1982-04-08

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, the Liberal government's high interest rate policy, designed to reduce inflation, is not working. In fact it is inducing inflation as well as being the main cause of hundreds of bankruptcies and the loss of homes and farms. Industries and businesses are closing down, and more than a million people are looking for jobs. In fact high interest is largely the cause of the present Liberal depression, but still the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) refuse stubbornly to bite the bullet. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro):
That this House demands that the government take action immediately or resign.
Hon. members on this side of the Chamber will not sit on the sidelines much longer and see this country go to wrack and ruin.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. John Bosley (Don Valley West):: Madam Speaker, last week the Women's Career Counselling Service, a highly successful Outreach project in Ottawa, finalized a one-year contract with regional officials from the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission, yet this week that contract was cancelled by officials in the minister's office. I move, seconded
by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald):
That this House demand that the Minister of Employment and Immigration accept the advice of his regional officials to enter into a new contract with the Women's Career Counselling Service so that they can resume their excellent service of finding jobs for women who are out of work.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. Henri Tousignant (Temiscamingue):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
After being staggeringly subjected to the childish farce that was perpetrated this week by the Official Opposition, when they submitted a long list of petitions requesting that implementation of the metric system, the international system, be withdrawn, and whereas the first person to ever propose introducing the system in Canada was the Conservative Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, followed by the other Progressive Conservatives including the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker and the Hon. Robert Stanfield, and lately the Right Hon. Joe Clark, I move, seconded by the member for Manicouagan (Mr. Maltais):
That a sum of money be set aside for the members of the Official Opposition, to pay for plastic surgery that would sew up one side of their mouths and so prevent them from speaking out of both sides at once.


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the motion presented by the hon. member. Under the provisions of Standing Order 43, this motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

April 8, 1982


ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY POLITICAL PARTIES SASKATCHEWAN GOVERNMENT POLICIES-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina East):: Madam Speaker, the unemployment figures released today show that, despite our country's wealth and resources, officially over 9 per cent of our labour force cannot find work. Yet Saskatchewan, which just a few years ago was a have-not province, has now the lowest unemployment rate in Canada. Through sound management of its resources and the economy, the government of Allan Blakeney has provided economic stability, steady growth, and a balanced budget, at a time when the rest of the country is experiencing an economic depression. Saskatchewan has led the way in pioneering new social programs and is now a leader in economic planning and management. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse):
That the House recognize the success of the Saskatchewan government under Allan Blakeney in managing its economy and that the Government of Canada follow the lead Saskatchewan has provided.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, earlier this week the American T-bill rate dropped over 40 basis points. Yesterday our T-bill rate went up eight basis points, and this week alone our interest rates have risen a further one half per cent over American rates. Liberal interest rates more than any other single factor are causing massive unemployment. I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Portage-Marquette (Mr. Mayer):
That the government forthwith cease its Liberal high interest rate policy and cease supporting our dollar by driving business and labour into bankruptcy with higher and higher interest rates.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NEED FOR IMPROVEMENTS-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, the problem of Seaway capacity, especially at the Welland Canal, is a major concern. At least SI50 million worth of improvements is necessary. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid):
That the Minister of Transport immediately start work on improvements both to boost Seaway revenues and to provide much needed jobs for some of the 1.2 million Canadians unemployed as a result of the abysmal planning of the Liberal government.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has stated that the air force base at Chatham, New Brunswick, has "a permanent status in Canada's national defence plans," and he vowed it would never close as long as he was the Prime Minister of the country. It is projected that the closure of CFB Chatham will withdraw some $30 million annually in earning and purchasing power from the communities of Chatham and Newcastle. Already 15 to 20 businesses have shut their doors in anticipation of the closure. Many more have given their notice of leaving in the future. In view of the economic strangulation which will be brought about by the closure I move, seconded by the hon. member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn):
That the government prevent the region from becoming a maritime ghost town and that it grant Chatham permanent status as a defence base in accordance with the Prime Minister's hollow promise.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter which I have discussed with the office of the Secretary of State for External
April 8, 1982

5.0. 43 FINANCE
Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) and with the office of the external affairs critic for the official opposition.
In view of the fact that my office has been in constant communication in the past few days with the Department of External Affairs in attempts to arrange transport out of the Falkland Islands for a constituent from the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, and in view of the fact that commercial air traffic into Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands has of today been shut down, and since the 200-mile marine zone around the islands has been declared a military zone wherein local Argentinian marine traffic is open to attack by British nuclear submarines as of next Monday, making exit by boat impossible, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Sargeant):
That this House call on the Secretary of State for External Affairs to make arrangements immediately for the charter of an aircraft from Comodoro Rivadavia, Uruguay or Buenos Aires to airlift the 10 Canadians stranded in the Falkland Islands.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY GOVERNMENT URGED NOT TO INCREASE TOLL RATES-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Madam Speaker, due to the MacEachen recessionary times and increased competition from U.S. rail lines, some 20 per cent of our Great Lakes fleet will not leave port this season when the St. Lawrence Seaway opens, another 800 people will not be employed this summer due to the fact that shipping has already been sharply reduced by the government's policies, and as there is now only a one cent difference on a per bushel basis between shipping and U.S. rail charges, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That the government be satisfied with the 100 per cent increase in Seaway tolls put through between the years 1978 and 1980 and not introduce further toll increases which will simply drive more business to U.S. railways and will further aggravate our already scandalous national nine per cent unemployment rate.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT BOND PROGRAM-MOTION UNDER S O. 43
Mr. Charles Mayer (Portage-Marquette):: Madam Speaker, high interest rates remain the main problem for small businessmen and farmers. The hon. member for Mississauga South has just pointed out that yesterday interest rates in Canada went up, while in the United States interest rates came down. There appears to be no relief in sight from the government's high interest rate policy. Since the small business bond provisions introduced in the November 12 MacEachen budget are not working, under the provisions of Standing Order 43 I move, seconded by the hon. for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis):
That the government restore the original provisions of the Small Business Development Bond so that the banks can proceed with issuing these bonds to help farmers and small businessmen who desperately need this mechanism in order to survive.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


POWER RATE CHARGED TO RESIDENTS OF FIELD, B.C.-MOTION UNDER S.O. 43
Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 to ask the unanimous consent of the House to deal with a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. In view of the fact that the Northern Canada Power Commission has notified the residents of Field, British Columbia, that their power will be cut off on April 18 because these people have been withholding payments as a protest, in view of the fact that these people are protesting the fact that their power rates are four to five times higher than comparable communities in British Columbia, and in view of the fact that the Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment is negotiating a rate reduction for the community of Field, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis):
That this House instruct the Department of the Environment and the Northern Canada Power Commission to stop this drastic action and negotiate a rate for the community of Field similar to the rates enjoyed by other communities supplied by this utility.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.
April 8, 1982

[Translation]	ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


INDUSTRY
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
Being aware that at this very moment, the unemployment situation has become disastrous, and realizing that the exclusion of leather footwear from the global quota would deal a fatal blow to the footwear industry, I move, on behalf of the
20,000	workers in this industry, seconded by the member for Erie (Mr. Fretz):
That this House unanimously urge the minister responsible to reinstate leather footwear as part of the global quota before April 30, 1982, otherwise it will be too late for the industry and for thousands of qualified workers.


Madam Speaker:: This motion requires the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: 
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity pursuant to Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that the Minister of Communications has stalled on proceeding with Bill C-43, the long overdue legislation dealing with access to information, on the basis that provincial attorneys general want a uniform act, and in view of the fact that it is now clear that a majority of provincial attorneys general are refusing to co-operate in this stalling device and will not agree to a uniform act, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Saskatoon East (Mr. Ogle):
That this House calls upon the Minister of Communications to appear immediately before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and deal expeditiously with the long over due legislation. Bill C-43.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. David Crombie (Rosedale):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. I know he will be aware from the statistics this morning that the unemployment rate now stands at 9 per cent. That is the highest level of unemployment the country has suffered since we started keeping monthly records, indeed the highest level since World War II. Also the minister knows that all but one of the major economic indicators indicate a decline, and I am sure he was not surprised to learn from the statistics this morning that there are 166,000 fewer people working this year than last year.
We all know that the minister has been consulting with economic leaders across the country and these statistics ought not to be a surprise to him. In light of this disastrous economic news, will the minister advise the House whether he intends either to withdraw his budget or bring in substantial amendments to it?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, I am aware of the unemployment statistics which are very serious indeed. The hon. member suggested that I consider withdrawing the budget. I wonder whether he is including in that question the thought that I should withdraw from the current monetary and fiscal policy which is being followed by the Government of Canada.


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: If that is his proposal, then I think I should like to hear it from him directly.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
David Edward Crombie: Madam Speaker, of course my question was a simple one. I just asked the minister whether he would either withdraw his budget or change it. In the absence of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, perhaps I should direct my supplementary question to his parliamentary secretary, his acting minister, or to the Minister of Finance. Indeed, it is a specific question; perhaps the Minister of Finance can help.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I will try.


David Edward Crombie: A year ago the Industrial and Labour Adjustment Program was established to deal with those areas of the country which were hardest hit. The program itself has been characterized more by public relations announcements from
April 8, 1982

the minister than any activity on the street. I have three specific questions. How many jobs have been created by that program in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, where the unemployment rate is 22.4 per cent? How many jobs have been created in the Eastern Townships where the unemployment rate is 18.2 per cent? How many jobs have been created in McAdam, New Brunswick, where the unemployment rate is 15.1 per cent? All three of those regions have applied. I should like the minister, or whomever he can call on, to tell those people and me how many actual jobs have been created.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I am glad the hon. member referred to the Industrial Labour Adjustment Program under which the Government of Canada allocated $350 million to help industry and labour to adjust more effectively to current economic circumstances. Unfortunately I do not have the specific projects for each of the designated areas.
I know, for example, that the industrial adjustment committee in Sydney, Nova Scotia, has been working diligently, and so valuable did it think the program that it requested that labour benefits be extended to the longshoremen of North Sydney and Newfoundland. This past week the cabinet decided to extend the benefits to these affected workers. That is one evidence for the hon. member to appreciate that the program is working effectively. Also I know, for example, that quite a number of members, who represent areas with difficult economic circumstances, have asked that the benefits of the program be extended to their communities. We have been designating communities, as justified, in order to take advantage of this very important program.


REQUEST FOR PROVISION OF LONG-TERM JOBS
David Edward Crombie: Madam Speaker, the people affected in these areas, hearing the minister, know the air of unreality that has been with us since November 12. I asked the question because you cannot get information. The program was indeed announced. It is worth $350 million and it was started over a year ago in January. But there is no information because there has been no delivery of the program, or very little. The minister calls it effective with 22.4 per cent unemployed in that area. That is effective? When will the minister and his economic colleagues in the cabinet come forward not with public relations programs but with real live long-term jobs with which people can have some hope for the future?


Mr. Darling:: Let's hear it.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I am surprised the hon. member describes the Industrial and Labour Adjustment Program as unreal. The fact is that each community which is designated establishes a group of community leaders who are then charged with developing projects and undertaking the
Oral Questions
necessary steps to create jobs. I believe that in quite a number of communities a large number of applications have come forward.


David Edward Crombie: Lots of applications.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: For example, I know that in the city of Brantford where there was a designated community that a large number of applications have been received. I am hopeful that it will be possible to fund the projects there. The government has made available $350 million to communities that are hard pressed by problems at the present time, permitting them to develop projects and permitting them also to take advantage of these funds. This program is a very important one. I wonder whether the hon. member has a better one in mind.


David Edward Crombie: Twenty-two per cent unemployment is very effective?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I remember his leader stated some time ago that whatever options his party had to improve the economy would be kept under wraps until election time.


SITUATION OF WOMEN WITH FAMILIES
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. The unemployment scene in Canada today is a downright tragedy. Some 51,000 women who are heads of single-parent families are unemployed. That is an increase of 25 per cent over the situation a year ago. These women are struggling to provide food, shelter, and clothing for their children. They find prices are up while the number of jobs available is down. Can the minister explain to these people why they must accept the worst of both worlds, that is, higher prices and loss of jobs?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I think the question asked by the hon. member is justified. People are wondering why is it that we are going through such difficult economic circumstances, and indeed we are.


An hon. Member:: It is the Liberal government.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: An hon. member opposite says it is the Liberal government. There is not a Liberal government in the United States-


An hon. Member:: Thank God!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -which has the same unemployment rate that we have. The United States reached a 9 per cent unemployment rate at the time of its last economic statistics. We reached the 9 per cent rate today. It is not a Liberal government that prevails in France which has a higher unemployment rate than Canada. It is not a Liberal government that exists-


Charles James Mayer: There isn't a Liberal government in the world.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -in the United Kingdom where there is a higher unemployment rate.

April 8, 1982
Oral Questions


Mr. Howie:: There won't be a Liberal government here after the next election.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I am citing these facts to explain to the hon. member, who asked me a serious question, that we are going through these difficult circumstances because we have a world-wide recession which is affecting every industrialized country. It is unfortunate that is the case. Our duty is to do everything possible to bring Canada and the other countries out of this difficult recession. That is the main question which the hon. member has asked me and I have attempted to address it in a reasonable way.


LEVEL OF UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: My question is for the Minister of Finance. To repeat an earlier statement, he knows the unemployment statistics are at a 40-year high today. They would be tragic enough in themselves if they represented the end of a trend, or the last step. However, the fact is that our high figures today are simply one more step in a long march into a recessionary trend. The human tragedy and suffering resulting from these figures must be stopped. Today's official figures show that there are 1,228,000 unemployed Canadians. What is the minister's and the government's bottom line? How many people must be unemployed before the minister admits that there is a serious problem and, therefore, is prepared to bring in serious programs to combat the situation?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I have recognized for some considerable time that there is a serious economic problem.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Bottom line!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: There is a serious unemployment problem, and there is a serious inflation problem.


An hon. Member:: What are you doing about it?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Again and again I have stated that the cause of high unemployment, not only in Canada, but in many other countries that I have mentioned earlier, is because we are experiencing such high inflation. The only job creation program which makes any sense in the long term is a program which addresses inflation, not only in Canada but in every other country affected at the present time by high unemployment.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Scattered applause.


YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT-ADVICE TO GRADUATING STUDENTS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I could not agree more with the minister that we must have a program which fights inflation, but I suspect that the present monetary program is not doing that.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Nelson Andrew Riis: There is no indication of it.
My question to the Minister of Finance deals with a very specific group of the figures that we received this morning, that is, concerning the youth of Canada. The youth of Canada are experiencing an unemployment rate of 18.4 per cent, officially. In Quebec it is 23 per cent, and in British Columbia it is 20 per cent. In the next two weeks, hundreds of thousands of college and university students will be flooding the job market in an attempt to find employment so that they can continue their education this fall. They will have troubles, but the most important sector comprises the hundreds of thousands of young Canadians graduating from secondary school who will be seeking jobs for the first time and will not be able to find any jobs.
My question is directed to the minister and to his colleagues. When you go to speak at the graduation ceremonies across this country in the next eight weeks, Mr. Minister, what good advice will you give the young people of Canada, which will provide some hope for the future?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I think that I would attempt to reason with the students of the universities, as I attempt to reason with the Members of Parliament and with the country, and try to establish the causes of our economic difficulties. I will also try to explain how the policies that we have put in place will help to get us out of these economic difficulties, and how mistaken they would be if they fell for the rather false proposals coming from the New Democratic Party.
I would also go on to tell them-


Mr. Deans:: Which one?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -that for 1982-83-


Ian Deans: Which one are you talking about?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -$1 billion will be put aside by Government of Canada to help the training needs of the young people of this country. As recently as March 11, the Minister of Employment and Immigration announced additional training initiatives, bringing the total up to $1 billion for 1982-83. The government will support training initiatives for general industrial training, higher-skill institutional training, and will support the occupational growth and adjustment funds.


Ian Deans: Where will they work after they finish their training?
April 8, 1982


Allan Joseph MacEachen: These training funds and these training programs will be of particular benefit to young people under 24 years of age.


An hon. Member:: Might as well teach them how to shoot pool.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: So, that is the beginning of the speech that I will make when I am invited to address students this spring.


REQUEST FOR RESIGNATION OF BANK OF CANADA GOVERNOR AND OF MINISTER
Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, the minister's reaction reminds me of a doctor giving aspirin to someone in intensive care requiring serious surgery. No one is going to believe that particular statement, because the people who graduated last year do not have jobs.
Two years ago, Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance fobbed off his responsibilities to Governor Bouey, whose sole interest is monetary policy at the expense of bankrupt and unemployed Canadians. Is the minister now prepared to resume his responsibility of economic and financial leadership and ask for Governor Bouey's resignation? If not, is he prepared to give us all an Easter present today by submitting his resignation?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, if I thought Mr. Bouey's resignation or mine would improve the situation-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: It would.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -I would be prepared to consider that situation.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Lord Carrington did it on principle.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I know the hon. member's leader from time to time has extolled the virtues of the new socialist government in France, and I wonder if he would ask for the resignation of President Mitterrand or his finance minister when he next goes to the Socialist International, because there is now 9 per cent unemployment-


James Ross Fulton: Canada, Allan. C-a-n-a-d-a.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -in France, where it was 7.5 per cent before the socialists came into power. Would that justify calling for Mr. Mitterrand's resignation if it justifies calling for mine? Would he tell me that?


Some hon. Members:: Yes.


Mr. McDermid:: Get rid of all the socialists.
Oral Questions


THE ECONOMY
Roch La Salle: Madam Speaker, I have only one question for the Minister of Finance, considering the disastrous situation we are in today. I think the minister should be held responsible for these record levels of unemployment in Canada-particularly coming from a province that has itself set a new record-in collusion with the seventy-four members opposite who supported the economic philosophy of the Minister of Finance. In the circumstances, is the Minister of Finance-who is reluctant to hand in his resignation-willing to introduce, at least for a province such as mine, any new measures or any new policy, or could the Minister of Finance find it in himself to tell the House whether he is convinced that he will be able to turn around the Canadian economy, although every action that has been taken is ample proof of a yet unheard of failure? Will he do the honourable thing and resign or at least introduce measures that will actually create jobs?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, as I stated earlier, every industrialized country in the world-


Roch La Salle: Speak about my country.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -is struggling with this unemployment problem. I believe most Canadians understand that the economic situation we have in Canada is heavily influenced by world events. May I address the hon. member in the way that I addressed the hon. member for the NDP, and remind him that with a Conservative government in the United Kingdom unemployment is now 11.8 per cent in comparison with 9.9 per cent a year ago.


Roch La Salle: We are in Canada; the problem is here.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: They are part of the world, too. Madam Speaker, I am trying to remind hon. members and the country that these problems are deeper than the political interpretation that hon. members opposite give to every unemployment statistic. They come from sources deeper than political labels and political rhetoric.


REQUEST THAT NATIONAL CONFERENCE BE CONVENED
Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Madam Speaker, my question is also to the Minister of Finance. As the minister still appears to be reluctant to resign, and appears to be empty of policies to deal with some of these crucial issues as evidenced by unemployment levels today, would he at least give consideration to holding a conference where provincial, labour and business leaders might meet with him and his colleagues in order to put fresh ideas to them as to how this nation can get
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April 8, 1982
Oral Questions
back on to an even keel with people working and prosperity restored, as opposed to letting us drift more and more into this new Liberal depression?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has asked that we consider calling a conference to find fresh ideas. Presumably he is admitting that there are no fresh ideas in his party-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -that he wishes to put forward.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: You won't take them.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: However, putting that to one side for a moment, Madam Speaker, we had a first ministers' conference some time ago and the principal idea-it was not exactly fresh-which came from the provincial premiers was to take a very deep devaluation of the currency in order to reduce interest rates. That was not a very good idea, because the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre called it a policy of desperation. Therefore I am not sure if we had another meeting with the premiers that they would come up with the type of fresh ideas the hon. member has in mind, because the idea they brought forward the last time was rejected by the finance critic of his party.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Madam Speaker, I, too, wish to address my question to the Minister of Finance who seems to be filling in for the Prime Minister and other ministers who could be responsible.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: And not doing a very good job of it.


Frank Oberle: Madam Speaker, I do not recall the sponsor of the National Energy Program to be Mitterrand, Schmidt, Thatcher or Reagan; the sponsor was Lalonde.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Frank Oberle: It is the NEP which crippled the energy industry, and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and a billion dollars of investment.
Has the minister made himself aware of the hidden horror story in today's unemployment statistics regarding youth? Over half the unemployed are under the age of 25. Government statistics tell us that in April 220,000 people will be leaving universities, and another 348,000 will be leaving our high schools in June, swelling the statistics to almost two million people.
What are the minister and his government doing in the short term to assist the resource industries which normally hire these
students in the summer? Never mind his utopian long-term dream. What is he doing to bring in some programs in the short term to ease this crisis, instead of stubbornly insisting that all our problems are brought upon us by the rest of the world, when they are not?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I believe the hon. member has raised a good point in asking what we are doing to assist young people, especially those who will be on the labour market this summer. I think he ought to be aware that the minister responsible recently announced additional funds totalling $20 million for the Summer Canada Program.


Mr. Huntington:: What about Alsands?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Those additional funds will enable about
10,000	more young people to obtain summer jobs under the program, bringing the total number employed under Summer Canada to 53,000.


John Horton McDermid: It was 70,000 last year.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: I would go on to add, Madam Speaker, that even though we are attempting to operate under a program of fiscal restraint, we have put aside $120 million for this summer in order to help young people get jobs.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. The minister will know that in Bathurst in 1976 the Prime Minister stated that the Chatham air force base had "a permanent status in Canada's national defence plan" and that that base would not be closed as long as he was Prime Minister of the country. True to form, he then sanctioned its closure.
An interdepartmental committee was formed late last fall by the minister to make recommendations by the end of January, 1982, on the future of the area. On February 3 the minister reported that the committee was working very hard on the future of Chatham. On Tuesday of this week he stated that a new committee had been formed to look into the matter.
My question to the minister is this, and I would appreciate no mumble jumble about any meeting with the premier yesterday; what are the findings and recommendations of the old committee, why a new committee, and when is the new committee supposed to report?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, I would like to expand on the fact that it is indeed true that yesterday I met with the Premier of New

April 8, 1982

Brunswick and we had a very interesting conversation. Some alternatives were suggested to us, and considered, as well as our alternatives suggested to us by our own department and also by the interdepartmental committee. The reason we formed a new committee, as the hon. member has mentioned, is that before consideration of all these alternatives that were suggested to us we do want some of our senior people to look particularly at this Miramichi area so that we can find solutions which will give the people of the Miramichi the alternative whereby they can keep the employment and the economic activity that they already have.


ASSURANCE SOUGHT ON FUTURE OF BASE
Mr. Maurice A. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Madam Speaker, my supplementary obviously is to the Minister of National Defence. I wonder if the minister would make clear to the House that he has not announced that the base in Chatham will close, and that he has said that in fact the economic benefit and the level of employment will be retained, so that the hon. member for Fundy-Royal will stop spreading that falsehood.


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, the hon. member from Miramichi is absolutely right. The commitments are there, so the base will not be closed as an economic activity. We are finding some alternatives to make sure that all the area will benefit from the government's decision.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


FINANCE
Charles James Mayer: Madam Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Minister of Finance. The minister will know that farm fuel costs are a major expense to farmers. He will also know that presently we are experiencing higher costs for farm fuel in Canada than are the Americans. We are in the process of having a further increase this year. At the same time the federal government is taking between 40 and 60 cents a gallon on that same fuel. I asked the minister back in January whether he would consider increasing the rebate. 1 would ask him again if he would consider it, and I do not mean a long time away but that he would give serious consideration immediately to increasing the rebate so that we can pay lower prices for farm fuel. That would do two things. It would help farmers and give them some hope to stay in business. That would help the job situation. It would also hold out some hope for lower food prices to help the consumer fight inflation.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I understand the interest of the hon. member. However, every step, every
Oral Questions
proposal he has made, will cost the treasury more and will add to the deficit. In those circumstances I do not know how hon. members can ask me to take an anti-inflationary position and at the same time ask me to add more and more to my expenditures or to the revenue losses.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg-St. James):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. While unemployment has reached record heights right across the country, people in hard-hit regions in Quebec and the Mari-times are in truly desperate straits. In the minister's own riding in Cape Breton, if we count those receiving unemployment payments as the measure of the level of unemployment, rather than the Statistics Canada figures, the unemployment rate jumps to 30 per cent. As the representative of Cape Breton Highlands-Canso, at what level of unemployment will the minister recognize the need to change his economic policy and stimulate the economy to create jobs for all?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I will submit my performance as a member of that constituency to my electors.


