1982-12-09

MOTIONS UNDER S.O. 43   AUDITOR GENERAL'S REPORT SUGGESTED ADOPTION OF RECOMMENDATIONS

['No.']
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. Since the Auditor General has now confirmed what many of us have long suspected, that this Government has turned Parliament into a large rubber stamp, 1 move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn):
That the Government urgently adopt the recommendations of the Auditor General, stop creating Crown corporations and stop bailing out failing companies, before the taxpayers revolt and refuse to supply the ink for the pad.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.



Mr. J. M. Forrestall (Dartmouth-Halifax East):: Madam Speaker, in view of the seriousness and urgency which the Auditor General attaches to present accounting practices of CN Marine, and in light of the Auditor's concern over the limited arrangements for audit and the consequent lack of control over Government moneys spent to subsidize East Coast ferry services, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Central Nova (Mr. MacKay):
That, as a first positive step toward meeting the concerns of the Auditor General, the Government take the appropriate steps to have the Auditor General named joint auditor of CN Marine.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


NATIVE INFANT MORTALITY RATES
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, the Cree Indians of Quebec have for some time been lobbying the federal Government to invite the World Health Organization to study native health problems in Canada. In this they were supported recently by the Editor of the Canadian Journal of Public Health, who feels that international effort may be the only way of reversing, for instance, the appalling native infant mortality rates, which are said to be worse than those of Indonesia or Nigeria. I therefore move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Saskatoon East (Mr. Ogle):
That the Government swallow its pride and allow the World Health Organization to investigate the intolerable death rate among native people and, if it will not, that the Minister of National Health and Welfare make a statement to this House as to why not, and as to what the Government intends to do to improve the social and economic conditions that make such a study necessary.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


SHIPBUILDING
Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Madam Speaker, in view of the fact that an agreement was made between the federal and Ontario Governments to assist financially in the building of a new 1,300 foot drydock in an Ontario shipbuilding yard, and in view of the fact that the decision was made to locate this drydock at the Collingwood Shipyard in Collingwood, Ontario, quite some time ago, therefore I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis):
That the federal Government make good its promise and come forth with its share of the cost of the drydock. This will create much needed ship repair jobs in the area, jobs which would contribute in a positive way to our sagging economy.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.

December 9, 1982


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Madam Speaker, I rise today to point out another example of misconduct by the Post Office. It has come to my attention that the chief executive officer of the Corporation has warned dissatisfied users they cannot opt out of postal service and engage the services of private companies which provide better service at lower cost. This is a further threat to the free enterprise system. The philosophy of Canada Post is a monopolistic one, one which states in effect: "If we cannot compete with private companies, let's make it illegal for them to provide the same services." Therefore I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor):
That, if the Post Office cannot provide better service than private enterprises, it at least permit such companies to pursue their legitimate business aspirations.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


CHARTER OF RIGHTS
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Madam Speaker, apropos of a point of order which you thought was appropriate yesterday, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on a matter of a serious infringement of the Canadian Charter of Rights. Last week Regina Alderman, Harry Van Mulligan, was told by the Government of Saskatchewan either to move to a new post in Prince Albert, or lose his job. Mr. Van Mulligan had earlier spoken out in opposition to the provincial Government's restraint program, while carrying out his elected duties at Regina City Council.
The Premier has since declared that all Government employees who also serve their communities on school boards, hospital boards, and even on church boards, must carefully weigh the consequences of freely speaking their minds in public. I therefore move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo):
That this House condemn the curtailment of basic civil and political liberties of Saskatchewan public servants by the Government of Saskatchewan.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


MARINE TRANSPORT
Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Madam Speaker, a report entitled the "Vulnerability of Bridges in Canadian Waters" made by the Canadian Coast Guard states that the A. Murray MacKay Bridge and The Angus L. MacDonald Bridge, which span Halifax Harbour, as well as bridges spanning the St. Lawrence River and Vancouver Harbour have the highest risk of damage in Canada based on pier vulnerability and volume of marine traffic. I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall):
That this House direct the Minister of Transport to act immediately on the recommendation of the Canadian Coast Guard to protect the two bridges spanning Halifax Harbour from damage or destruction, resulting from a marine accident by co-operating with the Province of Nova Scotia and other agencies to construct the necessary safeguards.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. It pertains to the spy, Hambleton. We know that Col. Rudolph Herrmann was a colonel of the KGB, that he operated in Canada between 1959 and 1968, and that he subsequently moved to New York State but returned to Canada on a regular basis and had continuous contact with Hambleton.
In determining whether he was going to lay charges with respect to prosecuting Hambleton in circumstances where the Americans were willing to make Herrmann available for interrogation, for full debriefing, and to give a sworn statement as to all the activities of Hambleton, how could the Minister's predecessor, or the Minister himself, have neglected his duty in ascertaining all of the information that this particular spy was capable of giving to Canada, especially when, in the circumstances, he was the one who tipped Canada off on the identity of Hambleton?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend has a mistaken notice of the facts. My philosophy has been to lay out all the facts it is possible to bring forward. I have stated that there was no evidence before the Attorney General in the spring of 1980 concerning any transmission of NATO secrets,
December 9, 1982

that there was not deemed to be sufficient grounds for prosecution, but I can tell the Hon. Member that there was evidence before the Attorney General at that time that in fact Col. Herrmann had been interviewed and that that evidence was available to the Attorney General.


Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, there was no evidence from a Canadian source. It was all from the FBI.


INTERROGATION OF KGB COLONEL
Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, I would ask the Minister whether the RCMP requested that the Department of Justice attend upon Herrmann for the purposes of getting a sworn statement that would enable the Department to undertake a prosecution.


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, the RCMP had interviewed Col. Herrmann. The text of that interview was available to the Attorney General and it had been ascertained that he could be made available for trial if his evidence were needed.


INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY RCMP
Chris Speyer: Madam Speaker, I will put my question to the Solicitor General. In an article by Neil Macdonald in this morning's Citizen it is stated that at no time did Canada ever debrief the double agent who was Herrmann.
I will quote from the article, which I am sure the Solicitor General has read, as follows:
It may well be that we didn't get the full story because no one from Canada debriefed Herrmann from a Canadian perspective. We had an outline of what he would likely say, but that was provided by the Americans. He was debriefed from an American perspective.
I find it incomprehensible that Herrmann was not debriefed by the RCMP. Is the story accurate?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General of Canada):: Madam Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that in fact members of the RCMP went to New York, interviewed Herrmann, and prepared the transcript of the interview, which was shown to the Minister of Justice to assist him in making his decision. As a matter of fact, the fact of that interview having taken place was revealed by the FBI on the date that Herrmann was made available in Washington to be interviewed in public.


REASON FOR NOT LAYING CHARGES AGAINST PROFESSOR
Hon. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Justice knows, or should know, that the voluntary nature of a confession by an accused person is normally decided by a judge. I would assume that the Solicitor General would also be aware of that doctrine of the law of evidence, and that all that is necessary in order to lay charges is a prima facie case, and not evidence sufficient to support a prosecution. Both Ministers seem to be hiding behind the doctrine of inducement
Oral Questions
which is only one element which goes toward determining whether or not a statement by an accused person is voluntary.
It would seem that the decision here was taken by the Government acting as a judge. Why did the Solicitor General or the Minister of Justice not allow a judge to make that decision, rather than usurping the function of the court itself? Why did they not lay charges and let a judge make that decision?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, the only time in which the matter was before the Attorney General was in the spring of 1980. He made a decision on April 25 that there was not sufficient evidence to lay before a court. No part of that concern had to do with what my hon. friend states. It had to do with the insufficiency of the evidence that was available at that time.


DECISION ON ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE
Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, how does that square, then, with the statement of the Minister of Justice that that conclusion was reached because the judgment was made that, after having shown the telex to Hambleton, that constituted an inducement which would bar the admissibility of the subsequent statement of the accused, Hambleton, a question normally decided by a judge and not by an official, or by a Minister or anyone in the Government? Why was that question as to whether or not it constituted an inducement only one fact going toward the voluntary nature of a confession which would allow its admission in evidence? Why was that decision made by Ministers of the Crown, rather than by a court of law?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend is again confused, I have to tell him, as to the facts. All the facts that he is talking about occurred after the decision by the Attorney General as to whether or not to lay a prosecution.


LOCALE OF TRIAL
Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Justice. I want to ask him why we could not have had the locale of the Hambleton trial here in Canada on the basis of NATO secrets being compromised. Could we not have imported the evidence, as well as exported it to Britain? Then we would not have seen the spectacle of having to have Britain do the job for us, to the humiliation of our Security Service.


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, the only point at which the matter was before the Attorney General for consideration as to whether or not to lay a prosecution was in April, 1980. I have already made it clear that there was no evidence before the Attorney General at that time of the transmission of NATO secrets, but I have also

December 9, 1982
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made it clear, as indeed it is indicated by the prosecution in the Treu case, that the Government did not consider that the transmission of NATO secrets would not have been sufficient to lay a charge, if indeed there were evidence to substantiate that. The problem was that there was no such evidence.


MISCELLANEOUS ESTIMATES COMMITTEE
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, all this last week we have been asking only economic questions and job-related questions. However, today I have a different question which I will direct to the President of the Privy Council, because it is a matter which affects the House of Commons. Last night the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier voted against the Liberal Government. Today the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates met. We were told that the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier had to resign as Chairman of the Committee. We were told that as soon as he resigned he was automatically taken off that Committee. In the spirit of parliamentary reform, will the President of the Privy Council allow that Committee to select the Chairman, who was nominated by the Hon. Member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke and by the Conservatives? Will he allow the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier to remain Chairman of the Committee, as both Opposition Parties insist?


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


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, it seems to me that all the statements made by my hon. colleague are based on hearsay, since he keeps saying: we were told. I want to make it clear that it is not up to me to appoint committee chairmen or to intervene. Committee members are free to choose their own chairman. In the circumstances, the answer to the Hon. Member's question is yes. That is, I do not intend to intervene. It is up to the Member for Ottawa-Vanier and the members of the committee to do as they see fit.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, it is not hearsay. It was the Hon. Member for Gloucester who said that it was a matter of Liberal discipline. He said that in the Committee; it is on the record of that Committee.


EX-CHAIRMAN'S COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP
Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, will the Government allow the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier to stay on the Committee? We were told that as soon as he made his resignation statement-and we got that from the Hon. Member for Gloucester-that he was automatically off that Committee. Will the Minister allow that Member to remain on
the committee, and will the Minister allow the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier to remain as Chairman of that committee as both Opposition Parties insist?
[ Translation]


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I would be more inclined to take this request seriously if it had been made by the Member for Ottawa-Vanier.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The previous Minister of Finance last November, 1981, suggested that the tax system was unfair and needed adjustment. He attempted to close some loopholes, but to compensate the wealthy, who took most advantage of the loopholes, he lowered their tax rate. The Prime Minister's present Minister of Finance has now reopened the loopholes but has maintained the present lower tax rate for upper income Canadians. Is this the Prime Minister's idea and his Party's idea of a just tax system and a just society?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member has asked me to comment on past and possibly future budgets. I want to tell him that I cannot do that in the context of Question Period. If he wants to discuss over all budgetary matters, there are times and places to do that.


TRANSPORT
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. The Minister is no doubt aware that today, the Board of Directors of Air Canada will be asked to ratify the choice of Place Beaver Hall as the future headquarters of the corporation, even if this choice would cost about $10 million more than another proposal. My question is as follows: Has the Minister, who is aware of this proposal, asked for an investigation, considering the fact that the same accommodation is probably available for $10 million less? If so, who was asked to conduct this investigation, and since a decision is to be made today, has the Minister asked for the decision to be postponed?
December 9, 1982


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, in view of the present economic situation, especially in Montreal, it was to be expected that there would be quite a bit of competition for this Air Canada contract. Offers were made by a dozen or more candidates. The Board of Directors of Air Canada, which has jurisdiction over such matters, established fourteen criteria according to which the acceptability of the tenders was to be assessed. The Government was asked whether these criteria were sufficient, and on behalf of the Government, 1 said yes, and a decision is to be made today. Among these criteria, cost is, of course, a major factor. I have sufficient information to know that there is no substantial difference in price between the various tenders that were made. This $10 million is pure fantasy.


Roch La Salle: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary. Since the press is, of course, being very vocal about a proposal that we find unacceptable, especially considering the economic situation, could the Minister publish the findings of the investigation he requested, with any considerations that might indicate the contract should be awarded to one company rather than another, even if the figure of $10 million is not entirely accurate? Could the Minister publish information that would help us to understand better the reasons for selecting Beaver Hall?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I imagine that if the Board of Directors of Air Canada makes the decision anticipated by my hon. colleague, it will give a full explanation of its actions. I imagine that they will issue a press release this afternoon, stating why they made the choice they did. Therefore, if my hon. friend is not satisfied with the explanations Air Canada will be giving this afternoon, I shall then see whether there is a case for providing further explanations.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Mr. Len Gustafson (Assiniboia):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture due to the absence of the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board from this House, and who is busy in the other place mailing out volumes of Liberal propaganda and comical cartoons. Will the Minister answer a question with regard to important matters concerning farmers and state whether there will be a wheat payment made this fall from the Canadian Wheat Board to the western grain farmer? Will that payment be made before the year's end, and can the Minister give any indication of the size of that payment?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, the answer is no to both questions.
Oral Questions


REQUEST THAT M IN ISTERS CON FER
Leonard J. Gustafson: Madam Speaker, we received exactly the same kind of answer about three weeks ago from the Minister when asked a question in the House regarding the Western Grain Stabilization Program. Would the Minister make it a point to contact the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board and determine whether he can bring answers for the western Canadian farmers, both in regard to the Wheat Board payments and the Grain Stabilization payments?


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member knows full well that there are time limitations on both of those Programs. Until that time is reached, then the decisions are made. The Wheat Board will make them in due course. Those payments will be made on the sales and that type of thing, and he knows that full well, if he studied the legislation and how it operates.


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, I think everyone in the House realizes that there will be a long hard winter ahead for a million and a half unemployed, coupled with those on welfare, and not to mention those who qualify for neither, in being able to put enough bread and milk on the table. 1 ask the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs how he justifies forcing milk producers, such as Beckers and the like, to do away with their imperial measure full quart and raise the price of milk by up to 40 cents a packaged unit in order that the administration can have its own way as a Liberal Government in forcing metric on the Canadian people?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I suspect that the Hon. Member's statement has no more basis in fact than the petition he tabled in the House a number of weeks ago, a petition that, according to his own words, contained 135,000 names and which he tabled here in the House on behalf of the Toronto Sun. Upon checking the petition, we realized that there were certainly not more than 75,000 names and not even that many addresses. Furthermore, after I wrote to some of the people who signed this so-called petition, some wrote back that they had never signed the petition and that, on the contrary, they were in favour of the metric system.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: That had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the 135,000 signatures, not 135 as the translation reported.

December 9, 1982
Oral Questions
INCREASE IN COST OF MILK	[English]


William Henry (Bill) Domm: To give credence to my statement about this being against the wishes of the milk producers, Mr. Lowe, President of Beckers, said that he was extremely upset that metric conversion is being forced on the industry against their wishes, and it is another case of a rip-off by this Government.
Will the Minister just answer the question that I first asked? How does he justify a 40-cent unit price increase on the cost of milk at a time when Canadians can hardly feed the mouths of the babes at their tables because of the unemployment brought about by this Liberal Government?

Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): Madam Speaker, I already said that 1 doubted the accuracy of the Hon. Member's statement. 1 think he is becoming the House expert on gratuitous statements that later appear to be totally false. It is not the first time the Hon. Member is rising in the House to make statements about the metric system which later were found to be untrue. In this case, I am sure that after checking the facts, we shall realize that once again, the Hon. Member has given the truth a wide berth.


TRANSPORT
Mrs. Eva Cote (Rimouski-Temiscouata):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. Representatives of the Department of Transport, Air Canada, the Government of Quebec and Quebecair have been meeting since last Tuesday. Madam Speaker, I wonder whether the Minister could give us a progress report on the discussions being held by the various parties with respect to the restructuration of Quebecair.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, in my last instalment, I said that the question was whether we should create an entirely new company or restructure the existing one. A few days ago, the Government of Quebec and Quebecair made a presentation before a group of negotiators representing the three parties concerned, and I am told this presentation was very realistic. At the present time, its contents are being analyzed and assessed by the negotiators for the Federal Government, and I shall have more news in a few days.


MINES AND MINING
Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Yesterday the Yukon Territorial Assembly passed a motion calling on all parties, including the federal Government, to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the Cypress Anvil Mine in Faro is reopened. Will the Minister assure the House that the federal Government is actively pursuing the reopening of the mine through Dome Mines and that the aid package specifically put together for this purpose by the Government is still being pursued?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Yes, Madam Speaker, of course it has been the policy of the Government to do everything possible to ensure that this mine reopens. I am disappointed, though, that labour negotiations broke off the other day. 1 believe that the union has made all of the concessions that were anticipated orginally, yet Dome has still not settled. Dome indicated that if we filled in the second year of the northern benefits package which my colleague, the Minister of Finance, did, and announced recently, they would then settle. They still have not settled. That is the only discouraging element at the moment. I am very hopeful that Dome will return to the table and sign a collective agreement as soon as possible.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. With youth unemployment in British Columbia having now climbed to 23.4 per cent and with many of the unemployed seeking training or retraining, can the Minister tell the House why these young people are being told by employment centres in the Province that they must wait for at least two years before any one of them can take courses in such important areas as computer programming? Why is there a two-year wait for courses which are considered by the Government itself to be top priority areas?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, I would like to point out to the Hon. Member that in this fiscal year we will be spending over $85 million alone in federal funds to assist in the funding of community college programs and courses in the Province of British Columbia. We recently signed a new agreement with the Province of British Columbia under the National Training Act that will allow us to begin to shift the courses into areas of high priority such as computer training.
December 9, 1982

However, we cannot place people into facilities that do not exist. That is one reason why we, as the federal Government, have the skills growth funding being made available so that provincial Governments, which are responsible for community colleges, can plan and expand facilities in this area. That is why we have put the money forward and have a new National Training Act. This cannot be created overnight and must be worked out in co-operation with the provincial Government.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Madam
Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. The Minister will know that one of the charges laid against Mr. Hambleton was remarkably similar to a charge of treason under our Criminal Code. Will he tell us if the matter was ever referred to the Attorney General of the relevant Province? The minister knows those matters fall within his or her jurisdiction.


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, my understanding is that the matter was not referred to any provincial Attorney General, but that the possible evidence for a charge of treason and the law of treason itself were examined before coming to a tentative conclusion that there would be no possibility of prosecution.


REQUEST FOR REFERRAL TO PROVINCIAL ATTORNEY GENERAL
David Kilgour: Madam
Speaker, the fact is that the Federal Government usurped the constitutional and legal authority of the Attorney General of the Province in issue and made the decision on its own terms. The horse is certainly out of the barn. Is the Minister now prepared to refer the matter to the appropriate provincial Attorney General for a second opinion?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, if there is no evidence, there is no evidence.


Mr. Clark:: He has just been convicted!


FINANCE
Mr. Paul Dick (Lanark-Renfrew-Carleton):: Madam
Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance, and perhaps the Minister responsible for Housing may have some interest in it. The Interest Act was first enacted in 1886 and it has not been substantially changed in well over 20 years. Section 7 provides that a person can prepay
Oral Questions
a mortgage by paying a three month's penalty if the mortgage is more than five years in length. Has the Government given any consideration to changing the Interest Act, especially in these times when people have been caught by high mortgages?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, 1 will take the question of the Hon. Member as a representation and will consider his suggestion, bearing it in mind in the preparation of the budget. I will consider whether it is possible or advisable to act in this manner. However, in the meantime, I would hope that we will be able to adopt the Income Tax Act which was introduced earlier this week and which contains provision for refunds to several millions of Canadians. I think that would also immediately help Canadians.


REQUEST FOR LEGISLATION TO AMEND INTEREST ACT
Paul Wyatt Dick: The question I asked with regard to the Interest Act has nothing whatsoever to do with the budget. It can be enacted tomorrow if the Government wants to bring the legislation forward. It would help people caught in a bind in housing. For example, if they have three year or five year mortgages at 18 per cent or 20 per cent interest rates, by law they cannot pay three months' interest and get out of their mortgage commitments because they are not over five years in duration.
The Interest Act should come under the control of the Minister of Finance. Obviously, the Government has not considered helping home owners by this sort of a step so far, but I am asking whether it would consider it soon, and perhaps bring in legislation to change the Interest Act.


Marc Lalonde: I have already answered this question, Madam Speaker.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. Canadian Forces are still looking for the two Starfighter aircraft and the pilots recently lost near Cold Lake. Would the Minister tell the House how these two aircraft were lost from radar view, when Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake is one of the six bases recently equipped with the new terminal radar and control system, at a considerable cost?


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: First of all, Madam Speaker, I would like to express my sympathy to the families of the two pilots we have lost. It was a most unfortunate accident. I can assure the House that every possible means of finding them has been put into effect. With regard to the remark of the Hon. Member for Victoria concerning the installation of a new radar system which is called, I

December 9, 1982
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believe, RATCOM, which is supposed to be operational in Cold Lake, is not actually in our hands yet. It is still in the hands of the contractor for testing and we are still using the old system which is called TRAC. This will be replaced by RATCOM, which is a much better and efficient way of locating the aircraft. However, at the moment, the only way we could trace the plane was through the TRAC system which only gives communication contact not necessarily radar coverage.


NON AVAILABILITY OF EMERGENCY LOCATION TRANSMITTERS
Allan Bruce McKinnon: Is the Minister telling us that over all these years there has been no radar installation at Cold Lake able to track aircraft coming in and going out of Cold Lake? 1 would appreciate if he would answer that question. Perhaps, while he is on his feet, he could also tell us whether these planes had any kind of emergency locator transmitters on them or anything else which would indicate the site of the crash.


J. Gilles Lamontagne: As far as emergency location is concerned, we know very well that these fighter planes do not have what we call ELTs, emergency locator transmitters, but they do have a special device which a pilot must put into action if, in any case, he is in an emergency. Apparently, they had not been switched on in these two cases. Not knowing exactly how the accident happened, we do not know if they were flying high or low. As the Hon. Member very well knows, if pilots fly lower than a certain height, we cannot follow them by radar. At the moment, there is an investigation going on to see how this accident happened, but unfortunately, I cannot give a more exact explanation for the accident at the present time.


PROJECT TO SAVE LAST WARTIME CORVETTE
Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Etobicoke-Lakeshore):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. Will the Minister advise whether he will save the last Corvette, the Sackville, which has been taken out of service, and if he will make arrangements that it be given to the Maritime Museum in Halifax and the Naval Officers Association of Canada so that it can be restored to its wartime condition and put on permanent display?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I have received several representations, from both sides of the House, especially those of my colleague, the Minister of State for International Trade, who is from Halifax.
I can assure the Hon. Member that my Department is currently conducting a study on how we can preserve it, and this study has my full approval. I do hope we can save the Sackville, which was a wartime Corvette, as it would be a very good memento for the many brave sailors who sailed on these Corvette class ships during the war.


INDUSTRY
Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, could I have the attention of the Minister of Finance for a moment?


Mr. Lewis:: Get ready, Marc!


George Harris Hees: The Prime Minister has nothing to worry about today.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Or any other day.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


George Harris Hees: I would like to address a question to the Minister of Finance, Madam Speaker. As the share of the Canadian market held by foreign-made products has increased from 19 per cent 15 years ago to 31 per cent today, and as more and more Canadians have found foreign-made products more attractive in price, quality and design, would the Minister give serious consideration to introducing generous taxation incentives based and paid directly in proportion to increases in the research and development carried out by Canadian industry, so that we can lower costs and selling prices and improve our quality and design, so that Canadian products can start winning back the very large share of the market which they have lost in recent years, and start producing the extra jobs our people need?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, 1 thank the Hon. Member for his question and his interest in this very important subject indeed. The question of increased productivity, better technology and better quality of product, is one which is uppermost in the Government's mind. As a matter of fact, I would remind the Hon. Member that this year, on the export side, Canada has increased its share of the world market, so we must not only be buying imports, but we must also be pretty good at exporting our products, and that has applied even in the manufacturing sector, 1 am advised.


Mr. Stevens:: No, no!


Marc Lalonde: This is the advice I have received, that we have succeeded in expanding our share of the world market in terms of exports.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: But not on manufactured goods.


Marc Lalonde: As far as the question of research and development is concerned, the Government has attacked this issue very aggressively since 1980. In fact it is estimated that the total expenditures for R and D in Canada in 1982 will have increased from S3.7 billion in 1981 to about $4.4 billion in 1982. I am also advised that we have one of the most generous
December 9, 1982

tax incentive systems in the world for research and development. It can cost only about 20 cents on the dollar for research and development in this country if one is to use the tax incentives which are available. Thus, I think we have a pretty good record.


REQUEST THAT ASSISTANCE BE LINKED TO PRODUCTIVITY
George Harris Hees: If the Minister will look back on the figures that he has received, he will find that we have increased in our exports of raw materials and so-called manufactured goods which are qualified as goods which receive one stage of processing, like iron ore which is made into iron ore pellets. That is all. It is not refrigerators, cars or anything like that. In fully manufactured goods, which are the ones which produce the jobs, we have been losing our share of the world market at about the same rate as we have lost our share of the Canadian market. Will he also take into consideration the fact that there is nothing that appeals to a businessman like an incentive that he receives in direct proportion to what he does? Having used this method with some success when I was in Government-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


George Harris Hees: -I highly recommend it to the Minister.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I have indicated that we have indeed a very generous tax incentive program. There is a tax credit that is available to corporations which varies from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, and up to 25 per cent for small businesses. There is a 150 per cent tax deduction for firms that increase their R and D. There is always the possibility of adding, but 1 again remind the Hon. Member that if firms want to use the tax incentives that are available, it can cost them only 20 cents on the dollar for their research and development. That is a pretty good bargain. 1 hope that more and more Canadian firms will use the incentives that are available.


