A or 75B in respect of the proceedings at the second reading stage of Bill C-124, an act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada.
I wish to give notice that, at the next sitting of the House, I shall propose a motion, pursuant to Standing Order 75C, to allocate one sitting day to the said stage of the said bill.


Some hon. Members:: Shame!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,061, 4,247, 4,253, 4,256, 4,264 and 4,334.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Were purchases by the National Arts Centre of Almaden Wines from California made directly with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario?
2.	Were salesmen, representatives or representations received directly or indirectly by the Centre from Almaden Wines and, if so, what are all the details, including the names and job designations of those concerned at the Centre and those making such representations?


Mr. Jack Masters (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: I am informed by the National Arts Centre Corporation as follows:
1. All wine is purchased by the Centre from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

July 14, 1982
Order Paper Questions
2. Mr. Alex Doczi, salesman representing Melchers Inc. in Ontario, called upon Mr. Donald Marriott, Director of Restaurants, and the Almaden wine was sampled by Mr. Marriott, Mr. Ashok Dhawan, Restaurants Controller, and other restaurant staff at which time price was also discussed.


Mr. Crosby: 1.	Does the Department of Communications have written rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behavior for employees of the department and, if so, are they embodied in a code of conduct or other specific document and is the code or document available to the public?
2.	In the five years preceding April 1, 1982, were any employees of the Department disciplined by way of suspension, dismissal or otherwise for violations of any rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behaviour for departmental employees and, if so, in each case, what was the name of the employee and the date of the disciplinary action?


John Gerald (Jack) Masters: In so far as the Department of Communications is concerned, the reply to the above question is as follows:
1.	The Department of Communications has written guidelines governing the conduct and standards of behaviour for employees of the department. These are contained in the following documents:
(a)	"Standards of Conduct for Public Service Employees" guidelines are distributed to every employee on appointment and these guidelines deal with conflicts of interest.
(b)	The Treasury Board Personnel Management Manual and the Departmental Personnel Manual in the chapters dealing with: attendance, leave and hours of work; discharge and dismissal; discipline; union activities; political activities; discrimination.
These manuals are not distributed to employees but are available to employees on request. Such policies are not generally available for public use, since they apply specifically to public service employees.
2.	Since most collective agreements in the public service require that any document relating to disciplinary action must be destroyed after two years, the list below indicates the disciplinary actions taken in the Department of Communications since April 1980. Current provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act prevent the release of names of employees who have been subject to disciplinary action.
YEAR	MONTH	DISCIPLINARY CASES APRIL TO MARCH SUSPEN- DATE SION REPRIMAND DISCHARGE80	June	3 180	June	4 I80	July	10 I 180	September	19 180	December	581	February	2381	April	281	April	2581	April	2881	May	182	January	19


Mr. Crosby: 1.	Does the Department of Finance have written rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behavior for employees of the department and, if so, are they embodied in a code of conduct or other specific document and is the code or document available to the public?
2.	In the five years preceding April 1, 1982, were any employees of the department disciplined by way of suspension, dismissal or otherwise for violations of any rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behaviour for departmental employees and, if so, in each case, what was the name of the employee and the date of the disciplinary action?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State (Finance)):: 1.	The Department of Finance Canada has written rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behavior for employees of the department. Standards of behavior for employees of the Department of Finance are outlined in the Conflict of Interest Guidelines and the Personnel Management Manual which are available to the public and in any other directive or policy issued by Treasury Board as the employer.
The Conflict of Interest Guidelines deal with the disclosure of matters such as business or other interests which might be in conflict with official business, and also deal with other related subjects. Directives or policies issued by Treasury Board as the employer pertain to subjects such as political partisanship, discrimination, sexual harassment, public money and property, disclosure of official information, etc.
2.	In the five years preceding April 1, 1982 no employees of the department were disciplined by way of suspension, dismissal or otherwise for violations of any rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behavior for departmental employees.


Mr. Crosby: 1. Does the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development have written rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behavior for employees of the department and, if so, are they embodied in a code of conduct or other specific document and is the code or document available to the public?
July 14, 1982

2. In the five years preceding April 1, 1982, were any employees of the department disciplined by way of suspension, dismissal or otherwise for violations of any rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behaviour for departmental employees and, if so, in each case, what was the name of the employee and the date of the disciplinary action?


John Carr Munro: 1.	Yes, DIAND has written rules governing the conduct or standards of behaviour-DPC 10 Departmental Disciplinary Guidelines; Annex A to DPC 10-Departmental Code of Ethics; Annex B to DPC 10-Disciplinary Guidelines for Employees Engaged in Fire Prevention and Suppression Operations. The DPC 10 is available to the public.
2.	Based on the nature of the discipline and the procedures for the transfer, storage, and destruction of personnel records, departmental records for the Five years preceding April 1, 1982, are either incomplete or unavailable. More precisely, certain disciplinary actions are withdrawn and destroyed in accordance with collective agreements and/or grievance decisions. In addition, the department is not in a position to release names as it would be in contravention to the Canadian Human Rights Act. The following therefore, is a compilation of available statistics:
Year	Written Reprimand	Suspension	Discharge1977	6	4	11978	8	6	31979	28	22	01980	52	5	61981	58	17	71982	11	3	0Undated	2	1	0
N.B. There is no record for oral reprimands as these are not recorded.


Mr. Crosby: 1.	Does the Department of Public Works have written rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behavior for employees of the department and, if so, are they embodied in a code of conduct or other specific document and is the code or document available to the public?
2.	In the five years preceding April 1, 1982, were any employees of the department disciplined by way of suspension, dismissal or otherwise for violations of any rules or regulations governing the conduct or standards of behaviour for departmental employees and, if so, in each case, what was the name of the employee and the date of the disciplinary action?


Paul James Cosgrove: 1.	Public Works Canada has a Standard of Conduct Policy published 8 July 1974. From this policy the Conflict of Interest Guidelines issued 6 September 1974 and the Discipline Guidelines and Procedures issued 1 March 1976 and revised 29 July 1979 have been developed. These publications are available to all departmental employees and to the public.
2.	In accordance with collective agreements, any documents or written statements related to disciplinary action which may have been placed on the personnel file of an employee shall be
Order Paper Questions
destroyed after two years have elapsed since disciplinary action was taken provided that no further disciplinary action has been recorded during this period. For this reason, information prior to May 1980 is no longer available unless there has been further disciplinary action. We have, however, provided discharge information for the past five years. Names of the individuals involved have not been included as this would be contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Suspensions
Case 1 November, 1981
2	October, 1981
3	September, 1981
4	March, 1981
5	March, 1982
6	September, 1980
7	July, 1981
8	July, 1981
9	September, 1979 September, 1979 June, 1980 September, 1980 April, 1981 May, 1981 July, 1981
10	October, 1981
11	August, 1980
12	April, 1980
13	October, 1980
14	July, 1980
15	March, 1981
16	April, 1981
17	July, 1981
18	October, 1981
19	January, 1982
20	September, 1981
21	May. 1980 November, 1980
22	November, 1980 December, 1980 November, 1981
23	April, 1982
24	June, 1981
25	February, 1980 June, 1980 February, 1981
26	August, 1981
27	March, 1982 November, 1981 April, 1981 December, 1980
28	January, 1980
29	February, 1982 September, 1981 July, 1981 April, 1981
30	March, 1981 September, 1980
31	September, 1981 September, 1981
32	February, 1981 December, 1980
33	September, 1979
34	June, 1981
35	June, 1978 April, 1979 February, 1980 February, 1980 September, 1980
36	September, 1978 July, 1980
37	October, 1980 March, 1981 July, 1981 July, 1981 July, 1981 February, 1982 March, 1982 April, 1982
5	days 3 days 5 days 1 day 1 day 3 days 1 day
1	day
2	days
3	hours 5 days
20 days 10 days 30 days
62 days (reduced from discharge) 3 days 5 days 5 days
1	day 5 days 3 days
2	days
2	days
3	days
1	day 10 days
3	days 5 days
2	days 5 days
20 days 1 day 10 days 1 day 5 days 20 days 1 day 1 day
4	days
1	day
2	days
1	day
3	days
3	days
2	days
1	day
5	days
2	days
4	days 1 day
10 days 10 days
1	day
2	days
3	days 3 days
5	days 5 days
20 days 1 day
1	day
2	days
3	days
5	days
6	days
7	days 1 day 3 days
15 days

July 14, 1982
Order Paper Questions
Suspensions


[Stage Direction]
38 March, 1978	2 days
February, 1980	3 days
April, 1980	5 days
August, 1980	10 days
39 February, 1980	1 day
April, 1980	3 days
40 February, 1980	1 day
April, 1980	5 days
June, 1980	1 day
March, 1981	3 days
41 July, 1981	1 day
July. 1981	2 days
August, 1981	3 days
42 November, 1980	1 day
February, 1981	2 days
February, 1981	5 days
February, 1981	15 days
43 November, 1980	2 days
April, 1981	1 day
44 May, 1981	1 day
45 November, 1981	30 days
46 May, 1979	2 days
May, 1979	1 day
April, 1981	2 days
47 July, 1980	1 day
February, 1981	4 days
48 December, 1980	1 day
49 March, 1980	2 days
February, 1981	10 days
50 March, 1982	1 day
April, 1982	3 days
51 January. 1980	1 day
July, 1980	1 day
52 March, 1979	I day
March, 1981	2 days
February, 1981	1 day
March. 1982	1 day
53 February, 1981	15 days
54 October, 1978	1 day
May, 1979	3 days
November, 1979	5 days
April, 1980	1 day
April, 1980	5 days
February, 1981	1 day
55 June, 1979	1 day
November, 1979	5 days
December, 1980	7 days
March, 1981	10 days
March, 1981	1 day
March, 1981	2 days
May, 1981	10 days
56 September, 1981	1 day
57 July, 1980	1 day
58 September, 1980	5 days
59 September, 1980	1 day
60 May. 1980	2 days
61 March, 1982	1 day
62 February, 1981	1 day
63 May, 1981	3 days
December, 1981	5 days
64 February, 1981	151 days
65 February, 1981	20 days
66 February, 1981	15 days
Discharges
Case 1 78-04-29
2	80-09-18
3	81-04-25
4	81-10-14
5	78-04-06
6	81-01-21
7	82-03-29
8	78-07-11
9	80-04-24
10	78-03-29
11	78-07-07
12	79-03-27
13	79-05-14
14	79-05-14
15	79-05-14
16	79-05-14
17	80-05-05
Mr. Forrestall: 1.	Is there a standard procedure for awarding consulting work for departments and agencies and (a) if so, what is the procedure (b) if not, what guidelines are laid down for the awarding of professional consulting work?
2.	Does the government have a policy in this regard and, if so, what is it?


