1982-06-14

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, actual housing starts in urban areas for the month of May were down by a startling 51 per cent from this time last year. The MURB provisions were responsible last year for over
54,000	apartment starts. Under the Canadian Rental Supply Plan there has not been one single start up until last week. Even if we were to increase the ceiling from $7,500 to $20,000 per unit, they would still be $150 to $200 above the market rate that people pay today. Therefore 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Cambridge (Mr. Speyer):
That this House directs the Minister of Finance to reinstitute the MURB provision and to designate those funds allocated for the Canada Rental Supply Plan to non-profit and co-operative housing as part of his financial and economic statement to this House.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Madam Speaker, 1 urge the government to act quickly to stimulate the economy and cushion the adverse effects on the average Canadian. Canadian manufacturing is operating at 60 per cent capacity, unemployment and inflation are spiralling in double digits, the Canadian dollar is at an all-time low of 78.9 cents. No matter what the Minister of Finance says, the confidence in a nation is measured by the value of its dollar. Our dollar is being threatened because of the Keystone Cops economic and energy policies of this administration. Therefore 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor):
That the Minister of Finance immediately roll back all provisions of his November, 1981, budget and the national energy policy, and table in the House a
statement of economic principles which will stimulate the economy, restore investor confidence in Canada and put Canadians back to work. Either do that or resign.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


THE PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister set out on the road to Versailles with a farewell promise that he would return with solutions to the economic mess created in this country by his government. In the ten days he was out of the country 30,000 Canadians had to renew their mortgages at sky-rocketing interest rates, 978 businesses went broke, and 7,100 Canadians lost their jobs at a time of year when the unemployment level normally drops. In light of the fact that the Prime Minister, who left for Europe empty-minded, returned from his voyage emptyhanded, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Ellis):
That the Prime Minister now admit to the House and to the people of Canada that whether he searches in or out of the country he can find no answers to the economic morass his government has created and, with such admission, then take the only honourable avenue open to him and call a general election so Canadians can select a government capable of halting this devastating downward slide and get the country going again.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOUSING
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Madam Speaker, since the Co-operative Future Directions Congress which is in progress in Ottawa this week is meeting to develop strategies

June 14, 1982
for co-operative growth in the coming decades, and in view of the need to expand sources of affordable housing and to stabilize the supply of housing for Canadians, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans):
That the Government of Canada immediately double the allocation of co-op housing units available in this fiscal year, and in consultation with the cooperative movement set realistic targets for succeeding years to meet the real and documented need of the co-op housing sector.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, 1 rise seeking the attention of all hon. members on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that it is now six months since martial law was imposed in Poland, and in light of the fact that the president of the Canadian Polish Congress is delivering to Ottawa today a petition signed by over 40,000 Canadians requesting the Polish government to lift martial law, release the internees in Poland, and restore human rights to its citizens, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) and the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Lewycky):
That this House demand that the Polish government remove martial law immediately, release the Solidarity members who were interned since the imposition of martial law. and urge the Polish government to resume negotiations with the Church and Solidarity representatives, to solve the economic and political problems plaguing Poland today.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[DOT] (MIO)

Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of some urgency which will require the attention of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). At a time
when the internal pressures on NATO are pressing and difficult, when work on the real problems of the Alliance needs urgent attention, the Prime Minister should not be surprised if Canadians more than raise their eyebrows at his obvious and repeated distortion of the position of the United States on IRN systems and START. Questions of stress within the Alliance on East-West matters, of our own contribution to NATO and, indeed, of our own conventional defence capability, are questions which have generally been avoided by the government in recent years. The urgency and seriousness of these and related matters will require of us similar urgent and serious discussion. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby):
That the House call on the Prime Minister to make an early statement to this House and cause the subject matter of that statement to be referred to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence with instructions to review and report back to the House at the earliest possible opportunity.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Madam Speaker, today marks the forty-first anniversary of the deportations of thousands of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians to Siberia by occupying Soviet forces in 1941. In memory of this day, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon):
That this House reaffirm its dedication to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and expresses its concern over the continuing Soviet aggression in the world today.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, because of the critical situation in Lebanon, particularly in Beirut, and because of the decision announced last week to leave Canadian embassy staff in Beirut, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Grey-Simcoe (Mr. Mitges):
June 14, 1982

That the Secretary of State for External Affairs be called on by this House to make an early statement on motions outlining the steps which have been taken by the government to ensure the safety of Canadians in Lebanon, both those attached to the embassy and those living in a private capacity in Lebanon.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


DISARMAMENT
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, whereas many thousands of Americans and Canadians, through peaceful demonstrations this weekend, joined in the worldwide demand for disarmament, and since a similar demonstration in the U.S.S.R. was prevented by harassment and police actions, including arrests, 1 move, seconded by the hon. member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent):
That this House express its support for world-wide disarmament, starting with the super powers, and call upon all nations to allow the people of this planet to demonstrate their belief that potential mass murder is not a deterrent but docs represent a threat to all of humanity.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, "weasel words", cried the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), after the communique was released to the press following the NATO meeting in Bonn last week. What did the communique say? It urged the Kremlin "to join us now in search for constructive relations, arms reductions and world peace"; it pledged "to improve NATO armed forces", and it emphasized its eagerness to negotiate "substantial reductions in arms with the Soviet Union". Why did the Prime Minister not object during the meeting, and what is it that he does not like about the communique? I therefore move, seconded by the hon. member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart):
That this House wants to know which side the Prime Minister is on. Canadians want no stock or trade with the communists, and the Prime Minister, when out of Canada, should be telling the world what Canadians think and want. It is certainly not a socialist republic, toward which he is working.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Ora! Questions


Some hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will know that today the dollar has fallen to another record low. He may well know that, in the time that he has been out of the country, nearly 1,000 Canadian businesses went bankrupt and 12,000 Canadians per day lost their jobs, for a total of 12,000 Canadians put out of work during the Prime Minister's absence from Canada. Will the Prime Minister tell the House of Commons, now that he knows some of the disastrous results of his economic policy, whether his government will be announcing a major change in economic policy before this House rises?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker-


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: the Leader of the Opposition refers to the fall of the Canadian dollar. I would point out to him, as has been pointed out to him and other members of his party several times over the past week, it is true that the Canadian dollar has fallen against the American dollar, but so has just about every other major currency fallen against the American dollar in that period. If you look at the Canadian dollar relative to those other currencies, you will find that the Canadian dollar has strengthened.
For example, in the past week the Canadian dollar has fallen by 1.4 against the American dollar, the Japanese yen by 2.2, the deutschmark by 1.7, the Swiss franc by 2.0, the French franc by 7.3, the Italian lira by three points, all compared to 1.4 for the Canadian dollar, and so it goes. The only major currency which has not fallen as much as the Canadian currency is the Dutch gilder which fell by 1.3 as opposed to 1.4 for the Canadian dollar. Therefore the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition should keep that in mind when he looks at the performance of the Canadian dollar compared to the American dollar.
Once again, it is true that our dollar has fallen compared to the American dollar, but I repeat, so has every other currency. The conclusion in the mind of the Leader of the Opposition should be that actions taken in Canada alone will not correct economic circumstances in Japan, Germany, Switzerland,

June 14, 1982
Oral Questions
France, Italy, and so on. Therefore I say this in answer to the preamble to the question by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. In answer to his question about a statement, it has been made clear by the Minister of Finance that he would be making a statement to this House on the economy before the House adjourns.


NATURE OF PROPOSED CHANGE
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, while 978 Canadian businesses went into bankruptcy and 12,000 Canadians lost their jobs, the Prime Minister was travelling around the world lecturing other people about what they should be doing in their countries. We want to know what the Prime Minister of Canada is going to do about the disastrous economic situation in this country, caused in large measure by his government.
On Friday the Minister of Finance deliberately indicated that he would not describe the changes which he is considering in economic policy as being major. He is considering some tinkering around the edges. My question was very clear. Will there be a major change in economic policy announced by the Government of Canada before the House of Commons rises? Will there be a major economic change?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, once again on the preamble to the question by the Leader of the Opposition who suggests that I was travelling around the world lecturing to other countries, 1 would point out to him that what was said in response to the situation as it concerns every other country vis-a-vis the United States is not something that was said in a lecture by me. It was said by the six other industrial countries meeting in Versailles, and by the representative of the European Economic Community. If there is any lecturing, it would seem to be in the highly industrialized nations of the world, including Japan, pleading with the United States to get its economic and financial house in order so that these devaluations of all our currencies, including Canada's, will not happen. Therefore the lecture, once again, is not mine, Madam Speaker. I heard the message repeatedly being conveyed by all those other leaders attending the Versailles Summit.
As to the question itself, whether the statement by the Minister of Finance will contain major or minor aspects, Madam Speaker, I think I can say truly from experience that no matter what the Minister of Finance says-


Mr. Nielsen:: It is disastrous!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -the Leader of the Opposition will say, as his House leader says now, it is disastrous. In advance of knowing what the minister will say, the hon. member for Yukon says it will be a disaster; therefore, what is the point in trying to qualify it as major or minor?


REQUEST GOVERNMENT ADMIT POLICIES WRONG
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister can play his little games, while thousands of Canadians go out of work and while thousands of Canadians see their businesses fail. Someone across the way shouts, "Be serious." We are being serious here. If the Prime Minister were staying in this country and were listening to the messages of Canadians, instead of trying to deliver messages to other countries elsewhere in the world, he would know that the message from Canadians is that they have had enough of a government in Canada that will not act to solve their problems, and that they have had enough of a government in this country that blames everything on somebody else.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: They want action from their government here. The reason 1 asked the question in the way I did is that we have had too much experience in this Parliament with this government trying to deceive Parliament, and trying to deceive the people, by promising something that is less than what is delivered. 1 want to know whether the Government of Canada is going to have the courage to come before this House of Commons and admit that many of its policies are wrong and change those policies, before they throw thousands more Canadians out of work, before they drive thousands more Canadians into bankruptcy, before they cause thousands more Canadians to lose their homes because they cannot afford to renew their mortgages at the current rates of interest.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I honestly do not know why the right hon. member is accusing me of playing games in the answers I have given to his questions. I have suggested some of the statistics were perhaps not founded, but as to playing games, Madam Speaker, it would seem to me that the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition is playing games, when he stands up, shouts questions, and voices his indignation. We are all very disturbed at the economic situation in this country. The meeting in Versailles was convened precisely in order to help the highly industrialized countries of the world to try to seek a collective answer to that. Playing games, to attend such a meeting!
I wonder why the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition, when he was prime minister, attended the meeting in Tokyo of the same Summit. Was he playing games? And why did he attend the Commonwealth meeting in Lusaka? Was he playing games? Or was he not, as we were seriously led to believe at the time, attempting to deal with some of the North-South problems, some of the questions which are important to all nations but especially to a nation like Canada which is so highly involved in international trade?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
June 14, 1982


REQUEST THAT PRIME MINISTER TAKE ACTION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, what is the Prime Minister of Canada going to do in Canada to help Canadians?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the finance minister has said he would make an economic statement. I know-because the member for Yukon just shouted it across the way-that it will not be acceptable to the opposition, no matter what it contains. But we are not trying to please the opposition, Madam Speaker, We are trying, in these very difficult economic circumstances, where once again the economies of the world are in difficulty, economies where there are now five million more unemployed today than there were at the Summit meeting in Ottawa a year ago, just amongst the OECD countries-we are trying in Canada to find ways in which Canadians will be able to weather the storm better than other countries. That is the extent to which we will be able to show action in this Parliament, Madam Speaker, not standing up in an histrionic way voicing indignation, not by attacking each other, but by constructively-the provincial and federal governments-trying to find ways in which we can keep the economy on an even keel in spite of the difficulties.

[DOT] (U25)
[ Translation]


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister will know that bad economic policy creates victims. We have experienced a 2 per cent increase in unemployment in Canada. From that flows the fact that v/e can expect an 8 per cent increase in suicides, a 10 per cent increase in homicides, an 8 per cent increase in prison admissions, a 7 per cent increase in hospital admissions-


Madam Speaker:: Order. Question. No preamble of that nature. That is not a short question.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Merci, Madame le President. I would like to ask the Prime Minister specifically if in the so-called economic statement there will be a significant increase in funding to help the victims of bad economic policy. Will there be more money for hospitals and social services?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member has been very patient thus far. I suggest he wait until the minister makes his statement, and he will be able to judge its content. 1 hope he will have a more open mind as to that content than his colleague, the hon. member for Yukon.
Oral Questions


CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION MEETING
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce have denied in this House that those social consequences flow from unemployment. There is to be a special seminar on June 24 in Toronto, held by the Canadian Mental Health Association, at which preventive strategies to reduce mental health service demands consequent to employment loss in Canada communities will be discussed. Will the Prime Minister make sure that either of those two cabinet ministers-or at least one cabinet minister-attends that conference and learns about the problem before it is too late?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I did not catch the date of the conference, but I will read the "blues" and find out if it is possible for any member of this party to attend that conference.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. It was the Prime Minister at Versailles who said that current economic policies of the government were creating unacceptable levels of unemployment. Meanwhile in the House during the past week it was the Minister of Finance who was saying, in complete contradiction, that no basic change in policy could be expected and that the most Canadians could expect would be marginal changes. Surely if we are going to deal with the unacceptable level of unemployment, a major shift in policy is required, including the scrapping of the old budget.
Will the Prime Minister at least assure the House that the government will bring in a major shift in policy which will see as its principal objective the creation of more jobs for the millions of Canadians who need them?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I must take exception to the way the question was phrased. If the hon. member was purporting to quote me when he said I had said that the Canadian government's policy was causing major unemployment or unreasonable unemployment, I assure him that is not the message I was trying to convey. I will have occasion, perhaps at another time, to explain what I was saying. I was saying, on the contrary, that I hope that industrialized democracies would find other ways of solving the problem of inflation than by causing high unemployment. I was saying exactly the contrary to what the hon. member was implying I was saying.
As to what the statement of the minister will contain, I have to give the hon. member the same answer I gave to members of the official opposition: it will be up to the New Democratic Party to make up its mind as to what qualities it will attribute or not attribute to the statement made by the minister. I think the minister is correct when he says that, by and large, our

June 14, 1982
Oral Questions
macro-economic policy is one we do not intend to change. That has been the position taken by all the nations at Versailles, and 1 point out to the Leader of the New Democratic Party that France, which tried for a while-perhaps because of its socialist government-to cure unemployment by stimulation, has now reversed its course and is bringing down policies which are much more in line with those the Canadian government has been following.


REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT CUT INCOME TAX
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, to deal with the policy options or alternatives in the way the Prime Minister has posed the issue in his reply, I should like to ask him, considering that on the weekend we learned that the Canadian economy is operating at only 69 per cent capacity, which is the lowest since records were kept, thus providing lots of room for stimulation without causing inflation, is the government contemplating a tax cut for low and middle-income Canadians? These people would spend the money to create jobs, and this would be a key means of creating more employment without adding inflation to the economy.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, once again, on the premise of the question, I would point out to the hon. member that it is because the Canadian economy is underemployed that I voiced the concern that 1 did at Versailles. I expressed the hope that we would find other ways of curing inflation than by pursuing this route of underemployment of the economic factors of the nation.
As to the suggestions of the hon. member about stimulation, let me point out to him once again that he should look at the experience of the French government. The news may be too recent for the hon. member to have seen it, but yesterday the French government, which had been following expansionary policies which, as the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party will recall, he enjoined us to copy and follow, discovered they led to such sad results that now France has had to devalue the franc voluntarily and adopt austerity measures, not the stimulative or expansionary measures that the hon. member is recommending, but austerity measures.
Whether the Minister of Finance in the government of Liberal Party of Canada will be as austere as President Mitterrand's government I cannot say, but the hon. member will judge.


REQUEST FOR STIMULATIVE MEASURES
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, instead of the Prime Minster carefully reading his briefing notes, maybe he would listen to the question. I will repeat it. It concerns what is happening in the Canadian economy, not the French economy.
On the weekend we learned, to put it differently, that 30 per cent of our factories and offices are underutilized. This means that we can take stimulation in the economy without adding to
the inflation. Given this situation in the Canadian economy, will the government actively and seriously consider providing stimulation by means of a tax cut or other means that would produce jobs without adding to the inflationary pressure?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is advocating an expansionary course. I am telling him that expansionary courses have been tried in other countries at this time-a time of stagflation- and they have not worked. He will be able to judge and look at the statement made by the minister and will then see whether it is expansionary or not. 1 am telling him that the course we are following is to hope we will be able to create jobs and reduce inflation without causing more unemployment to start with. That is the dilemma with which the western industrialized nations are faced. Even though they have excess capacity, as the hon. member says, we still have very high inflation.
The question I was asking at Versailles is whether the only way to bring down inflation is to create more excess capacity, and the answer I gave was that I hoped not. 1 have not heard from the hon. member or his party about any way that this could be done. He has not suggested any way in which Canadians could somehow bring inflation under control without causing higher unemployment. If he has an answer I should like to hear it.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. Since convicted sexual offender Paul Kocurek was free on mandatory supervision at the time he sexually attacked and killed fifteen year old Lise Clausen in Duncan, British Columbia, last August, and since the parole board had repeatedly denied him temporary absence and full parole because of psychiatric reports which indicated he liked to choke females during sex acts, will the Solicitor General admit that the eleven year experiment with mandatory supervision has failed? Also, will he introduce legislation that will return the decision for the release of dangerous criminals to the parole board?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: Madam Speaker, I am certainly prepared to admit, as 1 have indicated before, that serious problems have been demonstrated with the mandatory supervision provisions enacted by this Parliament, in the last 12 years, and that I am dissatisfied with them. 1 have taken proposals to cabinet to change them, and I hope shortly to be able to do as the hon. member has requested and bring forward some changes that will toughen up the mandatory supervision rules and give more authority to the parole board.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
June 14, 1982


TREATMENT OF RELEASED VANCOUVER IN MATE
William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Madam Speaker, until the rule change comes about, could the minister explain in this particular case the difference between parole and mandatory supervision? Why was Kocurek allowed to be lawfully at large, carrying a pistol and handcuffs, after failing to show up for his first scheduled visit to the mental health unit?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, mandatory supervision operates under a formula provided in the statutes. Whether or not the parole board considers inmates a threat, they are entitled to be on the street for the last one-third of their sentence, provided only that they have behaved during the time they have been incarcerated. 1 recognize, and I have indicated, that there are shortcomings with that system. Mandatory supervision has certain advantages. It provides an incentive to inmates to behave well while in prison, but the price for that advantage has been high. 1 very much favour changing it.


ROLE OF PAROLE BOARD OFFICER
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Solicitor General. According to press reports it is quite clear that federal officials warned that Kocurek was dangerous. Was there in fact a parole board officer to whom Kocurek was supposed to report? If there was, why was that parole board officer not keeping track of what Kocurek was supposed to be doing? I refer especially to his refusal to turn up at the mental health clinic? Why did no one know about this?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, 1 would like to have the opportunity to look into that further before answering the question. Basically mandatory supervision is a right that an inmate earns by good behaviour and not a right that officials can take away from him without a proper hearing.


NATURE OF SUPERVISION
John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, the Solicitor General seems to be indicating that, once someone is out on mandatory supervision, it does not matter what he does with respect to the federal authority to bring that person back into custody or check on him. Is that what the Solicitor General is telling the Canadian people? In this case it seems to me that if Kocurek was supposed to be reporting to somebody in the parole board, that parole board officer had an obligation to find out what he was doing and whether he was reporting to places like the mental health clinic. Is the Solicitor General telling me that absolutely nothing can be done, that there is no supervision at all when someone is out on mandatory supervision?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: No, Madam Speaker. In fact over half the cases of mandatory supervision are unsatisfactory and are revoked or circumscribed in some way.
Oral Questions
These are the statistics that concerned me so much when I began my job that I asked for an investigation into mandatory supervision and discovered all the shortcomings of it. Indeed, mandatory supervision can be terminated. I have indicated that I favour changes to make mandatory supervision even tighter than it is.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Ted Miller (Nanaimo-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, my question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Currently there are 11,000 workers drawing unemployment insurance benefits in my riding of Nanaimo-Alberni. In Port Alberni alone there are 1,200 workers facing the prospect of going on welfare by the end of August, to join 1,300 families already in that unenviable position.
Will the Prime Minister explain to the people of Nanaimo-Alberni, and those in the rest of Canada who are unemployed, how their belt tightening has helped improve the Canadian economy and what the government proposes to do to help those workers who have sacrificed so much already?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I have not had notice of the question so I am not sure if I can identify the kind of jobs that have been lost in that area. 1 imagine that they would be in the forest industries, and that the hon. member would know that our main clients for the products of those industries are in other countries. For instance, when the United States economy is undergoing negative growth-in other words when it is in a recession-the markets for the products of the workers in the hon. member's riding are shrinking.
The answer which I could give his workers would not be satisfying, unless I could guarantee to them that there would be an upsurge in demand in the United States. Of course this is something for which we are hoping, particularly in Canada, because such a large part of our trade is with the United States. But it is certain that the question asked by the hon. member illustrates well that nothing which this government could do, no matter how perfect it would be-and God knows it is not perfect; not all that perfect, anyhow-could guarantee that these workers would suddenly find a surge in the markets of the countries which buy products from Canada.


REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT STIMULATE ECONOMY
Edward Allan Miller: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister as well. The public mood in Port Alberni-and I imagine in other communities across Canada-has been one initially of

June 14. 1982
Oral Questions
attempting to do something within their own economic community to stimulate jobs. That has failed, and now we are in a situation where the public in these cities are contemplating soup kitchens and welfare benefits of some sort. Is the Prime Minister aware of the kind of despair which is prevalent in Canada and, if so, will he not consider the desperation which the people of Canada are feeling, and encourage in the planned economic statement, some stimulation to the Canadian economy so that our communities and our workers can get back to work?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I fear that the hon. member was preparing his supplementary question rather than listening to my answer. He may not agree with my answer, but I think I made it quite clear to him that the particular workers about whom he is talking depend upon stronger markets in other countries, not in Canada. They depend particularly upon the hopes and maybe expectations that the recession in the United States will be turned around and that we will see growth in the next two quarters. The hon. member asks the same question again- what do we intend to do in Canada about it? I can tell him that there is very little we can do to force the United States into policies which would create growth.


PIPELINES
Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. It concerns the extension of the natural gas pipeline to the Maritimes. The prime Minister will recall that in 1980 he promised a gas pipeline extension so that natural gas would be available in the maritimes by 1983 and that promise was repeated in the National Energy Program. Now we see delays in the construction of the natural gas pipeline so that natural gas will not be available until 1987 or later. How will the Prime Minister compensate the people in the maritimes, who will now be forced to pay much higher prices for fuel oil and energy until natural gas is available in Nova Scotia? How will he fulfil the promise which he made to the people of the maritimes in 1980?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, who is attending an international conference on gas exploration, has answered this question before. He has explained the reasons for the delay, and the circumstances under which the delay took place. He has expressed the view that the situation is now somewhat changed, that it is possible that gas will be found in commercial quantities off Sable Island, that the type of pipeline which we had contemplated before the delays were imposed upon us may have to be changed, and that gas may flow in the other direction. The hon. member has heard the answers, and I am satisfied that he knows them.


Howard Edward Crosby: Perhaps I did not make my point sufficiently clear to the Prime Minister. Part of the promise of natural gas supplies in the maritimes was that that natural gas would be available at the Toronto city gate price, which is approximately 65 per cent of the price of fuel oils and other energy sources. The fact of the matter is that the people in the maritime provinces will have to pay much more for energy supplies in this three or four-year period until natural gas is available; they will be spending more money. The Prime Minister and the government have taken responsibility for delivering energy at cheaper costs than will be experienced over this period.


FULFILLMENT OF ELECTION PROMISE
Howard Edward Crosby: Madam Speaker, does the Prime Minister not feel some obligation to the individuals in the maritime provinces who now pay the highest energy costs in Canada to help them with this problem? Will he have them carry on over this three or four-year period and continue to pay the highest energy costs until he fulfils the promise which he made in the election campaign of 1980 and gained the support of a great many people in the maritimes by virtue of that promise?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the hon. member asked if the government feels any obligation. The answer is that in a general sense of course it does, and that is why the government has adopted various measures, apart from the pipeline about which the hon. member is talking. It has adopted various forms of subsidies through the medium of prices, through the establishment of Candu reactors to produce electricity from atomic energy sources, or through the establishment of communications between the various maritime provinces. The government has felt such obligations to help the high cost area of the maritimes, including special subsidies for those who want to go off oil and on to other forms of energy such as wood.


Howard Edward Crosby: Another broken promise.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: This is the reason the population of the maritimes supported our party. They saw that in fact in the past and in the future we are helping them with their energy costs.


INDUSTRY
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Three months ago, the Shoe Manufacturers' Association of Canada asked for a review of the global quota with respect to leather footwear. The minister was expected to reply, and he knows perfectly well. Madam Speaker, that
June 14, 1982

every day since then, the industry has been losing jobs. Considering the fact that tomorrow, hundreds of workers employed in this Canadian industry will march on the Hill to demand a definitive reply from the minister, could the minister today, as a matter of respect towards this industry, inform us whether tomorrow he will be able to give a definitive reply to this major industrial sector?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Madam Speaker, my colleagues and I have the greatest respect for this industry and its workers, but a few days ago, my colleague, the Minister of State for International Trade already told the House that the government will not give a reply until the information on which our policy was based has been revised, so not before the end of June or perhaps the beginning of July. Therefore, there will be no policy announcement either today or tomorrow, and in any case not before the last week of June.