Cyril Keeper: And that submission will not be unopposed, Madam Speaker.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


UNEMPLOYMENT IN QUEBEC
Cyril Keeper: Madam Speaker, my supplementary to the Minister of Finance is this. Quebec unemployment has jumped to 14 per cent this month, up from 12 per cent last month and 11 per cent last year. Even this province-wide figure is unheard of. Yet in hard hit regions of Quebec it is even worse. For example, in the St. Laurent-Gaspe region-


Madam Speaker:: Order. Order. Today's questions are really inordinately long. The hon. member does not seem to be making any exception to that. I would urge hon. members, if they all want to get into question period, to be shorter.


Cyril Keeper: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Unemployment in the St. Lawrence-Gaspe region has reached 25 per cent. Just how high will unemployment have to reach in these hard-hit regions before the minister recognizes that people are hurting and that they need economic policies that will create employment?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I just want to say that I regard that really as a rhetorical question. The hon. member knows perfectly well that there is no one in this House who is

April 8, 1982
Oral Questions
not very deeply concerned about unemployment, that every unemployed person is a matter of concern. We do not have a certain figure that unemployment will reach in the future where we become concerned. We are concerned now, and we are doing everything within our power to assist, through the various programs that have been announced in the past month by various ministers. In housing, we have increased rental units financing that will create an additional 40,000 jobs. We have expanded the operation of Sections 37 and 38 of the unemployment insurance fund that will help probably an equivalent number of workers in the country to have jobs.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: 1,200,000 unemployed.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Through the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans we have established programs that will provide employment for, I think, about 25,000 to 40,000 jobs in that industry.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: This is the rhetoric.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: We have increased our training programs up to a sum of $1 billion in order to meet the training needs of persons in Canada. We are doing everything possible within the means at our disposal to assist the unemployed people of Canada. We will continue to do that and we are not waiting for some figure in the future that will oblige us to take action. We are taking action now.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Mr. Otto Jelinek (Halton):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for International Trade. He should know that one third of all automotive assembly employees in Canada have either lost jobs or have been laid off. And he should know also that 40 per cent of Canadians working in the auto parts sector have lost their jobs as of today. Yet the minister has failed to curb the flow of Japanese imports into Canada; he has failed to negotiate a fair deal with Japan; he has failed to negotiate fair Canadian content regulations in offshore imports into Canada.
How much longer does the government intend to continue to negotiate, while jobs are being lost in Canada? How many more lost jobs will it take before the government takes the necessary unilateral action to stop the flow of Japanese imports into this country and save Japanese jobs?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of State (International Trade)):: Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member meant to say "save Canadian jobs", not Japanese jobs.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Edward C. Lumley: Madam Speaker, the hon. member will be the first member to know when we strike a very positive relationship with the Japanese concerning the automobile industry.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the acting Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. For more than three years, the minister has been dealing with a plan to allow the rubber industry to rationalize production in Canada. I am particularly interested in a plan put forward by Firestone Canada that would allow them some limited product rationalization.
The minister promised in 1980 and 1981 that this matter would be resolved. Is the minister prepared to announce a date when he will approve Firestone's plan? Is he prepared to recognize the millions of dollars that this company has spent to bring this new production facility into being by stating exactly when he will announce the decision on Firestone's application? If he is not prepared to give that date, is he prepared to see several more thousands added to the more than 1 million unemployed?
[ Translation]


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce):: Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. member for his question. At the present time, the department is looking into the latest data on rubber production and should very shortly, through the minister, be able to clarify the situation and propose measures to satisfy the requirements of the entire industry.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Madam Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Minister of Finance whose economic policies have been an absolute disaster. His defence for this is other countries. In our country we have 24 million people and opportunities in every part of it-resource based, agricultural based-yet his defence is other countries. Because of the number of job lay-offs in northern Manitoba-Flin-Flon, for the first time in its history, INCO is looking at lay-offs in Thompson, Ruttan Lake has lay-offs-what guarantee can the minister give these Canadians that they will have a job by this summer?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I am not in any
April 8, 1982

position to guarantee the exact job possibilities several months from now in any particular industry.
1 would contradict the hon. member in his understanding of the situation. He is of the view that what happens in the rest of the world does not affect Canada. I travelled in the west last week, both to Calgary and Vancouver. I found that the people there very clearly understood that the ability of Canadian exporters to sell in markets abroad depended upon the recovery in other countries. There is no possibility of improving the situation of certain exporting industries until a recovery, for example, takes place in the United States. The hon. member, with all his devotion to Canada, which 1 share, must understand that we trade and sell abroad, and when markets weaken there they affect us and the jobs in our country.


PIPELINES
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Since he has held this portfolio for northern development, development in the north is at an all-time low. For example, the delays he has imposed on the Norman Wells oil field and pipeline project, have resulted in massive unemployment in my constituency in the north. Not only that, he is directly responsible for hundreds of steel workers being laid off in his own constituency in Hamilton because of this. I want to know when he will take the shackles off this project and let it proceed quickly, forthwith?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member must be either negligent or totally unaware of the majority sentiment in the north which does not agree with him at all. The fact of the matter is that the majority of northerners, certainly all the native leadership and the northwest territorial government applauded the decision when I approved Norman Wells and imposed a two-year delay. It was the first time that the companies, the Northwest Territorial government, the leadership of the natives and a majority of the native people who make up a majority of the population of the Northwest Territories ever came to an over-all consensus that this project should be approved in the way it was approved. I would suggest that the hon. member, who represents half of that territory, get in touch with the majority of his constituents.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Normand Lapointe (Beauce):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the hon. Minister of Industry, Trade
Oral Questions
and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. In his absence, I will put it to the minister's parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Manicouagan.
Since November 24 last year, import quotas on leather footwear have been removed, and according to representatives of the footwear industry in my riding whom I met yesterday, this has caused serious damage to the Canadian footwear industry. Also on November 24, the Canadian Industrial Renewal Board announced that a special budget of $17 million would be set aside for the footwear industry, a budget which is now proving to be inadequate-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Does the hon. member have a question? If he does, I would like him to ask it now.


Normand Lapointe: My question is whether the parliamentary secretary could ask the minister whether the CIRB or any other body will soon be announcing additional measures to help the Canadian footwear industry.


André Maltais: I wish to thank the hon. member for Beauce for his question. Yesterday, a number of cabinet ministers and myself met with Mr. Maheu, the president of the Shoe Manufacturers Association of Canada and the government officials responsible for analysing this policy. We listened with great interest to the industry's complaints, and we are already looking into what different or additional measures could be taken to help the manufacturers, while also serving the Canadian consumer.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. I am sure you are aware, Madam Speaker, that the Minister of Transport and the Prime Minister have been saying that there is a consensus for changing the Crow in western Canada. I have before me a confidential briefing book which was given to the Prime Minister prior to his visit to Saskatchewan on March 19. I find in this confidential document that the Prime Minister's staff say that there is tremendous opposition to changing the Crow on the prairies. They say, among other things, that "the mood of the rural community in the province is generally one of anxiety and indignation". In light of that, will the Minister of Transport tell us why he is misleading the Canadian people by saying that there is a consensus for changing the Crow? Why is he so intent on tearing this country apart by putting one region against the other?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, consensus is always very difficult to assess.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Especially when it is not there.

April 8, 1982
Oral Questions


Jean-Luc Pepin: When you ask someone in western Canada, particularly a farmer, "Would you look forward to having the best transportation system in the world?", he says yes.


An hon. Member:: That has nothing to do with the Crow.


Jean-Luc Pepin: When you ask him, "Would you accept an increase in the Crow rate?", he hesitates, of course. I found that when you put the two questions together the answer is usually that, "Yes indeed; if I was assured that the railway transportation system for grain would be much better, allowing me to make savings and produce more, I would look at the possibility of paying more." This is really the gist of the matter.
The group led by Dr. Gilson is trying to put together a framework that would give the western farmers that assurance that the western rail transportation system would meet with the criteria and the expectations of the farmers. If the hon. member wants to wait for another two or three months, I am sure this will be done and then he will be satisfied that there is a consensus on bridging those two desirable matters, that is, the best transportation system and the payment of a slightly higher rate for the transportation of grain.


COMMISSIONING OF POLL
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Madam Speaker, I wish the minister would respond to the question of why he is misleading the Canadian people. Why is he treating this issue so cynically?
In the same confidential document which I have with me, I have found out that the Government of Canada has taken a poll. The Liberal staff says this about the poll, "According to a poll conducted before the announcement ..." and listen to this, " . . . westerners are misinformed on the basic economic and historical issues." Such arrogance! I ask the minister whether or not he can make that poll public, and tell us who paid for that poll. And finally can he assure us that he will not proceed to change the Crow rate in any way against the wishes of the people of western Canada, the people he is supposed to represent as Minister of Transport in this country?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, with respect to misinformation, it is generally agreed that the perception of many in the west about the Crow, its origin and its true meaning, is wrong. One of those who contributed to that was my hon. friend, for example, in a speech he made a week ago. If we were to believe what he said, we would believe the Crow was part of the British North America Act as part of the confederation system.
Be that as it may, with respect to the poll which has been conducted, the policy of the government is well known. The poll was conducted, obviously, to get more information on public opinion on that subject. We have that now, and it is used to devise the best possible approach to the resolution of the problem.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. I listened to his answers earlier with respect to programs the government has brought forward including manpower training, work sharing, and a whole host of other programs. The fact of the matter- and it is becoming clear to the country-is that all these programs have thus far shown themselves to be inadequate in terms of a real attack on unemployment and other problems facing Canadians. There is, for instance, 11 per cent unemployment in eastern Ontario and western Quebec, and if we add Ottawa-Hull the 29,000 people represented by that figure becomes 56,000 people, so there is a failure.
The minister has just rejected the suggestion of a conference involving all the economic players, including business, labour, and government. He has rejected that. Given his rejection, and given the failure thus far of the government's programs, what new initiatives does the minister plan? The House of Commons and the people of Canada are tired of the fluff he has handed us during this question period.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I replied to a question from the hon. member for York-Peel in which he suggested a conference of premiers, trade unionists, and the private sector. I referred to the value there might be in a meeting with the premiers at this stage in view of the fact that we have so recently had a first ministers' conference.
However, I did not have the opportunity in my reply to refer to the additional fact that the government is presently undertaking a series of consultations with the private sector, not only to discuss the medium-term economic developments prospects for Canada but also to secure the views of the private sector on the current economic situation. I have had at least six consultations already in various parts of Canada, and I propose to continue that throughout the month of April. In that way I am fulfilling, at least in part, the suggestion made by the hon. member, namely, consultations with other players in the economy in the hope that out of the discussions fresh and better ideas might be brought to bear on the very difficult situation we have at the present time in the country.


PETITIONS
Madam Speaker:: 1 have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table reports of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petitions presented by hon. members on Wednesday, April 7, 1982, and finds that the petitions meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


[Stage Direction]
April 8, 1982

Mr. Lewis:: Madam Speaker, this being Thursday and the House recessing until April 19, I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council might give the House some idea as to the order of business for April 19 and April 20.


Mr. Smith:: Madam Speaker, when we return to the House we will be dealing with energy-related bills, and the sequence of the first three would be Bill C-106, which is energy supplies; Bill C-104, which deals with petroleum incentives and Canadian ownership; and Bill C-107, which deals with motor vehicle fuel consumption standards. We would be dealing with those bills on the first two days after the House resumes.




Mr. Rene Gingras (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to table in both official languages the second report of the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AND NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Madam Speaker, I should like to table in both official languages the ninth report of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence, a report which I have received this minute, the committee having been empowered, under an order of reference received from the House on December 18, to examine security and disarmament proposals which Canada may submit to UNSSOD II.



Marcel Prud'homme: Madam Speaker, I also have the honour to table the tenth report concerning an extension of the work being done by the subcommittee on Latin America. I present the tenth report in both official languages and, if I receive the unanimous consent of the House, I would ask for concurrence later on motions.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Agreed.


David Edward Crombie: Wonderful.


Marcel Prud'homme: We will advise Madam Speaker accordingly.
Privilege-Mr. McKinnon


Madam Speaker:: Is the hon. member seeking the unanimous consent of the house to obtain concurrence now or on motions?


Marcel Prud'homme: Madam Speaker, I sought the unanimous consent of the House to obtain concurrence on motions, but-

I heard very clearly that there is not unanimous consent. Accordingly, I will simply table the report and follow the procedure as to when we will call for concurrence.


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member obviously does not have unanimous consent.
[Editor's Note: For above reports, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PRIVILEGE
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. You may recall that a few days ago I attempted to raise a question of privilege concerning the report which has just been tabled and the evidence given supporting that report. I was somewhat encouraged when, in reply to my House leader, the House leader of the official opposition, on March 22 Your Honour said:
The hon. member is quite right. If at a later time this grievance is reported to the House, then it can be discussed in the House.
The report is now in front of the House, and my understanding is that now is the time when I should present my question of privilege, a summation of which I sent to Your Honour on March 22. This question of privilege concerns the altering of minutes of a meeting of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence.
I draw to Your Honour's attention the Nineteenth Edition of Eskine May at page 141, where it states:
It is a breach of privilege to present or cause to be presented to either House or to committees of either House forged, falsified or fabricated documents with intent to deceive such House or committees or to subscribe the names of other persons or fictitious names to documents intended to be presented to either House or committees of either House, or to be privy to, or cognizant of, such forgery or fraud.
Further on, and perhaps more closely related to this point, Erskine May says:
-to falsify or improperly alter any records of, or documents presented to, either House or committees of either House will constitute a contempt. Standing Order No. 78 of the House of Commons specifically provides that no document received by the clerk of a select committee shall be withdrawn or altered without the knowledge and approval of the committee.
When giving evidence before the committee on February 25, the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) gave

April 8, 1982
Privilege-Mr. McKinnon
evidence, clearly heard and factually reported in the electronic transcript, which was altered before the minutes were printed.
The first offence, which was of a minor nature, was when the minister introduced two separate members of his staff as both being one Mr. W. M. Beckett, director of arms control policy. The other gentleman was in fact Mr. Mathewson, the chief of policy planning. This was, as I said, a minor alteration, although his chief of policy planning might consider it surprising that he is unknown to the minister. However, the minister went on with his unusual naming, showing a much more serious lack of knowledge of who's who.
At one page of the transcript the minister referred to a Mr. Khrushchev suggesting a disarmament policy; and, incidentally, he used the present tense. In the minutes of the meeting "Mr. Khrushchev" has been deleted and "Mr. Brezhnev" substituted. To indicate that this was no mistake, Mr. Khrushchev, who has been dead for ten years, makes three more miraculous visitations in the minister's testimony in the transcript, only to turn into Mr. Brezhnev in the minutes.
Madam Speaker, it is no minor matter when our Minister of National Defence (Mr. Lamontagne) is unaware of who is in charge of the mightiest conventional forces in the world; but we are not here to judge the minister's acuity. A lack of acuity is not an offence under the rules of Parliament. Changing the records of a committee is, and the records of that committee were changed, without the permission of the committee.
The members of the committee have been apprised by the chairman of the committee of what happened. We are now informed that a Mr. MacKay, an assistant to the minister, who appears to have a job somewhat analogous to the man with a wheelbarrow and shovel who follows the elephant in a circus-parade-


Madam Speaker;: Order, please. It took me some time to check into the notices that had been given to me to find out exactly what the hon. member was referring to. I have to point out to the hon. member that he is speaking of alterations to the minutes of a committee, which alterations, he is saying now, were discussed in the committee but not reported to the House.
At first I thought that perhaps the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon) was referring to a report of the committee as tabled in the House, but as tabled in the House does not report on the alteration of the minutes of which the hon. member is now speaking. This question, therefore, obviously had to be dealt with within the committee. Since it is not before the House and has not been reported to the House, I am afraid I cannot deal with it.
The recourse which I think the hon. member followed, which was to bring up the question at the committee meeting, has been taken. I know he is not satisfied with the results of that recourse taken in committee, but I am afraid that since it is not before the House I cannot help the hon. member.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Madam Speaker, there is no doubt about what has transpired. This has not been discussed in committee because since that time the committee has been meeting in camera to discuss the report. The alterations were made when the committee was meeting in public, before the report was written.
I was informed by Your Honour that I could not present this matter to the House until the report had been submitted to the House, which is the case now. If you rule that I have no question of privilege, I will accept your ruling and will consider that any member of a committee can change the records of that committee at any time without breaching the privilege of anyone.


Madam Speaker:: The hon. member cannot assume that. As he is demonstrating by his further remarks, the Chair cannot deal with things that take place in committees. It is true that I told the hon. member that when the report was tabled he might bring up this question; it has been tabled and it does not refer to the matter which he is now discussing. It is not before the House, therefore, and that is why I cannot deal with it.


PETITION
Cyril Keeper: Madam Speaker, I have with me a petition signed by thousands of Canadian workers from coast to coast which calls upon the cabinet to save their jobs by reinstating the global quotas on leather footwear. I should like to present the petition, Madam Speaker.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2,061, 3,031, 3,456, 3,493, 3,500 and 3,574.


Mr. Cossitt: L Has anyone in the Prime Minister's office or the Privy Council office conducted a study of the procedures that would be required to change the Canadian form of government to that of a republic and specifically to eliminate any connection with Great Britain or a constitutional monarchy and, if so, what are all the details including the names of the persons involved in the study?
2.	Has the Prime Minister or his office caused to be investigated, methods of creating a presidential system in Canada and, if so (a) has a list of persons to be considered as the first president been drawn up and does this list include the name Pierre Elliott Trudeau (b) what title does any study recommend to be bestowed upon a head of state under such a system?
April 8, 1982


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: 1. No.
2.	No. (a) Not applicable, (b) Not applicable.


Mr. Cossitt: What are the names and addresses of all Soviet news media personnel accredited to work in Canada by the Department of External Affairs and, in each case, which news agency does he/she represent?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Foreign news media representatives in Canada are not accredited by the Department of External Affairs. Accreditation of the individual as representing a particular publication or broadcasting organization is by his or her employer in the country of origin. Canadian recognition of the status of Soviet news media representatives resident in Canada is accorded by the granting of an appropriate visa by the Department of Employment and Immigration. In October, 1977, the Canadian and Soviet governments agreed, in accordance with the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act, that each country would grant to resident media representatives of the other country (and to members of their families) multiple entry-exit visas valid for one year. The validity of the visa is subject to extension.
At present, there are four Soviet news media representatives resident in Canada. They are: Mr. N. I. Bragin, representing Pravda; Mr. R. L. Kurkin, representing the Soviet State Committee for Radio and TV; Mr. A. O. Melikyan, representing Tass; and Mr. A. V. Sandakov, representing Novosti. As explained in answer to question No. 3,030 tabled this day, the department does not make public the private addresses of individuals without the express permission of the person concerned. All resident Soviet media representatives live in Ottawa, however, and can be reached through the press office of the Soviet Embassy.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Are inmates at the Millhaven Institution near Kingston permitted to take part in educational correspondence programs from such institutes as the University of Waterloo and, if so, when they write a written examination at the end of each term, does a "proctor" supervise the writing of the examination at Millhaven on behalf of the educational institute?
2.	Did government employees at Millhaven act as proctors at any time for such examinations given by any educational institutes and, if so, which employees and was the name of Mr. C.W. Greaves included?
3.	Were there cases when Millhaven inmates were not attended by a proctor during the examination but where those appointed to act as such from the Millhaven staff absented themselves, while at the same time pocketing the fee for rendering such services, and, if so, what were all the details and the names of the persons involved?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: In so far as the
Correctional Service of Canada is concerned:
1.	The educational program at Millhaven Institution is supplemented by correspondence programs from outside North American recognized educational agencies including the
Order Paper Questions
University of Waterloo, and all written examinations in these courses are supervised or proctored at all times.
2.	All written examinations pertaining to outside educational agencies are "proctored" or "supervised" by the Supervisor of Academic Education, Mr. C. W. Greaves.
3.	No examination to date has been unattended or unsupervised. The examinations are personally delivered to the inmate-candidate on the appointed date, time and place and in accordance with the instructions issued by the particular educational agency. Supervision is maintained throughout the examination and at the end of the three-hour writing or the surrendering of the paper by the candidate, whichever comes first, papers are collected, sealed and mailed to their destination.
With respect to fees for proctoring examinations, none of the educational agencies, with the exception of the University of Waterloo, pays any fees. The University of Waterloo pays $23 per half day for supervising examinations but most of its examinations must be written on a Saturday since the university requires its examinations be written sometime during the weekend (Friday evening to Monday morning) and be mailed first thing Monday morning. Mr. Greaves does not request overtime compensation or travel allowance for his proctoring attendance on such occasions. The examinations are mailed to his home.


Mr. Blenkarn: 1.	Did the government accept a tender by the German company GHH-MAN for the installation of the Panamax drydock in Halifax and, if not, for what reason?
2.	Would the drydock purchase from the German company have been completed at a price that would have saved Canadian taxpayers at least $16 million?
3.	Did the government engage Marine Industries of Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, to build the drydock and, if so, for what reason?
4.	Does the company have the experience and facilities to build the drydock in one piece and to transport the dock to Halifax?
5.	Did the government refuse to accept industrial benefits offered by GHH-MAN Canada, Inc. that would have made possible the purchase from Walbar Machine Products of Canada, Ltd. of turbine and compressor blades and, if so, for what reason?
6.	Did the government reject the offer by GHH-MAN to build a diesel engine plant in Nova Scotia as part of its industrial offset and, if so, for what reason?
7.	Did the government make arrangements in its contract with Marine Industries to protect the government of Nova Scotia and the Government of Canada from any overrun costs of Marine Industries and from any bad workmanship and bad building which might be caused by Marine Industries' lack of experience in building Panamax drydocks and, if so, what were the arrangements?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: The
reply for the Department of Regional Economic Expansion is as follows:
1.	No, because the GHH-MAN tender was not recommended by the province of Nova Scotia (a requirement of the federal-provincial agreement) for approval by the federal minister after detailed evaluation by consultants.

April 8, 1982
Order Paper Questions
2.	No.
3.	No, the federal government approved a province of Nova Scotia request to enter into a contract with Marine Industries Ltd. of Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, to build the floating drydock.
4.	No, the specifications approved by the owner, province of Nova Scotia, and the intended operator, Halifax Industries Ltd., stated a preference for a sectional pontoon type of floating drydock similar to that provided, with federal assistance, on the west coast. Individual pontoons can be detached and docked inside the remaining structure for maintenance. This is not feasible with one piece construction.
5.	No, the tender documents required that non-Canadian content over $10 million be offset with acceptable purchases in Canada in order to remain eligible for the contract. GHH-MAN complied with this requirement and the evaluation of bids took into account the fact that their offer was accompanied by this offset business in Canada.
6.	No. An offer by GHH-MAN to build a diesel engine plant in Nova Scotia was not included in the offset purchase package offered for the floating drydock contract.
7.	Not applicable. The contract is between the province of Nova Scotia and Marine Industries Limited. However, the Government of Canada is satisfied that qualified and experienced inspectors are on the site. These include Lloyd's Register of Shipping surveyors who will be certifying the floating drydock upon completion. Marine Industries Limited have launched three to four ships per year of the last eight years and although they have never built a floating drydock, this construction is considered simpler than shipbuilding.


Mr. Beatty: 1.	Since March 1980, by month, what amount was spent by the (a) government (b) Canadian Unity Information Office for goods or services provided by the advertising firm of Vickers and Benson?
2.	Does Mr. Patrick McDougall carry out responsibilities for the Canadian Unity Information Office and, if so (a) what are they (b) on what date did he join and until what date is he expected to work for the office (c) was he hired through Interchange Canada (d) is he expected to perform work for Vickers and Benson or any of its associated companies when he leaves the office?
3.	Flave arrangements been made to avoid any possible conflict of interest between Mr. McDougall's work for the government and his responsibilities in the private sector and, if so. what were such arrangements?


David P. Smith: I am informed by the Departments of Justice and Supply and Services as follows:
I.	(a) Since March 1980, by month, the values of payments made to Vickers and Benson by the Department of Supply and Services on behalf of customers departments are as follows:
1980	1981
March	None	January	$1,557,169April	None	February	$ 276,159May	None	March	$ 506,839June	$2,111,471	April	$ 292,145July	None	May	$ 349,686August	$ 116,975	June	$ 315,627September	$1,447,552	July	$ 603,645October	$ 115,011	August	$ 290,332November	$ 272,517	September	$ 148,434December	$ 76,138	October	$ 193.581November	$ 106.321(b)	1980	1981April	None	January	$ 53,495May	None	February	$ 27,885June	None	March	$194,152July	None	April	$167,431August	None	May	$181,514September	$153,788	June	October	$ 58,580	July	$ 44,970November	$ 61,754	August	$ 650December	$ 56,963	September	NoneOctober	$645,208November	$ 30,1 16December	$ 29,609Note: Payments	in part 1(b) not included in	part 1(a).	2.	Yes. (a) Mr. McDougall has assumed the position of Director General, Professional and Information Services. He provides highly specialized expertise in communications strategic planning, research, and marketing including different phases of media communications such as television, radio, print and expositions.(b)	The period of employment is June 22, 1981 to June 22 1983.(c)	Mr. McDougall was hired through Interchange Canada.(d)	A condition of the Interchange Agreement stipulates that "as required by the regulations governing the Interchange Canada program, it is agreed that Mr. McDougall will return to VOBCO Management Inc. upon termination of the assignment and that no offer of continuing employment will be made to Mr. McDougall by the Canadian Unity Information Office."3.	No specific arrangements were made, since neither the position held by Mr. McDougall nor any other position at the CUIO is involved in the allocation of advertising contracts. That task is undertaken by the Advertising Management Group which reports directly to the chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Communications, a fact that is public knowledge.