BANKS AND BANKING
Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg-St. James):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister will know that Enterprise Foundry of Sackville, New Brunswick, was on the upswing when the Royal Bank decided to foreclose. Sackville then lost its second largest employer. Out of this wreckage has emerged a new owner who is seeking to save those jobs, but the bank remains an obstacle. It is simply walking off with more company assets than is necessary. Will the Prime Minister call on the Royal Bank, ask them to
Ora! Questions
reverse their foreclosure decision, or at least dispose of the company assets in a way that will preserve jobs? Will he say this time to the Royal Bank:
Those of you, bankers, who see farmers and small businessmen struggling to keep the land alive and the doors open for a better time, ask yourselves what will be served by a bailiffs padlock. Why don't you take a chance on a Canadian? You may be surprised.


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Madam Speaker, I would like to inform the Hon. Member that our officials did meet with the previous owner of that particular operation, as did my colleague, the Minister of Public Works. On several occasions we asked for a viable operating plan on which we could make a decision as to whether to provide financial assistance. That viable operating plan was not forthcoming. We now understand there are new people interested in the company. We are looking seriously into that operation to see if we can salvage it.


PENITENTIARIES
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Solicitor General. The Canadian Corrections Service comes under his jurisdiction. Some time ago its officials arranged with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education to make a survey of educational facilities in the correctional institutions. They received a series of recommendations, one of which proposed the establishment of an education advisory committee to the Commissioner. Will the Minister advise why those recommendations, particularly the one calling for an advisory committee, have not been implemented?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Madam Speaker, I can only say that I will look into the matter and report to the Hon. Member as soon as I have done that.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Justice. Is the evidence that was available to the British courts which led to the conviction of the spy, Hambleton, available to Canadian authorities?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, I have just agreed to provide the funds for acquiring a transcript of that trial. In addition to that, some of the proceedings were conducted in camera. We hope to be briefed on them by British authorities.

December 9, 1982
Oral Questions MINISTER'S KNOWLEDGE


Charles Joseph Clark: Does the Minister know if the evidence that was available to the British courts that led to the conviction of Mr. Hambleton is available to Canadian authorities?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, that is the question I just answered.


ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE IN CANADA
Charles Joseph Clark: Is it the
position of the Government of Canada that there is any bar to the admissibility in Canada of the evidence that led to the conviction of Mr. Hambleton as a spy in Great Britain?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Madam Speaker, I am not in a position to answer that question.


Erik Nielsen: You were yesterday.


ST. LAWRENCE SEAWAY INCREASE IN TOLLS-REQUEST FOR TALKS WITH UNITED STATES AUTHORITIES
J. Michael Forrestall: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Transport will be aware that significant toll increases in the St. Lawrence Seaway will come into effect in 1983. They are far and above the six and five goal set by the Government. Will the Minister consider reopening talks with his United States counterparts with respect to this unduly heavy increase in tolls? Will he do this from the perspective of the very serious impact this will have on Canadian registered ships using the Great Lakes and the Seaway system next year?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, in the second year of the agreement between the Canadian and American authorities there was to be an increase of 10 per cent. I understand that an exchange of views took place between the two authorities on this matter and they were not particularly fruitful. The Americans are not particularly eager to reduce that 10 per cent. At the moment I am looking to the special committee which makes the decision on this matter in order to obtain a recognition of the 10 per cent as being an exception, on the basis of an international agreement.


EXEMPTION SOUGHT FOR CANADIAN REGISTERED SHIPS
J. Michael Forrestall: Madam Speaker, given the apparent failure, will the Minister give consideration to an exclusion for Canadian registered ships plying between Canadian ports?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, 1 am not sure 1 understand the question. Maybe the member and I could have a conversation later.


CANADIAN TRANSPORT COMMISSION
Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Transport. It deals with the process by which the rail line abandonment hearings are initiated and conducted. As the Minister knows, either CN or CP rail have as much time as they deem necessary, perhaps even years, to present the case that they believe a branch line ought to be abandoned. Having come to this conclusion, they then submit to the CTC an appeal for abandonment. After all of that period which the railway companies have, does the Minister judge it to be fair that the communities along those railway lines are then given as little as 30 days in which to prepare a case to defend themselves against the railways, against something which affects the life of the communities? Indeed, it is the umbilical cord of their economic life for the remainder of the existence of those communities.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I have no way of judging whether 30 days is too long or not. I do know that these hearings take a very long time. Usually the community is quite aware of what is going on. Without being theoretical, I would think that 30 days after the decision is made would constitute a sufficient time in view of the existing awareness in the community.


REQUEST THAT AFFECTED COMMUNITIES BE GRANTED PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE
Arnold John Malone: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Transport, setting aside for a moment the fact that he presumes 30 days is long enough for these communities, many of which have a population of 100 or less. And bearing in mind that when the Commissioners enter the hearing room, which is referred to as a judicial court and is court-like in style, there is a battery of lawyers, accountants and other experts for the Commissioners, in what other court situation is it the judge who has the lawyers and the expertise?
If the communities are the defendants, why does the Government of Canada not grant to the individual communities across the Prairies the money or the experts so that the communities can have the expertise to bring an appropriate defence, rather than the judge having the assistance, against the slick CN and CP Rail with their lawyers, accountants and economists? These communities of 100 people have only 30 days and no expertise. Can the Minister justify that behaviour?
December 9, 1982


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, that is a big question indeed; it applies to the whole legal and regulatory system and is far too wide for me to try to tackle this afternoon. However, if I judge by the extent of the branch line system which is still open in Canada, and by the rather low level of branch lines which have been abandoned, 1 suggest that the communities have done a damn good job against the lawyers.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.


Some Hon. Members:: Gone!


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Well, perhaps someone can take notice of the question.
As the Minister will know, some 600,000 to 800,000 people apply every year to come to Canada by legal means, adopting legal procedures. Now there is a recommendation from the Advisory Council that a general amnesty should be granted to those who are here illegally. Can the Minister confirm that he will not accept this advice and that he will not even entertain the idea of an amnesty for illegal immigrants.


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I think it would be much too early to draw any conclusions because the report was just issued yesterday and it is obviously a very delicate and sensitive matter. We will not be making any judgments until we have had an opportunity to get a full response from all affected organizations and individuals in the country, including provincial Governments and others.
The Advisory Council has undertaken the study and I want to review its report in consultation across Canada. 1 would think this would be an area where Members of Parliament in particular could be particularly helpful by taking soundings in their own areas and giving me the results, so that 1 can make a judgment based on those results. It is a problem, Madam Speaker, and as in most areas of immigration we are prepared to deal with those problems in an effective and fair way.


PETITION
Madam Speaker:: 1 have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table the three hundred and fiftieth report of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petition presented by the Hon.
Business of the House
Member for Haldimand-Norfolk (Mr. Bradley) on Wednesday, December 8, 1982, and finds that the petition meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I thought for a while the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) was going down for the third time!
My question is to the Government House Leader. He has informed us that we will be proceeding with Bill C-131 on the final designated day under Standing Order 75C for the Old Age Security Act. Could he confirm that and confirm as far as he can into next week the business that the House will be dealing with?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, today is the last opposition day in the current supply period. Tomorrow, we shall indeed complete second reading of Bill C-131 and, beginning Monday next week, we shall undertake second reading of the bill to amend the Income Tax Act. As usual, of course, all that is subject to change.


Erik Nielsen: There was some thought, I believe, that debate might be interrupted on Bill C-139 if, as and when the capping Bills, C-131, C-132 and C-133, came back from committee. Is it the intention of the Government to interrupt debate on Bill C-139 should those other Bills come back from committee next week?
[ Translation]


Yvon Pinard: Yes, Madam Speaker, my colleague fully appreciates how most urgent it is to have Royal Assent given to Bills C-131, C-132 and C-133 before December 22. That is why, under the circumstances, should these bills be reported to the House in the middle of next week or even earlier, 1 will seriously consider giving the Hon. Member reasonable notice with a view to completing the study of those bills before December 22.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Government House Leader and relates to the question 1 asked earlier in Question Period. I understand that at 3:30 today in Room 209 of the West Block the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee will meet again. Looking at the fact that he said we are going to adjourn December 22 with all these Bills passed, is he planning on calling us back on December 23? Because we are not going to let that Bill pass unless we have an open election of the chairman of that Committee.

December 9, 1982
Point of Order-Mr. McKnight


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I will take the request of the Hon. Member under serious consideration. With respect to the election of the committee chairman, as I said earlier, 1 will not get involved. That is the responsibility of the members of the committee and I am sure that Hon. Members are responsible enough to make a judicious choice of a successor to the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) who has tendered his resignation as committee chairman.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, will the Government House Leader allow the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier to stay on the committee, and will he and the Government majority allow that person to remain as chairman?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I answered that question during the Oral Question Period.

[ English ]


POINTS OF ORDER
[Stage Direction]
national interest implicit in those Standing Orders is that Gretta de Jong was the campaign manager for Mr. Van Mulligan; and is it in the national interest that when the Hon. Member for Regina East goes back to Regina, he stay with Mr. Van Mulligan? Is that why it is-
Madam Speaker:: Order. Is that a point of order? It is a great point of debate but not very much a point of order.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2), I am pleased to table in my name and on behalf of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde), in both official languages, the Green Paper on Pensions entitled "Better Pensions for Canadians", along with two related documents, "Focus on Women" and "Highlights".


MR. DOMM-PROCEDURE RESPECTING PRESENTATION OF PETITIONS
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Madam Speaker, the procedure followed in this House for presenting petitions has been questioned by a Minister. It is my understanding that when a petition is collected and given to a Member of Parliament to present on behalf of the constituents who signed or printed their names on the petition, it is not the responsibility of the Member who presents the petition to verify every signature on the petition. During Question Period today the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) made the statement that a petition was presented which you, as Speaker of this House, examined and accepted and reported that it was found to be in order. The Minister has questioned your judgment.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I am sure the Hon. Member is very conscious of the fact that he is debating this question. 1 did examine the petition and declared to the House that it was in order as to form. That is the limit of the speaker's duty. Whatever other members' opinions are on that particular petition belongs to them. It can be debated in the House, and possibly will be, but it is not a point of order.
* *
*



PETITION


Mr. Bruce Halliday (Oxford):: Madam Speaker, it is an honour today to present to the House a petition signed by 1,088 residents of Oxford County and the surrounding area. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to negotiate and implement, with other Governments, the balanced steps that will lead to the earliest possible achievement of general disarmament, and in particular, nuclear disarmament.
Dr. Tom Mayberry of lngersoll, Ontario, has been the driving force behind this petition, working hard to amass these many signatures and giving the issue of disarmament a high profile in Oxford County.
* *
*



MR. McKNIGHT-S O. 43 MOTION OF MR. DF. JONG

["Before we proceed to the Orders of the Day, I would like to rule on the matter that was raised by the Hon. Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens). He raised a point of order on the propriety of votes 26b and 27b under Industry, Trade and Commerce in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983. The two votes concern payments of an equal amount of $200 million as equity each to Canadair Limited and the de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Limited. The Hon. Member argued that they are incorrect and not in a proper form to be voted on, and should therefore be deleted from the Estimates. I would like to thank all Hon. Members who contributed arguments on this very technical question.\n1 should remind Hon. Members once again that the Chair's responsibilities lie strictly within the realm of parliamentary procedure and not within the sphere of legality. With respect to the items in the Estimates, it is the Chair's duty to ensure that such items are based upon legislative authority. In the case before us, I have examined each item carefully and can conclude that each is based upon a legislative authority; namely, vote 26b upon Appropriation Act No. 3, 1975 and vote 27b upon Appropriation Act No. 4, 1973. Both votes are therefore properly before the House. In any case, there were no procedural objections raised against them as they appear in the Blue Book.\nHon. Members have argued that the announcement of the transfer of certain commercial assets and enterprises of Canadair and de Havilland to the Canada Development Investment Corporation would have the result, in their words, of nullifying votes 26b and 27b. But in so far as the Chair is able to determine, the announcement of the creation and involvement of the CD1C does not appear to change the existence of Canadair or de Havilland. It is my view that this aspect of the question resolves itself into a matter of debate and, as Hon. Members are aware, the role of the Chair is not to become involved in any such debate.\nThe question of the two Crown corporations being placed under the responsibility of a new Minister has also been raised. Let me put that argument to rest by stating that the transfer of the responsibility from Industry, Trade and Commerce to Social Development has no bearing upon the actual items or under which headings they are placed in the Blue Book of Estimates. For the benefit of all Hon. Members, 1 should quote, in part, from Beauchesne, Citations 484 and 487(2):", 'December 9, 1982\nSupply\nThe proposals with respect to items which the House may vote upon are conveyed formally in these Estimates in the wording and amount of the Votes which, when included in Appropriation Acts, become the governing conditions under which the expenditures may be made ... as far as possible, connected services appear together and all the Estimates for the services controlled by a particular Department are mainly grouped in the same class.\nIn other words, what is important here is that the items must be clearly set out in the Estimates and the grouping of any such items under a particular title or heading is immaterial.\nIn conclusion, I appreciate the points raised by Hon. Members yesterday, but after careful examination I must rule votes 26b and 27b under Industry, Trade and Commerce to be in order and properly before the House.']
Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Madam Speaker, my point of order arises out of a motion under Standing Order 43 presented by the Hon. Member for Regina East (Mr. de Jong) yesterday and the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) today. It would appear that the



[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,127, 4,348 and 4,473.
December 9, 1982



PAMPHLET "BUDGET 1981: WHAT IT MEANS FOR SMALL BUSINESS"


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton): 1.	Is the Government mailing out brochures or pamphlets entitled "Budget 1981" to Canadian business firms and, if so (a) how many are being mailed (b) what are the mailing costs?
2.	Are envelopes being used for the brochure and, if so, what is the cost?
3.	What is the source of the list of firms and their respective addresses?
4.	Is the list compiled from information filed in pursuance of the Income Tax Act and, if so, who has access to the list?
5.	What is the statutory authority for the use of such information for government propaganda purposes?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of State (Finance)):: 1.
The Government has mailed out approximately 202,000 brochures entitled "Budget 1981: What it Means for Small Business". The mailing costs of this brochure at 13 cents each were approximately $26,260.
2.	The brochures were mailed in kraft envelopes which cost approximately $21 per 1,000 for a total cost of approximately $4,250.
3.	The list of firms with their respective addresses were randomly chosen by Revenue Canada.
4.	The list was compiled from information filed in pursuance of the Income Tax Act. Revenue Canada officials have access to this list.
5.	Appropriation Acts. Democratic accountability requires that the public understand policy changes. Thus, it is the government's responsibility to inform the public of policy changes which may affect them. The brochures mailed to small businesses are informational in nature and were designed to help correct much of the misunderstanding which has been prevalent in the small business community with respect to the 1981 budget provisions.


Mr. Robinson (Burnaby): 1.	Did the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs in the Department of National Health and Welfare distribute to doctors throughout the country an information package entitled "Drug Abuse/Misuse is a Serious Problem" and, if so, on what date?
2.	Who within the Bureau (a) conceived of (b) drew up the information package or any element of it?
3.	Was the package submitted to or approved by the Canadian Medical Association or any other recognized, independent body in the medical field in Canada before it was released?
4.	What was the total cost of (a) producing (b) distributing the package and is it still being produced and distributed?
5.	How many packages were (a) produced (b) distributed?
6.	Was the package distributed on a regional basis and, if so, what was the distribution?
7.	(a) To whom was the package distributed (b) how many (i) doctors (ii) medical institutions (iii) hospitals (iv) other institutions, groups or persons in the medical field received the package?
8.	Does the pamphlet "The Physician and Psychoactive Drugs", contained within the package, represent Government policy (b) what is the statutory or regulatory authority for the pamphlet?
Order Paper Questions
9.	Did the Government receive any reaction to or comments about the package from the medical community or any other element in the public and, if so (a) what were the comments and did the Government respond to them (b) does the import of the comments generally favour or oppose the package or any element of it?


Monique Bégin: 1. Yes, the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs of the Department of National Health and Welfare's Health Protection Branch began a phased distribution of the drug information package to medical practitioners, residents and interns in Canada between April and June, 1982.
2.	(a) and (b) The senior personnel of the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs with input and concurrence from the Provincial Registrars of Medicine and the Canadian Medical Association.
3.	See 2.
4.	(a) Production costs, $26,000; (b) distribution costs, $28,000.
5.	One printing only was made. Reprints may be considered depending on demand and follow-up assessment.
(a) 50,000 packages were produced, (b) 47,700.
6.	The distribution plan provided for national mailings to the 40,000 medical practitioners. Regionalized distribution took place only to offices of medical registrars and certain hospitals where drop shipments could be made for distribution to the medical residents and interns.
7.	(a) and (b) The packages are being distributed to the following: (i) Medical practitioners (to the end of May, 1982)-40,000; Hospital residents and interns (by mid-June, 1982)-4,000.
(ii) and (iii) The kit is not being distributed to hospitals except in cases where the Director of Programs agreed to distribute a drop shipment directly to the medical residents and interns serving at the hospital.
(iv) Two thousand seven hundred packages are being distributed among the Provincial Registrars of the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons at their request for use as hand-outs to new medical registrants during the coming year. One thousand packages are being distributed to health related associations and internal use within Department of National Health and Welfare.
8.	(a) Yes. The pamphlet "The Physician and Psychoactive Drugs" does represent long-standing Government policy in the area of distribution and use of mood-modifying prescription drugs. More specifically it contains guidelines for the issuing of prescriptions for psychoactive drugs, definitions of categories of drugs that require different procedures for issuing prescriptions and information concerning the ways in which both physicians and patients may avoid contributing to the abuse and misuse of psychoactive drugs.
(b) The pamphlet supports the established departmental policy of providing information to health practitioners regarding abuse/misuse of drugs and guidelines/interpretations regarding the drug regulations. Appropriation Acts. The authority for control over mood-modifying drugs is the Narcotic

December 9, 1982
Order Paper Questions
Control Act and Parts 111 and IV of the Food and Drug Act and the Regulations thereunder.
9.	(a) Yes, 70 per cent of the letters received from physicians supported the initiative and several recommended a continuation in future years. Some letters expressed concern about the cost/benefit ratio for the project. Replies have been prepared in response to all letters received, (b) Generally favour.


Mr. Crosby: 1.	Who were the officers or employees of the Department of National Revenue (Customs) on duty or present at the border point between Woodstock, New Brunswick and Houlton, Maine, United States on July 31, 1982 from approximately 11.35 p.m. until midnight on that date?
2.	What is the age, educational qualification, rank and position, and length of service of each officer or employee on duty or present at the border point?
3.	In the case of each officer or employee on duty or present at the border point, have there been any complaints of improper or abusive treatment by or on behalf of persons crossing at the border point or has any such officer or employee been accused of uttering threats against any persons crossing at the border point?
4.	Does the Department keep a record of persons who cross at border points between Canada and the United States and, if so, does the record identify the person by name and address and does it stipulate the goods brought into Canada?
5.	Docs the Department keep and maintain a list of persons who the officers of the Department claim have committed an infraction of any rule or regulation that applies to customs or excise or any other matter relevant to border crossings?
6.	What kind of record does the Department keep and maintain that is consulted or applied when a person mentioned in the record crosses the Canadian border?
7.	Which Cabinet Ministers have crossed the border into Canada since March I, 1980 and, in the case of each crossing, what declaration was made by the Minister and, where goods were declared, what was included in the list of goods?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: 1.
Officers on duty at the Port of Woodstock, N.B. on July 31, 1982 between 2335 and 2400 hours were as follows:
One-A/Superintendent (PM-2)
Three-Customs Inspectors (PM-1)
One-Student Customs Officer
2.	The requested information is protected by the Access to Information Act. However, below are the Statements of Qualifications for the officers involved.
3.	Complaint concerning the conduct of all officers at the Port of Woodstock for the following fiscal years were:
1982/83- 1981/82- 1980/81- 1979/80- 1978/79-
None
One valid and one invalid None
Two valid and one invalid
One valid, three invalid and one where complainant and officer at fault
There have been no complaints received where an officer or employee was accused of uttering threats against any persons crossing at the border point.
4.	A record is not kept of every person crossing the border. However, where duties and taxes are assessed and collected, a copy of the declaration form is retained for accounting purposes. See answer to part No. 5.
5.	Yes, the Department maintains a record of those persons against whom seizure action has been taken.
6.	Any information concerning the format of these records and any information contained within these records is protected by the Access to Information Act.
7.	No record available. See answer to 4 and 5 above.
Statement of Qualifications PM-2 Customs Superintendent Essential Qualifications
Basic Requirements:
Education:	Successful completion of secondary school or equivalency.
Language:	A knowledge of the English language is essential for some
positions. A knowledge of both the English and French languages essential for other positions.
Experience:	Experience in the interpretation, application and enforcement of acts, regulations and directives related to customs operations, involving the use of individual discretion and judgement.
Rated Requirements:
Knowledge:	Knowledge of acts, regulations, policies, procedures and
techniques related to the control of the international movement of goods and people.
Knowledge of the regulations, procedures and techniques related to personnel management in the Public Service.
Abilities:	Ability to supervise staff including the interpretation and
application of collective agreements, counselling and training staff, monitoring and assessing employees' performance, and disciplining staff.
Ability to plan, co-ordinate and control the operations of a designated customs operations area including determining staff requirements, assigning resources and verifying that standards of enforcement and control are being adhered to.
Ability to conduct interviews and meetings and prepare reports and correspondence.
Personal	Initiative, discretion, thoroughness, dependability, adaptabil-
Suitability:	ity.
Effective interpersonal relationships, especially when interacting with representatives of other government departments, police force clientele and the general public.
Statement of Qualifications PM-1 Customs Inspector Essential Qualifications
Basic Requirements:
Education:	Successful completion of secondary school or equivalency.
Language:	A knowledge of either one or both official languages is essential for this position.
Experience:	Experience in the enforcement of acts and regulations,
or
December 9, 1982

Rated Requirements: Knowledge:
Abilities:
Personal
Suitability:
Rated Requirements: Education:
Language
Requirement:
Experience:
Knowledge:
Abilities:
Personal
Suitability:


David P. Smith: stand.
Experience in the use of interviewing and examining techniques, or
Experience in processing or handling import or export documentation.
Point of Order-Mr. Stevens


Madam Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Knowledge of interviewing and examination techniques.

Knowledge of enforcement principles and techniques.
Knowledge of customs activities.	POINT OF ORDER
Ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing.
Ability to analyse situations and information obtained in the conduct of interviews or inspections and decide upon appropriate courses of action.
Ability to interpret and enforce legislation and policies administered by the Department.
Effective personnal relationships.
Motivation, reliability, discretion and judgment.
Statement or Qualifications Student Customs Office
Enrolment in post-secondary studies with one of the following specializations, listed in order of preference:
1.	Law and security administration
2.	Social sciences, administration or commerce
3.	Other specializations in arts
4.	Other specializations.
A knowledge of either one or both official languages is essential for this position.
Experience in one of the following types of work, listed in order of preference:
1.	Experience in customs
2.	Experience in enforcement or security
3.	Other related experience
4.	No related experience.
Knowledge of the customs function.
Ability to analyse information and to recommend appropriate action;
Ability to interview the public;
Ability to communicate orally and in writing.
Effective interpersonal relations;
Attitude, motivation;
Maturity.
ask that the remaining questions be allowed to


Madam Speaker:: Before we proceed to the Orders of the Day, I would like to rule on the matter that was raised by the Hon. Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens). He raised a point of order on the propriety of votes 26b and 27b under Industry, Trade and Commerce in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983. The two votes concern payments of an equal amount of $200 million as equity each to Canadair Limited and the de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Limited. The Hon. Member argued that they are incorrect and not in a proper form to be voted on, and should therefore be deleted from the Estimates. I would like to thank all Hon. Members who contributed arguments on this very technical question.
1 should remind Hon. Members once again that the Chair's responsibilities lie strictly within the realm of parliamentary procedure and not within the sphere of legality. With respect to the items in the Estimates, it is the Chair's duty to ensure that such items are based upon legislative authority. In the case before us, I have examined each item carefully and can conclude that each is based upon a legislative authority; namely, vote 26b upon Appropriation Act No. 3, 1975 and vote 27b upon Appropriation Act No. 4, 1973. Both votes are therefore properly before the House. In any case, there were no procedural objections raised against them as they appear in the Blue Book.
Hon. Members have argued that the announcement of the transfer of certain commercial assets and enterprises of Canadair and de Havilland to the Canada Development Investment Corporation would have the result, in their words, of nullifying votes 26b and 27b. But in so far as the Chair is able to determine, the announcement of the creation and involvement of the CD1C does not appear to change the existence of Canadair or de Havilland. It is my view that this aspect of the question resolves itself into a matter of debate and, as Hon. Members are aware, the role of the Chair is not to become involved in any such debate.
The question of the two Crown corporations being placed under the responsibility of a new Minister has also been raised. Let me put that argument to rest by stating that the transfer of the responsibility from Industry, Trade and Commerce to Social Development has no bearing upon the actual items or under which headings they are placed in the Blue Book of Estimates. For the benefit of all Hon. Members, 1 should quote, in part, from Beauchesne, Citations 484 and 487(2):

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The proposals with respect to items which the House may vote upon are conveyed formally in these Estimates in the wording and amount of the Votes which, when included in Appropriation Acts, become the governing conditions under which the expenditures may be made ... as far as possible, connected services appear together and all the Estimates for the services controlled by a particular Department are mainly grouped in the same class.
In other words, what is important here is that the items must be clearly set out in the Estimates and the grouping of any such items under a particular title or heading is immaterial.
In conclusion, I appreciate the points raised by Hon. Members yesterday, but after careful examination I must rule votes 26b and 27b under Industry, Trade and Commerce to be in order and properly before the House.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Charles Joseph Clark: That this House condemns the Government for its deliberate proliferation of Crown corporations accountable to the Government rather than to Parliament and the taxpayers who, in the words of the Auditor General, "have every right to consider themselves the principal shareholders of these corporations", and instructs the Government to immediately introduce a Bill substantially the same as Bill C-27 in the Thirty-first Parliament so as to make such corporations properly accountable to the people.