Mr. Norman Kelly (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: 1.	The government's policy with respect to the awarding of 'consulting and professional services' is set out in the Treasury Board's Administrative Manual, Chapter 315, which provides departments with the procedures appropriate for specific circumstances.
(a)	These procedures are:
(i)	"selection without competition"-only one firm is considered; for use in specified exceptional circumstances;
(ii)	"selection by qualifications"-contract is negotiated with firm or individual considered best qualified; used when proposals are not warranted;
(iii)	"design competition"-prizes are awarded for firm or firms submitting best designs, and contract is negotiated for design and related work; used for major works of national significance, for design and build projects, or as the first phase of a product development competition;
(iv)	"selection based on proposals excluding price data"- proposals are invited from a limited number of consultants on a short list; used where the work can be only broadly defined, the detailed work requirements are to be identified by the selected consultant, and the cost cannot be reliably estimated;
(v)	"selection based on proposals including cost data"- similar to (iv) except for the provision of cost data as basis for price negotiations; used where costs can be estimated reliably;
(vi)	"selection based on proposals including price"-similar to (iv) and (v) except that a price is offered; used when an accurate estimate of the costs is possible;
(vii)	"selection based on price offered"-selection of qualified consultant based on best price and fully compliant offer; used when the work can be specified precisely, the cost can be estimated reliably, more than one firm is capable and interested, and work acceptance criteria can be clearly specified.
(b)	Not applicable.
2.	Yes, see answer above.


David P. Smith: I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
July 14, 1982


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call notices of motions for the production of papers Nos. 92 and 93 in the name of the hon. member for Durham-North-umberland (Mr. Lawrence).

RCMP DEALINGS WITH CLIFFORD OLSON Motion No. 92-Mr. Lawrence:
That an Order of the House do issue for copies of the Telex messages of August 24 and 25, 1981 from 'E' Division of the RCMP in British Columbia to RCMP Headquarters, Ottawa, regarding the proposal for making a payment or other benefit at the request of murderer Clifford Olson to his family or other persons and requesting authorization for such payment to be made or benefit given; and of the Telex message, or other communication, from RCMP Headquarters, Ottawa to RCMP 'E' Division, British Columbia authorizing the payment or benefit.
Motion No. 93-Mr. Lawrence:
That an Order of the House do issue for a copy of the arrangement or agreement entered into on August 25, 1981 or thereabouts and under which the RCMP financially compensated or gave a benefit or other consideration at the request of murderer Clifford Olson for information regarding the location of the bodies of persons he had murdered or for other information.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, the subject matter of both these motions falls within the jurisdiction of the province of British Columbia, and the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) has no authority to accede to this request. In the circumstances, the hon. member is invited to contact the Attorney General of British Columbia for the requested papers, and I would ask that the hon. member withdraw his motion.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Transfer for debate.


Madam Speaker:: Transferred for debate.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, I ask that the other notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.


Madam Speaker:: Shall the motions stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, July 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. Johnston that Bill C-124, respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada, be read the second
Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act
time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, in my comments on Bill C-124 last night I had begun to show how certain of the assumptions the Liberals have made in their economic strategy are seriously flawed. I would like to continue that critique by examining the Liberal theory of inflation and the way this bill shows that they either do not understand inflation or they refuse to acknowledge the real causes because doing so would involve much more courageous decisions than simply blaming the average Canadian.
Liberal views of inflation do not seem to take into account the tremendous increases in energy costs which have taken place since 1973, and particularly the last few years. Those increases have cut into the viability of the economy as it had been previously organized. The needed transition from a cheap energy economy to an expensive one will require more than simply asking average Canadians to take less so that the wealthy and powerful can maintain the standard of living to which they have become accustomed. The reality of a shrinking economic pie means that those who have much will have to take less in order that those who do not have so much will be able to maintain what they have. Anything other than this approach means a departure from what Canadians have come to believe about the Canadian commitment to greater equality of the human condition. Yet it is precisely the opposite approach that the Liberals have taken by giving in to the demand of the powerful that their standard of living be protected at all costs, even if it means cutting back on things like pensions.
However, Mr. Speaker, related to the problem of increased energy costs is the whole issue of diminishing returns on capital investment. Capital invested in energy extraction is increasingly unproductive and burdensome. For example, witness the situation of Dome Petroleum which is in trouble in spite of the fact that for years it has received over a dollar from the Canadian public for every dollar it spent on exploration. Witness the malaise of the debt-ridden nuclear industry in this and other countries. Those are two good examples of the increasing unviability of traditional energy extraction projects, but it is not only in that area that the traditional notions of capital investment are breaking down. It is happening in many other sectors as well. Productivity needs to be seen not just as labour productivity. There is also the question of the declining productivity of capital investments. The productivity of traditional investment models has been overrated for years. In
19332

July 14, 1982
Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act
fact, it has been assumed that the only productivity that ever needed to be improved was labour productivity. In reality, the success of capital investment strategies in the past has relied on the ability of the private sector to externalize the social and environmental costs of their decisions, to pass on those costs to consumers, taxpayers and governments. Governments then ring up large deficits in coping with these externalized costs, and they are then reviled by the same private sector for overspending.
The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that these externalized bills of the economic system under which we have lived for far too long are coming due. Rather than face up to this, the Liberals are trying to put off the evil day. They cannot show leadership on this issue. Their ties to the people whose self-interest and ideological assumptions need to be challenged are too close. Indeed, they are often the same people. We all know of the great incestuous relationship which exists between the boardrooms of the nation and the Liberal caucus and former cabinet ministers. Meanwhile, of course, the Conservatives are still fantasizing about a return to the heyday of the kind of economy which brought us to where we are now. In this respect they are philosophically useless and, practically speaking, very dangerous in the kind of ideas they are trying to promote. Mr. Speaker, there will be no turning back of the clock. President Reagan and the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) are wrong.


An hon. Member:: Everyone is wrong except you.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I for one would not like to see the clock turned back even if it could be, if by that we mean a return to the heyday of capitalism and the further destruction of the community, the environment and the future that that would involve.


Mr. Gustafson:: It built everything this country has.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The only way out of our present situation is to go ahead. This will require a critical approach to all of our assumptions-I mean by everyone-about how the modern economy works. In my view there appear to be at least two very different problems we have to face. The first is to a degree contained within the system as it now operates, that is, the increasing extent to which the western economies are now being victimized by the global mobility of the very corporations that use them to develop into the very powerful institutions that they now are. I touched a bit on this in my speech last night. Domestic and international justice is what is at stake in this question. This raises the age-old question of removing macroeconomic decision-making from the confines of private self-interested boardrooms, and bringing our economy under public control so that the common good will be the criterion for investment decisions and for technological decisions, not the profit margins of the global corporations.
The second problem, Mr. Speaker, is that of the economic model within which all of us too often work, whether of the left or the right. That is the model which assumes infinite growth in a finite world. It sees increasing economic growth in the traditional sense as the solution to all our problems. As we face
the deindustrialization of Canada as a result of multinational decisions, and as we face the increasing counterproductivity of traditional energy strategies and other capital-intensive strategies, we must look to how we might reindustrialize our economy, you might say, to fit the new global realities. Hopefully we will be able to do this in a global context free from the distorting and destructive decisions of the global corporations. That would make the transition much easier because they will resist us, they will try to accommodate the world economy to these new realities in a way which serves their interest and which will make what is needed much more difficult.
Some speak of what is coming as the post-industrial age. Others might prefer to call it reindustrialization. But whatever we call it, it will have to be done deliberately and intelligently. The invisible hand of Adam Smith, in which my colleagues on the right still fervently believe, will not lead us out of the mess we are in. Indeed, it has led us to the mess we are in. The invisible hand of Adam Smith is more like an invisible foot which tramples clumsily and insensitively on social, human and environmental needs rather than responds to these needs, as my friends to the right would dearly love to believe.
Neither, of course, will publicly planned economies dependent upon the wrong assumption and on the wrong goals lead us out of the mess we are in. We all need to move out of the era of large, top-heavy bureaucratic organizations, public or private, which maximize material production and wasteful consumption based on non-renewable resources and into the era of economies based on regenerative resources and energy, managed for sustained yield productivity, that is, the sustainable society. That is the era in which we should move now if we are to show any leadership at all here in this House.
We can have an exciting future if we would just let go of some of our traditional assumptions about the economy, about what constitutes economic growth and about what constitutes a standard of living. If we let go of those assumptions and acted with an imagination tempered by justice and the vision of a renewed human community in which people are no longer commodities but real people whose dignity and whose potential are irreplaceable, our future would be bright.
I believe that the philosophical and the political tradition which the New Democratic Party represents has the conceptual resources to deal with these problems. If I did not think that, I would not be standing here today. We cannot change in this country or in any other country what we do not control, what we cannot have any say in. And it is only the New Democratic Party in this country which is committed to bringing important economic decisions before the bar of the common good, however we may come to define that in the years ahead.
There is another cause of inflation, very seldom mentioned in this House, which needs to be mentioned. It is the point I have been trying to make all along. It is far too simplistic and
July 14, 1982

