1982-06-23

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Atlantic Canadians have been brutalized by the government's callous non-efforts to recognize their region as a meaningful part of Canada. A spark was struck for them yesterday by the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen). I move, seconded by the hon. member for Malpeque (Mr. Gass):
That this House give every encouragement to the Minister of Finance not to let that glimmer of hope be extinguished forever on Monday night.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. Len Gustafson (Assiniboia):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. The "Devine" government of Saskatchewan yesterday implemented 13.25 per cent interest rates for home owners in the province of Saskatchewan. I move, seconded by the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil):
That this government do not tax the benefit of the 13.25 per cent interest rate to home owners in the province of Saskatchewan.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 43, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Central Nova (Mr. Mac-Kay):
That before finalizing the Canada-Czechoslovakia agreement resolving outstanding issues between our two countries, which the outgoing Czechoslovakian ambassador has indicated is in its final stages, the Secretary of State for External Affairs make a statement on motions to ensure that, at least, the dual citizenship notion in any such agreement is resolved thereby eliminating the current blackmail tactics employed by the Czech authorities against Canadians of Czech origin visiting Czechoslovakia.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Mark Rose (Mission-Port Moody):: Madam Speaker, I rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. B.C. Telephone Company recently announced that it will lay off up to 2,000 of its employees for six months due to alleged revenue reductions even though the company has received residential rate inreases totalling 18 per cent from the CRTC for this calendar year alone. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker):
That instead of savaging its own employees this House calls on B.C. Tel to solve its alleged financial problems by altering its policy and practice of buying shoddy over-priced hardware from its big mother company in the United States, the General Telephone and Electronics Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut. Further, that this House instruct the CRTC to roll back the 18 per cent increases given to B.C. Tel this year if it persists in this plan to reduce further the already unacceptable quality of service it provides to its subscribers.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

June 23, 1982


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, 1 rise to move a motion under the provisions of Standing Order 43. We have all heard of ten-speed Liberals. I would like the House to acknowledge one-speed MacEachen, that is, reverse. We look forward to his Monday night's reversal with the hope that he will roll back the government's negative economic and energy policies, cut government spending and taxes, and offer some stimulus to job creation and productivity. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie):
That, if the minister is looking for areas to cut government spending and at the same time assist small business as well as consumers, he might look to the Metric Commission which this year will spend about $10 million and which will add untold millions of dollars to the overhead costs of retailers, which will result in higher prices to consumers at the check-out counters.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOLIDAYS ACT
Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Lotbiniere):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of urgent and pressing necessity, under the provisions of Standing Order 43.
In a few days, on the first of July, we shall be celebrating Canada Day, as it is commonly referred to by our news media, commentators, politicians and by the Canadian public. However, the status of Canada Day has yet to be officially sanctioned by law. Consequently, whereas the Constitution was patriated on April 17, 1982, and it would be entirely appropriate to celebrate that event on Canada's birthday, I move, seconded by the hon. members for Bonaventure-lles-de-la-Madeleine (Mr. Bujold), Roberval (Mrs. Beauchamp-Niquet) and Levis (Mr. Gourde):
That the House consider Bill C-37, to amend the Holidays Act, including the status of Canada Day, and that only one member per party be allowed to speak so that the House can deal with all stages of the bill before July 1, 1982, and we can officially celebrate Canada Day on July 1.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43 on an important issue concerning the circumstances surrounding the murder of two city of Moncton policemen in December, 1974. The Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) is by now familiar with my concerns. Given the importance of a decent and rational policy governing the use of paid informers by our police forces and the need for prevention of abuses, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Edmonton North (Mr. Paproski):
That the Solicitor General inform the justice committee, in camera if necessary, whether certain witnesses at the trial of the above-mentioned murderers, while on the witness stand, failed to disclose their relationship with the accused men.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Madam Speaker, recently Canada was greeted with the news that Jack Horner was appointed chairman of the board of CN. Now Canadians who have been told to tighten their belts see that the new chairman is moving his office to Edmonton from the head office in Montreal. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for Waterloo (Mr. McLean):
That this House direct the government (a) to table the costs involved to move the CN chairman's office closer to his ranch, and (b), to announce publicly its new policy which allows the chairmen of boards of Crown corporations to move their offices anywhere they desire.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


HOUSING
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Madam Speaker, it is now over two and a half years since the last budget to address truly
June 23, 1982

the needs of home buyers was introduced in the House of Commons. Under that Conservative budget the average Canadian home owner would have saved $125 a month on mortgage payments as a result of the Progressive Conservative interest deductibility plan. Because of the Liberal-NDP coalition defeating that provision, home owners now face mortgage renewal rates of almost 20 per cent, housing starts are down 50 per cent from last year, and 200,000 construction jobs have been lost. Therefore I move, seconded by the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie):
That the Minister of Finance give his most serious consideration to including a mortgage interest deductibility plan in his latest attempt to formulate a realistic and workable budget, and thereby provide some much-needed relief to the increasingly beleaguered home owners of Canada as well as to the Canadian home construction industry which is currently experiencing its worst year ever.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Since the Skeena federal riding had, as of June 1, 6,949 workers on unemployment insurance, which is 19 per cent of the work force; since, as of May 1, 2,497 families had been forced onto welfare, which brings the total to 25 per cent of the work force; since native people, particularly on reserves, along with those people who have run out of unemployment insurance and those people who long ago decided that there are no jobs and that there is little point in registering at Manpower-and since none of these Canadians shows up in the monthly statistics, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Mission-Port Moody (Mr. Rose):
That the ministers responsible for job creation and unemployment insurance quit announcing phony programs and manipulating Figures and immediately introduce an unemployment insurance extension period for those workers who will run out of benefits in the coming weeks as a result of Liberal and Conservative policies, and that steps be taken to diversify our regional economy.
Also, the forestry employment program which was reannounced yesterday should be redrafted as only two out of 11 projects in northern British Columbia have received approval, while Skeena is a third of British Columbia and the B.C. forest industry paid $220 million in federal taxes last year alone and we want some back.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


FINANCE
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Madam Speaker, one of the many tax grab measures contained in the government's November budget was that which affected life insurance policyholders. In light of the fact that the total extra tax value of this measure would contribute a negligible amount to government coffers, yet had a detrimental financial effect on some 9 million policy holders who are still up in arms over the issue, and that the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) plans to introduce a new budget in the House on Monday night, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings (Mr. Ellis):
That the Minister of Finance in his new budget announce his intention of withdrawing this punitive tax measure involving life insurance policies.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


RAILWAYS
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a matter of pressing necessity under the provisions of Standing Order 43. Given that the Minister of Transport is proceeding to change the statutory Crowsnest Pass freight rate without the consent of those who live and work in western Canada, and given the fact that 12,000 of these persons are protesting this action through a petitions which will be filed in the House of Commons by myself and other members of the New Democratic Party caucus, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Humboldt-Lake Centre (Mr. Althouse):
That the Minister of Transport stop all plans to change the Crow rate and immediately place a producer referendum before western grain growers which will decide whether they wish the Crow rate continued and that a parliamentary committee be struck to ascertain the views of all persons in the west who will be affected by a change in the Crow rate.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.

June 23, 1982
18798_______________________________________
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, I had intended to put my question today to the Minister of Finance but he is, right this minute, outside the House of Commons giving television interviews when he should be here answering questions.
I will put my question to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows that Canada is suffering from a crisis in confidence. Inflation has increased 2.4 per cent since February, 1980; unemployment has increased by over 350,000 people; interest rates have increased by over 3 percentage points, and the Canadian dollar has fallen almost ten cents since this government came into office.
In view of the fact that economic conditions are the worst in over 40 years, does the Prime Minister realize that this is the most important budget that will have been presented in the House of Commons during his term of office and that it cannot simply be a cosmetic update of last year's November budget?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of State (Finance)):: Madam Speaker, it goes without saying that the Minister of Finance is very much aware of the many problems facing our country and other western countries. He does not need the hon. member's rhetoric to make him aware of these problems, and he is equally aware that there is a limit to the resources available to the government to cope with them. With the means at his disposal, the minister will try to deal with these problems as satisfactorily as is possible and help Canadians get through the present difficult period.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: If the Minister of Finance felt so strongly about these economic problems, why does he not have the guts to be here to answer these questions?


POSITION OF MINISTER OF FINANCE
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker,
I will ask my supplementary question of the Prime Minister. Due to the failure of the Minister of Finance to design a budget last year to address the economic problems today, and because that budget, in fact, compounded the economic problems of today, will the Minister of Finance, in the face of this failure, follow the accepted parliamentray tradition and offer his resignation to the Prime Minister before presenting this new budget so that the Prime Minister will have the flexibility to accept a new man to put a fresh face on economic policy in this country?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, I do not quite understand the nature of the
hon. member's question. He is complaining about the fact the Minister of Finance is not in the House today-the minister is in the House as often as he can be-while the hon. member has previously been fond of complaining that the Minister of Finance does not give press interviews or does not make enough speeches outside the House, and now, when he does, the hon. member has the gall to complain. I would ask him to please be patient on both counts, and to wait until Monday, when he will realize that the Minister of Finance has a very clear grasp of the problems besetting Canadians and that he is more than competent to respond to the present situation.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Possibly the Prime Minister is indicating who his new Minister of Finance will be.


EXCHANGE VALUE OF DOLLAR
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, let me ask a question which must be answered by the Prime Minister. Yesterday the value of the Canadian dollar dropped following the announcement that there would be a budget speech. There is uncertainty in the market today. There will continue to be uncertainty until Monday night when the budget is brought down. Would the Prime Minister take this opportunity to allay that uncertainty in the marketplace by stating whether or not the government is proposing to continue the monetary policy it has been following and whether or not the stabilization of the Canadian dollar will be a primary objective of this forthcoming budget speech?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, the hon. member is wondering about our fluctuating dollar and trying to see the dollar's fluctuation as a sign. He should have wondered-if his leader would stop talking, perhaps the member for Etobicoke Centre could at least have the courtesy, I would not say to listen but to at least make a pretence of listening to the answers. Respect for Parliament, Madam Speaker, starts here. So instead of starting to wonder during the past few days about the downward pressure on the dollar, the hon. member should look at what has been happening for several months and stop looking for simplistic causes for phenomena that are infinitely complex.


REQUEST THAT TAX LEGISLATION BE INTRODUCED FOLLOWING BUDGET PRESENTATION
Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question, too, is directed to the Prime Minister, since the Minister of Finance is chatting up the tourists and taking the air on Parliament Hill.
June 23, 1982


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pat Carney: In light of the fact that there has been very little legislation introduced since the November 12 budget, creating terrible uncertainty in the country, will the Minister of Finance be introducing specific tax legislation immediately, or are we faced with a summer of uncertainty after our winter of discontent?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, as the members of this House know, the Minister of Finance, as far as last November's budget is concerned, has already introduced transitional measures which have removed any uncertainty as to the nature and scope of the measures in question. Regarding the rest of the question and the possibility of further measures, I would ask the hon. member to wait until Monday evening, when the Minister of Finance will make his statement.


ECONOMIC COUNCIL PROPOSAL TO CREATE JOBS
Pat Carney: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the minister of employment following the failure of the Prime Minister or the Minister of Finance to account to this House. The Economic Council of Canada, which is an advisory body reporting to the Prime Minister, states that the best way to create 100,000 new jobs in the private sector would be to allocate up to $450 million in direct cash wage subsidies. The Council states this would be the best way because it would be a non-inflationary way of creating more jobs. Since the minister has allocated only $36 million, or about one twelfth of the amount suggested by the Council for direct wage subsidies, does he plan to redirect more funds into this kind of program which will produce jobs now when people need them?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, to begin, I would like to say that the Economic Council report, which I was very pleased to receive yesterday, basically endorses the general thrust and direction of the government, including its major emphasis on the training and retraining of workers to meet the skills shortage and, in particular, as the Council stated-


Pat Carney: Answer the question.


Lloyd Axworthy: -to ensure that at this time, when there are lay-offs in many industries, we use the time so workers can improve their skills.


Pat Carney: Answer the question.


Lloyd Axworthy: As far as job conditions are concerned, the fact is that we are now spending close to $500 million, not $36 million, on a wide variety of job-creation programs for the
Oral Questions
handicapped, students, young people, and for people in high unemployment areas. Our approach to it has been a balanced, plural approach, so that we can meet each problem and target into it. We do not simply take one-dimensional approaches which would solve only one part of the problem.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REPORTED STATEMENT BY BANK OF CANADA GOVERNOR
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. On the very day that the Minister of Finance was announcing in the House of Commons that there would be a new budget, and was raising at least the prospect of a change in the financial direction of the government, to which everyone in this country is looking forward, the Governor of the Bank of Canada said in Winnipeg, and I have in my hand today's press report illustrating the point, that there will be no change in the high interest rate policy of the government. My question to the Prime Minister is as follows, and it gets to the root of the responsibility in the parliamentary system of government: who is in charge of the financial policy of the Government of Canada? Is it the government that was elected, or is it the Governor of the Bank of Canada?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, I have not seen a copy of the speech, but I am certain that the Governor of the Bank did not say there will be no change in the high interest rate policy of the government.


John Edward Broadbent: I suggest that the Prime Minister get a copy of the speech and read the quotes with care. Mr. Bouey makes it abundantly clear that, in terms of his responsibility, there will not be a change in the interest rate policy. As a senior servant responsible to the people of Canada, that is a sheer derogation of responsibility in advance of anticipated budget changes.


REQUEST THAT BYELECTIONS BE HELD
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I have another question concerning the matter of responsibility. On May 11 I asked the Prime Minister a question with regard to the need for the people in the constituencies of Timiskaming, Broadview-Greenwood and Leeds-Grenville to have their democratic right respected to have members elected to this House by calling by elections. In turning down that appeal, the Prime Minister said:

June 23, 1982
Oral Questions
1 think the first step in ascertaining what the people think would be to convey to them clear facts and thoughts-
Will the Prime Minister test the people of Canada? Will he ascertain their response to the forthcoming budget by living up to his democratic responsibility and letting the people in these three constituencies have a member by announcing the date of those byelections?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I suggest we hear the message from the budget first. When the hon. member has heard it, perhaps he will not want a byelection because it is so good.


John Edward Broadbent: I believe in miracles, but I do not believe in what the Prime Minister is suggesting to be a possibility.


RIGHT TO REPRESENTATION
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, once again the Prime Minister has evaded the democratic right of the people of Canada by not dealing with the issue directly. Does he not think it is his moral responsibility to give to the people in these three constituencies, who have been without a member for more than six months, the right to have someone here to express his or her views on their behalf, and specifically to put his budget proposals to the test by having byelections in those three areas?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I think there is some posturing in the question. The hon. member talks about a moral responsibility. Is he suggesting that the law passed by this House, which gives the Prime Minister six months to make that decision, is immoral in some way?


John Edward Broadbent: How about the distinction between legality and morality?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If the hon. member wants to explain to me why it is legal but immoral, I will listen to him.


POSITION OF PRIME MINISTER
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, why is the Prime Minister afraid to call the three federal byelections?


Some hon. Members:: No answer.


INQUIRY RESPECTING DATE OF BYELECTIONS
Charles Joseph Clark: The
Prime Minister is also afraid to answer the question. Will he tell the House of Commons when the electors in Broadview-Greenwood, Leeds-Grenville and Timiskaming will have the right to have elected representatives here in this House of Commons so that those thousands of Canadians will not be
denied their democratic right? When will those byelections be held?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, how can the Leader of the Opposition talk of denying democratic rights when the law of this country says specifically that the Prime Minister has six months to make that announcement? If I go beyond those six months, I will be both immoral and illegal in denying the people their rights. However, if I am following the law, I do not see why the hon. member should be free to interpret it in some other way.


REASONS FOR PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
Charles Joseph Clark: Madam Speaker, if the Prime Minister can find Liberal candidates in those ridings, they may well content themselves with those academic arguments for denying citizens of Canada the right to be represented here in the Parliament of Canada. We in this party, and it is certainly the case in the New Democratic Party, believe that the people of Canada have a right to be represented here in the House of Commons of Canada. The Prime Minister has the power today to call those byelections. Only a lack of courage can explain his failure to call those byelections. Why will he not call them and, if he has found the courage, when will those byelections be?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, if the hon. member really believes that, he should be introducing a private member's bill suggesting that the six months allowed to call an election should be shortened. Why does he not have the courage to follow his own suggestions?


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


HOUSING
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the minister responsible for housing. With housing starts down by 51 per cent, and with mortgage interest rates back up to 20 per cent, the minister must surely realize that the housing industry is teetering on the brink of collapse. Is the minister prepared to take the money for the Canada rental supply plan, which is not being taken up, for reasons which are well known to the minister, and redirect that money into co-operative and low-cost housing?
June 23, 1982


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, the reason why the Canada rental supply plan has not been taken up as yet is apparent to most members of the House, but obviously not to the hon. member. The plan, introduced in the budget, had $350 million allocated to it. It was designed to give a $7,500 interest free loan to encourage builders to come in and build new homes. The corporation, after that plan was passed by this Parliament, after a three-month delay-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Paul James Cosgrove: -after this government had to use closure to get the bill through the House, advertised it to the building community. Within a very few short weeks, some 2,500 developers who applied will be taking it up, and building will be under way. It will be a successful program.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


MINISTER'S ADVICE
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, the minister seems to be out of touch with reality. He is certainly out of touch with what is going on out there. Perhaps, Madam Speaker, he might be able to explain to the House and to the country, as half a million Canadians face mortgage renewals, as mortgage interest rates hover around 20 per cent, why only 883 people have qualified for the deferral of interest payments plan, and only 497 have qualified for the one-time grant of $3,000? These are the people to be protected, the so-called "dire straits" cases. What explanation does he have about that?
While he is on his feet, perhaps he could tell us what hope he has to offer to the 500,000 Canadians who are facing mortgage renewals, many of whom, the minister knows by the advice he gave his colleagues, will be forced to walk away from their homes, their dreams, their life savings, and face foreclosure? What advice does he have to give to them, on the eve of the minister's new budget?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, probably the most welcome point that I could make to the hon. gentleman and to Canadians is to remind them that this government will not accept the advice and the report and the study and the research done for the former minister of housing in the Conservative government. We will not accept the report prepared by the former president of the Conservative Party of Canada, who recommended that the government withdraw from social housing, privatize CMHC, not support non-profit housing and go away directly from the rehabilitation of homes. We will not do those things.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions


FOREIGN INVESTMENT REVIEW AGENCY
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance who, rather than come in here to face the music, after agreeing to bring down a new budget, is hiding and running like a titmouse to his corner-


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: -I have a question for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Most observers have said that we have to convince domestic and foreign investors that their investment is needed in Canada-that it will be welcomed and secured and will not be endangered retroactively-if we are going to overcome our economic problems. In fact one observer has said that if we want to correct our unemployment, we have to create an investment climate where people will have confidence in the future.
Is the minister prepared to make changes in the FIRA program so that it will be more streamlined, so that it will facilitate the climate for investment in Canada, for example, by making the limits apply only to large proposed transactions, to give automatic approvals if 90 days have passed without the applicant hearing, and that kind of action. Is the minister prepared to do that, to carry out those principles and help overcome unemployment?