Mr. Cossitt: Is the government aware that the first department or the KGB's First Chief Directorate runs Soviet espionage operations in Canada and, if so (a) for how long has this been known to the government (b) how many Soviet agents are estimated to operate under this direction (c) is the government taking any action and, if not, for what reason?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: (a) to (c). It is not in the public interest to answer this question.


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered.
;Hf


[Stage Direction]
April 8, 1982
David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, if question No. 3,030 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Madam Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that question No. 3,030 be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Cossitt: Are accredited journalists from the U.S.S.R. required by the Department of External Affairs to request permission before leaving the national capital area and, if so (a) what are all the details of the procedure involved (b) what is the name and address of each journalist who applied for such permission for as far back as records exist and, in each case (i) which news agency did he/she represent (ii) which places did he/she visit and for what purpose?
Return tabled.


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


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


David Edward Crombie: That this House condemns the government for its chronic failure to implement policies to support the development of a sound industrial sector for Canada, and for the resulting lay-off crisis in every sector of the economy and every region of the country, which has had particularly severe consequences for the auto industry, the resource industry, the energy projects and the producers of consumer goods and appliances.
He said: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate today, particularly when the statistics published this morning by Statistics Canada indicate that we have an unemployment rate which is higher than it has been at any time in recent memory and, indeed, higher than it has been since soon after World War II.
An article in The Globe and Mail on April 7, 1982, which reported on an interview with Governor Gerald Bouey of the Bank of Canada as follows:
"I am sometimes asked how high does the rate of unemployment have to go, how many foreclosures have to occur, before the bank will give up its policy of monetary restraint," he told a Canadian Club audience of businessmen sprinkled with top civil servants.
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"Since surrendering to inflation is no answer to our problem, one might better ask how long will it take Canadians to respond realistically, to take the financial discipline our situation requires-"
How long will it take Canadians to recognize the importance of financial discipline, Mr. Speaker? I do not know how Governor Bouey sees the world. He may see it differently if he is talking to people who make substantial sums of money and top civil servants who also make substantial sums of money. When he talks about telling Canadians that they should be more realistic and impose upon themselves a financial discipline, I am interested to know-and the report did not cover this-which Canadians he is talking about. Where do they live? Who are they?
Surely he cannot be referring to the 1,229,000 on record as being unemployed. They are obviously already exercising financial discipline. Perhaps he meant the three million Canadians who live below the Statistics Canada poverty line- that's 12 per cent of our population. I do not think he meant them either.
Nor do I think he meant the 42 per cent of high school graduates who are looking for work and cannot find it. They are obviously exercising some financial discipline.
Maybe he meant the part-time workers in Canada who need and are looking for full-time jobs and cannot find them. There are 45,000 of them in Toronto alone. Maybe he meant that they should exercise financial discipline.
Perhaps he is talking about the quarter of a million unemployed employables that the Assistant Deputy Minister of National Health and Welfare talked about two days ago. They are the "unemployed employables". I am sure he did not mean they should exercise financial discipline.
Maybe he meant the 500 people laid off yesterday by Eaton's in Toronto. Maybe he meant the 6,200 people laid off in the shoe industry. Perhaps he meant the 1,500 International Harvester workers who will be laid off by May. Perhaps he meant the third of the industrial work force in the automotive industry. Perhaps he meant that those people should be exercising financial discipline.
Perhaps he meant that the 600,000 senior citizens who are living below the Statistics Canada poverty line should be exercising financial discipline. Perhaps he meant the farmers in the country who will have 15 per cent less income. Who was he talking about? It cannot be all of those people; it cannot be any of those people.
The fact of the matter is that when it comes to the financial discipline index, people are joining in the thousands every day. They may not be the top public servants of whom he spoke the other day. It might be helpful to everyone if Governor Bouey, and those he serves on the government side, made clear from whom they want financial discipline. Why are all these people being forced, while others are not, into such financial discipline?

April 8, 1982
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The formulation of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen) is clear and simple. He said that the problem is inflation and that the answer is unemployment. He said that if we use unemployment as the solution to inflation, we will get recovery. That is the position of the government. No matter who is hurt, the government members say that inflation is the problem, unemployment is the solution, and that is how we get recovery.
All government members may not take this position. A number of ministers of the Crown like to ingratiate themselves to any audience. They are willing to say whatever needs to be said in order to gain a friendly crowd. That is particularly the case with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy). I should like to read carefully the comments made by the minister in Paris, France, because I do not think the Minister of Finance had an opportunity to review what he said outside the country when he wished to cut a finer figure in a foreign land. On page 2 of his release he said this:
It is often argued by our colleague ministers of finance that restrictive monetary and fiscal policies are necessary to dampen inflation and that reduced inflation will somehow miraculously lead to future growth.
Those comments sound as if they came right out of the mouth of the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Employment and Immigration continued:
But no mechanism by which future growth will be assured is articulated. We are asked to take it on faith that growth will follow. However, we all know, and it is well accepted by all, regardless of political and economic persuasions, that we can have non-inflationary growth only if we augment the capacity of our economies to produce. This means increased investment in plant and equipment-investment which can be encouraged by lower real rates of interest.
This is exactly contrary to the position taken by the Minister of Finance day after day in the House.
The sense of unreality of the Minister of Employment and Immigration is such that he holds a press conference the day before the worst record of unemployment in recent memory, certainly since World War II, is released. He knows, just as night follows day, that those statistics will come out; but every time he holds a press conference the day before, he shoves out some numbers which have no reality on the street and does not show up in the House for questioning the next day.
I should like to talk about the Minister of Employment and Immigration a little longer, because he is the one who has taken on the public relations role for cabinet. The cabinet has nothing to say to ease the economic pain of Canadians, but it embarked upon a fairly energetic public relations program. Of course, the Minister of Employment and Immigration stars in that role. After the minister's meeting yesterday with recipients of the work sharing program, after meeting with his rented audience, as reported in The Globe and Mail, he said that he does not understand why business and labour do not like work-sharing. He said that they were "almost Pavlovian".
I do not know what he meant by that, but he went on to say that it was "a kind of psychosis on the part of Canadians to get down on everything". He said that those who have critical comments about work sharing suffer from this phychosis. He is so enamoured of the program that he wants to make it a
permanent program to deal with unemployment. He has received an enormous amount of publicity on the program.
It is worthwhile mentioning that the total program covers almost 14,000 people, in relation to an unemployment problem which is in the order of 1.3 million. Also it is worth while looking at the people who have opposed the work-sharing program and why they did so. First, traditionally the work sharing program was opposed by the advisory council to the unemployment insurance fund and by officials within the minister's department. Also it was opposed by the Canadian Labour Congress, the president of CLC and Mr. Clifford Pilkey, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour. It has been described as "sharing the misery". It was opposed by Mr. Stan Roberts when he spoke for the business community as president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. It was rejected by most countries in the western world. For example, in Germany, where they have had the program for some time, they are desperate to get out of most of it if they can. There are good reasons for the opposition.
Let me tell the House what the minister has to sell, what he keeps flogging. Everyone would rather have half a job than no job at all; every company would like to stay alive rather than have to go under. The minister is on solid ground when he says that the people who get it like it. That is for sure, because the alternative is nothing for the worker and bankruptcy for the company. This is why they like it, but there are problems with work sharing. This is why even those who have said "go", have said it cautiously.
The program should only be temporary, if we have it at all. It begins to institutionalize work sharing so that it becomes part of the way in which people see the economy. People become accustomed to the idea that having half a job is about what they can expect. It creates a distortion for the unemployment insurance fund, the purpose of which is to provide a financial bridge when people go from one job to another. It is a clear misuse of the original intention of the fund.
Also it is unfair to those who cannot collect unemployment insurance. There have been many debates in the House concerning the fact that people have to qualify for unemployment insurance. If one happens to be one of the lucky 14,000 who will obtain the benefits of the program for a short time, it is fine; but if one is a labourer and not one of the 14,000, one will not receive it. You could work three days a week and not get unemployment insurance because you have to abide by the waiting period. It is not fair to all, and being fair is the purpose of the fund. Indeed, the fund is not the government's fund; the money comes from workers and from businesses. The program not only distorts the fund, it not only gets people used to the idea that they are only entitled to half a job, but it distorts the government's real task. It masks and creates an illusion around the real task of producing an environment for investment so that full-time, long-term jobs can be created. That is the final problem.
April 8, 1982

The minister, whenever he makes an announcement, should be reminded, and he should remind himself, that all he is doing is putting up a stop-gap solution for people who cannot help themselves. They get a half a job for three or six months and that is all. Basically the minister is saying that that is the way we are going to deal with unemployment in this country. The minister is making a political career out of the misery of people who are caught in a bind. It is one thing to have to do it, but a little more humility on his part would be more in keeping.
The work-sharing program is an example of what the government is doing. It is an example of the government saying to itself and to the Canadian people: "We have nothing to offer. Basically the problem is inflation. We cannot do much about it. We will have to wait until the Americans do something and maybe we will get involved with the Americans." That has been the program and the policy of this government. The recovery which the minister keeps talking about, whenever we get rid of inflation, is not something that will happen automatically. If we are to have a recovery, we have to be prepared for it. The preparation has to be done now, but the government is not preparing. That is why our motion condemns the government.
First, we condemn this government because it brought in a budget that took the guts out of the investment system in this country, the system which creates jobs. We condemn the government because it continues to refuse either to withdraw the budget or to change it. The government has received representation after representation from ordinary Canadians from one end of the country to another, yet it will not change the budget. The government stands in the face of need on an ideology that is mystifying to anybody who hears it. That is our first reason for condemning this government with respect to lack of jobs and employment opportunities in this country.
The second reason we condemn this government is because if we are ever going to have a recovery and if we are going to prepare for it, some sense of co-operation between labour, management and government has to take place. Rather than pursue that course, a course which Canadian governments of one sort or another have had to pursue for 150 years, this government chooses the reverse. Not only does it choose to try to separate, divide and take advantage of the splits between labour and management, but it even takes advantage of splits in the labour movement to try and split the labour movement itself.
In this connection I have an example to give. Three and a half years ago, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Business Council on National Unity, representing the business community, made a proposal initially, I believe, to the then minister of labour and the then minister of employment and immigration. Things went along fairly well for about a year. In the last two years nothing but stalling has taken place. If hon. members speak to representatives of the Business Council on National Unity and representatives of the Canadian Labour Congress, they will learn that the program is being stalled by
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this government. What is important about that is not specifically the program itself, which would monitor the need for specific kinds of skills to be developed in Canada and so create an environment for the production of programs for the learning of those skills-not an unimportant matter-but the opportunity it provides for business and labour to come together. They do not come together very often or very easily, but they did decide to come together on employment need. This government has been diddling them for two years and has paid no attention to them. The situation will get worse because, in the end, both the Canadian Labour Congress and the Business Council on National Unity have found out what the government is up to. They do not trust the government any more.
Third, we condemn the government for the lack of job opportunities and for high unemployment. While the federal government is trying to split labour, trying to split labour from management and both from government, it has also done this before on issues involving the federal government and the provinces of Canada. The government has tried to pick off the provinces one by one and divide them. That is true with respect to training programs. The Minister of Employment and Immigration brought forward a training program. He announced it first. The day before he announced it he took aim at the provinces. He blamed the provinces for everything. He therefore ensured that the training program which is so badly needed in this country would have to be discussed in an atmosphere of animosity and not in an atmosphere of cooperation. If there is ever going to be any kind of a training program or an industrial economic strategy in this country, it must be brought about in an atmosphere of co-operation. This government finds that the only politics it knows is to divide. This government is bereft of solutions. The only thing it knows how to do is to make sure there is division, which enables it to pick off the parts one by one.
Finally, we condemn this government because it has had absolutely no sense of urgency nor has it given any sense of purpose to Canadians during the time it has been in office. This morning I thought about a book written by Jean Vanier, the son of the late Governor General of Canada. The book is entitled "Community and Growth". It is a book that I would recommend to hon. members on the other side. In his book, Mr. Vanier made the point that to become a community there must be concern for everyone in it and Canada would only become a community when there is concern for all of the people in it. Mr. Vanier writes that a community becomes one when all the members of that community and the government have a sense of urgency. He goes on:
There are too many people in the world who have no hope. There are too many cries which go unheard. There are too many people dying in loneliness.
What grates most people is the lost sense of purpose and the lost sense of urgency, as though there were nothing else left to do in this country except wait around for the Americans to deliver what the Liberals cannot. Maybe the Liberals should be reminded that there are forests and lakes to rejuvenate; there are houses to construct; there is land to cultivate; there are roads to pave; there are railroads to build; there are

April 8, 1982
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resources to explore; there is steel to forge; there are pipelines to build; there is land to develop; there are towns to expand; there is technology to discover; there are ships to construct; there are factories to remodel; there are bridges to erect; and our vast northern wilderness is yet to be tapped. And the most previous thing which this country has is its water resources, which await development. None of those things is being done. They are not being done because we have a government that is stuck with its own ideology, one which it is unwilling to discard even in the face of the pain it is causing Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I want to join with the Conservative Party in condemning the government for the foolishness we have been witnessing in this country for the better part of the last two years.
I have wondered a lot about unemployment for at least the last half dozen years, watching as industries close in various parts of the province of Ontario initially, and then when I came here to Ottawa watching as those closings spread from Ontario right across the country. There can be no more difficult time in people's lives than when they lose their job. I do not mean simply being laid off. Many of us have been laid off for short periods of time because of a downturn in the industry we work in. I am talking about the hardship and heartache which is experienced and felt by individuals and their families when a plant closes its doors for the last time.
As I look at many of the people who come into my constituency office to speak with me, I can imagine the upset they feel when, having spent five, ten, in some cases 15 or 20 years working for a particular industry, they find that all of that effort and involvement is for naught. Their industry is no longer required in this grand scheme of things designed by that government in concert with many other governments around the world. Individuals give of their very best, work diligently and make every conceivable effort to produce the things they were asked to produce to the very best of their ability, only to be faced through no fault of their own with the prospect that not only can they no longer return to work in that plant, but as they go to Manpower offices and visit other plants they discover they are not an isolated case. They discover they are but one of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people in the same situation.
Then, Mr. Speaker, they find that if they are to survive they must consider moving, to another community nearby if they are lucky, or somewhere else in their province if they are less fortunate, or perhaps to some other part of the country if they have a marketable skill. Some even have to consider uprooting their families and moving away from Canada altogether in order to earn a living and provide for their families. To do that willingly is one thing, although it is a difficult decision at any time; but to have to do it at a time when you have been rendered literally destitute and you had no plans to do so is mind destroying, to say the least.
I put to the government and the minister-one of only two government members here at the moment-that the government has a responsibility for what has happened in this country. The government cannot simply say, as it tends to want to say, that what has happened in Canada has happened all over the world and there is nothing it can do about it; that it is really the fault of the United States because most of our markets are there; or we are in the midst of a worldwide recession and therefore all Canadians must be willing to accept that the recession will out of necessity deprive Canadian workers and their families of a fair opportunity to earn a living.
I reject that because I happen to believe today, as I have believed for years, that it is possible to create in Canada job opportunities by building those things Canadians need. I believe it is possible to use the resources we have in such abundance not only to build the things that Canadians need, but to provide at reasonable cost those same products to people in other parts of the world. I think the reason we are faced with these problems is not because of an inability of Canadians to do the job or generate the need; it has to do with the inability of the government to separate out those things required for domestic consumption from those things influenced directly by international affairs.
I went back, Mr. Speaker, and thought of the hope we had of only two years ago. I looked at the Speech from the Throne and read some of the suggestions the government was making through the Governor General at the time regarding what Canadians had the right to expect from their government. The speech said:
Canadians expect much of this Parliament.
They can expect much. It continued:
-to promote a national development policy that will provide jobs, stimulate growth, build upon regional strengths, and increase Canadian ownership and control of our economy;
I ask you, where are those initiatives today when they are most needed? Where are those initiatives Canadians were led to believe they could expect when we find close to two million people looking for work? Where are these initiatives to promote and develop a national policy to provide jobs, stimulate growth, and help build regional strengths?
The throne speech went on to say in its nice little way "my government", that being the government of the Governor General because it is certainly not my government, I will have you know, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. Member:: Not the government of the people.


Ian Deans: It goes on to say:
... my government will be guided by the two main principles at the core of the program my ministers placed before the people.
The first is that Canadians will accept sacrifice to meet the economic challenges of the 1980s, but they will not accept injustice.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that there can be no greater injustice than that of a man or woman, who want to work but cannot find a job, being asked to shoulder the burden of the
April 8, 1982

economic madness being pursued by the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and his cohort, the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Is it not an injustice that people should lose their home because they cannot find a job in a land of plenty? Is it not an injustice that people who have worked all their life should find that, because of this government's policies, they are unable to continue to work in order to earn a living and provide for their families?
Is it not an injustice when a select group within society comprising those two million unemployed is to be asked to shoulder the burden while so many others at the upper end of the scale, such as the banks and the financial institutions, are able to reap such monumental rewards as the result of this government's economic policies?
The government went on to state that Canadians recognize the need to live within their national means, and that they understand the state cannot meet every demand in so doing. I want to say to Your Honour, who knows this fact as well as anyone, that there is no Canadian who expects the state to meet every demand. All that Canadians are asking for is a fair chance to put their labour on the line, a fair chance to go to work, to earn a living and to produce the kinds of products that their friends and neighbours need. There are few, if any, Canadians who are asking that the state look after them daily. There are few Canadians who are suggesting for one moment that they would rather sit at home and do nothing than to go work. Even to suggest that that might be in the minds of a significant number of Canadians is to do the people of Canada an injustice.
Then, of course, the throne speech went on to state that one of the essential objectives of this government is to put more people to work. I say to Your Honour, to hon. members of the House of Commons who are listening here and to anyone else who happens to turn on the television and see this debate by accident, that if that were one of the objectives of the government in April of 1980, then it has failed. It has not only failed, but it has failed miserably in the pursuit of that objective. It has failed, not because of the actions of others, but because of the pursuit of its own economic policy of high interest rates which has greatly destroyed the manufacturing sector in this country.
There is a hardly a community in any part of the country, no matter where one goes in any province from coast to coast, from north to south, in which one will not find people who are unemployed as a result of the high interest rate policy being pursued by this government, and by the governor of the Bank of Canada on behalf of this government. The government had the effrontery to suggest on April 14, 1980, that one of the essential objectives of the government was to put more people to work. However, it then systematically set about to make it impossible for those self-same people to find employment, to make it virtually impossible for those self-same people not only to find employment, but keep the employment they already had. For the government to do this was to make a mockery of
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the direction and the suggestion that this government brought forward in April of 1980.
The government went on to state that it would establish a national trading corporation. Well, so much for that commitment! We know that the government thinks of that now.


Mr. Thacker:: It's just a shame you guys don't put it back in, though, isn't it?


Ian Deans: Then, of course, more recently we find the government's statement that when we come out of this period of our economic cycle, we will find ourselves crowded out on the world markets by products from countries which have been able to control their costs. For some reason or another, the Minister of Finance seems to think that high interest rates and high rates of inflation do not go hand-in-hand. I know that Your Honour understands what I say, but for the benefit of the other hon. members I want to say that there can be no question in anyone's mind that the higher the interest rate charges which are levied against the cost of any product

whether it be during its manufacture, whether it be during the time that it is carried in inventory, or whether it be after the purchase while it is being paid for on the never-never plan of credit cards or other types of credit-the higher the cost of the product.


Blaine Allen Thacker: That is right.


Ian Deans: There can surely be no doubt left in the mind of the Minister of Finance that to continue to escalate interest rates can only have a detrimental effect in the battle against inflation. It can only have a detrimental effect! It is such a substantial part of the cost of every single product, of every single commodity, that it matters not whether one is considering the farmers, the small businessmen, the medium-sized manufacturers in this country, or whether one is considering the auto industry, the farm implements industry or the housing industry. In every single sector, in every single part of this land, high interest rates contribute more significantly to the over-all cost of the product than any other single factor when one takes into account the fact that those interest rates are added in on a variety of different levels and are compounded at every stage.
Therefore, it stretches one's incredulity to hear the minister suggest that somehow or other one can have high interest rates, better productivity and lower costs. It is impossible for any reasonable, thinking individual to come to that conclusion. I find it difficult to believe that the Minister of Finance believes for one moment that it is possible to have a high interest rate policy of the type that he is pursuing while bringing down the cost of all the necessities of life. Surely, common sense tells us that if it costs less for interest, then it costs less for the product. By reducing the interest rate, we can then, of course, reduce the over-all price of whatever it is that we must buy in order to survive.
Your Honour sees the frustration of this whole matter. I do not doubt for a moment, and I feel confident that it is true, that every single member of the House of Commons would like

April 8, 1982
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to see the unemployment rate come down, the interest rates come down and reducing inflation levels. They would like to see families once again able to go out into the marketplace to purchase homes at prices they can afford, with payment schedules which would enable them to pay off their debts in their lifetime. Most, if not all, hon. members would like to see the country in a position where the automobile industry, manufacturing a good product, would be able to make a recovery.
I say to Your Honour in closing, since I have obviously come to the end of my allotted time, that the biggest problem confronting this government is its own inability to understand the needs of the people of the country and to institute the kinds of policies which would bring about what we are all striving for-a place where people come first. The government be dammed with its theories! Let us put people first for a change!


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, 1 wonder if the last hon. member to speak would permit a brief question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The allotted time of the last hon. member has expired. This can only be done with the unanimous consent of the House. Is it agreed?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, the last hon. member gave a very fine speech as to-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Blaine Allen Thacker: -how the government is bereft of any ideas concerning how to cope with this situation and the dramatic effects of high interest rates. I am sure he realizes that during the brief Clark administration, interest rates were 2.5 per cent below American rates, because the one thing that this party understands is-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I did not give the hon. member permission to make a speech at this point. If he wants to ask a question, he should ask his question.


Blaine Allen Thacker: My question is: Which party passed the motion that put those mental midgets in power across the way?


An hon. Member:: Don't even answer that!


Ian Deans: I find that to be a very interesting question. The question, I suppose, is that when one is measuring mental midgets, one must find some new measurement which would measure the mental midgetry of a government which would allow itself to be defeated after only nine months in office.