INQUIRY CONCERNING RECOMMENDATIONS MINISTER WILL MAKE TO CABINET
Roch La Salle: Madam Speaker, I think the ministers know perfectly well that the recommendations made by the Association are supported not only by members on this side of the House but also by members on the government side. The Right Hon. Prime Minister has just mentioned additional efforts to create new jobs. Does the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce realize how urgent it is to save existing jobs first, and how can we trust a government that is letting a major industrial sector-and there are others-deteriorate, and talks about creating new jobs but is doing nothing to save jobs that still exist at the present time? Could the minister inform the House what kind of recommendations he made or is about to make to cabinet, in view of the needs of this industry, which can no longer afford prolonged delay?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of State for International Trade):: Madam Speaker, as we have stated several times in the House, we are very conscious of the jobs in the shoe industry. Many colleagues on both sides of the House have brought this matter to our attention. We are having a federal-provincial trade ministers' meeting on June 21. The hon. member is hopefully very conscious of the fact that, when we invoke global quotas, there is a possibility that we could be asked to compensate in some other sectors under GATT. We want to have this discussion with our provincial counterparts on June 21. As previously stated, we will be making an announcement in the last week of June or first week of July.
Oral Questions


AIRPORTS
Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. Last week, the minister said that he had made a decision with respect to Mirabel. Would the minister please elaborate on this decision?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I myself have made a decision. However, I am going to submit my views to my cabinet colleagues, since it is up to the entire cabinet to decide in such matters.


ALTERNATIVES FACING MINISTER
John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, was the minister reported correctly that the decision narrowed down to two alternatives-either to maintain the status quo, or to transfer all Dorval flights to Mirabel except for flights within Quebec and flights to Toronto, which, in the minister's own words, means that you would more or less "dig a hole at Mirabel."? Is the minister's decision and his recommendation to cabinet one of those two alternatives? If that is the case, with no in-betweens, which he has also said in his statement, and admitting full well that the economy is difficult to keep under control, can the minister explain why, if that is the nature of his decision after all this time, he is even thinking of making that recommendation for any shift which recalls all the economic problems that hon. members have brought to his attention?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, it is normal to look at all the options when you make a decision. This is the normal decision-making practice.
I am reported to have said that there were only two possibilities. One was the status quo, and one was option six in the first report, with which my hon. friend is familiar. That latter option is to transfer all except short-haul routes around Dorval. The reason for that is simply that the in-betweens present technical difficulties. There are six or seven or eight of them. For example, all charters in Mirabel, and anything within three hours, and beyond three hours. All these variations and in-betweens have been studied. All of them present technical difficulties which are too great to consider. With respect to the three-hour option, for example, all routes less than three hours long would remain at Dorval and all routes longer than three hours would go to Mirabel. It would be difficult to present a carrier from establishing a stop from Dorval while travelling whatever distance he would be going. We have looked at all these in-between possibilities and have found them wanting.

June 14, 1982
Oral Questions DISARMAMENT


STATEMENT MADE BY PRIME MINISTER
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Since both the Minister of National Defence and the Secretary of State for External Affairs have come out, not once but several times, against a nuclear freeze-mutual and verifiable-was the Prime Minister speaking only for himself as a private citizen when he advocated this most important step last week?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I was stating a policy which I believe to be that of the Government of Canada. I am not clear as to where my policy differed in any way from that expressed by any of my ministers.


Pauline Jewett: The Prime Minister has not then read the speeches of his colleagues. They have both been opposed to a nuclear freeze.


QUERY RESPECTING DEFENCE INDUSTRY PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAM
Pauline Jewett: Madam Speaker, may 1 ask my supplementary of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce to see whether he is in line with the Prime Minister's thinking. If it is the government's policy to oppose further development of nuclear weapons, I would ask him why officials from the Defence Industry Productivity Program were meeting in Ottawa late last week with officials from Boeing? Why were officials from a program in his department, the Defence Industry Productivity Program, meeting with officials from the Boeing Winnipeg branch late last week to discuss federal assistance to Boeing on a potential contract for the creation of components of the MX missile? Why is the government furthering the production of new nuclear weapons like the MX missile?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I apologize to the hon. member, but it is apparent from her question that she must have misinterpreted my position and therefore, if she will allow me, I will supplement my former answer before she asks her supplementary question.
I may be disappointing the hon. member, but I did not advocate a freeze in the sense which I believe it is understood by the hon. member. I did advocate the policy of suffocation, which is a freeze, but that policy was always advocated in a bilateral context so that both sides should be proceeding along those lines. I would point out to the hon. member that that policy was, unfortunately, not accepted by either side. That is why this government is now on the two-track policy which we reaffirmed in NATO just a few days ago.


FINANCE
Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows that the Minister of Finance has brought down two budgets during his tenure. The first one literally drove billions of dollars out of the country by the establishment of the National Energy Program, and the second one was the worst antiinvestment budget in this country's history.
In light of the crisis of confidence, not only in the policy of the minister but in the minister himself, and in light of his dismal track record, does the Prime Minister still have confidence in the economic ability of the Minister of Finance to bring down an economic statement?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I do not believe that that question is any more in order than if I were to ask the hon. member if he had confidence in his leader. In this case I can give the hon. member a clear assurance that I do have confidence in the economic abilities of the Minister of Finance.


Miss MacDonald:: You are the only one.


Chris Speyer: The Prime Minister may have that confidence but no other Canadian has it.


SMALL BUSINESS
Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Finance. There are 250 small businesses going broke every day. More than 1,000 Canadians each day are going out of work as a direct result of the economic policies of this government. Will the minister give us an assurance, without stating exactly what the policy is, that something will be done for the small business community when he brings down his economic statement later this month?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, of course I find the comments of the hon. member really quite unjustified and almost nonsensical when he attributes the current economic situation in Canada to-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: To you.


Charles Joseph Clark: To the Government of Canada.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: -to the policies of the Government of Canada.


Charles Joseph Clark: It is all the fault of Zaire.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: That is just an over simplistic approach that has been perpetuated by his leader and other members of
June 14, 1982

the opposition. Until they get that out of their heads they will not be able to make any contribution to the resolution of our difficulties.


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. In light of the fact that on June 3, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin and I tabled a petition in the House which contained more than 1,000 names asking for a delay in the use of metric in the specific instance as it would apply to auction markets, since livestock sellers believe that there is a uniqueness between fixed price buying and the very rapid and instantaneous judgments of auctionbuying, does the minister believe that there is a unique difference between buying over the counter when you have time to make judgments, and the rapid auction-buying?


Mr. Korchinski:: Think fast, Eugene.


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, 1 was not aware that the hon. member had anything to do with submitting such a petition. All I know is that 87 per cent of agriculture is completed as far as going metric is concerned. The other 13 per cent should be finished by the end of 1982 and early 1983. I do know that we have met with the people representing the red meat industry, both the Canada Pork Council and the Canada Meat Packers Council, and discussed this very issue. I did not find that much objection to it. We met with the people running the auction marts earlier in the year and did not find that much objection to it, either, when it was clearly explained to them.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER CONSIDER UNIQUENESS OF LIVESTOCK AUCTIONS
Arnold John Malone: Quite naturally, the minister would not find any unique difference when he asked the packing plants, which are part of the red meat industry, whether or not they could convert to metric, because it is very simple there. However, when making an instantaneous judgment, a cautious buyer using metric at an auction who bids one cent a pound less could cost a large rancher up to $6,000 worth of loss in his annual sales. I would like to ask the minister again whether he would consider the information.
Would the minister take a look at the uniqueness, as it affects the large sales of all stock from auction markets, and make representations to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce to protect that industry until the judgment of the nomenclature, or the use of the new auction langage, is instantaneous with the judgment of value which is necessary in auctioning live cattle?
Petitions


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, there is no doubt about what the hon. member says, that buying or selling cattle at an auction mart does take people of certain expertise who understand the total cattle marketing system. These people do have to make quick decisions; there is no doubt about that. I will consider what the hon. member is talking about but, as I have said, we met with the people who were running the markets earlier this year-


An hon. Member:: Not the farmers.


Eugene Whelan: -and, as I say, I did not find great resentment over it, but I will look at it again.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege relating to a matter which I raised in the House on June 2 last, concerning which I only today received further information. It relates to political interference in the hiring of-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I thought the hon. member was rising on a question of privilege concerning the deliberations on this day. If the question of privilege concerns prior matters, he will have to send me a notice with a brief statement about the subject of his question of privilege. I am afraid that I cannot hear him today because his question did not arise out of the deliberations of today.


PETITIONS
Edward Allan Miller: Madam Speaker, the students of Qualicum Beach Middle School wish the House to be aware of their concern and the concerns of their fellow students in School District No. 69 in the Nanaimo-Alberni constituency.
It is my pleasure and duty to present the 1,577 names of students in grades 2 to 12 contained in a "Students Petition for Peace". The petition calls upon this House and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to end the worldwide build-up of nuclear and chemical weapons and to have the billions of dollars currently spent on war spent on life, not death, on earth.
I pray this House will respond to their worry and the trust they have in their country.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

June 14. 1982
18418_________________________________________
Order Paper Questions



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Jim Peterson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,057, 4,278, 4,322 and 4,338.
[ Text]


Mr. Siddon: 1.	With reference to the booklet and audio record published by Fitness Canada entitled "Take a Break" (a) how many copies were produced (b) what was the total cost of production (i) on a per unit basis (ii) for the complete order (c) who authorized and ordered their production?
2.	(a) Which firm or individual was contracted to (i) do the printing (ii) do the graphic art work (iii) produce the audio record (b) what costs were incurred for (i) printing (ii) graphic art work (iii) the audio recording (iv) packaging and delivery?
3.	Were royalties paid for the right to record the songs on the record?
4.	What was the procedure for awarding the contracts for (a) printing (b) graphic art work (c) audio recording (d) packaging?
5.	How many of the booklets will be allocated to (a) federal cabinet ministers (b) Members of Parliament (c) Fitness Canada (d) other governments (e) public groups (f) private organizations?


Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: i am informed by the Secretary of State and the Department of Supply and Services as follows:
1.	(a) 72,500; (b)(i) 78.6 cents per unit; (ii) $56,984; (c) Fitness and Amateur Sport Canada.
2. (a)(i) Condor Litho & Carton Inc., 500 Upton St., LaSalle, Que., (ii) Cap Advertising Ltd, 126 York St., Ottawa, Ont., (iii) SC-Sound Communications, Div. of Medi-facts Ltd., 471 Richmond Road, Ottawa, Ont.
(b)(i) $26,622; (ii) $5,000; (iii) $25,362; (iv) Packaging was undertaken by the printing firm above, and costs were included in the printing contract. Distribution was undertaken internally by Fitness and Amateur Sport Canada.
3.	No royalties were paid.
4.	Supply and Services departmental contracting procedures were followed for the award of all contracts. They submitted the following information on these contracts.
Service	No. of Firms invited to bid from dept'l source list	No. of Firms who bid	Successful Bidder	Remarks(a) Printing & Packaging	6	2	Condor Litho & Carton Inc.	Lowest Bidder(b) Graphic Art Work	5	4	Cap Advertising Ltd	Lowest Bidder(c) Audio Recording	5	l	SC-Sound Communications, Div. of Medifacts Ltd	Only Bidder
(d) Sec reply 4 (a).
5.	The "Take a Break/Pause Action" is a fitness informational item available to the general public upon request at no charge. No specific initial distribution was undertaken, but the availability of the item was promoted and it is made available in reasonable quantities to groups, institutions, fitness instructors and individuals on request.


Mr. Blenkarn: 1.	Was F. L. C. Reed appointed assistant deputy minister of Forestry Services and, if so (a) on what date (b) is F. L. C. Reed the same person whose name is used in a company called Woodbridge Reed and Associates?
2.	Did the government award a research contract for $233,000 to the company?
3.	Was the contract for research tendered to other companies in the field so that they could make proposals concerning the research and, if not, for what reason?
4.	What is the value of the research, if any, to the government?
5.	Was the Forestry Services involved in suggesting the need for the research and did F. L. C. Reed have anything to do with making recommendations concerning the research project?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of the Environment and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: 1. F. L. C. Reed was appointed assistant deputy minister of the Canadian Forestry Service, Environment Canada under the Executive Interchange Program; (a) on August 15, 1980, (b) Mr. Reed was formerly a partner in the company now called Wood-bridge, Reed and Associates.
2.	Yes.
3.	This contract was awarded as a result of the company submitting an unsolicited proposal to Supply and Services Canada. The research was therefore not tendered.
4.	The value of the research will be reflected in the impact which the findings have on (a) the management of vast areas of hardwood forests, (b) the utilization of a resource, (c) the transfer of pulp and paper making technology to Canadian enterprises, and (d) the generation of employment, economic growth opportunities and foreign exchange earnings.
5.	A submission was made to the Supply and Services Unsolicited Proposal Program. The submission was circulated for evaluation to an interdepartmental committee composed of members from Environment Canada, Supply and Services Canada, Industry, Trade and Commerce, National Research Council and Ministry of State for Science and Technology and was supported by Environment Canada through the assistant deputy minister of the Canadian Forestry Service, F. L. C. Reed.


Mr. Howie: How many persons are employed on the National Farm Products Marketing Council and what is the salary range allocated to each position?


Eugene Whelan: Nine.
June 14, 1982

National Training Act
Salary Range
Chair	S54.900- S64.600
Three members	47,500- 55,900
Five members paid at a rate of $200 per diem for each day they are on council business.


Mr. Siddon: 1.	How many ounces of gold were held in reserve by the government at the end of (a) each quarter for (i) 1980 (ii) 1981 (b) the first quarter of 1982?
2.	What was the total value of the government's gold reserves at the end of (a) each quarter for (i) 1980 (ii) 1981 (b) the first quarter of 1982?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State (Finance)):: The
table below contains the requested figures on Canada's gold reserves, both book and market value figures are reported.
For accounting purposes the valuation of Canada's gold reserves; which are held in the exchange fund account, is based on the former official price of 35 SDRs (special drawing rights) per ounce. On March 31, 1982, one SDR was equivalent to U.S. $1.11309. The International Monetary Fund, and Canada's two main trading partners, the United States and Japan follow the same practice as Canada in valuing gold in reporting official holdings. The market value of our gold reserves is, of course, much higher than the book value.
	Official	Book Value
Date	Holdings	per ounce1
	(thousands of troy ounces)	
Mar. 31, 1980	21,786	43.79June 30, 1980	21,310	46.35Sept. 30, 1980	21,110	45.94Dec. 31. 1980	20,982	44.64Mar. 31, 1981	20,917	43.00June 30. 1981	20,913	40.27Sept. 30, 1981	20,754	40.06Dec. 31. 1981	20,463	40.74Mar. 31, 1982	20,353	38.96
1 Based on a value of SDR 35 per ounce 2London p.m. fixing, unless specified as a.m. fixing


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Madam Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from June 4, 1982, consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy that Bill C-115, to establish a national program for occupational training, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, Bill C-l 15, an act to establish a national program for occupational training, is a very critical piece of legislation, as I am sure the minister is aware. I think every hon. member in
Market Value	Book Value	Market Valueper ounce2	of Holdings	of Holdingsdollars)	(millions of U.S. dollars)	494.50	954.0	10,773.2653.50	987.8	13,926.1666.75	969.7	14,075.1589.50 a.m.	936.6	12,368.9513.75	899.4	10,746.1426.00	842.2	8,908.9428.75	831.4	8,898.3400.00 a.m.	833.7	8,185.2320.00	792.9	6,513.0
the House of Commons will regard it as a critical piece of legislation. I use the word "critical" advisedly, because this bill is being introduced at a time when our country faces the worst crisis in unemployment since the days of the deep depression of the 1930s.
We all know the extent of the economic malaise which affects the country today. We know that hundreds of thousands of people are out of work. That is why it is critical at this point in time that this piece of legislation be introduced. The bill is critical in the short term in that it may-and I use the word "may"-provide the means whereby some of those presently unemployed will perhaps be given adequate training so that in the future they can find new employment, so that they can come back to the work force. This piece of legislation is also critical in the long term in that it has the potential either to provide a positive input to the economy by responding to the ongoing needs of the country, or a very negative input in that it could be the tool by which the government seeks it usurp certain legislative measures which are presently controlled, or should be controlled, by the provincial governments.
With regard to that aspect, 1 would say to the minister that the method of implementation of the measures contained in this bill is indeed critical, because if it is carried out with the co-operation of the provincial governments, then the national training program envisaged in the bill may well achieve the high level of success of earlier federal initiatives in the technical and vocational training and assistance programs. We may well see that duplicated. However, if the measures in the bill are implemented unilaterally, without proper consultation and agreement with the provinces, then it could well prove detri-

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
mental to our educational and training system and, indeed, to the employment opportunities for those in the 1980s.
Federal-provincial co-operation in implementing the measures of this bill is indeed vital. The minister has already been cautioned in that respect, and I do hope he is listening. The challenges have drastically altered work patterns and new technologies which will confront us in the 1980s will be difficult enough to cope with, without the additional aggravation of unnecessary federal-provincial conflict. That must be avoided at all costs. I am sure the minister has paid attention to the comments that were provided earlier in this debate by my colleague, the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie), and I hope that he will take every opportunity to ensure that this program is carried out with the fullest co-operation from those members of provincial governments right across the country who will have to respond to the bill in some fashion.
I have mentioned the challenges which face us in the 1980s when it comes to the question of changes in work patterns, changes in unemployment programs and changes in the style which will determine the 1980s, but often when 1 listen to the minister's responses to questions in the House I get the strong impression that the federal government really has not been seized of the magnitude of the problems confronting us in the 1980s. We are now into the world of chip technology and this means major shifts in the work force. Chip technology, it has been said, could result in a social revolution in our country, and indeed in the world, of the same magnitude as the industrial revolution. However, it will probably be condensed into a much shorter time-frame. That time-frame will certainly encompass the decade of the eighties. We are already two years into that decade without the proper training programs having been put in place.
Even now we see that the gap between skilled workers and the demand for certain skills and unemployment is widening, not contracting. The gap between the jobs that are available and unemployment is becoming greater. The immediate problem facing Canada is to match the skills of Canadians with available jobs.
1 am sure the minister knows that thousands of jobs are vacant, because we do not have adequately skilled workers to fill them. Even though there are skilled jobs going for the asking, there are still one and a quarter million Canadians unemployed. When we take into consideration the hidden unemployed, there are probably closer to two million people.
There are still job openings not being filled because of this mismatch of supply and demand. The difference between supply and demand in the labour force has to be addressed and eliminated. The highly skilled blue collar worker is in demand. At the same time, the clerks, labourers and assembly line workers are finding that their jobs are becoming redundant. These people are joining the unemployment rolls.
The problem that faces us is here and now. The need to address it is immediate. I look at the province of Ontario as an example. The Ontario manpower commission reported that
108.000	new highly skilled positions will be created by 1986. That is the estimate of the number of new jobs to be created in the province of Ontario within the next four years. However, if current trends continue through our training programs and educational systems, the system in Ontario will produce only
62.000	skilled workers to meet that demand of 108,000 vacancies which will occur. Obviously the present system is not working. The assessment system of our needs and the training programs to meet those needs are not working at the present time.
In my comments today I want to bring to the minister's attention one concern in particular that I have. That is the impact that this chip revolution, this move into the new computer technology, is going to have on women, both those in the work force and those planning to enter the work force in the eighties.
High technology has the potential to create a very severe set of structural unemployment problems for women. Various studies I have looked at show that perhaps up to one million women who are presently working may find that their jobs will become redundant. At present, there are four million women in the work force employed in the sales, service and clerical sectors. These are the very sectors where the numbers of jobs will be reduced in the next ten years because of moving into microchip technology. These are the areas which will be most affected. Of course, those are the areas where women are primarily employed at the present time.
Indeed, if we look at areas such as clerical and service occupations, we find that the number of job openings is levelling off today and has been doing so for the past number of months. That levelling off will increase. There will be a decrease in opportunities in these sectors in the years immediately ahead. There are not the same number of new jobs being created for sales clerks, office clerks, bank clerks or telephone operators as there were five years ago. Those are the jobs which are predominantly held by women.
Computers displace clerical jobs. Clerical jobs is certainly one area. However, computers are also moving into other areas. They are bringing about significant employment changes in work places such as libraries, hospitals, retail outlets and factories. It is estimated, for example, that 30 per cent of present bank positions, that is tellers and clerks, those jobs primarily held by women, will disappear with the full advent of micro processing and electronic funds transfers.
Heather Menzies in her book "Women and the Chip" estimates that by 1990 one million women could find themselves without work unless they become computerized. Can we reasonably expect those one million women to revert to their traditional role and stay at home? Of course not. They will not do so intellectually and they cannot do so economically. If working wives were not in the labour force today, the number of Canadian families living below the poverty line would increase by something like 50 per cent.
We cannot afford the price tag either in welfare or unemployment, and the lost consumer market than women constitute. We cannot afford it in the human potential that they
June 14, 1982

represent. We cannot afford a ghetto philosophy toward women in our society. They must have the opportunity to enter new jobs and professions on an equal footing with their male counterparts.
I ask myself whether this is going to happen. By itself, it is unlikely. 1 again refer to the work done by Heather Menzics in her studies in this field. She followed the process of automation through one Canadian corporation that was operating in the transportation and communications field. She found that expansion occurred in the professional and managerial levels of that firm, but there was a reduction in the clerical as automation took place. The number of clerical jobs phased out amounted to some 130 placements, all held by women. The only persons to move into the managerial ranks from that group of 130 women were two who were able to be trained and carry out the up mobility that brought them new positions. The other 128 were literally dropped from the work force.
I do not think it will automatically happen throughout our work force that women will be moved into the higher jobs. Opportunities have to be provided for them. Indeed, it is critical that these women who are going to be displaced have the opportunities to train for the new jobs which the new technologies will create.
Certain skills will be required more than others, skills such as engineering, technical work and computer program analysis. These are the areas where there will be new openings. Job opportunities in the eighties will be in these sectors. 1 am sure the minister is aware of the statistics which show an insignificant movement of women into these areas. Current training programs still concentrate on channelling women in the very fields where the jobs ar now being phased out. Indeed, 75 per cent of women in Canada manpower retraining programs today are still being trained as stenographers, bank tellers, typists and clerks, that kind of traditional female ghetto. Only 12 per cent of the women presently in Canada manpower industrial training programs are registered in non-traditional job training.
I asked the minister earlier for these figures. The latest reports I had from his department were that 2,000 women in all of Canada were now in retraining programs in non-traditional roles. When we consider that one million women are in jeopardy of losing their jobs, that 2,000 who are being retrained is a pitifully small number. The most recent statistics I have from Canada Employment and Immigration for apprenticeship programs, another area where we have to expand, show that 3 per cent of the total enrolment of Canadians in the apprenticeship program are women-3 per cent only. In Ontario, the statistics I have show that only four out of a total of 1,500 people enrolled in apprenticeship programs were women.
I notice that the number of young women who are enrolled in Ottawa technical high schools number only 40 out of 850 pupils. So even at the educational level we can see that there is not a very bright future for women if these present trends continue. In other words, our educational system, our training
National Training Act
and retraining programs are not at present geared to relocate women in the work force, to adapt them to the new technology to provide them with opportunities which they are going to have to have as we move further into the decade of the 1980s. Yet as we consider that decade of the 1980s, two-thirds of all the new entrants coming into the work force will be women. It is not just those who are presently in the work force that we have to be concerned about, the one million women who might be displaced or could be displaced; it is the additional one million women who will be coming into the work force in the 1980s and who will certainly make up the highest number of entrants to the work force.
Obviously, therefore, the needs of women in employment, placement, and in training programs, must be given the highest priority, the highest consideration, in the government's training program. Yet the present programs are really of little benefit to women. That is a major concern and it is one that has to be addressed.
There is another concern that I have, Mr. Speaker, that I would like to point out to the minister. Women must be prepared to make the changes that will take them into the new technology and into the non-traditional roles. A great many Canadian women are not yet prepared to do so. That is a concern that I have had, in talking to many women across the country. It is the fear that they have about making a move from the positions they now hold, from the roles that they now know, from the areas where they feel secure, into a field of new technology for which they do not feel adequately equipped. I had an opportunity to look at data from a recent national survey. It shows a high degree of hostility among certain groups of women, women who are at the lower end of the salary scale, women who have a lesser amount of education. They have a great degree of hostility towards the new technology. Unfortunately, this hostility finds its concentration among the very people whose jobs are the most vulnerable. It is among the sales clerks, the bank tellers, the telephone operators and the typists that there is a great degree of reluctance to come to grips with this new technology.
There is no doubt that the greatest challenge facing women in the 1980s is the challenge of the chip. Not only will training and retraining programs have to be directed towards opening up new opportunities for women, but there must as well be public educational and information programs which show in a positive way the advantages that this new technology will have for women and thus encourage them to enter into the training programs that will be made available to them, I would trust, as we approach this new technology.
I would point out to the minister that such public information programs particularly geared towards women in the work force are already being carried out in France and Japan and have had a very significant impact on the attitudes of women towards these programs. Women in particular must accept the inevitability of the microchip revolution. They must see it as an opportunity to improve their economic position in the work force.