Hon. Herb Gray (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Madam Speaker, we have been carrying out an administrative review of FIRA, as we said we would do in the economic development document last fall. We hope to reach some conclusions on that before too long. I want to remind my hon. friend that most forms of investment in this country are not dealt with in any way by the FIRA process, for example, investment in the form of debt, equity investment of a noncontrolling nature, investment by Canadians, as well as any form of investment by the existing foreign-controlled sector, and any way related to what they are already doing. Where the Foreign Investment Review Act applies its basic purpose is to assure benefit for Canadians from the project in question. That is basically a good deal, both for the investor and for the Canadian economy. I do not know why my hon. friend should be in any way opposed to that.


REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT REVERSE POLICIES
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, if the minister looks in the mirror he will see one of the main reasons why there is no confidence, by investors in this country, any longer. The investor, whether he is Canadian or foreign, has been made to feel like a leper here in Canada, due to the statements and hostile attitudes of the minister and his

June 23, 1982
Oral Questions
government. Are those hostile attitudes and statements going to be reversed? Will concrete steps be taken to welcome foreign investors into this country, as long as they comply with our laws? Will he do that, in order to give employment in places like the Atlantic provinces and other parts of Canada where employment is no longer being created? Will he take some steps to undo the fantastic damage that has been done in the last 27 months?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I think my friend is totally inaccurate when he suggests that I have made hostile statements of the type he has alleged. My basic approach is that investment is certainly welcome as long as, as he says, it meets our laws. Those laws involve showing significant benefit to Canadians. In fact the latest balance of payment figures show that long-term investment is up $ 1 billion in the first quarter of this year compared to the last quarter of last year.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: When it comes to looking in the mirror, he ought to remember what happened when the Canadian people looked at him in the election two years ago. They threw him right out of office-and it will happen again.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: You have not learned very much. Wait until they get their chance.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Mr. Jack Burghardt (London West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. Would he please give the House the details about the alleged deal the minister is reported to have made with Simon Wiesenthal in the arrest of suspected Nazi war criminal Albert Rauca?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General):: Madam Speaker, following the arrest and arraignment of Albert Rauca, I received a telephone call from Simon Wiesenthal in which he made some representations to me about it. But I want to inform the House that that was the first time this particular individual had ever been mentioned to me or, from what I can find, to the Government of Canada, by Simon Wiesenthal or anyone on his behalf. I want to inform the House, as well, that there is no such agreement as that referred to in the Ottawa Citizen article this morning.


HOUSING
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. He makes no distinction between legality and morality. It may well be legal to charge 20 per cent interest rates on mortgages, but it is immoral when people lose their homes because they cannot afford to make the payments. I ask the Prime Minister, with this in his mind, is it because he lives in public housing that the government is not prepared to bring in some kind of interest rate relief for mortgage holders? Is it because he is out of touch with reality that he refuses to give the people in those three ridings the opportunity to express their opinion on government policy by holding byelections?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I am not quite sure of the relevance of the question. The hon. member talks about the immorality of these interest rates which cause people to lose their homes. Is he suggesting that the people who buy Canadian government bonds at 19 per cent are immoral? Is he?


Ian Deans: You are out of touch.


REQUEST FOR POSTPONEMENT OF OIL TAX INCREASE
Mark Willson Rose: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question. One of the reasons we are having difficulty in our country and industry after industry is closing down is that the Government of Canada offered Canada Savings Bonds at a rate far higher than many companies can make, including companies in the mining industry, to get a return on their investment. If the government refuses to abandon its obscene interest policies, the cost of living inflation will be further compounded by an increase in natural gas and oil taxes, taking another $1.8 billion out of consumer's pockets.
My question is directed to the Prime Minister. If Governor Bouey refuses to let the government scrap its high interest rate policy, will the government, through the Prime Minister, at least enter into negotiations with the producing provinces to delay at least for six months the imposition of these added fuel taxes in order to give a modicum of relief to the terribly hard pressed consumers of this country?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, in his preamble, the hon. member referred to an expression that he should remove from his vocabulary.
June 23, 1982

Regarding the government's high interest policy, the hon. member should remember that high interest rates are the result of a situation that the government is fighting against, namely, high inflation rates, and the hon. member should join the government in its efforts to get rid of high inflation rates, which would indeed bring interest rates down to much lower levels, thereby immensely improving our economic climate, as the hon. member is asking.


INCOME TAX
Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue, who will know that one of the items in the November, 1981, budget related to the repeal of provisions of the Income Tax Act granting the right to acquire, for tax advantage, incomeaveraging annuity contracts. That repeal was to be effective for the 1982 taxation year and not the 1981 taxation year.
A certain Richard Griffith, one of my constituents-as did other Canadian taxpayers-filed his tax return for 1981 on the assumption that his income averaging-annuity contract would be treated under the provisions of the budget of November 12, 1981. However, he has not been so assessed. Canadian taxpayers have not been assessed, and they have not been in receipt of the refunds to which they are entitled under the provisions of that budget, having been advised by Revenue Canada that refunds will not be processed until amendments to the Income Tax Act reflecting budgetary changes have been passed by this House.
Will the minister indicate to those taxpayers and to this House that he will instruct his officials to process those refunds to which taxpayers are entitled as though the enabling legislation in fact had been passed by this House?


Hon. William Rompkey (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, we gave taxpayers a choice. We encouraged them to file their returns according to the provisions in the budget, but we also gave them the choice of having their returns calculated on the present law or the future law. I have read the article in the Sun that the hon. member has read. It is a specific case. It is true that we have to issue refunds according to the statutory limitations as they exist at the present time. If the budget provisions are over and above that, then further refunds will be forthcoming at a later date.
However, I have to point out that this applies to a very, very limited number of people, and in the case of the gentleman in question he is in a pretty high income bracket, I suggest, because I understand he is getting thousands of dollars by way of refund, which is not true for most people, including me.


Miss MacDonald:: It is his money.
Oral Questions


Bill Rompkey: There are very few people whose 1981 returns will be affected. Let me give some figures. So far we have received over 14.7 million returns as opposed to 14.4 million returns in 1981. In 1982 we have issued almost ten million refunds as opposed to 9,847,740 in 1981. There are no refunds being held up. No refunds are being stockpiled, but we are processing them according to the present statutory limitations.


REQUEST THAT REFUNDS BE ISSUED
John Albert Gamble: Madam Speaker, regardless of the fact that this gentleman may have a rather substantial income, the issue remains the same. The money belongs to him, and it should be refunded. What the minister has said in this House is in conflict with what the taxpayer has been advised and what officers of the minister's department have said. On the basis of that disclosure, will the minister now instruct his officials to refund, specifically to this gentleman and to all other taxpayers who fall into this category, the moneys to which they are entitled under the provisions of the law as they now stand?


Bill Rompkey: Madam Speaker, I gave that assurance in my previous answer. We are issuing refunds up to the present statutory limitations. That is what is being done. That is what will be done.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION FROM SICILY
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour of drawing the attention of the House to the distinguished presence in our gallery of a delegation of parliamentarians from Sicily, headed by the Hon. Mario D'Acquisto, President of Sicily, who is accompanied by the Hon. Salvatore Natoli, provincial Minister of Tourism and Transport, and regional members.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Madam Speaker, my question was for the Minister of Justice in his role as Minister of State for Social Development. He was in the House a moment ago. In his absence I will direct my question to the Prime Minister.
On November 3 of last year I asked the Secretary of State whether the give and take tax proposals which have been put forward by the national voluntary agencies would be a part of the budget. He replied that he would see that they would be

June 23, 1982
Oral Questions
taken to the cabinet and see that the cabinet had an occasion to examine particular propositions carefully and that the matter would be processed without unreasonable delay. The November 12 budget ignored the voluntary sector and its three million volunteers who provide caring.
Last week in questioning in the House the Minister of Finance said he had no representations whatsoever from the Secretary of State regarding these important proposals put forward by the national voluntary agencies in terms of give and take tax proposals and postal rates. My question-


Madam Speaker:: Order. That really is exaggerated. I remind hon. members that they must ask questions.


Walter Franklin McLean: Very simply, Madam Speaker, in light of this time frame and in light of the need that is there in the voluntary sector, will the minister see that these proposals, which have been on the table for this length of time, are discussed before Monday's budget is introduced?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Justice and Minister of State for Social Development):: Madam Speaker, this question has been raised several times in cabinet by me personally and by some of my colleagues. However, it is a matter for the Minister of Finance, and if any decision is made to that effect, it will be announced in the budget.


MINES AND MINING
Mr. Thomas Siddon (Richmond-South Delta):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Mines. This Friday the Adams mine at Kirkland Lake will lay off 460 workers for five weeks, as will the Sherman mine at Temagami on July 6 for 11 weeks, the Griffith mine at Bruce Lake, and the Algoma mine at Wawa. All told, these lay-offs will affect over 2,100 mine workers in northern Ontario. The minister knows full well that these mines supply their entire iron ore and pellet production to the steel mills of Ontario and to the Canadian manufacturing industry, which has been heavily devastated by the inappropriate November 12 budget, the Alsands collapse, and the National Energy Program.
Will the minister assure the House that she has recommended specific measures to prevent these pending lay-offs in northern Ontario from becoming permanent casualities of the Liberal scheme to "scare hell out of Canadians?" Will there be specific and immediate measures in the budget to be brought down next Monday?


Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of State (Mines)):: Madam Speaker, I am delighted that the hon. member has finally been able to locate the mines and the ores in the proper places. I compliment him.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Judith A. Erola: I should like to inform the hon. member that through Section 38 we have been able to employ many of those miners who have been laid out-


Mr. Lewis:: Laid out?


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Judith A. Erola: -and 1 welcome this opportunity to inform members of this House, particularly those members in B.C. and other areas of the country affected, that Section 38 is there and should be used. I am very disturbed that there are many parts of this country where Section 38 is not in effect, simply because hon. members have not done their jobs.

[ Translation]


HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
Mrs. Eva Cote (Rimouski-Temiscouata):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Last weekend, the minister had a meeting with the Quebec federation of victims of UFFI. First, I would like to know what the results were of this meeting and second, yesterday and today the media reported that 18 cases of cancer, allegedly due to UFFI, although there was no scientific proof, had been discovered in the province or throughout Canada. Among these 18 cases, there were said to have been eight deaths. I would like to know whether the minister is aware of this, and whether the situation is as serious as it appears?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I can confirm that on the weekend 1 met the 13 representatives of associations of owners of homes insulated with UFFI, who sit on the National Advisory Council that was created to assist and advise me in connection with the government assistance program. The association representatives made four major recommendations which would partly modify certain aspects of our assistance program. I gave them the assurance that I would examine the recommendations as soon as possible, and in this connection, I told the chairman of this association that I wanted to meet the Advisory Committee next Saturday morning when I would reply to the suggestions they made on the weekend.
As for the hon. member's second question about articles discussing the possibility that people had died from the effects of this product, I must say that no scientific connection has been established between UFFI and cancer in humans. This was the answer I was given following consultations with the
June 23, 1982

Department of National Health and Welfare and the National Research Council. However, I can inform the House that my colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, has just authorized a grant of more than $200,000 to Dr. Nantel in Quebec City to help him continue his research in this area. We hope to obtain information, not only for the sake of informing the public but also to remove any unwarranted concern.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister confirm or deny the understanding of the Public Service Alliance of Canada that the Government of Canada, in co-operation with the governments of the United States and Great Britain, has agreed to institute a five-year public service austerity program, the first and second years of which will freeze salaries above $25,000 and result in strict limitations on contract negotiations, and mass reductions in staff and services to the public?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I must say I had not heard of it, Madam Speaker. It is probably not true.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister has told us today what many of us have always suspected about the nature of Liberal morality. Whatever is legal is moral, and no distinction is to be made between what you can get away with and what is morally right. It is no wonder that our society is disintegrating. While the government has been flying kites on income restraint or controls, Canadians over the age of 65 and those who may be younger but are on disability pensions, some 10 per cent of the population, have had their incomes severely restrained for too long already.
Will the Prime Minister assure retired Canadians that action will be forthcoming on pensions, that the budget will indicate the intention of the government to increase the GIS and CPP disability pensions immediately, and that more comprehensive reform of both private and public pension schemes will soon be on the agenda of this House and not put off? Or does the Prime Minister maintain that because the poverty-


Mr. Cousineau:: Sit down.


Madam Speaker:: Order.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: -of so many senior citizens is legal-
Oral Questions


Madam Speaker:: Order.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: -there is therefore nothing wrong with it?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I thank the member for his little homily on morality, Madam Speaker, but I am sure he would have helped me to understand his concept of morality better if he had been able to help his colleague sitting in front of him answer the question I asked him.


Ian Deans: I will gladly answer it. I will answer it after question period.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If it is-well, Madam Speaker, they are discussing it among themselves. Let that be concluded.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Gordon Gilchrist (Scarborough East):: Madam Speaker, I would have liked to address my question to the Minister of State for Science and Technology or the Minister of Finance, who are both away, and who failed to collaborate in the last budget to produce a single dollar's worth of research funding leading to industrial job creation and regeneration. Therefore I will ask the Prime Minister if he believes that in this budget there will be funds allocated for research and industrial development to create legitimate jobs rather than just spending money funded by increased deficits, which is the fundamental difference between Conservative policy and Liberal policy? Will there be job-creation through industrial research and development funding carried forward in this budget?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, the hon. member should review the funds allotted to the various research councils. This would show him the government is making a serious effort to help research and development in this country. I would also remind him that he probably did not know how to make his colleagues realize the significance of it because to my great surprise, hon. members from his party voted against the medical sciences research estimates earlier this week, Monday night, when estimates were passed.


QUERY RESPECTING GOVERNMENT POLICIES
James Gordon Gilchrist: Another nonanswer, Madam Speaker. Will the Prime Minister at least assure the House that there will not be an absence of funding which would stand in the way of legitimate research and job creation in this country? Many of the principles contained in the last budget actually work against the interests of an industrial society in Canada. Would the Prime Minister assure

June 23, 1982
Oral Questions
us that his policies will not work against investment and job creation, or be funded by deficits?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, as I indicated earlier, the government's commitment to research and development is well known. This government has no intention of changing its policies, and I invite the hon. member to make representations to his colleagues in order that they approve any new government initiative in that area.


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Hon. John A. Fraser (Vancouver South):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Finance who will remember that on June 18 my colleague, the hon. member for Haldimand-Norfolk, raised the question of the recent budget changes in the capital cost allowance for daily rental cars as opposed to leased cars. At that time the Minister of Finance said my colleague obviously had his facts wrong and there was not a problem here.
In view of the fact that I have now received exactly the same representations from the industry, can the minister tell the House whether the Department of Finance has received and looked at the representations made by the industry, especially the leasing industry, and are any steps being taken to straighten out this situation because there is an unfair anomaly here?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, the department received representations from the car leasing industry; they were reviewed. However, I am not aware of the final recommendations that may have been made to the Minister of Finance.


REQUEST THAT MINISTER SUPPORT REPRESENTATIONS
John Allen Fraser: I wonder if the minister could assure this House, now that there have been two representations made within a matter of a few days, that he will speak directly to the Minister of Finance and personally make sure that the concerns of the leasing industry are met, and quickly.
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that the Minister of Finance paid close attention to the review of representations made by the automobile dealer association in respect of the capital cost allowance on car leasing. However, before accepting or rejecting the claims in the brief, the hon.
member will agree that an assessment of the points made in the representations must be made, to see whether they are justified, and I imagine that, based on that assessment, the Minister of Finance will take a decision and announce it to the hon. member.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Ian Watson (Chateauguay):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Right Hon. Prime Minister about the situation in Lebanon. According to the Red Cross, the invasion of Lebanon by Israel has allegedly resulted so far in more than 10,000 deaths, mosts of them innocent civilians.

The Lebanese authorities indicate the death toll may be closer to 20,000.

Since Irish General Callaghan, commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, has revealed that the cease fire in force since July 24, 1981 had been respected by the PLO and that British Prime Minister Thatcher has indicated that the PLO had not been party to the recent attempt against the Israeli ambassador in Great Britain, this would amount to a blatant and wanton aggression on the part of Israel. Is the Government of Canada considering taking concrete steps and imposing trade sanctions as well as recognizing the Palestinian people with a view to exerting pressures on Israel to encourage it to respect the basic principles of international law?

Is the Prime Minister now prepared to indicate to Israel that if the wanton killing and injury of civilians in Beirut continues, Canada will implement sanctions?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I believe this question has been answered before by the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The Government of Canada is not considering any sanctions at this time. We are, I think, keeping pretty close to a line that was adopted by the United Nations, which has not asked for sanctions and, indeed, a unanimous resolution of this House. On June 8, while I was away, a motion moved by the hon. member for St. John's West was passed. In part it reads:
That this House support the resolution of the United Nations Security Council calling for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all Israeli military forces from Lebanon-
That is a position which the House supported unanimously. I take it the House would still support that today, but we are not envisaging sanctions.
.
-******	******..
June 23, 1982


PETITIONS
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table the report of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petitions presented by hon. members on Tuesday, June 22, 1982, and finds that they meet the requirements of the standing orders as to form.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Philip Derek Lewis: Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the government House leader to give us some indication as to the business of the House for the next week and beyond.


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, we have had consultations and we have come to an agreement as far as business for Monday afternoon is concerned. It relates to the access to information bill. We have agreed to have completed both the report stage and third reading stage of that bill by 5.45 p.m. Monday. Therefore, I seek unanimous consent for the following motion:
That no later than 5.45 p.m. on Monday, June 28, 1982, the Speaker shall interrupt any proceedings and put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment all questions necessary for the disposal of the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-43, an act to enact the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, to amend the Federal Court Act and the Canada Evidence Act, to amend certain other acts in consequence thereof.


Madam Speaker:: Does the House give its unanimous consent to the motion as read by the President of the Privy Council?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, as far as today is concerned, the business of the House has been announced. Next week, Monday, as I indicated earlier, we shall complete consideration of the report stage and third reading of the access to information bill, and at 5.45 p.m., the debate will be interrupted in order to put all questions. Monday evening we shall have the budget speech, and Tuesday and Wednesday will be the first two days set aside for debate on the budget.
As far as the rest of the week is concerned, since July 1 is Canada Day for most members, the House will not sit until Monday the following week.