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


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening very attentively to the comments made by the member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) and the member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans).
After listening to these two speeches, I must admit I am somewhat perplexed, especially since we are extremely lucky in our parliamentary system to have what are known as opposition days. We on the government side of the House are still hoping against hope that some day, the members opposite will have the courage of their convictions as well as the intelligence to produce solutions to the questions they are raising. I hoped this would happen this morning, especially considering the personalities of the two members who spoke earlier.
As I said before, I listened attentively to the member for Rosedale who deployed a vast amount of rhetoric in an attempt to prove that the government was doing nothing about the unemployment problem in Canada, that we were obsessed with inflation and that our only solution was unemployment. Mr. Speaker, I feel that it is unworthy of any member who has given the slightest thought to the economic situation to profer such falsehoods. In trying to recall what the member for Rosedale said, all I can remember is an enormous void and comments that were partisan and lacked any consideration for the real problems confronting Canadians in these difficult times.
As for the member for Hamilton Mountain, he made an excellent speech which reflected a real interest in, and awareness of, the personal problems caused by the economic situation. I agree when he says we want all Canadians to be able to have access to employment and we do not want Canadians to worry each month about meeting their payments, and we would like to see all industrial sectors operating at full capacity, so as to provide more and more jobs in the Canadian economy.
However, the member for Hamilton Mountain needed a scapegoat, and so he said that interest rates were at the bottom of all our ills.
Mr. Speaker, it is sad that once again, despite this very important mechanism in Parliament, namely, opposition days, there is a void, because our colleagues opposite have either forgotten or lacked the necessary courage to say what they would do and what they would like the government to do.
Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, we were not waiting for this to happen, and we have been trying to find ways of solving these very complex economic problems. On this side of the House, we are aware that our economy is not entirely isolated from
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the effects of the world economic situation, that we have trading partners with whom we must do business, and we are also aware of a very simple principle of economics, namely that as soon as demand for our products drops, there will be a direct impact on industrial activity in a number of regions in Canada. Unfortunately, the impact is often quite sudden.
Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to do is to create conditions that will make it possible to turn around the Canadian economy, and we are doing so in close collaboration with our major foreign trading partners.
What programs have we developed to promote such conditions? First of all, I would like to remind the House that the government has set aside $365 million for the Industry and Labour Adjustment Program or ILAP. As everyone knows, this amount will be used to promote industrial reorganization, manpower training and labour mobility. It is specifically designed for those industrial sectors most affected by technological change or international competition. We have already designated 10 Canadian communities and identified two industries under this program. For the information of the House, these 10 communities are Tracy-Sorel, Port Cartier, Sept-!les, Schefferville, Asbestos in the Eastern Townships, all in Quebec, Sydney in Nova Scotia, Windsor, Brantford, Chatham and Kitchener in Ontario, and McAdam in New Brunswick. The two industries specifically identified under the Industry and Labour Adjustment Program are the automotive parts and home appliance industries. As concerns home appliances, hon. members will be aware that, in the last three weeks, the designation of this industrial sector under the Industry and Labour Adjustment Program has enabled Inglis to take over Admiral, thus consolidating and creating 960 jobs in communities which greatly needed them, including one with which we are very familiar in Quebec, the community of Montmagny.
In addition to this $65 million program now under way, the government has announced the creation of a new adjustment program to ensure the viability and competitivity of the Canadian textile and clothing industries. When we announced this policy and the creation of the CIRB, or Canadian Industrial Renewal Board, we allocated an operating budget of $250 million to the CIRB to provide assistance to the textile and clothing industries and to the communities where they are most concentrated and which now have a high rate of unemployment because of industrial reorganization. We later announced that $17 million would be added to this $250 million envelope for plant modernization, training and manpower mobility in the footwear and tanning industry. Mr. Speaker, we are trying to gear our capacity for action to those sectors and communities which are most affected, in order to solve the specific problems mentioned by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans). As this period of economic difficulty affects some sectors more directly than others, we want to direct our action towards those sectors.
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In respect of automotive products, the government has designated so far Windsor, Chatham and Brantford under the ILAC program, the one I explained earlier. Furthermore, the government has announced a special $25 million fund for independent auto parts producers. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, we have negotiated agreements with Chrysler, Ford, Kaydee, Volkswagen, leading to expected new direct investments of over $1 billion and creating over 15,000 direct jobs in these companies.
We also sponsor all through the year 25 to 30 major trade fairs and missions and provide export opportunities to individual Canadian firms. In addition to that, some $50 million in loan guarantees and recoverage contributions have been made available to auto parts companies over the past two years through the enterprise development program and the defence industry productivity program. Finally, purchases under the automotive components remission orders now run at about $115 million a year.
The extent of federal activity is unprecedented. It represents a very substantial effort by the federal government to ensure that the environment within which the industry operates is conducive to sound business decisions which will result in increased investment, production and exports and lead to increased employment opportunities for Canadians.
[ Translation]
In addition to the special programs I have announced, and our particular commitments to the automotive industry and export promotion-I mentioned the PEMD program which aims at helping Canadian businesses find new markets,-we established the special mixed funding program last year with an allocation of more than $900 million to help Canadian businesses compete on foreign markets. That program has enabled us to win contracts which are of prime importance to this country's industrial development. I am referring in particular to the Mexico subway contract, that will allow public transit equipment companies to develop new technologies, penetrate new markets and create jobs at home. In addition, we are committed to the development of every region. For the current fiscal year 1982-83, the main estimates of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion will be $772 million to promote regional economic growth during this year. This includes over $167 million for grants and $116 million for programs such as the comprehensive plan for Prince Edward Island or the special plan for the development of Magdalen Islands and special ARDA agreements.
Our concern for business throughout Canada will become apparent in the new aspect the programs will take on, once the integration of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Regional Economic Expansion is completed. As the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) announced earlier this year, when referring to

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government re-organization, the emphasis will be hard on industrial regional development. The merging of the regional offices and programs of DREE and Industry, Trade and Commerce will give Canadian businessmen and women over the coming months better access to the economic programs of the Canadian government and also the opportunity to avail themselves more fully of the business expansion programs, which are centered on innovation.
Mr. Speaker, while recognizing the problems now facing the Canadian economy, the government is quite confident about the potential for economic development of this country. Thus, the Defence Industry Productivity Program, the DIPP, as is commonly called, promotes the economic growth and technological capacity of Canada through the development and production of defence equipment and related products in Canada. In practical terms, what does DIPP mean in the every day life of the workers? It means research grants such as those given for example to the Pratt & Whitney Aircraft of Canada Ltd., in the Montreal area, to Canadair Co., to the de Havil-land Aircraft of Canada Ltd. in Toronto or to Rolls Royce in the Montreal for the area purpose not only of developing advance technologies, but also of making sure that our large manufacturing companies are in a position to maintain their present employment level, to meet international competititon and to find new markets, because we want our country to be a leader in advance technologies and skilled jobs.
Hon. members might remember that during the last fiscal year, we managed twice to increase the DIPP budget, the first time by $20 million and the second time by $27 million, so that the estimates for 1982-83 will be $129 million strictly earmarked to assist companies in developing new technologies or new products and in seeing that highly skilled jobs are made available to Canadians.
Hon. members will also recall that earlier this year, sometime during the third or fourth week in January, the government announced a program to assist greater productivity by technical means. That program is known as STEP. It will help the Canadian industry to take advantage of the outstanding possibilities offered by the electronic revolution. The new program will provide $87.5 million from the former special electronic fund plus an additional amount of $52 million over a three-year period, to help promote the manufacturing and use of electronic and high-technology equipment in the Canadian industry, with the view to improving its productivity and competitiveness in world markets. In other words, additional funds have been provided for the establishment of four new microelectronic centres in Canada, so that each and every Canadian province will now have at one of its universities a high-technology research centre, in the field of microelectronics. In addition, the program also provides for the setting up of an investment fund specifically for major projects in the electronic and equipment industry. Moreover, this program includes a special research and development fund for the manufacture of advance technology production equipment, such as robots and computerized manufacturing equipment.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, the Support for Technology Enhanced Productivity program, or STEP, provides new assistance to businesses in every industry using such products and technologies so that they can get the information they need on electronics and put these technologies and products to good use. Time does not allow me to dwell on the subject but other speakers on this side of the House will have the opportunity to add to my comments later today. However, hon. members do know the significance we attach to the industrial fallback of the megaprojects in every region of Canada, and these fallbacks and their geographic distribution throughout the regions is a priority objective of this government. It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, that Canada's vast natural resources and the related secondary manufacturing sectors, as well as manufacturing activities in the areas of engineering, aerospace science, communications, computer science and urban transport equipment will remain the main moving forces of industrial growth in Canada. Innovation in the development of new products and processes will provide new trading opportunities to the Canadian industry on the domestic and foreign markets. However, perhaps for the first time in the history of Canada's economic development, every region will have an opportunity to play an equal role in these developments.

We recognize, of course, that the resource sector and other sectors in the economy, such as some industrial sectors, are experiencing lay-offs and we do not deny that this distressing situation has fallen particularly hard upon some regions in Canada like the forest industry sector in British Columbia and Quebec. Most of these downturns arise from economic conditions prevailing in the foreign markets of the Canadian forest industry, and the situation will not be alleviated until these markets recover. I point out that as a trading nation this is Canada's lot, because without the potential of foreign markets, and if those foreign markets are not open to our products, we cannot expect to be able to weather the storm completely during this difficult period.
The fact is that positive government action has restructured the important forest industry into a position of fundamental strength, whatever its short-term situation. The amount expended under the pulp and paper modernization program has been $276 million, and this has led to further provincial assistance totalling $241 million and private sector investments estimated at between $3 billion and $4 billion, raising industry productivity by 18 per cent. Efforts through DREE to strengthen and expand the resource base through forest management totalled about $91 million last fiscal year. Energy programs developed and implemented by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and DREE have helped forestry to reduce its energy consumption by the impressive total of 20 per cent. New overseas markets for Canadian products are
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being obtained through a variety of effective trade initiatives. In this sector I think the story is a strong one.
Positive steps have also been taken to create and sustain jobs directly.

The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) recently announced the allocation of $140 million to a job creation program aimed at hiring people now receiving unemployment insurance benefits, to work in reforestation and fishery projects. The hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crom-bie) referred to the work-sharing program with an irony which is incongruous in view of the situation, but considering that the government has announced nearly $350 million of new programs aimed solely at job creation in the last six weeks, to say that these are just bandaid measures, as the hon. member for Joliette told me behind the curtains, is somewhat of an exaggeration.
Mr. Speaker, I cannot agree with the charges of chronic failure made by the hon. member for Rosedale. The programs which I have just listed and the great economic potential of our country encourage us, on this side of the House, to meet today's economic challenge optimistically. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to give a brief summary of the policies developed by the government of Canada to meet that challenge. I could also have described in fuller detail all the job creation programs we have implemented, but others will have the opportunity to do so this afternoon. However, as the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) pointed out at the end of his speech, we on this side of the House also believe that people must be our first concern and that our policies must be aimed at promoting the welfare of Canadians.
[English)


Mr. Lome Greenaway (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to dwell today on the abysmal failure of this government nor the frightening statistics with which we are continually bombarded. It is my intention to attempt to bring a positive note to this debate.
In my own life I have always found that one of the major keys to success in business is to learn by example. You seek information and use ideas from those who are successful and incorporate them in your own venture. The government of this country does not seem to appreciate this simple principle. It does not even seem to be able to learn from the example of failure. In this respect I am thinking in particular of Great Britain, the economy of which has been sliding downhill for a number of years. We seem to be only a few short steps behind that once proud and industrious nation in its headlong plunge to economic ruin.
Why cannot we-as a country or, more specifically, as a government-take a look at countries which are successful in today's world? Let us look at Japan, for instance. Every Canadian knows that Japan is presently in much better economic state than we are. Can we not learn why and make use of this information? What allows Japan, a resource-poor
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collection of islands, to outstrip Canada, a country virtually floating in a sea of valuable resources?
Japan has the most formidable economy in the world today, second in size only to that of the U.S.A. While our economy sluggishly plods along under the burden of declining productivity, a huge national debt, high interest rates and doubledigit inflation, the Japanese economy defies world trends and continues to move ahead by leaps and bounds. We live right next door to our major market; the Japanese have to ship across the Pacific Ocean. Our economy was left intact after the Second World War; that of Japan was devastated as a result of its war effort.
What does account for the difference between our two countries? When viewing statistics it soon becomes clear that Japanese productivity outstrips that of any other western economy. In 1979, Japanese productivity rose by 13 per cent and in 1980 by another 9 per cent. At the same time this was happening, the west saw unit labour costs increasing, in the U.S. by 11 per cent, in West Germany by 5 per cent and in Great Britain by 20 per cent. This past year Canada was racked by labour unrest, which will undoubtedly show up as a further decline in our productivity.
It was long assumed that Japanese workers were paid comparatively low wages. This may have been true in the 1950s and 1960s, but it is now estimated that by the 1990s Japanese per capita income will be almost twice that of its American counterpart. It is evident that labour cannot shoulder the full responsibility for declining productivity in Canada. No, the source of the Japanese phenomenon goes deeper than that. It is profoundly concerned with the basic attitudes of government, management and labour.
To deal with government first, the Japanese government operates quite differently from what Canadians experience. Although the political structures are similar-both are parliamentary democracies-the role of government is an interesting study in contrasts. Japanese government bureaucracy is small in relation to the population and the size of the Japanese economy. The reason for this is that government, like all sectors of the Japanese economy, is output oriented. In Canada it seems that government is growth oriented.
In addition, we are currently going through a phase in which the government is intervening to an ever greater degree in the private sector. Proof of this is evident in policies such as the National Energy Program. It is likely that in the 1980s we will see a continued and unprecedented assault on other sectors of the economy by the federal Liberal government.
As an example of differing attitudes in government, it is worthwhile to examine how government involves itself in the private sector in Japan and here in Canada. In Japan the ministry of international trade and industry only supports industries with long-term growth potential. The Japanese see the death of an industrial sector or a company as part of the natural life cycle of the economy. But what do we do here? We bail out companies like Chrysler, Massey-Ferguson and Cape Breton Steel. Once we start to prop up an ailing industry, we

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are stuck with it forever. It becomes parasitic, sucking the vitality out of our economy.
In this respect we need only look as far as England to see the devastating effect this has on western economies. British Steel, for example, drained $1.5 billion out of the British economy last year. That was $1.5 billion for one industry. The Japanese would have spent that money on growth industries, which would have created long-term, productive jobs. Basically the Japanese government looks ahead; ours looks behind. Japan spends 25 per cent of its gross national product on government; Canada and Britain spend 40 per cent plus of their gross national product on government. That comparison alone speaks volumes about the state of our economy. We are an expensively overgoverned society. We look at multi-levels of government for support at any excuse, and seem to feel more secure with bureaucrats dogging our every move. Government has invaded every facet of our life. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, Parliament is even now in the last throes of a complete loss of control over the bureaucracy. Once it becomes uncontrollable, it will be the end of private enterprise in this country.
In Japan, government seems to work side by side with business and not as its antagonist. When people talk about the Japanese economic miracle, the ministry of international trade and industry is always mentioned. There is no question that this ministry has continually been behind the thrust pushing Japanese industry to the forefront. In Canada, the government seems to see industry as profiteers and exploiters of the Canadian worker rather than a source of employment and income. Business is constantly under attack. I need not mention more than the November MacEachen budget.
A recent example of government attitudes occurred in Ontario. The Volkswagen company wanted to set up a plant in Barrie, Ontario, partially as a result of government incentives. Barrie was the ideal location for Volkswagen because it could purchase an already developed site and it would be close to major markets. The federal government, however, decided that it wanted the plant in either Montreal or Windsor. Coincidentally, all Montreal seats are held by Liberals and three Liberal cabinet ministers come from Windsor. The government declared that if Volkswagen did not build in one of these two cites, then funding would be withdrawn. So Volkswagen said: "Okay, we will set up a plant in the U.S.". Finally the government relented and allowed Volkswagen to build in Barrie. So you can see that even before the plant was set up, the government was taking a confrontationist stance with the company. You can be assured that other companies will consider the Volkswagen experience when thinking about operating in Canada.
This is only part of the problem with our style of government involvement with industry. In Japan, research and development lies at the heart of productivity increases and ultimately is the foundation of the economic miracle. In general, Canadians seem to fear change. They look at advances like robotization of assembly lines and think of job
losses. What they do not realize is that whether they lose their jobs to robots or whether they lose them because they are no longer competitive, they are still unemployed. The difference is that if they lose their jobs to technological advance, there will likely be other jobs available. As hundreds of thousands of Canadians can attest today, being uncompetitive simply leaves them collecting a UIC cheque or welfare.
Retraining would allow workers to escape the drudgery of boring and repetitive jobs and allow them to move on to higher levels of skill that have the potential of being much more rewarding. The point to remember is that in Japan, the level of unemployment is significantly lower than in Canada. No one should fear change when obsolescence is the enemy.
In Canada, we spend about 0.9 per cent of our GNP on research and development, while Japan has already exceeded 3 per cent. Japan has 36 research and development workers per
10,000	population, a figure 50 per cent higher than the United States. More than any other single factor, this accounts for Japanese productivity and the strength of her economy.
In Canada, we have yet to recognize and act upon this fact. We rank only above Iceland and Ireland in research and development spending. The government offers little incentive to private industry to expand research and development facilities. The Minister of State for Science and Technology and Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts) recently set 1.5 per cent of GNP by 1985 as a goal for research spending, but this assumed massive private sector input which is unlikely to appear, especially in light of recent budgetary measures. That would leave us just slightly above our peak of ten years ago. Proposed cutbacks in funding for post-secondary educational institutions will further worsen the situation.
What is required is a co-ordination of research and development efforts by the universities, government centres and the private sector. Combined with this co-ordination of effort must be at least a doubling of current funding from all sources. This would still leave us about 1.2 per cent below Japan, but at least we would be approaching the levels of other industrialized nations. To skimp on research funding is false economy.
Also, if Canadians hope to succeed they must co-operate with each other. In this country labour is set against management, the public sector is fighting the private sector, and the federal government wars with the provinces. Government should work with business to develop opportunities which will in turn create jobs and strengthen the economy. Japan has thrived on this sort of co-operation.
I would like to outline briefly the sort of progress Japan has made as a result of this approach to economic development. Right now in Japan some 50,000 university students are studying various aspects of micro-electronic technology. In the United States there are perhaps 2,500 students in this field many of whom, I would bet, are students from Japan. I hesitate to think about how many we have in Canada- perhaps 50 or 100?
Let us examine the result of this emphasis on micro-electronic technology. Japan has 80,000 robots, nearly three
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quarters of the world's total. While we scramble to introduce robots to our auto assembly lines-probably the most basic level at which they would be used-the Japanese are using robots to produce more robots. As a matter of fact, the Japanese view the auto industry as a dying sector to be passed on to less developed nations-such as Canada, no doubt. Ten per cent of Japanese robots are rated as intelligent because they can sense an object, grasp it and place it where it belongs with a precision requiring more than simply mechanical movement.
The Japanese are presently working on a factory run by computers and laser beams. Depending on how the computer is programmed, the material that goes into the processor will come out as anything from a home appliance to a child's toy or a car muffler. Who is developing this process? It is the Japanese ministry of international trade and industry. It suggests that this process, known as flexible manufacturing, will soon allow small factories to turn out a large variety of products without requiring humans to leave their control rooms. The ministry will pass this technology on to the private sector. This is how to create jobs, not through a system of grants that create positions simply as a political response to unemployment statistics.
In the field of computers, five Japanese manufacturers now have 40 per cent of the world market in random access memory chips. Two Japanese companies are now laying claim to having the fastest computer in the world, thanks to new semiconductor technology. Soon they expect to have computers that respond to voice commands and are able to read charts and graphs.
Not only do the Japanese want to transmit information quickly, they also want to move people and material quickly. The famed "bullet train" is definitely old hat in Japan; it only travels at 200 kilometres per hour. The Japanese have already had a test train at Kyushu travel 10 centemetres above the ground at up to 514 kilometres per hour, or about 320 miles per hour. By the late 1990s, these trains-riding silently on a super-conducting magnetic levitation railway system-will be in regular operation. What is more, the Japanese borrowed this technology from the Germans who are well aware of the value of research and development.
So why does the government have this negative attitude, this approach that obviously destroys economic growth? The first reason is the one I have already mentioned-it fears new technologies. The second has to do with its socialist tendencies. The government is more concerned with distributing wealth we do not have, then in creating wealth that is our life's blood. We allow government programs to take priority over growth initiatives. Programs that would create wealth are downgraded. Social programs are important; we have a real and growing responsibility to help the elderly, the disabled and the handicapped. No one will argue with that. Encouraging business to expand would reduce unemployment while at the same time increasing the tax base, so that we could afford needed social services.
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Finally, I should like to discuss Japanese management techniques. Canadian labour and management could take a few pointers from their counterparts across the Pacific. In Japan salary is closely connected with productivity, while Canadian labour tries to tie wage increases to the rate of inflation. The former technique would actually dampen inflation while helping workers to identify more closely with the success of the company. This raises company morale, which in itself is a productivity booster. Connecting wage increases to the CPI is ludicrous because it fuels further inflation, and a measure derived from price increases of a general basket of goods has little application to a specific industry.
In Japan bonuses make up 30 per cent or more of a worker's wages. Wages increase as years of service to the company accumulate. These measures provide a real incentive to workers to stay with their job, thus reducing employee turnover in the company. With wages getting largely determined by productivity, workers become eager for technological changes which will improve their per capita output without requiring an increase in worker input. Absenteeism declines significantly under this system.
Japan is not a perfect state but there is much we could learn from the Japanese. Instead of setting up trade barriers which encourage the continuation of obsolete industry, we should work with the Japanese, learn from them, and compete with them at their own game. This is precisely what the Japanese did to the West. Instead of complaining about unfair competition, we should realize the incredible potential of Canada. Others are following in Japan's footsteps; Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are all stars on the rise. We will have to compete with them or be left behind in a self-imposed morass of economic and social problems.


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we are discussing a subject that is extremely important to all Canadians, namely, our typically North American economy with its usual ups and downs. We are also discussing what the government has done and will continue to do to stimulate this country's economy, how our many politicians can do their share, whether they are in the opposition here in the House, in the various legislatures or the National Assembly, or members of the provincial governments.
I was listening to the member for Caribou-Chilcotin (Mr. Greenaway) when he was referring just to Japan. It is common knowledge that Japan has developed its economy at a fantastic rate over the last twenty years, and it is also true that the mental habits prevailing in Japan are based on a very strong sense of discipline. For instance, it has long been an accepted concept in Japan that an employee's ties are with his company rather than with his job. And, furthermore, after the Second World War, Japan was in a situation where it had to start again from scratch, which is not the case in Canada today. Certainly, some Japanese concepts could be applied in Canada,