it is like hiding your head in the sand to imagine that wages are the cause of inflation in the western economies. Another cause of inflation is the arms race. That is only too seldom mentioned. The hundreds of billions of dollars which are spent on the arms race create deficits, distort spending priorities of governments all around the world and perpetuate underdevelopment in Third World countries.
Here is another area where the Liberals have talked a big show about disarmament, but wimped out when it came down to the wire. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) went to the Special Session on Disarmament at the United Nations, he did not say anything significant at all. Anybody could have said what the Prime Minister said. He showed no leadership. He showed no independence from American foreign policy. What he said was just the same old following along. Now that it is not what Alexander Haig says, I guess it will be what Mr. Shultz says. Whatever he says will guide what the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) has to say.
The Conservatives, of course, have not bothered to pretend that they are for arms reduction. All they do is to try to exploit the peace movement for political purposes by branding disarmament people as Soviet sympathizers, and thus doing what harm they can to an important cause, just like when they side with murderous regimes in central and South America.
The world is in the grip of powerful, irresponsible forces that must be challenged. Here in Canada, under the leadership of the Liberal Party, we can either become the banana republic that we have in a way always been, or we can begin to build anew our own house. We can get our own house in order, and from there be able to contribute to a more just and sustainable global society. The Liberals and Conservatives will not acknowledge this reality. We do acknowledge it. We invite all Canadians who love life, who love freedom and the notion of a renewed human community to join with us. We do not have all the answers, but we have the political freedom which the two other parties have demonstrated time and time again they do not have. We have the political freedom to begin the work that needs to be done.
1 want to say something about the Progressive Conservative response to Bill C-124. It is hard to know just what the Progressive Conservative response to Bill C-124 is. When the hon. member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) rose, he sort of weaseled and waffled his way and was not sure just what the position of his party was with regard to this bill. Do you know what the problem is, Mr. Speaker? Right now, the Conservatives would vote against anything that was proposed by the Liberals and for anything that is in opposition to the Liberals. I need only refer to recent motions where the Conservatives voted for the strengthening of FIRA, and then, on the next day, someone in the Progressive Conservative Party moved a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43 calling for the weakening of the Foreign Investment Review Agency. They did not even have the decency to wait 48 hours. The Progressive Conservatives voted for a tax on excess bank profits. I am sure that if we moved a motion calling for the
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nationalization of the banking community in this country, the Tories would vote for it because they are so desperate to create the impression that they are different from the guys over there. They are not any different from the guys over there. But that is what is going on. The Tories will vote for anything. Now they do not know what to do on this bill. They have a real dilemma on their hands. The Progressive Conservatives approve of this program. They approve of Bill C-124. This program does not go as far as the hon. member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) would have liked to have led his party when it was in power, but it is getting there. It is called, "Blame the public sector. Blame the civil servant. Blame government spending." It is the sort of simplistic economic analysis that we always hear the members of the Conservative Party mouthing incessantly until we are almost sick to our stomachs from having to listen to it.
The Conservatives really want to vote for this bill, but they have to create the impression that they are different from the Liberals. It will be interesting to see what they will do. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) has now given notice of closure. The day of decision for the Progressive Conservative caucus is nigh. We wait with some anticipation just to see how far the Conservative Party has strayed into that area of politics where they vote for things purely on strategic considerations that have nothing to do with politics or have nothing to do with what they actually believe is the case. The irony of it is that every day the Conservatives become more and more like the Liberal Party.
Of course, they started out like two peas in a pod. But, in a more generous moment, we used to be able to say that the Progressive Conservatives had a few principles. They were dumb principles, but they had a few principles on which they liked to stand in relation to the Liberals. But that is not the case any more. Now the Conservatives will vote for anything. That is what happens when it comes to Bill C-124 and other matters.


Leonard J. Gustafson: It is the NDP-Liberal coalition that is causing the problems in this country.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The Conservatives will not tell us what their policies are. They are just against the Liberals. In fact, the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) is quoted In Maclean's magazine as saying that if he really told the people what he would do as finance minister they would never get elected. What a wonderful quote. Isn't that delightful? It remainds me of the time when the hon. member for St. John's West came to Manitoba prior to the 1979 election. At that time he said to the people in Thompson, Manitoba that Joe Clark will make Sterling Lyon look like a pussycat. We made great use of that statement and we made great use of that indication of the kind of government we would get from a federal Progressive Conservative government. We saw many Progressive Conservative candidates who were incumbents go down to defeat in the 1979 election. I must say I am grateful to the hon. member for St. John's West for this new revelation

July 14, 1982
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of just what kind of policies we would see from a Conservative government. They are so had that he does not dare tell us what they are.
I do not want to go on at great length about the Progressive Conservatives. They are their own worst enemies. I am sure that they have a great deal of time left before the next election to do even more harm to themselves than they have already done.
Let one thing be clear, that from the analysis of the situation which I have attempted to lay out this afternoon and last night, the Liberals and the Conservatives are of a piece. There are problems which all of our ideological assumptions must take into account. To that extent I have tried to say that we all have a very difficult time ahead of us in figuring out the global economy. But I firmly believe that neither one of these two parties which I see before me here now has the conceptual or philosophical resources with which to deal with these problems.
When it comes down to the Liberals making a choice between protecting the people of this country and protecting their sources of campaign funds and sources of power, or when it comes down to choosing between the people of this country and the big money, the big money wins. But, as I have pointed out, the situation we have is more complicated than that, and I hope hon. members will take the time to consider what I have said today.


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make a few remarks this afternoon. I had not intended to speak since I have so much other work to do, but I always feel very inspired when I hear a young socialist stand up to speak. I am always impressed by the sincerity of the philosophies which they shower us with, and one is always tempted to get up and set the record straight.
It was Winston Churchill who once said that the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal distribution of blessings and the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal distribution of misery. A socialist of the type we just heard from is usually the guy who has nothing and wants to share it with everyone else.
If they believe that their socialist philosophies and ideologies work so well, why do these young fellows not take a trip around the world to visit the places where I grew up and places behind the Iron Curtain to see how socialism really works? They pretend to be social democrats, but they openly admit that they are socialists, and they do not even understand that difference. What they do not realize is that those things which they want to divide, which are so unevenly divided right now, came as a result of the free enterprise system in the first place. Now we have to turn it over to all these yong upstarts, give it away and waste it all.
There is no question that there are inequities in this bill. We do not like the fact that everyone should be held to the 6 per cent rule as provided for in this particular bill. We do not want Michael Pitfield to get another 6 per cent to his approximate salary of $140,000 that he is now receiving. That is not fair
compared to the people earning $12,000 or $15,000 a year who will also have a 6 per cent increase. I presume Michael Pitfield buys his groceries and gases up his automobile at the same places that the lower paid civil servants do. If the time to start restraint is not now, I ask when is it? I ask my hon. friend from the socialist party when the time to start restraint is if it is not now, and if it is not in this place, where should we begin our restraint program? Who should begin first, if it is not us?
I suggest that members of the NDP are filibustering this bill because they do not like the 6 per cent reduction of their own pay increases. They could not be stopped from rushing to the trough when they were discussing pay increases for Members of Parliament and the indexed pensions that we were allowing ourselves at 38 per cent. They could not be stopped from rushing to the trough, and that is what is bothering them. That is the crux of the whole issue. That limit of 6 per cent to the public service this year and 5 per cent next year also applies to Members of Parliament. We will be held to 6 per cent.


Mr. Benjamin:: Are you going to send yours back?


Frank Oberle: That is what is bothering these young upstarts from the socialist paty. A socialist always knowns how to look after himself. This could be shown again if these young fellows were to visit some socialist countries to see the big limousines with the curtains on the windows because their owners do not like to be seen by their constituents. They know how to look after themselves. They have their summer palaces everywhere.
I want to tell my socialist friends that unless someone makes a start, this country will be in serious trouble. Right now we have a $20 billion deficit, and when the unemployment insurance statistics are in this fall that deficit will have grown to $22 billion. The tragedy of this is that over half of that money is borrowed abroad and has to be paid back in hard currency, regardless of how low our dollar will fall. In addition, Canadian taxpayers will be paying between $4 billion and $5 billion to foreign banks.
Incidentally, that deficit, on a per capita basis is half of what the Americans are planning their deficit to be. The difference is that the Americans are borrowing from their own banks, their own insurance companies and their own people. The money turns around in their own country. Our interest is paid to the United States in New York or to the Arabs, the Belgians and the Swiss.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You said you liked foreign investment.


Frank Oberle: Listen to the whisky-jacks over there! They know what we are talking about. Someone has to make a start and someone has to restrain this drunken sailor across the aisle. Someone has to make a beginning. It must start here because this is where the buck stops.
Since I have a little bit of income from the outside I will probably not miss too much, and this 6 per cent might even help to get me into a lower income tax bracket.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Send it back then. Put your action where your mouth is.
July 14, 1982


Frank Oberle: I suggest that unless we convey to the rest of the country that we are serious about what we are doing, these goals will not be reached. It does not help to convey this message when we see the evidence which has been exposed in question period today that the government is already breaking its own rules. The increases in rents that CMHC will be charging on the approximately 90,000 low-income homes it owns in Canada will not be subject to the rule because the input costs are too great. The provinces are telling us that we cannot apply the same rule to some of the utilities because they would be losing money. If we are already starting to make these excuses before the bill is even passed, it will not work.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Are you going to vote for it?


Frank Oberle: It will cut work just like price controls did not work in 1974, and you know why. The government applied wage controls on the civil servants and then promoted them up one grade to the next category, which in effect gave them a 15 per cent increase.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: How are you going to vote?


Frank Oberle: My friend from the socialist party asks how we will stop that. We will keep a keen eye on what the government is doing.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: How are you going to vote? Will you vote with the Liberals?


Frank Oberle: Yes, I am going to vote with the Liberals.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: That is what I wanted to hear from you.


Frank Oberle: I am prepared, my friend, to accept my responsibility. The problem with members in the NDP is that they never have to accept any responsibility. The NDP will never be a national party because there are only so many provinces that socialists can leach from.


Mr. Kristiansen:: You are going to pass the buck to the workers.


Frank Oberle: The socialists are not interested in the provinces that do not have anything to share. They are big in B.C. and in Ontario. They are big in the "have" provinces. So there is never any fear that the socialists will become a national party. Members in the NDP can tell us anything they want. The point is that we on this side of the House will be the next government. Every Canadian knows that today.


An hon. Member:: Tell us what you will do.


Frank Oberle: If one wants to examine the voting record of the Conservatives compared to that of the NDP in terms of moving with the government, there is only one vote that one must consider. That was the one in 1979 when the NDP defeated the government, which had a program to take us out of the recession. It opted for the drunken sailors that destroyed us, those who are rendering our country into a position from
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which it will take two generations to dig us out. We are now borrowing money that our grandchildren will have to repay. I ask hon. members how we will ever retire a S22 billion debt, the situation in which we are now. Our dollar is in serious decline and interest rates are out of proportion. How will we ever repay this debt? It will not be this generation which will do it. What an incredible indictment it is to a country as rich, as diverse, as great in energy and human resources, that it has been rendered into such an incredible situation!
My young socialist friend says that it is a banana republic. We must restore the confidence of many people, not just our own, people who had faith in our country at one time, such as foreign investors who came here to help build our country. They are looking at us today as though we were a banana republic. Every day, as we hear, agencies in New York reduce our credit ratings, just like they do to Third World countries and banana republics, because they do not think we have a stable government. The National Energy Program has confiscated private assets. There is no confidence because no one is willing to accept any responsibility in this institution.
I would like to give one small example. When the Falkland crisis was occurring, the foreign minister in Great Britain took the wrong advice about the capability of the Argentinians. He took the wrong advice and made the wrong judgment. What did he do? He walked into the House of Commons and resigned because our tradition, the British tradition and the Canadian parliamentary tradition, requires that people who have the responsibility accept it and live by it.
I would like to draw this picture. Two years ago, against the advice of everyone, including the advice of his own cabinet colleagues, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) brought his National Energy Program to the House. For a year and a half he was told of the disaster he was creating, but he listened to the people appointed for him by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), those who went through the London School of Economics and believed in the juvenile socialist ideology that there should be a state-owned oil company and that once that was in place, everyone would be happy. So what did he do? He brought in the National Energy Program. Then, 18 months later, after everything that we predicted would happen did happen, he came to the House and said that he had made a mistake. We had told him that the industry would be totally destroyed, that foreign companies would move out and that this would have the result of bankrupting all the small Canadian companies that were active in the oil field. Incidentally, we had 50 per cent Canadian ownership, if we count small Canadian service industries active in the oil industry. Eighteen months later he said, "Mea culpa! We have made a few mistakes, we must make a few corrections and we will turn the clock back and start afresh." Did he come in to say, "I resign, I goofed, I took the wrong advice"? Of course he did not. He just came in and said, "We have to start afresh. We have made a few mistakes."