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
Last week a Statistics Canada report revealed that on average women earn about half the income that men earn. On average women earn about $8,200 a year, while men on average earn about $16,700 a year. That is the difference at the present time. Every piece of legislation that we deal with in the economic sense must be geared to overcoming that difference, to redressing that inequity. If this situation is to change, and change it must, then the bill we have before us must address itself particularly to the needs of women. It must address the problems that women face today in the labour force. It must also address the potential contribution that women can make to the economic development of Canada.
I would urge the minister to use this piece of legislation to take into consideration the very problems that are now confronting women as we go further into the decade of the 1980s, with the microchip revolution upon us. I would urge him also to make sure that the potential of women in the work place is realized by putting into place with his provincial counterparts public information programs which will encourage women to overcome the reluctance that they now evidence towards some of the changes that are taking place as a result of the new technology.


Mr. Bill Vankoughnet (Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to participate in the debate on this legislation concerning job training. I recognize this issue to be of national importance as well as of local concern to residents in my constituency of Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington.
When I read this Bill, C-115, I read it with the same degree of skepticism as Canadians view the actions of this government. We have the appointment of Jack Horner as chairman of the CNR and Arthur Erickson as the architect for the New Canadian embassy in Washington. As we all know, the list is continuous. That is why, when I examine Bill C-l 15, I pose the same question that many Canadians are asking about government: Just what is the intention of this bill?
I would like to suggest that it is fairly ludicrous to establish a national training program for jobs that do not exist. The minister has stated that "major shortages averaging 9,000 skilled workers each year are predicted over the next five years unless the pace of expansion increases dramatically." If this prediction is made in the same manner as that in which the finance minister predicted good things from his November 12 budget, or the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde) predicted good things from his National Energy Program, I cannot believe the figure quoted for skilled worker shortages.
I believe this is a Utopian bill. How does one determine shortages? Changes in the work place are occurring very rapidly today. By the time a response has been developed to suit the market by establishing a training program and then placing workers on the market, the situation will have changed and the market will have shifted to meet the new conditions. It
makes much more sense to have industry train its work force and retrain on the job in the ever-changing marketplace.
Another point which concerns me about this bill involves the idea of a national training program. Other than the logistical problems and the corresponding increase in the size of the bureaucracy, how does one determine a national skill? Obviously the manpower training requirements will differ from region to region. I can see an individual moving from Nova Scotia to Manitoba for a job or job training in that province. However, I do not believe many individuals will undertake job training in Nova Scotia and start looking for work in Manitoba. What should really be addressed is the problem of job creation in the private sector for the 1.2 million unemployed in this country.
We are going from crisis to crisis and treating symptoms rather than the disease, which is a lack of confidence for private enterprise to invest in Canada with Canadian money.
The changes we are witnessing in industry will continue for some time. This process of change is exposing new problems daily. Shutdowns create problems which will be more difficult to address if we do not meet the challenge.
In my riding the spectre of the shutdown of a uranium mine looms. What good is this bill to the some 400 mine employees in Bancroft or other Canadians finding themselves out of work because of a lack of sales, bankruptcy or receivership? This mine, which employs over 380 people, is situated in a community of less than 1,400. The impact of this shutdown will be horrendous. The suggestion of retraining these people is unrealistic. Most people choose to remain in their locations, even if transfer opportunities exist. People who live in the rural areas of my riding do so because of the lifestyle, which is something upon which we do not put a price tag. People want to stay there and live in those communities. Of the few who do move, frequently they return to their previous locations. The end result is individuals on unemployment insurance and, ultimately, social assistance. This bill is like talking about shutting the barn door after the horse has escaped.
Let me expand on the effect the closing of this mine will have on 380 workers in a rural community who will be put out of work. First, there is the loss to governments of taxes which are collected. That loss would be in excess of $500,000 per year. Then there is money lost to local communities for supplies amounting to approximately $2 million. Then with respect to supplies bought from other Canadian businesses the loss would be approximately $10 million. The annual payroll is about $12 million. We see a budget forecast of approximately $24 million lost to the community and to Canada. Of approximately 400 employees, let us say 300 decide to relocate with their families. If the 300 workers who relocate request and obtain relocation assistance from the Canada Employment Centre and the amount requested is the maximum per family, that will cost the Canada Employment Centre something in the neighbourhood of $1 million. That leaves approximately 100 employees who will be qualified to apply for unemployment insurance benefits. Unemployment insurance benefits for
June 14, 1982

the first 12-month period would amount to in excess of $1 million. We cannot measure the human costs this would involve. When the decision to allow the Madawaska mine to close is made, the cost to government could easily exceed $5 million in the first year, including costs associated with the mining sector employment bridging program.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) should address the seriousness of plant closings, bankruptcies and the social implications involved before establishing a national training program which, if the current trend continues, will train workers for non-existent jobs. I do not see a national labour market; 1 see a regional labour market. The people in my riding wish to stay there and be employed, a request I believe to be not too unreasonable.
Job-training programs may be a popular quick-fix remedial notion, but they do not address the problem of job creation today. We must move to protect existing jobs.
I would like to quote from the general development agreement of 1974, in which the Department of Regional Economic Expansion was a partner with the province of Ontario, as follows:
-to improve the opportunity for productive employment and access to those opportunities and to sustain existing productive employment opportunity ... in need of special measures.
The mechanisms we have in this country for moving workers in declining industries from one area to another are extremely poor at the best of times. The workers who are currently being hurt by this recession are those with less formal education and older persons who have the type of family responsibilities that inhibit movement. With interest rates the way they are, anyone with a house is neither able to sell his house in a declining area nor able to afford to buy a new one in a growing area. We do not have the structures to assist the mobility en masse of those who are unlikely or unable to move on their own to areas where there are jobs or national training programs such as this bill envisions.
I would like now to address the purpose of Bill C-115 as 1 see it. I see it as another power grab by the current federal government, this time trying to carve out a piece of the education market. Education is clearly within the responsibilities of the provincial governments. On the one hand the federal government is withdrawing transfer payments to the provinces for post-secondary education and, on the other hand, through legislation like Bill C-115 the bureaucrats are building a larger empire for the Minister of Employment and Immigration-or will it be the minister of employment, immigration and education?
I acknowledge that there are good intentions involved in job training programs, but it appears that the minister seeks to exploit the situation to expand his department. The provinces have a real worry that the funds for this program will be diverted from funds allocated to universities and community colleges. I am skeptical about moving people from region to region, first for training and then for jobs. It is impractical, and it is not feasible.
The Madawaska mine, which is in real danger of closing, is a uranium mine. The present government's involvement in the marketing of uranium is an issue which, along with concerns
National Training Act
respecting cartels and price fixing, lingers on in our minds. The people of Bancroft do not want to see the Uranium City solution applied to their community. The government is and should be responsible for its actions; I am sure foam insulation sufferers would agree with that.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has indicated that cooperative federalism will no longer be practised. The federal government wants more recognition for federal funding and new areas for further patronage. How will it be decided which regions receive funding for job-training facilities? Will a committee be established and then its advice be ignored, as was done when choosing the architect for the new embassy in Washington? If the minister is truly prepared to listen to provincial proposals and allow a really effective training program to emerge through co-operative federalism, I support his efforts.
The task force on work for tomorrow indicates that there could be employment opportunities for machinists, tool and dye makers, welders, electronic technicians, computer specialists and a host of other occupations which could assume a role of national importance if there are shortages in these fields, but business activity is necessary before these jobs can be created.
The federal government has recently set two records: the dollar has reached an all-time low, and unemployment has reached an all-time high. I suggest that the federal government test the intent of Bill C-l 15 with specialized training development in the armed forces. This could be accomplished without disrupting any of the excellent training programs which currently exist in some provinces.
The minister speaks about a national training program to place a national focus on a national problem. The Department of Regional and Economic Expansion was intended to have the same purpose. It was created, and I quote, "to assist and encourage each region of Canada in realizing its economic and social potential".
The figures indicate that over the life of DREE, since it was first formed in 1969, one particular region, which has a tendency to support the Liberal Party, has benefited to the tune of $1,524 billion compared to Ontario's $277 million. Ontario has always been regarded as a "have" province. However, regional disparities exist in Ontario which should have been addressed by DREE. DREE is riddled with patronage to the point of being a national disgrace. It was a good idea; but it has been politically sabotaged to the point of ineffectiveness in certain partisan areas.
The $350 million industry and labour adjustment program, ILAP, announced in 1981 also is a program that on paper sounds good. The reason it was established was, in part, as follows:
A program to promote industrial restructuring and labour adjustment ... available to communities facing major lay-offs resulting from large-scale industrial dislocation.

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
At this point it is being used to funnel millions of dollars into western Ontario ridings whose members currently sit on the government side of the House. They are in trouble politically. Voters in Kitchener will recogni/e pork barrelling for what it is and it will not help the member for Kitchener (Mr. Lang) in the next election. Are we now to assume that the Kitchener riding has national importance?
The Minister of Employment and Immigration informs me that his ministry will be monitoring the Bancroft situation. The word monitoring is a catchword which says that if the people who are affected live in a Conservative riding, we will watch them being thrown out of work. Does the minister not realize that he is playing games with people's lives and their livelihood? In the Sudbury area approximately 26 per cent of the labour force work directly in the mining industry compared to 83 per cent in the Bancroft area. There will be a tremendous upheaval if this uranium mine shuts down in this community.
The type of job skills required to live in the North Hastings area around Bancroft are skills for which no "national occupational training program" will ever provide training. These people are independent and have learned to be versatile, regardless of government interference. It is a life to be envied and one I do not wish to see disturbed.
What is an occupation of national importance? I see the situation where a regional shortage may be deemed not to be of national importance, a region where there exists a shortage in all occupations, but which in the eyes of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Commission is not sufficiently serious to justify special action.
The tendency in the past has been to attract skilled workers from other countries to fill jobs in Canada. The minister wishes to reverse this trend. Canada will now have skilled workers to export to other countries where the jobs will exist.
Can this government not see the real problem? Is it so bankrupt of ideas, so old and tired that it does not see a frustrated populace? Canadians are tired of the federal government fighting with the provinces, and tired of the relentless empire building of Ottawa.
Occupational training for the work place in a changing work environment is a worthwhile goal. I would like to see a system implemented that encourages our provincial educational systems to assess students at an early age for occupational aptitude and direct students into training programs at an early age to remedy current and future skilled-trade shortages that Bill C-115 is attempting to redress.
I am in favour of the intent of Bill C-115, regardless of my pessimistic comments concerning federal government participation in educational matters. However, I do believe employment is the key solution to restoring confidence in the Canadian economy to promote private sector growth. There are some well-meaning programs that currently exist that can be used effectively to encourage this confidence. Instead of speculating about possible future shortages, let us protect existing jobs and work for their preservation and expansion. Business and labour need a sensible, stable, long-term industrial strategy if they are
to be able to plan their future requirements. We have in Canada an abundant supply of resources in raw material and human resources.
During this worldwide recession, Canadians should be on top, not thirteenth on the list of nations behind such countries as Switzerland and Luxembourg. Canadians ask why countries like Germany and Japan, which import large amounts of raw materials and petroleum, have such vibrant economies while Canada's economy is suffering.
People respect hard-earned success and action in the face of challenge. In my riding I have constituents who are surviving only by being jacks-of-all-trades. They repair their own vehicles and cut their own wood for heating. They grow as much of their own food as possible just to make ends meet. Still this federal government demands more.
The Canadian government should make the creation of jobs, with a comprehensive industrial policy, its highest priority. When our people are working and our plants are at capacity, then perhaps the government can direct its talents to training manpower needs for the jobs of the future. The government must start within Canada to solve the real problems affecting Canadians before its goes off searching for other problems. We need to ensure that industry and business in Canada survive the current economic recession and grow to compete and serve markets both in Canada and abroad. This goal is vital, basic, and requires immediate government attention.
This nation has more than 700,000 small businesses. The wave of bankruptcy among these businesses, up 22 per cent from 1980 and up 37 per cent in the first quarter of 1982 over the same period last year, threatens the lifeblood of this country. The government has refused to address the problems being faced by so many. Small business needs help now as it is a vital contributor to employment in the Canadian economy.
One example of an area in which the federal government could direct some creative energy is the textile, clothing and shoe manufacturing industries. A comprehensive industrial strategy that looks hard at the needs and concerns of these industries would protect jobs for which the federal government wants to establish training programs. Between August of 1981 and May of this year there has been a net loss of 320,000 jobs,
157,000	of them in the manufacturing sector alone.
We have not moved forcefully enough in limiting the number of Japanese autos being imported into Canada or in working out some arrangement whereby Canadian jobs are created by the Japanese auto makers in Canada. Workers in the auto industry clearly are in an occupation of national importance. The preservation of those jobs is of national significance. A training program for non-existent jobs in the auto industry is of no significance.
Let us have an economic program that will give encouragement to labour and industry and the incentive for all Canadians to work and rebuild this great country to a place of prominence among industrial nations of the world.
June 14, 1982


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, we continue to debate this legislation at a time of economic crisis. We were led to expect that the Versailles summit marked some new beginnings for Canadian economic policy. We do not need another new beginning like the last one, which ended in the crash of the megaprojeel strategy.
Today we are considering an employment training measure at a time when Canada suffers from post-depression high unemployment. I see nothing in this bill which will address the problem of the 1.2 million people who are unemployed by the count of Statistics Canada or the real unemployed who push the figure to 1.9 million and are victims of the government's fiscal and monetary strangulation of the economy.
I have looked in vain, Mr. Speaker, for an optimistic note about Canada's economic performance in recent months. Instead, I have found this kind of unrelenting pessimism as voiced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) on May 10, when he said:
We are not in a position to offer an optimistic picture of the immediate future. The resumption of growth in the OECD area in the months ahead will be moderate at best, and total unemployment is likely to rise even further. While better inflation performance is under way in many countries, including Canada,
* it has been much slower than we would have liked.
He went on to utter the obligatory excuses about U.S. economic performance and U.S. interest rates, followed by criticism of Canadian workers for not taking part in "moderation of income demands". This, Mr. Speaker, can only be described as a threadbare excuse for threadbare policies. Surely the lack of confidence now being shown in the economy must suggest to the minister that there is a grievous lack of confidence in him.
In the same address on May 10 the minister said:
Measures arc being taken to reduce the immediate hardships of high unemployment, as dictated by particular national circumstances-but we all realize the route to genuine recovery must lead through lower inflation.
I suppose the bill we have before us today is one of those measures, a government band-aid to minister to the army of unemployed. Those of us who looked at this exercise in skills matching would much rather be looking at a job-creation policy. The Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) appears to have been far too occupied with a bailout policy of work sharing to be bothered with addressing the national unemployment crisis which faces us now. There was a time, not long ago, when the Liberal leader of the day, Lester Pearson, talked optimistically of an unemployment rate of 2 per cent, the so-called natural rate of unemployment of people in transition between jobs.
Since that time we have been treated to a lot of buzz words or fuzz words, such as "participation rate, baby boom generation, structural unemployment" and all the rest. What it means purely and simply is a significant retreat from the goal of full employment.
The government acknowledged that in the 1980 departmental study led by David Dodge, which was made public by my
National Training Act
colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orli-kow). That study said that full employment was not really an official goal of the federal government, and unemployment had to be traded off against price stability. Even though at that time we had a higher profile parliamentary task force study before us, which would define full employment at 4 per cent unemployed, most of us know well enough that it is the department's brief which catches the ministerial ears. As for Lester Pearson and his 2 per cent, that seems a part of Liberal history which is gone and has been forgotten.
The goal of the post-war generation of full employment, remembering only too well the misery and failure of the great depression, finds no place in this government at all. Yet providing jobs for every Canadian willing and able to work is the only worthy goal for any national government. Any retreat from that goal deserves to be broadcast not only to the unemployed but to every thinking and caring Canadian who realizes that employment goes a long way toward defining the dignity and self-worth of every person in our society.
The parliamentary task force made some other worthwhile observations. They singled out the "make work" nature of many employment and immigration programs when long-term job creation should have been the goal. It found that only 20 per cent of employers did on-the-job training, and that skilled labour shortages would require a commitment by industry to do much more. Unfortunately, the national training program as outlined by the minister will largely address the concerns of the Dodge study and largely ignore the concerns put before us by the parliamentary task force. We will plunge into another brave new world of skills-matching via Bill C-115, but does this bill really do the limited amount expected from it? We should take a good look at it and find out.
Earlier in this House the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) told us about the history of vocational training in Canada. He did it very well but he should have added that many of our problems today are the result of that vocational training act. I believe the mistakes in that act will be repeated. For example, for years government employment forecasts have depended on voluntary disclosure from employers. The results have not provided the accurate information needed to plan a training policy. That process has not been changed in this act.
Second, the Dodge report suggested that the western energy megaprojects should be the basis of new training requirements, yet these projects are in collapse. Should the federal government, therefore, unilaterally define the national training priority on the basis of a tenuous economic strategy? Past experience suggests that is a very doubtful process.
Third, we seem to be unduly occupied with industry's requirements. Where is the commitment to what people want to do? Why are so many community colleges, which most clearly aim their graduates toward available jobs, having to turn back thousands of applicants because of restraint policies? If we are not short of medical personnel and a lack of commitment to medicare which would employ them, why is the Canadian Medical Association talking about rationing medical services?

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
There is more than a government pleading poverty here, Mr. Speaker. Here we have a government with a poverty of imagination. Surely this is unforgiveable when the lives of so many of our youngest and brightest hopes for the future are at stake. All of us are aware that the post-war generation of skilled trades people who came to Canada from outside North America are now nearing retirement age. The bill refuses to come to grips with this most important issue.
The federal government is quite content to provide direct grants to industry in the hope that it will stimulate training. Yet there is no enthusiasm for employers who see such training only as a cost to them, not a real investment in their labour force. In the past they have found that they can spend time and money training a person, only to have him take a job with their competitors. The only fair way of dealing with this fear is to equalize the costs for all employers who use skilled labour. If skilled workers are trained, and if those who do the training are reimbursed by those who hire the labour, we will quickly have a policy which is both fair and which accurately reflects the demand for such labour. This is known as the grant-levy system. It has been endorsed by the Canadian Labour Congress and it is endorsed by the New Democratic Party. It is unfortunate that the government cannot bring itself to implement this system.
In short, I wonder whether this brand new bill will give us the same old results. Having been active in the educational field for most of my life, I know well the results of such training bills. Some of the results are as follows: institutional training which comes ten years after the need has passed; a lack of confidence in the ability of local and regional authorities to anticipate and deal with current employment demands; a continuance of "beggar the neighbour" employment practices among companies rather then a continuance of a system which gives assurance to companies that training is for their own good and for the common good of the country.
The government could move beyond the less than inspired ad hockery of Bill C-115, beyond work sharing, beyond winter employment projects and the rest of it, and into a planned economy with a full employment goal. However, the job of planning the economy for full employment awaits different ministers with different goals from those of the ones opposite. I will most readily and willingly support such a government.


Hon. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is intended to ensure the existence of an adequate number of highly skilled workers to meet the needs of the Canadian economy. The basic need of the Canadian economy is to provide over one million jobs for Canadians who are unemployed and to provide thousands more for young Canadians entering the labour market.
The greatest single need in Canada today is a blueprint for the economic recovery of the nation. We need a national development plan of which the measure before us would be an important component. Standing alone, this bill is just one more
good dynamic in a field of unrelated dynamics which have seen our nation plunge into the deepest recession in modern history.
The government's plan for economic development set out in the document entitled "Economic Development for Canada in the 1980s" raises serious concerns about the real commitment to stated policy objectives because of the vague statement of good intentions and promises compared with the absence of hard priorities and current contradictory federal actions. The non-identification of specific problems and opportunities and the apparent lack of appreciation of how relatively little regions have gained from assistance programs are discouraging notes struck in the document. Despite stated commitments, federal regional policy remains unclear and non-specific. The stated federal commitment to co-operation and consultation with the provinces is not reflected in announced policies to deliver programs unilaterally and the announced phase-out of general development agreements.
The ill-conceived consideration of moving the provincial office of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion out of the provincial capital of New Brunswick is one backward step illustrating the point I have just made and emphasizing once again the bull-headed, do-it-yourself attitude of a government on a mad march to nowhere.
Despite the expenditure of very substantial amounts of money over the past 20 years, the have-not provinces of Canada simply have not caught up. The disparity gaps have widened. In 1971, unemployment rates for Canada were 6.2 per cent and in the Atlantic provinces they were 7 per cent. In 1981, unemployment rates in Canada were 7.6 per cent and in the Atlantic provinces they were 11.7 per cent. The gap has widened.
When we compare the personal incomes per capita for Canada and for the Atlantic provinces for 1971 and 1980, we find that Atlantic Canadians earned 71.7 per cent of the national average in 1971 and 72.5 per cent in 1980. The range and value of federal instruments used to promote an economic catch-up by regions of Canada suffering from regional disparities have obviously not been equal to the task, but without them the gap would be widened even more than it is now.
It is very important to have effective job-training programs such as those being announced by the minister, but it is equally important to have jobs for the trainees to go to. With over one million Canadians unemployed and no jobs on the horizon, we must ask ourselves what we are to train Canadians to do. This government has no blueprint for action. It has no industrial recovery program. It has no national development goals or programs. It has no regional goals or objectives. It is a government which is not giving leadership to Canadian people at a time when it is desperately needed.
Indeed, in view of the frequent changes in federal policy, a sustained development effort is difficult and the private sector of the economy finds itself completely frustrated and bewildered. Canada is a country of great riches in terms of our natural resources and our highly educated, hard-working people. We need a national development blueprint to bring together all the resources of the nation and to get our economy
June 14, 1982

moving forward again. Whether it is a family farm or a major mining or manufacturing firm, business needs to know that there is a national policy framework, that the government is serious about the policies which will guide economic development, and that these policies will be fair and consistent and enable individuals and companies to plan and invest with confidence in the future of Canada.
Our educational systems need to know what is the economic strategy so that schools, community colleges, universities and businesses which conduct industrial training programs can take account in their own planning of future economic developments. Our municipalities, our regional economic development councils and organizations representing our primary producers have important parts to play in economic development. The federal government should recognize that it is the responsibility of provincial governments to provide much of the leadership, the impetus and the reliable information to allow them to participate fully.
In the Atlantic provinces we have some of the greatest universities in Canada and they perform their function well. We have not given appropriate attention to the need to relate certain kinds of training to the actual requirements of the work place. The acquisition of skills must be tied to the economy and the encouragement of economic growth.
We need both institutional training and industrial training. They are both integral parts of an effective and efficient training system. These training modes do not necessarily represent alternative approaches to training, nor are they expressions of divergent training philosophies. They are, in reality, no more than different training environments, each with different inherent advantages and disadvantages with respect to the training being conducted.
I have some suggestions for the minister to consider in respect to this limited but very important measure before us. We need a very substantial emphasis on on-the-job training, not only in the conventional trades where this is already happening, but also in almost every other fact of enterprise. We need an altered view of the role of educational institutions to increase their relevance to the community and economic development requirements. For example, an increased emphasis on continued adult education and a design of business administration programs which have a greater small business orientation are possible directions.
We must bear' in mind that small production units are characteristics of Atlantic Canada and there are limitations on the ability of small firms to conduct effective training programs. Good export performance, effective research and development are often absent also and require some economies of scale. They are important to the creation of jobs.
The problem is how to achieve such economies without at the same time destroying the distinctive positive qualities of smaller enterprises. I would recommend that the minister consider a program to encourage consortia with regard to raw
National Training Act
materials purchasing, production, warehousing, marketing and the operations of research facilities.
He might also consider a privately sponsored export development corporation to promote export documentation, insurance and financial services to Atlantic firms as well as initial market identification. At the same time we should also consider the use of incubator centres to provide a full range of services like bookkeeping, copying, and secretarial services to help new businesses get through the crucial start-up phase.
Another initiative that should be studied is a program to facilitate and encourage joint ventures of Atlantic enterprises with foreign firms. Often a joint venture in which the foreign firm provides the knowledge and expertise is the only way for local enterprise to enter new highly specialized fields.
High technology firms are at the cutting edge of the wave of the future. Canada is a world leader in electronics and communications. We have to build on our successes, go with the winners and pursue vigorously as part of a program dedicated to the economic recovery of this nation.
If this, indeed, is to be the policy of the government, then clearly there is an important need to structure our training programs to meet this challenge. We can act upon our opportunities, but first our heavy emphasis on natural resource upgrading, investment in large capital works and subsidization of existing enterprise will have to be supplemented by an emphasis on people's skills and productivity and on the attraction of new activities based on modern technology.
The government has brought forward piecemeal a reasonably good piece of legislation, the principle of which I shall have no difficulty in supporting.
I have proposed that this be placed in perspective as part of a national development plan for the economic recovery of our nation. It is great to have trained people-indeed it is essential-but it is better to have trained people with jobs to go to.
In Atlantic Canada, rural Quebec, parts of northern Ontario and in pockets all across our country, there are widespread regional disparities crying to be addressed. The solution to these problems is central to the economic recovery of our nation, requires the urgent attention of our government and requires it now.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak on Bill C-115. I believe it is a bill which focuses on many of the concerns of Canadians today, particularly in these times we are living in. We have a difficult economic environment today where not only are people facing high levels of unemployment and many Canadians are desperately looking for jobs, but they are desperately looking for training opportunities as well.
I would like to begin by pointing out the more positive aspects of this bill as I see them. The first significant proposal concerns the extension of the training period for people undertaking a training program. This is an important measure at a time when we are faced with a very complex work environment. As a result of our increasingly complex industries there