Madam Speaker:: Before we proceed with the Orders of the Day and since this is the final allotted day, the House will go through the usual procedures this evening to consider and dispose of the Supply Bill. It is usual practice to distribute the Bill ahead of time, and I would ask the consent of the House to do just that.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
&ws3308;-l Mr. Clark: Madam Speaker, the seconder of the motion and my seatmate from the Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), along with several other Members of this House, served and fought in the Second World War. I have only read about that period in our history, but 1 know from my readings the way that nations prepared the state of mind of their people for sacrifice and suffering at home and to make them think the worst of their enemies away from home.
That same psychology is being used today deliberately by the Government of Canada in the face of our economic problems. The Government blames international forces which it says we must fight, but which it says we cannot control or really influence. It has mounted a propaganda campaign at home which asks pensioners to sacrifice, and it is pretending that the Canadian Government is doing everything it can to survive the problems it claims that other people have somehow created.
We in this House unhappily have become numbed to the reports of casualties-the bankruptcies, lay-offs, suicides, the
destruction of families. I am shocked, Mr. Speaker, that while 1 speak of destruction of families, while I speak of the tragedies that are caused by economic hardship in Sudbury and elsewhere in this country, some Members of this House are laughing. I am shocked at that kind of callous indifference to the plight of Canadians in deep trouble. To our shame, this House knows that in November 1,438,000 Canadians were out of work.
[ Translation]
Another 379,000 Canadians are working part time because they were unable to find full-time employment. These figures do not include at least 130,000 people who have stopped looking for employment because there are simply no jobs available. From 1981 to 1982, bankruptcies in Canada's primary industry have increased by 58 per cent. In our manufacturing industry, the bankruptcy rate has increased by 77 per cent, in the service sector by 37 per cent and in the finance, insurance and real estate sectors, by 113 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, during the first ten months of 1982, farm bankruptcies totalled 344, an increase of 50 per cent over last year.

Everyone who travels in Canada knows that these figures simply yield shocking increases in break-ins, family violence, suicides, in the kinds of tension that can drive families and communities apart.
In the face of all of that, in the face of an obvious depression, family tensions, suicides, social problems and criminal problems whose like we have not seen before, what happens? What is the response of the Government of Canada? What is the policy of the Government of the richest nation in the world? The considered response of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) is to say that he is sorry, that it will probably get worse and that the Government has a policy-its Maginot line of six and five-that there is really nothing else that he can do. There is nothing he can do-as Minister of Finance in the richest country in the world!
Then his Leader, who walks out when the lights fail, sounds the bugle notes of patriotism, asking for trust, asking that the unemployed in Canada be patient. A plan like that will work only if it is true.
The news this week from the Government's own policeman, the Auditor General, is that the Government has not been honest with Canadians. It has asked pensioners and unemployed Canadians to sacrifice, but it carries on itself, deliberately, with programs and practices which waste hundreds of millions of dollars and drive away investment and jobs.
From among all the extravagance that exists in this Government, the Auditor General has identified one area which he believes provides "significant opportunities for improvement". He says:
December 9, 1982

-the most important of these matters .. . has to do with the accountability of corporations owned by the Government of Canada ... the citizens of Canada have a right to consider themselves the principal shareholders of these organizations; Parliamentarians speak for them. Crown-owned corporations must be held accountable through Parliament.
These organizations have a greater impact on the economy and the life of Canadians than ever before. There are now more people working for crown-owned organizations then there are working in government departments and agencies, when the RCMP and the Armed Forces are excluded. A sub-government has been created to fulfil some of the social and economic aims of government.
The Auditor General has called them a sub-government. But if you believe in our system of parliamentary democracy, where elected representatives of the people control public spending, then these uncontrolled Crown corporations constitute, in effect, a separate country, to whom we send $30 billion of Canadian money each year, but over which the people of Canada have virtually no control.
We are all aware of the sickening individual abuses by some of these Crown corporations. For example, when Petro-Canada pays roughly double what it should for Petrofina and individual Canadians pay the difference at the gas pump, or when parts of BP are bought for $400 million more than was first reported - both transactions being outside the mandate Parliament gave to that Crown corporation - it was doing something Parliament did not authorize it to do and it is doing it in an inexcusable and extravagant way.
Those are the abuses, but I am not going to read a list of abuses because 1 want to deal with the principles of this. Those are just peaks on the horizon of the uncontrolled, subsidized, separate country that we have let Crown corporations become. That separate country of Crown corporations spends $30 billion each year. That is a larger annual budget than Spain, a larger annual budget than Greece, a larger annual budget than Austria, a larger annual budget than Finland, a larger annual budget than Ireland and a larger annual budget than Switzerland. Yet those real nations all have governments which let their people exercise some control over their spending. Canada's Crown corporations, spending Canada's money, simply ignore that democratic requirement. Their relation to the people is exclusively to spend the people's money. They operate outside democracy. They have, and they exercise, more arbitrary, uncontrolled power than the countries of Switzerland, Ireland, Greece, Spain, Finland, Austria and several others.
The Liberal Government, which is the architect of separatism in the Province of Quebec, pretends to worry that Quebec will remove itself beyond the jurisdiction of Canada. Quebec's budget last year was slightly more than $20 billion. The budget of that already separate country called Crown corporations was $30 billion, and there is literally no limit on the size to which that spending can grow-literally no limit at all. The Liberal Government has deliberately, not by accident but deliberately, used its power to allow the creation of unlimited Crown corporations-unlimited additions to this expensive, subsidized, separate country that operates beyond the control of Canada's Parliament and Canada's elected representatives.
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We do not know how many millions of dollars have been wasted by Crown corporations. In one case, the Auditor General pointed out, and I quote:
We have not yet been able to assess whether the $1.7 billion invested by the Government of Canada for the purchase of the shares of Canadian Petrofina Inc. was expended with due regard to economy.
In another case, referring to Letters of Comfort, he commented as follows, and I quote:
In the last six years, more than a billion dollars has been advanced to Canadair through a sequence of Letters of Comfort.. .The authorized limit is $1.35 billion. This amount of taxpayers' money is at risk without what I would consider clear criteria and objectives for providing, continuing, or terminating support.
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General's testimony is clear. He is saying that $1.35 billion are, and I quote:
-at risk.

The price for BP turns out to be at least $400 million more than first reported. That is nearly $2 billion covering just two agencies. That money is gone; it was allowed to drift away by the Government. Yet senior citizens are forced to cut back $290 each, and the Government says it cannot find money to create jobs.
The Auditor General put it well when he said:
There are more than 300 of these corporations, including subsidiaries, employing some 263,000 Canadians. Revenues of Crown corporations in the most recent fiscal year were $31.9 billion, and expenses were $33.6 billion. Most of these corporations are virtually unknown even to the best informed members of the taxpaying public. Yet, in the aggregate, they represent a hole in the taxpayers' pocket, resulting, as they often do, in a consistent negative return on investment.
That is the hole in the pocket-the hundreds of millions of dollars that are taken from pensioners, that are taken from small businessmen in taxes, that are taken from Canadians who buy gas at the pumps, and the money given to unaccountable Crown corporations to waste as they will. If that money were being properly used, it could create jobs in Canada, it could create growth in Canada and it could create hope in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is actual money, actual dollars and cents, being wasted at the same time as the Government comes before the House and seeks permission to pick the pockets of Canadian pensioners in the amount of $290 over the next two years. It wastes $2 billion on two Crown agencies and it picks the pockets of Canadian pensioners.
Let me put this in the broader context of what it does to confidence, what it does to our ability to attract investment, to create jobs and to create growth in the country. This kind of situation sends a very clear signal to investors here and around the world.
Not only do we have a massive deficit which the Government admits exists, although it is never really sure how large the deficit is, but the Government's carelessness about Crown

December 9, 1982
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corporations means that we are incurring even more losses, losses that we do not know about, losses that we cannot put a figure on and losses that are hidden, and deliberately hidden, from Parliament. Those hidden losses are one more reason investors stay away from Canada and Canadian investors sit back or move their money out of the country. Nobody trusts a Government which hides its losses and sets up an uncontrolled, unaccountable private spending empire.
The Government pretends that six and five is an economic program. The only advantage of six and five is that it has helped keep administered prices in the public sector from outrunning wages more than they were already, and it has freed up some money for short-term job creation or preventing the federal deficit from going higher. That is it; that is all it does. Otherwise, six and five is a slogan. It is a fraud and, most important, it is a hide-out which lets the Government pretend that there is nothing else it can do. Dealing with Crown corporations is just one field in which the Government could act if it truly cared about jobs for Canadians and recovery for Canada. There are immense savings to be made if we had a system which held them accountable to Parliament, that stopped that kind of regular, consistent, authorized waste by this Government, which prefers to pick the pockets of pensioners while it finances Crown corporations with a mandate to waste.
Let me list some of the other actions which could achieve a climate of confidence, a climate of trust, which the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) pretends he wants. For example, a Government that wanted to encourage investment in Canada could make it clear immediately that it intended to reinstate the previous tax provisions on the capital cost allowance, to reinstate the previous tax provisions on the employee share purchase loans, on the soft costs on MURBs and on interest deductibility relating to RRSPs, DPSPs and registered pension plans. That statement of policy would create jobs and investment immediately in Canada. It can be done today by the Government of Canada if it chose to do it.
The Government could, and we believe should, announce that it will eliminate the extension of the corporate surtax. It should withdraw its proposal to tax accrued income on new whole life insurance policy. It should renounce absolutely the proposed capital gains tax on corporate reorganization. Those declarations made today would create investment and jobs immediately in Canada. They would help Canadians who are suffering in the country.
The Government, if it wanted to, could and should, renounce the plan of the Minister of Finance, which he made very clear after he brought in his first budget, to apply the principles of the National Energy Program to other industrial sectors. A statement renouncing that plan to apply the NEP to other now healthy sectors of the Canadian economy would remove some of the uncertainty the Minister has created in the country.
That, too, would lead directly to the creation of investment and jobs for Canadians in need.
The Government should, and certainly could if it wanted to, identify what parts of our unproductive spending on unemployment insurance, welfare and on revenue lost because the unemployed and the bankrupt cannot pay taxes, can be turned to productive public purposes; what infrastructure should be put in place; what public works could be financed. Canadians would prefer to work on public projects like that, rather than subsist on unemployment insurance and welfare. An action of that kind would create both jobs and a renewed sense of worth on the part of the citizens of the country.
The Government could abandon its headlong rush to impose Bill S-31 which, in a single blow, has given the lie to the pretence of the Prime Minister that he is seeking co-operation. It has destroyed the hopes of federal-provincial co-operation and it has, incidentally, frustrated the possibility of direct provincial investment, which could be creating jobs and growth in Canada today but will not be until Bill S-31 that hangs like a menace over the heads of Government Members is withdrawn.
That is part of a list on which a Government that cared about coming to grips with Canada's economic problems could act immediately. In many cases all that is required is for the Liberal Government to stop doing things which cause problems, frustrate growth and throw Canadians out of work. One of the unassailable realities of the country is that if the Government would back away and stop causing problems we would have more jobs for Canadians, we would have more growth, and we would have more investment in the country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: The Prime Minister claims that our problems are all caused externally. I seldom accuse him of modesty, but there is no doubt that he is far too modest when he blames others for Canada's situation. The principal cause of Canada's unemployment, the flight of investment from the country and the depression into which we are sinking, is the policies and attitudes of the Government across the way.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Peterson:: Absolute nonsense.


Charles Joseph Clark: I hear the temporary Hon. Member for Willow-dale (Mr. Peterson) saying that this is absolute nonsense. 1 would be interested in knowing where the temporary Member for Willowdale stands on the principle of accountability to Parliament of Crown corporations. Will he join the flock of sheep again and vote against his principles, or will he stand tonight and vote for a principle which restores to the people and to the-


Mr. Fisher:: Where does Peter Worthington stand? Tell us about the next Member for Broadview.


Charles Joseph Clark: I will come to the Member from Scarborough in just a second.


Mr. Epp:: He is next.
December 9, 1982


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has the floor.


Mr. Harquail:: Where do the Premiers stand on this?


Charles Joseph Clark: I am being asked a few questions. First, I am being asked about Premiers by a Liberal. It is natural that a Liberal should ask about the Premiers because they do not know any: they do not have any.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: They do not have any because there is not a provincial politician in the land strong enough to carry the weight and the burden of the reputation of this Government to the polls.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Ask Allan Blakeney about that; ask Mr. Doug Young about that. Pose that question to those individuals.
Let me come back to the Member for Willowdale and ask him where his principles are. I ask him whether he would prefer to be picking the pockets of pensioners or to have parliamentary control over Crown agencies which are now wasting literally billions of dollars. Will he vote for his principles and support this motion, or will he sink back into that flock of sheep which has been sitting over there and leading the country into such difficulty for so long? The Member from Scarborough-


An Hon. Member:: It was the Hon. Member for Mississauga North (Mr. Fisher).


Charles Joseph Clark: I am sorry; he was not the Member who was displaced by Maurice Strong, but if he is interested in discussing questions of democracy, perhaps he can consider what happened to the Canadians of Greek origin who sought nomination in the Liberal Party and were "strong-armed" aside, if I may coin a phrase.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Mazankowski:: What about Gauthier?


Charles Joseph Clark: Indeed, if he finds the heat is too great in the House, let him go and sit on the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates. His colleague, the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier), had the courage to stand up last night on behalf of the people who sent him here and, in response to that courage, was thrown out of his right as a Member of Parliament to serve as the chairman of a standing committee of the House.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: More, more!


Mr. Rossi:: What did you do with Yurko?
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Maurice James Harquail: What about Thomson and Gamble?


Carlo Rossi: Where is John Crosbie?


Charles Joseph Clark: He is running to be Chief of Police for Montreal, Carlo, my boy.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Carlo Rossi: What did you promise Mulroney?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) has the floor.


Carlo Rossi: What did you tell Mulroney?


Charles Joseph Clark: I told Mr. Mulroney that he was free to run against the Member for the time being, Mr. Rossi, and that he was sure to win. That is what I said.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, order. I would ask the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) to observe the customs of the House of Commons. Members are not mentioned by name but by riding or by their function here in the House.


Charles Joseph Clark: 1 apologize, Mr. Speaker, you are absolutely right. However, the Hon. Member who spoke from his seat has acquired such a formidable reputation in the House that his name is quite unknown in Quebec, so that before he leaves after the next election, 1 want to give him a chance to make himself known to the public. I think he referred to the rights of Quebecers, and perhaps we could discuss some issues that relate to Bill S-31, a piece of legislation that has aroused Quebecers against his Government, but 1 suppose he will not open his mouth and will meekly toe the party line-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With due respect, once again, I would ask the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition to speak to the motion.


Charles Joseph Clark: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize. However, the only Quebecers who are against me are the Liberals here in the House, and since 1 so seldom see any Quebecers who do not agree with me, I am going to challenge them here where I can find them.


Roch La Salle: Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Rossi! [English]


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I have to take some satisfaction in passing that we have managed to arouse that group of Members of Parliament who are best known in the country for their dormancy.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: I ask the Member from Montreal-

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What is his riding? Does he have one? He has forgotten the name of his riding because all his constituents have forgotten his name. That is why!


Carlo Rossi: Try your stuff in Bourassa and they will cream you!


Charles Joseph Clark: So his riding is Bourassa!


An Hon. Member:: It is Bourassa.


Erik Nielsen: Order.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for letting myself be diverted by the gentleman from Bourassa (Mr. Rossi), but I understand the frustration he feels as a Member of the Liberal Party caucus. He has no place else where he can speak, so he has to shout from his seat here in the House of Commons.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, let me leave aside the Hon. Member for Bourassa and come back to serious matters. The Reports of the Auditor General of Canada always do this country a great service, but perhaps no Report has been more important for the country than this last one, not just because of its contents but because it serves to dramatize the fact that there is action within Canada that we can take-action to stop waste, action to create jobs and action to restore confidence- if only the Government has the will to act.
If the Auditor General's Report is new, fresh on the Table, then the problem is not new; nor is the opportunity to solve that problem. The Government itself has a Bill dealing with Crown Corporations. In essence, it gives control to the Government, not to Parliament. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty), introduced a very different kind of Bill when he was the Minister responsible, different because it gave control to Parliament and thus to the people which Parliament represents. He will speak in more detail of the dangers that are involved, of the actual situation and of the changes that we will make to meet those dangers.
Because we trust Parliament and we believe that a Parliament with real powers can become trusted again by the people, that will be another step forward toward the co-operation and the confidence upon which our future is founded. That kind of change is an abiding interest. But our urgent interest today is in having this institution act to help Canadians whose lives are quite literally coming apart. We in this Parliament are the only ones who can help. It is no help to those people to send out propaganda on the six and five program. It is no help for the Minister of Finance to sympathize and then go on to say that things are going to get worse. It is certainly no help to take money from pensioners. But there are things that we can do. 1 have suggested some of them today. Others in this debate will suggest others. The Auditor General has shown one way to
make a major change that will stop waste and build confidence.
We are here to act, sir. We have to act. For God's sake, let us do that.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to follow the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) in this very important debate concerning the accountability of Crown corporations. It is certainly a bit disheartening for me to see the jaws of some of the Members of the Liberal Party flapping on the other side at a time in our history when they should be listening to some of the constructive criticism that is being made of the lack of accountability by Crown corporations.
Before getting into the delivery of my remarks this afternoon, I would like to compliment the Hon. Members for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) and the Hon. Member for Rose-mont (Mr. Lachance) for the work they did over the summer preparing the paper on parliamentary accountability, which they submitted to the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure. Some of the things that have been reflected in the recommendations have been adopted by this Parliament and will come into force on December 22, 1982.
In this document entitled "Accountability: Closing the Loop," the Hon. Members for Capilano and Rosemont point out:
The Government must seek approval from Parliament for its spending program, and it should account to Parliament for its spending performance.
The Government should account to Parliament for any tax dollars that are spent. Members of Parliament must look at fulfilling their responsibilities in several areas. They must then examine the proposal for expenditure and when doing so not only establish the results to be expected but examine the effectiveness of past expenditures against results achieved in the program and the envelope sectors.
Finally, I think they must hold the Government accountable for accomplishing what was intended to have been accomplished with the complete ability to point out areas of waste and inefficiency. The Government has moved a long way, through the office of the Comptroller-General, to assist in some of those areas in which Members of Parliament and Parliament itself should be much more involved. I am talking about the revised form of the Estimates which are presently coming about and will be completed within the next couple of years. While this is not soon enough, it is a step in the right direction.
These revised Estimates concern three main areas. When I first came to the House, all that Members had available to them when the Estimates were tabled was the Blue Book, which was a comprehensive document that lacked the information which Members of Parliament needed in order to do their
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job in holding the Government and its expenditure of tax dollars accountable.
We have now moved to the point where we not only have the Blue Book as part of the Estimates, but a guide as well to show us how to use the Blue Book. It shows Members how to use the Blue Book in connection with two other very important documents, which are the Government's expenditure plans and the departmental expenditure plans which are hopefully being developed by all Government departments within the very near future.
If this information is compared to what is available with respect to Crown corporations, all that Parliamentarians have to review with regard to Crown corporations are the annual reports of those Crown corporations which are, indeed, lacking in terms of the information that should be available to Members.
There was a great deal said in the paper on accountability about restructuring some of the committees so that we do not only look at the pre-expenditure of tax dollars but also are able to review and monitor programs and expenditures on an ongoing basis, to examine the mandate versus the actual role of some of the Government departments and its agencies as well as to conduct a close examination of the post-expenditure so that we can tell whether or not Government departments have met the objectives that they set out earlier. In this manner we can determine if we have received the true value for the dollars that were actually spent.
I am very interested in one recommendation that I would make, which is that we should have a standing committee of the House examine all quasi-governmental bodies, including Crown corporations, on an ongoing basis. We find that Crown corporations have grown far beyond anyone's expectations. When one sees the facts which were compiled by the office of the Comptroller-General on November 30 of 1981, we see that in our country today there are some 306 Crown corporations which are either totally or partially-owned by the people of Canada. Shares of these corporations are held by the Minister in trust for the people of Canada. We do not have any real input into how those expenditures are made. We do not have any valid information to ascertain whether or not Crown corporations are fulfilling a meaningful role.
When I mentioned that we have 306 federal Crown corporations, I should point out further that in 1982 the Crown-owned corporations employed over 263,000 Canadians. They had record assets of approximately $67 billion, expenditures of more than $30 billion with liabilities of some $57 billion.
These figures can be compared to the Government itself. Government departments employed approximately 221,000 public employees, excluding those employed by the Armed Forces and the RCMP. These departments spent over $75 billion in 1982. This shows that the Crown corporations play almost or possibly as much as an important role as Government departments play. Yet we find very little information available for Parliament to scrutinize the activities of Crown corporations.
I was somewhat distressed to see the jowl-flapping back and forth between the Liberals and the Conservatives. I thought
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that the Leader of the Opposition was delivering a good speech on accountability of Crown corporations. As I have already indicated, I believe that the Liberals should be listening to the Opposition since it is in the interests of every Member of Parliament to see that the taxpayers' money is used to its best value. We must carefully scrutinize how the taxpayers' dollars are spent to ensure that Crown corporations are using their funds efficiently.
In the majority of Crown corporations that were audited by the Auditor General, financial management and control has been found too weak and very ineffective. Moreover, the coordination and guidance by central Government agencies of financial management and control practices in these Crown corporations were virtually non-existent, as the Auditor General points out. This, together with the results of the previous years' study of similar practices in the departments, led the Auditor General to express the deep concern that Parliament and, indeed, Government have lost control of the public purse. I suggest that this is a sad fact.
We are here to represent those who elected us. I have found that the only real control exerted on Government and Crown corporations is by the executive arm of the Government, the Cabinet. Backbench Liberals have very little say about how Canadians' tax dollars are spent. Members of the Opposition have very little input as to how tax dollars are spent. Even more importantly, we have little say in assessing whether Canadians have received good value for the dollars that are spent by the Government of Canada.
Six years have passed since the office of the Auditor General pointed out the existence of major weaknesses in the control and accountability of Crown corporations. The legislative framework urgently required is still, in fact, not in place. We do not believe that there will be effective legislation with respect to Crown corporations for quite some time to come.
There are a number of recommendations that the Auditor General made in his recently tabled Annual Report that I believe should be pointed out for the record. He said that there is a need for broad legislation respecting the accountability of Crown corporations and that it should include provisions relating to each of the elements of authorization and mandate, financing, directing, controlling and reporting. Such legislation should provide that these corporations be subject to comprehensive audits.
Unless a Crown corporation allows the Auditor General to conduct a comprehensive audit as a result of the establishment of a good relationship, the Auditor General can only conduct an attest audit on the figures that are given by the accountants of a Crown corporation. A comprehensive audit should be required of all Crown corporations. This comprehensive audit would include a review of the original mandate and objectives of the Crown corporation. I would also consider the questions whether these are procedures which can measure the effectiveness of those objectives and whether the corporation is truly operating with due respect for economy and efficiency. The

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Auditor General cannot judge its effectiveness, because that would be a policy decision which would not be within his jurisdiction. However, it certainly should be within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. We should consider whether there is such effectiveness based on studies on economy and efficiency carried out by the Auditor General.
I want to point out some errors, or illustrations, I suppose I should say, showing how Parliament has lost control of the taxpayers' dollar. 1 think Parliament has the responsibility of bringing this matter to the attention of the Government and the people of Canada, and the Government has the responsibility of listening to the recommendations which are being made.
An illustration of where we have lost control of the taxpayers' dollar is found in the area of letters of comfort. The amounts involved can be very insignificant indeed. In the last six years, more than $1 billion has been advanced to Canadair through a sequence of letters of comfort. These were authorized by Parliament on March 31, 1982, after the fact. The authorized limit was some $1.35 billion. This amount of taxpayers' money is at risk without what 1 would consider to be clear criteria or objectives for the guarantee of money coming into Canadair. We do not know whether there is due regard for economy and efficiency or whether that money was spent in an effective sort of way, because we do not have the facts before us to tell us that that money was spent wisely or very poorly by the federal Government in extending letters of comfort to Canadair.
Another area where mandates are overstepped and also where money is spent without any consideration of the poor taxpayer involves Atomic Energy of Canada Limited. Atomic Energy of Canada Limited was created back in 1952 and its mandate was to conduct nuclear research and development. "Development" means increasing the state of the art in nuclear technology. We now find that it is in a position where it has gone beyond the research and development aspects into production and sales. 1 would first point out that it has gone beyond its mandate without coming back to Parliament, without Parliament having any say in what AECL should be doing. As well, it has no regard for the taxpayers' dollars. It is very difficult to determine the actual amount spent by AECL, which is in the billions of dollars. Every time it sold a Candu reactor, we lost millions of dollars. Every time it opened a new heavy water plant, we had to subsidize it with millions of dollars more, and Liberal and Conservative Governments have done nothing to stop that.
I ask the people of Canada to keep in mind that, for the last 115 years, since Confederation, there have been Conservative and Liberal Governments running the country. In the case of AECL, it is likely that every person employed in the industry could have been given $50,000 to start their own businesses and there would still have been a savings tc the taxpayers of
Canada in light of the waste of money by that Crown Corporation with no parliamentary scrutiny whatsoever.
At this point in time I would like to move an amendment to the motion that we have before us today. I would move:
That the motion be amended by deleting the period at the end and adding the following:
"and that this House affirms the past and future role of Crown corporations in
developing an independent and socially responsible Canadian economy".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member has moved an amendment.