July 14, 1982
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The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) brought in his budget in November of last year. Of course, he would not tell anyone of his plans before. He only took advice from one person, Neil Brooks, a professor at one of the institutions in Toronto. He is another one of these intellectual, Fabian socialists who believe that the people who have a little extra money should not give it to charity but instead should give it to the government, and who believes that one should pay imputed rent on one's own private home. That is the only outside advice the minister took. But when he dumped it on us that night, we were shocked and dismayed. The country was in shock and in terror. We told him, "For God's sake, withdraw this budget before you totally destroy the economy of the country". Seven months later he came back and said," I now realize that the changes we have made to the budget were not enough, and I must now bring in a new budget." I ask Your Honour, did he come in, as is the tradition in the parliamentary system from which we emerge, to offer his resignation? Of course not. He just came in and said, "I goofed, so the hell with it. We have chased people out of their homes and farmers have walked away from farms they inherited from their parents, but we have now come to see the error of our ways and we will try something fresh." That was not conducive to restoring what is most vital right now because not only do we have an economic crisis, we also have a very, very serious crisis of confidence.
There are only two ways the government can go. It can accept some responsibility and live up to its actions, or else this system, this institution, will have to be reformed. Again, we would have to look at the examples in other countries. We have to restore the power to the people themselves. People can no longer trust the ones they elect to Parliament. If they can no longer trust their government to be accountable, to be honest, to be sincere, to be less devious than this government, then we must change the system and restore to the people the powers that there are in other systems. 1 make the comparison to the system in the United States. The ordinary American can impeach his president. He can, in fact, recall his congressman or senator. Can one imagine how many Canadians would like to recall their Minister of Finance and replace him with someone else? Americans can elect their judges. They can present petitions to deny spending power to their governments. Proposition 13 was an example. We cannot have it both ways. We can either live by the time-honoured system which has brought this country to greatness and which has worked everywhere, or else we must fire these people and replace them with honourable people and change the system itself.
If one looks to the socialists for any solutions, one finds that the solutions are not there.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: You are going to vote for them.


Frank Oberle: They are simply not there. It is just a little more than naive to come out and say that government is unable to run the country, business is unable to dig us out of this economic crisis, and then to simply believe and say that Dennis McDermott and the unions are able to give us all of the answers. Frankly, I have no respect or confidence in anything that those fellows over there are doing. I would almost prefer
to have any one of them lead me to economic disaster than to base my confidence in Dennis McDermott. These fellows, great defenders of the great union power, rose in the last couple of days and condemned the government for what it will do by taking away this inalienable right of the average worker to collective bargaining. They are saying it is the first serious injury to the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Incidentally, fellows, I did not vote for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, so I have the freedom to speak along these lines. I stood up in accordance with my principles and voted against it. There are certainly very good reasons our party, collectively, voted for it. These great defenders stand up to speak for the rights which are now entrenched in the charter. These rights include the right to collectively bargain. I have yet to see one of our socialist friends to my left tell us the definition of the collective system in the union arrangement. We now have in our entrenched Charter of Rights one of the cardinal principles of democracy, freedom of association.
I could believe in the collective rights of members of unions who have the right to bargain and exercise all the power they now have if the ordinary citizen were not compelled to become a member of that collective system, if he had the freedom of
association.
When Dennis McDermott stood in front of this building, turned around and pointed at the institution and said, "The next time we meet here we will go inside and toss these turkeys out", a lot of people wrote to me questioning why they were a member of that union. It is a good question. That person has to be a member of that union to have a job. He has to be a member of the union to work for the federal government. He has to be a member of a union to work with the provincial government. He is compelled to be a member of the union to have a job in one of the major industries.
Only one-third of the people who work in this country have the opportunity of joining unions. Those who do are compelled to join. That is really the problem. That is something else for which we have to accept responsibility one of these days. The buck again stops here.
When is someone going to test that question in the Supreme Court, freedom of association? What kind of democracy is that? That is Iron Curtain democracy. That is the choice people are given behind the Iron Curtain where the average citizen is compelled. The socialists to my left do not believe in freedom of association. They should not compare themselves with Sweden, West Germany, France and other socialist governments. It is unheard of that a person should be compelled to belong to a political party, a union that is politically active, a church or anything else. What kind of freedom of association is that? When that question is decided before the Supreme Court, they will have egg all over their faces. The union boys will come to them and say, "Hey, you guys, you voted for this monstrosity and now we no longer have the power we once had."
July 14. 1982

That is the kind of power we have to curb in this country. We have to restore the power to where it should be, to the elected representatives. Once we have done that, we must always have the elected representatives accountable, as they once were. Only then can we expect people in this country and those abroad to have confidence in our system, this institution and the people who serve and sit in these institutions. Until this confidence is restored, this country will be in very serious economic straits. There will be very serious problems. Thousands of small businesses will go under. The banks will be protecting the large companies because they are into them so deep.
If Dome Petroleum goes under and $6 billion or $8 billion in loans is called, that is 60 per cent of the assets of our chartered banks. Imagine that.
Guess who will have to bail out the banks? It will be the taxpayer, the person who cannot meet his mortgage payments now, the senior citizen who has to eat dog food because the increase in his old age pension will again be curbed. They are the ones who will bail out Dome and the banks.
Do we ever see these fellows speaking for them? No, because there are big unions involved. You cannot speak about letting Chrysler go bankrupt. There are big companies that have a stake in this. When a small operator or small business with five or six employees goes bankrupt, those who are unemployed are just as unemployed as those who work for Dome or Chrysler.
We are so wrapped up in government bail-outs and intervention that there is no longer any other way out. Someone in this place, this green room, this most important room in this country, must accept some responsibility and live by some principles in order to restore this country to the greatness that our forefathers envisaged and built. Only then can we get out of our economic dilemma.
These fellows do not have the answers. Do not be confused by what Winston Churchill called the gospel of envy. This bunch does not have a thing, and they want to share it with everyone else! You cannot give anything away you have not first created.
We have to again create wealth in this country. That must be done by people who know how it is done, people willing to take risks, people willing to work more than six, seven hours a day, people willing to spend some sleepless nights and willing to forgo a paycheque once in a while in order to build up a small business, hire people and create wealth. Only then can this country be restored to the greatness it is capable of achieving.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to listen to the hon. member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle). I was going to comment extensively on his remarks, but that would only legitimize what he said, and I would not want to do that. After he spoke for 20 minutes in a very negative way about the government and in particular about Bill C-124 that we are dealing with today, he stood up and said he would support the bill when it came to a vote. That kind of confusion perplexes me.
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It is no wonder that Canadians who watch the proceedings of this House are often confused by the rhetoric of debate. They find it somewhat childish and elementary in terms of the accusations hurled back and forth in speech after speech. I will not do that today. I will just present facts. I will present a thorough examination of Bill C-124 in principle.
This is the second reading of Bill C-124. It is an opportunity to examine the various principles involved in the legislation before the House. I was disappointed when the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) stood in the House earlier today and said that not only was the government going to remove the right to bargain collectively on the part of employees in the public service, but that he was going to eliminate one of the most fundamental and democratic rights this House has come to enjoy, freedom of debate, particularly on a very critical issue.
Bill C-124 is one of the most critical bills to come before this House in months. The fact that the government is going to introduce closure so that members will not have an opportunity to thoroughly debate the implications of this legislation is very disappointing.
This bill to restrict the wages and salaries of federal employees to 6 per cent in the first year and 5 per cent in the second year is a response of the government to the economic crisis facing Canada today. It was detailed precisely and extensively by past and present auditors general when they said that this country was on the edge of economic and financial collapse. I am sure every member of this House, both on the government side and the opposition side, will agree with that evaluation of our present economic situation. Indeed we are on the edge of financial and economic collapse.
It is also a response, Mr. Speaker, of the government to the wrestling match of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) with inflation. He is spending a lot of time on the battlefield wrestling inflation to the ground. He is not a successful fighter in that respect. It is proposed that Bill C-124 will assist us in our efforts to reduce the rate of inflation.
I do not have to remind members that we are in a situation where practically two million Canadians are forced into a state of idleness. We are becoming more familiar every day with what that state of idleness does to people. We know the depression, the distress, the anxiety, the lowering of morale that will have profound consequences for decades to come.
I say that, Mr. Speaker, because when you have so many people unemployed in a country, it has a ripple effect that can be measured in a variety of social terms. By social terms I refer to family breakups, family violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, increased juvenile delinquency. Youngsters are having trouble at school as a result of the financial problems their parents have to face. Again, the cost of these social problems will be with us, not for years but for decades and perhaps for even a generation or two.