Philip Derek Lewis: Madam Speaker, something has come up since 1 had an opportunity to speak to the government House leader. I would ask him, if I may, to intervene with the finance minister respecting the normal lockup which takes place for opposition spokesmen and the media concerning the budget on Monday
Business of the House
night. The government House leader will realize that in order for opposition spokespersons to do a proper job, to inform themselves and also to ask questions of finance department officials, it is necessary to have some time to consider the presentation on Monday night. We have been trying to reach the Minister of Finance and 1 would ask the government House leader to use his good office to ensure the normal lockup for the opposition and the media.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, if a formula can be found to make sure that we can have the budget speech first rather than those of the critics, I might consider reporting that request to the Minister of Finance. There is no standing order forcing the Minister of Finance to act in any way in that respect. But the remarks of the hon. member are on record and I will probably see that the Minister of Finance has the opportunity to read Hansard.


Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, on the matter of House business, I would like to support the position taken by the acting House leader for the official opposition with regard to making arrangements for lockup. I think it is vitally important that members who are responsible for dealing with budgetary matters be given the opportunity to be briefed appropriately on those provisions contained in the budget.
I would like to ask two other questions, however. One is with regard to the Small Businesses Loans Act. It has been brought to my attention that the Small Businesses Loans Act requires extension before the end of June in order to ensure that the banks will be able to lend moneys necessary and to receive the guarantees required so that small businesses can continue their business operations. Would the government House leader give some thought during the course of the afternoon as to when we might find the time between now and next Wednesday to accommodate what appears to be an important matter?
My other question is with regard to Wednesday next. Would the government House leader consider again the possibility of the House sitting at other than its normal sitting hours on Wednesday next and without in any way reducing the number of hours that we would normally sit? Perhaps we could sit between ten o'clock in the morning and two o'clock in the afternoon, or between nine o'clock and one o'clock, or between eleven o'clock and three o'clock-whatever is appropriate-so that members who have to travel a far distance, to British Columbia and other points, can go to their constituencies and be there on July 1 to take part in the festivities and to represent properly the federal presence in the July 1 celebrations.


Mr. Crosby:: Tell us how interested you are in Canada Day.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, as to the hon. member's last request, I heard the hon. member for Halifax West say that he might be interested in Canada Day. It is a surprise to me to know that all Tories think the same way.


Some hon. Members:: Oh, oh!

June 23, 1982
Business of the House


Yvon Pinard: I am very serious when I say that Canada Day is most important. I want to assure the Tory party that we are very serious on this side. I make the offer right now. If hon. members want the Canada bill now, we will have it as the first item today, provided we can conclude the debate before six o'clock tonight.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Yvon Pinard: I am sure the Tories will refuse that offer.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Howard Edward Crosby: Let us solve other problems first.


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, the question is whether we could sit earlier than at the normal hour next Wednesday to allow members who are interested in celebrating Canada Day more time to travel.


Some hon. Members:: Dominion Day.


Yvon Pinard: I want to report to the hon. member that we made the suggestion. I know that he agrees, but it is the Tory Party which has refused, so under the circumstances we will sit during normal hours. I am willing to reconsider the matter and again to put forward the proposal that we sit from nine to one o'clock, ten to two o'clock, or eleven to three o'clock next Wednesday in order to allow the vote to be taken earlier than at six o'clock, so that members can leave to celebrate Canada Day or, for some of them, Dominion Day.
On the second request concerning the Small Businesses Loans Act, it was brought to the attention of the opposition a few weeks ago. We had negotiations on it. Now that it is known that there will be a budget speech, I presume it will be easier to obtain an agreement to get that bill through all stages without debate. I am willing to hear any good suggestions so that it can be done any time before next Wednesday.


Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Madam Speaker, I rise on the same point of order raised by the hon. member for Simcoe North regarding the lockup. I would ask you, Madam Speaker, as protector of the rights of hon. members of the House, to ensure that the budget speech is delivered first in the House, so that all members of the House have the same rights and privileges and so that Canadian people can hear the budget as the minister delivers it, not as some commentator with the CBC or some other outfit decides to interpret it, or not as some critic for the opposition decides to interpret it, before the budget is even delivered.
If the opposition and the press are not smart enough to follow the minister's speech, it seems to me that that is their problem, not the problem of the other members of the House. I want an assurance that the rights of all members of the House will be protected to hear the budget first.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Philip Derek Lewis: Madam Speaker, in discussing further the business of the House, I should like to point out that the latest reference to July 1 is a lot more clean-cut than the one the government House leader made at two o'clock on Tuesday morning when there was no one from the official opposition in the House.


Some hon. Members:: Why, why?


Philip Derek Lewis: This one is a lot more straightforward.
Returning to the intervention of the hon. member opposite with respect to budget night, there is absolutely no way the opposition, members of our party or members of the NDP, could properly brief themselves without having some time to review the documents and to question the minister's officials. That is the only fair and appropriate way to do it. It just does not make any sense, as regards the efficient operation of this business and what is coming before the country on Monday evening, to do otherwise. Otherwise, we run a great risk with opposition spokesmen and with the media.


Madam Speaker:: Hon. members have made their points about the lockup. I am sure they realize that this has nothing to do with the Standing Orders. Those kinds of arrangements are made between departments and members of the opposition. The Speaker has no authority whatsoever to implement such a proposal.


Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, on this point of the lockup, I am really quite distressed that the government and its supporters are taking the very negative position which they are. I want to ask-


Mr. Gauthier:: I am getting fed up.


Ian Deans: I get fed up with you, but I do not stop you from coming here.


René Cousineau: Address the Chair.


Ian Deans: I gather I am not the only one fed up with the Liberals, judging from the Gallup poll.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: I wonder whether I might ask the government House leader two things with regard to the possible lockup. First, is it true that the Liberal caucus voted not to have one? Second, will the government House leader make a proposal to us at a meeting some time today at which we can look, with the possibility of having that lockup available for members of the opposition and members of the press?


Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, on the first question, obviously the hon. member knows that what goes on in caucus should stay in caucus. I am certainly not the one who will render those discussions public. I do not know whether or not that subject was discussed. If it was, I cannot mention anything about it. If it was not, it is easier for me not to say anything.
June 23, 1982

On the second question, in the past when a lockup was held or discussed, it was discussed at the level of the Minister of Finance, his officials and his critics, not at the level of House leaders. In so far as I am concerned, I have preferences. I would not mind a lockup at ten o'clock on Monday, but if it is earlier than that, I would prefer to talk with the Minister of Finance first.


THE BUDGET
Yvon Pinard: Madam Speaker, at this stage I should like to request, pursuant to Standing Order 60(2), that an order of the day be designated for consideration of the following, if opposition members still want it, "That this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government", to be proposed by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen) at 8 p.m. on Monday, June 28, 1982.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Bill Clarke (Vancouver Quadra):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour of tabling the sixteenth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings. ]


PETITIONS
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour and duty to present some 1,312 signatures from the Dauphin area regarding retention of the Crow rate. These petitioners represent many small towns such as Roblin, Short-dale, San Clara, Inglis, Boggy Creek, Dauphin, Sifton, Ochre River, Makinak, Minitonas, Fork River, Winnipegosis, Ethel-bert, Alonsa, McCreary, Kelwood, Kinosota, Swan River, Ste Rose, Laurier, Amaranth, Oak Brae, Bowsman, Gilbert Plains, Grandview, Meadow Portage, Valley River, Cowan, Drop-more, Benito, Rorketon, Glenella, Durban, Birch River, Ashville, Renwer, Russell, Norgate, Pine River, Waldersee, Plumas, Neepawa, The Pas, Rossburn and Angusville.
These petitioners feel that the Crow rate is of important
benefit to western Canada and one of the earliest incentives
granted to settlers. They are concerned that the changing of
Petitions
the Crow rate will reduce farm incomes, contribute to the breaking up of communities on branch lines, and increase trucking and road costs, and that since three royal commissions have recommended the retention of the Crow rate, they pray that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) will take this into consideration.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of 1,219 Canadians in the provinces of New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia who are calling upon the federal government to reconsider proposed changes in the Crowsnest Pass rates and that the present statutory grain rates, the Crowsnest Pass rates, be retained in perpetuity for grain producers. This petition includes signatures, not only from these provinces, but I might specifically mention in the case of Alberta, the Hutterite Bretheren of Vegreville, grain producers and grain users in the eastern provinces and in British Columbia who use western grain because they can get it on the statutory grain rates; it saves them about S20 per tonne.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition on behalf of some 3,106 Canadians from the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. These are people who have not been included in the consultation process with Dr. Gilson and wish their views in support of maintaining the Crow rate to farmers to be known to the House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada.


Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased this afternoon to present a petition signed by some 3,001 concerned citizens from northwestern Saskatchewan on the very important subject of the Crow rate. The petitioners believe the Crow rate to be an important benefit to western Canada and that the change in the Crow rate will reduce farm incomes, contribute to the break-up of communities on the branch lines and will increase trucking and road costs. They stress that three royal commissions have recommended the retention of the Crow rate. The petitioners call upon Parliament to maintain the Crow rate in perpetuity as presently guaranteed by statute on their behalf by urging the Prime Minister, the Minister of Transport and all Members of the House of Commons to heed the message of this timely petition.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition that shows in advance of the Gilson report on grain freight rates that people in western Canada want to retain the Crowsnest Pass freight rate.
I am filing petitions signed by 3,373 Canadians who support the Crow rate. They come from all provinces of Canada. All of these people present the grass roots opinion in western Canada

June 23, 1982
Committee Reports
and all parts of Canada, a fact that has been ignored by the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) and Dr. Gilson. They are people who are deeply concerned about grain producers, small prairie communities and the grain industry which contributes to the economic wellbeing of Canada.
These people state in their petition that three royal commissions have examined freight rates for grain in Canada and all have recommended that the Crow rate be retained. It would be consistent with their wishes to ask the Minister of Transport finally to pay heed to these people and their significant expression of opinion on the Crow rate. They would challenge him to conduct a plebiscite-


Madam Speaker:: Order. Hon. members should be reminded that they must simply read what the petition is about. They must not read all of the petition.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Madam Speaker, democracy rests with the consent of the governed. I challenge the minister to show that the wholehearted consent of those who will bear the brunt of these changes is considered.

[ Translation]


Hon. Charles Lapointe (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-122, to amend the Small Businesses Loans Act (No. 3).


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


William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Madam Speaker, I should like to move that the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented to the House on Monday, November 23, be concurred in.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

["Madam Speaker, 1 am not in a position to answer the hon. member's question but I will take the matter up with the minister concerned."]
William Hillary (Bill) Clarke: Madam Speaker, I should like to move that the twelfth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented to the House on Thursday, December 17, 1981, be concurred in.


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[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. 2,759, 4,167 and 4,272.


Mr. Cossitt: 1.	Is Mr. Don Marriott the director of restaurants and catering of the National Arts Centre and, if so, since his appointment, what was the total amount charged by Mr. Marriott for entertaining persons on the premises or elsewhere with food and beverages at taxpayers' expense?
2.	Was this sum charged to promotion?
3.	(a) On any occasion did Mr. Marriott entertain members of his family and personal friends at taxpayers' expense and, if so, in each case, on what date and at what cost (b) what was the total cost of the entertainment?


Mr. Jack Masters (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: I am informed by the National Arts Centre as follows:
1.	Mr. Marriott is the director of restaurants and catering at the National Arts Centre. As part of his responsibilities to direct and promote the restaurant and catering operations of the National Arts Centre, Mr. Marriott undertakes duty entertainment on behalf of the centre; the total amount expended on and off the premises over the 27 months that he has been employed (April 1, 1979 to June 30, 1981) is $19,856.88 at regular menu prices. However, the actual cost to the National Arts Centre Corporation is $9,406.88 after deduction of fixed costs and profit margins from "on premises" charges. For "on premises" charges, there is no cash involvement.
2.	The expenditures are charged to "duty entertainment" for the promotion of the restaurant and catering services of the National Arts Centre.
3.	(a) Over the seven months between April 1, 1979 and October 31, 1979, the initial period of Mr. Marriott's employment when his family remained resident in Stratford, Ontario, on three occasions his wife or one of their two children consumed a meal the costs of which were borne by the centre; the policy of the centre is to cover the expenses to a reasonable limit of members of the families of personnel visiting the National Capital region to find suitable housing when personnel has been recruited from outside the region.
June 23, 1982

Over the 20 months between November 1, 1979, and June 30, 1981, on six occasions his wife and his two children consumed a meal the costs of which were borne by the centre when, due to extended periods of work during evening hours, Mr. Marriott was absent from home for protracted periods of time.
Over the 27 months between April 1, 1979 and June 30, 1981, a friend known to Mr. Marriott prior to his employment at the centre was among the persons offered meals on two occasions and beverages on two occasions by Mr. Marriott in promoting the restaurant and catering operation as a normal part of his duties. The exact dates and cost of each event cannot be established.
Except as set forth above, to the best of his recollection, on no occasion has Mr. Marriott entertained members of his family and personal friends at taxpayers' expense.
(b) The total cost to the centre of these meals and hospitality is estimated at $139.


Mr. MacKay: 1.	Since World War II, how many foreign diplomats were declared personae non gratae, as referred to in the October, 1979 McDonald report, 1, p. 8 and in the August, 1981 McDonald report, 2-1, p. 65 and, in each case (a) what foreign
Order Paper Questions
diplomatic missions were involved (b) what was the name of the foreign diplomat and on what date was he/she ordered to leave the country (c) what announcements, if any, were made to the Canadian public?
2.	Since World War II, how many foreign diplomats were ordered "less formally", other than being declared personae non gratae, to leave Canada because of their offensive intelligence activities, as referred to in the October, 1979 McDonald report, 1, p. 8 and in the August, 1981 McDonald report, 2-1, p. 65 and, in each case (a) what foreign diplomatic missions were involved (b) what was the name of the foreign diplomat and on what date was he/she ordered to leave the country (c) what announcements, if any, were made to the Canadian public?
3.	For each case in parts 1 and 2, were any retaliatory actions taken by the foreign powers involved and, if so, what was the nature of such actions?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: 1. According to records in the Department of External Affairs, 37 foreign officials have been declared personae non gratae since World War II in consequence of their involvement in unacceptable activity in Canada, though not all of them had been accorded diplomatic status. The figure includes trade representatives, journalists, and other embassy support staff.
(a) The foreign diplomatic missions involved in these 37 cases were Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Iraq, People's Republic of China, Poland, U.S.S.R., Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and Yugoslavia, (b) and (c) Twenty-seven of the 37 officials declared personae non gratae were publicly named and their identities are as follows:
Name	Title	Country	Date	Announcements to the Public1.	G.F. Popov	2nd Secretary	U.S.S.R.	July 12, 1956	Press release2.	A. Loginov	Asst. Military Attache	U.S.S.R.	Dec. 7, 1961	Press release3.	V.V. Tarasov	Correspondent, Isvestia	U.S.S.R.	April 28, 1964	Statement in the House of Commons4.	A.E. Bychkov	Staff	U.S.S.R.	May 4, 1965	Press release5.	V.N. Polushkin	Staff	U.S.S.R.	May 4, 1965	Press release6.	V. Didenko	Asst. Military Air Attache	U.S.S.R.	May 24, 1968	Press release7.	J. Hegedus	1st Secretary	Hungary	Jan. 7, 1970	Press release8.	V. Veber	2nd Secretary	U.S.S.R.	July, 1977	Press release and statement in House of Commons9.	A.V. Krysin	Economist, Trade Office	U.S.S.R.	Dec., 1977	Press release and statement in House of Commons10.	O. Retsov	Attache	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of CommonsII.	V. Retsov	Staff	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons12.	I. Vartanyan	1st Secretary	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9. 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons13.	V. Suvorov	2nd Secretary	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons14.	V. Borishpolets	Attache	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons15.	G. Ivaskenvich	3rd Secretary	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons16.	Y. Koblov	Staff	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons17.	P.R. Lillenurm	2nd Secretary	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons18.	A. Mikhalin	Trade Representative	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons19.	N. Talanov	Counsellor	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons20.	V. Oshkaderov	Translator, ICAO	U.S.S.R.	Feb. 9, 1978	Press release and statement in House of Commons21.	A1 Niaimi Abdul Latif	2nd Secretary	Iraq	May 25, 1978	Press release22.	Ho Xuan Dich	2nd Secretary	SRV	May 29, 1979	Press release23.	M. Tomic	Vice-Consul	Yugoslavia	May 4, 1979	Press release24.	LA. Bardeev	Military Attache	U.S.S.R.	Jan. 21, 1980	Press release25.	G.I. Aleksanjan	Asst. Military Attache	U.S.S.R.	Jan. 21, 1980	Press release26.	V.l. Sokolov	Staff	U.S.S.R.	Jan. 21, 1980	Press release27.	M.N. Abramov	Trade Representative	U.S.S.R.	Mar. 31, 1982	Press release
June 23, 1982
Order Paper Questions
The remaining ten of the 37 were declared personae non gratae without any public announcement. Having reviewed these ten cases the government abides by the earlier decisions not to initiate disclosure of details concerning them.
2. Thirty-one foreign officials have been asked less formally to leave Canada without being declared personae non gratae, according to records in the Department of External Affairs.
Name	Title	Country1.	Col. N. Zabotin	Military Attache	U.S.S.R.2.	Lt. Col. P.S. Motinov	Asst. Military Attache	U.S.S.R.3.	Lt. Col. V.M. Rogov	Asst. Military Attache (Air)	U.S.S.R4.	Sergei Koudriavtzev	1st Secretary	U.S.S.R.5.	Zheveinov	Correspondent, Tass	U.S.S.R.6.	Maj. A. Romanov	Secretary to Military Attache	U.S.S.R.7.	Lt. P. Angelov	Staff, Military Attache's Office	U.S.S.R.8.	Capt. A. Galkin	Door Guard	U.S.S.R.9.	Lt. V. Gouseev	Door Guard	U.S.S.R.10.	Capt. G. Gourshkov	Chauffeur	USSR.11.	Lt. A. Koulakoff	Clerk	U.S.S.R.12.	Ivan Krotov	Commercial Counsellor	U.S.S.R.13.	Vitali G. Pavlov	1st Secretary	U.S.S.R.14.	Maj. B.P. Sokolov	Staff (Commercial)	U.S.S.R.15.	Mrs. Sokolov	Wife of Maj. Sokolov	U.S.S.R.16.	A.M. Farafantov	Staff	U.S.S.R.17.	Lt. J.G. Levin(e)	Staff	U.S.S.R.
(a) The foreign diplomatic missions involved in these 31 cases were Cuba, Hungary, People's Republic of China, Poland and the U.S.S.R. (b) and (c) Seventeen of these 31 officials were publicly named and their identities are as follows:
Date	Announcements to the Public
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
July 12, 1946	Royal commission report and statement in the House of Commons
At the time of the remaining 14 less formal expulsions the government determined that it would not be in the national interest to initiate publicity concerning them. Having reviewed these 14 additional cases the government abides by the earlier decisions not to disclose details of them.
3. In respect of six of the expulsions from Canada retaliatory action resulted in the expulsion of a Canadian official from our Embassy in the corresponding country.
IT&C-PUBLIC INFORMATION DIRECTORATE


Mr. MacKay: 1.	Did the Public Information Directorate of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce make purchases of goods and services from Robert Warren Productions during the fiscal year (a) 1979-80 (b) 1980-81 and, if so,
what were all the purchases and service contracts, including the amounts involved?
2.	Did Robert Warren Productions subsequently change its name to Calibre Communications Ltd.?
3.	Did the directorate make purchases of goods and services from Calibre Communications Ltd. in the fiscal year (a) 1980-81 (b) 1981-82 and, if so, what were all the purchases and service contracts, including the amounts involved?
4.	Was Mr. James York, an information officer with the directorate, the person referred to in an internal audit which warned of an "appearance of conflict of interest" in July, 1980, and, if so, was the fact that he is the brother of Mr. Robert Warren York, an executive of the two companies, the basis for this observation?
5.	Did the deputy head of the department approve of continuing a commercial relationship with the two companies and, if so, on what date?
6.	Did any relative of the director, Mr. Doug Fyfe, work for either company during the periods mentioned in Parts 1 and 3?