Douglas Keith Anguish: Mr. Speaker, there has been some dissension with the Conservative Party involving the role of Crown corporations.


Erik Nielsen: Really?


Douglas Keith Anguish: The speech of the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition today was very supportive of the accountability of Crown corporations. Then one hears the Hon. Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens), who is sometimes referred to as "The Slasher", talking about knee-capping many Crown corporations. 1 cannot say that all Crown corporations should be slashed or held up, although many Crown corporations-


Erik Nielsen: Nothing in the till, anyway.


Douglas Keith Anguish: -have abused the funds gained by taxpayers' dollars because they were not scrutinized by this Parliament.


Mr. Blenkarn:: Would you like to knee-cap Atomic Energy?


Douglas Keith Anguish: This Parliament should have the ability to assess whether or not Crown corporations are doing a good job. However, in the Bill introduced by the Conservatives in the last session of Parliament, Clause 33(2) stated:
The board of directors shall, in the exercise of its powers and duties, have due regard to sound business principles.
If this means that Crown corporations must be self-funded or make a profit and, if they do not, they face closure, then we in the NDP would disagree. From what the Leader of the Opposition said today, 1 think he would agree that most Crown Corporations need a social mandate or else one of promoting national policies and objectives. This must be taken into account as well, beyond consideration as to whether Crown corporations are sustaining themselves or making a profit.
I think that the motion involving accountability of Crown corporations is very timely. Certainly the Government has lost control of the public purse and Parliament is lagging behind as well. Parliament must have the mandate to consider accountability, not only the expenditures of Crown corporations but also of the Government.


Hon. Herb Gray (President of Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, the motion presented by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) certainly raises an important topic. It is unfortunate that, rather than addressing this topic, he spent his time
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on rather fanciful and incorrect assertions about Government action with respect to the economy and a number of other areas of policy.
The fact is that the Government has been taking important and substantial steps to assist in bringing about economic recovery and renewal in Canada. Its six and five program is a basis for bringing down inflation and bringing our costs under control. At the same time, in the budget of June 28 and in the economic statement of October 27, the Government has allocated more than $2 billion to job creation in the private sector. The Government is carrying out these efforts in spite of the fact-and it is a fact, no matter what the Leader of the Opposition says-that the major markets for key Canadian industries like forest products, minerals and auto parts are outside of our borders, and these markets themselves are suffering the most severe recession in some 30 or 40 years. In spite of this, the Government is taking steps and developing programs to reverse the present recession in Canada and, as I have said, to create jobs and bring about a healthier and stronger economy.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: That is right. Spend and waste money.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: When the Leader of the Opposition finally got around to the topic of his motion, he seemed to be attacking the very concept of Crown corporations. However, they are simply a means of carrying out public policy purposes, they are simply a means of carrying out purposes connected with national or provincial policies. For example, he complained about the need for more housing for our senior citizens. However, in attacking the very concept of Crown corporations, he attacks the existence of an entity like Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation which has been the means of creating affordable housing for hundreds and thousands of our senior citizens.
When he finally got around to talking about Crown corporations, he referred to the comments of the Auditor General in his most recent Report tabled in this House some two days ago. However, the Leader of the Opposition in his remarks goes far beyond anything said in that Report by the Auditor General. The Auditor General did not call for the abolition of Crown corporations or for a reduction in their number, but for a better framework for their accountability and direction.
The Auditor General certainly did not make the sweeping and inaccurate assertions of the Leader of the Opposition. He did not make the assertion that Crown corporations as a whole are the obvious source of savings in the dimension mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition, or any source of savings at all.
In any event, this Government has already taken a major step toward improving the direction, control and accountability of its wholly-owned corporations with the tabling of its proposed amendments to the Financial Administration Act in Bill C-123. Hon. Members will recall that the Government also announced on June 30 when Bill C-123 was tabled that complementary organizational and administrative measures would be implemented. In addition, the Government
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announced it would capitalize on the existing authorities contained in the constituent Acts of Crown corporations and in the Financial Administration Act.
These measures must be looked on and considered as a total package. They were designed to enhance the ability of the Government to act as an effective and vigilant shareholder of its wholly-owned corporations. I would like to emphasize the words "wholly-owned corporations". As Hon. Members are aware, the Government's wholly-owned departmental corporations are listed in Schedule B to the Financial Administration Act and are subject to the same provisions of that Act as are Government Departments.
The proposed amendment outlined in Bill C-123 would permit the Government to apply improved direction, control and accountability measures to the other corporations wholly-owned by the Government, whether they are parent corporations or subsidiary corporations.
I believe a distinction should be drawn between corporations which are wholly owned, either directly or indirectly, by the federal Crown and those in which the federal Government may be a majority or minority shareholder together with either private interests or other Governments. In these cases where the Government is not the sole shareholder, the rights of the other shareholders have to be taken into account and thus the degree and manner of Government direction and control exerted over the corporations which are not wholly owned would have to be quite different from that exerted over those which are wholly owned. The proposed amendments in Bill C-123 to Part VIII of the Financial Administration Act, together with complementary administrative reforms, will I suggest establish a regime capable of ensuring that wholly-owned corporations are policy-sensitive and financially-accountable entities.
In Canada, Government-owned corporations have had a long history of being created to achieve public policy objectives. Even before Confederation, the public enterprise model was chosen as a means to attain a particular goal. In 1841 the United Provinces of Canada created a board of works to construct a canal system. In 1906, I think it was, the Province of Ontario, which at the time had a Conservative Government, created Ontario Hydro, one of the largest publicly-owned corporations in Canada and perhaps in North America. The Conservative Government of Ontario, at the time, created Ontario Hydro at the request of a large number of business people who feared the monopolistic practices of a number of privately-owned power companies.
In 1919 the Canadian National railways was created. To many this is considered to be the point at which the federal Government commenced its entry into public enterprise in a major way. The Canadian National Railways was created by the Conservative Government of Robert Borden.


Charles Joseph Clark: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Over the years various Governments, federal and provincial, have used the public enterprise model in pursuing

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particular public policy objectives, with Conservative Governments being particularly active, when it came to creating many of the Crown corporations whose very existence the Leader of the Opposition is attacking today.
For example, in 1932 the Conservative Government of R. B. Bennett created what is now the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. That same Government created-and i am sure my hon. friend may not be willing to have it recognized now- the Bank of Canada, so often the subject of question and comments by Members of the Opposition. The Diefenbaker Government created the Farm Credit Corporation.
It would seem to indicate that all of those Conservative Governments which had a mandate from the people to form a majority Government and had the brains to be able to manage their affairs to stay in office used Crown corporations as an essential instrument of national policy.
What about the efforts in this regard of provincial Governments? My hon. friend has said nothing about the recent activities of the Alberta Conservative Government in creating the Alberta Energy Corporation and in purchasing control of Pacific Western Airlines. He said nothing about the recent activities of the Ontario Government in creating the Ontario Energy Corporation and the Urban Transportation Development Agency. The Conservative Government in Ontario I am sorry to say has been there for 40 years under successive administrations, each of which has set up new Crown corporations for public policy purposes.
Do Opposition Members in the Ontario legislature play a more active and complete role than they do in this House when it comes to reviewing the activities of Crown corporations? I do not think so. Do Opposition Members in the Alberta legislature play the kind of role sought by the Leader of the Opposition in reviewing Crown corporations?


Charles Joseph Clark: Liberal Opposition Members don't in Alberta.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: They certainly do not.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: When an NDP Government was in office in Saskatchewan, I doubt very much whether members of that legislature, on the Government or Opposition side, played the role sought by the spokesman for the NDP in reviewing the activities of Crown corporations. What we are proposing in Bill C-123 goes far beyond what is available to members of the legislatures, on both sides of the House, in the Provinces I mentioned which have been particularly active in recent years in creating Crown corporations.
Getting back to Bill C-123, the Government has announced measures which would ensure that wholly-owned corporations are more aware of Government priorities. In that Bill, the Government is proposing that the Governor in Council be given the same rights and powers of direction as may be exercised by the sole shareholder or proprietor of a private-sector company incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act. In addition, the Government announced the institutionalization of the concept of an annual shareholders'
meeting whereby each appropriate Minister as the trustee shareholder would meet annually with boards of directors to formally review the Government's performance and to communicate specific Government objectives to the boards. Of course, the informal communication which now exists between appropriate Ministers and wholly-owned corporations will continue. The proposed shareholders' rights provision in Bill C-123 also involves prerogatives with respect to approval of corporate by-laws, the election and removal of directors and the appointment of auditors.
Although the Government already has similar authority under the constituent Acts of many of its Crown corporations and with respect to all wholly-owned corporations created under the Canada Businesses Corporations Act, the proposed amendment would allow a consistent standard that is in accordance with private sector practices to be applied across all wholly-owned corporations.
As indicated, Mr. Speaker, in the policy statement tabled with amendments, to Bill C-123, the Government will seek to improve its use of existing authorities contained in constituent Acts of Crown corporations and the Financial Administration Act. This action, coupled with the proposed amendments and complementary administrative measures, as I have said, comprises a package designed to address very important issues which have been raised regarding Crown corporations. This approach has taken into account the balance which must be achieved between ensuring that corporations perform in a manner consistent with their role as instruments of national purpose, that they can be held accountable for their performance, and that they can be directed when necessary, while at the same time recognizing that a need exists for a flexible relationship which allows corporations to operate effectively in a corporate form, manner and milieu in accordance with sound business behaviour and practices.
Now, Mr. Speaker, as Hon. Members are aware, the Government's wholly-owned corporations vary in many ways. At one end of the spectrum are those corporations totally dependent on appropriations by Parliament for the financing of their day-to-day operations. At the other end are the commercially-oriented corporations which are financially selfsufficient and pay dividends to the shareholder. There are some corporations which have only a handful of employees. There are others whose employees number in the thousands, and, as has been pointed out, several whose employees number in the tens of thousands. The wholly-owned corporations' head offices are located in a number of Canada's regions. In all, these corporations are important contributors to Canada's economic and social development through their actions across major industrial, financial and service sectors.
The Financial Administration Act was approved by Parliament in order to provide a foundation for the financial administration of the Government of Canada. Part VIII of that act, as I have said, applies solely to Crown corporations
December 9, 1982

listed in Schedules C and D which provide the legislative foundation for the financial relations between Crown corporations and the Government, as well as between the Government and Parliament.
Accountability to Parliament is addressed by having all Crown corporations' annual reports and annual capital budgets tabled in Parliament regardless of whether the corporation was financed through parliamentary appropriation. The information provided to Parliament in this way assists Members of Parliament in holding Ministers accountable for the owners' prerogative which Ministers exercise with respect to Crown corporations. In addition, this information assists executives of Crown corporations in accounting for their activities when they appear before parliamentary committees.
Now, the amendments to Bill C-123 are intended to build on this framework. One of the most important areas which the proposed amendments relate to is control of the proliferation of Crown corporations. We are certainly aware of criticisms which have been expressed in this area by Members of Parliament and the Lambert Commission. The proposed amendments provide that no person, including a wholly-owned corporation, whether a parent or subsidiary, could create a corporation controlled by the federal Government under the Canada Business Corporations Act or the Canada Corporations Act, or any other companies legislation, without the express approval of the Governor in Council.
In addition, the approval of the Governor in Council would be required by any Minister wishing to acquire all the shares of a Canada Business Corporations Act corporation which, upon acquisition, would be owned by the Crown. However, any Order in Council approving the creation or acquisition of a CBCA corporation by a Minister would have to be tabled in Parliament and Parliamentarians would have the right to table and debate and vote on motions which would seek either to confirm or reject the Order in Council under consideration.


Mr. Beatty:: What about the CDIC?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: The proposed amendments also provide that terms and conditions could be attached to any Order in Council approving the creation or acquisition of a subsidiary corporation. Thus, the Government could ensure that the powers of a subsidiary corporation were limited to those of the parent-


Charles Joseph Clark: "Could".


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -in those cases where wholly-owned parent corporations or wholly-owned subsidiaries were creating or acquiring new subsidiaries. Other terms and conditions which could be part of the-


Charles Joseph Clark: "Could be".


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -Governor in Council approval might relate to the placing of restrictions on the operations-


Charles Joseph Clark: But won't be.
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Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -of new corporations or a requirement for the corporations to submit new or amended articles of incorporation for approval.
The Bill also seeks to ensure the Crown would assume no liability in cases where the incorporation or acquisition had taken place contrary to the restriction on incorporation provisions detailed in the amendments. In addition to including controls on the proliferation of corporations, the Bill would place restrictions on the disposal of the corporate holdings of the Crown. Governor in Council approval would be required before any person, including a corporation, could sell or dispose of any shares held by such a person on behalf of Her Majesty.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize that with respect to the disposal provisions parliamentary approval would continue to be required in the case of any corporation established by an Act of Parliament where the transfer of the shares of such corporations or the winding up of the corporation and its affairs are subject to the approval of Parliament.


Charles Joseph Clark: Read that again.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: The Government is strengthening its authority to require financial information consistent with its role as shareholder and, in some cases, as banker or as a source of financing for federally-owned corporations. The Government has therefore proposed in the Bill that Treasury Board should be given authority to request such accounts, returns, statements, documents and reports that the board considers necessary for the performance of its duties.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, to ensure the flow of timely and effective information to assist decision-making, the Government proposes to implement the corporate plan concept which is consistent with normal, good business practice. In general, each corporate plan would provide consolidated information on the corporation's growth and market strategies, the consistency of these corporate strategies with statutory mandates and stated Government objectives, the financial implications of such strategies and their time frame.
Well, Mr. Speaker, I am certainly in a position to give a detailed outline of the amendments proposed for Bill C-123, but I think that I have already begun to demonstrate that what we have in mind is-


Erik Nielsen: Total incompetence.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -something intended to respond to concerns expressed on both sides of this House, in Royal Commissions and in the Auditor General's Report.


Charles Joseph Clark: Shut out Parliament.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: We intend to respond to those kinds of concerns in an effective and timely manner. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, the recently tabled Report of the Auditor General is likely to be a focus of attention for Members of Parliament, therefore I would like at this time to make a few comments about some of the specific points respecting the accountability of Crown-
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December 9, 1982
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owned corporations which the Auditor General has highlighted in his report.
1 want to remind the House that a previous Liberal Government initiated a major study of the broad issue of the direction, control and accountability of Crown corporations. The study led to a blue paper which was published in 1977 and outlined proposals of the Government of the day regarding a renewed relationship between the Government and Crown corporations. This initiative led to important discussions among interested parties on the role of Crown corporations and the degree of Government and parliamentary direction, control and scrutiny which would be most appropriate. Certainly the Bill presented by the Government of my hon. friends opposite drew extensively on the work done by previous Liberal Governments.


Henry Perrin Beatty: From which you backtracked.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Also, Mr. Speaker, the proposals which this Government introduced on June 30 are the result of further consideration of views expressed by Parliamentarians, the Auditor General and the Lambert Commission, balanced by the recognition that wholly-owned corporations are not Government Departments and that these corporations require a flexible relationship which allows them to function in a corporate environment in accordance with sound business principles.
Now, Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General in his recent Report concluded that legislation is necessary to require comprehensive audits for all federal wholly-owned corporations. I want to remind the House that the Government had already noted the previously stated recommendations of the Auditor Genreral and the Public Accounts Committee requesting that comprehensive audits become a requirement for Crown corporations. It was with these recommendations in mind that the Government announced in the policy statement, which was made public at the same time as the amendments to Bill C-123, that it would use the proposed shareholders' rights authority, which would be granted to it through the Governor in Council, to require management systems audits when and if necessary.
As I stated earlier in my remarks, Bill C-123 is only part of the Government's total package respecting Crown corporations reform. It should be noted that the comparison made by the Auditor General, in his very useful Report between Bill C-123 and Bill C-27 does not reflect those aspects of direction, control and accountability measures which are addressed through the improved utilization of existing legislative authorities contained in the constituent Acts of Crown corporations and in the Financial Administration Act; nor does the comparison reflect the organizational and administrative measures which complement the proposed amendments to the Financial Administration Act.
I would remind the House that with respect to the corporate financing area the Government has proposed an amendment to the Financial Administration Act which would provide a
general authority for the Minister of Finance to approve the borrowing activities of any wholly-owned corporation subject to general regulations issued by the Governor in Council.
To conclude, I also want to remind the House that the Government House Leader (Mr. Pinard) has said he is negotiating with Opposition House Leaders with a view to having Bill C-123 divided so that the Crown corporations section can be the subject of a separate Bill. I hope there will soon be agreement on this so that this important subject can be given the focus and attention it deserves. I am presently very actively reviewing the comments and recommendations in the latest Auditor General's Report to see if they can provide a basis for further possible amendments to Bill C-123, and I will certainly be discussing this actively with my colleagues.
It would appear that all Members of the House are in agreement that there has to be an improvement in the over-all means of ensuring the accountability and direction of Crown corporations. We do not differ in this regard-


Henry Perrin Beatty: We want them accountable to Parliament; we do not want them accountable the Liberals only.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -although obviously there is a very serious difference in perception when it comes to the most appropriate way of going about this. There is a very serious difference in perception when it comes to looking at the views of the Official Opposition about the nature of the success of Crown corporations in building Canada and the views of the people on the Government side of the House.
My hon. friends have made some reference to improved accountability of Crown corporations to Parliament. They seem to have forgotten that it was the Government, and the Members of Parliament supporting the Government, that took the initiative to adopt the report of the Special Committee on Standing Orders Procedure just recently and which becomes operative when we come back in January.


Charles Joseph Clark: That is not true either, Herb.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: This report has amended Standing Order 41 to ensure that:
Reports, returns or other papers laid before the House in accordance with an Act of Parliament shall thereupon be deemed to have been permanently referred to the committee designated by the Member tabling the report, return or paper.


Henry Perrin Beatty: That certainly sets my mind at ease.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Also, Mr. Speaker, this House has adopted the recommendation which has led to a change in the Standing Orders to the effect that:
Within 120 days of the presentation of a committee report the Government shall, upon the request of the committee, table a comprehensive response.


Charles Joseph Clark: If the committee requests.


Erik Nielsen: Only if the Government wants it.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Bill C-123 which was tabled months before the Auditor General's Report also helps prove our resolve to bring about improvements in the framework, direction-
December 9, 1982


Henry Perrin Beatty: Nonsense.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: -and accountability of Crown corporations.
The Opposition motion obviously ignores completely the steps the Government has taken and intends to take to deal with the very important matter of improving the accountability of Crown corporations. The motion of the Opposition is superficial, one-sided and incomplete. It ignores completely the need for the flexibility of the Crown corporation concept and the major contribution Crown corporations have made and will make to the well-being of Canada and its people.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I call upon all Members of this House to reject overwhelmingly this specious and empty motion.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, 1 listened with interest to the remarks of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray). Perhaps now, though, it is time for some facts to be injected into this debate, because it is clear that the President of the Treasury Board neither understands the legislation that he is being called upon to defend nor has any grasp of reality as it relates to the problems posed by Crown corporations in Canada today.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: We are not going to get any facts from you, just fiction.


Henry Perrin Beatty: If the President of the Treasury Board had read the Auditor General's Report, he would have seen the Auditor General warn Canadians of a sub-government, largely invisible to Canadians, beyond Parliament's reach, competing with our citizens in the marketplace but having special advantages over them, employing more people than are employed by the federal Public Service, costing billions of tax dollars every year and steadily growing in size and power. That sub-government is the array of Crown corporations that moves our mail, produces our radio and TV programs, transports us across the country, builds aircraft, sells uranimum, lends money, pumps gas and touches our daily lives in a hundred other ways.
In theory, Parliament authorizes the creation of these corporations and supervises their activities. In practice, Parliament's involvement is minimal, and shrinking. Many of these corporations conduct their affairs in secrecy, seeing little need to explain to the taxpayers, who pay billions of dollars to subsidize them each year, how that money is being spent.
Try to find out how much it costs the Canada Post Corporation to participate in Intelpost, or try to discover how much business Intelpost moves between Washington and Toronto. I did, and I was told that it was none of my business as a Member of Parliament. That information is classified.
Try to find out the cost of the CBC's logo, which looks like a flying pizza. You will not find that out but that is a secret too. Ask the Government how two of its Crown corporations participated in the energy cartel. That information is classified and indeed it would be a criminal offence to give out some of
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that information. Or try to find out how much taxpayers will be paying Joel Bell, the new President of the Canada Development Investment Corporation. We are not entitled to know that.
The Auditor General pointed out that the size and power of Crown corporations today is massive and largely beyond Parliament's control. But there is nothing really very new in his findings. His predecessor found the same thing six years ago, as did the Public Accounts Committee, the Lambert Commission, the Privy Council Office and various other studies which have taken place since. What is new, however, is that at the same time as the Government talks about making Crown corporations more accountable, it is moving quickly to put the corporations even further beyond Parliament's reach.
The President of the Treasury Board talked about Bill C-123. Bill C-123 will give Parliament's blessing for the Government to create an unlimited number of new Crown corporations in any field whatsoever. Any of these corporations which the Government decides to make agents of Her Majesty will be free to price-fix and publish misleading advertising without having to fear prosecution. They will borrow on the Government's credit rating and Canadian taxpayers will be automatically responsible for their debts.
Parliament will not be asked to pass Bills to create the corporations, as we did for the Canada Post Corporation or for Air Canada. Instead, Parliament's participation when the Government decides to set up a new corporation will be limited to three hours' debate in the House and three hours' debate in the Senate. When a corporation itself is creating a new subsidiary, however, there will be not one syllable, not a single word said in Parliament, no parliamentary involvement whatsoever.
A few weeks ago, the Government created a new Crown corporation, the Canada Development Investment Corporation, because their attempts to pressure the Canada Development Corporation, in which they hold only a minority interest, had failed. They had tried to instal Maurice Strong, a former Liberal candidate, as Chairman of the CDC but were forced to back down because of the public outcry. Instead, they have created a whole new corporation for Mr. Strong. Its President will be Joel Bell, who has prospered from the Government's generosity and goodwill in the past. It will report to Senator Jack Austin, the architect of the infamous energy cartel. The elements of patronage in the corporation would be serious enough in themselves, but from the point of view of Parliament what is far more serious in the long run will be how the corporation was created and how it will function in the future.
The corporation was formed without a single word of debate in the House. Parliament was neither informed nor consulted before the corporation was created. Yet the Government is in the process of building what may soon become the largest holding company in Canada, dwarfing in size Conrad Black's holdings or the Power Corporation.

