1982-11-18

MOTIONS UNDER S.O. 43   LABOUR CONDITIONS NORTHWEST TEL IMPENDING LAY-OFFS

['No.']
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, whereas the employees of Northwest Tel, the federal Crown corporation which has a monopoly on telecommunications in the western Northwest Territories, Yukon and northern British Columbia, are facing severe lay-offs which they suspect are motivated by the desire of the Liberal Government to maintain high profit margins in spite of the six and five per cent guidelines applied to rates, thereby allowing the quality of the service to decline, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen):
That the Minister of Transport provide a full explanation of the impending lay-offs at Northwest Tel for which he is responsible.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.



Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Madam Speaker, this weekend proposed changes to the boundaries of federal electoral ridings are to be published in The Canada Gazette. It is my understanding that Members of the House are to be given the information on these changes tomorrow, only a day before publication. In light of the fact that a number of Members on the Government side have already been informed of such changes, that the information was distributed to the media a week ago, and that changes to my riding and its new name were conveyed to me by an outside source, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDer-mid):
That this House strongly condemn this underhanded and unfair practice of selected distribution of important information which directly affects Members and their constituents, and is an affront to both.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAYS
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the fact that the real estate division of Canadian Pacific is raising rents in some of its apartments at double the six and five guidelines, and whereas Canadian Pacific Chairman, Ian Sinclair, sits on the Government Committee telling workers to live with six and five, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow):
That this House calls upon Mr. Sinclair to resign from the "black and blue ribbon" Government Committee and, failing that, that the Government dismiss him.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
In view of a statement by Mr. Campeau, President of the Caisse de depot du Quebec, to the effect that the Caisse would have $1 billion to invest in the transport sector during the next four years; and whereas Quebecair and its employees are searching high and low for $30 million in order to save more
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November 18, 1982
than 900 jobs, I move, seconded by the member for Chicoutimi (Mr. Dionne):
That it be suggested to Mr. Michel Clair, Quebec Minister of Transport, that he communicate with Mr. Campeau of the Caisse de depot du Quebec and ask him to buy $30 million worth of capital shares in Quebecair.


Madam Speaker:: The House has heard the motion by the Hon. Member. Is there unanimous consent for this motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


AIRPORTS
Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Madam Speaker, in light of the fact that the Commission Parlementaire de 1'Assemblee Nationale du Quebec is currently studying the effects of the expropriation of Mirabel lands, considering that the Minister of Public Works (Mr. LeBlanc) and the officials of the Canada Land Commission have both refused to answer an invitation to attend before the Commission, sent to them by the Province of Quebec, and as the people of Mirabel have been mistreated and have suffered over the Government's blunder for the past 13 years, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle):
That the Government commence immediately the retrocession of the 80,000 acres not required for the largest airport in the world and sell the land back to the original owners and tenants at a price which does not contemplate profit but merely recovers original cost.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Because of new and alarming information of damage caused by acid rain to ground water in the Muskoka-Haliburton area of Ontario, and since thousands of cottages are located in that area, and it is a very serious situation, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis):
That the Minister of the Environment immediately reconstitute the Special Subcommittee on Acid Rain as requested by all members of that original Committee and have them look into this serious matter on a continuing basis.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


HARBOLFRS
Mr. Mel Gass (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Every year since 1976, the harbour at North Rustico, Prince Edward Island, requires dredging due to the movement of the sand. Every year the cost involved in dredging the harbour mounts. In 1981-1982 alone the cost was approximately three-quarters of a million dollars. Continous dredging is not the answer to this problem. Therefore I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser):
That the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans instruct his officials to commence a study to find a permanent solution to this problem.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


OLD AGE SECURITY ACT
Mr. Neil Y'oung (Beaches):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In view of the Government's decision to bring forward Bill C-131, an Act to amend the Old Age Security Act, for second reading and debate in the House later today, and in view of the certainty that the effect of this Bill will place a further 100,000 poor and near poor elderly Canadians into abject poverty, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles):
That this House demand that the Government withdraw this shameful piece of legislation immediately and bring forward proposals that will provide our senior citizens with decent and adequate pensions.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.

November 18, 1982


FISHERIES
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, 1 rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. In light of the equivocal answer on the Pearse Report given to me by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans last week, as reported in Hansard for November 8 at page 20481, and in light of the rising tide of demands from the fishermen on the West Coast that the Report be more carefully examined before any implementation takes place, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Vancouver South (Mr. Fraser):
That the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans re-examine his priorities and responsibilities and have the Pearse Report referred, without further delay, to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The retention of our small private businesses and their orderly transfer to the next generation on the deaths of their owners are in the interest of the Canadian economy, rather than their forced sale to large corporate interests, often foreign-owned. However, the rollovers contained in the Income Tax Act to permit a tax-free transfer to the next generation are very limited, except in the case of farmers. Corporately owned life insurance used in conjunction with an appropriate buy-sell arrangement previously permitted a mechanism to effect a transfer without tax to the next generation. Therefore I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn):
That the Minister of Finance reverse the Government's position, so that proceeds of corporate-owned life insurance purchased after June 28 be no longer credited to a company's capital dividend account.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.
Oral Questions POLITICAL PARTIES


PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE PARTY POSITION ON SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Since the Conservative Premier of Saskatchewan, in an interview in Winnipeg on November 15, proclaimed his opposition to the universality of the Canada Pension Plan, I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish):
That the Conservatives in this House be honest with the Canadian people, reverse their stated policy of refusing to outline their platform because they know Canadians would again reject them, and admit that the Conservative Party of Canada opposes the universality of Old Age Pensions and Family Allowances.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister who will recall that he said recently:
The next Speech from the Throne will represent all that is innovative, bold and dynamic about the Liberal Party.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: I remind the Liberals who have applauded that they have applauded the introduction of 42 tax measures and have applauded the withdrawal of the same 42 tax measures from the budget.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Will there be new economic policies proposed in that Throne Speech?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: I think so, Madam Speaker.


STATEMENT MADE BY PRESIDENT OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, perhaps the Prime Minister has not had time to be brought up to date on what his Government was planning in his absence, but he will know that on November 10, in a

November 18, 1982

Oral Questions
television interview, the interviewer, Pamela Wallin, asked the Government House Leader, "So, the Speech from the Throne is ready, is it?" Mr. Pinard answered, "Oh, yes. It is ready."
Since it is ready, since it will represent all that is bold and dynamic in the Liberal Party, and since the Prime Minister thinks he might do something to help Canadians who are suffering from economic hardship now, why is the Prime Minister waiting? If he has new economic measures to introduce, and if the Throne Speech is ready, why will he not introduce those measures now in order to help those Canadians in need?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, what the Government House Leader was indicating-it must have been at some point before Parliament reconvened in October-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: November 10, Prime Minister.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Hon. Members opposite laugh. 1 do not know the date of the statement to which the Leader of the Opposition is referring. Perhaps 1 could have him state the date and add to the hilarity of his Members.


STATE OF PREPAREDNESS OF THRONE SPEECH
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, I see that the Prime Minister's sojourn in the Soviet Union has taught him a lot about the responsibility of leaders to respond in a democratic country. Let me suggest to him that, had he stayed, the country would have been better off.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Charles Joseph Clark: Some say shame. I say that in all seriousness.
The date on which the Government House Leader said that the Throne Speech was ready was the day after the House of Commons met. The Throne Speech was ready then. Is the Throne Speech ready now?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, it was ready some time in mid October. We had envisaged the possibility of having the Throne Speech read at the end of the month of October. There was a speech ready. It can be made ready at any time. The House Leader attempted, in discussions with his opposite numbers, to see whether we would be able to make progress before the Christmas adjournment on the very important legislation which was already before the House in this session, particularly those measures relating to the last budget and the budget before.
The Leader of the Opposition knows, if he is being kept informed by his House Leader, that for the past two weeks now we have been attempting to get some agreement on a package of legislative measures which we would be able to
clear away before reading the Throne Speech. I understand that there is no agreement on the package but that there has been progress on individual bills, several of which have been processed through the House.
It is still our hope that we will be able to deal with the backlog of measures arising from two or three budgets removed, before reading the Speech from the Throne. That does not mean that we have not acted on some of the measures which would have been announced in that Speech from the Throne.


REQUEST FOR ECONOMIC ACTION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, what the Prime Minister or his colleague has been busy negotiating over the last little while is to try to get agreement in the Liberal Party on how they will vote on Bill C-133 and how they will vote on Canagrex. That is what he has been trying to negotiate over the last little while.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Charles Joseph Clark: Let me return to what this Government will do to help Canadians who are suffering because of Liberal economic policy. The Prime Minister has promised that there will be bold and innovative action on the economy in the Throne Speech. His House Leader says that the Throne Speech is ready. Why does the Government wait for the Throne Speech to begin action to solve the economic problems of the country? Why will he not bring in economic action now to help the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are in need and who are losing hope with each passing day?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Leader of the Opposition misses the point. The Throne Speech was ready. In view of the fact we did not begin the session with the Throne Speech, but, rather, postponed it, as I say, until we deal with this legislative backlog, we announced those measures, some by the Minister of Finance in his statement at the beginning of this part of the session. Another announcement which was to be in the Throne Speech was concerning the Royal Commission.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: These are examples of measures taken, including one involving $1,100 million, which would have been in the Throne Speech had we proceeded with the Throne Speech. Therefore, the Leader of the Opposition really must be making great efforts not to grasp, but the instrument through which the announcements were made is secondary. The important thing is that the Government has been making announcements. It has been taking bold, innovative measures in order to deal with unemployment.


November 18, 1982


GOVERNMENT POLICY AFFECTING PRIVATE SECTOR
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. 1 remind the Minister that in his statement on basic economic principles of management, he said on October 27, "We must continue to rely firmly on the dynamism and the creativity of the private sector as the engine of growth in Canada".


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Well, I am glad you are clapping, Doug.
He went on to say that we must improve the financial health of the private sector as well as its ability to expand and prosper. Since that time the only actions we have seen have been the allotment of $400 million to losing Crown corporations and $600 million to buy some service stations, and a further tax of $1.7 billion on employment. What further efforts have there been by the Minister of Finance to improve the health, dynamism and activity of the private sector?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, it is typical of those in the Conservative Party, I am afraid, that they would rather have a company owned by the British Government than owned by the people of Canada through their Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: However, putting that aside, I would like to remind the Hon. Member that, in the statement 1 made, I announced expenditures of $1.1 billion which will be directed toward job creation. 1 indicated that $400 million will be concentrated upon improvement of the railway system in western Canada. That will have a very significant impact on the private sector in terms of additional orders in the manufacturing sector all across Canada.


An Hon. Member:: Quid pro quo.


Marc Lalonde: In addition to the $500 million under the NEED Program, we have indicated that those funds would also be available to projects which could be sponsored in the private sector. Moreover, in my statement I announced a number of measures which were of a tax relieving nature to various sectors, small business in particular, which have made representations for relieving measures. All those measures are on the record and I would be very pleased to send a copy of my October 27 statement to the Hon. Member.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: The Minister will know that the cost to Canadians amounts to 47,000 person-years of employment because of his increase in unemployment insurance premiums alone. So much for his work-creating efforts.


INTEREST RATE LEVELS
Donald Alex Blenkarn: 1 direct my supplementary question to the same Minister. Interest rates seem to
Oral Questions
be going up again. Unfortunately, they went up marginally again this week.


Some Hon. Members:: Fortunately?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Now we have a positive balance of payments at this point. Now, unfortunately, interest rates seem to be going up in the United States.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Alex Blenkarn: In view of a more positive balance of payments condition because of decreasing imports into Canada, will he direct the Bank of Canada and the chartered banks to maintain the 13 per cent prime and a lower rate of interest in Canada so that we will not get back into the swing where Canadian interest rates run 2 per cent to 6 per cent above American rates, and so that we will be able to compete in the world market and private business will have the opportunity to finance?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member made a number of statements. The first one having to do with the loss of jobs created by the increase in the unemployment insurance contributions is completely unsubstantiated and I challenge him to prove those figures. He just cannot do it. This is just taken out of thin air and he knows, or he should know, that he has no evidence whatever to support that statement.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: On the second point, Treasury Bills in the United States went up 60 points in the last month, 30 points in the last week. In Canada this week they have gone up three points, or three-tenths of 1 per cent. I am surprised that my hon. friend is expressing so much concern when I did not hear him mention the issue, for 14 weeks in a row, until this week, when we have had a significant decline in interest rates in Canada.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: That is what we have done in the last 14 weeks.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: Finally, the answer to his direct question is no.


CORPORATE SHAREHOLDING LIMITATION ACT
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In 1965 the then Liberal Government in the Province of Quebec created the Caisse de depot as an instrument for

November 18, 1982
Oral Questions
channelling Quebec pension funds into investments. The fund, then as now, is restricted to having no more than 30 per cent of the shares in any enterprise.
Considering that the Minister yesterday, before a Senate Committee, made the extraordinary assertion that Bill S-31 was necessary to stop the Caisse from creating socialism, I would like to ask him what does he mean by this when the Caisse cannot have more than 30 per cent of the shares in an enterprise on the one hand, and, secondly, what business is it of the federal Government to stop any duly elected provincial Government in Canada from creating as many public enterprises as it wants.
[ Translation]


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Madam Speaker, 1 may comment that the Hon. Member's question was preceded by a very long preamble, and that the Hon. Member is a little mixed up. Once more, and it would be useful if the Hon. Member would understand this, Bill S-31 is aimed at safeguarding federal jurisdiction over interprovincial and international transport. The purpose of the bill is not to prevent an institution such as the Caisse de depot or other financial institutions in Canada from investing. On the contrary, they are welcome to do so. They may invest, but these provincial institutions may not own more than 10 per cent of the shares.
In many cases, Madam Speaker, 10 per cent is a great deal, and we should also remember that the financial institution referred to by the Leader of the New Democratic Party was created for the purpose of managing funds and not with a view to taking risks and becoming an active shareholder. I think that by its actions and recent statements, the Caisse has clearly shown that it is going beyond the judicious investment of Quebec's pension fund and that it has now become a company that is taking risks and playing the market with the pension premiums of Quebecers. The risk factor is, of course, a matter that is entirely up to the Caisse. It can take risks if it wants to, but we think that in an area that falls under exclusive federal jurisdiction, that is, where interprovincial and international transport companies are concerned, it should not take more than 10 per cent of that risk.


REASONS FOR GOVERNMENT ACTION
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, there you have it, the ultimate in Liberal authoritarianism and paternalism, just what creates a lot of problems, not just in Quebec but all over the country.
Since the Minister is constitutionally quite correct that the federal Government has authority to regulate in this field, why does the Government not rely on regulation? If the Province of Quebec does something contrary to the national interest in terms of its activity in the transportation field, or any other
Province does something that is contrary to the national interest, then take action. Why is the Government moving now to stop a provincial government from using its funds to create a public enterprise? Why is it prejudging the use of these funds?

Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): Madam Speaker, in my opinion we are certainly not prejudging or drawing conclusions in advance. The bill is not aimed at preventing any normal activity by companies that are controlled by provincial governments. We have clearly established the rules of the game in an area that falls under federal jurisdiction, precisely because we want to avoid coming back later with legislation that would take effect retroactively. 1 see the bill as a preventive measure being taken by the government that is entirely appropriate in the present circumstances. As for reactions to the bill and recent statements by the President of the Caisse, who said that he had $1 billion to invest over the next four years in transport companies-well, let him invest them. One Member in the House has suggested that the Caisse purchase Quebecair. He can go right ahead. He has our permission. He can go and invest in any Canadian company he likes, but we say that he may not invest in more than 10 per cent of capital shares in companies involved in interprovincial and international transport.


FUTURE OF QUEBEC INVESTMENT PLANS
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, what hypocrisy. Just a few minutes ago the Minister's colleague took pride in the fact that we have a publicly- and federally-owned Petro-Canada. This Minister is now saying that no Province can take similar public action. That is sheer and utter hypocrisy. It is all right for the CPR or Exxon to have more than 20 per cent, more than 10 per cent in the shares of transportation companies, but the Minister says it is not all right for the Province of Quebec. That is totally unacceptable in a democracy.
To get back to a mere matter of dollars and cents that the Minister perhaps understands, is he aware that the President of the Caisse has said that this regrettable authoritarian decision of the federal Government will possibly cost the people of the Province of Quebec some $100 million because the Caisse was planning to invest in excess of $1 billion in transportation over the next four years? Is the Minister further aware that, as a result of this reprehensible action of the federal Government, if it gets away with it, instead of investing in transportation in Canada, the Caisse may have to take its money and invest in Europe or the United States? Is that desirable?


André Ouellet: Madam Speaker, we should take a close look at the
November 18, 1982

statement made by the President of the Caisse. I find that what he said was grossly exaggerated and without any basis in fact. Clearly, the President of the Caisse did not read the bill and did not understand it, if he is under the impression that he could lose that amount of money, since he is free to invest in any Canadian company, and can continue to do so in interprovincial and international transport companies for up to a maximum of 10 per cent of their shares. He therefore has tremendous investment opportunities, and he should take advantage of them. This threat that the Caisse will go and invest the money elsewhere is, as my hon. colleague said, blackmail, and it is typical of the series of comments we have had from two provincial politicians, Mr. Clair and Mr. Pari-zeau, who objected to this bill and whose erroneous statements proved to be totally unfounded. I may add that this is the third statement masterminded by the Parti Quebecois government and it is as erroneous and unfounded as the others.


AIR TRANSPORT
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. I hope the minister will ignore what the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs said about letting the Caisse de depot invest in Quebecair. Last week, I believe the Minister of Transport had a very serious discussion with his Quebec counterpart. According to the press, there was an undertaking that within ten days, the federal Minister of Transport would be making a public statement on a proposal that, it seems, would help save Quebecair. Can the minister inform the House whether this deadline will be observed and what kind of proposal he intends to make?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: In fact, Madam Speaker, on the subject of investments by the Quebec government in Quebecair, I would like to inform the House that we have exempted Quebecair from the provisions of Bill S-31, and consequently, the government of Quebec may invest in Quebecair as much at it likes. And why did we do that? Simply because it was clear to everyone that the purpose of this legislation is to prohibit a province from having an interest in an interprovincial carrier that might be prejudicial to the interests of another province. Since that was not the case with Quebecair, there was no reason why we should not grant an exemption in this case. I think that is clear. As for my discussions with Mr. Clair, 1 would like to point out that Mr. Clair has given me a series of ultimatums which have changed substantially in the course of time, because the most recent one was to get him out of the mess he got himself into when, in July 1981, the Quebec government undertook to prevent a
Oral Questions
merger of the two carriers-I am referring to Nordair and Quebecair-that was being planned at the time.
The Quebec government was no longer responsible at that point, but it poured $15 million into Quebecair and as a result became involved, for better or for worse. For worse, as it turned out. And now, Mr. Clair's ultimatum is that I should get him out of this mess. Some ultimatum. However, I will try to-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please! The Member for Joliette, with a supplementary.


INQUIRY WHETHER MINISTER INTENDS TO SAVE QUEBECAIR
Roch La Salle: Madam Speaker, I am very sorry to see that government Members are applauding the present situation at Quebecair. My question is as follows. In my view, the minister was not clear, and he did not answer my question. Considering the policy on regional transport the minister is to announce shortly, and considering that the minister is well aware of the situation at Quebecair and the rate of unemployment in Quebec, could the minister have the decency to stop attacking others and inform the House whether this policy will contain a proposal that will enable this company to take its place among air transport carriers in Canada, and will save the jobs of 900 employees? Today, that is what counts.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, that is exactly what I said in reply to the previous question. Perhaps my hon. friend failed to hear what I said then. That is exactly what I shall be bearing in mind, namely, saving as many jobs as possible for Quebecair employees, in drafting the proposal 1 shall be making within the next few days, but of course, 1 do not have the kind of authority Mr. Clair has to send out ultimatums or replies to ultimatums. I am consulting my colleagues about the proposal I intend to make. 1 do not like the ultimatum approach at all. I think it is undignified, but 1 am preparing this reply, and I shall be sending it to Mr. Clair as soon as possible, which will be very shortly.


FISHERIES
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It concerns the Pearse report on the West Coast fishery. On October 27 the Minister was asked by the Hon. Member for Richmond-South Delta if he was intending to recommend action to Cabinet on the Pearse Report, and he answered, "as

November 18, 1982
Oral Questions
soon as possible". On November 8, replying to the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich, the Minister said, "I hope to be starting the implementation of Pearse's recommendations in the very near future." Last week a fisheries conference held in Victoria resolved that "no policy action should be taken until the proposed Pacific Fisheries Council is in place and it has an opportunity to develop carefully considered views on each issue."
Because it is causing great concern on the West Coast, can the Minister give this House assurance that there will in fact be no implementation of Dr. Pearse's recommendations until the Fisheries Council can advise the Minister what recommendations, and the timing thereof, are appropriate for government action?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, 1 am pleased to inform the Hon. Member that I will be on the Pacific Coast this weekend, and will be meeting with the Fisheries Council. I have met with Dr. Pearse, the President of the Commission of Inquiry. We have done a lot of work in the Department assessing each of the over 300 recommendations which he has made, and I can tell the Hon. Member that 1 will be moving to implement as many of the recommendations of Dr. Pearse as possible in very close consultation with the Pacific Fisheries Council, and I hope to be able to make a statement on this matter as soon as possible.


REQUEST THAT COMMITTEE STUDY REPORT BEFORE ACTION TAKEN
John Allen Fraser: Madam Speaker, of course the Minister will know that the fishermen on the West Coast want a very different kind of council than the Minister is speaking of, and it is that newly formed Council which wants to discuss the matter with the Minister.
On November 16 the Hon. Member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta asked the Minister if he could deny that he intended to implement the Pearse recommendations before Christmas. The Minister replied, "1 would not be able at this time to make a definite answer." My question to the Minister, and it is a serious one, and I think a fair one, is to ask whether the Minister is prepared to hold off action until the House Fisheries Committee can consider the Pearse Report and consider the position of the fishermen and the industry.


Pierre De Bané: Madam Speaker, on the first part of the question of the Hon. Member, the organizational body which we have at the moment to advise the Minister represents the different segments and the different regions of the fisheries industry on the Pacific Coast and, of course, if those different representatives are of the opinion that we could devise a more representative organization, 1 am ready to hear every suggestion in that regard.
On the question of the implementation-as you know, the 300 recommendations are very different in scope and consequence, et cetera. I think there are a good number of them which are non-contentious and 1 can move on these recommendations after having assured myself to what extent the different organizations support them. 1 do not think it would be wise on my part to say today that I will not implement any of those 300 recommendations, even those which are of the "motherhood" type, without going through the various processes. All 1 can tell you is that I will assume my responsibility. I know that in some particular instances, such as the licensing and the bidding points, there is a lot of contention, and, obviously, I will not be moving without very careful consultation.


KIRBY TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS-MINISTER'S DISCUSSIONS WITH EAST COAST COUNTERPARTS
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, I have a related question for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The Minister was in the Atlantic Provinces last week. He met with some of his counterparts. Did he discuss with them the recommendations of the Kirby Task Force? Was there a consensus arising out of these discussions? Otherwise, can the Minister tell the House what he did discuss?


Pierre De Bané: Yes, Madam Speaker, I did have the pleasure of meeting with my counterparts in New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Newfoundland. I hope in the next few days to go to Nova Scotia also.
As for the Province which my hon. friend represents, I can tell him that 1 had a very positive meeting with the Minister of Fisheries, Mr. Morgan, and with Premier Peckford, and what 1 told them about those matters of federal jurisdiction in fisheries, was that the Prime Minister and my predecessor acted a year ago, and that a Cabinet committee is studying the report. I received the final draft of the Kirby Report about a week ago, and we have not lost time. I know there are other sectors which are of provincial jurisdiction, such as the processing plants, and there, too, 1 am very positive.
In a nutshell, I can tell you what I have said to Premier Peckford: I would like to integrate the Newfoundland dimension and to give it an essential part in the fisheries policy of my Department on the Atlantic. On the other hand, I expect from him understanding and co-operation with respect to the broad national perspective also. I was glad when he told me he understands it is a two-way street, and I said exactly that.


CULTURAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Communications. Many women's organizations presented briefs to the Applebaum-Hebert Committee documenting inequalities in earnings for women artists, the under-representation of women in policy making, on juries making grants, and correlation
November 18, 1982

between the under-representation of women on juries and grants actually made, and the frequent rejection of women's issues and ideas in programming.
Of the 101 recommendations made in this report, not one addresses these problems. I would like to ask the Minister what he is prepared to do now to see these concerns are seriously addressed and measures are taken to remedy them?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: Madam Speaker, as the Hon. Member points out, a number of submissions were made to the Applebaum-Hebert Committee along the lines the Hon. Member has just indicated. I believe many of those statements or positions were reflected in the first report issued by Applebaum-Hebert, which was a compendium of the views presented to it. While none of the 101 recommendations addressed that particular point, 1 think there are passages in the Applebaum-Hebert Report where they do indeed note the fact that there is under-representation, both on boards, commissions, and within juries established within the various agencies.
As I have indicated in the House when the Applebaum-Hebert Report became public, it is our intention to review the Report. We would like to see a very important in-depth debate on the Report. Obviously there are some areas where other points of view should be made and improvements can indeed be made on parts of the Report. We will look at those suggestions with an open mind.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Lynn McDonald: Madam Speaker, surely the Applebaum-Hebert Committee is not blind. They were able to read the briefs which were brought before it, and they do admit some of these problems exist. 1 would suggest to the Minister that the test of a commitment to equality is when some practical problem comes up. It is not enough just to put it into the Charter of Rights. I would remind the Minister there has been a commitment made very specifically in the United Nations Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Is the Minister going to stand with this Convention and the Charter of Rights, or is he going to continue to agree with Applebaum-Hebert that this sorry state of affairs is quite acceptable? Is he actually going to do something practical to address these questions and not merely admit they exist?