June 23, 1982

7.	Was the following observation made in a draft report of an internal audit of the directorate: "The Audio-Visual Capital Assets inventory of PID was checked using an inventory listing provided by professional and administrative services branch (P&AS). Of 134 items listed, 24 could not be located. Another 28 items were found that were not on the inventory list. The missing items included many attractive pieces of equipment such as cameras, projectors, tape recorders and video cassette recorders. The 28 items not listed were missed by P&AS staff during their inventory count (early 1980) which was part of the implementation of the Capital Assets Inventory System. In addition, no items purchased since October, 1979 have been added to the inventory list. The inventory is stored in a haphazard manner located in many rooms, some locked, some not, on shelves, on the floor, etc. Audio-visual equipment is loaned to employees of PID and the department and to private sector contractors. The loan agreement form is often incomplete-serial numbers missing, due date rarely filled in, signature of the borrower often missing. The follow-up of loans is ad hoc, with little written evidence of any systematic follow-up system."?
8.	Was the draft report presented to the director, Mr. Doug Fyfe, on July 29, 1980, or thereabouts and, if so (a) was there any criminal investigation (b) was any of the material mentioned in the report recovered?
9.	(a) Which firm or firms benefited from the loans of equipment mentioned in the report (b) was this equipment all returned to the directorate (c) who authorized the "loans"?
Order Paper Questions
(a)	1980-81
Shop Canadian Film Research & Development	$11,385.44
Mining Opportunities	6,674.00
Conference
Opportunities in Mining	9,850.00
Total	$27,909.44
(b)	1981-82
PID Senior Management/	$ 7,815.40
general PID promotional presentation	5,203.75
APTA proposal development	825.00
PID promo show re-edited	4,650.00
New Products Bulletin	4,291.00
Opportunities in Mining
Interactive trade fair exhibit	10,681.25
Mining Opportunities Conference	23,573.00
Total	$57,039.40
4.	Yes. Mr. James York was the individual cited in the draft internal audit report of September 25, 1980, and the fact that they were brothers was the basis for this observation.
10.	What are the positions now held by Mr. Doug Fyfe and Mr. James York and do their latest appointments represent promotions from the time when the internal audit report was first presented?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: In so
far as the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce is concerned: 1. Yes.
1979-80	
China Marketing Film Research	
Orientation for ITC	$ 6,150
Slide/sound presentation Algiers Trade Fair-"Canada's Industrial	2,600
Capabilities"	2,600
Shop Canadian A/V presentation production series	800
A/V catalogue material	850
Total	$13,000
1980-81	
Upgrading of sound/slide	$ 1,200
ITC production library To supply project co-ordination and interview services re:	3,712
China film project To research, write and produce in video format,	1,856
running time about 20 minutes COSTPRO TV Program	3,417
Total	$10,185
2. Yes. This change was effective January 21, 1981, and accompanied a move from single proprietorship to incorporation.
3. Yes.
5.	Yes, on September 9, 1981.
6.	No.
7.	This is a quote from the draft internal audit report of September 25, 1980. Subsequently, a thorough internal followup was carried out.
8.	No, the "Scope of the Audit", outlining the areas the audit would cover, was presented to Mr. Fyfe on July 29, 1980. He received the draft internal audit report on September 25, 1980. (a) The department thoroughly investigated the situation and found no grounds for criminal investigation, (b) Yes.
9.	(a) The following firms borrowed the equipment cited in the draft internal audit report:
Robert Warren Productions Mobile Video Tape Presentations (M.V.T.)
Image Projections Limited Andre Skalde Photographer Eduvision Inc.
Skyline Cablevision Limited Canadian Labour Congress Alpha Productions & Electronics Information Directors Association National Video Specialities Inc.
HJM Communications Ervin G. Copestake
Calibre Communications Limited
Village Audio Visual Limited
RPT National Video
Green Audio Visual Resources
Buckingham Cablevision
G.R.F. Limited
R.H.B. Productions
Les Productions Richard Rebesco enr.
(b)	The equipment loaned to these firms was returned.
(c)	Mr. York was responsible for the equipment. Authority for authorizing individual loans rested with Mr. York and four subordinates.
10.	When the draft internal audit report was presented on September 25, 1980, Mr. Fyfe's substantive level was IS-6. He was however, receiving acting pay for performing duties at a higher level and was confirmed as an SX-1, Director Public Information on February 16, 1981. This represented a promotion. Since that time his title has changed to Director General, and as a result of the Treasury Board senior management conversion program he has become an EX-2. Since March 1,

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
1982, Mr, York has had an interim assignment as an IS-5, acting manager, visuals and advertising unit, Public Information Directorate. His substantive level (GT-6) remains unchanged from what it was on September 25, 1980, when the draft internal audit report was issued.


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


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Madam Speaker:: Shall the notices of motions for the production of papers stand?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council could refer to Motions for the Production of Papers Nos. 62, 63 and 64, which have been on the Order Paper since June 19, 1981. The minister responsible for releasing those papers said in an interview this past week that they would be released this week. Since this is the last sitting day of the House this week, could the parliamentary secretary give us an idea as to when these papers will be put before the House, or is the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. LeBlanc) in error when he said that they would be released this week?


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, 1 am not in a position to answer the hon. member's question but I will take the matter up with the minister concerned.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, June 22, 1982, consideration of the motion of Mr. Pepin that Bill C-92, an act to amend the National Harbours Board Act, the Government
Harbours and Piers Act, the Harbour Commissions Act, the Canada Shipping Act and the Fishing and Recreational Harbours Act, be read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport.
Howard Edward Crosby: Madam Speaker, our purpose today is to resume debate of Bill C-92, which began on June 14, 1982, and continued on June 22. Before I do so, I would like, with your indulgence, to respond to a remark made in the House a few moments ago by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) with respect to the designation of the national holiday as Canada Day. He had occasion to refer specifically to me. I want him and other members on that side of the House to know that what is at stake in the celebration of this national holiday is not the name of the day, be it Canada Day, Dominion Day or Confederation Day, but the spirit Canadians demonstrate on that day, as well as the sense of oneness they have. That sense is not developed or helped by the President of the Privy Council when he makes those kinds of remarks in the House of Commons. Just let me add this warning to him; that if he is to show any maturity and judgment as the conductor of House business, he ought not to make such remarks that are designed and calculated to stir up resentement among people across Canada at a time when we should be bringing those people together in a common purpose.
Let me review some of the remarks I made on June 22 respecting Bill C-92. I said that members of the House ought to examine the new legislation with a critical eye but with an open mind. If the new provisions establish a sensible and sound national ports policy and an efficient and effective organization structure to implement that policy, then the cause of the Canadian maritime transport industry will be substantially advanced. However, the marine transport industry in Canada and internationally will have to bear the burden in the future of any legislative mistakes that are made now. Therefore, we must examine and assess Bill C-92 with great care.
In mentioning the Canadian marine transport industry, allow me for a moment to reflect upon the contributions made by my colleague from Nova Scotia, the hon. member for Dartmouth-Halifax East (Mr. Forrestall). In 17 years of service in the Parliament of Canada, the hon. member has continued to advance the cause and interests of the marine transportation industry. That interest is evidenced in this bill and in predecessor bills in the formation of which he had a great hand. On behalf of the people in the port of Halifax, the Province of Nova Scotia and indeed those across Canada who are interested in marine transportation, I want to make it clear that we appreciate the contribution he has made to that industry in the bill which is before us now.
In my remarks on June 22 I reviewed the operation of the National Harbours Board as it functions today. I said that the board has already implemented an internal decentralization program with respect to its personnel and control of operations. The board has been more than aggressive, in some cases regressive, in its cost-recovery program. The result is a net income of $59.8 million in 1981, an increase of $42.5 million over 1980.
June 23, 1982

However, much of that increase relates to the generous debt forgiveness afforded the National Harbours Board by the Government of Canada, of approximately $500 million. Let us not give too much credit to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) and the National Harbours Board. We know that similar refinancings have bailed out the Canadian National Railways and the St. Lawrence Seaway in the past. Let me underline my comments that the eastern Canadian ports of Halifax, Saint John, Quebec City and Montreal are in severe competition and that the National Harbours Board is perceived to favour the Quebec ports because almost half of that $470 million in debt write-offs, or $231 million, relates to the port of Montreal. Only $30 million was allocated to the port of Halifax, which is only about 8 per cent of that total amount. Therefore, Your Honour can see why suspicions of favouritism in the administration of the National Harbours Board policy are rampant on the east coast. When one considers the allegations of sweetheart deals approved by the National Harbours Board to assist and advance the cause of the Cast group in the port of Montreal and the help given to the Canadian Pacific group to provide facilities in Montreal to lure Dart Container Lines from the port of Halifax, one quickly realizes why Nova Scotians watch this federal government agency with a wary eye. But now the question is, what are the hopes and expectations for the future? Will this new national ports legislation achieve those hopes and fulfil those expectations?
Let me now deal with the port of Halifax and how it may be affected by this legislation. I hasten to add that Halifax, along with Saint John, Quebec, Montreal and Vancouver, is regarded by Charles N. Forward as one of Canada's five great seaports. He described the port of Halifax in an excellent article in the "Urban History Review" as a "magnificent natural harbour." The harbour is immense in size, has a great depth of 50 feet very near the shore, is ice-free and has a very low tidal range of under three feet. The harbour and the adjacent Bedford basin easily accommodated immense convoys during World War II. Therefore, very clearly, the port of Halifax is both Canada's gateway and its guardian.
Let me consider the port of Halifax in the current economic context. I have already indicated that on the one hand, it is in fierce competition with the port of Saint John for cargo destined for the east coast of Canada and, on the other hand, it is in severe and fierce competition with the port of Montreal and the port of Quebec for all eastern Canadian cargo. What has happened as a result of this competition in these depressing economic times is that the port of Halifax suffered a downturn in 1980 and 1981 in the amount of cargo handled over the years. In 1981 it had a gross registered tonnage through the port of 21,417,000, which was a slight increase over the previous year. But, taking into consideration other, more effective aspects of the total cargo, it had a substantial decrease. For example, container traffic was down 8 per cent, to 1,785,000 tonnes.
The downturn in the economy has contributed to the slight increase in traffic compared to the port of Montreal, but what is more important are the difficulties which have been
Canada Ports Corporation Act
experienced in the port of Halifax because of the existing competition and the favouritism which has been shown toward the port of Montreal. Specifically, let me refer to the loss of Dart Container Lines. Dart Container Lines accounted for approximately one third of the container traffic through the port of Halifax and, in turn, accounted for a substantial amount of the total cargo through the port of Halifax. In 1981, it moved its operations to the port of Montreal as the result of an arrangement with the Canadian Pacific group. The loss of Dart was a tremendous blow and caused a disadvantage to the port of Halifax. It has left the container facilities in the port of Halifax substantially unused.
The Fairview Cove container terminal which came on stream during 1981 is experiencing some difficulties, but the fact that it is utilized by the Polish Ocean Lines leads to some hope for the future. There is also hope that other lines can be attracted to the port of Halifax at both the Halterm container terminal and the Fairview Cove container terminal and that this very important segment of cargo can be substantially increased in the years ahead.
Mr. Speaker, very much a part of the national ports legislation is the capacity and capability of a national port to achieve self-sufficiency. In the last full year, which was 1981, the port of Halifax managed to reduce its deficit by some $4 million, so that with respect to its operation during the year, it has accomplished self-sufficiency. It really deserves the status of a national port on the basis of self-sufficiency, that is to say, return of revenue from its operations. I will deal with the other aspects of the national ports determination later. But let me consider the application of the national ports policy contained in Bill C-92 in more general terms.
I want to deal with that national ports policy in the context of the national transportation policy as that policy is enacted by the National Transportation Act. The national ports policy is contained in Clause 2 of the bill, which would enact a new Section 3 of the act. Clause 2 states:
"3. (1) It is hereby declared that the objective of the national ports policy for Canada is to create a port system that
(a) is an effective instrument of support for the achievement of Canadian
international trade objectives and of national, regional and local economic and
social objectives;
Also as part of that national ports policy, it will be declared in the new section of the act that the ports be efficient, provide access and equal treatment for the movement of goods and, in addition, that local port corporations have a high degree of autonomy. If one reviews that enunciation of the national ports policy in the context of the total national transportation policy, one will find that the national transportation policy involves:
-an economic, efficient and adequate transportation system making the best use of all available modes of transportation at the lowest total cost ... to protect the interests of users of transportation-
I put those words on the record simply to demonstrate that there is an element of rhetoric in these statements of policy, whether in the national ports policy or in the national transportation policy. It is very difficult to look at the words as they are enshrined in statutory provisions and determine from those

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
words what will take place in the future, both with respect to the operation of our national ports and with respect to the operation of our national transportation system. Therefore, when we refer to policy in terms of the statutory words used, we must recognize and realize that we are only referring to an academic matter. We are not discussing the reality or what the system will be when it is implemented. Therefore, it is a matter of placing faith in the agencies, in the branches and in the departments of government which administer these policies.
1 must say that Canadians have very little basis for placing much faith in the agencies and departments of the Government of Canada from their experiences with those agencies and departments over the past two or three years since this government took office. They have not provided any economic impetus or stimulus to Canadians or to Canadian industry, whether involving the transportation industry, the automobile industry or any other industry. I want to underline that point simply by saying, in conclusion, that while we may establish a statement with respect to a national ports policy, or while we may make a statement with respect to national transportaton policy, that statement is useless and meaningless unless it is given full and proper implementation by a concerned and knowledgeable government department or agency.
The other major thrust of Bill C-92, as I have indicated, is the new corporate structure which will be utilized in the administration of our national ports system. The major features of that structure, as the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) pointed out in his address during the second reading of Bill C-92, involved a maxi-corporation to replace the current National Harbours Board and a series of mini-corporations which will operate the specific national ports to which the legislation will be applied.
I have already dealt with the National Harbours Board. I want to point out and underline to members of the House and interested persons across Canada that there may be no substantial difference in the establishment of a new Canada Port Corporation if it simply carries on with the same attitudes, policies and philosophies of the National Harbours Board as it now exists.
There is an indication in the legislation that there may be substantial differences between the Canada Ports Corporation and the National Harbours Board. Specifically, the Canada Ports Corporation will have a board of directors. If that board simply functions as the membership of the National Harbours Board has in the past, there will be no real benefit.
This is not the first time the Government of Canada has come forward with legislation in the House which changes the status of an existing service or agency and promotes or changes it into another kind of corporation. We saw that in the Canada postal service which evolved into the Canada Post Corporation. I feel safe in saying that to date users of that service have not noticed any substantial difference in the service they are receiving. People have not noticed any substantial difference in the attitude of the persons involved in that service. Maybe those changes will come. We should give the Canada Post
Corporation time to effect those changes. However, it serves to underline the fact that merely changing the name or the corporate structure changes nothing unless you change the personnel involved and their attitude toward the performance of their service.
The Canada Ports Corporation will continue to be operated as a national agency. It will continue to be controlled by the Government of Canada. It will continue to be based in central Canada, and probably will continue to have many of the same personnel and players who were involved before. In that respect, the members may ask whether there will be any susbtantial change.
The Minister of Transport assured us of one thing. The chairman of the National Harbours Board, Pierre Franche, will not be staying in that post. With all due respect to him, that may be the most promising sign of this new legislation, that we will get a new look and a new face on this national organization. I do not have to tell Mr. Franche that he is not the most popular person in eastern Canada. He goes there from time to time and hears complaints, but only rarely does he make those visits.


Mr. Pepin:: A very good man.