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Parliament may be asked to vote funds for the company and its consent will be needed to transfer the Government's holdings in the Canada Development Corporation to the CDIC. In time, however, the CDIC will have all the power it needs to create, buy, sell, and manage companies in any business whatsoever, either in Canada or anywhere around the world. Parliament will neither have a right to be consulted before important actions are taken nor to control the billions of dollars involved.
Even the creation of new Crown corporations to be owned by the CDIC will not require Parliament's involvement because Bill C-123 exempts subsidiaries of Crown corporations from parliamentary debate.
The President of the Treasury Board spoke about Bill C-123 being designed to ensure that there would be improved parliamentary accountability, but I would like to know where that accountability will be. I would ask the President of Treasury Board and the Liberal speakers who will follow where that accountability will come from in the case of the CDIC. Will Parliament have the opportunity to utter even one syllable before these new corporations are incorporated as subsidiaries of CDIC? Will it have any control over the budgeting process? Was it consulted before the CDIC was created? What does Bill C-123 do in this very important field to enhance accountability to Parliament and to enhance the ability of Members of Parliament to discharge the responsibilities entrusted to them by the people of Canada?
The Canada Development Investment Corporation may well not have to come to Parliament for funds for very long, because profits from any of its subsidiaries can be spent without Parliament's consent. And when the CDIC sells assets, such as its shares in the Canada Development Corporation, it will hold on to the proceeds of these sales and will be able to use that money to subsidize any losing companies or buy whole new corporations. All the Government need do is move into the portfolio held by CDIC sufficient companies able to pay their own way. It can recycle the funds from winning companies to the losers. It can take the profits to expand the involvement of CDIC. At no time does Parliament come back into the picture unless CDIC comes back to Parliament to ask for more funds. When it sells Crown corporations or their assets, that money will not flow back to the Consolidated Revenue Fund so that Parliament can hold the purse strings. It will flow into the CDIC which is accountable only to Senator Jack Austin. The money can be spent however the CDIC chooses, without Parliament being asked for consent.
How dare the Minister talk about Bill C-123 and about parliamentary accountability when everything that he has done and everything being done by the Government at present will subvert parliamentary accountability, not enhance it.
The prospect of such a massive company, controlled by the Prime Minister's proteges and involved in a wide range of economic activities, above the laws that its private sector competitors must obey and beyond Parliament's scrutiny, is frightening for anyone who believes in free enterprise or parliamentary democracy. And yet the facts are clear and
incontestable. The company has been formed without Parliament's consent. The Government has installed its cronies as Chairman of the Board and President. It has listed some of the companies that will be transferred to the CDIC and will be asking us to approve $400 million more for two of those companies this evening. The President of the Treasury Board has already tabled Bill C-123, which will permit the creation of an unlimited number of new Crown corporations.
Crown corporations have long been seen by the Government as a useful means of pursuing its policy goals. Only recently, however, has the Government discovered just how useful they can be.
The Government does not see Parliament as the central institution in our democracy. The Liberals see Parliament as a pain-in-the-neck, a roadblock in their way. To the Liberals, Parliament is not the central institution in Government; it is an obstacle to be removed or avoided at all costs.
By using Crown corporations instead of Government departments to achieve its purposes, the Government can almost totally avoid Parliament. Our consent is not needed to create the corporations; if they are carefully set up, their finances can be managed outside the budgetary process, thereby avoiding messy parliamentary debate and reducing the apparent size of Government spending. If embarrassing questions are asked, the Government can always plead the need for commercial confidentiality.
It is ironic that the President of the Treasury Board should be given the responsibility for supervising Canada's Crown corporations and for developing a regime of accountability. When I was a Minister in Treasury Board I often wondered why the windows of the Department were sealed. Now I know the reason. When the building was erected it was suspected that he might one day become President and they wanted to avoid the prospect of public servants jumping from the windows when they learned that.
The President of Treasury Board, who has been told by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that he has the responsibility of enhancing the credibility of Crown corporations, showed his ingenuity earlier this summer when he was Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. He had a new company created under provincial legislation in Newfoundland. He did not take action under the Canada Business Corporations Act but used the provincial companies legislation. The Government then issued an Order in Council that made that company a Crown corporation. The Government had been following the procedures in the House so it knew about Madam Speaker's ruling that it is not possible to put funds into a program which has not been approved by Parliament, but it found a way around that ruling. It chose to use a fund which was created to assist industry and it used that fund in order to put money into this new Crown corporation.
What is at issue here is not the need for the new Crown corporation or whether it serves any useful purpose; the issue is whether this precedent will be increasingly used in the future and what effect the precedent will have upon the solemn obligation that we have as Members of Parliament to control the public purse strings.
December 9, 1982

The President of Treasury Board, in his previous incarnation, discovered a convenient way of end-running Parliament. The Government will ask us to give it the money it needs to assist industry. It will set up funds of this sort. When we ask what companies will receive the assistance, it will reply that nobody will know until we see who requests it. When we ask about this in the Estimates, the response will be: "How should we know? This is a fund set up to assist industry and we will not know who is going to ask for funds until later. We have to set the fund up now; then we will see who asks for money and make the decision." Increasingly, Mr. Speaker, those requests will be used by Crown corporations as a means to avoid coming back to Parliament to ask for funds.
Before I leave the Minister's responsibilities, Mr. Speaker, I think we should not forget his record as related to Consolidated Computers. Over $100 million of taxpayers' money was lost. In the House yesterday the President of Treasury Board had the unmitigated gall to state with a straight face, as reported at page 21390 of Hansard, the following:
Once again. Madam Speaker, I want the House and the public to note the endorsement of the official spokesman of the Conservative Party for the steps we took to end our involvement in Consolidated Computer and have it involved with the Nabu company.
Where has the Minister been? At the very same time as his predecessor in that portfolio wrote to him saying that Ministers had been kept in the dark about the state of affairs regarding Consolidated Computer, he wrote back on more than one occasion-and we have the letters-saying that what was necessary was not to pull the plug on Consolidated Computer but to put more tax dollars in to build it up. Yet he had the unmitigated gall yesterday to talk about "the steps we took to end our involvement in Consolidated Computer". If he had not been overruled by his predecessor at Treasury Board we would still be pouring good tax dollars after bad into Consolidated Computer.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: It was my initiative.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Now the Minister is entrusted with the responsibility of coming up with a comprehensive package for the accountability and control of Crown corporations. A few minutes ago he told us that he is currently reviewing the recommendations of the Auditor General to see which he can accept. What else could we expect?


Mr. Wilson:: Would you trust him?


Henry Perrin Beatty: My colleague asks if we would trust him. If we had $100, we just have to look at the treasury benches and ask ourselves which Member of Cabinet-the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts), the President of Treasury Board, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen), the Minister of State for Multicuituralism (Mr. Fleming), the Minister of State for Mines (Mrs. Erola) or the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy)-would we trust to invest it wisely?


Charles Joseph Clark: Roberts would give it to Buchanan!
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Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, to which one would you give your money? I think I know what the answer would be. Yet we are being asked to give to these Ministers a blank cheque written on the account of the people of Canada to continue to spend, to continue to intrude in the marketplace, and to continue to destroy the viability of the private enterprise system in Canada. We are telling them to spend literally billions of tax dollars every year in their involvement in Government corporations, without limit. As corporations which are agents of Her Majesty continue to run up debts, those debts are automatically charges upon the revenues of the taxpayers of Canada.
The Government has found another way of getting money to its corporations without the fuss and bother of asking Parliament first. Clause 29 of Bill C-42, which created the Canada Post Corporation, allows the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) to forward any money he chooses to the Corporation to cover its bills. The Corporation is expected to pay back as much as it can, but any shortfall will be covered by an item in the Estimates. When Parliament comes into the picture, the money will have been long since spent. Parliamentary control will be no more than an illusion because Parliament will have no ability to control money which is already gone.
The Auditor General has looked at what the Government has been doing to control Crown corporations. He took the Government at its word when it said that it wanted improved accountability. He said that he found its plans to be inadequate. The President of the Treasury Board alluded to that, but perhaps he did not go into the depth he might have. On page 58 of the Auditor General's Report, he made a comparison of the 1977 Blue Book, the Conservative legislation. Bill C-27, and the legislation before the House now, Bill C-123. There were 33 separate points of comparison. In seven of the points his concerns were fully met by the Government's Bill; in two other points portions of his concerns were met. By contrast, Bill C-27 fully met some 25 of the Auditor General's concerns and partially met one of them. Yet the Minister has the nerve to talk about Bill C-123.
I would go well beyond the Auditor General's observations. I do not believe the Liberals have the slightest intention of improving parliamentary control over Crown corporations. Their activities prove that they intend to do just the opposite. Looked at in that context, Bill C-123 is not simply a weak and ineffectual attempt to make improvements; it is a highly dangerous Bill designed to provide a fig leaf of respectability for a measure which is an attack on Parliament itself.
Bill C-123 should not be amended as the Minister suggested. It should be scrapped and replaced with a whole new Bill which genuinely attempts to correct the problems pointed out by every study of Crown corporations that has been conducted. There must be no more Crown corporations created without Parliament's consent. Crown corporations must obey the same laws as their private sector competitors when it comes to false

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and misleading advertising and to cartels. The mandates of new Crown corporations must be spelled out clearly. The mandates of old Crown corporations must be regularly updated. There must be much less secrecy about the activities of Crown corporations, and secret directives from the Government to Crown corporations must stop. New controls should be placed on the borrowings of Crown corporations. The Government's accounts must accurately reflect their debts. The Auditor General must have the authority that he needs to do his job.
Parliament cannot force such legislation on a majority Government if it does not want it, but we still have the power to stop the Government from taking some of the dangerous actions it is currently planning. It is too late to prevent Bill C-102 from becoming law. It is too late to force changes to the Canada Post Corporation Bill in the areas where it violates Parliament's control over supply. It is too late to stop the creation of the CDIC. But it is not too late for us to take a stand against Bill C-123 or against any other measure designed to subvert parliamentary democracy.
In conclusion, let me say to the President of the Treasury Board that the Government should not underestimate our sincerity or our determination to draw the line and to take a stand to prevent this last vestige of parliamentary control from being stripped away. We will fight them in the House. We will fight them in the country. We are prepared to allow the people of Canada to decide whether or not the Government shall be permitted to remove this last parliamentary check on its actions. It is a fight that we dare not lose because the wealth and the liberties of every Canadian hang in the balance.
[ Translation]


Mr. Pierre Deniger (La Prairie):: Mr. Speaker, when I read the wording of the Opposition motion which, in fact, urges greater	participation	by Members in	the management ofCrown	corporations,	I must admit that I found both	the
subject and the speeches of the previous speakers most interesting. However, with due respect, I was very disappointed, Mr. Speaker, in the speech made by the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark).


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is not what you told me.


Pierre Deniger: Mr.	Speaker, I made	notes, because I	amalways	interested in	what the Right	Hon. Leader of	the
Official Opposition has to say.
I have about a dozen pages of notes here in my hand, and they are about subjects that are extraneous to the question we should be debating, according to the motion before the House today. The Leader of the Official Opposition talked about internationalism, about Government advertising and he talked about the unemployed with a great deal of concern, but all that is not the subject of the motion before this House. He talked about my colleague from Bourassa (Mr. Rossi) and about several other Members, but he did not speak to the motion under consideration. Mr. Speaker, I wrote on this small scrap
of paper everything he said about today's motion. I wrote down the words: Crown corporations. His contribution to today's debate was just that: Crown corporations.
Mr. Speaker, I am afraid I shall have to conclude that if in today's column, Allan Fotheringham's last words were:

"Why do they publish evidence of their own ineptitude?"

He must have been anticipating the speech of the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition. Mr. Speaker, it was one of the worst speeches it has been my misfortune to hear.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member who is now speaking told me privately that he thought the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) made a brilliant speech.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Pierre Deniger: Obviously the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) misunderstood what I said. If I remember exactly what I said to him, I said that the future of his Leader depended upon his actions. This is what I remember telling him, and he agreed.
I go now to the substance of the motion itself.

I think it is clear, Mr. Speaker, that Crown corporations should be made accountable to Parliament. I think they have been allowed to take it easy and to do just about whatever they wanted to do for far too long. The few times Crown corporations appeared before Parliamentary committees for instance, the Committee on Transport and Communications of which I am Deputy Chairman, and I am referring to Crown corporations such as Air Canada and Canadian National, and there are many others, Mr. Speaker, they gave the impression that, of course, they had to submit to the Committee's questions for three hours, but once the torture was over, they could go home and do whatever they wanted.
Mr. Speaker, in view of that experience, I thought it would be very useful for Hon. Members to have an opportunity to make a more thorough analysis of the activities of Crown corporations. In fact, I was quite convinced, until Canadair-a corporation that was particularly important to Quebecers who believed in the aviation industry and in the benefits of advanced technology-appeared before the Finance Committee. I see the Members opposite, but none of them were on the Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs-at least none of those who are in the House today. But I think the Member for York-Simcoe or was it York-Peel, but in any case, the former President of the Treasury Board asked the President of Canadair some questions. Mr. Speaker, at that time I
December 9, 1982

saw right away the kind of a trap the Members of the Opposition are preparing for us. In the case of Canadair, which is a highly competitive industry with competitors in the United States and France, what kind of questions did the Opposition Members ask? They were interested only in matters that were entirely confidential, such as production costs and the use of technology as compared to Grumman or other companies. The Canadair people appearing before the Committee-1 had been wanting to see them for a long time, because $1.3 billion is a lot of money-told us: Gentlemen, your questions are only helping our competitors. Do you not understand that your questions are not a help but a hindrance? That was the kind of question the Opposition Members asked Canadair.
Instead of seeking the assurance that the money was well spent, the Opposition Members only wanted to know about cost, in order to help Grumman, because the Member who was asking the questions had Grumman's annual report in front of him, and used it to embarrass these people who were appearing before the Committee for the first time.
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Progressive Conservative Party is not prepared to, as it were, put its money where its mouth is. I listened to the Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty). The Hon. Member is Joint Chairman of the Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments. He is one of the Members I prefer to listen to in the House, because he is consistent, because he believes basically in what he says and because he practises what he preaches, and having seen his performance as Joint Chairman, we realize that he knows where he is going. Unfortunately, he is alone, crying in the wilderness, in the middle of that crowd sitting next to him. The Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe does not, for instance, want to do away with VIA Rail. Suppose we talk about VIA Rail for a minute, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition did not talk about VIA Rail, but he could have used it as a good example in discussing the legislation and the measures he would like to see introduced, because the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) has often been criticized for cutting 20 per cent of the traffic-


Charles Joseph Clark: Without prior consultation! Without public hearings!


Pierre Deniger: Without prior consultation, this summer, and without any public hearings, and why not, Mr. Leader of the Opposition? What is so bad about not having a public hearing? Is that so bad? What is really bad, Mr. Speaker, is that the Progressive Conservative Party is going to criticize us for running a deficit and for giving VIA Rail even more money, namely $164 million in addition to the $500 million it was given already. I would like to know what VIA Rail's deficit would have been if we had not had the guts to scrap routes that were not being used?
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Charles Joseph Clark: Probably less.


Pierre Deniger: Of course, if the Leader of the Opposition had the courage to say what is on his mind, Mr. Speaker, he would probably get fewer votes in Winnipeg in January, because as Hon. Members are aware, the Progressive Conservatives are ahead in the polls, and are also so scared and their popularity margin is so narrow that they will not take a stand on anything. When they had their policy orientation convention in Toronto-the Leader of the Opposition is smiling because he knows what I am going to say-they did not even have the guts to have a debate on an orientation issue. All they did was use a questionnaire, and now they are trying to camouflage the results. For shame! A questionnaire in which they say they are against family allowances, against multiculturalism, against any form of security and against hospital insurance! This is the party that was so concerned about the accountability of Crown corporations, this is the party that wanted to be able to analyze Crown corporation activities. This is the party that wanted to know whether profits made by Air Canada this year should not be returned to the Consolidated Fund instead of being reinvested to ensure that the Canadian taxpayer is getting his money's worth. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to see them in the Opposition. I am especially glad, as my colleague from Lon-gueuil (Mr. Olivier), said, that the Leader of the Official Opposition is going to stay there. I am glad, because although he may show some common sense on other issues, though lacking the support of his caucus, he does not do so on this issue. It was obvious, Mr. Speaker. It was embarrassing to hear him speak just now, when he so obviously had been told to say nothing.
Take Air Canada or Canadian National or Petro-Canada. The Leader of the Opposition should know that according to the same polls that show his party is ahead, Canadians like their Crown corporations, they support them and are the corporations' main customers.
Mr. Speaker, he should remember the lesson he got in 1980, in January or February, when the Canadian people rejected him outright because he wanted to privatize Crown corporations. Has he forgotten? That is really amazing, Mr. Speaker. However, I would rather not waste any more time on what the Leader of the Opposition did not say, because what is important here is the Auditor General's Report. I would like to quote what he said in paragraph 2.114, since we have talked a lot about Bill C-123. The Auditor General said, and I quote:
-Bill C-123 considerably strengthens the role of ministers in controlling the financing and directing of wholly-owned Crown corporations.
I think it is quite true and that it is a straightforward analysis of Bill C-123. In fact, this is what the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) told the Members of the Opposition, who were obviously not paying much attention. However, the Auditor General goes on to say, and I quote:
However, it does not address the needs of Parliament.

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That is true. I would prefer that, if all Members were responsible. Unfortunately, 1 just gave an example of the irresponsibility of Opposition Members. Unfortunately, all Members are not responsible. Where I fully agree with the Auditor General, and perhaps some of my colleagues in the Cabinet are not so enthusiastic, is the principle of comprehensive audits for certain Crown corporations. I sat on the Committee on Communications and Culture, where there was a long debate on whether or not there should be a comprehensive audit of the CBC. The Committee's report was clear and recommended a comprehensive audit. Unfortunately, the Ministers did not act on this recommendation. In the case of VIA Rail, for instance, there is now a comprehensive audit for management. Unfortunately, we will not see it.
Personally, 1 would like to see comprehensive audits for Air Canada and other Crown corporations. Opposition Members would have us believe that they are really concerned about making these corporations a success, while from their questions and actions it is clear that if they could get hold of these comprehensive audits, they would hand them over to the competitors, to make sure the corporations would lose money, since it is against their policy that a Crown corporation should be properly administrated and make a profit. To people who are interested in profits, it is fine as long as the profits are not being made by a Crown corporation. Mr. Speaker, the party opposite is really a mass of contradictions. As far as the motion before the House is concerned, I feel that, basically, it is quite straightforward, and it is hard for a Member to object to having more power. However, in view of the total lack of responsibility of the Members opposite, it is clear that we cannot vote in favour of a motion of this kind, because the Members opposite are not prepared to assume the responsibilities that the motion entails.
Earlier a Member from the other side took the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) to task for creating Crown companies. When we do create one, it is always because there is a need for it, and it is in the public interest. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, that is certainly not the way Members opposite see it since they think that whenever a new Crown corporation is created Canadians are deprived of jobs, goods and services. It is precisely the opposite that happens, Mr. Speaker, whenever we create a new Crown corporation. The CNR is a case in point. Exactly what was it? Just a loose aggregate of private companies which were operating an unprofitable railway system. So the Government stepped in and created a corporation to extend rail services to various regions. There was a merger. The Government bought the CN and today, except for a few thick-witted Members opposite, who is talking about selling off our Canadian National Railways? That is sheer nonsense, Mr. Speaker!
If we take VIA Rail, for instance, are there any Members on the other side who would dare say that we should get rid of
that corporation? Not one, Mr. Speaker, even though it is costing us $500 million, not to mention the additional $165 million we gave them this year. Why? Because they know that, politically speaking, it would be unwise to advocate the privatization of VIA Rail.
People talk about the CBC and its huge budget. In that case, I would like to have an integrated audit, as would the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty). Indeed both he and I are strong advocates of an integrated audit, but we have not had any luck so far. I must admit that I have not yet accepted that refusal and I still think that the Government will eventually have the courage to insist on an integrated audit of the CBC. However, Mr. Speaker, are there any Members on the other side, except for that Edmonton visionary, who would put the CBC up for sale? Not one. When Mr. Pocklington was asked who would buy the CBC, he said he would. Naturally, he would make a profit out of the deal, and that is what we want to do too. In the public interest, would we rather not make sure that our communications networks are efficient, excellent and a model for others? I think so.
Mr. Speaker, as I listened to Hon. Members opposite, I realized that while their motion refers to accountability, their comments were strictly on the question of whether or not we should have Crown corporations. It is very obvious, Mr. Speaker, that it is quite reasonable and useful to have Crown corporations. Does this truth get the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) so angry that he gets excited and turns as red as his tie and as "Rouge" as the party that will remain in power for a long time to come? I do not know, but I want to tell him that if he really understood the concept of Canada, he would certainly realize that Crown corportions are essential tools for a government such as ours in our type of society. I can see the Hon. Member behind him, the Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone), make gestures of frustration. 1 am certain that these gestures were not addressed to the Leader of the Opposition and that his gestures were addressed neither to the Leader of the Opposition nor to his constituents who are of the opinion that we need the CBC, VIA Rail Canada, Air Canada, Petro-Canada and the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation. And that is the whole issue, Mr. Speaker. Do we want Crown corporations or not? The leaders of the opposition say no and we say yes. Do we want them to be well managed? For our part, we say yes.
Do Hon. Members opposite have enough heart and conscience to hold in their hands documents that could help the competitors of our Crown corporations? I say that that is how they use them. I say that they are irresponsible and that as long as they cannot show a greater sense of their responsibilities, intelligence and good will, on the basis of their behaviour even in committee, they do not deserve to see documents which would help the competitors of our Crown corporations.
December 9, 1982

This evening, 1 shall vote against the motion of the Progressive Conservatives, Mr. Speaker, because they have once again demonstrated what Mr. Fotheringham calls their ineptitude. During the last minute remaining to me, Mr. Speaker, I would not want to deal with the Arrow, our great and fantastic plane made in Canada, which was scrapped by the Progressive Conservative Party. So I will not deal with it. I will not deal either with its unemployment insurance policy or anything the Canadian people want, except their filthy rich members.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, and before the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) has a stroke, I want to say that we will definitely vote against this motion and that it is unfortunate that a party which thinks it is on the brink of returning to power does not have among its members responsible people who could have supporting evidence and use it property.


Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Laprairie (Mr. Deniger) concluded his speech with a surprising statement. He said he was going to vote against the motion. Sheep are expected to do nothing else but as they are told. You know it, I know it, and everyone knows it. Judging by the Hon. Member's speech, he is not allowed to think either. It was the most atrocious speech. What made it more atrocious was that it followed the eloquent speech given by the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty). I do not know how any responsible Member of Parliament, after listening to the Hon. Member for Welling-ton-Dufferin-Simcoe, could not end up feeling anything but rage about this situation or anything but dedicated to do something about it in order to restore some semblance of parliamentary democracy to this country.
The Hon. Member for Laprairie said that the question is whether there will be Crown corporations; whether they are approved or not approved. He was absolutely wrong, as he realized when he made that false statement. That is not the question. Every Party in this House, whether directly as the Government Party or indirectly through associated parties at provincial levels, has participated in the creation of Crown corporations of one sort or another. The question of whether there is a role for Crown corporations is not in doubt. There are, in certain circumstances, situations where Crown corporations are useful.
The question we are concerned with is, is this a Parliamentary democracy? Do elected representatives of the people have a right to know what is happening in these Crown corporations? Do elected representatives of the people have a right to say when these corporations will be created, how they will be created and what their budgets and operations will be? No Members of Parliament have that fundamental right, or are we forced, because these are Crown corporations, to remain mute and ignorant as these corporations spend huge amounts of money-$30 billion a year-which belongs to the taxpayers. All to frequently this Government wastes huge amounts of money.
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I do not know whether the President of Treasury board (Mr. Gray) heard my colleague from Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe when he gave his final analysis. 1 suggest that the Minister read the speech because he gave a warning that we view this question as fundamental to our responsibilities as Members of Parliament. 1 see the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) sitting over there as well. I suggest he may do well to read that speech.
Unless something is done soon about the problems which were articulated by the Auditor General and expanded upon by my Leader and the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe, there is, quite frankly, little or no use for this Parliament to carry on. That was the message being conveyed. The question as to the purpose of this place is so important that it takes precedence over almost anything else. That message should be heeded by Members opposite who have a sense of responsibility and would like to see passage of other legislation and other programs.
A study of this issue of Crown corporations is almost a microcosm. It is not a microcosm because it is larger than that, but it is almost an analysis, if you will, of what is fundamentally wrong with the situation in Canada. The Government is out of control. There is no sense in the country that we in Ottawa, the Government and Parliament, the people who have the responsibility which has been entrusted to them by the citizens of Canada, really know what is going on, are in control and have some sense of propriety with regard to the expenditure of taxpayers' money, some sense of responsibility, some sense of the future and a plan by which to address the many concerns of Canadians. This situation involving Crown corporations is exactly parallel. It is, as the Auditor General said, a subgovernment. In fact, in terms of employees it is larger than the bureaucracy. It is larger than the main Government. The situation is totally out of control.
My colleagues pointed out that Crown corporations can be created at will, at any time, by two or three people who are appointed, not elected. They have no mandate from anyone. They have been hired for certain jobs. They can create new corporations, obligate the people of Canada for the debts of those corporations and spend not just hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars, but, rather, billions of dollars without being held accountable to anyone. However, the people of Canada are responsible for making those payments.
If we are a democracy, then this problem must be addressed. The chronology has been gone over. The Auditor General made the statement in 1975 that the financial accountability and management of Crown corporations is out of control. From that observation came a study in 1977. It was not a bad study. From that came draft legislation which the Progressive Conservative administration introduced and intended to have passed. Since then, there has been nothing except a proliferation of new Crown corporations. The problem has become even worse. What has happened? Why has this problem not been addressed? Everyone who has examined it, including the

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present Auditor General and several others and the Lambert Commission, has clearly said that there is a serious problem which must be addressed if this is a parliamentary democracy.
Liberal Governments keep saying, "Yes, yes, we are looking at it", but then do nothing. Why? The reason is that Crown corporations are very convenient tools by which to avoid some of the messiness of democracy, because there is no question but that democracy is messy. It requires the disclosure of information which sometimes one does not want to disclose. It requires that satisfactory procedures are followed and that is sometimes a little bit annoying. There is no question but that dictatorship, having to account to no one, is a far more convenient system by which to work for the person who has the power. However, it is not democracy to have that kind of system.
It is a very convenient process for Government. It is a convenient repository for the party faithful, for people to whom the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) or the Party is obligated. For instance, when the Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey) lost out in his little excursion into provincial politics in Ottawa Centre, he was appointed Chairman of Air Canada. It was a lovely position with a marvellous salary. We do not know what the salary was and we are not allowed to find out. We can find out the salaries of the chief executive officers of every single American airline. We can find out the salaries of the top executive officers of any private Canadian corporation, but not of Air Canada. How good was he as Chairman?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You're going to find out in the States.


Harvie Andre: We know that his favourite waiter received a pass for two to fly to London and back. We know that the Hon. Member for Lincoln enjoyed that.
Then, of course, there is Jack Horner, the CNR Chairman. We do not know what he is getting paid. We are not allowed to find out. As well, Maurice Strong and Joel Bell of the Canada Development Investment Corporation passed no Public Service Commission exam. We do not know their salaries. We do not know what they are doing on behalf of the people of Canada.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Ian Sinclair!