Francis Fox: Madam Speaker, the record of this Government is indeed to address practical problems in a practical way.


Charles Joseph Clark: Name one.


Francis Fox: If there is in the Canadian Constitution what our American colleagues refer to as an Equal Rights Amendment, that is due to the efforts of the Members on this side of the House. Obviously it is a principle to which we are committed and a principle upon which we act on a daily basis, in good
Oral Questions
part through the help of my colleague, the minister responsible for the status of women.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the President of the Treasury Board I would like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister knows, Bill C-133, which is an Act to amend the Supplementary Retirement Benefits Act, has been on the Order Paper for some time. Some Members of his Party have spoken publicly against the Bill and said they would not support it. 1 know there are others who have not spoken publicly. I should like to know that the intentions of the Prime Minister and the Government are with respect to that Bill. Do they intend to proceed with the Bill as part of the Government's legislative program, or do they intend to withdraw that Bill?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I know for a fact that this bill has been put on the list to which I referred earlier in the Question Period, that is, the list of bills on which we would like to negotiate a timetable with Opposition House Leaders. Therefore, we intend to proceed with the Bill, but at a time that we hope will be determined through discussion and negotiation.


EFFECT OF AMENDING LEGISLATION
Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I take it that what the Prime Minister is saying is that the Government now intends to proceed with the Bill in its present form. If that is so, is he aware of the commitment he and the former President of the Treasury Board made that "-the federal Government remains dedicated to the principle that public servants' pensions are to be protected from inflation"? Is he not aware that this Bill is a breach of that contract and agreement, and is seen as such?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I regret to observe that the Hon. Member does not seem to have understood, in any sense, the meaning of the six and five program which was introduced in the June budget. The Hon. Member talks of protection against inflation. It is to protect Old Age Pensions and Family Allowances against inflation that the Government introduced indexation many years ago. As we have explained many times in discussion of the six and five program, our objective is to see that inflation does reach 6 per cent next year and 5 per cent the year after. In that sense, all those who accept a reduction in advance to six and five will be contributing to something that the whole country seems to want. The whole country, except perhaps

November 18, 1982
Oral Questions
some Hon. Members opposite, seems to agree that 6 per cent inflation is better than 12 per cent, and that if Canadians want to reach 6 per cent collectively, they can do it.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Ray Chenier (Timmins-Chapleau):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Lately there have been suggestions that a federal-provincial conference on the economy should be held. 1 should like to know if the Minister of Finance could inform the House if he will be inviting his provincial counterparts to a federal-provincial conference of Finance Ministers in the near future.


Marc Lalonde: Yes, Madam Speaker, there have been suggestions to that effect. I have, indeed, been in touch with my provincial colleagues and have suggested that there be a conference of Ministers of Finance on December 17. 1 have received positive answers from nine Ministers, and I hope the tenth positive answer will arrive soon.


INQUIRY RESPECTING POSSIBLE FIRST MINISTERS' CONFERENCE
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Just the other day the Acting Prime Minister said he would not advocate a federal-provincial conference on the economy. When did the Government change its mind, and why?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, quite clearly I have indicated that we were going to have a federal-provincial conference of Ministers of Finance. The Leader of the Opposition was asking about a conference of First Ministers, the other day. I am amazed-well, I am not amazed; it is par for the course that the Leader of the Opposition cannot make a distinction between a conference of Ministers of Finance and a conference of First Ministers.


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Stan Darling: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of the Environment.
I am sure the Minister is aware and that he shares with me a great concern over the serious acid rain problem. We know this is an ongoing and serious problem. 1 would point out to the
Minister that all Members of the former Special Subcommittee on Acid Rain have recommended the reconstitution of that Committee on an ongoing basis. I would further point out that the precedent exists for this in the continuation of the Subcommittee on the Disabled. The reconstitution of the Committee on this basis would provide ongoing and very important assistance to the Minister. I therefore ask the Minister if he will take immediate steps to see that this important Subcommittee is reconstituted.


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of the Environment):: Madam Speaker, it is not for me to direct the Committee, but I would certainly welcome a decision by its Members to establish such a sub-committee and to continue with the work it has done in the past. The work done by the Subcommittee has been extremely valuable and helpful. Now that a new Congress has been elected in the United States I think it would be a great opportunity for Members on all sides of the House to take our important concern about acid rain to Congress. That is one of the functions that such a sub-committee might be able to pursue.
As far as I am concerned I would welcome such an event if it were to take place, but it is in the hands of the Members of that Committee if they wish to reconstitute it in that way.


Stan Darling: Madam Speaker, I am certainly delighted to hear the comments of the Minister on this subject.
PARLIAMENTARY PHOENIX?


Stan Darling: Madam Speaker, the Minister is aware that he has had representations from the Chairman of the Committee and all Members of the Committee. 1, personally, wrote to him about this some months ago. We were under the impression that the directive would have to come from the Minister and that the Minister would probably have to seek the permission of the House.
Am I to understand that we can rise from the ashes and become an active committee again?


Mr. Lawrence:: Rise from the acid!


John (Moody) Roberts: Madam Speaker, 1 do not know whether the Hon. Member can rise from the ashes.


Mr. Cullen:: He will have to get his "ash in gear".


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John (Moody) Roberts: My hon. colleague has made a comment which I think I ought not to repeat.
All I can say is that if Members engage in that very useful activity I would welcome it. If there is some impression that I am resistant to such an idea, that impression is entirely false. It is not the Minister who directs the work of the Committee. I would suggest that the Steering Committee should meet and seek a House order for that purpose.
November 18, 1982


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance. As a result of the June 1982 budget, it was announced that Bill C-133 would be implemented and that this would restrict increases in the Public Service pension plan by 6 per cent and 5 per cent for the next two years.
For the last year I have had a question on the Order Paper in an attempt to determine the amount of surplus in the Public Service superannuation fund. Would the Minister confirm that that surplus is in the neighbourhood of $14 billion? If that is true, can he explain why he is imposing the six and five program on people whose average pension is $8,000 per year, and on spouses drawing a Public Service pension whose income is only $3,000 per year?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, 1 am not in a position to confirm the figure given by the Hon. Member, but I shall check exactly what the figures are. What 1 can confirm, however, is that indexing pensions of public servants is costing the Consolidated Revenue Fund-in other words, Canadian taxpayers-several hundreds of millions of dollars, and that the indexing subsidy is not taken from the contributions of public servants or the government's employer contribution but from the Government of Canada which collects taxes from all Canadians. So I would remind the Hon. Member that all Canadian taxpayers are contributing to indexing, and that what we are asking in this bill is that retired public servants share in the general effort being made throughout the country by all citizens to reduce inflation and stimulate the economy, and both pensioners and the rest of Canada will benefit.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Of course, by separating the supplementary pension plan from the superannuation plan, the Government makes it look as if the indexing is costing taxpayers some money. That $14 billion surplus means that the Government is still ripping off retired Civil Servants.


REQUEST FOR FREE VOTE ON AMENDING LEGISLATION
Rodney Edward Murphy: My supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister, Madam Speaker. In an earlier response to a question put by a Member of the Conservative Party he spoke about the fact that that Party did not support the six and five program. He is wrong, Madam Speaker; it did support the six and five program.
My question relates to support within the Prime Minister's own caucus. This morning the Deputy Speaker said on radio that he would not support Bill C-133. Other Liberal backbenchers have indicated the same thing. Is the Prime Minister willing to let those Members have a free vote on that legislation in the House, even though it could bring down the Government, if the Conservatives show up to vote?
Business of the House


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is misquoting what I said just a few minutes ago. I did not say that he, that Member of the NDP, does not support the six and five, nor did I even say that the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton did not support it. I said that I did not think he understood the philosophy and reason behind the six and five, that generally we are attempting to create a six per cent society of prosperity in Canada next year, and that a lot of people are co-operating and willing to take the risk that Canada will be at a six per cent rate of inflation. That is the object, and that is what I was saying to these Members to whom the Hon. Member referred. I am sure that is something they will understand too.
I have not been involved in the discussions which the Hon. Member seems to know about, but it is something I have been trying to explain; as a matter of fact I did three television programs on it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PETITION
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the table the 334th Report of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Halliday) on Wednesday, November 17, 1982 and finds that the petition meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Nielsen:: Madam Speaker, I should like to address the usual Thursday question to the Government House Leader and ask him what will be the business for today, tomorrow and as far into next week as possible.
In light of the fact that in the ten useful Government sitting days since returning we have disposed of eight pieces of legislation, I am wondering, since the Government seems to attach great urgency to Bill C-133 relating to the pensions of public servants, whether he will bring it forward tomorrow so that we could deal with it expeditiously.


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, on the last point I am surprised that my colleague did not request that permission this

November 18, 1982
Business of the House
morning when we met. It is a surprise to me. I am open-minded to such a suggestion, as I have been since the beginning of this part of the session on October 27. This is the first time 1 have had a firm proposal on a specific Bill. As he knows, I have submitted a list of 17 Bills to him and I am awaiting his answer in terms of a reasonable timetable to dispose of any of those Bills, including Bill C-133. As I say, this is the first time 1 have heard a specific suggestion on one of those Bills, but I deplore the fact that it was not raised in time for me to establish the business for next week.
In answer to the usual Thursday question on House business for the coming days, I will take into consideration the constructive suggestion of the Hon. Member, hopefully within a reasonable length of time. Today we will be dealing with Bill C-95, which will provide some money for the Calgary Olympics, followed by Bill C-131, capping the Old Age Security Act, and tomorrow the first item of business will be Bill C-l 19, then Bill C-96 and Bill C-l2.

As far as the business of the House for next week is concerned, Madam Speaker, on Monday the first item on the agenda will be Bill C-91, to amend the Public Works Act and Public Lands Grants Act. Still on Monday, this legislation will be followed by Bill C-98, to amend the Canada Agricultural Products Standards Act. This legislation will be of considerable interest to our farmers. Tuesday, will be an opposition day, and on Wednesday and Thursday we shall be considering only those bills arising from the last budget, with preference being given to bills reported back to the House by the various committees. The House is aware that two bills arising from the last budget are now at the committee stage. They concern legislation to reduce interest rates for farmers and small businesses, and so if the report is on time, priority will be given on Wednesday to third reading of these bills. Subsequently, still on Wednesday and Thursday, we shall be considering Bill C-l31 and C-l32, and if we should run out of items on the order paper on one of those days, I am sure the Opposition will be glad to hear that the Canagrex Bill will be kept in reserve to occupy the final minutes of the sittings of the House. For the time being, Mr. Speaker, that is the business of the House for today and up to and including next Thursday. As usual, I can inform the House, in reply to the customary question, that all this is subject to change, on reasonable notice.


Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, what prompted me to suggest today dealing with Bill C-133, the capping of Public Service pensions, were the remarks of the Prime Minister and the seemingly urgent ranking which he attached to that legislation. That is the reason it was not raised this morning.
The Government House Leader has asked for agreement on a timetable, but I do not think he would quarrel with the fact that the passage of almost one Bill per day in ten days is a
pretty speedy record of dealing with Government legislation and passing it, notwithstanding filibusters such as that launched by the Minister of State for Finance the other night on his own legislation; he tried to prevent it from going through.
Rather than dealing with the legislation proposed by the Government House Leader for tomorrow, namely Bill C-l 19, an Act to repeal certain statutes, which is housekeeping legislation at its very minimum, and Bill C-96, the Financial Administration Act, if there is that degree of urgency and if the Government is serious about Bill C-133, the capping of Public service pensions, I invite the Government to bring it forward. It has the assurance of the Official Opposition that we will deal with it extremely expeditiously.


Mr. Deans:: Madam Speaker, first of all I am surprised that the House Leader of the Conservative Party has attempted to negotiate on the floor of the House after the many times he chastised me for similar kinds of things. However, I suggest that if the Government would like to call Bill C-133, of course we would be prepared to deal with it, but we certainly do not intend to deal with it expeditiously.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, 1 have taken note of the representations made by my hon. colleagues opposite, and my conclusion is that the Hon. Members would like to be able to do my job. I am afraid, however, that for the next three years they will have to let the Government decide what will be on the agenda.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]

Mrs. Eva Cote (Rimouski-Temiscouata):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour of tabling, in both official languages, the Eighth Report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.]


CHARTER OF RIGHTS
Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 41(2), I am pleased to lay upon the Table of the House copies of the Department of Justice Manual of Commentaries on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

November 18, 1982

This manual is what I referred to in my dialogue last week with the Hon. Member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn) as the federal white book of Charter interpretations.


AGRICULTURE
Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 41(2), I would like to table in both official languages the response of the fact finding inquiry into egg production costs to the National Farm Products Marketing Council and the response of the National Farm Products Marketing Council to the report of the fact finding inquiry into egg production costs.


PETITIONS
Mr. Lome Greenaway (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Madam Speaker, it is my duty to present a petition signed by 338 citizens of Lillooet in the Cariboo-Chilcotin riding of British Columbia.
The purpose of this petition is to cause the Canada Post Corporation to instal a street letter box at the Old Mill Shopping Plaza in Lillooet. The petitioners have been trying to obtain a letter box for the past 14 months without success. The nature of the petition is to demand that the Minister responsible for the Canada Post Corporation instruct the Chief Executive Officer to instal a letter box at the Old Mill Plaza.
The petitioners hope that, in your examination of the petition, you will find it in order and that you will exercise the discretionary powers vested in the office of Speaker of the House to allow discussion at the earliest possible time in order that the citizens of Lillooet may finally obtain their long sought mail box.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from the residents of northern British Columbia. This petition deals with their widespread concern about the issue of disarmament and peace. These residents also request that the federal Government's plan to allow the American Cruise missile testing in Canada is contrary to their goal of disarmament and peace. Therefore, the petitioners humbly pray that the federal Government will end its agreement with the American military to test the Cruise missile on Canadian soil.
Order Paper Questions OLD AGE SECURITY ACT


Mr. D. M. Collenette (York East) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-663, to amend the Old Age Security Act.


Some Hon. Members:: Explain.


David Michael Collenette: Madam Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to change the name of the Old Age Security Act to the "Senior Citizens' Benefits Act", thereby striking from the existing Act the words "old age" which, in my view, discriminate against many senior citizens by suggesting that they, at the age of 65, are no longer capable of leading a productive life and are no longer capable of making a valuable contribution to Canadian society. This kind of change is even more important today as Canada's population rapidly gets older.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

[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. 4,382, 4,384, 4,406 and 4,425.


Mr. Anguish: Is the official residence of the (a) Prime Minister (b) Leader of the Opposition considered to be a taxable benefit and (i) if so, for what reason (ii) if not, for what reason?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: (a)
and (b) No. (i) N/A. (ii) The Income Tax Act specifically excludes from income from office or employment allowances for personal or living expenses that are expressly fixed in an Act of the Parliament of Canada. The Official Residences Act provides for residences for the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Speaker of the House of Commons. This same Act also provides for the furnishing, maintenance and heating and improvements to the building and land.


Mr. Bosley: 1.	What amount did the Government receive from oil and gas taxation in the first quarter of (a) 1982 (b) 1981?
2.	What was the income from postage in the first quarter of (a) 1982 (b) 1981?


David P. Smith: I am informed by the Department of National Revenue and the Canada Post Corporation as follows:

November 18, 1982
Order Paper Questions
(a) First Quarter 1982
1 * Gasoline excise tax Marketable pipeline gas Canadian ownership increase-gas Natural gas liquids Canadian ownership increase-liquids Petroleum and gas revenue Resources royalty revenue


[Stage Direction]
(b) First Quarter 1981
[Stage Direction]
This information comes from a three-month follow-up survey of institutional training. Similar information is unavailable for industrial training or Critical Trade Skills Training.
3. $1,266,088 was spent on advertising the programs. [English]
David P. Smith: I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
2.	(a) January-March 1982
($ million)
(b) January-March 1981 ($ million)
576.4
381.2


Mr. Mitges: What are the ministerial and departmental duties of the Minister of State, the Hon. Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve?	[DOT]


Mr. Stevens:: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Once again I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council to explain to the House if he can, why question No. 2,042 which was originally posed in January, 1981, with respect to the Prime Minister's December-January 1980-1981 world tour has not yet been answered. The Prime Minister has just been to Moscow. Do I have to ask a question similar to question No. 2,042 for all of the Prime Minister's trips? Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can tell me what the specific reason is why the Canadian people are being denied the truth as to what these trips are costing.


David P. Smith: Prior to October 6, 1982, the Member for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve was a Minister of State appointed under the provisions of the Ministries and Ministers of State Act. He was for administrative purposes supported by the Department of the Secretary of State and performed such duties as were from time to time assigned to him by the Prime Minister.


Mr. Gurbin: 1.	In 1981, how many persons were enrolled in Canada Employment Retraining Programs in (a) Ontario (b) Canada?
2.	In 1981, how many persons enrolled in such Programs were successful in finding jobs in (a) Ontario (b) Canada?
3.	What amount has been spent on advertising the Programs?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: L (a) 57,027 trainees started Institutional Training courses 19,323 trainees started Industrial Training courses 3,361 trainees started Critical Trade Skills Training courses
(b) 219,494 trainees started Institutional Training courses 67,746 trainees started Industrial Training courses 5,486 trainees started Critical Trade Skills Training courses
2. Of those institutional full-time, non-apprentice trainees completing courses in the April, 1981 to September, 1981 period: (a) 59 per cent of those taking courses in Ontario found employment; and (b) 52 per cent of trainees across Canada found employment.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, there is certainly no suggestion of the Government wanting to hide the truth on this or other questions of this nature. At this point in time we have answered 82 per cent of the questions put on the Order Paper in this session. 1 will, of course, be delighted to look into this matter on behalf of the Hon. Member.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Madam Speaker, I also rise on a point of order. I have a question outstanding on the Order Paper, No. 3,487, which I asked on November 26, 1981. It is with regard to the Public Service Superannuation Account and 1 inquired about the windfall profits which the Government realized on those accounts. I believe the Government is making these gains because it is paying only 11 per cent on the accounts while the Government would normally have to borrow money at 13 per cent. Those questions covered by Order Paper question No. 3,487 must be answered before Bill C-133 is introduced into this House; otherwise we will be unable to have any logical and clear debate on the matter. It is my understanding that the Government has in excess of $14 billion in that account at this time. We would like question No. 3,487 answered before we debate Bill C-133.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, I do not recall having looked into the progress of the answers to that particular question. I would be happy to do so on behalf of the Hon. Member.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
November 18, 1982



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Gerald Regan (for the Secretary of State) moved: that Bill C-95, An Act to provide for Government operated pool systems on combinations of athletic contests and events and to amend the Criminal Code and the Income Tax Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.
He said: Madam Speaker, in rising to participate in the debate on Bill C-95, 1 want to urge all Hon. Members of the House to support it. The legislation has been in the House having received first reading nearly a year ago. 1 believe it is very important in relation to a number of worth-while causes.
May I say that the first idea of such legislation came to me at some period after a group of very bright and ambitious young men from Calgary visited my office shortly after I had assumed the office of Minister responsible for fitness and amateur sport in the spring of 1980. Their idea was for Canada to host the Winter Olympics in the west with Calgary being the site, in the same way that the east was the host of the Summer Olympics, the site being Montreal back in 1976, which was a very successful occurrence. At that time these young men outlined to me what would be necessary in relation to financing from the federal Government, from the provincial Government and from the municipality in hosting the 1988 Winter Olympics if Calgary were to be successful in its bid to have the Winter Olympics awarded to Canada.
In the course of my discussion I made it quite plain that in these times it was not possible to contemplate the amount of money necessary for this worth-while purpose being provided from tax dollars. With the levels of taxation as they have to be in a country of this type in order to provide the many public services that are demanded and with so many demands on those moneys, it was not a practical undertaking for the Government of Canada to pay, out of moneys derived from taxes, the amount of support that would be necessary if these games were to take place.
I indicated, however, that it seemed to me it was the responsibility of a national government to co-operate in a worth-while project of this type. Not only had the Summer Olympics been tremendously successful in the development of our amateur sport relating to summer sports, but this occasion would give an opportunity for the advancement of our athletes who participate in winter sports in the same way. Not only would the Winter Olympics be beneficial from the point of view of the vast improvement in facilities which would be available after the games to the general public, but also the holding of the Winter Olympics in the west would have a permanently beneficial effect on winter tourism in this country.
It is a sad comment that Canada has lagged far behind the United States in relation to being able to attract winter tourists for skiing and for other winter sports, despite the absolute excellence of our facilities and the obvious nature of
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
our climate. This provides a great opportunity for attention to be centred in 1988 on the western Canadian Rocky Mountains and upon the advantages of that area for winter tourism.
I said that I felt that it would be possible for the Government to examine non-tax sources of revenue. I had earlier felt that it was unfortunate that the Government of Canada had given up the source of funds that had paid for a very large portion-retrospectively-of the cost of the Montreal Summer Olympics when the Government moved out of the lottery field, abandoned Loto Canada and gave it entirely to the Provinces.
However, when this Government came to office it undertook to examine that decision which had previously been made and reconsider whether the Government of Canada should go back into the lottery business. It was obvious that the Provinces were not very enthusiastic, to say the least, about the federal Government returning to the lottery field. Yet there remains a very real need for a source of funds that do not come from taxes that could be available to help the national Government meet its responsibilities in relation to sports, culture and, as this Bill provides, additional funding for the support of medical research.
If I may begin with the question of sports, 1 believe that it is quite clear that under the agreement which exists between the federal Government and the Provinces on the method of operation, the federal Government has the responsibility of supporting athletes at least at national and international levels of competence in the same way that the Provinces bear the responsibility of developing their excellent athletes on that level. In the same manner that Provinces have found it extremely important to have a source of revenue that is nontax in nature to meet some of those responsibilities which they have for their portion of such undertakings, there is a very real need at the national level for the Government of Canada to find such a source of revenue.
The costs of supporting artists in the cultural area and the costs of supporting our athletes and staging events as well as sending teams to international competitions have vastly increased. It is not reasonable to call upon tax dollars as the source of greatly increased financing for those causes, no matter how worth-while they may be.
Recognizing that the Provinces had occupied the lottery field, we searched very hard and conducted a considerable amount of research to determine how the federal Government might raise funds for these causes without, if you like, stepping squarely on the toes of the Provinces. We came up with the sports pool system that exists in most countries and which has been found to be attractive to the public, a good source of entertainment and a harmless form of entertainment. When I say "harmless form of entertainment", I use the words from the Royal Commission in Britain that investigated all aspects of gaming in that country. It gave a very laudatory approval to sports pools.

November 18, 1982
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
We considered the use of sports pools because they were popular in other countries and we had every reason to believe that they would be popular in this country, since it involves a voluntary contribution of about $1 by those people who choose to participate and research showed that they would have little, if any, impact upon support for the provincially-run lotteries. In the interest of maintaining good relations with the Provinces, we particularly wanted to find an area that would interfere to a minimum with the field they occupied, whatever we might have felt about the rightness of the Government also to participate in the lottery field.
That is the history behind which this Bill came into existence. I do not know whether Hon. Members are aware of the fact that our research also showed that low-income groups do not, as is sometimes the general impression, participate in these pools more than others. Before establishing the program we carefully considered the involvement of lower income groups. Our studies indicated that all income groups spend approximately one-third of 1 per cent of their annual income on lottery and raffle tickets. The most basic finding is, however, that the expenditure on games comes from the entertainment component of the family budget and does not compete with the essentials.
The sports pool is not a tax, as taxes are imposed or levied on the public. Consumer participation in the sports pool is strictly voluntary and allows for conscious funding by the population of those activities which they may not otherwise decide to support. It is a question of voluntary participation. The people of this country are proud of our artists and our athletes. We are all very pleased when Steve Podborski wins the world championship in downhill skiing or when Ken Reid does so well. We are all proud of Susan Nattrass, Jerry Sorensen and the junior hockey team which won the world championship last year, and we are proud of many other Canadian artists and athletes.


Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: What about the University of Moncton?