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We find out today that bankruptcies in the first half of 1982 have increased 37 per cent over last year, which we all know were at excessively high levels. If we add in the bankruptcies with the receiverships and with those folks who simply close up the doors of their small and medium-sized businesses, this year alone we will likely look at something in the neighbourhood of
60,000	businesses that no longer exist at the end of the year that were in effect at the beginning of 1982.
We hear that plants across the country are operating at less than 70 per cent capacity. This 70 per cent capacity results directly in increased shutdowns, increased cutbacks, employee hiring freezes, lay-offs and the threat of future lay-offs. Growing numbers of Canadians are finding themselves dependent now on UIC benefits or welfare benefits. I am sad to have to say, Mr. Speaker, that in my constituency-which is one of the richest parts of the province of British Columbia, which is one of the richest parts of Canada, which is one of the richest countries in the world-the greatest contributor to the local economy is the UIC office today. When a Member of Parliament has been forced, because of people who fall between the cracks of UIC benefits and welfare benefits, to open a food bank to assist families who are unable to put food on the table for their families, it is a very sad comment on the state of our economic affairs.
As these plants close down, cut back, or lay off their employees, and as those people who are unemployed are unable to purchase goods and services, those who are fortunate to be working today are hesitant to purchase goods and services, because they are uncertain about their future. Six months from now, where is Canada going to be? It is certainly anything but clear, Mr. Speaker. As a result, the purchasing power of Canadians has been throttled.
Then the government comes along in its budget of June 28 with an idea. They say: "Because our plants are operating at undercapacity, because people are not able to purchase the durable goods that they desire and need, or the services they desire and need, we have a solution; we are going to cut back even further, we are going to reduce wages, we will increase taxation, we will relatively cut the pensions of the people who built this country." The logic of that argument escapes me. At a time when the economy is downturning because firms cannot sell their commodities or their services, the solution is to cut back on those sales even further. That logic, as I say, escapes me.
During these times of economic crisis and economic calamity, where businesses, small, medium or large, are struggling to survive, the government has looked about for a scapegoat, for a whipping boy, for a bogyman. "We have to blame someone; we cannot blame ourselves, we have to blame someone else." So they did some polling. We are used in this country to government policy by polling, so presumably using the services of Goldfarb or Gallup, they found that the public perception of a villain focused on federal employees, considered to be lazy, overpaid. Therefore, the government decided to introduce legislation to assist the Prime Minister in his battle of wrestling inflation to the ground by limiting the wage and salary increases of federal employees to 6 per cent and 5 per cent.
The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) stand up in this House daily and say: "This will wrestle inflation to the ground; this will reduce inflation." The Minister of Finance reminds me of Peter Pan. Peter Pan said that if you really believe you can fly, you will fly. The minister says that if you really believe this will reduce inflation, it will reduce inflation.
We on this side do not believe in Peter Pan. We do not believe this is the appropriate policy to reduce inflation or to resolve the economic challenges that face Canada today. How can we have confidence in the minister's inflation-fighting device when we find that energy increases for next year will exist at the 31 per cent level? By government policy, the energy prices in Canada will increase 31 per cent next year. As a result of the ripple effect of that, there will be an increase in transportation costs, in heating costs, in cooling costs. These are going to result, of course, in fuelling the rate of inflation.
What about the $135 billion accumulated deficit that by definition will drive the interest rates even higher than they are today? Mark my words. How can you keep inflation down when you have interest rates in the 21, 22, 23 percentile range? Again, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that by definition it is impossible. Yet somehow, mysteriously, by restricting the wages of 5 per cent of working Canadians, we will have this magical impact of reducing the rate of inflation down to the 6 per cent and 5 per cent world. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Finance exists in a fairyland, that this world of 6 per cent and 5 per cent cannot exist under present government policies.
Why should we ask Canadians to follow along these guidelines voluntarily, in the absence of any over-all strategy or comprehensive program to fight inflation? As a result, we have many individuals, many groups of people, who are scrambling today in fear of their jobs or their futures. They are grabbing whatever they can in this desperate world that the government has created. You cannot blame people often for what we would tend to call being greedy, for asking for too much when the future is so uncertain for the workers of this country. Unlike the workers of Japan, which often the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance hold up as an example, where there is job security in those small, medium and large firms, where people do not have to scramble for their lives in this sort of free enterprise world in which we live.
I listened with interest to the member for Prince George-Peace River comment on free enterprise. I recall the very first business in this country. The first commercial venture was the fur trade. It was not many years before the Hudson's Bay Company, operating under a monopoly or an agreement with the government, had the entire fur trade for northern North America sewed up tight. I do not think that has changed much to this present day, when the reference earlier was to Dome Petroleum. We know full well that the taxpayers of Canada, when the crunch comes, will be called in to bail out that "free enterprise" firm because of imprudent decision-making on its
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own part, when it spent so much of its energy and its financial backing on unproductive mergers and takeovers. Elowever, that is a topic for another debate.
EIow can we ask Canadians to rally around a restraint program which has no over-all context and when minister after minister stands and says, "Yes, we probably will support a 25 per cent increase in the cost of rental accommodation provided by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and we will likely support a 25 per cent increase in telephone rates."


Mr. Tousignant:: You are misleading the House. Be serious.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The Minister of Finance rose today and said there will be exceptions. When government regulatory agencies which, presumably, are to fall under the 6 per cent and 5 per cent guidelines will not be held to that, I think the confidence of the Canadian public in the ability of this government to lead wanes considerably.
High interest rates will drive inflation up on a continuing basis. This will result in a continuing economic downturn. Why would any investor, large or small, invest in expanding a business in this country today? By definition the economic environment in Canada is risky. Why should they invest otherwise when they could have purchased Canada Savings Bonds at 19.5 per cent and when they can invest their money in secure accounts and receive up to 17.5 per cent? Why would anyone invest his money in expanding a business, a ranch, a farm or an enterprise of any kind? As long as interest rates remain as high as they are, inflation will continue at a skyhigh level and the economic downturn in this country will continue unabated.
This is an unfair bill. It is in tune with the budget because the budget was, by all accounts, a very unfair budget in terms of what it did to Canadians. To set the context for my remarks about unfairness, I want to refer to the aspect of the budget which resulted in income tax increases for all Canadians. The rhetoric of the Minister of Finance sounds good when he says everyone's taxes will be increased, but that is not quite true. For example, single taxpayers who have no dependants and earn less than $7,500 a year-which includes many seniors, the pioneers of our country-will pay additional taxes in excess of 50 per cent. However, a single taxpayer with no dependants earning $100,000 a year will not pay increased taxes of 50 per cent; those taxes will go up by 2.5 per cent. The taxes of a person earning $200,000 a year will decrease this coming year.


David Orlikow: That is the Liberal idea of equity.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: That is free enterprise.


Nelson Andrew Riis: That is the kind of equity and fairness the Minister of Finance had the gall to propose in his budget speech in this House. I do not, of course, have to refer to the fact that in this budget we have put the burden of fighting inflation on the
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backs of senior citizens, whose benefits next year again will decrease.
Let me refer to Bill C-124 as it deals specifically with federal employees and 6 per cent and 5 per cent restraints on their wages. This wage restraint is across the board, which means that increases in the wages and salaries of all federal employees and federal Crown corporation employees will be limited to 6 per cent in the year ahead. A cabinet minister whose income is now $102,000 will receive an increase of just over $6,000 next year. A senior official in the federal government whose income is $80,000 will receive an increase of nearly $5,000 in the coming year. Most public servants make about $12,000 a year, and they will receive increases next year of $720. Many government employees earn less than $12,000 a year. I think there is a public perception that anyone who works for the federal government is automatically in the $40,000 to $50,000 range. A federal office equipment worker in Vancouver has an annual income of $11,379. A typist working for the federal government in the city of Winnipeg earns $11,353. Teacher aides in the Atlantic provinces earn $9,631. This is blatantly unfair. People in one category of the federal public service will get $6,000 increases and the majority of those in another bracket will receive increases in the $700 range. Anyone who calls that fair is a dreamer and believes in unicorns.


David Orlikow: It should be reversed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Of course it should be reversed, and if we are to have cutbacks, they should be undertaken in a progressive way. This bill will simply emphasize the poor distribution of income and wealth in Canada.
One group of Canadians will be particularly hurt by this provision, and that group is the women of Canada who work for the federal government in one capacity or another. Statistics tell us that of those employees who make less than $10,000, nearly 70 per cent are women; of those employees who make less than $15,000, 64 per cent are women; and of those making less than $25,000, nearly 60 per cent are women. Surprisingly, of those making $50,000 and more, only 3 per cent are women. I think it is important to recognize that this is not a fair bill, and that is why we in the New Democratic Party oppose it so strongly. We oppose it because it is unfair by any description or definition.
To add insult to injury, a few days ago we heard that all the assistants of ministers of the government received increases of 11 per cent just before this bill was introduced. They got in just under the wire.


Mr. King:: The Liberal way.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Ministers took care of their own. A group of lawyers working in the Department of Justice received 10 per cent increases, surprinsingly, just a day or two before this provision was introduced.


Frederick John King: That is the Liberal way.

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Nelson Andrew Riis: It is a sad day for Canada when we are debating- now under the cloud of closure-a bill which treats the employees of any institution so unfairly and then ask Canadians to rally around this "wonderful" program. That really is asking too much.
Many comments have been made over the last number of days that this bill is necessary in order to improve the competitiveness of Canada in international markets. Editorialists are prone to say that the wages of Canadians are so high that we are now unable to compete in the international marketplace. I want to consider that for a moment or two. The Majority of our exports are not labour-intensive at all. I refer, of course, to our huge wheat sales, huge energy sales and coal sales. These are major export commodities which are not labour-intensive. The wages of employees in these sectors play a relatively small part in the over-all expense, particularly during these times of high interest rates.
Let us look at the manufacturing sector. We hear cries that we cannot manufacture in this country because our wages are too high. Let us examine the facts and then decide. I will refer to manufacturing wage rates in a variety of countries which trade with one another. These wage rates were applicable in the year 1980. 1 choose that year not because of any selectiveness but because that is the year for which we have the most accurate data. The average manufacturing wage rate in Belgium, a major trading partner of Canada, was $13.18 per hour; in Sweden it was $12.60 per hour; in The Netherlands, $12.18 per hour; in West Germany, $11.94 per hour; in the United States of America, $9.92 per hour; in France, $9.46 per hour; and in Canada, $9.06 per hour. We ranked seventh among those countries, which are some of our major trading partners.
Over the last few years in West Germany, for example, which is one of our major trading partners, since 1975 manufacturing wages have increased by 91 per cent; in the United States by 56 per cent and in Canada by 48 per cent.


Frank Oberle: Why do you not talk about productivity at the same time?


Nelson Andrew Riis: I could discuss productivity at some length, Mr. Speaker.


Frank Oberle: Why don't you?