Harvie Andre: Those who assert that federal expenditures are out of control should quote the record of the past seven years.
The record, as he points out, shows that Government spending as a percentage of GNP has fallen from 20.5 per cent in 1975 to 16.2 per cent in 1981-82. The only reason he could get away with misusing figures this way is that he does not count the Crown corporations. He does not count the enormous growth outside the public accounts in Crown corporations. It goes out over the airways to Canadians to pass on the impression that somehow Government is restraining its expenditures.
It is a blatant falsehood. This is a way of avoiding fundamental checks and balances. Over the years procedures have been built up in Government to try to check the manner in which public funds are being spent. The whole Treasury Board bureaucracy was built up to do that. The private sector has its own mechanisms. What happens to Crown corporations? Neither of those.
As the Auditor General points out, he has been unable to find, and doubts the existence of any fundamental economic evaluation of the Petrofina purchase prior to its being made. In other words, there was no evaluation. They spent a whopping pile of money with none of the rudimentary analyses that would be required if that was a direct part of Government operating through normal Government bureaucracies, or none of the rudimentary requirements that would be necessary if that was a private corporation which had to seek private funding for that kind of purchase. Because they satisfy neither requirement, they get away with totally inaccurate and wasteful procedures.
What happened? Petrofina shares were trading about $50, $55 a share. They shot up to about $85 a share while the rest of the market stayed flat. There was no reason for that escalation in share prices. There was no fundamental difference in Fina in terms of having made any discoveries or its income statement suddenly getting out of line. The reason was that there was inside information. It is very clear. Some friends of Fina, Petro-Canada or the Liberal Party, the three possible sources, knew about this proposed purchase and takeover. They bought those shares between $55 and $80 and eventually sold them to Petro-Canada for about $120.
Vast illicit fortunes were made by either friends of Petrofina, Petro-Canada or the Liberal Party. It is beyond dispute that vast fortunes were made. The infamous Maurice Strong collected a $1 million brokerage fee for that deal, the man we are now rewarding by making chairman of the new Corporation. We do not know how much we are paying him to do that. We are not allowed to find out. We are merely the elected representatives of the people. That does not give us any right to information about Maurice Strong's salary from the Canadian Development Investment Corporation. We do know that his salary as Chairman of the Board of AZL Corporation was $20,000 a year, plus a consulting fee of $100,000 a year. The reason we know that is because in the United States that has to be made public. In Canada we pay him with taxpayers' money and we cannot find out that information.
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We were told that the total for the Petrofina purchase was $1,450 million. That is what Petro-Canada told us in its press release. The Auditor General points out it is actually $1,700 million. They failed to disclose $250 million of additional costs. A private company that publicly traded shares would have its wrists slapped. It would face penalties under the Security Commission and stock exchanges for that kind of misinforming. Our Corporation, Petro-Canada, faces none of that because we do not have rules.
I could go on and on. Even a socialist has to admit that those kinds of abuses are improper. What we are asking, indeed demanding, is that Crown corporations must have their books exposed to the elected representatives of the people. If this is a democracy, and we insist that it become a democracy, we must have the right to examine their books to see what they are spending. We must have the right to say yes or no to the creation of new Crown corporations. If we do not demand that right as Members of Parliament, we are failling in our responsibility, and we have no right to continue to remain here and pretend that somehow we are representing the citizens of this country.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this debate and to say right off that I believe Crown corporations are a very proud extension of Canadian Government policy. I am personally pleased to rise now and offer a defence in the face of some of the scurrilous attacks we have heard from across the aisle. I believe that Crown corporations in general give us a flexible way to attack problems in this country, ways that the private sector cannot on its own find or follow. In addition, I believe we have seen an excellent pattern developing where we have been able to use Crown corporations to extend Canadian ownership over our own economy. I approve of that extended ownership and I am pleased to stand up today in support of it.
I think that Crown corporations provide a competitive force, a chance for the people of Canada to look at a vital part of our economy through the eyes of a publicly-owned, Government-controlled institution and to have some confidence that the industry as a whole is operating in a competitive and beneficial fashion. 1 do not think that those positive characteristics of Crown corporations have been brought out today by Members of the Conservative Party. Those Members should have started talking about these characteristics of Crown corporations.
I wish to quote from two columns that have appeared in The Globe and Mail recently. These are summaries of a recent speech given by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) in Calgary. Mr. Michael Valpy, a columnist with The Globe and Mail, has had a couple of reactions to that speech. I quote from yesterday's column:
In its sum and rhetoric, it implies that Mr. Clark leads a party, no longer of traditional Canadian conservatives, but of nineteenth century liberals with a philosophy updated and imported cn bloc from the Reaganomics across the line.
Today Mr. Valpy continued his analysis of that speech. He had some additional thoughts:
-it made no mention of the finest traditional thought and action of Canadian conservatism . .. He-

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Referring to the Leader of the Opposition.
-over-simplifies and he is wrong. As he himself has noted (elsewhere in the country). Conservative governments have not shirked from using the state to preserve and strengthen the country's economy and culture.
Conservative governments have nationalized railways, created Sir John A. Macdonald's National Policy, the CPR, the Bank of Canada, the CBC and Ontario Hydro, bought Suncor and Pacific Western Airlines, extended the welfare state and been patron to artists-
Traditional Canadian conservatism has recognized that Canada is not a scaled-down America, that it is a small population living in a vast land beside a vast giant, and that it has required the glue of the state to maintain its existence-
Mr. Clark spoke of a fleeting political fad that is not even our own.
That is from the Globe and Mail, an observation on the recent contribution to debate about Crown corporations coming from the Conservative Leader. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that our habit-developed on both sides of this House in a proud Canadian tradition-of using Crown corporations is one endorsed and preferred by Canadians across the country. We only need to look at the coast-to-coast approval given to PetroCan's retail operation by Canadian consumers.


Douglas Keith Anguish: That is not the issue.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: In my own city, in Streetsville, there was a little gas station owned by a Petrofina dealer and the man said to me, when I asked him how he liked being a PetroCan dealer, it was great to go from the bottom to the top in one leap. He has subsequently confirmed to me that his business has leapt up by over 20 per cent. I think it is important for us to know that these Crown corporations have constantly been supported by the Canadian public. It is equally important to note the pattern of the Tory Party to attack them continually and find ways to undermine their credibility.
I thought the Hon. Member for Laprairie (Mr. Deniger) gave a us an excellent analysis of the behaviour of Tory Members in asking questions of the president of a Crown corporation which would have revealed vital secret commercial information. It was not information important to public policy; it was information that any corporation would normally prefer to keep confidential. The people in the Tory Party know that, yet they pursued that line, quite possibly to the detriment of the corporation.
I think it equally important to note that the Tory Member who just spoke who went on about his love for Crown corporations in principle, once again brought out all the code words and secret attacks guaranteed to undermine the public's faith. We saw that in 1980. We saw the Tory Party talking about its dislike for PetroCan and the need to wind it up. Through the period leading up to the 1979 election, we heard the increasing attacks on PetroCan from Tory Members. Then they got into government and in the 1980 election tried a flip-flop by saying they were going to support PetroCan in the future. But the public would not buy it any more, and instead of letting PetroCan be thrown out, the public threw out the Tory Party.
We have heard them in my area talking about de Havilland, and just the discussion of selling de Havilland brought back memories of Tory behaviour with the Arrow, the way the Tory Party under Diefenbaker destroyed the aerospace industry in this country some 20 years ago. Liberal Governments have worked hard since to rebuild and restore the industry to the pride it once had before Diefenbaker got his hands on it. I heard all that in 1980, and it was just the hint that the Tory Party wanted to sell off de Havilland which caused those kinds of concerns among electors in my riding.
Equally disturbing, I think, here in this House has been the reliance by the Tory Party on cheap personal attacks. We have heard it over and over again. The Tories know that if they cannot directly attack a popular institution, then they will attack the man running it, and try to demean the institution by demeaning the man. Well, let me ask what tory over there is prepared to match his record of international contributions to the hungry and poor of the world with the record of Maurice Strong?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: What Tory in this House is prepared to stand up and say that he has contributed as much to world progress on cleaning up the environment as has Maurice Strong? What Tory on that side of the House is prepared to say that he is as good a businessman as Maurice Strong? None of them are.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: I know personally because I know Maurice Strong personally and rank him as a man whose contributions have improved my life. I believe that an unprincipled attack like the one we have been hearing has to be proven. Let them stand up here and offer what they think is the evidence on the personal attacks they have made. They do not have evidence; they have slurs and innuendos, and a great Canadian like Maurice Strong, who has national and international business credentials, finds his reputation being dragged into the gutter.
I think the Members should offer some evidence, and they should offer it outside the House as well as inside the House.


Mr. Kempling:: Where does he live? He does not live in Canada.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: When they have the courage to do that, maybe-maybe-we will begin to take their personal attacks a little seriously. But not until we see them stand up on their feet in and out of this Chamber and back up their charges with evidence. I challenge each one of them, Mr. Speaker, to stand up and offer evidence.
There is the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) coming back in. Let him prove, as he just implied, that Mr. Strong made $1 million personally from the sale of Petrofina to Petro-Canada. Let him rise in this House and say that he has evidence of that.


Harvie Andre: I got a statement from the Minister that Strong's company collected that fee.
December 9, 1982


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Let him rise in this House and give the evidence which he was not able to produce to the Ontario Securities Commission who could find nothing wrong with that sale.


Harvie Andre: Marc Lalonde told me.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Let the Member go outside this Chamber and take the risk that Mr. Worthington was ready to take when he made the accusation. At least Mr. Worthington was ready to stand on his principles-


Harvie Andre: I would have to go to London or Switzerland to find him. Strong does not live in Canada.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: -and offer some evidence and be challenged in a court of law. He has more courage, I might add, than the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre has shown when he made these charges. So let us not fall into the trap that the Tories offer of demeaning the institution by demeaning the man.
Many of those people across the aisle lack the capacity to organize a peanut roll. Yet they are ready to stand up and say to the Canadian people that a man of the proven record and stature of Maurice Strong is indeed doing something wrong. Let him prove it, Mr. Speaker.


Harvie Andre: Tell me why the minority shareholders of AZL are suing him at the moment?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The Hon. Member for Crowfoot (Mr. Malone) rises on a point of order.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Hon. Member opposite would not want to mislead the House, and I would just like to point out to him that during the next election the Conservative Party will have a peanut roll.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I would love to see the Members from the Tory Party come back into my riding and talk about Crown corporations the way they did in 1980.


Some Hon. Members:: We will be there.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Come on down to Mississauga North and we will have a little talk.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Will you be there?


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Maybe we can have a little talk about PetroCan the way we did in 1980. I think we could possibly have that talk in one of their stations. We have lots of them and they are not hard to find because of the line-up of cars outside. People like them. Se let us go some place like that and talk about Crown corporations.


Harvie Andre: The party of polls, propaganda and patronage.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: That was the kind of thing that gave the Tory Party a quick ride back into Opposition in 1980, and I certainly would personally welcome a repeat of that ride whenever the next election happens to be.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, let me just conclude by saying-
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Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: -as I did at the start, that 1 regard Crown Corporations as very effective tools for Canada's development.
I reject the kind of Reagan right-wing thinking put out by the Tory Party, as well as its reliance on personal attack rather than evidence or any kind of reasonable debate. 1 regard PetroCan as a great success and I welcome its expansion throughout the country. 1 look at Air Canada and see that it is one of the few airlines around the world which has turned a profit in tough times. One of the few. I look at Canada Post-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: I have a direct mail business and I am careful in my criticism of Canada Post, because I find my criticisms are usually not justified. Certainly I have found in the past year that that Corporation has improved its performance magnificently. It is the flexibility of the Crown corporation approach that has made it possible for Canada Post to begin to flourish and to regain some of the confidence both in its staff, and by the public at large.
I see that the Government is doing the right thing with these Crown corporations. I see us developing the economy in areas where private enterprise cannot do so. I see us increasing Canadian ownership, and 1 see us promoting public policy, after concerted debate and discussion here in the House of Commons.
The kind of attack we have heard is unjustified. 1 would challenge those who are proud of the attack to bring out some evidence to back up their words.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, in the form the motion was presented to this House of Commons by the Right Hon. Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) it exposes the evil that exists today with respect to Crown corporations in Canada, and the fact that this corporate device has been used to hide Government activity from public view.
We have just had an example of that before us in the House in the address of the Member for Mississauga North (Mr. Fisher). He is able, because we do not have proper accounting for the work and pomps of PetroCan and for a variety of Crown corporations, to get up in the House of Commons and make allegations about their merit and about the contribution that they are making to Canada and to the Canadian economy, without much fear of contradiction, because the fact is that the activities of PetroCan are hidden from public view.
It is only when an enterprising reporter or an enterprising Member of Parliament or an enterprising investigator discovers something and brings it to public attention that we begin to know some of the activities of organizations like PetroCan. It is only when a reporter goes to their offices in Calgary and finds floors of empty space, and finds that rent is being paid on that space at the highest evaluation, in most cases to friends of

December 9, 1982
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the Liberal Party, that we begin to realize and recognize what is going on.
But the Member for Mississauga North has come to the end of the line because people are starting to turn on PetroCan, starting to realize what is going on, starting to investigate, starting to circulate stories. I will tell him a few of them right now before he goes home for supper.
Go down to the Strait of Canso, in the home territory of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen), and find out what PetroCan is doing. They have an operation, a shore site, from which they carry on their business. At the request, 1 think, of someone from the Liberal Party they moved that a few miles down the road. Why? They wanted to escape organized labour. The great supporters of the labour movement in Canada, the Liberal Party, wanted to escape the collective bargaining process, so they moved their plant out of an area in which there was an organized labour group-


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame.


Howard Edward Crosby: to an area where there was no organized group. They made a contract with a Liberal friend, a person who runs a construction company, well known across Nova Scotia as a Liberal Party supporter, the President of Nova Construction Company, and they made a deal with him to supply the labour force. It was at rates of pay much lower than those demanded by the unionized labour force. That is the kind of thing PetroCan does.
What does the Member for Mississauga North have to say about that? He is leaving the Chamber, but before he goes let me ask the Member through you, Mr. Speaker, why Petro-Canada, in the interest of all Canadians trying to support the Canadian economy and develop our industries, petroleum and manufacturing, when it needed containers for its operation, went to Europe to buy the containers, when right in the place where the containers had to be landed, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, there is a container manufacturing plant. Why did they do that if their interest was to develop Canada and Canadian industry?
There is not a Member in this House on either side who cannot tell you a story about PetroCan, and that is what you are going to be hearing in the next months and years, stories about Petro-Canada. When the next election campaign is called there will be Members in that very constituency of Mississauga North and they will be reciting the litany of sins committed by PetroCan since its expansion. It will be a lot more than the stories we all know about, the speculation in shares of Canadian Petrofina, the profits that were made by insider trading by a person who now sits on the Board of Petro-Canada, Mr. McCain from New Brunswick. Ask him. Where is the Member for Mississauga North? He has left the Chamber. Maybe he wants to call Mr. McCain and ask him when and how and under what circumstances he acquired his shares of Petro-Fina, how much money he made and where he got his information, why did he take that action and who called him about it. We could go on, but it is going to be a sorry day for Members of the Liberal Party from here on when they stand
up in the House of Commons and attempt to defend Petro-Canada, with all the evils that that organization has committed. 1 will not even talk about Mr. Joel Bell, because 1 am here to talk about Crown corporations in a general way.
1 said that the form of the motion introduced in this House by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) was designed to expose the evil of Crown corporations, but there is substance to the motion, Mr. Speaker, and it runs much deeper.
In presenting this motion to the House, the Leader of the Official Party embraces a philosophy that has two basic elements: a social conscience within the framework of a free enterprise system. I, for one, am not afraid to stand up in this Chamber, or anywhere else in this country, and defend the free enterprise system.
The proliferation of Crown corporations, not subject to Parliament control and public scrutiny-


Mr. MacBain:: What about Irving Oil?


Howard Edward Crosby: -at once destroys the possibility of exercising a social conscience in Governmental affairs and damages the viability of the free enterprise system.
Mr. Speaker, one of the Members opposite has raised the matter of Irving Oil. I would like him to check one of the very devices used by the Government under the guise of Crown corporations, to find out how this Government is feeding money to Irving Oil, through the Petroleum Compensation Board. It is just another kind of Crown corporation, another kind of organization not subject to scrutiny and control. When somebody representing the Province of Ontario starts attacking the Irving Oil Company in the Province of New Brunswick he had better realize that this is one of the greatest friends of the Liberal Party, and they will be very dissatisfied when they hear that the Member for Niagara Falls (Mr. MacBain) attacks Irving Oil. J. D. Irving will be on the phone this very night to the upper echelons of the Liberal Party and the Liberal Government complaining about that, and never more will you hear that Member for Niagara Falls complaining about Irving Oil. He is already in trouble. I want to expose him. J. D. Irving will rise from his luxury condominium, wherever he is, and strike him down, because he is the beneficiary of this hiding, of this failure to account publicly for what goes on in the Canadian Government.
Let me explain this vital point in simple terms. The system of Government employed in Canada involves only one real safeguard, and that is public accountability. How do we get that public accountability? The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his Cabinet are required to account to Parliament. The Parliament of Canada must account and answer to the people in every general election.
The law that limits the life of Parliament to five years ensures that any failure to account to the Canadian public will be quickly and severely punished, and that is what is going to happen to the Liberal Party when the mandate of this Parliament expires. The people of Canada are going to punish the
December 9, 1982

Liberal candidates and the Liberal Party because they have hidden from public view the vital activities of Government, the vital services, and they have masked them in Crown corporations.
I will call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please! It now being 6 o'clock, I do now leave the chair until 8 o'clock.
At 6 o'clock, the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When the House rose at six o'clock the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) had the floor.


Howard Edward Crosby: Before the recess, Mr. Speaker, I said the motion presented by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) provides an opportunity to consider the key safeguard of our parliamentary democracy, namely, the public accountability of the Government. I support the motion and I make the charge that the Government, under the current Prime Minister and indeed, under his Liberal predecessor, Lester B. Pearson, have, by planned and deliberate policy, endangered our democratic system by avoiding public accountability. One instrument of that evil and dishonest policy has been the use, or the misuse, and abuse of the Crown corporation.
Let me say very quickly that there is good reason and justification for the employment of the device of a Crown corporation in our democratic system and in our society. There are and will be circumstances and situations when an activity, service or enterprise can be governed, provided or operated by a Crown corporation. The people of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia were well served when a Crown corporation called Sydney Steel Corporation was formed by the Government of Nova Scotia to continue the operation of the Sydney Steel works after that black Friday in 1967 on which the plant was closed and thousands thrown out of work. But in the hands of a devious Government intent on avoiding public accountability and parliamentary processes, the same corporate device can be used to isolate an activity, service or enterprise that the Government desires to cover up and keep hidden from public view and censure.
Let me review very briefly the situation in Canada at present. We have almost 200 federal Crown corporations wholly owned by the Government of Canada. They account for gross expenditures exceeding $30 billion. The Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition rightly termed this corporate morass
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"the underworld of Government"-a sea of organizations peopled by characters like Joel Bell, Jack Horner, Pierre Juneau and assorted Liberal hacks like Bill Mingo and Harrison McCain-the mafia of Government.
By comparison, the current revenues of all Canadian provinces total only $45 billion, and if you view only the Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island, you will find revenue totalling only $3 billion, only one-tenth of the revenues that flow to our federal Government underworld. Let me record the fact that last year the revenue of Petro-Canada alone exceeded $2.7 billion. You could say that Petro-Canada has grown, in terms of revenue, to the size of the entire Atlantic area.
We know the problems that exist. 1 have mentioned some gross examples and the Auditor General has documented many more, but what is the answer? Fortunately, we have a relatively simple solution and it is endorsed by many knowledgeable people.
First, a Statute of the Parliament of Canada should be enacted that would legislate all the necessary requirements and processes to ensure full parliamentary and public accountability of Crown corporations. Second, there should be a careful review of all existing federal Crown corporations by a competent tribunal or parliamentary committee so that existing Crown corporations could, in some cases, be restricted or eliminated and in other cases abolished.
We have the statutory model already. It was mentioned in the motion introduced by the Right Hon. Leader of the Opposition. When he was Prime Minister he introduced Bill C-27, so we could start immediately to resolve the problem. We could start with the enactment of the statutory provisions contained in Bill C-27, and we could start immediately on a parliamentary review of existing Crown corporations.
I said at the beginning of my remarks that I believe that the national Government should exercise a social conscience in the framework and context of the free enterprise system. The Government must support and foster the free enterprise system. It is that system that will produce the wealth and enable us to establish social programs, health care services and educational services required by the people of Canada. We cannot do that unless we have in place a viable private sector that can produce the necessary wealth to carry on and pay for the required services.
The Crown corporation, as advanced and operated by the Government of Canada, has been the nemesis of the private sector. Those corporations have taken over areas of activities that for decades, and indeed for the whole of this century, have produced the wealth that allows us to have one of the better social systems in the world.
Anyone who supports Crown corporations in his desire to oust the private sector, in the result will destroy our social

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service system in Canada. When we in the Progressive Conservative Party rise to defend and support the free enterprise system, we take nothing away from the social service system that exists in Canada. In fact, we are supporting that very social service system. We are acting on a social conscience because the social service system cannot exist unless it is supported. The only support it can have is that which is produced by the private sector.
Of course, this is the problem which faces the New Democratic Party. It wants to spend, it wants to have wealth, but it does not provide the method of producing it. This is where we differ. We can have a viable and effective social program because we are willing to take the steps which are necessary to support financially such a program.
We have heard in this debate and will continue to hear a list of the sins of Crown corporations, but what we are faced with is the perception created by the Government of Canada in the public mind that Crown corporations are good. We know that the Government has the capacity and ability to create that perception in the public mind. But 1 challenge the people of Canada to check this year, next year and following years the performance of Petro-Canada. 1 challenge them to go to gasoline pumps across the land to see if they are getting a better deal from Petro-Canada than they are getting from even multinational oil companies which have no interest in Canada, in the economy of Canada or in the welfare of Canadians.
1 could take Mr. Speaker to places in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where side by side sit the private sector oil company and Petro-Canada, and the Petro-Canada prices are higher. How can Petro-Canada be accomplishing anything for Canadians? What is it doing? Time and time again I hear reports which indicated that Petro-Canada behaves not only like oil companies in the private sector but like the worst of those companies in the private sector. If, Mr. Speaker, you know any Petro-Canada dealers, you should just ask them whether they are required to take Petro-Canada products at higher prices than are available in Canadian department stores and that if they do not accept those products their franchises will be terminated.
I could go on and on, but the message must be given to Canadians so that they are aware of the evil of Crown corporations, just as they ought to be aware of the value of Crown corporations in certain circumstances.
That is why we are here. We are here to make the case, not against viable and valuable Crown corporations but against those Crown corporations which are destroying our private sector and hurting our economy and, in that very way, undermining the social service system in Canada. We have to counteract the activities of the Government in trying to create the idea across Canada and among Canadians that their action is intended to benefit the people of Canada, because in most
cases the action is only intended to benefit the welfare of the Liberal Party of Canada and those who support it.
1 want to end on a positive note. We can solve the problem very simply, as I said, by introducing legislation in the Parliament of Canada and by reviewing existing Crown corporations. In that way we will strike down the evil which has existed for past decades under the Prime Minister and his Liberal predecessor. Then we will end this cancer on our private sector, this cancer on our society which will not only destroy the free enterprise system but will destroy the social service system that is supported by free enterprise.


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


Mr. David Berger (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, here we have another example of a speech that was nothing but empty rhetoric. The government has introduced Bill C-123 with a view to improving the operation of Crown corporations. Instead of attacking this bill blindly and trying to play politics, the opposition would be better advised, in order to impress the Canadian people, to look fully into the proposals put forward by the government and suggest reasonable amendments when its expectations have not been met so far. As I said, Mr. Speaker, the purpose of Bill C-123 is to give both the government and Parliament more control over Crown corporations. It seems, however, that the Auditor General and the Opposition have voiced some criticisms. For instance, in his report, the Auditor General claimed that Bill C-123 disregards the role which Parliament should play as far as the accountability and control of Crown corporations is concerned. There is also a clause in this bill which requires parliamentary authority by means of a negative motion for the creation of Crown corporations, but the Auditor General complained about the fact that Bill C-123 strictly limits the length of debates authorized under this act.
1 should like, therefore, to consider tonight, together with other Hon. Members, the provisions of this bill dealing with the creation of new Crown corporations. Mr. Speaker, Bill C-123 proposes that upon the creation of a new Crown corporation-1 am trying to find the specific section-I have underlined it in another document.
Here it is. Clause 66.14 reads:
A Minister in respect of whom an order of approval of the Governor in Council-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: What are you reading?


David Berger: I am reading a paragraph from Bill C-123. If you would care to look at it, it is paragraph 66.14. I really understand your question when you ask what I am reading because, from the comments made by your colleagues today, I gather that none of you have read it or none of you really know what it contains.
December 9, 1982


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member's remarks should be addressed to the Chair.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: We know what it contains.


David Berger: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for drawing that to my attention. Yes, I should address my comments to you. What I really have to say is that the question asked by the Hon. Member, "What are you reading", raises a question as to whether he knows what is the subject of debate this evening. As 1 said, the earlier comments today of the Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark) and other Members over there indicate that they do not know what I am reading.