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but, on the other hand, there are many negative sides to Japanese society which the hon. member did not mention. I do not intend to go into this at length, but I would like to point out that if we consider basic freedoms and opportunities for individual improvement, I feel that Canada is still far ahead of Japan, and will remain so for a long time yet. To prove my point, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the Japanese government if confronted with such an occurrence tomorrow morning, would never stand for a separatist party bent on separating part of Japan from the rest of the country. Here in Canada, it has become a fact of life and we are more or less stuck with it.
To get back to the motion presented by the member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie), I am amazed that the House should blame the government for not having implemented policies to support the development of an industrial sector. We must realize, Mr. Speaker, that the government of Canada is spending $3 billion annually on assistance to companies in the form of tax credits, research grants, capital input, and manpower training. There is a host of programs that have been set up to help Canadians use their natural leadership and enterprising spirit to develop profitable industries in our country. All the policies we have developed and improved over the years have produced fantastic results.
During the seventies, Canada was by far the largest creator of jobs of all the countries in the western bloc. It has given its citizens by far the best opportunities for free enterprise and implementing their ideas both imaginatively and commercially, and its objective has been to build a new society, a dynamic land of opportunity. Today, the Canadian government is being criticized for introducing policies that have failed to support industry, or for not introducing them at all. I am amazed, because at this very moment, a tremendous amount is being done in this country.
Earlier, I heard the hon. member for, I forget which riding, tell the House that Volkswagen has just decided to establish facilities in Barrie with the help of the Canadian government, and this is a very recent development.
Just now, the minister responsible for small and mediumsized businesses was telling the House that KHD, a company that manufactures diesel engines, is planning a big factory in the Montreal area which will provide more than 1,000 jobs. This is very recent, Mr. Speaker, and the project is being subsidized by the Canadian government, 1 want to make that clear. Canadair Limited, which in 1977 had 1,300 employees, now has more than 6,000. This company is different, in that it was purchased, and entirely developed, financed and subsidized by the government of Canada. And there are many others.
A tax data centre is being built in the Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean area, which will employ 300 people by 1983 and provide between 600 and 700 temporary jobs annually. This is the only substantial job creation project in my riding sponsored by
either government. Of course, I would have liked the government of Quebec to do the same, by decentralizing some of the large departments which are located and will continue to be located in Quebec City and Montreal, because anywhere else would be out of the question. Obviously! They say our problems are the result of high interest rates, the situation is a disaster, etc., etc., and do they take a positive attitude, make any proposals for solving these problems? Not a chance: Mr. Levesque or even our friends on the other side here in the House are certainly the last people we should ask to make constructive proposals. I invite anyone to read the motion now being considered in the House, and if they find any positive elements, please let me know! I read the motion in French, 1 read it in English. My English is not that good, so I read it again in French, but there is nothing in it. It is just a lot of whining and whimpering. Complaining is easy, but it doesn't help matters any. Unfortunately, these are some of the things we have to put up with. I would like to pursue the matter further, because in addition to the fact that the economic situation is worse than it ever has been, there are aspects that have a special impact on people from the province of Quebec.
In Quebec, the present conditions are perhaps worse than in other Canadian provinces. From time to time, we are inclined to wonder why. There are two easy answers that are always trotted out by the Quebec government. The federal government, interest rates or the depression are to blame. Those are the stock answers. During the five years when things went from bad to worse in Quebec, the federal government was to blame, and now, when you hear a PQ minister somewhere, the word depression is never off his lips. It is all very well to frighten everybody, but it does not solve anything. This is a large part of our problem. But seeing all this, I say: In a province like mine, and I think about my Lac-Saint-Jean riding, probably the finest or one of the finest in the province-no offence meant to my colleagues-in 1982, the Canadian government has decided to invest $2.2 million in community development projects. I agree that Parizeau will say these are only band-aid programs. He is not interested in putting to work 600 of my constituents. This grant will entitle them to enjoy many other opportunities after completing their manpower training courses and so on. Parizeau couldn't care less, because for him, it is only a stopgap solution. He would have liked to have those $2.2 million to distribute among those on the cocktail circuit in France. He would have liked this money to go the 120 cocktail bibbers in the Maison du Quebec in Paris. The longer I look at all this, the more I say to myself that Quebec's problem at this moment and in the last 20 years can easily be summarized in two words: Jacques Parizeau. This man, who may now be seen everywhere in public, has worked in the shadow of the Lesage and Johnson governments in the sixties, and later of the Bourassa government. Now he is in the forefront. Year after year with him driving from the back seat, the deficit has increased, the hole has deepened and the situation has worsened.
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Since he has become a public man, we are witnessing something new. There is no longer just a deficit in Quebec. The province is losing money, to the tune of $1 billion one year and $500 million another year. No one knows where the money goes, but it is wasted. Then the Quebec government turns around to us and says: "There is a problem in Quebec and it is caused by the interest rates". I agree that there is a problem which the Canadian government will solve thanks to the recommendations made by the members of the Canadian Parliament. 1 am referring to the interest rate problem. Once our economic structure becomes strong enough to support the dollar and once we are capable of having interest rates set in Canada and not forced upon us by the international market, we shall probably do it. However, I would like to ask those who say there is nothing to fear about the dollar going down by 20 cents as this increases our sales, whether we lived any better when the Canadian dollar was worth $1.03 a few years ago. The answer is yes, Mr. Speaker. Today, the dollar is worth 82 cents and life is bleak. Methinks that if it goes down to 60 cents, life will be a bit bleaker still. Is our economic situation any better than when our dollar was worth $1.03? I am not so sure about that, but I think not. Before we let the dollar fall any further to reduce interest rates, I have to ask myself this question very seriously because my constituents have told me that interest rates are too high. I agree. I have to ask myself whether such a policy is worth while before 1 can decide to recommend it to the government. It would be very risky for us to make such an attempt alone instead of with partners who follow the same policy. The risk would be enormous.
Coming back to Quebec's problems, let us look beyond this question of interest rates and consider the basic economic structure of the Quebec community. For the past 10 years, there have been people in Quebec playing around with separating large and small capital, promoting economic nationalism, giving us a fine sounding language, opening "maisons du Quebec" in Paris, in Belgium and around the world, staffing them with cocktail sippers and increasing expenditures to such a level that next year, 52 per cent of Quebec's budget will go to paying salaries. Do not ask to whom! I am not talking about the vast number of contracts granted left and right by these people who call themselves the government of Quebec. What I want to say is that Quebec has forgotten something very basic, and this is what I find painful when I sit in this House and try to represent my constituents. People now find it strange in Quebec that a Member of Parliament should try to bring $1 million or $2 million to his constituency to create temporary employment. He must be a tax chaser! That is very strange! Who will be interested in such programs? No, in Quebec they aim at something loftier than that, Mr. Speaker. They want collective freedoms, they want a strong state, they want a country with a big name with some sort of president to govern it and manipulate everyone. And then people will be surprised that the economic situation in Quebec is worse than anywhere else.
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The greatest disappointment for a politician today is to realize that when the people he represents are asked to elect a provincial government in Quebec, they are given two alternatives. They are told that they have to choose as their premier between a representative of the Parti Quebecois, who wants to make a country out of their province, and the leader of the Liberal Party, who while he wants to remain Canadian would still put the state, the province and the government of Quebec ahead of the people of Quebec. That is unfortunate. At the present time in Quebec, there is no longer any mention of individual freedoms and basic liberties.
For years, we have heard about nothing else but the powers and the rights of the Quebec government, Hydro-Quebec, Quebec, but never have we been told what happens to Quebecers in the process. I come from an area where the Minister of Finance just slapped a 30-cent tax per gallon of gas on us "blueberries" from Lac-Saint-Jean who voted for the PQ government. We elected five MNAs, but other Quebec residents do not pay such a discriminatory tax. Do you think this is an economic benefit for my people? I run around like crazy to try to find programs to help people that are unemployed at home. The Department of Regional Economic Expansion gave grant after grant to the Lac-Saint-Jean area. We helped create huge businesses such as the Donahue firm in Saint-Felicien. We helped upwards of 100 businesses locate in the city of Alma over these last few years, and to what avail? To see our transmission lines carry our electricity down to Montreal, where they can sell it at the same rate as it is sold in the Lac-Saint-Jean area. Power that is carried hundreds of miles away and on top of that, they slap on us a 30-cent tax per gallon of gas that people in the Ottawa area do not have to pay. So much for Quebecers. That proves how much Mr. Parizeau is concerned about Quebecers. He thinks only of Quebec. To the Quebec government, Quebec's budget is everything.
I am all the more unhappy as my own party, the Quebec Liberal party, of which I am a member, is currently under the firm rule of someone who has also decided to give Quebec powers top priority, and this makes me sad. I say quite honestly before my constituents that this makes me sad, because I am anxious to have Quebecers offered another alternative. I am anxious that we go back to Quebecers, that we start speaking of Quebecers once more rather than of Quebec. I also was born there, as were six million others, and I do not understand why a government in Quebec asks me every day to show that I am a Quebecer. I do not have to prove I am a Quebecer. I was born in Quebec, I pay taxes in Quebec, I live in Quebec and I will die in Quebec. I have my roots there, as well as my fellow Quebecers, and I have nothing to prove. Neither does anyone else in my constituency. But that government that takes pleasure in wasting money dares accuse us, the government of Canada, our government, that in the last ten years through agreements has forced the provinces to spend in areas such as mine. I could go on listing projects in my constituency, the

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Plein-Air Base, Saint-Gedeon, Pointe-Taillon, Mont-Lac-Vert, Mont Valin and so on, several tourist, industrial and agricultural projects.
Had it not been for those agreements the Canadian government forced on the provinces, they would never have spent a cent in our area. So it is across the land. Those people will say that if there are economic problems in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, the Canadian government is responsible. No, thank you, Mr. Speaker! Let them tell me instead where the lost billions have gone. Let them tell me what they do with my taxes, and for the benefit of my colleagues opposite who may not know it, in Quebec car insurance costs twice as much as anywhere else. Provincial taxes are 21 per cent higher. We have the highest sales tax on gas, and why, Mr. Speaker? Because the Minister of Finance, Mr. Parizeau, after his last collective agreement, rose in the National Assembly and stated while holding his jacket tight: we just signed for peanuts. Mr. Speaker, such peanuts are of a choking nature. I would not like to swallow too many. So much for the choice we now have in Quebec.
What I want more than anything else in the world, and 1 intend to expend more and more energy to that end is an openmindedness on the part of Quebec politicians that will lead them, especially on the provincial scene, to become increasingly more concerned with the wellbeing of Quebecers. Let us stop talking about structures, let us stop talking about Quebec itself, and let us look at what is happening to the Quebecers. True, I am being denied the right to send my child to an English school if I should so desire. He may find a way of learning the language elsewhere, I agree. Many Englishspeaking people live around us; still I have been denied that right. Be that as it may, I can cope with it for the sake of keeping a culture alive; I can accept that. But, on the other hand, when for instance my pockets and those of my electors are being rifled, and then billions of dollars are being wasted year in and year out, without our being told where the money goes, that I refuse to put up with! That the Public Accounts Committee did not sit in Quebec in six years, that I will not accept! And if people think I am going too far in saying this, I say it is not true. It is not so, because their obvious administrative bankruptcy is increasingly being blamed on the federal government.
But, to return to the motion before the House. 1 am surprised that the Progressive Conservatives are not making any positive suggestions by way of this motion because one fact remains, amongst other problems: we are stuck here with a party that has forgotten the progressive part of its name, that is in no way progressive but merely conservative. I can mention several examples of that, like the metric system they will not accept despite the fact that it has been taught in Ontario for ten years now, despite the fact that at age 15 I was already learning about litres, millilitres, milligrams, then grams and kilograms. They are regressing on that score. They are against our legislation on bilingualism: that is what is written here in an advertisement published by the Progressive Conservative Party in the riding of Simcoe South. They reject everything.
They do not want their children to be bilingual; they do not want them to use the metric system; they do not want them to speak to the rest of the people. I shall dwell no longer on people like that. We have no need of them. Canada has grown without them and will continue to do so without them. I trust their electors will continue to give us positive ideas while they continue to waste their time squawking about matters that would set us backward instead of making us go forward.


Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I want to take advantage of this opportunity, just before Easter, to speak in a debate that I feel is extremely important, considering the present situation. Considering the unemployment statistics published this morning, Canadians will not be feeling very festive this Easter if they give any serious thought to the situation confronting us today. I shall comment very briefly on what was said by the member for Lac-Saint-Jean (Mr. Gimai-el). As a Quebecer, I think many people will not be terribly pleased to hear his comments, and I also think the majority of his remarks had no connection with the motion we are debating today. However I would like to remind him that he is hardly in a position to criticize people who are running up deficits in this day and age, because the government he represents is also an expert in this field and now has a debt of $137 billion, which is costing Canadians, who are listening and watching us today, $2 million per hour for servicing the debt alone. No, I do not agree with the hon. member's example, and again, 1 do not think the member for Lac-Saint-Jean is in a position to accuse anyone in this respect. I do not have the impression that Mr. Parizeau has had any influence on the federal administration during the past fifteen years.
I was also listening to the Minister of State responsible for Small Businesses and Tourism (Mr. Lapointe). He faithfully repeated for the benefit of the House, on the basis of the statistics he was given and press releases which the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) has been giving us during the last two or three months, a number of programs aimed at correcting the difficult situation in this country, all of which I consider to be unprecedented failure on the part of the Canadian government. Most people would agree that we are in an impossible, unbelievable and unacceptable situation, and in mentioning these retraining, pre-retirement and training programs for various industrial sectors, the minister was unable to give us the assurance that in twelve months there will be jobs available for the people who have been retrained. The pre-retirement program will cost millions of dollars and inviting thousands of workers to retire at fifty will certainly not help build a prosperous country. I do not believe that the Canadian people expect this. These are of course band-aid programs. They are emergency programs brought about by a situation which has been allowed to deteriorate to such a degree as to become unacceptable, discouraging and a major cause of concern.
This is a situation for which this government must accept full responsibility because, in the last fifteen years, it has
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governed badly, mismanaged the economy and lacked foresight. 1 listened-this will be my last comment-to the hon. member for Lac Saint-Jean who spoke about Quebec and tried in some way to relate this debate with the situation in Quebec.
I do not believe that Quebec should be singled out. All the Canadian provinces-I would like to hear someone pretend the opposite-are completely dissatisfied with the situation and the way this government has governed this country.
I believe that three years ago, we made some valid suggestions which could have prevented all this hardship. I believe that if the Canadian government after the election of February 1980 had at least accepted to give homeowners the assistance we had suggested, we could see that this program would have had very positive results by promoting the recovery of the construction industry and allowing thousands of Canadians to become homeowners, which would undoubtedly have led to the purchase of thousands of refrigerators and furniture sets. Thus, the small and medium-sized businesses would have been able to stay in business much more easily than is now the case. In addition, with regard to the profits generated by energy products, we had suggested a program which could have helped thousands of small wage-earners in Canada, but the government rejected all that. It opposed our mortgage tax credit program because it did nothing for tenants. What has happened in the last three years? Nothing has been done for home owners, and even less for tenants, who now have less money available to pay their rent even though rents have become very expensive. All that is the result of a policy which promotes confrontation with some provinces.
We all know quite well that if the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), who is in the House, had signed an agreement with Alberta, we would not be facing the same problems with the Alsands megaproject. We know that billions of dollars would have been invested in Canada, which would have strengthened our Canadian dollar. I am not saying that we would not be facing any hardship. I am saying that our hardships and difficulties would not be as great and that we could be in a much better position than we have been until now.
Then when we refer to deplorable bankruptcies, to difficult conditions, I think that we are perfectly justified because in every sector, in every region and in every province, including mine where there is record unemployment, and the present Canadian government in responsible for their record unemployment in Canada. I think that Canadians must be aware of that bad administration. It is our duty, I believe, to severely condemn this government and its team of men and women gathered under the various Ministers of Finance whom we have known, including this one, who try to promote a philosophy which is unable to provide the remedies and policies that are needed to straighten out the situation. Surely, Mr. Speaker, the harm has been done and Canadians are now suffering and will continue to suffer. If the few measures which I put forward three years ago had been taken the ones which we had suggested like a different economic orientation, a chance for private enterprise to do what it can do better than the government, I think that we would have bypassed the problems which we are now experiencing.
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And speaking of failures, the minister responsible for small and medium-sized businesses has amply shown a while ago that the need for emergency measures, for the millions of dollars that are now being expended, is proof enough of a huge failure on the part of a government which is to be blamed and which does not deserve the confidence of Canadians.
The motion clearly does not condemn the government for its investments. They have made some bad choices, and because of the present situation, they must take a piecemeal approach and try to correct a situation which they themselves allowed to deteriorate. Under the circumstances, I must nevertheless remind the House that, as an elected representative of the province with the worst unemployment record and as the member for Joliette, I am not the only one to condemn the government. During a FPU meeting held last week, farmers by the thousands severely condemned the government for leaving them at the mercy of interest rates. As I said earlier this week to the Prime Minister, I hope they will not blame high interest rates on the Quebec government. I think this is clearly a federal responsibility and is due to the government's high interest rates policy which is affecting adversely farmers, small and medium-sized businesses and contractors.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that if the government had shown a little sensitivity to the needs of these major industries, it could have easily favoured these key industries, thereby averting the current problems and distress. The hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) was right when he compared the programs announced by the government to misery-sharing. The government is trying to maintain and stabilize poverty through programs. Canadians will be offered a 4-day week, with paid leave on the fifth day, as well as early retirement at age 50. Mr. Speaker, you doubtless know just as well as I do that this is not the way to build a country, to make it strong and able to withstand any attack against its security. This is unthinkable. Because of its bad administration, the government is clearly stuck and it keeps on announcing investments by hundred million dollars in an attempt to correct a situation in which it placed Canadians and alleviate a bankruptcy which is surely unacceptable to the Canadian people.
So, when Quebec farmers complain, other industries are involved. The government is being condemned for its lack of policy planning in the automobile industry, the tremendous problems facing small and medium-sized businesses as well as the construction industry, and the measures introduced are not likely to help the economy recover. If it had provided home owners with the assistance we suggested, thousands of those who are experiencing mortgage renewal problems would be in a much better position, and thousands of other Canadians would have become home owners, thereby saving a great many jobs, something members opposite are perfectly aware of. As far as the soft industries in my province are concerned, Mr. Speaker, we know the difficulties they encounter on a daily

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basis, but the government allowed these industries also to deteriorate. If the minister responsible were honest, he would confess that in spite of the steps the government has taken for the footwear industry, for instance, through retraining or early retirement programs, he has completely given up on its future survival. It has been clear for the past three or four weeks that this industry will disappear unless steps are taken to include leather shoes within the total quota system.
The minister's answer is overdue. In fact, 6,000 jobs have been lost, 15,000 workers are still worried today. I do not know how many questions I have put-often with the tacit support of some Liberal members who did not dare rise in this House- politely to a parliamentary secretary about what was going to happen. I think they have a responsibility to demand that the minister take action and ensure the survival of that industry. The same could happen in the textile industry, and a number of others. That is the kind of situation we are now facing, and we know thousands of young people are discouraged and worried because they have not yet found a place in the labour market. How can we ensure this country's future with such gigantic failure?
Mr. Speaker, I know other members want to speak on the issue. But I think the time has come to ask members opposite, be they from Quebec or elsewhere, to stop that hypocrisy. Let us demand, as those members have a responsibility to do, that ministers and especially the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen) change course. As I said, Mr. Speaker, the damage is done. No political group in 24 hours could correct the damage done by this government over the last 15 years. It would have been possible as late as two years ago to avoid the worst. This government failed to respond to the direction and proposals we set and which would have proved very valuable to save this country from catastrophy. This government is the main culprit, because of its lack of management and vision, its stubborn determination to take the place of private industry and deceive Canadians into believing that fighting inflation will reduce unemployment. I have been hearing that same old cliche for 15 years but we now have both unemployment and inflation. This is utter failure. I will never insist enough on this point.
Today the Minister of Finance gave us another proof he has no compunction about his gigantic failure. He did not even give a hint he will change course or philosophy. And those hon. members opposite keep absolving and supporting him. In my view those people have responsibilities and should in the circumstances, prevail upon the government to change its attitude. We, the official opposition, are convinced, as thousands other Canadians are that this government erred, this government led the country into the doldrums, because thousands of people now suffer and beg this government to show leadership and alter its policies.
Clearly, Mr. Speaker, the present government will rely on the same philosophy to lead the country out of the doldrums. It will fail. My submission may be pessimistic, my colleagues opposite may say I am being too gloomy. This may not be too encouraging to the thousands of Canadians who are listening, but unless the Minister of Finance completely changes his
philosophy, the unemployment rate will increase further. And it is my belief that my warning will prove true in the short term. This government led us and keeps leading us astray but apparently does not give a hoot about the thousands of Canadians facing problems because of the current economic situation. Relations between provinces should resume, and at once. Enough stubbornness. Certainly, they will say this comes under provincial, not Canadian or federal jurisdiction. But in my view, men and women should rise to the challenge and reopen negotiations. That at any rate could prove beneficial for the Canadian people as a whole. Despite suggestions of politicking from all parties, I feel we have a responsibility to brace up and together with our provincial partners try to find a way out. But as long as the Minister of Finance-although he indicated this morning, that if he thought this could help the country, he would be prepared to resign. One of the services he could render this country, if he does not want to change his philosophy is to resign, and the sooner the better. He has proved his incompetence and mismanagement. We have here, before us, and especially from my province, 74 out of 75 hon. members who are in cahoots with so inefficient an administration, and are lacking courage under the circumstances.
I dare hope, once again, that the few remarks we are making today on our side of the House will bring this government to reflect seriously upon the hardships and the wrongs it is now inflicting upon the Canadian people, and upon the discouragement that will ensue every day with regard to the future of Canada. The fact remains that the present government is responsible, not so much to exercise power, but to ensure greater wellbeing for Canadians; but it has proved that it is incapable of doing so, for a long time now, and of achieving what this illustrious Prime Minister had promised: a just society. He is now left with two choices: either to change his economic philosophy that does not fit the situation, or simply, honestly, recognize his incompetence, his inability and resign, giving others a chance to do better.


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of the Environment and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: We have been treated this afternoon, Mr. Speaker-and particularly by the hon. gentleman who has just spoken-to a great deal of indignation and emotion. I suppose indignation is the professional responsibility of the opposition-a great deal of heat with very little light. When I listened to the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle), I thought for a moment that he had joined the New Democratic Party. He was showing such a selfrighteous concern that only he had compassion for those who are unemployed and those who are suffering from our economy. I thought he has verily established his qualifications for joining those who are self-righteous in the ranks of the New Democratic Party.
The question is not self-righteousness, Mr. Speaker. I can assure you and I can assure all members of the House that the
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members on this side of the House show as much care, as much concern, as much compassion as ever has been indicated by the members sitting opposite. The question is not who cares most, Mr. Speaker; the question is what are the problems that face us, what are the solutions for dealing with them, what are the alternatives presented to us in responding to those challenges?
The motion of the official opposition alleges a chronic failure. A failure can take place only in the context of the opportunities, the challenges and the problems that confront us.
There is no doubt, there is no denying-and there is no lack of concern in care for them, on this side of the House of Commons-that Canada faces difficult economic problems and challenges. But it is fruitless, it is pointless, to contend that those problems stem simply from policies of this government without a recognition of the international context within which Canada's economic policy must be rooted. As long as we are a major trading nation, as we are, and as long as we have capital needs, as we do, we will not be able to escape the impact within our economy of the general world economic situation. We can do better or we can do worse, confronted with any specific situation, but inevitably in Canada we will have to live with the consequences of the economic health of our major trading partners.
The question is, what kind of economic policies should Canada adopt to confront those admittedly difficult and challenging world economic situations? That is exactly where the hon. member for Joliette and the members of the official opposition have fallen down in their responsibility to describe for us some coherent alternative that would make sense to the kinds of policies that this government is pursuing. Quite clearly, this government is pursuing a policy of fiscal and monetary restraint. Is the official opposition suggesting we should abandon that policy? I can say, as a result of a variety of discussions and communications I have had with the private sector, that on the whole the private sector very much wishes the government to maintain fiscal and monetary restraint.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John (Moody) Roberts: Does he wish lower interest rates? How is he going to have lower interest rates without the imposition of exchange controls or a greatly reduced value of the Canadian dollar? Is that the policy which the official opposition wishes us to pursue? Do they wish us to undertake new programs to combat the social consequences of those economic difficulties that we face? If so, do they intend that we should pay for them through increased taxes or in the expansion of the federal government borrowing requirements?
They are strong in indignation, they are strong in heat, but there is very little in terms of light as to what alternative they would have us choose. Yes, Mr. Speaker, these are difficult times in the Canadian economy and there are hard choices, but they are not hard choices imposed on the people of Canada by the will of the government, they are imposed on us by the international economic situation. Those difficulties will be faced within the Canadian economy as long as we are engaged to the extraordinary degree that we are in world trade, as long
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as we are the advocates, as we are, of freer trade-I say freer, not necessarily freee trade-and as long as we have the kind of capital need that this country requires.
Nevertheless, though I am disappointed in the degree of constructive suggestions flowing from the official opposition, 1 welcome the presentation of this motion. I hope it will lead some further opposition to some precision in what alternative policies he should have us adopt. They are fearlessly opposed to inflation; they are very brave in saying we should not have unemployment; they are courageous in objecting to high interest rates; but they have not put forward any coherent or constructive policy for responding to those problems-different from the basic over-all economic and fiscal strategy the government is following.
I welcome this question put before us, Mr. Speaker, for another reason. It gives me an opportunity to discuss the longterm economic development strategy which was brought forward by the government last November and which, has not in my view been looked at sufficiently by Parliament or by the public. It is perhaps understandable that, in the controversy surrounding the budget, not as much attention has been paid to that document as I think it deserves. I stress the importance of that long-term economic development strategy because the NDP, the Conservatives and we-all of the members in this House, I think-know in our heart of hearts that yes, the Canadian economic situation is largely influenced by the economic health of our trading partners.
I suspect that almost all of us also know that the only way to fight effectively both inflation and unemployment is by enhancing productivity in our economy. If there is any magic wand in economics-and I doubt that there are magic wands-if there is any approach that really makes sense if we are to tackle those twin evils, it is by pursuing policies which enhance productivity within our economy, to make us more competitive, to provide employment, to provide for increased productivity and the ability to counter the effects of inflation.
It is within that context that the economic development strategy was brought forward in November. It is not a blueprint. It does not lay down some sort of nuts and bolts plan that must be followed in every detail. But it does give an indication of the path which the federal government believes should be pursued if we are to maximize the economic potential which the country undoubtedly has, if we are to maximize the growth of our economy.
If I were to single out the aspects of it which 1 think are particularly important and that warrants the attention of the public and the attention of the House, they are three in number. The first that the strategy suggests is that there are key sectors or key areas in which both government and the private sector must focus their efforts if we are to maximize the potential for our economic development. Those key areas are described at the very beginning of the document with emphasis, of course, on resource exploitation because Canada has international competitive advantages in the resource area.