Nelson Andrew Riis: I feel it is appropriate to be relevant in our speeches, unlike some other hon. members whose comments were totally irrelevant.
When we consider productivity, do we consider the individual worker or the fact that in Canada we have branch plants which were never intended to be competitive on the international market in most cases? I do not think that matter is appropriate to a debate on wage and salary limitations for federal employees. I believe in the rule of relevancy, Mr. Speaker.
I have tried to indicate that wages in the manufacturing sector of this country relate relatively well to those of other
trading nations. When we speak of competition, does that mean that we want to compete with the multinational companies that choose their plant locations in order to take advantage of the cheapest labour possible-virtually slave labour? 1 have visited many plants in Third World countries where conditions could only be described as virtual slavery, where wages are 25 cents per hour. Do we want to participate in that kind of blind reaction that causes the difficulty in which we find ourselves today.
To what extent are federal employees the major cause of inflation? An interesting picture emerges from an examination of the increases in their wages over the past few years. In 1978 wage increases for federal employees averaged 6.6 per cent while for the same year inflation was 8.8 per cent; in 1980 wage increases for federal employees averaged 6.6 per cent and inflation was 9.4 per cent; in 1981 wage increases for federal employees averaged 8.8 per cent in the first quarter and the inflation rate was 12.2 per cent. These wage settlements were two to four points under the rate of inflation.
Are the real causes of inflation in this country employee wages in the private or public sector, or are they the result of government pricing through regulatory agencies as announced earlier today, when we found out that in past years the prices that the government could control increased by an average of 18 per cent? This covers energy prices and high interest rates. Surely those are the critical causes of inflation, not wage settlements of federal employees that range from two to four points below the average rate of inflation.
Who has most strongly advocated wage controls, Mr. Speaker? Who appeared not long ago in Ottawa saying that the answer to our problems was to control incomes? Let me read from a list of a few of the people who were advocating that reduction of wages was the obvious step to take. These people would obviously have a real sensitivity to the strains and stresses felt by the breadwinners in the country today, those people who are trying to make their mortgage payments and put food on the table. There was Mr. Ed Phillips, Chairman of Westcoast Transmission, whose income in 1980-81 increased from $257,656 to 444,836; David Culver, president of Alcan, whose income increased in 1981 from $392,601 to $447,702; the chairman of Bell Canada had a tough time in 1981 when his income increased from $514,000 to $626,000. Then there was the chairman of Seagram's Mr. Bronfman, whose income increased in 1981 from $887,646 to over $1 million. If his increase had been limited to 6 per cent he would have received only a $63,000 increase in that year. These are the people who are advocating wage controls as the answer to the country's problems. The government's credibility evaporates when one sees the people who are advising it-other than the polls-regarding this program.
In spite of the advice given by leaders of industry and business regarding wage controls-and that is not a surprise-
suggest that if the truth were known the wisest business leaders in the country would not advocate wage controls
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because they recognize the long-term results that flow from them. We remember what happened a few years ago when the Anti-Inflation Board attempted to wrestle inflation to the ground. Most members will recall the period from 1975 to 1978. We were not dealing then with 5 per cent of the work force but with wage guidelines for all Canadians. I remember that a number of my acquaintances were scoffing and laughing because while everyone else's wages were restricted, they were finding new positions and their wages were going up; they were manipulating new jobs that were created for them and they were being hired back and forth by various firms. In other words, there was always a way around the regulations.
In 1975 the rate of inflation was 10.6 per cent. The target for the anti-inflation program was to reduce it to 8 per cent in 1976, 6 per cent in 1977 and 4 per cent in 1978. But when the program terminated in 1978 the rate of inflation was 9 per cent. And at what a price! The business and industrial leaders of the country know the reality of the situation. They know that the price was the thousands and thousands of Canadians who lost their jobs and as a result could not contribute in any way to the economy. That was the price of a one percentage point reduction in the rate of inflation, as well as the incredible bureaucracy that was built up and which laid a dark shroud over the country for three years.
There is one insidious aspect of this legislation that I do not like to talk about because I really cannot believe it is happening in Canada. This is a country that prides itself on being free, on providing opportunities for people, on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. We have just spent two years discussing the Charter of Rights. In the next breath, however, the government introduces a bill to remove free collective bargaining from public employees. The member opposite says "Oh, come on". That is what this bill does, if she reads it. It eliminates free collective bargaining. Set aside for the moment the question of the right to strike, which some members might want to argue about at some other point. We are talking about free collective bargaining. We are talking about a House which stood up day after day in support of the Solidarity movement in Poland, saying that this was a basic human right which any person should have. This government has removed that freedom from its own employees for the next two years, of course thereby breaking its contracts.
Free collective bargaining is an integral part of any free and democratic society. This bill denies federal employees the right to negotiate any items, including monetary items. The monetary items are set by guidelines, and the ability to negotiate such areas as flexible working hours, work sharing and technological change provisions, occupational health and safety provisions, security against unfair disciplinary action, maternity or parental leave, affirmative action, equal pay for equal work-


Norman Kelly: No, you are wrong.
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Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, this bill denies the right of nearly
500,000	employees to negotiate in those very critical areas during these presumably enlightened 1980s. To make Canada work, the government has decided to remove the basic democratic rights that the people have come to enjoy after a long and difficult struggle.
Let us be honest about the basis of many of our problems. I know we on this side are prone to hurl barbs across the way at the incompetence demonstrated by the federal government. That is our job, to criticize the federal government and the legislation it introduces. But there is another problem in our country and it has to do with the business of strikes. We have seen a very special strike occur in the last number of months in our land. It is not the kind of strike that normally riles some Canadians; it is a strike of capital. It really began with the first discussions about the National Energy Program. It was a decision by capital, domestic and foreign, to bring the economy to its knees. The Americans made no bones about it. They said they wanted to bring their cash home, and they did not hesitate despite knowing that it would destroy the economies of a variety of countries.
Capital went on strike in Canada as well. It is a sad day, Mr. Speaker, when on a daily basis we hear many business leaders standing up and criticizing this government for its inaction when in fact the strike of capital, in a not so subtle way, has equally resulted in the downturn of our economy over the last number of months. As a result of our economic structure, Canada has, because of a national policy, found itself to be a branch plant economy of countries like the United States.
My friends to the right, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservatives, talk on and on about the free enterprise world in which we live. It was Sir John A. Macdonald who introduced the protective policies which enabled the manufacturing industries of Central Canada to be protected to a certain extent and use domestic resources to fuel their plants. That is not free enterprise in any way, shape or form. Today we have the same situation where the decisions about our future, whether to invest or grow in this or that particular area, whether to support and develop this or that kind of agriculture or other resources, are being made in boardrooms in the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and other countries.
Therefore, it amazes me when the Progressive Conservatives stand up daily and say the answer to our problem is to remove FIRA and encourage more foreign decision-making regarding our future, and more foreign investment. They are saying the problem is also the solution, and I must say the logic escapes me.
In summary, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that we are facing very difficult economic times. Many would say we are on the verge of a full-scale depression. I want to make it clear that we in the New Democratic Party feel that the way to stop this recessionary trend and initiate economic recovery is not by restricting the wages and salaries of federal employees.
COMMONS DEBATES__________________July 14, 1982
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Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I am very glad to have an opportunity to speak against Bill C-124 because I think it is quite possibly a watershed in legislation. I think this is a special occasion and it makes some of us, at least, think back about 37 years. This legislation may very well mark the end of an era. Those of us who remember World War II and being demobilized in 1945 can remember the sense of hope we had. We can remember the great excitement about the sort of new world we were facing. There was a great vision of what we were going to do after the war. We had defeated fascism, so we thought. There was a great deal of enthusiasm all over the world for reconstruction of those countries which had been damaged in the war, and those countries constricted by war production had great opportunities for expansion into new kinds of peacetime construction and development. There was a hunger for reconstruction and growth. It was that new vision, enthusiasm and hopeful expectation which was the basis for the kind of social peace and co-operation which has lasted for perhaps three decades.
The watchword, as I and others will recall, when we came out of the forces in 1945 was: full employment. We all remember that the unemployment of the thirties was only six years previous. The one thing that everyone, parties of the left, right and centre, political and labour movements of all kinds, agreed on was full employment. There was no need to force people to be idle while production goes down and people are in want. That was the basis of a kind of social contract 37 years ago. But this legislation now before us signals that the government has cancelled that understanding with the Canadian people. This legislation breaks that social contract.
It is not the first sign of the breaking. There have been many other things which I will not detail now, but this is an open wound. It is even more severe than the action of 1975. At the beginning it affects only half a million or perhaps a million workers, depending upon how many in the private sector may be on contract with the government. But we have the warning of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that there may very well be more to follow.
What has been done by the Prime Minister and by the Liberal caucus with the full approval of the leader and members of the Tory caucus is to break that social contract made at the end of the war in 1945 and to introduce a kind of naked class legislation, harsher than I think we have seen in the last 37 years. We would probably have to go back to iron heel Bennett or to Borden's class legislation of 60 or more years ago to find the like of it.
This is class legislation against employees. Employees are specifically singled out for discriminatory treatment. Discrimination will be applied against them because they are employees. Employees are now second-class citizens in Canada. We had a signal of this. The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) signalled this in the opening remarks of his budget on November 12, 1981. He said that "excessive income demands on the part of those employed denies employment to others." There is no mention of excessive demands on the part of employers and investors, those who buy the labour of others.
Only those who are forced to sell their labour are accused of being the cause of the unemployment of their fellow workers.
In this legislation we have exactly the same principle. Apparently there are some members across the way who do not believe that collective bargaining has been destroyed for at least two years. I presume they just rely on the caucus to tell them which way to vote and so have not found it necessary to read Bill C-124. When they do get around to Bill C-124, they will find Clause 7 which reads:
Every collective agreement or arbitral award that includes a compensation plan that is extended under section 4 or 5 shall, subject to this Part, continue in force without change for the period for which the compensation plan is extended.
In other words, a whole union contract is frozen, extended for two years. Employees are not allowed to bargain even on non-monetary items. That is the clear reading of those words. That is how that clause is read by hundreds of thousands or millions of people in this land, probably everyone here except the people sitting in the backbenches across the way.
That is class legislation by people who preach unity and cooperation, the co-operation of the horse and the rider. This government has destroyed what has been won through a century or a century and a half of negotiation, namely the recognition of the right to collective bargaining. This government cannot destroy the right to collective bargaining. That is inherent to basic relationships and to basic humanity of the men and women of this country and other countries of the world. What is being destroyed is the government's recognition of that right. The Liberals are inviting the severest kind of social disorder in this country by doing that.
There is no legislation whatever touching on a limitation of profits. There is no legislation whatever touching on a limitation of prices. The class of investors and employers gets off scot-free and is the beneficiary of this wage freeze legislation.
It is ironic to listen to some of the Tories warning of the social unrest that will come from this. They have admitted that they will be voting with the Liberals for this class legislation. It is not surprising. For once the Tories have been uncharacteristically consistent. Their former leader, Mr. Stanfield, first preached the idea of this class legislation. But in case there was any doubt, their leader, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), said on July 5: "What is in this budget? There is one important initiative: the introduction of restraint on public sector salaries." Since then a number of his followers have joined him in supporting that statement.
The Tories like to rail against us any time we vote with the government, but on this most important piece of legislation, the most important for several years, the Tories will do all they can to support it. As one hon. member said yesterday, the Tories will get on the 6 per cent and 5 per cent bandwagon. The Tories will climb on the bandwagon that has been created by the people with whom they pretend to disagree.
This new budget is an attack on the working people of Canada. It is a worse budget than the budget of November, 1981. This budget adds to the attack made then. This budget
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cuts the wages of the employee. That is to say, it cuts them clearly below what the government predicts is the cost of living. This budget cuts and will cut benefits to the unemployed. Cuts have been made administratively. Already the government is reducing staff in the unemployment and pension offices. The government will simply drag out the process of applications.
Soon the government will put an extra tax on those workers still working in order to pay for the cover-up schemes which the government has, like the cover-up scheme when you take four jobs and stretch those jobs among five people, claiming you have created a job. The government will be cutting benefits to the unemployed and it will be cutting welfare payments further than has already been done. Welfare is all there is left for somebody who has been left out of unemployment insurance benefits or who has run through his unemployment insurance benefits.
In its haste to introduce naked class legislation, the government has shown complete contempt for contracts. The government has signed contracts with its employees. The government urges employees to bargain in good faith. The government sets the laws of bargaining in good faith and then the government wipes them out. It is not the first time the government has done this. The government previously granted the right to strike, but when that right was used the government cancelled it.
There are two kinds of laws in this country. When the RCMP illegally opened mail, the government passed a law to make that act legal. That is what it just did in the freedom of information legislation. When the postal workers went out on a legal strike, the government passed a law to make it illegal. Those bills were the forerunners of this bill. But this bill is much broader.
In the same budget-not in this bill but it is part of the package-the government is raising the income tax of almost every Canadian through partial deindexing. It is lowering the real pension, the actual spending power of the pensioner. According to the government's own projections of inflation, the actual spending power will be lower. There is no reason to think that the government has overestimated inflation because in the past the government has always underestimated it. There will be a real drop in the value of the pension through partial deindexation.
There is the signal to all employers in Canada that this government now despises the principle of collective bargaining. In fact, it despises the principle of a contract. It is prepared to dishonour its contracts whenever it chooses. The government has openly advocated that the private employers of Canada should follow the government's lead in this dishonourable action and follow the government's lead in treating employees as second-class citizens in Canada.
On the other hand, there are giveaways to the wealthy through new schemes for indexing investment or investment income. As has been pointed out before, the principle of this
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government is that if workers are to work harder it must give them less money; but for investors to work harder it must give them more money. This is how the government has corrupted the income tax system of this land in the same budget. This is in addition to all the tax gifts that were given to the same wealthy people in the November budget and by the concessions made since the November budget to the insurance companies and others in that field who appealed to the government about what I presume was their poverty and the difficulty of living on $100,000 a year. What this budget does is increase the revenue and power of that small group of people whose principal concern is to export Canada, primarily our raw materials, as fast as possible in order to get the quick bucks before the whole world economy collapses.
The budget supports the people who make their living by the revenues of the war industry, directly from the increased Canadian defence budget and indirectly by supplying materials to the much increased American war budget. It cuts the standard of living of working people directly. As well, it signals all power to the investor and employer class.
Why does the Minister of Finance do this? His stated reason is very simple, simplistic and false. For example, on July 5 in answer to the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) he said, as reported on page 18983 of Hansard:
That is the logic of the budget statement, if all income demands-and I am putting the emphasis on all-
He did not do that before but he did it here because he realized he was talking to a union supporter.
-were reduced to 6 per cent, then price increases would drop to 6 per cent. That would be the inevitable result-
That is just pure hogwash. I do not think the Minister of Finance believes for a moment what he said. It is so nonsensical.
It is the same old hoary theory that the party opposite and the party to the right, when they have had their chance, have used since World War II. In spite of the social contract that was made at the end of the war, they have been chiselling away at it year by year with this same old hoary theory.
It used to be called the trickle down theory where you pour some in at the top and the people at the top get some, the people in the middle get some and the people at the bottom get some which makes everyone happy. The only thing that the sleight-of-hand people do not tell us about this trickle down theory is where the money comes from that is poured into the top. Of course, they got it from the taxpayers, who are primarily the low and middle-income people who cannot afford to hire accountants and lawyers to help them not pay any taxes at all. What this trickle down theory really says is that those lucky people at the botton, if they live long enough, may be able to get back some of what was taken away from them.
Of course, this is the same principle which is being followed here in Ontario by the Tory government. This is why that government has decided to bail out their friends, the private investors, by putting harsh new sales taxes on all these necessities needed by the people of Ontario. The only problem is that