Mr. Speaker, Section 66.14 provides that a minister establishing a corporation under the Canada Business Corporations Act may or shall table an order before Parliament within 15 sitting days after the order was issued. So there is a clear obligation for the Minister, in respect of any new Crown corporation, to table an order before the House within 15 sitting days after the date of that order. It is further provided that there be a motion to the House of Commons for ratification of the order establishing the Crown corporation.
There is also a provision for a debate in this House within 6 sitting days after the motion is tabled. In addition members of the Official Opposition will be given the opportunity whenever 30 members of the House want a debate on the establishment of a Crown corporation, to propose a motion to the House which will be discussed within 6 sitting days after it is tabled. Furthermore the Act provides for a discussion of such a motion in a non-stop debate not exceeding three hours. That provision of the Act was criticized in the Auditor General's report which was tabled yesterday. The Auditor General contends that three hours is not long enough to debate the establishment of a new 5050;-1 Crown corporation. But as you know, Mr. Speaker, a three hours' debate in this forum, in this House, is indeed a full day's debate. And it seems to me that this should be enough for such a discussion.
But I regret, Mr. Speaker, that the Auditor General did not state how many hours the debate should last. Does he suggest two days, three days, or five days? What does the Official Opposition have to say on that? If three hours is not enough, what about six hours? Or a week? Today we heard nothing on this subject from the Official Opposition.
And this is a crucial question, Mr. Speaker. I know you follow the debates in this House very carefully, and I expect you are probably aware that this is not the first time we have discussed this matter. Indeed, last October 26, 1981,there was a debate on an Opposition motion regarding the creation of
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VIA Rail. The same arguments were raised at the time. The Opposition cried out that VIA Rail had been created without a legislative act, that it had been created by an Order in Council.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You are right.


David Berger: Yes, that is true. However, that was done because this House of Commons has become a bottleneck over the years.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, no!


Donald Alex Blenkarn: The people are a bottleneck to a dictator.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Parliamentary Secretary has the floor.


David Berger: Over the years this House of Commons has become a bottleneck in which it is very difficult to get legislation through.
There is a constant tension in government between the need to have accountability to Parliament and the need to have an efficient administration and an efficient government in modern society.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: You are right.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: And Liberal patronage.


David Berger: Once more, we have the people screaming about patronage and we hear the jackals across the way crying about a dictatorship.


An Hon. Member:: You have created it.


David Berger: But they have not addressed the matter that is proposed in this piece of legislation in which the Government has proposed that there be a three-day debate-


Henry Perrin Beatty: Three-hour debate.


David Berger: Pardon me, a three-hour debate, when a new Crown Corporation is created.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Big deal.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Tell us about CDIC.


David Berger: The Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) says, "Big deal." But what does that Hon. Member propose? Would he prefer that it be a six-hour debate, that three hours is not enough? What does the Hon. Member propose?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Stick around and you will find out.


David Berger: The fact is the Government has laid before this House a piece of legislation which is designed to increase parliamentary control and designed to ensure that there will be a parliamentary debate when a new Crown Corporation is created. The gentlemen opposite are saying that they do not want it. That is really what they are saying.

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Henry Perrin Beatty: What about the CDIC? Where was the debate on that?


David Berger: I would suggest, if the gentlemen opposite really wanted this legislation, that rather than trying to obstruct the work of this House as they so often do, they should engage in negotiations with the responsible Minister, and I would say he is a reasonable person, Mr. Speaker.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Try to find a responsible minister when you need one.


Erik Nielsen: Name one.


David Berger: 1 suggest the Minister would be willing to entertain certain amendments which might satisfy Members concerned.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: You just cannot hire responsible ministers these days.


David Berger: Members opposite have not done anything like that. They prefer to yell and scream like they have this evening. They prefer to use the typical scare tactics to which they are accustomed. They try to say, "Hey, we don't have a Government here, we have a dictatorship."


Some Hon. Members:: You are right.


David Berger: I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that that is not responsible opposition by any stretch of the imagination.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Henry Perrin Beatty: Why have you lost your place? Do you have difficulty reading other people's writing?


Mr. Savard:: Take your time.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Give him a hand, Charlie.


Henry Perrin Beatty: It's a great speech, keep going.


David Berger: Thank you.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We can't wait for the next punch line.


Pierre Raymond Savard: Take your time. Listen and learn.


David Berger: As I said, Mr. Speaker, the Opposition must negotiate, they must show good will rather than indulge in constant bickering, because if parliamentary reform is to proceed, the Opposition must be willing to find positive solutions instead of trying to score political points.
Mr. Speaker, this is a suggestion that indeed comes from the bottom of the heart, because recently the House passed new regulations for next year. As you know, that was unanimous, and if we wish parliamentary reform to progress there must be constructive opposition rather than, as I said, the usual partisanship we have been seeing in this House. This is about all I
had to say on this legislation. I would now conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty) has been screaming since the beginning of this afternoon-
Hon. Members opposite have been screaming about the new Canada Investment Development Corporation.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Canada Development Investment Corporation. You even have the title wrong.


David Berger: The Hon. Member is saying, "What about it?" Well, 1 would ask him, what about it?


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David Berger: If this law had been in force today, in order to create a corporation under the Canada Business Corporations Act, a motion would have to be presented before this House in order to create it and there would be a three-hour debate and, as I suggested earlier, there could be a longer debate if the Hon. Members of the Opposition were willing to make some constructive suggestions.


Henry Perrin Beatty: What about its subsidiaries?


David Berger: I believe, also, that the hon. gentleman says, "What about subsidiaries?" I believe that subsidiaries are covered by the present legislation as well. Again, these are subsidiaries created by a minister under the Canada Business Corporations Act.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Absolutely wrong. Reread the section, David.


David Berger: The Hon. Member says that I am wrong. But I-


Henry Perrin Beatty: Do you want the section? Read the next paragraph, David. There is no provision for an instrument, vested in Parliament, for subsidiaries.


David Berger: I would suggest to him-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Parliamentary Secretary has the floor.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Hon. Member that subsidiaries fall into the section which has been proposed under this Bill.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Wrong.


David Berger: I would suggest again that if there are difficulties with it, the Minister would certainly be willing to entertain suggestions.
December 9, 1982

1 see that Your Elonour is about to rise. 1 would suggest that the Hon. Members of the Opposition address themselves to the particular-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Parliamentary Secretary, but the time allotted to him has expired.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, 1 am delighted to rise to speak in support of the motion which is before us today, and I hope the Official Opposition will feel the same about our amendment, because my party both practised and advocated accountability of Crown Corporations for something nearing 50 years. One of the things that I find strange and one thing we must get straight in the debate is that certainly since the First World War, the only time a Conservative or Liberal Government started a Crown corporation was when the so-called private sector could not or would not fill a public or national need or had gone belly-up, and successive Conservative and Liberal Governments ran to bail them out. They were not created because these Governments believed in them. Those were not really the best reasons for starting Crown corporations.
1 suppose the classic example is the Canadian National Railways, started by Sir Robert Borden, not because he believed in a publicly-owned railroad, but, rather, because the then Bank of Commerce and a number of other trust companies and bondholders were about to lose their money. Therefore, five bankrupt railroads were put together because free enterprise could not and would not work, could not and would not and did not make a buck, and could not and would not and did not serve the needs of this nation when it came to transportation. Therefore, Canadian National was formed, not in order to have a Crown corporation, but, rather, to have the people who had their private money invested bailed out and paid off and paid back. This country has been paying that private sector back tens and hundreds of millions of dollars ever since.
When I say that we have advocated and supported public accountability by Crown and private corporations for 50 years, I like to illustrate it by saying that we put our action where our mouths were and we did it. In the 1940s the then Premier Douglas in Saskatchewan established a Crown corporations committee and, from that day until now, every Crown corporation had to appear before the legislature to account for its annual reports, financial statements, operating practices, and management-labour relations practices, and they still do. I am not sure how long that will last with the present Government in my Province, but the proof is there. Similarly, in the Province of Manitoba, the then Premier, Mr. Schreyer, established a Crown corporations committee so that any Crown corporation must appear before the elected representatives and account for its annual report and all aspects of its activities. We should have the same here, in the Parliament of Canada.
I take a little pride in having had one of my amendments accepted by the Governent, practically the only one. The then Minister of Transport, Mr. Lang, accepted an amendment from me in the early 1970s when Air Canada was separated
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from Canadian National, which made it statutory "that the annual reports for those two corporations shall"-not "may", but "shall"-"be referred to the Standing Committee on Transport". That should be the case with every federal Crown corporation. Their annual reports should be referred to the appropriate standing committee where the subject matter is the same or similar. No doubt there will be some Crown corporations which do not fit into present standing committees and their terms of reference, in which event we would need an additional standing committee of Parliament to which all those other Crown corporations would be referred. This would be necessary because no one standing committee could deal with the annual report and activities of every single Crown corporation, even if they met 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
The so-called free enterprise ideology, particularly American, has never fit well in Canada, even before 1867. Even the Conservatives recognize and know this. I was happy to hear the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre) say today that there is a proper role for Crown corporations under the federal Government and on behalf of the people of Canada.
Free enterprise economics which ignores cultural, political, social and other human variables has as much in common with reality as a game of Parcheesi. Crown corporations exist in Canada because the kindergarten classroom theory of the marketplace of my free enterprise friends to my right, if nothing else, is really irrelevant, because of our geography, diverse heritage, location of our citizens, and our climate, where the goods are produced.
What might resemble a competitive market in densely populated Europe or in most areas of the United States would still be a natural monopoly in Canada. Our small markets, long distances and climate are the major reasons we have more Crown corporations in Canada than most other nations. As Herschel Hardin says in his book "A Nation Unaware":
Public enterprise in Canada is the direct result of the dilemma of Canadians with their small domestic market immediately next door to the Americans with their large market and manifest power. We did not choose public enterprise freely.
It was forced on to reluctant Liberal and Conservative Governments by American enterprise and expansion. In each case the project, such as railway construction, was undertaken as a reaction to and against American initiatives.
Public enterprise in this country started with the building of the Lachine Canal. It is the public sector which has provided most of the needed capital for national infrastructure and communications. Sir John A. Macdonald convinced Canadians to pay for the Pacific Railway because private enterprise could not raise the money. The Government set up Trans-Canada Air Lines because the private companies could not and would not do the job, even though they were invited to join in. A series of blunders, miscalculations and corruption of private railways since the nineteenth century would make our Crown corporations look good.

December 9, 1982
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Canadian Pacific Railway was paid for, rescued and has since been subsidized by the Government. It has become known as a private enterprise triumph. Canadian National, which took over bankrupt private railways, is considered as a public enterprise failure. Without public investment in CPR, that corporation would never have shown a profit.
It was the Tories in Ontario who nationalized hydro. I am interested in some of the comments of Tory Members regarding Bill S-31 when earlier, the Ontario Conservatives nationalized hydro in order to prevent American capital from taking over the electrical generation and distribution. It was for that reason and that reason only.
In the past our country- has had the attitude that where profit is to be made, private enterprise should do the job, otherwise public enterprise should take over. If you are going to run an enterprise with good businesslike practices, any private enterpriser will tell you it is dumb to start up, take over or operate an enterprise that does not make a buck. For 120 years Liberal and Tory Governments have been saying, if it is not going to make money and we must have it, then make it a public enterprise, or Crown corporation.
We in the New Democratic Party, and before that in the CCF, said that if we are going to have Crown corporations, we should not just take over and operate those that lose money, but those that make money as well. The profits should either be injected into general Government revenues or used to support other necessary Crown corporations that are losing money.
Not surprisingly, the tax-paying public under successive Liberal and Tory Governments has been left with the mistaken impression that public enterprise loses money while private enterprise makes money. That is not by accident, but by design. Each national Government has done that since the First Crown corporation was established, not because they believed in it, their hearts were for it or they wanted to make money. That would fly in the face of the marketplace, the free enterprisers. It would fly in the face of the endeavours of their friends who support them, those who only make the bucks out of those things that make bucks and to heck with anything else the country might need.
Crown corporations are highly visible. Private corporations can hide their waste and bungling. If you have one share in Canadian Pacific and go to their annual meeting to try to get the kinds of answers that you as a part owner of that corporation feel you have a right to know, you could not do that. In Canada now you do not have the right to find out how much the president or chairman of the board of that corporation is paid. The only way to find out is through the embarrassing way of going to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
The way the Liberals and Tories have set up our Crown corporation system in Canada, a Member of Parliament, let alone an ordinary taxpayer, cannot find out what the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of Canadian National, the head of VIA Rail or any senior official of a Crown corporation is paid. It is interesting to hear the Tories complaining and
crying about the lack of accountability. How can you have accountability from a Crown corporation when the rules under which they operate are identical to those under which private corporations operate in this country? As a shareholder, you cannot get that kind of information from either a Crown corporation or private corporations.
There is a mythology about capitalism to the effect that if a Canadian buys shares, he will have a vote at the annual meeting and the mythology is that the management and board will be answerable to the shareholders. Liberal and Tory Governments have set up Crown corporations in the same way. As I said, our Crown corporations are highly visible. I do not like the inadequacy of the answers or non-answers that I get from the President and officers of CNR when they appear before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications once a year. But at least they show up. Just try to get Canadian Pacific's Board of Directors and officers to answer questions in detail about their operation.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, would the Hon. Member permit a brief question?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I will, Mr. Speaker, if you do not deduct it from my time.
You will not do that? Then let the Hon. Member ask me when I am through.


Henry Perrin Beatty: When will you be through?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, when Crown corporations are made accountable, then they have to be more efficient and innovative. And there are some public enterprise success stories for which they did not get much, if any, credit. Canadian National, believe it or not, pioneered the diesel locomotive and set up our first national radio network. Where the heck was private enterprise?
Air Canada, as well as having a long list of world firsts, won the gold medal last year for efficiency in operations, savings in fuel consumption and employee efficiency, a medal recognized and selected by all the other international airlines of the world. It was the first airline in the world to prepare detailed specifications for a commercial jet transport and that was in 1946. Where was private enterprise?
In 1908, Ontario Hydro began construction of a 110,000 volt transmission line when the experts said that the current dogma and wisdom was that the maximum we could have was 60,000 volts. That was under a Conservative Government public enterprise, a Crown corporation, which led the whole continent. Where was private enterprise? Where were these private investors and risk takers?
In most cases it has been the taxpayer and the public through federal and provincial Governments who have taken the risks, invested the money, but then, when things are going good-as soon as Air Canada started making a buck, Mr. Speaker, who was the one to come forward and say, hey, now
December 9, 1982

we want to be a national airline, too? That was CPR. When they were invited to join in starting up a national airline in the mid-1930s they said no, but by the 1950s, when Air Canada was turning around and making a buck, Canadian Pacific wants the gravy off the top. They want the money-making routes. Now there is Wardair. The owner told us to leave him alone, he did not want any Government interference, regulations or scheduled routes, and now who is crying in Ottawa with his hand out? The great free enterprise entrepreneur bragged about my friends to my right and my friends across the way, the same Max Ward. He does not have to run scheduled routes, he can pick and choose. He can decide a plane will only take off when it is full. The taxpayers paid for regular scheduled flights, whether they were full or empty. Where was private enterprise then? But as soon as they made a buck, now we have another national airline, we have four or five regional, all siphoning off the lucrative routes from Air Canada. Where were they when we needed them?
Of course a Crown corporation must appear before elected representatives, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the public should be entitled to appear, too, and make briefs and submissions to a parliamentary committee on what they think about the operations of their company. We can do it, we should have been doing it before, we have done it with a couple of Crown corporations, we must do it with all of them.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty) on a very quick question.


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, my question is indeed very brief. The Hon. Member indicated that he found about equal degrees of secrecy in CN and CP Rail, and he said if he were a shareholder in CP Rail, he might not get satisfactory answers to his questions. If he were a shareholder in CP Rail and did not like the answers he could sell his shares.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With all due respect, the Hon. Member will have his opportunity to participate in the debate. The Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson).


Henry Perrin Beatty: My question, Mr. Speaker, is how would the Hon. Member sell his shares in CN?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: You can also vote out Hon. Members who let the CN operate the way it did when his Party was in power.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre has been recognized by the Chair.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to most of the Liberal speakers in this debate this evening and all through the day and the interesting thing is that most of them-there were some exceptions-have distorted totally the purpose of the debate. They have been dredging up and twisting statements about what Progressive Conservative Members have been saying about this or that Crown corporation. Yes, we have had some criticisms to make about Crown corporations. Yes, there are Crown corporations that we do not think should be in existence.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Which one?
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Douglas Glenn Fisher: PetroCan.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The point of the debate this evening is to focus on the control and accountability of Crown corporations which are investing the taxpayers' money.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Hon. Member would submit to a question?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I would be happy to submit to a question after I have presented my remarks, and I hope the Hon. Member will listen very carefully because he might learn something.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I always listen very carefully.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: As 1 was saying before the interruption, most of the comments of the Auditor General's report are directed at this problem of accountability and control of the taxpayers' money as invested in Crown corporations. Now, I want to reread the motion so that the Members who are here, who have had their understanding of the debate distorted by what Liberal Members have been saying, will understand just what we are talking about today. The wording of the motion is as follows:
That this House condemns the Government for its deliberate proliferation of Crown corporations accountable to the Government rather than to Parliament and the taxpayers who, in the words of the Auditor General, "have every right to consider themselves the principal shareholders of these corporations", and instructs the Government to immediately introduce a Bill substantially the same as Bill C-27 in the Thirty-first Parliament so as to make such corporations properly accountable to the people.
Now, I am glad to see the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) back in his seat because I hope he will learn something from this point forward as he made some very clear errors in the presentation he just made. He asked, what alternative do the Conservatives have? My colleague, the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty) referred to that alternative very clearly in the Bill he put forward in the Thirty-first Parliament when the Conservative Government was in power. That is a clear alternative to this Bill, and I am going to come back to the comparisons that the Auditor General has made between that particular Bill and the Liberal legislation on the Order Paper which is clearly inferior, not in the judgment of the Conservative Members of Parliament but inferior in the judgment of an independent and expert observer, the Auditor General.
While I am referring to the Hon. Member for Laurier, 1 might just correct one of the misstatements he made in his remarks with reference to the fact that the creation of subsidiaries will be brought before this Parliament for that tremendously important and extensive three-hour debate. I think he has learned from my colleague that there is no debate on the creation of subsidiaries. So if the CDIC is going to go out and buy Noranda or General Motors, if they have the funds in the till-and they could have the funds through the sale of the Canada Development Corporation-they can go ahead and create new Crown corporations with no further reference to Parliament.

December 9, 1982
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That is the point we have consistently underlined as being a loss of control by Parliament. The Hon. Member for Laurier, the Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey) and other Members of Parliament will have no control over the creation of these subsidiaries. But none of the Liberals have directed their comments to the motion 1 have just read; none have defended the Government's position on Bill C-123 referred to in the motion. Perhaps I should say, with the possible exception of the Minister himself, but the defence he put up was really a laughable one. Now, that is not an uncommon occurrence in the remarks of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray). But none of the other Members has talked about the problems of accountability, control and financial reporting. It must be quite transparent to those people who are observing this debate that the Liberals cannot win this debate. They know they cannot win this debate, so what do they do? They distort the facts, they try to divert people's attention from the motion at hand. There is no logical argument coming from them as to why Bill C-123 is better than the Clark Government proposal. There is no alternative that they are talking about for Bill C-123, which they do not want to mention. It is clear today that when they do not have a defence they start talking about something else, and that has been very clear, from every Member of Parliament from the Liberal side.


Mr. Simmons:: As you are doing now.


Charles Joseph Clark: I am coming to the point of the motion, and I will talk about this in a very clear and incisive fashion, unlike the Member from Newfoundland.


Roger Simmons: That will be refreshing.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The economy today is in a steep slide. Unemployment is running at 1.5 million people; bankruptcies are at record levels; the federal Government's deficit is at $24 billion and growing. The Government has consistently tried to shift the blame to the private sector, to the Central Bank in the United States, to the international economy, to all sorts of things. It has steadfastly refused to accept the blame for the problems we have today.
On Tuesday we were presented with the Report of the Auditor General, and Members of Parliament in that Report got a clear example of the alternatives that are open to the Government to address the problems, to free up funds, by better control of Crown corporations, by better control of the Government itself, funds that could be used to finance other programs of the Governement, reduce the deficit or whatever the Government wishes to do. But there are alternatives presented in this Report.
In the report the Auditor General highlights a huge sector of Government which he refers to as:
-an enormous iceberg, floating lazily in the foggy Atlantic; silent, majestic, awesome.
That is the subject of the debate tonight, Mr. Speaker, the adequacy of control and the accountability of that great, sleepy iceberg, the Crown corporations.
The message of the Auditor General's Report is that there is waste, there is a lack of control and there is inadequate accountability of Crown corporations. If this were reduced we would have considerable flexibility to address the problems at hand rather than being in the strait-jacket that this Government finds itself in now. Time and again the Government has said that nothing can be done, but clearly this Report shows us how things can be changed.
The response from the President of the Treasury Board, both today in the House and when the Report was brought down earlier this week, was typically weak and inadequate. He said, "The Report is useful; we are going to have to study it; we will have some comments once we have had a chance to study this Report." Just another study! That is not good enough.
This Report is a call for action, and Members of Parliament have a responsibility to take that action. This is a powerful indictment of Government inaction over the past five or six years. The Report sets out a number of initiatives that have been proposed by various individuals, by the Members of the Government opposite, as well as the people in the private sector, indicating ways that this accountability can be improved upon. But I stress the point that the history of this Government has been to shuffle that information aside, not pay adequate attention to it and not take strong enough action to direct itself at these problems.
The key objective and the key recommendations in the past, and in this Report, is the need for an over-all legislative framework. That is clearly set out in the Auditor General's Report, and we responded to that in the Clark Government by presenting the legislation that is referred to in the Auditor General's Report in 1979.
To have the President of the Treasury Board try to take credit for that legislation by saying it was based on some work initiated by the previous Liberal Government is a joke. We see clearly in the Auditor General's Report that they have taken a major step back in a number of areas from the position that was taken in the legislation put forward by the Clark Government.
I want to read something from the Auditor General's Report at page 57, Sections 2.50 and 2.51.
Although Bill C-27, the Clark Government Bill:
-had a number of deficiencies, it represented a major step toward a comprehensive and effective framework for the control, direction and accountability of crown-owned corporations. It also responded to-
-a number of recommendations, et cetera.
In the next paragraph it says:
Part V of Bill C-123 does not take the same comprehensive approach as did Bill C-27. Instead, it addresses only issues which the Government presumably believes demonstrate the most pressing need for correction.
On the next page, on page 58, it does a comparative analysis in a number of areas of the initiatives in those two pieces of
December 9, 1982

legislation against the general accountability framework that the Auditor General felt was important. Of the 33 areas in which they wanted action taken, the Clark Government acted on 25 in a full sense and partially on one. In Bill C-123 it was a very pitiful action on seven and partial action on two.
There is no comparison whatsoever, and for the President of the Treasury Board to take credit for it and to say that the piece of legislation that he has put forward, Bill C-123, is an adequate response to the requirements of the Auditor General, is a joke.
The understatement of the year is also on page 57 of the Auditor General's Report when he expressed disappointment that the legislative framework had not been provided.
I am sure that the Auditor General is bitterly disappointed that this proposed legislation is so inadequate. We as Members of Parliament should also be bitterly disappointed because we have a clear responsibility to take action here, to take the Auditor General's Report as an action plan, to bring forward legislation that is needed to control the taxpayers' money invested in Crown corporations.
Bill C-123 in my judgment is a sham. What it is doing is trying to put the Government in a position of being seen to be doing something when time and time again we have seen they are not taking the action that is required of them. That is why we are here this evening. We are not talking about an insignificant part of Government here. Using the Auditor General's words, "A sub-Government employs more people than Government Departments do as a whole." They spend $30 billion of taxpayers' money, but what is key is the scope of the Crown corporations throughout our economy. We all know about Canada Post, CN, Air Canada, the Bank of Canada, CBC and so on. But let us look at another few of these Crown corporations: National Battlefields Commission; Northern Power Corporation; Canadian Saltfish Corporation; Canadian Arsenals Limited; Defence Construction (1951) Limited; Canadian Dairy Commission. They are in all parts of our economy and it is important that we understand what is going on in these parts of the economy, and whether the moneys are being used effectively.
The authorization and mandate for Crown corporations is clearly too loose. There is too little control here. That has been touched on by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Welling-ton-Dufferin-Simcoe. But let me just comment on this Canada Development Investment Corporation again, to which the Member for Laurier referred. It was incorporated without adequate parliamentary review, it was incorporated earlier this year but there was no parliamentary approval. There was a fanfare, a press release and the appointment of Liberal backroom boys to top management positions, but there was only an Order in Council to transfer the objectives of the Canada Development Corporation to this new corporation. It was also made an agent of the Crown. That means that any time it borrows money, it borrows on the credit of the taxpayer. The taxpayer is directly obligated to stand behind those loans. That was done without parliamentary approval. Clearly, Bill C-123 is inadequate.
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1 want to quote from the Auditor General's Report at page 62 where he said:
Because CDIC has objectives virtually identical to those of CDC allowing it to participate in almost any activity, it has the potential to acquire and dispose of business interests without parliamentary approval.
Let me give another example of why 1 am worried about this whole matter. Crown corporations today are not adequately controlled by Ministers. In the Clark Government I was responsible for the Export Development Corporation. Shortly after I took on that responsibility I initiated monthly meetings with senior management of EDC. After the second meeting the President of the Corporation said, "Congratulations, you just had twice as many meetings as your predecessor had." 1 had been there for two and a half months, Mr. Speaker, and he had been there for two and a half years at that time.
The point is not that 1 was doing such a great job. The point is that I was taking an interest and the other Minister had not taken any interest. It was a nuisance to him. He was letting that very important corporation float along without adequate ministerial control.
The Auditor General has said that broader, stronger parliamentary control and accountability is necessary-and that is absolutely the right conclusion-as Ministers are not exercising this. He says that their primary concern is the Department under their responsibility. The Crown corporation is a diversion, and that is why we must return to Bill C-27 introduced by my colleague so that Parliament can take over some of these responsibilities from the Ministers if the Ministers are not going to do the job.
There is one other step that I believe is important, Mr. Speaker, and that is to require each new Government, when it comes into office, to provide a written mandate to each Crown corporation within a certain period of time after it takes office. This written mandate would establish clearly what the Crown corporation was to do. These mandates change. They are written in a vague way in the incorporating legislation. Time passes, Governments change and so the interpretation changes. The best example of that is Petro-Canada, as mentioned in the Auditor General's Report. When it was incorporated there was no intention whatsoever that it would own service stations. Now the taxpayers have seen $2 billion of their money going to buy a series of service stations across the country.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Good!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: It is not good. Let me point out why we have a problem with control of Crown corporations. If the Ministers do not take control of these Crown corporations then the bureaucrats take control. If there is one thing that 1 have heard time and time again in my travels in my constituency and across the country, it is that the bureaucrats have too much control and that there is not sufficient accountability to see that these corporations are run efficiently.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me say that the Government is moving down a very dangerous road if it ignores the advice of

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the Auditor General and the legislation introduced by my colleague. After delaying for three years it has finally addressed the problem but in a totally inadequate way. The Auditor General has clearly said that the legislation is not good enough. Members of Parliament have a responsibility to their constituents and to taxpayers to listen carefully to the advice of the Auditor General. It is his responsibility to report directly to Parliament and not through a Minister. It is the responsibility of Members of Parliament to respond to the Auditor General. We must resolve today to force the Government to change this legislation. The taxpayers of Canada will accept nothing less.