Howard Edward Crosby: Let me talk briefly about the mini-corporations. As I understand it, there are 15 ports which will qualify for this mini-corporation status as local port corporations. The requirements are that the ports have regional and national significance, that they demonstrate local interest in the port and that they have the capacity and capability to become selfsufficient. Those are sensible criteria for the establishment of a national port. I have no doubt that the ports in which I have a special interest, the port of Halifax and the port of Saint John in the neighbouring province of New Brunswick, will qualify quite easily.
What really is at the heart of this kind of legislative provision is the people who will operate the corporation. That is where I have great concern for this legislation. First, with respect to the port authorities that are now in place in our national ports, the port of Halifax and the port of Saint John, the minister has never undertaken to permit labour representation on the local port authority. Anybody who is familiar with the operation of a port knows what a vital role labour plays in the operation, and knows that without the co-operation of a capable labour force, the port simply will not function.
How the Minister of Transport, through or with the concurrence of the National Harbours Board, can construct a local port authority that does not have labour representation is beyond my belief. The minister must know that I have requested time and again that organized labour in the form of the International Longshoremen's Association or one of the other unions involved with the waterfront be represented on the port authority for the port of Halifax. My request has gone begging-
I have to say that if there is not going to be any change in
that attitude and if there is to be no recognition of the role that
June 23, 1982

labour plays and no change in policy with respect to appointments to the boards of local corporations, I do not anticipate or expect much to flow from this legislation. We have to face the fact that this legislation will simply provide another vehicle to which members and supporters of the Liberal Party can be appointed.
I hate to say it in the presence of the Minister of Transport, who has been so reasonable on other matters, but on our port authority for the port of Halifax we have not one, but two, defeated Liberal candidates. The minister has been broadminded. He appointed one person who was defeated in a provincial election and one person who was defeated in a national election. In that sense he has both local and national representation. He is not dealing solely with national Liberals or provincial Liberals. He has taken one of each and put them on the port authority.
I hope the minister does not intend to put them on the board of directors of any local corporation that may be established for the port of Halifax. If he does that, that local corporation, as the manager of the port of Halifax, will lose all credibility and this legislation, it if is ever passed, will come crashing to the ground.
With that warning, I say to the minister that basically the concept is good. If he can resist the demands of his supporters and friends in the Liberal Party of Canada, and, in the case of the port of Halifax, of Nova Scotia, and appoint persons who really have the qualifications, the bill can be successful. As 1 said, it could be a forward step in the marine transportation industry.
I have to say in specific terms that the qualifications listed in this statute for appointment to the board of a local port corporation are in such general terms that I am afraid there will be the same patronage that existed in the past. The directors of local port corporations appointed by governor in council only need to have the experience and capacity required for discharging their function and will be representative of the regional and local populations and interested in management of the port. As I said, if that simply means you have to get Liberal supporters with local interests and Liberals supporters with national interests, the purpose and effect of the legislation may well fail.
Let me deal with one more specific aspect of Bill C-92, the provisions that relate to revenue, both the use of revenue and such matters as borrowing for the ports. There is real concern that the Canada Ports Corporation will utilize those revenue provisions to get total control of the port system and use those revenue provisions to destroy the autonomy that is supposed to be given to national ports under the provisions of Bill C-92. Everybody knows that he or she who controls the purse strings controls the operation. If we simply go through the exercise of having elaborate statutory provisions and give the financial control completely to the central body, we will not have real autonomy. That is a matter we have to look at very carefully.
I want to speak very briefly about the public harbours aspect of Bill C-92. As we know, 500 public harbours across Canada are governed by the provisions of the Government Harbours
Canada Ports Corporation Act
and Piers Act. Those harbours will be brought within the framework of this Bill C-92 as part of the over-all national ports system.
Again, Mr. Speaker, if you will look at the technicalities of this, you will know that the small public harbours across Canada are really operated by the harbour master, and that the success of that operation depends upon the capacity and capability of that particular officer.
If he or she is knowledgeable and is able to contribute to the management of the harbour, then the harbour will be successful, providing effective and efficient service to the users. But again, if it is simply used as another tool for patronage for the Liberal Party-which it is, and I can document that with thousands of cases-then again the whole purpose of the exercise of this new legislative provision will be lost.
1 will not dwell on this point Mr. Speaker. I hate to face the Minister of Transport with these realities of life because I am sure he is not involved in them himself personally. In my province of Nova Scotia, unless you are a member of the Liberal Party, you do not get to be a wharfinger unless you have this political connection. I want to stop that and stop it right now, because it is too dangerous. The ports are too important to the local economy, too important to the fishermen and to others in transport and users who are involved in that port activity, to allow it to be governed in that fashion. I hope that the minister will change that aspect of this operation.
Now I would like to speak for a moment in very general terms about the importance of a national ports system. As a resident of the Province of Nova Scotia and as the Member of Parliament for Halifax West, I fully appreciate the importance of the marine transportation industry. It provides thousands of vital jobs in the Halifax metropolitan area and in other parts of Nova Scotia, like Sydney. In Sydney there is a port that is capable of expansion and extensive growth. There is the Strait of Canso which has tremendous possibilities as a marine transport terminal. We regard marine transportation as vital to the future of Nova Scotia, particularly with respect to offshore development.
We want the system to work. I can speak for myself and I am sure I can speak for my colleague for Dartmouth-Halifax East and my colleague for Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan), who is also our transportation critic and who is very interested in ports policy. We want to co-operate to ensure that we do have an effective national ports policy, that we have an effective national ports system. We are all willing to work constructively to this end. At the same time, the Minister of Transport and those who deal with him in the Department of Transport and in other aspects and other departments of government interested in transport, all have to work to change their ways. They have to work to implement, once established, an effective national ports policy.
This is one of those many things where, if we all work together-those in Parliament and those who are called upon

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
to administer the legislation that Parliament enacts-if all those elements work together, then we will achieve something for the benefit not only of the people of the port of Halifax, not only for the people of Nova Scotia, but for all Canadians.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-92, which deals with national harbours and ports. 1 want to begin by pointing out that there is only one member of the New Democratic Party in the House-and he is only partly in the House. It may give an indication of the level of interest of that party in this legislation. It is fortunate that it is their caucus representative who is on the Transport committee. I would like to begin by referring to the remarks that member made, the hon. member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), in the House, when he took issue with the speech made by my colleague for North Van-couver-Burnaby (Mr. Cook). The member for Regina West rose in his place to say:
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. gentleman who just concluded his remarks: where was he in the last two years in the Transport committee.
Then he went on to say:
The guy has never shown up for a bloody meeting; he has never been there!
Those are not my remarks, those are the remarks of the erudite member for Regina West. It is not quite the kind of vocabularly I am used to using. Then he went on to say:
My point of order was a simple question. Is the hon. gentleman going to start appearing at Transport committee meetings?
I would like to ask the member for Regina West whether you have to be consistently a member of the Transport committee in order to speak on the transport bill in the House. Or do you have to be a member of the health and welfare committee in order to speak on a health and welfare bill in the House? Do we have to pass a credentials layout from the member for Regina West before we have permission to speak in the House? I recall very well that just prior to the speech by my colleague, the hon. member for North Vancouver-Burnaby that his colleague for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell) gave us a 40-minute speech in the House. I have just checked the record of the committee membership and I do not find her name on the list of members of the committee. Yet she gave us a 40-minute lecture most of which was a history of ports legislation and had very little to do with the content of the bill. Yet the member for Regina West has the audacity to lecture the rest of us on how and when we can speak in this House. I think that is offensive. It is certainly a little hard to speak to this particular bill because I do not think the minister who is in charge of this legislation has any long-term historical precise interest in this legislation. I do not say he has to design all of his interest to a specific area-except that if he is responsible for the legislation he had better give some attention to it. I think he would rather be reading the latest edition of the Pepin-Robarts report. That is fine.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I am here listening to you now.


Benno Friesen: Well, I know, but you are here listening to me because it is such a treat, not because you are so interested in the legislation.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Oh, oh!


Benno Friesen: It would be a help if the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) had all of his intuitive attention riveted on transport issues rather than on other issues. It is a little difficult to deal with this legislation knowing full well that it is not the minister who designed the legislation, nor is it going to be the minister who will make the final disposition of the particular provisions within the legislation. It will be the senior bureaucrats in his department who will make or break all of the sections of this particular bill.
I came here almost eight years ago, Mr. Speaker, short of about two weeks. I remember very well my first election campaign because I was very concerned about the major installation in my constituency known as the Fraser River Harbour Commission. Because of my concern about the relationship of that commission port to my municipality-
Now, the minister is leaving. Here is his last chance for an education, and he is walking out.


Jean-Luc Pepin: I will read it in Hansard.


Benno Friesen: Because of my continuing interest in the relationship of the commission port to the municipality of Surrey, I took interest in it during that campaign. I asked questions, on the convening of the House, as soon as I was elected, regarding the status of that commission port. It has been an eight-year interest of mine regarding this ports legislation. So I would simply point out to the member for Regina West that even though I have not been a member of the Transport committee I do have a major installation in my constituency which is of concern to me, and I think that is enough of a ticket to allow me to speak in this House. So with his permission I will go on and address myself to the concerns I have.


An hon. Member:: That is not enough.


Benno Friesen: That is not enough? Well, I will go ahead anyway, with your indulgence. Mr. Speaker, it bothers me that the legislation before us has gone through several mutations in the past eight or ten years. It began with the Scott report about eight years ago, for which we waited months and literally years. Then we had three of four bills tabled in the House before we could really get a full-fledged debate on this legislation. If a reorganization of the ports administration in Canada was so urgent, we should have done it a long time ago. Now that we have the legislation before us, it seems to me that the latest mutation this legislation has brought about is really not enough of an improvement over the past organization to make it desirable for the country.
I can understand the kind of DREE mentality that exists in
the government regarding some of the ports in Canada. There
June 23, 1982

are ports which deserve to function and operate as federal ports because they are a service to their areas. They may not necessarily be profitable in a cash flow situation or on a balance sheet, but they do form a very valuable function for the entire country. For example the port of Churchill can operate only about two months of the year, yet it is an important link in the transportation system in our country. So I understand the DREE mentality the government has about some of the ports of Canada.
However, why, under the design of this legislation, should the government treat all of the harbours in Canada which are presently National Harbours Board ports, the same way? Why should there be a kind of super board in Ottawa which directs or has its fingers in the operations of all of the National Harbours Board ports and then have about 15 local harbour commissions which report and are actually controlled by that super board in Ottawa? If it is necessary because of socioeconomic reasons for the federal government to be involved in the administration of some ports because the economics are not right for a profit-making structure, I will grant that, but why should the federal government be controlling and manipulating those ports which are profit-making ports? Why should the port of Vancouver be subject to the designs, manipulations and directives of the super board in Ottawa? Surely if that is a viable port-and the volume within that port would seem to indicate that it should be-and surely if the expertise in management is there in Vancouver-and I think it is, after all the experience-it should be able to divest itself of the paternalism of the federal government.
The minister has come back in. I have tickled his fancy. He will correct me later on.


Jean-Luc Pepin: The reason is that the port of Vancouver is of interest to other provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan and so on. It is in Canada.


Benno Friesen: The minister says the reason is that the port of Vancouver is of interest to B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan. Isn't that wonderful?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Yes.


Benno Friesen: To all of Canada.


Jean-Luc Pepin: That is what I said.


Benno Friesen: Is it not wonderful to think that those interests will be served only if Ottawa looks after them? Will the managers of the port of Vancouver not look after the interests of Alberta and Saskatchewan? Oh, those poor people in the western provinces! Will the managers of the port of Vancouver not look after the rest of Canada? Only Ottawa thinks of all of Canada; isn't that wonderful? It warms the cockles of my heart-


Mr. Skelly:: What heart, Benno?


Benno Friesen: -to think of the great way the super board in Ottawa will look after all of Canada, but those people in
Canada Ports Corporation Act
British Columbia who manage that port at Vancouver are not very loyal Canadians and will not look after the rest of Canada! I think those British Columbians have a right to feel insulted by that kind of an inference.
I say to the minister that paternalism may have its place, but only in those areas where ports are not in a position to be independent. Paternalism has its place, but where ports can be independent, why should Ottawa control them, manipulate them and, in effect, strangle them? Why, under the provisions of this legislation, should the Vancouver port have to have its budget and operations ratified by Ottawa? If it makes money, why should it divest itself of its profits by sending them to Ottawa, as the provisions of this bill indicate?


Jean-Luc Pepin: No, you are wrong.


Benno Friesen: That is a concern I have.


Jean-Luc Pepin: You are wrong.


Benno Friesen: This is a Vancouver problem, and I know my colleagues who represent the harbour area of Vancouver will look after it. Those colleagues are the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon), the hon. member for Capila-no (Mr. Huntington) and the hon. member for North Vancou-ver-Burnaby. They will look after that matter both here and in committee, but I want to address myself to the concerns I have about the Fraser River Harbour Commission. It happens to be a very well-run operation. It is very well managed. In 1972 it had a net income of $626,836; in 1973 it had a net income of $1,265,005; in 1974, $1,466,616. The profits grew until 1981, when the Fraser River Harbour Commission had a net income of $5,158,755. I take my hat off to the managers of that operation. They are making money, and they are making money because the port is a commission port. That is one of the big reasons. The minister shakes his head. He will not give credit to Chris Brown, his Liberal friend, who operates that port.


Jean-Luc Pepin: That is not what I said.


Benno Friesen: It happens that Chris Brown is the chairman of the board there. He is a defeated Liberal candidate.


Thomas Edward Siddon: He couldn't get into the Senate.


Benno Friesen: He happens to be a very sharp businessman and is making money. I would like to give credit to him and the port manager, Mr. Rick Pearson, for doing a good job in spite of the fact that Mr. Brown is a Liberal. He is a very lonely man. However, they are managing the port well. The port is showing a profit because they do not have to have all their actions approved by Ottawa. They can act independently. They can borrow money and invest it. They can buy without having to turn the profits back to Ottawa. These people can plan; that is healthy, and I think the model of the harbour commission ought to be the model for other ports in Canada.
However, there is one aspect of a commission port that
bothers me, and that is principally the reason I am speaking

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
today. One of the reasons the profit picture is as good as it is, is that commission ports do not pay taxes or grants in lieu of taxes. That bothers me. I have talked to the chairman about that on numerous occasions. I have written to the minister, and the response I have received is basically bureaucratic. I know that will not change under this type of administration because that is the mentality that exists.
The one reason the administrators within the harbours section of the Ministry of Transport give for not having a commission port pay grants in lieu of taxes or taxes is that there is such a great socio-economic benefit to the community because the port is there. I admit there is. There are jobs for many stevedores. There are warehousing jobs. There are many transport jobs. There is a great socio-economic benefit to the municipality and the municipalities surrounding that commission port. Nobody denies that. Considering the amount of cash flow this commission port is generating, there has to be a lot of residual benefit to the life of that community. However, if that is true for the commission port, is it not true for Bapco Paints which is just a few miles away? Is it not true for Capital Plastics which is just a few miles away? Is it not true for the Hawker Siddeley plant which is just a few miles away? If it is true that a commission port generates socio-economic benefits to the community, surely the owner or manager of every other industry in the area would argue the same thing. Does the manager of the Bapco plant not think that the fact that he is providing jobs and payrolls to the people at his plant is of general benefit to the entire municipality? It is a specious argument on the part of the bureaucrats within the Ministry of Transport. They should not be allowed to get away with it. I object strongly to that.
Furthermore, it bothers me that when a port can make as much as $5 million in net income in one year, that that gives it an unfair competitive advantage over all other modes of transportation in the area. I think it is a truism that marine transport is the cheapest way to transport goods. It is a lot cheaper than rail or truck transport, so they have a competitive edge already. The very fact that the local truck transport depot or the railway has to pay either taxes or grants in lieu of taxes over and above the normal costs of operation puts the commission port at a distinct competitive advantage, and I do not think that is fair. Why should the commission port get a Si-million tax break, or whatever it is, when all other transport facilities have to pay the whole bill? The fact that the marine facility is not paying taxes or grants in lieu of taxes means that the tax burden for all other residents of the community has been increased. I do not think that is right or fair, and furthermore I do not think the bureaucrats within the department understand that particular problem. I do not mind if there is a port which exists only because of the socio-economic benefits it provides to its area. I do not mind if they do not pay taxes or grants in lieu of taxes as long as the federal government will make it up to that particular community. But here we have a kind of double-barrelled offence; here is a port which makes money and does not pay and the government will not pay, and the municipality has to carry the load.
By all that is fair and right I ask the Minister of Transort (Mr. Pepin) to take note of this representation, even though all the others I have made have been ignored, and correct this injustice which is being perpetrated on the residents of Surrey municipality as a result of the installation known as the Fraser River Harbour Commission.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I too appreciate the opportunity to speak on Bill C-92 which would envisage replacing the NHB, established by act of Parliament in 1936, with a super Crown corporation headquartered in Ottawa. In turn, it would be responsible for a number of subsidiary Crown corporations established as the need occurs to manage the financial and business affairs of various ports across Canada. I have to address this matter in light of my experience as a western Canadian, but also as a member representing a riding with rivers on two sides and the ocean on another. Therefore, in my riding there are two harbour commissions with jurisdiction over the north and south arms of the Fraser River, as well as the National Harbours Board being responsible for the major coal port facility of Roberts Bank, just off Tsawwassen. So I have some perception and views on the way in which the commissions have managed their affairs on the north and south arms of the Fraser River, as well as the board's management of the Roberts Bank super port.
Before I get into that, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to deal with the somewhat larger question of the development of west coast ports in general, especially the new coal and grain facilities at Prince Rupert, British Columbia, which come under the jurisdiction of the NHB and which represent a considerable amount of activity and a major investment by the grain consortium and federal and provincial governments. As an example of some of my concerns over Bill C-92 I would like to illustrate some of the problems we have already encountered with the development of Ridley Island. I would suggest that the passage of this bill would not in any way alleviate those problems and it would not have prevented them from occurring. I was in Prince Rupert on Saturday and talked to a number of individuals there. I had a tour of the facilities under development on Ridley Island. For example, I was made aware of a problem with a water line. The new coal port is going ahead great guns; they have cleared the site and are putting in pilings in preparation for the arrival of coal handling equipment from Japan. They have in fact been designing for a year or two a major water supply for the coal terminal. They are doing that, Mr. Speaker, in the usual federal manner, according to goldplated standards devised by government consultants and scrutineered by port officials in Prince Rupert. But ultimately this is subject to a final decision here in Ottawa. All of this goes on, of course, without reference to Parliament or the standing committee, except by hindsight.
We have discovered, Mr. Speaker, that the water line, to be
provided at a cost well in excess of $1 million, is to be supplied
June 23, 1982

by surplus water available at a pulp mill nearby. We discovered recently that the mill does not really want to relinquish that water, but the work has advanced to the point that the situation is irreversible. Yet we learn that no one up there had the wisdom to consult the nearby community of Port Edward which, because of the closure of the B.C. Packers fish packing plant, has discovered that their municipal water supply is far in excess of their requirements. In fact, that municipality has proposed the possibility of providing a ten-inch water line which would fully supply the needs of the grain terminal as well as the coal port for a figure of $300,000 or less. It is just astonishing, Mr. Speaker, that there was not the kind of local representation on the board up there to the extent that they might have anticipated an available water supply from a nearby community. In fact, that community provided a ten-inch water line in the last two or three months to Ridley Island to supply the new grain terminal, at a cost of around $300,000. This at a time when we still do not have the other line under construction. It is going to cost more than $1 million. Its capacity will be roughly the same, and the water is to be drawn from a pulp mill that really did not want to give up the water in any event. There is a total lack of appreciation for local realities when we have consultants from Vancouver and officials and administrators in Ottawa who make these final decisions. We then wonder why the cost of the terminal development rises astronomically from an original estimate of $20 million or $30 million to something approaching now $120 million to $150 million in order to develop the Ridley terminal complex. It is because of this kind of stupidity and the lack of local representation from members of local councils, trade unions, the provincial government, and especially experts in the industry there who should have known and anticipated that this problem would develop. We build these things to gold-plated standards, designed by people in Ottawa and their highly paid consultants who are generally good supporters of the Liberal Party, without any regard for the important economy that might be achieved if we used a little common sense and asked the opinion of the people at the ground level. This applies both at Prince Rupert and Vancouver with regard to the development of the waterfront and with respect to the expansion of the Roberts Bank superport.
If we recall what happened a couple of years ago, we would understand how the development of Roberts Bank proceeded. The manager of the port decided he wanted to expand Roberts Bank to five times its original acreage, without considering the other available port capacity along the north shore of Burrard Inlet; a subject upon which my colleague, the hon. member for North Vancouver-Burnaby (Mr. Cook) and my colleague, the hon. member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) had some very strong opinions. The port expansion at Roberts Bank was envisaged and created by bureaucrats, approved by experts here in Ottawa without a full appreciation of the impact it would have on the competitive port situation with regard to other existing port facilities which in some cases might well have been expanded.
Canada Ports Corporation Act
Getting back to Ridley Island for a moment, we have to ask ourselves also who in their right mind and what kind of logic leads to a situation where of the some $40 million, which has been allocated to the development of the coal port, $30 million of which has already been spent offshore, and that is money allocated in the present year's estimates to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin). This $30 million has been spent offshore in Japan by awarding a bid to a Japanese company which is somehow tied in to Mitsubishi, one of the companies that are purchasing the coal, and to another related Japanese company which is one of the minority shareholders in the coal fields in northeastern British Columbia, for steel piling pipe.
In both cases, we have had extreme difficulty obtaining disclosure from the minister as to the basis on which those bids were let; as to the extent to which competitive Canadian bidders were given fair consideration in the light of the different tax structures in Canada and in Japan; in light of the different tariff situations and the availibility of low interest money in Japan compared to much higher interest capital available to Canadian suppliers such as Stephens-Adamson.
What I am getting at is that under the present structure the NHB is not very accountable to this House in terms of ensuring, in its purchasing policies and in its engineering decisions, that it is getting the best value for money. That is in spite of the fact the National Harbours Board is presently accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Transport. That leads me to ask what will happen when we take that accountability away from the minister. We have heard all kinds of comments in this House in recent times that Crown corporations are there to serve in the national interest, but as they are in competition with private enterprise, they are to operate at arm's length from the minister's control. By allowing that arm's length provision these Crown corporations can often get away with blue murder. We have seen it happen. We are told these Crown corporations operate in the public interest by taking advantage of profits in good times and using them to tide the corporations through the tough times, or taking the profits from one region and using them to help out another region. I would say that all of this has built some abnormal distortions into the system in terms of suppressing the incentive of locally interested Crown corporations to improve their profit picture. Another problem has been that profits have never materialized. In the good years, Crown corporations such as Air Canada, CNR and others, have decided to reflect their profits in what they pay to their employees and what they do in terms of reinvestment and expansion of their systems. The same is true of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. I cannot mention the CBC because it never makes any profits. But these Crown corporations have never had a history of establishing a cushion or a reserve fund to tide them through the difficult periods. Now we learn, as we did a month or so ago, when the president of Air Canada came before the Standing Committee on Transport, that Air Canada-which reported bright, rosy profits last year-is in severe economic trouble. There is a suggestion that Air Canada may well be coming back to the House to get a recharge of its batteries.
18822