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
is greater demand for people with higher levels of skills. Hopefully an extension of the training period will remove some of the obstacles to vocational choice. The implementation of this measure may provide greater flexibility to people who are seeking training.
The second positive measure in the bill deals with the removal of the one-year waiting period for training. This applies to recent school graduates and drop-outs and is significant since that waiting period resulted in a wasted year for those people. Hopefully this will also allow some flexibility for those students and others who desire training.
Another aspect of the bill which 1 think is significant is the relaxation of rules for reporting for sponsor employees. 1 envisage this measure attracting more sponsors. This is an important aspect because on-the-job training is a very important element of any training which can be offered to Canadians, as my colleague has just emphasized. The reduction of paperwork will be of great assistance to the small business sector in becoming involved in this type of program, since paperwork is one of the most difficult functions that small businesses in our country face. It is an expense which they can ill afford. Anything which can be done to ease that burden will make it easier for sponsors to become involved. Hopefully, this measure will attract more of them.
The third measure which 1 find positive is the authorization of third party training for employers who are unable to provide training. This will allow improved co-ordination with licensed organizations in fulfilling the specific needs of particular employers. Training programs can be provided to small businesses which could not provide a proper training environment themselves.
Another significant and important measure concerns training Canadians where training is available. An example of this might be our requirements for offshore technologies. This is one area, which requires either foreign training, or the immigration of foreign technicians. Therefore this is an important step, a side benefit of which is the avoidance of institutional costs, for mere trainee support. As a result, the specific training objective is not obstructed or delayed by the costs of creating or supporting institutions.
Lastly, the increased benefits to apprentices while in training are significant. This can be applied while they are laid off or out of a job. As I understand it, there will be an increase in unemployment insurance benefits paid over that period. From people in my riding to whom I have spoken, I know this will be of significance, as many wanted training but simply could not afford it because they have dependants. As a result, they were not able to go out and expand their opportunities, to increase their abilities and thus qualify for more and better jobs. 1 hope that as a result of this bill we will see people retraining themselves, achieving higher levels, thus bringing home better pay because of their better skills and the wider range of opportunities available to them. The bill is not perfect, and 1 am sure that that comes as no surprise to the minister.
For a few moments I want to touch on some of my concerns. The first one is that the whole bill applies to occupations of national importance. The good things throughout this bill are designated for occupations of national importance. The government is implying a priority. If it is good for the country, it will do its best to fill that need. It will increase funding in those areas and provide time extensions for filling those priorities. The question is, just what are those occupations of national importance? Does that mean that we will once again be involved in the whole issue of regional disparities? Does that mean that one sector will be specialized and favoured while another is left to wilt? The whole matter invites a number of questions.
The impact of the bill will be to improve high-skilled training. Of course, all of us are convinced that that is good. We are concerned about some of the implications, but we feel, on par, that what we really want to see is an improvement in high school training in the country. The bill does, however, allow the training of adults immediately upon leaving school, which is logical and of importance and it does not apply to that target group.
The other emphasis of the bill is to encourage specialization. We need specialists but-and I emphasize "but"-the skills which will be developed as a result of this bill will be based on statistical methods or economic models of projections. However, we must remember that they are only predictions, and could therefore, present some real difficulties.
I would like to illustrate that by what could have happened concerning the late tar sands projects. Three years ago in the province of Alberta, anyone would have said that we needed a number of skilled employees or trainees, specialists in the field of tar sands technology. Had this bill been in place at that time, I assume that that would have become a national priority. We would have focused much attention on training many people in those skills. Where would we be today? We would have a bunch of people on the market with skills but with no jobs because, as we all know, those tar sands are not in operation and do not look like they will be in the foreseeable future.
My other concern about encouraging specialization is that we might tend to limit ourselves to developing only specialists and give little consideration to developing multi-skilled work forces which, of course, would give a much wider range of opportunity. We should be developing multi-talented work forces, a labour pool capable of filling a number of roles in a particular, singular setting. We do need some generalists to give our industry greater flexibility and to give the working man or woman the opportunity to move from job to job, if he or she wishes.
That becomes especially applicable in times like today. The German government supports a three-year program for individuals who are called skilled workers when their course is finished. They do not necessarily fill jobs of national importance. These graduates are generalists who can fill a number of
June 14, 1982

roles in virtually all industrial settings. Of course, this allows greater flexibility for the employers, greater leeway in planning and reacting to changing economic conditions, but it also allows greater flexibility to the individuals holding those jobs. 1 believe this sort of extended and detailed training could attract a growing number of young people as they begin to realize the skills to be gathered would be very comprehensive. Their vocational training would, and I believe should, regain respectability.
In looking at Bill C-115, we find that the emphasis is to upgrade special technological trainees. One of my questions in terms of context is still outstanding. The bill does not state where or how it will fit into the government's economic policies, only that it will "provide occupational training for the labour force and thereby to better meet the need for skills created by a changing economy and to increase the earning and employment potential of individual workers".
Essentially, as I see it, when we are dealing with this type of bill we must be able to relate it to a particular recovery plan. That is particularly true when we are dealing with the current situation in Canada where we have a national recession and record unemployment. Among those unemployed people are many with high levels of skill. What types of occupations of national importance are likely to be defined as such in a period like this? This bill must be attached to a plan or a strategy for the rejuvenation of the economy. Failing that, if there is not a general plan, then let us at least have some sort of sectoral stimulus. Something should be done to relate this bill to the jobs and the situation we now face.
My concern is that graduates of any vocational plan will find it difficult to find work. For us, that presents a whole new danger, because young people are investing much time and effort to improve their skills and gain these new opportunities, and then suddenly finding themselves dumped on the world market with no jobs or opportunity. What will happen to them? They will become angry or frustrated because their hopes, dreams and years of hard work will be destroyed before they even have a chance to start. We could end up spending much money on training centres and equipment which will be soon outdated unless, of course, we use it for teaching theory. We need a strong industry committed to supporting this kind of training, one that will teach and provide us with the practical expression and practical application of those skills.
The province of Alberta is probably a special case. It is not very long ago that this type of bill could have helped that province a great deal because unemployment was low and we needed a number of skilled workers. Unfortunately, if one looks at what has happened to the unemployment figures in our province today, one finds that we have a surplus of skilled workers. In Canada there are 1,241,000 recorded unemployed, or 10.2 per cent of the work force. In Alberta, it is about 7.2 per cent, which is up considerably from just last month. In Edmonton it is up again, at 8.2 per cent, and in Calgary it is 7.2 per cent. If one looks at the region I represent, one will find that unemployment has tripled in less than one year. Who is hurting? Who is losing these jobs? It is our young men who
National Training Act
are facing 20 per cent unemployment and our young women who make up 14.7 per cent of those unemployed. We are at an all-time post-depression high for unemployment.
Even our so-called whiz kids, those who are especially bright and talented, are having a hard time, like my colleague from the maritimes. Two cases were recently reported in one of our local papers of young people who had received the gold medal of excellence. One was in the field of chemistry. Today those two gold medal winners cannot find jobs. It is not just the person with low skills or at the lower end of the employment opportunities who suffers from unemployment. It is coming through the whole gamut of those who are seeking employment.
As 1 mentioned, in our area we are facing increased unemployment. The Peace River tar sands project which we talked about in this House, and which the chambers and municipalities in that area have been desperately trying to get reactivated and are speaking to the federal government about, would allow the young people in that region a much greater opportunity as well as all young people in Canada. The economic spin-off of a $5 billion tar sands plant would be felt here in Ontario. Without that tar sands project there will be an even greater problem to be faced in that area. We need assurance from this government that that project, which would provide us with so many opportunities, will not be allowed to die.
I want to close by saying that this bill should and must be tied to an economic recovery program. The minister told us that the old program trains people for jobs that do not exist. Unless this bill is attached to an economic recovery program, we will be faced with precisely the same situation. Unless we can tie it all together and provide people with training that will allow them to take jobs that are available when they complete their training, we are defeating the whole purpose and we will be back to where we started.
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Mr. Speaker, in May, 1980, this House appointed a parliamentary task force to deal with the entire subject matter of this bill. I, along with six others, had the pleasure of being on that task force for employment opportunities for the eighties. The task force included four government members, two from the Official Opposition and one from the New Democratic Party.
For over a year and a half we studied this entire problem. During that time we heard from 342 groups and associations throughout this country. They had important input into this matter. They appeared before the committee. We questioned them to get their views. We received 92 other briefs dealing with the subject matter.
Our mandate was to find out why in this country we had serious unemployment side by side with important skill shortages. This was not only taking place in the country as a whole but in individual communities. In communities where there

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
was high unemployment, there were very serious shortages of skilled workers and professionals.
Our work confirmed that these mismatches or imbalances were in fact present in the marketplace. We made some serious recommendations to deal with this. The imbalances were due to either lack of or inadequacy in training programs in this country. We found that only 20 per cent of major industrial firms did any serious on-the-job training. It was a bit of a scandal. The large companies recognized and admitted that they had not done enough in the past and were now changing their ways.
The reason many of them had not done any serious on-the-job skilled training was that since the Second World War it had been easier to go to Europe and other countries, and through immigration find the skilled workers needed rather than train Canadians. None of us is against immigration, but we feel that much more should have been done and still can be done to train Canadians to fill those high-skilled jobs and professions rather than having to go abroad to get workers.
I might say the major companies today are not having success in finding the skilled workers they want from Europe. In the first place, there has been a decline in the birth rate in those countries such as we have had here. Also, the standard of living has increased considerably. Therefore, it is more difficult to attract workers in Holland, Germany, Scandinavia, France and so on to come here. Many witnesses told us that their recruiting teams going to Europe are becoming non-cost effective. Whereas they used to attract 15 or 20 recruits, but now come back with only three, four or five.
It is imperative that we improve our job training and on-the-job training program. As chairman of the task force, I want to say that, in my opinion, this bill moves very considerably in that direction. It will do a lot to deal with that serious problem.
The task force came to the conclusion that not only must we considerably improve the training programs for our young people through apprenticeship programs, co-operative education programs, technical colleges and institutions, but that training must become a lifelong process. We were told over and over again that no matter what you are trained for at 20 or 25, because of rapidly advancing technology it is very likely that in the future, and possibly even today, you will have to be retrained at least two or three times during your lifetime. Serious retraining will be required to keep up with the technology.
What we are aiming for is sound, basic technical and professional training in the first place, and a system of education and training where a person can retrain and upgrade throughout his entire life. We want a system which will facilitate easy entry at all stages of one's life, one with support systems, training allowances and bursaries to allow a person to go back and to keep up with new technology and new systems. If we do not do that, we will rapidly fall behind our chief competitors in the United States, the Common Market and Japan where they are doing these things.
We are saying that our training, retraining and upgrading programs must be improved. Also something must be done about this very shocking figure of 28.4 per cent of functional illiterate people in this country who at the present time are not ready for any training program. The only training program they can take advantage of is a very basic education program.
To a great extent these people are being wasted. It is a waste for them, for society and this country. If these 28.4 per cent functionally illiterate people, who cannot properly read, write, compute or express themselves, are going to be used in this rapidly developing society, they must have the basic tools so that they can train for the technologies that are coming on line.
Over and over again we have been told that the jobs in short supply-this has been put on the record before, but it is worthwhile doing it again-are welding, tool and die making, machinists, engineers of all kinds-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: All jobs that can be held by women.


Mr. Allmand:: The hon. member says all jobs that can be held by women. We pointed that out in the report and we deplored the fact that more women had not been permitted or attracted into these particular fields. Our supervisors told us over and over again that where women had entered the fields of welding, machinists, tool and die making, the high-skilled trades, women had done as well as or better than men. They welcomed the policies and programs to encourage women to go into those particular high-skilled trades. There are shortages also in such fields as electronics financial analysis, administration, accounting, the health Field professions, nursing, physiotherapy, psychotherapy and so on.
I think one of the major accomplishments of this bill is that it provides much greater flexibility, first of all in enrolment in training and retraining programs, entry into training and retraining programs, greater flexibility in the provision of allowances and support systems for those who are on training. It provides that the training programs can be carried on not only by provinces and by provincial training systems, but also to a greater extent by employers and by others. By "others", I presume it means private schools and private training institutions, of which we have some very good ones in the country.
The bill also provides for greater funding for equipment and machinery for training. Some pretty shocking situations were brought to the attention of the task force, cases where they were training electronic technicians on equipment that was out of date by ten years. That was a bit of a scandal, Mr. Speaker. This bill provides for more funding and more co-operation in the provision of equipment, machinery and buildings for training. All that goes along with the recommendations of the task force report.
Because this bill is going to committee and we will have a chance to study it at greater length, I will not spend much time on it here. I merely want to say, as chairman of the task force, that the bill does not provide the total solution to our training,
June 14, 1982

needs, but it certainly goes in the direction of the main recommendations of the task force. Of course, there is still more to be done in other areas, areas of mobility, areas of literacy training, areas of federal-provincial co-operation, areas of forecasting and information, all of which are important to the whole field of training and specialized education.
This bill is an important step and should be supported by the House. I will be looking forward to the sessions in committee. Perhaps some improvements can be made there. Nevertheless,
1 want to go on record today as pointing out that this bill is a very important step in line with the recommendations of the task force report.


Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, 1 welcome this opportunity to place a few brief remarks on the record with respect to Bill C-115, to establish a national training program for occupational training. Undoubtedly, in the 1980s occupational training will be of vital importance to the work force, both present and future. Young people leaving secondary school will need skilled training to equip them to play a part in the work force of the 1980s and the 1990s. The not-so-young people who find themselves unemployed for reasons beyond their control will want retraining so that they can continue to participate in the work force.
The situation is aggravated by the current depression, caused by the Liberal Party's high interest rate policy. Unemployment has reached 10.2 per cent. It will probably go higher, as the November budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and the National Energy Program continue to cripple the Canadian economy.
The subject of occupational training is a national one. It is so vast that one cannot deal with it extensively in the short time allotted to it. I would like to deal with areas, some touched by the bill and some not touched by it, which are important to my riding of Simcoe North and which interest me as a Member of Parliament.
I was quite interested in the all-party task force report on labour market development in the 1980s. Some of the findings of that task force report are of particular interest to me and I would like to read a few of them into the record.
That report signals some important shifts in the demand for labour. It suggests that more jobs will be created in the resource industries, in non-residentia! construction, capital goods manufacturing, and high technology areas including communications, information and business services.
Fewer production jobs will exist in manufacturing based on standard technology, especially for relatively unskilled workers. There will be a marked, slowdown in the growth of jobs for clerical and office workers and for personnel in health, education, public administration and other service industries.
In the 1980s a larger share of employment growth is likely to occur in the goods-producing industries, in contrast to the 1960s, and early 1970s when the service industries provided relatively more of the new jobs, jobs of a kind which could be more easily filled by young new entrants and by women reentering the labour market.
More attention will have to be paid to ways and means of integrating women into jobs in the goods producing industries,
National Training Act
which they do not now enter in large numbers. We will have to pay more attention to the training of workers for the high-skill trades, particularly those skills used in the goods producing industries. More attention will have to be paid to measures designed to facilitate the adaptation of workers already in the labour force to changing industrial occupational and geographic structures of demand.
I am convinced that we can meet that demand in Canada with a co-ordinated effort. While it is true that under our federal system the provinces are responsible for education, we cannot hide behind that division of powers if Canadians are not given enough opportunities to equip themselves with skills which will enable them to earn a living. Unemployment is a national problem and we have to take action on a national basis. Mr. Speaker, that does not mean that we want Ottawa bureaucrats in the position of sole responsibility to decide on what should be done, because that would be a disaster. Ottawa is the ultimate company town, insulated from the reality of the marketplace, from the reality of where the jobs are. I suggest that to solve this problem we will need co-operation between the federal government, the provincial governments, the community college personnel and industry. All of these have a piece of the ideas on what is going on in the real world. These other parts must be actively consulted.
We are fortunate in Ontario in that we have developed a network of strong community colleges. Working within that provincial framework they have continued to offer courses which equip young people to earn a living. The House will be interested to know that my information is that the community college system works differently in different provinces. I understand, for example, that in Quebec there is very little communication between the community college system and the Canada Manpower offices, whereas in Ontario there is a great deal of communication between those two bodies.
It is also my understanding that the representatives of the community college system in the maritimes are amazed at the autonomy which the community colleges are given in Ontario to operate courses which apply to the marketplace. I am led to understand that in the maritimes they operate as an integral part of the provincial educational system. I think the federal government would do well to assist community colleges in various parts of Canada to develop systems of co-operation and systems of delivery which will give the best possible skill training to young people.
It is my understanding that the community college system desperately wants a better system to determine what the manpower needs will be in the future, and that system has to be developed on a national basis. Officials of the Department of Employment and Immigration admit their inability to project manpower needs. One official of the department is quoted as saying: "We have an expensive system, computers, etc., but nobody can say how many people of any particular

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
training we need." That is a tragic commentary on something which could very well be co-ordinated on a national basis. The Canadian occupational projection system is being put forward as the answer to that current lack of understanding and information.
Do hon. members know where COPS is going for its first information? Do hon. members know what will be the basis of where we head in the 1980s? It is the 1971 census. The first thing COPS is going to do is put the 1971 census on the record. I suggest that COPS start with the 1981 census and get going with respect to where we require skill training in Canada, and forget about 1971 because that is past history. That census is outdated in this day of rapidly changing demands for skilled individuals. We should be dealing with the 1981 census and not the 1971 census.
Under Clause 8 of the bill the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission is authorized to enter into contracts for the provision of occupational training courses with persons or groups other than employers or groups of employers where the latter are unable to operate a course or arrange for training. The organization in question must be registered, licensed or otherwise authorized by the government of the province where the course is given.
It has been suggested to me that that is exactly where the breakdown occurs, because there seemed to be agreement among all of the community college representatives who were at the meeting at which the minister spoke last week or the week before that in most provinces it is very, very easy to get a licence to operate a course, and if that is the safeguard, 1 suggest to the minister that there must be better safeguards than just the holding up of a licence to allow the federal government to enter into these arrangements.
1 am also concerned about exactly what occupations will be considered national occupations. For example, it was reported earlier this year that chefs and cooks will be considered surplus occupations. That prompted a letter to me from one of my constituents, and in that letter he said:
Since I have been in the country I have been employed by five different establishments as a chef. All of the positions could and should have been filled by a Canadian providing they were trained and qualified to meet the requirements. They obviously are not.
This does not lend credence to the statement that chefs and cooks are involved in a surplus occupation.
In fact, in the establishment where this gentleman works the sous-chef and he are the only chefs with papers.
-in Europe the training involves a period of two years full-time before entering the industry at the bottom. At this time the trainee has his or her required
qualifications.
This is an individual in my riding who read tin article in the newspaper which declared chefs and cooks surplus occupations. Fortunately, this gentleman had the presence of mind and the concern as a new immigant to this country to write me, a Member of Parliament, and point out this discrepancy. When we looked into it, we found out this gentleman has a very good point. The Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association estimates that 8,000 skilled food preparation personnel are needed each year, yet there are only 3,300
graduates per year. I suggest that an over 50 per cent difference certainly does not warrant the profession of chef being declared a surplus occupation. We must look into these matters before we decide holus-bolus what is a national occupation what is not.
One other thing which concerns me is the fact that the bill does not address the problem of mobility. 1 am particularly disappointed, in light of the comments made by the minister that improved mobility could contribute to the elimination of skilled labour bottlenecks. Mobility is a crucial factor in addressing the needs of employers, employees and prospective employees in Canada. It is of particular significance in these hard economic times when the economic burdens of moving to a job could far outweigh the benefits of having that job.
The Canada Act guarantees Canadians the right to move, to take up residence in any province and to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province except where any laws and practices of general application are in force in that province. Now that we have guaranteed the right to go anywhere to work, we must guarantee Canadians the right to go anywhere to obtain training and encourage them to take that training anywhere in Canada. I do not mean that necessarily means that the federal government should finance programs across the country so that every area has a program. There have to be some economies of scale that we can put into force in order to train Canadians. However, we have to address the problem of mobility because in a large and diverse country such as Canada we cannot always take the jobs to the people. Sometimes it is better that we take the people to the jobs. I think the same goes for training for those jobs.
The task force on labour market development in the 1980s said that a number of groups will need special assistance to find productive employment or to move up through a career hierarchy, and chief among those groups are adult women who will make up two-thirds of the labour force growth in the 1980s. The minister has mentioned this fact in his speeches and in press releases. What puzzles me is that I can find no evidence of that special assistance anywhere in tnis bill. It may come out of regulations; we do not know, but what we want to know is whether the government will implement affirmative action programs. Will the government pay additional training allowances to employers who train women? What about the mobility problems of adult women? How are these to be overcome in relation to national occupations? The attempt to help women train themselves for the jobs of the future is very important. The minister referred to this, but what 1 would like to see is just exactly how we are going to do it.
1 would like to close my remarks by making direct reference to what, in my opinion, the community college system can do if il is properly backed up by this legislation and by a federal government which tries to bring co-operation and planning to the subject of national training. In the county of Simcoe in my riding of Simcoe North is Georgian College, which has 4,000 full-time day students. Three thousand of these are postsecondary students. One thousand of them are in business programs, 500 in technology programs, 800 in nursing and
*
June 14, 1982

health programs and 800 in design arts. Of the remaining
1,000,	700 are in skill programs and 300 are in academic upgrading. With the minimal amount of knowledge with which Georgian College and all the community colleges across Canada operate as to what the demands will be for the skills with which young people graduate, Georgian College has a placement rate of approximately 100 per cent. I think that speaks to the attitude of the community college system in Ontario.
I would like just briefly to mention what this attitude is built on. It is built on people in the community. It is built on a board of directors from the community. It is built on people who have proved themselves in industry and education and who spend their time, their free time-perhaps their not-so-free time- trying to set up training programs for young people so that they will have jobs. This is not an academic approach. It is a practical approach by people who have "been there" and who want to see the people of the county of Simcoe and others who come in succeed. It speaks to what we need in Canada.
I went to a convocation at Georgian College on the Orillia campus on the weekend. Any member on either side of this House who spends long hard weeks in this place should go to a community college convocation if he or she gets the opportunity. Nothing can give more of a lift than seeing the young people who have achieved something come out with a diploma which shows that they have the skills required to earn a living. It is great for parents to see their children achieve something that they can put to use in this country. I would encourage all members to attend the convocation of a community college if they can. It gives one an incentive to come back here and fight the good fight.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: That only comes about because we are undertaking training on a practical basis. Georgian College is training nursing assistants, mental retardation counsellors, bookkeeper-typists and machinists. Indeed, the only graduate in the welding course was a woman. These are the kinds of things we can do in community colleges and, backed by this bill, they will take a national approach to training for jobs in this great country of ours.


Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak on, Bill C-l 15, the National Training Act. If this piece of legislation is properly enacted and guided, it can truly change the direction of retraining in Canada. It certainly will affect many thousands of Canadians male and female, young and old, able and less able, alike. The main principles behind this bill and others that it has superseded are honourable.
I do not intend to go through the whole history of training in Canada, as my colleague the hon. member for Rosedale (Mr. Crombie) has already done that quite adequately in his opening remarks regarding this bill ten days ago. He pointed out that in 1910, the Government of Canada established a
National Training Act
royal commission on industrial training and vocational education. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of the day, in his wisdom actually acted upon the recommendations of that commission. His government enacted two pieces of legislation, the agricultural assistance act and the agricultural instructions act. In 1916 a further recommendation was fulfilled with the establishment of the National Research Council by Sir Robert Borden.
This bit of history is mentioned only to show that these early administrations understood that Canadians needed assistance in the retraining field. It is of particular pride to me to point out that these administrations understood the importance of the business of agriculture in 1910. I wonder if the minister and the government of today understand the importance of the business of farming in 1982.
I understand the minister when he says in his press release of May 21, 1982, that economic growth and change in the 1980s will require major increases in the resources devoted to the production of high level skills. I also believe him when he says in the same release that major shortages averaging 9,000 skilled workers each year are predicted over the next five years unless the pace of expansion increases dramatically. This is pure economics, and no one can question that more skilled workers must be provided for the rapidly growing technology industries. However, I urge the government to look back at the roots of training I have mentioned and remember the business of agriculture in Canada. Remember the importance of agribusiness and small farms when decisions are made to redirect national training funding. Remember the shortage of field workers experienced by produce crop farmers. Remember the skills it takes today to set up and operate a farm or an agribusiness. Do not dismiss agriculture when designating occupations of national priority. Remember, these are all individual small businesses, which must not suffer from any redirection of funds or designation of jobs of national importance.
Last Thursday, June 10,1 attended the 125th anniversary of the town of Lindsay in my riding. They called it Charter Day. Our hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) sent congratulations in the form of a scroll, which was sealed in a time capsule and buried for posterity.
As Lindsay has a twin town in Japan called Nayoro, I thought it fitting to invite Japan's ambassador to Canada to the celebrations. I had the pleasure of introducing him to the community at the civic luncheon. After the luncheon I talked with people familiar with Japanese industry. Our discussions brought up many details of the Japanese business and life that I had only read about.
Japanese industry and government operate under the guidance of the so-called theory "Z". One of its features is a remarkably high degree of employee-employer loyalty. It is not uncommon for whole families to work for one employer from generation to generation. This obviously means a very low employee turnover rate. It allows for much more internal mobility and flexibility of firm internal labour markets. I

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
understand that under this situation the Japanese government sees little need to control or regulate the kind or the method of industrial training. The on-the-job training is designed exactly for the needs of the job the company or organization wants the individual to do.
How does this compare with Canada? In the late 1970s the Japanese had almost doubled the number of firms providing in-house training. This is due in part to the fact that our labour force is much more mobile and our employee-employer relationships are adversarial in nature. We have very low levels of employee training in the private sector, with no incentives for improvement. We are not training our workers adequately for the jobs that exist today, let alone for the multiplicity of jobs that are being created in the technology based industries.
Coupled with this is the report by a Department of Employment and Immigration study group stating that skilled Europeans no longer want to work in Canada. It stated:
Canadian wages and working conditions are relatively less attractive now than in the past, in comparison with those prevailing in western European countries, which have traditionally supplied this country with higher level skills.
So what do we have here? We have had a private sector which has had no incentive to train employees, and a government which, by the minister's own admission, has failed to provide for the training of at least 45,000 skilled workers required over the next five years.
On top of this, we have a government which allows foreign producers to eliminate jobs of skilled Canadians at home. Does the minister recall my question to the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) last week? If not, I will refresh his memory.
1 asked when the Lindsay rubber plant can expect the results of the investigation requested of the anti-dumping tribunal. A South Korean company's dumping of rubber products in Canada resulted in the loss of 30 full-time jobs at the Lindsay rubber plant. 1 have seen no response from the minister. Obviously the government is not too worried about the loss of 30 skilled labour jobs in Lindsay. It is interesting to note that South Korea's record of on-the-job training is much closer to that of Japan than to our poor record. It is about time we were thinking seriously about our retraining.
I read the minister's presentation to the federal-provincial conference of January 11, 1982, on skill training for the 1980s.
I understand the proposals for the National Training Act were the result of the task force on labour market development in the 1980s, the report of the task force on employment opportunities for the 1980s, and extensive consultation with provinces and non-government organizations. This sounds like a great deal of consultation and co-operation, and it would seem everyone should be happy. It must therefore have puzzled provincial officials and non-governmental organization officials at that conference when the minister said:
The main federal role is to determine the nature and scale of adult training needs, and to provide the leadership and financial assistance required by individuals, firms, groups and provinces to enable them to undertake or provide the required training. Provincial governments and their institutions are the main providers of training courses in an institutional setting and are responsible for their development, management and articulation. Although both orders of government have their main responsibilities, they must function in close collaboration to achieve common goals.
They were told the federal government will decide what the training needs are in the provinces, where the people should be trained, and what the priority jobs are in the country. It is then up to the provinces and non-governmental organizations to provide the programs. No wonder the provinces express deep concern. They worry about a program which allows the federal government to decide what is a priority job and shift funds from an existing program with or without their consultation. It is a program which allows the federal government to designate institutions, outside a particular province and possibly outside the country, to provide instruction in federally-designated skilled areas. The tabling of this bill has not lessened their fears. Clause 12 states:
The Commission may establish with the government of a province a joint committee to assess the requirements of the labour market for skilled workers and the means necessary to meet such requirements.
The word "may" is what causes the worry. The existing legislation requires the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission to establish such a joint committee at the request of any province, and the bill says they may establish such a committee on their own initiative. There is no requirement that they do so, and absolutely no requirement for them to act upon the request for one by any province. Surely, if the government is committed to this badly needed bill, it will consider amending this clause. It was not part of Bill C-8, which we proposed in 1979 and which the Liberal Party forced to die on the Order Paper. It should not be in this bill. If anything is needed to make this program work, it is intergovernmental co-operation.
Now that 1 have pointed out objections to certain parts of this legislation, I would like to commend the minister on others. The extension of the allowable time for training beyond 52 weeks in higher level skills should be of assistance to those truly interested in learning a skill. Increased income support rate, should, as well, entice laid-off apprentices and workers to train for those jobs in which there is a shortage of people. Careful screening must be done, of course, to ensure those taking training are interested in getting a job, not just in retraining funds.
In closing, I want to reiterate my concerns about this bill. The National Training Act must above all be enacted in total co-operation and consultation with the provinces. In designating priority occupations, the provinces must be consulted. Occupations in agriculture, small businesses and other skill-related fields must be protected from unjust loss of funds. In short, the total needs of the economy, employers and employees must be reflected in Bill C-l 15.
June 14, 1982



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are are follows: The hon. member for Provencher (Mr, Epp)-Labour Conditions-Increase in youth unemployment, (b) Role of government; the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes)- Energy-Service station cost of gasoline, (b) Request that price be reduced; the hon. member for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson)-The Judiciary-Canadian Judicial Council report on actions of British Columbia judge-government position, (b) Request for referral of subject to parliamentary committee.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy that Bill C-115, to establish a national program for occupational training, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, this legislation is extremely important, and although many members have criticized its shortcomings, the feeling exists that this kind of direction is necessary. Certainly there are concerns, and we have heard the case made time and again this afternoon that this bill is only as good as the industrial strategy which underpins the Canadian economy. The point has been made time and time again that if you do not have jobs, there is little point in retraining people.
It has also been said that the data to be used in making decisions are based on material from an outdated 1971 census. The dislocation and other problems which could result I think are fairly well known.
Another of the bill's shortcomings is that it does not provide enough detail. There is certainly concern about how to encourage employers-insist, if necessary-to take some of the responsibility for training. We have seen situations where a great many industries will pirate from other regions of the country, or push for immigration, rather than offer retraining. Basically there are no provisions in here which outline how employers will exercise their responsibility to make the retraining program a success.
This House has sat for many months. I guess this is the longest session in history. If you were to ask anyone his impression of the Thirty-second Parliament, I suspect it would
National Training Act
only be described as a rudderless ship in which a majority Liberal government has run the Canadian economy on to the rocks. Then, once on the rocks, it generally lets many sectors of the economy literally bash themselves to pieces. There is an absolute lack of sound economic policy which causes enormous problems in the area of training programs. Basically there are no jobs for young people.
I had a rather sobering experience with a number of my colleagues in a local Ottawa high school. The graduating students of that school asked what we thought were their opportunities for employment. Quite frankly, I was somewhat embarrassed to be faced with such a forthright question. Actually we reflected it back to them by asking what they thought were their opportunities for employment given the present economic climate. Basically the students said nothing, because they knew their chances were slim if not non-existent. Even with training their chances for employment are slim or non-existent.
In the present economic climate we find that unemployment is the real problem, not job training. The bill before the House today should be one dealing with the area of job creation. The House should be given an opportunity to consider mechanisms by which interest rates would be reduced, at least for specific sectors of the economy, to get employment rolling and for training to become meaningful. Certainly the inflation rate is an acknowledged problem. Those are the priorities, not job training.
The job-training problem could be dealt with by existing legislation, but if we could create employment, without a doubt efficient management of the employment and immigration operation could provide the trained people. We require full cooperation by employers in a functioning economy to provide trained people, but this is not what we have before us today. We do not find mechanisms to create meaningful jobs.
The rudderless ship which produced the bill before us today is faced with many problems. For example, the small business bankruptcy rate is enormous. I think the figures which came out last week are worth repeating. Bankruptcies were up roughly 49 per cent. In May there were 751 bankruptcies with total assets lost of $162 million. For approximately five months there were 4,429 bankruptcies for a total increase this year of 36 per cent, or a total loss of $817 million. Of course, the bankruptcies are only the tip of the iceberg. Many more businesses are closing their doors, are disappearing, and are being taken over by receivers. If we multiply the number of bankruptcies by two or three jobs, we realize that there are shrinking opportunities for trained people to find employment.
What is the point of training people if there is no meaningful employment? We should not repeat the former situation under the old legislation where training programs became an

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
alternative to employment. It took people off the unemployment rolls. Approximately $800 million per year was spent to take several tens of thousands of people off the rolls for several months. In many cases people completed one training program and did not obtain employment, so they attended another program, it was an alternative mechanism for collecting unemployment insurance.
The present situation, with unemployment, small business bankruptcies and shrinking opportunity for trained people to obtain employment, is a tragedy. The bill before us today indicates that the government's priorities are in the wrong place. 1 assume the bill will be improved in committee and that it will be satisfactory, but we should be looking at ways to create employment.
Tens of thousands of farmers are going bankrupt. I am sure hon. members have had farm representatives in their offices pleading with them to do something to stop farm bankruptcies. There is an enormous amount of employment associated with the farming community. One of the biggest examples of bankruptcy has been in the area of farm implement dealers. Certainly farming creates an enormous amount of employment. The opportunity for people interested in becoming trained in the agricultural field is shrinking. It is drifting away rapidly because the government is not finding ways to protect farmers from bankruptcies, to ensure that those assets and producing units remain intact, to ensure that opportunities for young people exist, and to ensure that the training is in place.
The hon. member for Nanaimo-Alberni (Mr. Miller) has often mentioned fishermen and the tremendous problem of bankruptcies in the fisheries. There are industries associated with fishing such as shipbuilding, processing and handling the product. Essentially many firms are closing down. There have been bankruptcies and other difficulties. Banks and financial institutions have been seizing the mechanisms by which these people earn their livelihoods, many of whom have worked all their lives in that area. This is another source of employment for young people and others which is drying up. Ultimately training programs in this area will disappear.
1 have referred to bankruptcies in the fishing industry and the other tremendous problems with which it is faced because the bill before us today and the national training program of the minister referred a great deal to native Canadians and their access to the economy. This disadvantaged group does not have access to the economy. On the coast of British Columbia an important economic opportunity for native people is the fishing industry. A large number of them are involved in the salmon enhancement program which is being rapidly destroyed by high interest and inflation rates, as well as by the failure and mismanagement of government.
I should like to deal for a moment with home owners. Individuals are losing their homes, the most important possession of their lives. Again this is because of government policies. There are many low-income and medium-income individuals out there who cannot acquire homes and need decent accommodation. Because of the shortfall in housing units, this is perhaps one sector of the economy in which employment could be created by developing a rational housing program aimed at
meeting the needs of Canadians who are desperately trying to hold on to their homes or to acquire affordable housing. It would provide tremendous opportunity for employment. Many programs today have been training plumbers, framers, carpenters, pipefitters and surveyors for the housing industry. There could be a tremendous opportunity in this area, but those programs will be for nought if the government does not straighten out its priorities.
Over the last year we have seen the pain and agony of individuals who are facing the block. Many small businesses, home owners, farmers and individuals have gone bankrupt. Also there has been a serious problem with the number of unemployed people in the country. We have watched major corporations such as the automobile industry go through tremendous changes and shifts in employment. The availability of that sector for trained people is disappearing, but there are still more to go. For example, it looks like Dome is hanging on by its fingernails. It was the great hope of the Canadian Government. The Liberal majority was looking seriously at the energy sector as a place in which to create opportunity. We see that sector in difficult straits. It is either backing away from major projects or facing difficulty, with bankruptcy looming around the corner. With examples like the Admiral Appliance Company, the auto industry, Dome Petroleum and Massey Ferguson, we might find in a short period of time that it is not individuals, small businessmen, fishermen and farmers who with go bankrupt, but that in fact the major corporations of this country may go down the chute because of mismanagement, high interest rates and the collapse of markets. These are the major employers who provide opportunity for training and the ones on whom we will count to pull the economy out of the ditch.
The previous speaker, the hon. member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo), mentioned that the training program which is before us today was largely based on a report from an employee of Employment and Immigration entitled "Challenge for An Uncertain Decade". That particular report, on which the national training program was based, had the underlying assumption that Canadians would find job expansion in western Canada and in the resource industries. These opportunities presumably would come from resource extraction and the sale of raw materials. This is not a new industry to those areas even though expansion occurs.
Much has been made of energy. 1 would like to deal with the forest industry for a moment. I believe that this industry provides an example of the dilemma faced by training and employment and of how faulty is the approach to extracting resources and selling them in an unprocessed state. There are about a dozen major pulp and paper mills on the coast of British Columbia. There are a number of saw mills and some plywood mills as well. There is also a large number of people who earn their living in the forests of British Columbia. The climate of the logging industry at the present time is flat. There are very few people employed in that industry, and some mills have closed because of the stagnant housing industry.
June 14, 1982

The pulp and paper industry, which was one of the strongest sectors in this country, is hovering on the edge of bankruptcy in many cases or is at least in a very restrained situation where there are no employment opportunities.
What has brought this about is the fact that we have been relying on foreign ownership in many cases or on foreign corporations to do the marketing for our companies and those markets have now disappeared. In many cases our forest resources have been abused to such an extent that the industry will not be able to provide for jobs in the future. One of the aspects of the megaprojects was the suggestion that major forest projects would provide an opportunity for employment. That opportunity will not exist unless the government moves very quickly to enhance those forests, to develop a forest products marketing board, and to move into the international field for the sale of forest products. If this is not done and we do not reconsider foreign control of our resource, we will be in very serious difficulty.
Another unique aspect of the forest industry was that a great deal of training was not required in order to gain employment. At the same time, however, pulp mills and saw mills hired enormous numbers of trained people. Instead of training them, these companies would go somewhere else in Canada to steal them from other regions. If you were to visit a plywood mill or a pulp mill on the coast of British Columbia, you would find a sign on the front gate saying, "Do not bother to apply for employment. If you are looking for employment, go down to the local Canada immigration office and get in." Tradesmen, however, could apply directly to the personnel office. The result was that these basic institutions in British Columbia, which were the mainstay of the B.C. economy, were not training a sufficient number of people or providing for the skill base upon which those highly technical operations are run. There was a tremendous shortage which was causing a problem. It is not a problem today since there are probably as many unemployed tradesmen in the forest industry in British Columbia as there are production workers. Tradesmen would have as difficult a time obtaining employment in any sector of the forest industry today as an unskilled production worker would.
One of the most tragic incidents involves those apprentices who have almost finished their program but have been laid off. As a result, their apprenticeships are in jeopardy of being lost.
If Mr. Dodge and the Liberal government are seriously considering continuing this approach to resource exploitation and the sale of raw resources, I suggest that it will not work. That area of the country faces a very serious situation. The employment opportunities within energy and the fishing industry are also in serious jeopardy. This is largely due to government mismanagement.
Another concern I have is native communities. It is interesting to note that this legislation identifies native people as a disadvantaged group. Certainly that is obvious to anyone who knows that native communities experience unemployment at a rate anywhere from 75 per cent to 90 per cent. Native communities do not need training; they need job opportunities.
National Training Act
A number of native communities along the coast of British Columbia have applied for forestry licences in order to establish an economic base from which to work. They have been told by the government, "No thanks. There is no forestry licence for you." What is the point of training these native people as forestry workers when Crown Zellerbach and Rayonier are laying people off and there are no employment opportunities? If natives in their own communities had licences they would have an opportunity to work.
Native communities have applied for roe on kelp licences and the government has told them, "No, thank you." Natives have asked for special consideration regarding fishing licences in order to have an opportunity to enter into the fishing industry, and they have been refused.
An interesting example involves one native community which exists side by side with a white community. An airport is being developed in that area. The native community is 10 to 20 times larger and is more permanent since the other one fluctuates in size. However, does the airport go to the native community which has been trying to get it for years? No, it goes to the other community which may go bankrupt and disappear. The airport is on an island about half a mile away. The cost of marine transportation and food makes the opportunity to create businesses in many of those native communities tremendously expensive.
A final interesting example concerns the fact that many native communities in British Columbia were not allowed any input into the budgeting process this year. They were given a period of two weeks in which to make any input into the budget-making process which directly affected their communities with respect to economic development and job creation. This created an absolutely hopeless situation when you consider the number of native people in British Columbia.
The point I am making is that there is no sense in training native people if the government continues to destroy an economic base which results in 75 per cent to 90 per cent of native people remaining unemployed. What is the point of having unemployed trained people?
There is a desperate need for a strategy to create economic development for native people so that young native Canadians will have the same opportunities as Canadians in other parts of the country.


Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, the most alarming aspect of this act is the name with which it will end, namely, the national training program. This immediately puts one in mind of a number of other nationally oriented programs brought in by this government, particularly the National Energy Program. It is to be hoped that this new national training program does not cause such severe negative effects as its predecessor in the energy field.
I must admit that 1 can see many undesirable elements within the legislation before us. From a broad political point of view, I am disturbed that this act exemplifies once again the government's desire to intrude upon areas which are not traditionally within federal authority or competence. I am
18438

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
alarmed, too, that these new laws which will emanate from this act will allow the federal government to apply its criteria and decision-making to what should truly be national priorities and objectives in the educational job-training fields. It will allow the federal government to designate critical national occupations and channel special funding and accelerated training schemes into these areas. It will allow the federal government to pursue social policies and programs through what should be a purely pragmatic industrial and institutionally based series of measures to better prepare working Canadians for the future.
What this measure proposes to establish is yet another Ottawa-based self-contained bureaucratic empire which will pump out unmanageable, unworkable and completely unrealistic studies, programs, plans, rules and regulations-especially rules and regulations-which will all ultimately lead to the old Ottawa law of diminishing returns. The good effects of the billion dollars or so which it is contemplated will be pumped into the national training program will be finally dissipated and diminished simply because an Ottawa-devised and administered program cannot possibly satisfy the local and regional needs of the Canadian economy. It cannot possibly interlock smoothly with existing provincial, institutional and industrial programs.
The whole philosophy behind this initiative depends on the Liberal government's view that it should no longer be merely a clearing house for tax money on its way to the regions. This national training program is simply the latest in a series of initiatives, all designed to increase the power and influence of the central government throughout the length and breadth of the country, in all economic sectors and at all levels of regional governments. As usual, this government is putting its own priorities of political survival before the country's priorities of national economic and social survival. It feels that its own influence and its own profite can be increased measurably by wresting the control and development of our labour force from the educational institutions and from the provinces. It is doing this, or attempting to do it, by changing parts of the basic funding and administrative arrangements now in place, which traditionally have adapted to our changing labour force requirements.
I am not saying that Canada in the future will not face serious problems with respect to her labour force requirements. It is obvious to everyone, especially to our technology and engineering-based industries, that we face extremely serious shortages in the skilled trades categories and that these shortages must be filled if our economy is ever going to approach its full potential.
I can certainly agree with the minister, for example, when he states in his paper that there have been "structural changes in the economy" which are having a profound impact on Canadian labour markets, and that these changes have resulted in "serious and chronic shortages in many highly qualified and higher level industrial skill occupations".
Certainly no one has to be told that in my own riding of Peterborough where fully one third of our labour force is employed by 70 manufacturing-industrial plants. Indeed, they are the very sort of operations which the minister says will benefit most from this new program. I can tell him that the 10 per cent of our 30,000 person total labour force who are unemployed fervently hope that the bill will do exactly that. And yet, how much confidence can Canadians put in their federal government at this time? Why should they take heart from these proposals and suddenly become convinced that the federal government is finally trying to do something that will work and which will put them back to work? Look at what the minister says to justify his program, which contemplates the redistribution of nearly SI billion dollars a year. We will touch on the subject of redistribution of $1 billion a little later. He says, for example, that the federal government must respond to emerging labour needs because, "Major resource development projects are contemplated in all regions of the country." Are they indeed? I need not remind anyone in the House of the fiasco that has already occurred as a result of the National Energy Program, especially with regard to three of our largest resource development projects in the west. Would the minister care to ask the residents of Fort MacMurray, for example, what labour shortages they contemplate as a result of the National Energy Program? And, of course, Ontario, including my own riding, has suffered very much as well as a result of lost business which should have flowed from megaprojects in the west. Now the minister's colleagues are trying to scupper similar energy development in the maritimes.
It saddens me to say so, but the point is that the minister's plans for his national training program were made when there was still a reasonable chance that these western projects would come on line. The government's interventionist policies have effectively put an end to these for the foreseeable future and have actually aggravated the total unemployment situation in Canada. The minister now finds himself in the ironic situation of putting forward this grandiose plan to train people for highly skilled jobs which do not now exist and which will probably not appear as long as his government puts its own interests ahead of the wellbeing of the country.
Many might say to me, "Yes, but we must do something in the present climate to respond to the requirements of new industries and technologies which may eventually help us out of this mess." That is true. But first I would say in reply; be very sure you realize what got us into this mess in the first place. It was not "the world" or "the recession" or "the energy crisis" or any single excuse which we hear from the other side. Indeed, it was no single reason, but a combination of them, all significant, which have caused Canada to fall from the second highest standard of living in the world to the fourteenth in the short space of 14 years-a spot for every year the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has been in power. But people must also be aware that, along with all the other radical changes which have affected our society in the past 20 years, this federal government is right up there as one of the most counter-productive elements in the total equation.
June 14, 1982

The minister has correctly identified chronic shortages in many highly skilled industrial occupations and has put his plan forward as his government's single most important attempt to alleviate them. Do keep in mind that the whole positive effect of his plan is dependent on the revitalization of the economy through a dramatic drop in interest rates, inflation and so on. It will not, in itself, contribute to reactivated industrial activity, but will only come into play after the economy has enjoyed a major period of recovery. It would be useful, however, for parliamentarians for once to learn from the past and not be tempted to approve programs which have the gloss of currency but which will be redundant within a few years.
In Canada, procurement of skilled labour has come primarily through immigration, training within industry such as apprenticeship programs, government manpower training programs involving the private sector, or graduates of community colleges and post-secondary institutions. Before 1960 especially, the declining agricultural sector along with heavy immigration patterns provided adequate labour for a resource-based pattern of economic growth, as Canada had then. As a result, there was little pressure for our educational institutions to provide vocational training and we paid the price for this when, in the late fifties and early sixties, highly-skilled workers were in short supply.
In the mid-sixties, despite government immigration policies to the contrary, there was a measurable decline in the proportion of skilled workers coming into the country, and Canada's potential economic-industrial growth and development was again arrested. Certain things were realized in the sixties, however, and a major expansion of university and college enrolment occurred, student populations rising two and a half times between 1961 and 1971. A similar though slightly lesser expansion occurred in non-university enrolment during the same period.
Since the great numbers of allegedly unemployable university graduates started to flood the labour market in the early seventies, both provincial and federal governments have launched a number of institutionally-based programs designed to bridge the gaps between basic secondary school training, post-secondary training, and productive roles in the job market, productive for individuals and productive for the country.
Indeed, the precursor of this bill, the Adult Occupational Training Act, was an example of this, and it worked reasonably well within the limits of its design. However, as experts in the industrial-employment sector have pointed out, instead of providing truly relevant and useful educational alternatives to institutionalized forms of training at the college and university level, these programs merely constituted "short-term manpower policy instruments to alleviate temporary skill imbalances", provided retraining opportunities for marginal workers, and offered alternatives to the UIC rolls. These hardly addressed the major long-term staffing needs of Canadian industry and indeed, as we see now, these programs just could not hold up in the face of a rapidly-changing industrial world. This is not to say that colleges alone can provide the full range of skilled
National Training Act
workers that we need today if we are to have any hope of benefiting from the recovery if and when it comes. Colleges can take up a good deal of the slack in areas such as service occupations and production crafts such as tool and dye making. The major input of federal funds must be put where it will do the most good but at the same time without causing detrimental effects to our post-secondary education sector which is absolutely crucial to the national good.
In the sixties and seventies, only 5 to 15 per cent of government manpower programs were conducted in concert with the private sector. Between 1966 and 1970, industrial firms reporting some form of in-house training actually declined from 26 per cent to 23 per cent. In the manufacturing sector, only one firm in five provided some source of training. In all of this, only 16 per cent of those being trained by industry itself were female. I must say that I am glad some sort of assertive action element is to be included in this act, not only on behalf of Canadian women but also on behalf of our native populations and disabled workers.
It is clear that skilled-labour training needs are not being fulfilled either by institutionalized training or by traditional immigrant sources of skilled workers. Canadian wages are now too low. It is clear too that the lack of commitment to industry-based training schemes has resulted in skilled worker shortages in a number of occupations.
The principal point of attack to alleviate this situation is at the industry level and guided by a philosophy of co-operative training between the private sector and our educational institutions. This does not mean that the government should reallocate resources from universities to other institutions or to private sector training schemes in light of labour changing conditions. We have seen that such a policy is shortsighted in the extreme. What it means is that the errors and imbalances of the past should be neither repeated nor sustained, and that the federal strategy should promote a stable multi-level education level where short-term labour demands can be absorbed without the huge lurches which have characterized federal government policy in recent years as it responds to current, high profile, but not necessarily crucial pressures.
As the OECD recently observed about Canada's training policies, the general tone of policy-making is adaptation to short-term pressures, doing a little more of what already has been done and, above all, response to pressures or economies and reductions of expenditures.
The point is that nothing should be done to endanger the integrity of our institutions of higher learning for the sake of what may be very short-term labour market pressures. At the same time, the private sector should be encouraged and made aware of the very great potential benefits to be had from an internally-trained, highly-skilled and fully adaptable labour force. The bill before us does neither of these things, either philosophically or pragmatically.