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Unfortunately, I think some have interpreted the document as being overly concerned with resources and megaprojects. Undoubtedly, resources are one of the most important base of competitiveness and enhanced productivity within the country. But the strategies do not confine or focus itself simply on the resource base. It goes on to describe other areas of key importance-and these are not in order of importance-such as manufacturing. The high technology industries and the development of technologies themselves.
The importance of the document is, first, that it attempts to describe those areas in which the federal government believes it should concentrate its efforts since they promise the maximization of productivity and growth in the return over the long term. The second aspect of the document which I think is of great importance is the rather new approach it takes to regional development. Regional development policies in the past have been largely, but not exclusively, defined in terms of the need for strengthening slow growth or disadvantaged areas of the country. The conclusion of the government, which is represented in this document, is that within each region of Canada there now are great opportunities and potential for regionalized development. A regional development policy can now effectively combine the need for balanced regional economic development and the support of the key sector strategy for the country. In other words, a regional development policy and economic development policy can go hand in hand. By reinforcing our strengths within the Canadian economy we can maximize growth and at the same time respond to the needs for regional development.
The third aspect of the economic development strategy which I believe deserves attention, because it has not been seen-certainly by members of the opposition-is that it indicates and advocates what the government wants, which is a constructive partnership with the private sector in the development of the Canadian economy. For instance, if one turns to page 11 of the economic development strategy, the section on the government and the private sector, one finds it makes clear the predominant role that the government believes the private sector must play in economic expansion. It emphasizes that it is markets, demand or potential demands which must drive the investments and development of productive capacity within the Canadian economy. It is an emphasis on the fact that it is the private sector which is the engine for economic development with the country.
I have said that what the document expresses clearly is the desire for a constructive partnership between government and private sector. I say "partnership" advisedly. While it is certainly true that the private sector must be the motor force in the exploitation of commercial opportunities which face the country, it is equally true that the government must play a positive and constructive role in that process, particularly in the expenditure of its investments for the strengthening of the infrastructure of the country in manpower training, education, transportation and export development assistance.
There is a variety of areas where the government is necessarily active and where those activities must be designed to focus or create a context of support for the kind of private sector development which will provide the country with the growth that it needs. A desire for a constructive partnership between government and the private sector is the principal motivating force which has led this government to undertake an intensive consultation process with the private sector about the ways in which these development objectives can best be met. Indeed, it is a consultation process for the examination and discussion of those objectives to make them more precise so that the private sector and the government together can make sure that their efforts are in harmony, that they are yoked together rather than playing at cross purposes.
I commend the economic strategy to all members of the House. It is not a blueprint or a nuts and bolts design but it is an indication of the direction the government should follow to maximize our economic potential. Indeed, it charts the way the government has already begun to act.
This can be seen in the redefinition departmental responsibilities for economic expansion and in our external conduct of our economic affairs. For example, it can be seen in the renewed and strengthened emphasis that the federal government is giving to the support of the forestry sector in Canada. It can be seen in the emphasis on high technology development which has been reflected by recent decisions of the federal government to increase funding and support for the space industry by something close to $500 million between now and 1985. It certainly can be seen in the kind of support the federal government is giving to the strengthening and enhancement of science and technology and research and development within our country.
I recommend the economic development strategy to hon. members opposite and to all members of the House. I think hon. members opposite would be surprised to discover how much they agree with that strategy if they would only take the time to read it.
I have mentioned the question of research and development policy and 1 wish to spend a few more moments on that. It was a subject dealt with to some degree by the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin (Mr. Greenaway) who spoke just a few moments ago. I welcomed very much his intervention and discussion of those issues. I only wish that he could have been a little more carefully informed so that he would have had knowledge of the facts. The undoubted fact of which he does not seem to be particularly aware is that the effort, both in terms of funding by the federal government and the effort which has been made within the private sector since this government took office, has moved us considerably closer to the achievement of major objectives in research and development. I would urge the hon. member before he speaks again in debate to look at the brief description which was sent to him a little over a week ago outlining what has happened over the past two years in the research and development area. It is, as my colleague behind me says, a great story of success and accomplishment, but it is not, however, one about which we
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should be complacent or smug. There is a great deal to be done yet. We are certainly very much on the path to a greatly improved performance, not only on the part of government but on the part of the private sector as well.
Although it can be somewhat tedious to refer to statistics, I would like to cite three of four paragraphs in this report, given the concern expressed by the hon. member opposite. The report entitled The Government of Canada's Investment in Science which, as I said, appeared just over a week ago indicates how well the country is doing compared with the situation we faced two years ago. Statistics Canada has recently estimated that Canada's gross expenditures on research and development have increased by 34 per cent since 1979. That is from something well over $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion in 1981. That means the percentage of our gross national product devoted to research and development has increased in that period from something over 0.9 per cent to 1.07 per cent. It falls short of the objectives that we hope to achieve by 1985 and which I believe we will achieve. It falls short of what would be an ideal objective for us to achieve downstream from that. The important point is that the downward trend in the proportion of expenditure in research and development as compared to the proportion of the gross national product which was evident throughout the 1970s has been arrested and reversed.
The hon. gentleman questioned the degree to which industry was successfully pursuing increased research and development. The fact is that investment in research and development in that industry during that same period of time has risen by 43 per cent to close to $500 million. That is it has risen $1,034 billion to $1,481 billion between 1979 and 1981. In other words, over a 20 per cent growth rate was achieved in 1981. In real terms, these growth rates are higher than in any period since the early 1960s. That is the performance in the private sector.
Federal government expenditure increases have been significant as well. They have increased by some 34 per cent, close to $500 million, over the same period of time. It has been the objective of our policy, clearly described, that the largest increases should be in the private sector, exactly for the reasons upon which I touched earlier in my discussion of an economic development strategy. We want to see the private sector expand its efforts very considerably because we believe the most effective research and development is that research and development which is guided by the demand opportunities, the market possibilities and the capacity to exploit the market place by those who are commercially sensitive.
In one last comment on this matter, perhaps I should touch upon the fact that the federal government clearly has attached great priority to the research and development side, and that is evident when we compare increases in federal expenditures on research and development with other uses of federal government funds. During the last two years research and development expenditures in the natural sciences increased by almost
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40 per cent. In the same period the government's total operating and capital expenditures for all departments and agencies increased by about 22 per cent. In other words, expenditures directed toward research and the exploitation and enhancement of science and technology are roughly double the general growth level of government expenditures.
Our concern has been clearly demonstrated. Well over a year ago-in January of 1981-when the five-year spending framework of the federal government in relation to science and technology was presented, we established and described the objectives we hoped the university sector and the private sector would achieve. All that was done in January of 1981. Spending targets were established, and spending objectives for the private university sector were, admittedly, ambitious. Some said we would not be able to attain them. The fact is that over the past two years we have generally met the targets and the critical path of expenditure we described at that point.
As I said earlier to my friend, the hon. member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. Cullen), there is no reason for us to remain smug or complacent. I have recently gone to the cabinet with proposals to strengthen our policies which would encourage or entice the expansion of yet further efforts on the part of the private sector. I am happy to be able to say to hon. members that the cabinet has approved the general recommendations we presented and that an action plan for the implementation of those proposals will be worked out over the next few months. Good as the private sector performance has been and good as our support has been, we still believe there is room for improvement in engendering even better private sector performance than there has been to this point.


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, today is yet another sad day in a series of sad days because of the announcement by Statistics Canada that unemployment has once again reached a record high level. That level is 9 per cent, or 1,228,000 Canadians out of work. Today is doubly sad because we are not at the end of the trend, we are in the middle of the trend. If one were to look at the economic situation in this country, one would realize that there is not even a light at the end of the tunnel. We know that unemployment will increase next month, unfortunately, and it will do so the month after that and so forth, unless some action is taken.
I was somewhat surprised by a statement made by the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Roberts). He mentioned that the government's objective is to enhance productivity. He talked about opportunities and about the private sector. He talked about wanting to expand the efforts of the private sector in order to expand productivity in our economy. It is strange and ironic for a Liberal cabinet minister to utter such high-sounding phrases when it is the present Liberal government which has thrown obstacles in the way of every opportunity to enhance productivity.
The present Liberal government has been in office not just for the last two and a half years but for the last 14 years, and its lack of policies and efforts has strangled opportunities in

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the productive industrial sector, the manufacturing sector, the agricultural sector, the small business sector; and the list goes on.
One need not look too far back to see how some of these problems developed. One has merely to go back to the November 12 budget to know that as a result of the policies enunciated in that budget nothing but obstacles have been thrown in the way of progress in a country which has all the opportunities the minister just mentioned. We have better opportunities than most nations in the world. Per capita we are the wealthiest nation in natural resources, in human resources and in technological know-how. We should not be comparing ourselves with other nations which are not blessed with these resources and with the potential productive forces we have in Canada, yet what has happened after years of attempts by this government to get the economy moving? Unemployment has reached a staggering level in this country of opportunity. 1 will cite just a few well-known figures. The current account deficit is $6.6 billion. The deficit in fully manufactured goods-the minister alluded to manufacturing and productivity-is $20.7 billion. Interest and dividends paid to other countries amounted to $7 billion net in 1981 alone. The government spent half a billon dollars in the last month-alone to defend the staggering Canadian dollar. Corporate profits were down 44 per cent in the last quarter of 1981. Manufacturing is operating at its lowest level in 20 years. The list goes on.
Why? It is not because, as the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has said on numerous occasions, the free market or free enterprise system no longer works. It is because the policies, philosophies and programs of this Liberal government do not allow that free enterprise or free market system to operate freely. They strangle it with directives, controls, regulations and a paper-work burden on small business until they strangle and bring the whole economic system and the whole economic base on which this great country of ours was built to their knees.
I repeat that we do not have to go any further for confirmation than that "tremendous" budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) last November 12. Every group of individuals and every organization, be it apolotical, Conservative, New Democratic or Liberal, has condemned the budget. It did not take a step forward to help the employment situation in Canada. Indeed, it took a giant step backward.
Something is wrong when 1.25 million Canadians are unemployed and the government is looking around the world to import labour. Last year 20,000 people were brought in to do special trade jobs, while over a million Canadians were unemployed. There is no program or policy of the Liberal government to deal with the unemployment situation. But worse than that, the programs which exist in specific sectors are not only damaging to the economy of the country but are also fueling unemployment.
If I may, I would like to deal briefly with one very important sector. It is a sector I have been following very closely for the last couple of years. I refer to the automotive industry. In this country the automotive industry is responsible, directly or indirectly, for one out of seven jobs from coast to coast and one
out of six jobs in Ontario. In the last year one third of auto assemblers in this country have either lost their jobs or have been laid off and 40 per cent of auto parts manufacturing workers have lost their jobs in the last year. That is a disgrace, Mr. Speaker and it is a typical example of the inaction of this administration. The same holds true for the appliance manufacturers, the textile industry, the show industry and small business, which is probably potentially the largest employer in any economic sector.
What is the government doing about the auto industry, Mr. Speaker? It claims that it is only the opposition that recommends some sort of action. I am not a protectionist, Mr. Speaker, but when one out of seven jobs in Canada is threatened by the virtual demise of the auto industry, then I think the government must take action.
For two and a half years the government has been negotiating with the Japanese, the Americans and the others who are taking over the industry in this country. Any time my colleagues and I raise this question with the ministers who are responsible, they reply that they are still negotiating. They were negotiating two years ago, and one year ago and last month when the Minister of State for International Trade (Mr. Lumley) went to Japan, they were negotiating. When he came back he said that he was not concerned that the Japanese did not agree with his proposals because they agreed to negotiate again. In the meantime, tens of thousands of jobs are being lost to that industry in this country. There are ways to get around the problem, Mr. Speaker. There are solutions. Nearly every industrialized nation in the world has found a solution.
We all know that the Japanese have taken over a large part of the North American auto market. In fact, 28 per cent of the Canadian automotive market has been taken over by the Japanese, yet this is virtually the only nation in the industrialized world that does not have some sort of agreement with them. Australia has an 85 per cent local content rule for imported cars; the United Kingdom has a limit of ten per cent on Japanese imports; France has a three per cent limit on Japanese imports; Italy has a limit of only 2,000 units; Spain has a 63 per cent local content rule; Brazil has a 95 per cent local content rule, and the United States has just signed an agreement which will hold Japanese imports to a certain level for a three-year period.
All this government is doing is negotiating, Mr. Speaker, but negotiating what? It is just as if a patient were ill in a hospital and the doctors took time to talk about what they would do with him, but in the meantime the patient died. All the talk in the world will not help him then. What a patient needs is immediate action. The government has not taken immediate action, Mr. Speaker. It has been talking for two and a half years. We saw this coming two and a half years ago, Mr. Speaker. The government saw it coming two and a half years ago and the industry saw it coming two an a half years ago.
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I am not the only one nor is this party the only party to claim that there are ways the problems can be eliminated or reduced. The Canadian Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association has made very positive recommendations, as has the United Auto Workers Union. I have in my hand a list of resolutions put forward by various town councils, but I shall only put a few on the record. On March 22, 1982, the city of Port Colborne passed a resolution requesting the federal government to limit foreign vehicle imports and to negotiate an agreement to provide for Canadian value-added content of not less than 85 per cent; the city of Oshawa had the same thing as did the town of Lincoln and the city of Thorold. The list goes on and on, Mr. Speaker.
In the city of Windsor where the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Gray) and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacGuigan) and other member of the government come from, the commissioner of finance was reported recently as admitting that unemployment in the automotive industry was virtually bankrupting the city and saying that the city could no longer afford capital expenditures.
The government has received all these recommendations, Mr. Speaker, yet when the minister and his officials went to Japan they pussyfooted around. The Japanese are good, tough negotiators and they are also good auto manufacturers. This country must take a stand, Mr. Speaker and not be powder-puffed back and forth across the ocean without taking specific action. When negotiations have failed after two and a half years and unemployment is as we see it today, then the government must take unilateral action.
The recommendation being made and followed in virtually every other industrialized nation is that, if need be, the local content of foreign vehicles must be set by legislation. Some may claim that this will increase the cost of the car to the consumer. But that need not be the case if a duty remission is granted. I am not speaking of setting a precedent, Mr. Speaker, because the government already made such an agreement with Volkswagen. A duty remission was given to the German company in return for Canadian content of 85 per cent over a period of four to five years. The only problem with that deal is that Volkswagen has only four per cent of the market in this country. The programs is a good one but it does not mean much in that particular case. It should be applied to the Japanese market as well.
Another approach is to give an incentive to the Japanese to invest in Canada. Oakville, where the Ford Motor Company is situated, is in my constituency of Halton. Tremendous lay-offs and unemployment are being experienced at that plant. As the member for Halton and as a citizen of Oakville, I would not care if a Honda or a Toyota plant were built right next to the Ford plant. As long as Canadians were provided with jobs I would not care. It would help create a healthy economy.
The excuse given by the government is that if it took unilateral action against Japanese imports, then the Japanese would stop buying our natural resources. That is utter hogwash, Mr. Speaker. The Japanese need our natural resources. In fact,
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many are being sold to them already and they will continue to buy them. When the Australians set the 85 per cent local content-and Australia and Canada are the major suppliers of natural resources to Japan-Japan did not reduce its purchases of natural resources by one cent. Neither would it reduce its purchases of natural resources from Canada, so that is not a problem. In fact our natural resources are creating jobs, productivity and a healthy economy in Japan. Then, more often than not, we turn around and buy at inflated prices finished products which were made from our natural resources. There is something wrong. The government is not taking advantage of our natural resources and coming up with incentives for secondary manufacturing in Canada. If we continue to float aimlessly along the lines of the government as far as the economy is concerned, we will no longer have a productive base and we will lose anything we ever had. A typical example is the automotive industry. I believe that Canada cannot affort to lose the automotive industry, just as it cannot afford to lose the shoe industry, the textile industry or any other industry which makes the economic complex work. We are in the process of losing those industries because of lack of action on the part of the government.
The other day in the standing committee the Minister of State for International Trade admitted that the Japanese were not fair traders. They are not fair traders because they have more regulations and controls on imports into Japan than any other country in the world. Perhaps this is why Japan is so successful. I am not suggesting that we regulate our import situation along the same lines as the Japanese have done. If the minister agrees that the Japanese are not fair traders, how can he continue to negotiate with them? Surely he must take some positive action by taking unilateral steps in Parliament to implement legislation which would disallow or slow down the influx of Japanese automobiles into Canada and save jobs.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Otto John Jelinek: I thank the House for its unanimous consent. At the outset of my remarks I said that it was a sad day because of the high level of unemployment with which Statistics Canada came out today. I close my remarks by reiterating the fact that it is a sad day indeed for Canada and for Canadians. As the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) asked in his remarks today, have we done everything we can in this country? He went on to indicate that there are forests and lakes which must be rejuvenated, that there are houses to construct, that there is land to cultivate, that there are roads to pave, that there are railroads to build, that there are resources to explore, that there is steel to forge, that there are pipelines to build, that there is land to develop, that there are towns to expand, that there is technology to discover, that there are

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ships to construct, that there are factories to remodel, that there are bridges to erect, that there is a vast northern wilderness to be tapped and waters to be tamed. To echo what he said, none of these things are being done. With 1,288,000 people unemployed in the country, all these things could be happening. This would employ people and create a healthy economic base for which the country was so famous in the 1950s and 1960s. I urge hon. members of the House and Canadians in my riding and elsewhere to continue to put pressure on the government to take the necessary steps, to bring in incentives, to bring back free enterprise, and to allow the country to grow and prosper again.


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


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, it is the second time in less than a week that I have risen in the House to deal with the economic situation in Canada. I am quite pleased to deal with it, because I think it can be done quite positively, while recognizing that the situation as a whole is not altogether ideal. Just before I rose in the House a while ago, 1 read once more the motion moved by the opposition and condemning the government for failing to implement all the policies necessary to support directly the shoe and appliances industry. To make sure that I am well understood, I should like hon. members to read again with me the motion presented by the opposition, because I should like to refer constantly to it in my argument. The motion reads, and I quote:
That this House condemns the government for its chronic failure to implement policies to support the development of a sound industrial sector for Canada, and for the resulting lay-off crisis in every sector of the economy and every region of the country, which has had particularly severe consequences for the auto industry, the resource industry, the energy projects and the producers of consumer goods and appliances.
It is interesting to note that the hon. member's motion seems to suggest that the government has implemented no policy until now and that its failure to act in spite of the economic crisis was the result of a definite political decision on its part. To tease the opposition a little, however, I should like to announce today that the government has selected seven new designated areas for commercial and industrial development under the Canadian Industrial Renewal Board. I am in a position to announce today these new designated areas. They are as follows:	Trois-Rivieres, Cap-de-la-Madeleine,
Grand'Mere, Shawinigan, Drummondville, Victoriaville, Plessisville, Sherbrooke, Magog and Valleyfield in the province of Quebec, as well as Cornwall and Hawkesbury in the province of Ontario. Seven communities designated for industrial renewal.
The interesting thing about the opposition motion is that we are now doing precisely what it asks. We are implementing programs that will provide, not short-term job creation, but long-term job creation based on the processing of our raw materials, the development of our natural resources, in order to
build what the previous speaker spoke of a moment ago, that is, bridges, railroads, highways; in short, to build the country. I am sure all members, including the cabinet and the people of Canada, are agreed on the ideal proposed here, that is, to get our country under construction, to put our people to work. But what is surprising about the other side is that, when we decide to build for the generations to come, the service facilities required to develop the economy, the railroads, the airports, the wharves, which all require additional expenditures, they complain about the deficit. So, on the one hand, they say: Hurry up and bring our economy into the twentieth century, hurry up and invest. On the other hand, they say: do not increase the deficit. Now, if one truly wants to build, not for the next election, but for future generations, one naturally has to borrow because those facilities, those economic tools we are about to build will be useful and practical for a period of one to four generations. Their cost, the cost of that economic infrastructure, that industrial revival must therefore be spread over a period of several years. That obviously explains the deficit. What matters here, which everyone recognizes, is being able to control the deficit, making sure that it is not useless and accumulated merely for the fun of spending public funds. That is what really matters and we all agree. What does cause concern and worry, however, if when opposition parties, strictly for partisan purposes, try to block the programs that are being offered the people merely for the sake of blocking them. Some very substantial amounts of money have been released and are now only starting to be used to help workers.
I come from an area in deep economic trouble. The economy there depends on the iron ore industry, whether in Scheffer-ville, Gagnon, Fermont, Port-Cartier or Sept-lies. The situation there is extremely difficult and, let us make no secret of it, there are people who are experiencing tragedies because of those difficulties. Last week I told the House that even if the government were willing to invest huge amounts of money in those companies for modernization or expansion, it could not put back on the rails industries based on iron ore, on raw material mining, because world markets are scarce, and I refer again to the Iron Ore of Canada, the Sidbec North Mine, the Wabush Mine, and the Quebec Cartier Mining Company. Everybody knows the companies'presidents are not to be blamed for the slack, nor the government, as north shore industries happen to be extremely modern and efficient, and their productivity is fantastic. Telling Canadians they can always rely on the government for solutions is a deceit. It was still worse when the resolution was introduced. The motion now under consideration has been proposed by the Progressive Conservative Party. In the iron ore industry, I had the opportunity to work with the president of the Iron Ore company and I can vouch that none of the plans which could be brought forward could have satisfied that company, not because the company or the workers rejected them, but because world
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economic conditions were practically impossible. And those are economic and financial facts of the economic market.
Evidently, there are other sectors, which I shall deal with presently, but I wanted to give an example to show that regardless of the means available, you have to wait for an improvement in world conditions. And to pretend the contrary, is literally to deceive people. We are very sensitive. That area on the north shore was one of the first to be designated and the government made considerable grants available to many companies. In Port-Cartier, the ITT company closed when the Progressive Conservative Party was in power but I will not say that party is to be blamed for the closure because it is not so; nor is it on account of us that it is still open. We should be honest in such discussions, but hon. members opposite systematically like to pile it on. Despite the fact that large subsidies were made available to enable other companies to take over the plant, only two were interested. Once again, when the financial analysis is completed, the federal and provincial governments will have to co-operate very closely to ensure the recovery of that mill. Once again it is a matter of supply and demand and whether you belong to the Progressive Conservative, New Democratic or Liberal Party, it is necessary to work with all the economic powers involved. However, you should not suggest that there was no program to restore economic conditions in Port-Cartier or to help mining industries in northern towns-such programs do exist-but you should also admit that politics as well as economics have their limitations. The other side would like us to believe that if they were on this side or we on the other, they could completely change the entire situation. I listened earlier to the hon. member of Joliette (Mr. La Salle) as he lamented the situation, but made no concrete proposals. On the other hand, earlier today, the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism (Mr. Lapointe) gave some examples of concrete ways in which the government is trying to bring about an economic recovery, and more important, to find an approach to industrial renewal.
He talked about Sorel-Tracy, which is included in a designated area along with Sorel in order to give a new impetus to shipbuilding. He talked about Port-Cartier-Sept-Iles for its pulp and paper industry, about Schefferville's ore, as I mentioned a moment ago, about Sydney, Nova Scotia, for its metal primary processing, about Windsor, Ontario for its automotive assembly lines and parts, about Brantford, also in Ontario, for its farm equipment, about Chatham, also in Ontario, for its automotive parts, about L'lslet-Montmagny, for its leisure vehicles and home appliances, about Asbestos, for its mining and about Kitchener-Waterloo for its automotive assembly lines.
Those are not temporary jobs only. With the industrial renewal well under way thanks to incentives and programs designed to update those industries, there will be job opportunities for the young, the old and the natives-for the members who have some in their riding-because it is imperative to find ways of enabling them to develop in society with the same
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advantages others have. I have just given a list of concrete measures and designated areas, but it is impossible to ensure a recovery of this nature in only two or three months' time. A somewhat longer period is needed. It is important to keep those factors in mind when talking about economics. It is argued that nothing is being done. Today, the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the Department of Regional Economic Expansion made an announcement regarding a factory in Moncton. The department has given a $65,000 grant to help Co-op Atlantic Feed Mill in Moncton update their facilities, thus allowing 47 jobs to be saved. That is a concrete measure. But, of course, it bothers people to hear about concrete situations; it is always more interesting to chase theoretical problems, to try to forget what works and emphasize what does not. That is politically more profitable, and besides, it is quite fair. It is important for the government to show there is another side to the one presented by those opposite.
In St. Quentin, in Quebec, a further amount of $140,000 is provided to promote marketing. This program will permit the creation of new manufacturing and processing facilities. What the country needs is a more modern, efficient economic structure to put more people to work and help the economy. The programs are there and, once again, it is clear in the motion from the opposition that what I have just told you is literally denied. It is clearly indicated, and I quote:
That this House condemn the government for its chronic failure to implement policies to support the development of a sound industrial sector for Canada-
The opposition denies what I have just pointed out. Other elements could say more. The work-sharing program in the Department of Employment and Immigration has been implemented since March 25, 1982, it involves $220 million. The program was announced at the very beginning of the year and by April 2, 1982, 536 applications from companies had been approved, and this will enable 29,292 workers to keep their jobs on a shorter working week basis, and even more important this program prevented 12,805 more workers from being laid-off. Many other applications were sent to the department, and they are being processed.
Twelve thousand people were able to keep their jobs as a result of the implementation of a flexible program under which they can work a shorter week while still getting full pay. This program is interesting because it is optional, which means that you are free to accept it or refuse it. It is also open to discussion which makes consultations and adjustments possible. These are important elements which I should like, as time is running out to compare with what happens in Quebec. Under their present government, Quebecers often complain that governments do not do enough for industry and often blame
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the federal government for all their problems. For example la Societe d'amiante du Quebec which is now owned by the Quebec government is neither a private company nor is it run by the federal government. Is it in good shape? Not at all.
This asbestos plant which was bought by the Quebec government has temporarily ceased its operations because of a glut on the market, of stocks piling up and because this material is hard to sell on world markets. However, it is a government-owned company. In Port-Cartier, SIDBEC which is 51 per cent owned by the Quebec government has difficulties finding markets for its products. Yet the federal government has nothing to do with it. The Quebec government in good faith took over a company called Tricofil, which folded up due to the lack of demand. It is a matter of competition. It is a different problem. The fact that a company is owned by the government does not make it necessarily more profitable nor does it open up new markets. The only factor involved is the cost-output ratio in a world situation which should normally be positive. These are significant factors to consider for an understanding of this phenomenon.
Training young people is another factor, as I explained again last week, and the various governments have an obligation to see that training programs are implemented to enable the young people to be really employed, because at the present time, in spite of a 9 per cent unemployment rate in Canada, we are importing labour from abroad. Why? Because we do not have enough skilled workers here. Why? Because, to a large extent, our provincial training programs are not adapted to the labour market. However, it is somewhat ironic that we do have such high unemployment in Canada and that this government has to import labour. Those elements have to be considered within the whole problem. Sure enough, everyone, and we in particular, is suffering from high interest rates. I think that no one would deliberately want to maintain those rates. But ask the experts; there are many differences as to how to set interest rates and at what levels.
Just look at what happened in England or in France, in spite of a so-called socialist government. Unemployment is rising. The value of the French franc has considerably decreased on the exchange market. Of course, if we consider the Canadian problem as such, there seems to be no way out, which is bad enough, but if we compare it with other countries, we see that this problem is less serious and that we have many more alternatives than other countries. And this is the important point. On the other hand, if the government did not do anything, the opposition parties and the people would be justified in demanding programs and more specific job creation programs.
However, we have programs under way and for observers of the political and economic situation, Canada offers very concrete projects that will be implemented shortly, as the opposition is well aware. The opposition is constantly whining. It is as if a surgeon, after making his diagnosis, started to cry over his patient's illness instead of gripping his scalpel firmly to operate. After convalescing, the patient will thank him for
having had the courage to do so. In fact, it takes a lot of courage for this government to implement the measures that we have taken, but we know very well that the health of our country depends on it and that a few months or a few years from now, the people will be very glad that the government showed courage when required. On the other side, they cry over the present sad state of affairs. On this side, we have made a diagnosis and we are trying to find a way of making our country feel better. So, Mr. Speaker, I shall simply conclude by saying that as a parliamentary secretary and a citizen of this country, I share the concern of the opposition parties regarding the economic problems, but we have short-term and long-term measures that will be much more beneficial than all their whining, and I am convinced that we shall continue to build this country in spite of our differences.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, I must say I am glad the motion before us today deals with the question of the economy. It says quite categorically that this House condemns the government for its economic policies. Clearly, if there is any time when a government should be condemned for its economic policies, now is the time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Cyril Keeper: Why do I say that, Mr. Speaker? Well, as everyone knows, today the unemployment statistics were issued by Statistics Canada, and for the first time, certainly that I can remember, when we look at the real unemployment statistics which include those people who are discouraged and no longer seeking employment, we now have 1,913,000 unemployed in Canada, almost two million people, and if there is any justification for condemning the government's economic policies, that is it.
In additon, if we look at the unemployment statistics on a regional basis, the unadjusted unemployment rate in every province of Canada has gone up. It is not only the unadjusted rates which have gone up. The province of Newfoundland is one exception in which the seasonally adjusted statistics for unemployment fell by some five tenths of 1 per cent. However, we find that the seasonally adjusted rate still remains at a high of 14.2 per cent in all other regions, from Prince Edward Island to British Columbia. The seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment in this country has gone up. If we look at unemployment by age groups, for example, we find the unadjusted rates for those between the ages of 15 and 24 have gone up, reaching a high today of 18.4 per cent. For those over the age of 25, the unadjusted unemployment rate has gone up to 8 per cent.
If we break down the population in the country on the basis of sex, even these statistics demonstrate that all unemployment rates are going up. For example, with regard to unadjusted unemployment rates for men, the rates have risen from 10 per
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cent in February to 10.8 per cent in March. For women, the unemployment rates have risen from 9.2 per cent in February to 10 per cent in March.
If we look at the seasonally adjusted statistics on the basis of sex, just to give the government a chance to see whether we are playing with statistics or revealing the social reality, we find that unemployment rates have risen to 9.5 per cent for women and to 8.7 per cent for men.