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
We heard to our astonishment the other day, from Mr. LeClair, president of the CNR, that the flagstaff of the Canadian rail transport system is in severe financial difficulty to the tune of several millions of dollars-in fact, approaching hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet, two years ago we heard under the previous presidency that the CNR was a picture, a model, of a government-run Crown corporation that could out-compete the private sector. That president has quit now. The vice-president is now running things at CNR, and he tells us that the corporation is in a shambles. The CNR is in severe financial difficulty because of the impact of the negative economic situation on mining, on forestry, on manufacturing. As a result the railway is not being called upon to ship goods in the same quantities. We are now into the difficult period when surplus funds should be used to provide a cushion. But what did the president of CNR tell us when he came before the standing committee a week or two ago? He said that it looked as it the corporation would have to come back to the Government of Canada for refinancing if the situation does not improve soon.
Crown corporations have never proved their efficiency in terms of delivering value for money to the people of Canada.
I see the minister who was responsible for Canada Post is in the House. He knows full well that the creation of the Canada Post Corporation under the presidency of Michael Warren was just another dodge to get the government off the hook because it did not have the political courage to raise the price of a postage stamp. The government put Canada Post under the jurisdiction of a Crown corporation with the premise- provided monopoly powers were guaranteed, a question upon which we had a considerable debate a year or so ago-that suddenly a whole new streamlined and efficient postal corporation would be created. Whoever decided to increase the price of a postage stamp to 30 cents did not predict the impact that would have on the usage of the system. We might well find that in spite of the increase in revenue for a piece of mail, that Canada Post Corporation cannot possibly eliminate the deficit that Mr. Warren set out to eliminate.
Crown corporations, while they do serve certain national objectives and they have their positive features, have far too often been used by slippery politicians to get rid of a problem they have not had the courage to solve here in the House of Commons.
It is high time that we looked carefully at our record of creating new Crown corporations. We now have close to 500 Crown corporations in this country. I estimate that this bill creating a super parent corporation and all its subsidiary corporations will lead to another dozen or so Crown corporations that will be added to that list. All of these are without regard to certain criteria which would govern and limit the powers and responsibilities of Crown corporations.
1 was really interested last night when I listened to the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell) speak about her party's position in relation to Bill C-92. She suggested that we should get on with this bill, get it to committee, and that it was better than what we had at present. Then she began to reel off
all the things she did not like about it, to the extent that one could not decipher from her speech what was positive or constructive about the bill or what improvements in fact would be made.
I for one believe-I do not know what will happen in committee when amendments are brought forward-that the Crown corporation to be created will lead to a situation which is worse than the present one. I should like to give some of the reasons for saying that. We on this side of the House have been arguing for a Crown corporations bill that would set out the terms of reference and the specific conditions under which Crown corporations would be established in future and would apply to existing Crown corporations. One criterion was to ensure that there was accountability to Parliament. This proposed port structure set out in Bill C-92 does not provide for accountability to Parliament any more than any other Crown corporation. The present National Harbours Board is accountable, through the Minister of Transport, as are the harbour commissions. We have to pass their estimates. We can scrutinize their financial records. We have seen how difficult it is to get information on Crown corporations through ministers. Sure, they say that they come annually with a report to the standing committee, but we remember Mr. Ediger, the president of Uranium Canada, who was called before the committee last December to explain why Eldorado Nuclear had decided to shut down Uranium City. I overheard he and the minister at the head table deciding that they should not answer any questions. I heard the minister turn to Mr. Ediger and say, "You do not have to answer those questions". Obviously not, because Crown corporations are at arm's length and they are not accountable to the House. This makes a travesty of the situation in terms of the countless abuses we see.
In the case of Uranium Canada which is being argued before the courts, we have heard the Crown attorneys argue that Crown corporations should be immune from prosecution, that they are above the law. As I understand the decision which was taken, indeed that is the case. They do not have to abide by the same laws and regulations as private sector corporations. Why do we want to create a whole series of new Crown corporations now and make them responsible for the management of our ports? They are not accountable to the law. They are not accountable to Parliament. There are no sunset provisions to ensure that when those Crown corporations have outlived their usefulness, they will be eliminated. There is no initiative taken by government to bring in a Crown corporations bill to ensure that that is the case. There is no clear-cut management structure. There is no requirement that people who are appointed to the boards of Crown corporations by order in council should be properly accredited professional people. No, in fact not. These boards are generally comprised of defeated Liberal candidates and other good friends of the Liberal Party.
In terms of the role of Crown corporations, we have not seen
a definition of the different types of Crown corporations. For

June 23, 1982

example, would that corporation be entitled or not to a monopoly in a particular area of trade? Is its role to provide a window on industry? If it is to provide a window on industry, as Petro-Canada was established to do, how do we obtain a record of how that window is being kept and how it is reported to Parliament? What useful things are we learning by that initiative?
What about Crown corporations which are developed to help a small company get ahead, such as in the case of the myriad of subcorporations under the Canada Development Corporation? In the beginning we were told that the initial government interest would be reduced to 10 per cent over a period of time, that the corporation would be used to help companies become profitable and then the government would get out. We all know that once the companies become profitable the government decides to stay in because it has described that that is the only way to help offset the deficits of further Crown corporations which are not particularly efficient in most cases.
What about local autonomy? Should a Crown Corporations bill not decide in which cases Crown corporations should have not merely titular or advisory representation at the local level but at what point they should have decisive authority at the local level? I believe that should be the case with harbour commissions and the harbour board management structure. As the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen) pointed out, there is no reason for having this super corporation umbrella structure administered from Ottawa. If these corporations are supposed to operate at arm's length from the minister and from Parliament, then why has the government not had the courage to establish a bunch of regional Crown corporations to manage the ports with a high degree of local autonomy? I would like to hear the minister's answer to that. Of course, he prefers to maintain control, particularly control over budgets and over information which may or may not be passed on to Parliament. There is also the other aspect that Crown corporations have been widely used by the Liberal Party to reward its friends.
I should like to return to the Ridley Island terminal for a moment to illustrate some of my concerns as to why we need a Crown corporations bill. We have a bad enough situation in the way the Ridley terminal corporation was established. The federal government kicked in 90 per cent of the money. Ten per cent was kicked in by Federal Commerce and Navigation which was owned and operated out of Montreal by a fellow named Laddi Pathy, as well as the principals of the company. It is tied in with Paul Martin steamship interests and the like. When it came time to select an operator for the Ridley Island terminal, where one might have considered the people who live in western Canada and understand the importance of Pacific rim trade and the nature of the unique port problems out there, the federal government did not even go out to tender.


Jean-Luc Pepin: We did.


Thomas Edward Siddon: It did not even seek proposals from alternative proponents who might well have wanted to manage the port.
Canada Ports Corporation Act


Jean-Luc Pepin: You are wrong. How can you say that?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Well, the minister can challenge me and tell me the truth.


Jean-Luc Pepin: There was a bid.


Thomas Edward Siddon: The information I have is that the National Harbours Board did not invite tenders on the management of the port. It was awarded to Federal Commerce and Navigation.


Jean-Luc Pepin: You are wrong.


Thomas Edward Siddon: The minister can deny it if he wishes, but I want to know why we have to have the port run by principals from Montreal who get a free ride to the tune of 90 per cent of the investment capital and decide to buy equipment from Japan which could have been provided from Canadian sources. I think that makes a very good case for the danger of entrusting such things into the hands of boards of Crown corporations which are not elected and are not representative of local municipalities, local shipping interests or local union interests. They are selected and appointed on the recommendation of the Minister of Transport, so that they become an instrument of political influence and little else.
I think all these aspects have to be reflected in a Crown corporations bill which sets out management structure and clear-cut limits to ministerial discretion and to the wide open windows and doors that give the minister untold latitude in the area of ministerial discretion.
What is the government afraid of? Why does it not write these limits into the present bill, unless it appreciates and approves the present situation which lends itself principally to political patronage? Will these corporations pay taxes? Will grants in lieu of taxes, about which the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta talked, for the use of municipal services on property which private businesses have to pay taxes on, be based upon the same formula by which other private businesses have to pay taxes to local authorities?
These are the kinds of things which should be set out in a Crown corporations bill before Parliament approves one more Crown corporation which will not enhance accountability to Parliament, which will not enhance financial management or the professionalism of the conduct of business affairs. In fact, it will reduce it.
For those reasons I find it very difficult to understand the position of the New Democratic party. Maybe it is not too difficult, maybe it is natural, because they are very anxious to get this bill through. The reason is that they and their friends in the Liberal Party love Crown corporations. Perhaps it may be for two different reasons, since the NDP favours Crown corporations because they believe in increased centralization of control and the elimination of opportunities for the private sector in the market, while the Liberal Party favours Crown corporations because it relieves them from making embarrassing political decisions-the price of a postage stamp, for instance-and it provides an opportunity for them to put some

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
of their failed candidates and friends into highly paid positions so they can ride in limousines, which many do, at taxpayers' expense.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Why do you hate them?


Thomas Edward Siddon: I do not hate them. I think there are some corporations that could well operate in the national interest. However, I do hate the kind of Crown corporation that the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation represents where one power boss named Peter Moss handles all the international marketing. He travels to Japan, New York and Europe to sell the fish. All the other concerns which were involved in that business have been wiped out. This includes the Co-operative Federation of Saskatchewan, the northern fishing communities and the companies that operate in those communities. Peter Moss is the one who operates the fishing industry. In the productive years he gives the fishermen the higher payment and in the poorer years when he has a hard time selling the inventory he trades it off by giving up fishing rights to foreign fleets. He is one man with a lot of power who rents himself an apartment in Ottawa and has a government expense account and unlimited travel assistance. He has the authority to make decisions that ought to be subject to political scrutiny. I think it is absolutely reprehensible and it is only one example of a political hack who gets into a position of power because he has the right friends.
Liberal members and members of the NDP in particular desire Crown corporations which centralize power, redistribute income and destroy the spirit of the private sector competitors. The NDP especially believes in political control and abhors individual success. Therefore, I suggest that the hon. member for Vancouver East and her colleagues on the left-hand side of the House stop pretending. They cannot have it both ways. She is not for local autonomy and her colleagues have never supported that. They want centralized authority and they want to see private companies being forced out of business so that the federal government can become increasingly involved in business.
Before we give open arms support for this piece of legislation we must carefully examine the structure of Crown corporations and the purpose for which they are being established. We have heard that the city of Vancouver would like to see speedy passage of this legislation. Mayor Mike Harcourt, who is a well-known member of the NDP, has said that he would like to see it pass quickly. Members of the NDP want to proceed quickly with this bill but we have not yet been told of one way in which this piece of legislation will improve upon the present situation. I do not see any identifiable improvements in this bill.
Three main virtues of this legislation have been cited. First, it will provide that officials at the local level can spend more than the $15,000 maximum which is presently provided for under the 1936 act. They will have another ceiling established by regulation. I point out, however, that there is no guarantee that the ceiling will be adequate in terms of the need in the port of Vancouver to purchase a new crane facility or drydock
facility that is worth several million dollars. But the minister does not have the courage to include that ceiling in the legislation.


Jean-Luc Pepin: It may change. I will give it to you in committee.


Thomas Edward Siddon: There are always ways to accommodate change in a bill. While it is always possible to return to committee with new recommendations for changes either to the bill or a regulation, this minister has created a hollow shell with no indication as to how the ceilings will be established. Why should we in British Columbia trust the members of the government? They may say that they will bring the ceiling up to a practical limit which reflects the realities of west coast ports. But when we see what the government has done in Prince Rupert, who did it ask in British Columbia about the waterline to which I referred? The government said it would spend millions on that project. Who did it ask about the management of the port? Its friends in Montreal. Who did it ask about the contracts for the stacker-reclaimer and the steel power pipe and the car unloaders which are being purchased from Britain when it could have been purchases in Canada at a time when unemployment is growing? How can we trust the Minister of Transport and his colleagues suddenly to transfer a degree of local autonomy to our local port managers in British Columbia when our track record does not justify that faith? There is no evidence to suggest that the government will, in fact, proceed in good faith in this respect.
How does this bill improve upon the present situation? We have also been told that there will be a banking provision incorporated into the structure in which these new Crown corporations will operate. A Transport Canada brief dated February, 1982, on the Canada ports said:
Any funds transferred from a local corporation to the parent corporation would be treated as if they were deposited in a bank, to earn interest and to be subject to withdrawal by the local port depositor when they are required.
That statement sounds very positive and someone like the mayor of Vancouver, or groups like the Vancouver board of trade or the shipping interests, might have read that paper and been convinced that the government would look after them because this banking provision would allow the port of Vancouver to utilize some of its surplus earnings to plan for port expansion and major capital investments without intervention by Ottawa in an attempt to seize a major portion or all of that surplus to cross-subsidize a port somewhere else.
Without sounding selfish, western Canadians must look after some of the interests in western Canada which have been neglected by central Canada Liberal rule. We western Canadians have always shared. We shared in two great wars and in the building of this country. However, we must also look after our own interests.
We need a degree of local autonomy. The government has told us that this banking system will be implemented. The mayor of Vancouver believes it and the NDP has probably fallen for it as well as some people active in the shipping industry in British Columbia. However, if it is so, why does
June 23, 1982

Bill C-92 make no reference to this banking privilege? It certainly does not clarify it when the Transport Canada brief states that these funds would be subject to withdrawal by the local port. It does not clarify who will have the power to override this provision. Who would have that power? The Minister of Transport is sitting in his place smiling but he will not get up to tell us that there will not be an override-because there will be, of course. That is the reason for a centralized Crown corporation, to bear down on all these regional ports that will not have local autonomy. He will not stand up in the House and admit that the money that is earned in Vancouver will stay there until its ports are developed to become fully competitive with the port of Seattle, the port of San Francisco and the port of Los Angeles. I challenge the minister to stand up now and tell the people of western Canada that the total surplus funding which is earned at the port of Vancouver will be available on a first-call basis for the development of the port.


Jean-Luc Pepin: It will.


Thomas Edward Siddon: I am very pleased that that is in the record. The Minister of Transport has pointed out that any surplus revenues earned in the port of Vancouver will stay there.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Sure.


Thomas Edward Siddon: It will stay there until such time as the regional levels of responsibility decide that they have surplus earnings that can be shared with the Receiver General. That has been clarified.
Second, will the Minister of Transport confirm, now that we do not have to worry about the committee and amendments, that the ceilings on purchasing authority will be judged on the basis of the recommendations of the local officials and that their recommendations will be accepted?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The port of Vancouver can be called by the Canada Ports Corporation. It will stay there. It will be stamped "port of Vancouver" and it will be available to the port of Vancouver for development. Is that clear?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Yes, that is clear.


Jean-Luc Pepin: The amount of money for contract purposes will be indicated by me in committee. Is that good enough?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the minister has qualified a second answer. He said that he will tell the committee what that ceiling will be. That is a step forward which I appreciate. That does not satisfy questions as to whether the local authorities will be able to determine what those ceilings will be as autonomous Crown corporations, or will they be subject to an override administered through the central corporation? I gather there will be an override but we can leave that pass for the time being.
The third point is the question whether the local boards which administer these corporations will contain a balanced
Canada Ports Corporation Act
representation with the majority decision-making authority representing western Canadian interests. Will the balance of power representing western Canadian interests be in the form of professional people, in the form of local, municipally elected people and in the form of union representation, or will the balance of power remain in the central corporation? Is the minister prepared to answer that?


Jean-Luc Pepin: I will answer that question in committee because it needs a little bit of qualification. I will answer that for the hon. member in committee but, under the law, there are some exigencies, some requirements for the people who will sit on the local boards.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I would then like to ask the minister another question for further clarification, although I know this is not Committee of the Whole.


André Ouellet: Go to the committee. You are here to make a speech.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Is he prepared to tell us that representation on the board will be drawn from a list of people who submit their credentials and that the positions will be filled on the basis of ability, not political connections?


Jean-Luc Pepin: "Ability" is in the bill.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Like Bill Davis in Ontario?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Well, then, I wish the Minister of Transport could answer one final question for me. Why is it that the candidate I defeated in the last two general elections now sits on the North Fraser Harbour Commission and has had no previous experience with port management?