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the trickle down theory does not work. It is catching up with them. As was pointed out last night, we now have approximately $135 billion of foreign debt which involves huge repayments that are becoming even larger each year. These repayments are laid on the working people of Canada.
Some have made rather mocking remarks about the foreign debt of Poland, suggesting that their foreign debt puts the Polish government in a crisis. Poland, with a much larger population than Canada, has a smaller foreign debt than Canada.
I think it is probably a fact that the decisions of those members in the front benches across the way are not really made in consultation with their backbenchers, let alone any serious debate with members on this side of the House. Decisions are certainly not made in any open, frank discussions with the people of Canada. The decisions made in the front benches, such as this one, I believe are made only in consultation with the international banking community, as was the case with the 1975 wage freeze.
We have a famous Canadian graduate who graduated to the United States as an economist. Mr. Galbraith recently seemed to have a sort of death bed repentance. He called this trickle down theory the horse and sparrow theory. He said that when he was a boy on a southern Ontario farm they talked about the horse and sparrow theory, which says that if you feed the horse enough oats some of them will fall on the ground for the sparrow too. When I read what Mr. Galbraith had written before, it was exactly that theory which he was preaching. He got rich by writing books which told people not to worry if the system is unjust and there is an unjust difference between the rich and the poor; we are all getting richer and we do not have to worry about the other person. He has now said that what he was talking about is nonsense. The only trouble with the horse and sparrow theory is that it does not work when you see that it is the sparrow which has to buy the oats for the horse.
Speaking of horses, in the Kensington area where I live we used to have a couple of junkmen or ragabonies, as some people called them. One old junkman in particular went through the streets with his horse, Betty, to pick up junk from people's yards to sell. He made a bare living that way. He could pay the rent, buy food for him and oats for Betty. As the prices went up he came to a crisis. He went out to the stable and said, "I am sorry, Betty, we have to tighten our belts". He gave Betty a few less oats each day until finally, on a Tuesday morning, he gave his horse no oats at all. He was a little slower on his rounds that day. The next day, Wednesday, he went to the stable and the horse lay dead on the floor. The junkman said: "Look at that ungrateful beast. Just when I taught her to live on nothing, she goes and dies on me!" I expect that that junkman voted Liberal. It is within living memory when people thought that Spadina was a safe Liberal riding. Maybe the horse voted Liberal also because we can remember when horses used to be on the payroll here, so why not on the voters' list?
From what 1 have seen, I do not believe that the people of Spadina or the people in the rest of Canada are as docile and willing to lie down and die as that horse. They will defend
themselves. They are saying that they do not like and will not accept a system which makes them the guinea pigs for an experiment that has already been proven false.
Why will they not accept it? First, they are the ones who have to carry the misery. They can see that it is not being carried by those who impose it on them. I have an unsolicited letter from a senior citizen in the city of Winnipeg. I used to live there, but that is not how the letter happened to come to me. He wrote, referring to the budget:
Please vote against the current "Budget" proposal which would limit to 6 per cent and 5 per cent respectively the increase in superannuation payments for the next two years.
I ask you to vote against this because while I was employed in the Federal Public Service, I paid the premiums required for insurance against "erosion of pensions' purchasing power".
In other words, he paid into the pension plan. Some of us are aware of the point he is making and agree with his letter. Others, though, especially those across the way, would rather the letters all went into the waste basket and were forgotten because they have a bad conscience for having cheated people out of the pensions for which they paid.
There are other workers in the Kensington area. Those making a living by hard work include construction workers, cleaners working for the minimum wage in the downtown buildings and the banks, the banks that made $1.5 billion in profits last year at the expense of low-wage workers, and viciously attack them when they try to organize unions. There are clerks working in places like Simpsons, which is laying off staff because customers are not coming in to buy since they do not have any money. There are maintenance workers who have been laid off, some of whom have been hunting for work for two years. In fact, in Kensington during the last decade or so a new industry has been developed: worm picking. At night the buses bring home the families consisting of fathers, mothers and children who have been out on the golf courses, or the lawns down in metro, picking worms. These are people who want to work and expect to work to maintain themselves, but who are not allowed to work because there are 1.5 million or two million unemployed in the country. These are people trying to make ends meet, although the cost of living is being pushed up by the deliberate, planned actions of the government.
Last month the price of food went up by 2.2 per cent, which was the largest monthly increase in two years. Apart from food, there are other big costs, such as shelter charges and gasoline prices. Just two weeks ago, the Prime Minister refused even to consider applying the guidelines to oil prices. There are increased costs for home heating and Bell telephone. Mortgage interest has increased 25.5 per cent over last year. Heating gas is up by 28.7 per cent over last year. Telephone service is up by 21.2 per cent and the company wants more in the next few months. The government will give it more. The government will stall and say: "Let the commission look into it and then we will consider it". By the time the government has
July 14, 1982