June 14, 1982
National Training Act


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, I will speak for only five minutes. I do not want to take a lot of time. I know that people are eager to have the bill go to committee. With that in mind, I will keep my remarks shorter than 1 intended.
1 am a little puzzled and somewhat perplexed by the expression "occupational training". I have wondered about it since I was 15 years old. I went to a technical high school and was trained to do certain technical things. Although they served me well in terms of being able to analyse problems of a mechanical nature, what served me better was that in the process 1 received an education.
1 am not sure that the norms and practices of years gone by of training people for specific jobs is a very satisfactory way of proceeding today. There are far too many changes in the workplace for anyone to be able to make an accurate analysis of what might be considered adequate training for any young or not so young person in an effort to provide them with the skills necessary to enable them to lead a reasonable life through their working years. I do not know what you would offer a young person in terms of advice, even if you can provide them with training. I have two sons. One is now almost 21 and the other is coming on 20. For the past six years I have been thinking about what kind of advice to give them in terms of where they should go for their future, what kind of training and education they should take, what are the job possibilities and how long they would last. If they were to start a training program today, would they still have that same job opportunity after having completed three or four years of occupational or other kinds of training?
I have come to the conclusion that, with few exceptions, the answer to the question is no. There likely would be no jobs for them, even if you were to make some kind of analysis today as to what kind of job availability and job market there was. At the moment I do not know what we would urge young people to train for. I do not know what kind of training we would give them, what kind of suggestion we would make with regard to it. The question is, training to do what?
There is a tremendous problem in Canada. To a great extent it rests with companies not recognizing and planning for the future. Too many companies found it far too easy to reach offshore to find individuals who had the necessary basic skills and could make the transition to employment in Canada. As a result, far too many major and not so many major corporations had no training or on the job program that would raise the skill levels of people in their operation.
If you were trying to run a manpower centre, for example, the kind of co-operation you would need from a broad crosssection of the manufacturers in this country would not be forthcoming. There is no willingness on the part of the vast majority of manufacturers to offer to those people who must co-ordinate the educational process what the future holds in their particular field of endeavour. They are afraid to sit down and openly discuss their plans for the future for fear they might give their competition some kind of insight into where
they are going and how they propose to get there. Therefore, it is awfully difficult to imagine how we will ever get these training programs in place and get them to work satisfactorily.
I realize it is almost six o'clock. There is much more I would like to say, but I will not. I do want to say that I have come to the realization that the best possible thing we can do for our young people is to give them the maximum-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Ethier):: It being six o'clock, 1 do now leave the chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 6 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, 1 intend to be brief, as I have to go to a finance committee to discuss matters of interest rates. I do want, first of all, to go back to my last sentence when I ended at six o'clock. I ended on a word that would make no sense to anyone if they were to read what I was saying. I am not sure that many people in the country would read it anyway, but that is not important.


An hon. Member:: You never know.


Ian Deans: I have come to the realization that the best possible thing that we can do for young people in particular is to give them the broadest, most comprehensive amount of general education. I want to see a system that opens up their minds to the widest possible scope of occupations, that provides them with the opportunities to learn about and to use the latest and the most innovative equipment. In that way, as time passes their aptitude to use that equipment and their interest in pursuing a line of endeavour that would either fit into or not fit into the areas of education provided to them would become clear.
I believe we must do more to encourage the major employers to become part of that integrated program I am speaking of, to give them that sense of national purpose. When speaking about education in the broadest possible sense, or training in the more narrow sense, one realizes that there is an obligation on employers at every level to be co-operative. They should make available the opportunities for not so young people who may be going through the retraining process, or young people going through a training process, to go into the work place and actually see in operation the equipment they are being educated to use or training to use, depending on your use of the words.
We must make sure that on the job training is not simply a training in in-house skills that might just fit one employer but that rather it is a more universally portable training. In that manner, it would allow more insight to persons who may be in a general way defined as pipefitters-for want of a better term or better occupation-but who find that what they were taught
June 14, 1982

to deal with in one particular company by one set of employers really does not fit them for employment with anyone else, because the practices used by one employer are so vastly different from the practices used by another employer.
We must try to instil across the land the sense that there is by far a greater range of occupational opportunity that will come the way of the vast majority of people and that they ought not to be narrow in their focus. The example I would give is that, prior to coming to Ottawa, it would not have occurred to me to suggest to any one of my three children that they should consider language training in order that they could become Hansard reporters or in order that they could become interpreters or perhaps so that they could travel to the United Nations and become interpreters there. It is a skill that would not have occurred to me and I am sure would not have occurred to the majority of parents. In fact, it brings to mind that today I noted with some interest that in the Conservative Party, during the question period today, a number of their members rose in their places and in addressing the Chair they did so in French. In fact, one of their members-from Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan), I believe-offered his first question in French.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: That was commendable in the first instance and was a little surprising, quite frankly, because it does not happen every day. I wondered why, and then I realized all of a sudden what the reason was: this is the first step into bed with the PQ. That is what it was. This is their initial foray into the unholy alliance of separatism.
The Conservatives have recognized that language training is a skill, an occupational skill which is required in this line of work. There they were, they were prepared to a person-I would have said "to a man" but I guess I had better not use that any more-they were prepared to a person, even in the crudest of terms-and in fact, frankly, their use of the language was almost as bad as my own-they were prepared to follow the lead of Rene Levesque, who on the weekend invited them to join him in the cause of separation for the province of Quebec. 1 can see it emerging now. To be honest, I thought to myself it was strange it had not dawned on me before that this was happening. Then I remembered the battle at the end of the constitutional debate when they were in bed with Mr. Levesque, and I thought, no, I should have twigged to it then.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. With all due respect to the hon. member, I call to his attention the subject of the bill before us.


Raymond John Skelly: We are talking about training.


Ian Deans: What I am speaking about is the training process that is made available in order, presumably, that one can widen one's opportunities. Just as my family might be encouraged to undertake language training, it is clear to me that the Conservatives have twigged to this early and decided that kind of training would be very useful to them and that
National Training Act
over the course of the next two years we will see more and more of this as they pursue that unholy alliance, that attempt to divide this country and that power-at-any-cost thrust, and as they attempt to find common ground with the PQ in this effort to destroy the country.
In any event, I use that as an example of how anyone could take advantage of this kind of thing. I go back to my initial comments. There does not seem to me to be much doubt that training in the traditional sense no longer fits the needs and that for some that fond dream of becoming a skilled journeyman which will guarantee a man or a woman the opportunity to provide for himself or herself is not nearly as valid as it was some years ago. It is therefore important, if this program is to work at all, that it be a joint effort. There must be a significant contribution by employers. They have to be more open in their approach. They have to be prepared to offer the people who are doing the educational planning the widest possible scope in terms of information and access to the machinery of the day. They have to work out with the government an alliance not unlike the alliance the Tories and the PQ are working out together in an effort to undermine the country.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, we in the New Democratic Party are very concerned about this bill. It was developed without any real consultation with provincial governments. Most of us in the House recognize-it appears there are a few members in the government party who do not recognize it-that this matter is a concern which should be approached with the participation of the provincial governments. Most of us recognize that there is a real need for the federal government and the provincial governments to make sure our community colleges and other training institutions provide the type of training we need to meet the job opportunities that will be available to Canadians in the future. When the minister announced this program, the provincial ministers responsible were surprised at what the minister had in store. They were surprised for a very simple reason. They were surprised because the minister did not consult them.


Mr. Bujold:: That is not true.


Rodney Edward Murphy: If that is not true, one of the members of the government can tell us about that afterwards. The minister announced this program just prior to meeting with the provincial ministers. The point is that if we are to develop the types of programs we need so that we no longer will have to import
30.000	or 40,000 people from offshore, the only way we can do that is with co-operation between the provincial governments and the federal government.
Every year we hear about the number of trained people we need for jobs that are available. Last year the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) told us we needed approximately 30,000 people to fill the skilled job requirements of the western provinces. We recognize that with the downturn of the economy of western Canada we may not need 30,000 people at the present time. We may need only
20.000	or 25,000 people. But skilled Canadians to do those

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
jobs are not available. The number may be fewer than the
30,000	the minister said were needed, but 20,000 jobs could nevertheless be filled by Canadians. It is not as if this were something new. It is not as if all of a sudden we discovered we needed skilled engineers, skilled mechanics, industrial mechanics and people in a number of other professions and trades. We have known that for years. If we do not have co-operation between the provincial governments and the federal government, we will never train the people we need. As the spokesman in my party for federal-provincial relations I feel it is unfortunate that I must point out that this is another example of the federal government's having made no serious attempt to talk with the provincial governments in an effort to come up with a training scheme which would meet the needs of each and every one of our provinces and the needs of the nation as a whole and make sure our young people are trained for the jobs we need.
You know, Mr. Speaker, as do most Canadians, that a large number of young people are unemployed in this country. The latest statistics indicate that over 20 per cent of the young people in Canada do not have jobs. Those same statistics indicate that a majority of young people are not getting the kind of training they need to do the jobs which are available.
The minister's statement of last year is just an indication of the problem. Why in the name of this country should we have to import 20,000, 25,000 or 30,000 people for western Canada alone? After all the dollars the Canadian government and the provincial governments have put into occupational training, why should we have to import that number of people to meet the demand for trained, skilled people? Our unemployment rate grows every day; we all know that. The unemployment rates among the young, women, natives and the handicapped are so high that it is obvious the Canadian government should be acting. What we need is a bill to meet that need, a bill that is shared by and agreed upon by the provincial governments and the federal government. But the bill before us tonight represents just another step taken by this Liberal government. It ignores the real need of Canadians.
Let me give an example of this, Mr. Speaker. Two years ago in its budget the government set up a Western Development Fund. That fund was supposed to provide jobs for western Canada and to provide development for western Canada. But nothing happened, Mr. Speaker. One year later the same government and the same Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen) announced in the budget of November 12 that the Western Development Fund would receive only half the money that had been allotted to it in the previous budget. I should remind hon. members that not one cent of that money was spent between the fall of 1980 and the fall of 1981. It was a big budget item of $4 billion but not one cent of the money was spent. In the budget in the fall of 1981 there was a rehash of the announcement but with only half as much money. The money was supposed to create development in western Canada and, presumably, to provide the jobs that people would need.
We were told that a certain amount of the money would be allocated to the province of jobs for native people. But now, some seven months later, there are no funds, there is no agreement and there are no programs. In one year the amount was reduced from $4 billion to $2 billion, and in the seven months following that nothing happened.
Tonight we have before us a training bill which deals with native unemployment and the problems that affect Canada as a whole. All I can say is that if there was a budgetary item over a year and a half ago providing for $4 billion and then the same budgetary item was reduced to $2 billion in the budget of last November 12, the fact that the bill before us today supports to do certain things in the area of training does not impress me. Let us see the specific programs for once. Let the parliamentary secretary explain that when he gets up to speak. We want to see the specific programs that prove the government is committed to providing jobs for native people.
I had the opportunity to study political science under the Minister of Employment and Immigration when he was a professor, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. LeBlanc:: Even teachers make mistakes!


Rodney Edward Murphy: I agree with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. LeBlanc)-even the minister makes mistakes! His mistake was not in picking his students but in saying that the government is responsible for providing leadership. Leadership is not speeches, it is not press releases, it is not announcing a program that is not fulfilled. Leadership is providing the economic direction, the regulations, the programs to fulfil what a government promises. We have not had that, Mr. Speaker. Thirty per cent of the population of my riding of Churchill are native people, Mr. Speaker. Amongst the native population the unemployment rate is probably over 80 per cent. This bill and last year's budget and the budget before that were full of promises, but what does all that mean? Is the government really offering a new program or is this just another program in which it promises so much and delivers so little?
The native people in my riding, the young people in my riding whether white or native, want a training program that will provide them with jobs and with some hope in the future. I do not want to make a long speech, Mr. Speaker, but if this program had any substance at all, then the minister would speak about it. If this program offered something worthwhile to the nation as a whole the minister would have negotiated with his provincial counterparts to make sure that everyone works for the same objective. If this program were worthwhile, the minister would get up in the House and explain what the future holds for Canadians.
I believe, as I am sure many people do, especially the unemployed, that the government is bankrupt of plans. There are all these programs the government talks about, such as the Western Development Fund and a new program announced today, but again there are no specific plans for fulfilling them. We recognize that there are problems all over the world and
June 14, 1982

that we are tied into the United States' market, but if the government had some concrete plans perhaps we could solve the problems that the country faces,
I will give a specific example of the problems we face when dealing with the government, Mr. Speaker. Last April the Minister of Employment and Immigration, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray) the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Lewycky) and I met with the provincial minister of northern affairs to discuss the Northlands agreement. It is just a small part of the economic strategy of the government but in the last five years it provided $155 million for the northern part of the Province of Manitoba, most of which I represent. That is not a large part of the Canadian budget, Mr. Speaker. There is a shared agreement, 60 per cent to come from the federal government and 40 per cent to come from the province. The agreement is significant to the people of northern Manitoba however, particularly the native people. We were told there would be a follow-up meeting with the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the provincial minister of northern affairs and that an attempt would be made to solve the Northlands agreement. We were told by the federal minister that that meeting would occur in the last week of April or the first week in May. Here we are at the end of the second week in June and the meeting has not taken place yet, we have been told by the provincial minister that he is available at all times. As I said earlier, $155 million may not be a large amount in the Canadian budget, but if we really believed we are going to help develop those parts of Canada which are underprivileged and provide training for those who need it, then the Canadian government would have that meeting. The minister was at the previous meeting where the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce promised this meeting. If this government were serious, that meeting would have taken place and this training program would provide the specifics to ensure that we do not have to import another
30,000	people three or four years down the road.
Two years ago 1 spoke with a master mechanic in the Manitoba forest industry in The Pas. He had been trained in Sweden, came over to Canada as a foreman, and he looked around and said there is not one person in this province that is trained to work on these machines. He talked about the intricacies of his own training in a program within what we would call a community college, and a training program in the industry he went to. He talked about all of that and said there are just no Canadians available. So part of the 30,000 people who must be brought to Canada are filling the need that this man was speaking about. I do not believe this program will meet that need, a very small one but very representative of the problems that we as Canadians face. I spent many years as a teacher and guidance counsellor for high school students. It was very upsetting to me to say that there are no programs in Canada. Certainly you can go to Red River Community College in Manitoba, or Keewatin or Assiniboine and take a program, but it is a very limited program and you will have trouble getting in because there are not enough places available to meet the needs of students in Manitoba.
National Training Act
Yet when I go to Winnipeg and talk with the professors, lecturers and instructors they say all of their graduates can get work. So what we are saying is, let's work together to develop these programs. Let us not have the minister make an announcement and then go to a meeting with the responsible provincial ministers. Let us have programs where the provinces and the federal government work together to meet the needs of Canadians. Let us have programs which will give our young people some hope for their future and one which will give Canadians hopes for our collective future.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, let me begin my remarks by indicating that I am in basic agreement with the intent of Bill C-l 15 as expressed in clause 3 which is:
-to establish a national program to provide occupational training for the labour force-
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, few could argue with that kind of purpose, and I know previous speakers for the Progressive Conservative Party have indicated their concurrence with that basic purpose of the bill. But at the same time we would be remiss in our duties to the Canadian public and our constituents and the people who must be served by this kind of legislation if we did not point out, in very dramatic and graphic terms, the drawbacks contained in this legislation which will cause problems perhaps for generations in the future. We know that once legislation of this kind is enacted it has a tendency to stay on the statute books for decade after decade without substantial change. We fear that possibility. So I rise to bring home again the features of this bill which ought to be underlined because they will create difficulties in the future.
The basic mistake in this bill, Mr. Speaker, is that it neglects the principle of co-operative federalism on which this country was built and on which most of our institutions rely. We have in Canada an educational system which has been developed as a mosaic over a long period of time. It consists of grade schools operated by municipalities, high schools operated by school boards across the country, and post-secondary education supported by private institutions, in many cases with the assistance of government. What the Government of Canada proposes to do in this legislation is to embark on its own course of action; one which is not based on the mosaic of our educational system and which is not the product of consultation with the provincial authorities who are charged with the management of that system in their provinces. This is not the first time the government has backed away from the principle of co-operative federalism; it culminated in a statement by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) not too long ago that cooperative federalism was dead. By bringing forward a bill purporting to establish a national program to provide for occupational training, the government has again confirmed that statement by the Prime Minister.
What price will we pay for killing co-operative federalism? We will destroy many of the educational institutions we have built up over a long period of time. The promoters of this bill, including the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. COMMONS DEBATES
June 14, 1982
National Training Act
Axworthy), have to take responsibility for that. They have to take responsibility for the fact they did not call together those interested persons in the provinces for consultations, and ask them: What kind of occupational training program should we have in this country? What should be the thrust of federal assistance in this field? Through our work in the provinces we know it was provinces like Nova Scotia who pioneered in the field of adult training at a time when it was simply not available to those who had left the school system. The knowledge which they have built up over a long period of time could greatly benefit the constitution and construction of a national training program, but the minister chose not to take that course of action. He chose to go it alone, so to speak, to impart and place the federal will on all provinces, and to say, "Here is the program. Here is what we think it should be. You will have to live with it".
If they continue to take that kind of attitude at the federal level to the involvement of the provinces in matters of common interest, they will destroy the whole basis of federalism in Canada. Surely the constitutional process taught us that. Surely the constitutional process, through which we have just gone has shown the error of unilateral action on the part of the federal authority. Surely the federal authority realizes that the road to successful programs is co-operation and consultation with the provinces, leading to a program which is acceptable to all involved. It was amazing to realize, having gone through the constitutional process and having seen the havoc which it would have wreaked across Canada and the potential harm it would have done, had we not at the last moment sought the concordance of the provinces to the constitutional changes. What irreparable harm could have been done to Canada and the people of Canada.
I want to leave that point by underlining once again that cooperative federalism must be brought back to life in the country, and it must be brought back to life by the persons who form the government. They must abandon the position taken by the Prime Minister that co-operative federalism is dead. They must take every action possible to bring it back to life, and they will not do it by bringing forward legislation like Bill C-l 15 which does not have the support and the agreement of the provinces across Canada.
We in the PC party are often accused of carrying the case for the provinces, of wanting a Canada which does not have a strong federal authority. I do not believe in that kind of Canada. I do not believe in a kind of Canada which has a federal authority that simply imposes its will from coast to coast without consultation with the legitimate, democratically-elected governments of the provinces, whether it be the New Democratic government which was recently elected in the Province of Manitoba or the government which was re-elected in the Province of Newfoundland. They are all democratically-elected governments, the same as this government represented in the House of Commons was democratically elected. They must share in the Government of Canada. They must cooperate and bring things to a rational conclusion. Otherwise, there will be turmoil and upset in the country. We only have to
look to the Province of Quebec to see what happens when the federal authority and the provincial authority lock horns. Who could possibly gain from that kind of confrontation? We have yet to live through that chapter of our history where we see all those Liberals gathered in the Province of Quebec and gathered in the House of Commons ending in complete disagreement on the course of action which ought to be followed in the country. The government is starting down a road which does not involve co-operative federalism. In the words of the late Right Honourable John Diefenbaker, it has gone down a road which has no ashcans. They will have to bear the responsibility for that course of action.
The reason for bringing forward the measures contained in Bill C-l 15 surely is the drastic unemployment situation which exists in Canada today. It is trite to say that we have an unemployment rate in excess of 10 per cent. It is trite to say that we have a million and a quarter persons unemployed in Canada. Believe it or not, the situation is even worse than that.
In addition to the one and a quarter million officially unemployed in Canada, there are at least another 250,000 persons who are no longer looking for work. They live in areas like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland where they know there are no jobs available, so they simply stop looking for work; they stay home and find other means of occupying themselves. There is a quarter of a million people like that in Canada who have lost the hope of obtaining employment. Across the country there are an additional 300,000 persons who are working at jobs much below their qualifications, such as school teachers who work in restaurants and engineers who seek minor roles in engineering offices. They are depressed by the situation in which they find themselves. They have all the qualifications. They have worked hard to obtain those qualifications, but they cannot have the kind of work and employment which those qualifications ought to allow them to have. We have to add them on to the list of unemployed.. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are employed part-time. They cannot find full-time jobs, so they work at jobs which only provide payment for a portion of their available time. We must include those in the rolls of the unemployed. When we add them up, there are probably as many as 800,000 people in that position. When we are talking about the unemployed in Canada, we are not only talking about the million and a quarter who are officially unemployed. We are talking about the quarter of a million who have given up looking for work, over a quarter of a million who are working at less than their qualifications, another 800,000 or so persons across Canada who are working part-time and cannot find work to fill their available time. When we add up all these numbers, we do not come to a million and a quarter; we come to a figure well over two million Canadians. We must bear in mind that the work force in Canada numbers only about 11 million Canadians, so almost 25 per cent of the work force in Canada have unemployment problems. This is why the minister must rush into the House of Commons and claim to be doing something about unemployment in Canada.
June 14, 1982

What should he have been doing? His own parliamentary committee, which was constituted as a task force a year or so ago, produced a report entitled, "Work for Tomorrow- Employment Opportunities for the Eighties". It gave us a damning indictment of what has transpired in government circles over the last decade in creating training to allow Canadians to meet the changes in the economy. The document faults the government for not having started proper programs years ago, in fact decades ago. Anyone who lives in Canada could see technological changes occurring, and anybody in Canada knows that ten years ago people could not work at the jobs with which they have traditionally found employment in the past.
What was it doing to change it? The parliamentary task force dealing with employment opportunities for the 1980s came up with many recommendations, but only one of its minor recommendations was included in the bill. One fault which we must demonstrate and underline with respect to Bill C-115 is that it goes only a little way toward resolving the problems in Canada.
There are other faults which could be found in the bill. As 1 indicated, it violates the educational system in Canada. It destroys the mosaic of educational services which have built up over a period of years. It puts many people in the educational system in jeopardy and it gives them concern. This bill does not specifically deal with university training programs, but if we talk to any university president in Canada, he or she will tell you-and in the case of the university in my constituency, Mount Saint Vincent is, of course, a women's college with a woman president; we are very proud of that-that the universities across Canada fear the Government of Canada. They fear its thrust into the field of education because it is not prepared to consult with the educational authorities, it is not prepared to deal with the realities, and it is not prepared to sit down to talk about the experiences of students over the last decade. It simply comes in with an ad hoc program which is designed to cure some evil, to allow them to issue a press release and to say that they are working to stop the problem. It does not appreciate the development of the educational system over the years. It does not appreciate the roles of universities and university administrators who have toiled at their task, in some cases for decades.
What sort of thing do they fear? They fear that the Government of Canada will step in and provide funds for very narrow programs, programs which its departmental advisers claim are needed but are not necessarily desired by those who have completed their secondary education. If we asked the president of Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Dr. Ozmon, he would tell us that the record and ability of university students to choose courses and to seek training which will qualify them for employment has been demonstrated time and time again over the years, that is to say, young Canadian people have the ability to educate themselves in such a way as to provide job training for the future. If we look at the records of universities across Canada-but I will use Saint Mary's in Halifax as an example-we will see the shift in student population from liberal arts courses and similar courses, which did not train persons directly for employment, to business courses such as
National Training Act
commerce and economics. That shift has been demonstrated and is part of the records of universities across Canada. They know what to do. Canadian students and their advisers, the faculties of the universities and the secondary schools know how to direct the funds to provide training for the jobs which are available. The only time they need the advice of the government is when it is offered in a friendly, constructive and co-operative way. They do not need government direction; they need assistance. That is the warning which we want to give Canadians through the medium of the House of Commons in the debate of this bill. We want a government in Canada which co-operates. We want a government in Canada that helps the existing institutions. We do not need a government which simply introduces another program to deal with an existing problem on an ad hoc basis and without regard to what has taken place in the past or to what will happen in the future.
I would like to discuss for a moment the student aid program in Canada. If one has ever seen the provisions embodied in that program one would find a high level of bureaucratic action that worked. It is not hard to identify a student who needs aid. That student is simply someone who indicates that he wants to go to university or some other post-secondary institution and submits his financial situation to show that there is a deficit and that he needs some money. You do not need many definitions of what students are eligible. You do not need many definitions of what courses are included or what kind of institutions they can attend. This bill has simply turned what is a sensible program, backed by a desire to assist students in need, into a bureaucratic maze.
I can give an example of this from an actual case which I encountered. This person had worked for a number of years at what turned out to be a well-paying job in the sales field after completing high school. Now his employment has terminated. The current recession-some would say depression-has created a situation where jobs that were always thought to be secure are being lost. People who are losing their employment realize that there is no hope in the near future of returning to their jobs because their friends and neighbours are also experiencing it. They know that there are simply no jobs available as sales representatives or in similar occupations. Such a person, recognizing the difficulty and seeing that it is semi-permanent at best, takes the opportunity to seek further education. This gives him and people in similar situations the opportunity to qualify in another field. They take this opportunity to acquire the post-secondary education that they did not get after finishing high school. However, what do they find? They find a set of rules applying to students who are 18, 19 or 20 years of age. These rules simply do not apply to a married man who, after working a number of years, has acquired basic assets such as a car and furniture. They discover a rule which says that they must include their wife's income in order to determine their capacity to pay for their education. Although I