Gerald Augustine Regan: We are also very proud of the team from the University of Moncton.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, during the next eighteen months Canadians will be attending a number of sports events, both national and international, and it is very important, and the Federal Government has a duty, to help Canadian athletes prepare for these events. When our athletes participate in sports events abroad, they do not do so as Ontarians, Quebecers or Newfoundlanders but as Canadians. It is therefore entirely legitimate and in the interest of our athletes that the Government of Canada should have an important role to play with respect to these events. Thousands of young Canadians will be training for and taking part in qualifying meets and many will later be competing in the events themselves.
The main events I am thinking of are the Student Games in Edmonton in 1983; the Canada Games in Quebec, in the Lac
Saint-Jean area, in February 1983; and finally, the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984. To prepare for these events, we shall have to set up training centres in co-operation with the provinces, organize courses for instructors, finance travel expenses and take on a host of other responsibilities as well. The Ministry of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) conducted a survey, some time ago, on fitness in Canada. This past summer we published the preliminary results of the survey which provide basic data on fitness levels and living habits of Canadians.
Using the survey data, Fitness Canada will establish priorities and formulate policy to ensure that the needs of Canadians in the very important area of physical fitness are met. It is clear that the revenue from the sports pool system, part of which will be allocated to Canada Fitness and Amateur Sport, will help us to achieve that objective.
I believe that these athletes do deserve our support and this is the way we can move in that direction. I emphasize again that the nature of the sports pool is very different from that of a lottery, and that appeals to a different group of people.
Let me make a very important point on the entertainment side. If one buys a raffle ticket or a lottery ticket, one buys a number, waits, and eventually finds out whether one has won or lost. The sports pools are different. First, one applies one's skills. If one is a person who follows the games closely, a person who knows sports and is a former great athlete like the Hon. Member for Edmonton North (Mr. Paproski)-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Gerald Augustine Regan: -then one is in a much better position to gauge what the scores will be in the particular events than a person who perhaps does not have as much background or ability. That is the first part. One is applying an element of skill.
The other point is that, as a consequence of having participated in the choices of what the scores will be, one then follows the games more closely and watches for the outcome with interest. That is exactly the way it works in England where people watch soccer games on television and watch for the results with very keen interest. It results in a greater level of support for sport than would otherwise be the case.
In this circumstance, our legislation provides that the revenue derived from this purpose must be used in the following fields. I would refer Hon. Members to Clause 18(3)(a), (b) and (c), which states:
(3) There may be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to or for the support of any one or more of
(a)	activities in the following fields:
(i)	the arts and culture,
(ii)	fitness and amateur sport, and
(iii)	medical research,
(b)	the 1988 Calgary Olympic games, and
November 18, 1982

(c) worthy capital projects of national interest in the fields described in subparagraphs (o)(i) and (ii),
so much of any amounts paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund pursuant to this section as is appropriate by Parliament for the purpose of this subsection.
Therefore, the revenues will be limited to those very worthwhile purposes.
I must tell Your Honour my main reason for pressing for this legislation, and 1 say the "main" reason because 1 believe there are other important causes, such as the need for funding medical research and support of our amateur athletes and our culture. However, I must be honest and say that my greatest reason for pressing forward is that I believe that, in the same way the public of Canada supported the Summer Olympics in Montreal through Loto Canada it is equally important to recognize that the people of Canada would be prepared to give real support through the Government of Canada to the magnificent undertaking of a wonderful group of people who will stage the Winter Olympics in western Canada in the Calgary region. It is for that reason that I believe it is urgent to pass the legislation quickly.
With reference to the amount of commitment which is required, Calgary calculates that it will need $200 million in 1982-83 dollars in order to stage the Olympics. By 1988, that might amount to a great deal more because of the indexing factor. The Province of Alberta, under the enthusiastic leadership of Premier Lougheed, is fully behind this project and is participating fully. The City of Calgary is also keenly committed and is enthusiastically providing its portion of support. I am sure that Members of Parliament will not want the Government of Canada to do less for Calgary.
I also want to say that this Parliament will receive an annual statement from the Crown corporation which will be established. The amount of money gained and its use will be outlined in the statement each year. The Crown corporation will operate with a very small bureaucracy. I am confident it will be successful and I therefore urge Hon. Members to support it.
Before I conclude my remarks, 1 want to extend my gratitude to several Hon. Members who have been very helpful in bringing the Bill to consideration. First, I mention the Hon. Member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid) and the Hon. Member for Selkirk-Interlake (Mr. Sargeant). I would also like to make special mention of the very keen interest shown by the Hon. Member for Calgary North (Mr. Wright) for this project in the manner in which he has kept in touch with me throughout the month that we have been trying to bring it forward.
I think it is a good cause. I know that some people have concern about the question of gambling, as they call it, even when the amount of money is so small, but 1 do believe that this is a worthy cause. We already have many lotteries in the country and this is a very harmless one of entertainment for a worth-while cause. I urge Hon. Members to support it.


Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, so as to dispel any delusion which may exist in the mind of the Minister presenting the Bill, 1 want very quickly to tell him that 1 feel honoured in rising, first as the spokesperson on behalf of Her
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
Majesty's Loyal Opposition, but also as the spokesperson on behalf of those interested in fitness and amateur sport.
I rise in opposition to the Bill just presented on behalf of the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


Joseph Lloyd Reid: This is the first opportunity 1 have had the responsibility of speaking on a Bill directly related to fitness and amateur sport. While I welcome the opportunity, I do not particularly appreciate the occasion. Quite frankly, I really wonder at the priorities given to the Bill by the Government. It reminds one of the old adage of Nero fiddling while Rome burns. To put it into more contemporary terms, it reminds us of the situation of the Government playing with the Hockey Select while the unemployment lines continue to grow.
At the same time, I can hardly understand the priority given to the Bill when it is already under the shade of legal process and in legal doubt. Ever since the announcement of the Bill was made over a year ago or when anticipated in September of last year, there has been a raging debate with respect to the legality of the Bill. Is it or is it not in breach of the 1979 federal-provincial agreement? We have now, Mr. Minister, as Members of this House know, a ruling of a court in the Province of Quebec which says that yes, it might be in breach of that provincial-federal agreement of 1979 and it might lead to some conflict in the court down the line. Nevertheless, the Minister throws caution to the wind. He does not wait until that matter has been resolved but comes forward with the Bill at this time.
I can appreciate that fact. I can appreciate why the Government might be fearful that the Bill might be adjudged illegal, and they want to bring it before us and have it in effect because they do not want to renege. I was somewhat surprised at the Minister presenting the Bill by outlining how a bright young group from Calgary came to him and talked to him about the need for support of the Calgary Olympics, and out of this the sports pool was born. We all know that the sports pool is simply an offshoot of the Government's election promise in February of 1980 and its burning desire to get back into the lottery field as it existed before. So he is carrying on a myth both with respect to fitness and amateur sport and as to how the sports pool came into being.
The Calgary Olympics have been dependent on Government money. What about the commitment given by this Government to the Calgary Olympics? The Minister talks in fine terms about supporting this great international event, but it is a commitment made by the Government only out of nonGovernment revenues. He continues that argument even now, that the support must come out of non-Government revenues. This just shows how much concern the Government really has for fitness and amateur sport and for Calgary.

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Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
I am going to dwell a little bit more on that as my comments are developed, but before doing so, Mr. Speaker, 1 want to refute utterly, completely and totally the propaganda campaign that has been waged with respect to the relationship between Loto Canada-and I heard it expounded again today-and funding for fitness and amateur sport. We are hearing exactly the same kind of nonsense now with respect to the sports pool as we heard earlier during the existence of Loto Canada and it is high time that these facts are made public and clear to all.
Loto Canada had a mercifully short, scandal-ridden term. We have to thank the Party on this side for bringing it to a conclusion and ending the existence of Loto Canada, which had at every turn brought nothing but disgrace to the Government.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Joseph Lloyd Reid: The then Minister responsible and now President of the Liberal Party spent many a Question Period explaining away one scandal after another, why they arose and why they should be dispelled. And a shocked and outraged public were disturbed by the answers given. Millions of dollars were squandered; questionable contracts were entered into with wholesalers; jobs were doled out to friends and all the while the drum kept beating that we do this on behalf of our Canadian athletes. Little did the athlete or the Canadian public know that those holding the ticket printing contracts were receiving over twice the amount being forwarded to the Department of Fitness and Amateur Sport.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame, shame!


Joseph Lloyd Reid: I invite the House to look at the Loto Canada income and expense sheets. There are still a goodly number of people on the Loto Canada payroll. It was simply happy days and open expense accounts! Several people have indicated that Loto Canada was a victim of growing pains and I agree. Loto Canada started its first year with an RCMP investigation into the awarding of security device contracts and finished its last full year of operation by squandering $14 million on a project that was contrary to Loto Canada's own regulations. This is the kind of growing pains that we do not like to see.
Scandals aside, Mr. Speaker, how successful was Loto Canada, and how did fitness and amateur sport benefit from that lottery? From start to finish Loto Canada generated a gross total of $725 million, and a net sum of $211 million. Fitness and amateur sport received $10.6 million or an average of $2.6 million a year. Great benefit to fitness and amateur sport out of that sum of money from the taxpayers and the gamblers of Canada!
More money was spent in one year advertising the benefits that were alleged to go to fitness and amateur sport in one year than they received in four years.


An Hon. Member:: Where did the money go?


Joseph Lloyd Reid: If fitness and amateur sport did not receive that money, where did it go? The question is
properly asked. Eighty-two point five per cent of it went to discharging the Montreal 1976 Olympics debt. The Liberal Government presented to this House, and all Opposition parties agreed, that we should somehow support the taxpayers of Quebec; we should not leave them with the debt of the 1976 Olympics. Loto Canada was then born to pay off that specific deficit of the 1976 Olympics, and it was to exist for a specific term of three years.
We already have extended one invitation, Mr. Speaker; let us look at another. Should anyone doubt the spirit, if not the word, of the Liberal Government commitment in 1976 to wrap up Canada's Loto by the end of the year 1979, let us just take a look at the June, 1976 minutes of the Miscellaneous Estimates Committee. When our present Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien), then President of the Treasury Board, protested wildly at the suggestion that his Government would renege with respect to that termination date, in full rhetorical flight the Minister revealed his soul as one abhorring the very thought that lotteries, especially state-operated lotteries, would be continued. Time after time the Minister indicated that he would sleep a whole lot better at the end of this three-year nightmare. I have always enjoyed the Minister's speeches but that performance surely must rank among his highest.
We know from those minutes and from the revenue sheets of Loto Canada that both the Opposition, the other Members of this House and fitness and amateur sport were misled by the pronouncements of the Minister. Credit must surely go to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) who saw through the theatrics of the presentation and warned that once involved in a lottery, the Liberals would never get out of it. Sure enough, in early 1979, the third year of that definite term, the Liberal Government introduced another Bill to provide an indefinite extension to Loto Canada's life.
The reaction of the present Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is not recorded. Considering the comments which he had made earlier, he must have winced at that obvious contradiction. The Minister's assurances given three years before were completely discarded as this breath of new life was given to a discredited Crown corporation, it is this proposed new Loto Bill of 1979 that has led to the myth-the Minister has left but he has left the myth that he has perpetuated-that millions of dollars have gone to the sports world.
Let us look at the facts of the situation. In its first short year of operation, Loto Canada netted $28.3 million. In its first full year of operation that net was increased to a total of $74.3 million. What happened after that? The next and third year of operation it fell from $74 million to $62 million. In its last year of operation the profits were $46.3 million.
These figures are important, not only because they are figures, but because they are the only real guideline we have as we consider the net that might be anticipated from the sports
November 18, 1982

pool. The proponents of the sports pool continue to announce in great exaggerated tones that $100,000 million will be received for the benefit of those who might be the beneficiaries. That we want to refer to as well. However, they have not substantiated how or on what figure it is based.
It is evident in the face of the stiff opposition from provincial lotteries that now exist that if Loto Canada could not make it how in the world can we expect the sports pool to draw the massive sums that are now anticipated by this Government?
Fortunately for fitness and amateur sports and arts and culture, Canadians put an end to that in 1979. One of the early acts of the Clark Government was to negotiate an agreement between the feds and the Provinces. They sold Loto Canada at a time when it had some value. It gave to the Provinces exclusive jurisdiction over lotteries in return for $24 million annually indexed to 1979 and a number of smaller considerations which would total approximately $20 million.
Not only did this agreement remove the irritant between the Province and the federal Government, which allowed the fitness and amateur sports and arts and culture communities to have a fixed sum of return and for the first time fixed sums of revenue on which to plan, build and organize programs, but it was not dependent on the number of Loto tickets sold.
The communities of arts and culture and fitness and amateur sport shared and are now sharing on a 50-50 basis the sum of approximately $30 million annually in addition to their estimates as shown in their budgets. We sold that lottery while it was still saleable. That was a good thing. If this Government had continued to hang on to Loto Canada and tried to compete with the Provinces as it was then doing, it would have been a sad state for all of us.
Let us turn to the sports pool. On the one hand, I do not subscribe to the view that the federal Government, in fact any Government, should be involved in lotteries. On the other hand, I want to say a word on behalf of fitness and amateur sport and in their interest indicate that they are being underfunded. Let us look at each of these in turn.
Canadians expect a good deal from their Government. We have the responsibility of looking after our national defence, job-creation programs, criminal law enforcement and civil law problems. I can tell you one thing. Canadians do not expect, nor do they want to see, their national Government cheapened by throwing its prestige and dignity behind projects and programs that are of dubious benefit to anyone. That is the problem we now face. The desire of the Government to get back into lotteries without a concrete figure as to what will be expended and might be realistically realized is a venture we are not prepared to support at this time.
Here we have a proposal that is based on the exploitation of the betting public. The Minister talks in terms of studies, but it should be pointed out that it is those with modest and low incomes who buy the largest number of tickets.
Has anyone recently been to a bingo game? There you see the gambling instinct at its best, or at its worst. Is that the kind of activity with which the Government of Canada wants to be
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
associated? If it is going to go that far, why stop there? Why not get into casinos or the numbers racket? Where should we stop? Where are we really going to go?
At one time the present Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) and the Minister of State for Multiculturalism (Mr. Fleming) both expressed extreme concern with respect to the impact of lotteries on the poor. In fact, I was in this House on December 7, 1979 when the Hon. Member for York West rose and demanded an inquiry into the effect of lotteries in this country. How are those two Members going to vote on Bill C-95?
Setting aside the fact that the federal Government should not be associated with gaming, betting or gambling in any operation, we have to question the ability of the Government to undertake the project at all. The 1979 federal-provincial agreement on lotteries gave the Provinces exclusive jurisdiction in the field of lotteries. In order for the federal Government to operate a sports pool, it will have to demonstrate that a sports pool is not a lottery. One simply cannot accept the word of the Minister. It was nice to hear him distinguish between a lottery and a sports pool, but that is not a legal definition.
Thus far we have the opinion of one court. The Quebec Superior Court expressed the opinion that Quebec's Hockey Select, a sports pool, was not illegal because it fell within the confines of the 1979 federal-provincial lottery agreement. Hence the court in effect ruled that there is no difference between the sports pool now being proposed and the lotteries subject to that agreement.
Surely to goodness the Government would want to know what its legal base is before going further down the line and taking the action it proposes to take today. What will be the fate of the sports pool if it is eventually determined that it is illegal? I can tell you, Mr. Speaker. We will have spent millions of taxpayers' dollars on hardware, advertising and establishing this game and entering into competition with the Provinces. There will be long court cases in the Appeal Courts and eventually the Supreme Court will have to make a determination.
Taxpayers' money will determine what benefit will go to the beneficiaries of a vague and indeterminate Bill. Just to break even, the pool will have to generate enough revenue to offset the $30 million annually from the agreement as well as the start-up costs and production costs.
My point should really be clear. A sports pool is going to cost us money. 1 am not only talking about the overhead and mechanics; I am talking in terms of the immediate competition that will be entered into by Loto Canada or its namesake with the Provinces.
If it is limited to the number of persons who will be fans, as described by the Minister today, those who are skilled at picking the winner of a game, the numbers will not be great. It is bound to be a failure before it starts. Therefore, we have to concern ourselves with the alternatives proposed in the Bill.
Some studies have estimated the pool will not generate a net in excess of $20 million, which is $10 million less than we are

November 18, 1982
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
now getting. The Minister predicted an annual return of $100 million. I challenge him to state the facts and figures to substantiate that.
It is not generally recognized that it was the Diefenbaker Government that established an ongoing commitment to fitness and amateur sport so as to raise the health level of Canadians. That was to come first, the health level of Canadians across this country, and thereby to go on to win international medals and credits. But over the years the winning of medals has tended to overshadow the less glamorous areas of fitness, amateur sports, and recreation, as we know recreation. This has created imbalances in the budget allocation of federal dollars.
As a result of this imbalance, we have a situation where amateur sport is budgeting close to the line and those on the recreation side are faced with critical funding shortages. It is a credit to the ingenuity of the great national associations that they have been able to produce athletes to the degree and quality that we have now. It is to their credit that we are able to have our existing medal winners. With their record of achievements, accomplished even with these tight budgets, it would be much better if we had those advisers in fitness and amateur sports recommend and make comments on our budget deficiencies instead of the incompetent advisers we have had in finance through three mini-budgets within the last year.
Bill C-95 is supposed to be an effort to provide money for fitness and amateur sports. But I raise the question, is it? Who is to benefit most? The Minister was good enough to read out who the beneficiaries of the Sports Pool might be. The Cabinet's choice is remarkable. It is wide-ranging. The pool could benefit fitness and amateur sport, arts and culture, medical research, the Calgary Olympics, or any other worthy capital project related to sports and culture, or it could be a combination of these things. What is it going to be? Considering the Cabinet as it is today, no one is going to be able to depend or rely on any commitment in the future.
Going back to early 1979,1 read of a strong protest made by the then Minister of Fitness and Amateur Sport and the then Secretary of State, the present Minister of the Environment (Mr. Roberts), at a suggestion that Loto Canada provide money for medical research. They both said: "Oh, no, something as essential as medical research should not be included in a budget which has the ups and downs that a lottery would have". That gives you some indication, Mr. Speaker, of the attitude of those Ministers at that time with respect to fitness and amateur sports funding. It was not good enough for something like medical research, but it was good enough for fitness and amateur sport, and it should now be funded by the ups and downs of a lottery.
Arts and culture might have some advantage under all of this, but just picture the competition in a Cabinet meeting, with the different Cabinet Ministers, as to which one has the clout, which one has the force of numbers behind him, which one is going to get this kind of money. There is complete
vagueness and ambiguity as to who the beneficiaries of this sports Bill are. If we are intending to benefit fitness and amateur sport, why do we not set it out clearly, unequivocally, percentagewise or otherwise? Who really is to benefit from this sports pool?
We on this side of the House have no quarrel with the Calgary Olympics. We heard of the commitment and the representations which were made and how the sports pool was born. But as of this date all they have is a wishy-washy commitment in support of those games, and from non-Government resources. The money will come from Olympic stamps, Olympic coins, or any other kind of money that might come from the sports pool, if, as and when it comes into existence.
I can say that this Party is prepared to make a commitment to Calgary. In our view, the federal commitment should have been $200 million without any strings attached, an iron-clad guarantee. That is what we call a commitment. There should be a commitment that Calgary and its organizers can count on to the last dollar. But right now they still do not know what dollars they are going to get.
While we have no dispute with respect to Calgary, we do have some dispute with the worthy causes, worthy capital projects, which are referred to in the Bill. We have already seen the Government designate the Hilton Hotel as an industry in need of assistance. It well might be the Hilton Hotel that gets the benefit as a worthy project. They might put in a gymnasium to qualify. But what assurance will fitness and amateur sport have that they will get x number of dollars or a share of this commitment at all?
Before leaving the subject of beneficiaries, I want to point out again that even the term "fitness and amateur sport" is not defined in the Bill. We want to know whether the Government intends to give those moneys directly to national associations, to the Department to be divided among the beneficiaries in fitness and amateur sport, or will it thrive on the loopholes it has, as we saw with Loto Canada? We want some assurance that fitness and amateur sport as a whole will receive a fair deal on the division of the profits which will come from any sports pool that will be initiated.
Finally, on the other aspects of this Bill, Mr. Speaker, Clause 14(b) is completely unacceptable to the Members on this side of the House. This Clause opens the door to this Government's operation of any other lawful gaming operation. Can you not just picture the Cabinet determining what will be first in lawful gaming operations that should receive some share of the benefits, or what lawful gaming operation they will get into to bolster the fact that the sports pool is not going to bring in the money anticipated? They will be testing, trying to see which numbers or which game will gouge the public the most, and that is the game they will get into.
Bill C-95 leaves the question open as well to the Auditor General whether should he or should he not audit the corporation's accounts. Given the history of Loto Canada, we find it imperative that the Auditor General be charged with the responsibility of auditing this Crown corporation's books.
November 18, 1982

This is a bad Bill, Mr. Speaker, unless it is subject to a goodly number of amendments. Even with these amendments, however, it still cannot disguise the fact that the sports pool is very likely a violation of the 1979 provincial-federal lottery agreement, and as such it bodes no good for our future. This is a Bill that throws out a sure thing, a Bill that tosses away $30 million of guaranteed revenue returns, in return for a bad dream. That is too big a gamble for us on this side of the House to take.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I recognize that the Minister and that the two critics of the Parties had agreed to allow the Bill to pass some time this afternoon; at least, that is my understanding. Therefore, I will not take the amount of time available in order that others might have an opportunity to speak on the matter.
1 want to begin by saying quite clearly that we are opposed to the Bill for somewhat different reasons from those given by the spokesman for the Conservative Party. It is not an argument whether the moneys will in fact go to the places which the Government says it will, or whether or not there will be sufficient amounts derived from the sports lottery. The argument is whether or not this is an appropriate way to fund matters which are essential in terms of the well-being of the country.
I was looking back into the record, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you probably recall the circumstances surrounding a speech made by my hon. colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles), in 1976. On that occasion he said, as reported at page 13336 of Hansard:
It is because we believe that physical fitness, amateur sport and recreation are important aspects of Canadian life that we think they should be financed out of general taxation and, therefore, paid for on the basis of the ability to pay.
He continued:
We do not believe that aspects of life as important as physical fitness, amateur sport and recreation should be financed by gambling, which calls on the poor to pay for it, instead of taxation which is levied according to ability to pay.
We also feel therefore that this proposal to put the federal government into the lottery business for all time is economic retrogression of the worst kind.
Then he made a point that I think is borne out by the legislation that is before us today, when he said:
This makes it clear that the government does not take physical fitness, amateur sport and recreation seriously, and it makes it clear that if the government gets into trouble with something else-health costs, veterans' pensions, or what have you-which it cannot afford, it will say, "We can go in for gambling again,"-
That was a prophecy and that is exactly what happened. The Government has decided that it is unable to provide, from general revenues, the facilities for amateur sports, for physical fitness or for the pursuit of excellence in amateur athletics. More important, the Government has decided that medical research is to be undertaken from the funds generated by this so-called non-gambling that the Minister has spoken about. Those funds may be generated from the sale of lottery tickets, or the ability of people to choose who will win or lose on many
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
sporting events throughout the year. In that way they will engage in gambling.
A country cannot be run on the basis of games of chance. It may well be that as a pastime there could be provision for people to purchase a ticket and win a small prize, but essential services should not be funded on the basis of whether enough lottery tickets will be sold. Medical research should not be undertaken on the basis of getting a sufficient number of people on a given Saturday afternoon to bet on the outcome of hockey, baseball, basketball or football games.
If we are now moving toward that kind of financing of essential services, then the Government has ceased to recognize its responsibility and the time has come for it to give up the reins of Government. It is clear that if we believe the health and well-being of the people is important, then we must be prepared to make a financial commitment to that end. This goal should be pursued by encouraging people to take part in athletic events and fitness programs and to commit themselves to a higher standard of medical and physical well-being.
Over the years, many of us have argued that if we had put nearly as much money into preventive medicine as we have into other aspects of life, we would have cut down on the cost of making the nation more healthy. We would not have had to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars that we have spent on hospital care facilities. If we had spent money on preventing people from becoming ill rather than on making them well, we would have cut down on the amount of money necessary for medical care today.
This legislation offers nothing that will make the nation more healthy or encourage people to become involved in athletic endeavour. It does nothing to improve fitness in the sense of the general population becoming more aware and, therefore, more involved in physical fitness as a way of life. The intent of the legislation is quite clear; it will introduce an attitude in the country that gambling is an acceptable way for government to raise money. It is not acceptable, Mr. Speaker. I see my Conservative colleagues nodding in agreement; 1 am not exactly sure why.


Mr. Epp:: Because we agree.


Ian Deans: Another thing worries me about this legislation, Mr. Speaker. Of course, this may never come to pass but the possibility has crossed my mind. Let us assume that the Government musters its troops and forces this legislation down the throats of Members of the House. Let us assume that the Conservative Party and the NDP all vote against it, as will likely be the case, but that it will pass. If, then, by some weird happenstance, the Conservative Party was returned to power, would it give this power back to the Provinces?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: We would eliminate it.


Ian Deans: In other words, the Conservatives are not really opposed to gambling; they just do not think the federal Government should be involved. I hear them say they would eliminate it.

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Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: What about what happened in Manitoba? Physician, heal thyself!


Ian Deans: What they are saying is that they are opposed to this and are going to vote against it. If they vote against it, then that means that if that Party becomes the Government, it will eliminate it.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Right on. But you will never have that option.


Mr. Kempling:: Are you clear on that?


Ian Deans: Yes, I am clear and I will remind the Conservatives about it in the future, perhaps. The last time the Conservatives spoke on legislation similar to this, they gave their rights away; they were opposed to it only to the point that they thought someone else should have it, but not the federal Government.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Be nice.


Ian Deans: I am being nice and I am being honest.
As a matter of principle, the legislation is wrong. One problem is that the Government has attempted to sneak into it some sort of commitment to the Calgary Olympics. It implies that we will be depriving the people of Calgary and Canada of the necessary money to support the Olympics if the Bill is not passed. It is the position of this Party that if the Calgary Olympics are supportable-and they are-they should be supported out of general taxation. If we believe it is important-


Mr. Paproski:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Edmonton North (Mr. Paproski) rises on a point of order.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, 1 should like to say to the Hon. Member that in the area of fitness and amateur sport, the federal Government has to pay one-third of the capital cost of projects for national and international games in Canada. So in essence, we must contribute to the Calgary Olympics and to the university games in Edmonton on a one-third, one-third, one-third basis.