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if the hon. gentleman would entertain a short question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The Hon. Member can only accept a question with the unanimous consent of the House because his time has expired. The Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, 1 listened with great interest to the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson). Among other things he said that no Liberal Member has spoken about the motion. I will do that very directly, Mr. Speaker. Let us see what the motion says.


Arnold John Malone: We will help you with the big words.


Roger Simmons: The motion put down by the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) reads in part as follows:
That this House condemns the Government for its deliberate proliferation of Crown corporations accountable to the Government-
There is the sin, Mr. Speaker, "corporations accountable to the Government". Is that not an awful crime, that the legitimately elected Government of this country should have organizations or corporations accountable to it that are under its control and direction? I always thought it was a function of Government to be in charge of the way the taxpayers' money is spent, whether through Crown corporations or otherwise. But there is the indictment. There is the reason we ought to be hanged. Out there we have Crown corporations which are accountable to the Government. That is our crime. That is the sin we are accused of today by the Hon. Member for Yellow-head.
Hon. Members opposite have run out of ideas. On this, their last Opposition day, this is the best they can do-accuse us of doing our job. They accuse us of making Crown corporations accountable to the legitimately elected Government of this country.
That is count one in the indictment, Mr. Speaker. There is evidence to show that we are absolutely guilty of that charge. As late as June of this year the then President of the Treasury Board took the dastardly step of making those Crown corporations even more accountable. On June 30 he introduced the Bill on Crown corporations. I wish my friend, the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre had read it and understood it. The Bill provides very clearly for additional accountability to the
people who have been charged with the Government of this country.
The Bill provides for a number of legislative changes, organizational changes and administrative changes, all aimed at enabling the Government to act quickly-there is the sin- and responsibly in enhancing the relationship between the Government and the Crown corporation. It also charges the Government with responsibility to provide for the over-all capability of Government to act as a vigilant and effective shareholder in relation to its wholly-owned corporations. That is the crime, Mr. Speaker. That is what they have been talking about over there today, that is what they are talking about over there tonight. They complain that we have a system of Government in the country-a government endorsed by the people and legitimately elected by the people-which insists on Crown corporations being accountable to it in ever more rigid form, especially when we implement this new legislation. That is our crime, but it is not the full crime.
The Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead went on and on and on as he usually does. In his motion he indicated further:
-and instructs the Government to immediately introduce a Bill substantially the same as Bill C-27 in the Thirty-first Parliament-
There is a good idea. On the surface that is an excellent idea. We could go back to the thirty-first Parliament. That, for those who have chosen to forget-and there are many in the country who have chosen to forget that Parliament-is the Parliament during which the Tory regime had that brief interregnum in power.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Yours was even briefer, Roger; yours was only one day.


Roger Simmons: Oh, they are hurting now; they are even waking up over there.


Arnold John Malone: You do sound like an alarm clock.


Roger Simmons: Yes, they are waking up, they are hurting. The Thirty-first Parliament had not only a Bill C-27; it had another Bill about which I want to tell the House. On the surface the idea of the Hon. Member for Yellowhead is a good one. I commend it to the Government and to the House. We ought to go back to the Thirty-first Parliament and have a look at the legislation put down by the Conservative Government. In fact, we looked not only at Bill C-27 but we looked at another one. I give notice now to the Official Opposition that we on this side of the House have the full intention of giving them the opportunity to vote for another Bill which they had on their Order Paper. We will let them vote for it word for word, dot for dot, every last comma, as it was. The Bill in its new form, the Bill under its new number, is a Bill which my friends on the other side of the House will recognize very well. They did not write the Bill but they brought it into the House. It happened to die on the Order Paper like they did.
When this Government came back into power after February 1980, we had the courage to resurrect that excellent piece
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of legislation which the Tories had had on the Order Paper. We will give those people the full opportunity at third reading to vote for that particular Bill. The Bill is Bill C-10. 1 mention it tonight in order to draw a parallel with the suggestion of the Hon. Member for Yellowhead concerning Bill C-27. He said that we should go back, get Bill C-27 and bring it in because it is a good Bill. We have taken his advice on Bill C-10.
Does the House know what happened as soon as we brought it in without changing a comma? Those who were for it in the Thirty-first Parliament were suddenly "agin it". They have gone across the country and have written clergymen in the country, spreading fear that the state is going to take over religion. Where do they get the basis for that charge? In Bill C-10. What is Bill C-10? It is a piece of legislation under another number which was the identical piece of legislation the Tories brought in when they were in power.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame.


Roger Simmons: If the Hon. Member for Yellowhead wants us to have a look at Bill C-27, we will want every Member on that side of the House to put in writing that they promise not to do a 180-degree turn on Bill C-27 as they did on Bill C-10.


Harvie Andre: You got it, let's bring it in.


Roger Simmons: We want them to promise not to play cheap politics with Bill C-27 as they did with Bill C-10. We want them to promise not to go around the country spreading fear in the minds of the clergy, religious organizations and charitable organizations. We want them to promise not to be hypocritical on Bill C-27 as they were on Bill C-10. Give us that promise-


Harvie Andre: You have got it.


Roger Simmons: I see the Hon. Member for Calgary Centre (Mr. Andre). It looks like he has dined very well again tonight. If he would only feed his mind half as well, what a man he would be.
This motion says more, although not a lot more. First it says that Crown corporations are accountable to the Government. 1 plead guilty to that sin. That is right. They are accountable, and we are making them even more accountable. The Government was elected to protect taxpayers' money.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: How?


Roger Simmons: Read the Bill.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: You read the Bill.


Roger Simmons: 1 have read it. Which page would you like me to recite?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Never mind the page. What does it say?


Roger Simmons: I know it is tender for my good friend. Somebody called him-I would not do it, being that kind of an individual-the "honourable fat cat from Bay Street". I said, "No, that is not fair". I saw him tonight as the champion of the public purse. It boggles the mind-someone from Bay Street protecting the public purse. It is something like having an arsonist as the new fire chief, I suppose.
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Henry Perrin Beatty: Or Marc Lalonde in charge of the economy.


Roger Simmons: What are those tyrannical things called Crown corporations, these insidious things creeping out there in the country and destroying us all? We have such monsters as the National Battlefields Commission! There is a lot of scope for skulduggery and mischievousness! Imagine the damage it could do to the country if it were allowed to really get loose-the National Battlefields Commission! Then there are the International Joint Commission and Hockey Canada Inc.
Perhaps if the truth were known as to what is bothering them, it would be a Crown corporation called Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada ought to be a fond term in the minds of every Tory in the country because that is a subject they know well, both sides of it, because they have been on both sides of it. During the election campaign they were for privatizing it, but then they learned that that might not be the thing to do, so they did a Petro-Canada trip similar to the Jerusalem trip.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: They took a poll.


Roger Simmons: Yes, they took a poll and for once they understood a poll. Then they said that perhaps they should not be for privatizing it at all, that perhaps they should keep it much as it is, somewhat like it is, maybe all like it is. They got the message and found that corporations such as Petro-Canada, the National Battlefields Commission, the International Joint Commission, Hockey Canada Inc. and Fashion Canada, were not the creeping monsters which they had conjured up in their minds. It must have been terrible for them to live with it every day. Every waking moment they must be shaking because they think one of those monsters, one of those Crown corporations, will get them by the throat somewhere. What a terrible thing to have to carry around with them, those poor, poor Tories.
Perhaps they are concerned about a couple of corporations with which I have had reason to deal. Perhaps it is the Canadian Saltfish Corporation. There is a villain, there is an absolute monster! Among other things it has its headquarters in Newfoundland. Have we heard about the damage it has done to this country? In all the time it has been there as a corporation, does the House want to know how much money it has received to bail it out, money from the Treasury of the country? How much money has Parliament voted to keep that outfit alive so that it could squander more of the taxpayers' money on behalf of fishermen in Newfoundland, part of Quebec and so on? Do Hon. Members want some idea of how much money? Not one red cent, not one red cent. They do not bother to tell you that some companies out there are making a few bucks for the Treasury. They do not bother to tell you that some of the Crown Corporations which they want to malign and undermine and soil the reputation of, and belittle, are doing a good job on behalf of the fishermen in this country. If people live too far West to know about the Saltfish Corporation, let me tell

December 9, 1982
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them about another, the Canadian Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation which has its headquarters in Winnipeg, just west of Thunder Bay. That, too, has taken a big fat nothing out of the Treasury. That corporation also has committed the heinous sin of going without funds from this Parliament.
There are a couple of corporations serving this country well. J could tell you about several more, in fact, many many more, Mr. Speaker, but Hon. Members over there do not want to hear about them.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Start naming them.


Roger Simmons: That is why they keep bawling and yapping on the other side because they do not want to hear that the corporations of this country are answerable to the legitimately elected Government of this country, and, by and large, are doing a good job.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Roger Simmons: 1 said by and large because I, like any person in this House, have a few scores to settle with a Crown Corporation like CN Marine.


An Hon. Member:: And Canada Post.


Roger Simmons: There are a few with Air Canada I can settle.


An Hon. Member:: Nationalize them then.


Roger Simmons: But this is not the place to settle those scores. We might have individual beefs. I hear Members on the other side. Maybe they did not have the right kind of wine one night on the first class flight, but that does not mean we should wipe out the whole corporation-maybe the President, yes.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Get rid of the President because he is not a Grit.


Roger Simmons: Seriously, we ought to recognize once in a while that you cannot, day in and day out, get your jollies or get your kicks out of raking everybody and everything down. The Crown Corporation has served this country well. If there are some imperfections, as I am sure there are, as there are with any organization established by man-


Arnold John Malone: Or women. Quit being a sexist.


Roger Simmons: The Hon. Member has learned a new word tonight. He does not understand it but he has learned it.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Roger Simmons: The Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre quoted rather extensively from the Auditor General's Report. Well, two people can play that particular game. Somewhere in these pages-


Mr. Deans:: Why don't you get someone to turn the pages for you?


Roger Simmons: -the Auditor General also goes on to point out very clearly-


Michael Holcombe Wilson: You had better drink to that.


Roger Simmons: 1 will drink to that as long as it is water.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Roger Simmons: The Auditor General points out something else very clearly on the same page as the page my hon. friend for Etobicoke Centre quoted from. I might say quoted selectively and conveniently. It is pointed out in the Report by the Auditor General how the Crown Corporations have a legislative base; how Parliament has a way of making those corporations accountable. I say to the Hon. Member, and I say to his Leader who put down this motion, that the problem with their logic and their approach on this particular issue is the same as their approach on any problem. They go at it back-foremost. They are coming at it from the wrong end. They would do well to read all of the Report before picking out convenient little bits. 1 would suggest Hon. Members over there have never read it at all. They ran to the newspaper this morning to get the juicy bits and figured they had a good thing going.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Have you read it, Roger?


Roger Simmons: A few pages to go.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Roger Simmons: A few pages to go. 1 say to the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre, who has the great reputation for being a man from Bay Street, a man who understands business, that he does his reputation no good at all to be associated with a group of people who are on this witch hunt of "How much is so and so paid; how much is that person's salary?"


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Why shouldn't we know that?


Arnold John Malone: If you ask questions, you might get answers.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. The Hon. Member's time has expired. The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn).


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, it is always entertainment to the House to hear the Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's (Mr. Simmons) speaking about his National Battlefields Commission. We were most impressed by the costs of SaltFish Corporation and the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, but what he fails to realize is that the shareholders of Canada, the people of this country, represented by Members in this House, are entitled, as shareholders in these corporations, to demand an accounting from the Corporations and their executive. They are entitled at least once a year, like any other shareholders of any other corporation, to demand an accounting from the president and the executive officers of the Corporation. It has been the habit of this Government to hide as much as it can. It is a situation of "bury it under the carpet and make sure it is never shown".
December 9, 1982

This Party on the other side of the House, this Liberal Government, is a master at hiding, burying and shoving things under the table.
We have, as the Auditor General says, a sub-government that looks after well in excess of $30 billion in transactions a year, and we as the representatives of the people cannot look, cannot see, cannot ask about them because the Government wants to keep the information buried under the table, and this Government wants to do its borrowing in one way or another and its manoeuvring in one way or another. This Government does not want the people to know what it is doing. That is the issue, and that is the issue the Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's and the entire Liberal Party runs away from. That is what this debate is about tonight.
I refer to two business Crown Corporations that have recently been transferred under the blanket of the Canada Development Investment Corporation, under the hideout controlled by the Minister of State for Social Development, of all things, Senator Austin from the other place. He is a Minister who says he does not know what Canadair and de Havilland are all about. A Minister who is taking over control of these Corporations says, just as the Auditor General said, "I do not know how much money they are going to need. I know that the $200 million that we are asked to vote for each of them tonight is not enough." He said, and he said it in testimony given to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, that the amount will last maybe until March. They will then need at least $100 million and maybe more than that by March. We are asked to vote in favour of spending more money when we, as Members of Parliament, as representatives, as shareholders of these corporations, cannot get an accounting.
Let me deal first with Canadair. Canadair is the subject of the Auditor General's Report. In his Report, dealing with the last fiscal year of this Government's operation, he indicated that the $1.35 billion authorized in loans to that corporation was not sufficient. It clearly was not sufficient because the Government is coming to us tonight to demand another $200 million for that corporation. The Minister of the Government who is responsible for the Canada Investment Development Corporation has said in committee that that is not enough. I say that the people of Canada have a right to know where we are going. Where are we going? Where is the Government taking us? Where is it spending the money of the people of Canada? It is as simple as that. It is not a question of whether we should build a Challenger jet or whether we should own an aircraft corporation. It is the basic right to know where we are going. What are the projections for sales? How is this management operating?
Let us discuss management for a while. The President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray), in his other capacity as Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce before the latest shuffle, wrote two letters to the present Minister of State for Economic Development (Mr. Johnston), previously the President of the Treasury Board. Both of those letters are available for public scrutiny because they were leaked to us. In each of those
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letters, the present President of the Treasury Board, that great squanderer of the people's money, said that Consolidated Computer needed a little more money, another $25 billion, another $35 million. Indeed, while he was Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, he deliberately allocated over $50 million of money to Consolidated Computer, and then the lid blew off. Then we gave away that company for the sum of $1 and we sold nearly $50 million worth of assets for $100,000.
If the Parliament of Canada had had an opportunity to review Consolidated Computer annually, the Government and the people of Canada would not have lost $125 million, but it was hidden. It was swept under the carpet by a Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce who wanted to protect himself, and it really did not matter to him whose money he was spending. After all, the money comes from the great money tree and the Government spends it and shuffles it here to try to cover up the losses, and the Auditor General points that out.
To say, for one moment, that the House should not have some control over the business activities conducted by the Government, under the guise of a Crown corporation, is to say that Members of Parliament have no right to examine the spending of the people of Canada. Sir, the barons of Run-nymede did not put up with that with King John. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this House cannot put up with this kind of activity.
Representatives of Canadair appeared before our committee for two and one-half hours. During that time, the executives of that corporation refused to disclose their projections, refused to disclose their creative bookkeeping methods, refused to set out the costs of building an airplane, refused to say how many airplanes they had to build to get the company out of debt and refused, indeed, to give us any of the details. This Party asked for in camera hearings of the committee so that ordinary commercial matters would not be disclosed to the public, but the Government refused to give us those in camera hearings because it somehow wants to keep the lid on it all. Well, the Auditor General has blown their cover. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada will blow its cover when an election comes, because we cannot put up with this kind of failure to disclose and this failure of responsibility any longer.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. It being 9.45 p.m., it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 58(10), to interrupt the debate and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the proceedings now before the House. The question is on the amendment.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.

December 9, 1982
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Madam Speaker:: I declare the amendment lost. Amendment (Mr. Anguish) negatived.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


Madam Speaker:: Call in the Members. Shall we dispense with the ringing of the bells?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: I declare the motion lost.
Before putting the question on the opposed items in Supplementary Estimates (B) I would suggest to Hon. Members that in order to avoid confusion during the taking of divisions on Estimates, they follow the proceedings by referring to Roman numerals XI, XII and XIII in today's Order Paper and Notices.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker there have been discussions among House Leaders. I think if you make inquiries you will find that there is a general disposition that you put the question on the first item and have the division recorded on that item. Then, when you put items Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 you will find that there is a general disposition to apply the division taken on the first item to the subsequent four items and that that division be recorded in Hansard on each of the items Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5.


Madam Speaker:: Is there disposition to that effect? [Translation]


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, I just want to make sure that everything is quite clear. We are agreed on Motions Nos. 2, 3 and 4, but I think Motion No. 5 is in the name of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray), and so for the time being, we shall withhold consent for Motion No. 5, and as the vote proceeds, we shall be able to decide on our position, and we shall then let you know what our decision will be.


Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, my understanding was the same as that put by the House Leader for the Official Opposition. As I read No. 5, there would be two votes on No. 5. As I understand it, when we get to No. 4 perhaps we will have another vote on No. 5.
[ Translation]


Madam Speaker:: I would ask the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) to please check his list. Is the motion in

December 9, 1982
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the name of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) Motion No. 6?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, you are right. So in that case, the vote on Motion No. 1 will dispose of Motions Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5, and we shall vote separately on Motion No. 6, if necessary.

MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE Ib, MINISTRY OF STATE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $7,479,600 under the Ministry of State for Economic Development-Program Expenditures and Contributions, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, be concurred in.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


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


Madam Speaker:: We will dispense with the ringing of the bells.


Madam Speaker:: I declare the motion carried. Motion No. 1 agreed to.
December 9, 1982


Madam Speaker:: In accordance with the wishes of the House, this vote will apply to Motions Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5.
MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 1b, DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote lb, in the amount of $5,358,000 under the Department of Finance-Financial and Economic Policies-Program Expenditures and Contributions, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, be concurred in.


Madam Speaker:: 1 declare the motion carried.		
Motion No. 2 agreed to.		
MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 20b, DEPARTMENT OF		
INDIAN AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 20b, in the amount of $18,310,000 under the Department of Indian		
Affairs and Northern	Development-Northern Affairs-Operating expendi-	
tures, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31,		
1983, be concurred in.		
The House divided on the motion which was agreed to on		
the following division:		
(Division No. 271)
++YEAS
Messrs.
Allmand	Blais
Appolloni (Mrs.)	Blaker
Axworthy	Bloomfield
Bachand	Bockstael
Baker	Bossy
(Gander-Twillingate)	Breau
Beauchamp-Niquet	Bujold
(Mrs.)	Burghardt
Begin (Miss)	Bussieres
Berger	Caccia
Campbell (Miss) (South West Nova) Campbell (Cardigan)
Chenier
Chretien
Collenette
Comtois
Corbin
Corriveau

December 9, 1982
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Cosgrove	Henderson	McRae	Robinson	Scott	ThomsonCote (Mrs.)	Herbert	Munro	(Burnaby)	(Victoria-Haliburton)	TowersCousineau	Hervieux-Payette	(Hamilton East)	Roche	Shields	VankoughnetCullen	(Mrs.)	Nicholson (Miss)	Rose	Siddon	WaddellCyr	Hopkins	Olivier	Sargeant	Skelly	WenmanDaudlin	Hudecki	Ostiguy	Schellenberger	Speyer	WilsonDawson	Irwin	Ouellet	Scott	Stevens	Wisede Corneille	Isabelle	Parent	(Hamilton-Wentworth)	Stewart	WrightDemers	Ittinuar	Pelletier	Taylor	Young-123.Deniger	Johnston	Penner	Thacker	Desmarais	Joyal	Pepin	Dingwall Dion	Kaplan Kelly	Peterson Pinard	Madam Speaker: I declare the motion carried.	Dionne (Chicoutimi)	Killens (Mrs.) Lachance	Portelance Prud'homme	Motion No. 3 agreed to.	Dubois	Lajoie	Regan	Duclos	Lamontagne	Reid	
Dupont Dupras Erola (Mrs.)
Evans
Ferguson
Fisher
Fleming
Flis
Foster
Fox
Francis
Frith
Garant
Gauthier
Gendron
Gimaiel
Gingras
Gourd
(Argenteuil-Papincau)
Gourde
(Levis)
Gray
Guilbault
Harquail
Landers
Lang
Laniel
Lapicrre
Lapointe
(Charlevoix)
Lapointe
(Beauce)
LcBlanc
Leduc
Lefebvre
Loisellc
Lumley
MacBain
MacGuigan
Mackasey
MacLaren
MacLellan
Malepart
Maltais
Marceau
Masse
Masters
McCauley
(Kenora-Rainy River) Roberts Robinson
(Etobicoke-Lakeshore) Rompkey Rooney Rossi Roy Savard Schroder Simmons Smith Tardif Tessier Tobin Tousignant Trudeau Turner Veillette Watson Weatherhead Whelan Yanakis-139.
++NAYS
Messrs.
Althouse	Frctz	MacDonald (Miss)Andre	Friesen	(Kingston and the Islands)Anguish	Fulton	MacDougallBaker	Gamble	MacKay(Nepean-Carleton)	Gass	MaloneBeatty	Gilchrist	ManlyBenjamin	Greenaway	MayerBlackburn	Gurbin	MazankowskiBlaikie	Gustafson	McCainBlenkarn	Halliday	McCuishBosley	Hamilton	McDermidBradley	(Qu'Appelle-Moose	McDonald (Ms.)Broadbent	Mountain)	(Broadview-Greenwood)Cardiff	Hamilton	McKenzieCarney (Miss)	(Swift Current-Maple	McKinnonClark	Creek)	McKnight(Yellowhead)	Hargrave	McLeanClarke	Hawkes	McMillan(Vancouver Quadra)	Heap	MillerCooper	Hees	MitgesCorbett	Hnatyshyn	MurphyCossitt (Mrs.)	Hovdebo	MurtaCrombie	Howie	NeilCrosby	Huntington	Nickerson(Halifax West)	Jarvis	NielsenCrouse	Jewett (Miss)	NowlanDantzer	Keeper	NystromDarling	Kcmpling	OberleDeans	Kilgour	Oglede Jong	King	OrlikowDick	Knowles	PaproskiDomm	Kristiansen	ParkerEllis	Kushner	PattersonElzinga	Lambert	ReidEpp	La Salle	(St. Catharines)Fennell	Lawrence	RiisFraser	Lewis	
MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 26b, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, TRADE AND COMMERCE


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 26b, in the amount of $200,000,000 under the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce-Payment to Canadair Limited as equity, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, be concurred in.


Madam Speaker:: I declare the motion carried. Motion No. 4 agreed to.
MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 27b, DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, TRADE AND COMMERCE


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That Vote 27b, in the amount of $200,000,000 under the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce-Payment to The de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Limited as equity, in the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, be concurred in.


Madam Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
Motion No. 5 agreed to.


Mr. Elzinga:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to have a ruling from you with regard to proper dress in this Chamber. I was under the impression that a male Member of Parliament had to wear a shirt, a tie and jacket. If that is the proper dress in this Chamber, I would suggest that the Hon. Member for Saint John (Mr. Landers) is not here in proper attire, and I would seek your ruling on the matter.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: I was just going to ask the Hon. Member to please stand up so I could see how he is dressed.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member seems to be correctly attired. Perhaps the Hon. Member for Pembina (Mr. Elzinga) needs my glasses.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


MOTION FOR CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES (B), 1983
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1983, laid upon the Table Monday, November 8, 1982, except those items disposed of earlier this day, be concurred in.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We are prepared to let this item go on division.


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


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: that Bill C-140, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of
money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1983, be read the first time and be printed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Mr. Gray thereupon moved that Bill C-140, an Act granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending the 31st March, 1983, be read the second time and referred to the Committee of the Whole.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Corbin in the Chair.
The Assistant Deputy Chairman:: Shall Clause 2 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Clause 2 agreed to.


Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 3 carry?


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
Clauses 4, 5 and 6 inclusive agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall Clause 1 carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.
Clause 1 agreed to.


Roderick Blaker: Shall the preamble carry?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.


[Stage Direction]
Preamble agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Roderick Blaker: Shall I report the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: On division.
Bill reported.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: that the Bill be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: that the Bill be read the third time and do pass.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed. [Translation]


Madam Speaker:: It being 10.48 p.m., I do now leave the chair pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 2(1).
At 10.48 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, December 10, 1982