Mr. Heap:: It is shameful, however you look at it.


Cyril Keeper: If one looks at the statistics today for regions which are hardest hit, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, we find that real unemployment rates-that is, those rates which include people who have given up on the job market and have given up on government policy-range from 21.2 per cent in Quebec to a sky-high rate of 31 per cent in Newfoundland.
The fact is that real unemployment statistics today show that there are two million unemployed people in this country. This is reflected in all regions of the country, in all sub-groups, whether by age or by sex, and in all provinces. This is not a specialized phenomenon. This is not simply a matter of some opposition members playing with statistics. This is a true, tragic reflection of a social reality which, in large part, has been brought about by the insane, insensitive and stupid economic policies of this government.
As a result of the economic statistics which became available today, I took the opportunity to challenge the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) in the House with regard to unemployment. I merely wanted to know from him just how high unemployment must go before the government recognizes the folly of its economic policies, changes those economic policies, and seeks to stimulate the economy so as to create jobs for all Canadians. His response was sad. He said that the question was rhetorical. He said, "We are doing everything within our power to assist." He gave specific examples. He mentioned the housing industry in which he claimed that the government was creating 40,000 jobs. He mentioned the use of the unemployment insurance fund, in which he once again claimed an equivalent number of jobs were being created. He mentioned the announcement of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. LeBlanc) that the government has created 25,000 to 40,000 jobs. If we are very generous with the government and accept those statistics as face value, we find a total of
120,000	jobs created, in the words of the Minister of Finance, at a time when the statistics clearly show that almost two million people are unemployed in this country. The response of the government is clearly inadequate and weak, and it simply does not meet the needs of Canadians.
The minister went on to say in his response, "We are doing everything possible within the means at our disposal to assist the unemployed in Canada." That was an interesting statement from the Minister of Finance and the chief economic architect of the Liberal government. Why on earth is he able to say, with almost two million people unemployed, that the government is doing all that it can when, using his own response, it has created 120,000 new jobs at the most? Why is he able to say that? Why does he believe that? I am sure that
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the minister is an honest man. I can only conclude that it relates to the way he sees the world and the economy, and his economic philosophy. I think that that economic philosophy was quite readily reflected in recent statements by the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Bouey. In the issue of The Globe and Mail dated April 7, 1982, Mr. Bouey's sentiments were expressed. The article quoted Mr. Bouey as saying that Canadians must be prepared to take a cut in living standards to combat unemployment, inflation and recession. Yesterday, Bank of Canada Governor Gerald Bouey said:
I am sometimes asked . . . how high does the rate of unemployment have to go, how many foreclosures have to occur, before the bank will give up its policy of monetary restraint.
His response was very much like the response given to me by the Minister of Finance. They will stick by their economic theories and philosophies. They refuse to do anything to help Canadian people when they need help and jobs. Why? It is because of the central economic philosophy, and the governor is quoted quite clearly in The Globe and Mail. In fact, he is quoted as having listed the following to be detriments to the creation of employment: government regulation, marketing boards and the minimum wage. He quotes these as being antimarket culprits. Therefore, what he is really saying is that he is a believer in the unregulated market and believes that the unregulated market will somehow create wealth and jobs for Canadians. That is clearly not working today. These are not the times for believers in economic theory. These are not the times for the Friedmans and Reaganites of the world, the people who, through some unexamined belief in an economic theory, continue to steer the ship of state into troubled waters and to abandon Canadians without care. They are operating on the basis of a belief in an economic theory rather than on the basis of social reality.
If only they would look at what is happening in the economy, if only they would look at what is happening to people and if only they would read the statistics produced by their own government departments which demonstrate the fact that unheard numbers of people are unemployed today, they would find that a change in economic policy is required in order to get those people back to work. They must re-examine their belief and take some pragmatic, caring action in order to meet the needs of Canadians. However, instead of a rational, humane, objective, openminded look at economic matters, what we get from this government is not only statements of philosophical commitment from the Minister of Finance, but the public relations exercises of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) as well. He has now become the front man for this Liberal government. What has he done as the front man? Quite simply, he goes around setting up smokescreens and he does this by holding press conferences every couple of weeks in which he announces some new "job creation" measures.


Simon Leendert de Jong: He announces them every time.

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Cyril Keeper: And he goes on reshuffling existing funds. When we look closely at some of the announcements we find this. In one he has said there will be a $200 million effort. That was $200 million for job creation. When we look closely, what we find is that there is only $20 million in there which had to do with direct job creation, one tenth of the figure announced.
A couple of weeks later, he made another $200 million announcement with regard to mining and forestry. When we examined that closely, we found there was only some 50 million new dollars in that package over a two-year period. These are inflated announcements. They are attempts by the government to set up a smokescreen behind which it can hide so that it does not have to face the economic realities which ordinary Canadians have to face in their day to day lives.
But this is not the end of these public relations gimmicks. Yesterday the Minister of Employment and Immigration held a national conference on work-sharing in which he was expressing his enthusiasm and his feelings that work-sharing was a success. That is like saying that unemployment insurance is a success because there are so many people on it. The fact that people need help is a demonstration of the failure of the economic policies of the government, and not of their success.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Cyril Keeper: The work-sharing, using the minister's own figures, has been able to help 13,600 people to retain their jobs. Well, I am sure that for those 13,600 individuals that is a welcome measure, but for the other real, though not official, two million Canadians who remain unemployed, it is a pitiful response, inadequate and insensitive. It is simply a public relations gesture, it is not an economic response, it is not a compassionate response; it is an attempt to use the media to protect the government from the anger of Canadians at a time when that anger is justified.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Right on.


Cyril Keeper: While we have the Minister of Finance making his philosophical statements and the minister of employment engaging in his public relations exercises, what is going on in the economy, what is happening in Canada? Well, if we look at it closely, Mr. Speaker, we can see quite clearly what is happening. I am going to quote from some objective sources. I will quote from The Globe and Mail of Tuesday, April 6, 1982. The picture that we find is that Canada is suffering from the worst economic crisis since 1947. The Conference Board of Canada recently did a survey of the findings of economic forecasters. I quote from The Globe and Mail.
Canada is gripped by what is probably the worst recession since 1947 and unemployment will remain at near record levels for the rest of the year, according to a survey of 18 economic forecasters.
The report in The Globe and Mail goes on to say:
The Conference Board of Canada survey found most forecasters much more pessimistic about 1982's economic rate and unemployment prospects than they were last fall yet no more hopeful about the chances for bringing down inflation.
The significance of that last phrase is that every action by this government is justified in the name of fighting inflation. Clearly, inflation is not going down, their policies are not working, so why do they not re-examine them and why do they not consider the people who need work now?
It is not only the Conference Board of Canada that draws this picture of the economy for us. We go to a government agency, Statistics Canada. They indicate quite clearly that there is no end in sight to the recession in the following statement:
There is still no end in sight for the current economic recession, according to the government's chief statistical agency. In fact, the few indicators that surfaced in last month's report suggesting that the economy might improve have practically vanished.
I go on to some solutions they suggest:
One way the government could pull the economy out of the recession is by lowering the value of the dollar hence making exports more competitive on the world markets.
A little further on, report says:
The Bank of Canada has warned that it will not relent on its tight money policy, that it will not allow the dollar to decline, it has pushed up its lending rate slightly to 15.40 per cent from 15.32 per cent.
They are not willing to accept or consider changes in policy but they are willing to push up the interest rates and thereby up the inflation rate and thereby put more people on the unemployment rolls.
It is not just the members of this party here who are drawing a gloomy picture of the economy. It is objective agencies of the government and the community who point out that we are in an economic crisis. But is this economic crisis one that is as the Minister of Finance described it, an international crisis under which we have no influence or no control? Must it always be and is it an act of God? Is it an act of fate? Is it an historical inevitability? Must we continue in this sea of troubles with no hope for relief?
We probably must, if we share the economic philosophy of the government, if we believe, as the government seems to believe, in an unregulated free market economy.
I believe somewhat differently, Mr. Speaker. I believe in a mixed economy but I also believe that the government can take hold of the economy, can make the economy serve the needs of the people and can provide employment. That is not only a philosophical position that I take in saying that, it is also a philosophical posture that can be translated into practical proposals.
I want to refer to a comprehensive proposal that was made by the leader of our party recently, which is described as "a new employment option for Canada". There are five parts to it. Quite simply, it is a practical, humane suggestion to the government as to how we can get the economy moving again and get Canadians back to work. I will describe it fairly briefly and quickly, but I would like to get the essence of it across to the government so that it can realize that it is possible to do something about the economy and to do something now.
The first point focuses upon the domestic Canadian economy and really says that what we have to do in Canada is be
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willing to negotiate production agreements in key economic sectors such as machinery and transportation. We have to negotiate production agreements with multinational corporations. We have to say, "okay, if you want a piece of our market"-and that is why they are here, they want a piece of our market-"then you have to do a fair share of the manufacturing in Canada, you have to provide Canada with a fair share of the jobs."


Simon Leendert de Jong: That would be a good start.


Cyril Keeper: If they are not willing to do that, then we have to be willing to use some lever in order to convince them that we are serious in these negotiations, that we are prepared to look at measures such as emergency surcharges, look at measures including subsidies and various kinds of tax measures in order to convince the multinationals that we are serious about providing employment for Canada and that when we enter into negotiations for jobs for Canadians, we mean it.


Simon Leendert de Jong: And make them for the autoworkers.


Cyril Keeper: Exactly. The second point of this New Employment Option relates to the export market and it points out that countries like France and West Germany provide all sorts of assistance for their export industries and that we need to do a similar kind of thing here in Canada. We have to underwrite the risks faced by our exporters and, we have to provide a comprehensive coverage of production, credit, accident, commercial, exchange rate, inflation and market development risks. In other words, we have to use the government to put our export industries on a competitive footing with the rest of the industrial world. The third point in this new employment option relates to tax cuts. We want to provide an immediate tax cut for low and middle-income Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. I understand that the hon. member may wish to continue, but his time has expired. I would have to seek, on his behalf, the unanimous consent of the House to permit him to continue for a moment or two. Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Cyril Keeper: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will wind up very quickly. The third measure in this employment package relates to tax cuts. The fourth measure relates to housing. The fifth relates to interest rates. I will not go into the details of these measures now because my time has run out.
Quite simply, I wanted to point out that rather than adopting these sort of practical proposals and putting them into action, what is happening in Canada is that more and more Canadians are on the welfare rolls. In fact, today there have been estimates that 250,000 of those Canadians on the welfare rolls are, in fact, employable Canadians. What we have in Canada today is a policy of putting workers on welfare. What we need is a policy for putting workers back to work. We must get the government to start working on the economy so
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Canadians can get back to work and earn a decent living. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. John Evans (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it was very interesting listening to the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Keeper) speaking on the economy and what government must do in order to create conditions for a fast growing and highly productive economy. However, I think the hon. member must realize, as all of us must to a great extent, that this does not depend entirely on the government. The government cannot make the economy work by snapping its fingers or by saying that it should work. It requires co-operation from all the players in the economic system. It takes cooperation from labour, from the business community and it certainly takes co-operation from governments.
In some cases in the past, government policies at the federal and provincial level have not been as effective as we would have liked them to be in promoting growth and development. Governments have recognized that fact and have attempted to modify policies in order to try to improve them.
For example, the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Roberts) indicated earlier that we realize that research and development in Canada is below what we would like to see it, below what other nations have achieved and below where we think it should be. Indeed, the government has brought forward policies to try to improve the situation and increase the amount of research and development. There have been many initiatives taken recently to try to improve research and development.
Since I am from Ottawa I know for a fact that those policies are in place and have been of assistance and are, indeed, creating an environment in which research and development can grow much faster than it has in the past. Although we do not necessarily like the term, people from outside of Ottawa have called it "silicone valley north", referring to the Ottawa Valley with its high technology industry which has grown from virtually nothing. It started out of the Bell Northern research labs and the Bell Canada research labs which were located here. People who worked in those labs spun out of that industry and developed their own companies like Mitel, Gandalf, Nabu and other companies.


Simon Leendert de Jong: What about the west?


John Leslie Evans: They have developed in the west. There are Bell Northern labs and there is other high technology research and development and production happening in Saskatoon. It is happening in New Brunswick now with Mitel which has just built a new plant in a high unemployment region. We are seeing growth and development in the high technology industry and government policies are indeed assisting. Telidon is a good example as well as Telesat, the Canadarm, the space program and all kinds of initiatives being taken by the government to build for the industries of the future.
What we are hearing today is a paranoid fear of the future and a fear for the status quo, for the here and now. If all we can do in the House is attempt to find ways to protect the

April 8, 1982
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status quo and not turn our attention to how to build a better future for Canada and how to redistribute the resources we have from the status quo to plan for the future, we will always remain where we are now and not improve. We will not see rising standards of living in Canada. What Canadians want are rising standards of living, and it seems to me that the debate today has not focused on that question. It has not focused on how to change gears and shift ourselves into the new areas for the future and what the future will be.
One of the hon. members opposite who spoke earlier today talked about the adtomobile industry and Japan. I think one of his comments was very telling. It was that the Japanese consider the automobile industry to be an industry of the past. Where are they going from there? They are going into microprocessors and high technology industries. I believe that comment was made by the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin (Mr. Greenaway) who, I might say, gave a very good speech on high technology. He is quite knowledgeable about research and development. That is the area which the Japanese and French are developing and it is where we should be heading. In fact, we are moving in that direction, but we must move faster.
This means that we will need resources. If we spend all of our resources and the wealth which the government has available to it-that wealth which comes from the pockets of the taxpayers-on protecting the status quo, we will not have that money to inject into the industries of the future in order to build for the future. I can guarantee you that over time the standard of living in this country will go down instead of up.


Simon Leendert de Jong: They have been going down.


John Leslie Evans: We heard the hon. member for Halton (Mr. Jelinek) talk about the automobile industry. The impression he gave me was that the plight of the automobile industry is entirely the government's fault and if the government would do something different, do this or that, then the situation of the automobile industry would improve overnight. Obviously, that is nonsense.
The reasons for the plight of the automobile industry are complex. Its costs are out of line. They have not modernized their plant equipment or kept up with world competition. Certainly there are some problems and perhaps there are regulations on the automobile industry which make it unable to adapt as well as it might if some of those regulations were not there. If that is the case, I would like to hear it. However, we have not heard about it today.
Where is the responsibility of the management of those companies and indeed where is the responsibility of the labour unions whose salaries and wages are very high relative to other industrial workers in Canada and certainly to those who work in automobile industries in other countries?
Where is the responsibility of the Canadian unions to respond to the difficulties of the North American auto industry, as their brothers in the United States have responded? Do we not have a responsibility in Canada to look realistically at our problems and try to do something about them? It certainly seems to me that we do have that responsibility. This problem
is not being viewed realistically by labour and management. What is being asked for through quotas or tariffs is simply that all Canadians reduce their standard of living a bit in order to protect that industry.
We hear hon. members talk about protection. I believe that the hon. member for Halton indicated that he was not a protectionist, but indeed he is because that is what he was talking about.
One of our great faults is that we do not read our history. It may be due to time pressures that hon. members do not read their history, but if we remember our history and ask why the depression of the 1930s occurred and what kept the fist of depression at the people's throats, you find it was protectionism. That is how the depression of the 1930s started and that is why it took so long to emerge from it. We did not at the time recognize what a terrible effect protectionist policies have on economic development. We are a trading nation. We are one of the greatest trading nations in the world. We of all people should know the detrimental effects of protectionism.


Mr. Manly:: What is causing today's depression?


John Leslie Evans: The Smoot-Hawley tariff in the United States is an example. The depression of the thirties has been attributed in large measure to the introduction of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, which cut off trade with other countries and caused their economies to fall as a result of not being able to penetrate the U.S. market. Then U.S. manufacturers did not have markets in which to sell their products because of the depressed nature of the other economies. The whole system spiralled downwards.
Now we are hearing the same thing. We are hearing cries from the United States, cries from this chamber and cries from European countries for protectionism. We are being told that that is the way to preserve jobs here in Canada, in the United States or in France. What will happen is that the whole system will spiral downwards.


James Douglas Manly: That is what it is doing.


John Leslie Evans: If we want a much more serious recession than we have now, we should just keep calling for protection, because that is how to do it. There can be no doubt about that. We are all better off and our standards of living rise when we have openness and trade among nations. "You do what you do best, we do what we do best and we can exchange", and we will all be better off for it. That is totally obvious.


James Douglas Manly: And you go downhill.


John Leslie Evans: We do not have to go downhill. Members of the New Democratic Party are absolute pessimists about the ability of the Canadian economy to respond to economic reality. We have done exceptionally well over the last 30 or 40 years.


Simon Leendert de Jong: How come we are in the mess we are in?
April 8, 1982


John Leslie Evans: We have done very well in adapting to market realities, and we will continue to do so.
Let us look at Canada in the world context. We are having difficulties. No one denies we are having economic difficulties, but the difficulties we have in Canada in most cases are not as severe as they are in most other nations in the world. That is the fact of the matter. We should not debate our problems in this chamber as if we were isolated in our own shell when in fact 30 per cent of our gross national product is traded with other nations.
I was in Vancouver last month talking to the Council of Forest Industries, senior executives of all the major forest product companies in the west, and the Council of Mining Industries, senior mining executives in the west. I asked them what the government could do in fiscal and monetary policy to make their lives better and what the government could do to obviate lay-offs and shutdowns.


Sidney James Parker: Ask the workers.


John Leslie Evans: Do hon. members know what their answer was? "Not a thing". There is no action the Canadian government could take right now to prevent lay-offs and shutdowns because the markets we sell into outside this country have closed down. If we cannot sell our forest products in the United States, there will be lay-offs and shutdowns, and there is nothing the Canadian government can do to prevent that.


Sidney James Parker: Build some housing in Canada.


John Leslie Evans: If we cannot sell our zinc, our copper, our lead or our aluminum into the United States and other markets, there is nothing the Canadian government can do; there will be lay-offs. If we sell 80 per cent of our automobiles into the U.S. market and the Americans are not buying cars, there is nothing the Canadian government can do to prevent lay-offs.


Cyril Keeper: Lay yourself off.


Simon Leendert de Jong: If you can't do anything, resign.


John Leslie Evans: These obvious point-blank and blunt facts of life have to be recognized by members of the House, and certainly by members who sit in the corner opposite.
There are some very serious and difficult questions facing this country and other countries, but I suggest in a nonpartisan spirit that the main issues facing us are not economic in a monetary and fiscal policy sense. The real underlying and fundamental problems in this country are not interest rates, unemployment or inflation. Contrary to what hon. members opposite believe, I, along with people in the economics profession, business people and political people, know the mechanics of how to come to grips with our problems. Those mechanical solutions would work. We could eradicate inflation overnight and bring interest rates down overnight, but the nub of the issue is distribution costs. The costs, in terms of human lives, associated with getting inflation down fast and with getting interest rates down fast are extraordinarily high, and the gut-wrenching issue with which politicians here and in the legislatures across the country have to come to grips is how to make
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those distributive decisions. How will we come to grips with the issue of how to distribute the costs of the transition from an economy that is sick to an economy that is healthy and growing fast? There will have to be redistributive decisions. How can we come to grips with the problems we all know we face? We know we have unemployment and labour shortages at the same time.


Cyril Keeper: Elect the NDP.


John Leslie Evans: How can we come to grips with the issue of high unemployment in the maritimes and labour shortages in the west without asking people to uproot their lives and move across the country?


Cyril Keeper: Elect the NDP.


John Leslie Evans: How can we come to grips with the problems of a person who has worked for 30 years and has certain skills but the industry in which he is working is dying? How should we help that person move from a dying industry into a new trade or a new skill?


Cyril Keeper: Elect the NDP.


John Leslie Evans: Those are the gut-wrenching issues with which we have failed to come to grips in the debates we have had on this subject. We have not talked about those issues, and until we do we will not be able to solve our problems. We have to have some way to come to grips with how we are to help people adjust to the future.


Cyril Keeper: Elect the NDP.


John Leslie Evans: How are we to put an equitable tax system in place which ensures that all Canadians bear their fair share of the costs of government and the costs of assisting industries to move from where they are now to where they certainly will have to be five or ten years from now? Those are the issues. We can sit here and argue about inflation and interest rates, but we have to come to grips with those distributive issues, and we have to find out how we can help people.
The individual person is the person about whom we are all concerned, and nobody in the House has a corner on compassion. We are all here because we want to do something for our constituents. We want to do something for Canadians. We want to give something of ourselves to make life a little better in this country. If we did not want that, we would not be here. No one has a corner on compassion. The issues with which we must come to grips are the distributive issues. In a debate like this we should be talking about those issues. What is the best way to help people? My friend spoke earlier about Victoria-ville. My wife's family is from Victoriaville, Quebec. The amount of unemployment there is enormous. The rate is 60 per cent or 70 per cent. Victoriaville is a town with a textile industry which is going under. It is a town with a furniture industry which has faced great difficulties. I hope hon. members will comment on this issue. I am sure the hon. member for Calgary North (Mr. Wright) will.

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Mr. Wright:: I am waiting.


John Leslie Evans: The answer to the problem is not to protect or to try to protect an industry which will face competitive pressures year after year. Those pressures will become more intense. The question is how we can help the community and the people in it.


Cyril Keeper: Elect the NDP.