Ian Deans: That is certainly a point of information, Mr. Speaker, but as a point of order it fails rather substantially. However, I am always interested in anything the Hon. Member can add to the debate.
If we as a nation believe it is important to engage in international events from time to time or to host international events, or that it is of value to the country to be involved in the Olympic Games-and I believe we all think that it is-then we must be clear that there is a concurrent commitment to provide the necessary funds. But they must not be provided by some games of chance that may or may not succeed.
As the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre said in 1976, the next thing will be that we will decide that pensions for veterans are too low so we will have to run a lottery. If it does not raise enough money, then the veterans will have to wait until the next lottery. The Government will say that that is a ridiculous suggestion. However, when the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre pointed out in 1976 that the next
move of the Government would be the funding of health care out of lotteries, he was absolutely correct. This is what the Government is determined to do. When this measure passes- this game of chance or this gambling which we will approve in the House of Commons-it will then become a source of funding for medical research and therefore for health care.
I know that there are Members on both sides of the House who can see the destructiveness contained in such a measure and that there are Members on both sides of the House who would not for one moment want to see the Canadian health care system, either in whole or in part, dependent upon the whims of a few individuals or, for that matter, a significant number of individuals going out and betting on a Friday or Saturday afternoon on the outcome of sporting events. We are not running the Irish Sweepstakes here. We are not in the business of providing an essential service out of gambling. They may want to do it in some parts of the world; that is entirely up to them. But when we in Canada make a commitment to health care, health services and the provision of adequate facilities for health, whether it be in the sense of providing immediate care or research, we believe in doing it out of tax revenues. Also we believe that it should be funded in a way to allow the people charged with the responsibility of ensuring the continuation of the health care service to do some reasonable fiscal planning, to budget and to commit dollars for years down the road in order to complete the projects which they have undertaken.
This is what we in the New Democratic Party believe in. This is what the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) has said over the years. This is what the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre said in 1976. This is what we are saying again today, that there is no place in Canada for the running of a health care system funded in any way out of gambling; there is no place. I say to the Minister that if for no other reason, if the Bill contained no other flaws, that and that alone would cause us to rise to speak and vote against it.
Whoever advised the Minister to include that section in the Bill gave him bad advice. This is no time to play around with the health care system. This is no time to place in jeopardy research projects which are currently ongoing in every major medical health care centre across the country. This is no time to run risk with long-term researchers as they seek cures and solutions to many problems confronting Canadians. That is what this type of legislation begins to do.
It does not add to the funding. It substitutes dollars. Although the Minister and his colleagues may shake their heads, as sure as I stand on my feet the commitment of the Government to health care research in the next five years will be diminished proportionate to the amount of money raised by this fund. That is wrong.
The Government is already in severe financial difficulty. The Government is already having difficulty raising the
November 18, 1982

necessary funds, or at least so it claims, to meet its commitment to health care. To turn around and suddenly suggest that we can encourage more people to go out and gamble on Saturday to raise more money to be put back into health care through the sale of various tickets and games of chance is simply unacceptable.
In any event, without belabouring the point, I say to the Minister that he should take that section out of the Bill, because in itself it is offensive to most people. Further I say to the Minister that if the Government is interested in funding the Calgary Olympic Games, he should bring forward legislation to the House of Commons for debate, legislation which sets out the number of dollars the Government believes it has to commit to fund the games. Let us debate the merit of it and let us pass that legislation in order that the money can be made available now. But let us not encourage the continued ongoing mood of gambling in the country. Let us not now decide that from here on and forever more we will have a sports pool system which will make the sport itself less important than the gambling that takes place as a result of the sport.
Has the Minister been to Las Vegas? Has he ever sat and watched the big board?


Mr. Cosgrove:: No.


Ian Deans: Well, I have.


Paul James Cosgrove: Shame!


Ian Deans: I have never bet a penny, but 1 sat and watched the big board. I went to Las Vegas because I knew this legislation was coming up and 1 felt the urge to do research.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain has the floor.


Ian Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not one of these people who believes that we should just read a book and think we have all the knowledge. I believe that if we are to speak about something we should go to see it first-hand. Thus, when I was speaking about offtrack betting, 1 went down to the track to see what was going on. When I speak against opening up gambling in Canada it is because I went to the biggest gambling casinos in the world and saw people lose their money. 1 saw them standing in tears at the door because they had spent every penny they had; they did not even have enough money left for a cab fare back to the airport. Is that what we want in Canada?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Ian Deans: That is where we are going, that is where we are going. The reason I raised that point was because the interest in the game taking place was simply on the rate of return that it paid on the dollars bet. The game being played, whether it was baseball, football or horse races at the track, was not the real interest. They could not even see the event because it was not carried on television. They could not enjoy the event. All they could do was bet money and sit and agonize over whether or not they would get a return. Is that where we are going in
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act
Canada? Is that what we want? Is that the kind of system we think we should have? Is that what the Government is asking us to support?
If the Government really wants to put in place the gambling which is available in other parts of the world, gambling which does little if anything for the sport itself, does little if anything for the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, who lose their money in a year, and does little if anything for the amateur sport it is supposed to be supporting, then I say to the Government that this is not the way we should do it.
Perhaps the Minister misreads the benefits. Perhaps he does not understand the consequences. It is entirely possible that as well meaning as he is, he has not thought through the end result of this legislation. It is a move in entirely the wrong direction. It must not be allowed to pass the House in this form. If the Government wants us to deal with the Calgary Olympic Games, let us do so. But let us not put into perpetuity the gambling mentality that will undoubtedly result in serious consequences for so many people and so many families in this country.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, in an article in the May, 1982 edition of the Canadian Churchman, let me put on the record the opening sentence. It reads as follows:
Canadians are forking out over $1 billion a year on something that undermines the work ethic, encourages greed and materialism, exploits the poor and distorts social priorities.
We are being asked today by this Government to accept a Bill which allows the federal Government to get back into the gaming industry. What we are debating here today is action which in 1970 was illegal. In 1970 it was prohibited by virtue of the Canadian Criminal Code. Suddenly after ten or twelve years we not only have had legalized gambling, government-sponsored-in fact, governments being beneficiaries of that gambling-but gambling has become a part of the Canadian pattern. Today we seem to say that we have to increase this new source of revenue, not because we want to justify that new source, but because the Government needs it for valid programs. It is based on this theory that the ends justifies the means.
I believe it is very bad underpinning when a government says that a program, a policy, is good because somebody down the road might benefit. Social policies should not be based on that principle alone. It is a very sad, bad and dangerous value when governments say that a policy is valid in and of itself because we will be able to transfer or redistribute money to some other group. Keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, that the Criminal Code was changed in 1970, and in 1976 for the Montreal Olympics. The Government committed itself to Loto Canada. It is true, and I am pleased to say that it was one of the actions when our Party was in government to remove the federal Government from the gaming industry.


Steve Eugene Paproski: It wasn't making any money anyway.
COMMONS DEBATES______________________ November 18, 1982
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The question was asked by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) whether we would remove the federal Government, should we be re-elected, from the gaming industry. I sincerely hope that will be our action at that time.


Mr. Keeper:: What if you are Premier of Manitoba?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: When I am Premier of Manitoba, if that happens, we in Manitoba will take care of you, too.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I might remind the Hon. Member that his remarks should be addressed to the Chair.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The carrot is put forward to the people, Mr. Speaker, that they might somehow get out of the economic difficulties in which they find themselves by buying one chance, one hope which somehow might extricate them from the daily living that is faced by most Canadians. It is a fantasy based on advertising, glib, glossy advertising, the kind that, if corporations used it, many of us in this House would get up and argue borders very closely on false advertising, if in fact it is not false advertising. But because governments do it, somehow there is legitimacy. I suggest that is wrong.
There might be those listening today or Members in this House who say to themselves: "Here stands someone who is still living in the past; he should get into the modern age". Does the Government sincerely believe that projects that are valid public projects are best funded through gambling?
That brings me to the Calgary Olympics. What is the background to those Olympics? When the Canadian Olympics Committee makes application to the International Olympic Committee to host either a Winter or Summer Games, there is a letter from the Government of the day supporting the application. That letter is more than support, that is, verbal or moral support. That letter clearly is an indication to the International Olympic Committee that the federal Government will back a successful hosting of those games financially.


Gerald Augustine Regan: That is not right.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: When the Olympic Committee of Calgary went to make application, it had a letter from this Government and a clear understanding-and the Minister has said so in the past, if one looks at testimony given to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration-that it was going to receive approximately $200 million from this Government to help host the Calgary Olympics.


Steve Eugene Paproski: Plus the coin and stamp program.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I agree with the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain when he said that it is a valid project-and I personally believe it is-and that the Government should bring forward legislation and we will debate the merits of it. At no time did the Government put a condition on the Calgary Olympics Committee that the Government would only back the games if the Government got the lottery Bill.
This is very interesting. Many Canadians, and 1 am one of them, would like to see national institutions, such as the National Art Gallery, built and become part of the national heritage. But that question is not put to the people who want the art gallery. The question is not put about the lotteries. But when we get to the Calgary Olympics, then those conditions are put. Calgarians are being ill-served by this Government's doing that.
What is the fundamental issue relating to lotteries? 1 have before me a brief presented on the question of lotteries by some of Canada's so-called main line churches, for instance, the Baptist Federation of Canada, the Salvation Army and the United Church of Canada. At the beginning of my speech, I read an excerpt from the Canadian Churchman, which is from the Anglican Church. Studies show that of all people buying lottery tickets, up to 77 per cent have an annual income of less than $10,000.


Mr. Lapierre:: No.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: This is a regressive taxation on the poor.


Jean-C. Lapierre: You are wrong. Table your study.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I am not wrong, I am dead right.


Cyril Keeper: It is like user fees.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The reason is quite obvious; the advertising appeals, as I said earlier. What about two people in financial straits who think when they see lottery advertising that maybe their dream will come true? Odds are never mentioned in advertising. But what are some of the odds? The Quebec Consumer Protection Office states:
You are twice as likely to be hit by lightning and at least 20 times as likely to be murdered in a year as you are to win $1,000,000 in a lottery-
Surely the Government should not come back to the House when we have 1.5 million people unemployed, when the Government is in serious economic straits, when it is running a deficit $24 billion plus, and say to Canadians: "Look, we believe we can finance some projects legitimately if we get back into the gaming business". Yet that is what the Government is asking us to do today. This kind of approach is wrong.
From the excerpt that I gave from the Canadian Churchman, it is obvious that there are those who are in strong opposition to the creation of lotteries, as I am. There are those who would say that the Government would get funds that it would not normally receive. If one analyses that carefully, it can be seen that one of the groups which praised the institution of these lotteries used the same terms as the Minister when calling it cheap entertainment. That was one of the terms used by the Minister in support of the Bill. In fact, I think he said that it was harmless entertainment.
He also stated that it allowed us to support worthy causes. I ask the Minister in all seriousness if that is why he wants this bill. Or is it, as the churches stated in their brief, that the
November 18, 1982

various lotteries represent one of the best examples of political patronage that has ever been devised by any government? Loto Canada was wracked full of patronage and wracked full of people who knew that it was easier to get into the Loto trough than to receive legitimate funds from the Government of Canada.


Gerald Augustine Regan: Are the provincial lotteries like that?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I say the same thing about provincial lotteries. 1 have no doubt about that because it is a question of principle. I do not care if it is provincial or federal, the principle is the same. Do not give me this red herring by suddenly asking if the Provinces are different. They are not. 1 say that if the Governments have legitimate projects, whatever they might be, then come to us in the House and legitimately tell us what the project is, its costs and its benefits, and let us debate it and have the Canadian people know about it legitimately and openly.
That is not what the Minister wants. The Minister wants very definitely to have a slush fund. Then he can go to the groups and use that money very openly and say: "Here is the Government of Canada giving you a cheque for your project or your program". I am saying, if the project is legitimate, make it legitimate and do not do it this way.
The Minister may think that those are harsh words, and they are. But I sincerely believe that this is the ultimate purpose of the distribution of lottery funds. History in this country and in other countries has proven that to be the fact. If the Minister does not believe it, I will read to him from the church brief 1 mentioned earlier. It says:
They present a new and powerful form of political patronage and potential for corrupting abuses. They raise expectations among community organizations, where perhaps none should exist, with respect to assistance from the public purse. They lull politicians and the public away from the task of analysis, the setting of priorities, and the making of commitments, which are indispensable for the ordering of social life. They are indeed the modern version of 'bread and circuses' that distract away from basic concerns.
This is the negative comment on charities themselves:
There is already evidence that some charities have become lazy in their responsibility for fund raising because of their dependence on government lottery handouts and other charities which refuse to accept lottery money on ethical grounds are penalized.


Mr. Blaikie:: Mr. Speaker, 1 rise on a point of order. I do not want to interrupt the Hon. Member, but if it is possible I would like to ask him a few questions. 1 hope he might leave some time at the end of his remarks so I would have that opportunity.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: That is not a point of order.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) has made a legitimate request. 1 am not trying to dodge the question but my problem is that I understand the
Adjournment Motion
Bill is to be divided on shortly and there is another Member who wishes to speak. I cannot take that time. Possibly we can have that exchange when the Bill goes to Committee.
I would much rather see the Government review its expenditures, reduce those which it finds unnecessary and then return to us with legitimate programs. I suggest to the Minister that I know that this is a better route to take.
1 am not alone in speaking against lotteries. While some provincial Governments do not share the partisan position that I hold, quite frankly there are a number of provincial Governments that are seriously questioning the continued existence of lotteries even at the provincial level. I suggest to the Minister that he seriously consider setting up an all-party Committee to study the subject of lotteries and what they mean to the Canadian public, both in the immediate and long term, before this Bill is passed. I believe the Minister should seriously consider that suggestion because of the moneys involved and the large expenditures which might be made by Canadians. I am concerned that during economic hard times we are making it easier to justify another means of raising revenue.
Not only do I believe that raising revenue through gambling by the Government is wrong, but it removes a certain moral basis of operation from the Government. When Governments lose their moral obligation to instil a sense of responsibility in their citizens not only to obey the laws but contribute to their society, something is lost in our society. That is the danger of this Bill. I am not trying to be personal with the Minister but I suggest to him and his Government that it is wrong for us, at the federal level, once again to enter the field of gaming which we happily left in 1979.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 40, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor)-Mines and Minings-Courier service expense; the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie)-Veterans Affairs- Pension recommendation made by United Veterans organization. (b) Introduction of legislation; the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Keeper)-New Employment Expansion and Development Program-Timing of fund expenditures, (b) Expenditures in Quebec.

November 18, 1982
Athletic Contests and Events Pools Act



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Regan (for the Secretary of State) that Bill C-95, An Act to provide for Government operated pool systems on combinations of athletic contests and events and to amend the Criminal Code and the Income Tax Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.
Steve Eugene Paproski: Mr. Speaker, 1 do not plan to take up too much time in this debate. Many of the things that the Hon. Member for St. Catharines (Mr. Reid), who is well versed on the entire area of lotteries and fitness and amateur sport, has said in his excellent comments about this Bill echo my feelings. The Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) has also echoed my thoughts about this Bill.
However, 1 would like to bring to the attention of the Minister that in August of 1979, when we made an agreement with the Provinces, the federal Government was receiving $24 million which was connected to the consumer price index. What 1 am really surprised about is the fact that on November 18, when there are 1.3 million people unemployed, when the country is going down the drain, we are talking about games of chance and lotteries. This does not make any sense to me. Having spent 14 and one-half years in the House, 1 cannot believe that today we have to deal with a Bill like this. It is most annoying.
1 thought the Minister was a sport, but apparently he has been sold a real bill of goods. I find it unbelievable that a rower from the Canadian Olympic Association will suddenly tell him how to run his own Department. Now I know why the Hon. Member from the other place is taking over from him. This man has been a disaster. We had $24 million connected to the CPI which the Minister was receiving from the provincial Governments. There was nothing to do but stay there and collect the money. They have had $60 million in the kitty in the last three years, split up between culture and sports. Have Hon. Members heard the people from the sporting department making any complaints about the funding in the last three years?


Some Hon. Members:: Yes.


Steve Eugene Paproski: You have, have you? Well, you assured them that you haven't got a piece of the action. Don't give me that stuff.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. The Hon. Member should address his remarks to the Chair.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I heard an echo but I am sorry that I got off the point. Since the present President of the Liberal Party, Iona Campagnolo, was Minister, and previous to that when John Munro was Minister, we had committed ourselves, in Fitness and Amateur Sport, to national and international sports amounting to one third of capital costs. There is no way that you can get out of it now, I say through you, Mr. Speaker. This minister knows that. There is a deal with the municipalities, the provincial Governments and the Federal Government. They are each responsible for a one-third slice. The Minister could have received something else from the provincial Governments if he had that close federal-provincial co-operation that we had in the short period we were in government.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Steve Eugene Paproski: Because with us it was all in the family. We dealt with provincial colleagues. We did not have that problem. You have another problem, Mr. Speaker. The problem is that there is no Liberal Government out there any more that can deal with it, unfortunately-or fortunately-and that is where the problem is. The Liberals could have held two or three draws annually if they had sat down with the provincial Governments and said: "Gentlemen, we want two or three draws annually for Olympics, for university games and for international sport". The Minister said that the money is for the Canadian and the Calgary Olympics. My God, Mr. Speaker, they will not be around here in 1988. They will not have to worry about that.


An Hon. Member:: You won't.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I will be around. Don't you worry about me.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Steve Eugene Paproski: Don't you worry about me, Daddy, I'll be here. They will not be around in time to really appreciate the Calgary Olympics, but we will look after them. We do not mind. We are pretty easy with our provincial colleagues. We do not care what stripe they are. We do not play the kind of political games that you gentlemen do.
Do Hon. Members know why these people want to get back into the lottery business? Let me tell them. There were 6,000 Grits-Liberals, excuse me-


Some Hon. Members:: Where?


Steve Eugene Paproski: -who automatically lost their little kiosks which were making only $30,000 or $35,000 annually. When one asked them whether they were making any money, they replied: "No, we are not making any money". Do Hon. Members know what they were doing? They were writing off the $10 tickets into the $1 and $5 package. How much money were they giving back to the federal Government? A big zero. And anything they could write off on the $10 ticket, they were writing off.


An Hon. Member:: What about the Grey Cup?
November 18, 1982


Steve Eugene Paproski: I will take up the Grey Cup matter in a couple of minutes. Another 120 distributors were making anywhere from $200,000 to $300,000 annually. I would not say they were all Grits, but 95 per cent of them were.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Steve Eugene Paproski: 1 think this is ridiculous and I think it is getting into something which is wrong. I say through Your Honour that the Minister has been sold a bill of goods. He will have to use the machinery that the provincial Governments will be using in order to crank out these little tickets, whenever they are selling them; so if there is $60 million in there, it will take them a year and a half to get back into the business. It will cost them $60 million to get into the business and by that time we will have another election and the Government will be finished. So there you are.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Turner:: That's what you said the last time.


Steve Eugene Paproski: I will not say any more, but good luck to you in the next federal election.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: On division!


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.
Some Hon. Members:: Five o'clock!


PRIVATE MEMBERS' MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
[Stage Direction]
All items preceding No. 94 allowed to stand by unanimous consent.

Mr. Hal Herbert (Vaudreuil) moved:: That an humble Address be presented to His Excellency praying that he will cause to be laid before this House copies of all minutes of meetings, letters and other communications during the last year between the Minister of Communications and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that deal with the balance or bias of reporting.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is appropriate that we will be discussing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation this afternoon in view of the publication this week of the report of the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee, commonly known as the Applebaum-Hebert report, but before I get into the subject of the motion, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I would like to make a brief comment on the motion for papers.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Beauchesne's Fifth Edition states that in 1973 the Government tabled in the House of Commons its views on the general principles governing notices of motions for production of papers. The following item states that the purpose is "to enable Members of Parliament to secure factual information about the operations of Government to carry out their parliamentary duties and to make public as much factual information as possible".
I now realize that these motions for production of papers have become a farce. On more than one occasion the Government has agreed to produce for me, but on one occasion 1 had in my possession papers produced by the Government which I found to be totally inadequate and incomplete. 1 complained to the Speaker and was informed that .that was too bad, but that there were no powers in the House to enforce the production of the documents. As recently as this week, an Hon. Member of the Official Opposition also received a ruling from Madam Speaker that, once again, it was too bad whether he did or did not get the papers which were to be produced by the Government according to the motion and there was nothing further that could be done.
Thus, as a Member of the Committee studying the Standing Orders of the House, I have suggested that we abolish this process in its entirety, that we recognize that it is entirely up to the Government to make up its mind whether it will or will not produce documents, the extent to which it will produce documents, that we request these documents via a question on the Order Paper, and then keep our fingers crossed that maybe we will be lucky. I am not at all enchanted with this procedure because we have just passed a freedom of information Bill and 1 feel it is too bad that we cannot get documents which are essential in order to do our work as competently as possible.
1 would like to refer to the essential subject, which is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the suggestion that there may be some bias in its reporting. In a moment I will illustrate. I have spoken on this subject many times over the years. In looking at some of the questions I have placed on the Order Paper, I did notice that to questions I asked concerning radio and the average percentage of listeners in peak listening times on those CBC radio stations in Montreal and Toronto, the answer was that at peak listening time in Toronto, Station CBL has approximately 7 per cent of the total listening audience. I am quoting only from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation figures provided to me. In Montreal the corresponding figure for Station CBM is approximately 2 per cent, and for Station CBF approximately 8 per cent.
Just to complete the radio picture, in another question I was advised that across the country the CBC English and French owned and operated stations, together with CBC affiliated

November 18, 1982
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
radio stations, had a total audience of 8.9 per cent. 1 have never suggested that that is not an important segment of the population of this country. Nevertheless, let us keep things in perspective.
As far as television is concerned, also in answer to a question on the Order Paper, again using Canadian Broadcasting Corporation figures, we find that, as far as English television programming is concerned, the CBC-owned and operated stations, together with the private stations that are affiliated with the CBC, are unable to attract the same viewing audience as the private networks. Furthermore the number of viewers tuned in to stations south of the border is almost as great as those watching CBC.
In the case of the French language stations, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio-Canada, does attract a somewhat larger viewing audience than the private network, and 1 think this is to be expected. Unfortunately, those watching the stations south of the border are not divided into English and French speaking viewers, although I assume they are all watching English television.
It amuses me when I watch American programming south of the border to see the number of advertisers from the Montreal area that spend their money advertising on American programs, despite the fact that they lose the benefit of the deductibility. Apparently, they find it more profitable to advertise south of the border, realizing that many Canadians are tuned in to those American stations.
I have discussed with the spokesmen for the Opposition parties that we should give as much opportunity as possible to Members to participate in this debate this afternoon, but since 1 made reference to the Applebaum-Hebert report 1 would like to put a few quotes on the record.
One of the important points that the report brings out is that the contribution of CBC television to Canadian cultural expression has been meagre. That is the word they used. The CBC has not been responsible to Canadian artists and has failed to promote them. The report suggests that CBC TV should produce only news shows with its own staff, and all other programming should be purchased from private producers. It is the hope of the Committee that by commissioning programs from independent producers rather than maintaining the present scale of in-house production, the CBC would tap a source of fresh program ideas.
The Applebaum-Flebert Cultural Policy Review Committee was exasperated with the CBC's bureaucratic arrogance and lack of verve. Its solution is to limit the CBC's own production to national news and current affairs, and have the Corporation buy other Canadian programs from private producers. It says that, unlike CBC Radio, television lacks creative initiative and intellectual leadership, and that in fighting to retain a position of power within the Canadian broadcasting system the CBC has developed a tradition of secretiveness which extends to virtually every arm of its activities.
It is on that note of secretiveness that 1 want to go back to an action of mine in May of 1973 when the Standing Committee on Broadcasting, Films and Assistance to the Arts were talking about the difficulty that we were experiencing as
Members of Parliament in obtaining information. As a result, and I suppose one might term it a fit of anger, I proposed a motion that the estimates for the Secretary of State for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1974 as they related to vote 50, payment to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, be reduced by $1,000 from $232,797,000 to $232,796,000. Mr. Speaker, when the question was put on the motion, it was agreed to on the following division: Yeas, 6; Nays, 5; and that motion stood.
We have never opposed the principle of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the need to provide services in remote parts of this country and the need to provide alternative programming and to promote Canadian culture. I have just read into the record that in 1973 the CBC's budget was $233 million in round figures. Today the figure is over three-quarters of a billion dollars. I feel that the public has the right to ask questions of its Members of Parliament about the manner in which these moneys are spent, and I deplore the secrecy in both Crown corporations, particularly the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, that seems not to want to provide the public with the information it desires.
I wrote to the President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on October 22. I was angry. The previous evening I had watched a program immediately following the Prime Minister's third speech in which they put on a satire on the news broadcast, "The Journal". I said: "If this is supposed to be an example of Canadian culture, then some of us would be less proud to be Canadians". I suggest there are better ways to spend three-quarters of a billion dollars than supporting the "independent", non-journalistic, untalented, overstaffed employees of the CBC.
Why was I angry? First of all, I thought that the program was out of place. I do not mind satire; 1 do not mind fun. For example, Radio-Canada puts on a program of satire at the end of the year and certainly they are going to take a poke at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. That is all in its right place. One of the CBC's senior officials named William Morgan apparently stated publically that the network did not want to confuse viewers by mixing the network's journalistic responsibilities with its institutional role of conveying Government messages. If that is not biased, I do not know what is.
I was angry, and I say in all honesty I would have been equally angry if such a satire had been put on after the commentary by the Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition (Mr. Clark) or after the remarks made by the Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent). I considered it completely out of place. Despite the fact that I have had response from a Minister, my letter of November 22 to the President of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is unanswered.
I have also put another question to him, probably too recent to have a response. 1 question, for example, why the private networks would spend a lot of time covering what is in Montreal an extremely interesting subject, the fact that the
November 18, 1982

Chateauguay School Board is teaching its French language students the English language in grades one, two and three. Obviously, in Quebec this is an extremely important subject. 1 have maintained all along that Bill 101 is discriminatory as far as the French language citizens of Quebec are concerned, that it is putting French language, unilingual Quebecers in a ghetto. The School Board of Chateauguay is fighting the Government's insistence that it discontinue this language training and the issue will go to the courts on December 2. The private networks have handled the item. 1 wonder why the CBC on the French network has not given at least equal time to a subject which I frankly feel the French-speaking people in the Province of Quebec should be fully informed about.
I have given two examples. 1 have many in my files, but 1 have probably taken up enough time. The first example is what I consider the bias in what the CBC does, and second, what 1 consider a rather reverse form of bias, the omission of reporting on important items.
We asked these questions. 1 am still a Member of the Communications and Culture Committee. If the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation wants us to support their budget of three-quarters of a billion dollars for this current year, I believe we are at least entitled in return to free and factual information.
I have been unsuccessful. 1 tried in 1973. Eight years later I am still trying. The CBC should come forward and give us the answers. Let us better understand, rather than take the attitude that this is a so-called independent corporation that does not have to answer to the elected members of the public.
Once again, I am making a plea through my few short remarks this afternoon to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to help us if they expect us to help them.