June 14, 1982
National Training Act
do not know what the proponents of women's rights feel about this point, I never thought, as a husband, that my wife had any obligation to pay for my education. 1 do not know what other hon. members feel about their wife's obligation to assist in their education, but it is a fact that the rules applying to student aid programs presume that a Canadian wife has an obligation to pay for the education of her husband. Who created that rule? Is that based on any Christian ethic or any other religious ethic? I suggest that it is an idea simply conjured up by a bureaucrat who then wrote it on a piece of paper. As a result, this individual who is trying to solve his employment problem by using his lost time to develop his own employment capacity in the face of a deepening recession is confronted with a rule that stops him in his tracks. He might as well continue on unemployment insurance and seek whatever work he can find. His ability to resolve his problem on a more permanent basis is stopped by a bureaucratic regulation that no one ever thought of applying to this situation.
That is the danger of legislation which is so general. We do not know how it will apply to different situations. That is the danger of legislation which defines "occupational" in such general terms that it can only be imagined how it will be applied to particular situations.
When we see bills such as this which simply define occupational training in such general terms and state the purpose of the legislation in such general terms and then apply regulations to put the real meat on this legislative frame, we need to have a lot of faith in the government. You have to trust the government when it presents legislation such as that. 1 have to ask hon. members how they can trust this government's legislative proposals at this point in our history? How can we trust a government which had come forward with a constitutional proposal which was rejected by the provinces and subsequently took unilateral action to force that proposal on the people of Canada without the consent and concurrence of the duly elected provincial governments? How can a government such as that be trusted? How can it be trusted when it indicated it will keep energy prices at low levels but then turns around to increase prices dramatically beyond levels which anyone ever considered fair and proper.
When we are being asked to consider legislation which does not specify its contents and remains so general in form, we are being asked to trust the government. I do not believe that anyone on this side of the House or, in fact, anyone in Canada has any reason to trust the government with this or any other bill. That is why we rise in the House to convey that message to the people of Canada. That is why we rise to say that while we embrace the principle of a national training program for occupational training, at the same time we want to warn Canadians that this may not be the answer. It may only be another government hoax. There may be no funds available to set up proper programs which will resolve the problems.
What is needed in Canada is a great effort to create jobs. The only way to accomplish that in areas such as Atlantic Canada is through the implementation of projects and the restoration of the faith and confidence of the private sector in
the economy of the region so as to allow them to do the job which they are capable of doing.
I would like to turn to other problems which exist in Atlantic Canada that necessitate such programs as the program for occupational training and other job-creation and training programs. It is evident in the very constitutional document which I spoke of that the government is prepared to declare war on regional disparity. The government said in its constitutional document that the Government of Canada as a matter of law was going to direct its energies toward an equalization program which will remove regional disparities.
I defy any member of the government to stand in the House and tell Canadians what the government has done since the enactment of the constitutional measure which was approved by the House in December of 1981 and officially enacted on April 17, 1982. What has the government done to remove regional disparity? I ask those hon. members to cite one piece of legislation it has introduced to implement the constitutional challenge to remove regional disparity.
Inaction is reflected again in this Bill C-115. There is no indication that funds will be directed to those areas which have the greatest need, particularly areas in Atlantic Canada where unemployment is the highest. It is an area where students graduating from high school, universities and other trade and educational institutions can find no employment. Student unemployment there is at the highest level in history. Students who rely on summer employment to provide themselves with the necessary funds to continue their education are unable to find any work. What will the government do about those situations? I believe this is the question which must be asked at any time when we consider legislation that purports to resolve any part of the unemployment or educational problem.
1 repeat that we are asked to trust the government at the very time when the Minister of Employment and Immigration is coming before the House to ask it to approve a measure which will help people who are unemployed and seeking employment through the provision of educational programs. We must think of the actions taken by the Secretary of State (Mr. Regan) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) cutting back vast amounts of money from the funds available to the provinces for post-secondary education. These were vast amounts of money which provinces like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island cannot provide and simply must receive from the federal authority. The only alternative is to cut programs or raise taxes. That is exactly what the government is doing. That adds to the difficulties faced by people in the maritimes and other parts of Atlantic Canada. They have a federal government which is continually cutting back on the funds available to assist them in the educational field. They are actually worse off in 1982, this very month of June, than they were a year or two years ago. At the same time, the Government of Canada, through the constitutional document, has declared war on regional disparity. So, Mr. Speaker, what can you say about a government that says, on the one hand, "We are moving toward equalization and we are declaring war on regional disparity," while, on
June !4, 1982

the other hand, it cuts off the very funds necessary to fight regional disparity and to create equality among the people of
Canada?
Let me simply end by saying that the government is not kidding anyone any more. The Minister of Employment and Immigration is not kidding anyone any more. We see all the measures brought before this House of Commons in a suspicious light, that is to say, we must examine all these measures with great attention to their veracity. We must ask the question every time, does the government really mean this or is it just another hollow promise to rectify a deteriorating situation?
Let me say to the Minister of Employment and Immigration, who sat in the House through some of this discussion, that I for one wish him well in his endeavours. I hope he succeeds in solving the tremendous problem of unemployment that we have across Canada. I hope he can come up with job-creation and educational programs which will help to relieve the situation. However, I also warn him not to look for any help from his colleagues in cabinet, from the Prime Minister, from the Minister of Finance or from the Secretary of State because the government is taking away from the ministers who might provide help and assistance the very funds which they must have to provide that assistance.
I say to the minister that it is good that the government allowed him to introduce this bill which purports to help people who need occupational training, but I hope that it will give the funds to back it up and I hope it really means to help. Even if the minister does, we still suspect his colleagues, so I hope the minister will watch them very carefully and report to this House if they give him the kind of difficulty in implementing this program that I am almost certain, as I stand here, they will.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. Members:: Question.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to
adopt the motion?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Kempling:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Canada Ports Corporation Act

Jean-Luc Pepin: that Bill C-92, to amend the National Harbours Board Act, the Government Harbours and Piers Act, the Harbour Commissions Act, the Canada Shipping Act and the Fishing and Recreational Harbours Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications.
He said: Mr. Speaker, all countries with access to navigable waters have a ports policy which strives to meet their local, regional and national requirements and by which their ports are integrated within a broader and preferably multimodal transportation system, at both domestic and international levels. Although these policies may vary from country to country, they have in common a desire to reconcile local autonomy with the interests of the country in general. In fact, all countries with a ports policy try to reconcile these two spheres and interests. Bill C-92 cannot escape this imperative.
Canada is actually one of the world's major trading countries. Our external trade accounts for nearly 30 per cent of our gross national product, and nearly 80 per cent, 1 am told, of all our imports and exports are shipped by water. As a result, the quality of our ports and the efficiency of their operations have a considerable impact on the cost of our products on our competitive position on world markets and finally, on our balance of trade and our balance of payments. It is clear, Mr. Speaker, that we must have the best ports policy we can muster.


An hon. Member:: Amen.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Amen. What is the administrative situation of Canada's ports today? At the present time, we have in Canada three types of commercial ports: the ports of the National Harbours Board, the ports of the Harbours Commission and the government harbours and piers for which the Department of Transport is directly responsible. Each type of port is governed by a distinct body of legislation.
The ports of the National Harbours Board are governed by an Act of Parliament passed in 1936. The legislation reflects the conditions of that period, namely the depression and the need for centralization. The Act has been amended only twice since 1936, and one of these amendments consisted in substituting for the name of the port of Three Rivers the name of Trois-Rivieres. This change was undoubtedly necessary but had a negligible impact on the port as such.
Some comments on the first type of port. The Board of Directors of the National Harbours Board, which governs this type of port, has four full-time members. The Board does not claim to reflect the national dimension of this country,

June 14, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
although one of the members is from Saint John, New Brunswick, and another is from Vancouver, On the other hand, the legislation does not provide for local autonomy with respect to the management and operation of the fifteen ports under the National Harbours Board, nor does it provide for regional input in the process of planning and establishing a national ports policy. As a result, the administration of these ports is highly centralized. So much for the first kind of port.
The Government Harbours and piers Act, the second body of legislation covering the administration of ports in Canada, governs more than 500 public facilities. This Act also goes back to 1936 and is just as outdated as the National Harbours Board Act. The facilities in question are also subject to the Canada Shipping Act and the Public Works Act, and this checkerboard of legislation constitutes a hindrance to sound planning and is not conducive to the investments that could be made in these port facilities. The ports usually come second to the National Harbours Board ports, but also include some that are fairly large.
The Harbour Commission Act, which governs the third kind of port we have in Canada, provides the most up-to-date legislation and as such is more compatible with present port administration practices. Under this Act, which goes back to 1964, ports may be operated and administered at the local level, which is more in line with the intent of Bill C-92, which I shall be discussing presently. However, the Harbour Commissions Act does not define a common objective for all ports where a national ports policy is concerned. Nor does it stipulate that the development of harbour commissions is an integral part of regional and national ports planning. In addition, the Act does not provide for the transfer from one type of port to another.
So that, Mr. Speaker, is the fairly complex situation in the administration of Canada's ports today.

Efforts have been made to improve the situation affecting ports in Canada within the existing structure. I would not want to leave the impression that our ports are in a generally backward state; far from it.
I must admit, however, that the public port facilities under Transport Canada have not seen a great deal of development in recent years. That is changing now. Planning for the future is improving considerably. For example, we currently have a series of master plans in progress with the objective of providing a coherent basis for future development of public port facilities in different areas of the Country.
Commission ports are doing much better. They are performing well. Thunder Bay, to mention one, maintained its position as the world's largest and most successful grain port. In terms of capacity to undertake new projects, I would point to the new forest products terminal at Duke Point at Nanaimo, British Columbia, which is the result of co-operation between the
federal government, the provincial government and the local harbour commission.
Most interesting, however, is the progress made at the 15 National Harbours Board ports which, by the way, handle 50 per cent of Canada's waterborne commerce. The other two types of ports each handle about 20 per cent.
In recent days 1 have been making an extra effort to focus attention on these ports. I believe their significant achievements are largely unrecognized, and that is regrettable. One need only look at the National Harbours Board latest annual report to see how well they are doing. For the first time in history, all 15 ports have a positive net income. Total tonnage, while down slightly from the record set in 1980, is still the second highest ever handled by the National Harbours Board.
The number of tonnes handled per employee, which is a good indication of productivity, increased from 58,000 in 1976 to 91,000 in 1981. Capital investment is up substantially, from $38 million in 1980 to $65 million in 1981.
The reorganization of the National Harbours Board debt- $350 million of principal and $150 million of interest, which was erased in 1981-contributed quite considerably to this positive picture I am painting tonight. It is equally true to say that the National Harbours Board, in spite of the drawbacks of its statutory environment, has developed into a sound organization which is now operated on a largely commercial basis by experienced professional employees.
If everything is so good, the obvious question is why the need for a new bill? I have already touched on a few of the reasons. I might emphasize the severe limitation on local autonomy which is symbolized by the famous statutory ceiling on contracts. Anything over $50,000 requires governor in council approval. That is a symbol of the lack of autonomy given to these major port organizations. Others ports in Canada, the harbour commissions for example, and other ports in the world of the same size as Vancouver, Halifax, or Montreal have a lot more autonomy in their administration than those ports under the National Harbours Board. This is an anomaly the bill will correct.
Another reason for new legislation is the inability of the National Harbours Board to set its rates quickly and on a commercial basis to respond to local needs and to particular circumstances. It is a problem in that a port the size of Halifax or Vancouver, cannot act rapidly to set rates in relation to the competition.
The inability to transfer from one type of port to another is also a difficulty. The fragmentation of the legislative basis is also a problem as well as the lack of a common stated objective. These are difficulties the bill will attempt to cure.
This is not the first time such a ports bill has come before the House of Commons. Between 1977 and 1979, hon. members, in my absence, dealt with three bills, Bill C-61, Bill C-6 and Bill C-50. All died on the Order Paper without even getting to second reading. Therefore, we are making great progress tonight. With the assistance of all friends of Bill C-92 on all sides of the House, maybe it will be passed by the House this time.
June 14, 1982

In order to appreciate the present legislative proposal, it is useful to note the different approach that was taken in previous attempts. That is very important. Previous bills all tried to consolidate fully the different pieces of legislation which I already mentioned. I have extensive notes on the subject. I will not go into them except to mention that contrary to the other bills which attempted the monumental task of bringing the whole legislative apparatus under a single bill, this bill is much less pretentious. The bill leaves aside the grander scheme of reshaping the entire port system and takes a more evolutionary approach. It recognizes that the existing system has strengths that can be built on without the need for a total overhaul. I would not like to leave the impression that the bill does not change much. Thirty of the 40 sections in the National Harbours Board Act are being amended, and 16 of 19 sections of the Government Harbours and Piers Act are being amended.
The bill is not as all encompassing as the previous bills. The reason is simply that different parts of the country have different types of ports. There is some validity in that. We try to accommodate local circumstances, historical precedents, fashions and the like. I do not think the country will be handicapped because of that.
It is clear that the National Harbours Board ports have reached a level of financial and administrative maturity such that they are now being held back by the 1936 legislation which governs them. Having demonstrated their ability-this is a key sentence for those who will comment later-to operate soundly and efficiently, Parliament owes the ports a new framework which will give them the opportunity to respond the new challenges in a modern environment. In other words, these ports have done well with the support of the National Harbours Board. They are now fully grown and developed. They are adult. The time has come to give them more freedom of operation than in the past.
I now want to say a few words about Bill C-92. In my view, it is an excellent example of what I like to call the balancing act, which is the only act that Parliament has never passed, because it tries to combine a number of forces.
As I said earlier, it does not attempt to reshape the entire system. The three types of ports are maintained. The statutes governing them are amended to remove the shortcomings. For example, rather than having one central piece of legislation, a common statement of objectives is included in each of the separate statutes. A balance is thereby achieved between a single, unwieldy act and three unrelated ones. They are tied by a single objective, a single statement of principle.
Another example of balancing is between the national interests and the local autonomy. The first objective in the common statement of objectives is to ensure that the port system is an effective instrument of support for international trade objectives and also for national, regional and local social and economic objectives.
The fourth objective is more specific. It calls on the port system to provide ports with a high degree of autonomy consistent with the responsibility to ensure the integrity and
Canada Ports Corporation Act
efficiency of the system as a whole. We see the obvious preoccupation of the national interest and the local interest which is balanced by a degree of centralization and a higher degree of decentralization. Therefore, the bill is a masterpiece of balance!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I wish you were selling Mississippi oil.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Give me a barrel and I will try.
Let us look at some of the most important amendments. Taking first the amendments to the National Harbours Board Act, the principal amendment creates a part-time board of directors, up to 17 of them, representative of broad regional interests in important matters. The new board will have the power to recommend the establishment of local port corporations with a high degree of delegated authority to manage and operate. Ports that do not acquire local port corporation status will be operated as divisions of the new parent corporation. That, by the way, will be named the Canada ports corporation.
To repeat, within what is now called now the National Harbours Board system there will be two types of ports. There will be some fully grown, with full local autonomy, the "mini" corporations under the "maxi" or parent corporation. There will be others which will remain divisions of the National Harbours Board, which is to become the Canada ports corporation.
The corporation will have new powers to set contractual limits by bylaws. Rates for commercial services will be set by the corporation itself for its own divisions. The local port corporations will set rates themselves for their own requirements. Harbour dues, however, will continue to be set by bylaws and will therefore be subject to governor in council approval.
The Canada ports corporation, and the local port corporations, will remain category "C" Crown corporations under the Financial Administration Act. Members will realize what that means. It has some advantages, obviously; for example, not to pay taxes, not to pay dividends, and the possibility of getting Canadian government contributions to investment. There are some advantages also to becoming a category "D" corporation. The law as it is now will make that possible without having to pass a new law to move corporations, the "maxi" and the "mini", from category "C" to "D". Also to be stated is that it will be the possible to transfer from one category of port to another category without having to introduce new legislation to do so.
I should say a few words, Mr. Speaker, about local port corporations. As I indicated, this is the major factor and the major motivation for the new policy. It is the decentralization of authority and decision making to the local level of port corporations, and a move away from the centralized administration of National Harbours Board ports.
It is rather important, I think, that I should put on record the powers of the local port corporations. Here is a list. First, there is the authority and responsibility for the day to day

June 14, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
operation of the port. This is a local corporation responsibility. Second, there is the setting of commercial rates. Third, there is the responsibility for all personnel matters. Fourth, there is the tendering and contracting within new designated limits. Fifth, there is the management of port property. And the sixth one, which I should have first, is the appointment of the chief executive officer of the port. The appointment of the manager of the port is obviously symbolic of the transfer of power from the National Harbours Board Act to the local port corporation.
I was in Montreal during the weekend. The chairman of the National Harbours Board referred to Mr. Beshwaty as "my general manager". The president of the Montreal authority referred to the same gentleman as "my general manager". In this case one person was speaking for the present and the other person was speaking for the future. So it is a very important change.
In general terms, the local port corporation will be responsible and accountable to the Canada ports, corporation for maintaining the port in a financially viable position. To ensure that the decision and management initiatives of the local port corporations are consistent with national policy objectives, that they make the best use of their resources and serve the best interests of the users, the Canada ports corporation will approve the annual capital and operating budgets of the local port corporations. It will also monitor their actual performance. This will be done in much the same way as a large private corporation would oversee its subsidiaries.
Financial viability is an important aspect of the new policy. The capability of an individual port to sustain its operation is one of the main criteria for the very establishment of the local port corporation. Other criteria, by the way, include the national and regional significance of a port and the degree of local interest in the affairs of the port.
On the other hand, financial viability is not the only criterion governing port development. It is recognized that ports form an important element of broader regional economic development schemes and that large port investment requirements cannot always be met from port revenues at the outset. In other words, the port may not have the means to achieve its full development. Consequently, the legislation contains a provision whereby the government may give directives to the Canada ports corporation, to undertake ports development in the national and regional interest.


An hon. Member:: I have a question.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I will entertain questions afterwards.
Having given such a directive, the government, in the circumstances, when the capacity of the local corporation is not great enough, will be expected to provide assistance by way of a grant or otherwise.
Again there is a balance-the theme of balance being my main theme tonight-between the commercial objectives of individual ports which help ensure their efficient operation with a high degree of autonomy, and the broader government
objectives relating to regional and national economic development.
How will this be set up, Mr. Speaker? It is hoped that within 18 months of proclamation of this bill, the new board of the Canada ports corporation will have examined all the former National Harbours Board ports and will have recommended to the Minister of Transport which ones meet the criteria of local port corporation status. An order in council will be needed to create such a local port corporation.
How many National Harbours Board ports are likely to become local port corporations? That is a question that the board of the new corporation will address and on which it will make a recommendation to the minister. At this time I expect that most National Harbours Board ports will seek and should be able to attain this status, so it will be very much open to them to make their case.
I should say a few words, Mr. Speaker, on the amendments to the Government Harbours and Piers Act. The amendments to that act propose to redress the situation of divided responsibilities, by consolidating into a revised act, to be called the public harbours and ports facilities act, all of the responsibilities necessary to plan and fund maintenance and capital works for these public facilities. Again, that type of port will be asked to apply a common statement of objectives.
I have a few words to say, Mr. Speaker, on amendments to the Harbour Commissions Act of 1964. As all members know, there are seven ports now-four in British Columbia and three in Ontario-administered under this newest of port acts. This act already recognizes the objectives of local autonomy, as we all know. In fact, these ports provide an excellent example of how well the concept of autonomy can work. This act is therefore subject only to minor amendments, it being the most modern and most recently passed. The statement of objectives mentioned previously, is added. The section on the establishment or dissolution of a harbour commission is amended to permit the transfer of any one of the present National Harbours Board ports to commission status without need to amend the law.
There are a few words to be said also, Mr. Speaker, about the process of consultation and about the regional and local participation in the administration of this new bill.
First, the new Canada ports corporation provides for full regional participation on its board of directors-and I mention en passant that there will be a maximum of 17 members on that board-and local participation also at the port corporation level, so there will be plenty of participation both in the maxi and in the mini corporations. Harbours commissions already have local participation in their administrations, as we well know. Public harbours and port facilities will benefit from greater delegation of authority to the regional port administrations of the Department of Transport as well as the establishment of public harbour advisory committees.
However, one of the major weaknesses of the present port system lies in the absence of an identified body responsible for
June 14, 1982

advising the Minister of Transport on regional port planning and development as they affect all types of ports. In order to bridge that gap, the bill provides for the establishment of regional advisory councils to include the chairman of each local port corporation, harbour commission and port advisory committee; that is the advisory committee of a division of the new Canada port corporation. All this will be brought together with representation from other public interests in a regional advisory council.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Sounds good.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I hope it sounds good, and I am sure it will be. Each province in a region will have the right to appoint at least one member to these regional councils.
This bill deliberately maintains flexibility in defining the size and range of activities of these regional councils. We are letting it be flexible so that different regions of Canada may have slightly different regional councils, depending on the mood of the area. It is my intention, however, that these councils form an essential part of the regional and national port planning process.
Reaction to this bill is my last point. What has it been? The bill itself is the result of extensive consultation-"extensive consultation" underlined three times-for a good period of time.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: You are impossible.


Jean-Luc Pepin: It has been good for a good period of time, I must say. Briefs, representations and telegrams have been received from a great number of interested parties. I have a list of some of them, but I will not mention them all.
It is obvious that the bill will not satisfy everybody. Some are looking for a greater degree of autonomy; others, presumably, are looking for a lesser degree of autonomy. Elowever, generally speaking, I think hon. members are aware that it is the general belief that reasonable compromises were struck. That is a very important sentence.


Howard Edward Crosby: How about labour representation?


Jean-Luc Pepin: The provinces are not all happy with this bill, but, generally speaking, I think there is support, if not for all the clauses, at least for the intent and purpose of the bill. I was talking to Mr. Levesque the other day after his speech in Quebec City which was partly on ports policy. Somewhat to his amazement and to the amazement of many others 1 said 1 agreed with 95 per cent of what he said. The reason was that what he had said was all in Bill C-92.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: No.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Oh yes. The main difficulty he has with it has to do with the selection of the people who will constitute the local port corporations. For example, he alluded to his admiration for municipal representation on these port corporations. Everybody knows this is debatable. There are cases in which there is a conflict between the objective of the municipality and the objective of the port. I will not give cases, but some of them are pretty well known. It may be that a municipal
Canada Ports Corporation Act
council would like to see a park where port authorities would like to see a port facility grow, so there is quite a difference there. In any event, we can have a good discussion of the subject.
The legislation has the support of the port authority chairmen, of the National Harbours Board ports, the chairmen of the commission harbours, the Canadian Port and Harbour Association and a whole list of other institutions. One of the reason is that most of them have worked well on the bill and have made contributions to it.
By the way, I would like to thank all those who have made a contribution, some of them members on all sides of the House. Bill C-92 goes a long way towards addressing the major weaknesses of the present system while respecting historic preferences for the existing organization and building on the strengths and the good works of the past. I am quite sure all members would be honoured to have voted in favour of this bill.