Jean-Luc Pepin: He must be a pretty bright guy.


André Ouellet: He is an intelligent fellow.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Well, I suppose that he is in the same category as the manager of the South Fraser Harbour Commission who was a former defeated Liberal candidate. He wanted to get into the Senate, as pointed out by my colleague, the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta. He is much more competent as a manager than he would have been as a senator, but I gather that it was because of a tiff with the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that he was granted that little plum.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Your colleague paid homage to the man.


Thomas Edward Siddon: I did, too. Sometimes there are people of ability on the other side who would be better off in the private sector than they would be in politics.


Jean-Luc Pepin: On the other side, too.


Thomas Edward Siddon: I think all the points I have made reflect our
concern as British Columbians with regard to the major port of

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
Vancouver and the port of Prince Rupert. These ports are absolutely essential to Canada's economic future because our balance of payments depends so heavily on the natural resources which are exported and will be increasingly exported from western Canada, our resources of grain, timber, coal and minerals. The management of those ports should contain a strong ingredient of regional input which is not influenced by political preference but, rather, by common sense and professional ability.
We should be invited to play a role and we should not be subject to major overrides emanating from Ottawa. If that means that there is no need for an overriding umbrella organization, if it means that a Crown corporations bill is necessary to set out the conditions and limits under which all Crown corporations act as a prerequisite to my supporting this bill, then so be it. But in the final analysis I would reserve my support for Bill C-92 until we find out in committee just to what extent the Minister of Transport and the government are prepared to proceed in good faith in terms of representing the concerns of western Canadians. This should not be shown by making more decrees from Ottawa and by making hollow promises but, rather, by their actions. This should be shown not by incorporating into this bill words in hollow shells or words like "subject to regulation such and such" but, rather, by incorporating into this bill the kinds of concerns expressed by our members and, indeed, by the members of the NDP, although I do not know their reason because they said they would support it anyway.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: No, we did not.


Thomas Edward Siddon: I will not support this bill until I can be convinced that it is good for western Canada, that it is good for British Columbia and that it is good for my riding.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Luc Pepin: We will try hard.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I certainly share some of the comments of the hon. member who just spoke, other than those rather schizophrenic ones that he presented on areas such as patronage, Crown corporations, and the failure to recognize appropriate linkages in the design of any area in the transportation system. I certainly have the greatest respect for the hon. member, but I do not believe some of his remarks really applied to the issue. Anyone who scrutinizes his speech will realize that it probably illustrates the misguided strategy of the Conservative Party which has forced him to co-operate, rather than express his own serious feelings about the welfare of British Columbians whom I know he strongly supports. With those brief remarks, I would like to take up and support some of his remarks.
He stated his serious concern over the nature of the way in which the Crown corporations in this country are operated. Today we have a bill before us under which those Crown corporations will be created in much the same mould as the previous ones. I do not believe the basic problem is with Crown
corporations as such, because we do live in a mixed economic environment. I would like to point out that if we review Canadian history, we find that one of the organizations which sired the Crown corporations was the Conservative Party. We have before us the CBC and a number of others.


Jean-Luc Pepin: 


Raymond John Skelly: These Crown corporations were not created because they wanted to set some evil loose on Canada. They were simply created because it made good sense. Unfortunately, we have lost control over many of them. They are not accountable to the public, which owns them through Parliament or through the government. Unfortunately, I think that people who sit down and read the speeches of the hon. member and others in the Conservative Party will be confused because the Conservative Party is essentially confused. It fails to recognize that it is not so much that Crown corporations are opposed but, rather, their lack of accountability is objected to. I would like to point out that the province of Saskatchewan and a number of other provinces have mechanisms in place to force more accountability by Crown corporations to the people who own them.
When the bill goes to committee, I would urge the minister to consider amendments such as those which work very well with certain other Crown corporations, such as Air Canada and CN. The annual report for the new harbours organizations will come to Parliament but will unfortunately end there, in the hands of the government, with no detailed accountability provisions. If the minister were prepared to extend that one step further, he would certainly improve accountability by allowing that report to be sent to the Transport committee for study.
It is interesting that the hon. member spent a great deal of time representing the misguided policy of his party but spent virtually none on his own sincere interest in the people of British Columbia. He spent a great deal of time saying how he was not supporting this bill until certain amendments were made. But, in reality, the Conservatives have a choice. This bill has dragged on for eons. If enough of their members were to speak, it is clear that they could speak beyond six o'clock and put an end to the bill for another eight years. However, I do not think they would do anything like that because there is a recognition that, flawed or not, it is probably an improvement on the existing legislation. There is concern and need. Ultimately, this bill will go to committee.


Thomas Edward Siddon: What does it improve?


Raymond John Skelly: If there are problems later on, we will deal with them at a different stage. Certainly, in defence of the remarks of the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell), it is not so much that they were in support of the bill which appears as a flawed document, but that they were meant to illustrate an advance on the existing situation and that it should therefore go to committee. I expect that when all is said and done, the members of the Conservative Party will support that
June 23, 1982

position because that is the only rational approach in handling this matter.
I would like to refer to the question of patronage. I know that the hon. member who just spoke is a man of insight and sincere integrity. He has good instincts and is a capable individual politically. He could not understand why his opponent in the last federal election, the Liberal candidate, now sits on the Fraser River Harbour Commission. I think that must have been said with tongue in cheek.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Times have changed.


Raymond John Skelly: There are members in the Conservative Party who ask questions like that seriously and who have difficulty, because of certain performances and tactics that we have seen in this House, in mustering more intellect than a box of rocks. Ultimately, that does not involve the hon. member who spoke before me, because he knows and fears, as we do, that the government is riddled with patronage. The country is riddled with patronage.
I do not want to go much further into the subject. We fear the use of patronage in this legislation and we would urge the minister not to practise it. If one looks at the legal operations conducted by the Government of Canada, whether involving the handling by CMHC of mortgages and other problems, or whether involving prosecution under federal legislation, we see patronage pervading the whole system. It is unfortunate not to realize that it is probably not so important to reward one's political friends in an under-the-table mechanism as it is to win the confidence of the people in this country.
When patronage becomes so blatant and pervasive, it really sickens people. Ultimately that attitude carries over and reflects on all governments and all things that governments try to do in an honest and sincere manner. I would urge the minister that when he has a say over the way individuals are selected, he opt for confidence, opt for an objective manner that will put aside the kind of patronage that already riddles the system of the Liberal government. Unfortunately, many governments are afflicted by this curse. We are presently faced with one piece of legislation in this House and one concern. Enough for patronage.
Crown corporations are useful and valuable in a mixed economy. They can be used as a catalyst to enhance the efforts of private firms and individuals, but they must be accountable. They must pursue the goals which Parliament has laid out for them. They must be accountable to their owners, the people of Canada, through Parliament and effectively in committee.
The last point is the question of linkages. The ports bill is not something in isolation. The previous speaker was beginning to allude to certain kinds of situations. He mentioned Port Edward, Prince Rupert and the pulp mill, and other transportation linkages. He was beginning in his limited time to deal with the problem of linkages.
A port is simply a facility. My colleagues from Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) and Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell) have
Canada Ports Corporation Act
expressed the fact that we are really dealing with transportation as a public utility, something that facilitates other aspects of the economy. It creates economic development and employment. Therefore, we are looking at a public utility. A public utility is put in place in order to make more effective and to bind together linkages to other aspects of the economy.
It might be well for just a moment to pick up from where the previous speaker, the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon), left off. He was discussing these very serious concerns. I share those concerns about the development at the port of Prince Rupert. That again is a linkage problem. We are looking at grain linked back to the agriculture industry which creates employment and wealth for Canadians through offshore exports. We are looking at the other purpose of linkage of that port, which is coal development. We are making a tremendous investment in coal development. The port of Prince Rupert will ultimately be the mechanism by which the resources, once developed, and the transportation facilities, the B.C. Railroad and the CNR, eventually wind up at the coal port in Prince Rupert to be shipped to the point where they will be used.
It is incredible that this government continues with its head buried in the sand on the matter of linkages. There was an article on the front page of The Vancouver Sun last weekend which indicated that the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia are interested in having the Japanese invest more money in the project and to share in the enormous costs, projected to be around $1 billion, inflating to $1.3 billion.
Ultimately the people of British Columbia and in the rest of Canada will have been done in. The Quintet group and the other group selling coal appeared in Japan and made a deal with Japanese steel manufacturers. They appeared in Japan and tried to make their own deal. They made a contract which is very difficult for the public to get hold of so that it can determine the value of their resources being sold.
There is a feeling in British Columbia that the coal from that province is being sold below the cost of production. They feel we are not going to obtain a return. Canadian taxpayers will eventually have to pour an enormous amount of money into transportation, townsite development, power development and port development. Ultimately Canadian taxpayers will pay to ship coal to Japan. We will build a large, new port and put in a port authority to take care of that. Where is the linkage? Where is the common sense? I invite the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) to stand up, as he was prepared to do with the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta, and tell the people of Canada how they are going to be shafted.
Quintet Coal arrived in Japan and made a deal to sell coal to the Japanese. The contract was not released to the public. We do not know what kind of a deal it was, or what the future arrangements will be if there are problems. They solved the problem by telling the Japanese to invest more money. The Japanese will invest more money if they are given greater

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
equity. They already control a substantial amount of those companies. Where is the common sense? Where is the linkage? We have one corporation in Japan dealing on behalf of nine steel mills involved in the Quintet deal. On the other hand, you have Quintet representing as private holders all the people of Canada, selling the coal too cheaply. Then they expect the Canadian people to invest enormous sums in tunnels, railways systems, car systems and port systems to send the coal to Japan at a price below the cost of production.
The point I am trying to make is that the business of ports is the business of linkages, the business of public utilities that facilitate the selling of Canadian goods offshore and bringing goods into the country. That has to be part of an economic strategy. Those ports are being developed in a vacuum.
Just to carry this linkage problem a little further, one of the most insane things to happen is that we have different companies in Canada selling to a single company in Japan which buys offshore at other locations. They have southeast coal. They are trying to develop coal resources on Vancouver Island and sell it to the Japanese. They are trying to develop coal resources in the northeast. They are trying to develop coal in Australia. There is an overcapacity. That drives down the price. The Japanese through one purchasing corporation has the right to buy anywhere as long as the price is right and there is long-term capability. When you have overcapacity as we have, the Japanese will have their choice on price. If the price is too high and there is an overcapacity and others are willing to sell, the price will drop. Believe me, the Japanese are willing to kiss us goodbye. How is that going to affect us in these economic times? It is absolutely irrational that Canadians allow private firms individually to go to Japan to compete with one single operation, a sophisticated purchasing and marketing organization.
A mechanism was used by another government of the province of British Columbia in years gone by with regard to gas. I refer to the creation of the B.C. Energy Corporation. That corporation bought all the gas produced in British Columbia and then sold it. It never came out of the pipes. There was a big return to British Columbia. If we did the same thing with a Canadian coal corporation which dealt with a sophisticated Japanese marketing firm, that would make economic sense. It would stop the Japanese from coming in and taking equity positions in those firms, the Japanese then owning our resource and selling it to Japanese steel manufacturers. It is absolute stupidity to have the Japanese taking over our resource and then making a deal with a Japanese purchaser to buy it at the lowest price.
It is the problem of linkages. I hope the Minister of Transport can convince his colleagues that it is absolutely futile to build any kind of a port system without looking at the problem of linkages. We must look at where we are going as a country. An industrial strategy is non-existent. Those things exist in a vacuum. As long as that occurs, the Americans in Seattle, San Francisco and down the west coast will draw the business, taking it away from our ports. That will happen unless we have an effective industrial strategy.
That happens with forestry. Our ports on the west coast deal with a number of bulk commodities. Forest products are one of our biggest items. We trust our marketing. Many examples have been given to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to show that we need more effective marketing. Our port facilities are important in terms of our forest industry. We put forward the proposition that there be a national forest products marketing corporation so that we do not have to rely on International Paper to market the products of Gold River. We do not have to rely on Japanese firms who are our actual competitors in eastern Asia. They buy chips and raw materials from our ports and sell them, and they are the ones who represent us. Rayoni-er still sells the products of Port Alice. It belongs now to Western Forest Products, but we rely on foreign competitors in the United States to sell our products. We have an absolutely irrational marketing strategy for coal and for forest products. It is a strategy designed to lose.
It is much the same in terms of port policy. Port policy is designed in a vacuum and just built in and programmed to lose. I would urge the minister to look at what he is doing in terms of port development and make sure that it fits with an industrial strategy that is designed to enhance the return on coal, on forest products and on those products on which Canadians are going to depend. These are the megaprojects through which the government intends to develop future opportunities for Canadians. But they are being sold down the river very rapidly and our opportunities are being squandered, at enormous cost to the taxpayers.
The minister has heard me speak many times on the linkage to marine industrial development in Canada and the development of a Canadian merchant fleet. In terms of that strategy, where the ships go depends on where the ports are. The competitive nature of Canadian ports versus American ports determines which ships will carry the goods. Unfortunately, the linkage has never been there. Canadian ships will use Canadian ports; but we do not use Canadian ships, we use Japanese ships. If we insisted that 40 per cent of our coal be carried in Canadian carriers, they would not be picking up products in other countries; they would be dealing with Canada. If we developed a strategy that provided that all our products that are exported or imported, or even 40 per cent, were carried in Canadian ships, or even a nominal percentage at this point in time, it would help. But no, that linkage is not made and therefore Canadian ports are vulnerable.
Most other nations have adopted policies which favour retaining and encouraging a deep sea fleet. They encourage a marine industrial strategy. That strategy is enhanced and supported by a logical ports policy. Unfortunately, the minister totally ignores that.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It is in Panama.


Raymond John Skelly: It is in Panama, it is in Britain, and in Canadian Pacific, one of our prides and joys.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Bermuda.
June 23, 1982


Raymond John Skelly: No, not any more. They registered in Britain, in Hong Kong and in Singapore, I believe. They moved out of Bermuda because things got a little tight there. They did not consider coming back to Canada. They went elsewhere. That is the fault of the Minister of Transport. He has a ports policy in a vacuum. He has a non-existent merchant fleet and ultimately the entire government is operating in a vacuum, with their linkages to the forest industry and the coal industry, and opportunities for Canadians are being squandered.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, when we move to committee these are some of the points that we will reinforce and strengthen. I know that my colleagues to the right will bring forward the same proposals that we are putting forward.


Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, one should not talk about transportation and the minister's policy in any aspect of this sphere of our public interest without extending to the minister the sympathy which some of us have for the position to which he has been appointed, and for him as the individual concerned. There are many facets of this department. It is too much for one minister. The needs of Canada cannot be accommodated by a single Minister of Transport, when we look at the air, water and land requirements of this nation. To have foisted this on one minister and left it there is an irresponsible oversight by government of a national need.
It is not very often that I can agree with much of what the member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly) would say, but in principle we have in this instance a great deal in common. First, we have the national interest of shipping, transportation and the delivery of goods to our ports. Second, we do not agree with the historic management of these ports as they have been executed by the policy of the government of the day, nor have they been executed in a national way for many years. So that we have in common. As to how we might establish the specific management and under what aegis we might put it, at that point we might differ, but the concept and the principles are the same for members interested in transport on this side of the House, apparently.
It all hinges on the policy of government. What is to be the policy? Like virtually all legislation that has come into this House in the last ten years, this is enabling legislation.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Loser pays.


Fred Alward McCain: The loser, of course, is the shipper and the industry, who would lose by the discombobulated system that we have used. I would have to say to the minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, that you have inherited that system and that you have been asked through this bill to correct it.
This bill will correct literally nothing of what is going on today. It puts it under a new umbrella and it gives certain ports and commissions which will be appointed an element of authority which they did not have before. But it does not give to those ports the opportunity to have a free hand to promote the business which might come their way.
Canada Ports Corporation Act
We will still be constrained on the Atlantic coast of Canada by the policy of the Government of Canada which insists that there should be an ice-breaking structure leading up to the port of Montreal, without any compensation for the competition which that exerts upon the eastern ports. That will still remain in place. We will still have a system and a policy which has forgiven the debts of individual ports under the National Harbours Board, but which overlooked those commitments made by the province to expand the ports of Saint John and Halifax. Those are not forgiven.
I would draw to the minister's attention that I think those provinces and those municipalities which have put money into port facilities under the administration of the National Harbours Board should, indeed, under this bill be forthwith relieved of their economic responsibility or, as the case may be, repay the loans which have been extended to the National Harbours Board and thus to the Government of Canada. Only in this way can the port of Saint John or the port of Halifax be considered to be in an economically viable and competitive position in relation to other ports, Montreal and east.
It is regrettable that this has happened and that this is an oversight. But for some reason or other the Government of Canada has never had any inclination to recognize the needs in the port of Saint John and finance them as they did in other areas of Canada.
We find ourselves with a new structure now, which I do not think is fair or competitive by world standards inasmuch as any new port facility which must go up, must go up under contract by a user, in such a fashion that that port facility will in fact pay for itself. Other shippers will have inherited the opportunity to ship through port facilities over which there is no longer any debt structure and for which they will be paying maintenance but not for the capital cost of the port. This is not a fair or competitive structure into which shippers have been thrust by this bill.
I am not a lawyer and therefore I cannot attack this bill in the legal sense in which it was attacked by the member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby). I compliment him on the aspects of a legal nature which he first considered as he addressed this subject.
I think we also have to draw attention to the presentation from British Columbia by both the member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon) and the member for North Vancou-ver-Burnaby (Mr. Cook). They in their turn face a situation which is comparable to that of the east coast. We are in fact in our east coast ports competitive with American ports. If in fact we do not recognize this and if our transport policy is not adjusted to meet the international competitive structure, this ports bill will do very little for them.
Let me cite an example of the policy of the Government of Canada which permitted, if it did not stimulate, the purchase of Cast by the Canadian National Railways, another Crown corporation, and the immediate decision by the CN participant of Cast that Cast should now move its operations from Halifax to Montreal.

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
This is one of the things which makes eastern Canada very doubtful about the benefits which can accrue to Canada as a whole from a Crown corporation's managing the ports when only the policy of the Government of Canada is in fact going to govern the ports. As I see these appointments, in view of the authority which has been extended to the minister, they will abide by, first, his policy; second, his congeniality in respect of the sale or lease of property; third, his congeniality in respect of the building of a new structure; and fourth, the congeniality and generosity-if one might also add that word-of the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen) and the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston), because all of these ministers will have to give approval to any function of any consequence at any port anywhere in Canada. We do not have an independent port system. We have, instead, a policy of government which insists that it shall in fact exert absolute control over the ports of Canada through ministerial authority.
The minister, for instance, will appoint the commission which will be governing a port, but he has not given that right to the provinces. I hope he will. Perhaps he can give me as quick an answer as he gave the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta. Will the provinces have any right to appoint members to these commissions? I believe the minister has reserved this right for himself.