Mr. John Bosley (Don Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, 1 am interested in the fact that the Hon. Member has presumably been debating his motion for the production of papers with regard to bias in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and communications about that bias between themselves and the Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox), and yet never mentioned that item in his speech.
1 suppose, given the Member's practice on occasions of notices of motions for papers, private members' motions and so forth, one should not be surprised. The Member will know of the concern the House now has about this particular Member's intentions when he introduces a motion. 1 do not yet know whether this was one of those he introduced in a fit of anger, as one of the others was, as he indicated. 1 assume from the fact that the Member spoke on this one, and I mean this in kindness, that he was not supporting it since he has developed a tradition in the last year of not speaking only on those he does support.
We had a peculiar circumstance earlier this year in connection with the Member's motion with regard to Dominion Day. His decision in support of his motion was never to make a
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
statement, not to say a word in the House of Commons. He was quoted in the press on that matter as saying:
I said to myself, Herbert, keep your mouth shut. The best thing you can do is not to open your mouth.
It is difficult now to know whether he meant his remarks today in support of his proposal to be taken seriously. 1 support his proposal and want to say so to him. My dilemma is that 1 want to know whether in fact he means, having opened the debate, that he does not want it to pass. Perhaps after I sit down he might privately indicate what he prefers.
Second, I made careful note of some matters that he raised in his short discourse on which I want to comment. The Member is absolutely correct-and this is not to comment on the Speaker's ruling-that it was surprising to discover that even when the House of Commons has ordered that papers be produced, the Government nevertheless has the right to refuse those papers.
That is worrisome, at least to me. I understood that the obligation of the Government if it wished papers not to be produced was to present its case here for not having papers produced and so convincing the House or making some argument about national security, or some such thing under their claim with regard to their interest in freedom of information, rather than, after the House has decided that something should be produced, hide behind their admitted right not to produce papers. It calls into question the whole matter of freedom of information.
The motion which the Hon. Member put on the Order Paper and that he did not debate is an important one. There is always a concern about whether the public corporation does show bias. In fairness to the Hon. Member, it is partly his interest in this area and certainly the interest expressed by Members on our side in Committee which led to the publication in July of this year of a fascinating book by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The book is called "Journalistic Policy". It is the new bible on how journalists are to behave within the Corporation and what their rights and professional responsibilities are. It is a very interesting book. In fairness, I should say that the origin of this book arose from concerns in Parliament and in the Corporation about this question.
Interestingly enough, the Hon. Member did make reference to the satire which was mounted on the Corporation after the address of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau). He said he would have felt just as upset if it would have been made after the other speakers. However, he did not indicate, which I found surprising, any concern with the origin of the reason why there was no journalistic comment after any of those speeches, that being the Government's request.
He appears not to be concerned by the quote that he gave with regard to the obligation of the Corporation. I made quick notes. I do not have the direct quote, but I think I can correctly paraphrase what he said. The quote said that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has an institutional role of conveying Government messages. I would have thought that very statement alone implied bias, and one should be concerned about that question.

November 18, 1982
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
I note in the book "Journalistic Policy" that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation outlines matters which it regards as broadcasts of national importance. Nowhere in that list is included a message by the Prime Minister of Canada. It is not in the policy of the CBC that those messages are of national importance. There are major addresses, major parliamentary debates, policy conventions, First Ministers' conferences, state occasions and Royal visits, but nowhere in the middle of the heat of this issue when this document was being prepared, and it was prepared before the request, was that issue addressed. Therefore, it was legitimate for journalists to question at the time whether in fact an accession to a request by the Prime Minister under terms to be set by the Prime Minister was a fair request to the public broadcasting corporation.
1 make that point because elsewhere and throughout this document the CBC makes the point that it must remain independent of all influence if it is to be able to achieve nonbiased programming. We had two examples last year of circumstances where the Corporation had clearly shown something beyond bias. Members will recall the two cases in which the CBC was involved in which they were accused of libel, slander and defamation of character. One was lost in court in British Columbia. The Corporation was ordered by the court to pay the secondest highest libel award ever made in Canada because of the defamation of character involved. Second, Members might recall the out of court settlement involving the then and current Premier of Alberta.
The whole question of bias and the way the CBC deals with bias is an important issue if one believes in the protection and preservation of the CBC. Therefore, the letters between the CBC and the Minister of Communication (Mr. Fox) at approximately the same time as the libel suits were being discussed are important issues and should be important to Parliamentarians as showing what the CBC was saying to the Minister and what the Minister was saying to the CBC. 1 hope the House will find it within its power to approve the motion, notwithstanding the fact that the Government may yet decide, even if the motion is approved, not to produce the papers under cover.
It was not my intention to speak at length. However, I want to make a couple of other points with regard to the book "Journalistic Policy" which 1 urge all Members to read because it does relate to this issue. It is not my intention to speak here today about the Applebaum-Hebert Commission. That is for another day.
One of the issues that relates to the question of balance and bias in broadcasting, as Hon. Members will know, is protected for Canadians by the Broadcasting Act and applied by the CRTC on licences of television broadcasters, notably when their renewals come up. One of those issues is that the CBC is, in effect, exempt from that policy.
It is therefore disturbing to find the CBC in journalistic policy documents make this statement under its open section on journalistic policy, and in the section called "Balance":
Balance is not to be confused with the concept of "right of reply". The CBC must itself accept the responsibility for determining when a significant imbalance has occurred, and what remedial action must be taken.
Clearly, the CBC does not believe that it should be subject to the same provisions with respect to the protection of Canadians which the CRTC is empowered to provide with regard to other television stations. The CBC believes it is their role to make that determination internally. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, that only strengthens the argument for producing papers passing between the Corporation and the Minister on this question. Surely it is in the interests of the House to do so.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to make reference to one other definition, or one other policy statement which is in this book, with regard to current and public affairs programming. I believe most Canadians tend to believe, rightly or wrongly, when they have observed bias in the CBC, that it is in the current and public affairs programming or in the news broadcasting. The CBC, therefore, defines its role, and I think this is important on the question of bias, as follows:
The role of the CBC, then, in its current and public affairs programming, is to inform Canadians about the issues they confront as they decide upon their future through the democratic process. The exercise of this responsibility calls for identifying and exploring the issues confronting Canadians fairly and thoroughly, comprehensively and accurately, and for reflecting differing views about these issues, fully and fairly, and in a balanced manner, taking into account the weight of opinion which holds those views.
There are two things that should be noted from that. First, the CBC itself will decide in its view what are the important issues today. Second, it has introduced into its own journalistic creed the issue of the weight of public opinion. One is therefore interested, because this document was prepared in response to these concerns last year, as to what the communications between the Minister and the CBC on journalistic bias were.
In protection of the CBC, and in protection of the freedom of information issue, when we have a Corporation which has exclusive privilege under the Broadcasting Act, which has protection separate from private broadcasting, which has large amounts of public money, surely in that circumstance, if not in any other, communications between the Minister, who is supposed to be in an arm's length relationship with the Corporation, and the Corporation's concerns on those issues, deserve to be brought to the House of Commons. If bias is to be rooted out of the public Corporation, the House of Commons has an interest, I believe a serious and deep interest, in ensuring that it knows what the CBC and the Minister were talking about when they were discussing that issue.


Mr. Mark Rose (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer my contribution to this debate. I will perhaps be a little more general than the two other Members who preceded me. 1 think it is essential that the CBC, as our primary cultural agency, be open to public scrutiny. I do not think anyone can deny that is important. I have heard all kinds of stories over the years of real and imagined biases within the CBC. Some of my friends in the Tory Party have on occasion approached me in the House at about nine o'clock and asked
November 18, 1982

me whether 1 had had time yet to write the ten o'clock news. 1 know that some Members of my Party sometimes think that the ten o'clock news is written by the Government. Certainly, the Quebecois Liberals on the other side are sure that the CBC is dominated by separatists. Some people even insist that the political party who runs the CBC is the Rhinocerous Party. I am sure that all those things cannot be true. 1 guess it depends on which story you are looking at and at which time.
I will not go over the examples cited by the previous speaker, but I was here in the October crisis in 1970, and I know there was a directive that went out at that time from the President of the CBC, George Davidson, to all his newsmen to refrain from commenting on the imposition of the War Measures Act. The CBC was not entirely free, therefore, at that time of some sort of political pressure, though where it came from originally, I do not know. 1 do know that the CBC has a tradition of having for its Presidents rather highly placed civil servants, and I would like to say they are not always established at arm's length relationship with the Government; but it is hard to believe that after association throughout all those years they can suddenly forget their old friends, even though they might do their best to do so.
I believe all of us were concerned about the recent example of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) appearing in his miniseries. Why that was done, 1 have no idea. I objected to it strenuously because while the Prime Minister has every right as the Leader of our country to speak to the nation, I did not think he was entitled to a serial. He spoke for three 15-minute shots rather than one 45-minute shot. I do not know whether that was because he felt he could not hold his audience for 45 minutes or what. That might have been part of it. Actually, what he could have done, had he wanted to, was to decide that a five-minute daily shot would be enough, and have nine of them. That might have been even better. He would have become almost as familiar as the test pattern. Nevertheless, I do not really want to talk about that at the moment.
1 agree with the mover of the motion that the CBC spends a great deal of money. 1 do not think it spends too much money per capita. It provides more services than other state-owned and operated broadcasting systems. With two radio services, a far North service, an international service and two television services, 1 think we Canadians get very good value for our money.
The Hon. Member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) claimed that the CBC had tripled its budget since 1973. I invite the Hon. Member to look back at the total federal spending since 1973. It has gone from $19 billion to roughly $70 billion. So the CBC on that point is not out of line. But it does not give the CBC a better excuse to deny this legitimate information. So I agree with the Hon. Member on that point.
The CBC has a tremendous mandate, and because of that it cannot be compared to the private broadcasting system, either in this country or in any other. In 1968 the mandate in the broadcast act was to safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of the country.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
That is quite a mouthful. Also it was to serve the special needs of geographic regions, to contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural and regional information and entertainment, as well as contribute to the development of national unity. It might be arguable whether it actually succeeds at that, but that is in its mandate. That is a pretty big mandate for any corporation.
No one can question the fact that sometimes it falls short of achieving some of its mandate, but I do not think anyone in this room or any other room can deny that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has been a major tool in achieving many of these rather lofty goals. The CBC is the main cultural institution in Canada. It seems to me that it is the most pervasive and most powerful. While it would be nice if more people went to concerts, listened to chamber music, recitals and lectures, the fact is that most people spend most of their leisure time watching television or going to the movies.


An Hon. Member:: Or watching the House of Commons?


Mark Willson Rose: No, they are not watching the House of Commons, unfortunately.
Why do we have the CBC in the first place? It began under the Bennett Conservative Government. There was a feeling abroad that we would be inundated by American programming, and if we were going to develop our own cultural identity we had to have, in those days, one or two radio networks across Canada. Is this not also true today? That is why I could not really accept much of what the report of the Applebaum cultural commission recommended relating to the CBC. We established public broadcasting then, because it was either a choice of support by the state or domination by the United States. The same thing is true today, probably in spades.
We must ask if we need the CBC today. Does our cultural integrity, our social and economic fabric, need safeguarding, enriching, strengthening? Will private sector industries work toward these goals on their own, without the CBC? I doubt if that can be done. We have had the CRTC, and its content regulations and other protection but they have not worked out very well. The private sector has not produced much Canadian programming either, and I do not blame it. Private television networks such as CTV and Global have been forced, through economics, to use drama programs imported from the United States. Incidentally, as the Applebert Report points out, imported at a higher cost than these programs are sold to England. The fact that three networks are bidding for the same programs puts the price up.
With the best will in the world and despite promises made when they received their licences, private broadcasters cannot spend the money that is required to produce attractive Canadian programs. They are in an economic bind. The alternative is the popular U.S. imports. The only network with money to spend on programming is the CBC. I could elaborate on that point, Mr. Speaker, but I do not have the time today.

November 18, 1982
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Some people claim that CBC should not be publisher and author at the same time, in other words, it should not be involved in hardware and in software at the same time, and that it is a conflict of rules for it to be a publisher before it has been an author. A lot of people argue that the CBC should not get into production but should concern itself with hardware, news, sports, weather and public affairs, and leave entertainment and drama to private enterprise. It is held that the CBC should buy entertainment from private production companies.
That is the Applebert solution, Mr. Speaker, but I do not buy it. I agree that private programmer must have more access to the CBC. The people who criticize the lack of more access to the CBC are right on point. I do not think anyone can defend the proposition that the CBC should not be more open. But there are a lot of competing interests to consider. Many of the creative people whose jobs depend on the CBC are concerned about the situation. It has been said that if all the variety and entertainment programming were taken away from CBC, as Applebert has recommended, approximately 6,000 jobs would be lost. Of course, some of those jobs might be picked up by the private networks, but I doubt it. Despite the content regulations and other efforts, however, the money has yet to be found to create a viable production industry in this country.
With the best will in the world, I do not think that the private sector can produce high quality Canadian programs. The market is simply too small. If programs are produced only for export, how can they truly reflect Canada? I think there must be a judicious mix of private and public programming and more money must be provided for this purpose. I believe that Canadians are entitled to the best domestic and foreign material available, regardless of the delivery system-whether it comes in by dish, by satellite, by wire or by cable. We must find a solution to that problem, otherwise the goal of national unity with which the CBC is charged will be lost in the squabble over who can watch what and the kind of censorship which is applied to what.
If that sounds like a departure from this Party's policy, Mr. Speaker, I do not apologize for it. As far back as 1968 or 1969 I asked the then Chairman of the CRTC why people in Mission or Vancouver were less impervious to cultural domination than people who lived in Edmonton? In my constituency viewers could pick up all kinds of U.S. signals in the air and it did not change our loyalty as Canadians. People in Edmonton did not receive those signals, however, and were denied the TV choices available to me. There was no way they could steal signals from the Americans because they did not have the cable companies and they certainly did not have the dish.


An Hon. Member:: Oh, oh!


Mark Willson Rose: What would the Hon. Member call it?


John William Bosley: Receiving.


Mark Willson Rose: I am sure the Hon. Member is a master of euphemisms.
The CBC must continue to produce programs and to broadcast those programs. I do not think there is any conflict in the publisher-author role at all, but I think we need other alternatives to an entirely monolithic public production system. This country is a living example of the mix of private and public enterprise that has worked very well up to now.
I should like to refer now to a very famous journalist who writes for that radical sheet, the Globe and Mail. In today's column Michael Valpy asks:
What makes MASH affordable to the CBC is that the cost of the series is spread around the big American networks-
In an earlier paragraph in the article he wrote:
Applebert assumes that once CBC television gets out of production, private production houses will be there to do the job.
I do not think that will be the case, and niether does Valpy, Mr. Speaker, unless they can get the money.
It is a truism to say that CBC costs too much, that it wastes too much money and that it is top heavy with bureaucracy. That is the conventional wisdom, and perhaps it is true in some cases. All these things could be said about some of the operations of any large corporation. But the CBC does not operate solely for money; its mandate precludes it from being in business only the nickels and dimes. It has a mandate which gives it many responsibilities. We should not look only to the balance sheet of the CBC. We gripe about its secrecy, its lack of flexibility, its repudiation of much private production, and make real criticisms in those areas, but I do not think we can judge it in the same way that a private network can be judged.
A study of the CBC carried out by McKinsey and Company compared it to the national networks of France, Great Britain, Japan, Australia and Sweden, in 1978. It showed that the CBC produces at least twice as many hours of programming per employee as the other networks, and that it produces between three and ten times more hours of programming per $1,000 than those networks. That is not a bad record, Mr. Speaker. It does not sound as if it is squandering money.
I tend to support the CBC because since 1932 my Party has supported the concept of public broadcasting. We do not think that private broadcasting should not exist but we believe that public broadcasting is crucial. Even that left wing sheet, known as the Toronto Sun, ran an editorial today which said, referring to the CBC, the Applebert Report goes one better than throwing the baby out with the bath water; it wants to throw out the baby and keep the bath water. In other words, it wants to throw out the programming aspect of CBC and just keep the hardware.
I think we have spent far too much money on hardware in this country, already Mr. Speaker, whether on radio transmitters or cable. Now, if we are not careful, each homeowner in the country will be asked to buy a satellite dish. We have all kinds of money for hardware, it seems, but not enough for software. That is why we do not have programs of the quality many people want.
There is just one other thing I should like to comment on before I sit down, Mr. Speaker. An elderly pundit with the
November 18, 1982

Southam chain wrote a little column about me the other day in which he called me pathetic.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mark Willson Rose: He went on at great length.


An Hon. Member:: Charles Lynch.


Mark Willson Rose: 1 am too kind to name him. He went on at great length and wrote, "But where has Rose been for the last dozen years?" This is the first time 1 have ever had a column dedicated to me, Mr. Speaker I am flattered. He asked where the NDP is when it is needed. He asked where I have been all these years. I would like to tell him. Obviously he does not do his homework. 1 read his articles occasionally, so I know that he very seldom does much research. He cannot really do much because he has to play his harmonica and do various other frivolous things such as talk on the CBC for a fee and run around playing with the Press Club band. Few of the Press Club band are reporters. I once asked a trumpet player how he got into the Press Club band, and he said, "Well, I bought a want ad once". In any event, the band and Charles are found over at the Press Club a good deal. I thought I would like to let him know that it is not a new interest that the NDP has expressed in the CBC and its problems and concerns. 1 looked back into committee proceedings for the past two years and discovered that I raised questions concerning the CBC and Canadian content 11 times. According to the indexing branch, those references take up 35 pages of text in the transcript.


An Hon. Member:: Incredible.


Mark Willson Rose: Take that, Charlie, and put it in your harmonica.
Dealing with the CRTC, I have intervened in favour of expanded CBC and CBC 11. I called for the CRTC to protect the programming base of CBC by restricting Canadian Pay TV to program types which are not presently being displayed for nothing. Also I intervened before the CRTC to support CBC II, an extension of television service with the CBC as the cornerstone, and to extend the package to northern rural areas. Also I have asked questions 12 times already in this session in the House of Commons.
My colleagues and I keep up our interest in public broadcasting. It goes back to 1932. We will not stand by and let Applebaum or any other highbrow suggest that the CBC be emasculated and the whole thing privatized, because privatization of the CBC is not the Canadian way at all. It is based entirely on the American model. We do not think it is suitable for Canada for two reasons, first, because Canadians need and want the CBC; second, because we do not have the market to support a private production industry such as the one existing in the United States, without destroying the very nature of the thing we are trying to enhance.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation


Mr. Ron Irwin (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate. I thought it would be much more serious than it is. What has happened, as usual, is that the poor CBC and the poor Canada Post, the two major institutions which bind our country together, have become the public's common ache.
1 came here to discuss the Applebaum-Hebert report because I think it is one of the most profound reports we have received in several years.


An Hon. Member:: What kind of a report?


Ron Irwin: Hon. Members of the NDP should just quieten down and perhaps they will learn something.
I think a wide discussion, as requested by the authors of the report, is needed. I do not think we can be partisan about culture in the country.
As a result of what has been said, I feel that we should not be going the Cabinet route. I do not think the report should be transferred to Senator Austin, who has quite a wide-ranging knowledge. No doubt he will come up with very wise recommendations which may not fly in the House of Commons because, like everything that goes this route, it may become partisan. Like obstacles, the acid rain report, or the reform of the House, something like this should go to a parliamentary or a special committee.
As I look around the House, 1 see expertise in the Opposition and in the Government backbenches on every field relating to the report, except the record industry. We have authors, publishers and former media people. In fact, we have people who are publishing now, and 1 myself was on the CRTC for three years. I think it is a shame to take something like this and have it end up, after having spent $3 million and several years of study, as a bucket of ashes; just a parliamentary report which may get a week to a week and a half of media hype and then is forgotten.
1 think this matter is important, but because my time is limited I want to make those comments first. My conclusion in terms of this report is that it should go through some kind of committee of the House of Commons. We should go through it and look, not just at the CBC, which is only part of the report, but at the entire area. 1 think the media has failed miserably in that it highlighted the electronic media and forgot the private media completely. It has turned into a CBC critique, and I do not think that was the intention of the report.
1 understand from some of the members of the committee that they are not happy-and these people come from all fields-with what has happened to the report. The only discussion we hear is about the CBC. In any event, at this point 1 should like to discuss the CBC, but first I want to make it clear that it is only part of our culture.


An Hon. Member:: A big part.


Ron Irwin: A big part but not the most important one. The most important part of our culture is the regions which, in the words of Northrop Frye, "throw up their talents to major
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November 18, 1982
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
centres". If the CBC part of this report is important, it is only because the authors clearly pointed out that the CBC completely ignored regional talent and the out-house talent in Canada; it is now struck, in the words of the authors, with inhouse hardening of the arteries.
Most of the things indicated in the report have been said by other Members of the House and by other committees. We have been saying it for so long that 1 think it is about time to start getting down to implementing many of the suggestions.
In reviewing this matter, I got carried away and went back to 1949 when we first invented the CBC. On March 28, 1949 the Government said that the CBC would be set up, that we would lend it $4 million and that that was the last Canadian taxpayers would have to pay for it. It indicated that the money to keep the CBC going would come from permits for which people would pay when they purchased television sets. Almost immediately, in 1950, it went to $4.5 million, and now, as has been indicated by other speakers, it is three-quarters of a billion dollars.
The mandate has not been followed by the CBC. I should like to refer to a very important statement in the report which read as follows:
Too many Canadians are beginning to question the very need for a public broadcaster such as the CBC
For the benefit of the NDP Member who defended the CBC, I should like to indicate that the Minister gives it only lukewarm support. Fewer and fewer people are supporting it and its television. That is bad. We do not see this happening with CBC Radio. There is a very small loyal and articulate group which says that it is good and that it should be protected, but more and more we find fewer and fewer people supporting the concept of the CBC. This bodes badly for what is happening to CBC television.
The report dealt with many things which we know, such as the fact that broadcasting is risky and that because of dishes we will soon be tiering programs. For example, if I want to watch a show on carpentry, on French or on Spanish, it will be available. There will be shows on many channels geared to individuals interests. Also, the report dealt with fragmentation of audience and reach.
Reach is very important. This is the problem with the CBC. It is more involved with reach than it is with its original mandate. Reach is this-how many people do I reach? Then that number is taken to the people to whom the Corporation sells advertising and they pay X number of dollars; it increases in direct proportion to the reach. The more people it reaches, the more it gets for its advertising. Thus, what does it do? It goes to the most popular American programs. It is crazy to use taxpayers' money so that the CBC can get involved in production of advertising, which nobody really watches. It pays $11 million a year to affiliates so they can show the advertising and show the so-called Canadian programming, which reaches the greatest audience which means American programming shown by affiliates. Therefore, on top of everything else, $11 million is paid by the CBC to its affiliates so that we can show more
American programming. That is the main problem with the CBC.
I had high hopes when Pierre Juneau went to the CBC. No matter how partisan we are with regard to Pierre Juneau, he was the best original thinker on the CRTC. His FM policy, the Canadian content policy and others, all were his original thinking. There has not been much new since 1968. Most of the things I dealt with when I was at the CRTC were things Pierre Juneau initiated. I think he may become overwhelmed by the CBC octopus. I think the job is too big for Pierre Juneau. 1 think that a parliamentary committee should go in and say, "This is what we want." I think the CBC is so big that Pierre Juneau's talents will be wasted at the CBC unless we support him. That means that as well as criticizing the CBC we should adopt things that have been suggested in the report. We should remove the advertising and get back the Canadian content, get back to having Canadian actors, writers and performers in place, and say that we will give support if it costs a few extra dollars.


Mark Willson Rose: It is $150 million.


Ron Irwin: At the same time, we could go to private broadcasters, whom most Members in this House are too timid to attack. We are very good at attacking the CBC but we do not attack the private broadcasters because we may need them. We should say to them that $100 million has come out of the CBC budget-1 disagree with the report, they will not get $100 million because their reach will still be the same, but they will get a good portion of that $100 million-and ask, what have you done lately to employ Canadian actors and writers who are fleeing to the United States? We must be doing something right. We have produced them. But they are off to Florida, California and New York, and we do not see them again. Broadcasters are making $1 billion in revenue each year. TV, radio and the private sector make $1 billion in revenue in advertising, minus costs. I was almost sick when I had to ask, as a person from the region, to go to the CRTC, and while I had the privilege of seeing these financial statements, which the taxpayer did not, I had to sit there and talk about community channelling and what that person was not doing to hire Canadians to do the work, only to hear them reply that they could not afford it. I was not able to rebut because the figures were confidential.
That is not the case in the United States. Most of what is done in the United States I disagree with. But any broadcaster who has a licence in the United States has to make those figures public. We have protected monopolies. They are protected in the sense that they are given the privilege of a licence. If anyone else tries to use the frequency, or in the case of cable, the area involved, we lay criminal charges and send in the police. But for the privilege of a licence in the United States, figures have to be made public. In Canada we have to rely once a year on Statistics Canada. How can any individual broadcaster, say, from Saskatchewan or from the Hon. Member's area say, that a certain number of dollars are needed to
November 18, 1982

hire local people? That is virtually an impossible thing to do unless the public has access to those figures. Parliamentarians have access to those figures and act on them.
No one knocks the CBC in the sense that it is not producing quality. The question is, are we getting $792.6 million worth of quality per year from the CBC? Are we getting the biggest bang from the bucks we are putting into the CBC? After three years of administering the CBC and other groups in the CRTC, I say no. A lot of money is being squandered unnecessarily. I do not think the CBC has the same group with the same concept it initially had. I think the death of the CBC came when it cancelled the program "This Hour has Seven Days." I think that was the downturn of the CBC. That program was too good.


Mark Willson Rose: Who cancelled that program?


An Hon. Member:: The Liberal Government cancelled it.