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate at the second reading stage of Bill C-92. At the outset I cannot help but wonder why the minister started off on what was a very critical passage for him, such an Alice in Wonderland stage setting for this bill. It is a piece of legislation which makes legal that which has been illegal for five years. It is time to get on with the damned thing, I agree, but let the minister not stand up and tell us about the great and wonderous autonomy the bill will extend to local ports. Let him be simple and honest and say it is a first step. It should have been taken seven, eight or ten years ago. This is not the solution to the problems of the ports in this country, and the minister knows it.
He spoke about the historical record. 1 suppose once every 40 or 50 years the government is entitled to speak about the record with respect to ports legislation. As the minister indicated, the National Harbours Board Act was passed in 1936 as a result of the Gibbs commission report.
We have difficulties with this bill. The minister had better be aware of that, and so had the government House leader.
On June 4 in this chamber the minister casually said we were holding the bill up. We are not holding the bill up. We want this kind of legislation. It is constructive legislation, but it is what the government should have been doing over the last two years. The government has been so preoccupied with esoteric matters that it could not find time to get on with this. That is the truth of the matter. What is more important to the minister, off-track betting or ports legislation?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


J. Michael Forrestall: This is not a good bill in its present form. It was not a good bill seven years ago when it was first introduced, but this is a first step. The minister knows I personally want to see this bill through second reading, into committee and back into this chamber before we adjourn for the summer,

June 14, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
and I will do what I can to facilitate that. However, the minister had better go with open eyes to the committee because many of my colleagues are very disturbed about this bill, so am I, and for the next few minutes I will put forward a few reasons why I am disturbed.
This is not the first time we have seen this bill. 1 hope it is the last, but it is not the first. We saw it in 1977 as Bill C-61, again in 1977 as Bill C-6 and in March of 1979 as Bill C-50. All those bills died on the Order Paper.
We have serious reservations in probably 13 areas of this bill. Many of these reservations are well known to the minister and well known to his officials. They are well known to the members of the Standing Committee on Transport. I am hopeful that in committee many of these minor difficulties can be dealt with, and dealt with efficiently, by way of amendment. One or two of them may be viewed as substantive, but they are not substantive in intent.
Our first serious reservation about this bill stems from the fact that it is predicated in part upon Crown corporations legislation which we have not seen. When the former minister of transport, the hon. member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankow-ski), introduced this matter, it was done in a manner consistent with proposals in a Crown corporations bill. We do not have that bill in front of us, Mr. Speaker. We have not seen the government's white paper or its green paper on the Crown Corporations Act. That is what we are setting up-Crown corporations with 20 subsidiaries. At this time we do not know the government's intention with respect to Crown corporations. It is absurd of the government House leader to ask us to give this matter second reading, put it through committee stage, report stage and third reading between noon and four o'clock on a Friday afternoon! I know he has problems, but that is not our fault. We tried to help the minister, but it is an affront to us that he did not deal with the Crown Corporations Act. He did not give us any indication how the bill will affect the government's intentions in that regard.
We support the principles of the bill that there is a need for efficiency, that there must be co-ordination with other transport modes, that there must be accessibility to users in order to develop an import-export trade.
The minister says that autonomy will be expanded. I believe that it may be enhanced slightly. When you have to refer to five different authorities in order to get something done, how does that expand autonomy? The matter has to be referred to the minister, to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) to the governor in council, to the bylaws of the local port corporation and to the parent corporation, that means from five to six different levels of approval before something can be done that is regarded as necessary by those charged with the responsibility of administering an efficient and well organized port.
The minister will be hearing from my colleagues representing the Vancouver area who will speak about the long sticky fingers of Treasury Board. There is reference to "excess moneys". What does that mean? We have been told that there
will be different limits, and of course we realize that the limits of 1936 are not applicable to 1982. We have not been told what the limits will be, however. During this debate we will ask the minister for an undertaking that at committee stage, if not before, he will reveal the four or five parts of the authority that deal with matters such as financial limits so that we can see all the bylaws. The minister is very good to the House in that respect as a rule. Transport officials, not only under this minister but under ministers before him are open and allow members on all sides access to schedules and rules and regulations that flow from these things at committee stage so that we can understand what is going on. The sooner we have those, the better we will understand how serious the minister and the government is about autonomy.
The matter of equity between ports also concerns us. Of course the borrowing authority for the Port of Vancouver must be different from that for the port of Chicoutimi. They are two different worlds. But we do not know what the formula will be. It will have to treat Halifax, St. John's, Prince Rupert, Montreal and Quebec City equitably, yet it will have to be different. I hope the minister will let us in on his secret so that we can help him.
I want the minister to understand clearly what our concerns are. On a number of occasions in committee he indicated to us that he considered the tax levied on the marine transportation industry with respect to fuel for vessels leaving Canada, to be somewhat inequitable. But he did not do anything about it, apparently, although I am sure he tried. It is not good enough for the minister to say that such and such is autonomy; we want to see it in writing. We do not trust the President of the Treasury Board and I do not want to rely on the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen). Look at the mess he has got this country into! Does the minister expect members of the opposition to take his word for it? He should not stretch our credulity too far. Were he the only one standing between the governor in council and port corporations, then that might be an interesting proposition for the entire port community to consider. It would have been interesting for us and it would have made a basis for autonomy much faster than the four or five levels that the bill provides for, but the minister should not stretch our imagination too far. He should not make us reach too far beyond our capability to help him.
The minister knows that the majority of any entity, business or corporate, public or private, are governed to a large degree by the form and type of their incorporation, their powers and sources of finance. How autonomous can a local port be when its entire existence is to be determined by a Crown corporation whose entire existence, in turn, depends on the whim of the government? That is not a rhetorical question, Mr. Speaker. There is mention of the LPC, the CPC, the LAC-we have lance corporals in the air force and we have Canadian Pacific. Could we not call these the Halifax port corporation, the Vancouver port corporation, the Montreal port corporation? Can we get away from that and get into some useful and appropriate designations? This sounds as if we have given
June 14, 1982

them all a social insurance number or something. How can you be autonomous when everything you do is in the minister's back pocket or, worse than that, in the back pocket or the back of the mind of the local Liberal chairman? How autonomous can a port be when it is the minister who makes all of the decisions?
There are a number of small amendments we are going to move, Mr. Speaker. For example, we will move to change the wording "in the opinion of the minister" everywhere it appears. You have to have a reason, then make a judgment, and we will accept that. But it will not be in your opinion; it will be the opinion of the local Liberal hatchetman or appoint-er of great people. I accept the minister's argument about the difficulties of including the municipalities in the local port corporation because conflicts of interest will develop. But I will not support the minister's argument, for example, when it comes to whether or not he will extend to labour the right to recommend someone to the authorities. 1 can see the possibility of conflict when dealing with municipalities, but I cannot see it when you are dealing with the makeup of the local port corporation. How autonomous can the LPC be if the Canada ports corporation can determine which statutory powers it can give to the LPC as listed in the act? No rationale has to be given under the act. Worse, there is no legislative appeal built into the act. If an LPC wishes to contest a decision, how does it appeal and to whom? How autonomous will it be if it is unable to borrow or invest in the private marketplace? It would only be able to do so if the CPC, on its own presumably, changed its status from a schedule C to a schedule D Crown corporation under the Financial Administration Act. I do not know whether or not any of the ports would want to start that process. We have heard from some officials of government, not within the Department of Transport, that they are not all that enamoured of schedule D under this legislation until they themselves have had an opportunity to take a look at the provision of the Liberal government's down corporations proposals.
On February 28, 1982, during a CBC radio interview the Auditor General was asked why the government was proceeding so slowly on the Crown corporations bill, and this is what he said:
Well, it's a source of frustration for me because 1 think it's very important that we have Crown corporation legislation. I'm not exactly sure when the Crown corporation legislation started, but I know that when the new Auditor General Act came out in 1977, the parts of our legislation regarding Crown corporations was left a little loose because the Crown corporation legislation was expected shortly. Well, that was 1977. When the PC's were in power, they brought forth a paper that died when their government died. Subsequently to that, the present government has had a study paper on the topic of Crown corporations-I'm not exactly sure why that's not proceeding rapidly.
The Auditor General was then asked if he had seen this Liberal government paper on Crown corporations, and he replied:
Canada Ports Corporation Act
No. I've been denied access to that paper. 1 think that's part of the-what I find rather strange political science notions in Ottawa. I don't know that it's necessarily a high level political decision. I suspect it's some bureaucrat who's accustomed to defending his rear.
Thus it seems the Auditor General is in somewhat the same predicament as members in this House. He has not seen it, nor have we, and it does not look as if we are going to see it. Not only is there lack of accountability in terms of the missing Crown corporations act, there is no mention at all of how we are going to audit. We asked for joint audit by the Auditor General of Canada and we did not get it. We are going to ask for it again, and I do so right now. I serve notice that we will move an amendment the effect of which will be to join the Auditor General either in joint audit or to extend to him the responsibility and right to audit these many Crown corporations. In the absence of a Crown corporations bill or any indication of what the government wants to do, what other choice do we have? Very little, I am afraid.
Furthermore, there is no legislative provision for the annual report of the CPC or those of the LPCs to be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport. We would ask for that. I have touched on the financial aspects of this legislation. We want the Treasury Board to release through the minister the financial limits to be set in the LPCs bylaws. We hope and trust, and knowing the minister we are certain, that once we see them they will be realistic and meet the requirements of 1982. We would like to see it before it reaches the committee stage, but at least let us see it at the committee stage. We want a good explanation of what excess moneys are and under what conditions the long arm will reach out and take moneys from Vancouver, Halifax, Montreal or Toronto. We want to know what will happen to that money. We want to know about the transfer of funds from LPCs to the parent corporation. We have been through the banking concept proposed by the minister in Bill C-92. When we look at Bill C-92, we realize that there is not a trace of the banking concept of transferring money back and forth between local port corporations and the central corporation. There is not one word indicating in fact how it will happen or under what guidelines. Why was it not spelled out? It was certainly in the notes of the minister and in everything he had to say about it. It was in the discussion paper, but it is not in the bill. We have asked for it to be placed in the bill.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 40 deemed to have been moved.
[Stage Direction]
June 14, 1982
Adjournment Debate

Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight on the adjournment debate following the questions I asked of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) and the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) on June 4, as reported at page 18109 of Hansard.
On June 4 the May unemployment results were published. The national unemployment average in Canada stood at 10.2 per cent; double digit unemployment. What was not added to the roughly 1.2 million Canadians were those Canadians who have simply left the labour force and have stopped looking for work or employment. That day I asked what plans the federal government had to address one specific aspect of the national unemployment picture, namely, unemployment for young Canadians between the ages of 20 and 24 years. If one looks at that age group, one finds a startling figure of 20.2 per cent of Canadians listed as a statistic; the statistic that they are unemployed. One out of five people who are entering what we could call adult life, who might just be out of university or technical school with some kind of training and looking for their first job, do not have work this summer. I do not think anyone in the House can accept that kind of statistic. It is easy to say that it is one out of five, but everyone in the House knows young people in that age group who have come and asked how he or she could find work.
There used to be a time when people would say that these young people were not obtaining work because they were being too particular about the type of work they would do. They might be university graduates, for example, who did not want to drive trucks. That is not the case today. When I speak to them, I find that they are primarily concerned about finding some work.
The government and the Minister of Employment and Immigration have said that there are Summer Canada make work projects. That afternoon the minister said that if members of the opposition co-operated we could pass the national training act and we could get people working. That act is being discussed and debated right now. I would suggest that it is going forward fairly well. The minister also said that worksharing is in place. Yes, for roughly 69,000 Canadians that is so, but that does not add up to 1.2 million Canadians.
I am concerned about that group of young Canadians. That does not mean I am not concerned about other Canadians who are unemployed, but that group of young Canadians has to be drawn into the labour force and has to become part of the market economy. If this is their first experience, one can imagine what attitudes they might have both toward the work ethic and toward Canada generally. It is a concern and a fallout about which hon. members of the House should be very conscious.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) said that as we drop inflation, employment will increase. I have news stories here. Although I do not have time to read them all, in an article dated May 11, 1982, in The Globe and Mail the heading reads, "Must shift focus to unemployment, MacEachen tells industrial nation." He said in his meeting with the
OECD in Paris that, "Unemployment is likely to rise even further." Those are very difficult signals.
What I am pointing out to the government today is that while we know about the national training act, Summer Canada and the make-work programs, at the time these programs are all in place the fact remains that unemployment among young Canadians is still going up. That is the fact. Nobody can escape that fact. What plans does the government have in mind to get young Canadians back to work or to work, because it is their first job in many cases? What I am asking, as well, is why the government does not go back to the marketplace to give incentives-not grants-but tax relief for businessmen and businesswomen so they will hire Canadians and create employment?
Forget about the grants system. People come here with cap-in-hand for grants. Those grants come from taxpayers' money and it is an inefficient way of operating. Why not use the approach of having average Canadians investing $2,000, for example, in Canadian industry to create jobs so they would then get the same tax break as any corporation? Those are some suggestions. We often accused of not making any suggestions. I have just given some.


Joseph Roger Rémi Bujold: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) for his comments and suggestions tonight on the serious problem of youth unemployment. I think that we have to correct some of the figures he has mentioned tonight.
First, according to the latest statistics compiled by Statistics Canada, the actual unemployment rate for the youth group between the ages of 20 and 24 during the month of May was 16.4 per cent. The seasonally adjusted rate, however, was somewhat lower, at 14.8 per cent. The 15 or 20 age group is the one experiencing the highest unemployment rate at the present time, as the hon. member mentioned.
As was indicated earlier, all industrial countries of the world have been experiencing a general economic slowdown during recent years which has resulted in a above average level of unemployment. The Canadian employment situation is merely a reflection of the state of the world economy.
[ Translation]
The slow rate of economic growth is responsible for the present relatively high rate of unemployment in Canada. In addition, in May a wave of about 100,000 young people, from 20 to 24, surged on to the labour market. As we all know, this is the yearly crop of post-secondary students who are seeking employment, but despite this fact, between April and May 1982, unemployment among young people between 20 or 24 years of age did not increase. We certainly do not wish to minimize the seriousness of the situation, but I merely wish to point out that it is no use blaming government programs for youth employment, although the member for Provencher (Mr. June 14, 1982

Epp) did make a few suggestions that would bear closer scrutiny to see if they would not be acceptable to the government.
In Canada today, jobs remain unfilled because many job seekers do not have the required qualifications. The hon. member very correctly pointed out that the bill now before the House which, I believe, will be quickly passed by both opposition parties and the government side, may provide some solutions to the problem.
Every year, we are spending about $700 million to help young Canadians. Without government programs, youth unemployment would be even worse, but there are still limits to the amount of money that federal and provincial governments can spend. This week, the minister wrote to 1,400 employers across Canada, asking them to co-operate with the federal government and the provinces in finding job opportunities for students. He also wrote to all his cabinet colleagues and to all the members of this House, asking them to do what they can be hire young people. Mr. Speaker, I should like to take this opportunity to add that unlike what is being done by some provincial governments, the federal government has this year increased funds earmarked for summer employment to $120 million, which will, of course, provide jobs for many young people across this country.


ENERGY-SERVICE STATION COST OF GASOLINE. (B) REQUEST THAT PRICE BE REDUCED
Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, just listening to the parliamentary secretary, I am reminded of the fact that some seven hon. members of this House of Commons spent 14 months of their lives on a special committee on Employment Opportunities for the 80s. Much of that report was dedicated to young people, but not one single recommendation from that all-party committee was adopted by the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) in his last budget, and the tragedy of unemployment in this country continues.
The question which I asked of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in the month of March, which was not answered satisfactorily, relates to that issue of unemployment. In Canada in the last two years we have had in place a system whereby all oil and gas which comes through the refinery gate is taxed. The money is collected and it is spent in subsidizing foreign oil. Late last winter and this spring, those subsidies have been such that oil from Mexico, which really costs $9 a barrel more than equivalent Canadian oil for the same level of crude, ends up to be $9 a barrel cheaper than equivalent Canadian because Canadian taxpayers are taxed and importers are given a subsidy of $18 a barrel. In percentage terms, we have subsidized that oil to the point at which it is 40 per cent cheaper than the equivalent Canadian crude.
We should not be surprised as a nation to find that refiners choose to purchase the imported oil. When that happens, Canadian oil stays in the ground, jobs are lost, money goes out
Adjournment Debate
of the country, consumers end up paying more, there are fewer people employed and more people are on unemployment insurance. Surely that is a policy which defies common sense and logic. If people have trouble understanding that, let me refer to the fact that a number of people from the shoe industry will be in Ottawa tomorrow. If the federal government, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance proposed to those people from the shoe industry that there should be a tax on all shoes sold in Canada, that moneys should go into a pot and we should then take that money and subsidize those who import shoes from other nations, I think we would have a riot. I think people would be petitioning on the front steps. The Members of Parliament who represent areas where there are shoe factories would be besieged with calls, letters and angry phone calls; yet in this chamber, time after time, the Liberal government asks opposition members to support policies which continue that situation affecting oil. We use the dollars of the Canadian taxpayers to subsidize imported oil, and in some cases we make it cheaper than comparable Canadian oil. Therefore, Canadian jobs are lost, Canadian dollars are lost and the price goes up.
In March I stood in this House and said, "If the oil is 40 per cent cheaper because you subsidize it and because you pay refiners to import it, then I would hope that if I drove my car to Montreal, where that oil comes in, I would be able to buy gasoline cheaper than I might buy it in other parts of the country, for instance, in western Canada." But I think we all understand in this House that when we do drive our cars to Montreal, we do not find that gasoline is cheaper; we find that it is more expensive.
I asked the Prime Minister, and I hope the parliamentary secretary will tell me today, where the money goes. If taxpayers' dollars make that oil 40 per cent cheaper, but it is the same price or higher at the pump when I buy it, then where does the money go? Does it go into the pockets of the oil companies and is it being paid by retired people, people on fixed incomes, people who have to get to work each day? Where does the money go was the essence of the question. Certainly I received an unsatisfactory answer. I hope this evening with a little more time and preparation the parliamentary secretary will explain to the nation, and to our satisfaction, where the money goes.
If taxpayers' dollars are used to make it cheaper than when it is sold to the consumer, it should be cheaper. That is not the case. What it exemplifies for all of us is that when we put a dollar's worth of gasoline in our gas tanks, some 65 cents on average is for taxes and 35 cents is for the gasoline.
We have created a situation in this country where we must import more. Therefore, we drive down the value of our dollar, increase the cost of the goods we buy and at the same time throw Canadians out of work. That is the logic of the National

June 14, 1982
18456_________________________________
Adjournment Debate
Energy Program and the logic of the situation I bring to the attention of the House.
I remind hon. members that the Mexican oil I have been talking about is the only oil purchased by direct order by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. It is a curious coincidence that the oil which he chose to purchase, which was a bad deal in the beginning, receives so much taxpayers' subsidy that it is all of a sudden cheaper to refineries than Canadian crude.


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: First, Mr. Speaker, I take very serious objection to the hon. member's comments when he refers to the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada has great concern and compassion for the consumer in this country. I find that to be somewhat misleading.
I would like to immediately clear up one misconception contained in my hon. friend's question. The cost to Canada of the Mexican crude imported into Canada is $3.50 less than domestic crude delivered into Montreal, not $9. Some people believe incorrectly that the oil import compensation program provides an incentive to refiners to buy low-cost, offshore crude oil at the expense of both domestic producers and the consumers. This misconception results from a misunderstanding of the functioning of the program.
There is, without a doubt, an incentive to individual importers to minimize offshore crude costs. This is one of the basic objectives of the flat rate compensation system. However, any low-priced cargo brings down the average industry import cost and reduces, correspondingly, compensation to all importers. Therefore, on average, there is never any incentive to use imported rather than domestic oil.
The fact that crude oil is being brought in from Mexico at a considerably lower price in relation to other crude imports is a measure of the effectiveness of the state-to-state negotiations initiated in 1979 by the Government of Canada with the Mexican government at a time of great international uncertainty about foreign crude supplies.
You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that the winter of 1979 was an unsettling time for those involved in energy planning. It was the time of the Iranian revolution and oil exports from that country virtually had ceased. You may also recall the incident of a multinational oil company diverting Venezuelan crude destined for eastern Canada to another offshore market that was heavily reliant on Iranian exports.
These circumstances led the energy minister of the day to start negotiations with Mexico for crude oil, negotiations which culminated in the energy co-operation agreement. This was an important agreement for Canadians in that eastern Canada has a new, secure oil supplier on the same continent, and one which, moreover, is not a member of OPEC.
In August 1980 an agreement was signed between Canada and PEMEX for the purchase of 50,000 barrels per day. When the purchase contract was completed, the government came under considerable attack from opposition members for not signing a contract for 100,000 barrels a day.
Finally, I might point out that Mexican crude imports have not been increasing and taking over a market previously held by western Canada crude. They have been maintained at or below the 50,000 barrel level.


THE JUDICIARY-CANADIAN JUDICIAL COUNCIL REPORT ON ACTIONS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA JUDGE-GOVERNMENT POSITION. (B) REQUEST FOR REFERRAL OF SUBJECT TO PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pursue a question which I asked of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) on June 8 last concerning the Canadian Judicial Council's investigation into a complaint about the activity of Judge Berger in connection with the constitutional resolution and certain remarks he made on that resolution, and subsequently on the accord which was signed by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his ministers.
As a very brief background, Mr. Speaker, I would note that Mr. Justice Thomas Berger spoke out following the signing of the Constitutional Accord in November of 1981. What he indicated was that in his view there had been a very significant betrayal of the very important aboriginal rights in a section of the Constitution, as well as a removal of the veto powers of the Province of Quebec.
I would note as well that Judge Berger had spoken out in support of the constitutional resolution on a number of occasions, including the report of the Canadian Bar Association in September of 1981. There was no complaint, I might note, at any point about his speaking out in support of the constitutional resolution.
Judge Berger stated, and I quote now from Judge Berger's letter of April 1982:
I believe that a judge has the right-a duty, in fact, to speak out on an appropriate occasion, on questions of human rights and fundamental freedoms, particularly minority rights. Parliament and the legislatures represent majorities; they are not always mindful of the interests of minorities.
And how true that has proven to be, historically, Mr. Speaker. Judge Berger has noted, as have others, that we are in a situation in which perhaps a judge would have been criticized in the late 1940s had he spoken out against the internment of Canadians of Japanese origin, even though it is certainly recognized today that that constitutes a black mark on Canadian history. Would that there had been a few judges with the courage to speak out at that time on that important question.
In response to Judge Berger's remarks and his criticism, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Justice George Addy of the federal court of Canada filed a complaint in which he indicated that he believed that Judge Berger's remarks were worse than a judge sleeping with prostitutes or drunk drivers. Mr. Speaker, that absurd statement speaks for itself, surely? What is far more serious is that shortly after that statement the Prime Minister urged the judicial council to get involved in this matter. He stated, and I quote:
June 14, 1982

1 just regard this as the judiciary getting mixed into politics and i hope the judges will do something about it.
And the Prime Minister said:
I wonder why he didn't support the bill when it was there and when it gave Quebec the vote and gave the Indians aboriginal rights. He didn't support us then.
That is transparently false, of course, because Mr. Justice Berger did support the resolution when it contained those elements.
Following the urgings of the Prime Minister, and following Judge Addy's complaints, the Canadian Judicial Council embarked upon what 1 have described as a judicial witch hunt, a witch hunt which unfortunately was supported, at least by their silence, by the Conservative Party.
I would note that recently, Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party, through their critic, the member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn) has fully supported the actions of the judicial council and indeed the remarks of the Minister of Justice 1 have noted in the past the irony of a situation in which the judicial council criticizes Judge Berger on the one hand, but on the other hand some of those same members of the bench were actively lobbying, albeit quietly and behind the scenes, their friends in the Senate and elsewhere, during the time that the Judges Act was before Parliament. They were seeking to ensure that their lucrative pension plan would be made even more lucrative.
When the Minister of Justice received the report of the Canadian Judicial Council, he made the report public, which certainly I welcome and in fact had urged upon him. But then the Minister of Justice completely misrepresented the position of the Canadian Judicial Council. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice stated and 1 quote:
The Canadian Judicial Council has accepted the report.
That is certainly not the case. Far from accepting the report of their investigating committee, the Canadian Judicial Council in a three paragraph resolution explicity rejected the fundamental conclusion of that report. For, Mr. Speaker, the investigation committee found that the complaint filed by Mr. Justice Addy-the complaint of non se bene gesserit, a latin expression meaning, in other words, the complaint that Judge Berger had failed to uphold the good name and the condition of good behaviour-was well founded. They did say he should not be removed from the bench, but they certainly stated that his actions constituted grounds for removal. The Canadian Judicial Council entirely ignored the report of its investigative committee and found only that Judge Berger's remarks were indiscreet. The council went on to say that they constitute no basis for a recommendation that he be removed from the bench.
We see therefore that the Minister of Justice, in suggesting that the Canadian Judicial Council had accepted the report of its investigative committee, was competely misrepresenting the truth. In fact, that report-that appalling document-of the
Adjournment Debate
investigative committee was rejected, as it should have been, by the Canadian Judicial Council.
Mr. Justice Berger, in his reply to the report of the investigative committee, indicated that in his view if the judicial council was relying upon conventional wisdom, conventional wisdom had not always proved to be accurate in the past. He said:
The council should remember what Hamlet said: "Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, when our deep plots do pall".
He went on to say of the council:
Theirs is, I suppose, the conventional wisdom, but how often has conventional wisdom been right about anything that truly matters?
The Minister of Justice has deliberately misrepresented the position of the judicial council, and I call upon him to set the record straight.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, 1 will not dignify with a response some of the aspersions cast on Canada's judges or Canada's judicial system. Rather, I would like to respond to the particular issue at hand.
On March 8, 1982, the Canadian Judicial Council, acting pursuant to the Judges Act, appointed from among its members an inquiry committee for the purpose of conducting an investigation into a complaint made in respect of Mr. Justice Thomas Berger of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The council designated as the inquiry committee the Hon. B. J. Mackinnon, the Associate Chief Justice of Ontario; the Hon. W. R. Sinclair, the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta; and the hon. James Hugessen, the Associate Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Quebec. That committee conducted an investigation into the complaint made in respect of Mr. Justice Berger and duly presented a report of its investigation to the judicial council. The council deliberated upon this report on May 31, 1982 and presented its conclusions to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Chretien) on June 1, 1982.
In studying both the council and committee reports it is fair to conclude that neither report recommended the dismissal of Mr. Justice Berger. Regardless of the controversy as to whether or not the actions criticized by both the council and committee constitute grounds for dismissal, the Minister of Justice feels it is important to ensure that the legislative and judicial branches in Canada remain separate and independent of one another. In addition, he is concerned that a most important issue not be sloughed aside, namely, the rights of Canada's native peoples, an issue which is important to Mr. Justice Berger.
This issue is most important to the Minister of Justice, who, for more than six years, served as the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. During that period he worked closely with Canada's native peoples in all parts of Canada. That is why he fought before the constitutional committee, before this dispute arose, for inclusion of their rights in our new Constitution. That is why the minister does not welcome any controversy such as the present one which

June 14, 1982
Adjournment Debate
detracts from the important job that must be done at Canada's next constitutional conference, namely, the enshrining of the specific rights of Canada's native peoples in the new charter of fundamental rights and freedoms.
The minister accepts the report of the judicial council. Its conclusions have been made apparent. Enough has been said in this House and in the public media. A much more important issue lies ahead.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock in the afternoon.
At 10:30 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Tuesday, June 15, 1982