Jean-Luc Pepin: No, they will not.


Fred Alward McCain: The minister says no. I submit it certainly is the right of at least two provinces to appoint members to these commissions because both the provinces and the municipalities within those provinces have a vested interest by virtue of financing directly-or loans to the port of Saint John, in the case of the province of New Brunswick-and they certainly should be trustees of their own fates by virtue of their own appointments to harbour commissions at ports.


Jean-Luc Pepin: They will be on the regional council.


Fred Alward McCain: If it would not be asking too much, I wish the minister would say that just a little louder.


Jean-Luc Pepin: The provinces will be represented on the regional council.


Fred Alward McCain: Yes, but the regional council does not govern the affairs of the province of New Brunswick except indirectly, and I think they should be directly on that board. I plead with the minister to accept that.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question? Is it the hon. member's objective that every activity in the country should be administered by the three levels of government working on any single activity? If that is so, then the federal government should be represented on boards and committees with respect to road transportation, for example. I believe this would be a duplication of work. Is that not good reasoning?


Fred Alward McCain: Mr. Speaker, I suppose that reasoning might be applied to British Columbia, if British Columbia is prepared to accept it, but I am not prepared to accept it in New Brunswick as long as the province of New Brunswick has a direct financial commitment to the port of Saint John. I believe that does in fact entitle New Brunswick to an appointment on the board in the city of Saint John, as it does the city of Halifax, the city of Dartmouth and the provincial government of Nova Scotia with respect to the Halifax facilities. Because, as I understand it, they are the only harbour commission ports left which have liabilities. All the rest have been forgiven by the Government of Canada.
If the policy of the Government of Canada with respect to ports continues as it is, I wish to cite two examples of what can and has happened in this competitive structure when interfered with by federal policy. For instance, it seemed essential in a province in which one third of the total economy depended upon the forests, and since most of those products were being exported, that there should in fact be a forest products terminal at the port of Saint John. Because of co-operation between federal and provincial interests and users, a forest terminal facility was established. However, after that something else happened. Not only was that facility created, but there was also additional work done on other ports whithin competitive reach in such a fashion that instead of having all the product that was anticipated go over the wharf facility in Saint John, it will now go in at least three other directions as a result of the improvement of facilities in direct competition with the port of Saint John.
I think this is just reason why the province of New Brunswick should have a representative on that commission as well as on the regional council. The port of Saint John has no control over its own future if public ports other than those which have formerly been National Harbours Board facilities are to be brought under severe competition by public expenditures from the federal treasury at other ports of a competitive nature. This will not work because the port of Saint John can no longer function if its trade is to be taken away by improvements at other ports.
If federal policy is to continue as it has been, I think we will find the same diffusion of trade at the port of Saint John as has already occurred, because the policy of the Government of Canada was that we should not keep the frost-free facilities at the port of Saint John in good shape. In response to a request for improvements to facilities, a machine was created. It was supposed to improve the loading capability of the port. However, instead of putting the contract into the hands of people who knew what was required and had studied and tendered on the job, the contract was awarded to a firm which built a conveyor system which could not possibly work from the day it arrived in the city of Saint John. That defeated the objective of putting perishable commodities quickly aboard a vessel in the city of Saint John in all kinds of weather. That was needed, but the National Harbours Board would not do that job well. If we find ourselves again under the thumbscrews of tax by
June 23, 1982

policy through ministers of the Crown in Ottawa, the port of Saint John still cannot function.
The federal government has reserved the right to exert authority over the lease and sale of land within a port. In the last instance of which I am aware-and there may be others- the National Harbours Baord, as a result of federal policy, dilly-dallied for more than three years in relation to a rather urgent project in an effort to try to make a land deal with the developer concerned. We cannot wait for three years for the policy of government and the influence of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) to clear the title by lease or sale of land for a project, and as long as this remains under the authority of the minister, the situation will not improve.
Another instance of a very serious requirement is the fact that a facility was built in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, in the Champlain industrial park. That facility was built with the sole purpose of serving the tuna processing plant in that location. The plant was built on the site of the wharf-at some inconvenience to itself, I might add-but as a result of the additional application for use of that facility-by the forest industry, again, and by the agricultural industry in the province of New Brunswick-the port is now crowded.
The Government of New Brunswick, the local chambers of commerce, the local mayors and the local industrialists have been approaching the Government of Canada for about a year and a half because the tuna plant is going to expand to the point that it virtually will require the facility for itself if it is to function actively and efficiently. There is no answer to that plant yet, or to those chambers of commerce or to the province of New Brunswick as to if or when any moneys will be spent to improve that facility, which is now used in a three-pronged way. This, of course, will remain under the present structure of this act. There is no improvement as to when a decision can be made to accommodate the trade of a local community.
What have we gained? I am afraid we find ourselves in the same position outlined by the hon. member for Richmond-South Delta, inasmuch as when a contract comes up for a terminal operator, it does not go to a firm headquartered in Saint John; it goes instead to an operator in the city of Montreal. I cannot think of anything more conflicting with the best interest of the port of Halifax, the port of Saint John or the port of Prince Rupert than to have an outside base of terminal operation which cannot help but conflict with its parent structure.
When you take a Montreal operator and put him in Saint John, he is going to be mainly interested in his own operation, the port of Montreal. 1 submit that not only should tenders have been called in Prince Rupert and New Brunswick on a local basis, but they should have been assisted if necessary to become the terminal operators in Saint John, Montreal and Halifax. You cannot have people with a conflict of interest and who are subject to the policies of the government of the day.
I am afraid we have seen a very high-handed approach to transportation by the government. I do not believe this is all the fault of the present minister. I think he inherited much of
Canada Ports Corporation Act
it and did not have time to give it proper consideration. He was perhaps influenced more by Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance than by the public good, as was expressed to him in terms of VIA Rail. If the same high-handed policies are to be exerted on the ports of Canada, and there is every possibility of that happening, then the ports have very little to look forward to unless there is a major change of policy.
There seems to be inflexibility when the minister rejects the concept that a provincial representative should be on any commission in which it has a vested interest. The minister does not want that. I do not accept his comparison with other situations; I only ask for it in the case where money is involved and has been put up front.
Crown corporations, Mr. Speaker, are only as effective as their mandate. They are only as independent as legislation and policy allows them to be, and there is no independence in this structure. It may appear that there is because local commissions will be appointed, but they will in fact be appointed by the minister and will be well aware of the policy under which they are appointed. Then they will be under the observation and direction of a ten-year appointee of the government who will only get his job under the direction of the minister and government of the day. It cannot be any other way. He goes in there to do a job with the policy guidelines he has been given. So instead of having a three-man or a five-man commission which the National Harbours Board has had in the past, we are going to have really a single czar of port transportation authority under this government's policy. There will be no assurance of local input in a meaningful way, other than that permitted by the policy of the day. So we have local autonomy as a selling point of this bill but in fact it does not exist.
I do not know whether the minister has given up the right to appoint the manager of the port, or whether the local commission will in fact appoint.


Jean-Luc Pepin: The local commission will.


Fred Alward McCain: That is a step in the right direction. But the other aspect is that the local commission will have passed through the skimmer of political discretion and will certainly have some influence exerted on it as to who should be appointed. I think the local port has to have more authority than is given by this bill.
Let me come back to the international nature of the port structures of Canada. At one point in time we had a very substantial movement, in the early stages of the container business, through the ports of Saint John and Halifax. These movements were carried through to the central and northwestern part of the United States. It was unfortunate that the charges of the Canadian transportation system put us out of the competition for that business. This was accelerated by the United States exerting pressure on their transportation facilities to better the competition offered by Saint John or Halifax.
I think the ports have to have an element of approach to the railroads, the rate structures and the operation of their own ports. I cannot think of any example better than that of

June 23, 1982
Canada Ports Corporation Act
Vancouver. Given the rates and service extended by the port of Seattle, Vancouver will not be able to compete under the constraints and regulations which may be imposed by a minister whose policies do not reflect the needs of those ports. They do not have the flexibility and they must get the approval of the minister, the czar of ports administration, the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board before they can make any substantive move or change in their charges. They are bound by regulations, by a constitution so-called, which are approved by the minister and can only be changed with his approval. So they need the autonomy and the freedom to act. The ports need sometimes to say yes on the spot, as in any other business.
It is not improper to mention the policy of this government on applications by shipping lines to enter the ports of Canada. In one instance in particular a line which wanted to enter the port of Saint John was told it was the policy of the government that if you want to do business in this country you shall do it through the port of Montreal. Not only did Saint John not get the business, but neither did the port of Montreal. The policy cost both ports business.
You cannot have political influence and at the same time have the proper management of the ports structure which this nation requires. This bill, which is not accompanied by an element of policy which indicates there is in fact port autonomy, is a useless piece of window dressing which does little more than rephrase the original National Harbours Board Act. It puts a new gown on it with a lot of tinsel which is going to fall off when it gets on the dance floor. The tinsel does not mean that the ports of Atlantic Canada will have any independence unless there is an absolute about-face in government policy. That is what it is all about, policy-industrial policy, transportation policy, transportation viability, the greatest possible productivity, economy and number of jobs. When they become the objective of government policy, then the independence of individual ports will have been created. But as outlined here, that independence is retained in the hands of the minister, his appointees and the employees of his department. It is a faqade, not an improvement.
fTranslation]


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


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: On division.
Motion agreed to on division, bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport.


UREA FORMALDEHYDE INSULATION ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, May 31, 1982, consideration of the motion of Mr. Ouellet that Bill C-109, to provide for payments to persons in respect of dwellings insulated with urea formaldehyde foam insulation, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
Hon, Roch La Salle (Joliette): Mr. Speaker, I shall take advantage of this opportunity to make a few comments on this bill, which should be examined very carefully, considering the impact it will have on UFFI victims and the seriousness of their situation. The subject has not been before the House for quite some time, but the UFFI problem is causing thousands of Canadians to suffer losses that are almost irreparable. Our official critic, the member for Hamilton-Wentworth (Mr. Scott) made a very eloquent speech on the subject. He quoted figures, and I feel he was perfectly right in speaking on behalf of 80,000 to 100,000 families, 300,000 Canadians altogether. He was also right in pointing out to the government that if all these people, these families had been located in the same city, the government would immediately have taken special measures and declared a national disaster, and there is no doubt that they would have been assisted by other levels of government, but in any case, the federal government would have moved far more quickly than it has done up to now.
The fact remains however, that the situation cannot be ignored and this legislation cannot be adopted without a number of very stringent recommendations to the government, especially when we know that thousands of Canadians throughout the country are faced with quite exceptional problems and do not have the resources to cope with them, because of the government's failure to provide for adequate economic legislation. What a terrible thing, for people already facing high interest rates and an economic recession, to have to deal with this curse, so to speak, which sooner or later will oblige them to leave their homes if they are not able to do a thorough cleanup. Mr. Speaker, the House will recall, and there is evidence to that effect, that the matter was already being discussed seven or eight years ago. In the U.S., there had already been hints that the product could be dangerous, and 1 still wonder how Canada and the Canadian authorities could approve this product and allow it to be installed, and I also fail to understand why the government is refusing, or at least it did for some time, to accept a large share of the responsibility in this area.
It is a fact that some departments had warned other departments, especially the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, of the hazards of using this product. It is also a fact that the government not only promoted its use but also subsidized its installation. Mr. Speaker, I realize that today there are
June 23, 1982
[Stage Direction]
those who will try to justify the actions of the government or clear it of this responsibility. I feel that by and large, the government is responsible to a substantial extent, especially regarding this catastrophic situation which is making thousands of Canadians suffer, and I find it most regrettable that the government did not act much sooner to accept its share of the responsibility. Of course, the minister responsible has mentioned the government's generosity in relation to the provisions of this bill under which home owners may receive payments of up to $5,000. Our estimates have proved this amount to be entirely inadequate. I realize that the government must limit its spending, but how can you, as it were, negotiate the problems confronting these people and the suffering the situation is causing all these home owners? I feel that all governments have a social responsibility, and in this case there is also a moral one, and I believe that the government would receive the approval and support of opposition members if it were truly willing to respond with a decent minimum, in direct proportion to the problems facing these people.
The financial assistance provided in the bill is grossly inadequate. Realizing this, the government points out that other government levels could do their share. Elowever, we firmly believe that the federal government has a major responsibility to correct a serious mistake. Of course, I am not accusing the minister of having voluntarily misled the public; that is not the point. The federal government subsidized this product and it must therefore take its responsibilities. Since this is a social problem, I feel the government should be much more generous and humane toward these victims.
We are also aware that people are now trying as best they can to rid their homes of this product. Many questions remain concerning the retroactivity of this legislation. Will those who have had this product removed benefit from the funds allocated under this legislation? We shall have the opportunity to put these questions to the minister in committee and we hope that the program will be retroactive and that the criteria or requirements set in the legislation will not disqualify some of the victims of this product. We also know that since the subsidy available will not be enough for people to remove the product completely, the conditions prescribed will only guarantee that the product already installed will be sealed in. Obviously, it will remain between the walls and experts might prevent it from being as hazardous as it is now. Other experts readily admit that this is certainly not a solution. The answer seems to be to get rid of the product, which entails costs three or four times higher than the maximum amount of the subsidy. It is therefore obvious that the bill cannot correct what is a major problem for thousands of Canadians, and I do not think that any member of this House can be satisfied with a bill which is so completely inadequate.
The government is now devising all kinds of programs to
create employment. I would have hoped that the subsidy
Urea Formaldehyde Insulation Act
provided under this legislation would be higher since it will necessarily create employment as the work must be done by specialists, by people who are able to correct the problem. This is what the government should do instead of announcing programs which are too often nothing more than disguised welfare. When the bill is in committee, many members will undoubtedly attempt to suggest solutions, and in any case, they will ask the minister for additional funds. Let me simply remind the members of this House of all the statements we have been reading and hearing for at least a year. The minister may have tried to tell us that we are delaying passage of this bill by our interventions in the House, but I do not think that we can be accused of having wasted the time of the House as some members have said recently, and while we are well aware of the urgent need to refer the bill to committee and to consider it clause by clause, we are also aware of our duty to convince the minister of the need for additional funds.
I submit it is not asking too much, Mr. Speaker, that government members show more compassion and generosity toward those 300,000 people, those 100,000 families who will be unable to meet their obligations and cannot afford to stay much longer in those homes. We know this legislation will pass within the next few weeks but they will be unable to make the changes needed, which means that come winter, most of them will have to relocate. And what does the government do? All it can hand out is a mere pittance if you compare that with the needs and misery resulting from that legislation. This is not good enough. It does not resolve the problem it merely mothballs it, and there is no evidence that the effects of that harmful material will not still be felt despite that minimum correction within the coming months. Evidently those people have to get rid of the stuff, and the problem is compounded two, three times over because they cannot sell those homes and they probably cannot get loans either to partly correct the problem. We know full well that the institutions or individuals that are aware of the dangers of that material will not participate financially in any partial repair. Therefore, it is clear that those home owners will have to arrange for a thorough cleanup job. It is also clear that the grant is altogether inadequate.
I can well imagine the minister is referring to the generosity, to the substantial effort made by the government, but we must remind him that this effort is inadequate, that the grant solves the problem only in part. But how is it possible to negotiate or perhaps be satisfied with partial corrections of the ills of the individuals who have to live in those homes? It is out of the question, Mr. Speaker, and I feel we have a duty to make these representations to the minister, and we will have an opportunity for further discussions in committee. I have the clear impression and I hope that the minister himself will have amendments to make in committee, in order to decently address the plight of those people faced with that plague or hazardous product.
[Stage Direction]
June 23, 1982
Urea Formaldehyde Insulation Act
Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to come back to the special opportunity that will be given to us with the budget to be brought forward next Monday. Would the minister exert some sort of a special pressure on the Minister of Finance (Mr. MacEachen), and the Cabinet to have the budget proposal in this legislation multiplied by four at least. Based on the estimates 1 could get, I can say that to correct a very ordinary home, the cost is apparently in the neighbourhood of $15,000 to $20,000. Therefore, the proposal for a maximum grant of $5,000 represents a mere 25 per cent of the costs of the needed repairs. The situation will absolutely not be corrected. This is a totally inadequate measure and 300,000 Canadians are left with unsafe conditions and the necessity of getting rid of their homes. Humanly speaking, Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable, and I have every reason to ask the minister to consider this opportunity. For six months we have been urging the minister to come up with a decent budget, a budget that could to some extent revitalize the economy. Finally, too late as always, he took the decision to come up with a budget next Monday. 1 think that this budget is a God-sent opportunity for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) to urge the Minister of Finance to set aside enough of the funds necessary to implement a worth-while suggestion which might correct the predicament in which those three Canadian families Find themselves. Failing that, we will be forced to conclude that the minister will always have the option of being charitable toward 300,000 Canadians, but a charitable approach is not what we need under the circumstances.
As Members of Parliament, we must show that we have responsibilities toward those 300,000 Canadians. Someone made a mistake, unknowingly I agree, but it was a mistake by the federal government in the first place and 300,000 Canadians simply cannot be expected to pay for that mistake. They were encouraged and even given grants to buy a hazardous product. Of course, I am not accusing the minister of being responsible for that unhealthy situation, but the work was done by certain people on behalf of the government. Had I been a member of a government responsible for making such a
mistake, I would have been the first one to try to correct a mistake which turned out to be an injustice toward 300,000 Canadians. 1 would have wanted to solve the problem by offering generous grants. We cannot accept and endorse a suggestion which solves only part of the problem and not all of it. We cannot approve of a suggestion which leaves 300,000 Canadians in misery to cope with insuperable difficulties and leave the responsible minister under the impression that we are satisfied with his suggestion. We are not going to praise the minister for a suggestion which falls far short of the objective. The minister has taken concrete steps in the past and we must repeat to him that his suggestion is not good enough because it does not solve the problem of those 300,000 Canadians. We hope that the minister will keep in mind the remarks made on this side of the House as well as those which I am sure he has heard in other circles. He also met personally the victims of that calamity. But what a splendid opportunity with a budget being tabled Monday next! The minister should try to get something out of the Minister of Finance because he knows full well that his proposal is inadequate to allow those 100,000 homes to be repaired. The minister knows it full well and he has made an effort but, as I said, it is inadequate, and I dare hope that the minister will obtain special funds to take corrective action, so that thousands of Canadians may live in a home as safe as that of millions of other Canadians at present. I think, Mr. Speaker, that this issue is not only relevant but also very important, and we hope to make the minister more aware of the problem in committee if he is not already, and we will support the representations he will make to the Minister of Finance to obtain the required estimates. We will then have done our duty and assumed our responsibilities in the House.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order. It being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday next at two o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 6 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Monday, June 28, 1982