Ron Irwin: An Hon. Member asks who did it. I sat with one of the producers who eventually became a CRTC commissioner-


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Which Government cancelled that program?


Ron Irwin: That is a discussion I would like to get into with the Hon. Member at some point, confidentially. But 1 think the cancellation of that program was the downturn of the CBC. It became less adventurous. The CBC refused to do new things. Each time Hon. Members go out to the airport, they should look at the huge building housing the CBC. That is the CBC today. The bucks are not being put in the production end. You have very "funny" people doing production at the far end-people who produce the culture in this country do not sit in the CBC building. This building houses the middle and high management personnel for CBC who may destroy the CBC. There are more people shuffling ideas around so that the money is just not getting to the place where we want it. Production is where the money should go. That is the bottom line.
You cannot force people to watch Canadian programming just because it is Canadian, as I told the Hon. Member. Canadian programming has to be good. We put money out for productions such as the program on Louis Riel. That program cost $24 million, but it was good and people watched it. The program was sellable. 1 do not think Canadians would begrudge programs on, say, Fraser, the Plains of Abraham, or MacKenzie, or any number of things in our history. We have such a rich historical culture. Canadian historical culture is much richer than American, yet my children know more about Howdy Doody, Wild Bill Hickock and Jesse James than they do about Cartier, Champlain or Fraser. If the CBC took this money and spent it wisely-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has expired. 1 do now leave the Chair until eight o'clock this evening.
At 5.58 p.m. the House took recess.
Old Age Security Act (No. 2)


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 8 p.m.


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare) moved: that Bill C-131, an Act to amend the Old Age Security Act (No. 2) be read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
She said: Mr. Speaker, the Bill before us tonight is one of several measures brought before the House in the budget of June 28. As part of its over-all strategy to reduce inflation, the Government is asking as many groups as possible-taxpayers, public servants, mothers receiving family allowances and pensioners-to help set the course toward achieving this goal. We ask these Canadians to accept a cap on the indexation of their income taxes and benefits over the next two years. But we do so in the fervent hope that all others, acknowledging this sacrifice, will voluntarily agree to commit themselves to similar programs of restraint.
Asking some Canadians to accept now what we can only hope for on the part of others was, 1 must say, one of the most difficult actions that we as Government have had to take. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) made that point very clear in his recent talks. After all, we know that we cannot give any guarantees to pensioners that others will join them in the fight against inflation but, at the same time, we are optimistic and believe in the willingness of all Canadians to participate in this critical national challenge.
The purpose of Bill C-131 is twofold. First, it proposes to limit indexation of the basic Old Age Security pension, known as OAS, to a maximum of 6 per cent in 1983 and 5 per cent the year after. The basic pension, as all Hon. Members are aware, is payable to all persons at age 65 who meet certain Canadian residence requirements.
The second purpose, which 1 stress because of its importance, is that the Bill proposes that the full value of the two pensions paid to low income pensioners be maintained during this period. Thus, pensioners with low incomes who are eligible to receive what is called the Guaranteed Income Supplement, or GIS, or spouses' allowance benefits, will not be affected adversely by the proposal to limit indexation of the basic pension. In other words, these benefits will be doubly increased, that is, they will be increased fully, in accordance with the changes in the Consumer Price Index, and increased by an additional amount to offset the loss associated with the limited indexation of the basic pension. In other words, more than half of the Canadian pensioners-this is the key point of

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this Bill-will not be affected at all by this legislation, and all pensioners will receive more in 1983 or in 1984 than in this current year, 1982.
This second proposal testifies, if it is necessary to do so, to this Government's long held commitment to assist the most vulnerable members of Canadian society, especially in times of economic difficulty.

The Government has always done its utmost to adjust its Old Age Security program to the economic realities facing all Canadians. Especially in recent years, which have inflicted the hardship of high inflation, the program's structure, and in this it is unique among all our government programs, has helped the aged to cope with the rising cost of living, and it has done so every three months and not just once a year.
Today, all Canadians are struggling with a new economic reality. By implementing radical, and 1 do mean radical, measures to reduce inflation, we shall be able to surmount our problems. Canadians at all levels of society must adjust to this situation, difficult though it may be, in order to avoid increasing hardship in the future.

Responding to this reality is what Bill C-131 and similar measures before the House are all about. Effective for 1983, that is toward the end of January, 1983, we propose that indexing of the basic pension be limited to 1.5 per cent of the current old age pension every three months, to reach an exact increase of 6 per cent for the full year. In 1984, similarly every three months, the pension cheques will be increased by 1.25 per cent, to reach an annual total of 5 per cent for the complete year.
No doubt, Members opposite will argue that this proposal departs from the Government's policy to protect the elderly against inflation. But 1 reject such charges at the outset. We certainly are not proposing to eliminate indexing of the basic pension. We are saying that pensions should continue to be indexed and will be, but for a limited time this indexation will be at a somewhat lower rate than the actual rate of inflation. For example, pensioners now receive basic monthly benefits of close to $247, or $246.92 to be exact. With full indexation, such pensioners would see their benefits rise next January to $251.12. Instead, we are asking them to accept $250.62, which is a reduction of 50 cents each month in the period between January and March, 1983. Over this two-year period of a special national solidarity campaign, pensioners would receive about $29 less in 1983 and about $52 less in 1984 than they would have received if no limit were placed on indexation.
Naturally, we hope that by working together we can bring inflation down to 6 per cent and 5 per cent in those years. A year ago last November inflation was running at 12.7 per cent. It went as high as 13 per cent in July. It is now down to 10 per cent, the lowest rate since May of 1980. If we manage to achieve our objective, Bill C-131 will have only a limited effect on pensioners, perhaps negative compared to the expectations in the short run but very beneficial for the future. Of the more
than 2.3 million persons who receive the basic Old Age Security, slightly less than one half receive that pension and do not need any supplement, any GIS. These pensioners, the elderly who have some other sources of income on which to rely, and I recognize that often it is modest but it is more than what the vast majority of seniors have, are the ones who will see smaller increases in their monthly pensions.
In describing the provisions of Bill C-131 I have tried to describe frankly its impact on pensioners and the impact we hope it will have on influencing the attitudes of all Canadians.
We are asking 1.1 million old age pensioners to help lead the way in the fight against inflation. 1 am very conscious of the sacrifice we are asking of them. Their pensions will continue to be indexed, but at a lower rate than might otherwise be necessary perhaps fully to keep pace with changes in the consumer price index. 1 have to stress that it is not without reluctance that we make this request. We do so with the knowledge that these pensioners who are relatively better off, will be able to adjust accordingly.

Similarly, Mr. Speaker, I am very aware of the feelings of uncertainty that exist among pensioners generally, about the future of the Old Age Security pension. Everyone knows about recent rumours to the effect that the universality of this pension was threatened. I think it is high time these rumours should be laid to rest.
The Government has no intention of telling Canadians who have worked and paid taxes all their lives that the pension they earned, as it were, through their contribution to Canadian society, a pension they have been counting on, has suddenly disappeared.
Mr. Speaker, the Old Age Security pension is universal, and as such it is the basis of the Canadian system of income security for the aged. If we analyze this system, we see that whatever a person's income, there is a social contract, as it were, that guarantees a basic pension for everyone. This universal old age pension which is paid to all Canadians who are sixty-five or over, provides a starting point, and represents approximately 15 per cent of the average wage, that is, of the ideal pension. Now, does the fact that we are going through difficult times mean that we are not going to get our Old Age Security pension? 1 hope 1 have just made it clear that we are, but does it mean that there is no other way to reform the system? Of course not. I think there is room for change both inside and outside the system. 1 shall outline these changes quickly, although I am aware that it will take time to implement them. First of all, there will have to be a reform of private pension plans, which means updating existing plans with respect to indexation, survivor's benefits and portability, as well as providing that majority of full-time and part-time workers who do not have access to a company pension plan with a proper pension fund. However, this evening I am not
November 18, 1982

going to dwell on a subject on which public debate is to begin very shortly. 1 would prefer to indicate the salient points of future internal changes 1 feel are both possible and desirable. On several occasions recently, 1 have tried to make Canadians aware of the new world-wide economic situation and its consequences. For instance, in our capacity as national health and welfare Ministers, my predecessors and I have always tried over the years to convince out Cabinet colleagues to regularly approve considerable increases which were paid out of the public treasury and were added to our regular program budget. In 1979, for example, 1 told Canadians there would be an extra $20 a month per household for the spouse's supplement and allowance. That was an additional $290 million added to the program practically overnight, not to mention cost of living indexation. In 1980, I received parliamentary approval-easily, I must say-to raise the spouse's supplement and allowance by $35 a month for couples or single people. That was another increase of $500 million added permanently to our programs.
The significant aspect in all this, it seems to me, is that the current or forthcoming economic situation makes it imperative that we take a second look at the options open to us. I have come to the conclusion that we must be very careful before considering the possibility of allocating new funds to meet our social objectives, because the amounts involved in my area are always quite considerable, and I am fully aware that tonight is the first time I put it in so many terms before the House. A higher supplement for single persons in need, the political reality of the current economic situation and, above all, fairness in most cases, all those factors prompt us to consider the possibility of re-allocations within our programs and of tax exemptions for the elderly. This is what 1 mean. People generally think that we have only two programs, namely the basic old age security pension and the supplement which is paid to approximately 55 per cent of our senior citizens.
But we do have at least two other programs besides those but we seldom hear about them: the $2,200 annual tax exemption for people over 65, and the $1,000 tax exemption for those who receive what we call a retirement income or an income from private pension plans. If we could use a diagram to illustrate this and 1 often regret that it cannot be done in our proceedings, the overall distribution of these four programs would show that middle and higher income groups profit more from the age exemption and the retirement income deduction. The richer one is, the bigger the benefit from these tax exemptions. For instance, the value of old age pension, age exemption and retirement income deduction is the same whether a retired couple gets $10,000 or $50,000 from additional revenues. This raises questions. Under our present system, it is doubtful whether our intended goal can be achieved through indis-crimating programs that afford the same benefits to lower and higher income groups. One thing is certain, lower income pensioners, in other words those who are eligible for the G.I.S.
Old Age Security Act {No. 2)
do not get any tax exemption at all because their income is not high enough to qualify. This is why we say that tax exemptions as such are socially regressive. Therefore, this will eventually have to be reviewed from a practical standpoint, bearing in mind that most pensioners live on a fixed income, the real value of which they can no longer negotiate. What are the possible changes? The question is two-fold: First how can current tax inequities be corrected and second what incentive can be given to Canadians who managed to put money aside during their working life to provide for their old age?
So let us review rapidly the overall value of these programs. Roughly, old age pension expenditures account for $7 billion, some $300 million of which are recouped by the Treasury as taxes. But the supplement is not taxable, if I am not mistaken, it totals $2.5 billion. The basic tax exemption, the $2,220 a year and the exemption applicable to pension income, $1,000 a year, mean an indirect government expenditure of a few hundred millions in tax losses. Any discussion involving change and reform, must consider the overall budget, which means, a total amount of some $9.5 billion, before introducing any changes that would meet our intended goals. For instance, if it is agreed that an increase of, say, $250 million in the supplement of single or widowed recipients, 75 per cent of whom are women, is really necessary, the question is where to find such an amount in times of economic difficulty. Tax revenues have dropped; the cutbacks in the various departments have been used for job creation, which is clearly a national priority, and high interest rates still make any increase in the deficit unthinkable. I emphasize this last point because, in spite of the position taken recently by the New Democratic Party, there are people in this House and throughout Canada who believe that we can simply increase the deficit by a few hundred million dollars to achieve our pressing objectives. However, beyond a certain point, the interests payable on the deficit become intolerable because, from the point of view of a minister of social affairs, it is a waste of money. We must be realistic and avoid seemingly easy answers which would only prolong the economic crisis and exert even more pressure on all future social budgets.
So, we would have to find about $250 million, for instance, to increase the supplement of the 725,000 single or widowed recipients, most of whom are women, as I mentioned earlier, and living under the poverty line, while keeping in mind that it is impossible to find this money elsewhere in any foreseeable future. It therefore seems to me that wisdom dictates that we should analyze, apart from the first objective which is clearly related to social justice, the tax incentives to encourage savings with a view to improving them in the case of senior citizens. Is it not fair to reward those who have saved all their lives by increasing if possible-and I am simply asking the question- the exemption on investment income or by taking any other fair and appropriate tax measure?

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Such matters could be the subject of any future discussion with a view to improving the financial programs for our senior citizens. Having said this, 1 hope that I have made it clear that we intend to maintain old age pensions at their present level, and 1 have also dealt with two other aspects of our programs for senior citizens.
In conclusion, our senior citizens who are on fixed incomes suffer more than others from the effects of uncontrolled inflation. It is my conviction, therefore, that we must work toward a future world of six and five and later of even less inflation.
There is not a lot of room in which to manoeuvre, and I believe that all Canadians should support the measures of the Government to bring this problem under control. What it means in the long run is that all seniors will be better off. The fight against inflation must be our top priority.


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of care to what the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) had to say about this Bill to amend the Old Age Security Act. 1 did so because I had to listen very carefully. I know the Minister is suffering from a bad bout of laryngitis. I can sympathize with her because 1 know that is about the worst affliction any politician can suffer. Having said that, I can also tell her that is the last word of sympathy she is going to get from me tonight.
I am shocked that the Minister of National Health and Welfare would bring in a Bill like this. I listened to what she -had to say. It was a rather subdued speech, I may say. All the time she was speaking, I wondered what kind of battle really went on in Cabinet over this Bill. I wondered what she had to say to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) when this proposal came up. Did she have anything to say to the Minister of Finance that would have stopped this mean, wretched measure?
Seldom has a bill come before this House so ill-conceived, so ad hoc in its approach, so mean in its impact or so disturbing in its implications. It is a Bill which exposes this Government's distorted sense of priorities as well as its gross mismanagement of the economy. Indeed, the Bill should never have come before this House. If Members opposite had any backbone, they would join with us in seeing that this Bill never passes this House.
When the Minister of Finance brought in the six and five program as the centrepiece of the June budget, he applied it to our two major income security programs, old age security and the family allowance. He told us that, beginning in January, 1983, old age pensions and family allowances would no longer be indexed to the actual rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price index, but instead would be limited to an increase of 6 per cent in 1983 and 5 per cent in 1984.
At the same time, the Minister of Finance told us that those senior citizens who receive the guaranteed income supplement or the spouse's allowance, either in full or in part, would be protected against the partial de-indexing. Not only would the guaranted income supplement and the spouse's allowance continue to be fully indexed to the actual rate of inflation, but they would be increased to compensate for any loss in the basic old age pension.
He went on to say, with regard to the other income security program, that mothers eligible for the income-tested child tax credit receive up to an extra $50 per child for the 1982 tax year. We learned that the child tax credit benefits and family income thresholds for receiving the child tax credit would continue to be fully indexed to inflation.
I review all of this because it is important to understand two things. First, it is important to understand how shabbily a large number of our senior citizens are being treated under this legislation. Second, it is important to understand how unfavourably their treatment compares to that of Canadians who receive benefits under other income security programs.
This legislation is directed against the 1.2 million senior citizens who do not qualify for either full or partial guaranteed income supplement. What does this legislation do to these 1.2 million people? Assuming that inflation stays at its current rate of 10 per cent, each one of those 1.2 million senior citizens will lose $290 in the next two years, just over $70 next year and a further $220 in 1984. They will lose $290. Who are these 1.2 million Canadians who are being asked to make this sacrifice? Some of them, it is true, are probably well off, but 1 would say to the Minister, a great many of those 1.2 million Canadians are not. Some of those people are single elderly people with incomes just over $8,900 a year. That is where the cutoff comes for those who receive the full guaranteed income supplement. Those receiving more than $8,900 a year, whose incomes are just in excess of that figure, are the ones this legislation hits hardest. People who receive an income of $8,900 a year, or a bit more, if they happen to live in one of our major urban centres like Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary or Vancouver, already live below the poverty line. Their total income, Mr. Speaker, is $25 a day. This legislation will cost these single elderly people $290 over the next two years. To put it another way, it will cost them 12 days' income at $25 a day. That is why this Bill is so mean and ill-conceived.
This Bill also zeros in on another group, the elderly married couples with incomes of just over $15,000. They suffer a loss in income over the next two years of $580. That is what they are going to lose. That comes to about two months' rent for people in that category, and they will have to find that two months' rent somewhere else. Almost 25,000 single elderly people have incomes between $9,000 and $10,000, and another 25,000 seniors living as married couples, have incomes between $15,000 and $16,000. That is 50,000 elderly, Mr. Speaker, who are going to be hardest hit by the Government's six and
November 18, 1982

five legislation. The Minister said tonight, these are the ones who are to lead the way in the fight against inflation, the elderly Canadians. Fifty thousand elderly Canadians will be the hardest hit, single people with incomes between $9,000 and $10,000 or married people with incomes between $15,000 and $16,000. Those incomes are hardly riches or largesse. In fact, Mr. Speaker, they are hardly enough to live on in Canada in this winter of 1982.
Twenty-five dollars a day is what these people are getting to pay the rent or the property taxes, to pay the upkeep of a home, perhaps even a car; or to pay for transport to and from supermarkets, the doctor, the pharmacy, the library; to pay for food, hydro, heating, oil, gas. That is where the $25 a day has to go, to pay for the telephone, perhaps the luxury of a daily newspaper or cable television. It is really not very much, $9,000 or $10,000 a year in Canada in the winter of 1982. There is no great margin for extravagance. Indeed, there is no margin at all. Yet the Government is effectively cutting the income of these elderly Canadians. It is penalizing them for having the virtue of living just beyond the threshold of the guaranteed income supplement. They cannot expect to have the loss which they will sustain in the basic old age pension made up in the guaranteed income supplement. Truly, it is these people who are being required to bear the burden of the six and five legislation.
There is such a pettiness, such a meanness in this Bill, a meanness beyond justification, indeed, beyond comprehension. How much, I would ask, can the Government hope to save from these 50,000 senior citizens who are the first level to be hit? How much is it going to save by applying this six and five measure against that first group? Is it going to save $15 million or $20 million? That is a trifling sum to a Government, to this Government particularly, the biggest spenders of all time. But $15 million or $20 million to these 50,000 senior citizens is no trifle, sir. Even if it is split amongst the 50,000, it still is very meaningful. The $12 a month that it represents to every one of these senior citizens can make a big difference, the difference of having or not having a telephone, keeping the thermostat a degree warmer, or of eating nutritious food, fresh fruit and vegetables, even the difference of having $12 a month for the little luxury of spirit and soul, a frivility above the bare bones of existence.
This miserly measure is doubly hard to understand because of the double standard the Government imposes. These 50,000 senior citizens whom 1 have identified as the first level will be denied the full indexing of their old age security, they will be denied that $12 or so per month. But at the same time, a senior public servant is allowed to enjoy an expensive sabbatical in Paris, subsidized by the taxpayers. That sabbatical, Mr. Speaker, of that public servant would, in dollar terms, be enough to pay for the indexing cutback of some 1,000 of these 50,000 senior citizens. That is what it would pay for.
Ebenezer Scrooge was a miser, but at least he was an honest one. He denied himself as much as he did his employees and his victims, but the same cannot be said for the front benchers opposite. They simply do not comprehend what it is like to live on $9,000 or $10,000 a year, one-tenth of their ministerial
Old Age Security Act (No. 2)
salaries. If they did, they would never proceed with this Bill. Perhaps, if they were more in touch with the people in this income bracket, they might begin to appreciate the impact of this Bill.
I do not know whether the Minister has had much mail on this subject, but I can tell her 1 have received a lot. I would like to quote from one such letter because it refers to the Minister's statement earlier this year when she told the senior citizens who were to accept this six and five limitation that they would have to learn to live with it. And this lady said, referring to the Minister, that she may be able to live with it, "but I am very much afraid 1 may not. I am finding that living through my second Canadian depression is much more worrying than my first." The next page of the letter reads as follows:
I have an income of approximately $8000, alimony, OAP and CPP. I am not eligible for any extra Federal assistance because I sold an RRSP last year. I live in a one room apartment, in an older building which is now out of rent controls, thanks to yearly 'legal' raises. 1 have a 15 year old Ford I can no longer afford to drive. Two years ago, I put every extra cent I had into a small house, 50 miles out of the city, considering it a wise investment. It is rented because I cannot afford to live in it. 1 can't sell it at any price, because of the financial situation, and can't ask enough rent to cover the increased mortgage payments, let alone utility and fire insurance.
Every ongoing, basic living expense has gone up this year: food, medical premiums, automobile insurance, light and telephone bills, property tax- everything!
I haven't dared to see my automobile mechanic or my dentist. I can't buy clothes, eat in a restaurant, go to a theatre, or think of a holiday anywhere, ever. And this is my Golden Age in the wonderful country of my birth?
That, Sir, is indicative of the response of many elderly Canadians to this six and five measure and to the cutbacks that they will have to sustain.
I would like you to contrast that with the treatment that young families with children received in the June budget. Again, assuming 10 per cent inflation, families with children will get $54 less per child over the next two years as a result of the proposed Bill C-132; $17.76 less in 1983, and $36.60 less in 1984. However, in 1983 when they file their income tax returns, if their family income is $27,000 or less, they will receive $50 per child more in child tax credit benefits. So families with two children and incomes of less than $27,000 will actually come out ahead in 1983, and will lose about $50 over the whole two year period.
Let me underscore what this will mean, Mr. Speaker. It will mean that single pensioners with incomes of $9,000 will lose $290 in this two-year period, but families with two children and incomes of $27,000 will lose less than $50 over the life of the program. That is the inequity, Mr. Speaker.
I would ask the Minister where she considers the equity to be in the proposals she is putting forward. Does the Minister seriously argue that a single, elderly widow with a $9,000 per year income should be sacrificing six times as much as a family with a $27,000 income? Does she also argue that such people should have the base for their future pension entitlement permanently lowered by these two years of arbitrary

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indexing at six and five? Why are they being asked to do this? The Government claims it is because of restraint and to free the money for job creation.
A study of the figures in the budget papers will show that they make a mockery of the claim. The budget papers reveal that the amount the Government will save from the changes to the old age pension, the family allowance and the child tax credit amount to $10 million. That is all that is saved out of the great six and five program for seniors.