John Leslie Evans: How can we help them adjust to the new realities and the industries of the future? How can we help people move from low-paying jobs in certain industries, which are fading and dying, into jobs with a future, high pay and better standards of living? Those are the issues that we should be discussing, Mr. Speaker. We can rail at each other about inflation and high interest rates, and say, "You blame us, we blame you", and when the day is over nothing is accomplished, or we can try to come to grips with the real issue, that is people issues, Mr. Speaker. People issues are not solved by throwing more money at them.
1 do not want to be unfair to the hon. member for Winnipeg-St. James or to accuse him of saying things that he did not say, but it seemed to me that he was saying that government could solve a problem by throwing more money at it. I can guarantee that will not solve a problem, Mr. Speaker. That would only lead to bigger deficits, higher interest rates, higher inflation and reduce our competitive position. It would mean that we would not be able to trade effectively in the world and would bring about declining standards of living. That is not what he wants, it is not what I want and it is not what any Canadian wants. The government is trying to take a more medium-term outlook at our economic situation and to come to grips with the economic issues.
I beseech hon. members opposite to try to make a positive, useful contribution that will help us with these problems. I ask them to think about these distributive issues and help us develop policies that will result in Canadians becoming better off, not worse off.


Frederick William Wright: Mr. Speaker, we all know now how insensitive the Liberals are when a member can actually stand up in the House and tell us that unemployment and high interest rates are not a problem. It makes some of us wonder what we are doing here.
There are no other issues, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member can talk all he wants about adjusting to the future and about fear of the future. The hon. member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans) gave us the typical "on the one hand and on the other hand" approach.
We all recognize the problems that exist across the country, Mr. Speaker. If we go to Newfoundland we find that up to 50 per cent of fishermen are unemployed, but the hon. member for Ottawa Centre says that is not a problem. If we go to New Brunswick we find that 50 per cent of people in the forestry industry are unemployed, but the hon. member for Ottawa Centre says that is not a problem. If we go to Quebec we find
that over 30 per cent of the manufacturing industry is unemployed, but the hon. member for Ottawa Centre says that is not important. If we go to Ontario we find that at least 30 per cent of the automobile industry is unemployed, but the hon. member for Ottawa Centre says that is not important. He says that is not the issue, that things are far more complicated than that.
If we go to the prairies we find that the agricultural industry is on its knees because of the policies of the government. We find people in the pork industry going bankrupt and people in the beef industry going bankrupt. That is not important, says the hon. member for Ottawa Centre, the former parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance. If we go to B.C.-


John Leslie Evans: You are misleading the House.


Frederick William Wright: *-we find 50 per cent of people in the forest industry unemployed, but the hon. member for Ottawa Centre says that it is not important.


John Leslie Evans: That is not true. I said it was important. You are the one who is saying it is not important.


Frederick William Wright: The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) is not here this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to draw attention to some misleading information that he gave to the House on another occasion. The estimates for 1981-82 showed that $120 million would be spent on summer student programs. Actually, in 1981-82 $100 million was spent. Then the 1982 estimates showed that the government was going to spend $100 million on that program. That is when the minister said he was going to create $20 million worth of summer jobs for students. He claimed that was an increase, but in fact he will not spend as much as he spent last year when there was close to eight per cent unemployment in the country. That is the type of thing we have to put up with, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) is not in the House this afternoon either. I lived in his riding 25 years ago and at that time the unemployment rate was 25 per cent. It is still 25 per cent, Mr. Speaker. Just the other day he told the House that he would let his record stand. Statistics show that the highest number of government grants-and Liberal MPs get most of them-have gone to his riding. He provides grants, subsidies and promises to his constituency, but little else.
I should like to deal with a rather contentious issue now, Mr. Speaker, namely, the life insurance industry. The Minister of Finance stated in the budget that he was going to tax accrued income on life insurance. The industry took him to task and asked him to produce the figures that this proposition was based on. He said it was based on a typical life insurance policy and that he could back up his figures. I wrote to him and asked whether that typical life insurance policy was a participating or a non-participating policy, what insurance company rate book was used, what year it was compiled, if it was a Canadian or a foreign company, and so on. Mr. Speaker, there is no typical life insurance policy and the minister cannot
April 8, 1982

produce one. The life insurance industry has been trying to get the information for three months, and I have not received a reply to my letter of March 1. The minister cannot produce a typical life insurance policy, and that is only one of the many things that was completely false about the budget.
The area in and around Trenton, Nova Scotia, has approximately 25,000 people, one thousand of whom are unemployed because the Minister of Finance refuses to help. It is not a Liberal riding. The car works at Trenton has been there for 70 or 80 years, but the minister does not understand its importance.
The Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cosgrove) has said that he will help people who have to renew their mortgages. He is not going to help very many but he is going to provide some help. He is going to provide some help to the rental construction industry, but not much help. He is going to provide some help to those who are renovating homes, but not much help. It is interesting that he is not going to provide any help for first time home owners. How can someone who is going to purchase a home for the first time, and perhaps just qualifies for a mortgage at 18 or 19 per cent, also face the uncertainty of a variable interest rate mortgage? Surely the minister understands that the average person cannot face that situation. That is why very few people can purchase a home for the first time. It is a sad fact that the Minister of Public Works never addressed the problems of high interest rates and unemployment.
Turning to the housing industry, the average starts for 1982 will amount to approximately 160,000 units. This is down from
178,000	last year or a decline of 10 per cent, which in terms of jobs represents 35,600 lost jobs. Yet the Minister of Public Works says that he is helping the unemployment situation in Canada. We know that 210,000 housing starts are needed, but it is estimated that only 160,000 units will be built. This difference of 50,000 units translates into 100,000 lost jobs, yet the minister is saying that he is helping the unemployment situation with Bill C-89. Unfortunately those 100,000 lost jobs translate into $2 billion in lost income to the economy, or to put it another way, $400 million of lost government revenues.
The government does not understand what is going on. Productivity in Canada has gone down. Now it takes approximately 286,000 more people to produce the same goods and services which were produced in Canada last year. In 1976 when the government revised its monetary policy, on an annual basis 113,000 less homes were built in Canada, which translated into 223,000 jobs.
Is it any wonder that there is high unemployment? It is because of the insensitiveness of government. We have heard an answer to unemployment and high interest rates from the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde). At present 350,000 barrels of oil per day are shut in in western Canada. This translates into tens of thousands of lost jobs or $ 1 billion worth of equipment which has left the country. The Liberals can laugh at these facts because they do not have any
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members out west. Approximately 40 cents of every dollar spent on energy in western Canada ends up in Ontario and in Quebec. We are paying the price. Canadians are paying 24 cents more per gallon for gasoline at the pump than they should be paying because of the policies of the Liberal government.
Now I should like to turn to the area of high interest rates. We have high interest rates in the country because of the policies of the Bank of Canada and the fiscal policies of the federal government. We should not let the NDP fool us; the policies of the Bank of Canada are dictated by the government. The deputy minister of the Department of Finance sits on the executive committee which decides the monetary policy. The Bank of Canada is not an independent body. Moreover, the NDP would like us to think that the banks are responsible for interest rates. But we must remember that the banks have no authority to raise or lower interest rates without the approval of the Bank of Canada. If they dare to raise or lower interest rates or lower interest rates without the agreement of the Bank of Canada, the Bank of Canada can step in and withdraw funds from the banking system.


John Leslie Evans: Nonsense!


Frederick William Wright: I hear the hon. member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans); it is not nonsense.


John Leslie Evans: The Bank of Canada does not dictate to chartered banks.


Frederick William Wright: The Bank of Canada can sell bonds to the banks, which it does every day, withdraw money out of the system and put it into the Bank of Canada. This is done all the time. It is done to smooth fluctuation in the value of the dollar and in the rate of interest. The Bank of Canada is one of the biggest participants in the Canadian money market. It was a passive investor until 1975. Now it is an active investor in the market and it initiates the market. It no longer responds to bids and offers by investment dealers. It is dictating to the market, and let no one think otherwise.
We have high interest rates in the country because over the last two years there has been a dramatic outflow of long-term capital. In 1981 it approximated $10 billion and in 1980 it was $8 billion. This capital was replaced by short-term foreign capital. In order to attract short-term foreign capital, interest rates must be raised above what they are in other countries. Basically that was the problem. Short-term interest rates are high in Canada. Sometimes they are higher than long-term rates, but the point is that we cannot drop our interest rates because of the policies of government. The government said that it would discourage investment in Canada, and it has. Canadian and American companies have left Canada to go to the United States and to Australia. Unless we change those policies, we cannot lower interest rates.
The Bank of Canada uses money supply, what we call M-l, to indicate whether or not the supply of money in Canada is increasing at a favourable or at an unfavourable rate. Many economists and specialists have said that the bank does not

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know what it is doing. As interest rates rise, people tend to transfer funds from demand accounts to interest bearing accounts. Thus, the M-l no longer qualifies as a good gauge as to whether or not the money supply is accurate. Liberal members have supported the Bank of Canada in the last few years, but most experts agree that they are wrong.


John Leslie Evans: Name your experts.


Frederick William Wright: Nuala Beck, an economist at Pitfield, MacKay, Ross described the outflow of capital as a hemorrhage and said that it resulted not simply from a search for higher returns but from a fundamental investment decision to move long-term capital out of Canada. Greenshields said in equally strong language that the national energy policy and the investment policy of the government led to a large amount of outflow of money from the country. Numerous experts have said the same thing. Unfortunately I do not have all their names here, but I could easily find two dozen.
I should like to refer to an article in the April 7 edition of The Globe and Mail by Ronald Anderson, an economist and consultant, who said that while the political objectives of the national energy policy were attractive, the economic objectives were never really determined. The economic cost to Canadians is considerable. I referred to that in more specific terms earlier.
We have watched the national energy policy cause a deterioration in this country's economic development. As a result of this policy, capital has left the country. It has also contributed to higher interest rates. The situation has to change. We have watched the Minister of Finance and we have seen the similarity between what he does and what the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources does. They are both afraid to back off policies which are not only unpopular but do not work. Many of us have given the ministers examples of how to correct the economic situation. On the one hand we could encourage investment capital instead of discourage it. I do not think anyone could stand here and say that the Canadian government has been encouraging investment capital. If we could encourage investment capital and if we could encourage the export of commodities, it would be a step in the right direction. We in Alberta are aware of the fact that approximately $2 billion worth of sales in natural gas could be made to the United States. This kind of a sale could contribute dramatically to the support of the Canadian dollar and we would not have to keep interest rates as high. If we did those things, we would be able to reduce interest rates. We would be able to allow the dollar to float and to find its own level. If we did those things, we could even have a fixed bank rate. Because it is a floating rate, it contributes to the instability of Canada's economic situation.
Why do we lend $1 billion to foreign countries? What about the $100 million that was lent to Algeria for the construction of a monument; the $24 million that was lent to Belize for a sewage system which apparently is sinking into the sea; and
the $200 million that is being lent to Trinidad and Tobago for an airport? One must wonder about these loans. Foreign aid is up at least 20 per cent this year, but help for employment and immigration is down.
I have listened to the Liberals talk about the economic problems in Canada this afternoon. Quite frankly, I consider them little more than a sanctimonious bunch of windbags. The policies the Liberals have espoused are simply socialist policies, little more. I find it very sad that the New Democratic Party was responsible for putting the Liberals into power. They are partly responsible for the policies that we have now.


James Douglas Manly: The people of Canada did it.


Frederick William Wright: The New Democratic Party was responsible in no uncertain terms for the policies which the Liberal government has now. I recall about one month ago the Minister of Finance standing in the House saying, "If I did nothing to help unemployment in this country, and if I did nothing to help high interest rates, I would be known as a scoundrel". A scoundrel he is for doing nothing.
We will continue to speak out against the socialist-economic policies of this government that are not working, which we say and which we have said for some time will never work.


Mr. Chuck Cook (North Vancouver-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest to the debate this afternoon. I will not repeat literally the litany of sadness and figures which have been quoted by any number of speakers here today. Many members have pointed out the unemployment rate and government spending excesses. But those who do not read history are oftentimes doomed to repeat it. I want to talk a little bit about why we are in the situation we are in, and how we got there.
If we go back to the 1950s there are literally hundreds of examples that could be used. I have selected a few that will explain what has happened and why we are in rather tragic and sad circumstances today. We find today aging out of date industrial plants throughout eastern Canada and southern Ontario in particular.


Walter David Baker: We have an aging government, too.


Charles Henry (Chuck) Cook: During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the tax policies of this government were such that it did not pay the small company, or the large company for that matter, to carry out research and development, or to replace equipment which in some cases dated from the 1930s, the 1940s, some even from the 1920s. There was no incentive. One could look at the development of almost any Canadian industrial plant for evidence of the situation. A good many have gone out of business because they could not develop or renew their equipment. There was no incentive to do so. The tax policies were such that companies continued to make a dollar and went along on that basis. But we are reaping the whirlwind of that kind of policy today.
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We seem to have developed in Canada the kind of businessman who wants a protected market. If you look at the history of a good many of the small manufacturers in Ontario you will find that they were prepared to accept the "Golden Triangle" as a market and, because of favourable freight rates, they shipped their goods, whatever they might be, to the rest of this country. They really had no interest in attempting to do what this country must do to attain the desired standard of living; that is to export goods.
I remember a vice-president of a trading company in Elong Kong telling me that Canadians were the worst traders in the world. When he wanted to buy something for China or for Hong Kong, right away a salesman would be in from Australia and two from Japan. As far as Canada was concerned, six weeks later he might get a letter from a Canadian firm saying, "Send us the airfare and we will think about sending a salesman to talk to you." I am very much afraid the Canadian businessman has developed that kind of a reputation. Why has that taken place? Canadians are not aggressive enough. In many cases they are just not hungry enough.
Over the last twenty years there has been gradual erosion of incentive and motivation. Is it the businessman's fault? In many cases I think not. I do not know how many dozens of businessmen have said to me, "Chuck, why should I work any harder? Why should I build a larger business? Why should I put 12 or 15 hours a day into my business when most of the time from here on in I am working for the government?" That feeling is accurate. Our tax policies have been such that we have not really wanted anyone to expand. We have really not wanted the country to develop. We have allowed our entrepreneurs to go so far and then have cut them off at the pass.
Entrepreneurs are the most productive people in the country. I suspect every member of the House of Commons knows several businessmen who have, shall we say, dropped out of the business world because of our taxation policies and because they have not had a chance to keep a sufficient portion of what they earned. With that kind of a climate, no wonder the industrial plants of Ontario are aging. It is no wonder these companies cannot compete. This situation goes back to what transpired in the 1950s and 1960s when things were a little easier and they could get away with that attitude. No longer is that the case.
Let us take a look at the situation regarding education in Canada. Certainly this is a provincial responsibility. I find it shocking, shameful and sad that in the next year we will be bringing 100,000 tradesmen into this country at a time when we have over one million people unemployed. If this government at any time in the last 15 years had realized what was happening, taken the initiative and worked with, instead of against, provincial governments, an apprenticeship program could have been developed. We would then have those 100,000 trained workers. Instead, we will import skilled labour, and we are still not training our own labour. I honestly do not believe we can blame the unions or all of the provincial governments for this, although part of the blame is theirs. However, we can
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certainly blame the federal government and a bureaucracy which have provided no leadership in this area, whatsoever.
We talk about technology of the future and where the jobs are to be found. I like what the government has done regarding Telidon. However, that is one small matter. This country could have been a world leader in pay-television. There were a number of companies here who wanted to go ahead, and could have been world leaders. But what happens in Canada? The CRTC just killed them. They studied it, thought about it, could not make up their minds. This went on and on to the point where these companies were not been able to do that well. They will admit that they lost out due to the failure of this government and its commissions to deal with reality.
There is another example of this, Mr. Speaker, in my own part of Canada, and I speak about the Port of Vancouver. In the last ten years the Port of Vancouver has lost a substantial amount of shipping to the Port of Seattle. To be fair, that is partly because, when unloading a lot of material for the U.S., it is better to go to Seattle than Vancouver. However, there is a contrast in business attitudes.
In 1950 Seattle was a very poor port; very little was going on. The people of King County and Seattle decided they wanted to be the major port on the north west coast, so they got the money together, issued bonds, built the port and they now have something like 18 cranes for containerized cargo. In Vancouver we have three. I might add that the container cargo concept originated in Vancouver, so you would think we would be the leader in the area. That is not the case.
To sharpen the contrast, if someone wants to ship a million widgets into Seattle they can call a board of directors meeting and a decision on the rate to be charged can be made in the course of an afternoon. If you go into Vancouver and do the same thing it will take you probably six weeks to get a rate out of Ottawa, 4,000 miles away. Even then the people making the decision will have no concept of what is involved.
However, I think there is one more important issue here, which goes to the root of the problem in our country today. The philosophy in Seattle was: We will build our port and go out and attract the shippers because we have the facilities. The National Harbours Board attitude in Canada is: when the demand develops sufficiently, then we will consider putting the facilities in. That difference in attitude and emphasis is the difference between Canada and some of the great trading countries of the world. It exists today and will probably continue to exist.
I do not want to be totally negative. What do we do to correct this? How do we change attitudes in Canada? How do I convince my colleagues opposite of some of the things they perhaps can do to really get Canada moving again? Let me say, frankly, I find it difficult to blame the Liberal Party for much of the problem-not totally difficult, mind you, but a little bit. The blame does not really, fall entirely on those gentlemen who sit opposite me, but on the bureaucrats. The government has run this country in such a way it has allowed

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the deputy ministers to take over and run the departments. There are many examples of this.
What is a first rate senior civil servant? Chances are he is an academic with many years of university. Chances are he has been trained in public administration, grown up and developed in the civil service. If you look at all these pooh-bah civil servants who really run this country you will find very few who have had much experience out in the real world of the marketplace. They do not know what happens to the 50-year old vicepresident of a company when it starts to go down the drain and he has to either produce or go. There are an awful lot of those vice-presidents unemployed today-good men, but business has changed. That does not happen to civil servants.
I do not want to deal with all the things wrong with the National Energy Program, but I do want to deal with how it was put together in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Let me give you an example of how the bureaucracy has run the country. They sat there in that department and said; well, there are 480 drilling rigs operating in western Canada. How much profit should we allow them to have? They worked at the figures and did all the academic things, and said; all right, we will allow a rig to make "X" amount of dollars. That is good enough. That became part of the NEP. What they forgot was that the operators had options. They forgot that if the operator did not like the profit he was allowed to make, he could pack up and head south to the Colorado play, or the Montana and Louisiana play. That is exactly what they did, by the hundreds. It never dawned on anyone in the department that that would happen when they tried to almost socialize and cut back on these operators. That is a mere example of the kind of thinking which goes on in the bureaucracy.
Does anyone really believe that the National Harbours Board in Ottawa, 4,280 miles from the west coast, has any concept of the competitive nature of port usage on the west coast? Do they really have any knowledge of what we are trying to do out there, or what are the competitive factors? I doubt it. All we have to do is look at what has happened out there to realize that. I think you could go through many government departments and find the same type of thinking.
When did all this start to happen? I did a little investigation and found that basically it started around the Pearson years. That is when politics became such a big game that ministers spent their time flying about the country making speeches, sitting in cabinet and in this House doing what we can almost call 99 per cent political work.
Prior to that time, in the C. D. Howe era, back in the days of Mackenzie King, when a minister of the Crown was given a department to run, he ran the ruddy department. Most of a minister's time was spent in his office running that department, riding herd over the civil service and making sure the decisions were right and that the department ran properly. If a minister did not do that, he would have caused so much embarrassment he would have been replaced.
However, the amount of time an individual minister of the Crown now spends on departmental activities within his department is not what it once was, and neither is the country. This is the result of allowing senior bureaucrats to take over and totally run departments.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) is a wiley old fox. I will say that as a compliment, and I mean it. He is perhaps one of the shrewdest, most intelligent people who has ever sat in this chamber. If anyone can honestly say to me that he really contemplated and considered the budget of November 12 and knowingly brought it in that way, then we obviously have a difference of opinion. He did not know what was in this budget. He has changed the budget 22 times since then, and he will make more changes. If he had studied the budget, and it had been his budget rather than that of a group of finance civil servants who had no understanding of what it meant in terms of the business world, it would have been a totally different document. It was not.
Let us talk about the future. Hugh MacLennan talked about two solitudes. We do not have two solitudes in this country now. We have the solitude of Newfoundland, we have one in western Canada and we have one in Quebec. I do not believe this particular Liberal government can excuse itself or deny that it must take a tremendous amount of blame for what I would call the solitudes which exists in this country. We have the matter of confrontation and a question of fighting for power, one against the other. I believe that a different attitude on the part of this particular government could bring this country together much more rapidly than can be attained by the type of activities and statements of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) these days regarding the west, Quebec and Newfoundland. This country can only stay together by consensus. It can only stay together if there are good feelings on all sides. It can only stay together if everyone feels they are being relatively fairly treated. That is not what exists in the country today. I lay the entire blame on the Prime Minister of this country and his excessive statements in all parts of it.
That is really enough of what I would call negative thinking. I do have a dream for this country. Someone said that the twentieth century belongs to Canada. The twentieth century obviously will not belong to Canada. One can go through the litany of sad statistics we have heard today. This motion is one of the most important subjects that has come up in this House for some time. I hope people will start considering what is involved in the motion and will understand why so many of us can speak so vehemently on the issue.
The real answer to our problems lies in a little word called "productivity", much of which we have lost. We are not competitive in this country in a world sense. Our workers are not sufficiently productive. Is that the fault of the labour unions? I do not think it is. Is it the fault of management? I do not think so. I think it is quite properly the fault of the third member of that triangle which operates the country-it is the fault of government.
There have been no incentives, they do not exist now, and I do not see them coming. I do not see why this government
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cannot realize that creativity, in terms of products, in terms of giving businessmen the opportunity as well as the incentive to move ahead, would work. Only government can create the environment we need in order to burst from our chains and relieve our tears of today. Only the government can do that. Little programs will not help. This requires a major effort. If the ministers were to get back and run their departments much of the problem could be cured. I have hope for the country. I also have hope in the sense that, perhaps, after the next election we can throw the sad rascals out and begin anew in this country. We have a great country, but, by golly, we are not giving it the proper opportunity of today.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Norman Kelly (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, speaking as a rascal, I should like to say that it is a pleasure to participate in the debate this afternoon. One of life's great pleasures is to find oneself suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into the debates of the House. I am pleased to have been thus propelled into a debate of such importance this afternoon.
Almost everyone to whom I have spoken in the last several months has asked me what the government will do about the sad state of affairs of this country. That attitude is not unexpectedly revealed in the debates of the House this afternoon. Almost every hon. member opposite has stood up to ask, pointedly, vigorously, and sometimes passionately, what will the government of this country do to help solve the economic problems that so bedevil us today? My instinctive response to that criticism is to ask, "Why do hon. members automatically assume that the only response which can be made is by the government?"


Walter David Baker: Because they create the atmosphere.


Norman Kelly: I would argue that inflation, unemployment, high interest rates, all of the things that none of us like, are in fact a product of the way in which all of us have lived over the last decade.


Mr. Neil:: Fostered by the government!


Norman Kelly: I think that before many citizens ask what the government can do, they should ask themselves what they can do.


Cyril Keeper: Elect a new government!
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Norman Kelly: Since all of us are a part of the problem, surely all of us are a part of the solution. For example, if a family in Oshawa goes out and buys a Toyota or a Volkswagen, they should not be surprised if the breadwinner next door who works in the GM assembly line is laid off. If a family goes out to buy a Sony television set, they should not surprised if the man across the street is out of a job when Admiral closes in Ontario. If a family goes out and buys Italian shoes or Taiwanese shirts or underwear, they should not be surprised if the breadwinner who lives at the corner and works at a textile mill or in a shoe factory is put out of a job.


John William Bosley: You have an English sports coat, Norman!


Norman Kelly: I do not understand how the Canadian consumer can change his buying patterns and then express surprise at the widespread unemployment which results. I cannot understand why that consumer then believes it is the sole privilege and responsibility of the government to right the wrongs induced by those changed consuming patterns. The first advice I would give to anyone in this debate is to tell Canadians as consumers that they could make a very real contribution in the near future to solve many of our problems. They should buy Canadian cars, buy Canadian shoes, buy Canadian television sets. If many of those people bought Canadian, Mr. Speaker, there would be a lot of people put back to work in Canada. I think that the first step in solving our problems is the realization of the degree to which Canadians are part of that problem. Once we do that, Mr. Speaker, I can go on to explain how the government can make its contribution; but 1 will leave that for a later debate at another time.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being six o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that pursuant to order made on Wednesday, April 7, 1982, proceedings on the motion have expired.
The House stands adjourned Until Monday, April 19, 1982, at two o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
May I, on behalf of Madam Speaker, extend to hon. members, and to the staff of the House, best Easter wishes. From myself, I express the wish that the bunnies be kind to all.
At 6 p.m., the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Monday, April 19, 1982