considered it, the company will be back for still another increase and it will also get that one from the government.
The government has created the very inflation that it said it is trying to fight. It has pushed prices up. It has not merely permitted them to rise, but has deliberately pushed them up for the last seven years through the interest policy of Governor Bouey. Therefore, the government blames the workers of Canada whose wages are 11 per cent lower than those in the United States, a land where the interest rates are also lower. The government blames workers in Canada for the government's decision to raise interest rates and all the other government administered charges.
We have seen an illustration of what was done to make the tax system more unequal; but now look at the deindexation of old age security. Under the indexed system, a person would have received $3,135.90 in 1983, but under the deindexed system it will be only $3,058.62, an absolute cut of $77.28. The next year, 1984, the cut will be $218.25, and so on, growing from year to year. Even if indexing were restored, it would be restored on that lower basis.
Women are especially restricted. At a time when there are huge changes coming in office machinery or procedures, women who follow the government's example, especially those in the government, are to be prevented from bargaining to protect either their jobs or their wages. Although only 39.6 per cent of total employees in the public sector are women, they make up 81.6 per cent of the support staff, the low-paid employees. When it comes to being laid off, these women, who equal 39.6 per cent of the employees, account for 54 per cent of those laid off.
What the working people of Canada understand is that the final pay-off of this system which makes them second-class citizens, blaming them for an inflation created by the government to the benefit of their employers, blaming them for being employees, is that the system will not even achieve the stated goal of cutting inflation. The 1975-78 wage freeze or, as the government likes to dress it up, "wage and price freeze", was a fraud and a failure for its stated goal of reducing inflation. It was a fraud because at the time it was introduced both prices and wages were already declining. In other words, prices and wages were coming down and the government decided to make it look as though it had done something by jumping on the bandwagon.
According to the budget figures put forward by the minister in November, wages in 1974 had gone up by 15.2 per cent, but in 1975 wage increases were down to 14.5 per cent. From there on, wage increases were 13.3 per cent, 8.3 per cent, 5.6 per cent and so on, on the way down, when the government put on a freeze. Likewise, prices were on the way down. They were 10.9 per cent the year before, 10.8 per cent when the government started its freeze and they dropped to 7.5 per cent. However, unlike wages, they did not keep going down. In 1977, while wages continued to go down, prices started coming up to 8 per cent. The next year, they were 8.9 per cent. In other words, while wage increases dropped from 14.5 per cent
Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act
to 5.6 per cent, the price rise dropped only from 10.8 per cent to 8.9 per cent. In other words, it was very successful in cutting wages and increasing profits. As the government has admitted in the study it did a year and a half ago, it was a failure in lowering prices. It was a fraud and a failure.
It is very interesting that at that time the Governor of the Bank of Canada more or less admitted that that was what was going on. At that time, in his annual report he said:
-through a sharp and immediate reduction of the growth rate of the money supply ... inflation would readily come to an end.
The trouble with this prescription is not with the medicine but with the dosage, which would be so great that the patient would suffer excessively while it was working. It would sharply curtail the growth of spending on goods and services-
He spoke as though he did not want this to occur, but in fact all his predictions occurred. He said:
It would sharply curtail the growth of spending on goods and services ... result in extremely weak markets, widespread bankruptcies and soaring unemployment.
Boy, do we ever have weak markets! He spoke as though he did not want to do this, but that is exactly what he did. At the time he spoke, unemployment was 6.9 per cent. Now, thanks to Bouey, it is 10.9 per cent and rising. At that time inflation was 9.5 per cent. Now it is 11.8 per cent. The bank rate was 9 per cent and it is now over 16 per cent. At that time there were 246 business bankruptcies per month. The figure is now over 900 per month. Consumer bankruptcies totalled 8,335 and have now nearly doubled to more than 14,000. In other words, the evil result that Mr. Bouey said he would like to avoid is exactly the result he has achieved with his systematic increase in interest rates.
The wage freeze of 1975-76 was a fraud and a failure. This one is a fraud and will be a failure. The people of Spadina and the rest of Canada will not accept this. They will not accept this attack on the wages, bargaining rights, pensions and income tax exemptions of the ordinary working people of Spadina and Canada. They will not accept government-made inflation of prices and the deliberately increased unemployment brought on by this government.
These people understand what the government meant a year and half ago when it said it could not bring in a wage freeze unless it could be made to be seen that there was some kind of emergency. They understand the government has created the sense or appearance of an emergency, or even a real emergency, to provide the excuse for bringing in the wage freeze.
These people understand that the government regularly defends the profits of the big corporations. 1 am not talking about the small businessmen, the merchants and manufacturers of Spadina. The government is wiping those out at a great rate. I am talking about the large corporations such as the oil companies and the banks.
The people of Spadina, Toronto and Canada understand that the government is the defender of those corporations. They are the first-class citizens even if they are not Canadians. Even if they do not live in Canada, they are the first-class

July 14, 1982
Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act
citizens here. The Minister of Finance said that everyone who is an employee is a second-class citizen and is condemned to be blamed for the inflation and unemployment which this government has created.
Some members opposite suggest it is not good enough merely to point out that their plan is a fraud and will fail, that some alternative ought to be offered. I remind them that the leader of our party, the hon. member for Oshawa (Mr. Broad-bent), has repeatedly put forward alternatives. I will touch on some of them.
The chief alternative that we ask for is a policy to replace imports so that we can restore our manufacturing industry and reduce our deficit in imported goods. We must replace imports of transportation machinery, not just automobiles but transportation, mining, forest and farm machinery, all those things we now import and which are increasing the deficit in this country. We must start to produce these items again in Canada. We should follow the lead of some other countries and impose restraints on the multinational corporations, telling them that if they want a slice of the Canadian market, they have to produce in Canada accordingly and provide jobs so that people can buy those products. They have to create jobs here of equal value to what they want to import into Canada.
We have suggested that investment be put into manufacturing rather than handouts to the poor, starving oil barons and the banks in the form of interest rates deliberately kept high. Public investment should be directed away from megaprojects and into manufacturing in order to provide employment for Canadians where they are, in the cities, with the skills they have and have shown.
There are four other points I wish to list. We must compel the banks to lower interest rates to 1 per cent above the inflation rate. We must be ready to impose foreign exchange controls to prevent investors from shipping abroad the capital produced by Canadian labour. If that has to be done by public control, or even expropriation of the banks as other countries have done, so be it.
Immediately we have to boost the affordable housing industry, not the luxury housing which the minister likes so much, with $500 million of investment to spark 50,000 new units and 100,000 new jobs. We have to boost farming with price stabilization and forestry and fisheries with programs for reforestation and regeneration of those resources.
We must give them an immediate shot in the arm once we have protected the Canadian economy from being raped by foreign investors. Then it would be appropriate to cut taxes for low and middle-income people and to cut the planned increases in oil prices in order to stimulate consumer buying. That would release about $4 billion, $2 billion from each. We should stimulate consumer buying and get our manufacturing industry going again, which now operates at about two-thirds capacity.
This is what should be done instead of this class legislation which will not work. It is being rejected by the Canadian
people. It cries out for a completely new social contract. This Liberal government with Tory backing has ripped up the social contract made with the working people of Canada in 1945. A new contract is needed.


Mr. Remi Bujold (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be taking part in the debate this afternoon, and I am particularly pleased to see that the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) is in the House. Unfortunately, I could not be in my riding last weekend to welcome him. I hope he had an opportunity to visit the area when he met my few Progressive Conservative friends, at Maria. I also hope he noticed that the federal government's presence is very visible in the riding of Bonaventure and in the Gaspe, and that the people in this area do not intend to change their allegiance in the House of Commons and intend to continue with the same members in the spirit of co-operation that has always existed in this part of the country which was, in fact, the first area to be discovered. They intend to make the development plan for eastern Quebec, announced on May 4 by the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), a success and show that in an area where at certain times of the year the unemployment rate is as much as 60 per cent, it is possible to reduce unemployment and improve conditions so that people can go on living there, to co-operate with the federal government and to obtain funds earmarked for this purpose. It is clear, Mr. Speaker-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, usually I manage to resist the temptation to get involved in this kind of debate with hon. members, but he mentioned my recent visit, and I simply want to say that I had an excellent reception and that I have photographs taken by some of the hon. member's fellow citizens showing the state of the wharves in certain areas of his riding; I am sure that together, we would be able to persuade the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cosgrove) to repair the wharves and give the fishermen in his area a chance to earn a living.


Joseph Roger Rémi Bujold: I wish to thank the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Speaker, I may point out, however, that perhaps his advisers forgot to mention that, last year, the federal government injected $10 million into the local economy for the construction of wharves alone, and this year, in my own constituency, the federal government injected $3 million, and the fishermen from this part of Quebec and Canada are very pleased with the federal government's participation.
It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that the bill under consideration this afternoon demands the involvement and co-operation of all Canadians. When wage increases are frozen at 6 and 5 per
July 14, 1982

cent for the next two years, obviously no one is going to be too pleased. On the other hand, if we look at the economic situation throughout the country, we must set aside our personal interests and concentrate on the interests of the entire country. In his budget speech, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen) said, and I quote:
1 will ask Canadians to participate in a strategy to make Canada a tougher, more resilient society. The way out of the recession is to bring down inflation and increase productivity. We must all share the burden and responsibility.
The government will take a leading role in this strategy.
I believe that, by this appeal, the Minister of Finance wanted to go beyond any political partisanship, any personal interest of individual Canadians. He was making a general appeal so that every one of us would put aside our personal ambitions or ideas to make a determined attack on the major problem now facing us, namely inflation. It is obvious that all of us, the government, the unions and business, must make every effort to reduce inflation throughout the country. Everyone must do his share. Obviously, the federal government had to show leadership in this area. For such a program to be successful, we must call on the generosity of everyone. The process which we began in the budget speech cannot succeed if every Canadian in every region of the country does not feel involved in the present debate.
I must say, Mr. Speaker, that we have already had examples throughout the country to show that there is some solidarity among Canadians and that some people are willing to share with others and be generous.
Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, that the experience of our own department of Employment and Immigration has shown for eight to ten months already that workers throughout the country can share with their fellow citizens. When we introduced the word-sharing program, we were appealing to the generosity of Canadian workers. If over 3,000 work-sharing agreements have now been signed in Canada, which agreements have preserved 115,000 jobs and allowed 52,000 workers to continue working in the same plants, it is precisely because other workers in these same plants were willing to reduce their wages and share with others who would otherwise have been laid-off. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that if these workers had not agreed to the work-sharing plan, if they had not shown this generosity in key industries in certain areas, these industries would have had to shut down and we would have had unemployment and jobless rates of 50, 60, 80 and even 90 per cent. We have here a striking example, Mr. Speaker, of the fact that Canadians are capable and willing to co-operate with each other in dealing with the major problem of the day- inflation.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, following the budget speech, the opposition reacted quite ruthlessly in some areas, but that was to be expected, because, whenever the government takes action or announces measures, it has been customary for the opposition, the media and all opposition groups in the country to
Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act
criticize the government in power. However, as people started to look at the budget and realized what was involved and looked at the economic situation throughout the country, opposition to the budget gradually faded. In a number of meetings held by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Minister of Finance with major groups in this country and in meetings held by other ministers with members on this side of the House, to explain the budget measures in greater detail, it became clear to many Canadians that the measures we were proposing were beneficial to the Canadian people. When the president of the Canadian Labour Congress came out of his meeting with the Prime Minister, some of our opposition friends did not particularly like his comments, but 1 think the president and some of his colleagues have understood that the serious situation we are experiencing today is the concern of all Canadians, that it is not just a problem to be solved not only by the Canadian government but also by the unions, workers, business, and all Canadians in this country.
Mr. Speaker, when we hear criticism of Bill C-124 and when people argue that we are going to gag the unions, that the right of strike will be more or less abolished throughout the public service, I would like to point out that we are now at the second reading stage. Negotiations and discussions can continue, and the Prime Minister said very clearly that all good suggestions, and I insist on the word good, will be given serious consideration by the government.
Obviously, we are not going to close the door on negotiations, and the bill now before the House is limited in time, because it will apply for a period of two years. All unions and all Canadians involved throughout the country will have an opportunity to express their views, to modify certain decisions and bring about changes in the state of the economy, during and beyond those two years.
Mr. Speaker, we must not forget that many Canadian industries have had to shut down because of the present economic crisis. If the measures we are proposing are successful in bringing down inflation, many industries will be able to remain active and many workers will be able to continue to work in these industries, which will prove beneficial to all Canadians. Mr. Speaker, it is important that we understand the measures this government wishes to introduce in the fight against inflation. Understandably, Canadians are not eager to see industries close down and people who have worked in these industries for twenty or thirty years lose their jobs, and often older people at that. No one likes to see these people lose their jobs.
Mr. Speaker, may I call it six o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being six o'clock, 1 do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m. tomorrow.
At 6 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, July 15, 1982