Ian Deans: Dammit, you voted for it. What are you talking about?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: But at the same time, the Government has found money to pay out $300 million in $3,000 cash grants to first-time home buyers and to any buyer of a newly built home costing up to $100,000. That means that the Government is giving $3,000 to people who can afford a $10,000 downpayment and monthly mortgage payments requiring an annual income of $40,000.
Less than a month ago we learned that interest charges on the public debt would be $990 million less than was forecast last June. That is money the Government suddenly found; it was a windfall. Is any of that $990 million being diverted to job creation? Not a nickel, Mr. Speaker. We have not heard a word about anything of that nature. We have to take the $290 from the old age pensioners with incomes of $9,000 per year to make up for the job-creation program. That is what the Minister proposes. But the Government does not propose to touch the $990 million that it suddenly found.
When I consider the kind of priorities that the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Minister of Finance have sought to bring in through these various measures, I ask myself how they can stand there and defend them. How can anybody on that side of the House defend them? But after listening to the Minister of National Health and Welfare tonight, 1 conclude that she has no difficulty in defending any measure like this. She does not even seem to know what she is proposing.
On November 4 on "Canada AM", referring to the universality question, the Minister said:
All social programs, that means in particular pensions and all benefits for children, will remain the way they are. People are in the middle of an economic crisis and they need stability.
Well, they sure do-especially with incomes of less than $10,000 a year.
So why would she make such a statement when she had Bills on the Order Paper-Bill C-131 and Bill C-132-making very significant changes in the old age security and family allowance programs? One can only hope that she meant no further changes, but if not, her capacity for self-deception is truly remarkable.
There are only two logical explanations for this Bill, Mr. Speaker. One is simple incompetence. The Government simply did not know what it was doing. The second is that the Government decided to move away from universality in stages.
First, they would de-index the universal income security payments, such as the basic old age pension and the family allowance. This was to be followed in October by incometesting family allowance itself. If that was successful, they would then look at income testing the old age pension. There is considerable evidence to support that interpretation.
Much has been written in the past few weeks to the effect that the Minister of Finance wanted to cease making the family allowance universal. When caucus opposition made that impossible, he did an end run around the caucus and went public with the idea. The changes he suggests would be a radical departure from what Canadians have come to expect and accept.
Much of the retirement planning in this country has presumed the existence of universal old age pension. The $26.91 mothers receive each month to help them raise their children is seen as recognition of the important social role those who care for our future generations perform. Moreover, up to 30 per cent of the benefits flowing to those with the above average incomes, flows back to the Government in taxes.
If the Government really wants to bring some order out of the confusion of our income security system, there are much better ways to proceed than with this Bill. There is much that can be done through the tax system and otherwise to see that the funds available for income security programs are targeted much more equitably according to need. For instance, the tax expenditures represented by the exemption for dependent children might be used instead to enrich the refundable child tax credit. The age exemption might be converted into an income tested refundable tax credit for the elderly. Methods could be devised to pay out such credits monthly, so that eligible recipients would have a steady cash flow. We should in fact examine with the Provinces-and I have asked the Minister about this before-the whole system of taxation and transfer payments. This could be done with a view to making graduated levels of payment based on income and this, in turn, would strengthen incentives for people to earn more, as opposed to the present system with its arbitrary cut-off lines which encourages dependency. These are some examples of how the Government might better approach this whole question.
What we should avoid at all costs is what Bill C-131 and Bill C-132 set out to do, that is, to approach this important and sensitive area of public policy with ad hoc solutions designed to deal with short-term problems. The result of such an approach is inequity. Indeed, it produces results which are at cross purposes with the goals stated. Worst of all, the present inequities and the anomalies in our income security and retirement income systems are compounded, and a comprehensive solution is made more difficult.
It is no accident or coincidence that the Government which has given birth to this mean-spirited Bill is the Government which has dragged its feet for a year in bringing in its Green Paper on pension reform. How often have I heard the Minister of National Health and Welfare say that she will be bringing
November 18, 1982

in that Green Paper on pension reform next week or next month? I have heard it dozens of times. That Green Paper must be grey with age by now, and we still have not seen it.
The population in Canada of 65 years and over has risen more than 600,000 in the last ten years alone. That age group is growing at an annual rate of 3 per cent. This means that without any increase in real benefits, the economy will have to grow 3 per cent each year just to provide the revenue necessary to support pensions for these people. We must comprehend fully what that means. It means that the larger the population which reaches age 65, with little or no Canada Pension Plan, private pension income or private savings, the greater the public burden will be, since these people will have to be supported by the guaranteed income supplement. If we do not move on pension reform, we will find ourselves encouraging a greater and greater public debt. Even for the most selfish motivations we must act with urgency to see that Canadians now moving toward retirement have the maximum opportunity to make provision for their retirement income.
This means broadening the number of people covered by the Canada Pension Plan and reforms to see that it is adequately funded. It means making private pension plans and personal savings instruments such as RRSPs more accessible to people who have to move from one job to another, or work part-time, or drop out of the labour force to raise children. It means making it possible for women who work in the home to build up pension entitlements in their own right. It means early vesting in private pension plans and a change in attitudes so that people are encouraged to begin planning for their retirement from the moment they enter the labour force. It means all this and more.
We do have enough time, barely enough, to begin making these adjustments. The population from infancy to age 17 years, on whose behalf family allowance and the child tax credit are paid, is declining. There are about 850,000 fewer people in that age group today than there were ten years ago, and that decline is accelerating. This means that family allowances and the child tax credit will be less of a burden on the public purse over the next few years than they have been in the past. Also it means that an increasing portion of our population is of working age, contributing to the economy. If we use this period wisely to assist people in providing for their retirement, and if the economy resumes moderate economic growth with moderate rates of inflation, we can adequately support those who will be retiring in the next two decades.
Every year we let slip by without action makes it more and more difficult to avoid real crisis when the elderly becomes the largest single age group in the population. If we fail to prepare for it, we will have no excuse because the warning has already been given in the age group statistics of the 1981 census.
With a challenge such as this, with exciting new ideas proliferating daily on ways to make our major income support programs more rational and more humane, the fact that we are debating here tonight, a Bill such as this, is to me a source of anger and frustration to the Minister and her colleagues it should be a source of shame.
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Perhaps there is a single virtue to this mean-spirited and ill-conceived Bill, a Bill which attempts to bail out the Government from the consequences of its economic and fiscal mismanagement on the backs of the elderly, near poor. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly than this Bill the urgent need for a comprehensive reform of both our income security and retirement income systems. The bankruptcy of an ad hoc policy of muddling through is nakedly exposed in this Bill. My hope is that it may provide the impetus for policies that will make it possible for those systems to fulfil better their original purposes, that is, helping those in need and ensuring a life of dignity for the elderly. That possibility, that hope, is no argument in favour of voting for this Bill. Instead my Party will vote to defend the lot of hundreds of thousands of senior citizens, elderly citizens whose existence will be made much more difficult because the Government singles them out as their primary target in the effort to correct its own economic mismanagement. My Party will be voting against this Bill.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald). As I listened to her, I thought back to the time about two or three weeks ago when my little guy was getting underfoot at home and to keep him busy and out of his mother's way, I said, "Hey, son, go into the den and look up in the dictionary to see if you can find for me a name that would properly describe something or someone who would be capable of swallowing himself." He did that. An hour later he came back and said, "I have found it. It is a Tory." he said. After listening to the previous speaker, I can fully understand what he said. That Party several weeks ago waxed eloquent in support of the Liberal's six and five program. In fact, in this very House the Tories voted in favour of a component of that program.
We know in this House that when the previous Conservative Government was elected they were going to do exactly the same thing the Liberals are trying to do in this Bill. We know, and the people of Canada know, that if the Tories were ever elected again they would be as bad as the Liberals. I do not have to say that. The previous Minister of Finance for the Tory Government, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), is reported in the Sunday Star for November 14 as saying this:
When you ask somebody how you would go about cutting spending and that somebody is not in the Government, you're not likely to get clear answers because nobody wants to enunciate unpopular action until they're in the Government.
I do not see that particular Party as being any different from the gang over there. In fact, that Party would probably dismantle more programs in their hurry to reduce deficits and save their corporate friends from unnecessary tax increases.
We in the New Democratic Party unequivocally state our opposition to this Bill. As far as we are concerned, we will not be happy until the Government withdraws that Bill.

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This Bill is an offensive piece of legislation and it should not be allowed to pass through this House. If this Government is allowed to get away with punishing the elderly in Canada, it will be to the shame of every Member in this House, Liberal Members included. In fact, after all of the things the Minister has said over the years in expressing her concern for the elderly, the poor and the disadvantaged in this country, for her to come out an hour ago and openly support what this Government is doing is unacceptable. I say that if she has any selfrespect at all she would resign in protest against what the Government is doing to the elderly poor in this country.
We will have no part of this Bill at all in this corner of the House. What this Government wants to do is place a limit on the only protection that seniors have against the erosion of their purchasing power as a result of inflation. The Government wants that limit to be 6 per cent in 1983 and 5 per cent in 1984. In addition, the Minister has said that those who only qualify for the Old Age Security are being asked to take a reduction of $55 per person in 1983. Our research shows a much different figure from that. Our research shows that the loss in 1983 is much closer to $77 per person per year in the first year only. In 1984 we estimate a further loss of $218.93. That is nearly $300 over the next two years.
According to our calculations the Minister is either missing or ignoring a couple of important factors. One is the smaller base on which the percentage increase is calculated during each quarter in 1983 and the compounding effect this will have during 1984. The other thing that has to be remembered, contrary to what the Minister is trying to convince elderly Canadians about, is that her facts are not the facts.
This is not simply a two-year one-deal shot. If or when the Government restores full inflation protection in 1985, it will be on a base figure that is much less than that used today, nearly $300 per person per year over the two-year period less of a base, in fact. What we are talking about here is a permanent reduction in pension income for retired Canadians and for future retired Canadians. It just does not last for two years. Because it is compounding and because we are talking about percentage increases and because we are talking about a much smaller base at the end of the period, pensioners will never regain that money. That money will be lost to them. The base will be less and they will continue to lose money year after year after 1985.
Over the next two years some 1.2 million Canadians will feel the bite of this Bill. The Minister responsible for the Status of Women will know that half of that number happen to be women. In a press statement on June 29, 1982, the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) attempted to place the best possible light on her decision. She tried, Mr. Speaker, but in my view, she did not quite make it. This is what the Minister stated in her press release:
In keeping with our Liberal traditions in the area of social policy, the budget of June 28,1982, fully protects the lowest-income Canadians and the working poor. However the budget takes as a given that Canadians who are not in need are entirely prepared to share in the serious sacrifices which are required to bring our country out of the economic crisis.
Then she said, and I still cannot believe that our Minister of National Health and Welfare would even say such a thing, the following:
The sacrifice of pensioners who are not in need of the supplement to help the country get out of the economic crisis by creating permanent jobs will come to $55 per person for the entire year 1983. This is a considerable amount.
If the Minister does not believe that today's seniors make a sacrifice every day of their lives, then I do not think there is any hope for that particular Minister. The seniors who talk to me every day and those who come into my constituency office every weekend tell me an entirely different story. There is not a single senior citizen who relies on OAS alone, never mind the OAS and the GIS, who is not having a tough time every day in meeting the basic costs of food, shelter, clothing and transportation, not one. Wherever has the Minister got this idea that no one is suffering out there. As I said the other day, I don't know what she has been smoking.
The Government wants to wax eloquent about its six and five program. I have a letter here from a constituent of mine, a Mr. Marc Zwelling. The letter is dated November 2, 1982. Mr. Zwelling writes:
Have you noticed what's happened to milk prices in our neighbourhood? I wonder if it's a national phenomenon.
At the IGA the 2-litre size of homogenized milk was $1.67 last month-now it's $1.88. At the Mina-Mart (owned by Dominions Stores, I believe) it was $1.75, now $1.87. At the Red and White it was $1.75 and now $1.90.
I believe milk prices went up earlier this year, too, but not so much. We're talking about 12 per cent hikes. Whatever happened to "6 and 5"?
1 would like to ask that question, too.
While this Government wants to control the incomes of the average Canadian, including the elderly poor, it is doing absolutely nothing about the real causes and effects of inflation, which is price gouging such as that. I would be much more impressed if the Government were to tell Canadians that it wants them to lower their expectations but that it will make sure that the producers, businesses and corporations of the country will do their fair share while the Government controls their profits and prices. Even under previous attempts to control wages and prices, nothing was done about prices at all. Incomes were effectively controlled while profits were not. We know this to be true.
In an attempt to understand the number of people who will be affected by this legislation, I suggest that the Minister should perhaps read what the National Council of Welfare said in their analysis of the Government's budget. To save the Hon. Minister some reading time, I could read what the Council said after the budget came down. The National Council on Welfare in June 1982 said:
At first glance these measures may seem equitable. The large number of low-income elderly persons who get the Guaranteed Income Supplement-close to 1.2 million, or half of the aged population-will receive the same total amount of Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement payments asThey would have without the budget. The better-off half of elderly Canadians who do not qualify for the Guaranteed Income Supplement will give up $77 each in Old Age Security benefits in 1983 and an estimated total of $291 by the end of the restraint period. Persumably they can afford the sacrifice.
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However a closer look shows that in fact many elderly men and women who live at or just above the poverty line will be hurt by the budget. In its present form the Guaranteed Income Supplement is directed to those with very low incomes and is not available to many poor and near-poor senior citizens. When the limits on indexation come into effect next January, a single person's eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement will end once his income from earnings-related pension plans, savings and investments reaches $6,123. This means that a single pensioner with a total income (including Old Age Security) of as low as $9,200-more that $500 below the poverty line for larger cities-will pay the same $55 sacrifice in Old Age Security payments as someone living on a moderate or affluent income. Over 100,000 poor and near-poor elderly Canadians will see their incomes reduced by this feature of the budget.
That is 100,000 poor and nearly-poor Canadians who, through what this Government is proposing will be driven even deeper into poverty. The Government has estimated that it will save $105 million as a result of this cutback. I am using the word "save" as the Government's word because it is not what we call it. That $105 million is being lifted from the pockets of over one million pensioners, and it is $105 million that those Canadians cannot afford to lose. They are people who have worked hard for our country over the years and have made life much easier for future generations. They have rightfully earned the right to a secure and comfortable retirement. They have paid for it, and now the Government is proposing to deny them that right.
This Government is making no bones about what it is doing. It is saying to the elderly in Canada, "Through our incompetence our country is in an economic mess, and we are making you pay for it". After you discard all the fancy words and phrases, that is exactly what the Government is saying it will do. For once I wish the Government would deal honestly with the people of this country.
For about the last 30 months the Minister and a number of her colleagues have been travelling across the country promising great reforms to the pension system. Is this the kind of reform the Government is talking about? Is this the kind of pension reform the Government is really considering? In fact, during all this time the Minister has clearly said in every public statement that the Government saw the need to improve the pension system. There was not even a hint that it intended to dismantle the improvements made to the pension system over the years.
As recently as April of this year, just two months before the June budget, the Minister assured Canadians that the Government had no intention of changing the rules of the game. In fact, in a speech to the Conference on Industrial Relations on April 20, 1982, the Minister said this:
The Government believes that, with the exception of a major increase still to come in Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits for single persons, the public pension system has served Canadians well.
Just listen to this:
We have no intention of changing the 'rules of the game'. We want to maintain indexing of the Old Age Security Pension and the Supplement every three months, and to retain the universality of the basic OAS pension.
Two months later, the Government changed the rules dramatically when it introduced its June budget. Indexing of the OAS is now capped at about 50 per cent of the Government's own forecast rate of inflation over the next 18 months. By placing an even greater emphasis on the income tested
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guaranteed income supplement, the very principle of the universality of the OAS is being threatened.
In the same speech to which I just referred, the Minister explained the Government's further concern about those seniors who receive the GIS and are still living below the poverty line. This is what she said in that same speech in which she said had no intention of changing the rules of the game:
Additional expenditures of $730 million per year will be needed to raise a single person above the poverty line; the federal Government is committed to do this as soon as possible. This reform is of great urgency and will be undertaken on a priority basis as soon as funds are available or can be released from some other area.
In contrast to this expression of concern, I find the statements which the Minister made earlier to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs to be somewhat more than interesting. The Minister appeared before that committee on April 2 of this year and responded to a question about why the $730 million needed to increase the guaranteed income supplement could not be taken from the money the Government had saved in its November, 1981 budget. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that the Government estimated that it would save $915 million in 1982-83 and $1 billion in 1984 by reducing transfers under the Established Programs Funding Act. Here is what the Minister said on that occasion about her concern for those individuals who rely on the GIS to at least lift them out of the depth of poverty:
The way I looked at that, as the Minister responsible directly for social policies and, of course, social justice in Canada, is, what will benefit most the huge clientele of whom I am the voice in Cabinet and for which we have these billions of dollars? And I subscribed-I must say without too much difficulty-to the hypothesis on which the budget has been developed that if we continue to have to pay large sums of money in interest on federal borrowings and deficits, that will be more harmful to my clienteles and the big budgets I need to protect and continue to see indexed every year than any other approach.
Then she said-no wonder she left, she is ashamed:
-therefore gave my full support to the budget, a budget which is aimed at reducing, not in a harsh way but in a reasonable way, year after year, the deficit of the Government. That was the basic choice that we had to make.
No wonder the Minister has left the House. If I were a Minister I would not want to sit and listen to my own words coming back to haunt me either.
So the Minister on the one hand seems to recognize that our elderly poor are living in poverty and that this is an unacceptable condition. She also says that when the money becomes available both she and the Government will take action to end this state of affairs. So what does she do when the money does become available? She and the Government and the Cabinet decide that what they want to do is to throw the money in to stave off interest rates as a result of deficits that this Government has accumulated. In fact, what they are doing to people on OAS benefits now they decided to do last November to people who are in GIS benefits, who are drastically below the poverty line and who desperately need help.
The Minister said that she had no difficulty in doing so. After going over the Minister's statements on what this

November 18, 1982
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Government has said over the last 30 months since we had the much-touted National Pensions Conference, 1 really wonder whether they have actually any credibility left in this country. They have certainly lost it in this House, and with this Bill they have certainly lost it with every senior citizen in this country. They say their intention is clear about what they intend to do about the OAS in the future in terms of whether or not it is to remain a useful universal program. 1 do not trust them one little bit, and 1 am quite sure that the average Canadian, at least from the responses I have been getting recently, would agree with that sentiment.
The Minister also said that nothing has changed for those seniors who now receive both the OAS and the GIS, and I suppose in some respects she is absolutely right. Those individuals will continue to have incomes far below the poverty line. On the other hand, she is absolutely dead wrong because things have changed and they will change over the next two years because the population of seniors at the end of two years who will receive OAS and GIS will be much greater than now and every one of them is going to have $300 less per year of pension income as a result of what this Government is trying to do today.
Again, that is not exactly my idea of pension reform. I always thought that to reform something meant to improve matters for the better, not to make a bad condition worse. That is what this Government and what this Minister have managed to do. Rather than opting to remove the weaknesses in our pension system, they have done the opposite. In so doing they have broken faith with Canadians once again. They have spent the last 30 months raising hopes and expectations across the country that real pension reform was on the way at last. Today, with this Bill and the June budget, those hopes are destroyed, Mr. Speaker.
I am sure all Members in this House get letters from constituents and from senior citizens in groups from time to time. Many of those letters are from people who tell me of the inadequacies of the pensions they get and how it is often difficult to make ends meet. Others make no bones about the fact that discussions on pension reform have gone on long enough, and it is time they get some action. I know some other Members received a copy of an open letter on pension reform from the Council of Pension Reform for Singles some time ago. Those who did I know will be interested in a few of the things they had to say.
They start out by saying:
This discussion will be different, inasmuch as it is written by single pensioners who have banded together to form their own Council on Pension Reform for single women/men and is probably the first such paper ever written.
They say:
The majority of women, single, now in their eighties and up, many of whom were in the labour force through two wars and a depression, up to fifty years, who merely because they were born too soon also have no "personal protection under the Canada Pension Plan" ... Is it being taken for granted that they are all tucked away in public wards in nursing homes, senile and unable to care for themselves? We can assure anyone interested that there are not enough nursing homes in Canada to hold them, but no matter where they are living they still need to pay living costs which increase by the minute.
They go on to say:
We are the same segment of Canadians who did not qualify for Canada Pension, are the same Canadians who, when they retired at sixty-five years of age had to live for five years on their small wartime savings until they received their Old Age Security at seventy years of age. It must also be remembered that for women of that day private pension plans were practically unknown. These are also the same seniors who are ignored by pension reformists, seniors organizations and Government alike. All reformists have to suggest is an increase in Old Age Security on a means test.
It is an acknowledged fact that singles have been, and are today, $800 and up below the poverty line in Old Age Security. Couples are slightly above the poverty line. This has been true year after year and nothing has been done for singles. Singles who through wartime and depression sacrificed in order to make some preparation for retirement are now being penalized by means tests. There were no trips to Europe in their day and few luxuries, nor are there now. Their standard of living is slipping and they have no relief.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, they say this and they make more sense than anything I have heard in this place tonight. They say:
We believe it is time to combine Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement as one Old Age Security Pension without a means test. The present two plans are expensive to administer and are causing so much division, cheating and bitterness against the Government amongst pensioners who made some provision for their retirement and who are being penalized for having done so, that it would appear that everyone, including the Government would in the long run be better off both financially and in good-will, by combining the two pensions.
Most if not all the seniors that I know who are forced to apply for the GIS feel exactly the same way. They deeply resent the welfare stigma attached to the plan through the requirement that they have to prove their poverty before they can receive the GIS. Our personal pride in being able to hold our head up to friends and neighbours is valuable to all of us. It is even more so to elderly people, and it is unconscionable that this Government wants to make life for thousands of older individuals even more difficult than it already is.
The National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation has also noted to the Government that literally hundreds of thousands of seniors are receiving $85 a month less than that required to provide the absolute minimum of food, clothing and shelter.
A number of seniors have told me that they are confused by the complexity of pension programs or, indeed, what may be available to them from time to time. It is no wonder when you look at this mish-mash that serves as a pension system. In Canada we have private plans that cover only 50 per cent of the male work force and one-third of the female work force. Even at that, employer-sponsored plans only account for less than 10 per cent of the over-all income of present senior citizens. At the federal level we have the old age security pension, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada-Quebec Pension Plan. In addition to that, because of the inadequacies of these programs, the richer Provinces have introduced their own supplementary programs. Ontario has its Guaranteed Annual Income System, GAINS. Alberta has the Alberta Assured Income Plan. Both of these are means tested.
It is no wonder that people are confused. The fact that all those bits and pieces are in place is a clear indication that
November 18, 1982

something is out of place here. Why should individuals have to rely on a whole number of programs in order to receive an income on retirement?
Surely an adequate pension is a right and not a privilege. Surely every Canadian should have available a decent and adequate pension, regardless of sex, marital status, income class and previous employment history. Surely it is reasonable to expect on retirement that individuals will have an income that is above the poverty line and that the income will grow with the standard of living.
Pensions must be viewed as inter-generational transfers. They must connect the living standards of pensioners to the general standard of living. There is no question that public pensions must be expanded immediately to guarantee a poverty-free and secure standard of living for Canada's two million seniors.
It is only the federal and the provincial Governments that are in a position to ensure that this is done. In the public debate over the past 30 months, a consensus has emerged, at least from the majority, that some basic improvements must be made quickly. In fact, the Minister has publicly said there is a need to increase pensions immediately by $25 a month. She said that less than three weeks ago, I believe.
Even the corporation of William M. Mercer, hardly a socialist organization, has said that pensions should be increased now because it is necessary by a minimum of $100 a month. It is obvious to Members of this Party that the Old Age Security must be increased and the Canada Pension Plan expanded.
In conclusion I will say that if this Bill is not withdrawn by the Government it is the view of this Party that it cannot be allowed to be rammed through the parliamentary process. If and when it is referred to committee, individuals and organizations wishing to have input into this measure must have an opportunity to do so. The consequences of this legislation on the incomes of the elderly in Canada makes it imperative that this be done. Finally, if this Government is serious, which is questionable, about redistributing income in this country by directing the available funds to those most in need, I can think of a better place to start rather than attacking Canada's elderly population, that is, to overhaul the tax structure in this country. That is where the unfairness lies, and it is high time the Government made it equitable to all Canadians.


Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to say a few words on Bill C-131 to amend the Old Age Security Act. Before doing so, 1 would like to point out that the last speaker for the New Democratic Party said that in supporting the six and five program we in this Party imply that we support as well the principles of Bill C-131 to reduce the old age pension. The Hon. Member knows very well that we supported the six and five program as it applied to civil servants. It had nothing to do with old age pensioners.
It is common knowledge in this House and across the country that the NDP can say anything irresponsibly, promise anything, knowing full well and sighing with relief at the same
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time that they will never be in a position of national power to put their money where their mouth is or to take their feet out of their mouth. As a veterinarian, 1 am more than willing to offer my services for medical assistance, surgery or otherwise-


An Hon. Member:: For foot and mouth disease.


Constantine George (Gus) Mitges: Yes, for foot and mouth disease. Most of them in the NDP are in dire need of it. 1 am sure I can call on my hon. friend from Guelph, a colleague and classmate of mine, to give assistance if I require it. I do not think 1 need any assistance, Jim.
To get into the substance, if this Bill is passed into law, it would limit the incease in the basic old age pension to a maximum of 6 per cent in 1983 and 5 per cent in 1984. In other words, old age pensioners are being told that, like it or not, they will have to take a cut in their meagre pensions to conform with the six and five policy of restraint.
I believe that the six and five program is a small step in the right direction, but I believe that the Government in its deliberation on this matter, should have considered the exemption of old age security recipients from this legislation. Many senior citizens have a bad enough time as it is without having to cope with a decrease in their pension.
When one considers a 10 per cent inflation rate in the country coupled with a 6 per cent decrease in the pension, one must realize that this will have a devastating effect on the seniors of our country, many of whom are barely managing now to cover the cost of only the bare essentials of life such as food, clothing, higher and higher rents and escalating drug costs.
This is a terrible slap in the face to our seniors. When one reflects on the hardships and devastations they experienced and lived through, two world wars and a devastating depression of the 1930s, one must conclude that this is one heck of a way to express our gratitude and thanks, by cutting back on their pensions. This is a terrible injustice and should not be allowed to take place.
1 do not want to leave the impression that 1 am not in favour of restraint. I believe restraint in government spending is adamant, and when I say government I mean all three levels, federal, provincial and municipal. However, surely common sense should tell us, and common sense should prevail, that restraint should not be imposed on those citizens who can least afford it, our senior citizens. Equity and fariness must be exercised in this case. However, if Bill C-131 is passed, it will be throwing equity and fairness out the window.
Simply put, it is not fair riding out the recession on the backs of our senior citizens. Seeking restraint from those who can afford it, I can go along with, but seeking restraint from those who in no earthly way can afford it is unthinkable to say the least.
The effects of inflation on the elderly are devastating. Today, 20 per cent or some 600,000 of them live in poverty.

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We know as well that senior citizens are forming an ever-increasing section of our population.
That is why I believe the time has come, and 1 think it is long overdue, to take a serious look at all our pension needs, public and private, to ensure that at the time of retirement, one should be able to live our's declining years without fear of deprivation and without the worry of having enough funds to live on.
1 know that over the years there has been a lot of discussion and a lot of studies regarding pensions. As worthwhile as they have been, I think the time has come to take the bull by the horns and come forth with action. I firmly believe that all Canadians are now more ready than ever to make the necessary contribution from their salaries and paycheques to ensure security in their old age. All I can say is, let's get on with it.
I believe all Members of this House would give speedy passage to any bill brought forth to make this a reality. It is important to understand that we must get away from the stereotype idea that pension funds are not part of an obligation on each and every one of us, that we only put money away if we can spare it. I believe that pensions should be looked at, as my colleague, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) said, as a deferred income that we will draw upon once we leave the workplace. We must make sure as well that all pensions in force should not be drained of funds by being over-extended in the form of loans to the Provinces or otherwise. There should be sufficient funds, wisely invested, to ensure the presence of actual money there, not just a paper figure, but actual money to take care of any crisis or emergency. This is one area where bankruptcy would be a terrible disaster.
It is a sad state of affairs, Mr. Speaker, that in this so-called enlightened age, only 28 per cent of women in the labour force today are covered by some sort of a pension plan, and over half of that 28 per cent are in some level of Government. Another thing to remember is that our present pension system is not geared to the problems and situations faced by women. For example, what if a woman drops out of the labour force to have children? No allowance is made at all for this. Benefits are not adjusted for the period she is away because her pension is based on total earning and working life, which in this case is smaller and shorter. But her need for pension coverage is no less necessary after her most productive years are over .
A housewife who finds herself widowed is in a very similar position. Her career was as a housewife, for which she received no pension because most pensions collected by a husband are non-transferable. She cannot collect on that pension even though she contributed so many years as a housewife. She is left with what amounts to poverty line pension, unless otherwise provided for.
What can be done to rectify some of the problems I have mentioned? There have been a number of proposals offered to help women overcome these handicaps. One suggestion which
has been talked about for a while is to allow housewives to contribute to CPP. The question of whether contributions should be voluntary or not is central to whether the plan would work. Some housewives simply cannot afford to pay into the system, but their need is no less obvious. Another proposal is to allow more housewives to collect contributions from private pension plans of deceased spouses. Survivor's benefits, to my mind, are important if women are to maintain their independence. Another idea put forward to help women out in the case of a marriage breakdown, was to make it mandatory that pension credits in a private pension plan held by the husband be split 50-50 on divorce.
Another proposal is to have fully portable indexed pensions. Few pension plans today are portable, except for Government employees. When you change jobs, you cannot take credits with you, so you loose your contributions. These are some of the solutions offered. It goes without saying they do not solve all the problems, but they are a start. Right now, we are anxiously awaiting the Government's so-called Green Paper on pension reform. We have been told it will be out soon. Hopefully, the report will lead to some meaningful and substantial reforms which are so rightly deserved by the majority of the Canadian population.
Another related matter concerning senior citizens and pensions, Mr. Speaker, is the subject of old age. You may ask the question, how old is old? That is a question which has puzzled physicians, economists, business leaders, labour, government officials and every man and woman in our country. Two thousand years ago, the average life expectancy was only 22 years. Seventy-five years ago, in Canada, the life expectancy for the male was 48 years and for the female, 51 years. However, the average life expectancy today for a male is somewhere around 74 years, and for a female between 76 and 78 years. Today's 65-year old man or woman probably has greater vigour, greater stamina and better health than the 50-year old man or woman in the 1900s. There is no question that the lifespan of man will continue to increase. Perhaps within the lifespan of many Canadians alive today, one-tenth of our population will live to be 100 or older. Soon, perhaps within a generation, active, vigorous men and women of 85 years or more will make up a substantial group in every community.
However, because of the longer lifespan of people today, there is another area of importance which will have to be looked into, that is, the impact this will have on our national economy. I think the time has come when we must review the retirement practices in industry. In the very near future we may find it desirable to go in the direction of voluntary retirement, depending upon the health of each worker. It may even be desirable to defer retirement in many cases from age 65 to 70 or 75. Regardless of what may happen, however, the human values of forced retirement at age 65 cannot be overlooked. What happens to the person at age 65 who is told that his usefulness in the labour force is over? He is no longer allowed to contribute. He is suddenly cut off from his working companions of many years. Just because he turned 65 years of age he
November 18, 1982

is supposed to stop functioning. How can you equate this kind of treatment when today these very same people have the most active seniors' and senior citizens' organizations in the history of our country. In view of this, how can labour say with any conviction that seniors are no longer able to contribute to the labour force? 1 do not think there is anything magical or sacred about the age of 65. Retirement at age 65 has been arbitrarily adopted and blindly accepted. Chronological age is not a barometer which necessarily indicates the physical age of a person. A person forced to retire due to the age formula loses more than just an income. In many cases, and I have seen some, as 1 imagine other Members of the House have, a person is faced with emotional problems every bit as serious as economic ones.
In our society, work has come to mean recognition as well as a feeling of being a useful member of the community. Some retirees, through an inward feeling of uselessness and insecurity, become melancholy and unhappy, and at times quite ill, which can only be overcome by work. During World War II, many elderly people went back to work in Canada. I think there were some 250,000 of them. Their employers learned to respect their steady and reliable performance. Recently in the U.S., the National Association of Manufacturers polled a group of business leaders on their attitudes toward elderly workers. Significantly, the president of one of the companies stated: "We choose and select when we hire people and I see no reason why we cannot do the same when we retire them." There are those and there will be those tomorrow who will want to retire. There are those today and there will be those tomorrow who will need to retire because of ill health or inability to do their job. Retirement is not a bad thing, but forced retirement of a man or a woman who is healthy, who wants to work, is bad both for the man and the woman and for our country as a whole.
Older citizens of Canada have a treasury of skills and experience that could be used in so many ways in every community. Seniors want to be constructive and productive. Our society has to find ways to keep them working if they so wish. To accomplish this, we must stop using one myth after another to justify age discrimination in employment. We must stop believing the myth that a young labour force guarantees greater production and less overhead. That may be true in the case of a man operating a jackhammer, but there are all kinds of occupations where the elderly are just as productive as their juniors.
We must also stop believing the myth of the heavy cost burden involved in hiring the elderly. Department of Labour statistics show that putting an older person on the payroll, including all the fringe benefits, costs only a few pennies an hour more than it would to hire a younger person. We must stop believing the myth that older persons are absent from their jobs more than younger persons. The very opposite is true. The notion that older persons are ready to be put on the shelf, is about the silliest form of prejudice which still exists. It is simply incredible that we have permitted our society to become so youth oriented that the job market starts to close after a person reaches 40.
Old Age Security Act (No. 2)
What is needed in Canada, today, Mr. Speaker, is a drastic change of attitude. We have to get away from the notion that elderly people have done their part and should be put on the shelf. Our attitudes must change so that retirement from active, productive living should be by choice and not by compulsion because of age. Many seniors have no desire to stop work. Many seniors are able to work and want to work, but modern methods of business and industry deny them the opportunity to do so. The performance of Government in recent years for the betterment of senior citizens permits a small amount of pride. The challenges of today must give us even greater energy, greater dedication and a greater commitment to get on with the job, not only of creating a better Canada, but a better deal for all senior citizens. If we succeed in changing the popular conception of age and return those seniors who wish once more to the role of national productivity, I think we will then meet our two greatest needs. These are the need for a chance to make a living, and the great emotional satisfaction that comes from being useful, from being respected for one's productivity rather than being respected just for being elderly.


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, the saying that we should never judge anyone until we have walked a mile in his moccasins is an excellent dictum. Tonight, I wonder if any of us is prepared to walk in the moccasins of those who are entirely dependent on a pension.
I remember when there was a pension of $20 per month for those aged 70 and over. In those days, though, you could buy five pounds of hamburger for 15 cents, so $20 went a long way. Through the years the pension has increased in accordance with the requirements of providing food, clothing and shelter for the human body. Eventually, the pension reached a reasonable amount; then inflation came along. That made quite a difference.
The Government made wonderful speeches to the effect that the pensioner could not live on that amount when the cost of living was so high, and so the pension would be indexed. The whole purpose of indexing was that food, shelter and clothing for the human body could still be supplied.
How many times have I heard Ministers and backbenchers opposite, and even Members on this side of the House, remark on what an excellent thing indexing is. The former minister of finance was asked how pensioners were going to continue to live on their pensions when the cost of energy and almost everything else was going up. He answered that the pension was being indexed so that they could live on it. The amount indexing brought in never equalled the amount of increase in the price of energy, however, but it helped. The whole purpose of indexing, as put forward by the Government and, I suppose, by Members on this side of the House, was to enable people to continue to enjoy a reasonable standard of living.
I remember being on a platform in the beautiful City of Drumheller, which is nestled in the canyon of the Red Deer River, when 200 or 300 people had turned out for an auction

November 18, 1982
Old Age Security Act (No. 2)
at a church. One question that was put to each candidate was about the stand they would take on indexing. One candidate said, "1 am against indexing; it costs too much money and we cannot afford it". Another candidate said, "I am not in favour of indexing, even though I am getting an indexed pension myself." When it came my turn I simply asked the people, "If you do not have indexing, how are the aged going to live?" That is the only purpose for it, Mr. Speaker. It is not a gift, a gratuity or a Christmas present; it is essential if a person is to be able to pay for food, clothing and shelter.
I have been in the homes of senior citizens and pensioners who receive the full basic pension and the guaranteed income supplement and their assured income from the Province. Some are still having a rough time making ends meet. I am sure you realize, Mr. Speaker, that energy costs have gone up by 15 to 30 per cent. I went into the home of a pensioner in Edmonton last winter. He was wearing a big, woolly sweater and his wife was wearing a night robe of some kind. It was only eight o'clock at night. I asked him why he was wearing his sweater, but I soon found out why. The house was cold. He said that the Government had asked the people to co-operate, to keep costs down and not to use too much energy. He said that he wanted to co-operate with the Government, so there he was, shivering.
I shivered too and I kept my overcoat on. It is still chilly in that home, Mr. Speaker, but they wear woollies in order to cooperate.
If this Bill passes, the aged will co-operate, but there will be some cold ones amongst them and there will be some hungry ones. They will have diseases and they will die sooner because they will not be able to afford the things that they should have.
Do we want history to record that we did not look after our senior citizens properly-those who have served this country? People who are now aged 65 were born in 1917. They went through a few good years after the first World War, and then came the depression. People who have not lived through the depression will never know what it was like, but people who did live through it, those who are 65 years of age today, still suffer because of the malnutrition, lack of food and heat that they experienced. If they had to cut their own food or haul their own coal in order to keep warm, that is what they did. And all through the years of World War II they co-operated.
I knew a miner who was 83 years of age when World War II started. After the first World War miners were lucky if they got three months of work a year. But we needed coal for the war effort, and so he got his carbide lamp and his old mining clothes and went back into the mine to help his country, in World War II. It took a few years off his life, but he cooperated.
Senior citizens have already paid the price and we should not ask them to pay more. They should have the right to live well now.
May I call it ten o'clock, Mr. Speaker?



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, tonight we will discuss one example of utter waste of the taxpayer's money which the Minister of State for Mines (Mrs. Erola) blatantly defended as being in the national interest, saying, "The cost of distribution is completely justified in the national interest." Five hundred and seventy-six packages containing three maps, a photo of the Minister of State for Mines with the Governor General and a press release for use on Dominion Day, were sent by courier service on June 30 at a cost of $5,935. Even Santa Claus and his reindeer starting on June 30 could not get the packages throughout Canada by the next day, which was a holiday in any event. Certainly it would not be possible for any courier to do it, but they still spent $5,935.
If they had to be sent, why were they not sent by Canada Post? They arrived late anyway, so wasting $5,935 is inexcusable. No private company or business could stay in business if it wasted money in that manner.
Then comes the question, why were they sent at all? The weekly newspapers certainly did not ask for them, nor could they use such large maps in their weeklies. It appears that the photograph was really the important item. If it were used, it would enhance the Minister's vanity at the taxpayers' expense, of course, but it would do nothing else. What was this worth? Was it worth $3,000 of taxpayers' money?
There is another aspect to the answer of the Hon. Minister to the questions asked by the Hon. Member for Cariboo-Chilcotin (Mr. Greenaway) regarding the cost of producing the package. The return tabled in the House of Commons indicated that the production cost was $1,783.08. On Monday night the Hon. Member for Cariboo-Chilcotin stated that representatives of Energy, Mines and Resources told him that the price of the three maps was $5.95 and that no reduction was given. Therefore, the cost of the three maps is 576 times $5.95 or $3,427.20. Also last Monday the Parliamentary Secretary when replying to the Hon. Member for Cariboo-Chilcotin stated:
The approximate cost of this was $3,000.
This was $3,000 for the photograph, approximately. Adding the cost of $3,000 for the photograph, to the $3,427.20 for the maps and the $1,783.08 for whatever the Minister included, the total is $8,210.28. But the Minister's return indicated that the production cost of the package was only $1,783.08. Does the total production cost not include the cost of the maps, the cost of the photograph, the cost of the fancy envelope, the cost of the two-page press release, etc.? Of course it does.
November 18, 1982

The tradition throughout British Parliaments is that Ministers must answer questions accurately. If such were not the case, there would be no use in Members of Parliament asking questions. I am asking the Government to investigate fully the answer which was tabled in the House by the Minister. If it was inaccurate-and I believe it was-the Minister should be asked for her resignation pronto. Otherwise it will be a mockery of Parliament. Parliament cannot operate unless truthful answers containing the whole truth are given by Ministers.
Also on Monday night the Parliamentary Secretary told how wonderful the maps were and are. No one is or was questioning the value of the maps. Of course they are splendid maps. We are questioning the extravagance of the Minister in a time of restraint and the inaccuracies contained in the reply tabled in the House. If the Minister wanted to be Santa Claus with the people's money and send out presents, she could have sent the maps to the weeklies via Canada Post, free; she could have sent them to the schools of Canada which would be far more sensible, free; or she could have sent them to the libraries of Canada, free, where they would have been used.
The total cost of the package plus the courier service appears to be in the vicinity of $10,000. It is almost a complete waste of money. No wonder the editor, a very knowledgeable lady, of the Cochrane Times, a weekly newspaper in Alberta, wrote a story which appeared on the front page on July 14, which ended with the question, "This is restraint?"
If the Minister had X dollars which she just had to spend, rather than waste it on this silly exercise that benefited largely only the courier, she could have spent it in a number of other ways. Here are a few suggested ways the Minister could have spent the money. She could have helped the unemployed in her own constituency and elsewhere who have used up their unemployment insurance benefits. They could stand a few cents to help them out. She could have given the money to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) so that he would not have to cut the indexing of the pensions of the superannuates, including retired RCMP and Armed Forces personnel and retired civil servants who actually paid for the indexing. What about the old age pensioners about whom we were talking tonight? The Minister could have given the money to the Salvation Army or to the Catholic Women's League to help them feed and clothe the poor and the unfortunate who tonight are cold, and many hungry. The Minister could have used the money to reduce the deficit or to lower the myriad of taxes which this money-hungry Government is imposing on the people, etc. etc. But, instead the Minister hired a courier at a cost to the taxpayer of $5,935 and sent out 576 photographs of herself at a cost of $3,000, as her parliamentary secretary revealed, to say nothing of the other costs.
Then to cinch the ridiculous, the Minister blatantly told the House:
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The cost of distribution is completely justified in the national interest.
This is a proper case for the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) to investigate fully, and to make the findings public.


Mrs. Therese Killens (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Mines)):: Mr. Speaker, I have examined the question asked by the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) concerning the distribution of maps illustrating our country's growth to Canadian community newspapers so they would be able to use them during Canada Week. 1 am convinced that the public funds used for that purpose were a justifiable expenditure at a time when all Canadians were celebrating the achievements of their nation. The maps and the literature were sent to the newspapers in smaller communities so as to enable them to use those documents during Canada Week. In answer to a similar question earlier this week, it was clearly stated that those maps which depict the territorial evolution of Canada had a very particular meaning after we adopted our Constitution.
Because we wanted to have those maps widely known to the public, we decided to inform smaller towns and villages to the same extent as the larger urban communities which are already well served by the information networks. We had to use courier services to distribute the maps along with a photograph commemorating their presentation to His Excellency the Governor General so that Canadian Community Newspaper Association members would receive them before Canada Week, if at all possible. Originally, Canada Post was to look after the distribution of the maps, but unforeseen difficulties cropped up during the preparation, printing and wrapping of the maps and therefore they were not ready for distribution until late in June. Thanks to a courier service, it was however possible to deliver the material in time to allow its recipients to use it and give it the attention it deserved during Canada Week. Of course, as stated by the Hon. Member for Cariboo-Chilcotin (Mr. Greenaway) a certain number of newspapers may not have received the material before Canada Day, July 1. However, I am pleased to know that thanks to the efforts which were made, they were able to use it as reference in the preparation of their forthcoming issues.
The printing of the maps did cost $1,783,08, as previously mentioned. The Hon. Member for Cariboo-Chilcotin said that the maps had cost $3,427.00 but he was referring to the retail price of the kit. However this amount also included storing, handling and distribution costs as well as some other overhead charges normally included in retail prices. However, the latter charges were not incurred because the 576 parcels were sent directly by the Printing Bureau through a courier service.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately I have to interrupt the Parliamentary Secretary, but the time allowed to her has expired.

November 18, 1982
Adjournment Debate


VETERANS AFFAIRS-PENSION RECOMMENDATION MADE BY UNITED VETERANS ORGANIZATION. (B) INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: On November 2, 1982, I asked the Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Campbell) the following question:
In June of this year the Minister said that he was giving very active consideration to the recommendation made by the United Veterans Organization which would ensure that veterans' pension increases would reflect the greater of the C.P.I. or the average increase given to the five lowest categories of civil servants. When is the Minister going to present the necessary legislative changes to Section 58 of the Pension Act so that veterans will be spared the task of going cap-in-hand to the Government for their annual increases?
The Minister was totally non-committal in his answer.
I also asked:
-has the Minister had any discussions with the Government House Leader as to when he can fit this veterans' legislation into our schedule for this year? It would be appropriate if we dealt with it this year. It is not a contentious issue. All that is required is one speaker from each Party. Has the Minister had any discussions with the Government House Leader?
The answer I received was no.
This question was preceded by a query respecting the method of calculating and making pension payments to veterans. Here again, 1 received a non-committal answer indicating the Government is not willing to bring in much needed legislation.
Legislation should be introduced before this session expires. The problem areas are numerous and, contrary to the Minister's belief that everything is operating smoothly, there are many recommendations made by veterans' organizations and the Official Opposition which have yet to be acted upon. Let me outline just a few to refresh our memories: A complete review of those recommendations made by the Woods Committee that have not yet been implemented; A complete review of all those recommendations made by the Senate Committee on Health, Welfare and Science Report entitled "They Serve, We care", which have not been implemented.
In this case special attention should be given to the apparent inequity of the way in which pension increases do not reflect the principle of parity with the average wage of five unskilled categories of public servants, or the increase in the consumer price index, whichever is greater, and that this principle is not entrenched in the Pension Act; the apparent inequity of the way in which veterans are compensated for periods spent as prisoners of war; and the increasing of the annual exemption for income derived from bank deposits, bonds and dividends to a minimum of $500. As well, there are recommendations aimed at having the Canada Pension Commission, the Entitlement Board and the Pension Review Board establish specific deadlines for each stage of the veterans pension application process. Finally, there are ways and means of increasing the use of the aging veterans' programs so that more veterans could take advantage of the system.
There are ongoing problems with the aging veterans' programs, even though the Minister has so much praise for it. The
details of the program are still not clear to local councillors, both in the application and implementation process.
There should be a review of current benefit payments for medical expenses in order to determine the feasibility of extending medical requirements currently provided for WVA-CWA recipients to spouses and eligible dependent children. Attention should be given to problems which the Indian War Veterans across Canada face in their attempt to receive their due benefits. The ongoing announcements concerning benefits to "new theatre of war" veterans should be formalized in legislation. Also, the question arising from the treatment of Hong Kong veterans and others with strongyloides should be intensified and increased in proficiency with the addition of mandatory tropical disease courses and training.
These are but a few of the main problem areas which must be addressed either through formal legislation or through programs debated and approved by the Veterans Affairs Committee. When the Veterans Affairs Committee met last June 1 presented a non-political motion calling on the Committee to work together constructively. Solutions could have been suggested by the elected representatives who are paid to work toward solutions in the first place. Had my motion passed, the Committee could have met regularly to receive progress reports from the Minister of Veterans Affairs on the many issues facing Canadian veterans. Unfortunately, the Liberal majority on the Committee voted down my motion, even though many like it have been passed by other committees in the past. This is truly a shame, since the committee will not meet again until the 1983-84 estimates are ready for study.
I was not expressing in my motion a lack of confidence in the Department's ability to solve problems. I was expressing my desire to have the elected representatives, who are supposed to be interested in helping formulate solutions to problems, work toward that goal in a non-partisan way. Unfortunately, the Liberal Members on the Committee did not envisage their role as elected representatives in the same way as I did.
When asked about upcoming legislation the Minister had no answers. When asked if he had even discussed the legislative timetable with the Government House Leader, the answer was no. Veterans do not deserve an irresponsible attitude such as this in light of the many areas of concern that still exist.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Roland de Corneille (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reply to the Hon. Member's question. He referred to recommendations made in June of this year by the United Veterans Organizations, that the basic rate of pension be tied permanently to the greater of the composite average income of the five selected categories of public servants, or the Consumer Price Index. The Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. Campbell) assured the Veterans Associations and this House that the recommendation is presently under consideration.
November 18, 1982

In 1972, this Government proposed and Parliament approved that there be an annual automatic adjustment in accordance with Consumer Price Index changes. That this has worked to the great benefit of these pensioners goes without saying.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, as a result of a study presided over by the Chairman of the Canadian Pension Commission, in which there was full and active participation of the veterans organizations, a new basis of establishing the basic rate of pension was arrived at. As a result, the basic rate of pension was substantially increased in 1973.
The formula which was introduced at that time related the pension paid to a 100 per cent disability pensioner, who was unmarried, to the composite average income of five selected categories of unskilled public servants, after income tax is paid at the rate in effect in the Province with the lowest rate. As you know, income tax is not payable on these pensions.
The single 100 per cent pensioner was better off than his composite counterpart in the Public Service until April 1, 1982, when several of the selected categories of public servants had wage adjustments. The basic rate will again be in favour of the 100 per cent unmarried pensioner after January 1, 1983, when the basic rate of pension is increased in accordance with the formula contained in the Pension Act. Eighty per cent of the disability pensioners are married and, therefore, most pensioners at present receive substantially more than the composite public servant who receives nothing extra for being married. Each year, all those in receipt of benefits under the Pension Act are compensated for any increases in the cost of living.
As Hon. Members are aware, the salaries of the selected categories of public servants have already been limited by legislation to increases of 6 per cent and 5 per cent within the next two years. Pensioners, on the other hand, will receive the full benefit of changes in the Consumer Price Index. This should result in a comparatively higher monthly rate. It is obvious that the yearly indexation as presently provided for by the Pension Act is more beneficial than trying to maintain parity with a selected group of public servants.


NEW EMPLOYMENT EXPANSION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM-TIMING OF FUND EXPENDITURES. (B) EXPENDITURES IN QUEBEC
Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, on November 16 of this year I asked the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) a question in this House with regard to the new employment expansion and development Program, the centrepiece of the employment program and the economic statement of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde). I found the Minister's response at that time totally inadequate. That is why I am rising again tonight to put the question; to make it clear so the Government can understand just what the question was. I would hope for a better response this evening.
The reason I rose to ask the question with regard to the NEED program is that in the Minister of Finance's economic
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statement he had claimed that this Program would operate over a period of 18 months, and in that period of 18 months it would create some 60,000 jobs.
We already knew that that description of the Program was an exaggeration, because labour analysts have indicated that as a rule of thumb, with $500 million you can create some
25.000	full-time jobs. When the Government says it will create
60.000	jobs for $500 million, obviously it is not talking about fulltime, full-year jobs, but part-time employment.
Our suspicions with regard to the NEED program were confirmed when the Minister held a press conference. In response to specific questions from the press, he had to admit he was talking about jobs that average between 20 and 30 weeks, which make them short-term jobs. Therefore, the program was being oversold.
I rose the other day because we on this side had learned from the provinces that the Minister was meeting with the provincial ministers of employment, indicating to them that this money was going to be spread over three fiscal years rather than over 18 months. 1 asked the Minister to confirm this. Whether the program lasts for a year and a half, two and a half years or three years is important, as it relates to the number of people who will get jobs and the amount of need this program will fill.
The Minister in a complicated way confirmed that the NEED program will run over three fiscal years and last some two and a half years. Therefore, we are talking about 30 months rather than the 18 months which the Minister of Finance indicated in his economic statement.
The Minister failed to acknowledge or give significance to the fact that the program would last much longer than announced by the Minister of Finance. It is important to acknowledge that if the program runs for 30 rather than 18 months, we will require more than $500 million to accomplish the purposes the Minister said would be accomplished; that is, to provide jobs for people who exhaust their unemployment insurance benefits. The Minister failed to recognize that. Therefore, he has failed in terms of taking greater action to meet the needs of those who run out of unemployment insurance benefits.
In my supplementary question I asked the Minister to acknowledge that under the program some $10 million would be spent in the Province of Quebec which has 23 per cent of its population on welfare or on unemployment insurance. The Minister failed to acknowledge this. He spoke about other figures, diverted attention, but did not deal with the seriousness of the unemployment situation in Quebec and the inadequacy of the Government's employment program as announced by the Minister of Finance.
I am very disappointed with the response of the Minister. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will deal more adequately tonight with the fact that rather than the program lasting for

November 18, 1982
Adjournment Debate
18 months, it will in fact go for two and a half years. How does he expect a program that is already stretched to its limits to serve people for two and a half years rather than a year and a half? Does he expect people to believe that it will meet the needs of those who have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits? The same amount of money that was originally announced for a year and a half will now be spent over two and a half years. Why is there this discrepancy between what was said in the economic statement of the Minister of Finance and what is actually happening?


Mr. Remi Bujold (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I shall try to use the few minutes available to me to explain in clear terms the situation concerning job-creation programs. I believe that one must make a very clear distinction between existing job-creation programs under what we call the Community Development Program and the new job-creation program which we have called NEED. We now have in operation a Community Development Program through which unemployed workers can find a job anywhere in the country. These jobs will be created immediately under the existing program until the spring of 1983. This program will create approximately
25,000	jobs throughout the country.
As far as the NEED Program is concerned, one must make a very clear distinction and know what it is all about. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) were indeed right to speak of an 18-month program, and if we think of three fiscal years and use a little arithmetic, we indeed come to a figure of 18 months. Obviously, those are temporary jobs to
meet the very difficult situation which now exists in Canada. We shall provide temporary jobs for Canadians who have exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits or who will have completed their last 13 weeks.
We are speaking about $500 million to create 60,000 jobs. Obviously, if we were speaking about creating jobs for a one-year period, we would create fewer jobs, but if we provide employment for 12, 20 or 25 weeks, there will be more jobs. In quoting his figures, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Keeper) stated that labour experts were predicting the creation of fewer jobs, but let us look at the program announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and at the criteria given to us. The figure of 18 months has been mentioned and people are trying to say that the program will extend over two and a half years, but let us look at the figures, Mr. Speaker. We say 18 months and the program will come into effect on January 1, 1983. Therefore, there will be three months during the fiscal year 1982-83, then 12 months in the fiscal year 1983-84 and three months in 1984-85. This gives a total of 18 months for three fiscal years. Whatever way you look at it or add it up, the answer is the same and this money will help create jobs. In Quebec, we shall actually spend $10 million during the first three months, but over the 18-month period, we shall be spending $170 million. 1 hope this explanation will clarify the situation. What we want to do is to create
60,000	jobs throughout the country during the next 18 months.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock a.m.
At 10.28 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, November 19, 1982